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THE 
 
 Holy Bible 
 
 ACCORDING TO THE AUTHORIZED VERSION (A.D. i6ii), 
 
 WITH AN EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL 
 
 Coninwnlarg 
 
 AND 
 
 % ^icbislou of t(je SCranslatbix, 
 
 BY BISHOPS AND OTHER CLERGY 
 
 OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 
 
 EDITED 
 
 By F. C. cook, M.A., Canon of Exeter. 
 
 VoL. I. — Part I. 
 GENESIS— EXOD US. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 CHAELES SCEIBNEK & CO., 654 BEOADWAY. 
 
 1871. 
 
^ L • ^ 
 
 V: J-- . cA' 
 ■ ^y.l, 
 2 . 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I T IS about seven years since the Speaker of the House of 
 Commons, the Right Hon. J. Evelyn Denison, conceived 
 the idea of the present Commentary, and suggested its execution. 
 
 It appeared to him that in the midst of much controversy 
 about the Bible, in which the laity could not help feeling a 
 lively interest, even where they took no more active part, 
 there was a want of some Commentary upon the Sacred Books, 
 in which the latest information might be made accessible to 
 men of ordinary culture. It seemed desirable that every educated 
 man should have access to some work which might enable him 
 to und*erstand what the original Scriptures really say and 
 mean, and in which he might find an explanation of any diffi- 
 culties which his own mind might suggest, as well as of any 
 new objections raised against a particular book or passage. 
 Whilst the Word of God is one, and does not change, it 
 must touch, at new points, the changing phases of physical, 
 philological, and historical knowledge, and so the Comments 
 that suit one generation are felt by another to be obsolete. 
 
 The Speaker, after mentioning this project to several pre- 
 lates and theologians, consulted the Archbishop of York upon 
 it. Although the difficulties of such an undertaking were very 
 great, it seemed right to the Archbishop to make the attempt 
 to meet a want which all confessed to exist ; and accordingly 
 he undertook to form a company of divines, who, by a judicious 
 'distribution of the labour amongst them, might expound, each 
 the portion of Scripture for which his studies might best have 
 fitted him. 
 
 The difficulties were indeed many. First came that of 
 
 5ud/8v>* 
 
IV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 treating a great and almost boundless subject upon a limited 
 scale. Let any one examine the most complete Commentaries 
 now in existence, and he will find that twenty or thirty ordinary 
 volumes are not thought too many for the exhaustive treatment 
 of the Scripture text. But every volume added makes a work 
 less accessible to .those for whom it is intended ; and it was 
 thought that eight or ten volumes ought to suffice for text and 
 notes, if this Commentary was to be used by laymen as well 
 as by professed divines. Omission and compression are at all 
 times difficult ; notes should be in proportion to the reader’s 
 needs, whereas they are more likely to represent the writer’s 
 predilections. The most important points should be most pro- 
 minent ; but the writer is tempted to lay most stress on what 
 has cost him most labour. 
 
 Another difficulty lay in the necessity of treating subjects 
 that require a good deal of research, historical and philological, 
 but which could not be expected to interest those who have 
 ]iad no special preparation for such studies. In order to meet 
 this, it was resolved that subjects involving deep learning and 
 fuller illustration should be remitted to separate essays at the 
 end of each Chapter, Book or division ; where they can be 
 found by those who desired them. 
 
 The general plan has been this. A Committee was formed 
 to select the Editor and the Writers of the various sections. 
 The Rev. F, C. Cook, Canon of Exeter, and Preacher of 
 Lincoln’s Inn, was chosen Editor. The work has been divided 
 into ILght Sections, of which the present volume contains the 
 Pentateuch. Each, book has been assigned to some writer who 
 has paid attention to the subject of it. The Editor thought it 
 desirable to have a small Committee of reference, in cases of 
 dispute; and the Archbishop of York with the Regius Pro- 
 fessors of Divinity of Oxford and Caml^ridge agreed to act in 
 this capacity. But in practice it has rarely been found necessary 
 to resort to them. 
 
 The Committee were called upon, in the first place, to 
 consider the important question, which has since received a 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 V 
 
 much fuller discussion, whether any alterations should be made 
 in the authorized English Version. It was decided to reprint that 
 Version, without alteration, from the edition of i6ii, with the 
 marginal references and renderings ; but to supply in the notes 
 amended translations^ of all passages proved to be incorrect. It 
 was thought that in this way might be reconciled the claims of 
 accuracy and truth with that devout reverence, which has made 
 the present text of the English Bible so dear to all Christians 
 
 that speak the English tongue. When the Prayer Book was 
 
 revised, the earlier Psalter of Coverdale and Cranrner was left 
 standing there, because those who had become accustomed to 
 its use would not willingly attune their devotions to another, 
 even though a more careful. Version : the older Psalter still 
 holds its place, and none seem to desire its removal. Since 
 then, knowledge of the Bible has been much diffused, and 
 there seems little doubt that the same affection, which in the 
 middle of the seventeenth century clung to the Psalter and 
 preserved it, has extended itself by this time to the Authorized 
 Version of i6ii. Be that as it may, those who undertook 
 
 the present work desired that the layman should be able to 
 understand better the Bible which he uses in Church and 
 
 at home ; and for this purpose that Bible itself gives the best 
 foundation, altered only where alteration is required to cure 
 an error, or to make the text better understood. 
 
 This volume is sent forth in no spirit of confidence, but 
 with a deep sense of its imperfections. Those who wish to 
 condemn will readily extract matter on which to work. But those 
 who receive it willing to find aid in it, and ready to admit 
 that it is no easy matter to expound, completely, fully and 
 popularly, that Book which has been the battle-field of all sects 
 and parties, which has been interpreted by all the ages, each 
 according to its measure of light, will do justice to the spirit 
 that has guided the writers. Such will find in it something 
 that may help them better to appreciate the Sacred Text. 
 
 ^ These emendations are printed throughout in a distinctive type, darker than 
 the rest of the note. 
 
 b 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 “ As for the commendation,” says Coverdale, “ of God's 
 holy Scripture, I would fain magnify it as it is worthy, but I 
 am far insufficient thereto, and therefore I thought it better 
 for me to hold my tongue than with few words to praise or 
 commend it.” Our English Bible has come down to us, won 
 for us by much devoted labour, by persecution, by exile, 
 even by blood of martyrdom. It has still much work to do, 
 and when we consider the peoples to whom we have given 
 our language, and the vast tracts over which English-speaking 
 peoples rule, we feel how impossible it is for us to measure 
 the extent of that work. We humbly desire to further it in 
 some small measure, by removing a stumblingblock here, and 
 by shedding light upon some dark places there. Such human 
 efforts are needed, but the use of them passes, whilst the Word 
 of God of which they treat will endure to the end. Yet it is 
 permitted to offer them with an aspiration after the same 
 result that attends the Word of God itself; and that result is, 
 in the words of inspiration, “that ye might believe that Jesus 
 is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye might 
 have life through His name.” (John xx. 31.) 
 
 More than seven years have elapsed since this Commentary was first 
 projected. It will, doubtless, be admitted that this period is not longer 
 than might be reasonably demanded for the preparation of any consider- 
 able portion of such a work: but it is due to all concerned with this 
 volume to state that but for unforeseen circumstances it would have been 
 published much earlier. We have to deplore the premature death of no 
 less than three contributors, two of whom had undertaken the commentary 
 on Exodus and Numbers. All the writers in this volume had, in con- 
 sequence of this and of other circumstances, a much larger amount of 
 work imposed upon them than they were prepared for, long after the 
 commencement of the undertaking. For one book they had to write 
 the entire commentary ; for another to re-write, with a special view to 
 condensation, notes which had been prepared with great ability and 
 learning by ]\Ir Thrupp. This statement is made simply to account for 
 the delay in the publication. The other parts of the work are now far 
 advanced, and two volumes, including the historical and poetical books, 
 will probably be printed within twelve months. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. I 
 
 THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION. BY E. HAROLD BROWNE, D.D., 
 BISHOP OF ELY. 
 
 Names of the Book or Books .... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 Captivity and Return 
 
 PAGE 
 
 12 
 
 Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch . . 
 
 ik 
 
 New Testament 
 
 14 
 
 § I. Moses could have written the Pen- 
 
 
 § 3. Internal Evidence of Mosaic au- 
 
 
 tateuch 
 
 2 
 
 thorship 
 
 15 
 
 § 2. External Evidence of Mosaic au- 
 
 
 Acquaintance with Egypt .... 
 
 ih. 
 
 thorship 
 
 4 
 
 ,, ,, Sinai and the Wil- 
 
 
 Joshua 
 
 ib. 
 
 derness 
 
 16 
 
 Judges 
 
 5 
 
 Canaan in prospect 
 
 17 
 
 History of Samuel 
 
 6 
 
 Language 
 
 18 
 
 Times of David and Solomon . . . 
 
 8 
 
 Question of Post- Mosaic authorship 
 
 
 Divided Kingdom 
 
 9 
 
 considered . 
 
 19 
 
 Reign of Josiah 
 
 lO 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GENESIS. 
 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE BISHOP OF ELY. 
 
 
 Document Hypothesis 
 
 21 
 
 Proper nam.es compounded with jAii . 
 
 26 
 
 Unity of plan and purpose through- 
 
 
 Meaning and antiquity of the name 
 
 
 out 
 
 22 
 
 Jehovah, with further reference to 
 
 
 Division of book into Toledoth . . . 
 
 ib. 
 
 Exodus vi. 2, 3 
 
 ib. 
 
 Of the names of God, as used in Genesis 
 
 24 
 
 Elohistic and Jehovistic passages . . 
 
 28 
 
 ,, ,, and in Exodus 
 
 
 Alleged inconsistency with modern 
 
 
 '’i- U 3 . . • . * 
 
 
 science 
 
 29 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 viii 
 
 G E N E S I S — contimced. 
 
 COMMENTARY AND CRITICAL NOTES. BY THE BISHOP OF ELY. 
 
 pp. 31— 236. 
 
 PACK 
 
 On the Days of Creation. Chap. i. 5 . 36 
 
 On the Creation and Primiti've State of 
 
 Man. Chap. ii. 7 43 
 
 On the Effect of the Fall. Chap. iii. 19 . 47 
 
 On the Historical Character of the Temp- 
 
 tation and the Fall. Chap. iii. 22 . . 48 
 
 Cherubim 49 
 
 § I. Traditional accounts. § 2. Taber- 
 nacle and Temple. § 3. Seen in 
 Visions of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and St 
 John. § 4. The Cherubim of Para- 
 dise. ' § 5. Etymology of name. 
 
 Chap. iii. 24. 
 
 On the Early Ci’vilization of Mankind. 
 
 Chap. iv. 2 58 
 
 Difficulties in the Chronology of Chap. v. 61 
 § I. Difference of texts. § 2. Longevity 
 of Patriarchs. § 3. Antiquity of 
 Human Race, as deduced from (i) 
 Geology, (2) History, (3) Language, 
 
 (4) Ethnology. 
 
 The Deluge. Chap, viii 74 
 
 § I. Was it historical? § 2. Was it 
 universal? 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On Circumcision. Chap. xvii. 10. . . 121 
 
 § I. Reasons for the rite. § 2. Origin 
 of circumcision, whether pre-Abra- 
 hamic or not. 
 
 The Dead Sea., Site of Sodom and Zoar. 
 
 Chap. xix. 25 13 1 
 
 § I. Characteristics of Dead Sea. Tes- 
 timonies ancient and modern. § 2. 
 Geological formation. § 3. Were 
 Sodom, Zoar, &c. on the north or 
 south of the Dead Sea ? 
 
 On the Chronology of Jacob's life. Chap. 
 
 xxxi. 41 . . ' 177 
 
 § I. Difficulty of the question. Com- 
 mon reckoning. § 2. Suggestion of 
 Dr Kennicott. § 3. Dates on this 
 hypothesis. § 4. Greater facility for 
 explaining the events thus obtained. 
 
 On Shiloh. Chap. xlix. 10 232 
 
 § I. Different renderings of the word, 
 
 § 2. Choice of renderings, either 4 
 5- § 3* Messianic, by consent of 
 
 Jewish and Christian antiquity. § 4. 
 Answer to objections. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 IX 
 
 EXODUS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. BY F. C. COOK, M.A., CANON OF EXETER. 
 
 PAGE PAGE 
 
 § I. Division of the Book 237 sula of Sinai shown by the author 244 
 
 § 2. Mosaic authorship 239 §5. Argument from the account of the 
 
 § 3. Miracles in Egypt 241 Tabernacle 247 
 
 § 4. Personal knowledge of the Penin- § 6. Chronology 248 
 
 COMMENTARY AND CRITICAL NOTES, CHAP, i.— xix. 
 BY CANON COOK. pp. 253—329. 
 
 On Manna. Chap, xvi 320 
 
 COMMENTARY AND CRITICAL NOTES, CHAP, xx.-xl. 
 
 BY SAMUEL CLARK, M.A., VICAR OF BREDWARDINE. pp. 330—434. 
 
 On the Ten Commandmoits. Chap. xx. 
 
 I— 17 335 
 
 § I. The Name. § 2. What was writ- 
 ten on the stones? § 3. The Division 
 into Ten. § 4. The Two Tables. 
 
 § 5. The Commandments as a Tes- 
 timony. § 6 . Breadth of their 
 meaning. 
 
 On the Sabbath Day. Chap. xx. 8 . . 339 
 
 § I. The Sabbath according to the Law; 
 
 § 2. according to Tradition. § 3. 
 
 Its connection with the Creation. 
 
 § 4. Its relation to Sunday. § 5. Its 
 connection with the deliverance from 
 Egypt. § 6. Its meaning. 
 
 On the Colours of the Tabernacle. Chap. 
 
 XXV. 4 366 
 
 On the Mercy Seat. Chap. xxv. 17 . . 368 
 
 On the Construction of the Tabernacle. 
 
 Chap, xxvi 374 
 
 § I. The Mishkan, its Tent and its Co- 
 vering. § 2. Common view of the 
 arrangement of the parts. § 3. Mr 
 Fergusson’s theory. § 4. The place 
 
 of the tabernacle cloth. § 5. Sym- 
 metry of the proposed arrangement. 
 
 § 6. The Court. 
 
 On the Urim and the Thummim. Chap. 
 
 xxviii. 30 390 
 
 § I. Their Names. § 2. They were pre- 
 viously known and distinct from the 
 Breastplate. § 3. Their purpose and 
 history. § 4. Their origin. § 5. 
 Theories. 
 
 On the Groves. Ch. xxxiv. 13 . . . 416 * 
 
 On the Sanctuary as a vohole. Chap. xl. 432 
 § I. The Altar and the Tabernacle. 
 
 § 2. Names of the Tabernacle. § 3. 
 
 Order of the Sacred things. § 4. The 
 Ark and its belongings. § 5. Allego- 
 rical explanations. § 6. Originality 
 of the Tabernacle. 
 
 On the Route of the Israelites 
 FROM Rameses to Sinai. By 
 Canon Cook. Chap. xvi. xvii. xix. 435 
 
 TWO ESSAYS. BY CANON COOK. 
 
 I . On the Bearings of Egyptian History upon the Pentateuch . 443 
 
 II. On Egyptian Words in the Pentateuch 476 
 
X 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LEVITICUS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. BY SAMUEL CLARK, M.A., 
 VICAR OF BREDWARDINE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I- Title 493 
 
 n. Authorship ib. 
 
 III. Contents 494 
 
 IV. The Ritual of the Sacrifices . . 495 
 
 § I. Introductory Remarks. § 2. The 
 Classification of Offerings. § 3. The 
 Animal Sacrifices, § 4, The Selec- 
 tion of animals for Sacrifice, § 5, 
 The Presentation and Slaughter of 
 
 PAGE 
 
 the Victims. § 6. The Treatment of 
 the Blood. § 7. The Burning on the 
 Altar. § 8. The Fat and its Accom- 
 paniments. § 9. The Priests’ por- 
 tions. § 10. The Meat-offerings and 
 the Drink-offerings. §11. The Public 
 Offerings. 
 
 V. Historical Development of Sacri- 
 fice ' 502 
 
 COMMENTARY AND CRITICAL NOTES. BY SAMUEL CLARK, M.A. 
 
 On the Symbolical use of OIL Chap, ii. i 516 
 On Sinning through Ignorance. Chap. 
 
 iv. 2 522 
 
 On the Distinction between “ Unclean 
 and Clean ” in respect to Food. Chap. 
 
 xi. 2—30 555 
 
 § I. The distinction made by the Law 
 a special mark of the chosen people. 
 
 § 2. Different theories of the details. 
 
 § 3, The primary distinction, that ' 
 
 between Life and Death, § 4. Con- 
 ditions of animal food, § 5. The 
 distinction on its practical side not 
 peculiar to the Law. § 6, The wis- 
 dom of it on sanitary grounds. § 7. 
 
 In what was the Mosaic Law of dis- 
 tinction peculiar? 
 
 On the La^s relating to Leprosy — Pre- 
 liminary note on the character of the 
 
 Disease. Chaps, xiii. xiv 559 
 
 § I. Importance of the subject. § 2. 
 Names of the Disease. § 3. Its na- 
 ture. §4. The Tuberculated variety. 
 
 § 5. The AniESthetic variety. § 6. 
 
 Each form recognized by the ancients. 
 
 § 7. Subordinate varieties. § 8. Is it 
 incurable? § 9. Is it hereditary? 
 
 § 10. Is it endemic? §11. What 
 
 circumstances foster it? § 12. Is it 
 contagious ? 
 
 On the Treatment of Lepers., and the 
 grounds of the Lanvs respecting them. 
 
 Chap. xiii. 45, 46 570 
 
 § I. The Leprosy in Egypt. § 2. The , 
 way in which Lepers have been re- 
 garded. § 3. Their treatment accord- 
 ing to the Law. § 4. The Leprosy 
 in Europe. § 5. Segregation of Lepers. 
 
 § 6. Its probable effects. § 7. Objects 
 of the Law respecting Leprosy. § 8. 
 
 The Law was not cruel. 
 
 1. On the t'wo Birds of the healed Leper. 
 
 Chap. xiv. 4 — 7 580 
 
 II. On the Trespass-offering of the Leper. 
 
 Chap. xiv. 12 — 18 581 
 
 III. On the Leprosy in the House. Chap, 
 
 xiv. 33—53 
 
 On the Purifications of the Law in gene- 
 ral. Chaps, xii. — xv 584 
 
 On Chap. xvi. 8 . . . . 591 
 
 § I. Origin of the word. § 2. Is it the 
 name of a Personal being? § 3. The 
 function of the Goat sent away. § 4. 
 
 His typical character. § 5. Names 
 of the evil one. § 6. Other explana- 
 tions of the vrord 'azdzel. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On the Slaughtering of Animals. Chap. 
 
 xvii. 3 596 
 
 On the Life in the Blood. Chap. xvii. ii 597 
 
 I. On the List of Prohibited Degrees. 
 
 Chap, xviii. 7 — 18 ...... 600 
 
 II. On Marriage <ivith t^o Sisters. 
 
 Chap, xviii. 18 601 
 
 § I. Meaning of the words “a wife to 
 her sister.” § 2. Not a prohibition of 
 polygamy. § 3. The Ecclesiastical 
 question. 
 
 III. On the Prohibited Degrees among 
 
 the Gentile nations. Chap, xviii. 30 . 603 
 
 I. On the Pentecost. Chap, xxiii. 15 — 22 624 
 
 II. On the Cinjil Tear. Chap, xxiii. 24 625 
 
 III. On the Meaning of the Feast of 
 Tabernacles. Chap, xxiii. 43 . . . 
 
 I. On the Sabbatical Year. Chap. xxv. 
 
 ^—1 
 
 II. On the Jubilee. Chap. xxv. 8 — 33 . 
 
 I. On the High Places. Chap. xxvi. 30 
 
 II. On the Mosaic Origin of Chap. xxvi. 
 § I. Objections on the score of style; 
 
 § 2. and of subject matter. § 3. 
 Conjectural dates. § 4. The Chap- 
 ter a true Prophecy. §5. Distinguish- 
 ing character of the Mosaic Legisla- 
 tion. 
 
 On the De'voted Thing. Chap, xxvii. a 8 
 
 NUMBERS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. BY T. E. ESPIN, B.D., RECTOR OF WALLASEY 
 
 § I. Title 649 § 3. Chronology 
 
 §2. Contents . ' ib. §4. Authorship and Date of Composition 
 
 COMMENTARY AND CRITICAL NOTES. BY T. E. ESPIN, B.D., 
 AND J. F. THRUPP, M.A., LATE VICAR OF BARRINGTON. 
 
 On the nvords “ Tent of the Testimony P 
 
 Chap. ix. 15 683 
 
 On the nuords “ unto the 'wilderness of 
 Paran, to KadeshP Chap. xiii. 26 . 697 
 
 On the rebellion of Korah^ &c. Chap. 
 
 xvi. I 712 
 
 On the words '•'■ye rebels.^'' Chap. xx. 10 724 
 
 On “ Mount Hor.'^ Chap. xx. 22 . . ib. 
 
 On the words “ by the way of the spies P 
 
 Chap. xxi. I .731 
 
 On the rendering “ Red sea ” in Chap. 
 
 xxi. 14 ib. 
 
 On Ar — Rabbath-Moab or AreopoUs (?). 
 
 Chap. xxi. 15 ib. 
 
 On the derivation and significance of 
 Chemosh. Chap. xxi. 29 . . . . 73a 
 
 On the meaning of D"I'M. Chap. xxi. 30 
 On ^'•Balaam the son of Beord’’ Chaj). 
 
 xxii. 5 
 
 On the words ^Hhe fourth part of Israel. 
 
 Chap, xxiii. 10 
 
 On the term ’•'•Unicorn.^'' Chap, xxiii. 22 
 On the words '•''The man whose eyes were 
 
 openP Chap. xxiv. 3 
 
 On the words “ Nevertheless the Kenite 
 
 shall be vSastedf See 
 
 On the ellipse in Chap. xxvi. 59 . . . 
 
 On the word ")DD. Chap. xxxi. 16 , . 
 
 On the meaning of the term “ Kadesh- 
 Barnea. Chap, xxxii. 8 .... 
 
 On the particle Chap, xxxvi. 6 
 
 xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 625 
 
 635 
 
 636 
 642 
 
 ih. 
 
 647 
 
 649 
 
 650 
 
 733 
 
 737 
 
 743 
 
 ib. 
 
 749 
 
 ib. 
 
 757 
 
 770 
 
 774 
 
 788 
 
• CONTENTS. 
 
 xii 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. BY T. E. ESPIN, B.D. 
 
 § I. Title 
 
 § 2. Contents and Chronology . . . 
 
 §3. Style and Characteristics . . . . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 790 § 4- Relation to preceding books and to 
 
 ib. the rest of Scripture . . . ... . 
 
 791 §5. Authorship and Date of Composition 
 
 COMMENTARY AND CRITICAL NOTES. BY T. E. ESPIN, B.D. 
 
 On the Hebrew qjuord rendered '‘''ye ^vere 
 
 ready.'" Chap. i. 41 806 
 
 Ethnological notices contained in Chap. 
 
 ii. 10 — 12, 20 — 23, and 34 ... . 810 
 
 On the Hebreqv word retidered “ swell." 
 
 Chap. viii. 4 832 
 
 On the deri^mtion of the Hebrew word 
 
 translated 'in A. H. eaiery wh'it." 
 
 Chap. xiii. 16 849 
 
 On the phrase ‘ ‘ Save when there shall be 
 no poor." Chap, xv, 4 855 
 
 On the jud'ic'ial inst'itut'ions of the ancient 
 Jews. Chap.xvii, 8 — 13, and 14 — 17 862 
 
 On the pori'ions of the Offerings assigned 
 to the Priests. Chap, xviii. 3 . . • 868 
 
 On the grammatical construction of Chap. 
 
 xviii. 8 ib. 
 
 On the reference of the passage “ I will 
 raise them up a Prophet from among 
 the'ir brethren f Slc. Chap, xviii. 15 — 18 869 
 
 On the grammatical construction of Chap. 
 
 XX. 9, and 19, 20 875 
 
 On the words rendered in A. F. “ rough 
 
 valley." Chap. xxi. 4 
 
 On the methods of execution amongst the 
 ancient Jews. Chap. xxi. 23 . . . 
 
 On the word translated “ bastard." 
 
 Chap, xxiii. 2 
 
 On the law of divorce amongst the Jews. 
 
 Chap. xxiv. i — 4 
 
 On the word rendered ‘‘'■drought" in A. F. 
 
 (marg.). Chap, xxviii. 22 . . . . 
 
 On the verb Chap, xxviii. 40 . . 
 
 On the words translated '''• drunkenness" 
 and thirst." Chap. xxix. 19 . . o 
 
 On the Hebrew word yashlichemP 
 
 Chap. xxix. 28 
 
 On some passages in the Song of Moses. 
 Chap, xxxii.; and on vv. 5, 26, 33, 
 
 36, 42, and 43 
 
 On the style., literary characteristics., ^pfc. 
 of the Blessing of the Tr'ibes. Chap, 
 xxxiii. 2, 21, 25 
 
 PAGE 
 
 791 
 
 792 
 
 878 
 
 ib, 
 
 884 
 
 886 
 
 901 
 
 ib. 
 
 905 
 
 ib. 
 
 917 
 
 925 
 
THE PENTATEUCH 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pentateuch^ names of the Book or Books i 
 
 Mosaic origin of the Peyitateuch . . i 
 
 (1) Moses could have ^written the 
 
 Pentateuch .... a 
 
 (2) External Evidence of Mosaic 
 
 Authorship .... 4 
 
 Joshua . . . . .4 
 
 Judges ..... 5 
 
 History of Samuel ... 6 
 
 Times of David and Solomon . 8 
 
 Divided Kingdom ... 9 
 
 Reign of Josiah . , .10 
 
 '^HE title, Pentateuch, is the Greek 
 name given by the LXX. trans- 
 lators to the five books of Moses, the 
 name by which they were known among 
 the Jews being “the Law,” Torah. In 
 the Scriptures it is called “ the Book 
 of the Law” (2 K. xxii. 8), “the Book 
 of the Covenant” (2 K. xxiii. 2, 21; 
 2 Chr. xxxiv. 30), “ the Book of the 
 Law of the Lord” (2 Chr. xvii. 9, xxxiv. 
 14), “The Law of Moses,” “The 
 Book of Moses,” or “ The Book of 
 the Law of Moses.” (See 2 Chr. xxv. 4, 
 XXXV. 12; Ezravi. 18, vii. 6; Neh. viii. i, 
 xiii. i). 
 
 The division into five books is by many 
 thought to be also due to the LXX. in- 
 terpp. The Jews, however, retain the 
 division,* calling the whole chaitiishah 
 chomeshe torah, “ The five quinquernions 
 of the Law,” though they only distinguish 
 the several books by names derived from 
 a leading word in the first verse in each. 
 Thus Genesis they cfil JSereshith, i.e. “in 
 the Beginning,” Exodus Shettioth, “the 
 Names,” &c. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Captivity and Return . .12 
 
 Nevj Testament . . .14 
 
 (3) Internal Evidence of Mossiic Au- 
 thorship . . . . . ^ 5 
 
 Acquaintance with Egypt . 15 
 
 — with Sinai tind 
 
 Wilderness . . . .316 
 
 Canaan in prospect . . .17 
 
 Language . . . .18 
 
 Question of Post^Mosaic Authorship 
 considered . . . . *19 
 
 The Mosaic Origin of the Pentateuch. 
 
 That Moses was the author and writer 
 of the Pentateuch was the belief of all 
 J ewish and Christian antiquity, if at least 
 we except some heretical sects in the 
 early Christian centuries, who desired in 
 all ways to disparage the Old Testament. 
 The sacred narrative itself contains asser- 
 tions of this authorship. Thus, Ex. xvii. 
 14, after a memorable battle, “The Lord 
 said unto Moses, Write this for a memo- 
 rial in the book as though there 
 
 were a regular account kept in a well- 
 known book. Again, Ex. xxiv. 4, “Moses 
 wrote all the words of the Lord.” So Ex. 
 xxxiv. 27, “The Lord said unto Moses, 
 Write thou these words.” In Num. xxxiii. 
 2, we read that “Moses wrote their goings 
 out according to their journeys by the 
 commandment of the Lord.” In Deut. 
 xvii. 18, 19, it is commanded that the 
 king, who should hereafter reign, should 
 “write him a copy of this law in a book 
 out of that which is before the priests 
 the Levites;” and in Deutxxxi. 9, 10, 1 1, 
 
 A 
 
2 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 at the very end of the Pentateuch, we read, 
 “ Moses wrote this law, and delivered it 
 unto the priests the sons of Levi,” com- 
 manding, that “at the end of every seven 
 years” they should “read this law before 
 all Israel in their hearing,” Several times 
 Moses himself in Deuteronomy names 
 “this law,” and “the Book of this law” 
 (Deut. xxviii. 6i, xxix. 19, 20, 29), as 
 though he had written a book for his 
 people to keep. With this uniformity 
 of tradition and these claims, there is at 
 least a presumption in favour of the Mo- 
 saic authorship. It will however be well 
 to shew, 
 
 1. That Moses could have written the 
 Pentateuch. 
 
 2. That the concurrent testimony of 
 all subsequent times proves that he did 
 write the Pentateuch. 
 
 3. That the internal evidence points 
 to him, and to him only, as the writer 
 of the Pentateuch. 
 
 Let it only be understood, in limvie, 
 that this authorship thus claimed for 
 Moses is not inconsistent with certain 
 admissions. 
 
 {a) For instance, it is not necessary 
 to insist, that every word of the Penta- 
 teuch was written down by the hand of 
 Moses in his own autograph. He may 
 have dictated much, or all of it, to Joshua, 
 or to some secretary or scribe. He may 
 have* merely superintended its writing, 
 and stamped it with his own authority, 
 as perhaps St Peter did the Gospel ac- 
 cording to St Mark. This may explain 
 (though it is not necessary to assume 
 this in order to explain) the fact, that 
 Moses is always spoken of in the third 
 person’. This may explain also some 
 things said concerning Moses, which he 
 might have allowed others to write, but 
 would not have been ’ likely to write 
 himself. This may explain the difficulty, 
 if difficulty indeed it be, that the last 
 chapter of Deuteronomy relates the death 
 of Moses; for what more likely, than 
 that he, who wrote at Moses’ dictation 
 the acts and the words of Moses, should 
 have finished the work by recording Mo- 
 ses’ death? 
 
 ^ "When Caesar always writes of himself in 
 the third person, and when the like practice has 
 been known to most nations, it seems hard to 
 deny that Moses could have so written. 
 
 {li) It is not necessary to deny, that 
 the Pentateuch, though the work of the 
 great Prophet and Lawgiver whose name 
 it bears, may have undergone some 
 recension in after times, as by Ezra or 
 others. The J ews hold that all the books 
 of the Old Testament were submitted to 
 a careful review by Ezra and the Great 
 Synagogue (Buxtorf, ‘Tiberias,’ Lib. i. 
 c. 10); and the fathers of the Church 
 generally believed in some such super- 
 vision. “Omne instrumentum Judaicse 
 literaturae per Esdram constat restaura- 
 tum ” (Tertull. ‘De Cultu Femin.’ c. 3). 
 “ Sive Mosen dicere volueris auctorem 
 Pentateuchi, sive Esram ejusdem instau- 
 ratorem operis, non recuso” (Hieron. ‘ad 
 Helvidium,’ edit. Vail. Tom. ii. p. 212). 
 If Ezra collated MSS. and carefully 
 edited the books of Moses, it is not im- 
 possible, and is not inconsistent with the 
 original authorship, that he should have 
 admitted explanatory notes, which some 
 think (rightly or wrongly) to betray a 
 post-Mosaic hand. 
 
 (c) It is not necessary to deny that 
 Moses had certain documents or tradi- 
 tions referring to the patriarchal ages, 
 which he incorporated into his history. 
 Indeed it is most likely that such tradi- 
 tions should have come down through 
 Shem and Abraham to Joseph and the 
 Israelites in Egypt : and there can be 
 no reason why an inspired historian 
 should not have worked up such trust- 
 worthy materials into the history of the 
 ancestors of his people. 
 
 I. Moses could have written the Penta- 
 teuch. 
 
 The most sceptical of modern ob- 
 jectors do not deny the existence of 
 Moses, nor that he was the leader of 
 his own people out of Egypt into Ca- 
 naan. We have then the fact, that 
 there was a man, evidently of some ge- 
 nius and energy, who led a nation out 
 of captivity, and settled them in a state 
 of civil government in another land. He 
 came out of the most civilized country 
 in the world, and he most probably had 
 acquired much of its civilization. 
 
 The first question then, which naturally 
 occurs is. Was the art of writing known 
 so early as Moses ? and especially was it 
 known to the Egyptians and the Jews? 
 
THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 3 
 
 Recent researches prove the early ex- 
 istence of writing power in Egypt. Hie- 
 roglyphics are as ancient as the earliest 
 Egyptian monuments, and the cursive 
 hieratic character is to be found in mo- 
 numents, parchments, and papyri cen- 
 turies before the time of Moses. A few 
 examples will clearly prove this. The 
 famous group of figures in the tomb of 
 Chnoumhotep at Beni Hassan, which be- 
 longs to the twelfth dynasty, represents 
 a scribe as presenting to the governor a 
 roll of papyrus covered with an inscrip- 
 tion, bearing the date of the sixth year of 
 Osirtasen II. This was certainly many 
 centuries before the Exodus, according 
 to most scholars even before the time of 
 Abraham (see Brugsch, ‘Hist. d’Egypte,’ 
 p. 63). At a later period, in the reign of 
 Menephtliah I., of the nineteenth dynasty, 
 whom many have identified with the 
 Pharaoh of the Exodus, we have a papy- 
 rus in the cursive hieratic character, (the 
 Pap}^rus Anastasi, No. i), which gives a 
 list of nine authors distinguished for their 
 writings in theology, philosophy, history, 
 and poetry (Brugsch, p. 177, note). But 
 the most remarkable of all is the papyrus 
 found by M. Prisse, written in the hie- 
 ratic character, and translated by M. 
 Chabas, which contains two treatises ; 
 the first, consisting of twelve pages, is 
 the conclusion of a work, of which the 
 earlier part is destroyed. It treats of 
 moral subjects, and is written in an ela- 
 borate and elevated style. The second 
 treatise is by a royal author, son of the 
 king next preceding Assa, in whose reign 
 the work was composed. This is con- 
 sidered to be the most ancient of exist- 
 ing MSS. It is attributed to a prince of 
 the fifth dynasty, who represents him- 
 self as weighed down with age, and in- 
 vokes the aid of Osiris to enable him to 
 give to mankind the fruits of his long 
 experience. (See De Rouge, ‘ Recueil de 
 Rapports, Progres des Etudes Relatives 
 a I’Egypte eta I’Orient,’ p. 55, Paris, 1867. 
 Also Brugsch, pp. 29 — 32.) The anti- 
 quity of this document is incalculable. 
 There can therefore be no reason to 
 doubt, that Moses, brought up in the 
 house of Pharaoh, and learned in all the 
 learning of the Egyptians, had acquired 
 the art of writing. 
 
 But the Semitic nations had also a 
 
 knowledge of the same art from the most 
 ancient times. The traditions of Greece 
 point to Cadmus {i.e. “ the eastern’”), the 
 brother of Europa, as having introduced 
 letters from Phoenicia into Europe. These 
 traditions belong to the mythic ages of 
 Greece, and, having been varied by later 
 authors, can only be taken for what they 
 are worth; but ki their earliest form 
 they point to Phoenicia as the teacher 
 of Greece, and go on to say that parch- 
 ments of goat and sheep skin were used 
 by the Phoenicians for the purposes of 
 writing (Herod, v. 58). Moreover, these 
 traditions are confirmed by the fact that 
 the letters of the Greek alphabet have 
 the same names and order with those of 
 the alphabets of the Semitic races ; and 
 the names have a meaning in Semitic 
 but none in Greek, which proves that 
 the Greeks took them from the Phoe- 
 nicians, not the Phoenicians from the 
 Greeks. In an Egyptian monument a 
 Hittite is specially named as a writer. 
 Pentaour, a royal scribe of the reign 
 of Rameses the Great (as some think 
 before, but more probably soon after, 
 the Exodus), composed a poem, which 
 is described as a kind of Egyptian Iliad, 
 and which w'as engraved on the walls of 
 the temple of Karnac. This mentions 
 by name Chirapsar, among the Kheta 
 {i.e. the Hittites), as a writer of books 
 (Brugsch, p. 139); with which has been 
 compared the fact, that Joshua took a 
 city of the Hittites, the ancient name 
 of which was Kirjath-sepher, i.e. “the 
 city of the book” (Josh. xv. 15), and 
 that he changed that name to Debir, a 
 word of similar significance. 
 
 It is observed by Ewald (‘Geschichte 
 des Volkes Israel,’ Vol. i. p. 77. Eng. 
 Tr. by Martineau, pp. 50, 51), that the 
 words for “write,” “book,” and “ink” 
 (nriD, “iSD, vn), belong to all the 
 branches and dialects of Semitic (except 
 that the Ethiopic and south Arabic have 
 pnv for “to write”). From this he infers 
 that writing in a book with ink must have 
 been known to the earliest Semites be 
 fore they separated off into their various 
 tribes, nations, and families. He con- 
 cludes, and he cannot be accused of 
 over credulity, that “ Whatever the Se- 
 mitic people may be, to which half the 
 civilized world owes this invaluable in- 
 
 A2 
 
4 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 vention, so much is incontrovertible, that 
 it appears in history as a possession of 
 the Semitic nations long before Moses; 
 and we need not scruple to assume that 
 Israel knew and used it in Egypt before 
 Moses.” 
 
 If then writing existed in Egypt and 
 Israel, it is certain that Moses could 
 have written a history, first, of the an- 
 cestors of his race, if it were only from 
 the traditions which were sure to have 
 been preserved among them, and se- 
 condly, of their wars and their wan- 
 derings, in which he himself had been 
 their leader. These wars and wander- 
 ings extended over a period of forty 
 years, during which there must have 
 been frequent and long intervals of com- 
 parative leisure, which would have af- 
 forded ample time, to a man of energy 
 and diligence, to compose a long and 
 elaborate work. We may add that, if 
 ISIoses could have written such a book, 
 then it is almost certain, that he would 
 have wished to do so. If we admit but 
 the barest outline of the history of the 
 Exodus, derivable not from the Jews 
 only, but confirmed by the adverse tra- 
 ditions of their enemies, there can be 
 no doubt of the following facts, viz. that 
 the Hebrews were an oppressed race 
 who, escaping from their captivity in 
 Egypt, made a settlement in thq land 
 of Canaan, and by degrees grevy into a 
 powerful people, having a code of laws 
 and a system of worship, markedly dis- 
 tinguishing and keeping them apart from 
 the nations round about them. Now 
 it is plain, that to fit- such a people 
 to be their own masters, and to main- 
 tain themselves in a condition of civil 
 polity and social independence, there 
 were needed wise laws and good train- 
 ing. If there be any truth at all in 
 history and tradition, Moses, their wise 
 leader, gave them laws and subjected 
 them, before their settlement in Canaan, 
 to a system of training. Moreover, he 
 gave them a nationality. Was it not 
 almost certain that he would commit his 
 laws to writing? Is it not highly proba- 
 ble, that he should have tried to call out 
 their national spirit by giving them a 
 history of their ancestry and of their own 
 assertion of their national independence? 
 Such a body of men would not very 
 
 easily settle by conquest among people 
 more civilized than themselves, and re- 
 tain independent laws, customs and rites, 
 notwithstanding all surrounding influ- 
 ences. Yet that this was done by the 
 Israelites no scepticism has yet denied. 
 Nothing short of all that we read in the 
 Pentateuch can fully explain this. But, 
 at all events, it is clear, that in order to, 
 effect it,, a wise leader and legislator 
 would have committed his laws, and 
 very probably his history, to writing. 
 
 We conclude then, that Moses could 
 have written a work such as the Penta- 
 teuch, and that, if he could, most proba- 
 bly he would have written such a work. 
 
 2. Our next position is, that The 
 concurrent testwwny of subsequent times 
 proves y that , Moses fid v/rite the books 
 710 W known by his name. 
 
 Beginning with the earliest books of 
 the Old Testament we can trace a con- 
 stant stream of reference and quotation 
 to the laws, the history, and the words of 
 Moses, which shew them all to have been 
 well-known and universally accepted. 
 
 In , Joshua, the Law of Moses, the 
 Book of the Law, which had been writ- 
 ten and was to be read, is, continually 
 spoken of(Josh.i.7,8, viii.31,34, xxiii.6). 
 In the first chapter the very words of 
 Deuteronomy are twice quoted at length 
 by Joshua. (See Josh. i. 3 — 8, where 
 Deut. xi. 24, 25,xxxi. 6 — 12 are recited, 
 and Josh. i. 13: — 18, where Deut. iii. 
 18 — 20 is recited). The , constitution, 
 both ecclesiastical and temporal, of the 
 Israeli tish people exactly corresponds 
 with that ordained by Moses. Thus the 
 priesthood is in the family of Aaron. 
 Eleazar, the son of Aaron, is High priest 
 (Josh. xiv. i). He holds the same high 
 place in the nation that his father did, 
 being associated with Joshua, as Aaron 
 was with Moses (see xiv. i, xxi. i). He 
 and Joshua divide the land (xxi. i), ac- 
 cording to the ordinance in Num. xxxiv. 
 17. The tribe of Levi perform the sacred 
 functions, being scattered among the 
 tribes, with forty-eight cities assigned to 
 them (Josh. xiii. i4> 33 ; xiv. 3, 4; xviii. 7 ; 
 xxi.), as had been commanded by the 
 I.ord by the hand of Moses (Num. xxxv. 
 
 The Tabernacle, which had been made 
 by Moses and pitched in the wilderness, 
 
THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 5 
 
 is now set up at Shiloh (Josh, xviii. i). 
 The sacrifices (Josh. viii. 31, xxii. 23, 27, 
 29) are exactly those enjoined in Lev. 
 i., ii., iii. The altar which Joshua builds 
 is constructed “ as Moses the servant of 
 the Lord commanded the children of 
 Israel, as it is written in the book of the 
 Law of Moses” (Josh. viii. 30,31. Cp. Ex. 
 XX. 25). The ark of the covenant occu- 
 pies the same position as it did in the 
 wilderness. It is carried on the shoulders 
 of the Levites, and considered as the 
 symbol and the special place of the pre- 
 sence of God (Josh, iii, 3, 6, 8, vii. 6). 
 Circumcision (v. 2) and the passover (v. 
 10) are observed as in the Pentateuch. 
 
 There is the same general assembly of 
 the people in council with the same 
 princes of the assembly (Josh. ix. 18 — 21, 
 XX. 6, 9, xxii. 30. Cp. Ex. xvi. 2 2, Sic.), the 
 same elders of Israel (Josh. vii. 6; Deut. 
 xxxi. 9), the same elders of the city 
 (Josh. XX, 4; Deut. xxv. 8), the same ofi 
 ficers called shoterhn and shophetim (Josh, 
 viii. 33; Deut. xvi. 18), the same heads 
 of thousands (Josh. xxii. 21; Num. i. 16), 
 and other functionaries of state or of 
 law. The ordinances of the Mosaic law 
 are adhered to. Thus the bodies of those 
 who have been hung are taken down 
 before sunset (Josh. viii. 29, x. 27), as it 
 was commanded in Deut. xxi. 23. No 
 league is made with the people of Ca- 
 naan (Josh, ix.), according to Exod. xxiii. 
 32. Cities of refuge are appointed (Josh, 
 XX.) in strict accordance with the rules 
 laid down in Num, xxxv. ii — 15; Deut. 
 iv. 41^ — 43; xix. 2 — 7. The land is di- 
 vided by lot (Josh. xiv. 2), as enjoined 
 in Num. xxxiv. 13. The daughters of 
 Zelophehad have their inheritance given 
 them in the way prescribed Num. xxvii. 
 
 I — 12, xxxvi. 6 — 9. 
 
 This is no place to discuss the genu- 
 ineness and antiquity of the Book of 
 Joshua; we may simply observe that its 
 testimony to the Pentateuch is such that 
 adverse criticism has found no escape 
 but in saying that the author of Joshua 
 must also have been the author of the 
 Pentateuch, or (perhaps and) that the 
 Book of Joshua was a recent production 
 of the time of the kings or of the cap- 
 tivity. 
 
 The Book of Judges is of a somewhat 
 fragmentary character describing a dis- 
 
 ordered condition of society, and the 
 nature of its history is such as to call 
 forth but few references to the history or 
 the laws of Moses. The Book, however, 
 appears in the first place to be a con- 
 tinuation of the history of Israel from 
 the death of Joshua, and so thoroughly 
 joins on to the Book of Joshua, that it 
 can hardly be explained except on the 
 belief that the Book of Joshua was writ- 
 ten before it (see ch. i. i. sqq. ii. 6 — 8). 
 The laws of Moses, and God’s command- 
 ments by him, seem to be frequently re- 
 ferred to (see ii. i, 2, 3, ii, 12, 20; vi. 
 8 — 10; XX. 6, 2, 13. Cp. Deut. xiii. 5; 
 xxii. 2i). We find the same ordinances 
 of law and worship as are prescribed in 
 the Pentateuch and observed in Joshua. 
 Thus Judah has the pre-eminence among 
 the tribes and the chief command (Judg. 
 i. 2 ; XX. 18. Cp. Gen. xlix. 8; Num. ii. 3, 
 X, 14). The office of Judge, which here 
 appears so conspicuously, corresponds 
 with what Moses had said in Deut. xvii. 
 9. The Theocratic character of the na- 
 tion is fully recognized by Gideon, who 
 refuses to be king (Judg. viii. 22), in ac- 
 cordance with the sayings of Moses 
 (Ex. xix. 5, 6; Deut. xvii. 14, 20; xxxiii. 
 5). The Tabernacle is still, as set up by 
 Joshua, at Shiloh (Judg. xviii. 31). In 
 case of danger we find the Israelites 
 going to ask counsel of the Lord, pro- 
 bably by the High priest with Urim and 
 Thummim (Judg. xx. 23. Cp. Ex. xxviii. 
 30; Num. xxvii. 21): and again after 
 defeat we find them going up to the 
 house of the Lord, weeping and fasting 
 and offering there burnt offerings and sa- 
 crifices in conformity with Deut. xii. 5 ; 
 there enquiring of the Lord by means of 
 Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son 
 of Aaron, the High priest, in the pre- 
 sence of the ark of the Covenant of God 
 (Judg. XX. 26 — 28). The Ephod is still 
 the priestly garment, and so honoured 
 as to become an object of idolatry (Judg. 
 viii. 27 ; xvii. 5 ; xviii. 14 — 17). The 
 Levites, dispersed about the tribes and 
 cities, appear as the only legitimate mi- 
 nisters of religion, so that their services 
 are sought even for idolatrous worship 
 (Judg. xvii. 7 — 13 ; xix. i, 2). Circum- 
 cision distinguishes the Israelite from 
 the neighbouring tribes (Judg. xiv. 3; 
 
 XV. 1 8 ). 
 
6 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 There are numerous historical refer- 
 ences in Judges to the facts recorded 
 in the Pentateuch (e.g. i. i6, 20, 23 ; 
 ii. I, 10; vi. 13). Especially Judg. xi. 
 15 — 27 is a complete epitome of Num. 
 XX, xxi. The language is frequently bor- 
 rowed in great degree from the language 
 of the Pentateuch (compare Judg. ii. 
 
 I — 23 with Ex. XX. 5 ; xxxiv. 13 ; Lev. 
 xxvi. 13 — 17, 36; Num. xxxii. 13; Deut. 
 vii. 2, 5, 16; ix. 18; xii. 3; xvii. 2; xxxi. 
 16; and in the Song of Deborah, Judg. v. 
 compare vv. 4, 5 with Deut. xxxiii. 2; 
 
 V. 8 with Deut. xxxii. 17. 
 
 In the unsettled state of the country 
 during the reigns of most of the judges 
 it is only natural to expect that there 
 would be some departure from the strict 
 observance of the law : but the facts 
 above referred to are consistent only 
 with the belief that the events and ordi- 
 nances of the Pentateuch had preceded 
 the history and were known to the actors 
 and writers of the Book of J udges. 
 
 The History of Samuel. Here again 
 we meet from the first with the ordi- 
 nances of the Law and the history of 
 the Pentateuch, referred to, recognized 
 and acted on. 
 
 We meet at once with Eli, the High 
 priest of the race of Aaron, though of 
 the house of Ithamar (i Chr. xxiv. 3. 
 Cp. 2 S. viii. 17; T K. ii. 27); and his 
 sons’ wickedness is related with the threat 
 of punishment, fulfilled in the reign of 
 Solomon (i K. ii. 27), which sustains 
 the truth of God’s promise (Num. xxv. 
 10 sqq.) that the High priesthood 
 should remain in the family of Eleazar. 
 The tabernacle is still at Shiloh, where 
 it was pitched by Joshua (i S. ii. 14, 
 iv. 3), probably somewhat more solidly 
 fixed than it had been in the wilderness, 
 perhaps according to the rabbinical tra- 
 ditions having now become “ a structure 
 of low stone walls with the tent drawn 
 over the top” (Stanley ‘ S. and P.’ p. 
 233); so that it had apparently a war- 
 der’s house attached to it, where Samuel 
 slept'. The lamp burns in it according 
 
 ^ The objection fColenso, Pt. v. p. 97) that 
 the I'abernacle could not be the tai)ernacle of 
 the wilderness, because it had “a door,” i Sam, 
 ii. 22, is rather singular, if we observe that the 
 words in Samuel on which the objection is found- 
 ed, “the women that assembled at the door of 
 
 to the ordinance in Exod. xxvii. 20, 21 ; 
 Lev. xxiv. 2, 3 ; though either that ordi- . 
 nance was not interpreted to mean that 
 the light might never go out, or the 
 carelessness, which had come on in Eli’s 
 old age and in the disordered state of 
 Israel, had let that ordinance fall into 
 disuse. The ark of the covenant is in 
 the sanctuary and is esteemed the sacred 
 symbol of the presence of God (i S. 
 iv. 3, 4, 18, 21, 22; V. 3, 4, 6, 7; vi. 19). 
 The Cherubim are there, and the Lord 
 of hosts is spoken of as dwelling between 
 the Cherubim (i S. iv. 4). There is the 
 altar, and the incense, and the Ephod 
 worn by the High priest (i S. ii. 28). 
 The various kinds of Mosaic sacrifices 
 are referred to: the burnt-offering ( 
 
 I S. X. 8; xiii. 9; xv. 22), the whole 
 burnt-offering (Calil, i S. vii. 9. Comp. 
 Deut. xxxiii. 10), the peace-offerings {She- 
 lami?n, i S. x. 8 ; xi. 1 5 ; xiii. 9. Cp. 
 Ex. xxiv 5), the bloody sacrifice {Ze- 
 bach., I S. ii. 19), and the unbloody of- 
 fering {Minchah^ 1 S. ii. 19; iii. 14; 
 xxvi. 19). The animals offered in sacri- 
 fice, the bullock (i S. i. 24, 25), the 
 lamb (i S. vii. 9), the heifer (i S. xvi. 2), 
 and the ram (i k xv. 22), are those pre- 
 scribed in the Levitical code. The es- 
 pecial customs of the sacrifice alluded 
 to in I S. ii. 13, were those prescribed 
 in Lev. vi. 6, 7; Num. xviii. 8 — 19, 25, 
 32 ; Deut. xviii. i sqq.: bat the sons of 
 Eli knew not the Lord, and so would not 
 acknowledge the ordinance: (“The sons 
 of Eli... knew not the Lord, nor the or- 
 dinance of the priests in reference to 
 the people,” i S. ii. 12, 13). The Le- 
 vites alone were permitted to handle the 
 sacred vessels and to convey the ark of 
 the Lord (i S. vi. 15). Historical events 
 are referred to as related in the Penta- 
 teuch ; Jacob’s going down to Egypt, 
 the oppression of the people there and 
 their deliverance by the hand of Moses 
 and Aaron (i S. xii. 8), the plagues of 
 Egypt (i S. iv. 8), and the wonders of 
 the Exodus (i S. viii. 8), the kindness* 
 
 the tabemade of the congregation,” are literally 
 a quotation from Ex. xxxviii. 8, “ the women as- 
 sembling, which assembled at the door of the 
 tabernacle of the congregation.” Of course the 
 word for “door” (HnSj is as applicable to a 
 tent door as to a house door ; and is constantly 
 used of the door of the tabernacle in the Pen- 
 tateuch. 
 
THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 7 
 
 shewn by the Kenites to Israel in the 
 wilderness (i S. xv. 6). 
 
 Even verbal quotations from the Pen- 
 tateuch are pointed out. The refer- 
 ence in I S. ii. 2 2 to Ex. xxxviii. 8, has 
 been already mentioned. The people 
 ask them a king (i S. viii. 5, 6), in 
 language which shews that they had 
 the very words of Moses (Deut. xvii. 
 14) in their minds. The words of 
 I S. viii. 3 are evidently written with 
 allusion to Deut. xvi. 19. The only in- 
 consistencies which appear are readily 
 explicable by the peculiar, unsettled con- 
 dition of the nation in the days of 
 Samuel and the early days of David. 
 Especially when the ark was in captivity 
 and there was no longer the sacred pre- 
 sence of God at Shiloh, Samuel sanc- 
 tioned the offering of sacrifice in other 
 places beside the Tabernacle (i S. vii. 
 17; X. 8 ; xvi. 2 — 5). But indeed the 
 command to sacrifice only in the place 
 to be chosen by God was not binding 
 until that place had been chosen, viz. 
 Mount Zion, and the tabernacle, to be 
 succeeded by the Temple, had been set 
 up there. The difficulty that Samuel 
 a Levlte (i Chron. vi. 22 — 28), but not 
 a priest, should be said to have sacri- 
 ficed (i S. ix. 13), is removed, if we con- 
 sider how frequently it is said of others, 
 of Joshua (viii. 30, 31), of Saul (i S. xiii. 
 9, 10), of David (2 S. xxiv. 25), of Solo- 
 mon (i K. iii. 4), of the people (i K. hi. 
 2), that they sacrificed, it being in all 
 these cases apparently understood that a 
 priest was present to offer the sacrifice 
 (see Deut. xviii. 3; i S. ii. 13 ; i K. iii. 
 I — 4. Comp. I Chron. xvi. 39, 40). 
 Samuel, as prophet and prince, blesses 
 the sacrifice (i S. ix. 13): but there is 
 no evidence that he slew it. If he slew 
 it, still the man who brought the offer- 
 ing might slay it, but he could not sprin- 
 kle the blood on the altar. 
 
 This is an important point in the his- 
 tory of Israel. Supposing Moses to have 
 been the author of the Pentateuch and 
 the facts recorded in it to be historical, 
 we have now found just what we might 
 expect to find. The land of Canaan is 
 conquered by Joshua, the lieutenant and 
 successor of Moses, who endeavours to es- 
 tablish his people in their new settlements 
 by enforcing upon them a strict observ- 
 
 ance of all the ordinances of the Mosaic 
 Law. After his death, and even during 
 his failing years, we find the Israelites 
 demoralized by long wars, settling im- 
 perfectly down to their civil duties and 
 institutions, acknowledging, and in the 
 main, both ecclesiastically and politically, 
 guided by the laws of the Pentateuch, 
 yet without a strong and settled govern- 
 ment to enforce their strict and 'constant 
 observance. Samuel, prophet, judge, and 
 almost priest, becomes at length the chief 
 ruler. He consistently aims at consoli- 
 dating and reforming the state of society. 
 To this end, though he apparently makes 
 no change in the established worship of 
 the country, which had not widely de- 
 parted from that ordained by Moses, yet 
 he strives to bring all the ordinances 
 both of Church and State back to con- 
 formity with the institutions of the Pen- 
 tateuch. This is pretty certain, either 
 that he followed these institutions or that 
 he invented them. The only record wc 
 have of him and of his acts is to be 
 found in the first book called by his 
 name. There certainly he appears as a 
 follower not as an inventor; and the 
 Book of Judges, which most of the mo- 
 dern critics admit to be ancient, testifies 
 to the existence and authority (though 
 at times to the popular neglect) of these 
 ordinances, as much as do the books of 
 Samuel. The reason, why he is charged 
 with the invention, is that after him the 
 main facts of the . history and the prin- 
 cipal laws of the Pentateuch were un- 
 doubtedly known, and there is the ut- 
 most anxiety on the part of the objectors 
 to prove that they had not been known 
 before. But, besides what we shall en- 
 deavour to shew presently, viz. that: 
 Samuel could not except by a miracle r 
 have invented the institutions of the- 
 Law, the history of Samuel is wholly- 
 inconsistent with the theory that he was^ 
 a forger. “ In his history there is too., 
 much of the Mosaic element to do with- 
 out Moses and the Pentateuch, there is, 
 too little to betray his intention to bring 
 the system into prominence.” (Smith, 
 ‘Pentateuch,’ i. p. 172.) The Penta- 
 teuch and the Mosaic system silently 
 underlie the whole history of Samuel;, 
 •but, in the midst of a general subjection 
 to it, there are at least some, apparent 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 departures from it, which are utterly in- 
 consistent with the belief that Samuel 
 was its forger. It is there : but it is 
 there without parade or observation. 
 
 The times of David and Solomon. 
 
 It is perhaps scarcely necessary to 
 trace minutely the references to the 
 Pentateuch, and the observance of the 
 Law of Moses through these reigns. The 
 facts are the same as before; the Levi- 
 tical priesthood, the tabernacle, the ark, 
 the sacrifices, all are the same; but there 
 are two things to be observed now, which 
 bring us fresh evidence of the exist- 
 ence of, and the respect paid to, the 
 Pentateuch, and of the acceptance by 
 the nation of the ordinances of the Taber- 
 nacle. 
 
 I. In David we have not only a 
 king but an author. A large number of 
 the Psalms are assignable to him, either 
 as their author or as their compiler. 
 Now it is true, that the later Psalms 
 (such as the 78th, 105th, io6th, 136th) 
 are much fuller of historical references to 
 the Exodus than the earlier Psalms, the 
 Psalms of David: but it will be found 
 that the passing allusions, and the simi- 
 larity of expressions and sentences, a- 
 mounting sometimes to evident quota- 
 tions, are far more abundant in the 
 Psalms of David. It is impossible to 
 compare the following, even in the Eng- 
 lish Version (but in the Hebrew it is 
 much more apparent), without being con- 
 vinced that David had in his mind the 
 words or the thoughts of the author of 
 the Pentateuch. 
 
 Ps. Ixviii. 
 
 I. 
 
 Num. X. 35. 
 
 
 55 • 
 
 4- 
 
 Deut. xxxiii. 26. 
 
 
 j) 
 
 7- 
 
 Ex. xiii. 21. 
 
 
 
 8. 
 
 Ex. xix. 16. 
 
 5 ? 
 
 5) 
 
 17- 
 
 Deut. xxxiii. 2. 
 
 
 Ixxxvi. 8. 
 
 Ex. XV. II. 
 
 
 
 15- 
 
 Ex. xxxiv. 6. 
 
 
 ciii. 17, 18. 
 
 Ex. XX. 6. Deut.vii. 9. 
 
 
 cx. 4. 
 
 
 Gen. xiv. 18. 
 
 
 cxxxiii. 2. 
 
 Ex. xxx. 25, 30. 
 
 Ps. i. 3. 
 
 „ iv. 5 (Heb. 6). 
 „ „ 6 (Heb. 7). 
 
 „ viii. 6, 7, 8. 
 
 „ ix. 12. 
 
 „ XV. 5. 
 
 „ XVI. 4. 
 
 „ ,, 5 , 6 . 
 
 „ xvii. 7. 
 
 „ xxiv. I. 
 
 „ xxvi. 6 . 
 
 „ XXX. Heading. 
 „ xxxix. 12. 
 
 Gen. xxxix. 3, 23. 
 Deut. xxxiii. 19. . 
 Num. vi. 26. 
 
 Gen. i. 26, 28. 
 
 Gen. ix. 5. 
 
 Ex. xxii. 25, Lev. xxv. 
 36. Ex. xxiii. 8. 
 Deut. xvi. 19. 
 
 Ex. xxiii. 13. 
 
 Deut. xxxii. 9. 
 
 Deut. xxxii. 10. 
 
 Ex. xix.5. Deut.x. 
 Ex. XXX. 19, 20. 
 Deut. XX. 5. 
 
 Lev. xxv. 23. 
 
 2. In Solomon we have also a royal 
 author. His language, however, is not 
 so much penetrated with the language of 
 the Pentateuch as is that of David. In- 
 deed the nature of his writings, which are 
 mostly proverbs or apophthegms, does 
 not admit of much reference to earlier 
 works. Yet, even so, where the subject 
 leads to it, we may trace an evident ac- 
 quaintance with the language of Moses. 
 See for instance the third chapter of 
 Provej'bs, where v. 3 appears to allude to 
 Ex. xxii. 9, Deut. vi. i ; v. 9 to Ex. xxii. 
 29, Deut. xxvi. 2; V. 12 to Deut. viii. 5; 
 V. 18 to Gen. ii. 9. Many other phrases 
 in the Proverbs are borrowed directly 
 from the Pentateuch. Thus in Prov. x. 1 8, 
 ‘‘ He that uttereth slander,” is a Hebrew 
 phrase of peculiar significance occurring 
 only here and Num. xiii. 32; xiv. 36, 37; 
 the expressions in Prov. x. i; xx. 10, 23,, 
 are taken from the very words of Lev. 
 xix. 36; Deut. xxv. 13. The words of 
 xi. 13; XX. 19, “the talebearer” (literally 
 “he that walketh being a talebearer”), 
 are taken from Lev. xix. 16, “Thou shalt 
 not go up and down as a talebearer,” 
 lit. “ Thou shalt not walk being a tale- 
 bearer.” 
 
 But that which specially connects 
 Solomon with the history of the Exodus, 
 is that he was the builder of the Temple. 
 Now the Temple is a fixed and enlarged 
 Tabernacle. All the proportions of the 
 Tabernacle are carefully retained, but 
 the size is exactly doubled. All the 
 instruments and the sacred vessels are 
 the same, except that they are magnified. 
 Nothing material is altered, except that 
 the Temple is a structure of stone, whilst 
 the Tabernacle was a tent covered with 
 skin; and in the Temple there is mag- 
 nificence, whereas in the Tabernacle, 
 'notwithstanding the gold and embroid- 
 ery, there was comparative simplicity. 
 
THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 9 
 
 Mr Fergusson, the able writer of the had then become excessive, Hezekiah 
 article Tonple in Smith’s ‘ Diet, of the in his ardent zeal for purity of worship 
 Bible,’ has shewn with great clearness, brake it in pieces, 2 K. xviii. 4. We 
 that the proportions and construction of turn to the kingdom of Israel. Jeroboam 
 the Tabernacle were those of a tent, is warned by Ahijah the Prophet that he 
 most admirably suited for its purpose in should keep the statutes and command- 
 the wilderness, having every requisite ments of God (i K. xi. 38), evidently the 
 which a Tent-temple ought to have. It well-known statutes and commandments 
 is a strong proof of the reverence in of the law. When, instead of doing so, 
 which Solomon held the original pattern, he seduces the people to idolatry, it is 
 that he and his architects should have still with reference to the history of the 
 so closely imitated the Tent in their Exodus, “Behold thy gods, O Israel, 
 erection of a stone Temple. Unless the which brought thee up out of the land of 
 Tent and all its accompaniments had Egypt,” i K. xii. 28. The very place of 
 existed and been described, the Temple his worship. Bethel, was probably con- 
 of Solomon would have been almost secrated by the history of Jacob and the 
 
 impossible. No one would have thought 
 of building a house with all the propor- 
 tions of a tent, except to perpetuate the 
 relation of the house to the tent, the Tem- 
 ple’s ancestral rights in the Tabernacle. 
 In the words of Ewald, “The Temple of 
 Solomon itself, notwithstanding all its 
 splendour and its expanded proportions, 
 shews itself to be only a tent on a large 
 scale, though no longer portable.” 
 
 The divided kingdom. 
 
 After the separation of the ten tribes 
 from Judah, though the worship of the 
 true God was preserved only in Judah, 
 and idolatry prevailed in Israel, there is 
 still evidence that in both kingdoms the 
 Pentateuch was acknowledged, both as a 
 history and a law. In Judah, we find 
 “the Book of the Law of the Lord” 
 used as the great text-book for teaching 
 the people in the reign of Jehoshaphat 
 (2 Chron. xvii. 9). In another reign the 
 king, Uzziah, ventures to offer incense 
 contrary to the Law (Num. xvi. i sqq.), 
 and he is stricken with leprosy as a 
 punishment (2 Chron. xxvi. 16 — 21). 
 Hezekiah, a great reformer in Judah, 
 institutes all his reforms on principles 
 strictly according with the law of the 
 Pentateuch, and is specially noted as 
 having “kept all the commandments, 
 which the Lord commanded Moses.” 
 2 K. xviii. 6. To his day had descended 
 that venerable relic of the wilderness 
 “the brazen serpent which Moses had 
 made.” The honour paid to it clearly 
 proves the acceptance of its history by the 
 Jewish people: but, because that honour 
 
 appearance of God to him there. The 
 feast appointed i K. xii. 32, was an 
 imitation of the feast of Tabernacles. 
 Though it was “in a month devised in 
 his own heart” (v. 33), and not at the 
 time decreed in the Law, yet it was 
 “like unto the feast that is in Judah,” 
 and ordained on purpose to prevent the 
 people from going up “ to the sacrifice in 
 the house of the Lord at Jerusalem” 
 (v. 27). The Levites appear to have 
 remained faithful, and hence Jeroboam 
 is obliged to make the lowest of the 
 people priests (v. 31). We have here 
 the clearest testimony to the existence 
 and authority of the Law even in the 
 description of the most flagrant breach 
 of it. 
 
 For the history of the succeeding 
 reigns it may suffice to point attention to 
 the following references in the books of 
 Kings to the laws of the Pentateuch. 
 
 1 K.xxi. 3 to Lev. XXV. 23; Num.xxxvi.8. 
 
 „ xxi. 10 to Num. XXXV. 30; Deut. xvii. 
 
 6, 7>xix. 15. 
 
 „ xxii. 17 to Num. xxvii. 16, 17. 
 
 2 K. iii. 20 to Ex. xxix. 38 sqq. 
 
 ,, iv. I to Lev. XXV. 39 &c. 
 
 „ vi. 18 toGen.xix.il. 
 
 „ vii. 3 to Lev. xiii. 46 ; Num. v. 3. 
 
 But at one period in this history we 
 find a body of illustrious prophets warn- 
 ing the people both of Judah and of 
 Israel or Samaria. Isaiah, Hosea, Amos 
 and Micah, all prophesied during the 
 reigns or part of the reigns of Uzziah, 
 Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of 
 Judah. Isaiah’s prophecy was confined 
 to Judah, but Amos and Micah pro- 
 
10 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 phesied in both kingdoms, and Hosea 
 wholly or chiefly in the kingdom of 
 Israel. 
 
 In all these prophets there are fre- 
 quent references to the Law. which three 
 of them distinctly name (Is. v. 24; xxx. 
 
 9 ; Hos. iv. 6 ; viii. i ; Amos ii. 4). Isaiah 
 seems to speak of it as “ the Book ” (ch. 
 xxix. 12), just as Moses himself speaks of 
 his own record as “ the Book ” (Ex. xvii. 
 14, see above). The familiarity of this 
 great prophet and probably of his hearers 
 with the Pentateuch may be seen by 
 comparing Is. i. 10 — 14 with Ex. xxxiv. 
 24; Lev. ii. 1, 16 ; vi. 14, 15 ; xxiii. passim. 
 Is. ii. 7, xxxi. with Deut. xvii. 16; Is. iii. 
 14 with Exod. xxii. 5, 26; Is. v. 26 with 
 Deut. xxviii. 49; Is. xxx. 16, 17 with Lev. 
 xxvi. S; Deut. xxxii. 3c, &c. 
 
 It is, however, more important for our 
 present purpose to pass on to the other 
 three prophets, as they prophesied in 
 Israel, and so their references will shew, 
 that the Pentateuch, whether as Law or 
 as history, was assumed as the basis of 
 truth even in appeals to the apostate and 
 idolatrous kingdom of Ephraim. 
 
 In Hosea we have such references 
 as these, “They have transgressed the 
 covenant like Adam” (not “like men” as 
 Authorized Version), Hos. vi. 7. Jacob 
 “ took his brother by the heel in the 
 womb, and by his strength he had power 
 with God: yea, he had power over the 
 angel and prevailed, he wept and made 
 supplication unto him: he found him in 
 Bethel” See. (Hos. xii. 3, 4, the allusions 
 being to Gen. xxv. 26; xxviii. ii ; xxxii. 
 24). “She shall sing there, as in the days 
 of her youth, and as in the day when she 
 came out of the land of Egypt” (ii. 15). 
 “ When Israel was a child, then I loved 
 him, and called my son out of Egypt ” (xi. 
 I, cp. Ex. iv. 22, 23). “I have written 
 to him the great things of my law” 
 (viii. 12). 
 
 Amos says, “I brought you up from 
 the land of Egypt, and led you forty 
 years through the wilderness, to possess 
 the land of the Amorite,” (ii. 10, the last 
 words being in allusion to Gen. xv. 16), 
 “the whole family which I brought up 
 from the land of Egy{)t ” (iii. i). Pie 
 speaks of “the horns of the altar” (iii. 14), 
 in allusion to Ex. xxvii. 2, xxx. 10, and 
 Lev. iv. 7. He speaks of the Nazarites 
 
 (ii. II, 12), which doubtless sprang out 
 of the ordinance in Num. vi. i — 21. 
 In chap. iv. 4, 5 he writes, “ Come 
 to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal mul- 
 tiply transgression; and bring your sacri- 
 fires every morning, and your tithes after 
 three years: and offer a sacrifice of 
 thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim 
 and publish the freewill offerings.” These 
 allusions shew an intimate acquaintance 
 with many of the Levitical Laws. One 
 is to the continual burnt-offering, Num. 
 xxviii. Another to the tithe to be laid 
 up at the end of three years, Deut. xiv. 
 28; xxvi. 13. A third to the prohibition 
 to burn leaven with a meat-offering (Lev. 
 ii. ii), and the exception made in the 
 case of a thank-offering, where direction 
 is given to offer besides the unleavened 
 cakes also an offering of leavoied bread 
 
 (Lev. vii. 12, 13). A fourth allusion is 
 to the freewill offering mentioned Lev. 
 xxii. 18 — 21; Deut. xii. 6. Indeed the 
 accuracy of agreement in this one pas- 
 sage goes far to prove that the law of 
 which Amos speaks was identical with 
 that which we now possess h 
 
 Micah refers to Genesis. “ They shall 
 lick the dust like ///^ serpent” (^^( 135 ) (vii. 
 17), in allusion to Gen. iii. 14. He 
 mentions the promises to Abraham and 
 to Jacob (vii. 20). He alludes to the 
 history of the Exodus and of the book 
 of Numbers. “ I brought thee up out 
 of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee 
 out of the house of servants; and I sent 
 before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 
 O my people, remember now what Balak 
 king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam 
 the son of Beor answered him,” &c. (vi. 
 4 , 5 )- 
 
 Is it possible that these prophets, thus 
 speaking, or the people among whom 
 they spoke, should not have had the 
 
 Books of Moses before them ? 
 
 The reig 7 i of Josiah. 
 
 Welcome now to the time of Josiah. 
 In his reign we have abundant evidence 
 that the ordinances observed, when the 
 temple had been purified, were those of 
 the Mosaic Law. The Passover was then 
 held unto the Lord God, as it was written 
 
 ^ M'^Caul, ‘ Examination of Bp. Colenso’s 
 Difficulties,’ p. 183, third Edition, 1863. 
 
THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 II 
 
 in the book of the Covenant (2 K. xxiii.), 
 “according to the word of the Lord by the 
 hand of Moses” (2 Chron. xxxv. 6). The 
 14th day of the first month is the day 
 appointed (2 Chr. xxxv. i). The sacri- 
 fices are Mosaic (2 Chr. xxxv. 7 — 10). 
 The priests assisted by the Levites kill 
 the Passover and sprinkle the blood 
 (Ib. V. ii). The priests are the sons of 
 Aaron (v. 14). The custom of the Pass- 
 over is traced from the time of Samuel 
 to that of Josiah (v. 18), &c., &c. 
 
 But in this reign we meet with that 
 remarkable event, the finding of the Book 
 of the Law in the Temple by Hilkiah 
 the High priest. It is unnecessary to 
 determine here what may be meant by 
 “ the book of the Law” (2 K. xxii. 8), or “ a 
 book of the Law of the Lord by Moses” 
 (2 Chr. xxxiv. 14). Whether it were the 
 whole Pentateuch, or Deuteronomy only, 
 or portions of the whole, has been often 
 questioned. It seems howeverpretty clear, 
 that Deuteronomy was at least a portion 
 of the book thus found. The curses 
 referred to in 2 Chr. xxxiv. 24, are 
 either those in Lev. xxvi. or those in 
 Deut. xxvii. xxviii. The effect which 
 they produce upon the king, and his 
 evident conviction that they concern 
 himself especially, “for me, and for the 
 people, and for all Judah,” (2 K. xxii. 
 13), seem to point to the curses in Deu- 
 teronomy; as there only the king is 
 threatened (Deut. xxviii. 36), there too 
 the judgments denounced seem more spe- 
 cially national, and such as would most 
 signally apply to the condition of Judah 
 in the days of Josiah. 
 
 But it is a natural question. Whence 
 came it that the book thus found should 
 so have awakened the conscience and 
 aroused the anxieties of the king, if the 
 Pentateuch had all along been the. ac- 
 knowledged statute book of his people, 
 and the text book of their faith? 
 
 Let us then notice first, that the Law 
 was to be kept carefully in the Taber- 
 nacle or Temple. Moses commanded 
 that the book of the law, which he had 
 ^ written, should be put in the side of the 
 ark of the covenant and there preserved 
 \ (Deut. xxxi. 26). It is extremely pro- 
 bable (the language seems to imply it) 
 that the very autograph of Moses was 
 thus stored up, first in the Tabernacle 
 
 and afterwards in the Temple. We, who 
 have manuscripts of the New Testament 
 in the fullest preservation 14 or 15 cen- 
 turies old, and Egyptian papyri, some 
 unquestionably much older than Moses 
 still legible, others written in the 14th 
 century b. c. in perfect preservation, need 
 not wonder if this treasured MS. of the 
 Pentateuch had lasted from Moses to 
 Josiah, a period of only 700 years, and 
 that in the dry climate of Palestine. Let 
 us next observe the long prevalence of 
 idolatry and ungodliness in the reigns 
 preceding that of Josiah. There is a 
 ray of light in the reign of Hezekiah, 
 but the darkness settles down again more 
 thickly than ever in the reign of his son 
 Manasseh. That reign, extending over 
 more than half a century (2 K. xxi. i), 
 witnessed the greatest spread of idolatr)q 
 and of all the vices which accompanied 
 idolatry in Palestine, the most cruel per- 
 secution of the faithful, and the most 
 outrageous profanation of the sanctuary 
 ever known in Israel. Manasseh built 
 the high places and reared up altars for 
 Baal ; he built idolatrous altars in the 
 courts of the temple, made his sons to 
 pass through fire, dealt with wizards, and 
 even set up a graven image, probably of 
 the foulest possible character, “in the 
 house of which the Lord said to David 
 and to Solomon his son, In this house 
 
 and in Jerusalem will I- put my 
 
 name for ever” (vv. 3 — 7, 2 Chr. xxxiii. 7). 
 Thus he seduced the people “to do more 
 evil than did the nations whom the Lord 
 destroyed before the children of Israel” 
 (v. 9). “Moreover Manasseh shed inno- 
 cent blood very much, till he had filled 
 Jerusalem from one end to another” (v. 16, 
 also Joseph. ‘Ant.’ x. 3. i)^ There was no 
 doubt a short season of repentance at 
 the end of his reign (2 Chron. xxxiii. 12 
 sqq.) in which the idol was taken from 
 the Temple and the altar of the Lord 
 repaired; but his son Amon succeeded, 
 and again did evil in the sight of the 
 Lord, and served the idols which his 
 father served, and worshipped them 
 (2 K. xxi. 19, sq). To these two evil 
 reigns and to a long inheritance of cor- 
 ruption, Josiah succeeded at eight years of 
 age. He early shewed his piety, even 
 from the age of sixteen turning to the 
 Lord, and at the age of twenty com- 
 
12 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 mencing the purification of worship (2 
 Chr. xxxiv. 3). At the age of 26 (the 
 1 8th of his reign) the book of the Law 
 was found by Hilkiah in the Temple (2 K. 
 xxii. 3). The ark which had been re- 
 moved from the Temple (2 Chr. xxxv. 3) 
 during the sacrilegious reign of Manasseh, 
 had been brought back again : and wher- 
 ever the book of the Law may have been 
 concealed, very likely built into a wall 
 by the priests to keep it from the hand 
 of the spoiler, it was now brought to 
 light again by the High priest Hilkiah. 
 
 Let us remember then, ist, that very 
 probably this was the autograph of Moses; 
 2ndly, that since the reign of Hezekiah, 
 a period of seventy-five years, it is very 
 unlikely that any king should have made 
 a copy of the law, as commanded in 
 Deuteronomy (xvii. 18); moreover it is 
 very likely that Hezekiah’s copy should 
 have been destroyed or laid aside’ and 
 forgotten; 3rdly, that’by a cruel persecu- 
 tion idolatrous worship had long been 
 upheld, and the worshippers of the Lord 
 prohibited from exercising or teaching 
 their faith ; the prophets having been 
 silenced, Isaiah according to Jewish tra- 
 dition having been sawn asunder early in 
 Manasseh’s reign; 4thly, that Josiah was 
 still young and only feeling his way to 
 truth and to the restoration of religion. 
 We shall then not think it strange that 
 he should have been ignorant of much 
 of the purport of the Pentateuch, nor 
 that when the book, perhaps written by 
 the very hand of Moses under the direc- 
 tion of God, was brought out and read 
 to him, he should have been deeply im- 
 pressed by its burning words, seeming to 
 come straight into his soul as if they had 
 been sent down to him from the cloud 
 and the tempest and the mountain which 
 burned with fire. Writing in those early 
 days was very scarce ; reading was proba- 
 bly confined to very few. In the middle 
 ages of Europe, if it were possible to 
 conceive such a' state of corruption as 
 that in the reign of Manasseh over- 
 spreading any Christian nation, it would 
 not have been impossible for a young 
 king to be ignorant of the contents of 
 the Scriptures of the New Testament. 
 Yet there can be no period of Christian 
 history in which copies of the Scriptures 
 were not far more abundant in every 
 
 Christian country in Europe, and the 
 power of reading them far more gene- 
 ral, than can have been the case in Pa- 
 lestine at any time before the captivity. 
 
 There is nothing then to astonish us 
 in the effect produced on Josiah by the 
 reading of the threats of judgment from 
 the Temple copy of the Law. That it was 
 the Temple copy of the Law, all the most 
 competent witnesses were satisfied. The 
 High priest, the Scribes, Huldah the 
 Prophetess (see 2 K. xxii. 8, 12, 14), the 
 eiders of the people (ch. xxiii. i), the 
 priests and Levites (xxiii. 4), those to 
 whom some knowledge at least of the 
 past had come down, some acquaintance 
 with the Scriptures must have remained, 
 all apparently acknowledged that the 
 book found was the book of the Law by 
 the hand of Moses. Had it been possi- 
 ble that a forger should then for the first 
 time have produced it, it cannot be that 
 so many independent witnesses should 
 have been imposed upon to receive it. 
 The story of its finding is told simply 
 and without parade. It is what might 
 very easily have happened, for it is like 
 enough that the book would have been 
 hidden, and Josiah’s repairing of the 
 Temple would bring it to light. The 
 effect produced on Josiah’s pious mind is 
 exactly what might have been looked 
 for. But, that, under all the circum- 
 stances of long continued corruption and 
 apostasy, any one should have been able 
 to impose such a work and such a law, 
 as the Pentateuch, on king, priests, elders 
 and people, even if any one at that time 
 could possibly have written it, exceeds 
 all power of credence. 
 
 The Captivity and the Return. 
 
 The Prophets of the Captivity ac- 
 knowledge the Law, and refer to the 
 Pentateuch as much as any of those 
 that preceded them. Jeremiah began to 
 prophesy in the 13th year of the reign 
 of Josiah. The portion of his book from 
 ch. ii. I to ch. viii. 17, is generally ac- 
 knowledged to have been written before 
 the finding of the Book of the Law by 
 Hilkiah; but in those chapters there are 
 statements concerning the Law and quo- 
 tations from the books of Moses, which 
 shew that Jeremiah was then well ac- 
 
THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 ^3 
 
 quainted with the Pentateuch. “ They 
 that handle the Law know me not” (Jer. 
 ii. 8). “How say ye, We are wise, and 
 the Law of the Lord is with us?” (viii. 8). 
 Here we have the common mode of re- 
 ferring to the Law, as a well-known au- 
 thority. Chap. ii. 6 has allusions to Deut. 
 viii. 15; Numb. xiv. 7, 8; Lev. xviii. 25 — 
 28; Numb. XXXV. 33, 34. Again, ch. ii. 
 28 is a quotation from Deut. xxxii. 37, 
 38. Chap. iv. 4 is a virtual quotation 
 from Deut. x. 16, xxx. 6; and the figure 
 used occurs nowhere else in the Scrip- 
 tures. Ch. V. 15, 17 contains unmis- 
 takeable quotations from Deut. xxviii. 
 31, 49. It is of less importance to mul- 
 tiply examples of this kind, because it is 
 now admitted that the writings of Jere- 
 miah are throughout impregnated with 
 the language of Deuteronomy, insomuch 
 that the modern critics have argued from 
 this that Jeremiah must himself have 
 been the Deuteronomist. 
 
 Ezekiel prophesied during the cap- 
 tivity. Dr M‘Caul has observed that in 
 the one short passage (Ezek. xxii. 7 — 12), 
 there are at least twenty-nine references 
 to, or rather quotations from. Exodus, 
 Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, perceptible 
 in the English version, and which the 
 marginal references in an ordinary Bible 
 sufficiently point out, but which by con- 
 sulting the original will be found to con- 
 tain the very words of the Hebrew. In 
 V. 26 again, where the Law is distinctly 
 named, there are at least four more re- 
 ferences to Lev. X. 10, xi. 45, XX. 25, 
 Ex. xxxi. 13. Chapters xviii. and xx. con- 
 "^ain references and quotations innumer- 
 able; ch. XX. being a recapitulation of 
 all that happened in the wilderness k 
 
 On the return from captivity we learn, 
 that at the Feast of Tabernacles (accord- 
 ing to the ordinance in Deut. xxxi. 10 
 — 13), Ezra brought the book of the Law 
 of Moses, which the Lord had command- 
 ed Israel, that he read it from morning till 
 midday “before the men and the women, 
 and those that could understand; and 
 the ears of all the people were attentive 
 unto the book of the Law”(Neh. viii. 3). 
 That they accepted it against their own 
 interests and affections is evident from 
 their being induced to put away their hea- 
 
 ^ M‘Caul’s ‘Examination of Bp. Colenso’s 
 Difficulties,’ pp. 163 sqq. 
 
 then wives (see Ezra, ch. x). Some of them 
 it is plain, understood the book as it was 
 read to them; but to some of them, we 
 are told, Jeshua, with the Levites and 
 others, “read in the book of the Law 
 distinctly (or rather ‘giving an explana- 
 tion’), and caused them to understand 
 the reading” (Neh. viii. 7,8). The older 
 men and women, no doubt, retained their 
 knowledge of the ancient Hebrew, but 
 the younger men, who were grandchil- 
 dren or great-grandchildren of those who 
 were first carried captive, had almost lost 
 the language of their forefathers, and had 
 broughtfrom the land of the Chaldees that 
 Aramaic tongue, Chaldee or Syriac, which 
 soon became the vernacular language of 
 Judea. Hebrew was not quite lost, or 
 Haggai and Malachi would not have writ- 
 ten their prophecies in Hebrew; but the 
 change was rapidly taking place. It is 
 the constant Jewish tradition that Ezra 
 (besides writing Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, 
 andT and 2 Chronicles) collected and 
 reduced to order all the earlier books of 
 the Old Testament. It is said, moreover, 
 that “the reading distinctly the Law and 
 causing the people to understand,” re- 
 ferred to above, was the introduction by 
 Ezra of the custom, which prevailed 
 afterwards, of having Chaldee translations 
 or paraphrases read with the Hebrew 
 Scriptures, for the use of the Chaldee 
 speaking Jews. It is also said, that it 
 was Ezra who transcribed the Scriptures 
 from the ancient Hebrew character (now 
 known as Samaritan) into the modern 
 Hebrew or Chaldee character. Whether 
 or not Ezra did all this, it certainly was 
 done no very long time after the captivity; 
 and Ezra, who was “a ready scribe in the 
 Law of Moses,” who bore a high commis- 
 sion to restore the Temple and the wor- 
 ship of God, was the most likely person to 
 h^ve been intrusted with this great work. 
 
 However this may be, we are brought 
 now to a new kind of testimony. The 
 Pentateuch, as preserved by the Jews, 
 has come down to us in the modern 
 Hebrew or Chaldee character. It was 
 known to the ancient Jews and to the 
 Christian fathers, that there was. also a 
 copy of the Pentateuch preserved by the 
 Samaritans in a different character. For 
 a thousand years that Samaritan Penta- 
 teuch was lost to the Christian Church, 
 
INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 and it was almost doubted whether it 
 had ever existed; but in the year i6j6, 
 Pietro della Valle obtained a complete 
 MS. of it from the Samaritans in Da- 
 mascus. Several other copies have since 
 been discovered, one of which is be- 
 lieved to be of the most remote anti- 
 quity. In almost all particulars (dates 
 being the principal exception) this Sama- 
 ritan Pentateuch agrees with the Jewish 
 Pentateuch. There can have been no 
 collusion between Jews and Samaritans, 
 for they were at mortal feud : and there 
 are but two periods in which we can 
 suppose the Samaritans to have become 
 possessed of this copy of the Penta- 
 teuch. Manasseh, brother of the High 
 priest Jaddua, being expelled from his 
 priesthood for marrying the daughter of 
 Sanballat the Horonite (Neh. xiii. 28), 
 became the first High priest of the Sama- 
 ritans and of the temple erected on 
 Mount Gerizim. He was joined by many 
 priests and Levites, who, like himself, 
 refused to put away their heathen wi\»es‘. 
 It is the l3elief of rriany, that the so- 
 called Samaritan Pentateuch was carried 
 by these priests from Jerusalem to Sa- 
 maria. Now they would certainly not 
 have taken it with them, testifying as 
 it did against their heathen marriages 
 and their schismatical worship, had they 
 not fully believed in its genuineness and 
 Divine authority : nor would the Samari- 
 tans have accepted, it but for a like 
 conviction on their parts. At all events, 
 at no later period could the Hebrew 
 Scriptures have been imposed on the 
 dissentients Samaritans. This document 
 therefore preserved in Samaria by the 
 Samaritans is an independent witness, 
 from at least the time of Ezra, to the 
 integrity of the five books of Moses. 
 Its witness may go back to a much 
 earlier date ; for many think, and that 
 with much ground of reason, that the 
 Pentateuch wa.s carried to the Cuthites 
 who had peopled Samaria by that Is- 
 raelitish priest, who was sent by Esar- 
 haddon, that he might teach them the 
 worship of the Lord. (See 2 K. xvii. 28; 
 Ezra iv. 2.) d’liis if it be correct would 
 carry back the independent testimony of 
 the Samaritan Pentateuch not only to 
 the time of Ezra but to the reign of 
 ^ Joseph. ‘ Ant.’ xi. 8, §§ 2, 4. 
 
 Manasseh, the grandfather of Josiah, 
 about B.c. 680. 
 
 We pass on to the translation into 
 Greek of b;c. 280, the famous translation 
 of the LXX, which has a remarkable re- 
 semblance to the text of the Samaritan 
 Pentateuch, and which proves the accept- 
 ance of the Pentateuch by the Jews in 
 Egypt. Another link in the chain is the 
 First Book of Maccabees, where we read 
 of the fury of Antiochus Epiphanes, who 
 strove to destroy the books of the Law, 
 and of the zeal of the priests and peo- 
 ple, who chose rather to die than to 
 submit to his cruel edicts (i Macc. i. 56 
 sqq.) The books of the Apocrypha per- 
 petually refer to and quote the Penta- 
 teuch. Ecclesiasticus especially (perhaps 
 the most ancient and most important) is 
 full of such references. (See for instance 
 ch. xvi. 8, 10; xvii. i — 4.) 
 
 That Chaldee paraphrases were made 
 very soon after the return from captivity 
 we are well assured. The earliest which 
 is extant is that of Onkelos ; the date of 
 which is uncertain, by some placed in 
 the century before our Saviour, but most 
 probably to be referred to a date nearly 
 coincident with the earthly life of Christ. 
 The Targum of Onkelos is a paraphrase 
 of the Pentateuch as we have it now. 
 These Targums had been in use long 
 before they were written down. When 
 writing was comparatively scarce, the 
 memory was so exercised, that a Targum 
 on the Pentateuch would easily be hand- 
 ed down memoriter, so that probably the 
 Targum of Onkelos really represents that 
 which is much more ancient than itself. " 
 
 Lastly, we come to the Ne 7 i' Testa- 
 ment itself. As our purpose is to trace 
 evidence, rather than to adduce autho- 
 rity, It may be sufficient here to say 
 that, wherever the Pentateuch is refer- 
 red to by the Apostles or by the Lord 
 Himself, its Mosaic origin, as well as 
 its Divine authority, is dearly expressed 
 or implied. (See for instance, Matt. xix. 
 8; Mark x. 5; xii. 26; Luke xx, 37; 
 Joh. i. 17 ; v. 46, 47 ; viii. 5 ; Acts iii. 
 22 ; vii. 37 sqq. &c. &c.). 
 
 The chain then is unbroken from the 
 books of Joshua and Judges to the New 
 Testament, and the words of Jesus 
 Christ. Wc may fairly ask, whether any 
 book, ancient or modern, has such a 
 
THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 15 
 
 stream of concurrent and credible testi- 
 mony in support of its claims to genuine- 
 ness and authenticity. 
 
 3. The third point to be proved is, 
 
 That the mternal evidence points to 
 Moses and to him only as the writer of 
 the Pefitateuch. 
 
 (i) The author of the Pentateuch and 
 the giver of the Levitical Law had 
 an intimate acquaintance with Egyp% 
 its literature, its laws and its religion. 
 This is a wide subject, and one which 
 branches out into numerous details. 
 It can only be briefly touched on 
 here. Spencer (‘ de Legibus Hebraso- 
 rum’) shewed at great length that no 
 one could have invented the Laws of 
 Moses who was not well skilled in 
 Egyptian learning. Bryant On the 
 Plagues of Egypt’) has shewn how the 
 plagues were but an extension and accu- 
 mulation of the natural evils of the 
 country intensified by the Divine Judg- 
 ment. Hengstenberg (‘ Egypt and the 
 Books of Moses’) has shewn how tho- 
 roughly an acquaintance with Egypt per- 
 meates the whole Pentateuch. This will 
 appear in the following pages, when we 
 come to the history of Joseph, to the 
 Exodus, and to the laws of Moses. It 
 wouiJ be impossible to enter into all the 
 details here. Let us take a very few. 
 
 The making of bricks among the 
 Egyptians by captives is pourtrayed on 
 the monuments, especially of the i8th 
 dynasty (most probably the dynasty of 
 the Exodus) in such close conformity 
 with the language of the Book of Exodus 
 i. 14; V. 7, 8, 18, that the one might 
 seem to be a description of the other 
 (see Brugsch, ‘ Hist. d’Egypte,’ p. 106). 
 “ Ruins of great brick buildings are found 
 throughout Egypt” (Rosellini). “The 
 use of crude bricks baked in the sun 
 was universal in Egypt” (Wilkinson, ii. 
 p. 96, Hengst. p. 2). Bricks were made 
 in Egypt under the direction of the king, 
 as may appear by the impressions found 
 on some of them. And in the composi- 
 tion of the Egyptian bricks there is gene- 
 rally found a certain quantity of chop- 
 ped straw (Hengst. p. 79). 
 
 The ark of papyrus smeared with bitu- 
 men in which Moses was exposed. Ex. ii. 
 3, is suited to Egypt and Egypt only. 
 There only was papyrus employed in the 
 
 manufacture of many articles, such as 
 mats, baskets, sandals (Herod, ii. 37), 
 sails for ships (Herod, ii. 96), and even 
 boats; for according to Plutarch (‘ De 
 Is. et Osiri’) Isis was borne upon a boat 
 of papyrus. Bitumen too was of great 
 use in Egypt. It was one of the chief 
 ingredients in embalming; and mummy- 
 shaped figures are found covered with a 
 coating of bitumen (Hengstenb. p. 85). 
 
 The plagues of Egypt may be seen 
 either in Bryant (passwi) or Hengsten- 
 berg (p. 103 — 125), to be the natural 
 troubles of the country magnified, their 
 miraculous character resulting from their 
 appearance and accumulation at the word 
 of Moses and their removal at ' his 
 prayer. 
 
 The Mosaic laws and institutions of 
 worship are penetrated throughout by a 
 knowledge of Egyptian, customs. 
 
 The connection between the cherubic 
 figures overshadowing the mercy seat and 
 the Egyptian sculptures is traced in the 
 note at end of Gen. iii. infra. 
 
 The distinction of clean and un- 
 clean meats is eminently Levitical, but 
 it is eminently Egyptian also (Heng- 
 stenb. p. 180 sqq.). The Egyptian priest- 
 hood was by inheritance (Herod, ii. 
 37); so was the Levitical. The Egyp- 
 tian priests shaved their whole bodies 
 (Herod, ib.); so the Levites were to 
 “shave all their flesh” (Num. viii. 7). 
 The Egyptian priests had to bathe con- 
 tinually (Herod, ib.); so the priests and 
 Levites had to purify themselves by 
 bathing (Ex. xl. 12 — 15, Num. viii. 7). 
 The priests of Egypt wore none but 
 linen garments (Herod, ib.), so was it 
 with the Israelitish priests (Ex. xxviii. 39 
 — 42; xxxix. 27, 28; Lev. vi. 10): and 
 there is no known example of any other 
 priesthood of antiquity clothed only in 
 linen (Hengst. p. 145 — 149). The anoint- 
 ing of Aaron (Lev. viii. 7 — 12, 30) when 
 clothed in his priestly robes has an ex- 
 act parallel in the Egyptian sculptures, 
 where the king is anointed, clothed in 
 royal robes and with cap and crown on 
 his head (Wilkinson, i. p. 275; Smith on 
 the ‘Pentateuch,’ p. 295). 
 
 The ceremony of the scapegoat, where 
 the priest confesses the sins of the people 
 on the head of the goat, which is then 
 sent away into the wilderness, finds a 
 
i6 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 parallel in what Herodotus tells us, viz. 
 that the Egyptians heaped curses on the 
 head of the victim and then carried it 
 and sold it to Greek traders, or, if there 
 were no Greeks among them, threw it 
 into the river (Herod, ii. 39). 
 
 The Urim and Thummim (Ex. xxviii. 
 30) on the breastplate of the High priest 
 correspond with what we learn from 
 Hllian (‘Var. Hist.’ lib. xiv. c. 34) and 
 Diodorus (lib. xxxi. c. 75), as also from 
 the monuments, that the chief priest 
 among the Egyptians, when acting the 
 part of judge, wore round his neck an 
 image of sapphire, which was called 
 Truth (Hengstenb. p. 149 — 153). 
 
 The writing of the commandments of 
 God on the door-posts and gates (Deut. 
 xi. 20) is in strict accordance with the 
 drawings of Egyptian architecture, where 
 the door-posts of temples and tombs are 
 covered with hieroglyphics (Smith, ‘ Pen- 
 tateuch,’ I. p. 257). 
 
 The erecting pillars and coating them 
 with plaster to prepare for inscriptions 
 (Deut. xxvii. 2, 3) is in strict conformity 
 with Egyptian custom (Hengst. p. 90). 
 
 The infliction of the bastinado as pre- 
 scribed in Deut. xxv. 2, is graphically 
 illustrated in the sculptures at Beni Has- 
 san (Smith, p. 258). The ox treading out 
 the corn unmuzzled (Deut. xxv. 4) was 
 the custom in Egypt, as the monuments 
 also prove (Smith, ib., Hengst. p. 223). 
 The offerings for the dead forbidden in 
 Deut. xxvi. 14, are evidently such as were 
 prevalent in Egypt, where small tables 
 were placed in the tombs, bearing offer- 
 ings of ducks, cakes and the like (Smith, 
 ib.). 
 
 These are a few of the parallels, which 
 prove an intimate acquaintance with the 
 customs of Egypt in him who wrote the 
 Pentateuch and delivered the Mosaic 
 Law. 
 
 (2) The history and the Law of the 
 Israelites both bear marks and tokens 
 of their passage through the wilderness, 
 and long residence in it. 
 
 This is specially to be observed con- 
 cerning the Tabernacle. “ It is proved,” 
 says Ewald, “ to have been derived from 
 the early times of the wanderings. It 
 was only the most sacred of the many 
 tents of a migratory people, resembling 
 the general’s tent in the midst of a camp; 
 
 and according to the minute descriptions 
 of it, all the objects belonging to it were 
 adapted for carrying, like those of an 
 ordinary tenth” 
 
 The memory of their long dwell- 
 ing in tents was preserved among the 
 Israelites throughout their generations. 
 Not only was the feast. of Tabernacles 
 observed from the time of Moses to that 
 of Christ, but their language and monu- 
 ments continually bore witness to the 
 same. “The very words ‘camps’ and 
 ‘tents’ remained long after they had 
 ceased to be literally applicable. The 
 ‘tents of the Lord’ were in the pre- 
 cincts of the temple. The cry of sedi- 
 tion, evidently handed down from ancient 
 times was, ‘To your tents, O Israel!’ 
 ‘Without the camp’ (Heb. xiii. 13) was 
 the expression applied to the very latest 
 events of Jerusalem. ‘ Thou that dwell- 
 est between the Cherubim, shine forth ! 
 Before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manas- 
 seh, stir up Thy strength, and come, 
 and help us’ (Ps. Ixxx. i) ... We see 
 in this the reflected image of the an- 
 cient march, when the ark of God went 
 forth, the pillar of fire shining high 
 above it, surrounded by the warrior tribes 
 of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh^” 
 The elders or chiefs of the tribes corre- 
 spond with the Sheykhs of the desert, 
 the office never disappears in the history 
 of the people, till out of the Sheykhs of 
 the desert grew the elders of the syna- 
 gogues^. The materials which are re- 
 corded as used in the construction of 
 the Tabernacle and its vessels were such 
 as could be best obtained in the desert. 
 The ark was not made “of oak, the 
 usual wood of Palestine, nor of cedar, 
 the usual wood employed in Palestine 
 for sacred purposes, but of shittim or 
 acacia, a tree of rare growth in Syria, 
 but the most frequent, not even except- 
 ing the palm, in the peninsula of Sinai\” 
 The coverings of the Tabernacle were 
 goat’s hair and ram-skin dyed red after 
 the Arabian fashion, seal-skin (Tachash, 
 see Gesen. s. v.) from the adjoining 
 gulfs of the Red Sea, and fine linen from 
 the Egyptian spoils*. Even the distinc- 
 
 ^ Ewald, Translated by Martineau, p. 441. 
 
 2 Stanley, ‘Jewish Church,’ i. p. 163. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. i6j. ^ Ibid. p. 163. 
 
 I Ibid. p. 163, 
 
THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 17 
 
 tion of the different kinds of food per- 
 mitted or forbidden in the Law “ may be 
 traced with the greatest probability to 
 the peculiarities of the condition of Is- 
 rael at the time of the giving of that 
 Law. The animals of which they might 
 freely eat were those that belonged espe- 
 cially to their pastoral state — the ox, the 
 sheep, the goat, to which were added 
 the various classes of the chamois and ga- 
 zelle. As we read the detailed permis- 
 sion to eat every class of what may be 
 called the game of the wilderness, ‘ the 
 wild goat and the roe and the red deer 
 and the ibex and the antelope and the 
 chamois/ a new aspect is suddenly pre- 
 sented to us of a large part of the life of 
 the Israelites in the desert. It reveals 
 them to us as a nation of hunters, it 
 shews them to us clambering over the 
 smooth rocks, scaling the rugged pinna- 
 cles of Sinai, as the Arab chamois hunters 
 of the present day, with bows and arrows 
 instead of guns. Such pursuits they could 
 only in a limited degree have followed 
 in their own country. The permission, 
 the perplexity implied in the permission, 
 could only have arisen in a place where 
 the animals in question abounded The 
 inevitable conclusion is, that the Law 
 had its origin in, and the Legislator was 
 intimately acquainted with, the wilder- 
 ness of Sinai. 
 
 (3) Thirdly, the language and the 
 legislation of the Pentateuch has Canaan 
 only in prospect. It is patent through- 
 out that the wording, both of the laws 
 and of the language of the lawgiver, looks 
 forward to a future in Canaan. See 
 Ex, xii. 25 — 27; xiii, i. 5; xxiii. 20 — 33; 
 xxxiv. II ; Lev. xiv. 34; xviii. 3, 24; xix. 
 23; XX. 22; xxiii. 10; XXV. 2 ; Num. xv, 
 2, 18; xxxiv. 2; XXXV. 2 — 34; Deut. iv. 
 i; vi. 10; vii. i; ix. i; xii. 10, &c. 
 
 It has been objected, that the writer of 
 the Pentateuch knew too much of the 
 geography of Palestine for one who had 
 never been there, and that this is an 
 argument against its Mosaic origin. This 
 surely cannot be a valid objection, when 
 we remember, first, that Moses with his 
 knowledge of the history of Genesis and 
 of the wanderings of the old Patriarchs, 
 
 * Ibid. pp. 168, 169. See the same subject 
 further discussed, Smith’s ‘ Pentateuch,’ pp. 285 
 Eqq. 
 
 must have become familiarized wdth the 
 geography of the land of these wander- 
 ings ; secondly, that Palestine was well 
 known to the Egyptians, who repeatedly 
 traversed it from the reign of Thothmes I.; 
 thirdly, that Moses had lived for forty 
 years in the wilderness of Sinai feed- 
 ing the flocks of Jethro, and with his 
 active mind and his deep interest in the 
 country of his forefathers, he was sure to 
 have enquired about, most probably even 
 to have visited, the neighbouring plains 
 of Palestine ; fourthly, that he had taken 
 pains to ascertain all the character of 
 the country, of its people^ its cities and 
 its fortresses by means of spies, and that 
 probably for many years, as every wise 
 general would do, when preparing to 
 invade a hostile and powerful people. 
 But the very prophecies, which speak so 
 clearly of the future possession of Ca- 
 naan, and which sceptical criticism will 
 therefore have to be predictions after the 
 event, are just such as would not have 
 been written when the event had become 
 known. Take for instance Deut. xii. 10, 
 “When ye go over Jordan, and dwell in 
 the land which the Lord your God giveth 
 you to inherit, and when He giveth you 
 rest from all your enemies round about, 
 so that ye dwell in safety,” &c. This 
 prophecy is indeed referred to in Josh, 
 xxiii. I, and is spoken of there as though 
 it had been fulfilled in the conquests of 
 Joshua. Yet, when we consider how 
 partially those conquests really gave re^t 
 to Israel, how the sins of the people con- 
 ditioned and, as it were, impaired their ful- 
 filment, how long it was before the words 
 were proved to be true indeed, it will be 
 hardly possible to find any time when a 
 forger could have written them. For in- 
 stance, could Samuel have written them, 
 with the history of the Book of Judges, a 
 record eminently of unrest and insecurity, 
 before his eyes, himself judging Israel, 
 with the ark of the covenant in the 
 hands of the Philistines, and to be suc- 
 ceeded in his Judgeship by the warlike 
 and turbulent reign of Saul? Indeed 
 the reign of Solomon is the one only 
 reign in the whole history of Israel, in 
 which we witness anything like an united 
 people with a wide dominion and with 
 peace from the neighbouring tribes. That 
 reign w'as 500 years after the Exodus. 
 
 B 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 i8 
 
 Would any skilful forger have put words 
 into the mouth of Moses apparently pro- 
 mising, immediately on the conquest of 
 Canaan, rest and peace and security, 
 when it took 500 years of restless and 
 often unsuccessful war to attain security, 
 and even so, when the very next reign 
 saw the nation rent by an incurable 
 schism ? 
 
 We conclude, that, as the Pentateuch 
 bears all the traces on its brow of Egypt 
 and of the Desert, so also it must have 
 had its origin before the occupation of 
 Canaan. 
 
 (4) The language of the Pentateuch 
 is such as to suit the age and character 
 of Moses. The language is undoubted- 
 ly archaic. There are several words and 
 forms to be found in the Pentateuch, 
 and to be found nowhere else‘. 
 
 It is argued indeed, that these are not 
 so much archaisms as peculiarities; but 
 it is very singular that they should per- 
 vade the Pentateuch, which has, till of 
 late, been universally esteemed the most 
 ancient portion of the Bible, and that 
 they should be unknown in the other 
 books, even in those* connected with the 
 writers who have been fixed on as pro- 
 
 1 The most familiar and undoubted are the 
 following : 
 
 (o) The Pronoun of the third person singular, 
 except as pointed by the Masoretic Jews, has no 
 variety of gender. Everywhere else we have 
 {hoo) for “he,” and N'H {hee) {ox “she.” 
 In the Pentateuch we have NIH doing equal 
 d«ty for both. 
 
 (/i) In like manner “1^3 [na7tgar), “a youth,” 
 is common to both genders in the Pentateuch, 
 meaning indifferently “boy” or “girl,” In all 
 other books {nangar) is “a boy,” but 
 
 [jiangarah) is “a girl.” 
 
 (7) Then we have “these,” constantly 
 for the later form. We have the infinitive 
 
 of verbs in H ending in i instead of Dl, as 
 VK'JI, Gen. xxxi. aS; E.x. xviii. 18; 
 
 Gen. xlviii. ii. .So the third person plural pra’t, 
 constantly ends in 1-1 instead of the later form 
 in I. 
 
 (5) We have words peculiar to the Penta- 
 teuch, as “an ear of com;” 
 
 “a sack,” “a piece,” and to “divide 
 
 into pieces;” “a young bird;” *73.T, “a 
 
 jiresent,” and T3T, “to present;” “a 
 
 .sickle;” N.3P, “a basket;” D-ip.'n, “a sub- 
 stanee, an existing thing;” 3*^3 (for b'33), “a 
 lamb;” n}pp, “a veil;” (for I'l;), “a' city;” 
 “ a blood relation.” 
 
 bable forgers of the Pentateuch, such as 
 Samuel or Jeremiah. 
 
 It is argued again, that the language 
 of the Pentateuch, although in some few 
 fragments (such as Gen. iv. 23, 24, xiv. 
 Gen. xlix. &c,) apparently archaic, is for 
 the most part too like to later Hebrew 
 for us to believe that it came from Moses. 
 To this it may be replied that this is 
 really what we might expect. A language 
 is fixed by its great, and especially by its 
 popular, authors. It is commonly said, 
 that English has been fixed byShakspeare 
 and the translators of the Bible. * Moses, 
 putting aside all question of inspiration, 
 was a man of extraordinary powers and 
 opportunity. If he was not divinely 
 guided and inspired, as all Christians 
 believe, he must have been even a greater 
 genius than he has been generally reck- 
 oned. He had had the highest culti- 
 vation possible in one of Egypt’s most 
 enlightened times; and, after his early 
 training in science and literature, he had 
 lived the contemplative life of a shepherd 
 in Midian. We find him then, with a 
 full consciousness of his heavenly mis- 
 sion, coming forth as legislator, historian, 
 poet, as well as prince and prophet. 
 Such a man could not but mould the 
 tongue of his people. To them he was 
 Homer, Solon, and Thucydides, all in 
 one. Every one that knew anything of 
 letters must have known the books of 
 the Pentateuch. All Hebrew literature, 
 as far as we know, was in ancient times 
 of a sacred character, at all events no 
 other has come down to us; and it is 
 certain that writers on sacred subjects 
 would have been deeply imbued with the 
 language and the thoughts of the books 
 of Moses. Eastern languages, like east- 
 ern manners, are slow of change ; and 
 there is certainly nothing strange in our 
 finding that in the thousand years from 
 Moses to Malachi, the same tongue was 
 spoken and the same words intelligible ; 
 especially in books treating on the same 
 subjects, and where the earlier books 
 must have been the constant study of 
 all the writers down to the very last. It 
 is said? on the authority of Freytag, that 
 the inhabitants of Mecca still speak the 
 pure language of the Koran, written 1200 
 years ago. Egyptian papyri, with an 
 interv'al of 1000 years between them, 
 
THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 ^9 
 
 are said by Egyptologists to exhibit no 
 change of language or of grammar *. We 
 must not reason about such nations as 
 i-he Israelites, with their comparative iso- 
 lation and fixedness, from the Exodus to 
 the captivity, on the same principles as 
 we should think of the peoples of mo- 
 dern Europe, where so many elements 
 of change have conspired to alter and 
 to mould their language and their lite- 
 rature. The language of the Pentateuch 
 then is just what the language of Moses 
 would probably have been, simple, for- 
 cible, with archaic forms and expres- 
 sions, but, having formed and stamped 
 all future language, still readily intelligi- 
 ble to the last. 
 
 Question of Post-Mosaic Aut/iorship. 
 
 Having now seen that so many notes, 
 both external and internal, combine to 
 point out Moses as the author of the 
 Pentateuch, let us enquire whether all 
 or any of them belong to any later prince 
 or prophet. 
 
 Joshua may perhaps have been em- 
 ployed by Moses to assist him in his 
 writings, as he was employed to assist 
 him in his wars; and, of course, Joshua 
 had some of the experience of Moses 
 and all the teaching which Moses could 
 give him. Yet nothing points to Joshua 
 as the writer of the Pentateuch. He was 
 eminently a man of war in his early and 
 middle life, and in his old age he had 
 enough and more than enough to do in 
 holding his people in their obedience to 
 the laws. 
 
 Samuel was a prophet and a reformer, 
 but he is nowhere presented to us as 
 a legislator; especially it is impossible 
 that Samuel, except by a miracle, could 
 
 See Brugsch, ‘Revue Arch^ologique,’ 1867, 
 September, p. 179: “In comparing the demotic 
 papyrus (which Brugsch translates) with the 
 romance of the two brothers, even a superficial 
 examination shows not only that the language 
 and the formulae in the two papyri, separated 
 from each other by an interval of some thousand 
 years, are of the same kind ; but also, a point of 
 most special interest, even the grammar has not 
 undergone the least change.” It may be added 
 that between the papyrus of the two brothers, 
 written under the 3rd king of the 19th dynasty, 
 and the earliest inscriptions and papyri at least 
 1000 years earlier, there is nearly the same iden- 
 tity of language. 
 
 have written books which are so thick set 
 with indications of a knowledge of Egypt, 
 and a knowledge of Sinai. The laws of 
 Moses bear the mark of Egypt from end 
 to end; but Samuel could never have 
 come into contact with Egypt at all: 
 and indeed, as far as history shews us, 
 the Israelites from Joshua to Samuel 
 were utterly isolated from contact with 
 any, except the Canaanites and Philis- 
 tines, who were mixed up with them, 
 spread all around them, and with whom 
 they were at constant war. 
 
 David is as little likely as Samuel to 
 have had time for composing tlie Penta- 
 teuch or drawing up its sanctions. He 
 was a man of war, and though the dar- 
 ling and the hero of his people, yet by 
 no means exercising that kind of control 
 and influence, which is needful for one 
 who would impose a new code of civil 
 and religious laws. 
 
 Solomon is the first who appears to 
 have had much intercourse with Egypt 
 after the time of the Exodus, and his 
 extensive and comparatively peaceful 
 reign may appear more suited to the 
 introduction of a new code of legislation 
 than the reigns of any of his predeces- 
 sors or successors. We have seen, how- 
 ever, how Solomon in his building of the 
 Temple followed the pattern of the Ta- 
 bernacle. The reverse process, though 
 it has been suggested, is simply impos- 
 sible h His whole organization indeed 
 proceeds on the basis of the Pentateuch. 
 But his own history is the clearest proof, 
 that he was not the author of the laws 
 contained in it, or the history related in 
 it. In his earlier days we find him a 
 pious and a wise king. He follows out 
 the intentions of his father, and builds a 
 temple to succeed the old tabernacle of 
 the wilderness. But, as he advances in 
 years, he is spoiled by the wealth and 
 luxury, which his power has brought 
 around him. He multiplies wives and 
 lapses into idolatry, a sad instance of 
 one hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, 
 
 ^ Is it conceivable that Solomon, about to 
 build a Temple to be the glory of his nation and 
 for the special honour of his God, would have 
 constructed it in fashion like a tent of the desert, 
 in order that it might fit into the story of the 
 desert wanderings and the sacred tabernacle, 
 carried through the desert? 
 
 82 
 
20 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 and so falling from the living God. Can 
 we conceive the author, or even the chief 
 compiler and enlarger, of the laws and 
 ordinances of the Mosaic code and wor- 
 ship, so carefully and so wisely framed to 
 guard against the seductions of idol wor- 
 ship, being himself the first to fall away 
 under those seductions ? 
 
 But after the time of Solomon, the 
 possibility of the Pentateuch having 
 been written, and thus the laws of Mo- 
 ses enforced, becomes less and less. The 
 schism of the ten tribes constituted 
 a second kingdom, and the testimony, 
 not of one only, but of two nations, 
 would have been raised against such an 
 attempt. It is impossible to believe, that 
 in any subsequent reign such a book as 
 the Pentateuch, and such a code as that 
 of the Levitical law, with all its strict- 
 ness and the heavy burden of its ob- 
 servances, should have been imposed 
 upon the kingdom of Judah, either whilst 
 the ten tribes were still living in their 
 own land, or after they had been carried 
 captive to Assyria, and a remnant only 
 remained in Samaria. That the like 
 should have been attempted after the 
 return from captivity is even more im- 
 possible, and perhaps is not asserted by 
 any one. The Hebrew language was then 
 dying out, Chaldee rapidly taking its 
 place; and the classic simplicity of the 
 Pentateuch could not have had its origin 
 in the last days of the degeneracy of lan- 
 guage and literature. 
 
 It must be borne in mind, that any 
 man or succession of men, attempting to 
 write or even extensively to rearrange 
 and enlarge such a book as the Penta- 
 teuch, must have set to work in the most 
 diligent and systematic manner to do so. 
 
 It has been shewn, that from end t 
 end the Pentateuch and the laws of the 
 Pentateuch have deeply imbedded in 
 their words and thoughts ancient Egypt 
 and ancient Sinai. A forger or redactor 
 could only have exhibited such a phe- 
 nomenon by devoting himself with the 
 utmost care and attention to the study 
 of Egyptian customs and antiquities, and 
 to an acquaintance with the Sinaitic pen- 
 insula; and that too on the spot, in the 
 midst of those very countries. Nothing 
 less could have enabled him to produce 
 such a work. He must have studied 
 this with the most deliberate purpose, 
 and must have brought his study to bear 
 with the most consummate skill. Where 
 in the times of Samuel, Solomon, Heze- 
 kiah, Josiah, or Ezra, can we look for 
 such a man ? And beyond this, if modern 
 critical theories be true, we must look 
 not for one wise head and skilful hand, 
 that should have produced such a re- 
 sult : but the fabric must have grown 
 up bit by bit; an Elohist first, then a 
 first, second, third, fourth, or even more 
 Jehovists, who dovetailed their respective 
 stories and their laws of many colours 
 one into another, making a thing of 
 shreds and patches, which nevertheless, 
 when compacted together, has command- 
 ed the wonder of all ages, and every por- 
 tion of which has the same archaic cha- 
 racter, the same familiarity with the 
 Egypt of early dynasties, the same air of 
 the desert, the same apparent impress of 
 the great master’s hand. Such a result, 
 under the conditions of Jewish history, is 
 inconceivable as the work of any man; 
 but it is such as the wildest fancy cannot 
 attribute to an indefinite and widely 
 separated succession of many men. 
 
GENESIS 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Document Hypothesis . . . .21 Meaning and antiquity of the name 
 
 Unity of plan and purpose throughout . 22 JEHOFAH, nvith further reference 
 
 Dmision of book into Toledoth . .22 to Exod. ‘ti/. 2, 3 . . . ,26 
 
 Of the names of God^ as used in Genesis 24 Elohistic and Jeho’vistic passages . 28 
 
 — — — Exod. 'vi. 2, 3 25 Alleged inconsistency civith modern 
 
 Proper names compounded ^ith J AH . 26 science. . . . . .29 
 
 I F it be once admitted that the Pen- 
 tateuch, as a whole, is due to Moses, 
 there can be no difficulty in admitting 
 that Genesis, the most ancient part of 
 the Pentateuch, is due to him. If he 
 wrote the history of the Exodus, he, 
 either as author or compiler, must have 
 written the introductory history of the 
 times of the patriarchs. The unity of 
 design is very manifest throughout. Moses 
 was employed to mould and form a 
 simple and previously enslaved people 
 into an organized nation. He had to 
 give them a code of laws, civil and ec- 
 clesiastical, for the guidance of their na- 
 tional life. The infant people was to be a 
 theocracy, the germ and embryo of a 
 theocracy greater than itself, guarded 
 and isolated for fifteen centuries, till by 
 a new revolution it should expand intQ 
 the Church of Christ. It was obvious 
 therefore, that he, who had to write the 
 earliest chapters of its history, should 
 begin by tracing down its descent from 
 those who had from the first been the 
 depositaries and witnesses of the truth. 
 
 If, however, adverse criticism has been 
 busy in trying to dislocate all portions of 
 the Pentateuch, to disprove its unity, 
 and so to shake the evidence for its 
 Mosaic origin ; it has been signally busy 
 in so dealing with Genesis. If Moses 
 
 wrote the later books, he certainly wrote 
 Genesis; and on the other hand, if he 
 did not write Genesis, he wrote nothing. 
 Hence to shake the foundation of Gen- 
 esis is to destroy the fabric of the Penta- 
 teuch. The progress of the criticism has 
 been sufficiently gradual. It was sug- 
 gested long since by Vitringa, that Moses 
 may have had before him “documents 
 of various kinds coming down from the 
 times of the patriarchs and preserved 
 among the Israelites, which he collected, 
 reduced to order, worked up, and where 
 needful, filled in,” schedas et scrinia pa- 
 truni, apiid Israclitas conservata, Moseni 
 codegisse, digessisse, ornasse, et ubi dejicie- 
 bant, complesse (‘ Obs. Sac.’ i. c. 4). A 
 conjecture of this kind was neither un- 
 natural nor irreverent. It is very pro- 
 bable that, either in writing or by oral 
 delivery, the Israelites possessed tradi- 
 tions handed down from their forefathers. 
 It is consistent with the wisdom of Moses, 
 and not inconsistent with his Divine in- 
 spiration, that he should have preserved 
 and incorporated with his own work all 
 such traditions, written or oral, as had 
 upon them the stamp of truth. 
 
 The next step in the theory was, that 
 taken by Astruc in 1753, who taught, 
 that the names of God (Elohim and 
 J ehovah), occurring in the book of Gen- 
 
22 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 esis may distinguish respectively the do- 
 cuments or memoirs from which Moses 
 compiled his history. He believed that 
 there were no fewer than twelve docu- 
 ments, the two chief being the Elohistic 
 and the J ehovistic. 
 
 Later writers again have varied this 
 theory with every possible variation ; 
 some believing that there was one Elo- 
 hist, and one Jehovist document; others 
 that there were more than one Elohist, 
 and many J ehovists ; and exercising a 
 subtle ingenuity, most convincing at least 
 to themselves, they have traced minutely 
 the transitions from one document to 
 another, sometimes even in the midst of 
 a sentence, guided by some catchword 
 or form of expression, which they have, 
 as others think most arbitrarily, assigned 
 to the first or second Elohist, to the first, 
 second, third, or fourth Jehovist, accord- 
 ing to the number of authors in which 
 they respectively believe \ Another step 
 has been to suggest, that the different 
 documents, often, as it is alleged, giving 
 different versions of the same story, have 
 been carelessly and clumsily put toge- 
 ther. And a further still has been to 
 deny, that Moses could be either the 
 Elohist, the Jehovist, or the compiler 
 and redactor, it being evident that the 
 whole was a later work, due perhaps to 
 Samuel, perhap*^ to Hilkiah or Jeremiah, 
 perhaps still later to Ezra or some sur- 
 vivor from the captivity, or possibly to 
 a collection of the labours, the piously 
 fraudulent labours, of them all. 
 
 The salient points in their arguments 
 are these. There appear to be two ver- 
 sions of the history of the creation, the 
 first from Gen i. i to Gen. ii. 3, in which 
 only the name Elohim occurs, the other 
 from Gen. ii. onwards, in which the 
 name of Jehovah occurs in combination 
 with Elohim. Again, there appear two 
 accounts of the Flood, which though in- 
 terlaced in the book of Genesis, may be 
 disentangled. I'hese also are charac- 
 terized respectively by the same variety 
 in the names of God. Similar phenomena 
 are said to prevail throughout the book, 
 
 ^ An abstract of the different theories from 
 Astruc to the present day may be seen in Haver- 
 nick (‘Int. to I*cnt.’ ]■). 45, Translation, Clark, 
 Edinburgh), and ‘Aids to ]-'aith,’ M ‘Caul’s 
 Essay on ‘Mosaic Record of Creation,’ p, 191. 
 
 and even throughout the Pentateuch, but 
 these are the two most observable. Then 
 comes the well-known passage in Ex. 
 vi. 3, where the Most High says to Moses 
 that He was known to the fathers by the 
 name of El-Shaddai, but by the name Je- 
 hovah He was not known to them ; 
 whence the introduction of the name 
 Jehovah in the history of Adam, Noah, 
 Abraham, &c., is argued to be a proof of 
 later authorship. 
 
 It may be well then to shew : 
 
 First, that the Book of Genesis is not 
 an ill-digested collection of fragmentary 
 documents, but a carefully arranged nar- 
 rative with entire unity of purpose and 
 plan. 
 
 Secondly, that the use of the names of 
 God is neither arbitrary nor accidental, 
 but consistent throughout with the Mo- 
 saic authorship, and the general scope of 
 the history. 
 
 I. C/m(y of plan and purpose through- 
 out. 
 
 First then, as to the organic structure 
 of the book, though it may be somewhat 
 obscured by the modern division into 
 chapters and verses, as it was of old by 
 the Jewish division of the Pentateuch 
 into perashim or sections ; careful exami- 
 nation will shew, that the arrangement is 
 methodical and orderly from first to last. 
 
 The book begins with a general intro- 
 duction, from ch. i. i to ch. ii. 3, wherein 
 the creation of the universe is related in 
 language of simple grandeur, very possi- 
 bly in words handed down from the re- 
 motest antiquity, than which none could 
 be more fitted here for the use of the 
 sacred historian. 
 
 After this the book consists of a series 
 of 7 'oledoth., or genealogical histories, the 
 first of which is called “ the Toledoth of 
 the heavens and the earth,” ch. ii. 4; the 
 others being the respective histories of 
 the different families of man, especially 
 of the ancestors of the people of Israel, 
 from Adam to the death of Joseph*. The 
 
 ^ The word Toledoth has by some been ren- 
 dered “origins,” as “generations” cannot pro- 
 ])erly be used of the creation of heaven and 
 earth ; but it is not necessary to drop the figura- 
 tive language in a translation. By an easy meta- 
 ])hor, the word, which described well the family 
 history of a race of men, was applied to the 
 history of the ma.terial creation. The word? 
 moreover, as used in Genesis, does not mean a 
 
THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 
 
 great divisions of the book will be found 
 to be: 
 
 1. The Introduction, from ch. i. i to 
 ch. ii. 3. 
 
 2. The generations of the heavens 
 and the earth,” beginning with ch. ii. 4, 
 and extending on through the history of 
 the fall to the birth of Seth, ch. iv. 
 
 3. “ The book of the generations of 
 Adam,” from ch. v. to vi. 8. 
 
 4. “ The generations of Noah,” giving 
 tlie history of Noah’s family till his death, 
 from vi. 9 to end of ix. 
 
 5. “/I'he generations of the sons of 
 Noah,” giving an account of the over- 
 spreading of the earth, from x. i to xi. 9. 
 
 6. “The generations of Shem,” the 
 line of the promised seed, down to Abram, 
 Nahor, and Haran, the sons of Terah, 
 xi. 10 to 26. 
 
 7. “The generations of Terah,” the 
 father of Abraham., from whom also in 
 the female line the family was traced 
 through Sarah and Rebekah, from xi. 27 
 
 to XXV. Ilk 
 
 8. “ The generations of Ishmael,” from 
 
 XXV. 12 to XXV. 18. 
 
 9. “The generations of Isaac,” con- 
 taining the history of him and his family 
 fr^m the death of his father to his own 
 death, xxv. 19 to end of xxxv. 
 
 1 0. “ The generations of Esau,” xxxvi. 
 
 I — 8. 
 
 11. “The generations of Esau in 
 Mount Seir,” xxxvi. 9 to xxxvii. i. • 
 
 12. “ The generations of Jacob,” giv- 
 ing the history of Jacob and his sons to 
 his own death and the death of Joseph, 
 xxxvii. 2 to the end of ch. 1. 
 
 history of the mode in which persons or things 
 came into existence, but rather the history of 
 those who descended from them. Thus “the 
 Toledoth of Adam” gives the history of Adam 
 and his posterity. In like manner “ the Tole- 
 doth of the heavens and the earth” is the history 
 of the material universe and its productions. 
 See Keil on the ‘Pentateuch,’ Vol. i. pp. 70 
 sqcj. (Clark, Edinburgh). 
 
 ^ It seems strange that the “generations of 
 Abraham” should not be given distinctly from 
 those of his father, and Quarry thinks that the 
 title may have existed, and have fallen out of 
 the MS. just before the last clause of xii. 4. 
 The reasoir, however, which he himself assigns, 
 seems sufficient to account for the omission, viz. 
 that the history contained in this .section is that 
 of Abraham, Lot, Sarah, and of 'Isaac and 
 Rebekah (all descendants of Terah), down to 
 the death of Abraham, 
 
 23 
 
 Some of these sections relate only to 
 collateral branches and are brief. The 
 larger sections will be found to have sub- 
 divisions within them, which are carefully 
 marked and arranged. As a rule, in each 
 of these successive Toledoth^ the narra- 
 tive is carried down to the close of the 
 period embracQd, and at the. beginning 
 of each succeeding portion a brief repe- 
 tition of so much as is needed of the 
 previous account is given, and with it, 
 very often, a note of time. Thus the 
 Introduction is ushered in with the words 
 “ In the Beginning.” Then the second 
 section, referring to what has just been 
 recorded, announces “ The generations 
 of the heavens and of the earth when they 
 were created, in the day that the Lord 
 God made the earth and the heavens,” 
 ch. ii. 4. Then again ch. v. i, having 
 the same note of time (“ In the day,” 
 &c.) refers back to the account of cre- 
 ation, “ In the likeness of God made 
 He him, male and female created He 
 them,” &c. The next section, .vi. 9, 
 “ The Toledoth of Noah,” recapitulates 
 the character of Noah, the degeneracy 
 of man, and God’s purpose to destroy 
 all flesh. In xi. 10, the age of Shem 
 and the birth of his son two years 
 after the flood, are named. The like 
 plan is observable in the “Toledoth 
 of Terah,” xi. 27; “th# Toledoth of 
 Ishmael,” xxv. 12; “ of Isaac,” xxv. 19, 
 “ who was forty years old when he took 
 Rebekah to wife;” “of Esau,” xxxvi. i, 
 where his marriages are recorded again : 
 and lastly, in the case of Jacob (xxxvii. 2), 
 we find, in the verse immediately pre- 
 ceding (viz. xxxvii. i), a note telling us 
 the position of Jacob at the time, and 
 again in vv. 2 and 3 the age of Joseph 
 (“Joseph was seventeen years old”), 
 taking us back to a point of time twelve 
 years before the death of Isaac, which had 
 been before recorded, that so we might 
 see the new starting-point of the history. 
 
 Space will not allow the tracing of 
 similar recapitulations and notes of time 
 in the smaller sub-sections of the history. 
 It must suffice to observe that they are 
 very characteristic of the whole book, 
 and are had recourse to wherever per- 
 spicuity of narrative seems to require *. 
 
 ^ They are traced at length by Quarry (‘ Ge- 
 nesis,’ pp. 326 to 340). 
 
24 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 This brief review of the divisions of 
 Genesis shews that it was not a loosely 
 compacted structure, carelessly or clum- 
 sily thrown together by some one, who 
 found a variety of heterogeneous mate- 
 rials and determined to mass them all in 
 one : but that it was drawn up carefully, 
 •elaborately, and with distinct unity of 
 purpose; whether from pre-existing do- 
 cuments or i\ot it matters comparatively 
 little to enquire. 
 
 2 . Of the ?ia fries of God as used in the 
 Book of Genesis. 
 
 The names by which the Supreme Being 
 is called in the Old Testament, and espe- 
 cially in Genesis, are chiefly two, Elohim 
 and Jehovah, the one generally rendered 
 in the versions God, the other Lord. We 
 meet also with El (which is but a shorter 
 form of Elohim), with Elion, Most High, 
 (in the Pentateuch occurring only in Gen. 
 xiv. 1 8 in connection with El; El-Elion, 
 God most High, though in the Psalms it is 
 found with Elohim and Jehovah, and also 
 stands alone), and Shaddai, Almighty (in 
 the Pentateuch generally with El, El- 
 Shaddai; elsewhere standing alone). 
 
 The name Elohim is derived either 
 from the Arabic root Alaha, “to fear, 
 reverence, worship,” or, much more pro- 
 bably, from ialah) = “to be 
 
 strong, to be mighty'.” It is the simple, 
 generic name®of God, “ The Mighty.” 
 It does not occur in the singular in the 
 earlier books of Scripture, except in the 
 abbreviated form of El. The plural is 
 probably a })lural of excellence and ma- 
 jesty. As in Prov. ix. i, “wisdom,” occurs 
 in the i)lural Chochmoth, to signify wis- 
 dom in the abstract, including in itself 
 all the treasures of wisdom and know- 
 ledge; so Elohim in the plural is applied 
 to (lod, as comprehending in Himself 
 the fulness of all power and all the attri- 
 butes which the heathen ascribe to their 
 several divinities (see Smith’s ‘Diet, of 
 Bible,’ Art. Jehovah). Still the word is a 
 title rather than a name. It is applied 
 to false gods, as well as to the true, d'he 
 henthen nations round about the Israel- 
 ites would have recognized the existence 
 and the divinity of El and of the Elohim. 
 
 * It is more pro’.'able that the verb to signify 
 “ fear and worship ’’ is derived from the name 
 of tile Deity, than that the name of the I^eity 
 was derived from the verb signifying “ to fear.” 
 
 Jehovah, on the contrary, is as clear- 
 ly a proper name as Jupiter or Vishnu. 
 Elohim and fehovah are therefore as 
 distinguishable as Deus and fupiter ; the 
 difference being only in this, that, where- 
 as the worshippers of Jupiter admitted 
 “ gods many and lords many,” a multi- 
 tude of Dii, the w^orshippers of Jehovah, 
 on the other hand, believe in no Elohim 
 except Jehovah. We may see at once, 
 then, that there may be good reasons for 
 expecting the title Elohim to be chiefly 
 employed in some passages, whilst the 
 proper name Jehovah would be chiefly 
 employed in others. For instavice, in 
 the general account of creation it is very 
 natural that Elohim, the Mighty One, 
 the God of creation and providence, 
 should be the word in use. So, where 
 foreigners, people of heathen nations, as 
 Hagar, Eliezer of Damascus, the Egyp- 
 tians, &:c. are introduced, it is most na- 
 tural that the word Elohim should be 
 more frequent than Jehovah, unless 
 where some distinct acknowledgment 
 of Jehovah is intended. On the con- 
 trary, when the history of the chosen 
 people or their ancestors is specially con- 
 cerned, and the stream of the Theocracy 
 traced down from its fountain head, 
 then the special name of Him, who was 
 not ashamed to be called their God, 
 would probably be of more frequent use. 
 This, if kept clearly in view, will explain 
 many of the so-called Elohistic and Je- 
 hovistic phenomena in Genesis. Ano- 
 ther thing to be noted is this. The 
 Semitic tongues, especially the more 
 ancient and simpler forms of them, deal 
 much in repetition, and where our mo- 
 dern Aryan languages would put a pro- 
 noun, they very frequently repeat the 
 noun. From this general habit of repeti- 
 tion, and especially the habit of repeat- 
 ing the noun rather than using the pro- 
 noun, when in any one chapter or section 
 we And either the word Elohim or the 
 name Jehovah, we are very likely to find 
 the same frequently recurring. In con- 
 sequence of this, the several passages 
 will to an European eye look as if they 
 were strongly marked either by the title 
 Elohim, or by the name Jehovah. For 
 instance, it is alleged that in the first 
 account of creation, ch. i, ii. i — 3, 
 Elohim occurs thirty-five times, and 
 
THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 
 
 25 
 
 that there is here no other name of 
 God : but it has been replied, that, if it 
 occurred once, it was only natural, owing 
 to the uniformity of the whole passage, 
 that it should have occurred again at 
 each account of a separate creation, and 
 also that in modern language a pronoun 
 would have been substituted in many 
 cases for the repeated title or name. 
 Hence the thirty-five are in effect re- 
 ducible to one. The passage is scarcely 
 more really marked as Elohistic by the 
 name Elohim occurring thirty-five times, 
 than if it had occurred but once; for its 
 having occurred once would inevitably 
 lead to its continued and frequent recur- 
 rence 
 
 The most important passage in rela- 
 tion to this question is, of course, Exod. vi. 
 
 ^ Quarry, ‘on Genesis,’ pp. 341, 400, 401. 
 The following table of the alternation of the 
 names in the first 1 1 chapters is given by the 
 learned author, and will shew how different the 
 virtual occurrence of the respective names is 
 from the apparent, superficial occurrence on 
 which so much has been built : 
 
 
 
 E. 
 
 J- 
 
 i. ii. I — 3, Elohim 35 
 
 times 
 
 = I 
 
 ill. 1 — 5. Elohim 3 
 
 
 = 1 
 
 
 iv. I. Jehovah i 
 
 
 
 = I 
 
 2 — 16. Jehovah 8 
 
 
 
 = I 
 
 25. Elohim I 
 
 
 = I 
 
 
 26. Jehovah i 
 
 
 
 = I 
 
 V. I. Elohim 2 
 
 
 = I 
 
 
 22 — 24. Elohim 3 
 
 
 = I 
 
 
 29. Jehovah i 
 
 
 
 = r 
 
 vi. 2 — 4. Elohim 2 
 
 
 = I 
 
 
 3. Jehovah 1 
 
 
 
 = I 
 
 5 — 8. Jehovah 4 
 
 
 
 = I 
 
 9 — 22. Elohim 5 
 
 
 = I 
 
 
 vii. I — 5. Jehovah 2 
 
 
 
 = I 
 
 9. Elohim I 
 
 
 = I 
 
 
 16. Elohim 1 
 
 
 = I 
 
 
 Jehovah i 
 
 
 
 = 1 
 
 viii. I. Elohim 2 
 
 
 = I 
 
 
 15. Elohim I 
 
 
 = I 
 
 
 20 — 21. Jehovah 3 
 
 
 
 = i 
 
 ix. I — 6. Elohim 2 
 
 
 = I 
 
 
 8 — 17. Elohim 4 
 
 
 = I 
 
 
 26. Jehovah i 
 
 
 
 = I 
 
 Elohim 1 
 
 
 r= I 
 
 
 27. Elohim I 
 
 
 =: I 
 
 
 X. 9. Jehovah 2 
 
 
 
 = I 
 
 xi. 5 — 9. Jehovah 5 
 
 
 15 
 
 = I 
 
 12 
 
 “Hence for the purposes of the present en- 
 quiry, and as evidence of any predilection of 
 either name, the case is just as if in these eleven 
 chapters, in the order of succession and at the 
 distances here indicated, the name Elohim had 
 recurred singly 15 times, and the name Jehovah 
 12 times.” 
 
 2, 3, where according to the Authorized 
 Version,“ God spake untoMoscs,and said 
 unto him, I am Jehovah ; and I appeared 
 unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, 
 by the name of God Almighty, but by 
 my name Jehovah was I not known to 
 them.” The inference derived from this 
 passage has been this. The person, who 
 recorded these words of God to Moses, 
 would never have written a history of 
 still earlier times, in which tl:ie name 
 Jehovah should be introduced not only 
 in the narrative, but in the mouths of 
 the various speakers, from Eve down- 
 wards. Hence, no doubt, in his earlier 
 history the writer of this passage would 
 surely have been an Elohist. The parts 
 of Genesis then, which are characterized 
 by the use of the title Elohim, may pro- 
 bably be attributed to him : but all the 
 parts in which Jehovah predominates 
 were evidently added afterwards, and 
 must be due to some one who was not 
 alive to the incongruity of introducing 
 Jehovistic language into a history of 
 events and speeches prior to the revela- 
 tion of the name Jehovah. It follows, 
 of course, that the very first who could 
 possibly have written the original Elo- 
 histic narrative was Moses, the Jehovis- 
 tic portions being necessarily much later 
 than Moses. It is further argued, hov.-- 
 ever, that names compounded with the 
 sacred name of Jah or Jehovah do not 
 occur till the time of Samuel, hence 
 it is added that the name could not 
 have been known, nor the sixth chapter 
 of Exodus written, till the time of Sa- 
 muel : and further, it is now alleged that 
 the name Jehovah is unknown even to 
 the writer of the earlier Psalms, and that 
 therefore probably David learned it late 
 in life from its inventor Samuel. 
 
 The romance of modern criticism is as 
 remarkable as its perverse ingenuity ; for 
 when once a theory has been suggested, 
 its author and his followers proceed 
 forthwith to construct an elaborate his- 
 tory upon it, as much as if, instead of 
 excogitating a theory, they had discover- 
 ed a library of authentic records. The 
 wider the theory is from all that has 
 hitherto been believed from concurrent 
 testimony and careful enquiry, the more 
 it finds acceptance and is hailed as a 
 discovery. If we look a little closely 
 
26 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 into the foundations of the theory, it will 
 appear as baseless as other dreams. 
 
 First, as regards the names compound- 
 ed with Jah, we have at all events Joche- 
 bed, Joshua, Jonah, Jotham, Micah and 
 Jonathan and mount Moriah, besides 
 three named in Chronicles, Azariah (i 
 Chr. ii. 8), Abiah (i Chr. ii. 24), Ahijah 
 (i Chr. ii. 25), all of which at least ap- 
 pear to have been so compounded, and 
 which it is a gratuitous slander to say 
 were the inventions of later days. More- 
 over, it by no means follows, that one 
 age should have had the fashion of a 
 special form for the composition of 
 names, because we find that fashion 
 prevailing some centuries later. Names 
 compounded with any name of God are 
 rare in the early ages, but became com- 
 mon in the later. Secondly, as regards 
 the Psalms, there is no foundation what- 
 ever for saying that the earlier Psalms 
 are Elohistic and the later only Jeho- 
 vistic. Many of the manifestly and con- 
 fessedly later Psalms (as the 78th, 82nd, 
 1 14th, &c.) are eminently Elohistic, whilst 
 many of the earliest (as the 24th, 27 th, 
 34th, &:c.) are as eminently Jehovistic‘. 
 
 But again, the form and derivation of 
 the name J ehovah points to a pre-Mosaic 
 origin. Some of the German writers in- 
 deed have tried to trace the name to an 
 attempt at expressing in Hebrew letters 
 the name of the Phoenician god, lao. 
 Time will not allow of a lengthened con- 
 sideration of this theory here. Suffice it 
 to say that its chief support is an oracu- 
 lar response of the Clarian Apollo quoted 
 by Macrobius (‘Sat.’ i. c. 18) about 400 
 A. D. ; which has been clearly proved by 
 Jablonsky to have originated in a Juda- 
 izing gnostic^ 
 
 It is now generally admitted by com- 
 petent Semitic scholars, that the word 
 signifies “the existent” or something 
 nearly akin to this. The true pronuncia- 
 tion, of course, is lost ; but there can be 
 no reasonable doubt, that, as the name 
 of God declared to Moses in Ex. iii. 14, 
 viz. n'nx, I AM, is the first person pre- 
 sent of the substantive verb, so the name 
 
 ^ The Editor lias shewn this more at length 
 in his tract, called ‘The Pentateuch and the 
 Elohistic Psalms’ (Longman). 
 
 “ See the whole ([uestion discussed in Smith’s 
 ‘Diet, of Pible,’ i. p. 953, and Quarry, ‘Genesis,’ 
 p. 300 sqq. 
 
 Jehovah is part of the same, but pro- 
 bably the third person present, or, as 
 others think, the same tense of a causative 
 (Pliphil) form*. But if so, there can be 
 no question, as even Ewald fully admits, 
 that the name must have been pre- 
 Mosaic. In Hebrew the verb is always 
 hayah, though in Syriac and Chaldee it 
 is always havah, A name therefore de- 
 rived from havah and existing in ancient 
 Hebrew, must have come down from a 
 time prior to the separation of the He- 
 brews from their kindred Aramjeans, i.e. 
 not later than the time of Abraham. In 
 fact the name niiT (IHVH) could not 
 have been found among the Hebrews, at 
 any period of history from the descent 
 into Egypt to the captivity of Babylon : 
 and as it undoubtedly exists in Hebrew 
 writings prior to the captivity, so it must 
 have originated before the time of Joseph. 
 
 W e must conclude, then, that the name 
 Jehovah was not unknown to the patri- 
 archs, nor do the words of Exodus neces- 
 sarily mean that it was. These words 
 literally are, “ I am Jehovah : and I ap- 
 peared (or was manifested) to Abraham 
 and to Isaac and to Jacol3 by El-Shad- 
 dai, but My name Jehovah was I not 
 known to them:” that is to say, “I 
 manifested myself to the patriarchs in 
 the character of El-Shaddai, the Omni- 
 potent God, able to fulfil that which I 
 had promised ; but as to my name (/. e. 
 my character and attributes of) Jehovah 
 I was not made manifest to them^”« (So 
 liXX. Vulg. ovK iSrjXwaa, non indicavi), 
 T'he words strictly and naturally imply 
 this. The ancient versions seem to con- 
 firm this interpretation. It is no new 
 one framed to meet modern objections, 
 but was propounded by Aben Ezra 
 and Rashi among the Jews, and by 
 many of the most illustrious Christian 
 commentators of past times. 
 
 The theory then of the late invention 
 of this sacred name has really no founda- 
 tion. That its use was very much more 
 
 ^ Thus it corresponds in form M’ith such names 
 as Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, which are all the third 
 persons singular present of verbs. 
 
 * “In El-Shad lai” is interpreted to mean 
 “as El-Shaddai,” “in the character of El- 
 Shaddai,” (Gesen. Lex. s. v. 2 div. C.). “The 
 name of Jehovah,” as meaning the character of 
 Jehovah, is very common. Cf. Ps. v. il, viii. i, 
 ix. 10, Is. xxvi. 8, x.xx. 37. 
 
THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 
 
 27 
 
 prevalent after the revelation to Moses 
 in Exodus than it had been before, there 
 can be no reasonable doubt. God made 
 His special covenant with Abram, be- 
 ginning with the emphatic words, “ I 
 am El-Shaddai,” Gen. xvii. i. So again 
 on a like occasion He spake to Jacob, 
 Gen. XXXV. ii. Hence both Isaac and 
 Jacob seemed to lay especial stress upon 
 that name in times of trouble and anxiety 
 (see Gen. xxviii. 3, xliii. 14), as recalling 
 to them the faithfulness and the power 
 of their covenant God. But to Moses 
 the words are frequently spoken, “ I am 
 Jehovah,” and the covenant, which had 
 been assured to the patriarchs by God as 
 El-Shaddai, the Mighty God, is now 
 assured to the people of Israel, by the 
 same God, as Jehovah, the self-existent, 
 the cause of all being, governing the 
 past, the present, and the future. Let 
 us then suppose, that Moses had access 
 to, or knowledge of, oral or written 
 traditions concerning the Creation, which 
 must from the nature of the case have 
 been originally matter of revelation, the 
 Flood, the history of Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob; it is most likely that he would 
 liave made these the ground-work of his 
 history. If the name, Jehovah, was known 
 to the patriarchs, but had, as seems most 
 likely from the first chapters of Exodus, 
 been latterly but little used, perhaps 
 wholly disused, among the Israelites in 
 Eg>q)t; then it is pretty certain that 
 these traditions or documents would 
 have had lil, Elohim, or Elion, for the 
 name of God, perhaps even to the exclu- 
 sion of .the name Jehovah. In working 
 up these materials into a continuous his- 
 tory, some of the documents would be 
 preserved entire, others might be so ar- 
 ranged and so worded as to fit them to 
 be connecting links one with the other, 
 while we should probably find many por- 
 tions of the history in the hand of the au- 
 thor or compiler himself. If Moses was 
 that author, though he would often use 
 the name Elohim, we might naturally 
 expect to find that he had a fondness 
 for that sacred name by which the Most 
 High had declared Himself as the spe- 
 cial Protector of His people ; and hence 
 we might look for that name in passages 
 where another v/riter perhaps v/ould not 
 have introduced it. If, as we infer from 
 
 Josh. xxiv. 14, the Israelites in Egypt 
 had learned to serve strange gods, there 
 would be the more reason why Moses 
 should set before them the one true 
 God, as their own God, and exhibit Him 
 under His name, Jehovah, thereby the 
 more clearly to mark Him off from the 
 false Elohim of Egypt, and the false Elo- 
 him of Canaan. 
 
 Now the facts of Genesis remarkably 
 coincide with all this probability. Some 
 portions of the narrative do indeed pre- 
 sent what is called an Elohistic aspect; 
 and especially those portions, which, of 
 their very nature, are most likely to 
 have existed in the traditions current 
 from old time among the Israelites, viz. 
 the general account of the Creation, the 
 Flood, the covenant of circumcision made 
 with Abraham, and the genealogical 
 tables. These then Moses appears to 
 have adopted, much as he found them, 
 perhaps perpetuating, word for word, in 
 his writings what before had been float- 
 ing in unwritten record. Yet these por- 
 tions of the narrative are not loosely 
 thrown in, but rather carefully and or- 
 ganically incorporated and imbedded in 
 the whole. 
 
 For instance, in the history of creation, 
 we have first, in Gen. i. ii. i — 3, that 
 which was very probably the ancient pri- 
 meval record of the formation of the 
 world. It may even have been commu- 
 nicated to the first man in his innocence. 
 At all events, it very probably was the 
 great Semitic tradition, handed down 
 from Noah to Shem, from Shem to Abra- 
 ham, and from Abraham through Isaac, 
 Jacob and Joseph, to the Israelites who 
 dwelt in Egypt. Without interfering with 
 the integrity of this, the sacred author 
 proceeds in the same chapter to add a 
 supplementary history, briefly recapitu- 
 lating the history of creation, with some 
 little addition (in vv. 4 — 7), and then 
 proceeding to the history of Paradise, 
 the Fall, the expulsion, and the first bit- 
 ter fruits of disobedience. In the first 
 part of this second or supplementary 
 history we meet with a signal phenome- 
 non, viz. that, from ch. ii. 4 to the end 
 of chapter iii. the two names (or rather 
 the generic and the personal names) of 
 God, Jehovah and Elohim, are used 
 continually together. There is no other 
 
28 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 instance in Scripture of this continued 
 and repeated use of the united names. 
 It is evident, that the author, who adopt- 
 ed the first ancient record and stamped 
 it with authority, and who desired to 
 bring his people to a worship of the great 
 self-existent Jehovah, used this method 
 of transition from the ancient Elohistic 
 document to his own more immediate 
 narrative, in order that he might more 
 forcibly impress upon his readers, that 
 the Elohim who created all things was 
 also the Jehovah, who had revealed 
 Himself to Moses, and who was now 
 to be spoken of as the Protector and 
 King of the great Theocratic race, whose 
 history was to be traced down even 
 from the very creation of Adam. The 
 consistency and close connection of the 
 two parts is admitted by some, who are 
 far from admitting the Divine original 
 or high inspiration of the Pentateuch. 
 
 The second account,” says Kalisch {in 
 loci) “is no abrupt fragment; it is not 
 unconnected with the first; it is not su- 
 perfluous repetition; it has been com- 
 posed with clear consciousness after, and 
 with reference to, the first. The author 
 of the Pentateuch added to an ancient 
 document on creation the history of 
 man’s disobedience and its consequence. 
 ...The first account was composed in- 
 dependently of the second ; but the 
 second is a distinct and deliberate con- 
 tinuation of the first. ...It does not mere- 
 ly recapitulate, but it introduces new 
 facts and a new train of thought.” The 
 consistency of the two narratives, and 
 a consideration of the alleged incon- 
 sistencies, will be seen in the commen- 
 tary (on ch. ii. especially). One singular 
 point of resemblance it may be well to 
 point out here. In ch. i. 26, in the so 
 called bilohistic document, we have the 
 remarkable words, “ Let us make man,” 
 the plural pronoun used by the Almighty 
 Himself, and the appearance of deli- 
 beration. In ch. iii. 22 (in the so called 
 Jehovistic portion) we have again, “Be- 
 hold the man is become as one of us:” 
 again the very observable plural, and 
 again perhaps even more markedly 
 anthropomorphic language, as though 
 the Most High were taking counsel, 
 before executing His judgments. This 
 identity of thought and speech is very 
 
 observable. The like occurs again in 
 ch. xi. 6; where neither Elohim, nor Je- 
 HOVAH-Elohim, but Jehovah alone is 
 the name of God made use of*. There 
 is not space to go through the book of 
 Genesis and shew how similar principles 
 prevail throughout. If the basis of the 
 history of the Flood were an ancient Elo- 
 histic document, Moses appears to have 
 interwoven it with a further narrative of 
 his own. The one portion may be mark- 
 ed by the prevalence of one name, the 
 other by that of another name of God; 
 but the consistency of the one with the 
 other is complete throughout (see notes 
 on the history, infra). The same will 
 appear in other portions of Genesis, 
 though the creation and the flood most 
 clearly exhibit both the phenomena re- 
 lied on by the theorists and the facts 
 leading to a refutation of their theory. 
 
 It must not, however, be thought that 
 the variety in the employment of the 
 sacred names could have resulted only 
 from the variety of the materials used 
 by Moses and the additional matter 
 introduced by himself. Careful obser- 
 vation will shew, that, whilst often it 
 was a matter of indifference whether 
 the one or the other name was intro- 
 duced, yet there was no mere careless- 
 ness in the introduction. On the con- 
 trary, in most passages it is impossible 
 to doubt that the choice of the name 
 adopted is the happiest possible. 
 
 Thus in the first history of creation , 
 we have Elohim, the mighty one, God 
 of Creation and Providence, then in 
 order to mark the transition of subject 
 and yet the unity of the Being spoken 
 of, we have for two chapters Jehovah 
 Elohim; but when we come to the ivth 
 chapter and to Eve’s exclamation, when 
 she hoped that her firstborn should be 
 the ancestor of the promised seed, the 
 words ascribed to her connect her hope 
 with Jehovah, Him whom the Israelites 
 learned to look on as their covenant 
 God, who was to make good all the 
 promises to the fathers. Again, in ch. 
 
 V. the genealogy from Adam to Noah 
 has no Divine name except Elohim, till 
 we come, in v. 29, to the birth of Noah, 
 and his father’s pious anticipation that 
 he should be a comfort to his race, in 
 ^ See Quarry, p. 348. 
 
THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 
 
 29 
 
 reference to the earth, which had been 
 cursed. The use of the nanie Jehovah 
 in this verse points us at once to the 
 fact that Noah became the second head 
 of the Theocratic race, the new deposi- 
 tary of the promises of God. If we 
 pass on to ch. xiv. we are introduced 
 to Melchizedek, priest and king of a 
 Canaanitish people. He is a worship- 
 per of El-Elion^ God most High, this 
 being evidently the name by which the 
 Almighty was known to him and to his 
 countrymen. Once, however, the name 
 Jehovah occurs in the chapter, but it 
 is in the mouth of Abraham, and Abra- 
 ham evidently uses it that he may shew 
 that he acknowledges the El-Elion wor- 
 shipped by Melchizedek to be one and 
 the same with the Jehovah, who was the 
 God of Hebrews. ‘T have lift up my 
 hand to JEHOVAH, El-Elion, possessor 
 of heaven and earth,” xiv. 22. A similar 
 propriety of usage prevails throughout 
 Genesis, and will frequently be referred 
 to in the notes. 
 
 Again, verbal peculiarities are said to 
 distinguish the so called Jehovistic from 
 the so called Elohistic portions of the 
 'Pentateuch, so that, besides the variety 
 in the use of the names of God, it is 
 possible for a keen eye to disentangle 
 the different documents the one from the 
 other by noting the phraseology peculiar 
 to each. It will be plain that, if even 
 this were proved and patent, it would 
 still not interfere with the Mosaic origin 
 of* Genesis, so long as we admit that 
 Moses may have used the so called 
 Elohistic MSS. or traditions. The 
 Elohistic phraseology would then be 
 characteristic of the more ancient docu- 
 ments, the Jehovistic would belong to 
 Moses himself. It is, however, very 
 clear, that the peculiarities are greatly 
 magnified, if they exist at all. Some- 
 times indeed the theorists discover that 
 a passage must belong to the Elohist 
 for instance, because it contains Elohistic 
 expressions ; but then, though the name 
 Jehovah occurs in it, that name must 
 be a later insertion because it does not 
 correspond with the general wording of 
 the chapter. Thus the name Jehovah 
 in ch. xvii. i is argued to be evidently 
 out of place, because Elohim occurs 
 ever)'where else (ten times) in the chap- 
 
 ter. Surely this is constructing a theory 
 in despite, not in consequence, of the 
 facts on which it ought to stand 
 
 Again anthropomorphisms are said 
 to characterise the Jehovist passages. 
 This is by no means unlikely, consider- 
 ing that Jehovah is the personal name 
 of God, and that by which He was 
 pleased to reveal Himself familiarly to 
 His people; yet they are far from ex- 
 clusively belonging to the Jehovistic 
 portions. Lastly, all the indications of 
 a more advanced civilization, such as 
 the use of gold, jewels, earrings, musical 
 instruments, camels, servants, &c. are 
 assigned to the Jehovist, and are thought 
 to mark a period later than that of 
 Moses. But surely the Israelites, who 
 had dwelt for centuries in the fairest 
 province in Egypt, and Moses who had 
 been bred up in the court of a powerful 
 and luxurious Pharaoh, must have 
 been familiar with a civilization consider- 
 ably in advance of anything that we 
 read of in Genesis. Indeed the graphic 
 account which Genesis gives of the 
 simple habits of Abraham and the other 
 patriarchs is one proof of its antiquity 
 and its truth. It is very doubtful 
 whether an author even in the time of 
 Samuel, more than doubtful whether one 
 in the reign of Solomon, of Josiah, or 
 one of those who returned with Ezra 
 from captivity, could have written the 
 history of the forefathers of his race 
 with all the truthfulness, all the sim- 
 plicity, and all the accuracy of detail 
 to be found in the Book which is called 
 the First Book of Moses. Moses could 
 have written it, for he had every conceiv- 
 able qualification for writing it. The 
 writer of after times, who could have pro- 
 duced that book, must have been himself 
 a wonder, unsurpassed by any of those 
 wonders which he is supposed to have 
 devised and recorded. 
 
 The supposed inconsistency of the 
 statements in Genesis with the recent 
 
 ^ The distinction between the Elohistic and 
 Jehovistic words and phrases is carefully and 
 elaborately investigated by Mr Quarry (‘Genesis,’ 
 pp. 578 sqq.). The conclusion at which he 
 arrives is the very reverse of the conclusion 
 arrived at by the believers in the fragment 
 theory. 
 
30 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 
 
 discoveries of science will be found 
 treated of in the notes to the earlier 
 chapters. It may be well here only to 
 say, that in the present state of our 
 knowledge, both critical and scientific, 
 a patient suspension of judgment on 
 many points seems our wisest attitude. 
 It is plain that a miraculous revelation 
 of scientific truths was never designed 
 by God for man. The account of 
 creation is given in popular language; 
 yet it is believed that it will be found 
 not inconsistent with, though not an- 
 ticipatory of, modern discovery. And 
 after all, modern discovery is yet in a 
 most imperfect condition, the testimony 
 of the rocks and of the stars but im- 
 perfectly read, whilst there is room for 
 no small diversity of sentiment on the 
 meaning of many of the expressions 
 in Genesis. At present the greatest in- 
 consistency alleged as between Genesis 
 and science is to be found in the ques- 
 tion of the antiquity of man. Whilst 
 there is at least good reason for with- 
 holding confident assent from the con- 
 clusions of some eminent geologists as 
 to the evidence of the drift ; it is quite 
 possible to believe that Genesis gives 
 us no certain data for pronouncing on 
 the time of man’s existence on the earth. 
 The only arguments are to be drawn 
 from the genealogies. As those given by 
 the Evangelists are confessedly incom- 
 plete, there cannot be sufficient reason 
 for maintaining that those in Genesis 
 must have been complete. It is true 
 that we have only conjecture to lead 
 us here: but if the genealogies, before 
 and after the Flood, present us only 
 with the names of leading and “repre- 
 sentative” jnen; we can then allow no 
 small latitude to those who would extend 
 the duration of man upon the earth to 
 more than the commonly received six 
 thousand years. The appearance of 
 completeness in the genealogies is ar 
 
 undoubted difficulty ; yet perhaps not 
 insuperable, when we consider all that 
 may have happened (no where more 
 probably than here) in the transmis- 
 sion of the text from Moses to Ezra 
 and from Ezra to the destruction of Je- 
 rusalem. 
 
 Let us suppose that it had pleased 
 God to reveal to Moses the fact that 
 the earth revolves round the sun, a 
 fact familiar now to children, but un- 
 known to astronomers for more than 
 three thousand years after the Exodus. 
 The effect of such a revelation would 
 probably have been to place the believer 
 and the astronomer in a state of an- 
 tagonism. The ancient believer would 
 have believed the truth ; yet the ob- 
 server of the heavens would have tri- 
 umphantly convicted him of ignorance 
 and error. We can see plainly that the 
 wise course for both would have been 
 to suspend their judgments, believing 
 the Bible and yet following out the 
 teaching of nature. A Galileo would 
 then have been, not feared as a here- 
 tic, but hailed as a harmonist. There 
 appears now to some an inconsis- 
 tency between the words of Moses and 
 the records of creation. Both may be 
 misinterpreted. Further research into 
 science, language, literature and exegesis, 
 may shew that there is substantial agree- 
 ment, where there now appears partial 
 inconsistency. It would evidently have 
 served no good purpose, had a revela- 
 tion been vouchsafed of the Copernican 
 system, or of modern geological science. 
 Yet there maybe in Scripture truth popu- 
 larly expressed concerning the origin of 
 all things, truth not apparent to us, be- 
 cause we have not yet acquired the 
 knowledge to see and appreciate it. Cer- 
 tainly as yet nothing has been proved 
 which can disprove the records of 
 Genesis, if both the proof and the re- 
 cords be interpreted largely and fairly. 
 
THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, 
 
 CALLED 
 
 GENESIS. 
 
 « Psal. 1 
 6. 
 
 & 136. 5. 
 Acts 14.1 
 it 17. 24. 
 Hcbr. II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ! The creation of heaven and earth, 3 of the 
 light, 6 of the firma77ient, 9 of the earth sepa- 
 rated f7'oi7i the wate7's, 1 1 a7td 77iade fruitfid, 
 14 of the sn7i, moo7t, ami sta7's, ■20 offish a7id 
 fowl, 24 of beasts a7id cattle, 26 of /na7t hi 
 the i7nage of God. 29 Also the appoi7ttt7ie7it 
 of food. 
 
 I N "the beginning God created 
 the heaven and the earth. 
 
 2 And the earth was without form, 
 and void ; and darkness was upon the 
 
 face of the deep. And the Spirit of God ^ 
 
 moved upon the face of the waters. 
 
 3 And God said, *Let there be ^2Cor.4.6 
 
 light : and there was light. t 7.^. 
 
 4 And God saw the light, that it 
 
 was good : and God divided ^ the be twee • 
 light from the darkness. 
 
 Chap. I. 1 . In the beginnmg\ Not “first 
 in order,” but “in the beginning of all things.” 
 The same expression is used in Joh. i. i, of 
 the existence of the “Word of God,” “In 
 • the beginning was the Word.” The one 
 passage illustrates the other, though it is partly 
 by the contrast of thoughts. The Word 
 when the world was created. ' 
 
 God created^ In the first two chapters 
 of Genesis we meet with four different verbs 
 to express the creative work of God, viz. 
 I, to create; a, to make; 3, to form; 4, to 
 build. The first is used of the creation of 
 the universe (v. i); of the creation of the 
 great sea-monsters, whose vastness appears 
 to have excited special wonder (v. 21); and 
 of the creation of man, the head of animated 
 nature, in the image of God (v. 27). Every- 
 where else we read of God’s making, as from 
 an already created substance, the firmament, 
 the sun, the stars, the brute creation (vv. 7, 
 16, 25, &c.); or of His forming the beasts 
 of the field out of the ground (ch. ii. 19); or 
 lastly, of His building up (ii. 22, margin) 
 into a woman the rib which He had taken 
 from man. In Isai. xliii. 7, three of these 
 verbs occur together. “I have created him 
 for my glory, I have formed him, yea, I have 
 made him.” Perhaps no other ancient lan- 
 guage, however refined or philosophical, could 
 have so clearly distinguished the different acts 
 of the Maker of all things, and that because all 
 heathen philosophy esteemed matter to have 
 been eternal and uncreated. It cannot justly 
 be objected that the verb create, in its first sig- 
 ' nification, may have been sensuous, meaning 
 probably to he^ stone or to fell timber. 
 Almost all abstract or spiritual thoughts are 
 expressed by words which were originally 
 concrete or sensuous; and in nearly all the 
 
 passages of Scripture in which the verb in 
 question occurs, the idea of a true creation 
 is that which is most naturally implied. Even 
 where the translators have rendered it other- 
 wise, the sense is still clearly the same, e.g. in 
 Numb. xvi. 30, “If tne Lord make a nevj 
 thing (lit. create a creation), and the earth 
 open her mouth;” or again, Ps. Ixxxix. 47, 
 “ Wherefore hast Thou made (Heb. created) 
 all things for nought?” The word is evi- 
 dently the common word for a true and ori- 
 ginal creation, and there is no other word in 
 Hebrew which can express that thought. 
 
 the hea'ven and the earth'] The universe 
 popularly described according to its appear- 
 ance as earth and sky. In similar language, 
 as Grotius notes, the new creation, to be 
 hereafter looked for, is described 2 Pet. 
 iii. 13, as “new heavens and a new earth.” 
 The Hebrew word for hea-ven is always 
 plural, whether as expressive of greatness, or 
 perhaps of multitude, like the old English 
 plural, nvelkin. 
 
 2. And the earth nvas ^without form, and 
 Desolate and void. These two words, 
 express devastation and desolation. They 
 are used of the desert. Job xii. 24 ; xxvi. 
 7; of the devastated city, Isa. xxiv. 10; of 
 “the line of wasting, and the plummet of 
 destruction,” Isa. xxxiv. ii. In Jer. iv. 23 
 they describe the utter wasting of a con- 
 demned and desolated land. W hether in the 
 present verse they indicate entire absence of 
 life and order, or merely that the world was 
 not then, as now, teeming with life; whether 
 they express primeval emptiness, or rather 
 desolation and disorder succeeding to a former 
 state of life and harmony, cannot immediately 
 be determined. The purpose of the sacred 
 writer is to give a history of man, his fall, 
 
GENESIS. I. 
 
 32 
 
 [v. 5. 
 
 5 And God called the light Day, 
 and the darkness he called Night. 
 
 ^And the evening and the morning 
 were the first day. 
 
 
 
 t Heb. 
 
 A nd the 
 evenbig 
 
 his promised recovery, then specially of the 
 chosen seed, and of the rise of the Theocracy. 
 He therefore contents himself with declaring 
 in one verse generally the creation of all 
 things, and then in the next verse passes to 
 the earth, man’s place of abode, and to its pre- 
 paration for the habitation of man. Count- 
 less ages may have elapsed between what is 
 recorded in v. i, and what is stated in v. %. 
 Some indeed have insisted on the close con- 
 nection of V. z with V. I, because they are 
 united by the word And: but this particle, 
 though necessarily implying transition, does 
 by no means necessarily imply close connec- 
 tion. The Book of Leviticus begins with 
 “And the Lord called unto Moses.” The 
 Book of Exodus begins with the same word 
 And^ though centuries intervene between its 
 history and that of the Book of Genesis ; and 
 so our translators have very reasonably ren- 
 dered the Hebrew particle in that passage not 
 And^ but Nonjo. The meaning of the verse 
 before us evidently is, “In the beginning God 
 created the universe but, at the time now 
 to be spoken of, the earth, which is our chief 
 concern, was shapeless and waste. The verb 
 “was” as used in this verse implies, not 
 succession, but condition at the time in 
 question. 
 
 darkness (was upon the face of the deep\ 
 No light penetrated to the desolate and dis- 
 ordered ruin. The deep may mean cither 
 the confused mass itself, or, as more fre- 
 quently, the abyss of waters and the clouds 
 and mists with which the earth was sur- 
 rounded. 
 
 the Spirit of God moved upon the face of 
 the (waters'\ The Targum of Onkelos and 
 many Jewish commentators render “a mighty 
 wind was moving,” &c., which is favoured, 
 though not proved, by the absence of tlie ar- 
 ticle. The common rendering is the more 
 natural, especially if the word “moved” sig- 
 nifies, as some think, not merely fluttering or 
 hovering^ as of a bird over its nest, but also 
 brooding^ as of a bird sitting on its eggs. (See 
 Bent, xxxii. ii, where it is used of the eagle 
 fluttering over her young.) The Spirit of 
 God appears to be represented as the great 
 quickening principle, hovering or brooding 
 over the earth and the ocean, and breathing 
 forth upon them light and life. 
 
 3. God said] In the cognate languages 
 the word here rendered said has the force of 
 commanded. 
 
 Let there be light: and there was light] 
 'Was light created liefore the creation of the 
 sun and other luiviinous bodies? That this 
 is possible has been shewn by Dr M'^Caul, 
 
 ‘Aids to Faith,’ p. zio, &c. ; but very pro- 
 bably the creation of the sun is related in v. i, 
 where under the word heaven (or heavens) 
 may be comprehended the whole visible uni- 
 verse of sun, moon, and stars. Now, the 
 history is going on to the adaptation of the 
 earth for man’s abode. In v. z a thick dark- 
 ness had enveloped it. In this 3rd verse the 
 darkness is dispelled by the word of God, 
 the light is separated from the darkness, and 
 the regular succession of day and night is esta- 
 blished. Still probably there remains a cloud- 
 ed atmosphere, or other obstacle to the full 
 vision of sun and sky. It is not till the fourth 
 day that these impediments are removed and 
 the sun appears to the earth as the great 
 luminary of the day, the moon and the stars 
 as' reigning in the night. Light may, perhaps, 
 have been created before the sun. Yet the 
 statement, that on the first day, not only was 
 there light, but the succession of day and 
 night, seems to prove that the creation of the 
 sun was “in the beginning,” though its visible 
 manifestation in the firmament was not till the 
 fourth day. 
 
 4. God savj the light., that it (was good] 
 The earlier the records, the more we find 
 in them of anthropopathic language, as the 
 better fitted to simple understandings. The 
 design of words like these is to express em- 
 phatically, that all the works, as they came 
 direct from the hand of God, were good, and 
 that the evil did not result from any defect in 
 the workmanship, but from the will of the 
 creature not according with the will of the 
 Creator. 
 
 divided the light from the darkness] In 
 the chaotic condition described in v. 2, all 
 things were confused and commixed; but, 
 when God called the light out of darkness. 
 He set bounds to both of them, and caused a 
 succession of day and night, calling the light 
 day and the darkness night. 
 
 5. And the evening and the morning (were 
 the first day] Literally, “And it was (or 
 became) evening, and it was (or became) 
 morning, day one.” 
 
 Some think the evening is put before the 
 morning, because the Jews reckoned their 
 days from evening to evening. Others think, 
 that, as the darkness was first and the light 
 called out of darkness, so the evening (in 
 Heb. ereb., the time when all things are mixed 
 and confounded) is placed before the morning; 
 and thus the whole period of chaotic darkne.ss 
 may have been the first night, and the first 
 day that period of light which immediately 
 succeeded the darkness. 
 
 See Note A at end of the Chapter. 
 
V. 6—14.] 
 
 GENESIS. 1. 
 
 33 
 
 e Psal. 136. 
 5 - 
 
 Jer. 10. 12. 
 
 51. 15- 
 
 t Heb. e.v- 
 pansion. 
 
 rfjet. 51. 
 
 ^ Psal. 33. 
 
 h 136. 5. 
 Job 38. 8. 
 
 6 ^ And God said, ‘'Let .there be 
 a ^firmament in the midst of the 
 waters, and let it divide the waters 
 from the waters. 
 
 7 And God made the firmament, 
 and divided the waters which were 
 under the firmament from the waters 
 which were above the firmament : 
 and it was so. 
 
 8 And God called the ‘^firma- 
 ment Heaven. And the evening and 
 the morning were the second day. 
 
 9 H And God said, ‘'Let the 
 waters under the heaven be gathered 
 together unto one place, and let the 
 dry land appear : and it was so. 
 
 10 And God called the dry land 
 
 Earth; and the gathering together of 
 the waters called he Seas : and God 
 saw that it was good. 
 
 1 1 And God said. Let the earth 
 bring forth ^ grass, the herb yielding f Heb. 
 seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit 
 after his kind, whose seed is in itself, 
 upon the earth: and it v/as so. 
 
 12 And the earth brought forth 
 grass, and herb yielding seed after his 
 kind, and the tree yielding fruit, 
 whose seed was in itself, after his 
 kind: and God saw that it was good. 
 
 13 And the evening and the morn- 
 ing were the third day. 
 
 14 ^ And God said. Let there 19 ' \ 
 be .^lights in the firmament of the 
 
 6. Let there be a Jirmament] The earth is 
 spoken of as covered with waters, partly, that 
 is, the waters of the sea, partly the heavy 
 clouds and vapours, which hung round it in 
 its state of desolation and darkness. The 
 dispersion of some of these vapours lets in the 
 light. Then, in the present verse, the clouds 
 and mists are described as raised up above 
 the firmament, the firmament itself dividing 
 between the waters of the ocean and the 
 clouds of heaven. It is plain from this that 
 the word rendered firmament embraces the 
 atmosphere imnnediately surrounding the sur- 
 fiice of the earth, which bears up the clouds 
 floating in it, in or on the face of which also 
 the birds are described as flying (see v. 20). 
 In V. 14 the word is extended further 
 to embrace the whole region of the sky in 
 which sun and moon and stars appear. In 
 this respect, as Le Clerc notices, it cor- 
 responds with the classical word ccelum^ 
 'xvhich meant at times the air just round us, at 
 other times the place of the stars and planets; 
 and so likewise of our own English word 
 heaven^ we may say the birds of heaven, the 
 clouds of heaven, or the stars of heaven. The 
 original sense of the word has been much de- 
 bated, but is of little consequence; for the 
 sacred writer would use the common language 
 of his people, and not go out of his way to 
 devise one which would be philosophically 
 accurate. The verb, from which the sub- 
 stantive is derived, signifies (i) to beat or 
 stamp upon, Ezek. vi. ii, xxv. 6; (2) to 
 spread abroad by stamping, 2 S. xxii. 4.; ; 
 (3) to beat out metal into thin plates, or gold 
 into gold leaf, Ex. xxxix. 3, Num. xvi. 38, 
 Isai. xl. 19; (4) to spread forth, extend, 
 stretch out, Job xxxvii. 18, Ps. cxxxvi. 6, 
 Is. xlii. 5, xliv. 24. The most probable mean- 
 ing of the substantive therefore is the expanse 
 VOL. I. 
 
 or the expansion. The LXX. rendered it y^r- 
 mament (see here Quarry ‘ on Genesis,’ p. 79) ; 
 and hence it has been argued that Moses 
 taught the sky to be a hard, metallic vault, 
 in which the sun and stars were fixed ; but 
 the most learned modern commentators, in- 
 cluding Gesenius, Kalisch, &c., believe the 
 true etymology of the word to shew that 
 expanse., not firmament^ is the right translation. 
 The teaching however of the present passage 
 does not depend on the etymology of the word. 
 If a writer in the present day uses the English 
 word hea^ven. it does not follow, that he sup- 
 poses the sky to be a vault hea’ved up from 
 the earth. Neither would it follow that the 
 inspired writer had taught, that the portion of 
 atmosphere, intervening between the sea and 
 the clouds, was a solid mass, even if the word 
 used for it had etymologically signified solidity, 
 
 11. Let the earth bring forth grass~\ We 
 have here the first calling forth of life upon 
 the earth, vegetable life first, soon to be suc- 
 ceeded by animal life. The earth v/as made ' 
 fruitful, and three kinds of vegetation wero 
 assigned to it ; the tender grass, the com- 
 mon covering of the soil, fit chiefly for the • 
 use of the lower animals ; herb bearing seed, 
 which should be adapted to the service of ' 
 man ; and trees, with their conspicuous fruits; 
 all three so ordained, that their seed should 
 be in themselves, that they should contain,, 
 not a principle of life only, but a power also.- 
 of fecundity, whereby the race should be per- 
 petuated from generation to generation. 
 
 14 . Let there be light s~\ Lit. luminaries, 
 light-bearers., spoken of lamps and candle- 
 sticks, Ex. xxv. 6, Num. iv. 9, 16. The 
 narrative only tells what sun, moon, and stars 
 are in relation to the earth. When the clouds 
 and mists are dispelled from its surface, the 
 
 C 
 
34 
 
 GENESIS. I, 
 
 [v. 15—24. 
 
 \^wenikl divide Ehe day from the 
 
 day and iiight ; and let them be for signs, 
 ^'i/ieZight. ^^*1 Er seasons, and for days, and 
 years : 
 
 15 And let them be for lights in 
 the firmament of the heaven to give 
 light upon the earth ; and it was so. 
 
 16 And God made tv/o great 
 ’ the greater light Eo rule the 
 
 tiu-day, day, and the lesser light to rule the 
 niirht : he made the stars also. 
 
 O 
 
 17 And God set them in the 
 firmament of the heaven to give light 
 upon the earth, 
 
 ^Jer. 31.35. 18 And to ^ rule over the day 
 
 and over the night, and to divide the 
 light from the darkness ; and God 
 saw that it was good. 
 
 19 And the evening and the morn- 
 Fsdr were the fourth day. 
 
 6. 47! 20 And God said, '''Let the waters 
 
 bring forth abundantly the “moving"®'’’ 
 
 = ‘1 1 1 +t-r 1 r Hcreepi 7 ig. 
 
 creature that hath ' life, and row! t Heb. 
 that may fly above the earth in the ' 
 ^open firmament of heaven. t Heb. 
 
 21 And God created great whales, 
 and every living creature that moveth, 
 which the waters brought forth abun- 
 dantly, after their kind, and every 
 v/inged fowl after his kind : and God 
 saw that it was good. 
 
 22 And God blessed them, saying, 
 
 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fUl'chap. s. ' 
 the waters in the seas, and let fowl Si g. i. 
 multiply in the earth. 
 
 23 And the evening and the morn- 
 ing were the fifth day. 
 
 24 ^ And God said. Let the earth 
 bring forth the living creature after 
 his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, 
 and beast of the earth after his kind ; 
 and it was so. 
 
 seas confined within their boundaries, and 
 the first vegetation springs up ; then the 
 sky is cleared up, the sun, moon, and stars 
 appear and assume their natural functions, 
 marking days and nights, seasons and years; 
 and God makes or appoints them, the sun to 
 rule the day, and the moon to rule the night. 
 
 16. be made the stars also'] The purpose 
 of the sacred narrative being to describe the 
 adaptation of the earth to the use of man, no 
 account is taken of the nature of the stars, 
 as suns or planets, but merely as signs in the 
 heavens. The words in the text may be a 
 kind of parenthesis, not assigning the special 
 time of the creation of the stars. Moreover, 
 the word used is “made,” not “created,” see 
 on V. I. When t^ie Sun and Moon became 
 great lights to rule the day and to rule the 
 night, then also the stars shone forth; the 
 heavens were lit up by the sun in the day- 
 time, by the m.oon and stars in the night- 
 season, all of them declaring the glory of God 
 and shewing I lis handy-work. 
 
 20. the iuo^ntig creature] The versions ren- 
 der reptiles. 'I'he word is of wide significance, 
 most frequently used of reptiles and fishes; the 
 verb from which it comes, and which is here 
 tran.slatcd “ bring forth abundantly,” means 
 to sauar/u, to creep, to propagate itself rapidly. 
 WT* may probably therefore understand here 
 the insect creation, the fishes of the sea, and 
 the reptiles and saurians of sea and land. 
 
 that hath life] Literally perhaps, “ Lot 
 the waters swarm with swarms of the breath 
 of life.” l.et the waters teem with innu- 
 merable crc.iiures, in wliich is the breath of 
 
 life. The word nephesh. which we have 
 rendered breath, corresponds nearly with the 
 classical p.p'r/jc, the vital principle. It is used 
 of the breath, of the living principle, of the 
 soul or seat of feelings and aftections, and of 
 living beings themselves. 
 
 and fowl, &c.] and let fowl fly. 
 
 21. great whales] Great sea mon- 
 sters. The word is used of serpents. Ex. vii. 9, 
 Dent, xxxii.33, Ps. xci. 13, Jer. li. 34, and of 
 the crocodile, Ezek. xxix. 3, xxxii. 2. It is 
 not likely that the Israelites should have had 
 much knowledge of the larger species of whales 
 which do not frequent the shores of the Medi- 
 terranean. Their early acquaintance with 
 Egypt had impressed them with a horror (d' 
 the crocodile, and in the desert they had 
 become familiar with large serpents. In 
 Is. xxvii. 1, and perhaps in Job vii. 12, this 
 name apparently belongs to sea monsters; but 
 we may remember that the Hebrews applied 
 the term sea to great rivers also, like the Nile 
 and the Euphrates. (See Is. xix. 5, Jer. li. 36, 
 E/.ek. xxxii. 2, Nahum iii. 8.) It seems, on the 
 whole, most probable, that the creatures here 
 said to have been created were serpents, croco- 
 diles, and other huge saurians, though possibly 
 any large monsters of sea or river may be in- 
 cluded. The use of the word created in this 
 place has already been remarked on v. i. 
 Another reason for its use may be, that, as the 
 Egyptians paid idolatrous worship to croco- 
 diles, the sacred historian would teach that 
 they also were creatures of God. 
 
 24. The fifth day was chiefly occupied 
 in peopling the waters with fishes and reptile.s, 
 
V. 25. 26.] 
 
 GENESIS. I. 
 
 25 And God made the beast of the 
 earth after his kind, and cattle after 
 their kind, and every thing that creep- 
 eth upon the earth after his kind : and 
 God saw that it was good. 
 
 26 ^ And God said, -^Let us make ^chap. 5. 
 man in our image, alter our likeness; &9. c. 
 and let them have dominion over the 
 fish of the sea, and over the fowl of 
 the air, and over the cattle, and over Coi. 3. 10. 
 
 and the air with birds. The work of the 
 si.Kth day gives inhabitants to the land, 
 ‘‘cattle” (i.e. the well-known animals, which 
 afterwards became dome.sticated, though the 
 name was not exclusively attached to them), 
 ‘‘ and creeping things,” such as serpents, lizards, 
 crawling insects and the like, “and beast of 
 the earth,” i. e. either the wilder and fiercer 
 beasts, as distinguished from cattle, or perhaps 
 more generally animals of all kinds. 
 
 26 . And God said^ Let us make mand] It 
 has been observed by commentators, both 
 Jewish and Christian [e. g. Abarbanel, in loc. 
 Chrysost. in loc.)^ that the deliberation of the 
 Creator is introduced, not to express doubt, 
 but to enhance the dignity of the last work, 
 the creation of man. So even Von Bohlen, 
 “A gradual ascent is observed up to man, the 
 chief \\'ork of creation, and in order to exalt 
 his dignity, the act of his creation is accom- 
 panied by the deliberations of the Creator.” 
 The creative fiat concerning all other creatures 
 runs, “ Let the waters bring forth abundantly,” 
 “Let the earth bring forth,” &c. Man is that 
 great “piece of work,” concerning which God 
 is described as taking forethought and counsel, 
 as making him in His otvn image, and (ch. ii. 
 7) as breathing into him the breath of life. 
 Three times in v. 27 the verb created is used 
 concerning the production of man ; for, though 
 his bodily organization may, like that of the 
 beasts, have been produced from already 
 created elements (“the dust of the ground,” 
 ch. ii. 7); yet the complex being, man, “of a 
 reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting,” 
 was now for the first -time called into being, 
 and so was, unlike the beasts, wholly a new 
 creation. 
 
 Let us 7 nake'] The Jews vary much in their 
 explanation of these word^. Philo speaks of 
 “the Father of all things addressing his own 
 powers” (‘ De Profugis,’ p. 359). The Tal- 
 mud says, “The Holy One, Blessed be He, 
 does nothing without consulting the family 
 which is above” {Sanhed. c. iv.). Moses 
 Gerundinus says, that God addressed the 
 earth, for, as the earth was to give man 
 the body, whilst God was to infuse the spirit, 
 so “in our likeness” was to be referred both 
 to God and to the earth. Abenezra writes, 
 “When, according to God's commandment, 
 the earth and the sea had brought forth 
 plants and living beings, then God said to 
 the angels, ‘ Let us make man, we will be 
 occupied in his creation, not the seas and the 
 earth.'” So he considers man to have been 
 
 made after the likeness of the angels. To a 
 similar effect Maimonides, ‘More Nevochim,’ 
 p. ii. ch. 6. See Munster in loc.. Cleric, in loc., 
 Heidegger, p. 32. 
 
 Some interpreters, both Jewish and Chris- 
 tian, have understood a plural of dignity, after 
 the manner of kings. This is the opinion of 
 Gesenius and most of the Germans. But the 
 royal style of speech was probably a custom 
 of much later date than the time of Moses. 
 Thus we read Gen. xli. 41-44, “I have 
 set thee over the land of Egypt .... I am 
 Pharaoh.” Indeed this royal style is unknown 
 in Scripture. Some of the modern rationalists 
 believe (or affect to believe) that the plural 
 name of God, Elohim, was a mere relic of 
 ancient polytheism, and that though Moses 
 habitually attaches a singular verb to the plural 
 nominative, yet here “the plural unconsciously 
 escaped from the narrator’s pen” (Von Bohl.). 
 The ancient Christians with one mind see in 
 these words of God that plurality in the Divine 
 unity, which was more fully revealed, when 
 God sent His only begotten Son into the 
 world, and when the only begotten Son, who 
 was in the bosom of the Father, declared 
 Him to mankind. So e. g. Barnabas (ch. iv.), 
 Justin M., Irenaeus, Theophil., Epiphan. 
 (‘Hasres.’ xxxiii. 4-2), Theodoret (‘Quaest. in 
 Gen.’). 
 
 in our image, after our likeness^ Many 
 Christian writers think that nothing is meant 
 except that man was created holy and inno- 
 cent, and that this image of God was lost 
 when Adam fell. That holiness, indeed, 
 formed part of the likeness may be inferred 
 from Col. iii. 10, “the new man, which is 
 renewed after the image of Him that crf^ated 
 him;” but that the image of God was not 
 wholly obliterated by the fall seems clear 
 from Gen. ix. 6, Jas. iii. 9. And, if so, then 
 that image did not simply consist in perfect 
 holiness. Some, both Jewish and Christian, 
 have supposed that it referred to that do- 
 minion, which is here assigned to man. As 
 God rules over all, so man was constituted 
 the governor of the anim.al world. St Basil 
 M. in ‘Hexaemeron’ (qu. by Clericus) con- 
 siders that the likeness consisted in freedom 
 of will. This probably is a most important 
 point in the resemblance. The brute creatures 
 are gifted with life and will and self-con- 
 sciousness, and even with some powers of 
 reason ; but they have no self-determining will, 
 no choice between good and evil, no power 
 of self-education, no proper moral character, 
 
 C 2 
 
 \ 
 
 
GENESIS. 1. 
 
 [v. 27—31. 
 
 36 
 
 all the earth, and over every creeping 
 thing that creepeth upon the earth. 
 
 27 So God created man in his own 
 image, in the image of God created he 
 i Matt. 19. him; '"m^ale and female created he them. 
 Wisd. 2. 28 And God blessed them, and God 
 
 »?chap. 9. said unto them, "'Be fruitful, and mul- 
 replenish the earth, and sub- 
 due it: and have dominion over the 
 fish of the sea, and over the fowl of 
 the air, and over every living thing 
 tHeb that ^moveth upon the earth. 
 
 29 H And God said. Behold, I have 
 given you every herb ^bearing seed. 
 
 which is upon the face of all the earth, 
 and every tree, in the which is the fruit 
 of a tree yielding seed; "to you it ” chap. 9. 
 shall be for meat. 
 
 30 And to every beast of the earth, 
 and to every fowl of the air, and to 
 everything that creepeth upon the 
 earth, wherein thereis Uife, I have ziven ^ 
 
 1 1 r ° 1 • " living 
 
 every green herb for meat : and it soui. 
 was so. 
 
 3 1 And God saw every thing that " EccIus. 
 he had made, and, behold, it was very ^ 
 good. And the evening and the morn- 
 ing were the sixth day. 
 
 and so no true personality. God is the essen- 
 tially personal Being, and in giving to man an 
 immortal soul, He gave him also a true 
 personality, self-coiisciousness, powder of free 
 choice, and so distinct moral responsibility. 
 
 NOTE A on Chap. i. v. 5. 
 
 The vexed question of the duration of the 
 days of creation cannot readily be solved from 
 consideration of the wording of this verse. 
 The English Version would seem to confine it 
 to natural days, but the original will allow 
 much greater latitude. Time passed in regular 
 succession of day and night. It was an inge- 
 nious conjecture of Kurtz, adopted by Hugh 
 Miller, that the knowledge of pre-Adamite 
 history, like the knowledge of future ages, 
 may have been communicated to Moses, 
 or perhaps to the first man, in prophetic 
 vision, that so perhaps vast geological periods 
 were exhibited to the eye of the inspired 
 writer, each appearing to pass before him as 
 so many successive days. It has been said 
 moreover that the phenomena under the earth’s 
 surface correspond with the succession as de- 
 scribed in this chapter, a period of compara- 
 tive gloom, with more vapour and more car- 
 bonic acid in the atmosphere, then of greater 
 light, of vegetation, of marine animals and huge 
 reptiles, of birds, of beasts, and lastly of man. 
 (See Kurtz, Vol. i. p. xxvii. sq., Hugh Miller, 
 ‘ Test, of Rocks,’ passim, &c.) In the present 
 condition of geological science, and with the 
 great obscurity of the record of creation in 
 this chapter, it may be wise not to attempt 
 an accurate comparison of the one with the 
 other. Some few jwints, however, seem 
 clearly to come out. In Genesis, first of all, 
 creation is spoken of as “in the beginning,” a 
 period of indefinite, possibly of most remote 
 distance in the past; secondly, the progress of 
 the preparation of the earth's surface is de- 
 scribed as gradually advancing from the rocks 
 to the vegetable world, and the less perfectly 
 organised animal creation, then gradually 
 
 All this was accompanied at first with perfect 
 purity and innocence ; and thus man was like 
 his Maker, intelligent, immortal, personal, with 
 powers of forethought and free choice, and 
 at the same time pure, holy and undefiled. 
 
 On the Days of Creation. 
 
 mounting up through birds and mammals, 
 till it culminates in man. This is the course 
 of creation as popularly described in Genesis, 
 and the rocks give their testimony, at least in 
 the general, to the same order and progress. 
 The chief difference, if any, of the two wit- 
 nesses would s'eem to be, that the Rocks speak 
 of (i) marine plants, (2) marine animals, (3) 
 land plants, (4) land animals in their succes- 
 sive developements ; whereas Moses speaks of 
 (i) plants, (2) marine animals, (3) land ani- 
 mals; a difference not amounting to diver- 
 gence. As physiology must have been nearly 
 and geology wholly unknown to the 'Semi- 
 tic nations of antiquity, such a general cor- 
 respondence of sacred history with modern 
 science is surely more striking and import- 
 ant than any apparent difference in details. 
 Efforts have been made to compare the In- 
 dian cosmogony with the Biblical, which 
 utterly fail. The cosmogony of the Hindoos 
 is thoroughly adapted to their Pantheistic 
 Theology, the Hebrew corresponding with 
 the pure personal Monotheism of the Old 
 Testament. The only important resemblance 
 of any ancient cosmogony with the Scriptural 
 account is to be found in the Persian or Zo- 
 roastrian ; which is most naturally accounted 
 for, first by the fact, which will be noticed 
 hereafter, that the Persians, of all people, ex- 
 cept the Hebrews, were the most likely to 
 have retained the memory of primitive tradi- 
 tions, and secondly, that Zoroaster was pro- 
 bably brought into contact with the Hebrews, 
 and perhaps with the prophet Daniel in the 
 court of Darius, and may have learned muen 
 from such association. 
 
V. 1—4.] 
 
 GENESIS. 11. 
 
 37 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I The first sabbath. 4 The manner of the crea- 
 tion. 8 The planting of the garden of Eden, 
 10 and the river thereof. 17 The tree of 
 knowledge only forbidden. 19, 20 The na 7 n- 
 iug of the creaiiii'es. 2 r The making of wo- 
 man, and mstitution of ma^'riage. 
 
 T hus the heavens and the earth 
 v/ere finished, and all the host 
 of them. 
 
 2 "And on the seventh day God « Exod. 
 ended his work which he had made; ^ 
 and he rested on the seventh day from ^ 
 all his work which he had made. Heb. 4. 4. 
 
 3 And God blessed the seventh day, 
 
 and sanctified it: because that in it 
 he had rested from all his work which 
 God ^created and made. Hieb. 
 
 4 ^ These are the generations o^Ziake^^° 
 
 Chap. II. 3. And God blessed the seoeenth 
 day'\ The natural interpretation of these words 
 is that the blessing of the Sabbath was imme- 
 diately consequent on the first creation of man, 
 for whom the Sabbath was made (Mar. ii. 27). 
 It has been argued from the silence concerning 
 its observance by the patriarchs, that no Sab- 
 batic ordinance was really given until the 
 promulgation of the Law, and that this pas- 
 sage in Genesis is not historical but anticipatory. 
 There are several objections, which seem fatal 
 to this theory. It is first to be observed, that 
 this verse forms an integral part of that history 
 of the creation, which, if there be any truth 
 in the distinction, is the oldest portion of the 
 Pentateuch, the work of the Elohist, very 
 possibly handed down from the earliest ages 
 of the world, and taken by Moses as the very 
 groundwork of his inspired narrative. Second- 
 ly, the history of the patriarchs extending 
 over at least 2500 years is all contained in the 
 book of Genesis, and many things must have 
 been omitted, much more memorable than 
 the fact of their resting on the Sabbath, which 
 in their simple pastoral life would seldom have 
 called for special notice. Thirdly, there are 
 indications even in Genesis of a division of 
 days into weeks or hebdomades. Thus Noah 
 is said twice to have waited seven days, when 
 sending the dove out of the ark, Gen. viii. 
 10, 12. And the division of time into weeks 
 is clearly recognized in the history of Jacob, 
 Gen. xxix. 27, 28. The same hebdomadal 
 division was known to other nations, who are 
 not likely to have borrowed it from the 
 I sraelites after the time of the Exodus. M ore- 
 over, it appears that, before the giving of 
 the commandments from Mount Sinai, the 
 Israelites were acquainted with the law of the 
 Sabbath. In Ex. xvi. 5 a double portion of 
 manna is promised on the sixth day, that 
 none need be gathered on the Sabbath. This 
 has all the appearance of belonging to an 
 acknowledged, though perhaps neglected, or- 
 dinance of Divine Service, not as if then for 
 the first time the Sabbath were ordained and 
 consecrated. The simple meaning of the text 
 is theretore by far the most probable, viz. 
 that God, having divided His own great work 
 into six portions, assigned a special sacredness 
 to the seventh on which that work became 
 
 complete; and that, having called man into 
 being. He ordained him for labour, but yet 
 in love and mercy appointed that one-seventh 
 of his time should be given to rest and to the 
 religious service of his Maker. This truth is 
 repeated in the ivth Commandment, Ex. xx. 
 1 1 ; though there was a second and special 
 reason why the Jews should observe the 
 Sabbath day, Deut. v. 15 : and very probably 
 the special cjay of the seven, which became 
 the Jewish Sabbath, was the very day on which 
 the Lord brought them from the land of 
 bondage, and gave them rest from the slavery 
 of Egypt. If this reasoning be true, all man- 
 kind are interested in the sanctification of the 
 Sabbath, though Jews only are required to 
 keep that Sabbath on the Saturday; and not 
 only has it been felt by Divines that the 
 religious rest of the seventh day is needful for 
 the preservation of the worship of God, but 
 it has been acknowleged even by statesmen 
 and physiologists that the ordinance is invalu- 
 able for the physical and moral benefit of 
 mankind. The truly merciful character of 
 the ordinance is fully developed in the Law, 
 where it is extended not only to the man- 
 servant and maidservant, but to the ox and 
 the ass and the cattle, that they also should 
 rest with their masters, Ex. xx. 10, Deut. v. 14. 
 
 ^hich God created and made\ Lit. “which 
 God created to make.” So the Targum 
 of Onkelos and the Syriac version render it. 
 The Vulgate has “which God created that 
 He might make it.” Ofi the difference 
 between the verbs create and make see on 
 ch. i. I. The natural meaning of the words 
 here is, that God first created the material 
 universe, “the heavens and the earth,” and 
 then made, moulded and fashioned the new 
 created matter into its various forms and 
 organisms. This is the explanation of the 
 R. Nachmanides, “all His work which He 
 had created out of nothing, in order that He 
 might make out of it all the works which 
 are recorded in the six days.” (Quoted by 
 Fagius, ‘Grit. Sacri.’) 
 
 4 . These are the generations, &c.] The 
 Jews tell us, that, when these vv'ords occur 
 without the copulative and, they separate the 
 words following from those preceding, but 
 
38 
 
 GENESIS. II. 
 
 the heavens and of the earth when 
 they were created, in the dav that the 
 Lord God made the earth and the 
 heayens, 
 
 [V. S- 
 
 5 And every plant of the held be- 
 fore it was in the earth, and every 
 herb of the field before it grew: for 
 the Lord God had not caused it to 
 
 that when they have the and^ then they unite 
 with the preceding. It is apparent, that the 
 narrative proceeds in direct order fioni Gen. 
 i. I to this verse, ii. 4, and that from tliis 
 verse there is a return to the first formation 
 of plants and vegetables and to the creation 
 of man, a kind of recapitulation, yet with 
 some appearance of diversity. This has been 
 noticed long ago. In the 17th century (1655) 
 Is. Peyreyrius wrote a book to prove, that 
 the account of the creation of man in ch. i. 
 related to a pre-Adamite race, from which 
 sprang a great majority of the Gentiles, 
 whereas the account in ch. ii. was of the 
 creation of Adam, the direct ancestor of the 
 Israelites and of the nations in some degree 
 related to them. The book was condemned 
 and suppressed. Some modern writers have 
 more or less embraced its views, but it seems 
 that the whole Bible, both Old and New 
 I'estament, refers to Adam as the head of the 
 whole human race, so that, if pre- Adamite 
 man existed at all, the race must probably have 
 been extinguished before Adam was created. 
 Moreover, ch. ii. 4 sqq. is evidently a conti- 
 nuation of ch. i., although there is a return 
 or recapitulation in vv. 4, 5, 6, 7, in order to 
 prepare the way for an account of Paradise 
 and the fall. See note at end of the chapter. 
 
 The word “generations,” toledoth^ which 
 occurs for the first time in this verse, meets 
 us again continually at the head of every prin- 
 cipal section of the Book of Genesis. Thus 
 ch. V. I, we have “ the book (or account) of 
 the generations of Adam,” in which the de- 
 scendants of Adam are traced to Noah. From 
 ch. vi. 9 we have the generations of Noah, 
 where the history of Noah and his sons is 
 given. In ch. x.i we come upon the generations 
 of the sons of Noah, where the genealogical 
 table and the history of the descendants of 
 Shem, Ham, and Japhet are recorded. Ch. 
 xi. (10 — 26) gives us the generations (or 
 genealogical table) of Shem. Ch. xi. 27 be- 
 gins the generations of Terah, the father of 
 Abram. Ch. xxv. 12 gives us the generations 
 of Ishmael. Ch. xxv. 19 the generations of 
 Isaac. Ch. xxxvi. i, the generations of Esau; 
 xxxvii. 2, the generations of Jacob, which are 
 continued to the end of the bouk. 
 
 The word itself naturally signifies the gene- 
 ration or posterity of any one. It is used in 
 general to usher in a history of the race or 
 descendant of the heads of the great patri- 
 archal families. The application of the word 
 here is very appropriate. The primary crea- 
 tion of all things liail just been recorded ; tlie 
 
 sacred writer is about to describe more in de- 
 tail the results of creation. The world had 
 been made ; next comes a history of its na- 
 tural productions, its plants and trees, and 
 chief inhabitants. And as the history of a 
 man’s family is called the “book of his gene- 
 rations,” so the history of the world's produc- 
 tions is called “ the generations of the heavens 
 and the earth.” 
 
 ‘when they were created] By these words 
 the inspired writer reveals the truth set 
 forth in the former chapter, that heaven 
 and earth were creatures of God, “ the gene- 
 rations” referring to what is to come after, 
 not to what preceded, as though the universe 
 had sprung from generation or natural produc- 
 tion. 
 
 the Lord God] It has long ago been 
 observed that the sacred name JEHOVAH 
 occurs for the first time here in verse 4. The 
 Jews give as a reason, that the works being 
 now perfected, the perfect name of God, “the 
 Lord God,” is for the first time adopted. It 
 seems most probable, that the sacred writer, 
 having in the first chapter recorded the crea- 
 tion as the act of God, giving to Him then 
 His generic name as the Supreme Being, now 
 passes to the more personal history of man and 
 his immediate relation to his Maker, and there- 
 fore introduces the more personal name of 
 God, the name by which He became afterwards 
 known to the patriarchs, as their God. The 
 union of the two names JEHOVAH Elohim 
 throughout chapters ii. iii. is singularly ap- 
 propriate, as indicating that the Elohim of the 
 first chapter is the same as the JEHOVAH 
 who appears afterwards in the fourth chap- 
 ter, and from time to time throughout the 
 history. On the names of God and the docu- 
 ments in Genesis, see Introduction to Genesis. 
 
 5 . And e'very plant of tlx feld] So the 
 LXX. and the Vulg. But the Targums, the 
 Syr., Rashi, and the most distinguished mo- 
 dern Hebraists, such as Rosenmulier, Gese- 
 nius, &c., translate, “Now no plant of 
 the field was yet in the earth, and 
 no herb of the field had yet sprout- 
 ed forth; for the LORD God had not 
 caused it to rain upon the earth, 
 and there was not a man to till the 
 ground.*' 
 
 It was objected long ago, and the objection 
 is repeated with all its force by the German 
 critics of the day, that this is opposed to 
 ch. i. II, where we read, “ God said, Let the 
 eartii bring forth grass,” See. Hence it is 
 
V. 6 — 8.] 
 
 GENESIS. II. 
 
 39 
 
 rain upon the earth, and there was not 
 a man to till the ground. 
 nOr, 6 But II there went up a mist from 
 
 V/iiJi the earth, and watered the whole face 
 /rom%c ground. 
 
 7 And the Lord God formed man 
 
 the ‘^dust of the ground, and breath- t iieb. 
 ed into his nostrils the breath of life ; 
 and “"man became a living soul. 15. 
 
 8 ^ And the Lord God planted a^^iCor. 
 garden eastward in Eden ; and there 
 he put the man whom he had formed. 
 
 inferred tliat the first and second chapters 
 constituted two independent and contradic- 
 tory traditions, clumsily put together by the 
 compiler of Genesis. The difficulty had been 
 anticipated by R Nachman, who observes, 
 that this passage does not refer to the pro- 
 duce of the earth created on the third day, 
 but to those herbs and plants, which are raised 
 by the cultivation of man. L. de Dieu also 
 (‘ Critica Sacr.’ in loc.) notices, that the words 
 rendered plants field and gre-zv^ never occur in 
 the first chapter, they are terms expressive 
 of the produce of labour and cultivation ; so 
 that the historian evidently means, that no 
 cultivated land and no vegetables fit for the 
 use of man were yet in existence on the earth. 
 
 the Lord God had not caused it to rain 
 upon the earthy and there zvas not a man to till 
 the ground. ( 6 ). But there zuent up a mist^ 
 &c.] It is objected here also, that the first 
 chapter speaks of the earth as enveloped in 
 waters and vapours, and that there could 
 therefore have been no lack of rain and mois- 
 ture. The inconsistency is again more appa- 
 rent than real. In the first place, the mist, or 
 vapour, or cloud, here mentioned as watering 
 the ground, may perhaps tally well with that 
 watery condition of the atmosphere, of which 
 we read in ch. i. But next, the purpose of 
 ch. ii. is to give an account, not of the crea- 
 tion or adaptation of the whole earth, but of 
 the preparation of a special chosen spot for 
 the early abode of man. That spot may have 
 been in a region where little or no rain fell, 
 and which derived all its moisture from va- 
 pours or dews. It may not have been wholly 
 Avithout vegetation, but it was not a culti- 
 vated field ; no herbs, or shrubs, or fruit- 
 trees fitted for man’s use grew there; no rain 
 was wont to fall there (as some render it, 
 “not even a mist went up to water the 
 ground,” or more probably), “ yet there went 
 u[) a mist and watered the whole face of the 
 ground.” When the Creator made Adam, 
 that he might not wander about a helpless 
 savage, but that he might have a habitation 
 suited to civilized life, a garden or cultivated 
 field was planted for him, provided with such 
 vegetable produce as was best adapted to his 
 comforts and wants. 
 
 is said to have created man in His own image, 
 because the production of a rational, personal, 
 responsible being clothed with a m.aterial 
 body was a new creation. Spiritual beings 
 existed before; animal natures had been called 
 forth from earth and sea ; man had an animal 
 nature like the beasts, but his spiritual nature 
 was in the likeness of his Maker. So in this 
 chapter again the Creator is described as 
 forming man from the earth, and then breath- 
 ing into him a living principle. It is probably 
 not intended that the language should be phi- 
 losophically accurate, but it clearly expresses 
 that man's bodily substance was composed 
 of earthly elements, whilst the life breathed 
 by God into his nostrils plainly distinguishes 
 that life from the life of all inferior animals. 
 All animals have the body, all the living soul, 
 ch. i. 20, 21, but the breath of life, breathed 
 into the nostrils by God Himself, is said of 
 man alone. Cp. “the body, soul and spirit” 
 of ancient philosophy and of the Apostle 
 Paul. 
 
 See note A at the end of this chapter. 
 
 8. a garden'] The versions render a 
 Paradise^ which is a Persian word, signifying 
 rather a park than a garden, pleasure grounds 
 laid out with shrubs and trees. 
 
 in Eden] The word Eden signifies de- 
 light, and the Vulgate renders a garden of 
 delight., a pleasure garden ; but the word is a 
 proper name, and points to a region, the extent 
 of which is unknown. Two countries are 
 mentioned in Scripture with the same name, 
 viz., one in Mesopotamia near the Tigris, 
 2 K. xix. 12, Is. xxxvii. 12, Ez. xxvii. 2j; 
 the other in the neighbourhood of Damascus, 
 Amos i. 5 ; but neither of these can be iden- 
 tified with the region in which Pai'adise was 
 placed. Much has been written on ‘the site 
 of Paradise, but with no very definite result. 
 The difficulty consists in discovering the four 
 rivers mentioned in vv. ii, 12, 13, 14. It is 
 generally agreed that one, Phrath (v. 14) is the 
 Euphrates, and that another, Hiddekel, is the 
 Tigris, and so it is rendered by all the ancient 
 VSS. The name of the Tigris in Chaldee is 
 Diglath, in Syriac Diklath, in Arabic Dijlat, 
 all closely corresponding with Hiddekel, and 
 from one of them the word Tigris itself is 
 probably a corruption. The following are 
 the principal opinions as to the names of the 
 other rivers, and consequently as to the site 
 of Paradise. 
 
 7. ylnd the Lord God formed man of the 
 dust of the ground., 8:0.] Here again, as in i. 26, 
 27, the formation of man is ascribed to the 
 direct workmanship of God. In ch. i. God 
 
40 
 
 GENESIS. 11. 
 
 [v. 9. 
 
 9 And out of the ground made the food: the tree of life also in the midst 
 Lord God to grow every tree that of the garden, and the tree of know- 
 is pleasant to the sight, and good for ledge of good and evil. 
 
 1. Josephus identified the Gihon with the 
 Nile. 
 
 2. Calvin, Huet, Rochart, and others be- 
 lieved the river of Paradise to have been the 
 united streams of the Tigris and Euphrates 
 called the Shat-el-Arab, which flows by Bas- 
 sora. Its four heads, on their shewing, would 
 have been, on the north, the two separate 
 streams of the Tigris and Euphrates, on the 
 south, Gihon, the eastern, and Pison, the 
 western channels, into which the united stream 
 again branches out below Bassora, before it 
 falls into the sea. Havilah would then be the 
 north-eastern part of Arabia, and Cush the 
 region of Kissia, Susiana or Chuzestan. A 
 general exposition of this view may be found 
 in Wells, ‘ Geog. of the O. T.,’ ch. i. 
 
 3. J. D. Michaelis, Rosenmuller, and Karl 
 Von Raumer, who appear to be followed by 
 Kurt/,, identify Eden with the Armenian 
 highlands, making Pison to be the Phasis or 
 A raxes, and Gihon to be the Oxus, Havilah 
 is with them the country of the Chwalissi, 
 which is said even now to be called by the 
 Russians Chwaliskoje More. 
 
 4. Heidegger believed that Eden was a 
 portion of the Holy Land. 
 
 5. Others again find the site in India or 
 Circassia. 
 
 Of these ofwnions No. i is utterly untena- 
 ble. Tlie identification of Gihon with the 
 Nile probably originated with the Alexandrian 
 Jews, who for the honour of their country 
 would have had the Nile to be one of the 
 rivers of Paradise. This was confirmed by 
 the mistranslation of Cush into Ethiopia. It 
 is impossible, however, setting aside all ques- 
 tions of inspiration, that one so familiar with 
 Egyjrt as tlie writer of Genesis should have 
 conceived of the Nile as connected with the 
 I'igris and Euphrates. See Kurt/, ‘ Hist, of 
 Old Covenant’ (Clark’s Library), Vol. i. p. 73. 
 
 No. 2 has the advantage of pointing to a 
 single river, which might in primitive times 
 have been described as branching out into 
 four divisions or heads. Moreover, Arabia, in 
 which certainly was a region called Havilah, is 
 near to the western channel, whilst Chu/estan, 
 which may have corresponded with the land 
 of Cush, borders on the eastern channel. 
 
 'I'he chief dilhculty in No. 3 is that at pre- 
 sent there is no junction between the heads 
 of the four rivers, 'I'igris, Euphrates, Oxus, 
 and A raxes, though all may take their rise in 
 the same mountain system, and may possibly 
 in more ancient times have been more nearly 
 related. 'I'he (luestion is one which has been 
 mvich discussed, and is not likely soon to be 
 set at rest : but the weight of argument and 
 
 of authority seems in favour of No. 2, or 
 something nearly corresponding with it ; and 
 it is the solution (more or less) adopted by the 
 best modern interpreters. 
 
 9 . made the Lord God to We 
 
 must understand this of the trees of Paradise 
 only. 
 
 the tree of life also in the midst of the 
 garden'] Jewish and many Christian com- 
 mentators consider that there was a virtue in 
 this tree, which was calculated to preser\'e 
 from diseases and to perpetuate animal life. 
 Kennicott (‘Two Dissertat.’ Diss. i.) argued 
 that the word “tree” is a noun of number, 
 whether in the Hebrew or the Greek (comp. 
 Rev. xxii. 2), and that all the trees of Para- 
 dise, except the tree of knowledge, “the true 
 test of good and evil,” were trees of life, in 
 the eating of which, if man had not sinned, 
 his life would have been perpetuated continu- 
 ally. The fathers inclined to the belief that 
 the life to be supported by this tree was a 
 spiritual life. So St Augustine (‘ De Gen. ad 
 lit.’ VIII. 4) says, “ In other trees there was 
 nourishment for Adam ; but in this a s:icra- 
 ment,” i.e. The tree was a sacrament or mys- 
 tic image of, and perhaps also supporting, life 
 eternal. Its reference, not to temporal, but 
 to eternal life, seems to be implied in Gen. iii. 
 22. In Prov. iii. 18, Wisdom is compared to 
 the tree of life: and in Prov. xiii. 12, we read, 
 “ When the desire cometh, it is a tree of 
 life,” which connects it with the hope of the 
 future. And so perhaps we may say pretty 
 confidently, that whatever was the physical 
 effect of the fruit of this tree, there was a les- 
 son contained in it, that life is to be sought 
 by man, not from within, from himself, in 
 his own powers or faculties, but from that 
 which is without him, even from Him who 
 only hath life in Himself. God only hath 
 life in Himself; and the Son of God, who by 
 eternal generation from the Father hath it 
 given to Him to have life in Himself, was 
 tyjfified to Adam under this figure as “the 
 Author of eternal salvation.” Joh. i. 4, xiv. 
 6, Rev. ii. 7, xxii. 2 (see Fagius in loc. and 
 Heidegger, ‘ Hist. Patriarch.’ Exerc. iv.). 
 
 the tree of knowledge of good and evil] 
 Onkelos paraphrases, “of the fruit of which 
 they who eat learn to distinguish between 
 good and evil.” The tree appears to have 
 been the test, whether man would be good 
 or bad; by it the trial was made whether 
 in keeping God’s commandments he would 
 attain to good, i.e. to eternal life, or by 
 breaking them he should have evil, i.e. eter- 
 
V. lO — 17.] 
 
 GENESIS. II 
 
 41 
 
 10 And a river went out of Eden to 
 water the garden ; and from thence 
 it was parted, and became into four 
 heads. 
 
 rfEccUts. 1 1 The name of the first is “^Pison : 
 
 24- 29. compasseth the whole 
 
 land of Havilah, where there is gold; 
 
 12 And the gold of that land is 
 good; there is bdellium and the onyx 
 stone. 
 
 13 And the name of the second 
 river is Gihon : the same is it that 
 
 Cil/i compasseth the whole land of Tthiopia. 
 
 14 And the name of the third ri/er 
 is Hiddekel : that is it which goeth 
 
 •I toward the east of Assyria. And the n Or, 
 fourth river is Euphrates. 
 
 15 And the Lord God took lithe 11 or, 
 man, and put him into the garden 
 Eden to dress it and to keep it. 
 
 16 And the Lord God command- 
 ed the man, saying. Of every tree 
 of the garden ^ thou mayest freely 
 
 eat ; ^/lou skait 
 
 17 But of the tree of the knowledge 
 of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of 
 
 nal death. The lesson seems to be, that man 
 should not seek to learn what is good and 
 evil from himself but from God only; that 
 he should not set up an independent: search 
 for more knowledge than is fitting, throwing 
 off the yoke of ob-edience and constituting 
 himself the judge of good and ill. Some have 
 thought that the tree had not this name from 
 the first, but that it was given it after the 
 temptation and the fall, either because the 
 tempter had pretended that it would give 
 wisdom, or because Adam and Eve, after 
 they had eaten of it, knew by bitter experi- 
 ence the difference between good and evil. 
 
 12. bdellium'] a transparent gum obtained 
 from a tree (Borassus Jiabelliformis) which 
 grows in Arabia, India, and Media (Plin. ‘H. 
 N.’ XII. 9. § 19). This is the translation of 
 Aqu., Symm., Theod., Vulg. : Josephus and 
 many moderns, as Celsius (‘Hierob.’ i. 324), 
 Cleric, in loc. adoptit. The LX X. renders “the 
 carbuncle;*’ the Arabic, “sardius;” Kimchi, 
 Grotius, Bochart, Gesenius, and others, with 
 great probability take it to mean “ pearls,” 
 of which great abundance was found in India 
 and the Persian Gulf, and this falls in well 
 with Bochart’s belief, that Havilah bordered 
 on the Persian Gulf. It appears far more 
 probable that it should mean either pearls or 
 some precious stone than a gum like bdellium, 
 which is of no great value. 
 
 the onyx] Most of the versions give “onyx” 
 or “ sardonyx;” Onkelos has “ beryl.” 
 
 13 . Ethiopia] Cush, This is a word of 
 wide extent. It generally belongs either to 
 Arabia or to Ethiopia. From Gen. x. 7 sqq. 
 it will appear how widely the sons of Cush 
 spread forth : their first settlement appears to 
 have been in Arabia. Nimrod founded the 
 kingdom of Babylon. Afterwards they set- 
 tled largely in Ethiopia. In the more an- 
 cient books of Scripture, the Asiatic Cush is 
 more frecpiently, perhaps exclusively, intend- 
 ed. Later the name applies more commonly 
 
 to African Cush, i.e. Ethiopia. 
 
 14 . toward the east of Assyria] The 
 name Asshur included Babylonia, and even 
 Persia: see E/ravi. 22, where Darius is called 
 King of Assyria: but in the time of Moses 
 probably Assyria proper would be under- 
 stood, a region of low land on the left bank 
 of the Tigris, perhaps only including the 
 country afteiwards called Adiabene. It is 
 hardly correct to say, that the Tigris runs 
 “to the East of Assyria.” Perhaps the ren- 
 derings in some of the versions “towards” or 
 “before Assyria” may be correct. 
 
 17 . thou shalt not eat of it] It has been 
 questioned why such a test as this should 
 have been given ; whether it be consistent with 
 God’s goodness to create a sin by making an 
 arbitrary enactment; and how “the act of 
 eating a little fruit from a tree could be 
 visited with so severe a penalty.” But we 
 may notice that if there was to be any trial 
 of man’s obedience in Paradise, some special 
 test was almost necessary. His condition of 
 simple innocence and happiness, with no dis- 
 order in the constitution of his body or in 
 the affections of his soul, offered no natural 
 temptations to sin. Adam and Eve had none 
 but each other and their Creator near them; 
 and they could have had no natural inclina- 
 tion to sin against God or against their neigh- 
 bour. If we take the ten Commandments 
 as the type of the moral law, we shall find 
 none that in their state of healthy innocence 
 they could naturally desire to break (see Jo- 
 seph Mede, Bk. i. Disc. 40). Their position 
 was one of freedom indeed, but of depend- 
 ence. Their only danger was that they 
 should prefer independence upon God, and 
 so seek for themselves freedom in the direc- 
 tion of evil as well as in the direction of 
 good; and the renouncing dependence upon 
 God is the very essence of evil in the crea- 
 ture. Now the command concerning the 
 fruit ()f the tree, simple and childish as it may 
 appear, was one exactly suited to their sim- 
 
42 
 
 GENESIS. II. 
 
 [V. 18—23. 
 
 f Heb. 
 dyiiii^ tJiou 
 sluiit die. 
 
 e Ecclus. 
 
 > ncD. 
 
 as before 
 him. 
 
 nOr, 
 the man. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 called. 
 
 it: for in the day that thou eatest 
 thereof ^ thou shalt surely die. 
 
 18 H And the Lord God said, It 
 is not good that the man should be 
 alone ; I will make ‘'him an help ^ meet 
 for him. 
 
 19 And out of the ground the Lord 
 God formed every beast of the field, 
 and every fowl of the air; and brought 
 them unto I'Adam to see what he would 
 call them : and whatsoever Adam call- 
 ed every living creature, that was the 
 name thereof. 
 
 20 And Adam ^gave names to all 
 cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and 
 
 to every beast of the field; but for 
 Adam there was not found an help 
 meet for him. 
 
 21 And the Lord God caused a 
 deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he 
 slept: and he took one of his ribs, 
 and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 
 
 22 And the rib, which the Lord 
 God had taken from man, ^ made he t Heb. 
 a woman, and brought her unto the 
 man. 
 
 23 And Adam said. This is now 
 bone of my bones, and flesh of my 
 flesh: she shall be called Woman, 
 because she was ^taken out of man. 
 
 f 1 Cor. II, 
 
 8 . 
 
 pie and childlike state. Moreover it is not 
 inconsistent with God's general dealings with 
 mankind, that he should at times see fit to 
 test faith and obedience by special and un- 
 usual trials. Compare Gen. xxii. i, Matt, 
 xix. 21. 
 
 thou shalt surely die'] St Jerome (‘ Qu. 
 in Gen.’) proposes to adopt the translation of 
 Symmachus, “Thou shalt become mortal or 
 liable to death.” It is needless so to trans- 
 late, but the meaning of the threat probably 
 was that the effect of eating of the fruit of 
 that tree should be to poison the whole man, 
 soul and body, with a deadly poison, making 
 the body mortal, and the soul “dead in tres- 
 passes and sins.” With the day of trans- 
 gression a life commences, which is a living 
 death. St Paul uses the expression, “ Death 
 worketh in us.” There was, however, doubt- 
 less some remission of the sentence, so that 
 they did not die instantly, as was the case 
 with the Ninevites (Jonah hi. 10); and then 
 a remedy was provided which might ultimate- 
 ly turn the curse into a blessing. Still the 
 sentence was never wholly reversed, but the 
 penalty took effect at once. 
 
 19. the Lord God formed] The account 
 of the formation of the brute animals here 
 does not, as some have supposed, necessarily 
 imply that they were created after Adam; 
 but it is introductory to the bringing them 
 one by one to Adam that he may name them, 
 and it is intended to lead up to the statement 
 that they were none of them suited to be 
 Adam's chief companions. They were form- 
 ed by God of earthly materials; but the 
 breath of Divine life had not been breathed 
 into them. 
 
 brought them unto Adam to see nvkat he 
 (would call them] d'he power of speech was 
 one of those gifts which from the first distin- 
 guished man from all other animals; but, as 
 tending to that civilized condition in which 
 
 it was God’s will to place Adam, in order to 
 mature his mental powers, and to teach him 
 the use of language, the animals are brought 
 to him that he might name them. Nouns are 
 the first and simplest elements of language; 
 and animals, by their appearance, movements 
 and cries, more than any other objects sug- 
 gest names for themselves. 
 
 20. there (ivas not fou 7 ^d an help meet for 
 him] There is some obscurity in the origi- 
 nal of the words “an help meet for him;” 
 they probably mean “a helper suited to,” or 
 rather “ matching him.” 
 
 22 . the rib... made He a (woman] lit. The 
 side He built up into a woman. The 
 word which primarily means “rib” more fre- 
 quently signifies “ side:” whence many of the 
 rabbins adopted the Platonic myth (see Euseb. 
 ‘Prtep. Evang.’ xii. 12), that man and woman 
 were originally united in one body, till the Cre- 
 ator separated them. The formation of woman 
 from the side of man is without question 
 most mysterious: but it teaches very forcibly 
 and beautifully the duty of one sex towards 
 the other, and the close relationship between 
 them, so that neither should despise or treat 
 with unkindness the other. That respect for 
 the weaker sex, which we esteem a mark of 
 the highest refinement, is taught by the very 
 act of creation as recorded in the earliest ex- 
 isting record. The New Testament tells us 
 that marriage is a type of the union of Christ 
 and His Church; and the fathers held that 
 the formation of Eve from the side of Adam 
 typified the formation of the Church from 
 the side of the Saviour. The water and 
 blood which flowed from that side were held 
 the one to signify baptism, the other to belong 
 to the other great Sacrament, both water and 
 blood cleansing from sin and making the 
 Church acceptable to God. 
 
 23 . Woman., because she (was taken out of 
 
V. 24, 25 .J • 
 
 GENESIS. II. 
 
 ■43 
 
 ir Matt. 19. 24 -^Therefore shall a man leave 
 
 Markio.7. his father and his mother, and shall 
 
 i^Cor. 6. ]^Jg J g}^^]] 
 
 5 - 31- one flesh. 
 
 25 And they were both naked, the 
 man and his wife, and were not a- 
 shamed. 
 
 Hebrew “Ishsha because she was taken 
 out of Ish.” Hence many have argued that 
 Hebrew must have been the primitive lan- 
 guage. The same, of course, is inferred from 
 other names, as Eve, Cain, Abel, &c., all 
 having appropriate significance in Hebrew. 
 The argument is inconclusive, because it is 
 quite possible to translate names from one lan- 
 guage into another, and to retain the meaning 
 which those names had in their original tongue. 
 
 24 . Therefore^ &c.] These may have been 
 the words of Adam, or of the inspired his- 
 torian. Matt. xix. 5 seems to refer them to the 
 latter, which also is the more natural inter- 
 pretation. Then too they have more ob- 
 viously that Divine authority which our Lord 
 so emphatically ascribes to them. Such inci- 
 dental remarks are not uncommon in Scrip- 
 ture; see for instance ch. xxxii. 32. 
 
 NOTE A on Chap. ii. v. 7. On the immediate Creation and primitive 
 
 State of Man. 
 
 On the question of man’s direct creation in 
 distinction to the hypothesis of development, 
 and on his original position as a civilized 
 being, not as a wild barbarian, we may re- 
 mark, ist. It is admitted even by the theorists 
 themselves, that in the present state of the 
 evidence the records beneath the earth’s surface 
 give no support to the hypothesis that every 
 species grew out of some species less per- 
 fect before it. There is not an unbroken chain 
 of continuity. At times, new and strange forms 
 suddenly appear upon the stage of life, with no 
 previous intimation of their coming, andly, 
 In those creatures, in which instinct seems 
 most fully developed, it is impossible that it 
 should have grown by cultivation and suc- 
 cessive inheritance. In no animal is it more 
 observable than in the bee : but the working 
 bee only has the remarkable instinct of build- 
 ing and honey-making so peculiar to its race; 
 it does not inherit that instinct from its pa- 
 rents, for neither the drone nor the queen-bee 
 builds or works ; it does not hand it down to 
 its posterity, for itself is sterile and child- 
 less. Mr Darwin has not succeeded in re- 
 plying to this argument. 3rdly, Civilization, 
 as far as all experience goes, has always been 
 learned from without. No extremely barba- 
 rous nation has ever yet been found capable of 
 initiating civilization. Retrogression is rapid, 
 but progress unknown, till the first steps have 
 been taught. (See Abp. Whately, ‘Origin 
 of Civilization,’ the argument of which has 
 not been refuted by Sir John Lubbock, ‘Pre- 
 historic Man.’ Both have been ably reviewed 
 by the Duke of Argyll, ‘Primeval Man’). 
 Moreover, almost all barbarous races, if not 
 wholly without tradition, believe themselves 
 to have been once in a more civilized state, 
 to have come from a more favoured land, to 
 have descended from ancestors more enlight- 
 ened and powerful than themselves. 4thly, 
 
 Though it has been asserted without any 
 proof that man, when greatly degenerate, 
 reverts to the type of the monkey, just as do- 
 mesticated animals revert to the wild type ; 
 yet the analogy is imperfect and untrue. Man 
 undoubtedly, apart from ennobling influences, 
 degenerates, and, losing more and more of the 
 image of his Maker, becomes more closely as- 
 similated to the brute creation, the earthly 
 nature overpowering the spiritual. But that 
 this is not natural to him is shewn by the 
 fact, that, under such conditions of degene- 
 racy, the race gradually becomes enfeebled, 
 and at length dies out ; whereas the domesti- 
 cated animal, which reverts to the type of 
 the wild animal, instead of fading away, be- 
 comes only the more powerful and the more 
 prolific. The wild state is natural to the 
 brutes, but the civilized is natural to man. 
 
 Even if the other parts of the Darwinian 
 hypothesis were demonstrable, there is not a 
 vestige of evidence that there ever existed any 
 beast intermediate between apes and men. 
 Apes too are by no means the nearest to us 
 in intelligence or moral sense or in their food 
 and other habits. It also deserves to be 
 borne in mind, that even if it could be made 
 probable that man is only an improved ape, 
 no physiological reason can touch the ques- 
 tion, whether God did not when the im- 
 provement reached its right point, breathe into 
 him “a living soul,” a spirit “which goeth 
 upward,” when bodily life ceases. This at 
 least would have constituted Adam a nevs- 
 creature, and the fountain head of a new race. 
 
 On the derivation of mankind from a 
 single pair, see Prichard’s ‘ Physical Hist, of 
 Mankind,’ Bunsen, ‘Philosophy of Universal 
 History,’ Smyth, ‘Unity of the Human 
 Race,’ Quatrefages, ‘ L’unite de I’esptxe 
 Humaine,’ &c. 
 
44 
 
 GENESIS. III. 
 
 [v. 1—7. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I The serpent deceiveth Eve. 6 Mads shame- 
 ful fall. 9 God arraigneth them. 14 The 
 serpent is cursed. 15 The promised seed. 16 
 The punishment of mankind.' 2 i Their first 
 clothing. 22 Their castmg out of paradise. 
 
 N OW the serpent was more sub- 
 til than any beast of the field 
 which the Lord God had made. And 
 iHeb. he said unto the woman, ^Yea, hath 
 cause , God Said, Ye shall not eat of every 
 tree of the garden ? 
 
 2 And the woman said unto the 
 serpent. We may eat of the fruit of 
 the trees of the garden : 
 
 3 But of the fruit of the tree which 
 is in the midst of the garden, God hath 
 said. Ye shall not eat of it, neither 
 shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 
 
 4 ''And the serpent said unto the"='^°'' ” 
 
 woman, Y e shall not surely die : 1 Tim. 2. 
 
 5 For God doth know that in the 
 day ye eat thereof, then your eyes 
 shall be opened, and ye shall lf>e as 
 gods, knowing good and evil. 
 
 6 And when the woman saw that 
 the tree was good for food, and that 
 
 it was ^ pleasant to the eves, and a ^ Heb. 
 
 , , . , . .a desire. 
 
 tree to be desired to make one wise. 
 
 she took of the fruit 
 
 one wise 
 thereof, ^and 
 did eat, and gave also unto her hus- FTim. 2. 
 band with her; and he did eat. 
 
 7 And the eyes of them both 
 were opened, and they knew that 
 they were naked ; and they sewed fig 
 leaves together, and made themselves 11 Or. 
 
 DanrnnQ things to 
 
 aprons. gird about 
 
 Chap. III. 1 . Nonv the serpent] “Almost 
 throughout the East the serpent was used as 
 an emblem of the evil principle,” Kalisch, ad 
 h. 1.: but Kalisch himself, Tuch and others 
 deny that the evil spirit is to be understood 
 in this narrative of Genesis. Yet not only 
 did the East in general look on the serpent as 
 an emblem of the spirit of evil, but the earliest 
 traces of Jewish or Christian interpretations 
 all point to this. The evil one is constantly 
 called by the Jews “the old serpent,” Han- 
 fiachash bakkadnioni (so also in Rev. xii. 9, 
 “that old serpent the devil”). In Wisd. ii. 
 24, we read, “ By the envy of the devil death 
 entered into the world.” Our Lord flimself 
 says, “the Devil was the murderer of man 
 from the beginning” (Joh. viii. 44). Von 
 Bohlen observes that “ the pervading Jewish 
 view is the most obvious, according to which 
 the serpent is considered as Satan; and the 
 greatest confirmation of such an interpreta- 
 tion is the very general agreement of the Asi- 
 atic myths” (ad h. 1.). Some have thought 
 that no serpent appeared, but only that evil 
 one, who is called the serpent; but then he 
 could not have been said to be “more subtle 
 than all the beasts of the field.” The reason 
 why Satan took the form of a beast remark- 
 able for its subtlety may have been, that so 
 Eve might be the less upon her guard. New 
 as she was to all creation, she may not have 
 been surprised at speech in an animal which 
 apparently possessed almost human sagacity. 
 Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud... 
 
 ...For in the wily snake 
 Whatever sleights none would suspicious mark, 
 As from his wit and nature subtlety 
 Proceeding, which in other beasts observed 
 Doubt might beget of diabolic power, 
 
 Active within beyontl the sense of brute. 
 
 • ‘Paradise Lost,’ ix. 91. 
 
 5. God doth hno^u] The tempter repre- 
 sents God as envious of His creatures’ happi- 
 ness, the ordinary suggestion of false religion 
 and unbelief. Then he suggests to Eve the 
 desire of self-dependence, that which is in fact 
 the origin of all sin, the giving up of depend- 
 ence on God, and the seeking for power, 
 wisdom, happiness in self. 
 
 as gods] Or more probably, “as God.” 
 The plural word Elohim stands at times for 
 false gods, at times for angels, but most com- 
 monly for the one true God. 
 
 knowing good and enjil] Having a clear 
 understanding of all great moral questions; 
 not like children, but like those of full age, 
 who “by reason of use have their senses ex- 
 ercised to discern both good and evil” (Heb. 
 V. 14). This was the serpent’s promise, 
 though he knew that the result would be 
 really a knowledge of evil through the per- 
 version of their own will and their own ill 
 choice. 
 
 6. to make one wise] Gesenius and others, 
 after the LXX. and Vulgate, render to look 
 upon. 
 
 7. the eyes of them both were opened., &c.] 
 “ Their eyes were truly opened as the serpent 
 had promised them, but only to see that in 
 the moment when they departed from God 
 they became slaves of the flesh, that the free- 
 will and independence of God, and knowing 
 the good and the evil, delivers them up to the 
 power of evil. Man, who had his glorious 
 destiny before him of becoming by means of 
 the knowledge and love of God, and by obe- 
 dience, the free lord of the world, ceases, by 
 disobedience, to be master of himself.” (O. 
 Von Gerlach, ‘Comment.’ ad h. 1.). 
 
 fig lea'ves] Celsius, Tuch, and Gese- 
 nius, have doubted whether this was the Ficus 
 
V. 8—15.] 
 
 GENESIS. 
 
 III. 
 
 45 
 
 8 And they heard the voice of the 
 Lord God walking in the garden in 
 
 ■’ the ^cool of the day: and Adam and 
 his wife hid themselves from the pre- 
 sence of the Lord God amongst the 
 trees of the garden. 
 
 9 And the Lord God called unto 
 Adam, and said unto him, Where arl 
 thou ? 
 
 10 And he said, I heard thy voice 
 in the garden, and I was afraid, be- 
 cause I zaas naked ; and I hid myself. 
 
 1 1 And he said. Who told thee that 
 thou ziwsf naked ? Hast thou eaten 
 
 *• of the tree, whereof I commanded 
 thee that thou shouldest not eat ? 
 
 Carica of Linnaeus, supposing it to have been 
 the Musa Paradistaca; but the word is that 
 used throughout Scripture for tlie well known 
 hg tree (see Roediger in Ges. ‘Lex.’p. 1490). 
 
 8. the ‘voice of the Lord God~\ The 
 whole of this history of the creation and the 
 fall is full of these anthropomorphic represen- 
 tations. The Creator is spoken of as-if con- 
 sulting about the formation of man (i. 26), as 
 reflecting on the result of His creation, and 
 declaring it all very good (i. 31), as resting 
 from His work (ii. 2), as planting a garden 
 for Adam (ii. 8), bringing the animals to him 
 to name them (ii. 19), then building up the 
 rib of Adam into a woman, and bringing her 
 to Adam to be his bride (ii. 22). Here again 
 Adam hears His voice as of one walking in 
 the garden in the cool of the day. All this 
 corresponds well with the simple and child- 
 like character of the early portions of Gene- 
 sis, The Great Father, through His inspired 
 word, is as it were teaching His children, in 
 the infancy of their race, by means of simple 
 language, and in simple lessons. Onkelos has 
 here ‘-The Voice of the Word of the Lord.” 
 It is by this name, “ the Word of the Lord,” 
 that the Targums generally paraphrase the 
 name of the Most High, more especially in 
 those passages where is recorded anything like 
 a visible or sensible representation of His Ma- 
 jesty. The Christian fathers almost univer- 
 sally believed that every appearance of God 
 to the patriarchs and prophets was a manifes- 
 tation of the eternal Son, judging especially 
 from Joh. i. 18. 
 
 cool of the day'] Lit. “wind of the 
 day,” which is generally understood of the 
 cool breezes of evening. Paradise had been 
 to man the place of God's presence, which 
 brought heretofore happiness, and security. 
 Now that sin had come upon him, the sense 
 of that presence was accompanied with shame 
 and fear. 
 
 12 And the man said. The woman 
 whom thou gavest to be with me, she 
 gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 
 
 13 And the Lord God said unto the 
 woman. What is this that thou hast 
 done .? And the woman said. The 
 serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. 
 
 14 And the Lord God said unto 
 the serpent, Because thou hast done 
 this, thou art cursed above all cattle, 
 and above every beast of the field ; 
 upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust 
 shaft thou eat all the days of thy life : 
 
 15 And I will put enmity between 
 thee and the woman, and between 
 thy seed and her seed; and it shall 
 
 14 . cursed abo've all cattle] AVe can 
 hardly doubt that these words were in part 
 directed against the animal, which was made 
 the instrument of man’s ruin, as in the law 
 the ox which gored a man was to be put to 
 death like a malefactor. Thus the serpent 
 was ever to bear about the remembrance of 
 that evil, which he had been made the means 
 of producing, was to be the enemy of man, 
 causing him suffering, but in the end suffer- 
 ing from him utter destruction; yet, as the 
 serpent was but the outward form of the 
 spirit of evil, so the language of the Al- 
 mighty, which outwardly refers to the ser- 
 pent, in its spiritual significance is a curse 
 upon the evil one. And as the curse is for 
 the sake of man ; so in it is contained a pro- 
 mise that the human race shall finally triumph 
 over that which first caused its fall. The 
 most natural interpretation of the curse might 
 indicate, that the serpent underwent some 
 change of form. It would, however, be quite 
 consistent with the narrative, even in its most 
 literal acceptance, to understand that it merely 
 implied continued and perpetual degradation 
 coupled with a truceless war against man- 
 kind. 
 
 15 . seel] Allix, as quoted by Bishop Pa- 
 trick, observes that in this promise God did a 
 kindness to Adam, who otherwise by the 
 temptation might have been estranged fi'om 
 his wife ; but here the promise of redemption 
 is through the seed of the 'woman. “ Mar- 
 riage, which had been the vehicle of the fall, 
 is now also to become that of salvation ; the 
 seed of the woman is to bruise the head of 
 the Serpent.” (Kurtz, i. 78.) The promise 
 is, no doubt, general, that, though, the seed 
 of the serpent (mystically Satan and all his 
 servants) shall continually wage war against 
 the descendants of Eve, yet ultimately by 
 God’s appointment mankind (the whole seed 
 of the woman) shall triumph over their spi- 
 
46 
 
 [v. 1 6 — 19. 
 
 A. 
 
 GENESIS. III. 
 
 bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise 
 his heel. 
 
 16 Unto the woman he said, I will 
 greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy 
 conception ; in sorrow thou shalt bring 
 forth children; and thy desire shall be 
 "Or, II to thy husband, and he shall “"rule 
 ihy hus. over thee. 
 
 ^rcor 14 ^7 Adam he said, Be- 
 
 34. cause thou hast hearkened unto the 
 
 voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the 
 tree, of which I commanded thee, say- 
 ing, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed 
 is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow 
 shalt thou eat of'w. all the days of thy life ; 
 
 18 Thorns also and thistles shall 
 
 it Tring forth to thee ; and thou shalt t Heb 
 eat the herb of the held ; 
 
 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt 
 thou eat bread, till thou return unto 
 
 ritual enemy. If there were no more than 
 this in the language used, even so there would 
 be, an obscure indeed, but still a significant 
 promise of some future deliverance. But the 
 last words of the verse seem not merely 
 general but personal. In the first clause it 
 is said, that there should be “ enmity between 
 thy seed and her seed;''"' but in the second 
 clause it is said, “It (or he) shall bruise thy 
 head.” It was the head of the particular 
 serpent (not of the seed of the serpent only), 
 which the seed of the woman was to bruise. 
 And though we must not lay stress on the 
 masculine pronoun because the word 
 
 for seed is masculine in Hebrew, yet there is 
 the appearance here of a personal contest, 
 and a personal victory. This inference is 
 strengthened by the promise being made to 
 the seed of the ^oman. There has been but 
 one descendant of Eve, who had no earthly 
 father ; and He was “ manifested that He 
 might destroy the works of the devil.” 
 I'hough the Jewish writers do not directly 
 interpret the promise of the Messiah ; yet 
 the Targums of Jerusalem and of the Pseudo- 
 Jonathan both say that this victory over the 
 serpent shall be “ in the days of the Messiah.” 
 
 It is well known that Roman Catholic 
 divines have attributed the victory to the 
 \’irgin Mary, misled by the rendering of 
 some MSS. of the Latin, Ipsa^ she. The 
 original Hebrew is perfectly unequivocal ; 
 for, though the pronoun might be so pointed 
 as to signify cither he or she^ yet the verb 
 is (accoi'ding to the Hebrew idiom) mascu- 
 line. Moreover the LXX. has seed in the 
 neuter, but the pronoun referring to it, “/6^,” 
 in the masculine, which would naturally refer 
 it to some individual son of the woman. 
 The Syriac Version also has a masculine pro- 
 noun. 
 
 shall bruise'] The LXX. followed by the 
 Vulgate and Onkelos has “shall watch,” 
 probably meaning to watch and track as a 
 hunter does his prey; but the word in Chal- 
 dee signifies “to bruise or crush.” In this, 
 or nearly this sense it is used in the only 
 other passages in which it occurs in Scrip- 
 ture, viz. Job ix. 17, Ps. cxxxix. ii, and so 
 
 it is rendered by most ancient Versions and 
 Comm, as Syr. Sam. Saad. St Paul refers to 
 it in the words “The God of peace shall 
 bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” Rom. 
 xvi. 20. 
 
 16 . Unto the qvoman He saitf] It is no- 
 ticed by Tertullian, that though God punished 
 Adam and Eve, He did not curse them, as 
 He did the Serpent, they being candidates for 
 restoration (‘adv. Marcion.’ ii. 25). 
 
 I ^'ill greatly multiply thy sorronv and thy 
 conception] Some suppose this to be a hendia- 
 duoin for “the sorrow of thy conception.” 
 The ^4^ords rather mean that woman’s sorrow 
 and her conception should both be multi- 
 plied. The mother has not only the pains 
 of childbirth, but from all the cares of mater- 
 nity greater sorrow connected with her com- 
 mon offspring than the father has. The 
 threat of multiplying conception indicates, 
 not that Eve had already borne children, but 
 that childbirth would not have been un- 
 known had the first pair remained in Paradise. 
 
 Thy desire shall be] Desire here expresses 
 that reverential longing with which the weak- 
 er looks up to the stronger. The Vulgate 
 therefore renders, “ Thou shalt be under the 
 power of thy husband.” This is also the in- 
 terpretation of Abenezra and of many moderns. 
 The comparison with ch. iv. 7 shews that there 
 is somewhat of dependence and subjection im- 
 plied in the phrases. 
 
 17 . Hnd wito Adam He said] Here for 
 the first time Adam occurs without an article, 
 as a proper name. 
 
 cursed is the ground for thy sake] The 
 whole earth partakes of the punishment, which 
 the sin of man, its head and destined ruler, 
 has called down. The creature itself is sub- 
 jected to vanity, Rom. viii. 20. Death reigns. 
 Instead of the blessed soil of Paradise, Adam 
 and his offspring have to till the ground now 
 condemned to bear thorns and thistles, and 
 this is not to end, until the man returns to 
 the earth from which he was taken. Yet 
 even here there is some mark of mercy : for, 
 whereas the serpent is cursed directly, and 
 that with a reference to the earth he was 
 
V. 20 24-] 
 
 GENESIS. III. 
 
 47 
 
 t Heb. 
 Chavah. 
 
 the ground ; for out of it wast thou 
 taken : for dust thou art^ and unto 
 dust shalt thou return. 
 
 20 And Adam called his wife’s 
 name ^Eve; because she was the 
 mother of all living. 
 
 21 Unto Adam also and to his v/ife 
 did the Lord God make coats of 
 skins, and clothed them. 
 
 22 ^ And the Lord God said, Be- 
 hold, the man is become as one of 
 us, to know good and evil: and nov/. 
 
 lest he' put forth his hand, and take 
 also of the tree of life, and eat, and 
 live for ever: 
 
 23 Therefore the Lord God sent 
 him forth from the garden of Eden, 
 to till the ground from whence he was 
 taken. 
 
 24 So he drove out the man ; 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. 
 
 to travel over ; here on the contrary the 
 earth, rather than the man, is cursed, though 
 for the man’s sake and with reference to him. 
 (Tuch.) 
 
 19. See note A at end of Chapter. 
 
 20. E-ve] Chat'^mh, Life. Not only be- 
 cause she gave birth to all living, but perhaps 
 with a further prophetic meaning, in refer- 
 ence to the promise just given, because the 
 race of man, now subject to death, should 
 be made alive by the Offspring of the woman. 
 
 22. tJoe man is become as one of US'] 
 Man was not a mere animal, following the 
 impulse of sense, without distinction of right 
 and wrong. He had also a spiritual per- 
 sonality, with moral will and freedom of 
 forechoice. His lower nature, though in sub- 
 jection to the higher, as that was in subjec- 
 tion to God, yet acted as a veil, screening 
 from him what might have been visible to 
 pure spiritual intelligence: hence, though he 
 knew good from knowing God and living in 
 dependence on Him, yet he knew not evil, 
 ha’vdng had no experience of it hitherto. His 
 fall therefore, although sinful, was not like 
 the sin of angels, who had no animal nature 
 to obscure vision or to tempt by sense. 
 Their fall must have been more deliberate, 
 more wilful, less pardonable. But, when 
 man by fatal mischoice learned that there 
 was evil in the universe as well as goad, then 
 he had acquired a condition like to that of 
 spiritual beings, who had no veil to their 
 understanding, and could see both on the 
 right hand and on the left. The meaning 
 then of this mysterious saying of the Most 
 High may be, that now by sin man had 
 attained a knowledge like the knowledge of 
 pure spiritual existences, a knowledge which 
 God has of necessity, a knowledge which the 
 angels have, who might have fallen but who 
 
 stood uprigfft, a knowledge, which evil angels 
 have from their own deliberate choosing of 
 evil instead of good. The difficulty of this 
 interpretation is, that it supposes God to 
 speak of Himself as One among other spi- 
 ritual beings, whereas He cannot be likened 
 to any one, but is infinitely above and beyond 
 all created natures. Some therefore would 
 understand here and elsewhere, the plural as 
 a mere plural of majesty. Still there is a 
 manifest plurality of person. It is not merely 
 “like Us,” but “like one of Us.” Hence it 
 was the universal belief of the early Christians, 
 that here as in Gen. i. 20 , God was speak- 
 ing to, and of, His coeternal Son and Spirit. 
 
 See note B at end of Chapter. 
 
 lest he put forth his hand] Vatablus, who 
 looks on the tree of life as no more than 
 a mystical emblem, understands that it was 
 as though God had said, “ Lest he should 
 have a vain expectation excited in him by 
 laying hold of this symbol of My promise; 
 that shall be taken from him which might 
 give him such a hope of immortality,” ad 
 h. 1. But Augustine, who spoke of the tree 
 of life as a sacrament, probably meant by a* 
 sacrament something more than a mere em- 
 blem; and many of the fathers looked on 
 this judgment of God, whereby man was 
 excluded from the reach of that, which m.ight 
 have made him immortal, as rather a mercy 
 than a judgment. If his life had now been 
 perpetuated, it would have been an immor- 
 tality of sin. So Gregory Nazianzen says 
 the exclusion from the tree of life was “ that 
 evil might not be immortal, and that the 
 punishment might be an act of benevolence.” 
 (Greg. Naz. ‘ Orat.’ xxxvii. n. i. See Pa- 
 trick). 
 
 24. Cherubims] See note C at end of 
 Chapter. 
 
 NOTE A on Chap. hi. v. 19. On the Effect of the Fall. 
 
 Nothing can really be plainer than that the suiting fi-om the presence of God and a life 
 narrative describes a most deplorable change in dependence on His support, to a state of 
 in the condition of the first parents of man- sin and shame following on disobedience to 
 kind, a change from a state of holiness re- His will and a desire to become independent 
 
48 
 
 GENESIS. III. 
 
 of Him. It is the distinctest possible ac- 
 count of a sin and of its punishment. More- 
 over in all subsequent teaching of Scripture 
 the whole human race is represented as shar- 
 ing in the exile of Adam from his Maker, 
 and hence in his sinfulness ; for holiness and 
 happiness are inseparable from the presence 
 and the Spirit of God. It may be impossible 
 fully to explain all the justice or the mercy of 
 this dispensation. Yet we may reflect that 
 man was created a reasonable, free-willing, 
 responsible being. All this implies power to 
 will as God wills, and power to will as God 
 does not will. It implies too something like 
 a condition of trial, a state of probation. If 
 each man had been put on his trial separately, 
 as Adam was; judging 'from experience as 
 well as from the history of Adam, we may 
 see the probability that a large number of 
 Adam’s descendants would have sinned as he 
 sinned. The confusion so introduced into 
 the world would have been at least as great 
 as that which the single fall and the expulsion 
 once for all of our first parents from Paradise 
 
 have actually brought in. And the remedy 
 would have been apparently less simple and 
 more complicated. As the Scripture history 
 represents it to us, and as the New Testament 
 interprets that history, the Judge of all the 
 earth punished the sin of Adam by depriving 
 him of His presence and His Spirit (that 
 “ original righteousness ” of the fathers and 
 the schoolmen, see Bp. Bull, Vol. ii. Dis. v. 
 and Aquinas, ‘Summa,’ ii. i. qu. 82. art. 4), 
 and thus subjecting him to death. But 
 though He thus “ concluded all under sin,’’ 
 it was indeed “that He might have mercy on 
 all,” Rom. xi. 32. The whole race of man 
 condemned in Adam, receives in Adam also 
 the promise of recovery for all. And in the 
 Second Adam, that special Seed of the <vjoman^ 
 the recovery of the whole race is effected, 
 insomuch that as in Adam all died, even so 
 in Christ all shall be made alive. And thus in 
 truth the mystery of sin can only be cleared 
 up by the mystery of redemption ; whilst both 
 exhibit the justice of God brought out into its 
 fullest relief only under the light of His love. 
 
 NOTE B on Chap. hi. v. 22. On the Historical Character of the Temp- 
 tation AND THE Fall. 
 
 The traditions of all, especially Eastern 
 nations, have more or less of resemblance 
 to the record of the first three chapters 
 of Genesis. This is, according to some, to 
 be explained by mere similarity in all early 
 mythology. According to others it results 
 from the Hebrew histories borrowing the 
 myths of neighbouring countries and pro- 
 pounding them as historical truths. There 
 can be no reasonable doubt, that the writer 
 of Genesis puts forth his history as history. 
 Hence some of the early rationalists admitted 
 an historical foundation, though they thought 
 it coloured by subsequent fancy. Eichhorn 
 for instance (‘Urgeschichte,’ Th. 2. B. 2) sup- 
 posed that Adam dreamed of the formation 
 of Eve out of his side. Eve (as Abarbanel 
 had also imagined) saw the serpent eating 
 poisonous fruit, then ate of it herself and 
 gave it to her husband ; and thus awakened 
 in them both sensual thoughts and the first 
 feelings of shame. A thunderstorm seemed to 
 them the voice of God ; they lied in terror 
 from Paradise, and in the unkindliness of a 
 sterile land, the toils of agriculture and the 
 pangs of childbirth found a punishment for 
 their fault. But such forced explanations 
 .soon gave way to mythical interpretation. 
 Paradise is but the golden age of the He- 
 brews ; the tree of life is the Ambrosia or 
 Amrita of Greece or India; the tempter 
 finds a parallel in the contests of Krishna 
 with the serpent, or in the Persian myth of 
 Ahriman deceiving the first luiman beings 
 under a serpent's form. I'he Indian cosmo- 
 gony and the history of Krishna certainly 
 bear some reseiublance to the Jewish history, 
 
 though widely distinguished from it by the 
 gross Pantheism of the Hindoo Theology : 
 but that the Hebrews can owe nothing to these 
 is evident from the fact that they are not con- 
 tained in the Vedas and the most ancient 
 Sanscrit literature, fi*om which alone it is 
 possible that even the later Jewish writers 
 could have borrowed. Indeed the history of 
 Krishna first appears in the ‘Bhagavat Gita,’ 
 a work assigned to the 3rd century af- 
 ter Christ, and which is supposed to have 
 drawn largely from Christian or Pseudo- 
 Christian sources. The nearest resemblance,, 
 however, is traceable between the Biblical 
 record and the teaching of the Zendavesta. As 
 there is a likeness in the history of Creation 
 and in the description of Paradise, so there is 
 a special similarity in the account of the fall. 
 According to the doctrine of Zoroaster, the 
 first human beings, created by Ormuzd, the 
 good principle, lived in a state of innocence 
 in a happy garden with a tree which gave 
 them life and immortality ; but Ahriman, the 
 evil principle, assuming the form of a serpent, 
 offered them the fruit of a tree, which he had 
 himself created ; they ate and became subject 
 to evil and to a continual contest between 
 light and darkness, between the good motions 
 of Ormu/.d, and the evil suggestions of 
 Ahriman. As the Hindoo traditions are 
 disfigured by Pantheism, so are the Persian 
 by dualism ; and both are markedly con- 
 trasted with the pure monotheism of the 
 Bible History. But Hartmann, Von Bohlen, 
 and other mythical interpreters, have imagin- 
 ed that the Mosaic account was really bor- 
 rowed from the Zoroastrian ; a theory which 
 
GENESIS. III. 
 
 49 
 
 could only be established by proving that the 
 early chapters of Genesis were not written 
 till after the Babylonish captivity ; for it was 
 then that the Jews first came into close con- 
 tact with the Persians, and might have bor- 
 rowed some of their superstitions. 
 
 Against so late a date the language of the 
 first chapter of Genesis is conclusive. Therd 
 are indeed a few Aramaisms in Genesis; but 
 it has been ruled most justly, that “Arama- 
 isms in a book of the Bible are proof either of 
 a very early or of a very late origin.” The 
 Patriarchs, who came from. Ur of the 
 Chaldees, may have naturally spoken a He- 
 brew not unmixed with Chaldaisms, and 
 some names, as that of Eve (Chava) and 
 that of the LORD (JEHOVAH), both of 
 which have a Chaldee or Aramaic form, could 
 not possibly have been invented later than 
 the age of Moses, unless they were invented 
 after the Babylonian Captivity, when the 
 Jews again came into contact with the Chal- 
 deans in Babylonia. That the Aramaisms of 
 Genesis really mark antiquity, not novelty, 
 should almost be self apparent to one familiar 
 with the original. The Hebrew of the first 
 three chapters of the Bible is most emphati- 
 cally archaic. It cannot therefore be a modern 
 Chaldaized Hebrew, but is a Hebrew so 
 ancient as still to retain strong traces of its 
 original union with its sister dialect Chaldee. 
 Its peculiar conciseness is the exact opposite of 
 the diffuse and verbose style of the Chaldee 
 in Daniel or Ezra. The 3rd verse of Genesis 
 owes much of its proverbial grandeur to this 
 very conciseness. So many thoughts are 
 perhaps nowhere else in the world uttered in 
 so few syllables. The very reverse of this is 
 true of the language when it had become 
 infected by the Chaldee of the Captivity. 
 But, if the legends of the Zendavesta were 
 not borrowed by the Jews in their captivity, 
 then the real contact point between them 
 and the Jewish history must be found in 
 pre-Mosaic times, in the days of the early 
 
 patriarchs ; and then the fact, that the tradi- 
 tions of Persia were of all others the nearest 
 to the Jewish traditions may easily be ex- 
 plained. Let us suppose the account in 
 Genesis to be the great Semitic tradition, 
 perhaps delivered direct from Shem^ to Abra- 
 ham, from Abraham to Jacob, from Jacob 
 to Joseph, and incorporated under Divine 
 guidance by Moses in his history. Is it 
 unlikely that Japhet may have given the very 
 same account of his own posterity ? and 
 where would it have been so well preserved, 
 as in Iran, that spot, or at least near to that 
 spot, where the Aryan races seem longest to 
 have dwelt together, and where the tradition 
 was most likely to have been undisturbed 
 by constant migrations ? The Persians prided 
 themselves on their pure and ancient de- 
 scent ; and modern ethnologists have given 
 to those tribes which peopled India and 
 Europe the name of Aryan, after the inhabit- 
 ants of Iran and the noblest race among 
 them, the Arii. If the Hebrews retained the 
 Semitic tradition pure and uncorrupted, 
 through their adherence to the worship of 
 the true God, whilst the Persians had the 
 Japhetic tradition, though corrupted by dual- 
 ism, the resemblance between their respective 
 accounts would be in every way natural, 
 and the real historical basis of them both 
 would be the simplest solution of the diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 It may only be necessary to add that this 
 reasoning will not be affected, even if we 
 should concur with those who argue, that 
 the history of the fall is a true history though 
 veiled under allegorical imagery, i. e. that 
 Adam and Eve were created innocent and 
 holy, that they were subjected to a trial and 
 fell under it, thereby bringing in sin and 
 death upon mankind, but that the description 
 given of this in Genesis is not literal but 
 emblematical and mystical (see for instance 
 Quarry ‘on Gen.’ p. 112, and Warburton 
 quoted by him). 
 
 NOTE C on Chap. hi. v. 24. Cherubim. 
 
 (i) Traditional accounts of the Cherubim. (2) Cherubim figured in Tabernacle and Temple. 
 (3) Cherubim seen in visions of Isaiah, Ezekiel, St John. (4) Cherubim of Paradise. 
 
 (5) Etymology of name. 
 
 In this passage the Cherubim appear to be 
 living beings, angels of God, fulfilling the^will 
 of God. Elsewhere (except in brief allu- 
 sions as Ps. xviii. 10 ; 2 Sam. xxii. ii) we find 
 them as sculptured or wrought figures in the 
 Tabernacle and the Temple ; or as images in 
 the visions of prophets, which visions have al- 
 ways more or less of the other imagery of the 
 Temple presented in them (Ez. i. x; Rev. iv. 
 and perhaps Is. vi.). 
 
 Tradition gives no satisfactory account of 
 the appearance of these cherubic figures. Jo- 
 sephus, (‘Ant.’ III. 6. § 5) says that they were 
 “winged animals in form li'Ke nothing seen 
 
 VoL. ]. 
 
 by man.” It is possible that Josephus’ Pha- 
 risaic prejudice in interpreting the second com- 
 mandment may have led him to this profession 
 of utter ignorance concerning the forms of the 
 Cherubim, for he charges Solomon witha breach 
 of the law on account of the oxen under the 
 brazen sea (‘ Ant.’ viii. 7. § 3), and in the face 
 of Exod. xxvi. 31 (compared with Ezek. x. 20), 
 he denies that the veil of the tabernacle had any 
 living creatures on it (‘Ant.’ iii. 3. § 6). Still 
 the Apostle (Heb. ix. 5), who speaks of “the 
 Cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy seat,” 
 adds, “of which we cannot now speak par- 
 ♦^icularly,” as though, after the captivity and 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 GENESIS. III. 
 
 the destruction of the first Temple, not only- 
 had the sacred figures never been restored, but 
 even the memory of their shapes had been 
 lost. 
 
 1. The Tabernacle and the Temple'\ When 
 Moses is commanded to make the ark, we 
 learn that he was to make the Capporeth, 
 the mercy seat or covering of the ark, of 
 pure gold, and Cherubim looking towards 
 the mercy seat, stretching forth their wings 
 on high to cover the mercy seat. The Che- 
 rubim were to be of a piece with the mercy 
 seat, or at least of the same material (Ex. 
 XXV. 17 — 20). There is no appearance of 
 more than one face to each Cherub, nor of 
 more than two wings. The Cherubim on 
 the mercy seat in the Tabernacle appear to 
 have been exactly imitated by Solomon in 
 the Temple, unless they were the very Cheru- 
 bim of the Tabernacle removed to the Temple. 
 Their height is said to have been ten cubits, 
 and their wings touched the walls on either side 
 (i K. vi. 27). Besides the twoCherubimon the 
 mercy seat, figures of Cherubim were wrought 
 on the curtains of the Tabernacle (Ex. xxvi. 
 I, 31, xxxvi. 8, 35), and were afterwards 
 engraven on the walls and doors of the Tem- 
 ple, along with palms and flowers, (i K. vi. 
 29, 32, 35) : also on the bases of the ten lavers, 
 on the borders that were between the ledges 
 were “lions, oxen and Cherubims.” (i K. vii. 
 29). Then again were four wheels a cubic 
 and a half high, and again we find “Cheru- 
 bims, lions and palm trees.” (». 36.) 
 
 The special offices of the Cherubic figures 
 in the Tabernacle appear to have been, first, 
 the watching and guarding of the ark and 
 the sacred law deposited within the ark, to- 
 wards which they are represented as look- 
 ing and over which they spread their out- 
 stretched wings, and secondly, to attend and 
 bear up that mystic presence of God, which 
 appeared in the Cloud of glory over the 
 mercy seat. That Cloud of glory had led 
 Israel through the Red Sea and the wilder- 
 ness, the guide and guardian of God’s people, 
 the symbol of His presence, especially in the 
 giving of the law, having a twofold aspect, at 
 times as darkness, at times as a pillar of 
 light ; now a glory settling on the Taber- 
 nacle or resting above the ark, at another 
 time accompanied with fire and lightnings, so 
 that the people durst not look on it. (Ex. 
 xiii. 21, 22, xiv. 19, 24, xvi. to , xix. r6, 18, 
 20, XX. 18, xxiv, 16, 17, xxxiii. 9, xxxiv. 5, 
 xxxvii. 6 — 9, xl. 34 — ^38; Num. ix. 17 — 23, 
 xii. 5 — TO, xvi, 19 — 42). When the Taber- 
 nacle is set up, the Law is deposited in the 
 Ark, the cloud is promised to rest upon the 
 covering of the Ark, and, as the Cherubim 
 guard the Law and the Testimony of God, 
 so they may be supposed reverently to sur- 
 round the throne of His glory. 
 
 If we went no farther, we should natu- 
 rally conclude, that the Cherubim were wing- 
 ed liirman figures, sculptured in the Taber- 
 
 nacle and the Temple, representing either 
 the personal angels of God, or at least those 
 ministers and agents of His in creation which 
 do His pleasure and wait upon His will. 
 We should infer, that their offices were (i) 
 to guard what is sacred and unapproachable, 
 the gate of Paradise (Gen. iii. 24), the ark of 
 the covenant of the Lord, in which were 
 deposited the two tables of the Law (com- 
 pare Ezek. xxviii. 14 — 16, where the Prince 
 of Tyre is compared to a Cherub, who in 
 Eden covers with his wings the precious 
 stones): (2) to surround the mystic throne 
 of God and to attend His presence (hence 
 the Most High is constantly spoken of as 
 dwelling between the Cherubim, i. e. by His 
 Shechinah on the mercy seat, i S. iv. 4 ; 
 2 S. vi. 2 ; 2 K. xix. 15 ; Ps. Ixxx. 2, xeix. 
 i; Is. xxxvii. 16): (3) perhaps to bear up 
 the throne of God upon their wings, and 
 to carry Him when He appeared in His 
 glory. (Comp. 2 S. xxii. ii; Ps. xviii. 10, 
 “ He rode upon a Cherub, and did fly : yea. 
 He did fly upon the wings of the wind.”) 
 
 2 . The visions of Isaiah^ Ezekiel and St 
 John'] It is doubtful whether the Seraphim 
 in the vision of Isaiah ch. vi. (the only place 
 in which they are named in Sci'ipture) be the 
 same as the Cherubim or not. The scene 
 is the same as in the Cherubic visions of 
 Ezekiel and St John, viz. in the Temple (vv. 
 I. 6). The Seraphim occupy a place like 
 that of the Cherubim, viz. just by the 
 Throne of God ; and their taking the live 
 coal from the altar seems to connect them with 
 the burning coals of Ezekiel’s Cherubim (Ez. 
 i. 13). As far as we can judge these Sera- 
 phim resemble the Cherubim of the Taber- 
 nacle and the Temple in having human forms 
 and single faces, but they have six wings 
 each : “ With twain he covered his face, 
 and with twain he covered his feet, and with 
 twain he did fly.” 
 
 We come now to the visions of Ezekiel 
 and St John. These visions also have their 
 seat in the Temple as the image of Heaven. 
 (See Ezek. x. 2, 3, 5, 18, where we meet 
 with the altar fire and the courts of the Tem- 
 ple : and Rev. passim^ where all the imagery 
 is drawn from the Temple, c.g. the candle- 
 stick ch. i, 12, the High Priest ch. i. 13, the 
 altar ch. vi. 9, &;c.) In both visions the 
 throne corresponds with the place on which 
 the Cloud of glory rested between the Che- 
 rubim, The Cherubim then are desci-ibed 
 as living creatures (Ezek, i. 5 ; Rev. iv. 6), 
 in the form of a man (Ezek. i. 5) v/ith four 
 (Ezek. i. 8, ii. 23, x. 7, 8 — 21), or with six 
 wings (Rev. iv. 8), having eyes all over 
 (Ezek. i. 18, X. 12; Rev. iv. 8). In Ezekiel 
 they have each four faces, viz. of a man, of a 
 lion, of an ox, of an eagle (Ezek. i. 10, x. 
 16). In St John they have but one face 
 each, these faces being respectively of a man, 
 of a lion, of a calf and of an eagle (Rev. iv. 
 7). Their feet appear to Ezekiel as straight 
 
GENESIS. III. 
 
 51 
 
 feet, like the feet of oxen (Ezek. i. 7). In 
 Ezek. X. 14, we have the very singular phe- 
 nomenon that the face of a Cherub seems 
 identified or synonymous with the face of a 
 calf or an ox. (Comp. Ezek. i. 10; Rev, iv. 
 7.) It is thought by many, that in these 
 latter visions we have a fuller description of 
 the Cherubim of the Tabernacle and the 
 Temple than we could gather from the 
 earlier accounts in Holy Scripture. It is 
 supposed that they too, like the Cherubim 
 in the visions, must have been composite 
 creatures, if of human form, yet with heads 
 of other animals, either as described by Eze- 
 kiel or by St John. Moreover, as such com- 
 posite figures must plainly have been emblem- 
 atical, it has been thought that the Cheru- 
 bim by their faces of a man, a lion, a bull 
 and an eagle, perhaps expressed the strength 
 and wisdom of the Divine Majesty, or per- 
 haps the strength and the swiftness, with 
 which His ministers do His will. Again, as 
 they surround the throne and guard the Law 
 of the Most High, so perhaps we may un- 
 derstand, that the natural and the spiritual 
 creation being knit up together in one great 
 scheme, these symbolic creatures indicate that 
 all things, all creation, wait upon God, all 
 do His will, all work together for good to 
 the godly and for judgment on the un- 
 godly. They guard His law, and execute 
 its judgments, and keep off the sinner from 
 the blessing of its rewards. 
 
 The existence of composite winged em- 
 blematical figures amongst nations more or 
 less connected with the Hebrews is now well 
 known. The Sphinx and the Griffin have 
 long been familiar to us ; but it has been re- 
 marked as singular that Mr Layard should 
 have discovered in Nineveh gigantic winged 
 bulls with human heads, winged lions, and 
 human figures with hawk or eagle heads, cor- 
 responding so nearly with the winged Cheru- 
 bim of the visions of Ezekiel and St John. 
 These gigantic figures too are generally placed 
 as guards or sentinels at the entrances of tem- 
 ples and palaces, like the guarding Cherubim 
 of Holy Writ. Moreover, they are evidently 
 not objects of idolatrous worship, but appear 
 rather as worshippers than as divinities. It 
 is argued, that it is not improbable that Mo- 
 ses should have adopted similar emblems, op- 
 posing the true worship to the false, and 
 placing in the temple of the true God em- 
 blems of protection, watchfulness, power, and 
 glory, similar to those used in the temples of the 
 gods of the nations. (See Lammert, ‘Die Che- 
 rubim’ in ‘ Jahrbticher fiir Deutsche Theol.’ 
 Zwblfter Band, Viertes Heft, Gotha, 1867). 
 It is, however, to be observed, that nothing 
 connects Moses with Assyria or the Assyrian 
 sculptures; and indeed those found by Mr 
 Layard in the Temple of Kojundjik, which 
 are most to the point, are not considered by 
 him to be of great antiquity. Far more likely 
 
 is it that some Egyptian type should have 
 been followed: and we find in the Egyptian 
 Sculptures, and in the i8th dynasty, which 
 was probably the dynasty of the Exodus, ex- 
 amples of a shrine or ark wonderfully calcu- 
 lated to remind us of the ark of the Covenant 
 made by Moses. It Is carried by persons of 
 the sacerdotal race, by staves, as the Levites 
 carried the ark. In the centre is the symbol 
 of the Deity, and two winged human figures 
 spread out their wings around and over it. 
 (Lepsius, ‘Denkm.’ iii. Bl. 14.) These two 
 figures, however, represent the goddess Ma. 
 under the tv/o-fold notion of “justice” and 
 “truth.” This is clear from the ostrich fea- 
 thers on the heads of the figures. This god- 
 dess is often called “the double Ma,” and it 
 is very doubtful, whether, notwithstanding 
 this apparent similarity, there is any relation 
 between these figures and the Cherubim of the 
 Tabernacle. 
 
 What then is to be said of the vision of 
 Ezekiel and of St John who nearly repeats 
 the imagery in Ezekiel? We may observe, 
 that Ezekiel was a priest (Ezek. i. 3). He 
 was therefore probably familiar with the 
 sculptures in the Temple, especially the Che- 
 rubim carved on the bases of the ten lavers, 
 along with bulls and lions, and with four 
 wheels curiously connected with them. His 
 vision, the scene of which was the Temple, 
 naturally was mixed up with objects in the 
 Temple. The connection of his Cherubic 
 figures with wheels is explained by i Kings 
 vii. 29, 30, 33. ‘Even the lion and bull-heads 
 of these figures may have come from the 
 mingling of the Cherubim with the bulls and 
 lions in the Temple. But, besides this, he saw 
 these visions by the river Chebar in the land 
 of the Chaldeans; and there he and his people 
 would, no doubt, have become familiarized 
 with the gigantic winged guardians of the 
 temples and the palaces in Babylonia and As- 
 syria, the bulls and lions and eagle-headed 
 men, and human-headed bulls. It is highly 
 probable that the difference between the Che- 
 rubim in Ezekiel’s vision (repeated with cer- 
 tain variations in St John’s), and the Cheru- 
 bim in the Tabernacle and the Temple re- 
 sulted in part from this. In God’s dealings 
 with man. He constantly uses for lessons 
 things just before men's eyes. And so He 
 may have done in this case with Ezekiel. It 
 is almost certain that Ezekiel's visions did not 
 represent accurately that to which he had 
 been used in the I'emple. Hence he appears 
 not at first to have recognized them as being 
 Cherubim ; but at the end of his second vision 
 he tells us, that now he knew they were Che- 
 rubim (Ezek. X. 20). To Moses, on the other 
 hand, but still on the sam.e principle, God had 
 dictated the carving of figures like those 
 which he had seen in Egypt, figures emblem- 
 atical of guardianship, and of the reverence 
 of those who wait constantly upon God, but 
 
 D 2. 
 
GENESIS. IV. 
 
 [v- 
 
 which had never been objects of idolatrous 
 worship. Thus He sanctioned, or at least 
 tolerated, that v/hich seems so dear to re- 
 ligious humanity, the use of symbolism wheie 
 dangers from its abuse were not great. We 
 conclude, therefore, notwithstanding much 
 authority to the contrary, that in all proba- 
 bility the Cherubim of glory shadowing the 
 mercy seat were winged human hgures, with 
 human faces too. 
 
 The Cherubim of Paradise^ 
 that Moses describes the placing of the Che- 
 rubim at the gates of Eden in words suggest- 
 ed by that which he had to carve in the 
 Tabernacle. - He placed... Cherubim is in 
 the Hebrew “ He made to dwell, a 
 
 term specially lielonging to the dwelling of 
 the glory of God in the Shechinah, the cloud 
 of glory. And the Paradise Cherubim were 
 to keep, lit. “to guard,’’ the way 
 
 to the tree of life, as the Cherubim m the 
 Tabernacle guarded the Ark 
 Those, who believe the Cherubim in the i a- 
 bernacle to have been like those seen by Eze- 
 kiel, naturally believe also that they were but 
 emblems of those powers of nature and crea- 
 tion by which the Creator so constantly 
 works His will. The Cherubim and the 
 naming sword at the East Gate of Raradise 
 to them mean only that the way back to 
 Eden and to the tree of life wms closed by 
 such natural hindrances as the Author of na- 
 ture saw fit to interpose. It is not impossib e 
 that even if the Cherubim of the Tabernacle 
 were not composite creatures, but simply 
 winged human figures, much the same may 
 have been meant. There are doubtless hosts 
 of spiritual beings that surround the throne ot 
 God and do His will ; but all things serve Him. 
 He maketh the winds flis angels, and a flame 
 of fire His ministers. The stern, mechanical. 
 
 turning every wav of the sword of flame per- 
 haps points to this; and the sacred writer 
 may possibly have signified under the symbols 
 of angelic beings the great ministering powers 
 
 of nature. , u • 
 
 This at least is taught us by the Cheimbim 
 guarding the w^ay to the Tree of life. Para- 
 dise 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 w'-ere 
 between it and man the ministers of righteous 
 vengeance and the flaming sword. ^ ^ 
 
 The Etymology of the word Cherub is very 
 obscure. Some derive it from 2 '^'^ (Cherab) 
 
 “ to plough,” it being inferred from Ezek. i. 
 lo compared wdth x. 14, that the true (..herub 
 form \vas that of an ox. Others compare 
 nnp (Kerob) “near,” i.e. admitted to the 
 special presence of God. The Talmudisp as- 
 sert that the name signifies “a child,' and 
 that the faces of the Cherubim were the faces 
 of children. Eichhorn and others compare 
 the Greek ypui//-, ypilivo?, rrom the PeisitUi 
 irreifen “to hold,” and consider the name to 
 be nearly equal in significance, ^sweW as in 
 dcriv3.tion, with the fabulous Griffin or Gi)-* 
 phon of the East. Gesenius suggests the 
 root n-lD (Charab) = D“in (Charam) “to shut 
 out,” “to consecrate” (hence haram, a sa- 
 cred shrine). According to this derivation 
 the Cherubim w^ould be the guardians and 
 defenders of that which is consecrated, of the 
 Shrine or the Paradise. Canon Cook (see 
 Appendix to this volume) has traced the word 
 to an Egyptian root, which probably means 
 “carve,” or at any rate “shape.” In Matt, 
 xviii. a, xepfi 3 is the Coptic for /xopc/)?). 
 
 Cain, and said, I have gotten a man 
 from the Lord. 
 
 2 And she again bare his brother ^ 
 ^Abel. And Abel v/as ^a keeper of Held. 
 sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the 
 
 ground. ■ c ■ ■ 
 
 2 And Hn process of time it came of days. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I The birth, trade, and religion of Cain and 
 Abel. 8 The vnirder of Abel. ii The ciirse 
 of Cain. 1 7 Enoch the first city. 19 Lamech 
 and his two wives. 25 The birth of Seth, cO 
 and Enos. 
 
 A nd Adam knew Eve his wife; 
 and she conceived, and bare 
 
 Chap. IV. 1 . The last Chapter was a 
 history of the first birth of sin ; this gives us 
 an account of its developcment, as also of the 
 first out-spreading of the liiiman race. Cain 
 and Abel are respectively types of the two 
 opposing principles discernible throughout the 
 sacred history; Cain of the unchecked domi- 
 nion of evil, Abel (;f the victory of faith. 
 
 I haw gotten a man from the Lokd] LXX. 
 “by means of the Lord;” t)nk. “from 
 the Lord;” Syriac “for the Lord;” Pseudo- 
 
 Jonathan “ a man, the angel of the Lord. 
 Followung the latter paraphrpt, Luther, 
 Munster, Fagius, Schmidt, Pfeifler, Baum- 
 gart. and others, have rendered “ 1 have got- 
 ten a man, even JEHOVAH,” as though 
 Eve understood that the seed, who was to 
 bruise the serpent, shoukl be incarnate Deity, 
 and supposed that Cain was that seed, ^^'e 
 can, however, scarcely see ground enough to 
 believe that Eve's knowledge wms so advanced, 
 or her faith in the xMessiah so lively as to 
 
GENESIS. IV. 
 
 53 
 
 V. 4.] 
 
 to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit 
 of the ground an offering unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 4 And Abel, he also brought of the 
 
 f 
 
 firstlings of his ^dock and of the \ 
 
 thereof. And the L®rd had 
 spect unto Abel and to his offer- 4. 
 ing: 
 
 have called forth such an exclamation. It is 
 more probable that the particle rendered in 
 our Version frorn is a preposition (it is in the 
 next chapter (v. 24) rendered q.uith\ and that 
 it signifies, as the LXX. has it, by means of 
 or, as Gesenius, by the help of. There is, 
 however, little doubt that her words had 
 some pregnant meaning, and that she looked 
 on Cain as at all events one of that race 
 which was destined to triumph over the seed 
 of the Serpent. 
 
 “The use of the name (JEHOVAH) is 
 significant, though we cannot think that Eve 
 already knew this name of God, which was 
 first revealed to man at a later period of his 
 history, and which is of Hebrew origin, 
 whereas that language probably did not exist 
 until the time of the dispersion at Babel. 
 Yet, doubtless, the historian expresses the 
 true meaning of Eve’s speech which she spoke, 
 inspired by that help which had been gra- 
 ciously given her of God” (Keil, ‘Bibl. Com- 
 ment.’). 
 
 2. Abel.'] She called her first-born Cain 
 {possession)., but this second Hebei {breath., 
 •vapour., •vanity, nothingness), because all hu- 
 man possession is but vanity. Yet it is not 
 said, that Abel was so named by Eve herself, 
 as Cain had been. Hence it is possible, that 
 the name Abel was that by which he became 
 known, after his life had passed away like a 
 breath or a vapour. 
 
 Abel nvas a keeper of sheeps but Cain 'njoas 
 a tiller of the ground] The word ren- 
 dered sheep includes sheep and goats. It is 
 observed that the wildest nations live by 
 hunting, those, who have thrown off the first 
 barbarism, are nomadic, feeding sheep and 
 cattle, those more civilized are agriculturists 
 (see Rosen.). Hence the rationalist view co- 
 incides with the heathen, that a state of na- 
 ture was pure barbarism, and that man gra- 
 dually emerged from it into nomadic, then 
 into agricultural, and finally into civilized 
 life. In contradistinction to this, the account 
 of Genesis represents man as placed by his 
 Maker in a state of very simple civilization. 
 Adam in Paradise was “ to dress and to keep” 
 the garden (Gen. ii. 15). His sons must 
 have learned from him the knowledge which 
 he had thus acquired. It is not likely to 
 have been extensive knowledge, probably the 
 very simplest possible, but still sufficient to 
 rescue them from a state of pure barbarism, 
 and from the necessity of living by the chase. 
 
 See note A at the end of this Chapter. 
 
 3 . in process of time] Tit. “at the end of 
 days.” Abenezra understands “at the end of 
 
 the year.” So Fag i us, Bochart, 'Clericus, 
 Dathe, Rosenmiiller, and many others. Cle- 
 ricus quotes from Aristot. ‘ Ethics,’ V III. 2. 
 “ It appears that ancient sacrifices were offer- 
 ed after the gathering of the fruits of the 
 earth, they being a kind of first fruits. More- 
 over, at that time, men were most at leisure.” 
 
 an offering] The word here used always 
 signifies an unbloody oblation. It is frequently 
 translated “a meat offering.” Its nature is 
 defined. Lev. xi. i seq. 
 
 4 . of the firstlings of his fiock and of the 
 fat thereof] There has been in all times a 
 difference of opinion as to the Divine or hu- 
 man origin of saciafice. Sacrifices were so 
 thoroughly sanctioned by the Divine law in 
 after times, so generally accepted by God, 
 and made so conspicuously types of the Lamb 
 of God, that it is difficult to conceive how 
 they should have arisen but from a Divine 
 command. Yet, there is a deep silence as to 
 any such command, whilst the institution of 
 the Sabbath and of other positive ordinances 
 is distinctly recorded. Hence, many have 
 thought that sacrifice was dictated by an in- 
 stinct of natural religion, and then, by a con- 
 descension to man’s infirmity, sanctioned for 
 a temporary purpose, and constituted an 
 image of redemption. It is impossible to say 
 what the view of the Apostolic fathers was; 
 but from the time of Justin Martyr (‘ ApoL’ 
 
 II. 5; ‘Dial.’ pp. 237, 292), the fathers gen- 
 erally adopted the belief that sacrifice was a 
 human, not a Divine ordinance. A remarlc- 
 able exception to this appears in a passage of 
 the most learned of the 4th century divines 
 (Euseb. ‘Dem. Evang.’ i. 10), in which he 
 distinctly ascribes the origin of sacrifice to a 
 Divine inspiration, though even this does not 
 necessarily imply a Divine command. It 
 may be fairly said, that no certain conclu- 
 sion on this question can possibly be arrived 
 at, in the silence of Scripture. The principal 
 arguments on the side of the Divine origin 
 may be seen in Bp. Jer. Taylor, ‘Duct. Dub.' 
 Bk. II. R. XIII. §§ 27, 30; W'itsii ‘ Tgypt.’ 
 
 III. 14; Kennicott, ‘Two Dissertations,’ ii. 
 p. 184 sq. ; Magee ‘ On Atonement,’ Disc. 11. 
 and notes; Faber, ‘Three Dispensations,’ Vol. i. 
 The arguments on the opposite side may be 
 found in Spencer, ‘Dc Legibus Heb.’ Lib. ill. 
 Diss. ii.; Warburton, ‘ Div. Legat.’ Bks. vi. 
 IX. ; Davison’s ‘Remains,’ art. on origin of Sa- 
 crifice. The work of Outram, ‘De Sacrificiis,’ 
 should by all means be consulted, which takes 
 an impartial survey of the v/hole question. 
 
 had respect unto] Comp. Num. xvi. 15; 
 
54 
 
 GENESIS. IV. 
 
 [v. 5—8. 
 
 p 
 
 5 But unto Cain and to his offering 
 he had not respect. And Cain was 
 very wroth, and his countenance 
 fell. 
 
 6 And the Lord said unto Cain, 
 Why art thou wroth ? and why is thy 
 countenance fallen? 
 
 7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not " Or, 
 
 •I be accepted ? and if thou doest not 
 well, sin lieth at the door. And '' unto 
 thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt sribject 
 
 , , . icnto thee. 
 
 rule over him. -^wisd. lo. 
 
 8 And Cain talked with Abel his 
 brother : and it came to pass, ‘^when ^ 
 
 12. Jude II. 
 
 Amos V. How did the Almighty express 
 His approval of Abel’s offering? According 
 to the ancient Greek translation of Theod., it 
 was by sending down fire to consume the sa- 
 crifice, as in Lev. ix. 24; Jud. vi. ai; i K. 
 xviii. 38; I Chr. xxi. 26; 2 Chr. vii. i. This 
 explanation has been adopted by St Jerome, 
 Rashi, Abenezra, Kimchi, Luther, Grotius, 
 Delitzsch, and many others. Nothing but 
 conjecture can guide us in this matter. We 
 must be content to suppose, that some sign, 
 intelligible to both the brothers, was given 
 from above. The reason, as well as the 
 mode, of the acceptance of Abel’s gift has 
 been greatly debated. Ver. 7, and Heb. xi. 4, 
 seem to prove that the difference of spirit in 
 which the two offerings were made caused 
 the diversity of acceptance. The Apostle 
 says, “ By faith Abel offered a more excellent 
 sacrifice.” Faith, therefore, was the motive 
 power; yet the result may have been that the 
 sacrifice so offered was a better, fuller, and 
 more acceptable sacrifice. Some have main- 
 tained that Cain brought fruits only, that 
 Abel brought both fruits and the firstlings of 
 his flock (see Kennicott, as above, p. 194)- 
 The wording of the original does not seem to 
 warrant this. But, whilst we may see in the 
 difi'erent spirit and disposition of the offerers 
 a reason why one should be accepted and the 
 other rejected, still “the view so often ex- 
 pressed, that Abel’s bloody sacrifice resulted 
 from a more profound religious apprehension 
 than that of Cain, which was ‘ without shed- 
 ding of blood,’ seems to agree with the gene- 
 ral bearing of the text” (Kurtz, ‘Hist, of O. 
 C.’ Vol. 1. p. 89); even if it be not admitted 
 that a Hivine ordinance had already sanction- 
 ed animal sacTifices. 
 
 5 . countenance fell] Cp. the original of 
 Nehem. vi. 16. 
 
 7 . shalt thou twt he accepted] Is there 
 not acceptance? Lit. “ lifting up” either 
 of guilt {i.e. pardonV or of the countenance, as 
 when a supjiliant bending down his face is 
 accepted, and so his face raised up and cheer- 
 ed. Or more probably as the A. V., Is there 
 not acceptance? Shalt thou not be accepted 
 by God? 
 
 if thou doest not etuelh sin lieth at the 
 door] I'his is generally explained as mean- 
 ing that sin crouches at the door of the soul, 
 like a wild beast, ready to devour it. Others 
 
 understand sin to mean the punishment of sin., 
 in which sense the word is sometimes used, 
 see Zech. xiv. 19 (so Onk., Vatablus, Cornel, 
 a Lapide). Some again interpret “a sin offer- 
 ing” (another frequent sense of the Hebrew 
 word) which in the form of an animal victim 
 lies or crouches at your door (see Kennicott, 
 as above, p. 216, and Lee, ‘Lex.’ s. v. 
 
 The chief objection to this latter interpreta- 
 tion is that there is no instance of this use of 
 the word before the giving of the Law ; which 
 Law appears to have brought out into clearer 
 relief the knowledge of sin and the need of 
 sin-offering. See Rom. iii. 20. 
 
 And unto thee shall be his desire., &c.] 
 There are two principal interpretations of 
 these words, which have divided commenta- 
 tors in all times, the one set referring his de- 
 sire to Abel, the other to sin. The LXX. 
 Version clearly refers it to Abel, which inter- 
 pretation is adopted by Chrysost., Ambrose, 
 Augustine, and most of the fathers, by Gro- 
 tius, Vossius, Heidegger, by our own trans- 
 lators, and by a majority of English commen- 
 tators. The sense will then be, that Cain, 
 whose jealousy had been excited by God’s 
 acceptance of Abel, need not, if he behaved 
 well, fear that Abel should be preferred be- 
 fore him; his pre-eminence of birth should 
 still be preserved to him : the desire of the 
 younger brother should be towards him (an 
 idiomatic expression specially noting the long- 
 ing of one who looks up to another as an off 
 ject of reverence, and so noting dependence, 
 as of a younger brother on an elder, cp. Gen. 
 iii. 16). The other interpretation, which is 
 apparently, though not certainly, favoured by 
 the Vulgate, is given in the Targums of Jeru- 
 salem and Pseudo- Jonathan, and adopted by 
 Rashi, and most Jewish writers, by Luther’s 
 translation, Munster, Pererius, Rosenmilller, 
 Von Bohlen, Delitzsch, Knobel, Keil, and 
 most of the Germans. The sense of the pas- 
 sage on this supposition would be, “Sin lieth 
 crouching like a wild beast at the door of the 
 soul; its desire is towards thee, yet thou 
 art not given over into its power ; but if thou 
 wilt, thou shalt be able to keep it in subjec- 
 tion.” The former of these interpretations, 
 which is also the more ancient, seems both 
 more natural and more according with the 
 simple meaning of the original. 
 
 8. Cain talked with Abel] The original 
 
V. 9—14- 
 
 GENESIS. IV. 
 
 f Hen. 
 bloods. 
 
 they were in the field, that Cain rose 
 up against Abel his brother, and slew 
 him. 
 
 9 ^ And the Lord said unto Cain, 
 Where is Abel thy brother? And he 
 said, I know not : Am I my brother’s 
 keeper ? 
 
 10 And he said, What hast thou 
 done ? the voice of thy brother’s ^ blood 
 crieth unto me from the ground. 
 
 1 1 And now art thou cursed from 
 the earth, which hath opened her 
 mouth to receive thy brother’s blood 
 from thy handj 
 
 12 When thou tillest the ground, it 
 shall not henceforth yield unto thee 
 her strength; a fugitive and a vaga- 
 bond shalt thou be in the earth. 
 
 13 And Cain said unto the Lord, 
 ■'My punishment is greater than I can "Or, 
 bear. 
 
 14 Behold, thou hast driven 
 
 iniquity is 
 greater 
 than that 
 it may be 
 
 out this day from the face of forgiven. 
 earth; and from thy face shall I be 
 hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a 
 vagabond in the earth ; and it shall 
 come to pass, that every one that 
 findeth me shall slay me. 
 
 means more naturally “ Cain said to Abel.” 
 Accordingly in some few of the Masoretic 
 MSS. there is the mark of an omission here. 
 The Samaritan Pentateuch, the LXX., Syr., 
 Vulg., read “Cain said to Abel his brother. 
 Let us go into the field.” These latter words, 
 however, do not occur in the Greek Versions 
 of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, or the 
 most ancient Targum, that of Onkelos it is 
 probable that the words were inserted in the 
 Sam., LXX., &c. as a gloss, from the difficulty 
 of explaining the passage without them ; and 
 that this is really an example of an ancient 
 and obsolete usage of the verb to say^ which 
 here means either to talk ^duith., as the A. V., 
 or to telh as Jerome, or to command., to lay a 
 command upon., according to Arabic usage, as 
 Prof. Lee. 
 
 10. the 'voice of thy brother's blood crieth 
 unto me\ The verb “crieth” here agrees 
 with “blood,” which is in the plural, in 
 which form it is used specially of blood shed, 
 drops of blood, above all of blood shed by 
 violence and murder. Murder is a crime 
 which cries to heaven for vengeance, and 
 though the blood may be hidden, its voice 
 cannot be silenced. 
 
 11. wow art thou cursed from the earth"] The 
 words are variously rendered (i) “ Cursed 
 art thou from the ground,” i.e. the curse shall 
 come upon thee from the earth, which shall 
 not yield thee her fruit (Abenezra, Kimchi, 
 Knobel). (2) “ Cursed art thou away from 
 the land,” i.e. Thou art cursed and banished 
 from the land, in which thou hast dwelt, and 
 in which thy father and brethren are dwelling 
 (Rosenm.,Vater,Tuch, Knobel). (3) “Cursed 
 art thou even more than the earth” which 
 had been cursed (ch. iii. 17). Of these (3) 
 seems quite inadmissible; either of the others 
 yields a pertinent sense. The second is the 
 most probable. 
 
 12 . -When thou tillest., &c.] The curse 
 was in effect, that Cain should be banished 
 fi'om the land inhabited and cultivated by 
 
 Adam and his family, should wander about 
 without a settled habitation or a fertile dwell- 
 ing place, living hardly in a barren and inhos- 
 pitable wilderness. 
 
 13 . My punishment] There is great va- 
 riety of interpretation here. The Hebrews 
 constantly expressed sin and punishment for 
 sin by the same words; moreover to bear., 
 and to take a^ay or forgi-ve., were thoughts 
 closely connected. Hence (i) “ My sin is 
 too great to be forgiven ” (as in the Marg.) is 
 the rendering of LXX., Onk., Syr., Vulg., 
 Saad. Whilst (2) Abenezra, Kimchi, and 
 the majority of modern commentators, render 
 as the A. V., “ My punishment is greater 
 than I can bear.” Both these renderings 
 can be defended on good grounds by Hebrew 
 usage. The latter seems more accordant with 
 the temper of Cain’s mind, and is probably 
 correct. 
 
 14 . from thy face shall I be hid] Though 
 God no longer constantly manifested His 
 presence as in Eden, yet there were at times 
 some indications of that presence, {e.g. see v. 
 4). It may perhaps be infen-ed that some 
 special place had already been set apart for 
 Divine worship and sacred service. (On this 
 subject see Blunt, ‘Undesigned Coincidences,’ 
 I. p. 9, eighth Edition, 1863). 
 
 e'very one that findeth me shall slay me] 
 Josephus, Kimchi, Michaelis, and others, 
 have supposed that Cain feared death from 
 the beasts of the field ; but most commenta- 
 tors rightly understand that his fear was from 
 the vengeance of his own kindred. It is ob- 
 served by Kurtz that, according to hints ga- 
 thered from Gen. iv. 25, the murder of Abel 
 probably took place just before the birth of 
 Seth, i.e. 130 years after the creation of man, 
 Gf^n. V. 3. We need not suppose that Cain, 
 Abel, and Seth, were the only sons of Adam. 
 Indeed, from Gen. v. 4, we infer that there 
 were others. Cain, Abel, and Seth, are men- 
 tioned for obvious reasons; Abel for his piety 
 and his early death, Cain for his wickedness 
 
56 
 
 GENESIS. IV. 
 
 [v. 15—19. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 Chanoch. 
 
 15 And the Lord said unto him, 
 Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, 
 vengeance shall be taken on him seven- 
 fold. And the Lord set a mark upon 
 Cain, lest any finding him should kill 
 him. 
 
 16 ^ And Cain went out from the 
 presence of the Lord, and dwelt in 
 the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. 
 
 17 And Cain knew his wife; and 
 she conceived, and bare ^ Enoch: and 
 
 he builded a city, and called the name 
 of the city, after the name of his son, 
 Enoch. 
 
 18 And unto Enoch was born Irad : 
 
 and Irad begat Mehujael : and Me- 
 hujael begat Methusael : and Me- 
 thusael begat ^Lamech. tHeb. 
 
 19 And Lamech took unto him 
 two wives : the name of the one vjas 
 Adah, and the name of the other Zil- 
 lah. 
 
 and the worldly wisdom of his posterity, Seth 
 because he was the ancestor of the promised 
 seed. There may then, in 130 years, have 
 grown up a very considerable number of chil- 
 dren and grandchildren to Adam and Eve. 
 An Eastern tradition assigns to them no less 
 than 33 sons and 27 daughters. 
 
 15 . Therefore] The LXX., Symm., 
 Theodot., Vulg., Syr., read Not so. So 
 Dathe and others. 
 
 nvhosoe'ver slayeth] Cain, though guilty 
 of a terrible sin, may not have had the full 
 and fixed purpose to commit murder, but in 
 a moment of furious anger have seized a 
 weapon and dealt a murderous blow, perhaps 
 hardly aware of its deadly consequences. 
 Hence, it may be, the Most High forbids him 
 to be put to death, but sentences him to a 
 perpetual banishment from his early home, 
 and to a life of misery and sorrow. Kalisch 
 well observes, “The early death of Abel can 
 be no punishment; he seemed in fact to enjoy 
 the peculiar favour of God ; his offering was 
 graciously accepted. We find, therefore, in 
 this narrative the great and beautiful thought, 
 that life is not the highest boon; that the 
 pious find abetter existence and a more bless- 
 ed reward in another and a purer sphere; but 
 that crime and guilt are the greatest evils; 
 that they are punished by a long and weari- 
 some life, full of fear and care and compunc- 
 tion of conscience.” 
 
 set a mark upon Cain] Gave a sign to 
 Cain. LXX. The interpretation that God 
 provided Cain with some mark which would 
 make him known is adopted by Pseudo- Jona- 
 than, most of the Jewish Commentators, 
 Luther, Calvin, Piscator, Wogal, &c. Most 
 modern commentators agree that God gave 
 some sign to Cain to assure him that he 
 should not be slain, (Abenezra, Gabe, Dathe, 
 Rosenm., Gesen., iVlaurer, Hitzig, V. Bohl., 
 Tuch, Baumg., Kalisch, Dclitzsch). Of 
 what nature the sign may have been, we have 
 now no means of learning. 
 
 16 . the presence of the l.orcT] It is ques- 
 tioned wlicther this means merely from con- 
 versing with the .^.ord, or whether Eden, 
 
 though not the garden of Eden, in which 
 Adam had dwelt since the fall, was esteemed 
 a sacred spot, a spot in which still a peculiar 
 presence of God was looked for by man. See 
 on V. 14. 
 
 NocT] i.e. “wandering.” It is impossible 
 to say where Nod was situated, except that 
 it lay east of Eden. 
 
 17 . Enoch] It has been contended that 
 in these genealogies Adam — Enosh, Enoch 
 or Chanoch = Enoch, Cain = Kenan, Irad = 
 Jered, Mehujael = Mahalaleel, Methusael = 
 Methuselah. In the first place, however, there 
 is a manifest difference in the roots of the 
 names so identified; next, the paucity of 
 names at this early period may have natu- 
 rally led to similar names being adopted 
 in different families; 3rdly, the relationship 
 of the families of Seth and Cain, and the pro- 
 bably occasional intercourse between them, 
 would not unfiaturaily tend to the same 
 result. Dettinger is quoted by Kurtz (Vol. 
 I. p. 91), as having called attention to the 
 fact, that the text furnishes more detailed 
 particulars about Enoch and Lamech, whose 
 names were so similar to Sethite names, in 
 order to prevent the possibility of their being 
 confounded, and to shew more clearly that 
 the direction in which these two lines tended 
 was markedly opposite. See Kurtz as above, 
 Hilvernick, ‘Introd. to Pentateuch,’ p. 109. 
 
 budded a city] Rather “began to build a 
 city,” lit. “was building a city.” It is not 
 necessary to suppose that the city was built 
 immediately on the birth of Enoch. It may 
 have been built when Cain had lived many 
 years and was surrounded by children and 
 grandchildren. The wqrd city is, of course, 
 not to be interpreted by modern ideas; a 
 village of rude huts, which was distinguished 
 from the booths or tents of the nomads, 
 would satisfy all the conditions of the text. 
 
 19 . Lamech took unto him t^vo nvi'ves] Here 
 we have the first example of polygamy ; which, 
 though afterwards tolerated, had its rise 
 among the sons of Cain, and is evidently men- 
 tioned for reprobation. 
 
GENESIS. IV. 
 
 57 
 
 V. 20 — 23.] 
 
 f Heb. 
 xoJietter. 
 
 20 And Adah bare Jabal: he was 
 the father of such as dwell in tents, 
 and of such as have cattle. 
 
 21 And his brother’s name was 
 Jubal: he was the father of all such 
 as handle the harp and organ. 
 
 22 And Zillah, she also bare Tu- 
 bal-cain, an Mnstructer of every arti- 
 
 ficer in brass and iron : and the sister 
 of Tubal-cain zuas Naamah. 
 
 23 And Lamech said unto his wives, 
 
 Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye 11 Or, 
 wives of Lamech, hearken unto my ifya^ 
 speech: for H have slain a man to 
 my wounding, and a young man “ to 
 my hurt. }7iy hurt. 
 
 20. the father of such as d-zvell in tents, 
 and...ha‘ve cattle'] Jabal invented tents and 
 introduced the custom of pasturing cattle 
 round the tents, and perhaps even of stalling 
 them in tents. Moreover, the word here 
 used for cattle implies larger cattle, whereas 
 that used of Abel v. % applied only to smaller 
 cattle: Jabal therefore was the first who in- 
 troduced the thorough nomadic life. (See 
 Bochart, ‘Hieroz.’P. i. Lib. ii. c. 44.) 
 
 21. the harp and the organ] The kinnur, 
 which descended to the Greeks and was by 
 them called Kinura, is described by Josephus 
 as having ten strings and as played on by a 
 plectrum; but in i Sam. xvi. 23, xviii. 10, 
 xix. 9, David is said to have played on it 
 with his hand. It was probably, when in- 
 vented by J ubal, the simplest form of stringed 
 instrument. The word rendered organ was 
 apparently a pipe, bagpipe, panpipe, or some 
 very sim.ple wind instrument: Onkelos renders 
 it by pipe or flute. “ It is not an accidental 
 fact, that the lyre and the flute were intro- 
 duced by the brothers of a nomadic herds- 
 man. It is in the happy leisure of this* occu- 
 pation that music is generally first exercised 
 and appreciated.” Kalisch. 
 
 22. an instructer of e'very artficer in 
 brass and iron] So Onkelos. Perhaps (with 
 LXX. and Vulg.) a sharpener of e’very instru- 
 rnent in bron%e and iron. The word rendered 
 brass is certainly either bronze, or, more proba- 
 bly, a native metal, copper (see Smith’s ‘ Diet, of 
 the Bible,’ art. Brass]. Bronze is an alloy of 
 copper and tin, very much harder than either 
 of them and also than brass, v/ith a little more 
 tin it becomes bell-metal. Previously to this 
 time all weapons for defence or instrum.ents of 
 husbandry may have been of flint, or wood, 
 or bone. Uncivilized nations at the present 
 time have weapons made of flint, wood, bone, 
 shark’s teeth, &c. Where nations have lost 
 the usages of more civilized life, they seem to 
 have fallen back on a flint age, then to have 
 invented bronze weapons (in the case of South 
 America weapons of gold), and lastly to have 
 discovered the use of iron. Tubal Cain is 
 here described as the first who made metal 
 instruments and sharpened them. It is not to 
 be objected, that this was too early for the 
 invention of metals. If Tubal Cain was con- 
 temporary with Enoch (the descendant of 
 Seth in the same degree) he must have been 
 
 born at least 500 years after the creation of 
 Adam, according to the Hebrew Chronology, 
 or 1000 years according to the LXX. Chrono- 
 logy. Whether we must understand that 
 he invented the use of both copper and iron, 
 br only of copper or bronze, which led in 
 course of time to the farther invention cf 
 iron, it may be difficult to decide from the 
 concise and obscure wording of the text. 
 That the most ancient inhabitants of Europe 
 were ignorant of the use of metal, as indi- 
 cated by the discovery of flint weapons in the 
 gravel, can be no proof that they were un- 
 known to the early descendants of Adam. 
 If the colonists of Australia were for the 
 next thousand years to be separated from all 
 connection with the rest of the world, it is 
 quite possible, notwithstanding their present 
 high state of civilization, that they might 
 utterly lose many of the arts of civilized life, 
 and perhaps, if there were a deficiency of coal, 
 or lime, or native metals, even the use of me- 
 tallic instruments. 
 
 Nothing can be more natural or probable 
 than the difference of character and develop- 
 ment in the descendants of Cain and Seth 
 respectively. In the former we see the chil- 
 dren of this world wise in their generation, 
 rapidly advancing in art and the acquire- 
 ment of riches, but sensual, violent and god- 
 less. In the latter we find less of social and 
 political advancement, but a life more regu- 
 lated by the dictates of conscience and by 
 faith in the Providence and Grace of God. 
 
 Resemblances to the names of Lamech’s 
 family have been traced in the names of those 
 to whom the Latins attributed similar inven- 
 tions. Thus Tubal Cain has been thought 
 = Vulcan, Naamah, “the lovely, or beauti- 
 ful,” may then = Venus, Jubal, the inventor of 
 the lyre = Apollo. It is observed also that 
 the refinement and perhaps the luxury of the 
 descendants of Cain appear in the names of 
 their wives and daughters, Naamah, lovely, 
 Adah, beauty or brnament, Zillah, shadow. 
 
 23 , 24 . A 7 id Lamech said, &c.] 
 
 And Lamech said unto his wives, 
 
 Adah and Zillah, hear my voice. 
 
 Ye wives of Lamech, give ear unto my speech; 
 For I slay a man if he woundeth me. 
 
 Even a young man, if he hurteth me, 
 
 Lo ! Cain would be avenged seven-fold. 
 
 But Lamech seventy-and-seven fold. 
 
58 
 
 GENESIS. IV. [v. 24-26. 
 
 t Heb. 
 6'heih. 
 
 24 If Cain shall be avenged seven- 
 fold, truly Lamech seventy and seven- 
 fold. 
 
 25 ^ And Adam knev/ his wife 
 again ; and she bare a son, and called 
 his name ^Seth: For God, said she^ 
 
 hath appointed me another seed in- 
 stead of Abel, whom Cain slew. f Heb. 
 
 26 And to Seth, to him also there (orftocaii 
 v/as born a son ; and he called his themselves 
 name ^Enos: then began men '^io^Lmeo/ 
 call upon the name of the Lord. lord. 
 
 The speech of Lamech has exercised the 
 skill of translators and interpreters of all 
 times. Its obscure and enigmatical character 
 is admitted as a mark of its remote antiquity- 
 even by the most unfavourable critics. The 
 apparent meaning of the words is this. Amid 
 the violence of the times, especially among 
 the descendants of Cain, Lamech comforts 
 his wives with the assurance that with the aid 
 of the bronze and iron instruments now in 
 his hands, he could kill any one who injured 
 him (“I slay or would slay a man for 
 wounding me”); and that, if it had been 
 promised to Cain, that he should be avenged 
 seven fold, there was power in the hands of 
 I.amech’s family to avenge seventy-seven fold. 
 The speech is one of confident boasting. La- 
 mech trusts in his weapons of brass and steel 
 to maintain his cause, even when referring to 
 words used by God to his forefather Cain. 
 
 The chief difficulty lies in the use of the 
 perfect tense in the verb slay: lit. “I have 
 slain,” (which is the rendering of the LXX. 
 Vulg., Syr., &c.). That difiiculty seems to 
 have suggested the supposition that a not may 
 have fallen out (which is the rendering of 
 Onkelos, “I have not slain,”) or that it should 
 be rendered interrogatively (“ Have I slain ? ”) : 
 but the more probable explanation is, that in 
 this ancient distich the perfect tense is used to 
 express the arrogant confidence of the boast- 
 er ; even as at times the perfect is adopted in 
 the most sure word of prophecy, the future 
 being represented as having all the certainty 
 of the past. The words rendered in the 
 A. V. “ to my wounding” — “ to my hurt” — 
 probably mean “ for my wounding,” &c. /. e. 
 ‘Tor wounding me,” or “in revenge for his 
 wounding me.” 
 
 25. Seth'] i.e. “Foundation,” from the 
 word signifying to place., rendered here “ap- 
 pointed.” Seth came into the place of Abel, 
 
 as the ancestor of the Theocratic race and of 
 the promised seed. 
 
 26. then began men to call upon the name of 
 the Lord] Then began he to call on the 
 name of the LORD. There is great diversity 
 in the interpretation of these words. The Sa- 
 maritan Pentateuch and the Vulgate refer them 
 to Enos, “Then he, i.e. Enos, began to call 
 on the name of the Lord.” The LXX. has 
 “Then he hoped,” &c. it being possible to 
 refer the verb to a root signifying “ to hope,” 
 whence some have understood, that the birth 
 of Enos inspired a new hope that the promise 
 to Eve should be fulfilled. The Targum of 
 the Pseudo- Jonathan has “In those days men 
 began to make themselves idols, which they 
 called after the name of the Word of the 
 Lord.” This interpretation is adopted by 
 some celebrated Jewish commentators (Kim- 
 chi, Rashi, &c.), who derive the verb from 
 a root signifying “ to profane,” and render 
 “ Then was there profanation in calling on 
 the name of the Lord.” Jerome (‘Qugest.’) 
 mentions this as the opinion of many Jews in 
 his days. The most natural sense of the 
 Hebrew is, that when Enos was born, Seth 
 his father in gratitude and hope then began 
 to pra'se the Lord and to call on Him with 
 reassured hope in His mercy and His pro- 
 'mises. There is nothing to connect the verb 
 with Enos as its nominative case rather than 
 with Seth ; nor again is there any good 
 ground for the notion that emphasis is to be 
 placed on the special name of God, J ehovaii ; 
 as though then for the first time He was 
 invoked under that name. The sacred narra- 
 tive has all along used the name Jehovah ; 
 and whether we believe it to have been known 
 from earlier times or to have been revealed 
 first to Moses, there is nothing whatever to 
 connect its revelation and acknowledgment 
 with the birth of Enos. 
 
 NOTE A. Additional Note on Chap. iv. v. 2. On the Early Civiliza- 
 tion OF Mankind. 
 
 Havernick (‘Introd. th the Pentateuch,’ 
 Translation, p. 104 ) has shewn that the tra- 
 ditions of ancient nations, the Phoenicians, 
 Egyptians, Greeks, &c. refer the invention 
 of agriculture to the earliest mythic ages; 
 and that the investigators of history. Her- 
 der, Link, Schlosser, &:c. have been led to 
 the conclusion that “ the discovery of the 
 breeding of cattle, of agriculture, and of the 
 
 preparation of metals, belong to prehistoric 
 times, and that in the historic period these 
 arts have made comparatively no great ad- 
 vances.” The recent discoveries of human 
 remains, and of the implements of human in- 
 dustry in the gravel and drift formations on 
 the Earth’s surface, may seem to contradict 
 all this. Ethnologists distinguish a flint age, 
 a bronze age, and an iron age, as having ex- 
 
59 
 
 GENESIS. V. 
 
 V. I, 2.] 
 
 istcd in ancient Europe; during the first of 
 which only flint instruments, during the se- 
 cond bronze, during the third, iron instru- 
 ments appear to have been in use. And, as 
 for the most part in the earlier periods, the 
 skulls seem to have been smaller and of a 
 lower type than those of later date, the theory 
 of early barbarism and of progressive civiliza- 
 tion has been thought to derive confirmation 
 from Geology. Sir Charles Lyell says also, 
 that “ had the original stock of mankind been 
 really endowed with superior intellectual 
 power and with inspired knowledge, and 
 had possessed the same improvable nature as 
 their posterity, the point of advancement, 
 which they would have realized ere this, 
 would have been immeasurably higher” (‘An- 
 tiquity of Man,’ p. 378). He goes on to say 
 that, instead of rude pottery and flint wea- 
 pons, we should in that case have found works 
 like those of Phidias and Praxiteles. It may 
 be answered, that Scripture does not repre- 
 sent the first man as “endowed with superior 
 intellectual power and with inspired know- 
 ledge.” All that we learn is, that Adam 
 was placed in Eden to till it, that his power 
 of sj)eech was exercised by having to name 
 the brute creation, that he hadra simple com- 
 mand given him, and afterwards a special 
 promise. Morally he may have been, in the 
 first instance, in a state of innocence, without 
 behig intellectually in a condition of emi- 
 nence. As for the advance of knowledge, 
 many nations have been in a state of mental 
 cultivation and of art knowledge incompa- 
 rably beyond that of Adam and his children, 
 and yet have remained for centuries upon 
 centuries without any apparent progress ; for 
 instance, the people of China. All that we 
 say is, that his primary state was not a state 
 of savageness, but rather of rudimentary civi- 
 lization. And this is really not opposed, but 
 confirmed, by the records of Geology. “ We 
 must remember, that as yet we have no dis- 
 tinct geological evidence, that the appearance 
 of what are called the inferior races of man- 
 kind has always preceded in chronological or- 
 der that of the higher races” (Lyell, as above, 
 p. 90). On the contrary, some of the most 
 ancient remains of man and man’s art give 
 indications of considerable civilization. In 
 the valley of the Ohio there are hundreds of 
 mounds, which have served for temples, for 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I The genealogy, age, and death of the patriarchs 
 from Adam nnto jVoah. 24 The godliness 
 and translation of Enoch. 
 
 i^Chron. ' | ''HIS IS the ‘^boolc of the genera- 
 X tions of Adam. In the day that 
 
 places of defence and of sepulture, containing 
 pottery, ornamental sculpture, articles in sil- 
 ver and copper, and stone weapons, with 
 skulls of the Mexican type. Above these 
 have grown a succession of forests, in which 
 the Red Indians for centuries may have 
 housed and hunted (Lyell, pp. 39, 40). 
 They prove that in those very ancient days 
 there must have been a civilization, of which 
 all traces have vanished above the surface of 
 the earth. As regards the fossil skulls found 
 in Europe, that known as “the Neanderthal 
 Skull” is of the lowest type, and is said to be 
 the m.ost apelike skull ever seen, though its 
 capacity, 75 cubic inches, is greater than that 
 of some individuals of existing races. It was 
 discovered in a cavern with the thigh of a 
 bear: but there is nothing to prove its great 
 antiquity. It may be very ancient, but may 
 be comparatively modern. But the skull 
 found at Engis near Liege, which appears to 
 have been contemporary with the Mammoth, 
 and is assigned by Lyell to the post-pliocene 
 age, although the forehead is somewhat nar- 
 row, may be m.atched by the skulls of indi- 
 viduals of European race (Lyell, p. 80): and 
 the skull of the fossil man of Denise, though 
 said to be contemporary with the Mammoth 
 and coeval with the last eruption of the Puy 
 Volcanoes, and therefore as old as, or older 
 than, any other human skull yet discovered, 
 is of the ordinary Caucasian or European 
 type (Lyell, p. 200). No prudent Geologist 
 will admit, concerning any of these crania, 
 more than that they bear marks of rude as 
 compared with civilized races, rather more 
 mastication, more prominent marks of mus- 
 cular attachment and the like, all things of 
 every day occurrence. So, in fact, the argu- 
 ment from Geology is really coincident with 
 the testimony of Scripture and of universal 
 primitive tradition, viz. that man, in his ori- 
 ginal condition, was not a helpless savage, but 
 had at least the rudiments of civilization and 
 intelligence. 
 
 When we read that Cain was a tiller of the 
 ground, we do not necessarily conclude, that 
 he cultivated wheat and barley; he may have 
 known only of fruits, vegetables, roots, See. 
 Yet it is observable, that cereals have been 
 discovered with some of the very early re- 
 mains of human industry. 
 
 God created man, in the likeness of 
 God made he him; 
 
 2 ‘^Male and female created he*wisd.2. 
 them ; and blessed them, and called 
 their name Adam, in the day when 
 they were created. 
 
 Chap. V. 1. the book of the generations'] history of Adam and his descendants. See 
 The record or recounting of the genealogical ch. ii. 4. 
 
6o 
 
 GENESIS. V. 
 
 [v. 3—20. 
 
 3 ^ And Adam lived an hundred 
 and thirty years, and begat a son in 
 his own likeness, after his image; and 
 called his name Seth : 
 
 Cl Chron. 4 “^Aiid the days of Adam after he 
 I, I. &c. begotten Seth were eight hundred 
 
 years : and he begat sons and daughters : 
 
 5 And all the days that Adam lived 
 were nine hundred and thirty years : 
 and he died. 
 
 6 And Seth lived an hundred and 
 tHeb five years, and begat ^Enos: 
 
 y And Seth lived after he begat 
 Enos eight hundred and seven years, 
 and begat sons and daughters : 
 
 8 And all the days of Seth were 
 nine hundred and twelve years: and 
 he died. 
 
 9 H And Enos lived ninety years, 
 and begat ^ Cainan: 
 
 10 And Enos lived after he begat 
 Cainan eight hundred and fifteen- 
 years, and begat sons and daughters : 
 
 1 1 And all the days of Enos were 
 nine hundred and five years: and he 
 died. 
 
 Maleleel 
 
 t Heb. 
 
 12 ^ And Cainan lived seventy 
 
 years, and begat ‘Mahalaleel : tCr. 
 
 13 And Cainan lived after he be- 
 gat Mahalaleel eight hundred and 
 forty years, and begat sons and 
 daughters: 
 
 14 And all the days of Cainan were 
 nine hundred and ten years: and he 
 died. 
 
 15 ^ And Mahalaleel lived sixty 
 and five years, and begat ^ Jared: 
 
 16 And Mahalaleel lived after he 
 begat Jared eight hundred and thirty 
 years, and begat sons and daughters : 
 
 17 And all the days of Mahalaleel 
 were eight hundred ninety and five 
 years: and he died. 
 
 18 ^ And Jared lived an hundred 
 sixty and two years, and he begat 
 Enoch. 
 
 19 And Jared lived after he begat 
 Enoch eight Jiundred years, and beg.at* 
 sons and daughters : 
 
 20 And all the days of Jared were 
 nine hundred sixty and two years : 
 and he died. 
 
 3. Adam lived^ &c,] The genealogy given 
 is that of the Sethites, probably as the line 
 of the promised seed. The genealogy of the 
 (lainites was given much more impertectly in 
 the last chapter, and with no dates or chro- 
 nological marks, because, says Keil, being 
 under the curse of God, they had no future. 
 He quotes Baumgarten as saying, that this 
 
 genealogy was “a memorial witnessing both 
 the truth of God’s promises and also the faith 
 and patience of the fathers.” The chronology 
 of this chapter is very different in the Hebrew, 
 the Samaritan and the Septuagint, as will be 
 seen in the following table of the generations 
 from Adam to the flood (see also note 
 infra). 
 
 
 Hebrew Text. 
 
 Samaritan Text. 
 
 ! Septuagint. 
 
 
 Years 
 before 
 birth of 
 Son. 
 
 Rest 
 of Life. 
 
 Whole 
 
 Life. 
 
 Years 
 before 
 birth of 
 Son. 
 
 Rest 
 of Life. 
 
 Whole 
 
 Life. 
 
 Years 
 Ijefore 
 birth of 
 Son. 
 
 Rest 
 j of Life. 
 
 Whole 
 
 Life. 
 
 yUlam 
 
 130 
 
 800 
 
 9.^0 
 
 130 
 
 800 
 
 930 
 
 230 
 
 700 
 
 9.30 
 
 Seth 
 
 105 
 
 807 
 
 912 
 
 105 
 
 807 
 
 912 
 
 205 
 
 707 
 
 912 
 
 Enosh 
 
 90 
 
 815 
 
 905 
 
 90 
 
 8'5 
 
 905 
 
 190 
 
 715 
 
 905 
 
 Cainan 
 
 70 
 
 G 
 
 840 
 
 910 
 
 70 
 
 840 
 
 910 
 
 170 
 
 740 
 
 910 
 
 Mahalaleel 
 
 830 
 
 «95 
 
 65 
 
 830 
 
 895 
 
 •65 
 
 7.30 
 
 895 
 
 Jared 
 
 162 
 
 800 
 
 962 
 
 62 
 
 7^5 
 
 847 
 
 162 
 
 800 
 
 962 
 
 i'inoch 
 
 
 300 
 
 365 
 
 G 
 
 300 
 
 3 ^J 5 
 
 165 
 
 200 
 
 365 
 
 Methuselah 
 
 187 
 
 7S2 
 
 969 
 
 67 
 
 f>53 
 
 720 
 
 187 
 
 782 
 
 969 
 
 Ivameeh 
 
 Xoah 
 
 Shein at the Flood 
 Date of Flood 
 
 182 
 
 500 
 
 100 
 
 1656 
 
 595 
 
 777 
 
 53 
 
 500 
 
 100 
 
 1307 
 
 600 
 
 653 
 
 188 
 
 500 
 
 100 
 
 ^62^ 
 
 1 
 
 565 
 
 753 
 
 6. Enos'] i.c. man. Adam signifies 7nan^ 9. Cainan] i.e. possession. 
 
 generally. Enos, or Enosh, is rather 12. Mahadaleet] The Praise of God. 
 
 mortal^ rniserable man. The now growing 15. Jared] I'he root of this name sig- 
 
 expericnce of human sorrow and fragility nifies to descend., IDescent. 
 may have suggested this name. 13. Enoch] i. e. consecrated. 
 
V. 21 32.] 
 
 f Or. 
 
 Mathii- 
 
 •itiln. 
 
 Ecclus. 
 44. t 6 . 
 
 Heb. II. 
 
 f Heb. 
 Levtech. 
 
 GENESIS. V. 
 
 were nine hundred sixty and nine 
 years: and he died. 
 
 28 ^ And Lamech lived an hun- 
 dred eighty and two years, and begat 
 a son : 
 
 29 And he called his name ^Noah, ^Gr. aw. 
 saying, This same shall comfort us 
 concerning our work and toil of our 
 hands, because of the ground which 
 
 the Lord hath cursed. 
 
 30 And Lamech lived after he be- 
 gat Noah five hundred ninety and five 
 years, and begat sons and daughters : 
 
 31 And all the days of Lamech 
 were seven hundred seventy and seven 
 years: and he died. 
 
 32 And Noah was fiv^e hundred 
 years old : and Noah begat Shem, 
 
 Ham, and Japheth. 
 
 21 ^ And Enoch lived sixty and 
 five years, and begat ^Methuselah: 
 
 22 And Enoch walked with God 
 after he begat Methuselah three hun- 
 dred years, and begat sons and daugh- 
 ters : 
 
 23 And all the days of Enoch were 
 three hundred sixty and five years: 
 
 24 And ^Enoch walked with 
 . God : and he was not ; for God took 
 
 him. 
 
 25 And Methuselah lived an hun- 
 dred eighty and seven years, and begat 
 ^Lamech : 
 
 26 And Methuselah lived after he 
 begat Lamech seven hundred eighty 
 and two years, and begat sons and 
 daughters : 
 
 27 And all the days of Methuselah 
 
 21. Methuselah'] Perhaps “the missive of 
 death.” Bochart interprets “ His death the 
 sending forth,” as indicating that his death 
 was contemporary with the pouring forth of 
 the waters, for Methuselah must have died 
 in the very year of the flood. Gesenius gives 
 the sense of the word as njtr teli^ “the man 
 of the sword” or “of the dart.” From its 
 frequent occurrence in Phoenician inscriptions, 
 &c., there can be little doubt that Methu = 
 Betha = man. 
 
 24. he rjuas not; for God took him] The 
 LXX. rendering seems to interpret this of 
 translation. So do all the Targums. In 
 Ecclus. xliv. 16, we read “ He pleased the 
 Lord and was translated (into Paradise, ac- 
 cording to the Vulgate), being a pattern of 
 repentance.” The words are, no doubt, ob- 
 scure. Yet, when we remember how uni- 
 versally the promise of the Old Testament is 
 of life and blessing in this world, not of an 
 early and happy death, we could scarcely 
 doubt th.it the ancient interpretation was the 
 true one, even if it had not been that given 
 in Heb. xi. 5. The history of Enoch is rea- 
 sonably supposed to be the origin of the 
 Phrygian tradition concerning a certain An- 
 naeus or Nannacus, who lived upwards of 
 300 years, concerning whom it was prophe- 
 sied that after him all would be destroyed. 
 
 This caused great grief among the Phrygians, 
 whence “ to weep as in the days of Annaeus” 
 became a proverb. At his death cam.e the 
 deluge of Deucalion, and all men were de- 
 stroyed (Suidas, V. NawoKoy, Steph. Byz. v. 
 'Ikovlov). 
 
 29. he called his name Noah^ sayings This 
 same shall comfort us, &:c.] The name “• Noah ” 
 signifies “Rest,” and the connection between 
 the thought of rest and that of comfort is 
 obvious. Lamech appears as one oppressed 
 with the toil and labour needful to subdue 
 the earth, and with the feeling that God had 
 cursed it and made it sterile. He expresses a 
 h'^pe, that Noah would be a comfort to his 
 parents and the bringer of rest ; whether the 
 mere natural hope of a father that his son 
 should be a support and comfort to him, or 
 a hope looking to the promise made of old 
 to Eve, or a hope inspired by prophetic vision 
 that Noah should become the second founder 
 of a race, the head of a regenerated world, 
 it may be hard to say. There may have 
 been an unconscious prophecy in the expres- 
 sion of a merely pious hope. 
 
 Which the Lord hath curseef] This oc- 
 curs in a chapter which modern critics call 
 Elohistic. Therefore they consider this an in- 
 terpolation. The truer inference would be that 
 the Elohistic theory is unfounded. 
 
 NOTE A. On the Chronology in Ch. v. 
 
 Difficulties in the Chronology. i Difference of texts. 2 Longevity of Patriarchs. 
 3 Antiquity of human race, as deduced (i) from Geology, (2) from History, 
 (3) from Language, (4) from Ethnology. 
 
 The genealogies in this chapter and in may be considered together. The difficulties 
 chapter xi. are the only sources extant for which suggest themselves may be arranged as 
 the construction of a chronology of the patri- follows : 
 
 archal ages. The que.stions which arise are i. The disagreement between the Hebrew, 
 of the same kind in both genealogies, and Samaritan and Septuagint texts. 
 
62 
 
 GENESIS. V. 
 
 a. The extreme longevity assigned to the 
 patriarchs, 
 
 3. The insufficient time allowed for the 
 existence of man upon the earth, 
 
 1, The first of these difficulties is such 
 as to render it impossible to arrive at a 
 certain conclusion as to the exact dates of 
 the creation of man, the Deluge and the call 
 of Abraham ; but it in no degree affects the 
 veracity of the Sacred Record, It is true, 
 that there appears something like design in 
 the alterations which must have taken place ; 
 thus the Hebrew gives the age of Adam 
 as 130 + 800 = 930, whilst the LXX, give 
 230 + 700 — 930, and so on in the case of most 
 of the Patriarchs, the results being frequently 
 made to tally, whilst the constituents of these 
 results disagree. Hence, whilst some have 
 charged the Alexandrian translators with 
 lengthening the periods, in order more nearly 
 to satisfy the demands of Egyptian chrono- 
 logy, others have supposed that the rabbins 
 shortened the time, to escape the force of the 
 Christian's argument, that the world was 
 six thousand years old, and that therefore 
 the Messiah must have come. If either of 
 these charges be true, it only brings us in 
 face of what is already familiar to all critics, 
 viz, that the errors of copyists wei*e some- 
 times intentional, but that even these do not 
 affect the general integrity of the text. It is 
 well known that there have been some few 
 designed corruptions in the text of the New 
 Testament, It need not surprise us there- 
 fore, if we find reason to think that there 
 were some attempts of a like kind in the text 
 of the Old Testament, If anywhere the 
 temptation to correct existed, it could never 
 be stronger than in the genealogical tables of 
 the ancestors of the Jewish race. Indeed, as 
 numbers are of all things the most liable to 
 become confused in ancient documents, very 
 great errors in restoring tliem may be con- 
 sistent with the most honest intention on the 
 part of the restorers. And, though we be- 
 lieve in the Divine guidance and inspiration 
 of the original writer, we have no right to 
 expect that a miraculous power should have 
 so watched over the transmission of the re- 
 cords, as to have preser\-ed them from all pos- 
 sible errors of transcription, though a special 
 Providence may have guarded them from such 
 loss or mutilation, as would have weakened 
 their testimony to Divine and spiritual truth, 
 
 2, As to the extreme longevity of the 
 Patriarchs, it is observable that some emiinent 
 physiologists have thought this not impos- 
 -sible ; and even IRiftbn, by no means inclined 
 to credulity on the side of Scripture, ad- 
 mitted the truth of the record, and could see 
 physical causes for such long life in early 
 times, (See ‘Aids to Faith,’ p, 278,) It is 
 undoubted, that the traditions of ancient 
 nations, as Orceks, Babylonians, Egyptians, 
 Hindoos, and others, point to the great 
 longevity of the early inhabitants of the 
 
 globe; and thou£i!i sceptics argue that this 
 only places the Scriptural account on a level 
 with other mythic histories (see Von Bohlen, 
 Vok II, p, 100), yet we may reply that, if 
 the Scripture account were true, the tradi- 
 tions of other nations would be almost sure 
 to preserve some traces of the truth, and that 
 this is a more probable explanation of the 
 fact, than the supposition that all these na- 
 tions, however unconnected with each other, 
 should have stumbled upon the same fabulous 
 histories. 
 
 It is well observed by Delitzsch ; “ We 
 must consider that all the old-world popu- 
 lation was descended from a nature originally 
 immortal (in Adam and Eve), that the cli- 
 mate, weather, and other natural conditions 
 were very different from those which suc- 
 ceeded, that the life was very simple and 
 even in its course, and that the after-working 
 of the Paradisiacal state was not at once lost 
 in the track of antiquity,” To this Keil adds, 
 that this long life must have been very fa- 
 vourable to the multiplication of mankind, 
 for the formation of marked characters, and 
 the developement of the good and evil quali- 
 ties of difterent races. Family affection, piety, 
 good discipline and morality would strike 
 their roots deeper in pious families ; whilst 
 evil propensities would be more and more 
 developed in godless races. Supposing, hov/- 
 ever, that physiology should ultimately decide 
 that the extreme longevity of the patriarchs 
 was not possible, without a continued mira- 
 cle, \ve should only be driven to the principle 
 already conceded, that numbers and dates, 
 especially in genealogical tables, are liable in 
 the course of transcription to become ob- 
 scured and exaggerated. 
 
 3. The third objection is derived from the 
 opinion now very generally gaining strength, 
 that man must have been in existence on the 
 earth more than four or even six thousand 
 years before the Christian era. 
 
 The arguments for the antiquity of man 
 are : 
 
 (1) Geological, 
 
 (2) flistorical, 
 
 (3) Linguistic, 
 
 (4) Ethnological, 
 
 (1) The very eminent British geologist, 
 Sir C, Lyell, has attempted to prove, that 
 man, having been contemporary with the 
 mammoth and other extinct mammalia, must 
 have been living at least 100,000 years on the 
 earth. Although unfortunately in physical 
 science a great name always carries with it a 
 crowd of followers, far more than in politics, 
 literature or religion, yet in the present in- 
 stance Sir C, . Lyell has failed to carry con- 
 viction to some of the most eminent of his con- 
 temporaries, Elie de Beaumont on the conti- 
 nent and several of the most distinguished 
 geologists in Imgland demur to his conclu- 
 sions, The conclusions arc based on two 
 principal assumptions; first, that relics of 
 
GENESIS. V. 
 
 63 
 
 man, flint Instruments or the like, are found 
 in recent and post-pliocene formations, which 
 have been deposited in juxtaposition with 
 hones of the mammoth and other extinct 
 mammalia ; secondly, that the present rate 
 of deposition must be reckoned as the normal 
 rate, and that at that rate the beds, which 
 overlie the extinct mammal and human re- 
 mains, must have taken a vast time to form. 
 Of course much depends on the argument 
 fromi uniformity. There are many men of 
 science, who, accepting Lyell’s general prin- 
 ciples, yet believe that in former ages there 
 were causes at work, which would have pro- 
 duced much speedier deposition and great- 
 er rapidity in the formation of beds of all 
 kinds, than we see going on at present. It 
 may perhaps be true, that man was coeval 
 with the mammoth; but a mammoth was 
 found early in this century, in Siberia pre- 
 served in the ice, with skin and hair fitting it 
 to live in a cold climate, and with flesh upon it, 
 of which it was possible to make soup. Now, 
 even allowing for the great preserving power 
 of ice, there is neither proof nor probability 
 that this animal had been dead 100,000 years 
 or even more than 6,000 years. But again, it 
 seems probable that man was in existence at 
 a time when animals now inhabiting tropical 
 climates roamed at large in the forests of Gaul 
 and Britain. How long it may have taken to 
 i-cduce the climate of Great Britain from a 
 tropical to its present temperate condition, is 
 a (juestion very difficult to solve. A change 
 in the Gulf Stream, an alteration in the re- 
 spective elevation of land and water, let alone 
 all question of the gradual cooling down of 
 the earth itself, would do mudi towards this. 
 Besides, not human bones^ but only flint in- 
 stTuments are found in the gravel and caverns 
 with bones of extinct mammals. Moreover, 
 the present opinions of geologists rather go to 
 negative entirely the tropical character of the 
 British climatein the mammoth and tiger periods. 
 Sir Chas. Lyell admits that even now “ the 
 Bengal tiger ranges occasionally to latitude 52® 
 North” (/. e. the latitude of England, and pro- 
 bably in a climate much colder than England), 
 “and abounds in latitude 48®, to which the 
 small tailless hare or pika, a polar resident, 
 sometimes wanders southwards” (‘Antiq. of 
 Man,’ p. 158). We may see therefore many 
 contingencies which might have brought hu- 
 man remains into contact with the remains of 
 tropical animals, at a period much more recent 
 than that assigned to such proximity by this 
 eminent writer: 
 
 Difficulties of various kinds attach to Sir 
 Charles Lyell’s very large numbers; for in- 
 stance, at anything approaching to the present 
 rate of increase the descendants of a single 
 couple would have multiplied to nearly the 
 number of the present population in about 
 6000 years. Again, according to Sir C. Lyell’s 
 own admission, “ we must remember, that 
 
 as yet we have no distinct geological evidence 
 that the appearance of what are called the 
 infer’or races of mankind has always preceded 
 in chronological order that of the higher races.” 
 p. 90. On the contrary, it was shewn above 
 that the evidence which we have points to 
 some degree of civilization in the earliest 
 periods. Indeed had it not been so, it is 
 hardly possible that man should not saon have 
 become extinct in the presence of so many 
 animals whose mere physical powers were so 
 much greater than man’s. But then is it 
 credible, that for some 90,000 years the hu- 
 man race should have been stationary, having 
 acquired almost from the first the art of mak- 
 ing flint instruments, but all farther progress 
 in the arts of civilization having apparently 
 been reserved to the last 6,000 years ? On the 
 whole, it seems impossible not to conclude that 
 the geological evidence as to the antiquity of 
 man is as yet imperfect and imperfectly read. 
 
 (2) The historical arguments are chiefly 
 derived from Egyptian sources; for, though 
 the Indians, the Chinese, and the Babylonians 
 profess to go back to hundreds of thousands 
 of years of past history, it is generally ad- 
 mitted that their historic times do not at the 
 very utmost extend farther back than to the 
 27th century b. c. The eminent Egyptologers, 
 Bunsen and Lepsius, relying on the monuments 
 of Egypt and the statements of Manetho, claim 
 for Egypt a national history from nearly io,oco 
 years b.c. It is, however, quite certain that 
 much of the evidence for this is of the vaguest 
 possible character, and that very large deduc- 
 tions must be made for myth and for con- 
 temporary dynasties. In all probability the 
 earliest Egyptian dynasty cannot be dated 
 farther back than B.c. 2700. (See ‘Aids to 
 Faith,’ Essay vi. 17, pp. 252 sq., also ‘Biblical 
 Diet.’ Arts. Chronology^ Egypt^ and the Ex- 
 cursus at the end of this volume). 
 
 (3) The linguistic argument is of this na- 
 ture. Languages are of slow growth. The 
 divergence of several modern European lan- 
 guages from Latin has been comparatively 
 inconsiderable in 1500 years. Can we then 
 believe all languages to have been formed, and 
 to have diverged so widely from each other, 
 since the dispersion at Babel ? One answer 
 to this is, that only those languages which 
 have a liteiature change slowly. As long 
 as the Authorised Version of the Scriptures 
 and the works of Shakspeare are read in 
 English, the English language will never In? 
 much unlike what it is now, or what it was 
 three centuries ago. But where there is no 
 literature, a few years create a complete re- 
 volution; wild tribes in a single generation 
 cease to understand each other. And, even 
 keeping out of sight the miracle of the disper- 
 sion at Babel, emigration, which carried no 
 literature with it, would soon have created 
 an endless diversity of tongues. The chief 
 difficulty, however, is in tlie slow growth of 
 
64 
 
 GENESIS. VI. 
 
 languages to a high degree of grammatical 
 perfection, such as of Greek to the language of 
 Homer some 900 years b.c., and of Sanskrit 
 to the language of the Vedas, nearly -1200 
 years b.c. But we must remember, that the 
 Samaritan and LXX. chronology allow an 
 interval of more than 3000 years from the 
 Flood to the Christian era, and 1800 years 
 (the difference between 3000 and 1200) will 
 give considerable scope for grammatical de- 
 velopement. 
 
 (4) The ethnological argument is ground- 
 ed principally on the apparently unchanging 
 character of some of the races of mankind. 
 Especially it is observed, that in very ancient 
 Egyptian monuments the negro race is de- 
 picted with all its present features and pecu- 
 liarities. It would therefore be impossible, it 
 is argued, that all the varieties of man should 
 have sprung up, if their ancestors were a 
 single pair, brought into being not more than 
 6000 or 8000 years since. It is replied, that 
 supposing, which is disputed, the alleged an- 
 tiquity of the monuments in question, still 
 a race, continuing under nearly the same cir- 
 cumstances, is not likely to change' since first 
 its peculiarities were produced by those very 
 circumstances. Such has been the case with 
 the negroes since the time of the Egyptian 
 monuments. If we take the LXX. chronology 
 as correct, the negroes may have been In Africa 
 for nearly 1500 years before the reign of 
 Sethos I., when we find them so clearly de- 
 picted on the monuments. Their change to 
 that climate, their fixed habits of life, and 
 isolation from other races, may have soon im- 
 pressed a character upon them, which whilst 
 continuing to live under the same condition 
 ever since, they have never lost for a period 
 extending now to more than 3000 years. But 
 we witness rapid changes in race when cir- 
 cumstances rapidly change. The European 
 inhabitants of the North American States are 
 said even in two or three generations to be 
 rapidly acquiring a similarity of feature and 
 conformation to the original inhabitants of 
 the soil, though not losing their European 
 intelligence and civilization. IMany similar 
 facts arc noticed ; which prove that changes 
 of race, though sometimes so slow as to be 
 
 [v. 1—3. 
 
 imperceptible, are at other times extremely 
 rapid. The early condition of mankind, with 
 its frequent migrations, wide separations and 
 little intercommunion, must have been favour- 
 able to rapid change, whilst its later more 
 stationary condition is favourable to conti- 
 nuance and perpetuity of type. 
 
 There is one other important objection 
 made to the genealogies in this chapter and in 
 Chapter xi. viz. that each gives a catalogue 
 of but ten generations ; which looks as if 
 neither were historical. A probable solution 
 of this difficulty would seem to be, that the 
 genealogies neither were, nor were intended 
 to be, complete. Like other • genealogies or 
 pedigrees, sacred and profane, they omitted 
 certain links, and perhaps only recorded and 
 handed down to posterity those ancestors of 
 the race who, for some reason or other, were 
 more than the rest deserving of remembrance. 
 This solution would be entirely satisfactory, 
 if it were not for the appearance of chronologi- 
 cal completeness which both the genealogies 
 exhibit in their present form ; the age of the 
 patriarch at the birth of his son and suc- 
 cessor, and the number of years which he 
 lived after that birth, being given in every 
 case. If therefore the above explanation be 
 adopted, it would almost be necessary to add 
 that, in the course of transmission and tran- 
 scription, a greater appearance of completeness 
 had been given to the catalogues than had 
 existed in the original record. Such hypo- 
 theses are never to be too lightly adopted ; 
 but they are far more probable than those of 
 the modern critical school, which reject the 
 historical truth of the earlier books of the 
 Bible. The genealogies of our Lord given in 
 the Gospels have undoubtedly some links 
 omitted, and yet are reduced to a form of 
 great completeness. This is a strong argu- 
 ment for believing that the genealogies in 
 Genesis may have been treated in the same 
 manner. We may observe that this suppo- 
 sition, viz. that some links are omitted, will 
 allow a much greater antiquity to the race 
 of man, than may at first appear on the face 
 of the text of Scripture. In fact, if it be cor- 
 I'ect, the time which it would allow, is almost 
 unlimited. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I Thr 'iuiikcdncss of the world, which proz'okcd 
 Cod's ivrath, and caused the flood. 8 Noah 
 finddh j^race. 1 4 The order, form, and end 
 of the ark. 
 
 K 
 
 ND it came to pass, when men 
 began to multiply on the face of 
 
 the earth, and daughters were born 
 unto them, 
 
 2 That the sons of God saw the 
 daughters of men that they fair ; 
 and they took them wives of all which 
 they chose. 
 
 3 And the Lord said. My spirit 
 
 (liiAi*. VI. 1. .^nd it came to pass'\ The of the first rise of sin, of its terrible manifest- 
 inspired writer has now given us an account ation in the murder Of Abel, of its further 
 
GENESIS. VI. 
 
 65 
 
 y- 3 -] 
 
 shall not always strive with man, for shall be an hundred and twenty 
 that he also is flesh : yet his days years. 
 
 devclopement in the race of the first murder- 
 er, and of the separation from the profane of 
 the descendants of the pious Seth. He pro- 
 ceeds in this chapter to assign a reason for 
 the still more universal spread of ungodliness 
 throughout the world, such as to call down 
 from heaven a great general judgment on 
 mankind. 
 
 2. the sons of God saw the daughters of 
 men\ Who were the sons of God? and who 
 the daughters of men ? 
 
 1. Perhaps the most ancient opinion was 
 that the sons of God were the young men of 
 high rank (as in Ps. Ixxxii. 6, “I have said, 
 Ye are gods, and ye are all the sons of the 
 most Highest”), whilst the daughters of men 
 were the maidens of low birth and humble 
 condition; the word for men in this passage 
 being a word used at times to signify men of 
 low estate (cp. Isai. ii. 9, v. 15). According 
 to this interpretation the sin lay in the un- 
 bridled passions of the higher ranks of so- 
 ciety, their corrupting the wives and daugh- 
 ters of their servants and dependants, and the 
 consequent spread of universal licentiousness. 
 This seems to have been the earliest intei*pre- 
 taticn among the Jews. It is adopted by the 
 Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, by Sym- 
 machus, Abenezra, Rashi, Kimchi, and by 
 some moderns, Selden, Vorstius, and others. 
 The chief objection to this is that there is 
 scarcely proof enough that the name “sons 
 of God” was ever given to men of high rank, 
 or that the word for man (Adam') ever meant 
 people of low rank, except when contrasted 
 with another word for man (namely, Ish). 
 Compare wr and homo in Latin. 
 
 2, A second interpretation, also of great 
 antiquity, is that the sons of God were the 
 angels, who, moved to envy by the connubial 
 happiness of the human race, took to them- 
 selves human bodies, and married the fair 
 daughters of men. This interpretation is 
 supposed to have the support of some ancient 
 MSS. of the LXX. (as mentioned by August. 
 ‘De Civ. Dei,’ xv. 23). It is argued that St 
 Jude (6, 7) evidently so understood it, as he 
 likens the sin of the angels to the sin of the cities 
 of the plain, “the going after strange flesh.” 
 The same is thought to be alluded to in 2 Pet. 
 ii. 4. Philo (‘De Gigant.’ Vol. I. p. 262); Jo- 
 sephus (‘ Antiq.’ Lib. i. c. 4, § i) : and the most 
 ancient of the Christian fathers, as Justin 
 Martyr, Tatian, Athenagoras, Clement of 
 Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius, 
 moved probably by their reading of the LXX. 
 and being ignorant of Hebrew, adopted this 
 interpretation. The Apocryphal Book of 
 Enoch and some of the Jewish writers also 
 expounded it so. The later fathers, Chryso- 
 
 VoL. I. 
 
 stom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Theodoret, 
 condemn this view as monstrous and profane. 
 The rationalistic interpreters (Gesenius, Ro- 
 senmuller. Von Bohlen, Tuch, Knobel, Ewald, 
 Hupfeld, Kalisch, Davidson, &c.) naturally 
 prefer it, as favouring their belief, that the 
 first chapters of Genesis exhibit m.erely the 
 Hebrew mythology. But it is also adopted 
 by several of the more orthodox German 
 commentators, as Hofrnann, Baumgarten, 
 Delitzsch, Kurtz, who contend that some 
 very portentous wickedness and excess of sin 
 must have been the cause of the Deluge; a 
 complete subverting of the whole order of 
 God’s creation, so that the essential condition 
 of man’s social life was imperilled and over- 
 thrown. The chief arguments in favour of 
 this view are (i) that “sons of God” mostly 
 mean angels, see Ps. xxix. i, Ixxxix. 7; Job i. 
 6, ii. I, xxxviii. 7; Dan. iii. 25; (2) that 
 
 the “daughters of men” can only be anti- 
 thetic to something not human ; (3) that the 
 context assigns a ^monstrous progeny to this 
 unnatural union; (4) that St Jude and St Pe- 
 ter appear to sanction it; (5) that any ordi- 
 nary promiscuous marriages are not sufficient 
 to account for the judgment of the flood. 
 
 3. The third interpretation is that “the 
 sons of God” were the descendants of Seth, 
 who adhered to the worship and service of 
 the true God, and who, according to some 
 interpretations of ch. iv. 26, were from the 
 time of Enos called by the name of the Lord, 
 and that “the daughters of men” were of the 
 race of the ungodly Cain. This was the be- 
 lief of the eminent Church fathers, Chryso- 
 stom, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret, Augus- 
 tine, and Jerome. It was adopted by Luther, 
 Calvin, and most of the reformei's, and has 
 been the opinion of a great majority of mo- 
 dern commentators, 
 
 4. It was suggested, by Ilgen, that the 
 Cainites were called “sons of the gods” be- 
 cause of their ingenuity and inventions, and 
 that their intermingling themselves with the 
 other races of men caused the general corrup- 
 tion of mankind. 
 
 5. The author of ‘the Genesis of tlje 
 earth and of man’ suggests that “ the sons of 
 the gods” (so he would render it) may mean 
 the worshippers of false gods. These he looks 
 on as a pre-Adamite race, and would render, 
 not “ daughters of men,” but “ daughters of 
 Adam.” The pre- Adamite worshippers of the 
 false gods intermarried with the daughters of 
 Adam. 
 
 Of these interpretations it appears most 
 probable that the right is a modification of 3. 
 We are not probably justified in saying that 
 there were but two races descended from 
 
 E. 
 
66 
 
 GENESIS. VI. 
 
 [v. 4, 5 . 
 
 4 There were giants in the earth 
 in those days ; and also after that, 
 when the sons of God came in unto 
 the daughters of men, and they bare 
 
 children to them, the same became 
 mighty men which were of old, men 
 of renown. 
 
 5 ^ And God saw that the wicked- 
 
 Adam, the race of Cain and the race of Seth. 
 Adam may have had many sons; but the his- 
 tory of the Cainites is preserved because both 
 of their impiety, and of their ingenuity ; that 
 of the Sethites, because at least in one line of 
 that race piety and true religion flourished, 
 and of them came the family of Noah which 
 was preserved in the ark. There appears to 
 have been a growing corruption of mankind, 
 more rapid, no doubt, in the family of Cain 
 than in any other race, but still spreading far 
 and wide. The line of the Sethites, traced in 
 ch. V., alone appears to have kept itself pure, 
 the little Church of God, in the midst of 
 gathering darkness of the world around. This 
 little Church may well have been called “the 
 children of God,” a term by no means limited 
 in Scripture to the holy angels. They alone 
 were the salt of the earth; and if that salt 
 should lose its savour, all would become 
 worthless and vile. When therefore some of 
 these “sons of God” went out from their 
 own little home circle, to make mixed mar- 
 riages with the general heathenized races 
 round them, the elements of corruption were 
 brought from the world into the Church, the 
 Church itself became corrupted, and the sin- 
 gle family of Noah appears to have been kept 
 pure from that corruption, just as afterwards 
 the family of Lot was the only family in 
 Sodom free from the pollution and depravity 
 of the cities of the plain. The salt had lost 
 its savour. At all events too little was left 
 to purify and to save the world. It could 
 but save th.e souls of the few righteous that 
 were therein. 
 
 Concerning the giants^ see note on v. 4. 
 
 3. My spirit shall not alnvays strl've\ Is 
 rendered, (i) “shall not dwell” by LXX., 
 Vulg., Syr., Onk., Saad., and others. (2) 
 “ Shall not judge,” or which probably is the 
 same thing, “shall not strive,” by Symm., 
 Targg. Joh. and Jems., Rashi, Kimchi, Lu- 
 ther, Rosenmiiiler, &c. This is the rendering 
 of the A. V. and is probably correct. (3) 
 “ Shall not rule,” by De Wette, Rosenmiiiler, 
 Maurer, Knobel, Delitzsch, &c. (4) “Shall 
 
 not be humbled,” Gesenius, Tuch, &c. No 
 great difference in the general significance of 
 the passage will be produced by adopting a 
 different translation. Kimchi, and some of 
 the German commentators, understand, not 
 that the Holy Ghost shall no longer dwell or 
 strive with man, but that the spiritual princi- 
 ple implanted by God in man shall no longer 
 rule in him, or no longer contend against his 
 animal nature. 
 
 for that he also is Jleslf\ The modern 
 interpreters, Gesenius, Vater, Schum, Tuch, 
 render “ Because of his error he is become 
 wholly flesh,” or, as Rosenmiiiler, “ whilst 
 their flesh causceth them to err.” The objec- 
 tion to the reading of the Authorized Version, 
 which is that of all ancient Versions and com- 
 mentators, is that the particle rendered that 
 never occurs in the Pentateuch, but only in 
 the later Psalms and other clearly more 
 modern books of the Old Testament. It is 
 in fact an Aramcean particle. But it must 
 never be forgotten, that Aramaisms are to be 
 expected, either in the most modern, or in 
 the most ancient portions of Scripture.. There 
 is therefore good reason to adhere to the 
 Authorized Version. 
 
 yet his days shall be an hundred and 
 tvjenty years'^ Josephus (‘Ant.’ I. 3, 2) and 
 after him, Tuch, Ewald, Havernick, Baum- 
 garten, Knobel, Hupfeld, Davidson, &c., 
 suppose that this alludes to the shortening 
 of the term of human life. But all the 
 Targums, Saacl., Luther’s Version, Rosenm., 
 Hengst., Ranke, Hofmann, Kurtz, Delitzsch, 
 understand “There shall yet be a respite or 
 time for repentance of 120 years, before the 
 threatened vengeance shall overtake them.” 
 The normal duration of human life did not, 
 as Delitzsch truly observes, become from 
 this time 120 years, and the whole context 
 shews, that the judgment impending was that 
 of the Flood, and that it was a respite from 
 that, which is here promised, that time might 
 be given for Noah’s preaching, and man’s 
 repentance. The only argument,, that can 
 even appear to have weight against this in- 
 terpretation is that of Tuch, repeated by Bp. 
 Colenso, viz. that Noah was 500 years old 
 (cp. ch. V. 32) when this saying, “ His days 
 shall be 120,” is ascribed to the Almighty, 
 and that he was 6co years old (c. vii. 6) 
 when the Flood came. Hence there were 
 but 100 years, not 120 given as a respite. 
 But there is really no ground whatever for 
 asserting that all which is related in ch. vi. 
 took place after Noah was 500 years old. 
 What is said in v. 32 is that Noah was 500 
 years old, when his three sons were born. 
 The Deluge may have been threatened long 
 before this. 
 
 4 . There n.verc giants in the earth in those 
 days, and also after that, &c.] It is hence 
 argued that by “Sons of God” must be 
 meant angels or fallen angels; from the 
 union of whom with the daughters of man 
 sprang the race of giants. But there is no- 
 
V. 6—15.] 
 
 GENESIS. VI. 
 
 67 
 
 !l Or, the 
 whole ima- 
 gination. 
 The He- 
 brew word 
 signifieth 
 not only 
 the imagi- 
 nation, 
 but also 
 the pur- 
 poses and 
 desires. 
 
 chap. 8. 
 21. 
 
 Matt. 15. 
 19. 
 
 IHeb. 
 every day. 
 tHeb. 
 from 7 nan. 
 unto beast. 
 
 Ecclus. 
 44- 17. 
 
 2 Pet. 2. 5 
 II Or, 
 upright. 
 
 ness of man was great in the earth, and 
 that 'I every imagination ofthe thoughts 
 of his ^heurttvas only evil ^continu- 
 ally. 
 
 6 And it repented the Lord that 
 he had made man on the earth, and 
 it grieved him at his heart. 
 
 7 And the Lord said, I will de- 
 stroy man whom I have created from 
 the face of the earth; ^both man, and 
 beast, and the creeping thing, and the 
 fowls of the air; for it repenteth me 
 that I have made them. 
 
 8 But Noah found grace in the 
 eyes of the Lord. 
 
 9 ^ These are the generations of 
 Noah: ^Noah was a just man and 
 •'perfect in his generations, and Noah 
 walked with God. 
 
 10 And Noah begat three sons, 
 Shem, Han^, and Japheth. 
 
 1 1 The earth also was corrupt be- 
 fore God, and the earth v/as filled 
 with violence. 
 
 12 And God looked upon the earth, 
 and, behold, it was corrupt; for all 
 flesh had corrupted his way upon the 
 earth. 
 
 13 And God said unto Noah, The 
 
 end of all flesh is come before me; 
 for the earth is filled with violence 
 through them ; and, behold, I will 
 destroy "them with the earth. nor./^, 
 
 14 ^ Make thee an ark of gopher 
 wood; Tooms shalt thou make in the t Heb. 
 ark, and shalt pitch it within and 
 without with pitch. 
 
 15 And this is the fashion which 
 
 thing said of a race of giants springing from 
 this union, “ In those days were the (well- 
 known) Nephillm in the earth” cannot have 
 such a sense, especially when what follows 
 is taken into account, “and also after that, 
 when the sons of God went in unto the 
 daughters of men, and they bore children 
 to them, these became mighty men, men of 
 renown.” Evidently the passage shews, that 
 Nephillm were on earth before this union, 
 and afterwards also from these marriages 
 sprang men of warlike spirit, who made 
 themselves a name. The result was, as when 
 the Israelites afterwards made marriages with 
 the Midianites, a great and general corruption 
 of manners. The warlike character and per- 
 haps bodily strength of these Nephillm is speci- 
 ally noted, as explaining what is said in v. 13, 
 that the earth was filled with 'violence. 
 
 Nepliilim. The LXX., Vulg., Syr., and 
 Targum render “Giants;” Aq. and Symm. 
 “violent men.” Most derive the word from a 
 root signifying to fall] and understand “the 
 fallen ” (wTether men or angels), or, more 
 probably, “those who fall on others,” rob- 
 hers or tyrants. (Aquila, Rosenm., Gesenius, 
 Kurtz.) Others (among whom Tuch and 
 Knobel) derive from a root signifying <voon- 
 der, and understand monsters, prodigies. We 
 meet w'ith the name again Num. xiii. 33, as 
 that of one of the Canaanitish tribes, who 
 appear to have been men of large stature, 
 as w^ere the Rephaim, the Anakim and others. 
 This very likely was the reason, why the 
 word came to be rendered “giants,” which 
 does not seem to have been its original 
 meaning. 
 
 6. it repented the Lord] All the language 
 of this portion of Scripture is suited to the 
 infant condition of the world. Hence human 
 
 sentiments are even more than in the later 
 books of Scripture attributed to the Almighty, 
 No sound criticism w'ould see any appearance 
 of myth in this. 
 
 9 . These are the generations of~\ See note 
 on ch. ii. 4. 
 
 14 . an ark of gopher q.vood~\ Tire word 
 
 for occurs only here and in Exod. ii. 3, 
 
 5 of the ark or boat of papyrus or bulrushes. 
 This word might perhaps lead us to suppose 
 that the ark was of the form of a vast chest 
 or coffer, rather than of the form of a ship ; 
 fitted to carry a heavy burden, not to sail 
 over the waters; yet the proportions given 
 are those of a ship, though of rather greater 
 width than usual, see on v. 15. 
 
 gopher qjuood] It is uncertain what this 
 wood w^as. The Targumists followed by 
 many Jewish and Christian commentators 
 rendered Cedar, others Juniper or Box. Ful- 
 ler, Bochart and Celsius suggested Cypress, in 
 which they have been followed by most 
 modern commentators. The affinity between 
 the remits gophar and ciipar is great, and cypress 
 is a wood well fitted for ship-building and 
 abounding in the parts of Syria next to Ba- 
 bylon, wffiich many have supposed to be the 
 country inhabited by Noah. 
 
 rooms'\ literally nests, different compart- 
 ments fitted for the habitation of men and 
 animals. 
 
 pitch'\ more probably asphaltos, bitumen, 
 which is said to be particularly suited for 
 closing up the interstices of the timbers and 
 making a vessel watertight. 
 
 15 . this is the fashion'] The actual form 
 of the ark is not described. The propor- 
 tions only are given, which are not very 
 
 E 2 
 
68 
 
 GENESIS. VI. 
 
 [v. 16—19 
 
 thou shalt make it of: The length of 
 the ark shall be three hundred cubits, 
 the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the 
 height of it thirty cubits. 
 
 16 A window shalt thou make to 
 the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou 
 finish it above ; and the door of the 
 ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; 
 with lower, second, and third stories 
 shalt thou make it. 
 
 17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring 
 
 a flood of waters upon the earth, to 
 destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath 
 of life, from under heaven ; and every 
 thing that is in the earth shall die. 
 
 18 But with thee will I establish 
 my covenant ; and thou shalt come 
 into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and 
 thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with 
 thee. 
 
 19 And of every living thing of all 
 flesh, two of every sort shalt thou 
 
 different from those of “The Great Eastern.” 
 Reckoning the cubit at 21 inches; the pro- 
 portions would be length 525 ft., breadth 87 
 ft. 6 in., height 52 ft. 6 in. ; those of “The 
 Great Eastern” being length 680, breadth 83, 
 depth 58. (See Smith’s ‘Diet, of Bible,’ Art. 
 Nnab.) The length of the cubit is doubtful, 
 as there appear to have been 2 or 3 differ- 
 ent measures so called. In all probability 
 it means the length from the elbow to the 
 end of the hand, a variable measure, of 
 course, but sufficiently accurate for the pur- 
 pcses of those simple times. It is mentioned 
 by the German commentators that Peter Jan- 
 sen in 1609 built a vessel of the same pro- 
 portions as the ark, though smaller, viz. 
 Length 120, width 20, depth 12 ft. It was 
 found most convenient for stowage, contain- 
 ing one-third more freight than ordinary ves- 
 sels of the same tonnage, though it was 
 unsuited for making way quickly through 
 the water. 
 
 John Temporarius quoted by Heidegger 
 (‘ Historia Sacra,’ i. p. 338) made a curious 
 calculation, according to which the ark would 
 have afforded abundant room for all the 
 animals then known, and food for their 
 voyage. Tiele also in his commentary cal- 
 culate that there was room for 7000 distinct 
 species. (See Kurtz, i. p. loi.) 
 
 16 . A nvindo^v shalt thou make to the 
 ark^ and in a cubit shalt thou finish it abo’ve^ 
 'Pherc is a great variety of interpretation 
 here, some rendering a nvindow^ others lights 
 or daylight or a transparent substance^ others, 
 after the LXX., an inclined roofi^ ox sloping deck. 
 Much too has been said against the historical 
 truth of a narrative, which could assign but 
 one window of a cubit long to so vast a 
 ship. The interpretation of Gesenius seems 
 evidently the true, viz. that the unusual word 
 translated “window” (the word in ch. viii. 6, is 
 (juite another word) means really a set of 
 windows, a window course, a system of 
 lighting : and the use of the feminine gender 
 in the pronoun suggests to the same high 
 authority, that the right rendering would be, 
 “ A window system shalt thou make to the 
 
 ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish them 
 from above.” It is quite possible that it may 
 have been a window course running for a 
 cubit long under the top or deck of the ark, 
 lighting the whole upper story very similar to 
 the clerestory of churches (see Knobel here). 
 The word is translated by Symmachus 
 transparency.^' It seems not impossible that 
 some transparent substance was used. This 
 may easily have been known to the Ante- 
 diluvians, who had made the progress in arts 
 described ch. iv. 21, 22. Perhaps the inven- 
 tion was lost after the Deluge, an event 
 which must have reduced mankind to almost 
 original simplicity and rudeness. It is by 
 no means clear, that these windows were all 
 in the roof or deck. They may have been in 
 the gunwales, i.e. on the higher part of the 
 sides of the vessel, like the port-holes of a 
 modern ship of war. And, if they were 
 covered with a transparent substance, it is 
 quite possible that they may not have been 
 confined to the upper story of the ship, as 
 the word abonje" does not necessarily mean 
 on the upper part of the vessel, but may 
 mean the top of the window course. 
 
 the door ofi the ark'] There was naturally 
 but one opening beside the window course, 
 through which all the inhabitants of the ark 
 were to be let into it. 
 
 19 . /wo ofi e'very sort shalt thou bring 
 into the ark] Of course if we will admit no- 
 thing out of the ordinary course of nature, 
 we shall be unable to receive the Mosaic 
 history of the Deluge. Yet, even on natural 
 principles, we may in some measure explain 
 Noah’s power over the beasts. When a , 
 terrible catastrophe is closely impending, 
 there is often a presentiment of it in the 
 brute creation. Under the pressure of great 
 danger or great suffering, the wildest animals 
 will at times become perfectly tame and 
 tractable. Most likely too, Noah and his 
 family would choose pairs of very young 
 animals, just old enough to feed them- 
 selves, as being the m.ost tractable and as 
 requiring less room than those full grown. 
 
V. 20 4-] 
 
 GENESIS. VI. VII. 
 
 69 
 
 f Heb. 
 
 7- 
 
 bring into the ark, to keep them alive 
 with thee; they shall be male and 
 female. 
 
 20 Of fowls after their kind, and 
 of cattle after their kind, of every 
 creeping thing of the earth after his 
 kind, two of every sort shall come 
 unto thee, to keep them alive. 
 
 21 And take thou unto thee of all 
 food that is eaten, and thou shalt 
 gather it to thee ; and it shall be for 
 food for thee, and for them. 
 
 22 “^Thus did Noah; according to 
 all that God commanded him, so did he. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I Noah, with his family, and the living crea- 
 tures, enter into the ark. The beginning, 
 increase, and continuance of the flood. 
 
 K 
 
 ND the Lord said unto Noah, « 2 Pet. 
 
 Come thou and all thy house 
 into the ark; for thee have I seen 
 righteous before me in this genera- 
 tion. 
 
 2 Of every clean beast thou shalt 
 
 take to thee by ^sevens, the male and tHeb. ^ 
 his female : and of beasts that are not 
 clean by two, the male and his female. 
 
 3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, 
 the male and the female ; to keep 
 seed alive upon the face of all the 
 earth. 
 
 4 For yet seven days, and I will 
 cause it to rain upon the earth forty 
 days and forty nights; and every liv- 
 ing substance that I have made will I 
 Mestroy from off the face of the earth, 
 
 If the ark was to hold, not only birds and 
 quadrupeds, but insects and reptiles, possibly 
 eggs or larvas may have been preserved. 
 
 Chap. VII. 1. jtnd the Lord said unto 
 Noalf The preceding chapter accounts for 
 a period of 120 years. At the beginning of 
 that period, God had declared His will to 
 destroy mankind by a flood, unless they 
 profited by the time still given them for 
 repentance. Noah is ordered to prepare an 
 ark, the building of which may have occu- 
 pied the greater part of this season of respite 
 He is told at the very first that he and his 
 sons are to go into the ark, and that a pair 
 of every kind of cattle and fowls and moving 
 things should go in with him and be pre- 
 served alive. In the present chapter we 
 reach the end of the 120 years. The ark 
 has been built in the prescribed form with 
 due preparation and capacity. Noah has 
 done according to all that God had com- 
 manded him (ch. vi. 22), and now the Lord 
 gives to Noah fuller directions concerning the 
 animals which he was to take with him. 
 
 2. Of e-very clean beast thou shah take to 
 thee by se-vens, the male and his female~\ It is 
 questioned whether there were to be seven or 
 seven pairs of every clean beast. Some think 
 there were to be only seven, the odd number 
 being accounted for by the fact that the 
 clean beasts were preserved for sacrifice, that 
 therefore more of them were needed than of 
 unclean beasts, and the number seven was 
 adopted as a sacred number. The addition 
 of the words “the male and his female” 
 (comp, V. 9), seems to favour the belief that 
 seven pairs are intended. In any case there is 
 no inconsistency between this verse and ch. 
 vi. 20, “ two of every sort.” The command 
 
 here is but an amplification of the former 
 injunction, which had probably been given 
 120 years before. In the first instance it 
 was said that Noah’s family should be pre- 
 served together v»^ith a pair of every kind, of 
 beast. In the second, that, whilst the general 
 rule should be the saving of a single pair, 
 yet, in the case of the few clean beasts, there 
 should be preserved, not one pair only but 
 seven. The objection that this was an anti- 
 cipation of the Levitical distinction of beasts 
 into clean and unclean, is wholly groundless. 
 The boundary line between clean and un- 
 clean animals is marked by nature. Every 
 tribe of mankind would distinguish between 
 the sheep and the hyasna, between the dove 
 and the vulture. \\^hether animal food was 
 eaten before the Deluge or not, it is certain 
 that flocks and herds were fed for the sake of 
 their milk and wool, and that of them, victims 
 were offered in sacrifice. This alone would 
 separate between the clean and the unclean. 
 It is not improbable, that the distinction even 
 of the names “clean and unclean” had been 
 fully established by custom, long before it 
 was recognized and ratified by the Law. 
 
 3. Of fowls also of the air by sevens^ In the 
 Samaritan, the LXX. and Syr. this verse runs, 
 “ And of all the fowls of the air which are 
 clean by sevens, the male and the female, and 
 of all fowls which are not clean by two, the 
 male and the female, to keep seed alive upon 
 the face of all the earth.” This must have 
 been a very ancient reading ; but it appears 
 to have arisen from a gloss or commentary 
 having crept into the text. It probably gives 
 the true sense of the passage. 
 
 4. yet se-ven days'\ The 120 years ended 
 and the ark prepared for the saving of his 
 house, Noah is allowed yet seven days more 
 
 1 
 
70 
 
 GENESIS. VIE 
 
 [v. 5 — 15 - 
 
 5 And Noah did according unto all 
 that the Lord commanded him. 
 
 6 And Noah was six hundred years 
 old when the hood of waters was up- 
 on the earth. 
 
 7 ^ And Noah went in, and his 
 sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives 
 with him, into the ark, because of the 
 waters of the flood. 
 
 8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts 
 that are not clean, and of fowls, and 
 of every thing that creepeth upon the 
 earth, 
 
 9 There went in two and two unto 
 Noah into the ark, the male and the 
 female, as God had commanded 
 Noah. 
 
 ! Or, m 10 And it came to pass after seven 
 days, that the waters of the flood were 
 upon the earth. 
 
 1 1 fl In the six hundredth year of 
 
 Noah’s life, in the second month, the 
 seventeenth day of the month, the 
 same day were all the fountains of 
 the great deep broken up, and the 
 I* windows of heaven were opened. "Or, 
 
 ... . ^ , JJoodgatef 
 
 12 And the ram was upon the 
 earth forty days and forty nights. 
 
 13 In the selfsame day entered 
 Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Ja- 
 pheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s 
 wife, and the three wives of his sons 
 with them, into the ark ; 
 
 14 They, and every beast after his 
 kind, and all the cattle after their kind, 
 and every creeping thing that creepeth 
 upon the earth after his kind, and 
 every fov/1 after his kind, every bird 
 
 of every ^sort. tHeb. 
 
 15 And they went in unto Noah 
 into the ark, two and two of all flesh, 
 wherein is the breath of life. 
 
 for gathering all safely into the place of 
 refuge before the flood sets in. 
 
 9. ani/ /•wo] This again is no con- 
 
 tradiction to V, 2. The rule was that all 
 animals, clean or unclean, should go in two 
 and two, that rule was not broken, but am- 
 plified, by the direction in verse 2, that of 
 clean animals there should be more than a 
 single pair, viz. seven or seven pairs. 
 
 11 . In the six hundredth year of Noah's 
 life^ in the second months the senjeiiteenth day 
 of the mo 7 ith'] The questions concerning the 
 i)eluge year are complicated by the uncer- 
 tainty, I. whether the year was the old civil 
 year beginning with the month Tisri in the 
 autumn, or the sacred year which from the 
 time of the Exodus was appointed to begin 
 with the month Abib, the Passover month, 
 in the spring : 2. whether the calculation be 
 Lunar or Solar. 
 
 As regards the first question, we may no- 
 tice that the year did not begin from Abib, un- 
 til the time of the Exodus, and that even then 
 the civil year was reckoned from Tisri. Hence 
 we may naturally conclude, that the year of 
 the Flood began with Tisri, or about the 
 autumnal Equinox. If so, the 17th day of 
 the second month would bring us to the 
 middle of November, the beginning of the 
 wintry and rainy season. 
 
 'Idle second cjuestion seems at first sight 
 resolved by comparing this verse (vii. ii) with 
 vii. 24 and viii. 4, from which comparison it 
 appears that the flood began on the 17th of 
 the second month, lasted 150 days, i.e. five 
 months of 30 days, and had subsided, so that 
 
 the ark could rest on Ararat on the 17th of 
 the seventh month. Thus the 17th of the 
 seventh month appears to have been exactly 
 five months of thirty days after the 17th of 
 the second month. This would make the 
 Noachic year a year of 360 days, correspond- 
 ing with the old Egyptian year, unless any 
 intercalation of five days was made use of. 
 On the presumption that this reckoning is 
 conclusive, it has been argued that the account 
 of the Flood must have been of much later 
 date than Moses, as the Israelites never learn- 
 ed to reckon by solar time till after the Baby- 
 lonish captivity. It is certain however that 
 the Egyptians used solar time long before the 
 date of the Exodus, which is answer enough 
 to this difficulty. 
 
 With regard to the forty days’ rain, it 
 seems pretty certain that those were not addi- 
 tional to, but part of, the 150 days of the 
 prevalence of the flood. Supposing the above 
 calculation to be correct, we have the very 
 remarkable coincidences that on the 17th day 
 of Abib the ark rested on Mount Ararat — on 
 the 17th day of Abib the Israelites passed 
 over the Red Sea — on the 17th day of Abib 
 Christ our Lord rose again from the dead. 
 
 ^ere all the fountains of the great deep 
 broken up^ and the (ivindo^jjs of heansen (were 
 opened] It cannot be imagined, that this is a 
 philosophical explanation of the flood. The 
 use of Scripture is always to describe the 
 phenomena of nature, not to trace their hid- 
 den causes. The words here written express 
 only the effect produced upon man’s senses. 
 I'here was a flood of waters from above and 
 
V. 1 6 — 4.] 
 
 GENESIS. VII. VIII. 
 
 71 
 
 16 And they that v/ent in, went 
 in male and female of all flesh, as God 
 had commanded him : and the Lord 
 shut him in. 
 
 17 And the flood was forty days 
 upon the earth; and the waters in- 
 creased, and bare up the ark, and it 
 was lift up above the earth. 
 
 18 And the waters prevailed, and 
 were increased greatly upon the earth ; 
 and the ark went upon the face of 
 the waters. 
 
 19 And the waters prevailed ex- 
 ceedingly upon the earth ; and all the 
 high hills, that were under the whole 
 heaven, were covered. 
 
 20 Fifteen cubits upward did the 
 waters prevail ; and the mountains 
 were covered. 
 
 *wisd. 10. 21 “^And all flesh died that moved 
 
 upon the earth, both of fowl, and of 
 cattle, and of beast, and of every creep- 
 ing thing that creepeth upon the earth, 
 and every man : 
 
 > Heb. ^ 22 All in whose nostrils was Ehe 
 
 breath of life, of all that was in the 
 dry land, died. 
 
 23 And every living substance was 
 destroyed which was upon the face of 
 the ground, both man, and cattle, and 
 
 the creeping things, and the fowl of 
 the heaven ; and they were destroyed 
 from the earth: and “^Noah only re- ‘^Wisdio. 
 mained alive, and they that were with J’pet. 2. 5. 
 him in the ark. 
 
 24 And the waters prevailed upon 
 the earth an hundred and fifty days. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I The waters assT.vage. 4 The ark resteth on 
 Ararat. *i The raven and the dove, Noah, 
 
 being commanded, 1 8 goeth forth of the ark. 
 
 20 He hnldeth an altar, and offer eth sacrifice, 
 
 'I I which God accepteth, and promiseth to curse 
 the earth no more. 
 
 AND God remembered Noah, and 
 £\, every living thing, and all the 
 cattle that was with him in the ark : 
 and God made a wind to pass over 
 the earth, and the waters asswaged ; 
 
 2 The fountains also of the deep 
 and the windows of heaven were 
 stopped, and the rain from heaven 
 was restrained; 
 
 3 And the waters returned from off 
 
 the earth Continually: and after the t Heb. 
 end of the hundred and fifty days 
 the waters were abated. tumwg. 
 
 4 And the ark rested in the seventh 
 month, on the seventeenth day of the 
 month, upon the mountains of Ara- 
 rat. 
 
 from beneath. The clouds poured down rain, 
 and the seas and rivers swelled and burst their 
 boundaries ; so that to one who witnessed it 
 it seemed as though “the fountains of the 
 great deep were broken up, and the windows 
 of heaven were opened,” 
 
 16 . attd the Lord shut him /«] By some 
 providential or supernatural agency the door 
 of the ark, which could not have been secured 
 with pitch or bitumen by Noah, was secured 
 and made water-tight. 
 
 17 , 18 , 19 . In these verses the frequent 
 repetition of the same thought in almost the 
 same words has been supposed by Astruc and 
 others to evidence the work of different 
 hands. Repetition, however, is universal in 
 a simple state of society, wherever great 
 strength of expression is aimed at. Even in 
 hte Hebrew such repetition is familiar, but in 
 early Hebrew it meets us at every turn. 
 
 20. Fifteen cubits up^vard~\ t. e. from 25 
 to 28 feet: a depth apparently above the 
 neighbouring mountains, perhaps depressed by 
 convulsion, or otherwise. See note on the 
 Deluge at the end of the eighth chapter. 
 
 Chap. VIII. 1. God remembered Noalf 
 As it is said, i Sam. xv. ii, “It repenteth 
 Me that I have anointed Saul to be king,” 
 t. e. I have decreed to put another in * his 
 place, and above (Gen. vi, 7), “ It repenteth 
 Me that I have made man,” i.e. I have deter- 
 mined to destroy man; so here “The Lord 
 remembered Noah” does not point to a pre- 
 vious forgetfulness, but to God’s great mercy 
 towards him (Theodoret). 
 
 2 . The fountains, &c.] The clouds were 
 dispersed by a wind, the waters no longer 
 increased, and the effect was, as though, after 
 the forty days of rain and flood, the foun- 
 tains of the deep and the windows of heaven 
 were closed. 
 
 4. Ararat] The belief that this is the 
 mountain-range now commonly called Mount 
 Ararat, the highest peak of which rises nearly 
 17,000 feet above the level of the sea, rests on 
 a very uncertain foundation. Far more pro- 
 bable is the opinion that Ararat was the 
 ancient name of Armenia itself, or, rather, of 
 the Southern portion of Armenia. The name 
 occurs only here, and in 2 Kings xix. 37; Is. 
 xxxvii. 38, where it is mentioned as the place 
 
72 
 
 GENESIS. VIII. 
 
 [v. 5 — lo. 
 
 } Keb. 5 And the waters Mecreased con- 
 '^olljlnd tinually until the tenth month : in the 
 ^jecreas- tenth mofith^ on the first day of the 
 month, were the tops of the mountains 
 •< seen. 
 
 6 ^ And it came to pass at the end 
 of forty days, that Noah opened the 
 windov/ of the ark which he had 
 made : 
 
 ‘ Hcb 7 forth a raven, which 
 
 went forth Eo and fro, until the waters 
 ■^returnufe. wcTc dried up from off the earth. 
 
 to which the sons of Sennacherib fled, after 
 the murder of their father. Most of the 
 ancient VSS. render the word by Armenia 
 (Aq., Symm., Theod,, Vulg., and in Kings 
 and Isaiah the LXX., though in Gen. the 
 JvXX. leave it untranslated). The Targums 
 render Kardu or Kardon, probably meaning 
 Kurdistan, or the Gordyaean mountains, 
 which run to the South of Armenia, dividing 
 the valley of the Tigris from Iran, on, or 
 near to which mountains, in the Chaldaean 
 tradition of the Deluge preserved by Bero- 
 sus, Xisuthrus is said to have landed. Jerome 
 (‘on Isai.’ xxxvii.) tells us, that “ Ararat is a 
 champaign country of incredible fertility, 
 situated in Armenia, at the base of Mount 
 Taurus, through which flows the river 
 Araxes.” Moses, Archbishop of Chorene, A. o'. 
 460, the famous historian of Armenia, also 
 tells us that Ararat was a region, not a moun- 
 tain. A Mohammedan tradition has no doubt 
 placed the site of the ark’s resting on the 
 top of the highest ridge of the mountain, 
 called anciently Macis, by the Persians Coh 
 Noah; and this has been thought to corre- 
 spond with wTat is related by Nicolaus of 
 Damascus, that there was a mountain in Ar- 
 menia called Baris, to wfliich people escaped 
 in the general Deluge, and on which a vessel 
 struck, parts of which long remained (Jo- 
 seph. ‘Ant.’ I. 4). All this, how'ever, is some- 
 wliat vague. We can only say v/ith certainty 
 that, so long as the time wflien the LXX. VS. 
 was made, Ararat was believed to correspond 
 with, or to constitute a part of Armenia. 
 Moreover, general belief has pointed to the 
 neighbourhood of Armenia as the original 
 dwelling-place of the first fathers of man- 
 kind. 
 
 Yet the claims, not only of the central 
 mountain peak, but even of any portion of 
 Armenia, to be the site of Noah’s landing- 
 place, have been disputed by many. In Gen. 
 xi. 2 the migration of the sons of Noah to- 
 wards Shinar is said to be “ from the East.” 
 If so, it could not have been from Armenia. 
 It is, however, most probable that the right 
 rendering should be, as in Gen. ii. 8, xiii. ii, 
 not “from the East” but “eastward,” and 
 
 8 Also he sent forth a dove 
 from him, to see if the waters were 
 abated from off the face of the 
 ground ; 
 
 9 But the dove found no rest for 
 
 the sole of her foot, and she returned 
 unto him into the ark, for the waters 
 were on the face of the whole earth : 
 then he put forth his hand, and took 
 her, and G'-ilEd her in unto him into^Heb. 
 the ark. , to come. 
 
 TO And he stayed yet other seven 
 
 'such is the marginal rendering of the A.V. 
 which though not supported by the VSS. is 
 accordant with other Hebrew idioms (see 
 Quarry, ‘ Gen.’ p. 397). Another objection to 
 Armenia is found in the statement of Strabo 
 (lib. XI. p. 527), that the vine does not grow 
 there (cp. Gen. ix. 20). Accordingly Har- 
 douin contends that Ararat could not have 
 been in Armenia, but is to be sought for in 
 the North of Palestine, where it borders on 
 Antilibanus and Syria (‘ De Situ Parad. terres.’ 
 in Franzii, Edit. Plin. ‘Nat. Hist.’ Tom. x. 
 pp. 259, 260). Yet the 10,000 are said to 
 have found old wane in Armenia (Xen. ‘ Anab.’ 
 4. 4', 9) ; and vines are said at this day to 
 grow in the highlands of Armenia, at a level 
 of 4000 feet above the sea. (See Ritter, quoted 
 by Knobel, on ch. ix. 20.) Von Bohlen, 
 arguing from Gen. xi. 2 that Ararat lay east- 
 w^ard of Shinar, identifies it with Aryavarta, 
 the sacred land to the North of India, to 
 which the Hindoo tradition points. The 
 Samaritan VS. places it in the Island of 
 Ceylon. Though on such a question cer- 
 tainty is impossible, the arguments in favour 
 of A rmenia are very strong. 
 
 6. the qjjindo^ju] or opening., from a verb 
 meaning to perforate or open. This is quite 
 a different word from that used vi. 16. The 
 A.V. would suggest the idea, that Noah was 
 commanded (vi. 16) to make a window', and 
 that now he opened that window; whereas 
 the original expresses the fact, that Noah was 
 commanded to make a wfindow-course, or 
 light system, and that now he opens the win- 
 dow', or casement, in the ark, which he had 
 made on purpose to open. 
 
 7 . <ivcnt forth to and fro'\ It has been 
 supposed that there w'cre carcases of men and 
 beasts floating on the w'aters, that from them 
 the raven found a place to light upon, and 
 also food; and hence, though it returned 
 from time to time and rested on the ark, it 
 never again sought an entrance into it. 
 
 8. a do've'\ Noah, finding no sufficient 
 indication from the raven, now sends forth 
 the dove, a bird which rests only on dry 
 places and feeds only on }^rain. 
 
V. II 20.] 
 
 GENESIS. VIII. 
 
 73 
 
 days ; and again he sent forth the 
 dove out of the ark ; 
 
 1 1 And the dove came in to him 
 in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth 
 was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah 
 knew that the waters were abated 
 from off the earth. 
 
 12 And he stayed yet other seven 
 days ; and sent forth the dove ; which 
 returned not again unto him any more. 
 
 13 ^ And it came to pass in the 
 six hundredth and first year, in the 
 first mouthy the first day of the month, 
 the waters were dried up from off the 
 earth: and Noah removed the cover- 
 ing of the ark, and looked, and, be- 
 hold, the face of the ground was dry. 
 
 14 And in the second month, on 
 the seven and twentieth day of the 
 month, was the earth dried. 
 
 15 ^ And God spake unto Noah, 
 saying. 
 
 11. an oli’vs leaf~\ Theophr. ‘ Hist. 
 Plant.’ L. IV. c. 8, and Pliny, ‘ Hist. Nat.’ L. 
 XIII. c. 25, are cited as saying that the olive 
 grew under water in the Red Sea, and bore 
 berries there. Whether this be so or not, it 
 is probable that the olive may live more 
 healthily under a flood than most other trees. 
 It is eminently hardy, and will grow in a 
 favourable soil without care or culture. The 
 following passage illustrates the extraordinary 
 powers of adaptation to circumstances pos- 
 sessed by some plants. “The formation of 
 sprouts gives the plant the means of attach- 
 ing itself to the most varied conditions, of 
 persisting through periods of continued cold 
 and heat, damp or drought, according as the 
 climate may produce, and guarding against 
 death in all cases of frustrated seed-develop- 
 ment Thus Littorella lacustris^ which 
 
 never flowers under water, maintains and in- 
 creases itself by lateral runners, year after 
 year, at the bottom of the lakes of the Black 
 Forest, and only comes into flower when the 
 water retreats in the driest years, which 
 scarcely occur oftener than once in ten” (A. 
 Braun, ‘Rejuvenescence in Nature,’ p. 41, 42, 
 Ray Society). The olive (Olea Europea) is 
 generally a plant of the Mediterranean: other 
 species occur at the Cape of Good Hope, 
 the Himalaya mountains, and elsewhere. 
 
 pluckt ojf] rather, as Vulg., fresh. 
 
 20. e'very clean beast'] Probably not 
 every beast which was afterwards permitted 
 to the Israelites for food, but those which 
 were esteemed clean for sacrifice; viz. oxen, 
 sheep and goats, doves and pigeons. Some 
 
 16 Go forth of the ark, thou, and 
 thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ 
 wives with thee. 
 
 17 Bring forth with thee every 
 living thing that is with thee, of all 
 flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and 
 of every creeping thing that creepeth 
 upon the earth ; that they may breed 
 abundantly in the earth, and be 
 fruitful, and multiply upon the 
 earth. 
 
 18 And Noah v/ent forth, and his 
 sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives 
 with him: 
 
 19 Every beast, every creeping 
 thing, and every fowl, and whatso- 
 ever creepeth upon the earth, after 
 their Heinds, went forth out of the ^ 
 ark. 
 
 20 ^ And Noah builded an altar 
 unto the Lord; and took of every 
 clean beast, and of every clean fowl. 
 
 of the German commentators see in the ac- 
 count of this sacrifice a late interpolation, 
 derived from the Mosaic or Levitical customs 
 of sacrifice. Delitzsch justly observes that 
 in most of the traditions of the Deluge, ex- 
 ternal to the Israelites, as the Phoenician, 
 Indian, Greek, &c., a sacrifice forms part of 
 the legend. The pretence, therefore, that in 
 the Biblical narrative this was an afterthought 
 of a Jehovist interpolater must be gratuitous. 
 
 21. a s^jjeet sa-vour] Lit. “ the savour 
 of satisfaction or delectation,” the word 
 Nichoach^ “ satisfaction,” having a reference 
 to Noach^ “rest.” Cp. like expressions in 
 Lev. ii. 12, xxvi. 31; Ezek. vi. 13, xx. 41. 
 The gratitude of Noah, and his faith as mani- 
 fested by the sacrifice, were acceptable to 
 God. • 
 
 for the imagination of mads heart is 
 e’v'il from his youth] In ch. vi. 5, it is writ- 
 ten that God’s anger was moved, “ because 
 every imagination of the thoughts of his heart 
 was only evil continually.” Here, on the 
 contrary it is said, that “ the Lord said in Llis 
 heart, I will not curse the ground any more 
 for man’s sake, for the imagination of his 
 heart is evil from his youth.” The Germans 
 discover an inconsistency between the words 
 of the Elohist in vi. 5, and those of the Je- 
 hovist here. Some have endeavoured to recon- 
 cile these passages by translating “although” 
 instead of “ for.” The true solution is, that 
 in the first instance (ch. vi. 5) the actuai sin- 
 fulness of man, the constant tendency of every 
 imagination of his thoughts to evil, is repre- 
 sented as moving the anger of God, and tend- 
 
74 
 
 GENESIS. VIII. 
 
 [v. 2 1, 2 2. 
 
 and offered burnt offerings on the 
 altar. 
 
 ♦ Heb. 21 And the Lord smelled G sweet 
 savour ; and the Lord said in his 
 heart, I will not a2:ain curse the 
 
 « chap. 6. ^ j r ^ , 1 
 
 5. ground any more ror mans sake; 
 
 Matt. 15. imagination of man’s heart 
 
 is evil from his youth ; neither will I 
 again smite any more every thing living, 
 as I have done. 
 
 22 ^ While the sarth remaineth, t Heb. 
 seedtime and harvest, and cold and Thldaflo/ 
 heat, and summer and winter, and 
 day and night shall not cease. 
 
 ing to man’s destruction ; but in the present 
 instance (ch. viii. 21) the Lord is described as 
 considering the feebleness of his nature, and 
 pitying that natural propensity to evil, which 
 every man inherits at his birth. 
 
 The word in the original for imagination, 
 is the word which the Rabbins used to ex- 
 press that desire of evil, which results from 
 original sin (Buxt. ‘Lex. Chald.’ p. 973; Ges. 
 ‘Thes,’ p. 619). Accordingly in ch. vi. we see 
 God’s righteous indignation against the hard- 
 ened, impenitent, unbelieving sinner. Here, 
 on the contrary, we read of the Lord’s com- 
 passionate kindness to His feeble and erring 
 
 creatures, and how He is moved not to curse, 
 but to pity and to bless those who turn to 
 Him with penitent hearts, and faith in that 
 great Sacrifice, of which Noah’s offering was 
 a type and a prophecy. 
 
 22 . seedtime and har‘vest~\ The Deluge 
 had confounded earth and sea. There reign- 
 ed as it were one long winter, almost one un- 
 broken night, over the whole world. But 
 thenceforth the Lord decreed, that seasons 
 should follow in their course, the season of 
 sowing and the season of reaping, the cold 
 and the heat, the summer and the winter, the 
 day and the night. 
 
 NOTE A on Chap. viii. The Deluge. 
 
 I. Was it historical? (a) Traditions among all races of men. (j^^ Explicable only on 
 the supposition of historical foundation. 2. Was it universal ? (a) How to 
 judge of the narrative. (/S) Universal probably to mankind, (y) Geological diffi- 
 culties. (6') Rationale of Deluge. 
 
 Two great questions concerning the Flood of 
 Noah naturally present themselves : i. Is the 
 account of it historical or mythical ? 2. Was 
 the IDeluge partial or universal ? 
 
 1. Many of the Germans, and according 
 to Davidson “ all good critics” have aban- 
 doned the historical character of the narra- 
 tive. The physical difficulties are supposed 
 to be insuperable. The whole therefore is 
 said to be “mythical, embodying the old 
 Hebrew belief in the retributive character of 
 sin” (Davidson, ‘Introd. to O. T.’ Vol. i. p. 
 
 187). How then, it may be asked, does it 
 happen, that so many nations retained a recol- 
 lection of tlie same great event ? The races 
 of mankind have been divided by modern 
 Ethnologists into Semitic, Aryan (Iranian or 
 Indo-European) and Turanian. It will be 
 found, that in all these races there are tradi- 
 tions of a flood, which destroyed all mankind 
 except one family. The Semitic account is 
 to be found in the Bible and in the Chaldaean 
 tradition, which is the nearest to that of the 
 Bible, and which comes down to us in the 
 fragments of Berosus preserved by Josephus 
 and Eusebius. According to that tradition, 
 
 Sisuthrus or Xisuthrus being warned of a flood 
 l)y the god Cronus, built a vessel and took 
 into it his relatives and near friends, and all 
 kinds of birds and (piadrupeds. 'I'he vessel 
 was five stadia in length and two in breadth. 
 
 When the flood had abated, he sent out birds, 
 which first of all returned to him, but, after 
 
 the second trial, returned no more. Judging 
 then that the flood was abated, he took out 
 some of the planks of the vessel, and found 
 that it had stranded on the side of a moun- 
 tain. Whereupon he and all his left the ship, 
 and offered sacrifice to the gods. The place 
 of landing was in Armenia ; where part of the 
 vessel still remained, from vrhich the people 
 of the country scraped off the bitumen and 
 made amulets (see Gory’s ‘Ancient Fragm.’ 
 pp. 22, 29, ist Edition). Of the Aryan tradi- 
 tions, first, the Greek is to be found in the well 
 known classical legend of the floods of Ogyges 
 and Deucalion. Pindar (‘ 01 .’ IX. 37), first 
 mentions the flood of Deucalion. The ac- 
 count is given at length by Ovid ; by whom 
 the reason assigned is the general prevalence 
 of violence and wickedness (‘ Metam.’ I. 240, 
 8cc.). Apollodorus (Lib. i.) ascribes the de- 
 luge of Deucalion to the determination of 
 Jupiter to destroy the men of the brazen age. 
 And Lucian (‘De Syra Dea’) speaks of it as 
 having destroyed the whole human race. The 
 Persian tradition may be that embodied in 
 the Koran, though there probably incorpo- 
 rated with the Scriptural narrative. The 
 Hindoo tradition represents Manu as warned 
 by a great fish to build a ship, that he might 
 be preserved during an impending deluge. 
 The ship was saved by being lashed on to the 
 horn of the fish, and was ultimately landed on 
 a northern mountain. (See the tradition at 
 length, Hard'vN-ick, ‘ Christ and other Masters,’ 
 
GENESIS. VIII. 
 
 75 
 
 p. ii. ch. III. § 3.) The Phrygian story of 
 Annakos (supposed to be Enoch) who foretold 
 the Deluge, is singularly confirmed by a medal 
 struck at Apamea (called Apamea Kibotus, i.e. 
 Apamea, the Ark) in the reign of Septimius 
 Severus, on which is depicted an ark or chest 
 floating on the waters. Two people are seen 
 within it and two going out of it. On the 
 top of the ark a bird perches, and another 
 flies towards it with a branch between its 
 feet, on the vessel ; in some specimens of this 
 coin, are the letters NO. It can hardly be 
 doubted, however, that this coin, and the tra- 
 dition connected with it, come somewhat 
 directly from Hebrew sources. The third 
 division of the Human Race, the Turanian, 
 has also everywhere traditions of the Deluge. 
 In China, Fa-he, the reputed founder of 
 Chinese civilization, is represented as escap- 
 ing from the waters of a deluge, and he 
 reappears as the first man at the produc- 
 tion of a renovated world, attended by his 
 wife, three sons and three daughters (fiard- 
 wick. Part ill, p. 16). The inhabitants of 
 the Polynesian Islands, who are probably of 
 Malay origin, especially the Figi islanders, 
 have distinct accounts of a deluge, in which a 
 family, eight in number, was saved in a 
 canoe (Hardwick, iii. 185). Similar tradi- 
 tions prevailed throughout the continent of 
 America, the aboriginal inhabitants of which 
 are now generally believed to be all of one 
 stock, and by their physical and linguistic 
 peculiarities are by the greatest ethnologists 
 identified with the Turanian races of Asia. 
 (See Bunsen, ‘Philos, of Univ. Flist.’ Vol. ii. 
 p. 1 1 2.) In South America, the inhabitants 
 of Mexico had paintings representing the De- 
 luge, a man and his wife in a bark or on a 
 raft, a mountain rising above the waters, and 
 birds, the dove, the vulture, &c. taking part 
 in the scene. In North America, the Chero- 
 kee Indians had a legend of all men destroyed 
 by a deluge, except one family saved in a 
 boat, to the building of which they had been 
 incited by a mysterious dog, which recalls the 
 Indian fable of the friendly fish (see Hard- 
 wick, Part III. pp. 161 — 164). 
 
 Thus among the more civilized countries 
 of Europe, and in well nigh every portion of 
 Asia and America, in every diflerent race of 
 mankind, we find traditionary accounts of 
 this great catastrophe, and of the miraculous 
 deliverance of a single family. The mythical 
 interpreters insist, that every nation had its 
 mythic age, its mythic traditions, and that as 
 we discover the same myth of a deluge in all 
 other nations, we naturally conclude that 
 the Hebrew narrative is in like manner my- 
 thical, But how can it be explained, that in 
 all parts of the world, people have stumbled 
 on the same myth ? What is there, apart 
 from tradition, that so commends the fable of 
 a Deluge and of the saving of one household 
 to the imagination and invention of mankind? 
 
 The existence of cosmogonies, more or less 
 alike, may be easily conceived of. But, that 
 in all parts of the world, among races the 
 most remote and dissimilar, there should pre- 
 vail a belief, that, after man was created on 
 the earth, all men but one family, were de- 
 stroyed by a Deluge, is intelligible only on 
 the supposition, that some such event ac- 
 tually did occur; an event simply, graphically 
 and accurately related in the Book of Genesis, 
 but variously distorted and disguised in the 
 legends of the heathen world. An universal 
 belief, not springing directly from some in- 
 stinctive principle in our nature, can with 
 reason only be ascribed to tradition of an 
 historical fact. The only other* explanation 
 suggested is utterly impossible, viz. that in 
 many parts of the world among the more 
 civilized and the most barbarous alike, re- 
 mains of marine animals found beneath the 
 Earth’s surface had suggested the same be- 
 lief, viz. that there must have been an univer- 
 sal Flood. Even supposing this possible, how 
 does this account for the similarity of the 
 tradition not generally only, but in minute 
 particulars in the remotest parts of the in- 
 habited world ? 
 
 2. The second question. Was the Deluge 
 Universal ? has long divided those who be- 
 lieve that it was historically true, and that it is 
 correctly related by Moses. The most literal 
 interpretation of the language, especially of 
 the words, Gen. vii. 19, “all the high hills 
 that were under the whole heaven, were 
 covered,” would lead to the conviction that 
 it must have been universal. Yet it is cer- 
 tain, that many, who accept implicitly the 
 historical truth of the narrative, believe the 
 inundation to have been partial. Of such 
 we may distinguish two classes of writers, 
 I St those who think that all the then living 
 race of man was destroyed; but that those 
 regions of the earth not tlien inhabited by 
 man were unaffected by the Flood : 2nd, 
 those who believe that the Flood swept 
 away only that portion of mankind with 
 which the Sacred narrative is chiefly con- 
 cerned ; and which had become corrupted 
 and vitiated by the promiscuous marriages 
 mentioned in ch. vi. i, 2. 
 
 • In order to place ourselves in a fair posi- 
 tion forjudging of these questions, it may be 
 well to consider the nature of the narrative, 
 and the common use of language among the 
 Hebrews. And if we do so carefully, we 
 shall surely be led to conclude, that the 
 Deluge is described as from the point of 
 view of an eye-vvitness. It has been so much 
 our wont to look on all the early portions of 
 Genesis as a direct revelation from God to 
 Moses, that we rather consider the picture to 
 be drawn, if we may speak so, as from the 
 point of view of the Omnipotent. Yet, even 
 if we are right in esteeming all as a simply 
 direct revelation, it may be, that the reve- 
 
76 
 
 GENESIS. VIII. 
 
 lation was given in prophetic vision, and that 
 Moses wrote, not merely what he had heard, 
 but also, and rather, what he had seen. But 
 we may remember too, that the custom of 
 Scripture is to refer historical records to the 
 evidence of eye-witnesses. This is very much 
 the case in the New Testament. The Apostles 
 and Evangelists constantly claim to have been 
 present at the scenes which they relate (see 
 especially Luke i. i, 2; Joh. xix. 35, xxi. 24; 
 Acts i. 3 ; I Cor. xv. 3 — 8 ; 2 Pet. i. 16 ; i Joh. 
 i. i); and they relate them as those scenes ap- 
 peared to them. The baptism of Jesus, the 
 transfiguration, the walking on the waters, the 
 multiplying the loaves and fishes, the Cruci- 
 fixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the 
 tongues of fire at Pentecost, are all simply 
 painted as they who were present saw and con- 
 ceived of them. And this is equally true in the 
 Old Testament. Take for instance the much 
 debated miracle of the sun and the moon 
 standing still at the command of Joshua. 
 The phenomenon is related just as the con- 
 tending armies witnessed it. It is not re- 
 ferred to its natural causes, whatever they 
 may have been. That merely is related 
 which actually appeared. At Joshua’s com- 
 mand, and of course by Divine intervention, 
 the Sun and the Moon, which would natu- 
 rally have seemed to describe an arc in the 
 heavens and to descend into the west, then, 
 on the contrary, seemed to stand still in the 
 midst of heaven. Now just so is the Deluge 
 described in Genesis. It is pictured, as it 
 would have presented itself to the eyes of 
 Noah and his family. Moreover, on the 
 principle just mentioned, it is in the highest 
 degree probable, that the description is really 
 that which was given bygone of such eye- 
 witnesses. It would have been very strange 
 if no such description had been given and 
 preserved. Shem would almost certainly 
 have related it, over and over again, to his 
 children and grand-children. They would 
 have treasured it up in their memories and 
 have handed it on. As has been so notori- 
 ously the case among later nations (see Max 
 Muller’s ‘Sans. Lit’ p. 500) the very words 
 of the original narrative would be carefully 
 recorded from father to son, whether in 
 writing or by oral tradition ; and so, in all 
 probability, we have in Genesis the very 
 syllables in which the Patriarch Shem de- 
 scribed to the ancestors of Abraham that 
 which he himself had seen, and in which he 
 had borne so great part. The Divine autho- 
 rity of the narrative would be no more 
 affected by this, than the authority of the 
 Gospel of St Mark is affected by the pro- 
 bable fact that St .Mark relates that which 
 St Peter communicated to him as the result 
 of his own ocular and aural experience. 
 I-ct us then view it thus. One of the eight 
 human beings saved in the ark relates all that 
 he saw. Me mentions first God’s warning to 
 
 Noah and denunciation of judgment on man- 
 kind. He describes the building and the 
 proportions of the ark. He narrates the 40 
 days of rain and the swelling of the rivers 
 and of the ocean, in the words which most 
 forcibly describe that great catastrophe (Gen. 
 vii. ii). He then describes how the waters 
 prevailed, till the ark was raised up and 
 floated over them (v. 18). At length, not 
 only did the ark float, but the highest hills 
 disappeared (v. 19) ; nothing was visible 
 under the whole vault of heaven, but sea and 
 air. The very words are “ All the high hills 
 under the whole heaven were covered.” 
 Where the ark was at this time, or where 
 Noah and his family had been dwelling 
 before, we cannot tell. The country may 
 have been mountainous, and so, in order to 
 hide the hills from view, the waters must 
 have been* very deep, or it may have been a 
 plain country, as many think the region 
 round about Babylon, with few hills in sight 
 and those not of great altitude; in which 
 case but a moderate depth of water would 
 have sufficed to cover all the highest hills 
 under the whole canopy of heaven. The 
 inhabitants of the ark probably tried the 
 depth of the Deluge by a plumb line, an 
 invention surely not unknown to those who 
 had acquired the arts of working in brass and 
 iron (ch. iv. 22), and they foil nd a depth of 
 15 cubits. Then all flesh, all that was on 
 the dry land, died. And, as the gathering of 
 the waters is thus described, so in ch. viii. 
 the subsidence is given in the same simple 
 graphic style. At length, on a specified day, 
 the ark rests. It is found that it had strand- 
 ed near to some of the hills in a generally 
 plain country, perhaps to the south of Arme- 
 nia, perhaps in the north of Palestine, per- 
 haps somewhere in Persia, or in India or 
 elsewhere. The waters continually decrease, 
 it may be the vapours also clear off ; and at 
 length the summits of the surrounding hills 
 become visible, though the plain country still 
 is flooded. Noah then sends out the Raven. 
 It goes to and fro, but returns no more to 
 the ark. No account is given of its wander- 
 ings; what appears to Noah and his family 
 is all that we learn. So too of the Dove. 
 It goes forth and, finding no rest, comes back 
 again. Once more it is sent out. Whither 
 it goes no one can tell, all that appears is, 
 that it has found dry land. It brings back 
 an olive leaf in its beak; and Noah judges 
 that the waters were abated. From first to 
 last the description is just that which Shem 
 or Noah would have given of all that he had 
 himself seen. 
 
 If this be the true explanation of the 
 narrative, we may then more readily see 
 how the question of the universality of the 
 Deluge stands. The words used may certain- 
 ly mean that the Deluge was universal, that it 
 overwhelmed, not only all the inhabited parts 
 
GENESIS. VIII. 
 
 77 
 
 of Asia, but also Europe, Africa, and America, 
 Australia, New Zealand, andOceanica; most, 
 if not all, of which Islands and Continents 
 were probably then without human inhabit- 
 ants. Yet, if only the inhabited world was 
 inundated, and all its inhabitants destroyed; 
 the elfect would have been the same to Noah, 
 and would, most likely, have been described 
 in the same words. The purpose of God 
 was to sweep away the sinful race of Adam. 
 That purpose would have been effected by a 
 Deluge, which covered the whole of that 
 portion of the globe, which may be called 
 the cradle of the human race. The words of 
 the narrative are perhaps no stronger than 
 would have been naturally used to describe 
 such a catastrophe. The most striking is 
 the passage, “ All the high hills under the 
 whole heaven,” ch. vii. 19. But this is no 
 more than such expressions as, “I begin to 
 put the dread of thee upon the nations that 
 are under the whole heaven,” Deut. ii. 25 : 
 •‘all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to 
 buy corn,” Gen. xli. 57: “as the Lord thy 
 God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom 
 whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee, 
 &c.,” I Kings xviii. 10. When the ancients 
 speak of the whole world, they mean at most 
 the whole world as known to the ancients. 
 When they speak of the whole heaven, they 
 mean the whole visible canopy or expanse of 
 the sky ; and so, when they speak of the earth, 
 the land, the dry ground, they mean at times 
 very limited portions indeed of the earth’s 
 surface. The strictest interpretation of the 
 record, according to the habit of speech 
 among Semitic nations, will allow us to un- 
 derstand that a Deluge prevailed, extensive 
 enough to destroy all the living race of man, 
 and to cover with water the whole visible face 
 of nature. It is another question, whether 
 we may admit, that any portion of the human 
 race, except the eight persons miraculously 
 preserved, can have escaped. Some suppose 
 the descendants of Cain to have peopled 
 China, and not to have been involved in the 
 Deluge, which, in their belief, was sent on 
 purpose to destroy those apostate and dege- 
 nerate Sethites, who had defiled the chosen 
 race by intermarrying with unbelievers. 
 Others think that the Nephilim of Numb, 
 xiii. 33 were descendants of the Nephilim of 
 Gen. vi. 4, who must therefore have survived 
 the Deluge. Others again, as the authors 
 of ‘The Genesis of the Earth and Man,’ 
 and of ‘ Adam and the Adamites,’ suppose 
 that there was a pre-Adamite race of men, 
 and that the history in Genesis relates only 
 the fortunes of the Adamites, having no re- 
 ference to the rest. Without pronouncing 
 too hastily on any fair inference from the 
 words of Scripture, we may reasonably say, 
 that their most natural interpretation is, that 
 the whole race of man had become grievously 
 corrupted, since the faithful had intermingled 
 
 with the ungodly; that the inhabited world 
 Avas consequently filled with violence, and 
 that God had decreed to destroy al) mankind, 
 except one single family; that therefore all 
 that portion of the earth, perhaps as yet a 
 very small portion, into which mankind had 
 spread, was overwhelmed by water. The ark 
 was ordained to save the one faithful family ; 
 and lest that family, on the subsidence of the 
 waters, should find the whole country round 
 them a desert, a pair of all the beasts of the land 
 and of the fowls of the air were preserved along 
 with them, and along with them went forth to 
 replenish the now desolated continent. The 
 words of Scripture (confirmed as they are by 
 an universal tradition), appear, at least, to 
 mean as much as this. They do not neces- 
 sarily mean more. 
 
 The geological objections to the history of 
 the Deluge are chie% such as the discovery 
 of loose sconce on the tops of the extinct vol- 
 canoes of Auvergne and Languedoc, the im- 
 possibility of the waters extending to the 
 height of 15 cubits above the mountains, and 
 the permanent distribution of the animal king- 
 dom over the different parts of the world. 
 
 It is said the loose scoriae on the mountains 
 of Auvergne and Languedoc must have been 
 swept away by an universal flood. It is, 
 however, quite conceivable, even if the Deluge 
 extended to those regions and to the tops of 
 those hills, that the gradual rise and subsi- 
 dence of the waters may have left there re- 
 mains of volcanic action, which are not so 
 light as has been asserted, almost untouched. 
 The difficulty in conceiving of the watei's 
 rising 15 cubits above the highest mountains 
 is a difficulty in the mind of the objector, not 
 in the text of Scripture, which nowhere 
 speaks of such a rise. (See the earlier part of 
 this note.) The possibility of vegetation sur- 
 viving has been considered in the note on ch. 
 viii. II. The most serious difficulty in con- 
 ceiving of a Flood universal (not only to the 
 world inhabited by man, but to the whole 
 surface of the globe) is in the history of the 
 distribution of the animal kingdom. For ex- 
 ample, the animals now living in South 
 America and in New Zealand are of the same 
 type as the fossil animals which lived and died 
 there before the creation of man. Is it con- 
 ceivable that all should have been gathered 
 together from their original habitats into 
 the ark of Noah and have been afterwards 
 redistributed to their respective homes? The 
 difficulty, however, vanishes entirely, if the 
 sacred narrative relates only a submersion of 
 the human race and of its then dwelling-place, 
 a sense of that narrative, which exact criti- 
 cism shews to be possible, perhaps even the 
 most probable, irrespective of all questions of 
 natural science. The cavils against the single 
 window, the proportions of the ark. See. 
 have been considered in their respective places. 
 The peculiar unfairness of the objections 
 
GENESIS. IX. 
 
 ■—3. 
 
 7S 
 
 urged is to be found, not so much in the ob- 
 jections themselves, as in the insisting at the 
 same time on an interpretation of the Scrip- 
 ture narrative, on principles which would not 
 be applied to any other history whatever. 
 Not only are we required to expound ancient 
 and Eastern phraseology with the cold exact- 
 ness applicable only to the tongues of Nor- 
 thern Europe, but moreover to adhere to all 
 the interpretations of past uncritical ages, to 
 believe that there was but a single window in 
 the ark, that the ark stranded on the top of a 
 mountain, within sight of which it very pro- 
 bably never sailed, that the waters of the 
 Flood rose three, or even live miles above the 
 sea level, and other prodigies, which the sa- 
 cred text, even in its most natural signifi- 
 cance, nowhere either asserts or implies. 
 
 If it be inquired, why it pleased God to 
 save man and beast in a huge vessel, instead 
 of leaving them a refuge on high hills or in 
 some other sanctuary, we perhaps inquire in 
 
 vain. Yet surely we can see, that the great 
 moral lesson and the great spiritual truths 
 exhibited in the Deluge and the ark were 
 well worth a signal departure from the com- 
 mon course of nature and Providence. The 
 judgment was far more marked, the deli- 
 verance far more manifestly Divine, than they 
 would have been, if hills or trees or caves 
 had been the shelter provided for those to be 
 saved. The great prophetic forepicturing of 
 salvation from a flood of sin by Christ and 
 in the Church of Christ would have lost all 
 its beauty and symmetry, if mere earthly 
 refuges had been sufficient for deliverance. 
 As it is, the history of Noah, next after the 
 history of Christ, is that which perhaps most 
 forcibly arrests our thoughts, impresses our 
 consciences and yet revives our hopes. It 
 was a judgment signally executed at the 
 time. It is a lesson deeply instructive for all 
 time. 
 
 c ch.-ip. I. 
 28. 
 
 & ?. 17. 
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 I God blesscth Noah. 4 Blood and innrder are 
 forbidden. 8 God's covenant, signified by 
 the rainbow. 18 Noah replenisheth the zmrld, 
 70 planteth a vineyard, 21 is drunken, and 
 mocked of his son, 25 enrseth Canaan, 26 bless- 
 eth Sheut, 27 prayeth for Japheth, 29 anddieth. 
 
 AND God blessed Noah and his 
 sons, and said unto them, "Be 
 fruitful, and multiply, and replenish 
 the earth. 
 
 2 And the fear of you and the 
 dread of you shall be upon every beast 
 of the earth, and upon every fovv^l of 
 the air, upon all that moveth upon the 
 earth, and upon all the fishes of the 
 sea ; into your hand are they delivered. 
 
 3 Every moving thing that liveth 
 shall be meat for you; even as the 
 
 green herb have I given you alEc^api. 
 things. 
 
 Chap. IX. 1. And God blessed Noah, &c.] 
 Noah, now become the second head of the 
 human family, receives a blessing, the former 
 part of which is but a repetition of the bless- 
 ing first pronounced on Adam, ch. i. 28. 
 The sin of man had frustrated the intent 
 of the first blessing. The earth had been 
 filled with licentiousness and violence, fatal 
 to th.e increase of mankind, and at length 
 bringing down a judgment, which swept all 
 but one family away. Now all begins anew ; 
 and God repeats the promise of fecundity, 
 which sin had made of none effect. 
 
 2. the fear of you and the dread of yoii] 
 The small remnant of mankind just rescued 
 from the Deluge might have perished fi-om 
 the attacks of wild beasts, which had pro- 
 bably been young and tame in the ark, but 
 were now adult or adolescent and returning 
 to their own wild natures. The assurance 
 given in this verse was therefore a very need- 
 ful comfort to Noah and his family. 
 
 3 . Eaeery monjing thing that Irveth shall 
 be meat for yoii\ In the primal blessing (ch. 
 i. 28, 29, 30) there had been mention of 
 
 man’s supremacy and power over the inferior 
 animals. It has been a question whether 
 there had been a permission of animal food 
 or not. The almost universal opinion of the 
 ancients was that only vegetable food was 
 then permitted; and if we remember that 
 most probably the early race of men lived 
 in a warm and genial climate, and that even 
 now some of the Eastern nations are con- 
 tented and healthy upon a vegetable diet, 
 we shall be the more disposed to acquiesce 
 in an interpretation which seems to do less 
 violence to the text. It cannot, however, 
 be said that there was from the first a 
 prohibition of animal food. From very early 
 times we find sheep and cattle kept at least 
 for milk and wool, and slain for sacrifice, 
 ch. iv. 2, 20. Whether then it had been 
 conceded or not from the first ; it is likely 
 that those who fed and sacrificed sheep, like 
 Abel, who kept cattle, like Jabal, or who 
 handled instruments of bronze and iron, like 
 Tubal Cain, would in the course of time 
 have learned the use of animal food. If so, 
 we may consider the words of this verse as 
 a concession to the infirmities or the neces- 
 sities of mankind, coupled with restrictions, 
 
V. 4 — IO-] 
 
 GENESIS. IX. 
 
 79 
 
 f Lev. 17. 4 ^But flesh with the life thereof, 
 
 zvhich is the blood thereof, shall ye 
 not eat. 
 
 5 And surely your blood of your 
 lives will I require ; at the hand of 
 every beast will I require it, and at 
 the hand of man ; at the hand of 
 every man’s brother will I require the 
 
 ^Matt.=6. life 
 
 52- 6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, 
 
 10. by man shall his blood be shed; “^for 
 ' chap. I. image of God made he man. 
 
 7 And you, be ye fruitful, and 
 multiply; bring forth abundantly in 
 the earth, and multiply therein. 
 
 8 ^1 And God spake unto Noah, 
 and to his sons v/ith him, saying, 
 
 • 9 And I, behold, I establish my 
 covenant with you, and with your 
 seed after you ; 
 
 10 And with every living creature 
 that is with you, of the fowl, of 
 the cattle, and of every beast of the 
 earth with you; from all that go 
 
 which may have been called for by the savage 
 practices of the Antediluvians. 
 
 4 . flesh <Lvith the life thereof^ Rashi and 
 some other Jewish commentators understand 
 a prohibition of the practice of eating flesh 
 cut from the living animal, and so Luther 
 translated, “ the flesh which yet lives in its 
 blood.” The monstrous wickedness of the 
 Antediluvians, by which the earth was filled 
 with violence, may have taken this form 
 among others ; and these words without doubt 
 condemn by implication all such fiendish 
 cruelty. They prohibit also the revolting 
 custom of eating raw flesh; for civilization 
 is ever to be a handmaid to religion. But 
 over and above all this, there is reference to 
 that shedding of blood, or pouring out of 
 life, which formed so great a part of typical 
 sacrifice, and which had its full significance 
 in that pouring out of the soul unto death, 
 which won for man the resurrection to eter- 
 nal life. We need not look for any scientific 
 explanation of 'the connection between life 
 and blood here, or in the subsequent legal 
 enactments {e.g. Lev. iii. 17, vii. 26, xvii. 10; 
 
 I Sam. xiv. 32; Ez. xxxiii. 25). The ancients 
 no doubt generally believed the blood to be 
 the seat of the life; but it is also literally 
 true, that the shedding of blood is equivalent 
 to the destruction of life; and so in these 
 early injunctions the God of mercy taught 
 the value not only of human, but of all 
 animal being, and along with the forbidding 
 of manslaughter forbade wanton cruelty and 
 indifference to the sufferings of His brute 
 creatures. 
 
 5 . And surely your blood of your Hues nvill 
 I require^ &c.] There have been many pro- 
 posed translations of this verse. The A.V., 
 which accords with .the most im.portant an- 
 cient versions, no doubt gives the true mean- 
 ing. “The blood of your lives” probably 
 signifies “your life blood.” Under the law 
 . the ox that gored was to be killed (Ex.xxi. 
 28), which seems a comment on this passage. 
 In Ps. ix. 12 God is said to be the requirer 
 of blood, a phrase id^nti#,*;! with that made 
 use of here. 
 
 6. Vr^oso sheddeth inar{s hloo(I\ Here the 
 manner in which God will require the blood 
 of the murdered man is specified. There 
 shall be a legal retribution, life for life. 
 
 for in the image of God made he man\ 
 The slaughter of brute animals was per- 
 mitted, though wanton cruelty towards them 
 was forbidden; but man was made in the 
 image of God, and to destroy man’s life has 
 in it the sin of sacrilege. Moreover, the 
 image of God implies the existence of a per- 
 sonal, moral, and therefore, in the creature, 
 a responsible will. Though the holiness, 
 which was part of the likeness, was lost in 
 the fall, still the personality and the moral 
 being remained. To destroy the life of such 
 an one is therefore to cut short his time of 
 probation, to abridge his day of grace, to 
 step in between him and his moral Governor, 
 to frustrate, as far as may be, God’s purposes 
 of love and mercy to his soul. Hence the 
 sin of*murder is the greatest wrong which 
 man can do to his brother man ; perhaps also 
 the greatest insult which man can offer to 
 Him who is the loving Father of all men. 
 The Jews held that there were seven pre- 
 cepts given to Noah, which were binding on 
 all mankind, to be observed by proselytes of 
 the gate and by pious Gentiles, viz. abstinence 
 from murder, from eating the flesh of living 
 animals, from blasphemy, idolatry, incest, 
 theft, and the submission to constituted au- 
 thority; the first two and the last are ex- 
 pressly enjoined in the words recorded in 
 this chapter, the other four result from the 
 dictates of natural religion. 
 
 9 . I establish my couenant uoiih you^ and 
 uoith your seed after yoii\ A new covenant is 
 now made with all the human beings rescued 
 from the flood, and through them even with 
 the beasts of the field, that there should not 
 again be a flood to destroy all flesh. This, 
 perhaps, more than any other part of the 
 history, seems to prove that the Deluge ex- 
 tended Rt least to the destruction of all the 
 then living race of man. 
 
 10* from all that go out of the ark, to 
 euery beast of the earthy An idiomatic ex- 
 
8o 
 
 GENESIS. IX. 
 
 V. II 21 . 
 
 /" Isai. 54. 
 
 9 - 
 
 r Ecclus. 
 ^3. II, 12. 
 
 out of the ark, to every beast of the 
 earth. 
 
 1 1 And v/ill establish my cove- 
 nant with you ; neither shall all flesh 
 be cut off any more by the waters of 
 a flood ; neither shall there any more 
 be a flood to destroy the earth. 
 
 12 And God said, This is the 
 token of the covenant which I make 
 between me and you and every liv- 
 ing creature that is with you, for per- 
 petual generations: 
 
 13 I do set my bow in the cloud, 
 and it shall be for a token of a cove- 
 nant between me and the earth. 
 
 14 ^ And it shall come to pass, 
 when I bring a cloud over the earth, 
 that the bow shall be seen in the 
 cloud : 
 
 1 5 And I will remember my cove- 
 nant, which is between me and you 
 and every living creature of all flesh ; 
 and the waters shall no more become 
 a flood to destroy all flesh. 
 
 16 And the bow shall be in the 
 cloud ; and I will look upon it, that 
 I may remember the everlasting cove- 
 nant between God and every living 
 creature of all flesh that is upon the 
 earth. 
 
 17 And God said unto Noah, 
 
 This is the token of the covenant, 
 which I have established between 
 me and all flesh that is upon the 
 earth. 
 
 18 ^ And the sons of Noah, that 
 went forth of the ark, were Shem, 
 and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is 
 
 the father of ^ Canaan. t Heb. 
 
 19 These are the three sons 
 Noah: and of them was the whole 
 earth overspread. 
 
 20 And Noah began to be an hus- 
 bandman, and he planted a vine- 
 yard : 
 
 2 1 And he drank of the wine, and 
 was drunken ; and he was uncovered 
 within his tent. 
 
 pression, signifying that the covenant shall 
 extend not only to those that go out of the 
 ark, but also to every beast of the earth. 
 Not only those preserv'cd in the ark, but all 
 other animals are to be interested in this pro- 
 mise. From which we can hardly fail to 
 infer that the destruction of the lower iinimals 
 was confined to a certain district, and not 
 general throughout the earth. 
 
 13. I do set my bo^v in the cloud~\ Lit. 
 I have set My bow. The covenant was 
 an universal covenant; the sign of the cove- 
 nant was therefore to be one visible to all 
 nations, and intelligible to all minds. It 
 appears at first sight as if the words of the 
 sacred record implied that this was the first 
 rainbow ever seen on earth. But it would 
 l)e doing no violence to the text to believe, 
 that the rainbow had been already a familiar 
 sight, but that it was newly constituted the 
 sign or token of a Covenant, just as after- 
 wards the familiar rite of baptism and the 
 customary use of bread and wine were by 
 our Blessed Lord ordained to be the tokens 
 and pledges of the New Covenant in Christ 
 l)etween His Heavenly Father and every 
 Christian soul. 
 
 20. Noah began to be an husbandman~\ 
 Husbandry had been much used before the 
 flood ; but now there was a new condition of 
 the earth, and all was, as it were, begun 
 again. As an incursion of barbarians has 
 often swept away the civilization of a whole 
 
 region or continent, so the Hood had reduced 
 mankind almost to the simplicity of the days 
 of Adam. Still, without doubt, many of the 
 inventions of the antediluvian race would 
 have been preserved by the family of Noah; 
 and probably among the rest the cultivation 
 of the vine. 
 
 21. he drank of the oe/V] Many have 
 supposed that Noah was the discoverer of 
 the art of making wine, and even that he 
 was the great planter of the vine. So they 
 have palliated his fault by ascribing it to 
 ignorance of the effects of wine. It is hardly 
 probable that, with all the difficulties of his 
 new position, Noah should have invented fer- 
 mentation. More likely is it, that the inge- 
 nious and intemperate descendants of Cain 
 had long before discovered it. Noah may 
 have been but little used to strong drink, and 
 hence may not have known that it would so 
 soon overcome him ; yet we may well follow 
 the wisdom of Calvin, and say, “ Leaving all 
 this in uncertainty, let us learn from Noah’s 
 intemperance how foul and detestable a vice 
 drunkenness is.” The Holy Scriptures never 
 conceal the sins even of God's greatest saints, 
 and the sins of saints are sure to meet with 
 chastisement. Noah’s piety is plainly recorded. 
 It is also plainly recorded that he fell into 
 sin, whether partly of ignorance or wholly of- 
 infirmity; that sin brought with it shame, 
 and, as is so often found, was the occasion of 
 sin to others, and led on to consequences 
 disastrous to the descendants of all those who 
 
V. 2 2 27 .] 
 
 GENESIS. IX. 
 
 81 
 
 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, 
 saw the nakedness of his father, and 
 told his two brethren without. 
 
 23 And Shem and Japheth took a 
 garment, and laid it upon both their 
 shoulders, and went backward, and 
 covered the nakedness of their father; 
 and their faces were backward, and 
 they saw not their father’s naked- 
 ness. 
 
 24 And Noah awoke from his wine, 
 and knew what his younger son had 
 done unto him. 
 
 25 And he said. Cursed be Canaan ; 
 a servant of servants shall he be unto 
 his brethren. 
 
 26 And he said. Blessed be the 
 Lord God of Shem; and Canaan \ 2 ut] 7 ' 
 shall be "his servant. 
 
 27 God shall "enlarge Japheth, and suade. 
 
 in any degree shared in the guilt of it. Noah 
 sinned, Ham sinned, perhaps, too, Canaan 
 sinned. So there was a heritage of sorrow 
 to the descendants of Noah in the line of 
 Ham, to the descendants of Ham in the line 
 of Canaan. 
 
 22. Ham^ the father of Canaan] The 
 great difficulty in this history is that Ham 
 appears to have sinned, and Canaan is curs- 
 ed. Some see in this simply the visiting 
 of the sins of the fathers on their children. 
 But then why only on one of those children ? 
 A propriety has been discovered in the curse 
 on Canaan, as he was Ham’s youngest son, 
 just as Ham was the youngest son of Noah. 
 Yet this is all gratuitous and without autho- 
 rity from the text of Scripture. It has been 
 thought, once more, that Noah’s prophecy ex- 
 tended to all the posterity of Ham, but that 
 only that portion which affected Canaan was 
 preserved by Moses, in order to animate the 
 Israelites in their wars against the Canaanites ; 
 others again have conjectured, that in the 
 prophecy of Noah, instead of “curSed be 
 Canaan,” we ought to read, “ cursed be Ham 
 the father of Canaan,” but such conjectures, 
 without authority of MSS. are quite inadmis- 
 sible. The extreme brevity of the narrative 
 renders it impossible to explain it fully. No- 
 thing is said, save only that Ham saw his 
 father naked, and then told his brethren. We 
 are even left to infer that he told this scoff- 
 ingly ; but for the curse that follows, we 
 might suppose that he had only consulted 
 them as to how best to conceal their father’s 
 shame. Something therefore there plainly is, 
 which requires to be supplied in order fully 
 to clear up the obscurity. Yet this cannot 
 now be discovered. Conjecture only is pos- 
 sible. 
 
 Origen mentions as a tradition among the 
 Jews, that Canaan first saw the shame of his 
 grandfather and told it to his father. In that 
 case, it may have been that the chief sin lay 
 with Canaan, and hence that he especially in- 
 herited the curse. Many commentators have 
 adopted this opinion, and it would certainly 
 solve most of the difficulty. 
 
 24. His younger sen] Ham is always 
 named second among the sons of Noah ; but 
 VOL. I. 
 
 it has sometimes been thought, that Japheth 
 was the eldest and Ham the youngest, the 
 order being changed for the sake of 'putting 
 first Shem, who was the progenitor of the 
 chosen seed. Yet many writers of great au- 
 thority, both Jewish and Christian, under- 
 stand by the term here used, “ his younger 
 (lit. little) son,” not his son Ham, but his 
 grandson Canaan. (So Levi Ben Gerson, 
 Abenezra, Theodoret, Procopius, Joseph Sca- 
 liger, &c.). This would correspond with the 
 tradition mentioned by Origen (see last note), 
 that the sin of Ham was shared by Canaan, 
 or perhaps that Canaan was the guilty per- 
 son, his father only not having condemned, 
 but rather joined in his wickedness. 
 
 25. Cursed be Canaan^ &c.] In the patri- 
 archal ages, when there was no regular order 
 of priests or prophets, the head of the family 
 was the priest, and these blessings and curses 
 spake they not of themselves, but being high 
 priests they prophesied. Yet we can hardly 
 fail to see also in these histories a lesson, that 
 a parent’s blessing is to be valued, a parent’s 
 curse to be dreaded. 
 
 26. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem] 
 The prophecy here assumes the form of a 
 thanksgiving to God, from whom all holy 
 desires and good counsels come, and who had 
 put into the heart of Shem to act piously. At 
 the same time, it is clearly implied, that the 
 Lord, JEHOVAH, should be very specially 
 the God of Shem, which was fultilled in the 
 selection of the descendants of Abraham to 
 be the peculiar people of God. 
 
 Canaan shall be his ser-vant] Noah fore- 
 tells the subjugation of the land of Canaan 
 by the people of Israel, when the Canaanites 
 should become servants of the descendants of 
 Shem. 
 
 27. God shall enlarge Japheth] There is 
 a paronomasia on the name Japheth, which 
 probably signifies “enlarged.” The Hebrew 
 word “ shall enlarge” is, neglecting the vowel 
 points, letter for letter the same as the word 
 Japheth. The prophecy looked forward to 
 the wide territory which was assigned to the 
 descendants of Japheth, reaching from India 
 and Persia in the East to the remotest boun- 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 GENESIS. IX. X. 
 
 [v. 28, I. 
 
 he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; 
 and Canaan shall be his servant. 
 
 28 ^ And Noah lived after the 
 flood three hundred and fifty years. 
 
 29 And all the days of Noah were 
 nine hundred and fifty years : and he 
 died. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 I The generafio7ts of Noah. 1 The sons of fa- 
 pheth. 6 The sons of Ham. 8 Nimrod the 
 first mona7‘ch. 2 1 The sons of Shem. 
 
 T OW these are the generations 
 of the sons of Noah, Shem, 
 
 daries of Europe in the West, and now- 
 spreading over America and Australia. 
 
 and he shall dnjjell in the tents of Shem'] 
 
 (1) The Targum of Onkelos, Philo, Theo- 
 doret and some other interpreters, Jewish and 
 Christian, understood He i.e. God, shall dwell 
 among the descendants of Shem.” (2) Many 
 more, {e.g. Calvin, Bochart, Rosenm., Tuch, 
 Del,, Reinke, Keil), following the Targum of 
 the Pseudo- Jonathan, consider Japheth to be 
 the subject of the proposition. J onathan’s para- 
 phrase is “The sons of Japheth shall be pro- 
 selyted and dwell in the schools of Shem,” 
 and the majority of Christian interpreters un- 
 derstood the prophecy to be similar to that 
 in Isai. lx. 3, 5, “ Gentiles shall come to thy 
 light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising 
 ...the abundance of the sea shall be converted 
 unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall 
 come unto thee.” Nearly all those nations 
 whose history and language shew them to be 
 Japhetic have been converted to a belief in 
 the religion of the God of Shem, which has 
 long been the religion of all Europe, and 
 which is now making way even among the 
 Aryan races of Asia. (3) It has been sug- 
 gested by some, though with little ground of 
 probability, that instead of “ tents of Shem,” 
 we should render “tents of renown,” the taber- 
 nacles of Japheth being spoken of as famous 
 and illustrious. Of the three interpretations, 
 
 (2) may be pronounced somewhat confidently 
 to be the true. By that the continuity of 
 the whole prophecy is preserved. The first 
 part, V, 25, refers only to the descendants of 
 Ham and Canaan. The second is the blessing 
 on Sliem, with a repetition of the condem- 
 nation of Canaan. The third is the blessing 
 on Japheth, concluding also with the condem- 
 nation of Canaan. 
 
 The prophecy then embraces the following 
 particulars: i. That the world should be 
 divided among the descendants of Noah, but 
 that Japheth should have the largest portion 
 for his inheritance. 2. That the descendants 
 of Shem should preserve the knowledge of the 
 true God, and be specially chosen to be His 
 inheritance and His peculiar people. 3. That 
 the descendants of Japheth should ultimately 
 dwell in the tents of Shem, that is, according 
 to Jewish interpretation, should learn from 
 the descendants of Shem the knowledge of the 
 true God. 4. That Canaan, and perhaps other 
 Hamitic nations, should be depressed and 
 “educed to a condition of servitude. 
 
 How fully all these predictions have been 
 carried out in the history of Asia, Europe 
 and Africa, hardly need be .said. 
 
 28 . And Noah lived., &c.] These two 
 verses seem the natural conclusion of ch. v. 
 but are disjoined from it in order to insert 
 the history of the life of Noah. 
 
 Chap. X. 1. Novj these are the genera- 
 tions] From the history of Noah the sacred 
 narrative proceeds to the genealogy of the 
 sons of Noah. It is admitted on all hands 
 that there exists no more interesting record, 
 ethnological and geographical, independently 
 of its Scriptural authority. 
 
 The genealogy traces the origin of all na- 
 tions from a single pair. The human race de- 
 scended from Adam had been destroyed by 
 the flood, with the exception of Noah and 
 his family. Though it is quite possible to 
 interpret the language cf the sacred narrative 
 consistently with the belief that the Deluge 
 was not universal, it at least appears most 
 probable that the man -inhabited world was 
 submerged. And again, although some have 
 contended that the different races of man are 
 so dissimilar, that they must have descended 
 from different primitive stocks; yet the in- 
 quiries of naturalists and physiologists at pre- 
 sent tend rather to diminish than to increase 
 the number of distinct species, both in the 
 animal and the vegetable world, and so to 
 make it even the more certain that human 
 beings constitute but one species deducible 
 from a single pair. The same anatomical 
 structure, especially of the skull and brain, 
 the same intellectual capacities, though differ- 
 ently developed in different nations, the same 
 general duration of life, the same liability to 
 disease, the same average temperature of the 
 body, the same normal frequency of the pulse, 
 the fruitful intermarriage of all races, and 
 that with no instinctive natural repugnances, 
 are manifest indications of an unity of species 
 (Del.). From the time of Blumenbach (whose 
 book ‘De naturae generis humani unitate’ is 
 still a standard work on this subject) down to 
 the present day, the most eminent physiologists 
 agree in considering these and similar argu- 
 ments well nigh conclusive in favour of the 
 unity of the human race. (Consult especially 
 Prichard, ‘Phys. Hist, of Mankind;’ Smyth, 
 ‘Unity of Human Race;’ Quatrefages, ‘ L’unitc 
 de i’espece humaine,’and his report on ‘Aiithro- 
 pologie’). To these physiological considera- 
 
GENESIS. X. 
 
 83 
 
 V. 2.] 
 
 Ham, and Japheth : and unto them and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, 
 were sons born after the flood. and Tubal, and Meshech, and Ti- 
 
 2 '^The sons of Japheth; Gomer, ras. 
 
 tions we may now add the evidence to be de- 
 rived from human language. “It was a pro- 
 found saying of William Humboldt, that 
 man is man only by means of speech, but that 
 in order to invent speech, he must be man al- 
 ready” (Lyell, ‘Antiquity of Man,’ 468). 
 This alone is an argument for the unity of 
 that race which is distinguished from all other 
 animals by the possession of articulate lan- 
 guage. But, moreover, the greatest philolo- 
 gists of the present day seem to be approach- 
 ing the conclusion that the evidence of com- 
 parative grammar, so far as it goes, is in fa- 
 vour of the original unity of human language. 
 “One of the grandest results of modern com- 
 parative philology has been to shew that all 
 languages belonging to one common stock — 
 and we may say, enlarging this view, all lan- 
 guages of the earth — are but scattered indica- 
 tions of that primitive state of human intel- 
 lect, and more particularly of the imitative 
 faculty, under the higher excitement of poeti- 
 cal inspiration, in which the language origi- 
 nated, and with which every language remains 
 connected, as well through the physiological 
 unity of the human race, as through the his- 
 torical unity of the family to which it more 
 especially belongs” (Meyer ap. Bunsen, ‘Chris- 
 tianity and Mankind,’ Vol. iii. p. 163). So 
 writes Dr Meyer: and Prof. Max Muller 
 says, “ These two points Comparative Philo- 
 logy has gained. (i) Nothing necessitates 
 the admission of different independent begin- 
 nings for the material elements of the Tura- 
 nian, Semitic, and Aryan branches of speech: 
 nay, it is possible even now to point out radi- 
 cals, which, under various changes and dis- 
 guises, have been current in these three 
 branches ever since their first separation. (2) 
 Nothing necessitates the admission of different 
 beginnings for the formal elements of the Tu- 
 ranian, Semitic, and Aryan branches of speech ; 
 and though it is impossible to derive the 
 Aryan system of grammar from the Semitic, 
 or the Semitic from the Turanian, we can 
 perfectly understand how, either through in- 
 dividual influences, or by the wear and tear 
 of grammar in its own continuous working, 
 the different systems of grammar of Asia and 
 Europe may have been produced” (Max 
 Muller, Ibid. pp. 479, 480). Once more, al- 
 though it may not be possible simply to as- 
 sign all Semitic tongues to the descendants of 
 Shem, Aryan to the descendants of Japhet, 
 and Turanian to the descendants of Ham; it 
 is , still observable that comparative philology 
 seems to have reduced all languages to three 
 distinct stocks, even the rapid degeneracy of 
 barbarian dialects not wholly obscuring their 
 relationship to one of these three families. 
 
 This is the more to be noticed, when we 
 learn that in savage tribes those who speak 
 the same dialect will sometimes, by separa- 
 tion and estrangement, become in the course 
 of a single generation unintelligible to each 
 other. 
 
 Certain rules are to be observed for the 
 clearing up of some difficulties in the gene- 
 alogy of this chapter, i. Though some no- 
 tice may be taken of the progenitors of all 
 nations, yet naturally those families, more or 
 less connected with the Hebrews, are the 
 longest dwelt upon. 2. Whereas alb are said 
 to Lave settled and dispersed themselves 
 “after their families in their nations,” it will 
 appear that only the larger division by na- 
 tions is traced in the case of more remote 
 peoples, whereas those related to or border- 
 ing on the Hebrews are traced both according 
 to the wider division of nations., and the 
 narrower of families. 3. Although the first 
 division of the earth is spoken of as made in 
 the time of Peleg, and some families may be 
 traced no farther than up to the time of such 
 division, yet the developement of those more 
 specially treated of is brought down to the 
 time of Moses. 4. For none, however, must 
 we seek a very remote settlement, as the 
 original dispersion could not have extended so 
 far. 5. In some cases the names of nations 
 or tribes appear to be substituted for the 
 names of individuals, such as the Jebusite, the 
 Hivite, the Arkite &c., very probably also such 
 as Kittim, Dodanim, Mizraim <&c.; and even 
 perhaps Aram, Canaan and the like. This 
 may be accounted for in more than one way. 
 The purpose of the sacred writer was to 
 trace nations and families, rather than to give 
 a history of individuals, and he therefore 
 speaks of nations known by name to the 
 Israelites as begotten by {i.e. descended from) 
 certain patriarchs, in preference to tracing 
 their descent through unknown individuals. 
 Perhaps too individual patriarchs and proge- 
 nitors had become known by tradition to 
 posterity, not by their own original names, 
 but by the name of the place they had settled 
 in, or by the name of the tribe which they 
 had founded and ruled. The origin of 
 names is often very obscure, and it has been 
 common in most rude societies for persons to 
 be called after places or properties. It is 
 quite possible that even the very earliest patri- 
 archs, as, Shem, Ham and Japheth, Canaan 
 and the like, may have been known in after 
 ages by names which adhered to them 
 through events in their history or places 
 where they had fixed themselves. Thus 
 Shem may have been the man of rame., the 
 most renowned of Noah’s sons. Ham, the 
 
 F 2 
 
■84 
 
 GENESIS. X. 
 
 [v- 3- 
 
 3 And the sons of Gomer; Ash- kenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. 
 
 man who settled in the c^varm regions of 
 Africa, Japheth the father of the fair people of 
 Europe, or perhaps the man whose descend- 
 ants spread abroad more widely than the 
 rest. Canaan again may have been the dwell- 
 er in low lands, while ylram may have derived 
 a title from having chosen the high lands for 
 his home. This theory, if true, would not 
 interfere with the historical character of this 
 Chapter ; especially if we consider that He- 
 brew may not have been the primitive tongue, 
 in which case all these names must either 
 have been translations of the original names, 
 or names ‘by which the bearers had become 
 known to posterity. We have many ex- 
 amples in Scripture of persons changing their 
 names or adopting new names from events 
 in their history, e.g. Abram changing into 
 Abraham ; Esau to Edom ; Jacob to Israel ; 
 Saul to Paul, &c., &c. The whole number 
 of families noticed in this chapter amounts to 
 70 ; but it is to be observed that in some 
 cases the descent is traced only to the grand- 
 sons, in other cases to the great grandsons 
 of Noali: in the family of Shem only, the 
 ancestor of the Hebrews, the descent is 
 traced through six generations. 
 
 2. Japheth'] It is doubtful whether Ja- 
 pheth was the eldest or the second son of 
 Noah, see in v. 21. He is generally men- 
 tioned last in order, Shem, Ham and Japheth, 
 but from ix. it is generally infen'ed that 
 Ham w:is the youngest. In this genealogy he 
 occurs first, the reason being probably this; 
 Shem is reserved to the last that his descent 
 may be traced to a greater length, and Ham 
 last but one, because his descendants were 
 those most closely connected with the de- 
 scendants of Shem. The etymology of the 
 name Japheth should seem from ix. 27 to be 
 from the root Pathah^ to extend. But the 
 language in ix. 27, may be only an example 
 of the paronomasia so common in Hebrew 
 poetry ; and Gesenius, Knobel and others 
 prefer to derive from Taphah.^ to be fair.^ from 
 the fair complexion of Japheth and his de- 
 scendants. 
 
 Comer] Josephus (‘Ant.’ i. 7) says that 
 Comer was the ancestor of those whom the 
 Greeks called Galatians, who were formerly 
 called Gomarites. The descendants of Corner 
 have accordingly been generally identified with 
 the (leltic race called in the time of Homer 
 Cimmerii, who are first known as inhabiting 
 the Chersonesus Taurica, which still re- 
 tains the name Crimea. (See Herod, iv. 12, 
 45. A^sch. ‘Prom.’ V. 729.) The relation of 
 Comer to Magog and Madai corresponds 
 with the original juxtaposition of the Cimme- 
 rians to the Scythians and Modes, the Cim- 
 merians dwelling first on the confines of 
 Asia and Europe. Being driven thence by 
 
 the Scythians in the reign of Cyaxares, they 
 made an irruption into Asia Minor, frorn 
 w^hich they w^ere driven back again by 
 Alyattes. Their name, wTich then nearly 
 disappears in Asia, is recognized again in the 
 Cimbri, who occupied the Cimbrian Cher- 
 sonesus and other parts of the North of 
 Europe, and in the great Celtic tribe of 
 Cymry, the ancient inhabitants of Britain 
 and the present inhabitants of Wales. 
 
 Magog] The statement ©f Josephus (‘ Ant.’ 
 I. 6), that the descendants of Magog were 
 the Scythians is generally accepted as true. 
 In Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 14 ; xxxix. 2. 6 , w'e find 
 Magog as the name of a people inhabiting 
 “the sides of the North” closely connected 
 with Meshech, the Moschi, and' Tubal, the 
 Tibarenes, with a prince named Gog, having 
 horses and armed with bows, wTich corre- 
 sponds with the local position and military 
 habits of the Scythians. The Scythians, ac- 
 cording to their own traditions, lived first in 
 Asia near the river A raxes, afterw'^ards they 
 possessed the whole country to the ocean and 
 the lake Mceotis, and the rest of the plain to 
 the river Tanais (Diod. Sic. ii. 3). Herodotus 
 (i. 103 — 106) relates their descent upon 
 Media, and Egypt, till they were surprised 
 and cut off at a feast by Cyaxares. From 
 their intei*mixture with the Medes, the Sar- 
 matians appear to have arisen, and from them 
 the Russians. See Knobel. 
 
 Madai] The Medes were called Mada 
 by themselves, as appears from the arrow- 
 headed inscriptions, changed in the Semitic 
 to Madai, and by the Greeks to Medoi. 
 They dwelt to the S. and S. W. of the Cas- 
 pian, and coming over to Europe in small 
 parties mingled with the Scythians, whence 
 sprang the Sarmatians. 
 
 Javan] From Javan was “Ionia and the 
 whole Hellenic people” (Jos. ‘Ant’ i. 6). 
 Cp. Is. Ixvi. 19, Ezek. xxvii. 13, Daniel viii. 
 21, where Alexander is called king of Javan ; 
 Joel iii. 6, where “the sons of the Javanites” 
 are put for the Grecians (ufes ’Axat&jv), Zech. 
 ix. 13. Greece is called Ionia in Egyptian 
 hieroglyphics and Yuna in a Cuneiform in- 
 scription at Persepolis (Gesen. s.v.). The 
 lonians were the most Eastern of the Hel- 
 lenic races, and so were the best known to 
 the Asiatics. The course of migration had 
 evidently been from Ionia to Attica and other 
 parts of Greece. 
 
 Tubal., and Meshech] These names con- 
 stantly occur together; see Ezek. xxvii. 13, 
 xxxii. 26, xxxviii. 2, 3, xxxix. i ; where we 
 find them joined with the invading army of 
 Gog and Magog, and going with Javan to 
 Tyre to j>urchase slaves and vessels of brass. 
 Meshech is by Josephus said to be the father 
 
V. 4.] GENESIS. X. 8 
 
 4 And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 
 
 of the Cappadocians, who had, he tells us, 
 a city called Mazacha, and to Tubal he 
 traces the Iberians who dwelt between the 
 Euxine and the Caspian. Later writers have 
 long identified Meshech with the Moschi, in- 
 habitants of the Moschian mountains between 
 Armenia, Iberia and Colchis. Bochart was 
 the first to identify Tubal with the Tibareni, 
 who dwelt on the Southern shore of the Eux- 
 ine towards the East and near to the Moschi. 
 Knobel considers the Tibareni to be con- 
 nected with the. Iberians: Tubal=Tibar = 
 Iber. 
 
 Tiras"] Josephus identifies the descendants 
 of Tiras with the Thracians. So Jerome, 
 the Targums, and most modern commenta- 
 tors. The Get® and Daci, north of the 
 Danube, belonged to the Thracian stock. 
 According to Grimm and some other au- 
 thorities, the Get® were the ancestors of the 
 Goths, which would immediately connect the 
 Thracian and Teutonic races together. The 
 chief reason, however, for considering Tiras 
 the ancestor of the Thracians seems to be the 
 similarity of the names. Accordingly other 
 resemblances have been found. Tuch for in- 
 stance is in favour of the Tyrseni or Tyr- 
 rheni. 
 
 3. the S 071 S of Corner; Ashkenaz] There 
 is little to guide us to the identification of 
 Ashkenaz, except the name and the mention 
 of Ashkenaz Jer. li. 27 in company with 
 Ararat and Minni, which makes it probable 
 that the descendants of Ashkenaz dwelt near 
 the Euxine and the Caspian. Bochart sug- 
 gests Phrygia, where were the lake and river 
 Ascanius. The Rabbi Saadias says the Slavi. 
 Targ. of Jonathan gives Adiabene. Some 
 have discovered a resemblance of sound in 
 Scandinavian and also to Saxon. The modern 
 Jews called Germany Ashkenaz ; and Knobel 
 considers this to be the true interpretation of 
 the name ; though etymologically he finds in 
 it the race of Asa or the Asiatics, Ash-genos. 
 These Asa or Asiatics he thinks, dwelt in 
 Asia Minor (comp. Ascatiia)^ after the 
 Trojan war migrated towards Pannonia and 
 thence towards the Rhine. The Scandi- 
 navians traced their origin to Asia, and called 
 the home of their gods Asgard. It has been 
 conjectured by Bochart and others, that the 
 Black sea was called the sea of Ashkenaz, 
 which sounded to the Greeks like Axenos, 
 their original name for it, and which by an 
 euphemism they changed to Euxeinos. 
 
 Rip hath] Josephus says Paphlagonia, in 
 which he is followed by Bochart, Le Glerc, 
 &c. Most modern commentators compare 
 the Riph®an mountains, which the ancient 
 geographers (Strab. vii. 3, §1. Plin. ‘ H, N.’ 
 IV. 12. Mela, I. 19, &c.) place in the remote 
 North. Mela (11. 2) places them East of the 
 
 Tanais. Knobel conjectures that the Celts 
 or Gauls were the descendants of Riphath, 
 and that they first lived near the Carpa- 
 thians, which he identifies with the Montes 
 Riph®i. 
 
 Togarmah] Mentioned again Ez. xxvii. 
 14, xxxviii. 6. Josephus identifies with the 
 Phrygians, Bochart with the Cappadocians. 
 Michaelis, and after him most moderns, pre- 
 fer the Armenians ; so Rosenm., Gesen., 
 Winer, Knobel, &c. The Armenians them- 
 selves traced their origin to Haic the son of 
 Thogoreu or Thorgau (Mos. Choren. i. 4, 
 § 9). Ezekiel (xxvii. 14) attributes to To- 
 garmah great traffic in horses ; and Strabo 
 (xi. 13, § 9) speaks of the Armenians as 
 famous for breeding horses. Modern philo- 
 logists consider the Armenian as an Aryan 
 or Indo-European language, which corre- 
 sponds with the descent from Japheth. 
 
 4. And the sons of Javan; Elishah] Eze- 
 kiel (xxvii. 7) mentions the isles of Elishah 
 as those whence the Tyrians obtained their 
 purple and scarlet. Some of the Targums 
 identify with Hellas, in which they are fol- 
 lowed by Michaelis, Rosenm., and others. Jo- 
 sephus (‘ Ant.’ I. 6) identifies with the iEolians, 
 which is the view adopted by Knobel. Bo- 
 chart preferred the Peloponnesus, which was 
 famous for its purple dye, and of which the 
 most important district was called Elis. 
 Whichever view he adopted, there is little 
 doubt that the descendants of Elishah in the 
 time of Ezekiel were a maritime people of 
 the Grecian stock. 
 
 Tarshish] By Josephus identified with Tar- 
 sus in Cilicia; by the LXX. (Is. xxiii. i, 
 &c.), Theodoret, and others, with Carthage; 
 by Eusebius, who is followed by Bochart and 
 most moderns, with Tartessus in Spain. Tar- 
 shish, fi'om the various notices of it, appears 
 to have been a seaport town towards the 
 West (cp. Ps. Ixxii.; Is. lx. 9); \\»hither the 
 Phoenicians were wont to traffic in large 
 ships, “ships of Tarshish” (see i K. x. 22, 
 xxii. 48; Ps. xlviii. 7; Is. ii. 16, xxiii. i, 14, 
 lx. 9) sailing from the port of Joppa (Jon. i. 
 3, iv. 2). It was a most wealthy and flou- 
 rishing mart, whence came silver, iron, tin, 
 and lead (Ps. Ixxii. 10; Is. Ixvi. 19; Jer. x. 9; 
 Ezek. xxvii. 12, 25). The name Tartessus is 
 identical with Tarshish, the t being constantly 
 substituted by the Syriac for the Hebrew 
 .sibilant (cp. Bashan = Batan®a, Zor = Tyre, 
 &c.). The Spanish were among the most 
 famous of the Phoenician colonies, and were 
 specially rich in metal (Diod. Sic. v. 33^ — 38; 
 Arrian, ii. 16; Plin. ‘H. N.’ iii. 3; Mela, ii. 
 6, &c.) ; of which colonies Tartessus was the 
 most illustrious. It appears to have been 
 situated at the mouth of the Guadalqiiiver 
 (Strabo, iir. p. 148). Two passages in Chro- 
 nicles (2 Chron. ix. 21, xx. 36) seem irre- 
 
 01 
 
86 
 
 GENESIS. X. 
 
 [v. 5 -7- 
 
 5 By these were the isles of the 
 Gentiles divided in their lands; 
 every one after his tongue, after their 
 families, in their nations. 
 
 concilable with this, and induced St Jerome 
 (‘in Jerem.’ x. 9), and after him Bochart and 
 others,- to suppose that there must have been 
 another Tarshish in the Indian Ocean, which 
 could be approached by the Red Sea, an opi- 
 nion now generally rejected. Knobel supposes 
 that the original inhabitants of Tarshish were 
 the Tusci, Tyrsenians, or Tyrrhenians, a Pe- 
 lasgic, though not Hellenic race, inhabiting 
 great part of Italy, Corsica, and Sardinia, and 
 that very probably Tartessus in Spain was a 
 colony or offshoot from these people. 
 
 Kittim (or Chittimy] Identified by Jose- 
 phus with Cyprus, in which we meet with 
 the town of Cittium; by Eusebius, and after 
 him by Bochart, with the inhabitants of the 
 part of Italy contiguous to Rome. In i 
 Maccab. i. i Alexander is said to come from 
 Chittim, and (i Macc.viii. 5) Perseus is called 
 King of the Kitia^ans, which induced Michae- 
 lis and others to suppose the Chittim to be 
 the Macedonians. Most modern interpreters 
 seem to acquiesce in the opinion of Josephus, 
 that Cyprus (see Is. xxiii i, 12) may have 
 been a chief seat of the Chittim, but add 
 that probably their colonies extended to the 
 isles of the Eastern Mediterranean (see Jer. 
 ii. 10; Ezek. xxvii. 6). So Gesen., Knobel, 
 Delitz., Kalisch. 
 
 Dodanim] has been compared with Do- 
 dona in Epirus. By Kalisch it is identified 
 with the Daunians. Gesenius suspects Doda- 
 nim to be equivalent (perhaps by contraction) 
 with Dardanini = Dardani or Trojans, an 
 opinion which he confirms by the authority 
 of the Bereschit Rabba on this verse. Knobel 
 conjectures that we have traces of Dodanim 
 Ix^th in Dodona (a name which he says pre- 
 vailed through Illyricum and Northern 
 Greece) and also in Dardania and the Dar- 
 dans. There is another reading in i Chr. 
 i. 7, and here also (Gen. x. 4) in the Gr. and 
 Samaritan, viz. Rodanim, Rhodii, the people 
 of Rhodes. 
 
 5 . isles of the Gentiles'] The word here 
 rendered Isle very probably meaning originally 
 “habitable region” (Is. xlii. 15), is generally 
 used either of islands or of places on the sea 
 coast. On the whole of this verse see Jos. 
 Mede, Bk. i. ‘Disc.' XLix. L. By the phrase 
 “ Isles of the Gentiles” were understood those 
 countries of Europe and Asia Minor to 
 which the inhabitants of Egypt and Palestine 
 had access only by sea. 
 
 6. Ham] It is generally thought that the 
 name means warm, which is to be compared 
 with the Greek Aithiops (Ethiopian), which 
 has a similar significance. The word Keyn^ 
 
 6 ^ And the sons of Ham ; Cush, * i Chron. 
 and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan. “ 
 
 7 And the sons of Cush ; Seba, and 
 Haviiah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, 
 
 the Egyptian name for Egypt, probably the 
 same word as Ham, signifies blackness^ with 
 perhaps some notion of heat (see Plutarch, 
 ‘ De Iside et Osiride,’ § 33). The blackness is 
 now generally admitted to refer to the soil, 
 denoting its colour and fertility. (See Ex- 
 cursus.) In Ps. Ixxviii. 51, cv. 23, cvi. 22, 
 Egypt is called the land of Ham, which seems 
 to confirm the belief that Kem (in Greek 
 C hernia) is the same as Ham. The descend- 
 ants of Ham appear to have colonized 
 Babylonia, Southern Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, 
 and other portions of Africa. 
 
 Much has been written of late about the 
 Hamitic languages. The frequent mixture 
 of the Hamites with the descendants of Shem 
 makes it very difficult to discern clearly be- 
 tween their tongues. Bunsen considers Cha- 
 mitism to be the most ancient form of Semi- 
 tism, in fact Semitism, before the Hamites 
 and Shemites thoroughly parted off from each 
 other and from their primeval dwelling-place. 
 The ancient Egyptian has a Semitic base with 
 Turanian (negro) infusion, but the Hamitic 
 races have so frequently been conquered, 
 morally and physically, by the descendants 
 of Shem and Japheth, that their original 
 languages have been lost or corrupted by the 
 prevalence of Semitism or Aryanism. 
 
 Cush] The name Cush is generally trans- 
 lated Ethiopia. The Ethiopians at the time 
 of Josephus were called Chusasi, Cushites, 
 and that is still the Syriac name for the 
 Abyssinians. There is, however, good reason 
 to believe, with Bochart, and others, that 
 the first home of the Cushites was Chuzis- 
 tan and the adjoining parts of Southern Asia, 
 from whence they spread in different direc- 
 tions, a main body having crossed the sea 
 and settled in Ethiopia. 
 
 Certainly some of those, who are here 
 mentioned {e.g. Raamah, Sheba, Dedan, vv. 
 7, 8) as the descendants of Cush, established 
 colonics in Asia. Some passages in the Old 
 Testament seem to require that we should 
 place Cush in Asia, as Gen. ii. 13; so also 
 Exod. ii. 16, 21, compared with Num. xii. i; 
 in the latter of which Zipporah is called a 
 Cushite, whilst in the former she is said to be 
 a daughter of the priest of Midian. This 
 connects Cush with Midian, which was in 
 Arabia Felix, near the Red Sea. Again, in 
 Hab. iii. 7 Cush and Midian appear to be 
 connected. In Job xxviii. 19 we read of “the 
 topaz of Cush.” Now, there is no reason 
 to suppose that Ethiopia produced topazes, 
 but Pliny (xxxvii. 8) speaks of an island of 
 Arabia in the Red Sea as famous for this 
 
GENESIS. X. 
 
 87 
 
 V. 8.] 
 
 and Sabtechah: and the sons of Raa- 
 mah ; Sheba, and Dedan. 
 
 gem, which is also noted by Diodorus (iii. 
 39), All this connects Cush with Asia, and 
 seems to prove that the first settlement of the 
 Cushites was in Asia. Their subsequent 
 emigration into Africa, so that one division 
 was on the East and the other on the West 
 of the Gulf of Arabia, may account for 
 the language of Homer, who speaks of the 
 A^thiopians as divided into two distinct tribes 
 (‘Od.’ I. 23), a distinction observed by Strabo 
 (‘Geogr.’ I. p. 21), by Pliny (lib. v. c. 8), and 
 by Pomponius Mela (lib. i. cap. 2). 
 
 Mizrami] is undoubtedly Egypt. The ori- 
 gin and meaning of the word has been much 
 debated, but with no certain conclusion. If 
 the singular be the Hebrew Mazor, it should 
 signify a mound or fortified place, Gesenius 
 and others prefer the Arabic Meser, a limit 
 or boundary. The dual form has been sup- 
 posed to indicate Upper and Lower Egypt. 
 It perhaps may be the rendering or transcrip- 
 tion of Mes-ra-n “children of Ra,” i.e. of 
 the Sun. The Egyptians claimed to be sons 
 of Ra. (See Excursus.) It certainly seems as 
 if the name belonged rather to a race or na- 
 tion than to a man; and, therefore, the son 
 of Ham here named is probably designated 
 as the founder or ancestor of the Egyptians 
 or people of Mizraim. 
 
 Phut\ The name Phut occurs several times 
 in the Old Testament, and generally in con- 
 nection with the Egyptians and Ethiopians, 
 sometimes with Persia and Lud. See Jer. 
 xivi.9; Ezek. xxvii. 10, xxx. 5, xxxviii. 5; Nah. 
 iii. 9. The LXX. in Jeremiah and Ezekiel 
 always render Libyans. So Josephus says 
 (‘ Ant.’ I. 6), that Phut colonized Libya, and 
 that the people were from him called Phut- 
 ites. The Coptic name of Libya is Phaiat 
 St Jerome speaks of a river of 
 Mauritania, and -the region round it, as called 
 Phut to his time. (‘Tradit. Hebr.’) 
 
 Canaan\ The name is thought by some 
 to be derived from the nature of the country 
 in which the descendants of Canaan lived, viz. 
 a flat, depressed region, from the Hebrew root 
 Cana (hiph.) to depress. The fact, that the 
 Canaanites appear to have spoken a Semitic 
 tongue has been alleged as a reason why they 
 should not have been of Hamitic descent. 
 Knobel has well observed, however, that they 
 are said by the ancients to have removed from 
 the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, with 
 which agrees the mythology which brought 
 into relation the Phcenicians’ ancestors Age- 
 nor and Phoenix sometimes with Belus and 
 Babylonia, sometimes with ^Egyptus and Da- 
 naus (the ./Ethiop), Cepheus and Libya. In 
 the earliest days the Hamitcs and Shemites 
 
 8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he be- 
 gan to be a mighty one in the earth. 
 
 were near neighbours ; there may have sprung 
 from them a mixed race, which spread to- 
 ward Tyre and Sidon and dispossessed, part- 
 ly also intermiiigled with, a Semitic race ori- 
 ginally inhabiting the region of Palestine and 
 Phoenicia. As Abraham and his descendants 
 appear to have changed their native Aramean 
 for the Hebrew of Palestine, so very probably 
 the Hamitic Canaanites, long mingled with 
 Shemitic races, acquired the language of the 
 children of Shem. The whole character of 
 the Canaanitish civilization and worship was 
 Hamite, not Semitic. Like the sons of Seth, 
 the sons of Shem lived a nomadic, pastoral 
 life; whilst, with a like resemblance to the de- 
 scendants of Cain, the Hamites were builders 
 of cities and fortresses, and rapidly grew into 
 prosperous, mercantile races, with an ad- 
 vanced, but corrupt civilization. Compare 
 Egypt, Babylon, Nineveh, Tyre, Sidon, and 
 contrast with them the Israelites, Ishmaelites, 
 Arabs, &c. 
 
 7 . the sons of Cush ; Seba~\ Seba appears 
 to be the name of a commercial and wealthy 
 region of Ethiopia; see Ps. Ixxii. 10; Is. xliii. 
 3, xlv. 14. In the last passage the Sabeans 
 (Sebaim) are called “men of stature;” and 
 Herodotus says that the M aerobian Ethio- 
 pians “were reported to be the tallest and 
 comeliest of men” (iii. 20). According to 
 Josephus (‘Ant.’ II. 10), Meroe was anciently 
 called Seba, until Cambyses gave it the name 
 of his sister Meroe. Meroe is described as a 
 strong fortress situated in a most ferti le coun- 
 try at the confluence of the rivers Astophus 
 and Astaborus. The ruins of Meroe still re- 
 main to the north-east of the Nubian town 
 of Shendy. 
 
 HaTulah'] Havilah, the son of Joktan, oc- 
 curs, V. 29, among the descendants of Shem. 
 Some identify the descendants of Havilah 
 the son of Cush with the Avalitse on the 
 coast of Africa; whilst others place them in 
 Chawlan of Arabia Felix. There is an inevi- 
 table confusion from the name of a gi-andson 
 of Ham being the same as that of a descend- 
 ant of Shem. Niebuhr and others have as- 
 serted that there were two Chawlans, and 
 have ascribed one to the Shemite, the other to 
 the Hamite. It seems very possible that the 
 descendants of Havilah the son of Cush in- 
 termingled with the descendants of Havilah 
 the Joktanide, and so ultimately formed but 
 one people, whose dwelling-place was Chaw- 
 lan, the well-known fertile region of Yemen. 
 
 SabtalS] By Gesenius and others, who con- 
 fine the Cushites to Africa, the descendants 
 of Sabtah are placed on the African shore 
 of the Gulf of Arabia. More commonly, and 
 more probably, tlieir home is souglit for in 
 
88 
 
 GENESIS. X. 
 
 [v. 9, lo. 
 
 9 He was a mighty hunter before 
 the Lord; wherefore it is said, Even 
 as Nimrod the mighty hunter before 
 the Lord. 
 
 10 And the beginning of his king- 
 dom was ^ Babel, and Erech, and Ac- 
 cad, and Calneh, in the land of 
 Shinar. 
 
 Hadramaut, a province of Southern Arabia, 
 where Pliny (vi. 32) places the city of Sab- 
 batha or Sabotha. It is said, that to this day 
 in Yemen and Hadramaut there is a dark 
 race of men distinguished from the fairer 
 Arabs, and belonging evidently to a different 
 original stock. (Knobel.) 
 
 Raaniah'] LXX. Rhegma. The connec- 
 tion of Raamah with Sheba and Dedan, of 
 whom he is here said to be the father (cp. 
 Ezek, xxvii. 22), leaves no doubt, even with 
 those who confine the other Cushites to Ethi- 
 opia, that the settlement of Raamah must be 
 sought for in Southern Arabia, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Sheba and Dedan. Ptolemy 
 (vi. 7) places Rhegma, and Steph. Byzant. 
 Rhegma on the shore of the Persian Gulf. 
 
 Sabteebah'] is by some placed in Ethiopia. 
 Bochart, who is followed by Knobel, places 
 it in Caramania, on the Eastern shore of the 
 Persian Gulf, where the ancients (Ptolem. 
 VI. 8; Steph. Byz. 2) mention Samidace or 
 Samydace. 
 
 Sheba^ and Dedan'\ Sheba occurs again 
 in V. 28 as a son of Joktan, and Sheba and 
 Dedan together, Gen. xxv. 3, as children of 
 Joktan, the son of Abraham and Keturah. 
 This is evidently another example of the in- 
 termingling of the Cushites with the Joktan- 
 ides, and generally of the early descendants 
 of Shern and Ham. In Ezek. xxvii. 15 — 20 
 we find the Cushite Dedan supplying Tyre 
 with merchandise brought from beyond the 
 sea, while the Shemite Dedan supplies the pro- 
 duce of flocks. Sheba is known to us as 
 an important and opulent region of Arabia 
 Felix, (i K. X. i; Ps. Ixxii. 10. 15; Job i. 
 15, vi. 19; Is. lx. 6; Jer. vi. 20; Ezek. xxvii. 
 22; Joel iii. 8.) The Sabeans are spoken of 
 by Strabo (xvi. p. 777) as a most opulent 
 and powerful people, famous for myrrh, frank- 
 incense, and cinnamon, their chief city being 
 .Mariaba, (in Arab. Marib). This was after- 
 wards the famous kingdom of the Himyaritic 
 Arabs, so called probably from the ruling 
 family of Himyar. It is probable, that the 
 Cushite Sheba, and his brother Dedan, were 
 settled on the shore of the Persian Gulf (see 
 Raamah above); but afterwards were com- 
 bined with the great Joktanide kingdom of 
 the Sabeans. 
 
 8. Cush begat Nimrod^ Nimrod is here 
 separated from the other sons of Cush, per- 
 haps because of his great fame and mighty 
 prowess; but it is quite possible, that the 
 words “ Cush begat Nimrod” may only mean 
 that Nimrod was a descendant of Cush, not 
 immediately his son, the custom of the He- 
 
 brews being to call any ancestor a father, and 
 any descendant a son. The name Nimrod is 
 commonly derived from the Hebrew marad^ 
 to rebel. The Eastern traditions make him a 
 man of violent, lawless habits, a rebel against 
 God, and an usurper of boundless authority 
 over his fellow-men, at whose instigation men 
 began the building of the tower of Babel. 
 (Jos. ‘Ant.’ I. 4.) He has accordingly been 
 identified with the Orion ot the Greeks, and 
 it has been thought that the constellation 
 Orion, called by the Hebrew Kesil “the fool, 
 the impious,” and by the Arabs “the giant,” 
 was connected with Nimrod, who is said in 
 the LXX. to have been a “giant on the 
 earth.” The Scripture narrative, however, 
 says nothing of this violence and lawlessness, 
 and the later tradition is very doubtful and 
 vague. The LXX. spell the name Nebrod, 
 so also Josephus, which some have referred 
 to a Persian root signifying a warrior; 
 but this etymology is altogether uncertain, 
 and not to be relied on. 
 
 be began to be a mighty one in the earth'] 
 He was the first of the sons of Noah distin- 
 guished by his warlike prowess. The word 
 “ mighty one” (in the LXX. “giant”) is con- 
 stantly .used for a great warrior, a hero, or man 
 of renown. Cp. Gen. vi. 4; Judg. vi. 12; 
 xi. I ; I S. ix. i; 2 K. v. i; Ps. xxxiii. 16, 
 Ixxviii. 65 ; Is. xiii. 3, &c. 
 
 9 . He 'was a mighty hunter] LXX. “a 
 giant hunter.” Bochart says that by being a 
 famous hunter, he gathered to himself all the 
 enterprising young men of his generation, at- 
 tached them to his person, and so became a 
 kind of king among them, training his follow- 
 ers first in the* chase, and then leading them 
 to war. Compare Hercules, Theseus, Mele- 
 ager, &c. among the Greeks. The Jerusalem 
 Targum renders “He was mighty in hunting 
 and in sin before the Lord, for he was a 
 hunter of the sons of men in their languages.” 
 The Syriac also renders “ a warrior.” Fol- 
 lowing these, many have understood, that he 
 was a hunter of men, rather than a hunter ot 
 beasts. 
 
 before the Lord] Is most likely added 
 only to give emphasis, or the force of a su- 
 perlative (cp. Gen. xiii. 10, xxx. 8, xxxv. 5 ; 
 I S. xi. 7, xiv. 15, xxvi. 12; Ps. civ. 16; 
 Jonah iii. 3 ; Acts vii. 20) : though some un- 
 dei-stand “against the Lord,” as i Chron. 
 xiv. 8, where it is said “ David went out 
 against them,” literally “before them.” 
 
 10. And the beginning of his kingdom <xvas 
 Babel] The later Chaldaeans and Babylonians 
 
GENESIS. X. 
 
 V. ir, 12.] 
 
 89 
 
 t "went forth 12 And Resen between Nineveh 
 
 into Assy- Asshur, aiid builded Nineveh, and and Calah: the same is a great 
 Tor, iie " the city Rchoboth, and Calah, city. 
 
 spoke a Semitic language, but the most ancient 
 Babylonian inscriptions shew that the earliest 
 inhabitants spoke a Turanian or Cushite 
 tongue, and were therefore of the same race 
 as the Ethiopians and Southern Arabians. 
 Moreover, the most ancient traditions bring 
 the first colonists of Babylon from the South. 
 Thus Belus, son of Poseidon and Libya, is 
 said to have led a colony from Egypt into 
 Babylonia, and there fixing his seat on the 
 Euphrates, to have consecrated the priests 
 called in Babylon Chaldaeans (Diod. Sic. lib, 
 I. c. ii.) : and the fish-god Cannes, the great 
 civilizer of Babylon, is said to have risen out 
 of the Red Sea (Syncell. ‘Chron.’ p. 28). Nim- 
 rod is probably to be identified with Belus; 
 but the word Belus itself ( = Bel = Baal) is not 
 so much a name as a title, meaning lord or 
 master^ and may have been given traditionally 
 to the first founder of empire in the earth. 
 The words “beginning of his kingdom” may 
 signify that Babel was the firsts or possibly 
 that it was the chief city founded by Nimrod. 
 
 Errcli^ The Targums, Ephraim Syr. and 
 Jerome, render Edessa. Bochart says Areca 
 on the confines of Babylonia and Susiana: 
 but it is now generally agreed to be Archoe, 
 
 ^ the ruins of which, called Warka, lie about 
 
 thirty hours to the south east of Babylon. 
 The numerous mounds and remains of bricks 
 and coffins indicate that this was probably 
 the burying place of the kings of Assyria. 
 (See Rawlinson, ‘Five Monarchies,’ Vol. i. 
 P- 23-) 
 
 Actad\ Spelt Archad by the LXX. and 
 Achar by the Syr., has been compared by 
 Bochart with the river Argades in Sithacene, 
 the whole region having perhaps been called 
 Archada. Le Clerc, who is followed by Ge- 
 senius, suggests Sacada, a town lying not far 
 below Nineveh, where the Lycus falls into 
 the Tigris. Knobel proposes a tract north of 
 Babylon called Accete. The only ancient 
 authorities (the Targums of Jerusalem and 
 Pseudo- Jonathan, Ephraim Syrus, Jerome, 
 Barhebrasus) render the word by Nisibis^ a 
 city on the river Khabour. Michaelis and 
 many moderns adopt this as the probable site 
 of Accad. 
 
 CalneE] (Calneh, Amos vi. 2. Calno, Is. 
 X, 9, perhaps Canneh, Ezek. xxvii. 23, where 
 one of De Rossi’s MSS. reads Kalneh). Targg. 
 Jer. and Pseudo-Jon., Euseb,, Jerorr^e, Ephr. 
 Syr. give Ctesiphon on the east bank of the 
 Tigris, opposite Seleucia, N. E. of Babylon. 
 The name Calneh survived in Chalonitis, a 
 region of Assyria, where Pliny places Ctesi- 
 phon. In this identification of Calneh with 
 . Ctesiphon most modern interpreters agree. 
 
 i 
 
 Shinar'] Unquestionably the country round 
 about Babylon, the great plain or alluvial 
 country watered by the Tigris and Euphra- 
 tes. The name seems to have been Jewish; 
 though there was a town in Mesopotamia 
 known to the ancients, called Singafa (Arab. 
 Sinjar); and Rawlinson found in the Assy- 
 rian and Babylonian inscriptions the name 
 Sinkareh in cuneiform characters. The name 
 too is found in Egyptian monuments of the 
 1 8th dynasty, from Thothmes I. 
 
 11. Out of that land ^ent forth Asshur'\ 
 So LXX., Syr., Vulg., Saad., Luth., Calv., 
 J. D. Michael., Dathe, Ros., V. Bohlen. But 
 the reading of the margin, “ From this land 
 he went out into Assyria,” is the rendering of 
 all the Targums, of Nachmanides, and after 
 them, of Drusius, Bochart, Le Clerc, De 
 Wette, Baumg., Tuch, Gesenius, Knobel, 
 Delitzsch, Kalisch, and most modern inter- 
 preters. The syntax fully admits of this 
 interpretation ; and the general sense of the 
 passage requires it. Nimrod is the subject 
 here treated of. Asshur, the son of Shem, 
 v. 22, was at least a generation older than 
 Nimrod, who may probably have first colo- 
 nized the country called after him, Asshur 
 (or Assyria); Nimrod, or one of his descend- ♦ 
 ants, afterwards invading and governing that 
 country. Asshur was a region through which 
 the Tigris flowed, to the N.E. of Babylonia, 
 including a portion of Mesopotomia. 
 
 and builded Ninenjeld] According to Hero- 
 dotus, Ninus (the mythic founder of Nineveh) 
 was the grandson of Belus, the mythic founder 
 of Babylon (Herod, i. 7). This, the most 
 ancient Greek tradition, well corresponds with 
 the account of Scripture, for the words “ he 
 went out into Asshur,” might be rendered 
 “ one went out into Asshur,” not distinctly 
 defining Nimrod as the individual who built 
 Nineveh. 
 
 Nineveh, the ancient metropolis of Assyria, 
 on the East branch of the Tigris, became in 
 after ages the largest and most flourishing 
 city of the old world. It is described in the 
 book of Jonah as “an exceeding great city 
 of three days’ journey” (Jon. iii. 3), with 
 120,000 children “who knew not their right 
 hand from their left” (Jon. iv. ii), which 
 would make a population of about 2,000,000. 
 According to Diodorus Siculus, it was no 
 less than 55 miles in circumference (Diod. 
 II. 3), built, no doubt, like the ancient cities 
 of the East, with pastures and pleasure grounds 
 interspersed among streets and houses. Even 
 in Babylon, which was of less extent than 
 Nineveh, Diodorus (ii. 9) says, that there 
 were gardens and orchards, and land sufficient 
 
 L 
 
90 
 
 GENESIS. X. 
 
 [v. 13, 14. 
 
 13 And Mizraim begat Ludim, and 14 And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, 
 Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naph- (out of whom came Philistim,) and 
 tuhim, Caphtorim. 
 
 to provide corn for all the people in case of a 
 siege. Nineveh is mentioned among the cities 
 or fortresses captured by Thothmes III. (see 
 Excursus, p. i). It was attacked by Phraortes 
 the Mede, who perished in the attempt to take 
 it (Herod. I. 102). His successor, Cyaxares, 
 having laid siege to it, b. c. 625, was obliged 
 to raise the siege by an incursion of Scythians 
 (Herod. I. 103); but finally succeeded in re- 
 ducing it, B.c. 597 (Herod. 1. 106). From that 
 time it lay desolate, though Tacitus (‘ Ann.’ 
 XII. 13) and Ammianus (xviii. 7) mention a 
 fortress of the name. Its site has been identi- 
 fied by modern travellers with the ruins of 
 Nebbi Yunus and Koyunjik, nearly opposite 
 to Mosul on the East banks of the Tigris. 
 (See esp. La yard, ‘ Ninev.’ Vol. ii. pp. 136 If.) 
 The language of the inscriptions discovered 
 in these ruins appears to be an ancient Semi- 
 tic dialect. This is not inconsistent with the 
 foundation of the city by a descendant of 
 Nimrod; for the indigenous race was no 
 doubt derived from the colonization by As- 
 shur, the son of Shem, and the adoption oi 
 the Semitic language has parallels in the cases 
 of Babylon and Canaan (see above on v. 6). 
 Moreover, it is thought that in Assyria, as 
 well as in Babylonia, two distinct languages 
 existed, the older being T uranian, the other 
 Semitic; accordingly, at Koyunjik, vocabu- 
 laries have been discovered with two languages 
 arranged in parallel columns, and tablets ap- 
 parently in a Turanian dialect have been 
 found in the ruins. 
 
 11. and the city Rehoboth'\ Lit. “ the streets 
 of the city.” 
 
 12 . the same is a great city'] It is ex- 
 tremely difficult to identify Rehoboth, Rcsen 
 and Calah with any known sites. Perhaps 
 the most probable conjecture is, that the four 
 cities here named, viz. Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, 
 Resen, and Calah, were all afterwards com- 
 bined under the one name of Nineveh, and 
 that the words, v. 12, “the same is a great 
 city,” applied to this united whole, not to the 
 single state of Resen. This is adopted by 
 Niebuhr, Grote, Knobel, Rawlinson, De- 
 litzsch. 
 
 13 . Ludim] There was also a son of 
 Shem named Lud, v. 22; but these Ludim 
 were an African tribe. They are probably 
 the same as Retu, the Egyptian name for 
 “man,” especially the Egyptians. The name 
 appears to have belonged to the old popula- 
 tion of Central Egypt. In Jerem. xlvi. 9, 
 Cush, Phut, and Ludim are mentioned toge- 
 ther, the Ludim are said to “ handle and 
 lx.*nd the bow,” and all are placed in the 
 army of Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt. 
 
 Again, in Ezek. xxx. 4, 5, Cush, Phut, and 
 Lud are connected with Mizraim. In Isaiah, 
 on the contrary, we find (Ixvi. 19) Lud “ that 
 draw the bow” connected with Asiatic and 
 European tribes, Tarshish, Pul, Tubal, and 
 Javan. The existence of the two tribes both 
 called Lud, the one Semite and the other 
 Hamite, is inevitably a cause of confusion. 
 
 Anamim] Another Mizraite race, concern- 
 ing whom no certain or very probable conjec- 
 ture can be made. Knobel identifies them 
 with an Egyptian name of -the Delta. 
 
 Lehabim] Generally agreed to be the same 
 as the Lubim, 2 Chr. xii. 3, xvi. 8, reckoned 
 among the Ethiopian forces, and in Nah. iii. 9, 
 Dan. xi. 43, named with the Egyptians; ac- 
 cording to Josephus, the Libyans. The ori- 
 ginal home of this people appears to have 
 been to tlie west of the Delta. 
 
 Naphtuhim] Mentioned only here and 
 I Chr. i. II. Bochart, followed by Michaelis, 
 Jablonski, Gesenius and others, compares the 
 name of the Egyptian goddess Nephthys, the 
 wife of Typhon, to whom the parts of Egypt 
 bordering on the Red Sea were consecrated. 
 Plutarch (‘ De Is.’ p. 355) says, “The Egyp- 
 tians call the extremities of the land border- 
 ing on the sea by the name of Nephthys.” 
 If this be so, the Naphtuchim were probably 
 a people dwelling on the Red Sea on the con- 
 fines of Egypt. Knobel supposes them to 
 have been the midland Egyptians, who in 
 their great city Memphis worshipped Phthah, 
 and were called in Coptic Phaphthah, “the 
 (people) of Phthah.” 
 
 14 . Pathrusim] The people of Pathros, 
 mentioned often in the prophets (as Is. xi. 1 1 ; 
 Jer. xliv. i; Ezek. xxix. 14, xxx. 14). The 
 name Pathros occurs, sometimes as if it were 
 separate from Egypt, sometimes as if it were 
 part of Egypt; whence Bochart concluded 
 that the Thebaic! was intended, which at times 
 is reckoned as in Upper Egypt, at times as 
 distinct from it. Pliny mentions Phaturites 
 as a praefecture of the Thebaid, (‘Hist. Nat.’ 
 
 I. V. c. 9, § 47). The words of Ezekiel (xxix. 
 14), where Pathros is called the land of the 
 Egyptians’ birth, is compared with Herod. 
 (11. 15), who says Thebes was anciently called 
 Egypt. Pa-t-res in Egyptian means “the 
 land of the south.” 
 
 Casluhim] Bochart conjectured the Col- 
 chians, who were an Egyptian colony (Herod. 
 
 II. 104; Diod. Sic. I. 28; Strabo. 1. 3). In 
 this he is followed by Gesenius *nd others, 
 though the similarity of name seems the chief 
 reason for the identification. Forster (‘ Ep. 
 ad Michael.’ p. 16 scjq.) conjectured Casiotis, 
 
GENESIS. X. 
 
 91 
 
 V. 15, 16.] 
 
 iHeb. 15 ^ And Canaan begat ^Sidon his 16 And the Jebusite,and the Amo- 
 'iztdon. Heth, rite, and the Girgasite, 
 
 a region between Gaza and Pelusium, so 
 called from Mount Casius. He is followed 
 in this by Knobel, who says the name in 
 Coptic signifies burnings hence applicable to 
 a dry, arid, desert region. He combines Bo- 
 chart’s view with Forster’s, supposing that 
 the Colchians were a colony from Casiotis. 
 This view is adopted and ably defended by 
 Ebers (‘^Egypten,’ &c. p. 120). 
 
 Out of 'whom came Ph‘ilistim\ In Jer. xlvii. 
 4, Amos ix. 7, the Philistines are traced to 
 the Caphtorim. Hence Michaelis and others 
 think that there has been a transposition 
 in this verse, and that it ought to run “ and 
 Caphtorim, out of whom came Philistim.” 
 The Samaritan text, however, and all Ver- 
 sions read as the Hebrew. Bochart there- 
 fore has conjectured, that the Casluchim and 
 Caphtorim were tribes which iiitormingled, 
 the Caphtorim having strengthened the Cas- 
 luchian colony by immigration, and that hence 
 the Philistines may have been said to have 
 come from either. The name Philistine, which 
 probably comes from an iEthiopic verb falasa, 
 to emigrate, is often rendered by the LXX. 
 (as Judg. xiv. 3, xiv. i) by allop hy lot, aliens, 
 foreigners. 
 
 The following difficulties are urged against 
 the Egyptian origin of the Philistines; first, 
 that their language was probably, like that of 
 the other inhabitants of Canaan, Semitic; 
 secondly, that they were uncircumcised (i S. 
 xvii. 26), whilst Herodotus tells us that the 
 Egyptians were circumcised. The linguistic 
 difficulty may be explained by the very pro- 
 bable supposition, that the invading Philis- 
 tines or Caphtorim adopted the language of 
 the conquered Avim (Deut. ii. 23), or other 
 tribe amongst whom they settled. The other 
 disappears, if we consider, that everything in 
 dress, customs, and religion of the Philistines 
 indicates that they separated off from the 
 , other Mizraic tribes at a very early period, 
 
 and that circumcision was probably adopted 
 by the Egyptians at a much later date. 
 
 I Caphtorim'] It is plain from Jer. xlvii. 4, 
 
 I where the Philistines are called “ the remnant 
 
 ' of the isle (or maritime country) of Caph- 
 
 ' tor,” that we must look for the site of the 
 
 j Caphtorim near the sea. The Targums and 
 
 I ancient Versions render Cappadocia, followed 
 
 j by most of the ancients, and by Bochart. 
 
 Others (Swinton, Michaelis, RosenmUller, &c.) 
 have conjectured Cyprus, the original name 
 j of which has been thought to have been 
 
 j Cubdr or Cyptrus. Calmet and others pre- 
 
 I fer Crete, comparing the statement of Taci- 
 
 j tus (‘ Hist.’ V. 2) concerning the Cretan origin 
 
 I of the Jews, and supposing that he may have 
 
 confounded the Jews with the Philistines. 
 
 I 
 
 Gesenius mentions this with approval, and it 
 is advocated by Knobel. Recent investiga- 
 tions in Egyptian identify Caphtor with 
 Capht-ur, i. e. the Great Capht. This is 
 compared with the Egyptian name Coptos. 
 Again, the name ^Egyptus is probably identi- 
 cal with Ai-Capht, i. e. the coast of Capht, 
 (compare "IIDDD I-Caphtor, “the isle or 
 coast of Caphtor,” Jer. xlvii. 4). This Capht, 
 or Capht-ur, was probably the Northern 
 Delta, from which the Phoenicians emigrated 
 into Asia. Thus Capht became the Egyptian 
 name for the oldest Phoenicians, whether in 
 Asia or in Africa. (See Ebers, ‘^Egypt.’ &c. 
 voc. Caphtorim', see also Excursus.) 
 
 15 . Sidon his frst-born] Sidon was, ac- 
 cording to Justin (xviii. 3), the oldest Phoe- 
 nician state. Of all the Phoenicians Homer 
 knew only Sidon. The city stood on the 
 Eastern coast of the Mediterranean, about 
 20 miles North of Tyre, which latter is said 
 by Justin to have been a colony of Sidon. 
 So important was Sidon in most ancient times, 
 that all the Phoenicians are comprised under 
 the name of Sidonians (Josh. xiii. 6 ; Judg. 
 xviii. 7): and this extension of the name was 
 known to the Greeks and Romans (compare 
 Urbs Sidonia, i.e. Carthage, which was a 
 colony of Tyre, Virg. ‘tEu.’ i. 677; and Sido- 
 nia Dido, ‘iEn.’ I. 446, 613, &c.). The name 
 Sidon is supposed to be derived from fishing; 
 for the Phoenicians called fish Sidon (Gesen. 
 ‘Thesaur.’ p. 1153). 
 
 Heth] The ancestors of the Hittites, who 
 inhabited the hill country of Judea, es- 
 specially in the neighbourhood of Hebron. 
 These, however, were but one portion of the 
 race, which according to Josh. i. 4 (cp. Ezek. 
 xvi. 3) became more important. In the time 
 of Solomon and Joram there were independ- 
 ent kings of the Hittites, i K. x. 29 ; 2 K. 
 vii. 6. They are by most Egyptologers iden- 
 tified with the Kheta, a very powerful tribe, 
 and masters of Syria. 
 
 16 . the Jebusite] Inhabitants of Jebus, 
 the ancient name of Jerusalem, mentioned 
 Judg. xix. 10, ii; I Chr. xi. 4, 5. The Je- 
 busites, a mountain tribe (Num.xiii.29; Josh, 
 xi. 3), seem never to have been conquered, 
 or to have recovered possession of Jerusalem 
 and to have retained it, till David took Jebus, 
 I Chr. xi. 4, 5 : and even after the conquest 
 we find Araunah the Jebusite, who is called 
 “ Araunah the king” (2 S. xxiv. 23) living in 
 peace and prosperity in the land. 
 
 the Amorite] Apparently the most pow- 
 erful and widespread of all the Canaanitish 
 tribes, dwelling chiefly in the hill-country of 
 Judaea, subject to five kings (Josh. x. 5), but 
 
92 
 
 GENESIS. X. 
 
 [v. 17—21. 
 
 ( Heb. 
 Azzdh. 
 
 17 And the Hivite, and the Arkite, 
 and the Sinite, 
 
 18 And the Arvadite, and the Ze- 
 marite, and the Hamathite : and after- 
 v/ard were the families of the Canaan- 
 ites spread abroad. 
 
 19 And the border of the Canaan- 
 ites was from Sidon, as thou comest 
 to Gerar, unto ^Gaza; as thou goest. 
 
 unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Ad- 
 mah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha. 
 
 20 These are the sons of Ham, 
 after their families, after their tongues, 
 in their countries, and in their nations. 
 
 21 ^ Unto Shem also, the father 
 of all the children of Eber, the bro- 
 ther of Japheth the elder, even to 
 him were children born. 
 
 also spreading to the other side of Jordan, to 
 the North of the Arnon (Numb. xxi. 13), 
 even to the river Jabbok (Num. xxi. 24). 
 Simonis, followed by Gesenius, traces the 
 name to an old word Amor or Emor, eleva- 
 tion^ mountain^ the Amorites being moun- 
 taineers or highlanders. 
 
 the Girgasite'\ Josephus (‘ Ant.’ l. 6) 
 says we have the name and nothing else of 
 this p' ople. Eusebius and others have identi- 
 fied them with the Gergesenes (Matt. viii. 
 28), who lived to the East of the Lake of 
 Gennesaret. There is a difference of reading 
 in St Matt.; some MSS. having Gerasenes, 
 others Gadarenes; but Gesenius thinks, that 
 Gerasa is but a corruption by the omission of 
 g from Girgasa. 
 
 17 . the Hivite'] A people living in the 
 neighbourhood of Hermon and Lebanon (Josh, 
 xi. 3, Judg. vi. 3), near Sichem also (Gen. 
 xxxiv. 2), and Gibeon (Josh. ix. i, 7): Gese- 
 nius interprets the name to signify pagani, the 
 inhabitants of villages. 
 
 the Arkite] Inhabitants, according to Jo- 
 sephus, of Area a city of Phoenicia, near Liba- 
 nus, 12 miles to the north of Tripoli. It was 
 afterwards called Cesarea Libani, a name 
 found on coins of the reign of Vespasian. 
 Alexander Severus was born here. Shaw and 
 burckhardt describe the ruins of a fine city 
 as still to be found there, called Tell Arka. 
 
 the Sinite] St Jerome (‘ Qiiaest. in Genes.’ 
 ad h. 1 .) says, that “ near Area was another 
 city called Sini, which, though ruined, still 
 i-etained its ancient name.” Michaelis (‘Spicil.’ 
 Pt. u. p. 29) quotes Breidenbach (‘Itiner.’ p. 
 47) as mentioning a city of the name of Syn 
 in the same neighbourhood in the fifteenth 
 century. 
 
 18 . the Arvadite] Inhabitants probably 
 of the city of Aradus, on an island of the same 
 name, about three miles from the Phoenician 
 coast. The LXX. render here and elsewhere 
 the Aradite, and Josephus (‘ Ant’ i. 6) says 
 “the Aradite inhabited the island of Aradus.” 
 Gesenius derives the name from a root, signi- 
 fying “to wander,” and quotes Strabo (xvi. 
 2, § 13) as saying that the city was built by 
 fugitives from Sidon. 
 
 the Zemarite] There is little certainty as 
 
 to the habitation of this race. The ancient 
 interpreters, Targg., Rashi, Saad., and proba- 
 bly Jerome, give Emesa; Michaelis, led by 
 Bochart’s conjecture and followed by Rosenm., 
 Gesen., Knobel, suggests Samyra, a city of 
 Phoenicia on the sea coast, near the river 
 Eleutherus, the ruins of which are still called 
 Samra. 
 
 the Hamathite] Hamath was an import- 
 ant city, called by Amos (vi. 2) “ Great 
 Hamath,” the chief city of Upper Syria on the 
 Orontes at the foot of Libanus (Judg. iii. 3; 
 Jer. xlix. 23 ; Zech. ix. 2), the metropolis of 
 a region called the “ land of Hamath” (2 
 K. xxiii. 33). It was called Epiphaneia by 
 the Macedonians (Jos. ‘Ant.’ i. 6). It still 
 however in tlie East retains the name of Ha- 
 mah, and has been visited and described by 
 Burckhardt and other modern travellers. 
 
 and aftervoard vjere the families of the 
 Canaanites spread abroad] The first place of 
 habitation of the Canaanites was probably on 
 the Mediterranean, in Phoenicia, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Tyre and Sidon; but by degrees 
 they spread abroad through the whole of 
 Palestine, from Tyre and Sidon on the North 
 to Gerar and Gaza and even to Lasha. 
 
 19 . Lashd] The Targum of Jerusalem 
 and Jerome (‘ Quaest. ad Genes.’) identify 
 Lasha with Callirrhoe, which Pliny (‘N. H.’ 
 v. c. 6) and Josephus (‘B.,J.’ i. 33) speak of 
 as famous for its warm springs. It was situ- 
 ated on the East of the Red Sea. 
 
 21 . Shem also, the father of all the chil- 
 dren of Eber] As Ham is specially called the 
 father of Canaan, so probably Shem is desig- 
 nated as the father of Eber. The Hebrews 
 and the Canaanites were brought into con- 
 stant conflict and exemplified respectively the 
 characters of the Hamites and the Shemites, 
 their cuaracters and their destinies. 
 
 the brother of Japheth the elder] There 
 is a great ambiguity in the original of these 
 words. The LXX., Symm., Targ. of Onke- 
 los render as in the English text; so Rashi, 
 Abenezra, Luther, Cleric., J. D. Michael., 
 Dathe, &c. But the Syriac, Arab., Vulg. ren- 
 der “the elder brother of Japheth,” in which 
 they are followed by Rosenm., Gesenius, 
 Knobel, Delitzsch and most modern com- 
 
V. 22—25.] 
 
 GENESIS. X. 
 
 93 
 
 Chron. 22 The ‘^children of Shem; Elam, 
 tHe^b. Ar- and Asshur, and ^ Arphaxad, and Lud, 
 
 pachshad. 
 
 23 And the children of Aram ; Uz, 
 and Hul, and Gether, and Mash. 
 
 mentators, who say, that if “the brother of 
 Japheth the Elder” had been meant, the He- 
 brew idiom would have required the addition 
 of — “the elder son of Noah.” This 
 
 appears to be true: moreover, Shem is gene- 
 rally mentioned first, and is perhaps put last 
 here, because the writer proceeds almost with- 
 out interruption from this point with the 
 history of the descendants of Shem. In Gen. 
 ix. 24, Ham appears to be called the youngest 
 son of Noah; but see note on that verse. On 
 the whole, the common order of enumeration 
 is probably the order of age. 
 
 22. The children of She The Shemites 
 dwelt chiefly in Western Asia, South of the 
 Asiatic Japhethites. 
 
 Elam] Elymais, a region adjoining Su- 
 siana and Media, called by the Arabs Chu- 
 zistan. Daniel (viii. 2) places Shushan (/. e. 
 Susa) in Elam, which immediately connects 
 Elam with Susiana. 
 
 Asshur] Without doubt the ancestor of 
 the Assyrians. At first, perhaps, the name 
 Asshur or Assyria was restricted to the re- 
 gion round about Nineveh, known to the 
 Greeks as Adiabene. Afterwards it spread, 
 especially to the North-west, and embraced 
 the Syrians. The foundation of its principal 
 greatness is ascribed to the Babylonians in 
 V. II. This corresponds^ with the tradition in 
 Herodotus (i. 7), which attributes the foun- 
 dation of Nineveh to Ninus, the son of Belus, 
 the founder of Babylon. 
 
 Arphaxaif Bochart conjectured that the 
 name Arrapachites, a province in Northern 
 Assyria, bordering on Armenia, was derived 
 from Arphaxad; and as this was the country 
 of the Chaldees, it has been thought that in 
 the three last consonants of the name Ar- 
 phaxad, viz. ch-s-d, are contained the ele- 
 ments of the name Chasdim (i. e. Chaldaeans). 
 Josephus certainly tells us that “ Arphaxad 
 gave the name Arphaxadaeans to those after- 
 wards called Chaldasans” (‘ Ant.’ i. 6). 
 
 Ltid] Josephus says the Lydians (‘Ant.’ 
 I. 6). He is followed by Euseb., Jerome, and 
 by Bochart, and most moderns. The re- 
 semblance of their manners and of their more 
 ancient names to the Semitic confirms this 
 tradition. It is probable, that their first home 
 was not far from Armenia, whence they mi- 
 grated into Asia Minor. 
 
 Aram] The country called Aram in Scrip- 
 ture was the highland region lying to the 
 north-east of the Holy Land, extending 
 
 24 And Arphaxad begat ^SalahjtHeb. 
 and Salah begat Eber. 
 
 25 ‘^And unto Eber were born two ^ ^ Chroa 
 sons : the name of one zaas Peleg ; 
 
 for in his days was the earth divid- 
 
 from the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee to the 
 Euphrates. The name Aram has been sup- 
 posed to mean hi^h (from Aram ~ rum^ to be 
 high). In Genesis we read of Aram-Naha- 
 raim, i.e. Aram between the two ri\ers = Me- 
 sopotamia, which, or part of which, is also 
 called Padan-Aram; and Laban who dwelt 
 there is called the Aramean (Gen. xxv. 20, 
 &c.). Homer (‘II.’ II. 783); Hesiod (‘Th.’ 
 304) ; Pindar (‘ Fr.’ v. 3), &c. speak of the Sy- 
 rians as Arimi. 
 
 23 . Uz] From him no doubt was named 
 “the land of Uz,” in which Job lived. (Job 
 i. I.) It is there rendered by the LXX, Au- 
 sitis. Ptolemy (v. 19) mentions the Aisitae 
 as inhabiting the northern part of Arabia De- 
 serta, near to Babylon and the Euphrates, 
 which Bochart, Gesenius, and others, identify 
 with the inhabitants of Uz or Ausitis. The 
 name U z occurs also among the descendants 
 of Abraham (Gen. xxii. 21), and again (Gen. 
 xxxvi. 28) among the descendants of Seir the 
 Hivite; and it has been conjectured, with 
 more or less probability, that these different 
 Semitic families may have coalesced. 
 
 Hid] Josephus places in Armenia, accord- 
 ing to Bochart, that part called Cholobotene 
 by the Greeks, as though it were Beth-Chul, 
 the home of Hul. Michaelis, followed by 
 Knobel, suggests that the name Cselesyria 
 may have come from Hul or Chul. Rosen- 
 miiller has suggested the Ard el Hhuleh, a 
 district near the sources of the Jordan. 
 
 Gether] No probable site has been fixed 
 on for the descendants of Gether. 
 
 Mash] Josephus (‘ Ant.’ i. 6) says, “ Mash 
 founded the Mesanasans,” i.e. the inhabitants 
 of Mesene, near Bassora, where the Tigris and 
 Euphrates fall into the Persian Gulf. The 
 opinion of Bochart is adopted by Gesenius, 
 Winer, Knobel, and others, that the descend- 
 ants of Mash were the inhabitants of Mons 
 Masius, a range of hills to the North of Me- 
 sopotamia. 
 
 24 . Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah 
 begat Eber] The name Salah appears to signify 
 sending forth., extension,, as Eber., the name of 
 his son, signifies passing ouer. Many of the 
 names in these genealogies are significant, and 
 were probably given to their bearers late in 
 life, or even historically, after their deaths. 
 Salah and Eber seem to point to this fact, 
 that the descendants of Arphaxad were now 
 beginning to spread forth from the first cradle 
 of the Semitic race, and to cross over the 
 
94 
 
 GENE 
 
 ed ; and his brother’s name was Jok- 
 tan. 
 
 26 And Joktan begat Almodad, 
 and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and 
 Jerah, 
 
 great rivers on their vray to Mesopotamia, 
 and thence to Canaan. 
 
 25. Peleg; for in his days fivas the earth 
 di-vided"] It is generally supposed from this, 
 that Peleg lived contemporaneously with the 
 dispersion of Babel. It is, however, quite 
 possible, that the reference is to a more par- 
 tial division of regions and separation of races. 
 The genealogy is now specially concerned 
 with the descendants of Shem and the ances- 
 try of the promised race, which is here traced 
 down to Peleg to be continued farther in ch. 
 xi. 18 sqq? The two races, which sprang 
 from Eber, soon separated very widely from 
 each other, the one, Eber and his family, 
 spreading north-westward towards Mesopo- 
 tamia and Syria, the other, the Joktanides, 
 southward into Arabia. As the sacred nar- 
 rative in vv. 31, 32, speaks expressly of the 
 general spreading forth of the sons of Noah, 
 and in ch. xi. i — 9 relates the confusion of 
 their languages, it is very probable that in 
 this verse the division of the land concerns 
 only the separation of the Shemites. 
 
 Joktan] There is a general consent in fa- 
 vour of the colonization of Southern Arabia 
 by the descendants of Joktan, with the names 
 of whom correspond several of the districts 
 and cities of that country. The Arabs iden- 
 tify Joktan with Kahtan, who was the tra- 
 ditional ancestor of the Beni Kahtan, inha- 
 bitants of Yemen or Arabia Felix. In Ara- 
 bia the Joktanides, no doubt, found some 
 peoples settled there already, viz. the Cushite 
 descendants of Ham (ver. 7), and the Ludite 
 descendants of Shem (ver. 22). The Arabic 
 authors are silent concerning any Cushites, 
 Init derive the ancient Arabic races from the 
 Kabtanides {i.e. the Joktanides). 
 
 26. Almodad\ The names Modad and 
 Morad (r being often a corruption of ^ by a 
 clerical error) occur frequently in Arabic ge- 
 nealogies. The syllable Al is probably the 
 definite article. 
 
 Sheleph] has been compared by Bochart 
 with the Salopeni of Ptolemy (vi. 7), in- 
 habiting the interior of Arabia, and is iden- 
 tified with a tribe of Sulaph or Seliph in Ye- 
 men. The Arabic writers speak of a large 
 region called Sal fie, south-west of Sanaa. 
 
 Haz.arma'vcth] The name agrees in every 
 letter with Hadramaut, the name of a pro- 
 vince on the southern coast of Arabia, fa- 
 mous for its fertility in myrrh and frankin- 
 cense, and for the unhealthiness of its climate. 
 
 Jerah] The name in flebrew signifies the 
 
 ;is. X. [v. 26-29. 
 
 27 And Hadoram, and Uzal, and 
 Diklah, 
 
 28 And Obal, and Abimael, and 
 Sheba, 
 
 29 And Ophir, and Havilah, and 
 
 moon. Bochart has suggested the identifica- 
 tion of his descendants with the Alilaei 
 (Agatharch. c. 49; Strabo, xvi. p. 2 7 7) = the 
 Beni Hilal (“the sons of the new moon”), 
 who dwelt south of Chaw Ian. 
 
 27. Hadoram] There has been no sa- 
 tisfactory identification of the descendants 
 of Hadoram with any known race, though 
 Bochart compared the Adramitas of Ptolemy 
 (vi. 7) and the Atramitae of Pliny (vi. 28) 
 in the south of A rabia. 
 
 UzaF] This name is identified with Aw- 
 zal, the ancient name of Sanaa, the capital 
 city of Yemen. 
 
 Diklah] in Syriac signifies Palm; whence 
 Bochart and Gesenius identified the descend- 
 ants of Diklah with the Minaei, a people 
 of Yemen, who inhabited a palm-growing 
 country. Michaelis conjectured a people con- 
 tiguous to the Tigris, the name of which river 
 in Syriac and Arabic was Diklat. 
 
 28. Obal., and Abimael] Only very un- 
 certain conjectures have been made as to 
 these names. 
 
 Sheba] We read much of Sheba, a coun- 
 try in Arabia Felix, abounding in gold, pre- 
 cious stones, frankincense, and famous for 
 its merchandise (i K. x. 10; Job vi. 19; Ps. 
 Ixxii. 10, 15; Is. lx. 6; Jer. vi. 20; Ezek. 
 xxvii. 22; Joel hi. 8). The Arabic and Greek 
 accounts of the Sabasans, a people, whose 
 capital was Saba or Mariaba, three or four 
 days’ journey from Senaa, correspond tho- 
 roughly with all this. See on ver. 7 above. 
 
 29. Ophir] On no geographical question 
 has a greater diversity of opinion existed than 
 on the site of Ophir. The position of Ophir, 
 as a son of Joktan, and the settlement of the 
 other Joktanides in Arabia, form a strong 
 argument in favour of placing Ophir in Ara- 
 bia also. The historical notices, however, in 
 the books of Kings and Chronicles (i K. ix. 
 26 — 28, X. II, xxii. 48; 2 Chr. viii. 18, ix. 10) 
 have inclined many to place Ophir either in 
 India or in Africa: whilst others have thought, 
 that two Ophirs are mentioned in Scripture, 
 one in Arabia, the other in India or Ceylon. 
 I'he question is discussed at length by Gese- 
 nius, ‘Thes.’ p. 142. See also ‘Diet, of Bible,’ 
 s. V. Ophir. 
 
 Havilah] It is generally thought that 
 Chawlan, in Arabia Felix, was the home of 
 the descendants of Havilah. (On the Cushite 
 Havilah, see note on v. 7.) Whilst some 
 have thought that there were two Chaw- 
 
V. 4 -] 
 
 GENESIS. X. XL 
 
 ■9 o' 
 
 Jobab : all these were the sons of 
 Joktan. 
 
 30 And their dwelling was from 
 Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a 
 mount of the east. 
 
 31 These are \\\Q sons of Shem, 
 after their families, after their tongues, 
 in their lands, after their nations. 
 
 32 These are the families of the 
 sons of Noah, after their generations, 
 in their nations: and by these were 
 the nations divided in the earth after 
 the flood. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 I One language in the world. 3 building 
 
 of Babel. ^ The confusion of tongues. 10 The 
 generations of Shem. 27 The generatio 7 is of 
 Terah the father of Abram. 31 Terah goeth 
 from Ur to Haran. 
 
 K 
 
 ND '^the whole earth was of one «wisd. 10. 
 language, and of one ^speech, f neb, up. 
 
 2 And it came to pass, as they 
 journeyed from the east, that they 
 found a plain in the land of Shinarj 
 and they dwelt there. 
 
 3 And 4 hey said one to another, t Heb. 
 
 iti amansaid 
 
 Go to, let us make brick, and ^ burn to hh 
 them throughly. And they had brick 
 for stone, and slime had they for hum' them 
 morter. in^:. 
 
 4 And they said. Go to, let us 
 
 Ians, one belonging to the descendants of the 
 Joktanide and the other to the sons of the 
 Cushite Havilah ; others have thought that the 
 two races were intermingled and confounded. 
 
 Jobab'] Ptolemy (vi. 7) mentions the Jo- 
 baritae near the Indian Sea, which Bochart 
 conjectured to have been Jobabitae, in which 
 he is followed by Gesenius. Bochart and Ge- 
 senius think the name to be = the Arabic Je- 
 bab, a desert. 
 
 30 . And their duelling <was from Mesha., 
 as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the East] 
 Mesha has been identified by Bochart with 
 the seaport of Musa or Mu7.a, mentioned by 
 Ptolemy vi. 8; Pliny vi. 23, &c. Michaelis, 
 followed by Rosenmuller, Gesenius, &c. pre- 
 fen-ed Mesene, a place at the mouth of the 
 Tigris and Euphrates, not far from Bassora. 
 
 Sephar] is pretty certainly Zafar or 
 Dhafari, a seaport on the coast of Hadra- 
 maut. It is pronounced in modern Arabic 
 Isfor, and is not so much one town as a series 
 of villages near the shore of the Indian Ocean. 
 (Fresnel, quoted by Gesenius, p. 968.) 
 
 Chap. XI. 1. one language] The general 
 opinion of the Jews and ancient Christians 
 was that this language was Hebrew. The 
 names of the most ancient places and persons 
 mentioned in Scripture being Hebrew seems 
 to countenance this belief. But it is impos- 
 sible to arrive at any certainty on the question, 
 it being notorious that names have been trans- 
 lated from one language into another in many 
 instances. 
 
 2. it came to pass., as they journeyed from 
 the east] On the difficulty in these words, 
 and on the first home of the descendants of 
 Noah, see note on viii. 4. If Armenia was 
 that first home, we must suppose either that 
 they had journeyed in a south-easterly direc- 
 tion before they turned to\vards Shinar, and 
 then they would journey from the east, or we 
 
 must render “eastward,” lit. “on the sides 
 of the east.” 
 
 a plain] The word more naturally means 
 a deep valley, but it is often used of a wide 
 vale or plain. 
 
 Shinar] Without doubt the region round 
 about Babylon, to which, besides Babylon, 
 pertained the cities of Erech, Kalneh and 
 Accad (Gen. x. 10, where see note). The 
 fertility of this country for the production of 
 wheat is greatly praised by Herodotus (1. 
 
 193)- 
 
 3 . let us make brick., and burn them 
 throughly] The regions of Assyria and Baby- 
 lonia consisting of rich alluvial plains would 
 provide no stone and w'ere specially abundant 
 in brick earth. Hence, when Nimrod built 
 Babel and other towns in Shinar (ch. x. 10), 
 he and those with him must have learned the 
 art of brick-making. The building of villages 
 in the earlier settlements of the Noachidae had 
 been probably of wood or stone. 
 
 they had brick for stone., and slime had they for 
 morter] A 11 the versions give asphalte or bitu- 
 men for the word chemer., “slime”. Herod, 
 (i. 179) describes the building of the walls of 
 Babylon much as the sacred history describes 
 tliis building of the tower of Babel. He says 
 a deep foss was dug all round the city, from 
 which the mud was taken in large bricks and 
 burnt in furnaces. Then for mud or mortar, 
 they used hot bitumen, and so built the walls 
 of the city. He mentions a town called Is, 
 with a river of the same name near it, about 
 eight days’journey from Babylon, where much 
 bitumen was obtained and carried to Babylon 
 for the building of the city. See also Strabo 
 (Lib. XVI. p. 74), who speaks of the excel- 
 lence of the Babylonian bitumen for building. 
 Justin also (Lib. i.'a) speaks of Semiramis as 
 having built Babylon with brick and liquid 
 bitumen, which fiowed in great abundance in 
 the neighbourhood. Diodor. Sicul. (ii. 12), 
 
96 
 
 GENESIS. XL 
 
 [v. 5, 6. 
 
 build us a city and a tower, whose 
 top may reach unto heaven ; and let 
 us make us a name, lest we be scat- 
 tered abroad upon the face of the 
 whole earth. 
 
 5 And the Lord came down to 
 see the city and the tower, which the 
 children of men budded. 
 
 6 And the Lord said. Behold, the 
 people is one, and they have all one 
 
 Pliny (‘ H. N.’ xxxi. 5), Athenseus (Lib. ii. 
 5), and other ancient writers, mention a lake 
 close to Babylon abounding in bitumen, which 
 floated on the waters. (See Reland, ‘ Palestin.’ 
 Ji. pp. 244, 245). The town of Is, mentioned 
 by Herodotus (as above), is identified by mo- 
 dern travellers with Meets, where bitumen 
 pits are still found on the western bank of the 
 Euphrates. Some of the heaps of ruins, which 
 have been identified with the ruins of Baby- 
 lon, exhibit specimens of sun-dried bricks laid 
 in bitumen, producing walls of great strength 
 and solidity. Mr Layard tells us that at Birs 
 Nimrod, “The cement, by which the bricks 
 were united, is of so tenacious a quality, that 
 it is almost impossible to detach one from the 
 other,” (‘ Nineveh and Babylon,’ p. 499). 
 
 4 . a to^er^ ^ubose top may reach unto hea- 
 'ven'\ That is to say “ a very high tower,” just 
 as the cities of the Canaanites were said to be 
 “ great and walled up to heaven” (Deut. i. 28, 
 ix. i), or as Homer (‘Od.’ v. 239), speaks of 
 a pine tree “high as heaven.” Many have 
 identified this tower with the temple of Belus 
 (Herod, i. 181), which is described as con- 
 sisting of eight squares one upon the other, 
 the dimensions of the lowest or base being a 
 stadium in length and in breadth. The mound 
 called Birs Nimroud is generally supposed to 
 be the ruin of the temple of Belus. 
 
 let us make us a name^ lest octf be scattered 
 abroad upon the face of the 'whole earth~\ Jose- 
 phus gives as the motive for building the 
 tower of Babel, that the builders feared 
 another deluge, and hoped tliat the tower 
 would be high enough to save them from its 
 waters; Nimrod, the leader in the scheme, 
 boasting that he could so defy the vengeance 
 of God. Again some have thought, that Noah 
 had deliberately marked out the settlements of 
 his posterity (Usher, ad A. M. 1757), and that 
 Nimrod and his followers were unwilling 
 to submit to this. Then some Jewish wri- 
 ters have interpreted the word name (Shem) 
 to mean God, “the name of God” being often 
 put for God Himself; and so have imagined 
 that the builders of the tower proposed to 
 make an idol temple. Others have supposed 
 that the descendants of Ham under Nimrod 
 made hei'e some reference to Shem, the fa- 
 voured son of Noah, as though they would 
 have said, “ A blessing has been promised to 
 Shem, but we will make a Shem for our- 
 selves.” Clericus suggested that the word 
 Shem meant here a monument (cp. 2 S. 
 viii. 13). The simplest sense of the pas- 
 
 sage seems the true. In ch. x. 10, we find 
 that Nimrod founded a kingdom in.Shinar. 
 He and his followers were apparently actu- 
 ated by an ambitious spirit, not satisfied with 
 the simplicity of a patriarchal life, nor willing 
 to be scattered abroad, as so many were, by 
 the migratory instinct that seems to have led 
 the descendants of Noah thus early to form 
 extensive settlements, but desiring to found 
 an empire, to build a city, with a strong 
 citadel, and so to hold togethar in a power- 
 ful commonwealth, and to establish for them- 
 selves a name, fame, importance, renown, 
 thereby, it may be, attracting others to join 
 their community. Perhaps there was an al- 
 lusion to this in the prophecy (Is. xiv. 22), 
 “ I will . . . cut off from Babylon the name 
 and remnant and son and nephew” (i. e. grand- 
 son or posterity) “saith the Lord.” The 
 tradition which assigns the lead in the build- 
 ing of the tower of Babel to Nimrod was 
 ancient and general. (See Joseph. ‘ Ant,’ i. 
 4, Aug. ‘De Civit. Dei,’ xvi. 4, &c.) It may 
 have arisen chiefly from what is said of him 
 in ch. X. 9, 10, II. It is worthy of remark, 
 that, though the descendants of Shem and 
 Japheth shared in the judgment which -con- 
 founded the tongues, yet their dialects have 
 to this day a nearer resemblance between 
 themselves than those which may perhaps be 
 attributed to the children of Ham. As the 
 Shemites and Japhethites have had a higher 
 civilization, so they have retained a purer 
 language. The Semitic dialects all have a 
 strong family likeness. The Aryan or Indo- 
 European {i.e. probably the Japhetic) dialects, 
 though more diverse than the Semitic, are yet 
 all easily assignable to a common origin ; whilst 
 the Turanian and other languages branch oft 
 into endless varieties. 
 
 5 . the Lord came down to see~\ An in- 
 stance of the natural anthropomorphic lan- 
 guage suited to the teaching of man in a state 
 of simple and })artial civilization. 
 
 the children of men builded] It has been 
 thought, though perhaps on insufficient 
 ground, that “children of men” as in ch. vi. 2, 
 designates the impious portion of the human 
 race, bad men, as opposed to “children of 
 God;” and possibly the rebellious offspring 
 of flam. 
 
 6. this they begin to do^ Perhaps rather 
 “ this is the beginning of their deeds.” This 
 is their first act of daring and impiety, and 
 unless they be effectually checked, nothing 
 win restrain them from going farther and 
 farther. 
 
V. 7— 13-] 
 
 GENESIS. XI. 
 
 97 
 
 language ; and this they begin to do : 
 and now nothing will be restrained 
 from them, which they have imagined 
 to do. 
 
 7 Go to, let us go down, and there 
 confound their language, that they 
 may not understand one another’s 
 speech. 
 
 8 So the Lord scattered them 
 abroad from thence upon the face of 
 all the earth : and they left ofF to 
 build the city. 
 
 9 Therefore is the name of it called 
 Co7t/nllon. "Babel; because the Lord did there 
 
 confound the language of all the 
 earth : and from thence did the Lord 
 scatter them abroad upon the face of 
 all the earth. 
 
 10 ^ These are the generations * i Chron. 
 of Shem : Shem was an hundred years 
 
 old, and begat Arphaxad two years 
 after the flood : 
 
 11 And Shem lived after he begat 
 Arphaxad five hundred years, and be- 
 gat sons and daughters. 
 
 12 And Arphaxad lived five and 
 thirty years, and begat Salah : 
 
 13 And Arphaxad lived after he 
 
 8. they left off to build the city'] It 
 seems, therefore, very doubtful ho-w far the 
 builders could have proceeded in building 
 their tower, and hardly likely that the famous 
 temple of Belus should have been to any con- 
 siderable extent erected by them, though not 
 improbably that great structure may have been 
 raised on the foundation laid at this time. 
 The tradition that God overturned it with a 
 tempest (Jos. ‘Ant.’ I. 6; Euseb. ‘Praep. Evang.’ 
 IX. 4), though probably unfounded, witnesses 
 
 . to its not having been completed. 
 
 9. BabeF] from Balal^ to confound^ con- 
 tracted from Balbal^ confusion. The Greek 
 tradition was, that the city was named after 
 Belus, its mythic founder. So the Etymo- 
 logicum Magnum says that “Babylon was 
 named after Belus, who founded it.” Hence 
 Eichhorn suggested, that the name originally 
 was Bab Bel, “the gate or court of Bel,” 
 i.e, Baal or Belus. So Rosenmuller, Gese- 
 nius and others have thought it might be Bab 
 11, the “Gate of God.” These derivations are 
 really much less likely than that given by 
 Moses. There was no such person as Belus, 
 except that Nimrod, whose scriptural name 
 probably signifies rebel., may by his own people 
 have been called Baal, Belus, Lord. 
 
 10. These are the generations of Shem] 
 We have here the third genealogical table. 
 The I St was given in ch. v. from Adam to 
 Noah ; the 2nd in ch. x, the genealogy of the 
 three sons of Noah, the descendants of Shem 
 being traced down as far as Peleg. Now we 
 have the line of Shem farther carried down to 
 Abraham, the father of the faithful, the ancestor 
 of the promised seed. In ch. x. no account is 
 given of the length of the generations or of the 
 duration of life ; but here in ch. xi. as before 
 in ch. v., both these are supplied. Concerning 
 the chronological question and the ages of the 
 patriarchs, see Introduction and on ch. v. note 
 A. It may be observed here, that we mark at 
 once the transition from the antediluvian to 
 the postdiluvian duration of life. Noah lived 
 950 years, Shem only 600, Arphaxad, the first 
 born of Shem after the deluge, only 438 ; when 
 we come to Peleg, who seems to have been 
 contemporary with the dispersion, life is still 
 shorter, Peleg lived 239 years, Reu 239, Serug 
 230, Nahor 148. 
 
 The following table exhibits the different 
 calculations according to the Hebrew, the 
 Samaritan, and the Septuagint texts respect- 
 ively. 
 
 
 Hebrew Text. 
 
 Samaritan. 
 
 Septuagint. 
 
 Hebrew Text. 
 
 
 Years 
 
 before 
 
 Rest 
 
 Whole 
 
 Years 
 
 before 
 
 Rest 
 
 Whole 
 
 Years 
 
 before 
 
 Rest 
 
 Whole 
 
 Year 
 of birth 
 
 Year of 
 death 
 
 
 birth of 
 
 of Life. 
 
 Life. 
 
 birth of 
 
 of Life. 
 
 of Life. 
 
 birth of 
 
 6t Life. 
 
 Life. 
 
 
 Son. 
 
 
 
 Son. 
 
 
 
 Son. 
 
 
 
 A. ]VI» 
 
 A.M. 
 
 Shem 
 
 100 
 
 500 
 
 600 
 
 100 
 
 500 
 
 600 
 
 100 
 
 500 
 
 600 
 
 1558 
 
 2138 
 
 Arphaxad 
 
 35 
 
 403 
 
 438 
 
 135 
 
 303 
 
 438 
 
 135 
 
 400 
 
 535 
 
 1658 
 
 2097 
 
 Kainan 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 130 
 
 330 
 
 460 
 
 
 
 Salah 
 
 30 
 
 403 
 
 433 
 
 1.30 
 
 303 
 
 433 
 
 130 
 
 330 
 
 460 
 
 1693 
 
 2X26 
 
 Eber 
 
 34 
 
 430 
 
 464 
 
 134 
 
 270 
 
 404 
 
 134 
 
 270 
 
 404 
 
 1723 
 
 2187 
 
 Peleg 
 
 30 
 
 209 
 
 ^39 
 
 130 
 
 109 
 
 ^•39 
 
 130 
 
 209 
 
 339 
 
 1757 
 
 1996 
 
 2026 
 
 j Reu 
 
 32 
 
 207 
 
 239 
 
 132 
 
 107 
 
 239 
 
 132 
 
 207 
 
 339 
 
 1787 
 
 Serug 
 
 30 
 
 200 
 
 230 
 
 130 
 
 roo 
 
 230 
 
 130 
 
 200 
 
 330 
 
 1819 
 
 1997 
 
 1 Nahor 
 
 29 
 
 II9 
 
 148 
 
 79 
 
 69 
 
 148 
 
 179 
 
 125 
 
 304 
 
 T849 
 
 1997 
 
 Terah 
 
 70 
 
 ^35 
 
 205 
 
 70 
 
 75 
 
 145 
 
 70 
 
 135 
 
 209 
 
 1878 
 
 1948 
 
 2083 
 
 Abraham 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2123 1 
 
 VoL. I. G 
 
98 
 
 GENES 
 
 begat Salah four hundred and three 
 years, and begat sons and daugh- 
 ters. 
 
 14 And Salah lived thirty years, 
 and begat Eber; 
 
 15 And Salah lived after he begat 
 .Eber four hundred and three years, 
 and begat sons and daughters. 
 
 fiChron. 16 ^And Eber lived four and thir- 
 ^cSied, ty "^Peleg: 
 
 17 And Eber lived after he begat 
 Peleg four hundred and thirty years, 
 and begat sons and daughters. 
 
 18 And Peleg lived thirty years, 
 and begat Reu: 
 
 19 And Peleg lived after he begat 
 Reu two hundred and nine years, and 
 begat sons and daughters. 
 
 20 And Reu lived two and thirty 
 'Lukes, years, and begat ^Serug: 
 
 25 , Hved after he begat 
 Serug two hundred and seven years, 
 and begat sons and daughters. 
 
 2 7 . A^O'W these are the generations of Terah~\ 
 Not perhaps a distinct genealogy, but the wind- 
 ing up of the genealogy which had already 
 been traced to the sons of Terah, and the ex- 
 panding it into a fuller account of the fami- 
 lies of these sons and especially of Abra- 
 ham. 
 
 28 . Ur of the Chaldees'] Mentioned only 
 here. There is great diversity of opinion as 
 to the site of this city, except that it was in 
 Chaldaea, i.e. the southern part of Babylonia. 
 Bochart, followed by Michaelis, Rosenmuller 
 and many others, identified it with t/r, which is 
 mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus (xxv. 8. 
 col. 26), when describing the return of the 
 Roman army under Jovian after the death of 
 Julian, as lying between Nisibis and the Tigris. 
 Ancient tradition and the opinion of many 
 moderns connect it with the modern Orfa, 
 the Edessa of the Greeks, well known in 
 Christian times as the capital of Abgarus, 
 its first Christian King, who is said to have 
 written a letter to, and to have received a 
 letter from our Saviour. “The traditions of 
 Abraham still live in the mouths of the Arab 
 inhabitants of Orfa. The city lies on the 
 edge of one of the bare rugged spurs which 
 descend from the mountains of Armenia, into 
 the Assyrian plains in the cultivated land, 
 which, as lying under the mountains, was 
 called Padan-Aram. Two physical features 
 must have secured it from the earliest times 
 as a nucleus for the civilization of those 
 regions. One is a high crested crag, the 
 natural fortification of the present citadel. 
 
 IS. XI. [V. 14-29. 
 
 22 And Serug lived thirty years, 
 and begat Nahor: 
 
 23 And Serug lived after he begat 
 Nahor two hundred years, and begat 
 sons and daughters. 
 
 24 And Nahor lived * nine and 
 
 twenty years, and begat -^Terah : ./Lukes. 
 
 25 And Nahor lived after he begat 
 Terah an hundred and nineteen years, 
 and begat sons and daughters. 
 
 26 And Terah lived seventy years, 
 and^begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran. ir Joshua 
 
 27 ^ Now these are the genera- ic£on. i, 
 tions of Terah: Terah begat Abram, 
 
 Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat 
 
 Lot. 
 
 28 And Haran died before his fa- 
 ther Terah in the land of his nativity, 
 in Ur of the Chaldees. 
 
 29 And Abram and Nahor took 
 them wives : the name of Abram’s 
 wife was Sarai ; and the name of 
 Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter 
 
 doubly defended by a trench of immense 
 depth, cut out of the living rock behind it. 
 
 The other is an abundant spring (the Callir- 
 rhoe of the Greek writers) issuing in a pool 
 of transparent clearness and embosomed in a 
 mass of luxuriant verdure, which, amidst the 
 dull brown desert all around, makes, and 
 must always have made, this spot an oasis, a 
 Paradise in the Chaldaean wilderness.” (Dean 
 Stanley ‘ On the Jewish Church,’ i. p. 7.) 
 Eupolemus as quoted by Euseb. ‘ Prasp. Evang.’ 
 
 IX. 17, says that Abraham was born in the 
 city of Babylonia called Camarine, which 
 some say is the city Uria, and by interpreta- 
 tion city of the Chaldees, which Gesenius ex- 
 plains by .saying that Ur in Sanscrit signifies 
 r/Vj, country,, (cognate perhaps with the He- 
 brew /r, the original language of the 
 
 Chaldees having been cognate with the Indian 
 and Persian. This city is supposed to be now 
 represented by the ruins Umgheir on the right 
 bank of the Euphrates, which appears by its 
 bricks to have been called Hur by the natives. 
 (Professor Rawlinson in ‘ Diet, of Bible.’) 
 
 29 . Iscah'l According to Josephus (‘Ant.’ 
 
 I. 6), Targum Pseudo- Jonathan and Jerome 
 (‘ (^1. in Genes.’) the same as Sarai. This, 
 however, hardly seems consistent with Gen.xx. 
 
 12, where Abram speaks of Sarai as daughter 
 of his father but not of his mother ; though 
 it is very difficult to say with what exactnesis 
 the terms father, daughter, brother, &c. are 
 used. Ewald has conjectured that Iscah was 
 Lot’s wife and therefore mentioned here ; but 
 there is no evidence for this. 
 
V. 30—2.] 
 
 GENESIS. XI. XII. 
 
 99 
 
 of Haran, the father of Milcah, and 
 the father of Iscah. 
 
 30 But Sarai was barren; she had 
 no child. 
 
 31 And Terah took Abram his 
 son, and Lot the son of Haran his 
 son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in 
 law, his son Abram’s wife ; and they 
 
 ftNeh. 9 . went forth with them from ^'Ur of 
 Judiths.;. ^1^0 Chaldees, to go into the land of 
 Acts 7 . 4 . Canaan ; and they came unto Haran, 
 and dwelt there. 
 
 32 And the days of Terah were 
 two hundred and five years: and Te- 
 rah died in Haran. 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 I God calleth Abram, and blcsseth him with a 
 promise of Christ. 4 He departeth with Lot 
 from Haran. 6 He journey cth through Ca- 
 naan, 7 which is promised him in a vision. 
 
 10 He is driven by a famine into Egypt. 1 1 
 Fear maketh him feign his wife to be his sis- 
 ter. 14 Pharaoh, having taken her from him, 
 by plagues is compelled to restore her. 
 
 OW the ‘’’L ord had said unto « Actsr-s. 
 Abram, Get thee out of thy 
 country, and from thy kindred, and 
 from thy father’s house, unto a land 
 that I will shew thee: 
 
 2 And I will make of thee a great 
 nation, and I will bless thee, and 
 
 31 . and they nvent forth ^ith then{\ i. e. 
 Terah and Abram went forth with Lot and 
 Sarai. The Samaritan (followed by LXX. 
 and Vulg.) by a slight transposition of the let- 
 ters and different pointing reads “-He brought 
 them forth.” 
 
 Haran'] The Carrhze of the Greeks and 
 Romans, where Crassus fell, defeated by the 
 Parthians (Plutarch, ‘ Vit. Gras.’ 25. 27. 28. 
 Plin. V. 24 ). It is called Charran in Acts 
 vii. 4. 
 
 32 . tivo hundred and fiaoe years] The . 
 Samaritan Pentateuch has here one loundred 
 and forty finoe, which Bochart and others con- 
 sider the right number. St Stephen (Acts 
 vii. 4) says the migration of Abram into 
 Canaan was after his father’s death : but from 
 V. 26 supra it .seems as if Terah was only 
 70 when Abram was born, and by xii. 4 
 we find that Abram was 75 when he left 
 Haran. This, according to the Samaritan, 
 would appear to be the very year of his 
 father’s death. It is certain that the Samari- 
 tan text cannot have been tampered with by 
 any Christian hand to bring it into conformity 
 with St Stephen’s statement, and it may very 
 likely have preserved the true reading. It is 
 possible, however, that Terah may have 
 been really 130 years old when Abram was 
 born : for though it is said in ver. 26 that 
 Terah lived seventy years and begat Abram, 
 Nahor and Haran, yet it does not follow that 
 Abram was the eldest son, having been named 
 first as being the heir of the promises and the 
 subject of the future history. Indeed some 
 of the rabbins consider Abram to have been 
 the youngest son, in which case he may have 
 been born when his father was 130 years old 
 (see Wordsworth on Acts vii. 4). 
 
 Chap. XII. 1 . No<vj the Lord had said] 
 Now the LORD said. The former chap- 
 ter had carried the history down to the 
 death of Terah. The present chapter returns 
 to the date of the call of Abram. In Acts 
 
 vii. 2 St Stephen tells us, what also appears 
 most likely from the history in Gen., that 
 God appeared to Abram “ when he was in 
 Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran.” 
 This led our translators to render “ had said." 
 The Hebrew lacks the pluperfect tense ; but 
 the continuous character of the narrative fi-om 
 this point marks the propriety of adopting a 
 simple perfect, which is also the rendering of 
 the ancient versions. The recounting briefly 
 of events up to the death of Terah in the last 
 chapter was by a prolepsis. We have here 
 the beginning of a new Chapter in the history, 
 of a new dispensation and a new covenant. 
 Henceforth the narrative ‘concerns only the 
 chosen people of God and those who affect 
 them and their fortunes. 
 
 Get thee out of thy country] Lit. Go thee, 
 a pleonasm of the pronoun, common in many 
 languages. The call was evidently from the 
 birthplace of Abram, Ur of the Chaldees; 
 and not only Abram, but his father and 
 other of his family seem at first to have 
 obeyed the call : for Terah took Abram and 
 Lot and Sarai, and “ they went forth fi'om Ur 
 of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan ” 
 (ch. xi. 31). The land is here called by the 
 Almighty “the land that I will shew thee,” 
 but Moses, in ch. xi. 31, calls it the land of 
 Canaan, the destination of Abram being 
 known to Moses, though it was not at the 
 time of his call known to Abram himself. 
 
 2. 1 ‘will make of thee a great nation] 
 
 Literally fulfilled in the glories of Israel, 
 spiritually and more largely in the spiritual 
 sons of Abraham, “ Abraham’s seed and heirs 
 according to the promise,” Gal. iii. 29. 
 
 and thou shalt be a blessing] Kimchi on 
 Zech. viii. 12, followed by Clericus and 
 Knobel, interprets “shalt be an example or 
 type of blessing,” so that men shall say 
 “ Blessed be thou, as Abraham was blessed.” 
 Others, as Rosenmuller, Gesenius, &c. con- 
 sider the substantive to be put for the parti- 
 
 G 2 
 
I GO 
 
 GENESIS. XII. 
 
 make thy name great ; and thou shalt 
 be a blessing: 
 
 3 And I will bless them that bless • 
 thee, and curse him that curseth thee : 
 -^chap. i8. “^and in thee shall all families of the 
 & 22 . i8. earth be blessed. 
 
 Gai%^'8^^' 4 Abram departed, as the Lord 
 
 had spoken unto him; and Lot went 
 with him : and Abram was seventy 
 and five years old when he departed 
 out of Haran. 
 
 [v. 3—6. 
 
 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, 
 and Lot his brother’s son, and all 
 their substance that they had gather- 
 ed, and the souls that they had gotten 
 in Haran ; and they went forth to go 
 into the land of Canaan ; and into the 
 land of Canaan they came. 
 
 6 ^ And Abram passed through 
 the land unto the place of Sichem, 
 unto the plain of Moreh. And the 
 Canaanite was then in the land. 
 
 ciple, a blessing for blessed^ comp. Zech. viii. 
 12. More probable, as well as more natural, 
 is the interpretation adopted by Tuch, De- 
 lit/sch, Keil, and others, and commended by 
 the last words of v. 3, “Thou shalt be a 
 blessing or cause of blessing to others besides 
 til y self.” 
 
 3. 1 'will bless them that bless thee^ and 
 
 curse him that curseth thee~\ God’s blessing 
 was to extend to Abram’s friends and fol- 
 lowers, and the enemies of Abram were to be 
 subject to God’s curse. Two different He- 
 brew words are here translated by the one 
 English word curse. Some think that the 
 one expresses more properly the reviling and 
 malediction of man, the other the withering 
 curse of God. Both, however, are used of 
 God and of man, cp. Job iii. 8; Deut. xxi. 
 23. The first in the English Version, that 
 used of God, is undoubtedly the stronger of 
 the two. 
 
 in thee shall all families of the earth be 
 blessed] Here again Rashi, Cleric., Knobel, 
 and some others interpret the words to mean 
 that Abram should be so blessed in his family 
 that all families of the earth should wish for 
 like blessings (comp. Gen. xlviiii. 20, “In thee 
 shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as 
 Ephraim and Manasseh”). The words, how- 
 ever, can with no shew of reason be rendered 
 otherwise than as rendered in the Authorized 
 Version, following the LXX. and Vulg. Nor 
 can it be understood otherwise than that all 
 families of men should in some manner de- 
 rive blessing through Abram. The Targum of 
 Onkelos has for thy sake., and so the Jerusa- 
 lem d'argum; but this is an unauthorized 
 exposition. 
 
 It is not necessary to assert that the pre- 
 diction here given was such as to enlighten 
 Abram with any full clearness as to the way 
 in which his seed should bless all nations. 
 Indeed the promise is twofold, general and 
 particular. Generally it is true, that Abram’s 
 seed was for centuries the sole depositary 
 of God's objective revelations, and that that 
 knowledge of God which was confided to 
 them has by them been spread to all na- 
 tions. “Out of Zion went forth the law, 
 
 and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” 
 (Is. ii. 3). It has indeed been said with truth, 
 that the Semitic nations, and especially the 
 descendants of Abram, were from the tim.e 
 of Abram to Christ the only believers in the 
 unity of the Godhead, and that ever since the 
 Christian era they only have taught mono- 
 theism to mankind. But that which was the 
 special blessing to Abram’s race, has also, 
 springing from that race, become the universal 
 blessing to mankind. Of him “ as concerning 
 the flesh Christ came.” 
 
 4 . se'venty and fnje years old] See on ch. 
 xi. 32. 
 
 5. the souls that they had gotten] that 
 is, the slaves or dependants whom they had 
 attached to them. So in Ezek. xxvii. 13, 
 slaves are spoken of as “ souls of men.” On- 
 kelos renders, “The souls which they had 
 converted to the law in Charran.” So the 
 Pseudo- Jonathan and Jerusalem Targums 
 render, “ the* souls whom they had prose- 
 lyted.” And following this tradition, Rashi 
 says that Abram made proselytes of the men 
 and Sarai of the women. 
 
 into the land of Canaan they came] Leav- 
 ing Haran they must have crossed the river 
 Euphrates, from which crossing it is very 
 commonly supposed the name Hebrew was 
 derived (rendered by the LXX. in Gen. xiv. 
 13, oTreparrjs^ the crosser o-ver). Thence their 
 course must have been southward over the 
 desert, probably near to Mount Lebanon, and 
 thence to the neighbourhood of Damascus. 
 Josephus (‘Ant.’ i. 7) quotes from Nicolaus 
 of Damascus (‘ Hist.’ bk. iv.), “ Abraham 
 reigned in Damascus, being come with an 
 army from the country beyond Babylon called 
 the land of the Chaldaeans. But not long 
 after, leaving this country with his people he 
 migrated into the land of Canaan, which is 
 now called Judaea.” Josephus adds, that the 
 name of Abraham was even in his days famous 
 in the country of the Damascenes, and a vil- 
 lage was pointed out there, which was called 
 Abraham’s habitation. 
 
 6. the place of Sichem] So named by 
 anticipation. The word place may perhaps 
 indicate that the town did not yet exist. 
 
GENESIS. XII. 
 
 lOI 
 
 V. 7, 8.] 
 
 7 And the Lord appeared unto 
 «chap. 13. Abram, and said, ‘^Unto thy seed will 
 I give this land : and there budded he 
 
 It is generally supposed that Sychar (Joh. iv. 
 5) is the name by which it was known 
 among the later Samaritans, though the iden- 
 tity of Sychar with Shechem is not ^quite 
 certain (see Smith’s ‘Diet, of the Bible,’ Art. 
 ‘ Sychar’). The word Shechem signifies a 
 shoulder^ and, unless the town derived its 
 name from Shechem the son of Hamor, it 
 probably was situated on a shoulder or ridge 
 of land connected with the hills of Ebal and 
 Gerizim. Josephus (‘Ant.’ iv. 8) describes 
 the city of Shechem or Sicima as lying be- 
 tween Gerizim on the right and Ebal on the 
 left. The name Neapolis was given to it by 
 Vespasian; and the ancients clearly identify 
 the later Neapolis with the ancient Shechem; 
 e.g. Epiphanius (‘ Haer.’ ill. 1055), Si- 
 chem, that is in the present Neapolis.” The 
 modern name is Nabulils. The situation of 
 the town is described by modern travellers 
 as one of exceeding beauty. Dr Robinson 
 writes, “All at once the ground. sinks down 
 to a valley running toward the West, with a 
 soil of rich black vegetable mould. Here a 
 scene of luxuriant and almost unparalleled 
 verdure burst upon our view. The whole 
 valley was filled with gardens of vegetables 
 and orchards of all kinds of fruits, watered 
 by several fountains which burst forth in 
 various parts and flow westward in refreshing 
 streams. It came suddenly upon us like a 
 scene of fairy enchantment, we saw nothing 
 to compare to it in all Palestine” (Vol. ii. 
 p. 275. See also Stanley’s ‘Sinai and Pales- 
 dne,’ p. 234.) This spot, probably not yet 
 so cultivated, but even then verdant and 
 beautiful, was the first dwellingplace of the 
 Patriarch in the land of promise. 
 
 the plain of Moreh'\ The oak (or tere- 
 binth) of Moreh. There is considerable 
 variety of opinion as to the nature of the 
 tree here mentioned, called Elon in He- 
 brew. Celsius (‘ Hierob.’ i. p. 34) has ar- 
 gued that all the cognate words, £/, Elon^ 
 Elah^ &c. signify the terebinth tree, the word 
 allon only being the oak. So Michaelis 
 (‘Supplem.’ p. 72), Rosenm., Delitzsch, 
 Keil, &c. The question is discussed at great 
 length by Gesen. (‘Thes.’ p. jo),.who doubts 
 the distinction between Allon and Elon (a dis- 
 tinction merely of vowel points), and inter- 
 prets both by oak^ or perhaps generally a large 
 forest tree. The LXX. and Vulg. render oak. 
 The Targums (followed by the English Ver- 
 sion) render plain (see also Stanley, ‘ Sinai 
 and Palestine,’ p. 141). It may be a ques- 
 tion also whether the oak of Moreh was a 
 single tree, or whether the word used may be 
 a noun of multitude, dgnifying the oak gro^e. 
 A single tree of large size and spreading 
 
 a i ^altar unto the Lord, who ap- ^ ^3- 
 peared unto him. 
 
 8 And he removed from thence 
 
 foliage would, no doubt, be a natural resting 
 place for a caravan or Arab encampment in 
 the desert; but the great fertility of the val- 
 ley of Shechem favours the belief that there 
 may have been a grove rather than a single 
 tree. Nothing is known as to the meaning of 
 the word Moreh: it may have probably been 
 the name of a man, a prince of the land, or 
 owmer of the property. 
 
 the Canaanite nuas then in the lancf The 
 original settlement of the sons of Canaan 
 seems to have been in the South near the Red 
 Sea; a Semitic race probably occupied the 
 regions of Palestine and Phoenicia; a colony 
 of the Canaanites afterwards spreading north- 
 wards, partly dispossessed and partly mingled 
 with the ancient Shemite inhabitants, and 
 adopted their language (see note on ch. x. 6, 
 see also Epiphan. ‘ Hasres.’ Lxvi. n. 84). The 
 historian therefore most appropriately relates 
 that, at the time of the emigration of Abram 
 and his followei'S, the Canaanite was already 
 in possession of the land. The conjecture, 
 therefore, that these words were written by 
 a later hand than that of Moses, after the 
 ancient Canaanite inhabitants had been ex- 
 pelled, is altogether beside the mark. 
 
 7, And the Lord appeared unto Abrani] 
 This is the first mention of a distinct appear- 
 ance of the Lord to man. His voice is heard 
 by Adam, and He is said to have spoken to 
 Noah and to Abram: but here is a visible 
 manifestation. The following questions na- 
 turally arise, i. Was this a direct vision 
 of JEHOVAEI in Bodily shape? 2. Was 
 it an impression produced on the mind of 
 the seer, but not a true vision of God? 
 
 3. Was it an angel personating God? 
 
 4. Was it a manifestation of the Son of 
 
 God, a Theophania, in some measure anti- ’ . 
 cipating the Incarnation ? (i) The first 
 
 question seems answered by St John (Joh. 
 
 i. 18), “No man hath seen God (the 
 Father) at any time.” (2) The second to 
 a certain extent follows the first. Whether 
 there was a manifestation of an* objective 
 reality, or merely an impression on the 
 senses, we cannot possibly judge ; but the 
 vision, whether seen in sleep or waking, 
 cannot have been a vision of God the Father. 
 
 (3) The third question has been answered 
 by many in the affirmative, it being con- 
 cluded that “the Angel of the Lord,” a 
 created Angel, was always the means of com- 
 munication between God and man in the Old 
 Testament. The great supporter of this opi- 
 nion in early times was St Augustine (‘ De 
 Trin.’ iii. c. xi. Tom. viii. pp. 805 — 810), 
 the chief arguments in its favour being the 
 statements of the New Testament that the 
 
 
102 
 
 GENESIS. XII. 
 
 [v. 9 - 12 . 
 
 r Heb. 
 in going 
 and jour- 
 neying. 
 
 unto a mountain on the east of Beth- 
 el, and pitched his \.Qnt^ having Bethel 
 on the west, and Hai on the east : 
 and there he budded an altar unto the 
 Lord, and called upon the name of 
 the Lord. 
 
 9 And Abram journeyed, Agoing on 
 still toward the south. 
 
 10 ^ And there was a famine in 
 
 the land : and Abram went down 
 into Egypt to sojourn there; for the 
 famine was grievous in the land. 
 
 11 And it came to pass, when he 
 was come near to enter into Egypt, 
 that he said unto Sarai his wife. Be- 
 hold now, I know that thou art a fair 
 woman to look upon : 
 
 12 Therefore it shall come to pass. 
 
 law was given “ by disposition of angels,” 
 “ spoken by angels,” &c. (Acts vii. 53 ; Gal. 
 iii. 19; fleb. ii. 22). It is further argued by 
 the supporters of this view, that “the angel 
 of the Lord” is in some passages in the Old 
 Testament, and always in the New Testa- 
 ment, clearly a created angel (e.g. Zech. i. ii, 
 12, &c. ; Luke i. ii; Acts xii. 23); and that 
 therefore it is not to be supposed that any of 
 these manifestations of the Angel of God or 
 Angel of the Lord, which seem so markedly 
 Divine, should have been anything more than 
 the appearance of a created Angel personating 
 the Most High. (4) The affirmative of the 
 fourth opinion was held by the great majority 
 of the fathers from the very first (see, for in- 
 stance, Justin. ‘Dial.’ pp. 280—284; Tertull. 
 ‘ adv. Prax.’ c. 16; Athanas. ‘ Cont. Arian.’ 
 IV. pp. 464, 465 (Ed. Col.); Basil, ‘adv. 
 Eunom.’ ii. 18 ; Theodoret, ‘ (^. V. in Exod.’ 
 The teaching of the fathers on this head is 
 investigated by Bp. Bull, ‘ F. N. D.’ iv. iii. 
 In like manner the ancient Jews had referred 
 the manifestation of God in visible form to the 
 Shcchhiah^ the Metatron^ or the Memra de 
 Jah^ apparently an emanation from God, hav- 
 ing a semblance of diversity, yet really one 
 with Him, coming forth to reveal Him, but 
 not truly distinct from Him. The fact, that 
 the name Angel of the Lord is sometimes used 
 of a created Angel, is not proof enough that 
 it may not be also used of Him who is called 
 “the Angel of mighty counsel” (fxeydXrjs 
 fiov\r}s''2\yy€\os, Is. ix. 6, Sept. Trans.), and 
 “the Angel of the covenant” (Mai. iii. i). 
 and the apparent identification of the Angel 
 of God with God Himself in very many pas- 
 sages (e.g, Gen. xxxii. 24, comp. vv. 28, 30, 
 Hos. xii. 3, 4; Gen. xvi. 10, 13, xlviii. 15, 16; 
 Josh.v. 14, vi. 2; Judg. ii. i, xiii. 22; Isa. vi. i ; 
 cp. Joh. xii. 41; Is. Ixiii. 9) leads markedly to 
 the conclusion, that God spake to man by an 
 Angel or Messenger, and yet that that Angel 
 or Messenger was Himself God. No man s;iw 
 God at any time, but the only begotten Son, 
 who was in the Bosom of the Father, declared 
 Him. He, who was the Word of God, the 
 Voice of God to His creatures, was yet in 
 the beginning with God, and He was God. 
 
 Unto thy seed (ivill I gii'e this land: and there 
 huildcd he an altar'] This is the first definite 
 promise Uy Abram, that the land of Canaan 
 
 should be the inheritance of his children. Ac- 
 cordingly, he built an altar there, as conse- 
 crating the soil and dedicating it to God. It 
 is not mentioned that he offered sacrifice, but 
 as the ficbrew word for altar means the place 
 of slaughter or of sacrifice^ there can be no 
 doubt, that it was an altar of burnt offering, 
 which he built, as was Noah’s altar (ch. viii. 
 20), the only altar spoken of prior to this 
 time. 
 
 8. he remo'ved] lit. he plucked up his 
 tent pegs. The journeying was by repeated 
 encampments, after the manner of the Be- 
 douins. 
 
 Beth-eh] i. e. the House of God. This is 
 by anticipation. It was called Luz at this 
 time (see ch. xx.viii. 19; Judg. i. 23). The 
 present name is Beitan. 
 
 Hai] was about five miles to the East of 
 Beth-el, the ruins of which bear the name of 
 Medinet Gai. 
 
 called upon the name of the Lord.] See ch. 
 iv. 26. 
 
 9 . going on still toward the south] The 
 words express a gradual change of place, 
 after the nomadic fashion. As food offered 
 itself he pitched his tent and fed his cattle, 
 and when food failed he went onwards to 
 fresh pastures. 
 
 10 . a famine] A country like Canaan, 
 imperfectly cultivated, would be very subject 
 to droughts and famine. The part of Egypt, 
 which lay immediately South of Canaan, ap- 
 pears to have been especially fertile. It was 
 at that time inhabited by a people skilled in 
 agriculture, and flooded periodically by the 
 Nile. Egypt is still the refuge for neighbour- 
 ing nations when afflicted with drought. It 
 is said that Abram went down to Egypt “to 
 sojourn,” not to live there ; for he had re- 
 ceived the promise of inheritance in Canaan, 
 and, though this famine may have tried, it did 
 not shake his faith. 
 
 11. Behold... thou art a fair woman] Sarai 
 was now more than sixty years old: but 
 her life extended to 1 2 7 years, so that she was 
 only then in middle life; she had borne no 
 children, and at the age of ninety, though not 
 naturally young enough to have a son, was 
 yet preserved in a condition of unusual and- 
 
 
V. 13— 1 9-] 
 
 GENESIS. XII. 
 
 103 
 
 when the Egyptians shall see thee, 
 that they shall say, This is his wife: 
 and they will kill me, but they will 
 save thee alive. 
 
 13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my 
 sister: that it may be well w’th me 
 for thy sake; and my soul shall live 
 because of thee. 
 
 14 ^ And it came to pass, that, 
 when Abram was come into Egypt, 
 the Egyptians beheld the woman that 
 she was very fair. 
 
 15 The princes also of Pharaoh 
 saw her, and commended her before 
 Pharaoh: and the woman was t'aken 
 into Pharaoh’s house. 
 
 16 And he entreated Abram well 
 for her sake:. and he had sheep, and 
 oxen, and he asses, and menservants, 
 and maidservants, and she asses, and 
 camels. 
 
 17 And the Lord plagued Pharaoh 
 and his house with great plagues be- 
 cause of Sarai Abram’s wife. 
 
 18 And Pharaoh called Abram, 
 and said, What is this that thou hast 
 done unto me? why didst thou not 
 tell me that she was thy wife ? 
 
 19 Why saidst thou. She is my 
 sister? so 1 might have taken her to 
 me to wife : now therefore behold 
 thv wife, take her^ and go thy way. 
 
 preternatural youth, so that she bore Isaac; 
 her fair complexion would contrast favourably 
 with the swarthy complexion of the Egyptians. 
 The Arab life of Abram naturally made him 
 wary of danger. He was about to sojourn 
 in a country with a despotic government, 
 and among a licentious people. 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 con- 
 science 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 
 shewn by his exhibiting in such strong relief 
 the dissimulation of Abram as contrasted 
 with the straightforward integrity of Pharaoh. 
 
 15 . Pharaohl The name or title, by 
 which the kings of Egypt are called in the 
 Old Testament. Josephus tells us that “Pha- 
 raoh among the Egyptians signifies kingP 
 It used to be thought that it was the Coptic 
 word Ouro with the article Pi or Ph. ( Ja- 
 blonski, Diss. iv. section 3, ‘ De Terra Gosen.’) 
 Later the opinion of Rosellini, Lepsius, Raw- 
 linson, Poole and others has been that it cor- 
 responded with the title of the Sun- God 
 RA, with the article, PH — RA, a name which 
 was given to some of the kings of Egypt. 
 Gesenius objects to this from its lacking the 
 final o/6(‘Thes,’ p. 1129); and there is insuffi- 
 cient evidence that the title was really a 
 common title of the kings. Very recently M. 
 De Rouge has shewn that the hieroglyphic, 
 which is the regular title of the Egyptian 
 kings, and which signifies “the great house” 
 or “the double house,” must be read Peraa 
 or Perao. This singularly corresponds with 
 the statement of Horapollo (i, 61), that the 
 king was called oIkos ju-eyas, “the great house.” 
 The identity of this with the name Pharaoh 
 is admitted by Brugsch, Ebers (‘^gypten, 
 &c.’ p. 26), and is argued at length in the 
 
 “Excursus on Egyptian Words” (by the Rev. 
 F. C. Cook) at the end of this volume. It 
 may be compared with the title “Sublime 
 Porte.” 
 
 It is difficult to fix the particular Pharaoh 
 or dynasty under which Abram came into 
 Egypt. Generally the characteristics of the 
 Court, as briefly described in Genesis, point 
 to a native dynasty of very remote date. Some 
 circumstances, the friendly reception of a 
 Semitic npmade and the use of camels (v. 16) 
 among the Egyptians, have suggested the 
 belief that Abram’s Pharaoh must have 
 been a shepherd king (see Smith’s Diet, of the 
 Bible, Artt. Pharaoh and Zoan)\ and Sir 
 Gardiner Wilkinson (‘ Ancient Egyptians,’ 
 Vol. I. chap. ii. p. 42) has identified him with 
 Apophis or Apepi, the sixth monarch of 
 Manetho’s 15th dynasty. It is, however, 
 impossible to admit so late a date. The 
 Pharaoh of Joseph was almost certainly a 
 king of the 12th dynasty. Abram’s Pha- 
 raoh must therefore at latest have been one of 
 the first kings of that same dynasty, if not 
 belonging to a dynasty earlier still. The ob- 
 jections, derived from the camels, and other 
 apparent indications of a shepherd reign, are 
 fully considered in Excursus i. “On the 
 Bearings of Egyptian History on the Penta- 
 teuch,” at the end of this volume, by Rev. F. 
 C. Cook: and the period of Abram’s sojourn 
 in Egypt is shewn to be most probably under 
 one of the earlier sovereigns of the 12th 
 dynasty. 
 
 the <rdooman <ivas taken into Pharaoh's house'\ 
 Probably even at that early period Egypt had 
 reached such a pitch of corrupt civilization 
 that the sovereign had a hareem, and Sarai 
 was chosen to be one of his wives. 
 
 18 . Pharaoh called Abram] J osephus says, 
 that the priests told Pharaoh for what cause 
 that plague had fallen on him (‘ Ant.’ i. 8). 
 It is more likely that Sarai herself, being 
 
104 
 
 GENESIS. XIL XIII 
 
 [v. 20 7. 
 
 20 And Pharaoh commanded his 
 men concerning him : ^nd they sent 
 him away, and his wife, and all that 
 he had. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 I Abrai}i and Lot return out of Egypt. 7 By 
 disagreement they part asunder. 10 Lot goeth 
 to wicked Sodom, 14 God re 7 teweth the pro- 
 mise to Abram. 18 He removeth to Hebron., 
 and tJm-e buildeth an altar. 
 
 AND Abram went up out of E- 
 ±\_ gypt, he, and his wife, and all 
 that he had, and Lot with him, into 
 the south. 
 
 2 And Abram was very rich in 
 cattle, in silver, and in gold. 
 
 3 And he went on his journeys 
 from the south even to Beth-el, unto 
 
 the place where his tent had been at 
 the beginning, between Beth-el and 
 
 Hai; 
 
 4 Unto the ** place of the altar, « chap. 12 
 which he had made there at the first : 
 
 and there Abram called on the name 
 of the Lord. 
 
 5 ^ And Lot also, which went 
 with Abram, had flocks, and herds, 
 and tents. 
 
 6 And the land was not able to 
 bear them, that they might dwell to- 
 gether : for their substance was great, 
 so that they could not dwell toge- 
 ther. . 
 
 7 And there was a strife between 
 the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and 
 the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the 
 
 interrogated about it, confessed the truth 
 (Patrick), 
 
 19 , so I might have taken her'\ Heb, So 
 I took her, LXX, Syr, Onk, Though the 
 Vulgate followed by the Arabic has, “so that 
 I might have taken her,” The meaning is. 
 Deceived by Abram’s words. Pharaoh took 
 her with the intention of making her his wife, 
 but was hindered from doing so by the afflic- 
 tions with which God visited him (see Theo- 
 doret, ‘Qu. LXXII, in Gen,’ Op, xii, Au- 
 gustin, ‘De Civit, Dei,’ xvi, 18), St Jerome 
 (‘Trad, Heb, in Genes,’) refers to Esth, ii, 12, 
 where we learn that the custom of Eastern 
 monarchs was, that a maiden should undergo 
 twelvemonths of purification before she was 
 actually taken to wife. It was, he thinks, 
 during some such period that Pharaoh was 
 plagued and prohibited from marrying Sarai, 
 It deserves to be noticed, that throughout the 
 history of the chosen race, Egypt was to them 
 the scene of spiritual danger, of covetousness 
 and love of riches, of worldly security, of 
 temptation to rest on an arm of fiesh, on 
 man’s own understanding, arid not on God 
 only. All this appears from the very first, in 
 Abraham’s sojourn there, Sarai's danger, their 
 departure full of wealth and prosperity. 
 
 Chap. XIII. 1. and Lot voith him~\ 
 Lot is not mentioned in the descent into 
 Egypt, because no part of the narrative there 
 concerns him. On the return to Canaan he 
 becomes a principal actor. 
 
 into the south'] That southern part of Ca- 
 naan, whence he had gone down into Egypt, 
 The south, or Negeb, is almost a proper name. 
 
 2, very rich] He had grown rich in 
 Egypt. He has now to experience some of 
 the dangers and evils of prosperity. 
 
 3 . on his journeys] By his stations, or 
 according to his encampments, i.e. either sta- 
 tion by station, as before, pitching his tent for 
 a time at one station and then removing it to 
 another; or perhaps, returning by his former 
 stations, according to his original encamp- 
 ments when he was journeying southwards. 
 
 unto the place vohere his tent had been at the 
 beginning] Shechem was the first place at 
 which he rested and built an altar; but he 
 probably remained there a comparatively short 
 time. The Canaanites then in the land (ch. 
 xii. 6) would doubtless have occupied all the 
 most fertile country about Shechem. His 
 second place of sojourn was the mountain 
 near Bethel, where he is said to have built an 
 altar and called on the name of the Lord, and 
 where very probably he had continued until 
 the famine began to prevail. (See ch. xii. vv. 
 7, 8, 9, 10.) 
 
 6. the land vuas not able to bear them] 
 Lot was the sharer of Abram’s prosperity. 
 They came up out of Egypt with much larger 
 possessions than before, more “flocks and herds 
 and tents” for their now more numerous re- 
 tainers. The land too had but just recovered 
 from a state of drought and dearth: “and the 
 Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelt then in the 
 land” (v. 7), and probably by their occupa- 
 tion contributed to the scarcity of pasture. 
 
 7 . Perizzite] But little is known of 
 this people. They are not mentioned in the 
 catalogue of nations in Gen. x. They are 
 mostly coupled, as here, with the Canaanites. 
 They appear from Josh. xi. 3, xvii. 15, to have 
 dwelt in the woods and mountains. Bochart 
 describes them (‘Phaleg,’ iv. 36) as a rustic, 
 agrarian race, living without cities and in 
 villages only, the name itself signifying pagani^ 
 villagers, rustics. 
 
V. 8—15.] 
 
 GENESIS. XIII. 
 
 t Heb. 
 men bre- 
 thren. 
 
 105 
 
 Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled 
 then in the land. 
 
 8 And Abram said unto Lot, 
 Let there be no strife, I pray thee, 
 between me and thee, and between 
 my herdmen and thy herdmen; for 
 we be ^brethren. 
 
 9 Is not the whole land before 
 thee ? separate thyself, I pray thee, 
 from me ; if thou wilt take the left 
 hand, then I will go to the right ; or 
 if thou depart to the right hand, then 
 I will go to the left. 
 
 10 And Lot lifted up his eyes, and 
 beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it 
 was well watered every where, before 
 the Lord destroyed Sodom and Go- 
 morrah, even as the garden of the 
 Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou 
 comest unto Zoar. 
 
 11 Then Lot chose him all the 
 plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed 
 east : and they separated themselves 
 the one from the other. 
 
 12 Abram dwelled in the land of 
 Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities 
 of the plain, and pitched his tent to- 
 ward. Sodom. 
 
 13 But the men of Sodom were 
 wicked and sinners before the Lord 
 exceedingly. 
 
 14 And the Lord said unto A- 
 bram, after that Lot was separated 
 from him, Lift up now thine eyes, 
 and look from the place where thou 
 art northvv^ard, and southward, and 
 eastward, and westward : 
 
 15 For all the land which thou 
 
 seest, ^to thee will I give it, and to & 26.4. 
 thy seed ror ever. 4- 
 
 d-ivellcd then in the land] See on xii. 6. 
 
 8, Let there be no strife] A noble ex- 
 ample of disinterestedness and love of peace 
 exhibited by the father of the faithful 
 
 10. Lot lifted up his ejes] They were 
 probably encamped on that mountain on the 
 east of Bethel, having Bethel on the west and 
 Hai on the east, where Abram had built 
 the altar and called on the name of the Lord 
 (ch, xii. 8). The very spot can be traced 
 from the indications of the sacred text (Stan- 
 ley’s ‘ Jewish Church,’ Vol. i. p. 3a). From 
 this spot Lot and Abram chose their re- 
 spective possessions. Lot saw the plains of 
 Jordan, watered by fertilizing rivers, not yet 
 broken up by the overflowing or outbursting 
 of the great salt lake, very probably irrigated 
 like the land of Egypt which he had lately 
 left, where the Nile refreshed the soil, and the 
 plague of famine never came. Taking no 
 warning by the dangers, bodily and spiritual, 
 which had beset them in Egypt, he feared not 
 the proximity of the wealthy and luxurious 
 .nhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, but 
 thought their land pleasant even as the garden 
 of the Lord. He chose the rich pastures of 
 the plain, and left Abram the less promis- 
 ing, but, as it proved, the safer inheritance of 
 the hill country of Judaea. It was a selfish 
 choice, and it proved a sad one. 
 
 as thou comest unto Zoar] See on ch xiv. 3. 
 
 12 , land of Canaan] That is, Canaan 
 strictly so called. 
 
 the plain] Lit. “the circuit or neighbour- 
 hood,” the country round about Jordan. So 
 the LXX. (Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 717. Stanley, 
 ‘Sinai and Palestine,’ p. 287.) The low tract 
 
 or plain along the river — through which it 
 flows, perhaps as comprehensive as the Ghor 
 itself. (Robinson, ‘ Phys. Geog.’ p. 73.) 
 
 13 . sinners before the Lord] Sodom, 
 Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim are men- 
 tioned, Gen. X. 19, as among the first settle- 
 ments of the Canaanites. The fertility of the 
 soil in this Valley of the Jordan, with the 
 luxurious and enervating character of the 
 climate, rapidly developed the sensual vices 
 of this early civilized but depraved race. Their 
 wickedness is mentioned here perhaps in anti- 
 cipation of the history in ch. xix., but partly 
 also in order to exhibit more clearly the 
 thoughtlessness and worldliness of Lot in 
 choosing their neighbourhood for his resi- 
 dence, as distinguished from the humility and 
 unselfish spirit of Abram. 
 
 14 . Lift up now thine eyes, &c.] He was 
 probably still on the hill east of Bethel. Here 
 once again, on his return from Egypt to the 
 land of his inheritance, God renews his pro- 
 mise to Abram. The world, with its dan- 
 gers and its honours, may have tempted 
 Abram, but it had not corrupted him. He 
 came back from Egypt with larger knowledge, 
 probably all the more armed against sin by 
 having had some experience of its seductions. 
 He is still the chosen of God ; and he is com- 
 forted under separation from his kinsman, and 
 the discovery of that kinsman’s lower motives 
 and less disinterestedness, by the assurance 
 that God was still ever with him and pledged 
 to preseiwe and provide for him. 
 
 15 . to thee] The land even in present 
 possession was his, so far as was needed by 
 him as a nomade chief, though its permanent 
 occupation was to him and his seed after him. 
 
io6 
 
 GENESIS. XIII. XIV. 
 
 [v. 1 6 2. 
 
 t Heb. 
 plains. 
 
 1 6 And I will make thy seed as 
 the dust of the earth : so that if a man 
 can number the dust of the earth, then 
 shall thy seed also be numbered. 
 
 17 Arise, walk through the land in 
 the length of it and in the breadth 
 of it ; for I will give it unto thee. 
 
 18 Then Abram removed /?/j.tent, 
 and came and dwelt in the ^ plain 
 of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and 
 built there an altar unto the Lord. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 \ The battle of four kings agamst five. 12 Lot 
 is taken prisoner. 14 Abraffi rescueth him. 
 
 18 Melchizedek blesseth Abram. 20 Abram 
 giveth him tithe. 22 The rest of the spoil y his 
 partners having had their portions, he re~ 
 storeth to the king of Sodo 7 n. 
 
 AND it came to pass in the days 
 of Amraphel king of Shinar, 
 Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlao- 
 mer king of Elam, and Tidal king 
 of nations; 
 
 2 That these made war v/ith Bera 
 king of Sodom, and with Birsha king 
 of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Ad- 
 mah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, 
 and the king of Bela, which is 
 Zoar. 
 
 for e'ver'] i. e. in perpetuity. But, when we 
 consider that the promises to Abram have 
 their full completion in Christ, to whom are 
 given “the uttermost parts of the earth for a 
 possession,” there need be no limit to the sense 
 of the words “ for ever.” 
 
 18 . the plain of Mamre'] The Oaks (or 
 ‘ terebinths) of Mamre, see on ch. xii. 6. Pro- 
 bably it means “the oak grove” or “wood 
 of Mamre,” called after Mamre the Amorite, 
 the friend and ally of Abram (ch. xrv. 13, 24). 
 
 Hebron] Called Arba or Kirjath-arba (see 
 ch. xxiii. 2, XXXV. 4. Judg. i. 10) till after the 
 death of Moses, when Caleb took the city 
 and changed its name to Hebron. It has been 
 thought therefore that the words here “which 
 • is Hebron,” must have been inserted by a 
 later hand than that of Moses. It is more 
 probable that Hebron was the original name, 
 changed to Kirjath-arba during the sojourn 
 of the descendants of Jacob in the land of 
 Egypt, and restored by Caleb at the conquest 
 of Palestine. So Karme (cited by Rosen- 
 muller), Hengstenberg, Keil, &c.; see also on 
 ch. xxiii. 2. This was the third resting place 
 of Abram : i. Shechem, 2. Bethel, 3. He- 
 bron. Near it was the cave of Machpelah, 
 where he and Sarah were buried. It is now 
 called El Khalil, “ the friend,” i.e. the house 
 of the friend of God. Near to it stands an 
 ancient Terebinth, once a place of heathen 
 worship (Delitzsch). The cave of Machpe- 
 lah still is there, surrounded by a mosque, in 
 which lie probably the dust of Abraham and 
 Isaac, and perhaps the embalmed body, the 
 mummy, of Jacob, brought up in solemn 
 state from Egypt, ch. 1 . 13 (Stanley, ‘Sinai 
 and Palestine,’ p. 102). 
 
 Chap. XIV. 1. And it came to pass] We 
 come now upon a new scene in the life 
 of Abram. The choice of Lot was soon 
 seen not to be a wise choice, even for earthly 
 happiness. The rich plains of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah were likely to be scenes of strife. 
 
 as in early times was the case with all fertile 
 countries (Thucyd. i. 2). The history of this 
 war is a remarkable episode, and is thought 
 by many to be a very ancient document in- 
 corporated by Moses in his great work. So 
 Tuch, Ewald, Kurtz, &c. who all bear tes- 
 timony to its internal proofs of historical ac- 
 curacy. The occurrence of the name JEHO- 
 VAH in it is inconsistent with the theory, 
 which assigns the use of that name only to 
 the later portions of the book of Genesis. 
 
 in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar] 
 The king of Shinar, {Babel, Onkel., Bagdad, 
 Arab. Erpen., Pontus, Jonathan,) as being the 
 representative of Nimrod, founder of the 
 great Babylonian Empire, is mentioned first. 
 The name Amraphel is probably Assyrian, its 
 derivation unknown. 
 
 Arioch] If, as it is supposed, the root of 
 this word be ari, a lion, the bearer of it would 
 appear to have been Semitic. 
 
 Ellasar] Jonathan Telassar (see 2 K. xix. 
 12; Isa. xxxvii. 12), a place not far off. It is 
 more probably identified with Larsa or La- 
 rancha, the Larissa of the Greeks, a town in 
 Lower Babylonia, or Chaldaea, between Ur 
 and Erech, on the left bank of the Euphrates 
 (Rawlinson, Kalisch, &c.). 
 
 Chedorlaomer king of Elam] It seems 
 from the narrative that at this time the king 
 of Elam was the most powerful of the Asiatic 
 princes (Le Cle.rc). The Elamites appear to 
 have been originally a Semitic people (ch. x. 
 22J. If then they had now gained a superi- 
 ority over the Hamitic races, it is not impro- 
 bable that the Canaanites of the plain of Jor- 
 dan, having been originally subject to the 
 kings of Shinar, or Babylon, bore unwillingly 
 the transference of their fealty to the Shemite 
 king of Elam, and took the first opportunity 
 of throwing off their allegiance, whereupon 
 the king of Elam, now the head of the four 
 kingdoms named in this verse, gathered his 
 subjects or tributary allies, and strove to re- 
 duce the Canaanites again to subjection. Re- 
 
V. 3—5-] 
 
 GENESIS. XIV. 
 
 107 
 
 3 All these were joined together 
 in the vale of Siddim, which is the 
 salt sea. 
 
 4 Twelve years they served Che- 
 dorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year 
 they rebelled. 
 
 5 And in the fourteenth year came 
 Chedorlaomer, and the kings that 
 with him, and smote the Re- 
 phaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, andnQ^.^^^ 
 the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims/{" 4 ^ 
 in I’Shaveh Kiriathaim, thaim. 
 
 cent discoveries shew that Susa (the capital 
 of Elymais) must have been one of the most 
 ancient cities of the East. Sir Henry Rawlin- 
 son thought he discovered a name corespond- 
 ing with Chedorlaomer on Chaldsean bricks, 
 viz. Kadur-Mapula, the second portion of the 
 word being of course distinct. Another title 
 by which Kadur-Mapula was known was 
 “ Ravager of the West,” which corresponds 
 with the account here given of Chedorlaomer. 
 Rawlinson and others consider the dynasty 
 of Chedorlaomer not to have been Semitic, 
 but belonging to a race of Hamites, who had 
 subdued the original Elymasans. 
 
 Tidal king of nations'] Symmachus renders 
 “ King of the Scythians,” which is approved 
 by some commentators, because Scythia was 
 inhabited by many different tribes (Fuller, 
 
 ‘ Miscell. SS.’ Lib. ii. c. 4, quoted by Rosenm.). 
 Le Clerc, followed by Rosenmliller, prefers 
 Galilee, called “ Galilee of the Gentiles” or 
 “nations” (Is. ix. i; Matt. iv. 15. See 
 also Strabo, Lib. xvi. § 34, who says that 
 these northern parts of Judaea were inhabited 
 by various mixed tribes, Egyptians, Arabs, 
 Phoenicians). But all this was probably later 
 in history, and the name Galilee of the na- 
 tions was given to Galilee, because it was still 
 inhabited by other tribes, whilst Judxa was 
 inhabited by none but Israelites (Gesenius, 
 ‘Thes.’ p. 272). We may most probably 
 conjecture that Tidal was owned as the chief 
 of several nomade tribes, who, like Abram, 
 had no stationary home. For Tidal, the LXX, 
 has Thargal^ which is preferred by some, as 
 having the meaning of “ Great chief” in the 
 early Hamitic dialect of the lower Tigris and 
 Euphrates country (Rawlinson, in Smith’s 
 ‘ Diet, of Bible’). 
 
 3 . vale of Siddim] The meaning of 
 this name has been a great puzzle to inter- 
 preters. The LXX. render it “the salt val- 
 ley.” Onkelos evidently refers the derivation 
 to Sadeb, a plain (as though onb was plural 
 of nib).* So Aquila and Rashi. They 
 are followed by Stanley (‘ Sinai and Palestine,’ 
 p. .491). Aben Ezra derives it from Sid 
 (T'b), lime, because of the abundance of 
 bitumen, which was used as lime (see ch. xi. 
 3). Gesenius suggests an Arabic root signi- 
 fying an obstacle, and so concludes that the 
 valley of Siddim was a plain full of rocky 
 valleys and irregularities. In v. 10 it is said 
 to be full of bitumen pits, which was perhaps 
 
 the reason why the five kings chose it for the 
 field of battle, as being more favourable to 
 the weaker party. 
 
 vohich is the salt sed] The extreme de- 
 pression of the Dead Sea, 1316 feet (Robinson, 
 ‘Phys. Geog.’ p. 190), and other geological 
 phenomena, are thought to favour the belief, 
 that there must have been originally some 
 lake at the extremity of the valley of the Jor- 
 dan; but perhaps after the destruction of 
 Sodom and Gomorrah the lake greatly ex- 
 tended itself, so as to cover much which be- 
 fore may have been low valley land. The 
 vale of Siddim is generally thought to have 
 been at the southern extremity of the Dead 
 Sea, where are now to be seen the principal 
 deposits of salt and bitumen, the site being 
 occupied by the shallow southern portion of 
 that sea (see Robinson, ‘ Physical Geography 
 of the Holy Land,’ pp. 73, 213). 
 
 4 . Twelve years, &c.] See on v. i. 
 
 5 . Rephaims] The LXX. renders “ Gi- 
 ants,” so virtually do Onk. and Syr. It is, 
 no doubt, the name of an ancient people; 
 very probably a tribe resident in the Holy 
 Land before the immigration of the Canaan- 
 ites. They appear to have been a people of 
 large stature. Og, the king of Bashan, at the 
 time of the Exodus, is mentioned as the last 
 remaining of their race (Deut. iii. ii). Their 
 habitation was to the north-east of the valley 
 of the Jordan, the country afterwards called 
 Peraea. They must also have extended to the 
 south-west ; for the valley of Rephaim, named 
 after them, appears to have been in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the valley of Hinnom and Beth- 
 lehem, to the south of Jerusalem (see Josh. 
 XV. 8, xviii. 16; 2 S. v. 18, 22, xxiii. 13). 
 The name “ Rephaim,” in later times, is con- 
 stantly used for “ the dead,” or rather for the 
 “ghosts or manes of the dead” (Job xxvi. 5; 
 Ps. Ixxxviii. II ; Prov. ii. 18; Is. xiv. 9, xxvi. 
 14). Whether there is a connection between 
 the name of this ancient and afterwards 
 extinct people, and this word thus used for 
 “ the dead,!’ is very doubtful (Gesen. ‘ Thes.’ 
 p. 1302). 
 
 Ashteroth Karnaim] “ Ashteroth of the 
 two horns.” It is most probable that this 
 was the same as the Ashtaroth, where Og the 
 king of Bashan dwelt (Deut. i. 4 ; Josh. ix. 
 10), in the east of the inheritance of the tribe 
 of Manasseh; and that it was named from the 
 worship of Astarte (Ashtoreth), whose image 
 
io8 
 
 GENESIS. XIV. 
 
 [v. 6, 7. 
 
 6 And the Horites in their mount 
 Seir, unto 'lEl-paran, which is by the 
 
 the plain r ? 
 
 o/Parrjn. wiidemess. 
 
 7 And they returned, and came to 
 
 En-mishpat, which is Kadesh, and 
 smote all the country of the Ama- 
 lekites, and also the Amorites, that 
 dwelt in Hazezon-tamar. 
 
 was such as to suggest the idea of a horned 
 figure (see Gesen. ‘Thes.’ p. io8a). In like 
 manner Athor (the Egyptian Venus, as As- 
 tarte was the Phoenician) was depicted with 
 horns like a cow (see Rawlinson’s ‘ Herod.’ 
 Vol. II. pp. 61, 6z). Some, however, think 
 the two horns tc refer to two hills, between 
 which the city lay, and the name “horned” 
 was intended to distinguish this town from 
 the city commonly called Ashtaroth only (see 
 Rosenm. in loc. and Smith’s ‘ Diet, of Bible,’ 
 s. V. Ashtaroth). 
 
 Zuzims~\ Little is known concerning the 
 name or place of this people. The LXX. and 
 Onk. render “the strong or mighty ones.” 
 Le Clerc thinks the name means “ wanderer,” 
 from the root Zuz T-1T, “to move oneself.” 
 Michaelis understands “dwarfs.” Both deri- 
 vations are rejected by Gesen. (‘ Thes.’ p. 410). 
 They are very generally thought to be the 
 same with the Zamzummims (Deut. ii. 20), 
 who are spoken of as a race of great stature, 
 and connected with the Horim, as are the 
 Zuzims here. 
 
 in Ham'] If the Zuzim be the same as the 
 Zamzummim, they must have dwelt in the 
 territory of the Ammonites, and Tuch, fol- 
 lowed by Knobel, considers that Ham here is 
 the same as Rabbath-Ammon. There is an- 
 other reading in seven Samaritan MSS. fol- 
 lowed by the LXX. and Vulg. viz. (QD? 
 avTOLs, cum illis) “ with them;” but the point- 
 ing of the Masorites seems more likely to be 
 the true. 
 
 the Emims] The name is supposed to be 
 the Hebrew for “terrible ones.” The Rev. 
 F. C. Cook identifies the name with Amu, 
 the Egyptian word for nomad Semites. In 
 Deut. ii. 10, II, where they are mentioned in 
 the same connection as here, they are spoken 
 of as “ a people great and many and tall.” 
 They dwelt in the country afterwards occu- 
 pied by the Moabites. 
 
 Sha'veh Kiriathaim] or “ the plain of Kiria- 
 thaim,” or “the plain of the two cities.” Kiri- 
 athaim is mentioned, Num. xxxii. 37, Josh, 
 xiii. 19, as in the possession of the sons of 
 Reuben. Eusebius says it was well known in 
 his day, a village inhabited by Christians, 
 close to the Baris, about 10 miles west of 
 Medeba (‘Onom.’ Kipiadidfx). 
 
 6. the Horites in their mount Seir] The 
 name “ Horites” means “inhabitants of caves.” 
 These people dwelt in the mountain region 
 called Seir (lit. “the hirsute,” probably from 
 its thick forests and brushwood), extending 
 
 from the Dead Sea southward to the Elamitic 
 Gulf. Mount Seir is called in the Samaritan 
 Pentateuch and the Jerusalem Targum “Ga- * 
 bla,” and the northern part of the range is 
 still called “ Jebal,” or “ the mountain,” by 
 the Arabs. The wonderful excavations in the 
 rocks near Petra may very possibly be due to 
 these “ Horim,” or cave-dwellers. They were 
 driven out by the Edomites (Deut. ii. 12), 
 who also after the manner of their predeces- 
 sors “ made their nest high like the eagle.” 
 
 El-paran] i.e. “the oak or terebinth wood 
 of Paran.” The great wilderness, extending 
 to the south of Palestine, the south-west of 
 Idumgea, and thence to the Sinaitic range, 
 appears to have been called the wilderness of 
 Paran. It probably lay to the west of the 
 wilderness of Sin, but at times is to be taken 
 in a wider sense, as comprehending the desert 
 of Sin (see Gesen. ‘Thes.’ pp. 47, 1090). El- 
 paran is here said to be by the wilderness, /. e. 
 on the eastern side of the great desert, mark- 
 ing the farthest point to which the expedition 
 of Chedorlaomer reached. The wilderness of 
 Paran is identified with the modern desert of 
 El-Tih, the wilderness of Zin or Sin being the 
 Wady-el- A rabah (Stanley, ‘ Sinai and Pales- 
 tine,’ p. 92). 
 
 7 . to En-mishpat., <which is Kadesh] The 
 LXX. renders “ to the well of judgment,” 
 the Vulg. “to the well of Mishpat.” Some 
 suppose it to have derived its name from 
 the judgment pronounced on Moses and Aaron 
 (Num. XX. 12), and that the name is here 
 given proleptically ; but it is evidently here 
 given as the ancient name to which the more 
 modern Kadesh corresponded. Syr., Onk., 
 Jerus. render Kadesh by Rekam. Josephus 
 calls it Arekem, which he says now bears the 
 name of Petra (‘ A. J.’ iv. 4). This identity 
 of Kadesh with Petra is ably defended by 
 Dean Stanley (‘S. and P.’ pp. 94, 95). An- 
 other site for the ancient Kades, or Ain-Mish- 
 pat, is vindicated for Kudes or Kades, lying 
 to the east of the highest part of Djebel- 
 Halal, about 12 miles to the E.S.E. of Mor- 
 lakhi (see Williams, ‘Holy City,’ Vol. i. p. 
 467 ; Kalisch, Delitzsch, Keil, in loc.) Strong 
 objections to both these sites are urged in the 
 art. Kades in Smith’s ‘ Diet, of the Bible.’ 
 
 Ainalekites] See note on ch. xxxvi. 1 2. 
 
 Hazeoson-tamar] i.e. “The pruning of the 
 palm,” the same place which was afterwards 
 called Engcdi, “the fountain of the wild-goat” 
 (2 Chr. XX. 2). The palm-groves, which gave 
 the original name, and for which Pliny says 
 Engcdi was famous (‘ Nat. Hist.’ v. 17), have 
 
V. 8—15.] 
 
 GENESIS. XIV. 
 
 109 
 
 8 And there went out the king of 
 Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, 
 and the king of Admah, and the king 
 of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela 
 (the same is Zoar-,) and they joined 
 battle with them in the vale of Sid- 
 dim ; 
 
 9 With Chedorlaomer the king of 
 Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, 
 and Amraphel king of Shinar, and 
 Arioch king of Ellasar ; four kings 
 with five. 
 
 10 And the vale of Siddim was full 
 of slimepits ; and the kings of Sodom 
 and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; 
 and they that remained fled to the 
 mountain. 
 
 1 1 And they took all the goods of 
 
 disappeared, but the ibex, or Syrian chamois, 
 still inhabits the cliffs in the neighbourhood 
 (Stanley, ‘S. and P.’ p. 295). The place was 
 situated in the wilderness of Judiea, to the 
 west of the Dead Sea, according to Josephus 
 300 stadia from Jerusalem (‘ Ant.’ ix. c. i). 
 The ruins found at a place called Ain Jiddi, 
 with a fountain in the midst of a mountain 
 country, to the west of the Dead Sea and of 
 about the latitude of Hebron, are supposed to 
 mark the original site of Engedi or Hazezon- 
 tamar. 
 
 10. slimepits^ Bitumen-pits: of asphalt 
 or bitumen, from which the Dead Sea was 
 afterwards called Lacus Asphaltites, or Sea of 
 Asphalt. 
 
 fell there'] i.e. were overthrown there; for 
 the king of Sodom seems to have been one of 
 those who fled to the mountains and escaped, 
 see V. 17. 
 
 13. one that had escaped^ Rather those 
 that escaped (Ew. 277; Ges. ‘Thes.’ 
 p. 1105). 
 
 the Hebre^ju] i.e. either “the descendant of 
 Eber,” which seems most accordant with the 
 words in ch. x. 2 1 , where Eber seems to have 
 given a general name to his descendants, or 
 (as the LXX., Aq., Vulg., and most ancient 
 interpreters), “ the stranger from beyond the 
 Euphrates,” an appellative from the Hebrew 
 noun or preposition Eber., signifying the 
 “ opposite side, beyond.” The mention of 
 Abram as the Hebrew is due to the fact, 
 that the messenger, who came and told him 
 what had happened, was an inhabitant of the 
 land, and Abram was to him one of a strange 
 country and strange race. 
 
 the plain] The oaks or oak groves. 
 
 14. He armed his trained sern'ants] He led 
 out his trained servants. The verb 
 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their 
 victuals, and went their way. 
 
 12 And they took Lot, Abram’s 
 brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, 
 and his goods, and departed. 
 
 13 ^ And there came one that had 
 escaped, and told Abram the Hebrev/ ; 
 for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre 
 the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and 
 brother of Aner : and these were con- 
 federate with Abram. 
 
 14 And when Abram heard that 
 his brother was taken captive, he 
 
 " armed his i'trained servants., born in his n Or, 
 own house, three hundred and eigh- \ 
 teen, and pursued them unto Dan. instrudei 
 
 15 And he divided himself against 
 them, he and his servants, by night. 
 
 here used means “ to draw out,” as a sword 
 from its sheath : and the word trained is ap- 
 plied to the teaching of children (Prov. xxii. 6), 
 and to initiation or consecration, as of a house 
 (Deut. XX. 5), or a temple (i K. viii. 63). 
 
 born in his o^un house] Of his own patriarch- 
 al family, not bought, hired, or taken in war. 
 
 unto Dan] Some taking this Dan to be the 
 same as Laish, which was not called Dan till 
 after the country was conquered by the 
 Danites (Josh. xix. 47; Judg. xviii. 29), have 
 thought that this passage was not from the 
 hand of Moses. So Ewald (‘Gesch.’i. 53), who 
 supposes Dan to have ‘been substituted by a 
 later hand for Laish in the original MS. Others 
 have thought that another place was meant 
 here (so Deyling, Havernick, Kalisch, Keil). 
 Keil contends that the Dan, formerly called 
 Laish, which was on the central source of the 
 Jordan (see Joseph. ‘Ant.’ i. 10; Stanley, ‘S. 
 and P.’ p. 395), could not have been the Dan 
 here mentioned, as it did not lie in either of 
 the two roads leading from the vale of Siddim 
 to Damascus. Both he and Kalisch think 
 this Dan to be the same as Dan-jaan (2 S. 
 xxiv. 6), apparently belonging to Gilead, and 
 to be sought for in northern Peraea, to the 
 south-west of Damascus. The chief objec- 
 tion to this is, that Josephus (as above, ‘Ant.’ 
 1. 10) and Jerome (‘ Qu. Hebr. in Gen.’ ad h.l.) 
 distinctly speak of the Dan here mentioned, as 
 situated at the source of the Jordan. The con- 
 jecture of Le Clerc (Cleric, in loc.') is not 
 contemptible, viz. that the original name of 
 the fountain was “Dan,” i.e. “judge,” (cp. 
 Ain-mishpat, the fountain of justice), the 
 neighbouring town being called Laish; but 
 that the Danites gave the name of the well, 
 which corresponded with that of their own 
 tribe, to the city as well as the fountain. 
 
 15. he divided himself against them, he 
 
1 lO 
 
 GENESIS. XIV. 
 
 [v. lb — 1 8. 
 
 and smote them, and pursued them 
 unto Hobah, which is on the left hand 
 of Damascus. 
 
 1 6 And he brought back all the 
 goods, and also brought again his 
 brother Lot, and his goods, and the 
 women also, and the people. 
 
 17 H And the king of Sodom went 
 out to meet him after his return from 
 the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and 
 of the kings that were with him, at 
 
 the valley of Shaveh, which is the <,oSam.i8. 
 "king’s dale. 
 
 18 And ‘^Melchizedek king of Sa- i. ^ 
 
 and bis servants, by night] From v. 14 it ap- 
 pears that besides Abram’s own servants 
 there went out with him Aner, Eshcol and 
 Mamre, with their followers. These divided 
 their forces, surprised the invaders at differ- 
 ent points of attack during the darkness, and 
 so routed them. 
 
 Hobah, vohich is on the left hand of Damas^ 
 cus] i.e. to the north of Damascus, the north 
 being to the left of a man, who looks toward 
 the sunrising. A place called Ghoba is men- 
 tioned, Judith XV. 6; Eusebius (‘ Onom.’ v. 
 X(o( 3 d) says that in his day a village existed in 
 the neighbourhood of Damascus called by 
 this name, which was inhabited by Ebionites. 
 About two miles from Damascus is now a 
 village called Hobah, said to be the place 
 to which Abram pursued the kings (Stanley, 
 
 ‘ S. and P.’ p. 414 k). 
 
 17 . the 'Valley of Shaveh, vohich is the 
 kmg's dale] In 2 S. xviii. 18, we read that 
 Absalom in his lifetime “ took and reared up 
 for himself a 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 unto this day, 
 Absalom’s place.” Josephus (‘ Ant.’ vii. 10) 
 says, that the monument was two stadia from 
 Jerusalem. This would correspond well with 
 the valley of the Upper Kidron, where are the 
 tombs of the judges and other ancient sepul- 
 chres, a very likely place tor Absalom to have 
 erected what was evidently intended as a 
 sepulchral monument. The tomb now known 
 as Absalom’s is probably not his, as it appears 
 to be of later date, corresponding with the 
 rock-tombs of Petra belonging to a period 
 later than the Christian era (Robinson, ‘Phys. 
 Geog.’ p. 92). It is not, however, possible to 
 determine the situation of the valley of Shaveh, 
 and its identity with the later King’s Dale of 
 2 S. xviii. 18, without first fixing the site of 
 Salem, of which Melchizcdek was king. If 
 Salem be Jerusalem, then Shaveh may well 
 have been the valley of the Kidron, close to 
 Jerusalem: but if Salem were some more 
 northern city, we must leave the position of 
 Shaveh undetermined. See on v. 18. 
 
 18 . MelcBizedek] Various have been the 
 conjectures in all ages as to the person of Mel- 
 chi/edek. Some have supposed the name to 
 be a title, like Augustus or Pharaoh, rather 
 than a proper name, comparing Malek-ol- 
 
 Adel and Adel-Chan, i.e. “the just king,” a 
 title common to some Mahommedan kings, 
 as the princes of the Deccan and Golconda : 
 but the Hebrew form of the word seems to 
 point to a proper name rather than to a title. 
 Cp. Abi-melech, Gen. xx. 2, Adoni-zedek, 
 Josh. X. 3. The Targums of Jerusalem and 
 Pseudo- Jonathan say, that Melchizedek was 
 Shem, and St Jerome (‘Qu. ad Genes.’ in loc.) 
 tells us that the Jews of his day said he was 
 Shem the son of Noah, and calculating the 
 days of his life, shewed that he must have 
 lived to the time of Isaac. (See also Epist. 
 Lxxiii. ‘ad Evang.’ Opp. i. p. 438). This 
 opinion has been adopted by many moderns, 
 and is defended at length by Jackson ‘On the 
 Creed,’ Bk. ix. It probably arose from con- 
 siderations of the great dignity of the king 
 and priest, who blessed Abraham and took 
 tithes of him, and from the readiness of the 
 Jews to ascribe such dignity only to an an- 
 cestor of their own. The Jews very anciently 
 considered him at least to be a type of Mes- 
 siah (Schoettgen. ‘Hor. Hebr.’ T. ii. p. 645); 
 but they generally seem to have believed that 
 he was a prince of the country, as the Targum 
 of Onkelos and Josephus, which both describe 
 him simply as king of Jerusalem, in which 
 they are followed by most commentators of 
 modern times. It is a question of interest, 
 but impossible to solve, Was he of the Canaan- 
 itish race or Semitic? On ch. x. 6, some 
 explanation is given of the fact that the 
 Canaanites spoke a Semitic tongue. The 
 name and titles of Melchizedek are Semitic, 
 but this proves nothing. He dwelt among 
 Canaanites; but there had probably been 
 Semitic inhabitants of the land before the 
 immigration of the Canaanites (see on ch. xii. 
 6) ; and so Melchizedek, who was a worship- 
 per of the true God, may have been one of 
 the original Shemite stock. There were, how- 
 ever, worshippers of the true God, besides the 
 Israelites, retaining patriarchal truth, as Job, 
 and Balaam, and so it is not certain that Mel- 
 chizedek was a descendant of Shem. He 
 is, in fact, as the Apostle tells us, introduced 
 “without father, without mother, without 
 descent,” with no mention of the beginning 
 of his priesthood or the ending of it, and so 
 specially suited to be a type of the Son of 
 God. He is mentioned once besides in the 
 Old Testament, viz. in Ps. cx. 4, where the 
 priesthood of Messiah is said to be after the 
 
V. 19.1 
 
 GENESIS. XIV. 
 
 Ill 
 
 lem brought forth bread and wine: 19 And he blessed him, and said, 
 
 and he was the priest of the most Blessed be Abram of the most high 
 high God. God, possessor of heaven and earth : 
 
 order of Melchizedek; and again in the New 
 Testament, Heb. v. vi. vii., where the com- 
 parison between the royal priesthood of Mel- 
 chizedek and that of Jesus is drawn out at 
 length. The special points of resemblance of 
 Melchizedek to Christ are: i. that he was not 
 of the Levitical order, local, national, but pre- 
 vious to the giving of the Law, catholic, uni- 
 versal ; %, that he was superior to Abraham, 
 blessed and took tithes of him; 3. that (as 
 often in old times, Virg. ‘Ain.’ iii. 80; Arist. 
 ‘Pol.’ III. T 4 , &c.), he was both king and 
 priest; 4. that no beginning and no end are 
 assigned either to his priesthood or his life; 
 5. his name too “ king of righteousness and 
 king of peace,” are eminently suited to a type 
 of the Son of God (Heb. vii. a, 3). The 
 bringing forth bread and wine is not referred 
 to by the Apostle; but the ancient Church 
 loved to dwell on this as typical of the insti- 
 tution by the Saviour of the Qvcria dvalixaKTos, 
 the incruentum sacrijiclum^ as they were wont 
 to call the Holy Eucharist; and later ages 
 may have made more of it than Scripture will 
 warrant. (See Jackson, as above, Bk. ix. 
 sect. ii. ch. x.) 
 
 king of Sale7n'] Josephus (‘Ant.’ i. 10), 
 Onkelos and all the Targg. understand Jeru- 
 salem, which is called Salem in Ps. Ixxvi. 2, 
 and this is pretty certainly the true interpreta- 
 tion. Jerome however (‘Epist. lxxiii. ad 
 Evang.’Tom. i. p. 446, edit. Vallars.), says it 
 was not Jerusalem, but a city near Scy- 
 thopolis, called Salem up to his time, where 
 the ruins of Melchizedek’s palace were shewn, 
 and of which it is written (Gen. xxxiii. 18), 
 “Jacob came to Shalem.” Yet Shalem, in 
 Gen. xxxiii. is rendered by Onkelos and a 
 majority of modern commentators, not as a 
 proper name, but rather “ in peace” (see note 
 on ch. xxxiii. 19). Moreover, Jerome else- 
 where (‘ Qu. in Gen,,’) speaks of Melchizedek 
 as “king of Salem, which was the former 
 name of Jerusalem.” Probably Salem was the 
 oldest, Jebus the next, and Jerusalem the 
 more modern name of the same city, though 
 some think that the Salem here was the same 
 as Salim near Alnon, where John baptized 
 (Joh. iii. 23). If, as is most probable, Siddim, 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, lay to the south of the 
 Dead Sea, there is no reason why Salem should 
 not have been Jerusalem, or that the valley of 
 Shaveh, which is the “king’s dale,” should not 
 have been the valley of the Kidron. If the view 
 advocated by Mr Grove (‘ Diet, of Bible,’ 
 art. Sha^eh^ Siddim^ Sodom ^ Zoar)^ and de- 
 fended by Dean Stanley (‘ S. and P.’ pp. 249, 
 &c.), viz. that the valley of Siddim was north 
 of the Dead Sea, be correct, then no doubt, 
 Salem must have been a place far north of Je- 
 
 rusalem ; but the more ancient opinion, viz. 
 that the cities of the plain lay south of the 
 Dead Sea is ably defended by Kuinoel (‘ Ep. ad 
 Hebr.’ vii. i), Robinson (‘ B. R.’ ii. 188, 
 
 ‘ Phys. Geog.’2i3), Kurtz, Knobel, Delitzsch, 
 Kalisch, Keil, &c., and is most probably the 
 true. See also note on the Dead Sea at the 
 end of ch. xix. 
 
 the priest] This is the first time that the 
 yvord priest^ Cohen, Upevs, sacerdos, occurs in 
 the Bible, and it is in connection with the 
 worship of an ancient people, perhaps not 
 related by blood to the chosen race. The 
 etymological meaning of the word is unknown. 
 The word itself is applied afterwards both to 
 the Levitical priesthood and to the priesthood 
 of false religions. The patriarchs seem to have 
 had no other priesthood than that of the head 
 of the family (Gen. viii. 20, xii. 8, xxii., xxvi. 
 25, xxxiii. 20; Job i. 5); but here we find 
 Melchizedek designated as a priest and as per- 
 forming many priestly acts, solemnly blessing, 
 taking tithes, &c. There is no distinct men- 
 tion of sacrifice, which was afterwards the 
 most special function of the priesthood. As, 
 however, sacrifice was a rite of common use 
 among the patriarchs, and, later at least, among 
 all surrounding nations, there is no reasonable 
 doubt but that Melchizedek was a sacrificing 
 priest, and so more fitly a type of Christ, who 
 offered Himself a sacrifice without spot to 
 God (see Kuinoel on Heb. vii. i). Philo indeed 
 asserts that Melchizedek offered the first fruits 
 of the spoil in sacrifice, imviKta edve (‘ De 
 Abrah.’ p. 381), a thing by no means impro- 
 bable; and connected with such a sacrifice 
 may have been the bread and wine, corre- 
 sponding with the mola and libations of later 
 days. 
 
 the most high God] This is the first time 
 we meet with this title, Elion. It occurs 
 frequently afterwards, as Num.xxiv. 16 (where 
 it is used by Balaam, also an alien from the 
 family of Abraham), Deut. xxxii. 18, Ps. vii. 
 18, ix. 2, xviii. 13, xlvii. 2, Ixxviii. 35, &c., 
 where sometimes we have Elion alone, some- 
 times joined with El, sometimes with Jeho- 
 vah. It is observed that Sanchoniathon (ap. 
 Euseb. ‘Prsep. Evang.’ i. 10) mentions as 
 the name of the Phoenician Deity. So the 
 words alonim nvalonuth, which occur in the 
 well-known Punic passage in the Poenulus of 
 Plautus, are supposed to correspond with the 
 Hebrew Elionim ‘velionoth, “gods and god- 
 desses.” This may be true; the worship of 
 the Phoenicians, as of other heathen nations, 
 was, no doubt, a corruption of the ancient 
 patriarchal faith : but it is plain, that A- 
 bram here acknowledges Melchizedek as a 
 worshipper of the true God: and in v. 22, 
 
I 12 
 
 GENESIS. XIV. XV. 
 
 [v. 20 1. 
 
 f Heb. 
 4 - 
 
 f Heb. 
 
 SOTils. 
 
 20 And blessed be the most high 
 God, which hath delivered thine ene- 
 mies into thy hand. And he gave 
 him ‘^tithes of all. 
 
 21 And the king of Sodom said 
 unto Abram, Give me the ^persons, 
 and take the goods to thyself. 
 
 22 And Abram said to the king of 
 Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto 
 the Lord, the most high God, the 
 possessor of heaven and earth, 
 
 23 That I will not take from a 
 thread even to a shoelatchet, and 
 that I will not take anything that is 
 thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have 
 made Abram rich: 
 
 Abram uses the very titles of God, which 
 had been used by Melchizedek before, coup- 
 ling with them the most sacred name Jeho- 
 vah, the name of the Covenant God, under 
 which He was ever adored by the chosen seed 
 as specially their God. 
 
 19 . possessor of heaven and earth'] The 
 LXX. and Vulg, have “Maker of heaven 
 and earth.” This is probably the true mean- 
 ing, but the word may have either signifcance 
 (Ges. ‘Th,’ p. 1221. So Delitzsch and Keil). 
 
 20. he gave him tithes of all] The sen- 
 tence, as it stands, is ambiguous, but the 
 sense is obviously (as LXX., Joseph,, Jona- 
 than, and Heb. vii. 6) “ Abram gave Melchi- 
 zedek tithes of all,” /, e. the spoUa opima^ the 
 tenth part of the spoil which he had taken 
 from the enemy (Joseph. ‘ Ant.’ i. 10). 
 
 21. Give me the persons^ and take the goods 
 to thyself] i. e. restore those of my people, 
 whom you have rescued, but keep what- 
 ever other property of mine you may have 
 lighted on. 
 
 22 . I have lift up mine hand unto the 
 Lord] A common form of solemn attestation 
 in all nations, (See Dan, xii. 7, Virg, ‘ 7 En.’ 
 XII. 195.) On the identification of the name 
 El-elion with Jehovah, and on the use of 
 the latter name, see notes on vv. i, 18. 
 
 23 . That I (will not take] Lit. “If I 
 will take.” The particle if was constantly 
 used in swearing, there being an ellipsis of 
 some such expression as “ God do so to me 
 and more also if,” (i S. iii. 17). The particle 
 is literally rendered in Heb. iii. ii. There is 
 a marked difference between Abram’s con- 
 duct to Melchizedek, and his conduct to the 
 king of Sodom. From Melchizedek he re- 
 ceives refreshment and treats him with honour 
 and respect. Towards the king of. Sodom he 
 is distant and reserved. Probably the vicious 
 lives of the inaabitants of Sodom made him 
 
 24 Save only that which the young 
 men have eaten, and the portion of 
 the men which went with me, Aner, 
 Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take 
 their portion. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 I God encourageth Abra77i. 2 Abram com- 
 plameth for want of a7i heir. 4 God p7'o- 
 miseth him a so7t, a7id a 77iultiplymg of his 
 seed. 6 Ab 7 'a 77 i is jtestified by faith. 7 Ca- 
 7iaa7i is p7'077iised agam, and cofifirmed by a 
 sign, 12 and a vision. 
 
 A fter these things the word of 
 the Lord came unto Abram in 
 a vision, saying. Fear not, Abram: I 
 am thy shield, and thy exceeding 
 great reward. 
 
 careful not to lay himself under any obliga- 
 tion to their king, lest he should become too 
 much associated with him and them. 
 
 24 . the youjig men] Abram’s trained 
 servants, whom he had led to the fight (Cp. 
 2 S. ii. 14, I K. XX. 14). 
 
 Chap. XV. 1. After these things the nvord 
 of the Lord came unto Abram in a visioTi] 
 We have in this chapter a repetition of the 
 promises to Abram, given when he was first 
 called (ch. xii. i), and when he first entered 
 into the land of Canaan (ch. xii. 7), with the 
 farther assurance that his own son should be 
 his heir. This is the first time that the ex- 
 pression so frequent afterwards “ the word of 
 the Lord” occurs in the Bible. It has been 
 questioned whether the “ vision” was a dream 
 or waking vision. The same word is used of 
 Balaam, “which saw the vision of the Al- 
 mighty, falling, but having his eyes open” 
 (Num. xxiv. 4, 16). The way in which Abram 
 was led out and saw the stars, and the subse- 
 quent reality of the sacrifice, look like a waking 
 vision, and it is not till v. 12, that he falls into 
 a deep sleep. 
 
 Fear not] Abram had now become a 
 great man, with wealth and a comparatively 
 settled home : but he was in a land of stran- 
 gers, and many of them of godless life. He 
 had been engaged in a war, and his very 
 victory might bring reprisals. In his old age 
 he had no children to support and defend 
 him. Accordingly he now is assured of God's 
 farther protection, and secured against those 
 feelings of despondency natural to one who 
 was lonely, childless, and in danger. It is 
 observed that the words “ fear not” have in- 
 troduced many announcements of Messiah, as 
 Joh. xii. 15; Luke i. 13, 30, ii. 10 (Words- 
 worth). 
 
 thy exceeding great revoard] The word 
 great is here an infinitive absolute used ad- 
 
V. 2 — 6.] 
 
 GENESIS. XV. 
 
 113 
 
 'i And Abram said, Lord God, 
 what wilt chou give me, seeing I go 
 childless, and the steward of my house 
 is this Eliezer of Damascus? 
 
 3 And Abram said. Behold, to me 
 thou hast given no seed ; and, lo, one 
 born in my house is mine heir. 
 
 4 And, behold, the word of the 
 Lord came unto him, saying. This 
 shall not be thine heir; but he that 
 
 shall come forth out of thine own 
 bowels shall be thine heir. 
 
 5 And he brought him forth a- 
 broad, and said. Look now toward 
 heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be 
 able to number them: and he said 
 
 unto him, '^So shall thy seed be. * Rom. 4. 
 
 6 And he ^believed in the Lord;'^^^^^^ 
 and he counted it to him for right- y. , 
 
 ^ Gal. 3. 6. 
 
 eousness. jam 2. 23. 
 
 verbially, so that the more exact rendering 
 may be, “Thy reward exceeding abundantly.” 
 The LXX. render “Thy reward shall be 
 exceeding great,” which is approved by 
 Rcrdiger (in Ges, ‘Thes.’ p. 1257), Rosenm., 
 Delitzsch. 
 
 2. Lord God] Adonai Jeiiovah. This 
 is the first use of these two words together. 
 When separate, both are rendered by versions, 
 ancient and modern, by the same word Lord. 
 Except in v. 8, the same combination occurs 
 again in the Pentateuch, only in Dent. iii. 24, 
 ix. 26. In all these passages it is in the voca- 
 tive case, and Jehovah alone does not occur 
 in Genesis as a vocative (Quarry, ‘Genesis,’ 
 P. 234). 
 
 seeing I go childless] Abram, though blessed 
 personally, feels that the promises of God seem 
 to extend into the future, and does not un- 
 derstand that they can be fulfilled in him 
 alone. 
 
 the stenuard of my house is this Eliezer of 
 Damascus] The literal rendering is The son 
 of the business” (or perhaps “of the posses- 
 sion”) “of my house, he is Damascus Eliezer.” 
 It is most probable that “ Damascus” is put 
 for “ a man of Damascus,” as the Authorized 
 Version. The words rendered “steward of 
 my house” are very obscure, so that some 
 ancient versions leave them untranslated. The 
 older critics generally render “son of the 
 business,” i.e. “steward;” the majority of 
 modern commentators, after the Syriac, pre- 
 ferring “ son of possession,” i.e. “heir.” The 
 passage, therefore, must be read either “the 
 steward,” or “ the heir of my house is Eliezer 
 of Damascus.” The tradition of Abram’s 
 connection with Damascus has already been 
 referred to (see Nicol. Damasc. Ap. Joseph. 
 ‘Ant.’ 1. 7; Justin, xxxvi. 2). If Abram 
 came into Palestine by the way of Damascus, 
 it is not unlikely that he should have taken 
 his principal retainer from that place. 
 
 3 . one born in my house] Lit. “son of 
 my house.” The expression is like, but not 
 necessarily equivalent to that in ch. xvii. 12,27 
 
 he that is born in the house.^ as op- 
 posed to bought ^ith money of any stran- 
 
 VOL. 1 . 
 
 ger. It is quite possible that the title “son 
 of my house,’’ was applied to inmates of the 
 house, especially those in honourable office in 
 the household, whether born in the family, or 
 afterwards adopted into it. The relation of 
 the head of a family to his retainers was, in 
 the case of Abram at least, truly paternal. 
 It evidently more lesembled the connection 
 between a feudal chief and his vassals than 
 that between a master and his slaves. That 
 some of them were “ bought with money,” 
 appears indeed from the passages above re- 
 ferred to; but they were evidently not in the 
 abject condition which attached to slavery in 
 later days, and the principal among them was 
 marked out in default of his own offspring as 
 heir to his master, though Abram had near 
 relations, and some of them at no greater 
 distance from him than Lot and his family, 
 then living in the plains of Jordan. 
 
 5 . tell the stars] In the promise to Noah 
 the rainbow had been the sign given from 
 on high, a sacramental promise of mercy 
 to mankind. Now to Abram the still brighter 
 and more enduring token is the starry firma- 
 ment. His seed should abide as “ the faithful 
 witness in heaven.” There is the pledge of a 
 brilliant future for his house, even as regards 
 material prosperity ; the pledge of still greater 
 blessings to that spiritual family, which by 
 baptism into Christ became “ Abraham’s seed, 
 and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. iii. 
 27, 29). 
 
 6. And he belieuied in the Lord; and he 
 counted it to him for righteousness] The root 
 of the word rendered belieneed has the sense of 
 supporting, sustaining, strengthening. Hence 
 in the Hiphil conjugation (as here), it signi- 
 fies to hold as firm, to rest upon as firm, hence 
 to believe and rely upon as true and stable 
 (Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 1 14). The promise here made 
 by the Lord to Abram was given to him 
 before circumcision, whilst there was yet not 
 even the germ of Levitical Law. It contained 
 in it the promise of Christ. It elicited from 
 Abram the great evangelical principle of faith. 
 God promised that which was opposed to all 
 appearance and likelihood. Abram relied on 
 that promise. He surrendered his own wisdom 
 
 H 
 
 % 
 
GENESIS. XV. 
 
 [v. 7 — II. 
 
 II4 
 
 7 And he said unto him, I am the 
 Lord that brought thee out of Ur of 
 the Chaldees, to give thee this land 
 to inherit it. 
 
 8 And he said. Lord God, where- 
 by shall I know that I shall inherit it ? 
 
 9 And he said unto him. Take me 
 an heifer of three years old, and a she 
 goat of three years old, and a ram of 
 
 three years old, and a turtledove, and 
 a young pigeon. 
 
 10 And he took unto him all these, 
 and divided them in the midst, and 
 laid each piece one against another: 
 but the birds divided he not. 
 
 1 1 And when the fowls came down 
 upon the carcases, Abram drove them 
 away. 
 
 
 to the wisdom of God, and so gave up his 
 own will to the will of God. So he became 
 the heir of the promises; and the internal 
 principle of faith became to him the true 
 principle of righteousness. It was the only 
 righteousness possible for the feeble and the 
 sinful ; for it was a reposing on the power 
 and the love of the Almighty and the Holy 
 One. It was therefore reckoned to him as 
 what may be called a passive righteousness, 
 and at the same time it was productive in him 
 of an active righteousness: for the soul which 
 relies on the truth, power, and goodness of 
 another, in the strength of that truth, power, 
 and goodness, can itself be active in them all: 
 taking advantage of the power and goodness 
 relied upon, it becomes itself powerful and 
 good and true. The Apostles naturally dwell 
 upon this first recorded instance of faith, faith 
 in God, implied faith in Christ, and consecjuent 
 accounting of righteousness, recorded before 
 all legal enactments, as illustrative of the great 
 evangelical grace of faith, its power as resting 
 on One who is all powerful, and its sancti- 
 fying energy, as containing in itself the prin- 
 ciple of holiness and the germ of every right- 
 eous act. (Rom. iv. v. ; Gal. iii. ; Heb. xi. ; 
 Jas. ii., &c. See.) 
 
 7 . I am the Lord that brought thee out 
 of Ur of the Chaldees'] In ch. xi. 31, Terah is 
 represented as having left Ur of the Chaldees 
 and settled in Haran with Abram, Sarai and 
 Lot; whilst in ch, xii. i, Abram is represented 
 as having been called by the Lord to go out of 
 Haran, cp, v. 4. These different statements 
 are thought to be inconsistent with each other 
 and referable to three different hands. W'he- 
 ther there was a distinct command to Abram 
 to leave Ur docs not appear. The Lord by 
 His Providence may have led him and his 
 father out of Ur to Hai-an, with the design of 
 leading him further onward, and afterwards 
 by special revelation have called him to leave 
 liaran and to go to Canaan (see 'Quarry, 
 P. 430). 
 
 8. (whereby soall I kno(w] Abram be- 
 lieved God; but there may have been some 
 misgiving as to the reality of what he saw and 
 heard; like St Peter, who “wist not that it 
 was true which was done by the angel, but 
 
 thought he saw a vision” (Acts xii. 9): and 
 even where there is much faith, a man may 
 distrust himself, may feel that though now 
 the belief is strong, yet ere long the first im- 
 pression and so the firm conviction may fade 
 away. Thus Gideon (Jud, vi. 17), Hezekiah 
 (2 K. XX. 8), the Blessed Virgin (Luk. i. 34) 
 asked a sign in confirmation of their faith, 
 and, as here to Abram, it was graciously 
 given them. 
 
 9 . Take me an heifer of three years old] 
 The age chosen was probably because then 
 the animals were in full age and vigour 
 (Chrysost. ‘in Gen. Horn. xxvi.’). The 
 animals were those which specially formed 
 the staple of Abram’s wealth: they were also 
 those, which in after times were specially 
 ordained for sacrificial offerings. It has been 
 said, that the transaction was not a real 
 sacrifice, as there was no sprinkling of blood, 
 nor offering on an altar: but the essence of 
 the true Hebrew sacrifice was in the slaying 
 of the victim, for the very word riDT {Ze- 
 bach., sacrifice) signifies slaying: and it was 
 rather with the shedding of blood than with 
 its sprinkling that atonement was made (Heb. 
 ix. 22). I'he covenant was made according 
 to the custom of ancient nations. The sacri- 
 ficed victims were cut into two pieces, and 
 the covenanting parties passed between them 
 (see Jerem. xxxiv. 18, 19). The very word 
 covenant in Hebrew, Berith.^ is supposed by 
 Gesenius to be from a root signifying to cut 
 (‘ Thes.’ p. 238); and the common formula 
 for “to make a covenant” \s carath berith., 
 “ to cut a covenant” (so v. 18), comp, the 
 Greek opKia T(fxv(Lv (Horn. ‘ II.’ v. 124) and 
 the L:it.fedus ferire (see Bochart, ‘ Hieroz.’ I. 
 332). The division into two is supposed to 
 represent the two parties to the covenant; 
 and their passing between the divided pieces 
 to signify their union into one. In this case 
 Abram was there in pei'son to pass between 
 the pieces, and the manifested presence of God 
 passed between them under the semblance of 
 fire (v. 17). 
 
 10. the birds divided he not] So under 
 the Law the doves offered as burnt offerings 
 were not cleft in two (Lev. i. 17). 
 
 11. the fowls] The birds of prey.' The 
 
V. 12 iS.] 
 
 GENESIS. XV. 
 
 12 And when the sun was going 
 down, a deep sleep fell upon Ahram ; 
 and, lo, an horror of great darkness 
 fell upon him. 
 
 13 And he said unto Abram, Know 
 Acts;. 6. of a surety ^that thy seed shall be a 
 
 stranger in a land that is not theirs, 
 and shall serve them; and they shall 
 afflict them four hundred years ; 
 
 14 And also that nation, whom 
 they shall serve, will I judge: and 
 afterward shall they come out with 
 great substance. 
 
 15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers 
 
 in peace ; thou shalt be buried in a 
 good old age. 
 
 16 But in the fourth generation 
 they shall come hither again : for the 
 iniquity of the Amorites is not yet 
 full. 
 
 17 And it came to pass, that, when 
 
 the sun went down, and it was dark, 
 behold a smoking furnace, and ^ a burn- t Heb. 
 ing lamp that passed between those 
 pieces, ^chap. 12 
 
 18 In the same day the Lord g 
 made a covenant with Abram, say- & =6. 4. 
 ing, ^Unto thy seed have I given this 4.^"^ ’ 
 
 word used (ait) means any rapacious animal, 
 especially vultures or other birds of prey. It 
 is probably of the same root as the Greek 
 deros, eagle. 
 
 Abram drove them a^uaf\ It is generally 
 thought, that the vultures seeking to devour 
 the sacrifice before the covenant was ratified 
 typified the enemies of Israel, especiall 5 " the 
 Egyptians; and in a spiritual sense they repre- 
 sent the spiritual enemies, which seek to 
 destroy the soul, keeping it from union with 
 God through the accepted sacrifice of His 
 Son (see Knobel in loc.). 
 
 12. vohen tJoe sun voas going donvn\ The 
 evening came on before all the prepara- 
 tions were made, a solemn time for conclud- 
 ing the covenant between God and the seed, 
 of Abram; but it may have been said that it 
 was evening, not night, in order to shew that 
 the great darkness was preternatural (V. Ger- 
 lach). 
 
 a deep sleep\ The same word as that used 
 Gen. ii. 21, when Eve was taken from Adam’s 
 side. The constant translation, eKo-raais (ec- 
 stasy), by the LXX. shews the belief that the 
 sleep was sent by God for purposes of Divine 
 revelation. 
 
 an horror of great darkness'\ Lit. a horror, 
 a great darkness. The prophets were fre- 
 quently appalled when admitted to the special 
 presence of God: but here perhaps the horror 
 was connected also with the announcement 
 about to be made to Abram of the sufferings 
 of his posterity. 
 
 13 , four hundred years']^ In Ex. xii. 40 it 
 is called 430. Possibly here the reckoning is 
 in round numbers ; also the Hebrews were not 
 ill-treated during the whole 430 years. 
 
 15 . And thou shalt go to thy fathers in 
 peace'] A similar expression occurs ch. xxv. 
 8, XXXV, 29, xlix. 33. It is interpreted to 
 
 mean either going to the grave, in which his 
 father or his people had been buried, or, (as 
 by Knobel and others) going to that place, 
 where the souls of his ancestors are in the 
 state of separate spirits. That it cannot mean 
 the former here seems to follow from the fact, 
 that Abram was not to be buried in his 
 father’s burying-place, but in a grave which 
 he himself purchased in the land of his adop- 
 tion. 
 
 16 . in the fourth generation] On the 
 chronology from the Descent into Egypt 
 to the Exodus, see note on Exod. 
 
 the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full] 
 The Amorites, the most powerful people in 
 Canaan, are here put for the Canaanites in 
 general. Their state of moral corruption is 
 abundantly manifest in the early chapters of 
 Genesis ; and in the Divine foreknowledge 
 it was seen that they would add sin to sin, 
 and so at length be destroyed by the Divine 
 vengeance. Still the long-suffering of God 
 waited for them, giving time for repentance, 
 if they would be converted and live. 
 
 17 . nvhen the sun went down^ and it was 
 dark] Or, “when the sun had gone down, 
 that there was a thick darkness.” So the Vul- 
 gate. 
 
 a smoking furnace^ and a lamp of fire] This 
 was the token of the presence of God, as 
 when He appeared to Moses in the burning 
 bush, and .to the Israelites in a pillar of fire, 
 The word lamp may very probably here 
 signify a flame or tongue of fire. The 
 Hebrew word which is cognate with lamp^ 
 and the other Aryan words of like sound 
 (Xa/iTTO), Xa/x 7 rny, &c.) has probably its radical 
 significance a lambendo^ a lambent flame. 
 Compare labium^ lip^ &c. (see Ges. ‘ Th.’ 
 P- 739) 
 
 18 . made a covenant] Lit. “cut a cove- 
 nant.” See above on v 9. 
 
 H 2 
 
ii6 
 
 GENESIS. XV. XVI. [v. 19-2. 
 
 land, from the river of Egypt unto the 
 great river, the river Euphrates: 
 
 19 The Kenites, and the Keniz- 
 zites, and the Kadmonites, 
 
 20 And the Hittites, and the Pe- 
 rizzites, and the Rephaims, 
 
 21 And the Amorites, and the Ca- 
 naanites, and the Girgashites, and the 
 Jebusites. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 I Sarai, being barren, gheth Hagar to Abram. 
 4 Ilagar, being afflicted for despising her fnis~ 
 tress, rnnnetJi a'lnay. ’] An angel sendetli her 
 
 back to submit herself, t i aitd telleth her of 
 her child. 15 Ishmael is born. 
 
 N OW Sarai Abram’s wife bare 
 him no children : and she had 
 an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose 
 name was Hagar. 
 
 2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Be- 
 hold now, the Lord hath restrained 
 me from bearing: I pray thee, go in 
 unto my maid; it may be that I 
 may Tbtain children by her. And^^eb. 
 Abram hearkened to the voice oibyher.^ 
 Sarai. 
 
 the rinjer of Egypt] Many understand not 
 the Nile but XhQ Wady-El- Arisch\\\nc\\, how- 
 ever, is called “ the brook or stream of 
 Egypt” as in Is. xxvii. 12, not “the river of 
 Egypt.” The boundaries of the future pos- 
 session are not described with minute accu- 
 racy, but they are marked as reaching from 
 the valley of the Euphrates to the valley of 
 the Nile. And in 2 Ghron. ix. 26, it is dis- 
 tinctly stated that “all the Kings from the river 
 (i.e. Euphrates) even unto the land of the 
 Philistines and to the border of Egypt” were 
 tributary to Solomon. Cp. 2 S. viii. 3. 
 
 19 . The Kenites] An ancient people in- 
 habiting rocky and mountainous regions to 
 the south of Canaan, near the Amalekites 
 (Num. xxiv. 21 seq. ; i S. xv. 6, xxvii. 10, 
 XXX. 29), a portion of which afterwards mi- 
 grated to Canaan (Judg. i. 16, iv. ii, 17). 
 
 the Kenizzites] Mentioned only here. Bo- 
 chart (‘ Phaleg,’ IV. 36) conjectures that they 
 had become extinct in the period between 
 Abraham and Moses. 
 
 the Kadmonites] i.e. “the Eastern people.” 
 I'hey are not elsewhere named. Hochart 
 thought they might be the Hivites, elsewhere 
 enumerated among the Canaanites, and sjxiken 
 of as inhabiting the neighbourhood of Mount 
 Hermon (Josh. xiii. 3; Judg. iii. 3), which 
 was to the east of Canaan. 
 
 20 . the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and 
 the Rephaims] See on ch. x. 15, xiii. 7, xiv. 5. 
 
 21 . the Amorites, the Girgashites, and , 
 the febusites.] See on ch. x. 15, 16. 
 
 the Canaanites] here distinguished from 
 the kiinlred tribes, are described as inhabiting 
 the low country “from Sodom to Gerar, unto 
 Gaza ; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Go- 
 morrha, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto 
 Lasha” (Gen. x. 19). 
 
 CiiAi’. XVI. 1 . No^ju Sarai, &c.] The re- 
 capitulatory character of this verse is con- 
 sistent with the general style of the book of 
 
 Genesis, and the connection of the first four 
 verses perfectly natural. The promise of off- 
 spring had been made to Abram, and he be- 
 lieved the promise. It had not, however, 
 been distinctly assured to him that Sarai 
 should be the mother of the promised seed. 
 The expedient devised by Sarai was according 
 to a custom still prevalent in the east. Laws 
 concerning marriage had not been so expressly 
 givemto the patriarchs as they afterwards were. 
 Yet the compliance of Abram with Sarai's 
 suggestion may be considered as a proof of the 
 imperfection of his faith; and it is justly 
 observed, that this departure fi'om the pri- 
 meval principle of monogamy by Abraham 
 has been an example followed by his descend- 
 ents in the line of Ishmael, ^nd has proved, 
 morally and physically, a curse to their race. 
 
 an handmaid, an Egyptian, ^hose name 'was 
 Hagar] Hagar, no doubt, followed Sarai from 
 Egypt after the sojourn there recorded in ch. 
 xii., when it is said that Abraham obtained 
 great possessions, among other things, in “men- 
 servants and maidservants,” v. 16. It is gen- 
 erally thought that the name Hagar signifies 
 flight, a name which may have been given her 
 after her flight from her mistress, recorded 
 in this chapter, in which case the name is here 
 given her proleptically, a thing not uncommon 
 in Scripture history. Others suppose that she 
 derived her name from having fled with 
 her mistress out of Egypt. As she was an 
 Egyptian, it is not likely that the Hebrew or 
 Arabic name of Hagar should have been given 
 her by her own parents. 
 
 2 . it may be that I may obtain children by her] 
 Lit. “ 1 may be built up by her.” The words 
 “'house” and “family” are in most languages 
 used figuratively the one of the other. The 
 house, considered as representing the family, 
 is built up by the addition of children to it, 
 and so the very word for son, in Hebrew, Ben, 
 is most probably connected with the root 
 banah, “to build” (see Ges. ‘Th.’ p. 215). 
 Comp. ch. XXX. 3, where also it appears that 
 the w'ife, when she gave her handmaid to her 
 
V. 3— 1 2-] 
 
 GENESIS. XVI. 
 
 ir; 
 
 3 And Sarai Abram’s wife took 
 Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after 
 Ahram had dwelt ten years in the 
 land of Canaan, and gave her to her 
 husband Abram to be his wife. 
 
 4 ^ And he went in unto Hagar, 
 and she conceived : and when she saw 
 that she had conceived, her mistress 
 was despised in her eyes. 
 
 5 And Sarai said unto Ahram, My 
 wrong be upon thee: I have given 
 my maid into thy bosom ; and when 
 she saw that she had conceived, I was 
 despised in her eyes: the Lord judge 
 between me and thee. 
 
 6 But Abram said unto Sarai, Be- 
 hold, thy maid is in thy hand ; do to 
 
 i/S/ her ^as it pleaseth thee. And when 
 is pod in hardlv with her, she fled 
 
 ^ V Eom her face. 
 
 7 11 And the angel of the Lord 
 
 found her by a fountain of water in 
 the wilderness, by the fountain in the 
 way to Shur. 
 
 8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai ’s maid, 
 whence earnest thou ? and whither 
 wilt thou go ? And she said, I flee 
 from the face of my mistress Sarai. 
 
 9 And the angel of the Lord said 
 unto her. Return to thy mistress, and 
 submit thyself under her hands. 
 
 10 And the angel of the Lord said 
 unto her, I will multiply thy seed 
 exceedingly, that it shall not be num- 
 bered for multitude. 
 
 1 1 And the angel of the Lord said 
 unto her, Behold, thou art with child, 
 and shalt bear a son, and shalt call 
 
 his name Hshmael; because the Lord « That is, 
 hath heard thy affliction. 
 
 12 And he will be a wild man; his 
 hand will be against every man, and 
 
 husband, esteemed the handmaid’s children as 
 her own. 
 
 3. after Abram had dwelt ten years in 
 the land of Canaan^ Abram was now 85 and 
 Sarai 75 years old (cp, xii. 4, xvi. 16, xvii. 17). 
 These words are doubtless intended to account 
 for the impatience produced in them by the 
 delay of the Divine promise, 
 
 4. her mistress was despised in her eyes'\ 
 Among the Hebrews barrenness was esteemed 
 a reproach (see ch. xix. 31, xxx. i, 23; Lev. 
 XX. 20, &c.): and fecundity a special honour 
 and blessing of God (ch. xxi. 6, xxiv. 60; Ex. 
 xxiii, 26; Deut, vii, 14) : and such is still the 
 feeling in the east. But, moreover, very pro- 
 bably Hagar may have thought that now 
 Abram would love and honour her more 
 than her mistress (cp. ch. xxix. 33). 
 
 5 . My wrong be upon thee~\ i.e. “ my 
 wrong, the injury done to me is due to thee, 
 must be imputed to thee, thou art to be 
 blamed for it, inasmuch as thou sulferest it 
 and dost not punish .the aggressor.” So in 
 effect all the versions, LXX., Vulg., Targg,, 
 See. 
 
 7 . the angel of the Lord] In v. 13 dis- 
 tinctly called the Lord. See on ch. xii. 7.. 
 
 Shur] according to Joseph. (‘Ant.’ Vi. 7) is 
 Pelusium, near the mouth of the Nile, which, 
 however, seems more probably to be the equi- 
 valent for Sin (see Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 947). On- 
 kelos renders here “Hagra.” The desert of 
 Shur is generally thought to be the north 
 eastern part of the wilderness of Paran, called 
 at present Al-jifaf'. Hagar, no doubt, in her 
 
 flight from Sarai, took the route most likely 
 to lead her back to her native land of Egypt ; 
 and Gesenius supposes that Shur very proba- 
 bly corresponded with the modern Suez. 
 
 8. Hagar ^ Sarai' s maid] The words of 
 the angel recal to H agar's mind that she was 
 the servant of Sarai, and therefore owed her 
 obedience. 
 
 11, Ishmael; because the Lord hath heareT] 
 i.e. “God heareth, because Jehovah hath 
 heard.” The name of God, by which all 
 nations might acknowledge Him, is expressed 
 in the name Ishmael, but the name Jehovah, 
 the covenant God of Abraham, is specially 
 mentioned, that she may understand the pro- 
 mise to come to her from Him, who had 
 already assured Abraham of the blessing to 
 be poured upon his race, 
 
 12, a wild man] Lit. “ a wild ass of, 
 or among men;” i.e. wild and fierce as a wild 
 ass of the desert. A rendering has been sug- 
 gested, “a wild ass, a man, whose hand is 
 against every man.” The suggestion is very 
 ingenious; but for such a rendering we should 
 have expected to find the word Ish {wr) not, 
 as it is in the original, Adam {homo). The 
 word pere, wild ass, is probably from the 
 root para, signifying “to run swiftly.” This 
 animal is frequently mentioned in Scripture, 
 and often as a type of lawless, restless, un- 
 bridled dispositions in human beings (see Job 
 xi. 12, xxiv. 5; Ps. civ. ii; Is. xxxii. 14; 
 Jer. ii. 24; Dan. v. 21; Hos. viii. 9). In 
 Job xxxix. 5, another Hebrew word is used, 
 but most commentators consider that the same 
 animal is meant. The description of their 
 
[v. 13— I. 
 
 118 GENESIS. XVI. XVII. 
 
 <3: chap. 25. every man’s hand against him; ^and 
 he shall dwell in the presence of all 
 his brethren. 
 
 13 And she called the name of the 
 Lord that spake unto her, Thou 
 God seest me ; for she said, Have 
 I also here looked after him that 
 seeth me ? 
 
 14. Wherefore the well was called 
 gghap- 24. ^li Beer-lahai-roi ; behold, it is between 
 "^rhatis Kadesh and Bered. 
 
 ^hbn that 15 ^ And Hagar bare AbrarPi a son : 
 ^seethml^ and Abram called his son’s name, 
 which Hagar, bare, Ishmael. 
 
 16 And Abram was fourscore and 
 six years old, when Hagar bare Ish- 
 mael to Abram. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 1 God reneiueth the cove^iant. 5 Abram his 
 name is changed in token of a greater bless- 
 ing. 1 o Circnmcisio 7 t is instituted. 1 5 Sarai 
 her name is changed, and she blessed. 17 
 Isaac is proffiised. 23 AbrahaiJi and Ishmael 
 are circumcised. 
 
 AND when Abram was ninety 
 ±\.. years old and nine, the Lord 
 appeared to Abram, and said unto chap. 5. 
 him, I am the Almighty God; ^walk 11 Or. 
 before me, and be thou "perfect. 
 
 great speed in Xen. ‘ Anab.’ Lib. 1. is well 
 known. Geseniiis refers to a picture of the 
 wild ass of Persia in Ker Porter’s ‘Travels 
 in Georgia and Persia,’ Vol. 1. p. 459, and 
 says, that a living specimen which he saw 
 in the London Zoological Gardens in 1835 
 exactly corresponded with this picture (‘Thes.’ 
 P. 1123). 
 
 his hni'.d r^tll be against e^very man, &c.] 
 or “ upon every man,” a. common phrase for 
 violence and injury (cp. Gen. xxxvii. 27; Exod. 
 ix. 3 ; Dent. ii. 16; Josh. ii. 19; i S. xviii. 17,21, 
 xxiv. 13, 14). The violent character and law- 
 less life of the Bedouin descendants of Ishmael 
 from the first till this day is exactly described 
 in these words. 
 
 in the presence of all his brethren'] Lit. “in 
 front” or “before the face of all his brethren.” 
 This may point to that constant attitude of 
 the Bedouin Arabs, living every where in 
 close proximity to their kindred races, hover- 
 ing round them, but never mingling with 
 them: or, we may render “ to the east of all 
 his bretIiren,”atranslation adopted by Rosenm., 
 Gesen., Tuch, Knobel, Delitzsch, &c. The 
 Arabs are called in Job i. 3, “the children of 
 the east,” and in some passages of Scripture 
 the phrase “in the presence of,” is explained 
 to mean “ eastward of ” (see Numb. xxi. ii; 
 Josh. XV. 8 ; Zech. xiv. 4); the rationale of 
 this being, that when a man looked toward 
 the sunrise, the cast was before him. 
 
 13 , Thou God seest me: for she said, Hat'e 
 I also here looked after him that seeth meT] 
 Thou art a God of seeing, for have 
 I also seen here after seeing? The 
 Autliori/.cd VTrsion has nearly followeil the 
 rendering of the LXX. and Vbilg., which is 
 inadmissible. 'Lhe meaning of the words is pro- 
 bably, “Thou art a God that seest all things,” 
 (or perhaps “that revealest Thyself in vi- 
 sions”); “and am I yet living and seeing, after 
 seeing God?” (cp. JiuLp xiii. 21). So ap- 
 parently Onkelos; and this rendering is adopt- 
 ed by Rosenm., Gesen., Tuch, Kalisch, De- 
 
 litzsch, and most modems. The name of God 
 throughout this chapter is Jehovah, except 
 when Hagar the Egyptian speaks; yet the God 
 of vision who reveals Himself to her is carefully 
 identified with the Jehovah of Abraham. 
 
 14 . Beer-lahai-roi] “ The well of life 
 of vision,” i.e. where life remained after vision 
 of God. (See Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 175.) This 
 seems to be the meaning of the name accord- 
 ing to the etymology derived from the last 
 verse, though others render it “the well of 
 the living One (i.e. the living God) of vision.” 
 
 between Kadesh and Bered] On the site of 
 Kadesh and its uncertainty see on ch. xiv. 7. 
 The uncertainty of the site of Bered is still 
 greater, and therefore the difficulty of arriving 
 at the exact position of Beer-lahai-roi is al- 
 most insuperable. Mr Rowlands (in Williams’ 
 ‘Holy City,’ i. 465) thinks that he has dis- 
 covered its site at a place called Moilahhi, 
 about 10 hours south of Ruheibeh, in the 
 road from Beersheba to Shur, or Jebel-es-sur, 
 a mountain range running north and south in 
 the longitude of Suez. 
 
 Chap. XVII. 1. And <ivhen Abram ^as 
 ninety years old and nine] i.e. j ust thirteen years 
 after the events related in the last chapter, 
 compare v. 25, where Ishmael is said to be 
 now thirteen years old. 
 
 the Almighty God] El-Shaddai. The word 
 Shaddai, translated by most versions “ mighty,” 
 or “Almighty,’’ is generally thought (by Gesen., 
 Rosenm., Lee, See. See.) to be a plural of ex- 
 cellence (in this respect like Elohim), derived 
 from the root Shadad, the primary meaning 
 of which appears to have been “to be strong,” 
 “to act strongly,” though more commonly 
 used in the sense of “to destroy, to devastate.” 
 The later Greek versions Aq., Sym., Theod., 
 render t/cui/o?, “sufficient,” “all-sufficient.” 
 So Theodoret, Hesych., Saad. Accordingly, 
 Rashi and some of the Jewish writers con- 
 sider it to be compounded of two words, sig- 
 nifying “ who is sufficient?” •the improbability 
 
GENESIS. XVIL 
 
 V. 2—12.] 
 
 2 And I will make my covenant 
 between me and thee, and will mul- 
 tiply thee exceedingly. 
 
 3 And Abram fell on his face : and 
 God talked with him, saying, 
 
 4 As for me, behold, my covenant 
 is with thee, and thou shalt be a 
 
 Mieb. father of 'many nations. 
 
 7 „:iitiiude £. Neither shall thy name any more 
 
 of nati 07 is, J J ^ \ 
 
 be called Abram^ but thy name shall 
 
 ^Rom. 4. be Abraham; ^for a father of many 
 
 ‘ 7 - nations have' I made thee. 
 
 6 And I will make thee exceeding 
 fruitful, and I will make nations of 
 thee, and kings shall come out of thee. 
 
 7 And I will establish my cove- 
 nant between me and thee and thy 
 seed after thee in their generations 
 for an everlasting covenant, to be a 
 God unto thee, and to thy seed after 
 thee. 
 
 8 And I will give unto thee, and to 
 
 II9 
 
 thy seed after thee, the land ^wherein tHeb. 
 thou art a stranger, all the land 
 Canaan, for an everlasting possession ; 
 and I will be their God. 
 
 9 ^ And God said unto Abraham, 
 
 Thou shalt keep my covenant there- 
 fore, thou, and thy seed after thee in 
 their generations, 
 
 10 This is my covenant, which ye 
 shall keep, between me and you and 
 
 thy seed after thee; Every man child ‘'Acts 7- 8. 
 among you shall be circumcised. 
 
 1 1 And ye shall circumcise the flesh 
 of your foreskin ; and it shall be a 
 ‘^token of the covenant betwixt me Acts 7.8. 
 
 1 Rom. 4. II. 
 
 and you. 
 
 12 And he that is 'eight days 
 
 ^shall be circumcised amono; you, every eight days. 
 
 u-ij • I ..u i-ev- 12- 
 
 man child in your generations, he that 3. 
 
 is born in the house, or bought with 
 money of any stranger, which is not 
 of thy seed. 
 
 of which derivation is very great. The title, 
 or character, El-Shaddai. is said, Exod. vi. 2, 3, 
 to have been that by which God was revealed 
 to the patriarclis, not tiien, at least in its full 
 meaning, by the name Jehovah; and it is 
 noted as occurring in those passages which 
 the German critics call Elohistic. In this 
 very verse, however, we read it in immediate 
 juxtaposition with the name Jehovah, and 
 in Ruth i. 20, 21, we find the identification of 
 Jehovah with Shaddai. Probably, like Elo- 
 him, and Adonai, we may consider El-Shad- 
 dai (a title known to Balaam, Num. xxiv. 4, 
 16, and constantly used in Job), to have been 
 one of the more general world-wide titles of 
 the Most High, whilst Jehovah was rather 
 the name by which His own chosen people 
 knew and acknowledged Him. The title, 
 which especially points to power, seems most 
 appropriate when a promise is made, which 
 seems even to Abram and Sarai to be well- 
 nigh impossible of fulfilment. 
 
 2. 1 will yriake my co’venanf^ The word 
 
 for “make” is different from that used in 
 XV. 18. There God is said to have “cut” a 
 covenant with Abram by sacrifice, which 
 phrase has probably special reference to the 
 sacrifice and also to the two parties who made 
 the covenant by sacrifice (see on xv. 9). Here 
 He says, “ I will give my covenant between 
 Me. and thee.” The freedom of the covenant 
 of promise is expressed in this latter phrase. 
 It was a gift from a superior, rather than a 
 bargain between equals; and as it was ac- 
 companied by the rite of circumcision, it was 
 typical of the freedom of that covenant made 
 
 afterwards to Christians in Christ, and sealed 
 to them in the sacred rite of baptism. 
 
 4. of many nations^ Of a multitude 
 of nations; as in margin. 
 
 5 . Abraham'^ i.e. “father of a multi- 
 
 tude.” He was originally Ab-ram^ “exalted 
 father.” Now he Ab-raham^ “father 
 
 of a multitude;” raham^ in Arabic, being a 
 vast number, a great multitude. Abraham 
 was literally the ancestor of the twelve tribes 
 of Israel, of the Ishmaelites, of the descend- 
 ants of Keturah and of the Edomites ; but 
 spiritually he is the father of all the faithful, 
 who by faith in Christ are “Abraham’s sfeed, 
 and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. iii. 
 29). It has been very generally believed that 
 the letter H here introduced into the names 
 both of Abraham and Sarah is one of the two 
 radical letters of the name Jehovah (as the 
 other radical J was introduced into the name 
 Joshua), whereby the owner cf the name is 
 doubly consecrated and bound in covenant to 
 the Lord (see Delitzsch, in loc.). The cus- 
 tom of giving the name at the time of cir- 
 cumcision (Luke i. 59) probably originated 
 from the change of Abraham’s name having 
 been made when that rite was first instituted. 
 
 10. This is my covenant'\ i.d*. the sign, 
 token and bond of the covenant. 
 
 12. eight days old'] Seven days, a sacred 
 number, were to pass over the child before he 
 was so consecrated to God’s service. There 
 was a significance in the number 7, and then? 
 was a reason for the delay that the child 
 might grow strong enough to bear the oper- 
 ation. 
 
120 
 
 GENESIS. XVIL 
 
 [v. 13—18. 
 
 13 He that is born in thy house, 
 and he that is bought with thy money, 
 must needs be circumcised ; and my 
 covenant shall be in your flesh for an 
 everlasting covenant. 
 
 14 And the uncircumcised man 
 child whose flesh of his foreskin is not 
 circumcised, that soul shall be cut off 
 from his people; he hath broken my 
 covenant. 
 
 15 ^ And God said unto Abraham, 
 As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not 
 call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall 
 her name be. 
 
 16 And I will bless her, and give 
 thee a son also of her; yea, I will bless 
 her, and ^ she shall be a mother of na- t Heb. 
 tions; kings of people shall be oVbecomJ^ 
 
 nations. 
 
 17 Then Abraham fell upon his 
 face, and laughed, and said in his 
 heart. Shall a child be born unto him ^ 
 that is an hundred years old? and 
 shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, 
 
 bear ? 
 
 18 And Abraham said unto God, 
 
 O that Ishmael might live before 
 thee ! 
 
 13 . He that is born in thy house &c.] 
 “ Moses has nowhere given any command, 
 nor even so much as an exhortation, inculcat- 
 ing the duty of circumcision upon any person 
 not a descendant, or a slave of Abraham, or 
 of his descendants, unless he wished to par- 
 take of the passover .... In none of the his- 
 torical books of the Old Testament do we 
 find the smallest trace of circumcision as ne- 
 cessary to the salvation of foreigners, who ac- 
 knowledge the true God, or requisite even to 
 the confession of their faith : no not so much 
 as in the detailed story of Naaman (2 K. v.); 
 in which indeed every circumstance indicates 
 that the circumcision of that illustrious per- 
 sonage can never be supposed” (Michaelis, 
 ‘ Laws of Moses,’ Bk. iv. Art. 184). There 
 is a marked distinction in this between cir- 
 cumcision and baptism. Judaism was in- 
 tended to be the religion of a peculiar isolated 
 people. Its rites therefore were for them alone. 
 Christianity is for the whole human race; the 
 Church is to be catholic; baptism to bead- 
 ministered to all that will believe. 
 
 14 . that soul shall be cut ojf from his 
 people'^ 7 'he rabbinical writers very generally 
 understand that the excision should be by 
 Divine judgment. Christian interpreters have 
 mostly understood the infiiction of death by 
 the hand of the magistrate: some (Cleric, and 
 Michael, in loc.) either exile or excommuni- 
 cation. I'he latter opinion was afterwards 
 retracted by Michaelis, and it is pretty certain 
 that death in some form is intended (see Gesen. 
 ‘I'hes.’ p. 718). 
 
 15 . thou shalt not call her name Sarai., 
 but Sarah *hall her name be'\ There is but 
 little doubt that Sarah signifies “ Princess,” in 
 allusion probably to the princely race which 
 was to spring from her, though Ikenius, fol- 
 lowed by Rosenmliller, argues in favour of a 
 meaning to be derived from the Arabic root 
 Saraa, signifying, “ tfj have a numerous pro- 
 geny.” As to the original name Sarai, the 
 older interpreters generally understood it to 
 
 signify “my princess;” the change to Sarah 
 indicating that she was no longer the princess 
 of a single race, but rather that all the families 
 of the earth should have an interest in her (Je- 
 rome, ‘ Qu. Hebr.’ p. 522) ; many think that 
 Sarai means simply “noble, royal,” whilst Sa- 
 rah more definitely means “ princess;” which, 
 however, seems neither etymologically nor 
 exegetically probable. Ewald explains Sarai 
 as meaning “contentious,” from the verb 
 Sarah, which (Gen. xxxii. 29; Hos. xii. 
 4) occurs in the sense of “to fight, to con- 
 tend.” This meaning is approved by Gese- 
 nius (‘Thes.’ p. 1338), but the more 'usual 
 derivation is probably the true. 
 
 16 . s he shall be a mother of nations'^ Heb. 
 “she shall become uations.” 
 
 17 . laughed'] Onkel. renders “rejoiced.” 
 Pseudo-Jon. “marvelled.” The Jewish com- 
 mentators, and many of the Christian fathers, 
 understood this laughter to be the laughter of 
 joy not of unbelief (Aug. ‘ De Civ.’ xvi. 26). 
 So also many moderns, e.g. Calvin, “partly 
 exulting with gladness, partly carried beyond 
 himself with wonder, he burst into laughter.” 
 It is thought also that our Blessed Lord may 
 have alluded to this joy of Abraham (Joh. viii. 
 56), “ Your father Abraham rejoiced to see 
 My day, and he saw it and was glad;” for it 
 was at the most distinct promise of a son, who 
 was to be the direct ancestor of the Messiah, 
 that the laughter is recorded (cp. also the 
 words of the. Blessed Virgin, Luke i. 47). On 
 the other hand it must be admitted, that A- 
 braham's words immediately following the 
 laughter, seem at first sight as implying some 
 unbelief, or at least weakness of faith, though 
 they may be interpreted as the language of 
 wonder rather than of incredulity. 
 
 18 . 0 that Ishmael might live before thee!] 
 These words may be interpreted in two 
 ways, according as we understand the laugh- 
 ter of Abraham. They may mean, “ I dare 
 not hope for so great a boon as a son to be 
 born hereafter to myself and Sarah in our old 
 
121 
 
 V. 19-27.] GENESIS. XVII. 
 
 ^diap. i8. QqJ said, -^Sarah thy wife 
 
 Si 21. 2. shall bear thee a son indeed ; and thou 
 shalt call his name Isaac: and I will 
 establish my covenant with him for 
 an everlasting covenant, ami with his 
 seed after him. 
 
 20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard 
 thee: Behold, I have blessed him, 
 and will make him fruitful, and will 
 
 i^chap. 25. niultiply him exceedingly; •^’"twelve 
 princes shall he beget, and I will 
 make him a great nation. 
 
 21 But my covenant will I establish 
 with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto 
 thee at this set time in the next year. 
 
 22 And he left off talking with him, 
 and God went up from Abraham. 
 
 23 ^1 And Abraham took Ishmael 
 
 his son, and all that were born in his 
 house, and all that were bought with 
 his money, every male among the men 
 of Abraham's house ; and circumcised 
 the flesh of their foreskin in the self- 
 same day, as God had said unto him. 
 
 24 And Abraham mas ninety years 
 old and nine, when he was circum- 
 cised in the flesh of his foreskin. 
 
 25 And Ishmael his son mas thir- 
 teen years old, when he was circum- 
 cised in the flesh of his foreskin. 
 
 26 In the selfsame day was Abra- 
 ham circumcised, and Ishmael his son. 
 
 27 And all the men of his house, 
 born in the house, and bought with 
 money of the stranger, were circum- 
 cised with him. 
 
 age, but O that Ishmael may be the heir of 
 Thy promises!” or they may imply only a 
 fear, that now, when another heir is assured 
 to Abraham, Ishmael should be excluded from 
 all future inheritance. 
 
 19 . Isaac'] i.e. “ he laughs,” the third per- 
 son singular of the present tense : similar forms 
 are Jacob, Jair, Jabin, &c. 
 
 20 . as for Ishmael^ I have heard thee] 
 There is an allusion to the significance of the 
 name Ishmael, viz. “ God heareth.” 
 
 25 . Ishmael his son voas thirteen years old] 
 The Arabs have in consequence always cir- 
 cumcised their sons at the age of 13. Josephus 
 mentions this (‘ Ant’ i. 13), and it is well 
 known that the custom still prevails among 
 the Mahometan’ nations. 
 
 NOTE A on Chap. xvii. v. 10. Circumcision. 
 
 (i) Reasons for the rite. (2) Origin of circumcision, whether pre-Abrahamic or not. 
 (a) Egyptians said to have first used it. (/ 3 ) Answer from lateness and uncertainty 
 of the testimony, (y) Balance of arguments. 
 
 The reasons for this rite may have been 
 various, ist, to keep the descendants of Abra- 
 ham distinct from the idolatrous nations 
 round about them, the other inhabitants of 
 Palestine not being circumcised, 2ndly, to 
 indicate the rigour and severity of the Law of 
 God, simply considered as Law, in contrast to 
 which the ordinance that succeeded to it in 
 the Christian dispensation indicated the mild- 
 ness and mercy of the new covenant, 3rdly, 
 to signify that the body should be devoted as 
 a living sacrifice to God, “our hearts’ and all 
 our members being mortified from all carnal and 
 worldly lusts,” and so to typify moral purity. 
 (See Dent. x. 16; Jer. iv. 4; Acts vii. 51). 
 
 An important question arises as to the ori- 
 gin of circumcision. W^as it first made known 
 and commanded to Abraham, having nowhere 
 been practised before ? Or, was it a custom 
 already in use, and now sanctified by God to 
 a higher end and purport ? A similar question 
 arose concerning sacrifice. Was it prescribed 
 by revelation or dictated by natural piety and 
 then sanctioned from above ? As the rainbow 
 probably did not first appear after the flood. 
 
 but was then made the token of the Noachic 
 covenant ; as the stars of heaven were made 
 the sign of the earlier covenant with Abraham 
 (ch. XV. 5) ; may it have been also, that cir- 
 cumcision already prevailed among some na- 
 tions, and was now divinely authorized and 
 made sacred and authoritative ? There would 
 be nothing necessarily startling in the latter 
 alternative, when we remember that the cor- ^ 
 responding rite of baptism in the Christian dis- 
 pensation is but one adaptation by supreme au- 
 thority of natural or legal washings to a Chris- 
 tian purpose and a most spiritual significance. 
 
 It is certain that the Egyptians used cir- 
 cumcision (Herod, ii. 36, 37, 104; Diod. 
 Sicul. I. 26, 55; Strabo, xvii. p. 524; Phil. 
 Jud. ‘De Circumcis.’ii.p. 210 ; Joseph. ‘Ant.’ 
 viii. 10; ‘ Cont. Apion.’ I. 22; ii. 13). The 
 earliest writer who mentions this is Herodo- 
 tus. He says, indeed, that the Egyptians and 
 Ethiopians had it from the most remote anti- 
 quity, so that he cannot tell which had it 
 first ; he mentions the Colchians as also using 
 it (whence Diodorus inferred that they were 
 an Egyptian colony), and says that the Phee- 
 
122 
 
 GENESIS. XVIII. 
 
 nicians and Syrians in Palestine admit that 
 they “ learned this practice from the Egyp- 
 tians” (Herod, ii. 104). This is evidently a 
 very loose statement. The Phoenicians pro- 
 bably did not use it, and the Jews, whom He- 
 rodotus here calls “the Syrians in Palestine,” 
 admitted that they had once dwelt in Egypt, 
 but never admitted that they derived circum- 
 cision from thence. The statements of Dio- 
 dorus and Strabo, which are more or less 
 similar to those of Herodotus, were no doubt 
 partly derived from him, and partly followed 
 the general belief among the Greeks, that the 
 “ Jews were originally Egyptians” (Strabo, as 
 above). It is stated by Origen (‘ in Epist. ad 
 Rom,’ ch. II. 13) that the Egyptian priests, 
 soothsayers, prophets, and those learned in 
 hieroglyphics were circumcised; and the same 
 is said by Horapollo (i. 13, 14). If these 
 ancient writers were unsupported by other 
 authorities, there would be no great difficulty 
 in concluding that Herodotus had found cir- 
 cumcision among the Egyptian priests^ had 
 believed the Jews to be a mere colony from 
 Egypt, and had concluded that the custom 
 originated in Egypt, and from them was learned 
 by the Ishmaelites and other races. It is, how- 
 ever, asserted by some modern Egyptologists, 
 that circumcision must have prevailed from 
 the time of the fourth dynasty, />. from at 
 least 2400 B.C., therefore much before the date 
 generally assigned to Abraham, r.c. 1996, and 
 that it was not confined to the priests, as is, 
 they say, learned from the murnmies and the 
 sculptures, where circumcision is made a dis- 
 tinctive mark between the Egyptians and their 
 enemies (see Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, in Raw- 
 linson’s ‘ Herodotus,’ pp. 52, 146, 147, notes). 
 If this be correct, we must conclude, that the 
 Egyptians practised circumcision when Abra- 
 ham first became acquainted with them, that 
 probably some of Abraham’s own Egyptian 
 followers were circumcised, and that the Di- 
 vine command was not intended to teach a 
 new rite, but to consecrate an old one into a 
 sacramental ordinance. Some even think that 
 they see in the very style of this and the follow- 
 ing verses indications that the rite was not al- 
 , together new and before unknown ; for had it 
 been new and unknown, more accurate di- 
 rections would have been given of the way in 
 which a painful and dangerousoperation should 
 be performed (.Michaelis, ‘Laws of Moses,’ 
 Bk. IV. Ch. iii. Art. 185). The Egyptians, 
 Ethiopians, and perhaps some other African 
 races, are sujiposed to have adopted it, partly 
 from regard to cleanliness (Herod. Ii. 36), 
 
 [v. I, 2. 
 
 which the Egyptians, and above all the Egyp- 
 tian priests, especially affected, partly to guard 
 against disease incident in those hot climates 
 (see Philo, as above, p. 2 1 1 ; J oseph. ‘ C. Apion.’ 
 II. 13), partly for other reasons, which may 
 have been real or imaginary (see Michaelis, as 
 above. Art. 186). This side of the question 
 is ably defended by Michaelis, ‘ Laws of Moses,’ 
 as above, and Kalisch, in loc. 
 
 In answer it is truly said, that the Greek 
 historians are too late and too loose in their 
 statements to command our confidence ; that 
 the tribes cognate with the Egyptians, such as 
 the Hamite inhabitants of Palestine, were no- 
 toriously uncircumcised, that the Egyptians, 
 especially the Egyptian priests, are not un- 
 likely to have adopted the rite at the time 
 when Joseph was their governor and in such 
 high estimation among them, and that the 
 question concerning the relative dafes of Abra- 
 ham and the different Egyptian dynasties is 
 involved in too much obscurity to be made a 
 ground for such an argument as the above to 
 be built upon it. (See Bp. Patrick, in loc.; 
 Heidegger, ‘Hist. Patr.’ ii. 240; Wesseling 
 and Larcher, ‘ad Herod.’ 11.37, Graves 
 ‘ on the Pentateuch,’ Pt. ii. Lect. v.; Words- 
 worth, in loc.) Again, the argument de- 
 rived from the ancient Egyptian language 
 proves nothing, the words are lost or doubt- 
 ful. The argument from the mummies proves 
 nothing, as we have no mummies of the an- 
 cient empire. The figures in the hieroglyphics 
 are later still. The only argument of weight 
 is that derived from the old hieroglyphic, 
 common in the pyramids, which is thought 
 to represent circumcision. It may on the 
 whole be said, that we cannot conclude from 
 the loose statements of Greek writers 15 
 centuries later than Abraham, nor even from 
 the evidence of monuments and sculptures 
 as yet perhaps but imperfectly read and un- 
 certain as to their comparative antiquity, 
 that circumcision had been known before 
 it was given to Abraham; yet that on the 
 other hand, there would be nothing incon- 
 sistent with the testimony of the Mosaic 
 history in the belief, that it had been in use 
 among the Egyptians and other African tribes, 
 before it was elevated by a Divine ordinance 
 into a sacred rite for temporary purposes, to 
 be served in the Mosaic dispensation. A very 
 able summary of the arguments on both sides, 
 not, of course, embracing those drawn from 
 the more recent discoveries in Egypt, is given 
 by Spencer, ‘ De Legg. Heb.’ lib. i. c. 5. § 4. 
 See Deut. x. 16 and Note. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 I Abraham cutertaiueth three angels. 9 Sarah 
 is reprirred for laughing at the strange pro- 
 mise. 17 The destruction 0/ Sodo?n is revealed 
 to A braham. 2 3 A braham maketh intercession 
 for the men thereof 
 
 AND the ‘^Lord appeared unto-* Heb. 13 
 jT^ him in the plains of Mamre: 
 and he sat in the tent door in the 
 heat of the day ; 
 
 2 And he lift up his eyes and 
 
V. 3—7-] 
 
 GENESIS. XVIII. 
 
 123 
 
 looked, and, Lo, three men stood by 
 him: and when he saw them^ he ran 
 to meet them from the tent door, and 
 bowed himself toward the ground, 
 
 3 And said. My Lord, if now I have 
 found favour in thv sight, pass not 
 away, I pray thee, from thy servant : 
 
 4 Let a little water, I pray you, be 
 fetched, and wash your feet, and rest 
 yourselves under the tree : 
 
 5 And I will fetch a morsel of bread. 
 
 and ^comfort ye your hearts; after 
 that ye shall pass on: for therefore 
 ^are ye come to your servant. And 
 they said. So do, as thou hast said. passed. 
 
 6 And Abraham hastened into the 
 tent unto Sarah, and said, ^ Make ready 
 quickly three measures of fine meal, 
 knead / 7 , and make cakes upon the 
 hearth. 
 
 7 And Abraham ran unto the herd, 
 and fetcht a calf tender and good, and 
 
 Chap. XVIII. 1. plains of Mamre] Oaks 
 or oak grove of Mamre, see xiii. 18; 
 xiv. 13. 
 
 in the heat of the 3ay^ Abraham was sitting 
 in his tent under the shade of the trees, at the 
 noon day when the sun was oppressive, and 
 when the duty of hospitality specially sug- 
 gested to him the receiving of travellers, who 
 might be wearied with their hot journey. The 
 time of the day may be also mentioned, that 
 it might be the more certain that this was an 
 open vision, not a dream of the night. 
 
 2. three men'] In v. i it is said, “The 
 Lord appeared unto him;” in v. 22 it is said, 
 “The turned their faces from thence, and 
 went towards Sodom; but Abraham stood 
 yet before the Lord;” in ch. xix. i it is said, 
 “There came t^vo Angels to Sodom at even.” 
 It appears from the comparison of these pas- 
 sages, and indeed from the whole narrative, 
 that of the three men who appeared to Abra- 
 ham, two were angels, and one was Jeho- 
 vah Himself. On the belief of the ancient 
 Church that these manifestations of God were 
 manifestations of God the Son, anticipations 
 of the Incarnation, see note on ch. xii. 7. See 
 also on this passage, Euseb. ‘ Demonst. Evan.’ 
 Lib. v. c. 9. There was, however, a belief 
 among many of the ancients that the three 
 men here appearing to Abraham symbolized 
 the three Persons of the Trinity; and the 
 Church by appointing this chapter to be read 
 on Trinity Sunday seems to indorse this 
 belief. This need not conflict with the 
 opinion, that the only Person in the Trinity 
 really manifested to the eyes of Abraham was 
 the Son of God, and that the other two were 
 created angels. Indeed such a manifestation 
 may have been reason enough for the choice 
 of this lesson on Trinity Sunday. It has been 
 observed that One of the three mentioned in 
 this chapter is called repeatedly J eho vah, but 
 neither of the two in ch. xix. is ever so called. 
 
 bo'used himself toward the ground] This was 
 i^erely the profound eastern salutation (cp. 
 ch. xxiii. 7, 12, xxxiii. 6, 7). Abraham as yet 
 was “entertaining angels unawares'''' (Heb.xiii. 
 a). He may have observed a special dignity 
 
 in the strangers, but could not have known 
 their heavenly mission. 
 
 3 . My Lord] It is to be noticed that Abra- 
 ham here addresses One of the three, who 
 appears more noble than the rest. The title 
 which he gives Him is AJonai, a plural of excel- 
 lence, but the Targum of Onkelos has rendered 
 Jehovah (^'.), as supposing that Abraham 
 had recognized the divinity of the visitor. 
 
 4 . 'Wash your feet] In the hot plains of 
 the east travellers shod only with sandals 
 found the greatest comfort in bathing their 
 feet, when resting from a journey. (See ch. 
 xix. 2, xxiv. 32; Judg. xix. 21; iTim.v. 10.) 
 
 5 . comfort ye your hearts] Lit. “ sup- 
 port your hearts.” The heart, considered as 
 the centre of vital functions, is put by the 
 Hebrews for the life itself. To support the 
 heart therefore is to refresh the whole vital 
 powers and spirits. (See Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 738, 
 6, IDh, I. a.) 
 
 for therefore are ye come to your servant] 
 The patriarch recognizes a providential call 
 upon him to refresh strangers of noble bear- 
 ing, come to him on a fatiguing journey. 
 
 6. three measures of fine meal] Three 
 seahs of the finest flour. A seah was 
 the third part of an ephah according to the 
 Rabbins. Josephus (‘ Ant.’ ix. 4) and Jerome 
 (‘ Comm, on Matt.’ xiii. 33), say that the 
 seah was a modiiis and a half. The accuracy 
 of this comparison between the Hebrew and 
 Roman measures is doubted, as it does not cor- 
 respond with the calculations of Rabbinical 
 writers. (See Ges. ‘Thes.’ pp. 83, 932 ; Smith, 
 ‘Dict.of Bible,’ Vol. III. pp. 1741,1742.) The 
 two words, Kemach soleth., rendered “ fine 
 meal,” are nearly synonymous, both appearing 
 to mean fine flour, the latter being the finer 
 of the two. They might be rendered “ flour 
 of fine flour.” According to the Rabbinical 
 Commentary, ‘ Vajikra Rabba,’ soleth is the 
 kemach of kemachs^ the fine flour of fine flour. 
 (See Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 959,) 
 
 cakes upon the hearth] Probably the sim- 
 pler form of cake baked in the midst of hot 
 cinders. 
 
124 
 
 GENESIS. XVIII. 
 
 gave it unto a young man ; and he 
 hasted to dress it. 
 
 8 And he took butter, and milk, and 
 the calf which he had dressed, and set 
 it before them ; and he stood by them 
 under the tree, and they did eat. 
 
 9 And they said unto him. Where 
 is Sarah thy wife? And he said. Be- 
 hold, in the tent. 
 
 10 And he said, I will certainly 
 return unto thee according to the time 
 
 *chap. 17. of life; and, lo, '^Sarah thy wife shall 
 & 21. 2. have a son. And Sarah heard it in 
 the tent door, which was behind 
 him. 
 
 1 1 Now Abraham and Sarah were 
 old and well stricken in age; and it 
 
 [v. 8—15. 
 
 ceased to be with Sarah after the 
 manner of women. 
 
 12 Therefore Sarah laughed within 
 herself, saying, After I am waxed old 
 
 shall 1 have pleasure, my ‘^lord being Pet. 3. 
 old also ? 
 
 13 And the Lord said unto Abra- 
 ham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, 
 saying. Shall I of a surety bear a 
 child, which am old ? 
 
 14 Is any thing too hard for the 
 Lord ? At the time appointed I will 
 return unto thee, according to the 
 time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. 
 
 15 Then Sarah denied, saying, I 
 laughed not ; for she was afraid. And 
 he said. Nay; but thou didst laugh. 
 
 8. hutter'\ i. e. thick milk or clotted 
 cream. The modern Arabs have a simple 
 mode of churning, and make very good but- 
 ter. Robinson (‘Res.’ ii. p. 180) describes 
 the baking of cakes and making of butter 
 among them in the present day. It is, how- 
 ever, most probable, that the word, rendered 
 butter in the Old Testament, was rather thick 
 milk, or more probably, thick cream, though* 
 in one place (Prov, xxx. 33), it may perhaps 
 be rendered cheese. The ancient inhabitants of 
 Palestine used olive oil where we use butter. 
 (See Rosenm. and Ges. ‘Thes.’ p, 486.) 
 
 they did eat\ That spiritual visitants, though 
 in human form, should eat, has been a puzzle 
 to many commentators. Josephus (‘ Ant,’ i. 
 ii) and Philo (‘Opp.’ ii. 18), say it was in 
 appearance only, which is implied by Pseudo- 
 Jonathan, Rashi and Kimchi. If the angels 
 had assumed human bodies, though but for a 
 time, there would have been nothing strange 
 in their eating. In any case, the food may 
 have been consumed, miraculously or not ; 
 and the eating of it was a proof that the visit 
 of the angels to Abraham wai^no mere vision, 
 but a true manifesUitibn of heavenly beings. 
 
 10 . he said] In v. 9 we read “they 
 said,” i.e. one of the three heavenly guests 
 spoke for the others. Now we have the 
 singular number, and the speaker uses lan- 
 guage suited only to the Ruler of nature and 
 of all things. 
 
 according to the time of life] There is some 
 difficulty in the rendering of these words, 
 d'he phrase occurs again, 2 K. iv. 16. It is 
 now generally thought that the sense is the 
 same as in civ, xvii. 21, “at this set time in 
 the next year” (cp. xviii. 14); and that the 
 words should be translated, “when the season 
 revives,” i.e. when spring or summer comes 
 round again. Compare 
 
 Xdipc, yvvai, <})i\6Tr]Td TTcpmXoixivov S* 
 iviavTOv 
 
 resets dyXaa rcKva. 
 
 Horn. ‘Od.’ A. 247. 
 
 (vSee Rosenm. in loc.; Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 470.) 
 Prof. Lee (‘Lex.’ p. 193) denies the sound- 
 ness of this criticism, and virtually indorses 
 the Authorized Version, “as (at) the season, 
 period, of a vigorous woman.” There is, 
 however, very little doubt that the criticism 
 is correct. 
 
 12 . laughed] Whatever may have been 
 the nature of Abraham’s laughter (see xvii. 
 17), this of Sarah’s seems to have resulted 
 from incredulity. She may scarcely have 
 recognized the Divinity of the speaker, and 
 had not perhaps realized the truth of the 
 promise before made to Abraham. St Au- 
 gustine distinguishes between the laughter of 
 Abraham and that of Sarah thus, “The 
 father laughed, when a son was promised to 
 him, from wonder and joy; the mother 
 laughed, when the three men renewed the 
 promise, from doubtfulness and joy. The 
 angel reproved her, because though that laugh- 
 ter was from joy, yet it was not of full faith. 
 Afterwards by the same angel she was con- 
 firmed in faith also.” ‘ De C. D.’ xvi. 31. 
 
 my lord] See i Pet. iii. 6. 
 
 13 . the Lord said] Here the speaker 
 is distinctly called Jehovah, and it seems 
 much more reasonable to believe that there 
 was a Theophania of the Son of G(xl, than 
 that a created angel was personating God and 
 speaking in His name. 
 
 14 . Is any thing too hard for the Lord?] 
 Lit, “ Is anything too wonderful for the 
 Lord?” Cp. Lukei. 37. 
 
 At the time appointed I nvill return unto thee., 
 according to the time of Ife] See on v. 10. 
 
V. 1 6 — 28.] 
 
 GENESIS. XVIII. 
 
 125 
 
 16 ^ And the men .rose up from 
 thence, and looked toward Sodom: 
 and Abraham went with them to 
 bring them on the way. 
 
 17 And the Lord said, Shall I 
 hide from Abraham that thing which 
 Ido; 
 
 18 Seeing that Abraham shall surely 
 become a great and mighty nation, 
 and all the nations of the earth shall 
 
 a chap. 12. be ^blessed in him? 
 
 ^9 ^ know him, that he will 
 
 Gal. 3. 8. command his children and his house- 
 hold after him, and they shall keep 
 the way of the Lord, to do justice 
 and judgment; that the Lord may 
 bring upon Abraham that which he 
 hath spoken of him. 
 
 20 And the Lord said. Because the 
 cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, 
 and because their sin is very grievous ; 
 
 21 I will go down now, and see 
 whether they have done altogether 
 according to the cry of it, which is 
 come unto 'me; and if not, I will 
 know. 
 
 22 And the men turned their faces 
 
 from thence, and went toward Sodom; 
 but Abraham stood yet before the 
 Lord. 
 
 23 ^ And Abraham drew near, 
 and said. Wilt thou also destroy the 
 righteous with the wicked ? 
 
 24 Peradventure there be fifty right- 
 eous within the city: wilt thou also 
 destroy and not spare the place for 
 the fifty righteous that are therein ? 
 
 25 That be far from thee to do after 
 this manner, to slay the righteous.with 
 the wicked : and that the righteous 
 should be as the wicked, that be far 
 from thee: Shall not the Judge of all 
 the earth do right? 
 
 26 And the Lord said. If I find in 
 Sodom fifty righteous within the city, 
 then I will spare all the place for their 
 sakes. 
 
 27 And Abraham answered and 
 said. Behold now, I have taken upon 
 me to speak unto the Lord, which am 
 but dust and ashes: 
 
 28 Peradventure there shall lack 
 five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou 
 destroy all the city for lack of five ? 
 
 • 16 . Abraham <iuent nvith theni] The three 
 heavenly visitors all go towards Sodom, A- 
 braham goes some way with them, how far 
 is not said. There is a tradition that he went 
 as far as Gaphar-berucha, from which the 
 Dead Sea is visible, through a ravine. 
 
 17 . Shall I hide from Abraham~\ The 
 LXX. adds here “ my son,” which is quoted 
 by Philo (i. p. 401, Mangey) as “Abraham, 
 my friend;” so that in all probability, copies 
 of the LXX. in the time of Philo had this 
 afterwards familiar name of Abraham ex- 
 pressed in this verse. Cp. 2 Chr. xx. 7 ; Isa. 
 xli. 8 ; James ii. 23. 
 
 19 . For I kno^u him^ that~\ This is the 
 general reading of the ancient Versions, LXX., 
 Vulg., Targg., &c. &c. It does not, how- 
 ever, seem to correspond with the Hebrew 
 idiom. The literal rendering would be, “I 
 have known him, to the end that, in order 
 that, he should command his children, &c.” 
 The word (VT', to kno^v') is sometimes used 
 of the eternal foreknowledge and election of 
 God, as in Amos iii. 2, “ You only have I 
 known of all the families of the earth.” Cp. 
 Exod. xxxiii. 12; Job xxii. 13; Ps. Ixxiii. ii, 
 cxliv. 3 ; Is. Iviii. 3 ; Nah. i. 7. And compare 
 a similar use in the Greek Testament, Rom. 
 
 viii. 29, xi. 2. The meaning would then be, 
 “ 1 have foreknown and chosen Abraham, 
 that he should be the depositary of my truth, 
 and should teach his children in the way of 
 religion and godliness, that so the promises 
 made to him should be fulfilled in his seed 
 and lineage. So Ges. (‘Thes.’ p.5 71), Rosenm., 
 Tuch, Knobel, Delitzsch, Keil, &c. 
 
 20. the cry'] Cp. ch. iv. 10; Ps. ix. 13. 
 
 21 . I ‘Will go down] Ch. xi. 5, 7; Ex. 
 iii. 8. The reason for God’s thus revealing 
 His purpose to Abraham seems to have been, 
 that, as Abraham was to be the heir of the 
 promises, he might be taught and might teach 
 his children, who were afterwards to dwell in 
 that very country, that God is not a God of 
 mercy only, as shewn to Abraham and his 
 descendants, but a God of judgment also, as 
 witnessed by His destruction of the guilty 
 cities of the plain. 
 
 22. the men turned their faces from thence^ 
 &c.] The two created angels went on to So- 
 dom (see ch. xix. i), “but Abraham stood 
 yet before the Lord,” stood yet in the pre- 
 sence of that third Being who was not a 
 created angel, but the eternal Word of God, 
 “the Angel of Mighty counsel” (Isai. ix. 6, 
 LXX.); “the Messenger of the covenant.” 
 (Mai. iii. i). 
 
126 
 
 GENESIS. XVIII. "'XIX. 
 
 [v. 29—3. 
 
 And he said, If I find there forty and 
 five, I will not destroy it. 
 
 29 And he spake unto him yet again, 
 and said, Peradventure there shall be 
 forty found there. And he said, I 
 will not do it for forty’s sake. 
 
 30 And he said unto him^ Oh let not 
 the Lord be angry, and I will speak: 
 Peradventure there shall thirty be 
 found there. And he said, I will not 
 do //, if I find thirty there. 
 
 3 1 ’And he said. Behold now, I have 
 taken upon me to speak unto the 
 Lord: Peradventure there shall be 
 twenty found there. And he said, I 
 will not destroy it for twenty’s sake. 
 
 32 And he said. Oh let not the Lord 
 be angry, and I will speak yet but this 
 once : Peradventure ten shall be found 
 there. And he said, I will not de- 
 stroy it for ten’s sake. 
 
 33 And the Lord went his way, as 
 soon as he had left communing with 
 Abraham: and Abraham returned 
 unto his place. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 I Lot aitertaineth two angels. 4 The vicious 
 Sodomites are stricken with blindness. 1 ^ Lot 
 is sent far safety into the mountains. 18 He 
 obtaineth leave to go into Zoar. 24 Sodom and 
 Gomorrah are destroyed. 26 Lot's wife is a 
 pillar of salt. 30 Lot dwelleth iti a cave. 31 
 The incestuous original of Moab and Ammon. 
 
 AND there came two angels to 
 ±\_ Sodom at even ; and Lot sat in 
 the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing 
 them rose up to meet them ; and he 
 bowed himself with his face toward 
 the ground ; 
 
 2 And he said. Behold now, my 
 lords, turn in, I pray you, into your 
 servant’s house, and tarry all night, 
 
 and ‘^wash your feet, and ye shall rise «chap. 18 
 up early, and go on your ways. And 
 they said. Nay; but we will abide in 
 the street all night. 
 
 3 And he pressed upon them greatly ; 
 and they turned in unto him, and 
 entered into his house; and he made 
 them a feast, and did bake unleavened 
 bread, and they did eat. 
 
 32 . I avill not destroy it for ten's sake^ 
 A noted example of the efficacy of prayer, of 
 the hle?ssedness of a good leaven in a city or 
 nation, and of the longsuffering mercy of God. 
 
 Chap. XIX. 1. t^wo angels'] Lit. the 
 two angels. So LXX. The two men, who 
 left Abraham still standing in the presence of 
 the Lord (ch. xviii. 22) now came to Sodom 
 at even. 
 
 Lot sat in the gate of Sodom] The gate of 
 the city was, in the ancient towns of the 
 east, the common place of public resort, both 
 for social intercourse and public business. 
 This gate of the city nearly corresponded with 
 the forum or market-place of Greece and 
 Rome. Not only was it the place of public 
 sale, but judges and even kings held courts of 
 justice there. I'he gate itself was probably an 
 arch with deep recesses, in which were placed 
 the seats of the judges, and benches on either 
 side were arranged for public convenience. 
 (Cp. ch. xxxiv. 20; Dent. xxi. 19, xxii. 15; 
 Ruth iv. I. See also Horn. ‘ 11 .’ Lib. iii. 
 148.) 
 
 bovued himself] See on ch. xviii. 2. 
 
 2. my lords] The Masorites mark this word 
 as “ profane,” i. e. as not taken in the divine, 
 but in the human sense. Lot, like Abraham, 
 only saw in the angels two men, travellers 
 appai-ently wearied*with the way, and he offers 
 
 them all the rites of hospitality. In those days 
 there were neither inns nor perhaps even 
 caravanserais, so that private houses only could 
 give lodging to strangers. 
 
 qjuill abide in the street all night] The 
 “street,” lit. “the broad, open space,” pro- 
 bably included all the streets, squares, and 
 inclosures, frequently extensive in an eastern 
 city, and in these early days perhaps less 
 built over than in modern towns. The warmth 
 of the climate would make it easy to pass the 
 night in such a place. The words of the angels 
 may be compared with our Lord’s manner as 
 recorded Luke xxiv. 28, “He made as though 
 He would have gone further.” The visit of 
 the angels was one of trial previous to judg- 
 ment (see ch. xviii. 21), trial of Lot as well as 
 of the people of Sodom. Lot’s character, 
 though he is called “a righteous” or upright 
 “man” (2 Pet. ii. 7), was full of faults and 
 infirmities, but here he comes out well under 
 the trial. His conduct is altogether favour- 
 ably contrasted with that of the inhabitants 
 of the city, and so he is delivered, whilst they 
 are destroyed. 
 
 3. a feast] Lit. .“ a drink, or banquet, 
 symposium.” It is the word used commonly 
 for a sumptuous repast. 
 
 unlea-vened bread] As having no time to 
 leaven it. Literally the words mean “bread 
 of sweetness,” i.e. bread wliich had not been 
 made bitter by leaven. 
 
V. 4— J3-] 
 
 GINESIS. XIX. 
 
 127 
 
 4 ^ But before they lay down, the 
 men of the city, even the men of 
 Sodom, compassed the house round, 
 both old and young, all the people 
 from every quarter: 
 
 5 And they called unto Lot, and 
 said unto him. Where are the men 
 which came in to thee this night? 
 bring them out unto us, that we may 
 know them. 
 
 6 And Lot went out at the door 
 unto them, and shut the door after 
 him, 
 
 7 And said, I pray you, brethren, 
 do not so wickedly. 
 
 8 Behold now, I have two daughters 
 which have not known man ; let me, 
 I pray you, bring them out unto you, 
 and do ye to them as is good in your 
 eyes : only unto these men do nothing; 
 for therefore came they under the 
 shadow of my roof. 
 
 9 And they said. Stand back. And 
 they said again^ This one fellow came 
 in to sojourn, and he will needs be a 
 judge: now will we deal worse with 
 thee, than with them. And they 
 pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, 
 and came near to break the door. 
 
 10 But the men put forth their 
 hand, and pulled Lot into the house 
 to them, and shut to the door. 
 
 11 And they smote the men ^that * 9 - 
 were at the door of the house with 
 blindness, both small and great: so 
 
 that they wearied themselves to find 
 the door. 
 
 12 H And the men said unto Lot, 
 
 Hast thou here any besides? son in 
 law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, 
 and whatsoever thou hast in the city, 
 bring them out of this place: 
 
 13 For we will destroy this place, 
 because the ‘^cry of them is waxen 
 
 4. all the p. ople from e'very quarter"] The 
 utter shamelessness of the inhabitants of 
 Sodom, as well as their unbridled licentious- 
 ness, is briefly but most emphatically expressed 
 in this verse. The Canaanitish nations in 
 general, and the cities of the plain especially, 
 were addicted to those deadly sins so strictly 
 forbidden to the Israelites. See Lev. xx. 
 22, 23. 
 
 6. Lot (Went out at the door unto them^ 
 and shut the door after him] Lit. “went out 
 at the doorway, and shut the door after 
 him.” 
 
 8. I hauee t^wo daughters] These words 
 of Lot have been much canvassed in all times. 
 St Chrysostom thought it virtuous in him not 
 to spare his own daughters, rather than sacri- 
 fice the duties of hospitality, and expose his 
 guests to the wickedness of the men of Sodom 
 (‘Horn, xxiii. in Gen.’). So St Ambrose (‘ De 
 Abrah.’ Lib. i. c. 6), speaking as if a smaller 
 sin were to be preferred to a greater. But St 
 Augustine justly observes, that we should 
 open the way for sin to reign far and wide, if 
 we allowed ourselves to commit smaller sins, 
 lest others should commit greater (‘ Lib. contr. 
 Mend.’ c. 9. See also ‘‘Qu. in Gen.’ 42). We 
 see in all this conduct of Lot the same mixed 
 character. He intended to do rightly, but 
 did it timidly and imperfectly. He felt strongly 
 the duty of hospitality, perhaps by this tiwie 
 he had even some suspicion of the sacred cha- 
 racter of his guests, but his standard of right, 
 though high when compared with that of his 
 neighbours, was not the highest. The sacred 
 
 writer relates the history simply and without 
 comment, not holding up Lot as an example 
 for imitation, but telling his faults as well as 
 his virtues, and leaving us to draw the infer- 
 ences. He brought all his troubles on himself 
 by the home he had chosen. He was bound 
 to defend his guests at the risk of his own 
 life, but not by the sacrifice of his daughters. 
 
 9. Stand back] Lit. “Gome near, farther 
 off.” 
 
 (will needs be a judge] or, “judging, he will 
 judge,” referring, probably, as Tuch obsei*ves, 
 to Lot’s frequent remonstrances with them for 
 their licentiousness and violence, which is re- 
 ferred to in 2 Pet.ii. 7, 8. 
 
 11. they smote the men that (were at the 
 door of the house (with blindness] Perhaps the 
 word for blindness rather indicates confused 
 vision, LXX. aopao-tn. In Wisd. xix. 17, the 
 darkness in which these men were involved is 
 compared with the plague of ‘ darkness which 
 may be felt,” which fell on the Egyptians 
 (Ex. X. 22). If it had been actual blindness, 
 they would hardly have wearied themselves to 
 find the door, but would have sought some 
 one to lead them by the hand (August. ‘ De 
 Civit. Dei.’ xxii. 19). The same word, the 
 root of which is very doubtful (see Gesen. 
 ‘ Thes.’ p. 961), occurs only once again, in 
 2 K. vi. 18, where, apparently (see vv. 19, 20), 
 not real blindness, but indistinctness of vision 
 and misleading error are described. Aben 
 E/.ra interprets it as meaning “ blindness of 
 eye and m.ind.” 
 

 128 
 
 GENESIS. XilX. 
 
 [v. 14 2 2. 
 
 great before the face of the Lord ; 
 and the Lord hath sent us to de- 
 stroy it. 
 
 14 And Lot went out, and spake 
 unto his sons in law, which married 
 his daughters, and said. Up, get you 
 out of this place; for the Lord will 
 destroy this city. But he seemed as 
 one that mocked unto his sons in 
 law. 
 
 15 ^ And when the morning arose, 
 then the angels hastened Lot, saying, 
 Arise, take thy wife, and thy two 
 
 tH.ib. daughters, which Gre here; lest thou 
 be consumed in the " iniquity of the 
 city. 
 
 16 And ‘^while he lingered, the 
 men laid hold upon his hand, and 
 upon the hand of his wife, and upon 
 the hand of his two daughters; the 
 Lord being merciful unto him: and 
 they brought him forth, and set him 
 without the city. 
 
 17 ^ And it came to pass, when 
 
 they had brought them forth abroad, 
 that he said. Escape for thy life; look 
 not behind thee, neither stay thou in 
 all the plain ; escape to the mountain, 
 lest thou be consumed. 
 
 18 And Lot said unto them. Oh, 
 not so, my Lord : 
 
 19 Behold now, thy servant hath 
 found grace in thy sight, and thou 
 hast magnified thy mercy, which thou 
 hast shewed unto me in saving my 
 life; and I cannot escape to the moun- 
 tain, lest some evil take me, and I 
 die : 
 
 20 Behold now, this city is near to 
 flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, 
 let me escape' thither, [is it not a little 
 one?) and my soul shall live. 
 
 21 And he said unto him. See, I 
 have accepted Ehee concerning this t Heb. 
 thing also, that I will not overthrow 
 this city, for the which thou hast 
 spoken. 
 
 22 Haste thee, escape thither; for 
 
 13. the Lord hath sent us to destroy /V] 
 I'he angels speak here as messengers of judg- 
 ment, not as He, who conversed with Abra- 
 ham, ch, xviii. 17 — 33 . 
 
 14. (ivhich married his daughters'] Lit. 
 “the takers of his daughters.” LXX. “who 
 had taken his daughters.” Vulg. “who were 
 about to marry his daughters.” Some, Kno- 
 bel, Delit/sch, &;c., have held that besides 
 tljose mentioned, vv. 8 , 30 , Lot had other 
 daughters, who had married men of the city, 
 and who perished in the conflagration with 
 their husbands. It is more commonly thought 
 that he had only two daughters, who were 
 betrothed, but not yet married ; betrothal 
 being sufficient to give the title “son in law” 
 or “bridegroom” to their affianced husbands. 
 
 15. ^h'lch are here] Lit. “ which are 
 found.” I his seems to Knobel and others to 
 indicate that there were other daughters, but 
 that these two only were at home, the others 
 being with their husbands in the city (see on 
 v. 14 ); but it very probably points only to 
 the fact, that Lot's wife and daughters were 
 at hoir.e and ready to accompany him, whilst 
 his sons in law scoffed and refused to go. 
 
 16. the Lord being merciful unto him] 
 Lit. “in the mercy” (the sparing pity) “of 
 the Lord to him.” 
 
 17. that he saiiL] i.e. one of the angels. 
 
 the plain] I'he kikkar, the circuit of the 
 Jordan. Lot was to escape from the whole 
 
 of the devoted region, which he had formerly 
 coveted for his .own, and where, when he 
 parted from Abraham, he had made his habi- 
 tation, and sought to enrich himself. 
 
 18. my Lord] The Masorites have the 
 note kadesh^ i.e. “ holy,” but it is probably no 
 more than the salutation of reverence, see 
 V. 2. For, though Lot had now found out 
 the dignity of his guests, there is no evidence 
 that he thought either of them to be the Most 
 High. Indeed the word might be rendered 
 in the plural “my lords,” as the Syr. and 
 Saad. 
 
 19. 1 cannot escape to the mountain] Lot 
 and his family were, no doubt, exhausted by 
 fear and anxiety, and he felt that, if he had to 
 go to the mountains of Moab, he would be 
 exposed to many dangers, which might prove 
 his destruction ; another instance of defective 
 courage and faith, which yet is pardoned by a 
 merciful God. 
 
 some e'vil] The evil, i.e. the destruction 
 about to fall on Sodom; all Lot’s conduct 
 here denotes excessive weakness. 
 
 20 . is it not a little one?] Though Zoar 
 may have been involved in the guilt of the 
 other cities of the plain. Lot pleads that it has 
 but few inhabitants, and that the sins of such 
 a small city can be but comparatively small. 
 So Kashi. 
 
 21. / hai-'e accepted thee] Lit. “ I have 
 lifted up thy face.” It was the custom in the 
 
GENESIS. XIX. 
 
 129 
 
 V. 23 — 28.] 
 
 I cannot do anything till thou be 
 come thither. Therefore the name 
 of the city was called Zoar. 
 t Heb. 23 ^ The sun was ^ risen upon the 
 ^one forth, when Lot entered into Zoar. 
 
 'Deut. 29. 24 Then ^the Lord rained upon 
 
 Luke 17. Sodom and upon Gomorrah brim- 
 stone and fire from the Lord out of 
 
 lmos4 ti‘ > 
 
 Jude 7. ‘ 25 And he overthrew those cities, 
 
 and all the plain, and all the inhabitants 
 of the cities, and that which grew upon 
 the ground. 
 
 26 ^ But his wife looked back from 
 behind him, and she became a pillar of 
 salt. 
 
 27 IT And Abraham gat up early in 
 the morning to the place where he 
 stood before the Lord : 
 
 28 And he looked toward Sodom 
 
 East to make supplication with the face to 
 the ground ; when the prayer was granted, 
 the face was said to be raised. 
 
 22. Zoar\ i.e, “little.” It appears by 
 several ancient testimonies to have been be- 
 lieved that Zoar or Bela, though spared from 
 the first destruction of the cities of the plain, 
 was afterwards swallowed up by an earth- 
 quake, probably when Lot had left it, v. 30. 
 (See Jerom. ‘ ad Jos.’ xv. and ‘Qu. in Gen.’ 
 c. XIV.; Theodoret ‘in Gen.’ xix.). This 
 tradition may account for the statement in 
 Wisdom X. 6, that five cities were destroy- 
 ed, and of Josephus (‘ B. J.’ iv. 8. 4), that 
 the “ shadowy forms of five cities” could be 
 seen ; whereas Deut. xxix. 23 only mentions 
 four, viz. Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and 
 Zeboim : yet, on the other hand, Eusebius 
 (v. jSaXa) witnesses that Bela, or Zoar, was 
 inhabited in his day, and garrisoned by Ro- 
 man soldiers. 
 
 24 . the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon 
 Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out 
 of hean)en\ The Lord is said to have rained 
 from the Lord, an expression much noted by 
 commentators, Jewish and Christian. Several 
 of the Rabbins, Manasseh Ben Israel, R. Si- 
 meon, and others, by the first J ehovah under- 
 stand the angel Gabriel, the angel of the 
 Lord: but there is certainly no other passage 
 in Scripture, where this most sacred name 
 is given to a created angel. Many of the 
 fathers, Ignatius, Justin M., Tertullian, Cy- 
 prian, Athanasius, Hilary, The Council of 
 Sirmium. &c. see in these words the mystery 
 of the Holy Trinity, as though it were said, 
 “ God the Word rained down fire from God 
 the Father;” an interpretation which may 
 seem to be supported by the Jerusalem Tar- 
 gum, where “ the Word of the Lord” is 
 said to have “rained down fire and bitumen 
 from the presence of the Lord.” Other pa- 
 tristic commentators of the highest authority 
 (as Chrysostom, Jerome and Augustine) do 
 not press this argument. A ben Ezra, whom 
 perhaps a majority of Christian commentators 
 have followed in this, sees in these words a 
 peculiar “elegance or grace of language;” 
 “ The Lord rained... from the Lord” being a 
 grander and more impressive mode of saving, 
 VoL. 1. 
 
 “The Lord rained from Himself.” It is a 
 common idiom in Hebrew to repeat the noun 
 instead of using a pronoun. 
 
 brimstone and f re... out of hea'ven\ Many 
 explanations have been offered of this. Whe- 
 ther the fire from heaven was lightning, which 
 kindled the bitumen and set the whole country 
 in a blaze, whether it was a great volcanic 
 eruption overwhelming all the cities of the 
 plain, or whether there was simply a miracu- 
 lous raining down of ignited sulphur, has 
 been variously disputed and discussed. From 
 comparing these words with Deut. xxix. 23, 
 where it is said, “The whole land thereof is 
 brimstone and salt and burning,” it may be 
 reasonably questioned, whether the “ brim- 
 stone” in both passages may not mean bitu- 
 men., with which unquestionably, both before 
 (see ch. xiv. 10), and after the overthrow, the 
 whole country abounded (see also Jerusalem 
 Targum quoted in the last note). The Al- 
 mighty, in His most signal judgments and 
 even in His most miraculous interventions, 
 has been pleased often to use natural agencies ; 
 as, for instance, He brought the locusts on 
 Egypt with an East wind and drove them 
 back with a West wind (Ex. x. 13, 19). 
 Possibly therefore the bitumen, which was the 
 natural produce of the country, volcanic or 
 otherwise, was made the instrument by which 
 the offending cities were destroyed. The re- 
 velation to Abraham, the visit of the angels, 
 the deliverance of Lot, mark the whole as 
 miraculous and the result of direct interven- 
 tion from above, whatever may have been the 
 instrument which the Most High made use of 
 to work His pleasure. 
 
 26 . a pillar of salt] All testimony speaks 
 of the exceeding saltness of the Dead Sea, 
 and the great abundance of salt in its neigh- 
 bourhood {e.g. Galen. ‘ De Simp. Medic. 
 Facult.’ IV. 19). In what manner Lot’s wife 
 actually perished has been questioned. Aben- 
 Ezra supposed that she was first killed by the 
 brimstone and fire and then incrusted over 
 with salt, so as to become a statue or pillar of 
 salt. ^There was a pillar of salt near the Dead 
 Sea, which later tradition identified with Lot's 
 wife (Joseph. ‘ Ant.’ i. ii; Iren. iv. 51; Ter- 
 tullian, ‘ Carmen de Sodoma ; ’ Benjamin of 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 GENESIS. XIX. 
 
 .E- 2 9 — 37 * 
 
 and Gomorrah, and toward all the 
 land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, 
 the smoke of the country went up as 
 the smoke of a furnace. 
 
 29 ^ And it came to pass, when 
 God destroyed the cities of the plain, 
 that God remembered Abraham, and 
 sent Lot out of the midst of the over- 
 throw, when he overthrew the cities 
 in the which Lot dwelt. 
 
 30 ^ And Lot went up out of 
 Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and 
 his two daughters with him ; for he 
 feared to dwell in Zoar : and he dwelt 
 in a cave, be and his two daughters. 
 
 31 And the firstborn said unto the 
 younger. Our father is old, and there 
 is not a man in the earth to come in 
 unto us after the manner of all the 
 earth : 
 
 32 Come, let us make our father 
 drink wine, and we will lie with him. 
 
 that we may preserve seed of our 
 father. 
 
 33 And they made their father 
 drink wine that night : and the first- 
 born went in, and lay with her father; 
 and he perceived not when she lay 
 down, nor when she arose. 
 
 34 And it came to pass on the 
 morrow, that the firstborn said unto 
 the younger. Behold, I lay yesternight 
 with my father : let us make him drink 
 wine this night also; and go thou in, 
 and lie with him, that we may pre- 
 serve seed of our father. 
 
 35 And they made their father 
 drink wine that night also: and the 
 younger arose, and lay with him ; and 
 he perceived not when she lay down, 
 nor when she arose. 
 
 36 Thus were both the daughters 
 of Lot with child by their father. 
 
 37 And the firstborn bare a son, 
 
 Tudela, ‘ Itin.’ p.44. See Heidegger, il. p. 269). 
 The American expedition, under Lynch, 
 found to the East of Usdum a pillar of salt 
 about forty feet high, which was perhaps that 
 referred to by Josephus, &c. 
 
 29 . God remembered Ahraham~\ He re- 
 membered Abraham’s intercession recorded in 
 ch. xviii. and also the covenant which He had 
 made with Abrahar.i, and which was gra- 
 ciously extended so as to benefit his kinsman 
 Lot. 
 
 30 . he feared to d-well in Zoar~\ Jerome 
 (‘ Qu.’ ad h.l.) supposes that Lot had seen 
 Zoar so often affected by earthquakes that he 
 durst no longer abide there, see on v. 22. 
 Rashi thought that the proximity to Sodom 
 was the reason for his fear. The weakness of 
 Lot s character is seen here again, in his not 
 trusting God’s promises. 
 
 d-iveh in a ca^'e'] These mountainous re- 
 gions abound in caves, and the early inhabit- 
 ants foiTncd them into dwellingplaces ; see 
 on ch. xiv. 6. 
 
 31 . there is not a man in the earth'] Iren, 
 (iv. 51;) Chrysostom (‘Horn. 34 in Ge- 
 nes.’), Ambros. (‘He Abrahamo,’ i. 6), Theo- 
 dorct, (‘ Qu. in. Gen.’ 69), excuse this incestu- 
 ous conduct of the daughters of Lot on the 
 ground, that they supposed the whole human 
 race to have -been destroyed, excepting their 
 father and themselves. Even if it were so, the 
 words of St Augustine would be true, that 
 “ they should have j)referred to be childless 
 rather than to treat their father so.” (^Potius 
 
 nunqiiam esse matres quam sic uti patre debu- 
 erunt, ‘ C. Faustumf xxii. 43.) It is too appa- 
 rent that the licentiousness of Sodom had had 
 a degrading influence upon their hearts and 
 lives. 
 
 32 . let us make our father drink 'wine] 
 It has been suggested in excuse for Lot, that 
 his daughters drugged the wine. Of this, 
 however, there is. no intimation in the text. 
 But the whole history is of the simplest cha- 
 racter. It tells plainly all the faults, not of 
 Lot only, but of Abraham and Sarah also. 
 Still though it simply relates and neither praises 
 nor blames, yet in Lot’s history we may trace 
 the judgment as well as the mercy of God. 
 His selfish choice of the plain of Jordan led 
 him perhaps to present wealth and prosperity, 
 but withal to temptation and danger. In 
 the midst of the abandoned profligacy of 
 Sodom he indeed was preserved in compara- 
 tive purity, and so, when God overthrew the 
 cities of the plain, he yet saved Lot from de- 
 struction. Still Lot’s feebleness of faith first 
 caused him to linger, v. 16, then to fear escape 
 to the mountains, v. 19, and lastly to doubt 
 the safety of the place which God had spared 
 for him, v. 30. Now again he is led by 
 his children into intoxication, which betrays 
 him, unconsciously, into far more dreadful 
 wickedness. And then we hear of him no 
 more. He is left by the sacred narrative, 
 saved indeed from the conflagration of Sodom, 
 but an outcast, widowed, homeless, hopeless, 
 without children or grandchildren, save the 
 authors and the heirs of his shame. 
 
GENESIS. XIX. 
 
 131 
 
 V. 38.] 
 
 and called his name Moab: the same 
 is the father of the Moabites unto 
 this day. 
 
 38 And the younger, she also bare 
 
 a son, and called his name Ben- 
 ammi : the same is the father of 
 the children of Ammon unto this 
 day. 
 
 37 . Moab'] According to the LXX. = ;w^>- 
 ab^ i.e. “from the father.” So also the 
 Targ. of Pseudo- Jonathan, Augustine, Je- 
 rome, &c. alluding to the incestuous origin of 
 Moab. The Moabites dwelt originally to the 
 East of the Dead Sea, from whence they 
 expelled the Emims (Deut. ii. it). Afterwards 
 they were driven by the Amorites to the 
 South of the river Arnon, which formed their 
 Northern boundary. 
 
 38 . Ben-amml] I.e. “son of my people,” 
 in allusion to his being of unmixed race. The 
 Ammonites are said to have destroyed the 
 Zam-zummim, a tribe of the Rephaim, and to 
 have succeeded them and dwelt in their stead. 
 (Deut. ii. 22.) They appear for the most part 
 to have been an unsettled marauding violent 
 
 race, of Bedouin habits, worshippers of Mo- 
 lech, “the abomination of the Ammonites.” 
 I K. xi, 7. 
 
 De W ette and his followers, Rosenmuller, 
 Tuch, Knobel, &c. speak of this narrative, as 
 if it had arisen from the national hatred of 
 the Israelites to the Moabites and Ammonites, 
 but the Pentateuch by no means shews such 
 national hatred (see Deut. ii. 9, 19): and the 
 book of Ruth gives the history of a Moabitess 
 who was ancestress of David himself It was 
 not till the Moabites had seduced the Israelites 
 to idolatry and impurity, Num. xxv. i, and 
 had acted in an unfriendly manner towards 
 them, hiring Balaam to curse them, that they 
 were excluded from the congregation of the 
 Lord for ever. Deut. xxiii. 3, 4. 
 
 NOTE A on Chap. xix. 25. The Dead Sea, Site of Sodom and Zoar. 
 (i) Characteristics of Dead Sea. Testimonies ancient and modem. (2) Geological 
 formation. (3) Were Sodom, Zoar, &c. on the North or South of the Dead Sea? 
 
 The Dead Sea, if no historical importance at- 
 tached to it, would still be the. most remark- 
 able body of water in the known world. 
 Many fabulous characteristics were assigned 
 to it by ancient writers, as that birds could 
 not Ry over it, that oxen and camels floated in 
 it, nothing being heavy enough to sink (Ta- 
 cit. ‘ Hist.’ V. 6; Plin. ‘H. N.’ v. 16; Seneca, 
 ‘ Qu. Nat.’ lib. 11.). It has been conjectured 
 by Reland, with some probability, that le- 
 gends belonging to the lake of Asphalt said to 
 have existed near Babylon (see on ch. xi. 3) 
 were mixed up with the accounts of the Dead 
 Sea, and both exaggerated (Reland, ‘ Palest.’ 
 II. pp. 244 seq.). 
 
 The Dead Sea called in Scripture the 
 Salt Sea (Gen. xiv. 3; Numb, xxxiv. 3, 12), 
 the Sea of the Plain (Deut. hi. 17, iv. 49; 
 Josh. hi. 16), and in the later books, “the 
 East Sea” (Ezek. xlvh. 18; Joel ii, 20; in 
 Zech. xiv. 8, “the former sea” should be ren- 
 dered “the East Sea”), is according to Lynch 
 40 geographical miles long by 9 to 9^ broad. 
 Its depression is 1316 feet below the level of 
 the Mediterranean. Its depth in the northern 
 portion is 1308 feet. Its extreme saltness was 
 known to the ancients. Galen. (‘De Simplic. 
 Medicam. Facultat.’ c. 19) says that “ its taste 
 was n®t only salt but bitter.” Modern travel- 
 lers describe the taste as most intensely and 
 intolerably salt, its specific gravity and its 
 buoyancy being consequentlv so great that 
 people can swim or float in it, who could not 
 swim in any other water. Thus excessive 
 saltness is probably caused by the immense 
 
 masses of fossil salt which lie in a mountain at 
 its South-west border, and by the rapid eva- 
 poration of the fresh water, which flows into 
 it (Stanley, ‘ S. and P.’ p. 292; Robinson’s 
 ‘ Phys. Geog.’ p. 195). Both ancient and 
 modern writers assert that nothing animal or 
 vegetable lives in this sea (Tacit. ‘ Hist.’ v. 6; 
 Galen. ‘ De Simpl. Med.’ iv. 19; Hieron. ad 
 Ezech. XLVii. 18; Robinson, ‘Bib. Res.’ 11. 
 p. 226), The few living creatures which the 
 Jordan washes down into it are destroyed 
 (Stanley, ‘ S. and P.’ p. 293). No wonder, 
 then, that the Salt Sea should have been called 
 the Dead Sea, a name unknown to the sacred 
 writers, but common in after times. Even 
 its shores, incrusted with salt, present the ap- 
 pearance of utter desolation. The ancients 
 speak much of the masses of asphalt, or bitu- 
 men, which the lake threw up. Diodorus 
 Sic. affirms that the masses of bitumen were 
 like islands, covering two or three plethra 
 (Diod. Sic. II. 48) ; and Josephus says that 
 they were of the form and magnitude of oxen 
 (‘ B. J.’ IV. 8. 4). Modern travellers testify 
 to the existence of bitumen still on the shores 
 and waters of the Dead Sea, but it is sup- 
 posed by the Arabs, that it is only thrown up 
 by earthquakes. Especially after the earth- 
 quakes of 1834 and 1837, large quantities are 
 said to have been cast upon the Southern 
 shore, probably detached by shocks from the 
 bottom of the Southern bay (Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ 
 II. p. 229; ‘Physical Geog.’ p. 201. See also 
 Thomson, ‘Land and Book,’ p. 223). 
 
 There is great difference between the North- 
 
 I 2 
 
132 
 
 GENESIS. XX. 
 
 ern and Southern portions of the sea. The 
 great depth of the Northern division does not 
 extend to the South. The Southern bay is 
 shallow, its shores low and marshy, almost 
 like a quicksand, (Stanley, ‘S. and P.’p. 293). 
 It has been very generally supposed from Gen. 
 xiv. 3, that the Dead Sea now occupies the 
 site of what was originally the Plain of 
 Jordan, the vale of Siddim, and to this has 
 been added the belief that the cities of Sodom, 
 Gomorrah, &c. were situated in the vale of 
 Siddim, and that they too were covered by 
 the Dead Sea. Recent observations have led 
 many to believe that probably a lake must 
 have existed here before historic times. Yet 
 it is quite conceivable that the terrible catas- 
 trophe recorded in Genesis, traces of which 
 are visible throughout the whole region, may 
 have produced even the deep depression of 
 the bed of the Dead Sea, and so have arrested 
 the streams of the Jordan, which may before 
 that time have flowed onwards through the 
 Arabah, and emptied itself into the Gulph of 
 Akabah. At all events, it is very probable 
 that the Southern division of the lake may 
 have been formed at a comparatively recent 
 date. The character of this Southern part, 
 abounding with salt, frequently throwing up 
 bitumen, its shores producing sulphur and 
 nitre (Robinson, ‘Phys. Geog.’ p. 204), corre- 
 sponds accurately with all that “is told us of 
 the valley of Siddim, which was “full of 
 slime pits” (Gen. xiv. 10), and with the his- 
 tory of the destruction of the cities by fire 
 and brimstone and the turning of Lot’s wife 
 into a pillar of salt. Very probably there- 
 fore the vale of Siddim may correspond with 
 what is now the Southern Bay of the Dead 
 Sea. There is, however, no Scriptural au- 
 thority for saying that Sodom and the other 
 guilty cities were immersed in the sea. They 
 are always spoken of as overthrown by fire 
 from heaven (cf. Deut. xxix. 23; Jer. xlix. 
 18,1.40; Zeph. ii. 9; 2Pet.ii.6). And Jose- 
 phus (‘ B. J.’ IV. 8. 4) speaks of “ Sodomitis, 
 once a prosperous country from its fertility 
 and abundance of cities, but now entirely 
 burnt up,” as adjoining the lake Asphaltites. 
 This was observed long ago by Reland (ii. p. 
 256), and is now generally admitted by tra- 
 vellers and commentators. All ancient testi- 
 mony is in favour of considering the cities of 
 
 [v. 1, 2. 
 
 the plain as having lain at this Southern ex- 
 tremity of the sea. The general belief at pre- 
 sent that that portion only of the sea can have 
 been of recent formation, and hence that that 
 only can have occupied the site of the vale of 
 Siddim, the belief that Sodom was near the 
 vale of Siddim, the bituminous, saline, volcanic 
 aspect of the Southern coast, the traditional 
 nam.es of Usdum, &c., the traditional site of 
 Zoar, called by Josephus (as above) Zoar of 
 Arabia, the hill of -salt, said to have been Lot’s 
 wife, and every other supposed vestige of the 
 destroyed cities being to the South, all tend to 
 the general conviction that the cities of the 
 plain (of the Kikkar) lay either within or 
 around the present South bay of the Dead 
 Sea. On the other hand, Mr Grove (in. Smith’s 
 ‘ Diet, of the Bible’) has argued with great 
 ability in favour of a Northern site for these 
 cities, and he is supported by Tristrani (‘ Land 
 of Israel,’ pp. 360 — 363). The chief grounds 
 for his argument are ist, that Abraham and 
 Lot, at or near Bethel, could have seen the 
 plain of Jordan to the North of the Dead Sea, 
 but could not have seen the Southern valleys 
 (see Gen. xiii. 10); 2ndly, that what they saw 
 was “the Kikkar of the Jordan,” whereas 
 the Jordan flowed into the Dead Sea at its 
 Northern extremity, but probably never flow- 
 ed to the South of that sea : 3rdly, that later 
 writers have been misled by apparent simi- 
 larity of names, by the general belief that the 
 sea had overflowed the sites of the cities and 
 by uncertain traditions. It is, however, to 
 be observed, that Mr Grove’s arguments rest 
 on two somewhat uncertain positions: first, 
 that, in Gen. xiii. 10 — 13, Lot must have been 
 able to see, from between Bethel and Ai, the 
 cities of the plain ; whereas it is possible that 
 the language is not to be pressed too strictly. 
 Lot seeing at the time the river Jordan North 
 of the present Dead Sea, and knowing that 
 the whole valley both North and South was 
 fertile and well watered; secondly, that no 
 part of the Dead Sea can be of recent for- 
 mation, notwithstanding the terrible catas- 
 trophes all around it, to which not only Scrip- 
 ture but tradition and the present appear- 
 ance of the whole country bear testimony. 
 On the other hand, both tradition, local names 
 and local evidences are strongly in favour of 
 the Southern site of the cities destroyed. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 I Abraham sojoiirncth at Gerar, 2 denieth his 
 7 vife., and loscth her. 3 Abvndcch is re- 
 proved Jor her in a dream. 9 He rebiiketh 
 Abraham., 14 restoreth Sarah, 16 and re- 
 provetk her. 17 He is healed by Abraham's 
 prayer. 
 
 K 
 
 ND Abraham journeyed from 
 thence toward the south coun- 
 try, and dwelled between Kadesh 
 ayd Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. 
 
 2 And Abraham said of Sarah his 
 wife, She is my sister: and Abime- 
 
 CiiAi’. XX. 1 . From thmce'\ i.e. from visitors, and whence he had beheld the smoke 
 Mamre, where he had received tlie heavenly from the conflagration of the cities of the plain. 
 
t Heb. 
 rtfarried 
 to an 
 husband. 
 
 v.3-7.] GENESIS. XX. 
 
 133 
 
 lech king of Gerar sent, and took 
 Sarah. 
 
 3 But God came to Abimelech in 
 a dream by night, and said to him, 
 Behold, thou art but a dead man, for 
 the woman which thou hast taken ; 
 for she is ^a man’s wife. 
 
 4 But Abimelech had not come 
 near her: and he said. Lord, wilt 
 thou slay also a righteous nation ? 
 
 5 Said he not unto me, She is my 
 sister ? and she, even she herself said. 
 
 •He is my brother: in the " integrity u Or, 
 of my heart and innocency of my 
 hands have I done this. 
 
 6 And God said unto him in a 
 dream, Yea, I know that thou didst 
 this in the integrity of thy heart; for 
 I also withheld thee from sinning 
 against me: therefore suffered I thee 
 not to touch her. 
 
 7 Now therefore restore the man 
 his wife ; for he is a prophet, and he 
 shall pray for thee, and thou shalt 
 
 It may have been painful to him to abide in a 
 place, where he would be hourly reminded of 
 this terrible catastrophe, or he may merely 
 have travelled onward in search of fresh pas- 
 turage. 
 
 d-ivelled bet<iveen Kadesh and Shur., and so- 
 journed in Gerar'] He settled apparently in a 
 fertile country lying between the two deserts 
 of Kadesh and Shur, and finally took up his 
 residence as a stranger or sojourner (so the 
 word “sojourned” signifies) at Gerar, a place 
 which, St Jerome says, was on the southern 
 border of the Canaanites. Gerar was not far 
 from Gaza (Gen. x. 19), and Beersheba (xxvi. 
 26). Its site has probably been identified by 
 Rowlands (Williams’ ‘Holy City,’ I. 465) 
 with the traces of an ancient city now called 
 Khirbet-el-Gerar., near a deep Wady called 
 Jurf-el-Gerar., about three hours to the south- 
 south-east of Gaza. 
 
 2. She is wy sister] This was Abraham’s 
 plan of action, when sojourning among 
 strangers, of whose character he was ignorant, 
 see V. 13. He has been defended as having 
 “ said she was his sister, without denying that 
 she was his wife, concealing the truth but not 
 speaking what was false” (August, ‘c. Faust.’ 
 XXII. 3). But, though concealment may not 
 necessarily be deception, we can scarcely ac- 
 quit Abraham either of some disingenuous- 
 ness or of endangering his wife’s honour and 
 chastity, in order to save his own life. 
 
 Abimelech] Father of the king., or perhaps 
 father king., the common title of the Philistine 
 kings, as Pharaoh was of the Egyptians. The 
 age at whfeh Sarah must have been at this 
 time, some twenty-three or twenty-four years 
 older than when Pharaoh took her into his 
 house (ch. xii. 15), creates a considerable dif- 
 ficulty here. We may remember that Sarah 
 after this became a mother, that though too 
 old for childbearing under normal conditions, 
 she had had her youth renewed since the visit 
 of the angels (Kurtz), when it was promised 
 that she should have a son. The assertion of 
 rnodern critics that this is merely another ver- 
 sion of ch. xii. 10 — 20, the work of the Elohist, 
 whilst that was by the Jehovist, is ably com- 
 
 bated by Keil (p. 170, Eng.Trans. p. 242). He 
 observes, that the name Elohim indicates the 
 true relation of God to Abimelech ; but that 
 in V.18, Jehovah, the covenant God of Abra- 
 ham, interposes to save him. All the more mi- 
 nute details of this history are different from 
 that in ch. xii. In Abimelech we see a totally 
 different character from that of Pharaoh ; the 
 character, namely, of a heathen imbued with 
 a moral consciousness of right and open to 
 receive a divine revelation, of which there is 
 no trace in the account' of the king of Egypt. 
 It is not to be wondered at that the same 
 danger should twice have occurred to Sarah, 
 if we remember that the customs of the hea- 
 then nations, among which he was sojourning, 
 were such as to induce Abraham to use the 
 artifice of calling his wife his sister. 
 
 4. had not come near her] Apparently 
 a divinely sent illness had been upon him, 
 vv. 6, 18. 
 
 a righteous nation] i. e. a nation guiltless as 
 regards this act of their king ; but it may be, 
 that the people of Gerar were really exempt 
 from the worst vices of Canaan, and living in 
 a state of comparative piety and simplicity. 
 
 6. suffered I thee not to touch her] See 
 on V. 4 . 
 
 7. he is a prophet] i. e. one inspired by 
 ^ God, or the medium of God’s communications 
 
 and revelations to mankind. Thus Exod. vii. i, 
 Aaron is said to be Moses’ prophet, because 
 he was to convey the messages and commands 
 of Moses to Pharaoh. An objection has been 
 made to the antiquity of the Pentateuch from 
 the statement in i S. ix. 9, that “he that is 
 now called a Prophet was beforetime called a 
 Seer.” Hence it is argued that the Pentateuch, 
 which always uses the word prophet, cannot 
 be of the great antiquity assigned to it. The 
 difficulty is only on the surface. “Prophet” 
 was the genuine name applied to all who de- 
 clared God’s will, who foretold the future, 
 or even to great religious teachers. “Seer” 
 had a more restricted sense, and was appro- 
 priated to those only who were favoured 
 with visions from heaven. The word prophet 
 occurs constantly in the Pentateuch in the 
 
134 
 
 GENESIS. XX. 
 
 [v. 8 — 1 6. 
 
 live: and if thou restore her not, 
 know thou that thou shalt surely die, 
 thou, and all that are thine. 
 
 8 Therefore Abimelech rose early 
 in the morning, and called all his 
 servants, and told all these things in 
 their ears: and the men were sore 
 afraid. 
 
 9 Then Abimelech called Abra- 
 ham, and said unto him. What hast 
 thou done unto us? and what have 
 I offended thee, that thou hast brought 
 on me and on my kingdom a great 
 sin? thou hast done deeds unto me 
 that ought not to be done. 
 
 10 And Abimelech said unto Abra- 
 ham, What sawest thou, that thou 
 hast done this thing? 
 
 11 And Abraham said, Because I 
 thought. Surely the fear of God is 
 not in this place ; and they will slay 
 me for my wife’s sake. 
 
 general sense of one in communion with God, 
 and made the medium of God’s communica- 
 tions to man. The word “ seer” would gen- 
 erally be out of place in such a passage as this, 
 or such as Ex. vii. i, xv. zo; Mum. xi. 29, 
 xii. 6, &c.; but in the time of Samuel, wfieu 
 “the word of the Lord was precious there 
 was no open vision,” (i S. iii. i ;) the appli- 
 cation of the title “seer” to Samuel, who had 
 visions specially vouchsafed to him, was very 
 appropriate; yet after his time, though the 
 name was sometimes employed to designate 
 the inspired teachers of mankind, the older 
 and more comprehensive title of “prophet” 
 again came into common use, not only for 
 teachers of religion generally, but also for the 
 most favoured of God's servants. (See ‘ Mosaic 
 Origin of the Pentateuch,’ by a Layman, 
 P- 97 -) 
 
 he shall pray for thee'\ As the prophets 
 were the instruments of God’s revelations. 
 His messengers, to man; so men made the 
 prophets instruments for sending their prayers 
 up to God (Cleric.). Cp. Jer. vii. 16, xi. 14, 
 xiv. II. 
 
 10. What sawest thou] Many recent 
 commentators, Knobel, Delitzsch, Keil, &c., 
 render, “ What hadst thou in view?” The 
 more simple sense is, what didst thou see in 
 the conduct and manners of me or my people, 
 that thou shouldest have done so to us ? Didst 
 thou see us taking away the wives of strangers 
 and murdering the husbands? 
 
 11. Surely the fear of God is not in this 
 place] Abraham had seen the impiety and 
 
 12 And yet indeed she is my sister; 
 she is the daughter of my father, but 
 not the daughter of my mother; and 
 she became my wife. 
 
 13 And it came to pass, when God 
 caused me to wander from my father’s 
 house, that I said unto her. This is 
 thy kindness which thou shalt shew 
 unto me; at every place whither we 
 
 shall come, ^say of me. Pie is my » chap. 12. 
 brother. 
 
 14 And Abimelech took sheep, and 
 oxen, and menservants, and women- 
 servants, and gave thein unto Abra- 
 ham, and restored him Sarah his 
 wife. 
 
 15 And Abimelech said, Behold, 
 
 my land is before thee: dwell ^ where t Heb. 
 it pleaseth thee. 
 
 16 And unto Sarah he said. Behold, 
 
 I have given thy brother a thousand 
 pieces of silver: behold, he is to thee 
 
 heathenism of the Canaanitish races, and had 
 lately witnessed the overthrow of Sodom for 
 the licentiousness of its people, and he natu- 
 rally thought that the inhabitants of Gerar 
 might be equally forgetful of God, and there- 
 fore prone to all wickedness. 
 
 12. she is my sister she is the daughter of 
 my father^ but not the daughter, of my mother] 
 Sarah’s name does not occur in the genea- 
 logies, and we do not know any thing of her 
 birth but that which is here stated. Such 
 marriages, though afterwards forbidden (Lev. 
 xviii. 9, II, XX. 17; Deut. xxvii. 22), may 
 not have been esteemed unlawful in patri- 
 archal times, and they were common among 
 the heathen nations of antiquity (Ach.Tatius, 
 Lib. I.; Diod. I. 27; Herod, ill. 31; Nepos, 
 
 ‘ Cimon,’ c. i.) Many Jewish and Christian 
 interpreters, however, think that daughter here 
 means granddaughter.^ and that Sarah was the 
 same as I scab, the sister of Lot (ch. xi. 29), 
 who is called “the brother of Abraham” (ch. 
 xiv. 16). 
 
 13 . God caused me to wander] *In general 
 the name of God (Elohim), though of plural 
 form, IS joined with a singular verb. In this 
 case, however, the verb is in the plural. Similar 
 constructions occur ch. XXXV. 7 ; Exod. xxii. 8; 
 2 S. vii. 23; (cp. I Chr. xvii. 21); Ps. Iviii. 12. 
 In Josh. XXIV. 19, the adjective is in the plural. 
 The Samaritan Pentateuch here and in ch. 
 XXXV. 7 has the verb in the singular. 
 
 16 . a thousand pieces of sil-ver] Lit. “a 
 thousand of silver.” I'he versions insert “she- 
 kels” or “didrachmas; ” nothing can be known 
 of the weights and measures of this early time. 
 
V. 17—6.] 
 
 GENESIS. XX. XXI. 
 
 135 
 
 a covering of the eyes, unto all that 
 are with thee, and with all other: thus 
 she was reproved. 
 
 17 ^ So Abraham prayed unto 
 God : and God healed Abimelech, 
 and his wife, and his maidservants; 
 and they bare children. 
 
 18 For the Lord had fast closed 
 up all the wombs of the house of 
 Abimelech, because of Sarah Abra- 
 ham’s wife. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 I Isaac is born. 4 He is circtwicised. 6 Sarah's 
 joy. 9 Hagar and Ishmael are cast forth. 
 15 Hagar in distress. 17 The angel com- 
 forteth her. 22 Abimelech' s covenant with 
 Abraham at Beer-sheba. 
 
 AND the Lord visited Sarah as he 
 had said, and the Lord did 
 unto Sarah '*as he had spoken. <*chap. 
 
 2 For Sarah '^conceived, and bare 10. 
 Abraham a son in his old age, at the Oat 
 set time of which God had spoken to “• 
 him. 
 
 3 And Abraham called the name 
 of his son that was born unto him, 
 whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. 
 
 4 And Abraham circumcised his 
 
 son Isaac being eight days old, ‘^as God '^chap. 17. 
 had commanded him. 
 
 5 And Abraham was an hundred 
 years old, when his son Isaac was 
 born unto him. 
 
 6 ^ And Sarah said, God hath 
 
 Probably the thousand pieces of silver indicate 
 the value of the sheep and oxen, which Abi- 
 melech gave to Abraham, though some think 
 it was an additional present. 
 
 16 . he is to thee a coaoering of the eyes^ 
 Thei-e is great variety of opinion as to the 
 sense of these words. If we follow the ren- 
 dering of the Authorized Version, the most 
 probable interpretation is that of Heidegger, 
 Schroeder, Rosenmiiller, &c., viz. this, that in 
 early times in the East unmarried women often 
 went unveiled, but married women always 
 veiled themselves. Cp. Gen. xxiv. 65. Hence 
 Abimelech meant to say, that Abraham should 
 be like a veil to Sarah, screening her from the 
 eyes of all other men. See Rosenm. in loc. 
 Heidegger, ii. p. 163. The words might have 
 been rendered, as by the LXX., Vulg., Targg., 
 Syr., “it” or “they,” i.e. the one thousand 
 pieces of silver “ are to thee a covering of the 
 eyes,” in which case the meaning would pro- 
 bably be “this gift is to thee for a covering to 
 the eyes, so that thou shouldest overlook or 
 condone the injury done to thee.” So St 
 Chrysostom, and among moderns, Gesenius, 
 Tuch, Knobel, &c. 
 
 thus she ojoas repron}ed'\ Here also there is 
 great diversity of interpretation; but the Au- 
 thorized Version is probably correct, and we 
 must understand the words to be those of the 
 historian, not of Abimelech. So apparently 
 Onk., Arab., Saad., Kimchi, Gesen., Rosenm., 
 &c. 
 
 18 . the Lord] Keil has observed, that 
 'the various names of the Most High are used 
 very significantly in these two last verses. The 
 care of Abimelech and his wives belonged to 
 the Deity {Ehhim). Abraham directed his 
 intercession not to Elohhn.^ an indefinite and 
 unknown god, but to Ha-Elohirn^ “the” true 
 “ God;” and it was Jehovah, the covenant 
 
 God, who interposed for Abraham and pre- 
 served the mother of the promised seed. 
 
 Chap. XXI. 1. the Lord did unto Sarah 
 as he had spoken] In ch. xvii. 16, God pro- 
 mised that He would give Abraham a son 
 by Sarah his wife, on which promise Abra- 
 ham fell on his face and laughed, whether 
 from incredulity or fbr joy. What God (Elo- 
 him) then promised here the Lord (Jeho- 
 vah) fulfils. 
 
 2 . at the set time of which God had spoken 
 to him] The “set time” was fixed, ch. xvii. 
 21, and xviii. 10, 14. (See note on ch. xviii. 
 10.) Modern critics see in ch. xvii. and in 
 this ch. xxi. an Elohistic portion of the his- 
 tory of Abraham, and in ch. xviii. a Jeho- 
 vistic portion. Yet this present chapter seems 
 clearly to point back to both ch. xvii. and ch. 
 xviii., and in its first verse it uses twice the 
 name Jehovah, whilst in the second and 
 subsequent verses it has constantly the name 
 Elohim until we come to v. 33, when both 
 names are conjoined, for Abraham is said to 
 have called on the name of “The Lord, the 
 everlasting God.” 
 
 3. Isaac] The name which God had ap- 
 pointed for him, ch. xvii. 19. See also note 
 on ch. xviii. 12. 
 
 6. God hath made me to laugh] What- 
 ever was the nature of Sarah’s laughter when 
 the promise was made to her (see ch. xviii. 
 12), she now acknowledges that God had 
 made her to laugh for joy; and she recognizes 
 that He, whom she then took foi*- a traveller 
 and who made the promise, at which she 
 laughed, was truly God. 
 
 will laugh with me] The Hebrew might 
 mean “laugh at me” or “laugh with me.” 
 The Authorised Version rightly follows the 
 LXX., Vulg., Targg., &c. 
 
136 
 
 GENESIS. XXI. 
 
 [v. 7—14. 
 
 s' Gal. 4. 
 
 30- 
 
 made me to laugh, so that all that 
 hear will laugh with me. 
 
 7 And she said, Who would have 
 said unto Abraham, that Sarah should 
 have given children suck? for I have 
 born him a son in his old age. 
 
 8 And the child grew, and was 
 weaned: and Abraham made a great 
 feast the same day that Isaac was 
 weaned. 
 
 9 ^ And Sarah saw the son of 
 Hagar the Egyptian, which she had 
 born unto Abraham, mocking. 
 
 10 Wherefore she said unto Abra- 
 ham, ^Cast out this bondwoman and 
 her son: for the son of this bond- 
 
 woman shall not be heir with my son, 
 even with Isaac. 
 
 1 1 And the thing was very griev- 
 ous in Abraham’s sight because of his 
 son. 
 
 12 ^ And God said unto Abraham, 
 Let it not be grievous in thy sight 
 because of the lad, and because of thy 
 bondwoman ; in all that Sarah hath 
 said unto thee, hearken unto her 
 voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be 
 called. 
 
 1 3 And also of the son of the bond- 
 woman will I make a nation, because 
 he IS thy seed. 
 
 14 And Abraham rose up early in 
 
 7. Who <u)ould have sal(f\ The render- 
 ing of the Authorised Version is most like- 
 ly correct. The obscurity of the passage 
 probably arises from its poetical form. It 
 has been long ago observed, that the words 
 are apparently those of a short poem or hymn, 
 like the hymn of Hannah, i S. ii. i — 7, or 
 the Magnificat of the Blessed Virgin, Luke i. 
 46 — 55, the resemblance to which is the more 
 noticeable, as Isaac was an eminent type of 
 the Lord Jesus (see Wordsworth ad loc.). 
 That these words were of the nature of a 
 hymn or poem is seen in the use of a poetical 
 word (millel) for “said,” instead of the more 
 common words {(libber or amar ) ; and also in 
 the appearance of regular parallelism of the 
 members of the sentence. 
 
 8. the child grevj^ and <zvas ^veanecT] F rom 
 I S. i. 23, 24; 2 Macc. vii. 27; Joseph.- 
 ‘ Ant.’ II. 9. 6, it has been inferred that chil- 
 dren were not weaned among the Hebrews 
 till they were three years old. Ishmael was 
 thirteen years old when he was circumcised, 
 ch. xvii. 25, and one year after Isaac was 
 born, ch. xvii. 21. If therefore Isaac was 
 three years old at his weaning, Ishmael must 
 have been then seventeen. If Isaac was but 
 one year old, Ishmael would have been fifteen. 
 
 made a great feast'] By comparing i S. 
 i. 24, 25, it would seem that this was very 
 probably a religious feast. 
 
 9 . mocking] The word, which natural- 
 ly means to laugh^ is rendered by the LXX. 
 and Vulg., “playing with Isaac.” Tuch, 
 Knobel, &c. s.'iy the word means merely, 
 “playing like a child.” Goscnius thinks it 
 was “ playing and dancing gracefully,” and 
 so attracting the favour of his father, which 
 moved the envy of Sarah. The Targum of 
 Onkelos appears to give the sense of “ de- 
 
 riding” (see Buxtorf, ‘Lex. Chald. and Tal- 
 mud.’ p. 719), as does the Syriac. The later 
 Targums (Pseudo-Jon, and Jerusalem) un- 
 derstand some acts of idolatrous worship or 
 perhaps impurity, (comp. Ex. xxxii. 6, where 
 the same word is used for “ play,” and i Cor. 
 X. 7). It is quite untrue that the word 
 “laugh,” here rendered “mocking,” is never 
 used but in a good sense. In ch. xix. 14, it 
 is rightly rendered “ mocked,” See also Gen. 
 xxvi. 8, xxxix. 14, 17; Ex. xxxii. 6. It pro- 
 bably means in this passage, as it has generally 
 been understood, “ mocking laughter.” As 
 Abraham had laughed for joy concerning 
 Isaac, and Sarah had laughed incredulously, so 
 now Ishmael laughed in derision, and proba- 
 bly in a persecuting and tyrannical, spirit 
 (see Gal. iv. 29). 
 
 10. Cast out] These words are quoted 
 by St Paul (Gal. iv. 30), introduced by “ But 
 what saith the Scripture?” The words were 
 those of Sarah, but they are confirmed by the 
 Almighty, v. 12. 
 
 12. in Isaac shall thy seed be called] Here 
 is the distinct limitation of the great pro- 
 mises of God to the descendants of Abra- 
 ham in the line of Isaac (see Rom. ix. 7). 
 God's promises gradually developed them- 
 selves in fulness, and yet were gradually re- 
 stricted in extent: to Adam first; then to 
 Noah; to Abraham; then to one race or seed 
 of Abraham, viz. Isaac; to one of Isaac’s 
 children, viz. Jacob; to one of the twelve pa- 
 triarchs, viz. Judah; then to his descendant 
 David; and lastly to the great Son of David, 
 the true promised Seed; but as all centred in 
 Him, so too from Him they have spread out 
 to all redeemed by Him, though more espe- 
 cially taking effect in those, who are “the 
 children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” 
 (Gal. iii. 26). 
 
V. 15— 1 7-] 
 
 GENESIS. XXI. 
 
 137 
 
 the morning, and took bread, and a 
 bottle of water, and gave it unto 
 Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and 
 the child, and sent her away : and she 
 departed, and wandered in the wilder- 
 ness of Beer-sheba. 
 
 15 And the water was spent in the 
 bottle, and she cast the child under 
 one of the shrubs. 
 
 16 And she went, and sat her down 
 over against him a good way off, as it 
 were a bowshot : for she said, Let me 
 not see the death of the child. And 
 she sat over against hi?n^ and lift up 
 her voice, and wept. 
 
 17 And God heard the voice of the 
 lad; and the angel of God called to 
 Hagar out of heaven, and said unto 
 
 14 . a bottle] A skin or leathern bot- 
 tle, probably made of the skin of a goat or a 
 kid, (See the word bottle in Smith’s ‘ Diet, of 
 the Bible.’) 
 
 putting it on her shoulder] Hagar was an 
 Egyptian, and Herod, (ii. 35) says that the 
 women in Egypt carried burdens on their 
 shoulders^ but the men carried them on their 
 heads. According to the testimony of the 
 sculptures both men and women carried bur- 
 dens on their shoulders. It is common now 
 in the East to see women carrying skins of 
 water in this way. (See Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ l. 
 p. 340, II. pp. 163, 276.) 
 
 and the child] The sacred writer has been 
 charged with an anachronism here, both from 
 his use of the word “child,” when Ishmael 
 must have been from fifteen to seventeen 
 years old (see note on v. 8), and because it is 
 said that the original indicates that he, as well 
 as the bread and water, was placed on Ha- 
 gar’s shoulder. The word for “child” {ye~ 
 led)^ however, is used for boys of adolescent 
 age, as in Gen. xlii. 22, of Joseph, when he 
 was seventeen. It is true, the Vatican MS. 
 of the LXX. renders “he placed the boy on 
 her shoulders,” which Tuch adopts as the 
 right rendering; but the Alexandrian MS. of 
 the LXX. has simply “and the boy,” whilst 
 the Vulg., Targg., Syr., connect the words 
 “putting it on her shoulder” only with the 
 bread and the bottle of water, Vv^hich is per- 
 fectly consistent with the Hebrew, whether 
 the verb be rendered by the past tense, or, as 
 probably with accuracy in the Authorised 
 Version, by the participle. The promise, 
 which Abraham had just received, that God 
 would make a nation of Ishmael also, v. 13, 
 may probably have led him to trust that the 
 boy and his mother would be provided for, 
 and so to leave them with only provision for 
 their immediate wants. 
 
 in the <wilderness of Beer-sheba] Abraham, 
 who had been now for at least a year dwell- 
 ing in the neighbourhood of Gerar (ch. xx. i), 
 may very probably have by this time taken 
 up his residence at Beersheba (see vv. 33, 34). 
 The name Beersheba is here given prolepti- 
 cally (see v. 31), unless the events in the lat- 
 ter part of this chapter took place before 
 
 those in the former part, not having been re- 
 lated at first, lest there should be a break in 
 the continuity of the history of Isaac and 
 Ishmael. 
 
 15 . she cast the child under one of the 
 shrubs] From this expression again it is in- 
 ferred that Ishmael must have been a child in 
 arms. Such a conclusion, however, is not 
 borne out by these’ words, nor by the whole 
 narrative. The boy was young, but he was 
 evidently old enough to give offence to Sarah 
 by mocking (v. 9). At a time when human 
 life was much longer than it is now (Ishmael 
 himself died at 137), fifteen or sixteen would 
 be little removed from childhood. The grow- 
 ing lad would easily be exhausted with the 
 heat and wandering; whilst the hardy habits 
 of the Egyptian handmaid would enable her 
 to endure much greater fatigue. She had 
 hitherto led the boy by the hand, now she left 
 him fainting and prostrate under the shelter 
 of a tree. (So Le Clerc followed by Rosen- 
 miiller.) 
 
 16 . a good nvay ojf^ as it nvere a bonv- 
 shot] Lit. “ as far off as the drawers of a 
 bow,” or “as they who draw a bow,” i.e. as 
 far as archers can shoot an arrow. 
 
 17 . the angel of God] No where else in 
 Genesis does this name occur. Elsewhere it 
 is always “the Angel of the Lord.” We 
 meet with it again in Exod. xiv. 19, “And 
 the Angel of God, which went before the 
 camp of Israel, removed, and went behind 
 them.” The identification of the Malach Elo- 
 him with Elohim (cp. vv. 17, 19, 20,) here is 
 exactly like the identification of the Malach 
 Jehovah with Jehovah in other passages; 
 a clear proof that there is not that difference 
 between the Elohistic and Jehovistic passages 
 in the Pentateuch, of which so much has been 
 written. In ch. xvi. 7, whilst Hagar was 
 still Abraham’s secondary wife, we read that 
 the Angel of the Lord, the covenant God of 
 Abraham, appeared to her. She and her son, 
 by Isaac’s birth and their expulsion from 
 Abraham’s household, are now separated from 
 the family and covenant of promdse, yet still 
 objects of care to Him who is “ the God of 
 the spirits of all flesh,” and “ of all the ends 
 of the earth.” 
 
138 
 
 GENESIS. XXL 
 
 [v. 18—32. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 if tho7i 
 shalt lie 
 unto me. 
 
 her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear 
 not; for God hath heard the voice of 
 the lad 'where he is. 
 
 18 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold 
 him in thine hand; for I 'will make 
 him a great nation. 
 
 19 And God opened her eyes, and 
 she sa-w a 'well of water; and she 
 went, and filled the bottle with water, 
 and gave the lad drink. 
 
 20 And God was with the lad ; and 
 he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, 
 and became an archer. 
 
 21 And he dwelt in the wilderness 
 of Paran : and his mother took him a 
 wife out of the land of Egypt. 
 
 22 And it came to pass at that 
 time, that Abimelech and Phichol 
 the chief captain of - his host spake 
 unto Abraham, saying, God is with 
 thee in all that thou doest : 
 
 23 Now therefore swear unto me 
 here by God ^that thou wilt not deal 
 falsely with me, nor with my son, nor 
 with my son’s son : hut according to 
 the kindness that I have done unto 
 thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to 
 the land wherein thou hast sojourned. 
 
 24 And Abraham said, I will swear. 
 
 25 And Abraham reproved Abi- 
 melech because of a well of water, 
 which Abimelech’s servants had vio- 
 lently taken away. 
 
 26 And Abimelech said, I wot not 
 who hath done this thing: neither 
 didst thou tell me, neither yet heard 
 I of it.^ but to day. 
 
 27 And Abraham took sheep and 
 oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech ; 
 and both of them made a covenant. 
 
 28 And Abraham set seven ewe 
 lambs of the flock by themselves. 
 
 29 And Abimelech said unto Abra- 
 ham, What mean these seven ewe 
 lambs which thou hast set by them- 
 selves ? 
 
 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. 
 
 31 Wherefore he called that place 
 
 " Beer-sheba; because there they sware i[,Thati.s, 
 both of them. 
 
 32 Thus they made a covenant at 
 Beer-sheba; then Abimelech rose up, 
 and Phichol the chief captain of his 
 
 18 . Arhe^ lift up the lad,, and hold him 
 in thine hand\ So the Versions, according 
 to the common use of the same verb "with 
 the same preposition. Cp. Deut. xxii. 25 ; 
 Judg. xix. 25, 29; a S. xili. ii, &c. ; and see 
 Gesen. ‘Thes.’ p. 463. “From this,” says 
 St Jerome, “it is plain that the boy -whom 
 she held in her hand had been her companion 
 on the journey, not a burden on her shoul- 
 ders,” ‘Qu. in Gen’. 
 
 19 . God opened her eyes,, and she sansj a 
 moell of <r^vater\ Very probably the mouth of 
 the well had been purposely covered by the in- 
 habitants of the desert, and was now by God’s 
 gracious intervention discovered to Hagar. 
 
 21 . in the wilderness of Paran\ (See on 
 ch. xiv. 6). Probably the great desert, now 
 called the desert El-l'ih, i.e. “the wander- 
 ings,” extending from the Wady-el-Arabah 
 on the cast, to the gulf of Suez on the west, 
 and from the Sinaitic range on the south to 
 the borders of Palestine on the north. 
 
 took him a wife out of the land of Egypf\ 
 According to the custom then prevalent in 
 .the East for parents to choose wives for their 
 sons. (See ch. xxiv. 4, 55 ; Exod. xxi. 10.) 
 
 22 . Phichol] The name occurs again in 
 
 ch. xxvi. 26, and, as it signifies “the mouth 
 of all,” it has been supposed to have been the 
 name of an officer, the grand vizier or prime 
 minister of the king, through whom all com- 
 plaints and petitions were to be made to him. 
 Abimelech was also an official name. See on 
 ch. XX. 2. 
 
 23 . that thou wilt not deal falsely with 
 me] Lit. “if thou shalt lie unto me;” the 
 common form of an oath in Hebrew. See 
 above, on xiv. 23. 
 
 31 . Beer-sheba] i.e. “the well of the 
 oath,” or, it might be, “ the well of the 
 seven.” There was a connection between the 
 sacred number seven and an oath ; oaths being 
 ratified with the sacrifice of seven victims or 
 by the gift of seven gifts (as seems to have 
 been the case here), or confirmed by seven 
 witnesses and pledges. (See Herod, iii. 8 ; 
 Horn. ‘II.’ XIX. 243). Beer-sheba was in the 
 Wady-es-Seba, a wide water-course or bed 
 of a torrent, twelve hours south of Hebron, 
 in which there are still relics of an ancient 
 town or village, called Bir-es-Seba, with two 
 deep wells of good water. See Robinson, 
 
 ‘ B. R.’ I. p. 204, seq. St Jerome speaks of 
 the city as remaining in his day (‘Qu.adGen.’ 
 XXI. 31). 
 
V. 33— 1-] 
 
 GENESIS. XXL XXII. 
 
 139 
 
 host, and they returned into the land 
 of the Philistines. 
 
 0 Or, tree. 33 ^ And Abrahatii planted a ” grove 
 in Eeer-sheba, and called there on the 
 name of the Lord, the everlasting 
 God. 
 
 34 And Abraham sojourned in the 
 Philistines’ land many days. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 I AbraJtam is tempted to offer Isaac. 3 He 
 giveth p 7 -oof of his faith and obedience, i r 
 The attgel stayeth him. 1 3 Isaac is exchanged 
 with a ram. 14 The place is called Jehovah- 
 jireh. 15 Abi'aJuun is blessed agam. 20 The 
 generation of Nahor unto Rebekah. 
 
 K 
 
 ND it came to pass after these 
 things, that "God did tempt 
 
 « Heb. II 
 
 17- 
 
 33 . Abraham planted a grc've'\ Rather 
 a tamarisk tree. This is the rendering of 
 Kimchi, which is adopted by Gesenius (‘ Th,’ 
 p. 159), Rosenm., and most of the German 
 critics. (The ancient versions vary very much 
 in their interpretation.) The hardiness of this 
 evergreen shrub would fit it to be a perpetual 
 memorial to Abraham and his followers that 
 this well was theirs. 
 
 the Lord., the e-verlastlng Cod'] “ JEHO- 
 VAH, the God of eternity.” The word, ren- 
 dered everlasting, means probably “the hidden 
 time,” that, whose beginning and ending are 
 hidden in darkness, hence “eternity” (Ges. 
 ‘Th.’ p. 1035). It signifies also “the world,” 
 “the universe,” and hence, according to Mai- 
 monides, it means here the God of the uni- 
 verse, the Creator of the world. So the 
 Samaritan, Syr., and Arab, versions. The 
 more probable sense, however, is that given 
 in the Authorised Version, which corresponds 
 with the LXX., Vulg., *Onk., and other 
 Targg. The Jehovah whom Abraham 
 worshipped is here identified with “El-Olam,” 
 the God of eternity, which was very probably 
 a local name for the supreme Being. Com- 
 pare “Elion” in ch. xiv. zz. 
 
 Chap. XXII. 1. And it came to pass 
 after these things'] This is the only note of 
 time that we have in this chapter, excepting 
 the fact that Isaac was now grown old enough 
 to bear the wood of the burnt offering, and to 
 carry it up the mountain. The words “after 
 these things,” rather refer us to all that had 
 been passing before. Abraham, after long 
 wanderings and many trials, is presented to us 
 in the last chapter, as eminently comforted 
 and in a condition of peaceful prosperity. 
 The promised, longed-for son has been given 
 to him; his other son Ishmael, though no 
 longer in his household, is growing up and 
 prospering, Abraham is in treaty and at peace 
 with his neighbours the Philistines, he sojourns 
 for many days at Beer-sheba and its neigh- 
 bourhood, with abundance of cattle, in a 
 place well watered and fertile. Thus it ap- 
 pears to have been with him till now, when 
 his son, his only son Isaac, whom he loved, is 
 growing up to early manhood, his chief com- 
 fort and stay and hope in this world. But 
 times of prosperity are often times when trial 
 is needed for us, and so we find it here. There 
 
 is great variety of tradition, but no evidence, 
 as to the age of Isaac in this chapter. Ac- 
 cording to Josephus (‘Ant’ I. 14), he was 
 twenty-five. Aben-Ezra supposes that he 
 was only thirteen, whilst some of the rabbins 
 put him even at thirty-seven (see Heidegger, 
 II. 282). 
 
 God did tempt Abraham] Lit. “The God 
 did tempt,” &;c. possibly referring to the 
 last two verses of the last chapter (where J e- 
 hovah is called El-olam), meaning “this 
 same God.” Much difficulty has been most 
 needlessly found in these words. St James 
 tells us (i. 13) that “ God cannot be tempted 
 with evil, neither tempteth He any man,” 
 language which it has been thought difficult 
 to reconcile with this history in Genesis. So, 
 some have endeavoured to explain away the 
 words of this passage, as though Abraham 
 had felt a strong temptation rising in his own 
 heart, a temptation from Satan, or from self, 
 a horrible thought raised perhaps by witness- 
 ing the human sacrifices of the Phoenicians, 
 and had then referred the instigation to God, 
 thinking he was tempted from above, whereas 
 the real temptation was from beneath. The 
 difficulty, however, has arisen from not ob- 
 serving the natural force of the word here 
 rendered “did tempt,” and the ordinary use 
 of that word in the language of the Old 
 Testament, especially of the Pentateuch. 
 According to the highest authorities, the pri- 
 mary sense of the verb corresponds with that 
 of a similar word in Arabic, viz. “to smell,” 
 and thence “to test by smelling” (see Ges. 
 ‘Thes.’p. 889, and the testimonies there cited). 
 Hence it came to signify close, accurate, deli- 
 cate testing or trying. It is translated by 
 “prove,” “assay,” “adventure,” “try,” and 
 that very much more frequently than it is 
 translated by “tempt.” For instance, David 
 would not take the sword and armour of 
 Saul, because had not “proved them,” 
 I S. xvii. 39. Again, he prayed in the words 
 “examine me, O Lord, and me” (Ps. 
 
 xxvi. %) ; and in very numerous and familiar 
 passages in the Pentateuch, we read of God 
 “proving” men, whether they would be obe- 
 dient or disobedient, the same Hebrew verb 
 being constantly made use of. (See Ex. xv. 
 25, xvi. 4, XX. 20; Dent. iv. 34, viii. 2, 16, 
 xiii. 3, xxxiii. 8). Accordingly, whilst most 
 of the versions adhere closely to the sense of 
 
140 
 
 GENESIS. XXII. 
 
 [v. 2. 
 
 Abraham, and said unto him, Abra- 
 tHeb. ham: and he said, 'Behold, here I 
 
 Behold vie, 
 
 am. 
 
 2 And he said. Take now thy son, 
 thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, 
 and get thee into the land of Moriah ; 
 
 “try,” tent are,, in this passage, the Arabic 
 renders it very correctly, “ God did prove 
 Abraham.” Words having the sense of “try ” 
 may generally be used either in a good or a 
 bad sense. This particular word has gener- 
 ally a good sense, except where men are said 
 to try or tempt God, e.g. Ex. xvii. 2; Num. 
 xiv. ; Deut. vi. 16 ; Ps. Ixxviii. 18 ; cvi. 14, 
 &c. The whole history of Abraham is a 
 history of his moral and spiritual education 
 by the teaching of God himself. He was to 
 be the head of the chosen seed, the father of 
 the faithful, himself the type of justifying 
 faith. Here then, after long schooling and 
 training, in which already there had been 
 many trials (such as his first call, his danger 
 in Egypt, his circumcision, his parting with 
 Lot, &c. &c.), one great test of his now 
 matured and strengthened faith is ordained 
 by God. We have many instances of the 
 trial of men’s faith by the Most High. One 
 remarkable example is that recorded in Matt, 
 xix. 21. It cannot be that He who sees the 
 heart needs such trials for His own informa- 
 tion : but it is important for our instruction 
 and correction, for example to future ages, 
 and for the vindication of God's justice, that 
 such trials should be permitted, and that so 
 m.en's characters should be dra wn out and ex- 
 hibited to themselves and others. So St Au- 
 gustine, “all temptation is not to be blamied, 
 but that whereby probation is made is rather 
 to be welcomed. For the most part a man’s 
 spirit cannot be known to himself, unless his 
 strength be proved not by word but by actual 
 trial.” (‘De Civit. Dei,’ xvi. 32. See also 
 Ambros, ‘De Abr.’ i. 8.) 
 
 2. Take no^ thy son,, thine only son'] In 
 more ways than one Isaac might be called 
 his “only son.” He was the only son by his 
 wife Sarah: he was the only son of promise, 
 and to whom the promises were given and 
 assured: by the expulsion of Hagar and Ish- 
 m.ael he was the only son left to his father's 
 house. The rendering therefore of the LXX. 
 “beloved” is not necessary. The words, em- 
 phatic as they are, “Thy son, thine onl^ son, 
 whom thou lovest,” are all calculated to im- 
 press and enhance the sacrifice which Abra- 
 ham is called on to make. 
 
 Moriah'] The meaning of the name seems 
 clearly to be Mori-jah, “the vision” or “the 
 manifested of Jehovah.” To this root it 
 is evidently referred by Sym., Vulg. (“the land 
 of vision”), Aq. (“the conspicuous land”), 
 LXX. (“the lofty land”). In 2 Chr. iii. i, 
 Solo:non is slid to have built his temple on 
 Mount Moriah; and the Jewish tradition 
 (Joseph. ‘ Ant.’ I. 13. 2; vii. 13. 4) has iden- 
 
 tified this Mount Moriah of the temple with 
 the mountain in the land of Moriah, on which 
 Abraham was to ofler his son, whence proba- 
 bly here Onkelos and the Arab, render “the • 
 land of worship.” No sufficient reason has 
 been alleged against this identification except 
 that in v. 4, it is said that “ Abraham lifted up 
 his eyes, and saw the place afar off,” whereas 
 Mount Zion is said not to be conspicuous 
 from a great distance. Thence Bleek, De 
 Wette, Tuch, Stanley (‘S. and P.’ p. 251, 
 ‘Jewish Church,’ I. 49), and Grove (‘Diet, 
 of Bible,’ s. v. Moriah'), have referred to Moreh 
 (Gen. xii. 6), and attempted to identify the 
 site of the saciifice with “the natural altar on 
 the summit of Mount Gerizim,” which the 
 Samaritans assert to be the scene of the sacri- 
 fice. Really, however, the words in v. 4, 
 mean nothing more than this, that Abraham 
 savv^ the spot to which he had been directed at 
 some little distance off, not farther than the 
 character of the place readily admits. The 
 evident meaning of the words “ the mount of 
 the vision of the Lord” (see v. 14); the fact 
 that the m.ount of the temple bore the same 
 name (2 Chr. iii. i), the distance, two days’ 
 journey from Beer-sheba, which would just 
 suffice to bring the company to Jerusalem, 
 whereas Gerizim could not have been reached 
 from Beer-sheba on the third day, are a.-gu- 
 ments too strong to be set aside by the single 
 difficulty mentioned above, which is in fact 
 no difficulty at all. This identity is ably de- 
 fended by Hengstenberg (‘Genuineness of the 
 Pentateuch,’ ii. 162, translated by Ryland), 
 Knobel {in loc), Kalisch {in loc.), Kurtz (‘ Hist, 
 of Old Covenant,’ Vol. 1. 271), Thomson (‘The 
 Land and the Book’, p. 475), Tristram (‘ Land 
 of Israel,’ p. 152). 
 
 offer him there for a burnt offering] It can- 
 not justly be urged that the command was 
 (i) in itself immoral, or (2) that it was a 
 vii-liial sanction of human sacrifice, (i) As 
 to the objection that it was immoral, it may 
 be said, that the true basis of all morality is 
 obedience to the will of God; but further 
 than this, it is plain from the whole story, 
 that the command was wholly of the nature 
 of a trial Abraham was the special type of 
 trustful, obedient, loving faith. He believed 
 that all which God commanded must be right, 
 all that He promised must be true. Hence 
 he knew that when the injunction was clear, 
 the obedience must be undoubting. The 
 wisdom, the justice, and the goodness of God, 
 were such that, though he might not under- 
 stand the reason of the dispensation, he must 
 reverently and patiently submit to it. This 
 too was not a mere blind credulity. He had 
 lived a long life under the special guiding, 
 
GENESIS. XXII. 
 
 V- 3—9.] 
 
 141 
 
 and offer him there for a burnt offer- 
 ing upon one of the mountains which 
 1 will tell thee of. 
 
 3 ff And Abraham rose up early in 
 the morning, and saddled his ass, and 
 took two of his young men with him, 
 and Isaac his son, and clave the wood 
 for the burnt offering, and rose up, 
 and went unto the place of which God 
 had told him. 
 
 4 Then on the third day Abraham 
 lifted up his eyes, and saw the place 
 afar off. 
 
 5 And Abraham said unto his young 
 men, Abide ye herewith the ass; and 
 I and the lad will go yonder and wor- 
 ship, and come again to you. 
 
 6 And Abraham took the wood of 
 the burnt offering, and laid it upon 
 Isaac his son ; and he took the fire in 
 his hand, and a knife; and they went 
 both of them together. 
 
 7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham 
 his father, and said. My father: and 
 
 he said, TIere am I, my son. AndtHeb. 
 he said. Behold the fire and the wood : 
 but where is the " lamb for a burn,t " Or, k^d, 
 offering ? 
 
 8 And Abraham said, My son, God 
 will provide himself a lamb for a burnt 
 offering : so they went both of them 
 together. 
 
 9 And they came to the place which 
 God had told him of; and Abraham 
 
 Behold me. 
 
 training, and teaching of the Lord, and so he 
 knew in whom he had believed. The com- 
 mand therefore, strange as it was, was but a 
 final test of the firmness of his faith ; and his 
 obedience to that command testified that the 
 faith was intelligent as well as unconditional 
 and unwavering. (2) The objection that 
 this was a virtual sanction to the heathen 
 custom of offering human sacrifices is still 
 less tenable. That such sacrifices were com- 
 mon in later times is unquestionable, and pro- 
 bably they may have been already adopted by 
 the Canaanites, who certainly were afterwards 
 much addicted to them. Although we must 
 ascribe them not to Divine but to Satanic 
 infiuence, their obseiwance plainly shewed the 
 devotion of the offerers to the religion of their 
 demon gods. The God of Abraham would 
 have His special servant, the father of the 
 chosen race and of the promised Seed, mani- 
 fest his faith and obedience to the true God 
 to be not less than the faith and obedience of 
 idolaters to their false gods. This could not 
 be more signaby done than by his readiness to 
 overcome all scruples and all natural feelings 
 at the command of Him whose voice he knew, 
 and whose leading he had so long followed. 
 But the conclusion of the history is as clear a 
 condemnation of human sacrifice as the earlier 
 part might have seemed, had it been left in- 
 complete, to sanction it. The intervention of 
 the angel, the substitution of the lamb, the 
 prohibition of the human sacrifice, proved 
 that in no case could such an offering be ac- 
 ceptable to God, even as the crowning evidence 
 of faith, devotion, and self-sacrifice. The 
 following is the well-known perverted account 
 of the sacrifice of Isaac in the Phoenician 
 traditions, as preserved from Sanchoniatho by 
 Philo Byblius, “Cronus, whom the Phoeni- 
 cians call Israel, being king over that country, 
 who after his death was deified and conse- 
 
 crated into the planet bearing his name, having 
 an only son by a nymph named Anobret, 
 called therefore JehoucV' (= Heb. Jahid), 
 “which is even now the name for only-be~ 
 gotten among the Phoenicians, when great 
 perils from wars were impending over the 
 land, having clothed his son in royal appa- 
 rel offered him up upon an altar which he 
 had built,” (Euseb. ‘Prjep. Evang.’ Lib. i. 
 c. 10). 
 
 3 . rose up early in the morning'] The 
 promptness and steadiness of Abraham's obe- 
 dience are plainly marked in all the simple 
 details of this verse. 
 
 5 . come again to you] It may be questioned 
 whether this had in it a prophetic significance, 
 Abraham “accounting that God was able to 
 raise his son up even from the dead” (Heb. xi. 
 17). In fact it was proved by the event to be 
 a prophecy, though Abraham may have ut- 
 tered it unconsciously (so Rashi): and that 
 faith in God, which never forsook the patri- 
 arch, probably in the lowest depth of his 
 anxiety brought a gleam of hope, that in some 
 unforeseen way his son, even though slain, 
 should yet be restored to him at last (see 
 Origen, ‘ Homil. viii. in Gen.’ § 5). 
 
 6. laid it upon Isaac his so 7 i] Compare 
 Joh. xix. 17, the great Antitype bearing the 
 wood for the sacrifice of Himself (Origen, 
 ‘Horn. VIII. in Gen.’ § 6 : Aug. ‘ De C. D.’ 
 XVI. 32; ‘ De Trin.’ iii. 6). 
 
 8. God nvill provide himself a lamh for a 
 burnt offering] Thelamb. The fathers see 
 in this again an unconscious prophecy by 
 Abraham (see Origen as above, and Ambrose 
 ‘ De Abr,’ lib. i. 8). He probably meant to say 
 that God had provided that Isaac should be 
 the lamb or victim for the burnt-offering : but 
 his words were more literally fulfilled in the 
 
GENESIS. XXII. 
 
 fv. 10—13. 
 
 142 
 
 built an altar there, and laid the wood 
 in order, and bound Isaac his son, and 
 * James 2. -^laid him on the altar upon .the wood. 
 
 10 And Abraham stretched forth 
 his hand, and took the knife to slay 
 his son. 
 
 1 1 And the angel of the Lord 
 called unto him out of heaven, and 
 said, Abraham, Abraham : and he said, 
 .Here am I. 
 
 12 And he said. Lay not thine hand 
 upon the lad, neither do thou any thing 
 unto him : for now I know that thou 
 fearest God, seeing thou hast not with- 
 held thy son, thine only son from 
 me. 
 
 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, 
 and looked, and behold behind him a 
 ram caught in a thicket by his horns ; 
 and Abraham went and took the ram. 
 
 unexpected event, the ram caught in a thicket, 
 and in a deeper spiritual significance when God 
 sent His Son to be “the Lamb of God that 
 taketh away the sin of the world.” 
 
 9 , Abraham built an altar there\ R. 
 Eliezer in ‘ Pirke Avoth,’ c. 31, has a tradi- 
 tion that this was the same place at which 
 Adam sacrificed, at which Abel offered his 
 burnt-offering, and where Noah built an altar 
 and offered a sacrifice: so that it was appa- 
 rently supposed that Abraham merely re- 
 paired the ruins of the ancient altar. What- 
 ever the tradition is worth, it may illustrate 
 the history. An altar of earth or of loose 
 stones would be very quickly raised. 
 
 bowid Isaac his son'] It was common to 
 bind victims, especially human victims (Ovid, 
 ‘ Eleg. ex. Ponto.’ ill. 2; Virg. ‘ Ain. ii. 134). 
 The Jews agree that Isaac yielded submis- 
 sively to his father’s will and consented to be 
 bound and sacrificed (Joseph. ‘A. J.’ i. 13; 
 Eliezer, ‘in Pirke,’ c. 31; so also Chrysost. 
 ‘ Homil. in Gen.’ 46). Herein he was the 
 truer type of Him, “ who, when He was re- 
 viled, reviled not again ; when He suffered. 
 He threatened not; but committed Himself to 
 Him that judgeth righteously” (i Pet. ii. 23). 
 
 10 . stretched forth his hand] The steady 
 deliberate purpose of Abraham, and yet all 
 the natural shrinking of his spirit, are admi- 
 rably expressed in the details of the history. 
 
 11. the Angel of the Lord] Up to this 
 verse we have only the name Elohim, God. 
 Now that the Divine intervention to save 
 Isaac and to accept a ransom for his life is 
 related, we find the name, Jehovah, the 
 great covenant name frequently made use of, 
 though the name Elohim occurs again in the 
 next verse. ITe Being here called “the 
 Angel of Jehovah,” who speaks as with 
 Divine, supreme authority, is doubtless the 
 Angel of the Covenant (Mai. iii. i), the ever- 
 lasting Son of the Father, who alone “hath 
 declared Him” (John i. 18). 
 
 12 . no^jj I knoui that thou fearest God] 
 “ God tried Abraham,” says Theodoret, “not 
 that He might learn what He knew already, 
 but that He might shew to others, with how 
 great justice He loved the jiatriarch” (‘ Qu. 
 
 in Gen.’ Lxxiii). Compare Origen (‘ Hotpil. 
 VIII. 8), who refers to those words of the 
 Apostle: “ God spared not His own Son, but 
 freely gave Him up for us all.” 
 
 thou hast not q.vithheld thy son] These words 
 in the LXX. (ovk e(pelaa> rov vloj cron) ap- 
 pear to be referred to in Rom. viii. 32 (rov 
 iStou vtov ovK ((pclcraTo). Whence we may 
 learn that St Paul held the sacrifice of Isaac 
 to be prophetic of Christ. 
 
 13 . behold behind him a ram caught in 
 a thicket by his horns] I'here is a various 
 reading fsupportedby many MSS., by the Sa- 
 maritan Pentateuch, LXX., Vulg., Syr., Sam., 
 and perhaps Onkelos), which might be ren- 
 dered thus: “ Behold a single ram caught,” 
 &c. a ram, that is, separated from the flock. 
 There is a similar expression in Dan. viii. 3 : 
 “ Behold, there stood before the river a ram,” 
 lit. “ one ram,” or a “ single ram.” The sepa- 
 ration of the ram thus caught is significant, 
 both historically, as shewing the Providential 
 agency of God, and also as pointing to that 
 Lamb of God, who was “separate from sin- 
 ners” (Heb. vii. 26), bearing alone the burden 
 of our iniquities. St Augustine thinks the 
 horns caught in the thicket typical of the 
 Lord Jesus crowned with thorns before His 
 sacrifice (‘ De C. D.’ xvi. 32). 
 
 offered him up for a burnt offering in the 
 stead of his son] It has been argued that the 
 lamb substituted for Isaac, not Isaac himself, 
 was the true type of the Lord Jesus, who 
 died that we might live. This, however, 
 would be a very imperfect explication of the 
 mystery. The antitype is always greater than 
 the type, and hence in the prophetic system 
 of the Old Testament, types are multiplied 
 that they may express collectively that which 
 can but partially be expressed by one of them. 
 The fathers recognize the double type in this 
 whole history. The father witli full delibe- 
 rate purpose offering up his dearly beloved, 
 only-begotten son, the son willingly obedient 
 unto death, the wood for the sacrifice carried 
 by the victim up the hill, the sacrifice ful- 
 filled in purpose though not in act, and then 
 the father receiving his son in a figure from 
 the dead (Heb. xi. 19) after three days of 
 death in the father’s purpose and belief; all 
 
V. 14 — 1 6 .] 
 
 GENESIS. XXII. 
 
 143 
 
 and offered him up for a burnt offer- 
 ing in the stead of his son. 
 t That is, 14 And Abraham called the name 
 LORD place “ Jehovah-jireh: as it is 
 
 will see, s^id to tfiis day, In the mount of the 
 vide. Lord it shall be seen. 
 
 15 ^ And the angel of the Lord 
 called unto Abraham out of heayen 
 
 the second time, ‘^Ps. 103 . 
 
 16 And said, ^By myself have I eccIus. 44. 
 sv^orn, saith the Lord, for because ^ 
 thou hast done this thing, and hast HeU 6.’ I3.' 
 
 this is as much an actual prophecy of the 
 sacrifice and resurrection of the Son of God 
 as was possible without a true slaying of 
 Isaac, for which was substituted the slaying 
 of the ram. That which Isaac’s sacrifice 
 wanted to make it perfect as a type was 
 actual death and the notion of substitution. 
 These therefore were supplied by the death of 
 the ram, and his substitution for a human 
 life. Theodoret says (‘Qu, in Gen.’ Lxxiii.) 
 that “ Isaac was the type of the Godhead, the 
 ram of the manhood.” This perhaps sounds 
 fanciful at first; but the correspondence is in 
 truth very exact. Isaac was of too noble a 
 nature to be slain upon the altar ; God would 
 have abhorred such an offering. Hence the 
 Most High prepares a victim to be as it were 
 joined with Isaac and then to suffer, that 
 thus the sacrifice should not be imperfect. 
 So the ever blessed Son of God was by nature 
 above the possibility of suffering; hence the 
 Eternal Father prepares for Him a perfect 
 humanity (“a Body hast Thou prepared 
 me”), that He might die in that nature which 
 was mortal, the immortal, impassible nature 
 being yet inseparably united with it. Thus, 
 Isaac and the ram together symbolized and 
 typified in almost all particulars the sacrifice, 
 the death and the resurrection of the .Son of 
 God, who also was the Son of man. 
 
 We may observe too, that not only was 
 Isaac thus made the most memorable type of 
 the Redeemer of the world (Isaac, who other- 
 wise seems less noticeable than either Abra- 
 ham or Jacob), but also that Abraham had the 
 singular honour of representing the highest, 
 holiest God and Father, who “ spared not His 
 own Son, but freely gave Him up for us all” 
 (Rom. viii. 32. See Aug. ‘De Civ. D.’ xvi. 
 
 32). 
 
 14 . jEHOVAH-jireh~\ i.e. “the Lord will 
 see,” or “ the Lord will provide.” The same 
 words which Abraham had used in v. 8, 
 but with a change in the sacred names. In 
 v. 8, when Isaac had asked, “where is the 
 Lamb?” Abraham answered, Elohim jireh, 
 “ God will see,” or “ provide a lamb for Him- 
 self.” Now he perceives that he had uttered 
 an unconscious prophecy, and that the God 
 (Elohim) in whom he trusted had shewn 
 Himself indeed J ehovah, the Eternal Truth 
 and the covenated Saviour of his servants, and 
 so he names the place Jeho VAH-jireh. The 
 connection which there is between these words 
 and the word Moriah (see on v. z) has sug- 
 
 gested the belief, that the name Moriah in v. 
 2 is used proleptically, and that it really ori- 
 ginated in this saying of Abraham. 
 
 as it is said to this day., In the mount of the 
 Lord it shall be seen'\ Or, “it shall be pro- 
 vided.” 
 
 There is great variety of renderings in the 
 ancient Versions. Indeed, if we disregard the 
 vowel points, it would be equally possible to 
 translate “In the mount of the Lord it shall 
 be seen or provided,” or “In the mount the 
 Lord will see or provide,” or “In the mount 
 the Lord will be seen.” The LXX. takes the 
 last, the Vulgate, Syriac and Samaritan take 
 the second. Onkeios departs from his habit 
 of translating, and paraphrases, like the late 
 Targums; “And Abraham worshipped and 
 prayed there and said before the Lord, Here 
 shall generations worship ; whereupon it shall 
 be said in that day. In this mountain Abra- 
 ham worshipped before the Lord.’.’ St Jerome, 
 taking the Latin, explained it thus: “This be- 
 came a proverb among the Hebrev/s, that if 
 any should be in trouble and should desire 
 the help of the Lord, they should say. In the 
 mount the Lord ^ill see., that is, as He had 
 mercy on Abraham, so- will He have mercy 
 on us” (‘ Qu. Hebraic, in Gen.’ xxii). 
 
 On the whole, the pointing of the Maso- 
 rites, a tradition never lightly to be rejected, 
 which is followed by the Authorised Version, 
 seems to give the most probable sense of the 
 passage (So Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 1246; Rosemn., 
 Knobel). But, in any case, there seems not 
 only a general assurance of God’s providential 
 care of His people, who in trouble may re- 
 member that “ the Lord will provide,” but 
 also a special prophecy, ist of the manifesta- 
 tion of the Lord in His temple at Jerusalem, 
 where He was to be seen in the Shechinah or 
 cloud of glory between the Cherubim, where 
 He provided access to Himself and sacrifices 
 for His service; zndly, of the coming of the 
 Lord to His temple (Mai. iii. i), thereby 
 making “ the glory of the latter house greater 
 than of the former” (Hagg. ii. 9); and of His 
 providing there a Lamb for a sacrifice, which 
 should save not only from temporal but from 
 eternal death, taking away the sin of the 
 world. 
 
 16 . by myself hanse I sworn'\ This is 
 the final promise of the Lord to Abraham, 
 confirming all the former promises by the 
 solemnity of an oath, and “because He could 
 swear by no greater, He sware by Himself” 
 
1 
 
 144 
 
 not withheld thy son, thine only 
 son: 
 
 17 That in blessing I will bless 
 thee, and in multiplying I will mul- 
 tiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, 
 and as the sand which is upon the sea 
 tHeb. lip. ^ shore; and thy seed shall possess the 
 gate of his enemies ; 
 
 ‘^chap. 12. 18 "^And in thy seed shall all the 
 
 &18. 18. nations of the earth be blessed; be- 
 Ej:cius. 44. cause thou hast obeyed my voice. 
 
 Acts 3. 25. jg So Abraham returned unto his 
 ^ ■ young men, and they rose up and went 
 
 together to Beer-sheba ; and Abraham 
 dwelt at Beer-sheba. 
 
 [v. 17—24. 
 
 20 ^ And it came to pass after 
 these things, that it was told Abra- 
 ham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she hath 
 also born children unto thy brother 
 Nahor; 
 
 21 Huz his first-born, and Buz his 
 brother, and Kemuel the father of 
 Aram, 
 
 22 And Chesed, and Flazo, and 
 Pildash, and Jidlaph, and BethueL 
 
 23 And Bethuel begat ^ Rebekah : Called, 
 these eight Alilcah did bear to Nahor, Rebecca. 
 Abraham’s brother. 
 
 24 And his concubine, whose name 
 was Reumah, she bare also Tebah, 
 
 GENESIS. XXII. 
 
 (Heb. vi, 13). The vast importance of the 
 revelation and of the promise here recorde'd is 
 proved by this remarkable act of the Most 
 High. “ God, willing more abundantly to 
 shew unto the heirs of promise the immuta- 
 bility of His counsel, interposed Himself by 
 an oath” (or “ made Himself the Mediator to 
 be sworn by,” efiecrireva-ev opKco)] “that by 
 two immutable things” (i.e. His word and His 
 oath, Chry.sost., Theod., Theophyl), “ in 
 which it was impossible for God to lie, we 
 might have a strong consolation, who have 
 fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set 
 before us” (Heb. vi, 17, 18). Abraham had 
 by Divine grace achieved a victory of faith 
 unheard of before in the world's history ; and 
 so to him personally a most blessed and most 
 solemn promise is given of prosj^erity, honour 
 and enlargement to him and to his seed after 
 him. But this great victory of Abraham’s 
 was the type of a still greater victory to be 
 won hereafter by God and God’s only begot- 
 ten Son ; and so the promise to Abraham in- 
 cludes a promise still greater to all mankind, 
 for in the seed of Abraham all the nations of 
 the earth were to be blessed for ever. N. B. 
 Onkelos renders here, “ I have sworn by My 
 Word,” Memra; and the Arabic, “ I have 
 sworn by My own Name.” 
 
 20. it <vjas told Abraham\ This is in- 
 troduced for the sake of tracing the genealogy 
 of Abraham's brother Nahor down to Re- 
 bekah the wife of Isaac, v. 23. 
 
 21. Huz] See on ch. x. 23, where we 
 have seen U/ and Aram together before. It 
 is only natural that names should have been 
 repeated in the same race, the race of Shem. U z 
 and Aram also occur among the posterity of 
 Esau (Gen. xxxvi. 28), whence Idumea is 
 called “the land of Uz” (Lam. iv. 21). This 
 recurrence of names in juxtaposition creates 
 some obscurity as to the sites to be assigned 
 to their descend-'ints in the division of the 
 
 nations. St Jerome (‘ Qu. in Gen.’) thinks 
 that Job was a descendant of Huz or Uz the 
 son of Nahor. It is said that Job was of the 
 land of Uz (Job i. i), and his friend Elihu 
 was “a Buzite of the kindred of Ram” (xxxii. 
 2). If Ram be the same as Aram, we have 
 then the three names in this verse — Huz, Buz 
 and Aram occurring in the history of Job. 
 In Jerem. xxv, 23 Buz is placed with Dedan 
 and Tema, apparently in Arabia Petrsea. 
 
 22. Cbesed] Jerome supposes the Chas- 
 dim (or Chaldneans) to have derived their 
 name from him, to which conjecture the oc- 
 currence of the Chasdim also in the Book of 
 Job, gives some colour (see on v. 21). If, 
 indeed, “Ur of the Chaldees” was so called 
 when Abraham dwelt there (Gen. xi. 31), 
 this would be an anachronism, but very pro- 
 bably it may have been known as Ur of the 
 Chaldees when Moses wrote, and so desig- 
 nated by him, though the Chaldees or Chas- 
 dim m.ay not have been in existence in the 
 days of Abraham. 
 
 23. Bethuel begat Rebekah] The rela- 
 tionship therefore of Rebekah to Isaac was 
 that Rebekah was daughter of Isaac’s first 
 cousin. They were, as we should say, first 
 cousins once removed. Nahor was the elder 
 brother of Abraham, and hiS granddaughter 
 may have been of a suitable age to be the 
 wife of Abraham’s son. 
 
 these eight] The sons of Nahor, like the 
 sons of Ishmael and of Jacob, were twelve in 
 number. But though it happens that among 
 the descendants of Terah three persons had 
 twelve sons, there is such a diversity in the 
 other circumstances of the family, such a 
 diflerence with regard to their mothers, and 
 there are so many other patriarchs, Abraham, 
 Isaac, &c., the numbering of whose children 
 were quite unlike these, that the notion of a 
 mystic number is utterly untenable (see Keil 
 in ioc.). 
 
V. 1—7.] 
 
 GENESIS. XXII. XXIII. 
 
 145 
 
 and Gaham, and Thahash, and Maa- 
 chah. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIT. 
 
 1 Tfie age and death of Sarah. 3 The pur- 
 chase of Machpelah^ 19 where Sarah was 
 buried, 
 
 AND Sarah was an hundred and 
 ]f\^ seven and twenty years old: 
 these were the years of the life of Sarah. 
 
 2 And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba ; 
 the same is Hebron in the land 
 of Canaan : and Abraham came to 
 mourn for Sarah, and to weep for 
 her. 
 
 3 ^ And Abraham stood up from 
 
 before his dead, and spake unto the 
 sons of Heth, saying, 
 
 \ 1 am 7 i stranger and a sojourner 
 with you : give me a possession of a 
 buryingplace with you, that I may 
 bury my dead out of my sight. 
 
 5 And the children of Heth an- 
 swered Abraham, saying unto him, 
 
 6 Hear us, my lord: thou art a 
 ^mighty prince among us : in the choice i Heb. 
 of our sepulchres bury thy dead ; none 
 
 of us shall withhold from thee his 
 sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury 
 thy dead. 
 
 7 And Abraham stood up, and 
 
 Chap. XXIII. 1. Sarah avas an hun- 
 dred and se'ven and taventy years old'] Sarah 
 is the only woman whose age is mention- 
 ed in the Scriptures (Lightfoot, ‘ Har. of 
 Old Testament,’ Gen. xxiii.), because as the 
 mother of the promised seed, she became the 
 mother of all believers, (i Pet. iii. 6) (Del., 
 Keil.) She died 37 years after the birth of 
 Isaac, as she was 90 when he was born. 
 
 2. Kirjath-arha; the same is Hebron in the 
 land of Canaan] See on ch. xiii. 18. The suppo- 
 sition that the name Hebron was not given till 
 the time of Joshua, and that the use of it in 
 Genesis indicates a later hand, is contradicted 
 by the natural force of these words. They 
 appear plainly to have been written by some 
 one not then living in the land of Canaan. 
 Hebron was apparently the original name, 
 which was changed to Kirjath-arba, and re- 
 stored again by Caleb, Josh. xiv. 15. 
 
 Abraham came to mourn for Sarah] Aben- 
 ezra and others infer from this that Abraham 
 was not with Sarah when she died. It may 
 mean no more than that Abraham went into 
 Sarah’s tent to mourn for her. 
 
 4 . I am a stranger and a sojourner] 
 (Cp. Heb. xi. 13). Abraham had only pas- 
 tured his flocks, moving from place to place, 
 as a nomad chief; but the various Canaanitish 
 tribes had settled in the land, building cities 
 and cultivating fields; and so as Lightfoot 
 observes (‘Harm.:’ on Gen. xxiii.), “ a burial 
 place is the first land that Abraham has ia 
 Canaan.” The heir of the promises was but 
 a stranger and a pilgrim, never to rest but in 
 the grave, but with a glorious future before 
 him for his race and for himself; assured that 
 his seed should possess the land, and him.self 
 “desiring a better country, that is a heavenly.” 
 
 GH'e me a possession of d buryingplace avith 
 you] This is the first mention of burial. It 
 was noted by the heathen historian as a cha- 
 racteristic of the Jews, that they preferred to 
 VOL. I. 
 
 bury their dead rather than to burn them; 
 corpora condere quam cremare (Tac. ‘Hist.’ 
 V. 5). It is observable that this is thus men- 
 tioned first, when the first death takes place 
 in the family of him, who had received the 
 promises. The care of the bodies of the de- 
 parted is a custom apparently connected with 
 the belief in their sanctity as vessels of the 
 Grace of God, and with the hope that they 
 may be raised again in the day of the restitu- 
 tion of all things. The elaborate embalming 
 of the Egyptians had perhaps a very different 
 significance, looking rather to retain the be- 
 loved body in its former shape, and perhaps 
 to preserve the living principle in permanent 
 existence with it, rather than hoping that the 
 body, being “sown a natural should be raised 
 a spiritual body.” 
 
 5 . saying unto him] The Sam. Pent. and. 
 LXX. read (by the variation of a single letter), 
 “saying. Not so.” 
 
 6. thou art a mighty prince among us] lit. “ a 
 prince of God.” See on ch. x. 9, the name 
 of God being apparently added to give a su- 
 perlative force: cp. i Sam. xxvi. 12, where 
 R. D. Kimchi writes, “When the Scripture 
 would magnify anything, it joins it to the . 
 name of God.” 
 
 in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead] 
 The Hittites in the complimentary manner 
 common in oriental bargains (see Thomson, 
 ‘Land and Book,’ p. 578) offer Abraham to 
 bury his dead in their sepulchres; but there 
 was a separation between them of faith and 
 life, which forbade Abraham to deposit the 
 body of Sarah in the same grave with the 
 people of the land. We know nothing of the 
 funeral rites of the Canaanites at this early 
 period, nor whether they buried the bodies 
 of the departed or only their ashes. It is, 
 however, very probable, that there were ido- 
 latrous rites connected with their sepulture, 
 which it would have been unlawful for Abra- 
 ham to countenance. 
 
 K 
 
146 
 
 GENESIS. XXIII. 
 
 [y. S— 15. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 full 
 
 money. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 ears. 
 
 bowed himself to the people of the 
 land, even to the children of Heth. 
 
 8 And he communed with them, 
 saying. If it be your mind that I 
 should bury my dead out of my sight ; 
 hear me, and intreat for me to Ephron 
 the son of Zohar, 
 
 9 That he may give me the cave 
 of Machpelah, which he hath, which 
 is in the end of his field; for ^as 
 much money as it is worth he shall 
 give it me for a possession of a bury- 
 ingplace amongst you. 
 
 10 And Ephron dwelt among the 
 children of Heth: and Ephron the 
 Hittite answered Abraham in the ^au- 
 dience of the children of Heth, even 
 of all that went in at the gate of his 
 city, saying. 
 
 11 Nay, my lord, hear me: the 
 field give I thee, and the cave that 
 is therein, I give it thee ; in the pre- 
 sence of the sons of my people give I 
 it thee : bury thy dead. 
 
 12 And Abraham bowed down him- 
 self before the people of the land. 
 
 13 And he spake unto Ephron in 
 the audience of the people of the land, 
 saying. But if thou wilt give it,, I pray 
 thee, hear me : I will give thee money 
 for the field take it of me, and I 
 will bury my dead there. 
 
 14 And Ephron answered Abra- 
 ham, saying unto him, 
 
 1 5 My lord, hearken unto me : the 
 land is worth four hundred shekels 
 of silver ; what is that betwixt me 
 and thee ? bury therefore thy dead. 
 
 7 . bonved himself '\ The Vulgate has 
 “ adoravit coram populo.” It was simply the 
 deep reverence common in the East (cp. i 
 Sam. XXV. 24; xxviii. 14; i Kings xviii. 7; 
 2 Kings ii. 15; Esth. viii. 3). It was a matter 
 of courtesy and respect, also of entreaty or of 
 gratitude. 
 
 9 . the ca've of Machpelah'] The soil of 
 Palestine being rocky naturally suggested 
 sepulture in caves (see ^Viner, ‘Realw.’ s, v. 
 Grabes, Smith, ‘Diet, of Bible,’ s.v. Burial), 
 All the ancient Versions render the words 
 '‘cave of Machpelah” by “the double cave,” 
 deriving Machpelah from the verb Caphal to 
 divide, to double. Interpreters have explained 
 this in various ways, as eitk-er that there were 
 two entrances to the cave, or that it had a 
 double structure such that two bodies (as 
 e.g. that of Abraham and Sarah) might oe 
 laid there (see Heidegger, ii. 131). Others, 
 however, treat the word as a proper name, 
 and Gesenius considers it more probably to 
 signify “portion” than “duplication.” Thesite 
 of this ancient burialplace is well ascertained. 
 Josephus tells us that “Abraham and his de- 
 scendantsbuilt monuments over the sepulchres” 
 here (A. J. i. 14), which were said to be 
 still visible in the days of Jerome (‘ Onomast.’). 
 Now a mosejue is erected over the ground 
 believed to cover the sepulchres. The Haram 
 or sacred precinct of the mosque is surrounded 
 by a wall, believed to be as ancient as any- 
 thing now remaining in Palestine, The, pre- 
 sent condition and appearance of it are de- 
 scribed by Robinson (‘B. R.’ 11. p. 431 sq.), 
 see also Thomson, ‘ Land and Book, ’p. 5 80, and 
 a full account of the sepulchre in the appendix 
 to Stanleys ‘Sermons in the East.’ 
 
 for as much money as it is nvorth] lit. “for 
 full money.” The same words are rendered 
 I Chron. xxi. 22, “for the full price.” 
 
 10. all that ^ent in at the gate of his 
 city] The transaction took place publicly at 
 the gate of the city, the forum or public place 
 of the ancient cities of the East, see on 
 ch. xix. I. 
 
 11 . the field gi^e I thee] Compare 2 Sam. 
 xxiv. 20, 24. Both conversations, that be- 
 tween Abraham and Ephron, and that be- 
 tween David and Araunah, are .specimens of 
 the extreme courtesy of the Eastern people in 
 the transaction of business. 
 
 13 . But if thou ^ilt gh'e it, I pray thee, 
 hear me] Rather perhaps, “But do thou, 
 I pray thee, hear me.” Two particles of 
 wishing or intreating are used. 
 
 money for the fold] Lit. “the money of the 
 field,” i.e. the value of the field. 
 
 15 . four hundred shekels of sil'ver] The 
 word shekel means merely weight, cp. pondus, 
 pound. See on ch. xx. i6, where no name fo 
 a coin or weight occurs, but only the words “a 
 thousand of silver.” Here we first have the 
 name of a weight, though probably not of 
 a coin. There is no mention of coinage in 
 Scripture before the Babylonish Captivity ; 
 but the Egyptians had rings of gold and silver 
 of fixed weight long before Moses, which 
 are represented on the monuments. The first 
 actual Jewish money appears to have been 
 coined by Simon Maccabasus (i Macc. xv.). 
 It is not easy to conjecture accurately what 
 the value of a shekel may have been in the 
 time of Abraham, In later times the LXX. 
 and the New Testament (Matt. xvii. 24) 
 
V. I6— 3-J 
 
 GENESIS. XXIIL XXIV. 
 
 14; 
 
 1 5 And Abraham hearkened unto 
 Ephron ; and Abraham weighed to 
 Ephron the silv^er, which he had 
 named in the audience of the sons of 
 Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, 
 current money with the merchant. 
 
 17 ^ And the held of Ephron, 
 which was in Machpelah, which vjas 
 before Mamre, the held, and the cave 
 which was therein, and all the trees 
 that tvere in the held, that were in all 
 the borders round about, were made 
 sure 
 
 18 Unto Abraham for a possession 
 in the presence of the children of 
 Heth, before all that went in at the 
 gate of his city. 
 
 19 And after this, Abraham buried 
 Sarah his wife in the cave of the held 
 of Machpelah before Mamre : the 
 same is Hebron in the land of Ca- 
 naan. 
 
 20 And the held, and the cave that 
 is therein, were made sure unto Abra- 
 
 ham for a possession of a buryingplace 
 by the sons of Heth. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 I Abraham swearetk his servant. 10 The 
 servant' s journey : his prayer: 14 his sign. 
 
 15 Rebekah meeteih hhn., {ii f iii fillet h his sign^ 
 
 22 receivetli je^.oels, 23 shewet/i her kindred, 
 
 25 and invihth hhn koine. 26 The servant 
 blesseth God. 29 Laban entertaineth him. 
 
 '34 The servant sheweth his message. 50 
 Laban and Bethiiel approve it. 58 Rebekah 
 consenteth to go. 62 Isaac meeieth her. 
 
 AND Abraham was old, ^ welD Heb. 
 stricken in age : and the Lord 
 had blessed Abraham in all things. 
 
 2 And Abraham said unto his eld- 
 est servant of his house, that ruled 
 
 over all that he had, "Put, I pray « chap. 47, 
 thee, thy hand under my thigh : 
 
 3 And I will make thee swear by 
 the Lord, the God of heaven, and 
 the God of the earth, that thou shalt 
 not take a wife unto my son of the 
 daughters of the Canaanites, among 
 whom I dwell': 
 
 identify the half shekel with the didrachma, 
 which would make the shekel nearly half an 
 ounce, 220 grains of our weight, or a little 
 less in value than half-a-crown of our present 
 money. The field therefore would have been 
 purchased for about fifty guineas, 52/. ioj. 
 (See Gesenius, ‘Thes.’ p. 1474; Winer, ‘R. 
 W, B.’ s.v. sekel] Smith’s ‘Diet, of Bib.’ s.vv. 
 money, shekel, weights and measures j) 
 
 16. current money nvith the merchant^ 
 Lit. “silver passing with the merchant.” The 
 Canaanites were great merchants, so much 
 so that the very word Ganaanite became a 
 synonym for merchant, see Job xl. 30 (in 
 Authorised Version xli. 6); Prov. xxxi. 24. 
 It is therefore very probable that they early 
 learned the use of silver as a means of barter : 
 and though it may not have been coined, yet 
 the masses or bars of silver may have been 
 early formed into conventional shapes, or 
 marked with some rude sign to indicate their 
 weight (see Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 982). 
 
 17. the field, &c.] Not only the cave, 
 as first proposed by Abraham, but the whole 
 field with trees in it, which may have formed 
 part of that grove of Mamre, where Abraham 
 dwelt before the overthrow of Sodom and 
 where he built an altar to the Lord. 
 
 <vjere made sure unto Abrahani] Lit. “stood 
 firm to Abraham.” 
 
 was 137 at the death of Sarah. Isaac was 
 then 3 7 ; and when he married Rebekah, he 
 was 40 (see ch. xxv. 20). Abraham therefore 
 must have been in his 140th year at this time, 
 and he lived 35 years after it (ch. xxv. 7). 
 
 2 . unto his eldest ser-vant of his house^ Lit. 
 
 “ to his servant, the elder of his house.” The 
 word elder in Hebrew as in most languages is 
 used as a title of honour, cp. Sheykh, Senatus, 
 yepovres, presbyter, Signor, Mayor, See. (Ges. 
 ‘Thes.’ p. 427; Hammond, on Acts xi. 30). 
 
 It is generally supposed that this was Eliezer 
 of Damascus, see ch. xv. 2. 
 
 Rut, I pray thee, thy hand under my tbigh’\ A 
 form of adjuration mentioned only here and 
 of Jacob, ch. xlvii, 29. Various conjectures 
 have been made by Jews (Joseph. ‘ Ant.’ 1. 16 ; 
 Hieron. ‘Qu. in Gen.;’ Ambrose, ‘De Abra- 
 ham.’ I. 6; Eliezer, in ‘Pirke,’ c. 39), and by 
 the fathers (Ambros. ‘De Abrahamo, i. 9; 
 Hieron. ubi supra ; August. ‘ De G. D.’ 
 XVI. 33) ; but nothing is known with certainty 
 of the signification of the action. Aben-Ezra 
 supposes that it was a form of oath prevalent 
 in patriarchal times but only taken by inferiors, 
 as hereby Abraham’s steward, and in Gen. xlvii. 
 
 29 by a son to his father; that accordingly it 
 was a kind of homage, the servant or son there- 
 by indicating subjection and the purpose of 
 obedience, (See Heidegger, ii. pp. 134, 135; 
 Rosenrti, in loc.) 
 
 3. of the daughters of the Canaanites\ . 
 
 K 2 
 
 Chap. XXIV. l. Abraham ‘was old'\ He 
 
148 
 
 GENESIS. XXIV. 
 
 [v. 4— II. 
 
 4 But thou shalt go unto my coun- 
 try, and to my kindred, and take a 
 wife unto my son Isaac. 
 
 5 And the servant said unto him, 
 Peradventure the woman will not 
 be willing to folloyv me unto this 
 land : must I needs bring thy son 
 a^ain unto the land from whence 
 
 o 
 
 thou earnest r 
 
 6 And Abraham said unto him. 
 Beware thou that thou bring not my 
 son thither again. 
 
 7 ^ The Lord God of heaven, 
 which took me from my father’s house, 
 and from the land of my kindred, and 
 
 ichap 12 which spake unto me, and that sware 
 7. &13. 15- unto me, saying, '^Unto thy seed will 
 & 26! ' 1 give this land ; he shall send his 
 
 angel before thee, and thou shalt take 
 a wife unto my son from thence. 
 
 8 And if the woman will not be 
 willing to follow thee, then thou shalt 
 be clear from this my oath : only bring 
 not my son thither again. 
 
 9 And the servant put his hand 
 under the thigh of Abraham his master, 
 and sware to him concerning that 
 matter. 
 
 10 And the. servant took ten 
 camels of the camels of his master, and 
 departed; "for all the goods oif his^Or, w, 
 master were in his hand : and he arose, 
 
 and went to Mesopotamia, unto the 
 city of Nahor. 
 
 1 1 And he made his camels to kneel 
 down without the city by a well of 
 
 The licentiousness of the Canaanites had pro- 
 bably determined Abraham against marrying 
 his son to one of their daughters. He had 
 also, no doubt, reference to the Promised 
 Seed, and desired that the race from which 
 He was to come should be kept pure from 
 admixture with the race of Ham. 
 
 6. Beavare thou that thou bring not my son 
 thither again'] Abraham had been distinctly 
 called of God to leave his own country, and 
 to be a stranger and sojourner in the land which 
 was to be his hereafter. It would therefore 
 have been an act both of unbelief and of 
 disobedience, to send his son back again. He 
 trusted that He, who had so called him, 
 would provide his son with a wife from his 
 own kindred, not defiled, at least as the 
 Canaanites were, with heathen worship and 
 heathen morality; but in any case he would 
 rather his son should wed among the aliens 
 than return to the place whence he himself 
 had been bidden to depart. 
 
 10. ten camels^ &c.] The journey was 
 long and could only be performed in safety 
 t)y a considerable company or caravan. The 
 words which follow, “for all the goods of his 
 master were in his hand,” very probably are 
 no more than an explanation of his taking so 
 many camels with him, his master sparing 
 nothing to make the journey successful. The 
 LXX. and Vulgate render “and he took pail 
 of all his master's goods in his hand,” as though 
 Abraham had sent a present with the servant 
 to conciliate the favour of the bride’s family. 
 
 to Mesopotamia] Lit. “ Aram of the two 
 rivers,” or “ Aram-Naharaim.” The name 
 Naharina constantly occurs in Egyptian in- 
 scriptions of the 1 8th and 19th dynasties. In 
 
 other passages in Genesis (xxv. 20; xxviii. 2, 
 6, 7 ; xxxi. 18; xxxiii. 18; xxxv. 9, 26; xlvi. 15) 
 we read of Padan Aram or simply Padan 
 (Gen. xlviii. 7), “the Plain of Syria,” “the 
 flat land of Syria.” Aram-Naharaim occurs 
 again Deut. xxiii. 5 ; Judg. iii. 8 ; Ps. lx. 2 
 (Heb.). Both names describe the low flat 
 country lying between the two rivers Tigris 
 and Euphrates, though Padan Aram was 
 more limited in extent than Aram-Naharaim. 
 The whole highland country of Syria appears 
 to have been called Aram, as many think to 
 distinguish it from Canaan, the low country, 
 Aram meaning “high” and Canaan “low” 
 land. The country, however, which lies be- 
 tween the two rivers, is chiefly a vast plain, 
 though intersected by the Sinjar range, and 
 becoming more mountainous towards the 
 North (see Stanley, ‘S. and P.’ p. 129 ; Smith’s 
 ‘Diet, of Bible,’ li. p. 338). Aram-Na- 
 haraim was the whole region afterwards called 
 Mesopotamia, lying between the two rivers: 
 Padan Aram being a limited portion of this 
 country of flat character in the neighbour- 
 hood of Haran (see on xxv. 20, xxvii. 43). 
 
 the city of Nahor] i. e. Haran or Charran 
 (compare ch. xxvii. 43, and see ch. xi. 31; 
 Acts vii. 2). 
 
 11. made his camels to kneel donvn] That 
 they might be unloaded, and rest there. (See 
 on the whole of this scene, Thomson, ‘ Land 
 and Book,’ p. 592.) 
 
 the time that <women go out to dranv ^vater] 
 Le Clerc compares Horn. Od. vii. 20, where 
 Minerva, in the form of a girl carrying a 
 pitcher, meets Ulysses as he is about to enter 
 the city of the Phoenicians in the evening. 
 See also Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ vol. ii. p. 368, where 
 a somewhat similar scene to this is T'seribed. 
 
V. 12 2 2.] 
 
 GENESIS. XXIV. 
 
 149 
 
 water at the time of the evening, 
 tHeb. the time ^that women go out to draw 
 
 that wo- , 
 
 men which WCltCY ' . 
 
 12 And he said, O Lord God of 
 forth. my master Abraham, I pray thee, 
 send me good speed this day, and shew 
 kindness unto my master Abraham. 
 
 •• Ver. 43. 13 Behold, stand here by the 
 
 well of water; and the daughters of 
 the men of the city come out to draw 
 water : 
 
 14 And let it come to pass, that 
 the damsel to whom I shall say, Let 
 down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I 
 may drink ; and she shall say, Drink, 
 and I will give thy camels drink also : 
 let the same be she that thou hast 
 appointed for thy servant Isaac; and 
 thereby shall I know that thou hast 
 shewed kindness unto my master. 
 
 15 ^ And it came to pass, before 
 he had done speaking, that, behold, 
 Rebekah came out, who was born to 
 Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of 
 
 tHeb. Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her 
 
 ^counti pitcher upon her shoulder. 
 
 nance. 16 And the damsel was Wery fair 
 
 to look upon, a virgin, neither had 
 any man known her: and she went 
 down to the well, and filled her pitcher, 
 and came up. 
 
 17 And the servant ran to meet 
 her, and said. Let me, I pray thee, 
 drink a little water of thy pitcher. 
 
 18 And she said. Drink, my lord: 
 and she hasted, and let down her 
 pitcher upon her hand, and gave him 
 drink. 
 
 19 And when she had done giving 
 him drink, she said, I will draw zuater 
 for thy camels also, until they have 
 done drinking. 
 
 20 And she hasted, and emptied 
 her pitcher into the trough, and ran 
 again unto the well to draw water., 
 and drew for all his camels. 
 
 21 And the man wondering at her 
 held his peace, to wit whether the 
 Lord had made his journey prosperous 
 or not. 
 
 22 And it came to pass, as the 
 camels had done drinking, that thej^^ 
 man took a golden " earring of half a jeivlijor 
 shekel weight, and two bracelets for 
 
 12. O Lord God of my master Ahra- 
 hani] The Damascene recognizes Jehovah, 
 the God of his master Abraham, the Supreme 
 Disposer of all things. He had probably 
 been born a heathen idolater ; but Abraham, 
 to whom God h^d been revealed as Jeho- 
 vah, the eternal self-existing, had no doubt 
 taught his household to acknowledge Him as 
 the Covenant God of Abraham and his family. 
 It is very observable, however, that when 
 Abraham administers an oath to his servant, 
 he makes him swear not only by Jehovah, 
 but adds the God of heaven and the God of 
 the earth, which might be a stronger sanction 
 to one brought up in ignorance of the faith of 
 his master. 
 
 g'rve me good speedy Lit. “ cause to meet 
 me,” i. e. the person of whom 1 am in quest. 
 
 14. the damsel~\ The word here used 
 for damsel is of common gender, signifying 
 a child or young person of either sex. This 
 is a peculiarity of the Pentateuch. In all the 
 later books the distinction of gender is ob- 
 served, the feminine affix (H) being used when 
 a girl is intended. It is important to notice 
 this here; first as shewing the antiquity of 
 the Pentateuch generally ; secondly, as shew- 
 ing that this chapter, which is markedly je- 
 hovistic, is also of marked antiquity. Those, 
 
 who accuse the so-called Jehovistic chapters 
 of being modern (of the date of Samuel for 
 instance), ground their arguments on a minute 
 criticism of the difference of the words used 
 by the Elohist and the Jehovist writers re- 
 spectively. It is, however, here very appa- 
 rent that the word child, “nangar,” had not, 
 in the time of the writer of this most Jeho- 
 vistic history, been distinguished in the singu- 
 lar number into masculine and feminine, 
 nangar and nangarah., boy and girl. 
 
 thereby shall I kno^~\ Perhaps more cor- 
 rectly “by her shall 1 know;” though the 
 Versions generally render the feminine pro- 
 noun here by a neuter, the Hebrew having no 
 neuter gender. 
 
 15. ^ho avas born to Bethuel'^ See ch. 
 xxii. 20 and note. 
 
 21. _ wondering at her^ “ Amazed and ' 
 astonished ” at finding his prayer so suddenly 
 answered. 
 
 22. earring] So LXX., Vulg., but per- 
 haps more probably “nose-ring.” St Jerome 
 in Ezek. xvi. ii, 12 , mentions that to his day 
 the women in the East wore golden rings 
 hanging down from their foreheads, on their 
 noses. Hence here the marginal reading gives 
 “jewel for the forehead.” To the present 
 
150 
 
 GENESIS. XXIV. 
 
 [v. 23—41. 
 
 her hands of ten shekels weight of 
 gold ; 
 
 23 And said, Whose daughter art 
 thou.? tell me, I pray thee: is there 
 room in thy father’s house for us to 
 lodge in .? 
 
 24 And she said unto him, I am 
 the daughter of Bethuel the son of 
 Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor. 
 
 25 She said moreover unto him. 
 We have both straw and provender 
 enough, and room to lodge in. 
 
 26 And the man bowed down his 
 head, and worshipped the Lord. 
 
 27 And he said. Blessed the Lord 
 God of my master Abraham, who hath 
 not left destitute my master of his 
 mercy and his truth : I being in the 
 way, the Lord led me to the house 
 of my master’s brethren. 
 
 28 And the damsel ran, and told 
 them of her mother’s house these 
 things. 
 
 29 fl And Rebekah had a brother, 
 and his name was Laban : and Laban 
 ran out unto the man, unto the well. 
 
 30 And it came to pass, when he 
 saw the earring and bracelets upon 
 his sister’s hands, and when he heard 
 the words of Rebekah his sister, say- 
 ing, Thus spake the man unto me ; 
 that he came unto the man ; and, 
 behold, he stood by the camels at the 
 well. 
 
 31 And he said. Come in, thou 
 blessed of the Lord ; wherefore 
 standest thou without ? for I have 
 prepared the house, and room for the 
 camels. 
 
 32 ^ And the man came into the 
 house: and he ungirded his camels, 
 and gave- straw and provender for the 
 camels, and water to wash his feet, and 
 the men’s feet that were with him. 
 
 33 And there was set meat before 
 him to eat: but he said, I will not 
 eat, until I have told mine errand. 
 And he said. Speak on. 
 
 34 And he said, I am Abraham’s 
 servant. 
 
 35 And the Lord hath blessed my 
 master greatly ; and he is become 
 great: and he hath given him docks, 
 and herds, and silver, and gold, and 
 menservants, and maidservants, and 
 camels, and asses. 
 
 36 And Sarah my master’s wife 
 bare a son to my master when she 
 was old : and unto him hath he given 
 all that he hath. 
 
 37 And my master made me swear, 
 saying. Thou shalt not take a wife to 
 my son of the daughters of the Canaan- 
 ites, in v/hose land I dwell: 
 
 38 But thou shalt go unto my 
 father’s house, and to my kindred, 
 and take a wife unto my son. 
 
 39 And I said unto my Tnaster, 
 Perad venture the woman will not 
 follow me. 
 
 40 And he said unto me. The 
 Lord, before whom I walk, will send 
 his angel with thee, and prosper thy 
 way; and thou shalt take a wife for 
 my son of my kindred, and of my 
 father’s house: 
 
 41 Then shalt thou be clear from 
 this my oath, when thou comest to 
 
 , day some l’'astcrn nations wear nose-rings. 
 Schreeder (‘ De Vest. Mul. Hebr.’ c. xxii. § 
 2), Hartmann (‘ Hebr.’ II. 166); Winer (‘ R. 
 W. B.’ II. 162); Gesen. (‘Th.’ p. 870); Rosen- 
 mllller (in loc.), argue for the rendering 
 “ nose-ring” in tins passage. The word, how- 
 over, simply signilies a ring. 
 
 half a shekel] Probably about 2 drachms 
 or a quarter of an ounce. See on ch.xxxiii. 14. 
 
 28 . her mother's house] Pier father Be- 
 thuel was still living (see v. 50); but the 
 mother is mentioned, perhaps because even 
 thus early women may have lived in se- 
 parate tents from the men (Rashi) : which 
 
 appears also frorri v. 67, where Sarah’s tent 
 is named, and Rebekah is installed in it at 
 her marriage. The daughter naturally went 
 to tell her mother rather than her father of 
 what the servant of Abraham had done ; the 
 jewel, which he gave her, being perhaps in- 
 tended to denote the nature of his embassage. 
 
 33 . / <ivill not eat^ until I ha've told mine 
 
 errand] Ancient hospitality taught men to 
 set meat before their guests before asking 
 them their names and their business ; but 
 here the servant of Abraham felt his message 
 to be so momentous, that he would not eat 
 till he had unburdened himself of it. 
 
V. 42— '58.] 
 
 GENESIS. XXIV. 
 
 151 
 
 «fVer. 13. 
 
 my kindred ; and if they give not 
 thee one^ thou shalt be clear from my 
 oath. 
 
 42 And I came this day unto the 
 well, and said, O Lord God of my 
 master Abraham, if now thou do pro- 
 sper my way which I go : 
 
 43 '^Behold, I stand by the well of 
 water ; and it shall come to pass, that 
 when the virgin cometh forth to draw 
 water^ and I say to her. Give me, I 
 pray thee, a little water of thy pitcher 
 to drink ; 
 
 44 And she say to me. Both drink 
 thou, and I will also draw for thy 
 camels: let the same be the woman 
 whom the Lord hath appointed out 
 for my master’s son. 
 
 45 And before I had done speaking 
 in mine heart, behold, Rebekah came 
 forth with her pitcher on her shoulder ; 
 and she went down unto the well, and 
 drew water: and I said unto her, Let 
 me drink, I pray thee. 
 
 46 And she made haste, and let 
 down her pitcher from her shoulder^ 
 and said. Drink, and I will give thy 
 camels drink also: so I drank, and 
 she made the camels drink also. 
 
 47 And I asked her, and said. 
 Whose daughter art thou ? And she 
 said. The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s 
 son, whom Milcah bare unto him : and 
 I put the earring upon her face, and 
 the bracelets upon her hands, 
 
 48 And I bowed down my head, 
 and worshipped the Lord, and blessed 
 the Lord God of my master Abra- 
 ham, which had led me in the right 
 
 way to take my master’s brother’s ^ 
 daughter unto his son. 
 
 49 And now if ye will deal kindly 
 and truly with my master, tell me: 
 and if not, tell me; that I may turn 
 to the right hand, or to the left. 
 
 50 Then Laban and Bethuel an- 
 swered and said. The thing proceedeth 
 from the Lord : we cannot speak un- 
 to thee bad or good. 
 
 5 1 Behold, Rebekah is before thee, 
 take hei\ and go, and let her be thv 
 master’s son’s wife, as the Lord hath 
 spoken. 
 
 52 And it came*to pass, that, when 
 Abraham’s servant heard their words, 
 he worshipped the Lord, bowing him- 
 self to the earth. 
 
 53 And the servant brought forth 
 ^jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, t Heb. 
 and raiment, and gave them to Re- 
 bekah: he gave also to her brother 
 and to her mother precious things. 
 
 54 And they did eat and drink, he 
 and the men that were with him, and 
 tarried all night; and they rose up in 
 
 the morning, and he said, ^Send me^Ver. 56. 
 away unto my master. 
 
 55 And her brother and her mother 
 said. Let the damsel abide with us ” a 
 few days, at the least ten; after that or, 
 she shall go. 
 
 56 And he said unto them. Hinder 
 me not, seeino; the Lord hath pro- 
 
 that 
 
 away 
 
 spered my way; send n 
 I may go to my master. 
 
 57 And they said. We will call the 
 damsel, and inquire at her mouth. 
 
 58 And they called Rebekah, 
 
 50. Laban and Bethuel^ The brother is 
 here put before the father, and in v. 39 the 
 brother only is mentioned. It appears that 
 in those days the brother was much con- 
 sulted concerning the marriage of his sisters 
 (Cp. ch. xxxiv. 13; Judg. xxi. 22): but it 
 has also been observed that Bethuel is alto- 
 gether kept in the background in this history, 
 as though he were a person of insignificant 
 character, see ch. xxix. 6, where he is alto- 
 gether passed over, Laban being called the 
 son of Nahor, who was his grandfather. (See 
 Blunt’s ‘ Coincidences,’ p. 35, and Words- 
 worth in loc.) Laban was evidently an active 
 stirring man, as is manifested throughout the 
 
 subsequent history of Jacob. The Hebrew 
 tradition was that Bethuel died on the day that 
 Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, arrived (Tar- 
 gum of Pseudo- Jonathan, on v. 55). Josephus 
 (‘Ant.’ I. 16) speaks of him as dead, which, 
 however, is unlikely, see on ch. xxvii. 2. 
 
 53. jewels of sil'ver, &c.] Lit. “vessels 
 of silver,” &c. 
 
 55. days^ at the least ten"] Lit. “days 
 or ten.” Certain days or at least ten ; unless 
 “days” be a phrase for the regular period 
 of seven days, i. e. a week, when it would be 
 “ a week of days or ten days.” 
 
152 
 
 GENESIS. XXIV. 
 
 [v. 59—67. 
 
 /chap. 16. 
 14 - 25 - 
 
 tOr, 
 to pray. 
 
 and said unto her, Wilt thou go with 
 this man ? And she said, I will go. 
 
 59 And they sent away Rebekah 
 their sister, and her nurse, and Abra- 
 ham’s servant, and his men. 
 
 60 And they blessed Rebekah, and 
 said unto her. Thou art our sister, bt* 
 thou the jnother of thousands of mil- 
 lions, and let thy seed possess the gate 
 of those which hate them. 
 
 61 ^ And Rebekah arose, and her 
 damsels, and they rode upon the 
 camels, and followed the man : and 
 the servant took Rebekah, and went 
 his way. 
 
 62 And Isaac came from the way 
 of the -^well Lahai-roi ; for he dwelt 
 in the south country. 
 
 63 And Isaac went out "to medi- 
 tate in the field at the eventide: and 
 he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, 
 behold, the camels were coming. 
 
 64 And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, 
 and when she saw Isaac, she lighted 
 off the camel. 
 
 65 For she had said unto the ser- 
 vant, What man is this that walketh 
 in the field to meet us ? And the ser- 
 vant had said. It is my master : there- 
 fore she took a’ vail, and covered her- 
 self. 
 
 66 And the servant told Isaac all 
 things that he had done. 
 
 67 And Isaac brought her into his 
 mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebe- 
 kah, and she became his wife ; and he 
 loved her: and Isaac was comforted 
 after his mother’s death, 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 I The sons of Abraham by Keticrah. 5 The 
 division of his goods. 7 His age, and death. 
 9 His burial. 12 The generations of Ish- 
 mael. His age, arid death. \e) Isaac pray- 
 eth for Rebekah, being barre 7 i. 22 The children 
 
 59 . their sisterl Only one brother is 
 mentioned, viz. Laban : but her relatives gene- 
 rally are spoken of here, as saying of her, 
 “Thou art our sister,” sister being used in 
 that wide sense for relation, in which brother 
 is so often found in Scripture. 
 
 her fiurse] Her name, Deborah, and her 
 death are mentioned ch. xxxv. 8. 
 
 62 . And Isaac came from the <voay of the 
 (Well of Lahai-roi] Perhaps “Isaac had come 
 from a journey to Lahai-roi,” or “had returned 
 from going to Lahai-roi.” 
 
 for he dvoelt in the south country'] Probably at 
 Beer-sheba. Abraham’s later dwelling places 
 had been Hebron and Beer-sheba. After the 
 sacrifice of Isaac, we find him dwelling at 
 Beer-sheba (xxii. 19), until we hear of the 
 death of Sarah at Hebron. Very probably 
 Abraham returned after this to Beer-sheba. 
 And so Isiiac, whether living with his father, 
 or pitching his tent and feeding his flocks near 
 him, is here represented as dwelling in the 
 south country. In ch. xxv. ii we find that, 
 after Abraham’s death, Isaac took up his 
 residence at Lahai-roi, to which we find that 
 he had been on a vi.sit, when Rebekah arrived, 
 where perhaps he had already been pasturing 
 his flocks and herds (Knobel). All this is 
 in the strictest harmony; though the German 
 critics discover the hand of the Elohist in 
 chapter xxiii., and in the earlier verses of xxv., 
 and that of the Jehovist throughout xxiv. 
 
 63 . to meditate] So LXX., Vulg., but 
 the Targg., Sam., Arab., Saad., Rashi, ren- 
 
 der “to pray;” some (Syr., Aben-Ezra) “to 
 walk.” The word, however, appears most 
 probably to signify religious meditation (see 
 Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 1322). Such occupation 
 seems very characteristic of Isaac, whose 
 whole life was so tranquil, and his temper 
 and spirit so calm and submissive, as suiting 
 one who was made an eminent type of Him, 
 who “was oppressed and afflicted, yet He 
 opened not His mouth: He was brought as 
 a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep be- 
 fore her shearers is dumb, so He opened not 
 His mouth” (Is. liii. 7). St Jerome (‘ Qu. in 
 Gen.’) sees in this quiet meditation and prayer 
 a type of Him “who went out into a moun- 
 tain apart to pray” (Matt. xiv. 23). 
 
 64 . lighted off the camel] “It is cus- 
 tomary for both men and women, when an 
 Emir or great personage is approaching, to 
 alight some time before he comes up with 
 them. Women frequently refuse to ride in 
 the presence of men ; and when a company of 
 them are to pass through a town, they often 
 dismount and walk.” (Thomson, ‘ Land and 
 Book,’ p. 593.) 
 
 65 . a 'vail] The long cloak-like vail, 
 with which the Eastern women covered their 
 faces (sec Jerome in loc. and in ‘ Comment, 
 ad Jes.’ III.; Tertullian, ‘ De velandis Virgi- 
 nibus’ (Cap. xvi.). Even at this early period 
 it seems to have been the custom for brides 
 not to suffer the bridegroom to see their faces 
 before marriage (cp. ch. xxix. 23, 25). 
 
 67 . Sarah's tent] See on v. 28. 
 
V. I— 7.J 
 
 GENESIS. XXV. 
 
 153 
 
 strive in her rvomb. 24 The birth of Esau and 
 Jacob. 27 Their difference, Esau sel/eth 
 his birthright. 
 
 T hen again Abraham took a wife, 
 and her name was Keturah. 
 
 I Chron. 2 Aiid "she bare him Zimran, and 
 ' Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and 
 Ishbak, and Shuah. 
 
 3 And Jokshan begat Sheba, and 
 Dedan. And the sons of Dedan 
 were Asshurim, and Letushim, and 
 Leummim. 
 
 4 And .the sons of Midian ; Ephah, 
 and Epher, and Hanoch, and Abidah, 
 and Eldaah. All these were the chil- 
 dren of Keturah. 
 
 5 ^ And Abraham gave all that he 
 had unto Isaac. 
 
 6 But unto the sons of the concu- 
 bines, which Abraham had, Abraham 
 gave gifts, and sent them away from 
 Isaac his son, while he yet lived, east- 
 ward, unto the east country. 
 
 7 And these are the days of the years 
 
 Chap, XXV. 1. Then again Abraham took 
 a avife.^ and her name 'vuas Keturah^ The 
 later Targg. and some other Jewish commen- 
 tators (Rashi and R. Eliezer, in ‘ Pirke,’ c. 
 30; see also Jerome, ‘ Qu. in Gen.J, say that 
 Keturah was the same as Hagar, whom Abra- 
 ham took again, after Sarah’s death. This 
 seems inconsistent with v. 6, which speaks of 
 “the concubines” in the plural, meaning, 
 doubtless, Hagar and Keturah. The latter, 
 though called wife here, is called concubine 
 in I Chron. i. 32. Moreover, in i Chron. i. 
 28, 32, the sons of Keturah are named sepa- 
 rately from Isaac and Ishmael. The concu- 
 bine (Pilegesh) was a kind of secondary wife, 
 sometimes called “the concubine wife,” Judg. 
 xix. i; 2 S. XV. 16; XX. 3. It is generally 
 supposed, that Abraham did not take Keturah 
 to wife, till after Sarah’s death. So the fa- 
 thers generally. Abraham lived to the age of 
 175. If we consider this extreme old age as 
 equivalent to eighty-five or ninety in the pre- 
 sent day, his age at the time of Sarah’s death 
 would correspond to that of a man of from 
 sixty-five to seventy now. 
 
 Some, however, think, that Abraham took 
 Keturah to be a secondary wife, during 
 Sarah’s life, though no mention is made of 
 this marriage till this time, as the chief pur- 
 pose of mentioning it was that some account 
 should be given of Keturah’s children. So 
 Keil, Poole (in ‘ Diet, of Bible’), &c. It is 
 impossible to decide this question, as the text 
 gives no note of time. The Authorised Ver- 
 sion indeed renders, “Then again Abraham 
 took a wife,” but the Hebrew only conveys 
 the notion that Abraham took another wife. 
 
 2 . she bare him Zimran'] Josephus (‘A. 
 J.’ I. 15) tells us that the descendants of 
 Keturah occupied the Troglodyte country 
 and Arabia Felix, which statement is repeated 
 by Jerome (‘ Qu. Heb. in Gen.’). Some of their 
 names occur among the Arab tribes, but it is 
 not easy to identify them all clearly 
 
 Zimran has been thought to be identified 
 with the Zabram of Ptolemy (vi. 7, 5), the 
 royal city of the Cinaedocolpitae to the West 
 
 of Mecca, on the Red Sea; Jokshan with the 
 Gassanitas on the Red Sea (Ptol. vi. 7, 6); 
 Ishbak with Shobek, in Idumaea (Knobel, 
 Del, Keil). 
 
 Medan.! and Midian] In ch, xxxvii. 28, 36, 
 the Midianites and Medanites are identified. 
 The Midianites dwelt partly in the peninsula 
 of Sinai, partly beyond Jordan, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the Moabites. We meet with 
 them first as the merchants to whom Joseph 
 w’as sold by his brethren (as ch. xxxvii. 28 
 sqq.), trafficking between Egypt and Canaan. 
 Next we find Moses flying to the land of Mi- 
 dian, and marrying the daughter of a priest 
 of Midian, Exod. n. 15, 16, 21, whose flocks 
 pastured in the desert, in the neighbourhood 
 of Mount Horeb (Ex. iii. i). Later we find 
 the people of Midian in immediate juxta-po- 
 sition with the Moabites (Num. xxii. 4, xxv. 
 6, 17, 18). We find them aftenvards as for- 
 midable neighbours to the Israelites, invading 
 and oppressing them, though afterwards ex- 
 pelled and conquered (Judg. vi. vii. viii,). It 
 has been thought that traces of the name of 
 Midian may be found in Modiana on the 
 Eastern coast of the Elanitic Gulf men- 
 tioned by Ptolemy (\i. 7), (Knobel). 
 
 3 . Sheba.! Dedan] Are named, ch. 
 X. 7, among the descendants of Cush. It has 
 been thought that in these, as in other in- 
 stances, the Shemite and Hamite races inter- 
 married, and that there consequently arose a 
 certain confusion in their names, or that very 
 probably they adopted names from those with 
 whom they were thus connected (see on ch. 
 X. 6, 7; also Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 322). 
 
 4 . Ephah] We meet with this Midian- 
 itish tribe in Is. lx. 6, as a people rich in 
 camels and gold and incense. The attempts 
 to identify the various descendants of Ketu- 
 rah, mentioned in this chapter, with the 
 names of tribes or cities known to later geo- 
 graphers and historians, may be seen in Kno- 
 bel, Del, Keil, &c. The uncertainty of such 
 identification is very great. 
 
 6. eastward., unto the east country] That 
 
‘54 
 
 GENESIS. XXV. 
 
 of Abraham’s life which he .lived, an 
 hundred threescore and fifteen years. 
 
 8 Then Abraham gave up the 
 ghost, and died in a good old age, an 
 old man, and full of years i and was 
 gathered to his people. 
 
 9 And his sons Isaac and Ishmael 
 buried him in the cave of Machpelah, 
 ill the field of Ephron the son of 
 Zohar the Hittite, which is before 
 Mamre ; 
 
 *chap. 23. 10 ^The field which Abraham pur- 
 
 ^ ■ chased of the sons of Heth : there was 
 Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife. 
 
 1 1 ^ And it came to pass after the 
 death of Abraham, that God blessed 
 his son Isaac ; and Isaac dwelt by the 
 cchap. 16. tf^vell Lahai-roi. 
 
 & 24. 62. 1 2 Now these are the generations 
 
 of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom 
 Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s hand- 
 maid, bare unto Abraham: 
 
 ‘'iChron. And ^these are the names of 
 
 the sons of Ishmael, by their names, 
 according to their generations : the 
 firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; and 
 Kedai, and Adbeei, and Mibsam, 
 
 [v. 8 — 21. 
 
 14 And Mishma, and Dumah, and 
 Massa, 
 
 15 “Hadar, and Tema, Jetur, Na- 
 phish, and Kedemah: 
 
 16 These are the sons of Ishmael, 
 and these are their names, by their 
 towns, and by their castles; twelve 
 princes according to their nations. 
 
 17 And these are the years of the 
 life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty 
 and seven years : and he gave up the 
 ghost and died; and was gathered 
 unto his people. 
 
 18 And they dwelt from Havilah 
 unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as 
 thou goest toward Assyria: and he 
 
 ^ died in the presence of all his bre- ^Heb. 
 thren. 
 
 19 ^ And these are the genera- 
 tions of Isaac, Abraham’s son : Abra- 
 ham begat Isaac: 
 
 20 And Isaac was forty years old 
 when he took Rebekah to wife, the 
 daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of 
 Padan-aram, the sister to Laban the 
 Syrian. 
 
 21 And Isaac intreated the Lord 
 
 is into Arabia, the inhabitants ot which were 
 called Benc-Kedem, “children of the East” 
 (Judg. VI. 3; I K. iv. 30; Job i. 3, Is. xi. 14), 
 and afterwards “ Saracens,” i.e. “ Easterns.” 
 
 8. Abraham ga've up the gbost\ The his- 
 tory of Abraham is thus wound up before 
 the history of Isaac’s family is told. Abra- 
 ham did not die till Jacob and Esau were 
 born. Indeed they were fifteen years old at 
 Abraham’s death: for he died at 175, Isaac 
 was then seventy-fiye years old, but Esau 
 and Jacob were born when Isaac was sixty 
 (see V. 26). 
 
 ^as gathered to his people'] This cannot 
 mean that he was buried where his fathers 
 had been buried, for he had been a hundred 
 years a pilgrim in the land of Israel, far from 
 the home of his ancestors, and he was buried 
 in the cave of Machpelah. The place therefore 
 seems to indicate the belief of the patriarchal 
 ages in a place of departed spirits, to which 
 the souls of the dead were gathered. Thus 
 Jacob expected to “go down into the grave 
 (to Sheolj unto his son,” though he did not 
 believe his son to have been buried, but to 
 have been devoured by wild beasts (ch. xxxvii. 
 35; compare also Deut. xxxii. 50). St Au- 
 gustine (‘ Qu. in Gen.’ 268) interprets the words 
 “ his people,” of “ the people of that city, 
 
 the heavenly Jerusalem,” spoken of in Heb. 
 xii. 22, and which God is said to have pre- 
 pared for the faithful patriarchs, Heb. xi. 16. 
 
 9 . his sons Isaac and Ishmael] From 
 this we see that Ishmael, though sent to dwell 
 Eastward, had not lost sight of his father 
 and Isaac; and very probably their father’s 
 death reconciled the two brothers to each 
 other. Isaac is put first as the heir, and the 
 heir of the promises. 
 
 16 . castles] See on Num. xxxi. 10. 
 
 19 . And these are the generations of Isaac^ 
 Abraham's son] This is the beginning of a 
 new Section in the history of Genesis, which 
 continues to the end of ch. xxxv. Accord- 
 ing to the uniform plan of the author, there 
 is a brief recapitulation, in order to make 
 the Section complete. In this case it is very 
 brief, consisting of the latter part of v. 19, 
 and V. 20. 
 
 20 . the Syrian of Padan-aram] The 
 Aramean of Padan-aram. Padan-aram 
 is the “plain or flat land of Aram,” translated 
 or paraphrased in Hosea xii. 12 by Sedeh- 
 Ararn, “the field or plain of Aram.” In the 
 last chapter the country of Rebekah is called 
 Aram-Naharaim, or Aram of the two rivers. 
 See on ch. xxiv. 10. There is no reasonable 
 foundation for the belief that Padan-aram 
 
V. 22 — 25-] 
 
 GENESIS. XXV. 
 
 155 
 
 for his wife, because she was barren : 
 and the Lord w££s intreated of him, 
 and Rebekah his wife conceived. 
 
 22 And the children struggled to- 
 gether within her; and she said. If it 
 be so, why am I thus ? And she we»nt 
 to inquire of the Lord. 
 
 23 And the Lord said unto her. 
 Two nations are in thy womb, and 
 
 two m.anner of people- shall be sepa- 
 rated from thv bowels ; and the one 
 people shall be stronger than the other 
 people; and “^the elder shall serve the ^Rom. 9. 
 vouno-er. 
 
 J O 
 
 24 And when her days to be de- 
 livered v/ere fulhlled, behold, there 
 were twins in her womb. 
 
 25 And the first came out red, all 
 
 was the old name used by the so-called Elo- 
 hist, Aram-Naharaim being the name which 
 had been adopted by the later Jehovist. It 
 was natural that the historian, when relating 
 the embassy of Eliezer of Damascus to Me- 
 sopotamia to seek a wife for Isaac, should 
 have used the general name of the country 
 into which Eliezer was sent, whereas in the 
 present Section more particularity is to be 
 expected, where Jacob is described as sojourn- 
 ing for years in Padan-aram, the land of 
 Laban; just as in one case it might be natural 
 to speak of going into Scotland, whilst in a 
 more detailed account, we might prefer to 
 speak of the Highlands of Scotland, or the 
 Lowlands, or of some particular county or 
 district. 
 
 21 . Isaac intreated the Lord for his 
 ’luife^ because she <ivas barren^ This barren- 
 ness had lasted twenty years (v. a 6). An- 
 other instance of the delay in the fulfilment 
 of God’s promises, and of the trial of the 
 faith of those for whom the greatest blessings 
 are reserved. The word here used for prayer 
 is by many thought to mean frequent and re- 
 peated prayer; implying the anxious desire of 
 Isaac to be blessed with offspring. Gesenius 
 (p. 1085) thinks the word is connected with 
 a root signifying “to offer incense,” which 
 certainly appears to belong to it in Ezek. viii. 
 II. If it be so, we must believe that the pa- 
 triarchal worship, which from the earliest 
 times was accompanied with sacrifice, had 
 also, whether from Divine revelation or from 
 an instinctive feeling, adopted the use of in- 
 cense. 
 
 22 . If it be jo, ^hy am I thus?'\ An 
 obscure saying. The Vulg. and Targums 
 render, “If it was to be thus with me, why 
 did I conceive?” The Arabic has, “ If I 
 had known it would be thus, I would not 
 have sought for offspring.” Much to the same 
 effect Rashi, “If such be the sufferings of 
 pregnancy, why did I desire it ? ” The Syriac 
 and most of the German Comm, understand 
 it, “If it be so, wherefore do I live?” 
 
 And she ewent to inquire of the Lord'] By 
 prayer, or by sacrifice, perhaps at some spe- 
 cial place of prayer ; as to the domestic altar 
 of Isaac (Theodor. ‘Qu. in Gen.’), or more 
 
 likely, by going to a prophet. The Jerusa- 
 lem Targum, followed by several Jewish 
 commentators says, she went to Shem; others 
 say to Melchizedec. Abraham, who was 
 still living, was the head of the family then 
 dwelling in Palestine; he had been specially 
 honoured by revelations from heaven; and 
 was probably esteemed the patriarch-priest of 
 the whole race. It is most likely, therefore, 
 that if the inquiry was made through a man, 
 it would have been made through him. Still 
 we may conclude with St Augustine (‘ Q^u,’ 
 72), that nothing is certain except that Re- 
 bekah went to ask of the Lord, and that the 
 Lord answered her. 
 
 23 . T'wo nations^ &c.] The response is 
 in antistrophic parallelisms, a poetic form, in 
 which no doubt it was more readily handed 
 down from father to son : 
 
 Two nations are in thy worah: 
 and two peoples shall be sepa- 
 rated from thy bowels; 
 and nation shall be stronger than 
 nation, 
 
 and the elder shall serve the 
 younger. 
 
 To this see the reference Mai. i. 2, 3, “Jacob 
 have I loved, and Esau have I hated,” and in 
 Rom. ix. 10 — 13, where St Paul shews that 
 election to the privilege of being the deposi- 
 tories of God’s truth and the Church of God 
 on earth is inscrutable, but not therefore ne- 
 cessarily unjust or unmerciful. Such election 
 indeed plainly marks that God does not choose 
 men as His instruments because of their merits, 
 but it does not shew that He is therefore sim- 
 ply arbitrary. In all there is a hidden stream 
 of mercy flowing. The chosen race shall be 
 made the means of salvation to others as well 
 as to themselves. Their privileges will be blessed 
 to them, if they use those privileges faithfully. 
 Otherwise whilst they are the channels of God’s 
 grace to their brethren, they themselves will 
 be cast out, and others shall come into their 
 inheritance. 
 
 25 . red^ all oruer like an hairy garment] 
 He seemed as if covered with a kind of fur, a 
 thick down, which is said to be found on some 
 new born infants. It gave an animal aunear- 
 
GENESIS. XXV. 
 
 156 
 
 [v. 26 — 32. 
 
 over like an harry garment ; and they 
 called his name Esau. 
 
 26 And after that came his brother 
 /Hos. X2. out, and-^his hand took hold on Esau’s 
 
 heel; and his name was called Jacob: 
 and Isaac was threescore years old 
 when she bare them. 
 
 27 And the boys grew : and Esau 
 was a cunning hunter, a man of the 
 held; and Jacob was a plain man, 
 dwelling in tents. 
 
 28 And Isaac loved Esau, because 
 
 ^ he did eat of his venison : but Rebe- ^ 
 
 Kan loved J acob. was in his 
 
 29 ^ And Jacob sod pottage : and 
 Esau came from the field, and he was 
 faint : 
 
 30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed 
 
 me, I pray thee, ^ with that same red t Heb. 
 pottage; for I a?n faint: therefore with 
 
 his name called " Edom. 
 
 31 And Jacob said, Sell me this^hatis, 
 day thy birthright. 
 
 Red, 
 
 32 And Esau said. Behold, I 
 
 am 
 
 ance to Esau, and probably indicated his more 
 sensual nature. Owing to this he was called 
 Esau, “hairy.” 
 
 Jacob] Meaning, literally, “he holds the 
 heel but, from the act of a person tripping 
 up an adversary in wrestling or running by 
 taking hold of the heel, it signifies also t(j 
 “ trip up,” “to outwit,” “to supplant.” (See 
 xxvii. 36). 
 
 27. a cunning hunter] Skilled in hunt- 
 ing. Instead of following the quiet pastoral 
 life of his forefathers, Esau preferred the wilder 
 life of a hunter, betokening his wild, restless, 
 self-indulgent character, and leading him pro- 
 bably to society with the heathen Ganaanites 
 round about. 
 
 a man of the field] This is antithetic to 
 what follows, “a dweller in tents.” It pro- 
 bably indicates still more fully the wild life of 
 Esau. Instead of spending his life in the society 
 of his family, returning to his tent after the 
 day’s labour at night, he roved over the coun- 
 try, like the uncivilized hunters in half savage 
 lands. 
 
 Jacob (was a plain man] An upright 
 man, a man of steady, domestic, moral 
 habits. 
 
 dwelling in tents] i.e. staying at home, at- 
 tending to the pasturing of the flocks and the 
 business of the family, instead of wandering 
 abroad in search of pleasure and amusement. 
 (See Ges. ‘Thes.’ p, 634.) 
 
 28. Isaac loved Esau,, because he did eat 
 of his venison] Lit. “ because venison was in 
 his mouth.” The bold daring of Esau was, 
 perhaps by force of contrast, pleasant to the 
 quiet spirit of Isaac. That cjuiet temper was 
 not strong enough to rule such a restless 
 youth; there was also a marked selfishness in 
 Isaac's affection, which brought with it its 
 own punishment. I'he mother, on the con- 
 trary. loved the well-conducted and helpful 
 Jacob. Yet her love too was not guided by 
 the highest principle, and so led her and her 
 
 favourite son to sin against truth and justice, 
 and brought heavy trials and sorrows on them 
 both. 
 
 30. Feed me,, 1 pray thee,, with that same 
 red pottage] Let me, I pray thee, de- 
 vour some of that red, that red. The 
 words express the vehemence of the appetite, 
 and probably the very words uttered by Esau 
 in his impatient hunger and weariness. The 
 red lentil is still esteemed in the East, and has 
 been found very palatable by modern travel- 
 lers (Robinson, ‘Bib. Res.’ i. 246). Dr Kitto 
 says he often partook of a red pottage made 
 of lentils. “The mess had the redness, which 
 gained for it the name of red” (‘Piet. Bib.’ 
 Gen. XXV. 30, quoted in Smith’s ‘Diet, of 
 Bib.’ II. 92). It is also described by Thom- 
 son, ‘Land and Book,’ p. 587, as exhaling an 
 odour very tempting to a hungry man. 
 
 therefore was his name'called Edom] Names 
 appear to have been frequently given from ac- 
 cidental causes, especially in the East; and 
 sometimes the occurrence of more than one 
 circumstance to the same person seems to 
 have riveted a name. Thus we read above 
 that Esau was born with red hair and colour. 
 His frantic demand for red pottage and selling 
 his birthright to gain it, may have conspired 
 v/ith his hair and complexion to stamp 'the 
 name Edom (or Red) upon him. The con- 
 jecture of Tuch and others, that the name 
 was connected with the Red Sea, near which 
 the Edomites dwelt, is wholly groundless. 
 The Red Sea was never so called in early 
 times, or in Semitic tongues. The name Red 
 was given in later days to this sea by the 
 Greeks. 
 
 31. Sell me this day thy birthright] It is 
 doubtful what privileges the birthright car- 
 ried 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. 
 
V. 33— !•] 
 
 GENESIS. XXV. XXVI. 
 
 157 
 
 point to die; and what profit 
 die. shall this birthright do to me ? 
 
 33 And Jacob said, Swear to me 
 this day; and he sware unto him: 
 
 ^^Heb. 12. and ^he sold his birthright unto 
 Jacob. 
 
 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread 
 and pottage of lentiles ; and he did 
 eat and drink, and rose up, and went 
 his way : thus Esau despised his birth- 
 right. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 1 Isaac because of famine 7vent to Gerar. 7 God 
 mstmcteth, and blcsseth him. He is reproved 
 by Abimelech for denying his zvife. I7 He 
 grozveth rich. i8 He diggeth Eseh, Sitnah, 
 and Rehobo th. 26 Abimelech maketh a cove- 
 nant with him at Beer sheba. 34 Esan's 
 wives. 
 
 AND there was a famine in the 
 ±\. land, beside the first famine that 
 was in the days of Abraham. And 
 
 It also looks as if the head of the family exer- 
 cised 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. 
 All this was to Esau of little account com- 
 pared with the desire of present gratification 
 of appetite. It has been thought, not im- 
 probably, that the famine impending (see 
 xxvi. i) was already, more or less, pressing on 
 the family of Isaac (Lightfoot, ‘Harm, of 
 O. T.’ in loc.). Esau had perhaps been seek- 
 ing in vain for food in the chase, whilst Jacob 
 had prepared a mess of pottage, sufficient to 
 relieve the pains of hunger. If it were so, 
 Esau, wearied and famished, may have been 
 strongly tempted to give up much for food. 
 But his worldly and “profane” character is 
 exhibited in his contempt for that, which was, 
 whether in a worldly or in a spiritual point'of 
 view, rather an gbject of faith or sentiment, 
 than of sight and sense. Jacob, a man of 
 widely different character, 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 posi- 
 tion. This may be some excuse for his con- 
 duct, but the sacred history, whilst exposing 
 the carnal indifference of Esau, does not ex- 
 tenuate the selfishness of Jacob. Throughout 
 their history, Esau is the bold, reckless, but 
 generous and openhearted man of this world ; 
 Jacob, on the contrary, is a thoughtful, reli- 
 gious man, but with many infirmities, and 
 especially with that absence of simplicity and 
 uprightness, which often characterizes those 
 who have made their choice of heaven 
 and yet let their hearts linger too much on 
 earth. 
 
 The events correspond with the characters 
 of the men. Esau lives on his rough and 
 reckless life; though towards the end of it 
 
 we see his better feelings overcoming his vin- 
 dictiveness. Whatever his own final state 
 with God may have been, he has disinherited 
 his children, left them wild men of the desert 
 and the rocks, instead of leaving them heirs 
 of the promises and ancestors of the Messiah. 
 Jacob, with a less prosperous life, has yet 
 gone through a long training and chastening 
 from the God of his fathers, to whose care 
 and guidance he had given him.self ; he suffers 
 heavily, but he learns from that he suffered ; 
 at last he goes down to Egypt to die, com- 
 forted in having his children yet alive, confess- 
 •ing that few and evil had been the days of 
 the years of his pilgrimage, but yet able to 
 say in peaceful confidence upon his deathbed, 
 “ I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.” 
 He has inherited the promises; but for trying 
 by unworthy means to anticipate the promise 
 of inheritance, he has to go through a life of 
 trial, sorrow, and discipline, and to die at last, 
 not in the land of promise, but in the house 
 of bondage. 
 
 Chap. XXVI. l. AbimelecE] It has been 
 doubted whether this be the Abimelech with 
 whom Abraham was concerned or not. The 
 events related in this chapter took place about 
 eighty years after those related in ch. xx. 
 It is not therefore impossible, when men 
 lived to 180, that the same king may still 
 have been reigning over the Philistines; and it 
 has been thought that the character described 
 here is very similar to that in ch. xx. It 
 seems more probable that the present Abime- 
 lech should have been the son or successor of 
 the earlier king. Names were very frequently 
 handed down to the grandson, recurring al- 
 ternately, and this may very possibly have 
 been the case here: but moreover, Abimelech 
 {father king., or father of the kingf may very 
 likely have been, like Pharaoh, a title rather 
 than a name, so also Phichol {the mouth of all., 
 i.e. commanding all), sounds like the title of 
 the commander in chief or the grand vizier, 
 Cp. xxi. 22, xxvi. 26. 
 
 Gerar'\ The chief city of the Philistines, 
 now Kirbet el Gerar. 
 
158 
 
 GENESIS. XXVI. 
 
 Isaac went unto Abimelech king of 
 the Philistines unto Gerar. 
 
 2 And the Lord appeared unto 
 him, and said, Go not down into 
 Egypt; dwell in the, land which I 
 shall tell thee of: 
 
 3 Sojourn in this land, and I will 
 be with thee, and will bless thee ; for 
 
 «chap. 13. unto thee, and unto thy seed, "I will 
 
 &15 18 these countries, and I will 
 
 perform the oath which I sware unto 
 Abraham thy father; 
 
 4 And I will make thy seed to 
 multiply as the stars of heaven, and 
 will give unto thy seed all these coun- 
 tries; and in thy seed shall all the 
 
 *chap. 12. nations of the earth be '^blessed; 
 
 & 22 ^^ 181 ^’ 5 Because that Abraham obeyed 
 
 my voice, and kept my charge, my 
 commandments, my statutes, and my 
 laws. 
 
 6 ^1 And Isaac dwelt in Gerar: 
 
 7 And the men of the place asked 
 hbn of his wife; and he said. She is 
 my sister: for he feared to say, She is’ 
 
 [v. 2 — 12. 
 
 my wife; lest, said he^ the men of 
 the place should kill me for Rebekah j 
 because she was fair to look upon. 
 
 8 And it came to pass, when he 
 had been there a long time, that 
 Abimelech king of the Philistines look- 
 ed out at a window, and saw, and, 
 behold, Isaac was sporting with Re- 
 bekah his wife. 
 
 9 And Abimelech called Isaac, and 
 said. Behold, of a surety she is thy 
 wife : and how saidst thou. She is my 
 sister? And Isaac said unto him. Be- 
 cause I said. Lest I die for her. 
 
 10 And Abimelech said. What is 
 this thou hast done unto us? one of 
 the people might lightly have lien with 
 thy v/ife, and thou shouldest have 
 brought guiltiness upon us. 
 
 11 ‘And Abimelech charged all his 
 people, saying. He that toucheth this 
 man or his wife shall surely be put to 
 death. 
 
 12 Then Isaac sowed in that land, 
 and deceived in the same year any^^,2 
 
 2 . the Lord appeared unto him'] The 
 last recorded vision was at the sacrifice of 
 Isaac more than sixty years before, ch. xxii. 
 These revelations were not so frequent as 
 they seem to us, as we read one event rapidly 
 after the other, but just sufficient to keep up 
 the knowledge of God and the faith of the 
 patriarchs in the line of the chosen people 
 and of the promised seed. 
 
 Go not do^vn into Egypt] “In the first 
 famine, which was in the days of Abraham,” 
 Abraham had gone down to Egypt. Proba- 
 bly, after this example, and from the plenty 
 with which Egypt was blessed, Isaac had 
 purposed to go down there now. 
 
 3 . Sojourn in this land] He was the 
 heir, to whom the land had been promised. 
 He is to dwell in it, as a stranger and so- 
 journer, and not to be tempted by suffering 
 to go down to that land of spiritual danger, 
 from which his father so narrowly escaped. 
 
 4 . all these countries] The lands of the 
 different Canaanitish tribes named in ch. xv. 
 19 — 21. The pronoun here rendered “these” 
 is one of those ancient forms peculiar to the 
 Pentateuch {ha-el] in the later books it would 
 lx.* ha-eieh). 
 
 7. She is my sister] Isaac acted on this 
 occa.sion just as Abraham had done in Egypt 
 and in Philistia. Probably too, he called 
 Relrekah his sister because she was his cou- 
 
 sin, and the deep importance of strict truth- 
 fulness had not been fully unfolded to the 
 patriarchs in their twilight state of faith. 
 The difference in the details of this story 
 and the events in the life of Abraham is too 
 marked to allow it to be thought that this is 
 only a repetition of the histories in ch. xii. 
 and XX. In the history of Abraham Sarah 
 was taken into the house of Pharaoh, and 
 afterwards into that of Abimelech, and in 
 both cases preserved by Divine intervention. 
 In the history of Isaac, there is no apparent 
 intention on the part of Abimelech to take 
 Rebekah into his house, but he accidentally 
 discovers that Isaac and Rebekah were not 
 brother and sister but husband and wife, and 
 then reproves Isaac for his concealment of 
 the truth, on the ground that .so some of his 
 people might have ignorantly taken Rebekah 
 to wife. • 
 
 12. so^ed in that landj The patriarchs 
 were not so wholly nomadic and pastoral 
 in their habits of life as to neglect agricul- 
 ture entirely. Even the Bedouins practise 
 agriculture at the present day as well as graz- 
 ing (Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ Vol. i. p. 77). 
 
 an hundredfold] An hundred measures; 
 i. e. probably a hundred measures for each 
 measure sown, a very unusual increase, though 
 not quite unknown in a virgin soil, especially 
 if the corn were barley. (The LXX. and 
 Syr. render here “a hundred of barley,” 
 
V. 13—2 9-1 
 
 GENESIS. XXVI. 
 
 159 
 
 t Heb. 
 
 went 
 
 going. 
 
 POr, 
 
 husban- 
 
 dry. 
 
 t Heb. 
 living. 
 
 P That is, 
 Conten- 
 tion. 
 
 • That is, 
 Hatred. 
 
 hundredfold: and the Lord blessed 
 him. 
 
 13 And the man waxed great, and 
 ^went forward, and grew until he be- 
 came very great : 
 
 14 For he had possession of flocks, 
 and possession of herds, and great 
 store of “ servants : and the Philistines 
 envied him. 
 
 15 For all the wells which his fa- 
 ther’s servants had digged in the days 
 of Abraham his father, the Philistines 
 had stopped them, and filled them 
 with earth. 
 
 16 And Abimelech said unto Isaac, 
 Go from us ; for thou art much 
 mightier than we. 
 
 17 ^ And Isaac departed thence, 
 and pitched his tent in the valley of 
 Gerar, and dwelt there. 
 
 18 And Isaac digged again the 
 wells of water, which they had digged 
 in the days of Abraham his father; 
 for the Philistines had stopped them 
 after the death of Abraham: and he 
 called their names after the names by 
 which his father had called them. 
 
 19 And Isaac’s servants digged in 
 the valley, and found there a well of 
 ^springing water. 
 
 20 And the herdmen of Gerar did 
 strive with Isaac’s herdmen, saying. 
 The water is ours : and he called the 
 name of the well " Esek ; because they 
 strove with him. 
 
 21 And they digged another well, 
 and strove for that also : and he called 
 the name of it "Sitnah. 
 
 22 And he removed from thence, 
 and digged another well’; and for that 
 they strove not : and he called the 
 name of it "Rehoboth; and he said, 
 
 For now the Lord hath made room 
 for us, and we shall be fruitful in the 
 land. 
 
 23 And he went up from thence 
 to Beer-sheba. 
 
 24 And the Lord appeared unto 
 him the same night, and said, I am 
 the God of Abraham thy father: fear 
 not, for I am with thee, and will bless 
 thee, and multiply thy seed for my 
 servant Abraham’s sake. 
 
 25 And he budded an altar there, 
 and called upon the name of the Lord, 
 and pitched his .tent there: and there 
 Isaac’s servants digged a well. 
 
 26 ^ Then Abimelech went to him 
 from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his 
 friends, and Phichol the chief captain 
 of his army. 
 
 27 And Isaac said unto them. 
 Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye 
 hate me, and have sent me away from 
 you ? 
 
 28 And they said, ^We saw cer-tHeb. 
 tainly that the Lord was with thee : ^saw'.^ 
 and we said. Let there be now an oath 
 betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, 
 
 and let us make a covenant with thee ; 
 
 29 ^ "Fhat thou wilt do us no hurt, t Heb. 
 as we have not touched thee, and as 
 
 we have done unto thee nothing but 
 good, and have sent thee away in 
 peace: thou art now the blessed of 
 the Lord. 
 
 which Michaelis and others have adopted. 
 The reading and rendering of the Authorised 
 Version are more generally supported, and are 
 probably c<?rrect.) The fertility of the soil 
 in this neighbourhood is still very great. 
 
 17 . the valley of Gerar\ The word for 
 valley signifies properly the bed or course of a 
 stream or mountain torrent, a vuady. It is not 
 easy to say which of the valleys running to 
 the sea, South of Beer-sheba, may be identified 
 with this valley of Gerar (see Robinson, 
 ‘Physical Geography,’ p. 112). 
 
 22. Rehoboth'] Probably identified as to 
 site with the Wady er~Ruhaibeh, where are 
 the ruins of an extensive city, eight hours 
 South of Beer-sheba. Here is an ancient well. 
 
 now filled up, twelve feet in diameter, and 
 regularly built with hewn stone (Robinson, 
 ‘ Phys. Geog.’ p. 243 ; see also ‘ B. R.’ p. 289). 
 
 26 . PhichoT\ See on v. i. The name sig- 
 nifies “the mouth of all,” which would be 
 applicable to a grand vizier, through whom 
 all might have access to the sovereign, or to a 
 general whose voice gave command to all. 
 The former sefise would seem the more pro- 
 bable, if it had not been said that Phichol was 
 ( ‘ the chief captain of the army.” 
 
 29 . thou art novo the blessed of the 
 Lord^ We have here twice (see v. 28) the 
 sacred name Jehovah, used by the heathen 
 king of Gerar. This does not, hov/ever, in- 
 dicate that the writer of this portion of the 
 
1 
 
 GENESIS. XXVI. XXVII. [v. 30-1. 
 
 160 
 
 30 And he made them a feast, and 
 they did eat and drink. 
 
 31 And they rose up betimes in 
 the morning, and sware one to an- 
 other : and Isaac sent them away, and 
 they departed from him in peace. 
 
 32 And it came to pass the same 
 day, that Isaac’s servants came, and 
 told him concerning the well which 
 they had digged, and said ^unto him. 
 We have found water. 
 
 11 That is, 33 And he called it " Shebah : there- 
 rrSt, loi'e the name of the city is "Beer- 
 sheba unto this day. 
 
 34 And Esau was forty years 
 old when he took to wife Judith the 
 
 history had so-called Jehovistic tendencies, 
 or that he simply identified the name Jeho- 
 vah with the name Elohim. Abraham had 
 dwelt for some time in Gerar, either under 
 this very Abimelech, or under his immediate 
 predecessor. Abraham was known as a wor- 
 shipper of Jehovah, and was seen to be 
 blessed and prospered by his God. Now 
 again Abraham’s son Isaac comes and so- 
 journs for a long time in the same country. 
 He too worships his father’s God, and is 
 seen, like his father, to prosper abundantly. 
 The Philistines therefore recognize him, as 
 his father, to be a worshipper of Jehovah, 
 and perceive that he has succeeded to his fa- 
 ther in the favour of their great Protector. 
 Abimelech does not profess himself a wor- 
 shipper of the Lord, but looks on the Lord 
 as the God of Abraham, and sees that Abra- 
 ham’s son Isaac is the blessed of the 
 
 Lord.” 
 
 33. he called it Shebah: therefore the 
 name of the city is Beer-sheba unto this day'\ 
 “Shebah” means both seven and oath; the 
 number seven being a sacred number among 
 the Hebrews, and , oaths being apparently 
 ratified with presents or sacrifices seven in 
 number (see ch. xxi. 28). There is no in- 
 consistency in the history which tells us that 
 Abraham gave the name of Beer-sheba to this 
 well long before, and under similar circum- 
 stances. The well, dug by Abraham, and 
 secured to him by oath, had been covered 
 and lost. It is found by Isaac’s servants just 
 after the covenant made between him and 
 Abimelech. The whole series of events re- 
 calls to Isaac’s mind the original name, and 
 that which gave rise to the name, and so he 
 restores, not the well only, but the name 
 also. “ Upon the Northern side of the Wady 
 es-Seba are the two deej) and ancient wells, 
 which gave occasion to this name” (Robin- 
 son, ‘ Phys. Geog.’ p. 242; HL R.’ i. p. 
 
 daughter of Beeri the Hittite, anil 
 Bashemath the daughter of Elon the 
 Hittite : 
 
 35 Which ‘^were grief of mind ^^hap. 27 
 unto Isaac and to Rebekah. t I'leb. 
 
 bitterness 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 0/ spirit. 
 
 I Isaac sendeth Esau for venison. 6 Rebekah 
 instructeth Jacob to obtain the blessing. J5 
 Jacob under the person of Esau obtaineth it. 
 
 30 Esau bringeth venison. 33 Isaac trembleth. 
 
 34 Esau complaineth, and by importunity ob- 
 taineth a blessing. 41 He threateneth Jacob. 
 
 42 Rebekah disappointeth it. 
 
 AND it came to pass, that when 
 ±\^ Isaac was old, and his eyes were 
 dim, so that he could not see, he 
 called Esau his eldest son, and said 
 
 300). It is supposed by Robinson, that the 
 one is that dug by Abraham, the other that 
 dug by Isaac* the name having been after- 
 wards given to both. 
 
 34 . Esau 2vas forty years old.^ &c.] Isaac 
 was now a hundred years old. Esau mar- 
 ries two wives ^and both of them Canaanites. 
 On account of his polygamy and his mar- 
 rying without consent of his parents from 
 among the idolatrous Hittites and Hivites 
 (see ch. xxxvi. 2), he is called “a fornicator” 
 by the Apostle (Heb. xii. 16). These two 
 verses do not belong so much to this chapter 
 as to the next. The account of Esau’s mar- 
 riage, and the consequent grief of Isaac and 
 Rebekah, is intended to prepare the way for 
 the succeeding history. 
 
 35. a grief of mindl\ A bitterness of 
 spirit. 
 
 Chap. XXVII. 1 . Isaac (was old] The 
 Jewish intepreters say he was now one hun- 
 dred and thirty-seven years old, the age at 
 which Ishmael died fourteen years before, 
 and it is not improbable that the thought of 
 his brother’s death at this age put Isaac in 
 mind of his own end. The calculation on 
 which it is inferred that Isaac was one hun- 
 dred and thirty-seven, Esau' and Jacob being 
 seventy-seven at this time, is as follows; 
 Joseph was thirty years old when he stood 
 before Pharaoh (Gen. xli. 46), then came 
 seven years of plenty (v. 47 — 53), which made 
 Joseph thirty-seven ; then two years of 
 famine ere Jacob came into Egypt (ch. xlv. 
 6), which brings Joseph’s age to thirty-nine; 
 but at this time Jacob was one hundred and 
 thirty; therefore Jacob must have been nine- 
 ty-one when Joseph was born. Now Joseph 
 was born in the last year of the second seven, 
 or in the fourteenth year of Jacob’s seiwice 
 with Laban, at the very end of that year 
 
V. 2 8.] 
 
 GENESIS. XXVir. 
 
 i6i 
 
 t Heb. 
 hunt. 
 
 unto him, My son ; and he said unto 
 him, Behold, here am I. 
 
 2 And he said. Behold now, I am 
 old, 1 know not the day of my 
 death : 
 
 3 Now therefore take, I pray thee, 
 thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, 
 and go out to the field, and 4ake me 
 some venison ; 
 
 4 And make me savoury meat, such 
 as 1 love, and bring it to me, that I 
 may eat ; that my soul may bless thee 
 before I die. 
 
 5 And Rebekah heard when Isaac 
 spake to Esau his son. And Esau 
 went to the field to hunt for venison, 
 a7td to bring it. 
 
 6 ^ And Rebekah spake unto Ja- 
 cob her son, saying. Behold, I heard 
 thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, 
 saying, _ 
 
 7 Bring me venison, and make me 
 savoury meat, that I may eat, and 
 bless thee before the Lor.d before my 
 death. 
 
 8 Now therefore, my son, obey my 
 
 (ch. XXX. 25, 26), Take fourteen years out 
 of ninety-one, Jacob's age when Joseph was 
 born, and we have seventy-seven for the age 
 of Jacob, when he was sent away from the 
 wrath of Esau to the house of Laban. (See 
 Lightfoot’s ‘Harmony of Old Testament’ in 
 loc., works by Pitman, 1822, Vol. ii. pp. 96, 
 97). If this calculation be true, Isaac had 
 still forty-three years to live, his quiet life 
 having been extended to an unusual length. 
 There is however great risk of numerical cal- 
 culations from various causes being inexact. 
 The last chapter had brought us down only 
 to the hundredth year of Isaac's life, Esau 
 being then but forty; and in some respects 
 an earlier date seems more accordant with 
 the tenor of the subsequent history, it being 
 hardly probable that Jacob should have been 
 seventy-seven when he fled to Laban and 
 served seven years for his wife, and then 
 .another seven years for his second wife; even 
 at a period when human life was still ex- 
 tended so far beyond that of future genera- 
 tions. On the chronology of Jacob’s life see 
 note at the end of ch. xxxi. 
 
 3. qui’ver'] So LXX., Vulg., Pseudo- 
 Jon.: but Onkelos, Syr. have “sword.” The 
 Jewish commentators are divided between 
 the two senses. The word occurs nowhere 
 else, but is derived from a verb meaning to 
 “hang,” to “suspend,” which would suit 
 either the quiver which hung over the 
 shoulder, or the sword, the “hanger,” which 
 was suspended by the side. 
 
 4. that 7 ny soul may bless thee'\ There 
 appears a singular mixture of the carnal and 
 the spiritual in this. Isaac recognizes his 
 own character as that of the priestly and 
 prophetic head of his house, privileged to 
 bless as father and priest, and to foretell the 
 fortunes of his family in succession to Abra- 
 ham in his office of the prophet of God. 
 Yet his carnal affection causes him to forget 
 the response to the enquiry of Rebekah, “the 
 elder shall serve the younger,” and the fact 
 that Esau had sold his birthi’ight and alienated 
 
 VoL. [. 
 
 it from him for ever by a solem.n oath. 
 Moreover, in order that his heart may be the 
 more warmed to him whom he desires to 
 bless, he seeks to have some of that savoury 
 meat brought to him which he loved. 
 
 6. Rebekah spake unto Jacob~\ She had 
 no doubt treasured up the oracle which had 
 assured her, even before their birth, that her 
 younger son Jacob, whom she loved, should 
 bear rule over Esau, whose wild and reckless 
 life, and whose Canaanitish wives had been a 
 “bitterness of soul” to her. She probably 
 knew that Jacob had bought Esau’s birth- 
 right. Now, believing rightly that the fither’s 
 benediction would surely bring blessing with 
 it, she fears that these promises and hopes 
 would fail. She believed, but not with that 
 faith, which can patiently abide till God 
 works out His plans by His Providence. So 
 she strove, as it were, to force forward the 
 event by unlawful means; even, as some have 
 thought that Judas betrayed Christ that he 
 might force Him to declare Himsell a king 
 and to take the kingdom. Every character 
 in this remarkable history comes in for some 
 share of blame, and yet some share of praise. 
 Isaac, with the dignity of the ancient patriarcli 
 and faith in the inspiring Spirit of God, 
 prepares to bless his son, but he lets carnal 
 and worldly motives weigh with him. Re- 
 bekah and Jacob, seeing the promises afar 
 off and desiring the spiritual blessings, yet 
 practise deceit and fraud to obtain them, 
 instead of waiting till He who promised 
 should shew Himself faithful. Esau, de- 
 frauded of what seems his right, exhibits a 
 natural feeling of sorrow and indignation, 
 which excites our pity and sympathy; but w^e 
 have to remember how “for a morsel of 
 meat he sold his birthright,” and that so, 
 when he would have inherited the promises 
 he w^as rejected, being set forth as an example 
 of the unavailing regret of such as w^antonly 
 despise spiritual privileges, and when they 
 have lost them, seek too late for the blessings 
 to w'hich they lead. 
 
 
 L 
 
i 62 
 
 GENESIS. XXVII. 
 
 [v. 9—24. 
 
 voice according to that which I com- 
 mand thee. 
 
 9 Go now to the flock, and fetch 
 me from thence two good kids of the 
 goats; and I will make them savoury- 
 meat for thy father, such as he loveth : 
 
 10 And thou shalt bring it to thy- 
 father, that he may eat, and that he 
 may bless thee before his death. 
 
 1 1 And Jacob said to Rebekah his 
 mother. Behold, Esau my brother is 
 a hairy man, and I am a smooth man : 
 
 12 My father peradventure will feel 
 me, and I shall seem to him as a de- 
 ceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon 
 me, and not a blessing. 
 
 13 And his mother said unto him. 
 Upon me be thy curse, my son: only 
 obey my voice, and go fetch me them. 
 
 14 And he went, and fetched, and 
 brought them to his mother: and his 
 mother made savoury meat, such as 
 his father loved. 
 
 •f Heb. 15 And Rebekah took ^ goodly rai- 
 
 .desirabie. cldest son Esau-, which 
 
 were v/ith her in the house, and put 
 them upon Jacob her younger son : 
 
 16 And she put the skins of the 
 ^ kids of the goats upon his hands, and 
 
 upon the smooth of his neck: 
 
 17 And she gave the savoury meat 
 and the bread, which she had prepared, 
 into the hand of her son Jacob. 
 
 18 ^ And became unto his father, 
 and said. My father: and he said. 
 
 Here am I ; who art thou, my son ? 
 
 19 And Jacob said unto his father, 
 
 I am Esau thy firstborn ; I have done 
 according as thou badest me : arise, I 
 pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, 
 that thy soul may bless me. 
 
 20 And Isaac said unto his son. 
 
 How is it that thou hast found it so 
 quickly, my son? And he said. Be- 
 cause the Lord thy God brought it 
 
 Ho me. +Heb. 
 
 21 And Isaac said unto Jacob, ^ 
 Come near, I pray thee, that I may 
 
 feel thee, my son, whether thou be 
 my very son Esau or not. 
 
 22 And Jacob went near unto Isaac 
 his father; and he felt him, and said. 
 
 The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the 
 hands are the hands of Esau. 
 
 23 And he discerned him not, be- 
 cause his hands were hairy, as his 
 brother Esau’s hands: so he blessed 
 him. 
 
 24 And he said. Art thou my very 
 son Esau ? And he said, I am. 
 
 15 . goodly raiment of her elder son Esau\ 
 St Jerome (‘Qu. Hebr,’ in loc.) mentions 
 it as a tradition of the rabbins, that the 
 f'rstborn in the patriarchal times, holding 
 the office of priesthood, had a sacerdotal 
 vestment in which they offered sacrifice; and 
 it was this sacerdotal vestment which was 
 kept by Rebekah for Esau, and which was 
 now put upon Jacob. See on ch, xxxvii. 3. 
 
 16 . the skins of the kids of the goats'] 
 Martial (Lib. xii. Epig. 46) alludes to kid 
 skins as used by the Romans for false hair to 
 conceal baldness. The wool of the oriental 
 goats is much longer and finer than of those of 
 this country. (Cp. Gant. iv. i. See Bochart, 
 ‘ Hiero/..’ p. i. Lib. 11. c. ci. See also Rosenm., 
 Tuch, ixc.) 
 
 18 . fiL'ho art thou^ my son?] The anxiety 
 and trepidation of Isaac appear in these 
 words. He had perhaps some misgiving as 
 to the blessing of Esau, and doubted whe- 
 ther God would prosper him in the chase 
 and bring liim home with venison to his 
 father. 
 
 20 . Because the Lopd thy God brought it 
 to me] The covering of his falsehood with 
 this appeal to the Most High is the worst 
 part of Jacob’s conduct. In the use ot the 
 names of God, Jacob speaks of Jehovah as 
 the God of his father. A little further on in 
 the history, Jacob vows that, if he is pro- 
 spered in his journey, then Jehovah shall be 
 his God (ch. xxviii. ai). This is exactly 
 accordant with the general use of these sacred 
 names. Elohism would, so to speak, corre- 
 spond with our word Theism. Though Ja- 
 cob was a believer in Jehovah, yet revela- 
 tion in those early days was but slight, and 
 the knowledge of the patriarchs imperfect. 
 There were gods of nations round about. 
 Jehovah had revealed Himself to Abraham 
 and was Abraham’s God, and again to Isaac, 
 and Isaac had served Him as his God. It is 
 quite possible that Esau, with his heathen 
 wives, may have been but a half worshipper 
 of Jehovah; but Jacob recognizes Him as 
 the God of his father Isaac (cp. ch. xxxi. 53), 
 and afterwards solemnly chooses Him as the 
 object of his own worship and service. See 
 however note on ch. xxviii. a. 
 
V. 25 — 37 -] 
 
 GENESIS.- XXVII. 
 
 163 
 
 25 And he said, Bring it near to 
 me, and I will eat of my son’s veni- 
 son, that my soul may bless thee. 
 And he brought it near to him, and 
 he did eat: and he brought him wine, 
 and he drank. 
 
 26 And his father Isaac said unto 
 him. Come near now, and kiss me, 
 my son. 
 
 27 And he carrre near, and kissed 
 him : and he smelled the smell of his 
 raiment, and blessed him, and said. 
 See, the smell of my son is as the 
 smell of a field which the Lord 
 hath blessed: 
 
 «Tieb. II. 28 Therefore "God give thee of 
 the dew of heaven, and the fatness of 
 the earth, and plenty of corn and 
 wine : 
 
 29 Let people serve thee, and na- 
 tions bow down to thee : be lord over 
 thy brethren, and let thy mother’s 
 sons bow down to thee: cursed be 
 every one that curseth thee, and 
 blessed be he that blesseth thee. 
 
 30 U And it came to pass, as soon 
 as Isaac had made an end of blessing 
 Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone 
 out from the presence of Isaac his 
 father, that Esau his brother came in 
 from his hunting. 
 
 31 And he also had made savoury 
 meat, and brought it unto his father, 
 and said unto his father. Let my fa- 
 ther arise, and eat of his son’s venison, 
 that thy soul may bless me. 
 
 32 And Isaac his father said unto 
 him. Who art thou .? And he said, I 
 am thy son, thy firstborn Esau. 
 
 33 And Isaac Trembled very ex- t Heb. 
 ceedingly, and said. Who .? where is 
 
 he thjt hath Taken venison, and 
 brought it me, and I have eaten ^eaiiy. 
 all before thou earnest, and have bless- hunted. 
 ed him? yea, and he shall be blessed. 
 
 34 And when Esau heard the words 
 of his father, he cried with a great and 
 exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his 
 father. Bless me, even me also, O my 
 father. 
 
 35 And he said. Thy brother came 
 with subtilty, and hath taken away 
 thy bless; ng. 
 
 36 And he said. Is not he rightly 
 named "Jacob ? for he hath supplant- n That is, « 
 ed me these two times : he took away 
 
 my birthright ; and, behold, now he 
 hath taken away my blessing. And 
 he said. Hast thou not reserved a 
 blessing for me ? 
 
 37 And Isaac answered and said 
 unto Esau, Behold, I have made him 
 
 26 . kiss me\ Tuch has suggested that 
 Isaac asked his son to kiss him, that he 
 might distinguish the shepherd who would 
 smell of the flock from the huntsman who 
 would smell of the field. It may have been 
 so (see next verse), or it may have only been 
 paternal love, 
 
 28 . God~\ Lit, The God., i.e. that God 
 just named, the God of thy Father, viz. 
 Jehovah. It does not indicate (as Keil) 
 “the personal God,” nor is it (as some would 
 have it) a Jehovistic formula. The article is 
 perfectly natural as referring to Jacob’s 
 words V. 20. The blessing is, as usual, 
 thrown into the poetic form of an anti- 
 strophic parallelism. 
 
 29 . Let people serve thee., and nations bovj 
 donvn to thee'] This was fulfilled in the 
 extensive dominions of the descendants of 
 Jacob under David and Solomon, but, no 
 doubt, has a fuller reference to the time when 
 “the Lord should arise upon Israel, and His 
 glory should be seen on her, when Gentiles 
 sliould come to her light, and kings to the 
 
 brightness of her rising” . . . when ‘ ‘ the abundance 
 of the sea should be converted unto her, the 
 forces of the Gentiles should come unto 
 her” (Isa. lx. 5, 6. Cp. Rom. xi. 25). 
 
 29 . cursed be every one., &c,] This is 
 the continued promise to the chosen race, first 
 given (Gen. xii, 3) to Abraham. It is ob- 
 served, however, that Isaac does not pronounce 
 on Jacob that emphatic spiritual blessing, which 
 God Himself had assured to Abraham twice 
 (xii. 3; xxii. 18), and to Isaac once (xx’d. 4), 
 “ In thy seed* shall all the nations of the earth 
 be blessed.” There was something carnal and 
 sinful in the whole conduct of the persons 
 concerned in the history of this chapter, Isaac, 
 Rebekah, Jacob, Esau: and it may have been 
 this which withheld for the time the bright- 
 est prorrJse to the family of Abraham; or 
 perhaps it may have been that that promise 
 should come only from the mouth of God Him- 
 self, as it is given afterwards in ch. xxviii. 14. 
 
 36 . Is not he rightly named Jacobf] Lit. 
 “ Is it that he is called Jacob, and he sup- 
 planteth or outwitteth me these two times?” 
 
 L 2 
 
164 
 
 GENESIS. XXVII. 
 
 [v. 38—45* 
 
 rOr, 
 
 suf ported 
 
 t Heb. 12 
 
 17- 
 
 ver. 28. 
 n Or. 
 
 0/ the fat- 
 ness. 
 
 thy lord, and all his brethren have I 
 given to him for servants ; and with 
 corn and wine have I " sustained him : 
 and what shall I do now unto thee, 
 my son ? 
 
 38 And Esau said unto his father, 
 Hast thou but one blessing, my fa- 
 ther? bless me, even me also, O my 
 father. And Esau lifted up his voice, 
 ^and wept. 
 
 39 And Isaac his father answered 
 and said unto him. Behold, ‘^thy dwell- 
 ing shall be " the fatness of the earth, 
 and of the dew of heaven from above ; 
 
 40 And by thy sword shalt thou 
 live, and shalt serve thy brother; and 
 it shall come to pass when thou shalt 
 have the dominion, that thou shalt 
 break his voke from off thy neck. 
 
 41 ^ And Esau hated Jacob be- 
 cause of the blessing wherewith his 
 
 father blessed him: and Esau said in 
 his heart, The days of mourning for 
 my father are at hand; ‘^then will I “^Obad-io. 
 slay my brother Jacob. 
 
 42 And these words of Esau her 
 elder son were told to Rebekah : and 
 she sent and called Jacob her younger 
 son, and said unto him. Behold, thy 
 brother Esau, as touching thee, doth 
 comfort himself, purposing to kill thee. 
 
 43 Now therefore, my son, obey 
 my voice; and arise, flee thou to 
 Laban my brother to Haran ; 
 
 44 And tarry with him a few days, 
 until thy brother’s fury turn away;, 
 
 45 Until thy brother’s anger turn 
 away from thee, and he forget that 
 which thou hast done to him : then I 
 will send, and fetch thee from thence : 
 why should I be deprived also of you 
 both in one day? 
 
 A paronomasia on the name Jacob. See on 
 ch. XXV. 26. The words seem to mean, Is 
 there not a connection between the meaning 
 of his name Jacob, and the fact that he thus 
 supplants or outwits me? 
 
 39 . ihy drivelling shall be the fatness of 
 the earth., and of the denjo of heaven from 
 above'] Lit. “ from tlie fatness of the earth 
 and from the dew of heaven.” Castalio, Le 
 Clerc, Knobcl, Del,, Keil, render the prepo- 
 sition “from” by “far from.” So apparently 
 Gesenius (‘Thes.’ p. 805, absque., sine). But 
 the Authorized Version corresponds with the 
 ancient versions. The very same words with 
 the very same prepcjsition occur in v. 28, and 
 it is difficult to make that preposition parti- 
 tive in v. 28, and privative in v. 39. 
 
 40 . by thy s^iuord thou shalt live., and 
 shalt serve thy brother., &c.] Josephus (‘ B. J.’ 
 IV. 4. i) describes the Edomites as a tu- 
 multuous, disorderly race, and all their history 
 seems to confirm the truth of this description. 
 The prophecy thus delivered, by Isaac was 
 fulfilled in every particular. At first Esau, 
 the elder, seemed to prosper more than his 
 brother Jacob. There were dukes in Edom 
 before there reigned any king over the chil- 
 dren of Israel (Gen. xxxvi. 31); and whilst 
 Israel was in bondage in Egypt, Edom was an 
 independent people. But Saul defeated and 
 David conquered the Edomites (i S. xiv. 47; 
 2 S. viii. 14), and they were, notwithstand- 
 ing some revolts, constantly subject to Judah 
 (see I K. xi. 14; 2 K. xiv. 7, 22; 2 Chr. xxv. 
 II ; xxvi. 2) till the reign of Aha/, when they 
 threw off' the yoke (2 K. xvi. 6; 2 Chr. xxviii. 
 
 7). Judas Maccabaeus defeated them fre- 
 quently (i Macc. v. ; 2 Macc. x.). At last 
 his nephew Hyreanus completely conquered 
 them, and compelled them to be circumcised, 
 and incorporated them into the Jewish nation 
 (Joseph. ‘Ant.’ xiii. 9. i); though finally 
 under Antipater and Herod they established 
 an Idumaean dynasty, which continued till the 
 destruction of the Jewish polity. 
 
 vohen thou shalt have dominion] More pro- 
 bably when thou shalt toss (the yoke). 
 So the LXX., Vulg. (excutias) ; Gesen. ‘Thes.’ 
 p. 1269; Hengst., Keil, &c. The allusion is 
 to the restlessness of the fierce Edomite under 
 the yoke of the Jewish dominion. The pro- 
 phecy was fulfilled when they revolted under 
 Joram and again under Aha/; and finally 
 when they gave a race of rulers to Judaea in 
 the persons of Herod and his sons (see last 
 note). 
 
 43 . Haran] It appears that not only A- 
 braham and the family of his brother Haran 
 must have left Ur of the Chaldees (see ch. xi. 
 31); but that the family of Nahor must have 
 followed them to Haran, which is therefore 
 called “the city of Nahor” (ch. xxiv. 10). 
 The name Harran still remains in the centre 
 of the cultivated district at the foot of the 
 hills lying between the Khabour and the Eu- 
 phrates. 
 
 45 . nvhy should I be deprived also of you 
 both in one dayl] i.e. of Jacob by the hand of 
 Esau, and of Esau by the hajid of justice (ch. 
 ix. 6). The sacred history has shewn us the 
 sins and errors of the family of Isaac; it here 
 briefly but emphatically exhibits the distress 
 
V. 46-11-] GENESIS. XXVII. XXVIII. 
 
 chap. 26, 46 And Rebekah said- to Isaac, 
 
 am weary of my life because of the 
 daughters of Heth : if Jacob take a 
 wife of the daughters of Heth, such 
 as these which are of the daughters of 
 the land, what good shall my life 
 do me? 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 I Isaac hlesseth “Jacob, and sendeth him to Padan- 
 aram. 6 Esau marrieth Mahalath the daugh- 
 ter of Ishmael. 10 The vision of Jacob's 
 ladder. The stone of Bet h-el. 20 Jacob's 
 
 V07U. 
 
 « Hos. 12. 
 12. 
 
 + Heb. 
 a/i a sse ni- 
 tty of 
 
 people. 
 
 AND Isaac called Jacob, and bless- 
 £\_ ed him, and charged him, and 
 said unto him. Thou shalt not take a 
 wife of the daughters of Canaan. 
 
 2 Arise, go to Padan-aram, to 
 the house of Bethuel thy mother’s 
 father; and take thee a wife from 
 thence of the daughters of Laban thy 
 mother’s brother. 
 
 3 And God Almighty bless thee, 
 and make thee fruitful, and multiply 
 thee, that thou mayest be ^ a multi- 
 tude of people; 
 
 4 And give thee the blessing of 
 Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed 
 with thee; that thou mayest inherit 
 
 6 s 
 
 the land ^wherein thou art a stranger, t Heb. 
 which God gave unto Abraham. fouriiTgs. 
 
 5 And Isaac sent away Jacob ; 
 and he went to Padan-aram unto 
 Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, 
 the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and 
 Esau’s mother. 
 
 6 ^ When Esau saw that Isaac 
 had blessed Jacob, and sent him away . 
 to Padan-aram, to take him a wife 
 from thence ; and that as he blessed 
 him he gave him a charge, saying. 
 
 Thou shalt not take a wife of the 
 daughters of Canaan ; 
 
 7 And that Jacob obeyed his father 
 and his mother, and was gone to 
 Padan-aram ; 
 
 8 And Esau seeing that the daugh- 
 
 ters of Canaan ^ pleased not Isaac his ^ 
 rather ; in the 
 
 9 Then went Esau unto Ishmael, 
 and took unto the wives which he 
 had Mahalath the daughter of Ish- 
 mael Abraham’s son, the sister of 
 Nebajoth, to be his wife. 
 
 10 ^ And Jacob went out from 
 Beer-sheba, and went toward ^Haran. 
 
 1 1 And he lighted upon a certain Ckarran 
 place, and tarried there all night. 
 
 and misery which at once followed; Isaac 
 and Rebekah left in their old age by both 
 their children; idols become scourges; Esau 
 disappointed and disinherited ; Jacob banished 
 from his hom.e, destined to a long servitude 
 and a life of disquietude and suffering. Even 
 those, whom God chooses and honours, can- 
 not sin against Him without reaping, at least 
 in this world, the fruit of evil doings (i Cor. 
 xi. 32). 
 
 Chap. XXVIII. 1. Isaac called Jacob, 
 and blessed him\ Isaac has learned that God 
 had decreed that Jacob should be the heir 
 of the promises, the recipient of the blessings. 
 Accordingly, in v. 4, he invokes on Jacob 
 “the blessing of Abraham,” that “he and his 
 seed should inherit the land of his sojourning,” 
 and no doubt also the spiritual blessings pro- 
 nounced on the descendants of Abraham. 
 
 2. Padan-aram] See on xxiv. 10, xxv. 
 20, xxvii. 43. 
 
 Bethuel] This looks as if Bethuel were still 
 living, not as the Jewish tradition says, that 
 he died before Isaac’s marriage. It is more 
 likely that he was either naturally of weak 
 
 character, or enfeebled by age. (See on ch. 
 xxiv. 50.) 
 
 3 . God Almighty] “ El-Shaddai.” It was 
 under this name that God appeared to Abra- 
 ham, ch. xvii. I, and gave him the blessing to 
 which Isaac now refers. 
 
 4. the land ojuherem thou art a stranger] 
 Lit. the land of thy sojournings. 
 
 8. pleased not] Lit. were evil in the 
 eyes of. 
 
 11. he lighted upon a certain place] Lit. he 
 lighted on the place. The definite 
 article probably indicates either that it was the 
 place appointed by God, or that it was the 
 place afterwards so famous from God’s reve- 
 lation to Jacob. We may well picture to our- 
 selves the feelings of Jacob on this night, a 
 solitary wanderer from his father's house, 
 going back from the land of promise, con- 
 scious of sin and in the midst of danger, with 
 a dark and doubtful future before him, yet 
 hitherto having always cherished the hope of 
 being the chosen of God to bear the honours 
 and privileges of his house, to have the inherit- 
 ance promised to Abraham, and now too wit) 
 
1 66 
 
 GENESIS. XXVIII. 
 
 [v. 12 20 . 
 
 because the sun was set ; and he 
 took of the stones of that place, and 
 put them for his pillows, and lay down 
 in that place to sleep. 
 
 12 And he dreamed, and behold a 
 ladder set up on the earth, and the 
 top of it reached to heaven: and be- 
 hold the angels of God ascending and 
 . descending on it. 
 
 < chap. 33. 13 ‘'And, behold, the Lord stood 
 
 & ^8. 3. above it, and said, I am the Lord 
 God of Abraham thy father, and the 
 God of Isaac : the land whereon thou 
 liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy 
 seed ; 
 
 14 And thy seed shall be as the 
 t Heb. dust of the earth, and thou shalt 
 ^spread abroad ‘^to the west, and to 
 ^j)eut. 12. north, and to the 
 
 ^ chap. 12. south: and in thee and ^ in thy seed 
 & 18. 18. shall all the families of the earth be 
 
 15 And, behold, I am with thee, 
 and will keep thee in all places whi- 
 ther thou goest, and will bring thee 
 again into this land; for I will not 
 leave thee, until I have done that 
 which I have spoken to thee of. 
 
 16 ^ And Jacob awaked out of his 
 sleep, and he said. Surely the Lord is 
 in this place ; and I knew it not. 
 
 17 And he was afraid, and said. 
 
 How dreadful is this place ! this is 
 none other but the house of God, 
 and this is the gate of heaven. 
 
 18 And Jacob rose up early in the 
 morning, and took the stone that he 
 had put for his pillows, and set it up 
 for a pillar, and poured oil upon the 
 top of it. 
 
 19 And he called the name of that 
 place "Beth-ei: but the name of that ", 
 
 City was called Luz at the first. o/God. 
 
 20 And Jacob vowed a vow, say- 
 
 the words of Isaac’s blessing just ringing in 
 his ears. Whether would fear or faith prevail ? 
 
 12. a ladder'] God takes this opportu- 
 nity to impress Jacob more deeply with the 
 sense of His presence, to encourage him with 
 promises of protection and to reveal to him 
 His purpose of mercy and love. 
 
 The ladder might only indicate that there 
 was a way from God to man, and that man 
 might by God's help mount up by it to hea- 
 ven, that angels went up from man to God, 
 and came down from God to man, and that 
 there was a continual providence watching 
 over the servants of God. So the dream would 
 teach and comfort the heart of the dreamer. 
 But we cannot doubt, that there was a deeper 
 meaning in the vision thus vouchsafed to the 
 heir of the promises, in the hour of his greatest 
 desolation, and when the sense of sin must 
 have been most heavy on his soul. Our Lord 
 Himself teaches (John i. 51), that the ladder 
 signified the Son of Man, Him, who was now 
 afresh promised as to be of the Seed of Jacob 
 (v. 14); Him, by whom alone we go to God 
 (John xiv. 6) ; who is the way to heaven, and 
 who has now gone there to prepare a place 
 for us. 
 
 13. the Lord stood aho've //] Onkelos 
 renders “the glory of the Lord.” 
 
 16 . Surely the Lord is in this place] It 
 is possible that Jacob may not have had quite 
 s<) intelligent a conviction of God’s omnipre- 
 sence as (Christians have; but it is apparent 
 throughout the p.atriarchal history that special 
 sanctity was attached to special places. This 
 
 feeling is encouraged by the highest sanction 
 in Ex. iii. 5. 
 
 18. set it up for a pillar^ and poured oil 
 upon the top of it] This was probably the most 
 ancient and simplest form of temple or place 
 for religious worship; excepting the altar of 
 ston(!S or earth fora burnt sacrifice. Whether 
 this is the first example of such an erection we 
 cannot judge. It was a very natural and ob- 
 vious way of marking the sanctity of a spot; 
 as in Christian times wayside crosses and 
 the like have been set up so fi-equently. The 
 pouring oil on it was a significant rite, though 
 what may have been the full significance to 
 Jacob’s mind it is not easy to s;iy. St Augus- 
 tine (‘De G. D.’ XVI. 38) says that it was 
 not that he might sacrifice to the stone or v/or- 
 ship it, but that as Christ is named from chrism^ 
 or unction, so there was a great mystery (^4- 
 ernmentum) in this anointing of the stone with 
 oil. The constant connection in religious 
 thought between unction and sanctification 
 seems a more probable solution of the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 19. Beth-el] Abraham had built an altar 
 in this neighbourhood (xii. 8, xiii. 4); and 
 it is possible that the spot thus sanctified 
 may have been the very place which Jacob 
 lighted on (v. ii), and which he found to be 
 the house of God and the gate of heaven. 
 
 The place consecrated perhaps first by 
 Abraham's altar, and afterwards by Jacob’s 
 vision and pillar, was plainly distinct from the 
 city which was “called Luz at the first,” and 
 which afterwards received the name of Bethel 
 
V. 21 — 3.] 
 
 GENESIS. XXVIII. XXIX. 
 
 167 
 
 ing, If God will be with me, and 
 will keep me in this way that I go, 
 and will give me bread to eat, and 
 raiment to put on, 
 
 21 So that I come again to my 
 father’s house in peace ; then shall the 
 Lord be my God: 
 
 22 And this stone, which I have 
 set for a pillar, shall be God’s house : 
 and of all that thou shalt give me I 
 will surely give the tenth unto thee. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 I yacob cometh to the well of Haran. 9 He 
 takcth acquaintance of Rachel. 1 3 Laban 
 
 enterfaineth him. 18 facob covenantcth for 
 Rachel. 23 He is deceived with Leah. 2^ He 
 7 narrieth also Rachel, and serveth for her 
 sevc 7 t years i 7 iore. 32 Leah beareth Reuben, 
 
 33 Simeon, 34 Levi, 35 and fudah. 
 
 T hen Jacob ^went on his jour- 
 
 ney, and came into the land of feet. 
 the ^ people of the east. [^itdren 
 
 2 And he looked, and behold a 
 well in the field, and, lo, there were 
 three flocks of sheep lying by it; for 
 out of that well they watered the 
 flocks: and a great stone was upon 
 the well’s mouth. 
 
 3 And thither were all the flocks 
 
 from its proximity to the sanctuary. So late 
 as the time of Joshua (see Josh. xvi. i, 2) the 
 two places were distinct. When the tribe of 
 Joseph took the city (Judg. i. 21 — 26), they 
 appear to have given to the city the name of 
 Bethel, formerly attaching only to the sanc- 
 tuary, and thenceforward, the name Luz 
 having been transferred to another town, the 
 old town of Luz is always called Bethel. 
 According to Eusebius and Jerome (‘ O no- 
 mast.’ art. /Bai^rjX) it lay about twelve miles 
 from Jerusalem on the road to Sichem. Its 
 ruins are still called by the name of Beitin. 
 The rocky character of the hills around, and 
 the stony nature of the soil, have been much 
 noted by travellers (see Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ ii. 
 pp. 127 — 130, and Stanley, ‘Sinai and Pales- 
 tine,’ pp. 217 — 223). It has been thought by 
 many that this act of Jacob, in setting up a 
 stone to mark a sacred spot, was the origin of 
 Cromlechs and all sacred stones. Certainly 
 we find in later ages the custom of having 
 stones, and those too anointed with oil, as 
 objects of idolatrous worship. Clem. Alex. 
 (‘Stromat.’ Lib. vii. p. 713) speaks of “wor- 
 shipping every oily stone,” and Arnobius, 
 (‘ Adv. Gentes,’ Lib. i. 39), in like manner, 
 refers to the worshipping of “ a stone smeared 
 with oil, as though there were in it a present 
 power.” It has been conjectured farther that the 
 name Batulia, given to stones, called animated 
 stones (\ldoi e/xyp-vyoi), by the Phoenicians 
 (Euseb. ‘ Praep. Evang.’ i. 10) was derived 
 from this name of Bethel. (See Spencer, ‘ De 
 Legg.’ I. 2; Bochart, ‘ Canaan,’ ii. 2.) These 
 Baetulia, however, were meteoric stones, and 
 denved their sanctity from the belief that they 
 had fallen from heaven: and the name has 
 probably but a fancied likeness to the name 
 Bethel. Still the connection of the subse- 
 quent worship of stones with the primitive 
 and pious use of them to mark places of wor- 
 ship is most probably a real connection. The 
 erection of all such stones for worship was 
 strictly forbidden in later times (see Lev. xxvi. 
 
 i; Deut. xvi. 22, &c.). What was good in 
 its origin had become evil in its abuse. 
 
 21. th>en shall the Lord be my Gocr\ 
 So the LXX., Vulg., Syr.; but the Arab, 
 and several of the Hebrew commentators put 
 these words in the protasis; “And if the 
 Lord will be my God, then shall this stone 
 be God’s house,” &c. The Hebrew is am- 
 biguous, and so is the Targum of Onkelos: 
 but the change of construction and of tense 
 certainly appears to be at the beginning of 
 V. 22, for all the verbs, beginning with “will 
 keep me” in v. 20 to the end of v. 21, are in 
 the same form (the perfect with vau conver- 
 sive); and in verse 22 there is a change to the 
 future. If this be so, the whole passage will 
 then run, “ If God will be with me and will 
 keep me in the way that I go, and will give 
 me bread to eat, and laiment to put on, and 
 if I come again to my father’s house in peace, 
 and if the Lord will be my God, then shall 
 this stone, which I have set for a pillar, be 
 the house of God, and of all that Thou shalt 
 give me, I will surely give a tenth unto Thee.” 
 The fulfilment of this vow is related in ch. 
 XXXV. 15, where God again appears to Jacob 
 on his return from Padan-aram, and Jacob 
 restores the pillar which he had before set up, 
 ’and again solemnly gives it the name of Beth- 
 el, “the house of God” (see Quarry, ‘on 
 Genesis,’ p. 486). 
 
 22. give the tenth unto thee] In ch. xiv. 20, 
 we have an instance of Abraham giving tithes 
 to Melchizedek. Here we have another proof 
 that the duty of giving a tenth to God was 
 recognized before the giving of the Law. 
 
 Chap. XXIX. 1. Then Jacob, &c.] Lit. 
 “ Then Jacob lifted up his feet and came into 
 the land of the children of the East,” i.e. into 
 Mesopotamia, which lies East of Judaea. 
 
 2. he looked, and behold a nuell] Cp. 
 ch. xxiv. II — 15. The similarity of the two 
 stories results from the unvarying customs of 
 
i68 
 
 GENESIS. XXIX. 
 
 gathered: and they rolled the stone 
 from the well’s mouth, and watered 
 the sheep, and put the stone again 
 upon the well’s mouth in his place. 
 
 4 And Jacob said unto them. My 
 brethren, whence be ye? And they 
 said. Of Ha ran are we. 
 
 5 And he said unto them. Know 
 ye Laban the son of Nahor? And 
 they said. We know him. 
 
 tHeb. 6 And he said unto them,' ’'Is he 
 'well ? And they said. He is well : 
 
 /urn? behold, Rachel his daughter com- 
 
 eth with the sheep. 
 
 t Heb. 7 And he said, Lo, ^ it is yet high 
 
 neither is it time that the cattle 
 should be gathered together: water ye 
 the sheep, and go and feed the?n. 
 
 8 And they said, W e cannot, until 
 all the flocks be gathered together, 
 and till they roll the stone from the 
 well’s mouth; then we water the 
 sheep. 
 
 9 ^ And while he yet spake with 
 them, Rachel came with her father’s 
 sheep: for she kept them. 
 
 10 And it came to pass, when Ja- 
 cob saw Rachel the daughter of La- 
 ban his mother’s brother, and the 
 sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, 
 that Jacob went near, and rolled the 
 stone from the well’s mouth, and wa- 
 
 tered the flock of Laban his mother’s 
 brother. 
 
 11 And Jacob kissed Rachel, and 
 lifted up his voice, and wept. 
 
 12 And Jacob told Rachel that he 
 was her father’s brother, and that he 
 was Rebekah’s son: and she pan and 
 told her father. 
 
 a month 
 of days. 
 
 13 And it came to pass, when La- 
 ban heard the ^ tidings of Jacob his t Heb. 
 sister’s son, that he ran to meet him, 
 
 and embraced him, and kissed him, 
 and brought him to his house. And 
 he told Laban all these things. 
 
 14 And Laban said to him, Surely 
 thou art my bone and my flesh. And 
 
 he abode with him ^ the space of a t Heb. 
 month. 
 
 15 ^ And Laban said unto Jacob, 
 Because thou art my brother, shouldest 
 thou therefore serve me for nought? 
 tell me, what shall thy wages be? 
 
 1 6 And Laban had two daughters : 
 the name of the elder was Leah, and 
 the name of the younger was Rachel. 
 
 17 Leah was tender eyed; but 
 Rachel was beautiful and well fa- 
 voured. 
 
 18 And Jacob loved Rachel; and 
 said, I will serve thee seven years for 
 Rachel thy younger daughter. 
 
 19 And Laban said, It is better 
 
 the East, and from the natural halting place- 
 being a well outside a city. 
 
 5. Lahan the son of Nahor] /.<?.’ the de- 
 scendant, the grandson of Nahor. Just as in 
 V. 12, Jacob calls himself the brother of La- 
 ban, being in truth his nephew. The omis- 
 sion of Bethuel is here again observable. 
 
 6 . Is he ’uselll] Lit. “ Is it peace to him ? 
 
 8 . IVe cannot] Probably because there 
 was an agreement not to roll away the stone 
 till all were asseml)led, not because the stone 
 was too heavy for three shepherds to move, 
 
 9. Rachel came nxjith her father s sheep] 
 So Lx. ii. 16 , the daughters of Reuel, the 
 priest of .Midian, led their father’s sheep lo 
 water. And even now among the Arabs it is 
 not beneath the daughter of an Emir to water 
 the sheep. 
 
 13. he told Lahan all these thinp;s] i.e. 
 probably the cause of his exile from home, his 
 father’s blessing and command to him to marry 
 a wife of his mother's kindred, and the va- 
 rious events of his jouniey. 
 
 14. the space of a month] Lit. “a month 
 of days;” the word “days” being frequent- 
 ly added to a note of time, as we might 
 say “ a month long,” or as here in the Autho- 
 ri'/ed Version, “the space of a month.” 
 
 17. tender eyeef i.e. weak eyed, so LXX., 
 Vulg., &c, 
 
 15. 7 <^viU serve thee seven years for 
 Rachel] In the case of Isaac and Rebekah, 
 Abraham’s servant gives handsome presents to 
 Rebekah, ch. xxiv. 53 , the Eastern custom at 
 marriages. Jacob could give neither presents 
 nor dowry, for he was a bigitive from his fa- 
 ther’s house, and describes himself as having 
 passed over Jordan with only his staff (ch. 
 xxxii. 10 ). He proposes therefore to serve 
 I.aban seven years, if he will give him his 
 daughter to wife, a proposal, which Laban’s 
 grasping disposition prompts him to accept, 
 even . from one whom he calls brother and 
 of his own bone and flesh (vv. 14 , 15 ). 
 
 19. It is better that I should five her to 
 thee., &;c.] It has always been the custom 
 
V. 20— 33-] 
 
 GENESIS. XXIX. 
 
 169 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 place. 
 
 that I give her to thee, than that I 
 should o;ive her to another man : abide 
 with me. 
 
 20 And Jacob served seven years 
 for Rachel ; and they seemed unto 
 him but a few days, for the love he 
 had to her. 
 
 21 ^ And Jacob said unto Laban, 
 Give me my wife, for my days are 
 fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. 
 
 22 And Laban gathered together all 
 the men of the place, and made a feast. 
 
 23 And it came to pass in the even- 
 ing, that he took Leah his daughter, 
 and brought her to him ; and he went 
 in unto her. 
 
 24 And Laban gave unto his daugh- 
 ter Leah Zilpah his maid for an hand- 
 maid. 
 
 25 And it came to pass, that in the 
 morning, behold, it was Leah: and 
 he said to Laban, What is this thou 
 hast done unto me? did not I serve 
 with thee for Rachel ? wherefore then 
 hast thou beguiled me ? 
 
 26 And Laban said. It must not 
 be so done in our ^country, to give 
 the younger before the firstborn. 
 
 27 Fulfil her week, and we will 
 give thee this also for the service which 
 thou shalt serve with me yet seven 
 other years. 
 
 28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled 
 her week: and he gave him Rachel 
 his daughter to wife also. 
 
 29 And Laban gave to Rachel his 
 daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be 
 her maid. 
 
 30 And he went in also unto Ra- 
 chel, and he loved also Rachel more 
 than Leah, and served with him yet 
 seven other years. 
 
 31 ^ And when the Lord saw 
 that Leah was hated, he opened her 
 womb: but Rachel was barren. 
 
 32 And Leah conceived, and bare 
 a son, and she called his name " Reu- " 
 ben: for she said. Surely the Lord 
 hath looked upon my affliction ; now 
 therefore my husband will love me. 
 
 33 And she conceived again, and 
 bare a son; and said. Because the 
 Lord hath heard that I was hated, 
 he hath therefore given me this son 
 also: and she called his name “ Si- 
 
 hear mg. 
 
 meon. 
 
 with Eastern tribes to prefer marrying among 
 their own kindred. 
 
 20. but a fenv days., for the lo^ae he had 
 to her'\ He loved Rachel so much, that he 
 valued the labour of seven years as though 
 it were the labour of but few days in com- 
 parison with the great prize, which that la- 
 bour was to bring him. 
 
 24. Zilpah his maid for an handmaid^ 
 So ch. xxiv. 61. 
 
 25. it ^'as Leah'\ This deception was 
 possible, because there appears to have been 
 no religious or other ‘solemn ceremony, in 
 which the bride was presented to the bride- 
 groom, and the veil in which brides were 
 veiled was so long and close that it concealed, 
 not only the face, but much of the figure also. 
 
 27. Fulfil her <u,eek'\ i.e. celebrate the 
 marriage feast for a week with Leah (cp. 
 Judg. xiv. 12); and after that we will give 
 thee Rachel also. “ It was not after another 
 week of years that he should receive Rachel 
 to wife; but after the seven days of the first 
 wife’s nuptials.” (St Jerome, ‘ Qu. Hebr.’ 
 in loc.) It has been c’bserved that the 
 fraud practised by Laban on Jacob was a fit 
 penalty for the fraud practised by Jacob on 
 
 Isaac and Esau. The polygamy of Jacob 
 must be explained on the same principle as 
 that of Abraham. It had not yet been ex- 
 pressly forbidden by the revealed law of God. 
 The marriage of two sisters also was after- 
 wards condemned (Lev. xviii, 18), but as yet 
 there had been no such prohibition. 
 
 31. wflj hated'l i. e. less loved (cp. Mai. 
 
 i. 3). 
 
 32. Reuben'] i.e. “Behold a son.” The 
 words which follow are but one of those plays 
 on a name so general in these early days; 
 they do not give the etymology of the name; 
 they have however led some to think that the 
 meaning of “Reuben” is rather “the son of 
 vision,” or as Jerome interprets it, “the son 
 of God’s gracious regard, respectus gra- 
 tuiti. The Syr. and Josephus give the name 
 as Reubel, the latter explaining it as “ the pity 
 of God” (‘Ant.’ I. 19. 8), which is supported 
 by Michaelis, though it is obviously a corrupt 
 reading (see Rosenm. in loc. and Gesen. 
 P. 1247). 
 
 33. Simeon] i.e. “hearing.” The birth of 
 her first son convinces her that God hath 
 seen her, the second that God hath heard 
 her. 
 
170 
 
 GENESIS. XXIX. XXX. 
 
 [v. 34—14- 
 
 I That is, 
 jouted. 
 
 Matt. I. 
 
 2. 
 
 II That is, 
 praise. 
 
 + Heb. 
 stood from 
 bearing. 
 
 34 And she conceived again, and 
 bare a son; and said, Now this time 
 will my husband be joined unto me, 
 because I have born him three sons: 
 therefore was his name called " Levi. 
 
 35 And she conceived again, and 
 bare a son: and she said, Now will I 
 praise the Lord: therefore she called 
 his name Judah; and Meft bearing. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 I Rachel, in grief for her barrenttess, giveth 
 Bilhah her maid unto Jacob. 5 She beareth 
 Dan and Naphtali. 9 Leah giveth Zilpah 
 her maid, -who beareth Gad and Asher. 14 
 Reuben fijideth mandrakes, with which Leah 
 buyeth her husband of Rachel. 17 Leak bear- 
 , eth Issachar, Zelndun, and Dinah. 22 Rachel 
 beareth Joseph. 25 Jacob desireth to depart, 
 'll Labati stayeth him on a neiu covenant. 
 37 Jacob's policy, whereby he became rich. 
 
 i Heb. 
 he built by 
 her. 
 
 A nd when Rachel saw that she 
 bare Jacob no children, Rachel 
 envied her sister; and said unto Ja- 
 cob, Give me children, or else I die. 
 
 2 And Jacob’s anger was kindled 
 against Rachel : and he said. Am I in 
 God’s stead, who hath withheld from 
 thee the fruit of the womb? 
 
 3 And she said. Behold my maid 
 Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall 
 bear upon my knees, that I may also 
 ^have children by her. 
 
 4. And she gave him Bilhah her 
 handmaid to wife: and Jacob went 
 in unto her. 
 
 5 And Bilhah conceived, and bare 
 Jacob a son. 
 
 6 And Rachel said, God hath 
 judged me, and hath also heard my 
 voice, and hath given me a son : there- 
 fore called she his name "Dan. 
 
 7 And Bilhah Rachel’s maid con-'^ 
 ceived again, and bare Jacob a second 
 son. 
 
 8 And Rachel said. With ^ 
 
 wrestlings have I wrestled with my o/God. 
 sister, and I have prevailed: and she 
 called his name ""Naphtali. a That is, 
 
 9 When Leah saw that she had left 
 
 bean'ng, she took Zilpah her maid, and Mau.' 4^^’ 
 gave her Jacob to wife. \3’ 
 
 ° A 1 1 T 1 > -11 Nephtha- 
 
 10 And Zilpah Leahs maid bare 
 Jacob a son. 
 
 1 1 And Leah said, A troop cometh : 
 
 and she called his name "Gad. a That is, 
 
 12 And Zilpah Leah’s maid 
 Jacob a second son. 
 
 1 3 And Leah said, ^ Happy am I, for 
 
 the daughters will call me blessed : and happiness. 
 she called his name " Asher. ^''i^py 
 
 14 ^ And Reuben went in the days 
 of wheat harvest, and found man- 
 drakes in the field, and brought them 
 
 34 . Le'vi\ “Association” or “associated.” 
 
 35 . Judalo] i.e. “praised” (from the Ho- 
 phal future of JadafS). 
 
 Chap. XXX. 3 . that I may also have 
 children by her'] Lit. “that I may be built up 
 by her.” (See on ch. xvi. 2.) 
 
 6. Dan] i.e. “judge.” 
 
 8. With great ajorestUngs] Lit. “with 
 wrestlings of (Jod.” The LXX. renders “ God 
 has helped me,” and Onkelos, “God has re* 
 ceived my prayer.” So virtually the Syriac. 
 Though the addition of the name of God 
 often exprc'sses a superlative, yet “wrestling” 
 being a type of prayer, it is most probable 
 that in this passage the allusion is to Rachel’s 
 earnest striving in prayer with God for the 
 blessing of offspring. (So Hengst., Del., 
 Keil.) Above, v, 1, Rachel had manifested 
 impatience and neglect of prayer, seeking from 
 Jacob what only could be given of God. 
 Jacob’s remonstrance with her, v. 2, may have 
 directed her to wiser and better thoughts. 
 
 11. A troop cometh] Rather, Good for- 
 
 tune cometh, or, “in good fortune,” i.e. 
 happily, prosperously. The rendering of the 
 Authorized Version is favoured by the Sama- 
 ritan version, and has been supposed to be in 
 accordance with ch. xlix. 19. The latter, how- 
 ever, may have no reference to the derivation, 
 but be only the common Oriental play upon a 
 word. The LXX., Vulg., Syr., Onk., Jerus., 
 Pseudo-Jon., all interpret Gad to mean “suc- 
 cess,” “good fortune,” “prosperity.” So 
 Gesen., Rosenm., Knobel, Del, Keil, &c. 
 
 13 . Happy am I, &c.] Lit. in my hap- 
 piness {am I), for the daughters call 
 me happy; and she called his name 
 Asher, i. e. happy. 
 
 14 . mandrakes] So with great unani- 
 mity the ancient versions and most of the 
 Jewish commentators. There is little doubt 
 that the plant was really the atropa mandra- 
 gora, a species closely allied to the deadly 
 nightshade {atropa belladonna]. It is not un- 
 common in Palestine (Tristram, pp. 103, 104). 
 It is said to be a narcotic, and to have stupefy- 
 ing and even intoxicating properties. It has 
 
GENESIS. XXX. 
 
 V. 15—25.] 
 
 171 
 
 unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel 
 said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, 
 of thy son’s mandrakes. 
 
 15 And she said unto her. Is it a 
 small matter that thou hast taken my 
 husband ? and wouldest thou take 
 away my son’s mandrakes also.? And 
 Rachel said. Therefore he shall lie 
 with thee to night for thy son’s man- 
 drakes. 
 
 16 And Jacob came out of the 
 field in the evening, and Leah went 
 out to meet him, and said. Thou 
 must come in unto me; for surely 
 I have hired thee with my son’s man- 
 drakes. And he lay with her that 
 night. 
 
 17 And God hearkened unto Leah, 
 and she conceived, and bare Jacob the 
 fifth son. 
 
 18 And Leah said, God hath given 
 me my hire, because I have given my 
 
 maiden to my husband : and she called 
 his name “Issachar. 
 
 19 And Leah conceived again, and 
 bare Jacob the sixth son. 
 
 20 And Leah said, God hath en- 
 dued me with a good dowry; now 
 will my husband dwell with me, be- 
 cause I have born 'him six sons: and 
 she called his name "^Zebulun. 
 
 2 1 And afterwards she bare a daugh- 
 ter, and called her name ” Dinah. 
 
 22 ^ And God remembered Rachel, 
 and God hearkened to her, and opened 
 her womb. 
 
 23 And she conceived, and bare a 
 son ; and said, God hath taken away 
 my reproach : 
 
 24 And she called his name "Jo- 
 seph ; and said. The Lord shall add 
 to me another son. 
 
 25 ^ And it came to pass, when 
 Rachel had born Joseph, that Jacob 
 
 li That is, 
 an hire. 
 
 II That is, 
 dwelling, 
 b Called, 
 Matt. 4. 
 
 Znbnlon. 
 
 U That i.s, 
 judgment. 
 
 II That is, 
 adding. 
 
 broad leaves and green apples, which become 
 pale yellow when ripe, with a strong tuberous 
 bifid root, in which Pythagoras discerned a 
 likeness to the human form, whence many 
 ancient fables concerning it. They are still 
 found ripe about the time of wheat harvest 
 on the lower ranges of Lebanon and Hermon. 
 The apples are said to produce dizziness; the 
 Arabs believe them to be exhilarating and sti- 
 mulating even to insanity ; hence the name 
 tuffab el jan. “apples of the jan” (Thomson, 
 ‘Land and Book,’ p. 577). The ancients be- 
 lieved them calculated to produce fruitfulness, 
 and they were used as philtres to conciliate 
 love, hence their name in Hebrew, dudaim^ 
 i.e. love-apples. Rachel evidently shared in 
 this superstitious belief. (See Heid. Tom. ii. 
 Ex. xix. ; Winer, ‘R. W. B.’ voc. Abram; 
 Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 324 ; Rosenm. in loc. ; Smith’s 
 ‘Diet.’ voc. mandrake')., &c. 
 
 18 . Issachar'] i. e. “ there is a reward.” 
 
 20. Zebulun] I.e. “dwelling,” derived from 
 %abal., to dwell, with a play on the word 
 Zabad., “to give, to endow.” 
 
 21. Dinah] i.e. “judgment.” It is thought 
 that Jacob had other daughters (see ch. xxxvii. 
 35 ; xlvi. 7). Daughters, as they did not con- 
 stitute links in a genealogy, are not mentioned 
 except when some important history attaches 
 to them, as in this case the history in ch. 
 xxxiv. 
 
 24 . Joseph] i.e. “adding,” from jasaph., 
 “ to add,” with a play on asaph., “ to take 
 away.” 
 
 25 . nvhen Rack A had born Joseph] It 
 
 has been infen-ed from this, that Joseph was 
 born at the end of the second seven years of 
 Jacob’s servitude; though it is by no means 
 certain that Jacob demanded his dismissal at 
 the first possible moment. The words of this 
 verse seem to indicate that Jacob did not de- 
 sire to leave Laban, at all events till after Jo- 
 seph’s birth. Many reasons may have induced 
 him to remain in Radan-aram longer than the 
 stipulated fourteen years; the youth of his 
 children unfitting them for a long journey, 
 the pregnancy of some of his wives, the un- 
 happy temper of his beloved Rachel, whom he 
 may have been unwilling to take from her 
 parents, till she had a son of her own to com- 
 fort her; above all, the fear of Esau’s anger, 
 who had resolved to slay him. There is nothing 
 necessarily inconsistent in the narrative. It is 
 possible that Leah should have borne 6, Ra- 
 chel I, Bilhah 2, and Zilpah 2 sons in seven 
 years. It is not certain that Dinah was born 
 at this time at all. Her birth is only incident- 
 ally noticed. It would be possible even that 
 Zebulun should have been borne by Leah 
 later than Joseph by Rachel; it being by no 
 means necessary that we should believe all the 
 births to have followed in the order in which 
 they are enumerated, which is in the order of 
 mothers, not of births. The common expla- 
 nation is, that the first four sons of Leah were 
 born as rapidly as possible, one after the 
 other, in the first four years of marriage. In 
 the meantime, not necessarily after the birth of 
 Leah’s fourth son, Rachel gives her maid to 
 Jacob, and so very probably Bilhah gave birth 
 to Dan and Naphtali before the birth of Ju- 
 
GENESIS. XXX. [v. 26-36. 
 
 said unto Laban, Send me away, that 
 I may go unto mine own place, and 
 to my country. 
 
 26 Give me my wives and my 
 children, for whom I have served 
 thee, and let me go ; for thou know- 
 est my service which I have done 
 thee. 
 
 27 And Laban said unto him, I 
 pray thee, if I have found favour in 
 thine eyes, tarry: for I have learned 
 by experience that the Lord hath 
 blessed me for thy sake. 
 
 28 And he said. Appoint me thy 
 v/ages, and I will give it, 
 
 29 And he said unto him. Thou 
 knowest how I have served thee, and 
 how thy cattle was with me. 
 
 30 For it was littlef which thou 
 hadst before I ca?ne^ and it is now Mn- 
 
 u7cb creased unto a multitude ; and the 
 atmyfoot. LoRD hath blessed thee ^ since my 
 coming : and now when shall I pro- 
 vide for mine own house also? 
 
 31 And he said. What shall I give 
 thee? And Jacob said. Thou shalt 
 not give me any thing : if thou wilt 
 
 to moT' 
 row. 
 
 do this thing for me, I will again feed 
 and keep thy flock : 
 
 32 I will pass through all thy flock 
 to day, removing from thence all the 
 speckled and spotted cattle, and all 
 the brown cattle among the sheep, 
 and the spotted and speckled among 
 the goats : and of such shall be my 
 hire. 
 
 33 So shall my righteousness an- 
 swer for me Mn time to come, when ^ Heb, 
 it shall come for my hire before thy 
 face : every one that i s not speckled 
 and spotted among the goats, and 
 brown among the sheep, that shall be 
 counted stolen with me. 
 
 34 And Laban said. Behold, I 
 would it might be according to thy 
 word. 
 
 35 And he removed that day the 
 he goats that were ringstraked and 
 spotted, and all the she goats that were 
 speckled and spotted, and every one 
 that had some white in it, and all the 
 brown among the sheep, and gave 
 them into the hand of his sons. 
 
 36 And he set three days’ journey 
 
 dah. Leah, then finding that she was not 
 likely to bear another son soon, may, in the 
 state of jealousy between the two sisters, have 
 given Zilpah to Jacob, of whom were born 
 Asher and Naphtali, and then again in the 
 very last year of the seven, at the beginning of 
 it. Leah may have borne Issachar, and at the 
 end of it Zebulun. Another difficulty has 
 found in Reuben’s finding the mandrakes: 
 but there is no reason why he should have 
 been more than four years old, when he dis- 
 covered them, and attracted by their flowers 
 and fruits, brought them to his mother. (See 
 Petav. ‘De Doct. Temp.’ x. 19; Heid. II. 
 Kxer. XV. xviii.; Kurtz ‘on the Old Cove- 
 nant,’ in loc. ; Keil in loc. &c., and note at 
 end of ch. xxxi.) 
 
 27 . I have learned by experience'] I have 
 learned by divination, literally either 
 ‘T have hissed, muttered” (so Knobel on ch. 
 xliv. 5), or more probably, “1 have divined by 
 omens deduced from serpents ”(Boch. ‘ Hier,’ i. 
 20; Gc'Scti. ‘d'h.’ p. 875). The heathenism of 
 Laban s househokl appears by ch. xxxi. 19, .32 ; 
 and though Laban acknowledged the Lord as 
 Jacobs God, this did not prevent him from 
 using idolatrous and healhenish practices. It 
 is however quite possible that the word here 
 used may have acquired a wider signification, 
 
 originally meaning to “divine,” but then hav- 
 ing the general sense of “investigate,” “dis- 
 cover,” “learn by enquiry,” &c. 
 
 30. increased] Lit. broken forth. 
 
 since my coming] Lit. “at my foot,” i.e. 
 God sent blessing to thee following on my 
 footsteps, wherever I went. (See Ges. ‘Th.’ 
 p. 1262.) 
 
 32. removing from thence all the spotted 
 and speckled cattle] It is said, that in the East 
 the sheep are generally white, very rarely black 
 or spotted, and that the goats are black or 
 brown, rarely speckled with white. Jacob 
 therefore proposes to separate from the flock 
 all the spotted and speckled sheep and goats, 
 which would be comparatively few, and to 
 tend only that part of the flock which was 
 pure white or black. He is then to have for 
 his hire only those lambs and kids, born of 
 the unspeckled flock, which themselves should 
 be marked with spots and speckles and ring- 
 strakes. Laban naturally thinks that these will 
 be very few ; so he accepts the offer, and, to 
 make matters the surer, he removes all the 
 spotted and ringstraked goats, and all the 
 sheep with any brown in them, three days’ 
 journey from the flock of white sheep and 
 brown goats to be left under Jacob’s care (see 
 
V. 37 — 8-] 
 
 GENESIS. XXX. XXXI. 
 
 173 
 
 betwixt himself and Jacob : and Jacob 
 fed the rest of Laban’s flocks. 
 
 37 ^ And Jacob took him rods of 
 green poplar, and of the hazel and 
 chesnut tree ; and pilled white strakes 
 in them, and made the white appear 
 which was in the rods. 
 
 38 And he set the rods which he 
 had pilled before ' the flocks in the 
 gutters in the watering troughs when 
 the flocks came to drink, that they 
 should conceive when they came to 
 drink. 
 
 39 And the flocks conceived before 
 the rods, and brought forth cattle 
 ringstraked, speckled, and spotted. 
 
 40 And Jacob did separate the 
 lambs, and set the faces of the flocks 
 toward the ringstraked, and all the 
 brown in the flock of Laban ; and he 
 put his own flocks by themselves, and 
 put them not unto Laban’s cattle. 
 
 41 And it came to pass, whenso- 
 ever the stronger cattle did conceive, 
 that Jacob laid the rods before the 
 eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that 
 they might conceive among the rods. 
 
 42 But when the cattle were feeble, 
 he put them not in ; so the feebler were 
 Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. 
 
 43 And the man increased exceed- 
 ingly, and had much cattle, and maid- 
 servants, and menservants, and camels, 
 and asses. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 I yacob upon displeasure departeth secretly. 79 
 Rachel stealeth her father's images. 2 z Laban 
 pnrstieth after him, 26 and cornplaineth of 
 the wrong. 34 Rachel's policy to hide the 
 images. 36 facob's complaint of Laban. 43 
 The coz'enant of Laban ajid Jacob at Galeed. 
 
 AND he heard the words of La- 
 £\_ ban’s sons, saying, Jacob hath 
 taken away all that was our father’s ; 
 and of that which ivas our father’s 
 hath he gotten all this glory. 
 
 2 And Jacob beheld the counte- 
 nance of Laban, and, behold, it was 
 not toward him ^as before. 
 
 3 And the Lord said unto Jacob, day and 
 Return unto the land of thy fathers, 
 
 and to thy kindred; and I will be 
 with thee. 
 
 4 And Jacob sent and called Ra- 
 chel and Leah to the field unto his 
 flock, 
 
 5 And said unto them, I see your 
 father’s countenance, that it is not 
 toward me as before; but the God 
 of my father hath been with me. 
 
 6 And ye know that with all my 
 power I have served your father. 
 
 7 And your father hath deceived 
 me, and changed my wages ten times ; 
 but God suffered him not to hurt 
 me. 
 
 8 If he said thus. The speckled 
 shall be thy wages ; then all the cat- 
 tle bare speckled; and if he said thus, 
 
 35, 36), lest any of them might stray unto 
 Jacob’s flock and so be claimed by him, or any 
 lambs or kids should be born like them in 
 Jacob’s flock. 
 
 37 . poplar^ So Celsius (‘ Hierobot.’ I. 
 292), and many other authorities after the 
 Vulg., but the LXX. and Arab, have the storax 
 tree, which is adopted by Gesenius (p. 740) 
 and many others. 
 
 hazel] Almond, Ges. (p. 747). 
 
 chesnut tree] Plane-tree, Ges. (p. 1071). 
 
 40 . And Jacob did separate the lambs] 
 The apparent inconsistency of this with the 
 rest of the narrative, especially with v. 36, has 
 induced some commentators to suspect a cor- 
 ruption in the text. The meaning, however, 
 appears to be, that Jacob separated those 
 lambs, which were born after the artifice men- 
 tioned above, keeping the spotted lambs and 
 kids apart ; but though he thus separated them, 
 
 he contrived that the ewes and she goats should 
 have the speckled lambs and kids in sight. 
 “ His own flocks” mentioned in the latter part 
 of the verse were the young cattle that were 
 born ringstraked and speckled; “Labans 
 cattle,” on the contrary, were those of uniform 
 colour in the flock tended by Jacob; not that 
 flock which Laban had separated by three days’ 
 journey from Jacob. 
 
 Chap. XXXI. 2 . as bfore] Lit. “as 
 yesterday and the day before.” 
 
 5. the God of my father hath been nvith 
 me] i.e. God has been present with me and 
 has protc'cted me. Jacob calls him the God 
 of h:s hither, so distinguishing the Most High 
 from the gods of the nations and from the 
 idols, which perhaps the family of Laban had 
 worshipped, vv. 19, 30, 
 
 7 . ten times] i.e. probably “very fie- 
 quently.” Cp. Num. xiv. 22; Job xix. 3. 
 
174 
 
 GENESIS. XXXI. 
 
 [v. 9 29. 
 
 The ringstraked shall be thy hire; 
 then bare all the cattle ringstraked. 
 
 9 Thus God hath taken away the 
 cattle of your father, and given them 
 to me. 
 
 10 And it came to pass at the time 
 that the cattle conceived, that I lifted 
 up mine eyes, and saw in a dream, 
 and, behold, the "rams which leaped 
 
 .u jro...s. cattle were ringstraked, spec- 
 
 kled, and grisled. 
 
 1 1 And the angel of God spake 
 unto me in a dream, sayings Jacob: 
 And I said. Here am I. 
 
 12 And he said. Lift up now thine 
 eyes, and see, all the rams which leap 
 upon the cattle are ringstraked, spec- 
 kled, and grisled : for I have seen all 
 that Laban doeth unto thee. 
 
 ^ciiap.28. 13 I the God of Beth-el, '^where 
 
 thou anointedst the pillar, and where 
 thou vowedst a vow unto me: now 
 arise, get thee out from this land, and 
 return unto the land of thy kindred. 
 
 14 And Rachel and Leah answer- 
 ed and said unto him, h there yet any 
 portion or inheritance for us in our 
 father’s house ? 
 
 15 Are we not counted of him 
 strangers? for he hath sold us, and 
 hath quite devoured also our money. 
 
 16 For all the riches which God 
 hath taken from our father, that is 
 ours, and our children’s: now then, 
 whatsoever God hath said unto thee, 
 do. 
 
 17 ^ Then Jacob rose up, and set 
 his sons and his wives upon camels ; 
 
 18 And he carried away all his 
 cattle, and all his goods which he had 
 gotten, the cattle of his getting, which 
 he had gotten in Padan-aram, for to 
 go to Isaac his father in the land of 
 Canaan. 
 
 19 And Laban went to shear his 
 sheep : and Rachel had stolen the \ 
 
 ’ images that were her rather s. t Heb. 
 
 20 And Jacob stole away ^ una- 
 
 10. the rams'] The he goats. 
 
 grisled] i. e. “ sprinkled as with hail,” the 
 literal meaning of the word “grisled.” 
 
 13. lam the God of Beth- eh] (Heb. “ El- 
 Beth-cl.”) In v. ii it is said, “the angel of 
 God spake unto me.” The Jewish com- 
 mentators explain this by saying that God 
 spoke through the mouth of the angel, and 
 therefore though the angel actually spoke to 
 Jacob, yet the words are the words of God. 
 The Christian fathers generally believe all such 
 visions to have been visions of the Son of God, 
 who is both God and the angel of God : see 
 on ch. xvi. 7. 
 
 There is no necessary contradiction between 
 this dream and the account of Jacob’s artifice 
 given in the last chapter. If the dream oc- 
 curred just before the flight of Jacob from 
 Laban, it would be an indication to Jacob 
 that all his artifices would have had no effect, 
 had it not been God’s pleasure that he should 
 grow rich. The labours of the husbandman 
 do not prosper but through the blessing of 
 God. It seems, however, not improbable that 
 Jacob is here relating to his wives two dreams, 
 that concerning the sheep and goats having 
 occurred at the beginning of his agreement 
 with Laban, and that in which he was com- 
 manded to depart from Padan-aram just 
 before his actual departure. This was sug- 
 gestexl by Nachmanides and is approved by 
 RosenmUller. If so, we may infer, that Jacob 
 believed the promise that the sheep which were 
 
 to be his hire should multiply rapidly: but yet 
 consistently with his mixed character, partly 
 believing and partly impatient of the fulfil- 
 ment, he adopted natural means for bringing 
 about this event which he desired (so Kurtz 
 and apparently Keil). 
 
 15. he hath sold us] Probably refer- 
 ring to Laban’s giving his daughter to Jacob 
 as wages for his service. 
 
 19. Plnd Laban <went to shear his sheep] 
 The force of the tenses in the Hebrew will 
 perhaps be better explained as follows: “ Now 
 Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and (or, 
 whereupon) Rachel stole the Teraphim which 
 were her father’s, and Jacob stole away una- 
 wares to (lit. stole the heart of) Laban the 
 Syrian.” There may be a series of parono- 
 masias in the Hebrew, “ Rachel stole the 
 Teraphim,” “Jacob stole the heart of Laban;” 
 and again, “the heart of Laban” is Leb- 
 Laban^ the first syllable of Laban correspond- 
 ing with the word for “ heart.” 
 
 images] Teraphim. These were un- 
 doubtedly images in the human form, but 
 whether whole length figures or only busts 
 has been much doubted. In i S. xix. 13, Mich .1 
 puts teraphim (the plural perhaps for a single 
 image) in David's bed to deceive the messen- 
 gers of Saul; which looks as if the image was 
 of the size of life. In the present history as 
 Rachel hides them under the camel’s saddle, 
 they were probably not so large. Laban calls 
 them his gods v. 30, which corresponds with 
 
V. 21— 34-] 
 
 GENESIS. XXXL 
 
 175 
 
 wares to Laban the Syrian, in that he 
 told him not that he fled. 
 
 21 So he fled with all that he had; 
 and he rose up, and passed over the 
 river, and set his face toward the 
 mount Gilead. 
 
 22 And it was told Laban on the 
 third day that Jacob was fled. 
 
 23 And he took his brethren with 
 him, and pursued after him seven 
 days’ journey ; and they overtook him 
 in the mount Gilead. 
 
 24 And God came to Laban the 
 Syrian in a dream by ni^ht, and said 
 unto him, Take heed that thou speak 
 not to Jacob ^either good or bad. 
 
 25 ^ Then Laban overtook Jacob. 
 Now Jacob had pitched his tent in 
 the mount : and Laban with his bre- 
 thren pitched in the mount of Gilead. 
 
 26 And Laban said to Jacob, 
 What hast thou done, that thou hast 
 stolen away unawares to me, and 
 carried away my daughters, as cap- 
 tives taken with the sword ? 
 
 27 Wherefore didst thou flee away 
 , secretly, and ^ steal away from me; 
 
 hast stolen , ,// ,, •; t • 1 
 
 me. and didst not tell me, that 1 might 
 have sent thee away with mirth, and 
 with songs, with tabret, and with harp ? 
 
 28 And hast not suffered me to 
 kiss my sons and my daughters ? thou 
 hast now done foolishly in so doing. 
 
 29 It is in the power of my hand 
 to do you hurt: but the God of your 
 father spake unto me yesternight, say- 
 ing, Take thou heed that thou speak 
 not to Jacob either good or bad. 
 
 30 And now, though thou would- 
 est needs be gone, because thou sore 
 longedst after thy father’s house, yet 
 wherefore hast thou stolen my gods ? 
 
 31 And Jacob answered and said 
 to Laban, Because I was afraid; for 
 I said, Peradventure thou wouldest 
 take by force thy daughters from 
 me. 
 
 32 With whomsoever thou findest 
 thy gods, let him not live: before 
 our brethren discern thou what is 
 thine with me, and take it to thee. 
 P'or Jacob knew not that Rachel had 
 stolen them. 
 
 33 And Laban went into Jacob’s 
 tent, and into Leah’s tent, and into 
 the two maidservants’ tents ; but he 
 found them not. Then went he out 
 of Leah’s tent, and entered into Ra- 
 chel’s tent. 
 
 34 Now Rachel had taken the im- 
 
 what we find afterwards concerning their wor- 
 ship (see Judg. xvii. 5; xviii. 14, 17, t8, 20). 
 They are condemned with other idolatrous 
 practices (i S. xv, 23; 2 K. xxiii. 24), and in 
 later times we find that they were consulted 
 for purposes of divination (Ezek. xxi. 21; Zech. 
 X. 2). They have been generally considered 
 as similar to the Penates of the classical na- 
 tions. Most probably they were of the nature 
 of a fetish, used for purposes of magic and 
 divination, rather than strictly objects of di- 
 vine worship. In them we perhaps see the 
 earliest form of patriarchal idolatry; a know- 
 ledge of the true God not wholly gone, but 
 images, perhaps of ancestors, preserved, re- 
 vered and consulted. There have been nu- 
 merous conjex:tures as to the derivation of the 
 name. The majority of recent Hebraists refer 
 to the Arab, root tarafa^ “ to enjoy the good 
 things of life,” and think that teraphim were 
 preserved and honoured, like the penates, or 
 the household fairy, to secure domestic pro- 
 sperity (see Ges, ‘ Thes.' p. 1520). Other but 
 improbable derivations are that suggested by 
 Castell from the Syriac Teraph., “ to enquire,” 
 
 alluding to their use as oracles; and that by 
 Prof. Lee, from the .^iithiopic root, signifying 
 “ to remain, survive,” so that the name may 
 originally have meant “ relics.” The motive 
 of Rachel's theft has been as much debated as 
 the root of the word and the use of the images. 
 It is at all events probable, that Rachel, though 
 a worshipper of Jacob’s God, may not have 
 thrown off all the superstitious credulity of her 
 own house, and that she stole the teraphim for 
 some superstitious purpose. 
 
 20. stole away unawares to Lahan'\ Lit. 
 “ stole the heart of Laban,” i.e. deceived his 
 mind and intelligence. 
 
 21. the ri’ver'\ The Euphrates. 
 
 mount Gilead'] So called by anticipation. 
 It received the name from what occurred be- 
 low, vv. 46, 47. 
 
 26. as capti’ves taken with the sword] 
 As captives of the sword. 
 
 29. It is in the power of my hand] So 
 probably, not as Hitzig, Knobel, Keil, &:c., 
 “ my hand is for God,” i.e. my hand serves 
 me for God, is powerful. 
 
176 
 
 GENESIS. XXXI. 
 
 [v. 35—47- 
 
 f PTeb. 
 felt. 
 
 r Heb. 
 fe.t. 
 
 t’ Ex. 22. 
 
 ages, and put them in- the earners 
 furniture, and sat upon them. And 
 Laban ^searched all the tent, but 
 found them not. , 
 
 35 And she said to her father. Let 
 it not displease my lord that I cannot 
 rise up, before thee ; for the custom of 
 women is upon me. And he search- 
 ed, but found not the images. 
 
 36 ^ And Jacob was wroth, and 
 chode with Laban: and Jacob an- 
 swered and said to Laban, What is 
 my trespass? what is my sin, that 
 thou hast so hotly pursued after me ? 
 
 37 Whereas thou hast ^searched 
 all my stuff, what hast thou found of 
 all thy household stuff? set it here 
 before my brethren and thy brethren, 
 that they may judge betwixt us both. 
 
 38 This twenty years have I been 
 with thee; thy ewes and thy she 
 goats have not cast their young, and 
 the rams of thy flock have I not eaten. 
 
 39 That which was torn of beasts 
 I brought not unto thee; I bare the 
 loss of it; of "^my hand didst thou 
 require it, whether stolen by day, or 
 stolen by night. 
 
 40 Thus I was; in the day the 
 drought consumed me, and the frost 
 by night ; and my sleep departed from 
 mine eyes. 
 
 41 Thus have I been twenty years 
 in thy house ; I served thee fourteen 
 years for thy two daughters, and six 
 years for thy cattle: and thou hast 
 changed my wages ten times. 
 
 42 Except the God of my Lcher, 
 the God of Abraham, and the fear of 
 Isaac, had been with me, surely thou 
 hadst sent me away now empty. God 
 hath seen mine affliction and the la- 
 bour of my hands, and rebuked thee 
 yesternight. 
 
 43 ^ And Laban answered and 
 said unto Jacob, These daughters are 
 my daughters, and these children are 
 my children, and these cattle are my 
 cattle, and all that thou seest is mine : 
 and what can I do this day unto 
 these my daughters, or unto their 
 children which they have born? 
 
 44 Now therefore come thou, let 
 us make a covenant, I and thou ; and 
 let it be for a witness between me 
 and thee. 
 
 45 And Jacob took a stone, and 
 set it u)p for a pillar. 
 
 46 And Jacob said unto his bre- 
 thren, Gather stones ; and they took 
 stones, and made an heap: and they 
 did eat there upon the heap. 
 
 47 And Laban called it " Jegar-sa- 
 hadutha: but Jacob called it Galeed. 
 
 H That is, 
 the heap of 
 witness. 
 
 34] the carnet s furniture~\ The word for 
 furniture {Car., perhaps cognate with currus., 
 car, carry, carriage, See.), seems to have signi- 
 fied a covered seat, litter, or palanquin, which 
 was placed on the back of the camel for carry- 
 ing wojucn and children and supplied with 
 curtains for concealing them, not only from 
 sun and wind, but also from public view (see 
 Oes. ‘ d'hes.’ p. 715 and the authorities there 
 referred to), I'he Teraphim, being probably 
 not of large si/e, would easily be concealed 
 under sucli apparatus. 
 
 38. This toMenty years~\ See above, v. 41 . 
 On the chronology, see Note A at the end 
 of this chapter. 
 
 40. in the Jay the drought consumed me, 
 and the frost hy nighf In the East it is com- 
 mon for extremely hot days to be succeeded 
 by very cold nights. 
 
 42. the fear of Isaac'] That is to say, 
 the object of Isaac’s reverential awe. I'he 
 whole history of Isaac points him out to us as 
 a man of subdued spirit, whilst his father 
 
 Abraham appears as of livelier tai^h and as 
 admitted to a more intimate communion with 
 God, Hence Jacob not unnaturally calls his , 
 father’s God “ the fear of Isaac.” 
 
 47. Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha : but 
 Jacob called it Galeed] Jegar-sahadutha is 
 the Aramaic (Chaldee or Syriac) equivalent 
 for the Hebrew Galeed; both meaning the 
 “heap of witness.” It appears therefore that 
 at this time Jacob spoke Hebrew whilst his 
 uncle Laban spoke Syriac. We can only ac- 
 count for this by supposing either that the 
 family of Nahor originally spoke Syriac and 
 that Abraham and his descendants learned 
 Hebrew in Canaan, where evidently the He- 
 brew language was indigenous when he first 
 went there, having probably been acquired by 
 the Hamitic Canaanites from an earlier She- 
 mite race — or else, which is not otherwise 
 supported, that the ancestors of Laban having 
 l(“ft the early seat of the family had unlearned 
 their original I lebrew and actpiired the Syriac 
 dialect of Padan-aram. 
 
V. 48—55*] 
 
 177 
 
 genesis. XXXI. 
 
 48 And Laban said, This heap is 
 a witness between me and thee this 
 day. Therefore was the name of it 
 called Galeed; 
 
 And "Mizpah ; for he said, The 
 
 or/^/S- Lord watch between me and thee, 
 t 07 ver. v/hen we are absent one from an- 
 other. 
 
 50 If thou shalt afflict my daugh- 
 ters, or if thou shalt take other wives 
 beside my daughters, no man is with 
 us; see, God is witness betwixt me 
 and thee. 
 
 51 And Laban said to Jacob, Be- 
 hold this heap, and behold this pillar, 
 which I have cast betwixt me and 
 thee ; 
 
 52 This heap he witness, and this 
 
 pillar be witness, that I will not pass 
 over this heap to thee, and that thou 
 shalt not pass over this heap and this 
 pillar unto me, for harm. 
 
 53 "Lhe God of Abraham, and the 
 God of Nahor, the God of their fa- 
 ther, judge betwixt us. And Jacob 
 sware by the fear of his father Isaac. 
 
 54 Then Jacob “offered sacrifice b Or, 
 upon the mount, and called his bre- 
 thren to eat bread : and they did eat 
 bread, and tarried all night in the 
 mount. 
 
 55 And early in the morning La- 
 ban rose up, and kissed his sons and 
 his daughters, and blessed them: and 
 Laban departed, and returned unto 
 his place. 
 
 49 . Mixpa/S] i.e. “watch-tower.” 
 
 T:he Lord ^atcH] Here Laban adopts both 
 the language and the theology of Jacob. He 
 calls the place Mizpah, which is a Hebrew 
 name, and he acknowledges the watchfulness 
 of Jehovah the God of Abraham. 
 
 53 . Lhe God of Abraham^ and the God of 
 Nahor ^ the God of their father^ judge between 
 The verb judge is in the plural. This looks as 
 if Laban acknowledged Jehovah as Jacob’s 
 God and Abraham’s God, but being himself de- 
 scended from Nahor and Terah and doubting 
 whether the God who called Abraham from, his 
 father’s house was the same as the God whom 
 Terah and Nahor had sei*ved before, he couples 
 the God of Abraham with the God of Nahor 
 and Terah, and calls on both to witness and 
 judge. Polytheism had still hold on Laban, 
 
 though he felt the power of the God of Jacob. 
 We learn from Josh. xxiy. 2, that the ances- 
 tors of Abraham worshipped strange gods. 
 There is a very marked unity of purpose 
 throughout this chapter in the use of the names 
 of the Most High, utterly inconsistent with 
 the modern notion of a diversity of authors 
 according to some not fewer than four, in the 
 different portions of the same chapter. To 
 Jacob He is Jehovah, v. 3, and the God of 
 his father, v. 5, &c., whilst Laban acknow- 
 ledges Him as the God of Jacob’s father, v. 
 29. Once more Jacob refers to Him as the 
 God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac (v. 42), 
 by appeal to whom it was but likely that 
 Laban would be moved; and lastly Laban, 
 being so moved, himself appeals to the watch- 
 fulness of Jehovah, v. 49, but yet joins with 
 Him, as possibly a distinct Being, the God of 
 their common ancestor Nahor. 
 
 NOPE A on Chap. xxxi. v. 41. On the Chronology of Jacob’s Life. 
 
 (i) Difficulty of the question. Common reckoning. (2) Suggestion of Dr Kennicott. 
 (3) Dates on this hypothesis. (4) Greater facility for explaining the events thus 
 obtained. 
 
 The difficulties in the Chronology of the life of 
 Jacob and his sons are very great, so great 
 that Le Clerc has said, “There occur en- 
 tanglements (nodi) in these things which no 
 one has yet unravelled, nor do I believe 
 will any one ever unravel them.” It has 
 been generally held by commentators, Jew- 
 ish and Christian, that Isaac was 137 and 
 Jacob 77 when Jacob received his father’s 
 blessing, and left his father’s house to go to 
 Padan-aram. (See note, ch. xxxvii. i.) This 
 calculation rests mainly on the following two 
 points: the ist is that Joseph was born just 
 fourteen years after Jacob went to Haran, i.e. 
 at the end of the second hebdomade which 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Jacob served for his wives; an inference, 
 which would oblige us to conclude that all 
 the sons of Jacob except Benjamin, eleven in 
 number, were born in six years, a thing not 
 quite impossible, but highly improbable (see 
 on ch. XXX. 25). The second is, that Jacob, 
 in vv. 38, 41, of this ch. xxxi. seems to say 
 that his whole sojourn, in Padan-aram was 
 only twenty years. If these points be made 
 out, we cannot deny the conclusion, that as 
 Joseph was 39 when. Jacob was 130, and so 
 born when Jacob was 91, therefore Jacob 
 must have been 91-14^77, when he fled 
 from Beer-sheba to Padan-aram. 
 
 As regards the first point, however, it has 
 
 M 
 
[v. 1—4. 
 
 178 GENESIS. XXXII. 
 
 already^ been seen (note on ch. xxx. 23), that 
 it is not necessary to conclude that Jacob 
 should have wished to leave Laban immediately 
 on the conclusion of his 14 years’ servitude. 
 On the contrary, with his children too young 
 to carry on so long a journey, with but little 
 independent substance, and with the fear of 
 Esau before his eyes, it is far more likely that 
 he should have been willing to remain longer 
 in the service of Laban. But, if this be so, 
 we have then an indefinite time left us for this 
 additional sojourn, limited only by the words 
 “when Rachel had born Joseph” (ch. xxx. 
 25). Jacob may have lived and worked for 
 twenty years longer with Laban, and not have 
 asked for his dismissal, till Joseph was old 
 enough to travel, or at all events till he was 
 born. 
 
 As to the second point, almost all commen- 
 tators take the statements in vv. 38 and 41 as 
 identical, v. 41 being but a repetition, with 
 greater detail, of the statement in v. 38, as 
 appears in the translation of the Authorized 
 Version. It has, however, been suggested by 
 Dr Kennicott, that very probably the twenty 
 years in v. 38 are not the same twenty years 
 as those mentioned in v. 41, and that the 
 sense of the Hebrew would be better express- 
 ed as follow's, V. 38, “one twenty years I was 
 with thee” (/. g taking care of thy flocks for 
 thee but not in thy house) ; and (v. 41), “an- 
 other twenty years I was for myself in thy 
 house, serving thee fourteen years for thy tvyo 
 daughters and six years for thy cattle.” This, 
 he contends, is a legitimate mode of rendering 
 the repeated particle {%eb^ %eh). Each mention 
 of the twenty years is introduced with the 
 wordzf/^, “this,” which word, when repeated, 
 is used in opposition or by way of distinction 
 (see Ex, xiv. 20; Job xxi. 23, 25 ; Eccl. vi. 5). 
 He understands Jacob therefore as saying, that 
 he had served Laban fourteen years for his 
 wives, after that he had for twenty years 
 taken care of his cattle, not as a servant but 
 as a neighbour and, friend ; and then, not 
 satisfied to go on thus without profit, at last 
 for six years more he served for wages, during 
 which short period Laban had changed his 
 hire 10 times. 
 
 If this reasoning be correct, and Bp Horsley 
 has said that Dr Kennicott assigns unanswer- 
 able reasons for his opinion, then the follow- 
 ing table will give the dates of the chief events 
 in Jacob's life. 
 
 Years of Jacob’s 
 life 
 
 O 
 
 40 
 
 ■57 
 
 J8 
 
 63 
 
 64 
 
 ■71 
 
 72 
 
 ^ S 
 
 Jacob and Esau born. 
 
 Esau marries two Hittite wives, 
 Gen. xxvi. 34. 
 
 Jacob goes to Padan-aram, Isaac 
 being 117. 
 
 Esau goes to Ishmael and marries 
 his daughter, Gen. xxviii. 9. 
 Ishmael dies, aged 137, Gen. xxv. 1 7. 
 Jacob marries Leah and Rachel, 
 Gen, xxix. 20, 21, 27, 28. 
 
 [■ Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 
 ^ born of Leah. 
 l_Dan and Naphtali born of Bilhah. 
 End of fourteen years’ service. 
 Beginning of 20 years mentioned 
 in Gen. xxxi. 38. 
 
 ■ r Gad and Asher born of Zilpah. J 
 J Issachar and Zebulun born of y 
 1 Leah. j 
 
 L Dinah born. 
 
 Joseph born of Rachel. 
 
 Agreement made, Gen.xxx. 25 — 3 4. 
 Events in the family unknown. 
 Flight from Padan-aram. 
 
 Benjamin born, Rachel dies. 
 Joseph at 17 is carried to Egypt, 
 Gen. xxxvii. 2. 
 
 Isaac dies at 180, Gen. xxxv. 28. 
 Joseph, aged 30, Governor of 
 Egypt. 
 
 Jacob goes down to Egypt, Gen. 
 xlvi. I. 
 
 Jacob dies, Gen. xlvii. 28. 
 
 It is not possible to date accurately the 
 events in ch. xxxiv., xxxviii., but the above 
 seems a far more probable chronology than 
 that commonly acquiesced in. According to 
 the common calculation, Judah and his sons 
 Er and Onan must have been quite children 
 when they married, whereas the assigning 40 
 instead of 20 years to the sojourn of Jacob in 
 Padan-aram, will allow time for them to have 
 grown up, though even so their marriages 
 must have been for that time unusually early. 
 The common calculation, which makes Jacob 
 84 at his marriage, whilst his son Judah could 
 not have been more than 20, and his grand- 
 children Er and Onan not above 15 when 
 they married (see Keil on ch. xxxviii.), must, 
 surely require some correction, even allowing 
 for the length of patriarchal lives on the one 
 side and for the early age of eastern marriages 
 on the other. 
 
 2 1 92 
 
 VO (^97 
 
 98 
 
 108 
 
 120 
 
 I2I 
 
 130 
 
 147 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 I yacoFs znsion at Mahanaim. 3 vies- 
 sage to Esaii. 6 lie is afraid of Esau's 
 coming. 9 He prayeth for deliverance. 
 13 lie sendeth a present to Esau. 24 He 
 wrest let h with aft angel at Peniely where he is 
 called Israel. 31 lie haltcth. 
 
 A nd Jacob went on his way, and 
 ^ the angels of God met him. 
 
 2 And when Jacob saw them, he 
 said, This is Cjod’s host: and he 
 called the name of that place “ Ma- n That is. 
 
 , . two hosts, 
 
 nanaim. or, comps. 
 
 3 And Jacob sent messengers be- 
 fore him to Esau his brother unto the 
 land of Seir, the ^country of Edom. tHeb. 
 
 4 And he commanded them, say--^^' 
 
V. 5— '°-J 
 
 GENESIS, xxxrr. 
 
 179 
 
 ing, Thus shall ve speak unto my 
 lord Esau; Thy servant Jacob saith 
 thus, I have sojourned with Laban, 
 and stayed there until now: 
 
 5 And I have oxen, and asses, 
 flocks, and menservants, and women- 
 servants: and I have sent to tell my 
 lord, that I may find grace in thy 
 sight. 
 
 6 ^ And the messengers returned 
 to Jacob, saying. We came to thy 
 brother Esau, and also he cometh to 
 meet thee, and four hundred men 
 with him. 
 
 7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid 
 
 and distressed: and he divided the 
 people that was with him, and the 
 flocks, and herds, and the camels, in- 
 to two bands ; 
 
 8 And said. If Esau come to the 
 one company, and smite it, then the 
 other company which is left shall 
 escape. 
 
 9 ^ And Jacob said, O God of 
 my father Abraham, and God of my 
 father Isaac, the Lord which saidst 
 
 unto me, "Return unto thy country, « chap. 31, 
 and to thy kindred, and I will deal 
 well with thee: i am less 
 
 10 G am not worthy of the least 
 
 Chap. XXXII. 1. the angels of God 
 met him\ The conjectures of various Jewish 
 interpreters concerning this vision of angels 
 may be seen in Heidegger, Tom. ii. Ex. xv. 
 § 37. The real purpose of it seems to have 
 bc^n this. When Jacob was flying from Esau’s 
 anger into Mesopotamia, he had a vision of 
 angels ascending and descending on the ladder 
 of God. He was thus assured of God’s pro- 
 vidential care over him, and mysteriously 
 taught that there was a way from heaven to 
 earth and from earth to heaven. Now he is 
 again about to fall into the power of Esau ; 
 and so the angels encamped, perhaps on each 
 side of him {Mahanaim^v. 2, signifying “two 
 camps”), may hare been sent to teach him, 
 as a similar vision taught afterwards the serv- 
 ant of Elisha (2 K. vi. 16, 17), that, though 
 he was encompassed with danger, there were 
 more with him than could be against him, or, 
 as the Psalmist wrote afterwards, that “the 
 angel of the Lord encampeth round about 
 them that fear him, and delivereth them” (Ps. 
 xxxiv. 7). Thus Josephus (‘A. J.’ I. 20) 
 says, “these visions were vouchsafed to Jacob 
 returning into Canaan, to encourage him with 
 happy hopes of what should befal him after- 
 wards,” and St Chrysost. (‘Horn. 58 in Gen.’), 
 “the fear of Laban having passed away, there 
 succeeded to it the fear of Esau ; therefore the 
 merciful Lord, willing that the pious man 
 should be encouraged and his fear dispelled, 
 ordained that he should see this vision of 
 angels.” 
 
 2. Maheinaim'] i.e. “two camps.” Some 
 have thought the dual here used for the plural ; 
 others that Jacob thought of his own camp 
 and the camp of angels. (So Abenezra, and 
 after him Clericus.) More likely the angels 
 were encamped on the right-hand and on the 
 left, so seeming to surround and protect Jacob 
 (see pn v. i). The place called Mahanaim 
 was in the tribe of Gad, and was assigned to 
 tbe Levites, Josh. xxi. 38. The name Mah^ 
 
 neh is still retained in the supposed site of the 
 ancient town (Robinson). 
 
 3. unto the land of Seir, the country of 
 Edom'] It does not follow necessarily from 
 this verse, that Seir had by this time become 
 Esau’s permanent place of residence. The 
 historian calls Seir the country of Edom, be- 
 cause it had become so long before Moses 
 wrote. Esau was a great hunter, and very 
 probably a conqueror, who took possession of 
 Seir, driving out or subjugating the Horites. 
 It may have been for this very conquest, that 
 he was now at the head of 400 anned men 
 (v. 6). He had not yet removed his house- 
 hold from Canaan (ch. xxxvi. 6); and did 
 not settle permanently in his newly conquered 
 possession till after his father’s death, when, 
 yielding to the assignment made to Jacob by 
 Isaac’s blessing, he retires to Idumiea, and leaves 
 Canaan to Jacob (ch. xxxvi. i — 8). (See Kurtz 
 in loc.) 
 
 7. Jacob <ivas greatly afraid and dis- 
 tressed] Though he had just seen a vision of 
 angels, he was not unnaturally alarmed at the 
 apparently hostile approach of Esau. He 
 makes therefore all preparation for that ap- 
 proach, and then takes refuge in prayer. His 
 faith was imperfect, but he was a religious 
 man, and so he seeks in ’his terror help from' 
 God. 
 
 9. 0 God of my father Abraham^ and 
 God of my father Isaac ^ the Lord] This 
 combination of names is natural and exact.. 
 He appeals to the Most High as the Covenant 
 God, who had given promises to his fathers, 
 of which promises he himself was the heir, 
 and who had revealed Himself to the chosen 
 family as the self-existent Jehovah, who 
 would be their God. The whole prayer is 
 one of singular beauty and piety. 
 
 10. / am not ^worthy of the least of all 
 the mercies] Lit. “I am less than all the 
 mercies.” 
 
 M 2 
 
i8o 
 
 GENESIS. XXXIL 
 
 [v. II — 24. 
 
 t Heb. 
 
 Uf>OH. 
 
 of all the mercies, and of all the 
 truth, which thou hast shewed unto 
 thy servant ; for with my staff I 
 passed over this Jordan; and now I 
 am become two bands. 
 
 1 1 Deliver me, I pray thee, from 
 the hand of my brother, from the 
 hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest 
 he will come and smite me, and the 
 mother ^ with the children. 
 
 12 And thou saidst, I will surely 
 do thee good, and make thy seed as 
 the sand of the sea, which cannot be 
 numbered for multitude. 
 
 13 ^ And he lodged there that 
 same night; and took of that which 
 came to his hand a present for Esau 
 his brother; 
 
 14 Two hundred she goats, and 
 twenty he goats, two hundred ewes, 
 and twenty rams, 
 
 15 Thirty milch camels with their 
 colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, twenty 
 she asses, and ten foals. 
 
 16 And he delivered them into the 
 hand of his servants, every drove by 
 themselves; and said unto his ser- 
 vants, Pass over before me, and put 
 a space betwixt drove and drove. 
 
 17 And he commanded the fore- 
 most, saying. When Esau my bro- 
 
 ther meeteth thee, and asketh thee, 
 saying. Whose art thou? and whi- 
 ther goest thou ? and whose are these 
 before thee? 
 
 18 Then thou shalt say, THoey be 
 thy servant Jacob’s; it is a present 
 sent unto my lord Esau : and, behold, 
 also he is behind us. 
 
 19 And so commanded he the se- 
 cond, and the third, and all that fol- 
 lowed the droves, saying, On this 
 manner shall ye speak unto Esau, 
 when ye find him. 
 
 20 And say ye moreover. Behold, 
 
 thy servant Jacob is behind us. For 
 he said, I will appease him with the 
 present that goeth before me, and 
 afterward I will see his face; perad- 
 venture he will accept ^ of me. t Heb. 
 
 21 So went the present over before 
 him : and himself lodged that 
 the company. 
 
 22 And he rose up that night, 
 and took his two wives, and his 
 two womenservants, and his eleven 
 sons, and passed over the ford Jab- 
 bok. 
 
 23 And he took them, and ^ sent t Heb. 
 them over the brook, and sent over^^'^f"^ 
 that he had. 
 
 24 ^ And Jacob was left alone; 
 
 night in 
 
 11. the mother (with the children\ Lit. 
 “upon the children.” Whence some have 
 thought that there was allusion to the mother 
 protecting the child, as a bird covers its young 
 (Tuch, Knobcl, Keil), or to the slaying of the 
 child before the parent’s eyes, and then the 
 parent upon him (Ros.) ; but the sense seems 
 correctly expressed by “with,” as in Ex. xxv. 
 22; Num. XX. II ; Deut. xvi. 3; Job xxxviii. 
 32, &c. (See Gcs. ‘Thes.’ p. 1027.) 
 
 13. of that (which came to his hancF] 
 or perhaps “that which had come to his 
 hand,” i.e. into his possession, what he pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 20. I (will appease him, &c.] The sen- 
 tence literally rendered would be, “I will 
 cover his face with the present that goeth be- 
 fore me, and afterward I will see his face, 
 peradventure he will accept my face.” “To 
 cover the eyes or the face” was an expression 
 apparently signifying to induce the person to 
 turn away from or connive at a fault. (Gcs. 
 pp. 7C0, 706.) “To accept or lift up the 
 
 face” was equivalent to accepting a person 
 favourably (^Ib. p. 915). 
 
 22. the ford Jabbok] or “the ford of 
 Jabbok.” The name Jabbok is either derived 
 from bakak, “to pour forth, to gush forth,” 
 or from ahak, “to wrestle,” from the wrest- 
 ling of Jacob there. It flowed into the Jor- 
 dan about half way between the Dead Sea and 
 the sea of Galilee, at a point nearly opposite 
 to Shechem. It is now -called Zerka, i.e. 
 “blue” (Gcs. ‘Thes.’ p. 232). 
 
 23. the brook'] The word signifies either 
 a brook, a torrent, or the bed of a torrent, 
 sometimes dry and sometimes flowing, like 
 the Arabic IVady. 
 
 24. Jacob (was left alone] He re- 
 mained to the last that he might see all his 
 family pass safely through the ford, that he 
 might prevent anything being left behind 
 through carelessness; and most probably that 
 he might once more give himself to earnest 
 prayer for God’s protection in his expected 
 meeting with his brother Esau. 
 
V. 25—26.] 
 
 GENESIS. XXXII. 
 
 181 
 
 and there wrestled a man with him 
 tHeb. until the ^breaking of the day. 
 a^cvdm^ 25 And when he saw that he pre- 
 vionim^. j-jQt- against him, he touched 
 
 the hollov/ of his thigh j and the 
 
 hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of 
 joint, as he wrestled with him. 
 
 26 And he said. Let me go, for the 
 day breaketh. And he said, ^I will*Hos.i2. 
 not let thee go, except thou bless me. ^ 
 
 there <w res tied a man ^Mith hlm~\ He is 
 called “the angel,” Hos. xii. 4, and Jacob 
 says of him (v. 30), “ I have seen God face 
 to face.” The Jews of course believed that 
 he was a created angel, and said that he was 
 the angel of Esau, i.e. either Esau’s special 
 guardian angel (cp. Acts xii. 15), or the 
 angel that presided over Esau’s country (cp. 
 Dan. X. r3). So Abenezra and Abarbanel. 
 Many Christian commentators also prefer to 
 consider this a vision of a created angel, as 
 thinking it inconsistent with the greatness of 
 the Creator to have manifested Himself in 
 this manner to Jacob. Most of the fathers, 
 however, thought this to have been one of the 
 manifestations of the Logos, of the eternal 
 Son, anticipatory of His incarnation. Theo- 
 doret (Qu. 92 in Gen.) argues thus at 
 length. (See also Justin M. ‘Dial.’ § 126; 
 Tertull. ‘Contra Marcion.’ c. 3; Euseb. 
 
 * H. E.’ I. 22; August. ‘ De C. D.’ xvi. 39, 
 &c. &c.). From vv. 29, 30, this seems the 
 true opinion. The word for ‘ wrestle” {abak) 
 is derived from abak^ “ dust,” from the rolling 
 of athletes in the dust when wrestling with 
 each other. 
 
 until the breaking of the day\ lit. “till the 
 rising of the dawn.” 
 
 25 . <when he saw that he prevailed not 
 against him\ There must have been some 
 deep significance in this wrestling, in which 
 an Angel, or more probably the God of 
 angels. Himself “the Angel of the Lord,” 
 prevailed not against a man. The difficulty 
 of Ix'lieving that man could prevail against 
 God led to some forced interpretations, such 
 as that of Origen (‘ De Principiis,’ Lib. iii.), 
 and Jerome (‘ in Epist. ad Ephes.’c. vi.), that 
 Jacob wrestled against evil spirits, ai^d that 
 the “ Man” is said to have v/restled with him 
 in the sense of assisting him, wrestling on his 
 side ; an interpretation refuted by the words 
 of the “ Man” Himself in v. 28. The mys- 
 tical meaning of the whole transaction seems 
 probably to be of this kind. The time was 
 an important epoch in Jacob’s history. It 
 was a turning-point in his life. There had 
 been much most faulty in his character; 
 which had led him to much trouble, and sub- 
 jected him to a long penitential and reforma- 
 * tory discipline. He was now returning after an 
 exile, of 20 or more probably 40 years, to the 
 land of his birth, which had been promised to 
 him for his inheritance. It was a great crisis. 
 Should he fall under the power of Esau and 
 80 suffer to the utmost for his former sins ? 01 
 
 should he obtain mercy and be received back 
 to his father’s house as the heir of the pro- 
 mises? This eventful niglit, this passage of 
 the Jabbok, was to decide ; and the mys- 
 terious conflict, in which by Divine mercy 
 and strength he is permitted to prevail, is 
 vouchsafed to him as an indication that his 
 repentance, matured by long schooling and 
 discipline and manifested in fervent and hum- 
 ble prayer, is accepted with God and blessed 
 by the Son of God, whose ancestor in the 
 flesh he is now once more formally constituted. 
 
 the hollow of the thigh'] The socket of the 
 hip-joint, the hollow place like the palm of a 
 hand (Heb. Caph) into which the neck-bone of 
 the thigh is inserted. The reason of this act 
 of the ."^ngel w'as very probably lest Jacob 
 should be puffed up by the “abundance of the 
 revelations;” he might think that by his own 
 strength and not by grace he had prevailed 
 with God; as St Paul had the thorn in the 
 flesh sent to him lest he “should be exalted 
 above measure,” 2 Cor. xii. 7. (So Theodoret 
 in loc.). 
 
 26 . Let me go, for the day breaketh] 
 Lit. “ for the dawn ariseth.” The contest had 
 taken place during the later hours of the night. 
 It was now right that it should be ended: for 
 the time had arrived, the breaking of the day, 
 when Jacob must prepare to meet Esau and to 
 appease his anger. It was for Jacob’s sake, 
 not for His own convenience, that the Divine 
 wrestler desired to go. (So Abarbanel, Hei- 
 degger, &c. &c.). 
 
 except thou bias we] Jacob had plainly 
 discovered that his antagonist was a heavenly 
 Visitor. Though he had been permitted to 
 pi'evail in the contest, he still desired blessing 
 for the future. 
 
 23 . Israel: for as a prince hast thou power], 
 The verb Sarah and its cognate Sur sig- 
 nify “to contend with,” and also “to be a 
 prince or leader.” See Judg. ix. %z ; Hos. xii. 4 
 (Ges. pp. 1326, 1338, Ros. in loc.). It is 
 quite possible that both senses are conveyed 
 by the word, and it might be rendered either, 
 “thou hast contended with God,” or “thou 
 hast been a prince with God.” The Author- 
 ised Version combines both. The best Vss., 
 LXX., Vulg., render, “Thou hast had power 
 with God, and how much more wilt thou 
 prevail with men,” which has been followed 
 by many moderns, as Heidegger, Rosenm., 
 &c. The sense is thus rendered more perspi- 
 cuous, as implying a promise of safety from* 
 
i 82 
 
 GENESIS. XXXII. XXXIII. [y. 27-8. 
 
 27 And he said unto him, What is 
 thy name? And he said, Jacob. 
 
 -chap. 35. 28 And he said, “^Thy name shall 
 
 be called no more Jacob, but Israel: 
 for as a prince hast thou power with 
 God and with men, and hast pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 29 And Jacob asked him^ ana said. 
 Tell me^ I pray thee, thy name. And 
 he said. Wherefore is it that thou 
 dost ask after my name? And he 
 blessed him there. 
 
 30 And Jacob called the name of 
 I That is, the place ^ Peniel : for I have seen 
 J;^/^^‘^God face to face, and my life is pre- 
 served. 
 
 31 And as he passed over Penuel 
 the sun rose upon him, and he halted 
 upon his thigh. 
 
 32 Therefore the children of Israel 
 eat not oj' the sinew v/hich shrank, 
 which is upon the hollow of the 
 thigh, unto this day : because he 
 touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh 
 in the sinew that shrank. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 I The kindness of facob and Esmi at their 
 meeting. 17 Jacob cometh to Snccoth. 18 
 At Shalem he biiyeth a field, and bnildcth an 
 altar called El-elohe-Is 7 'ael. 
 
 AND Jacob lifted up his eyes, and 
 £\^ looked, and, behold, Esau came, 
 and with him four hundred men. And 
 he divided the children unto Leah, 
 and unto Rachel, and unto the two 
 handmaids. 
 
 2 And he put the handmaids and 
 their children foremost, and Leah and 
 her children after, and Rachel and 
 Joseph hindermost. 
 
 3 And he passed over before them, 
 and bowed himself to the ground 
 seven times, until he -came near to 
 his brother. 
 
 4 And Esau ran to meet him, and 
 embraced him, and fell on his neck, 
 and kissed him : and they wept. 
 
 5 And he lifted up his eyes, and 
 saw the women and the children; 
 
 and said. Who are those ^ with thee ? t Heb. 
 And he said. The children which God 
 hath graciously given thy servant. 
 
 6 Then the handmaidens came 
 near, they and their children, and 
 they bowed themselves. 
 
 7 And Leah also with her children 
 came near, and bowed themselves: 
 and after came Joseph near and Ra- 
 chel, and they bowed themselves. a/ttAis 
 
 8 And he said, ^ What tneanest thou 
 
 Esau. The difficulty, however, of thus ex- 
 plaining the particle Fau before “hast pre- 
 vailed” is great. 
 
 29 . Wherefoi'e is it that thou dost ask 
 after my name?'] Comp. Judg. xiii. 18, “And 
 the Angel of the Lord said unto him (/. e. 
 Manoah), Why askest thou after my name 
 seeing it is secret?” lit. “wonderful.” In the 
 present instance perhaps the words mean, 
 “ Why dost thou ask my name ? as it may be 
 plain to you who I am.” 
 
 30 . Peniel] /. e. “ the face of God.” Else- 
 where it is always Penuel, and the Samaritan 
 Pentateuch and the Vulg. have Penuel here. 
 The LXX. docs not give this name itself, 
 but translates it both here and in v. 31. Jose- 
 phus has Phanuel only. The words only dif- 
 fer by a single line in one 'letter, and have no 
 difference of meaning. Strabo (‘ Geogr.’ L. 
 XVI. c. 2, §§ 15, 18) mentions a town among 
 the Phccnician cities with a Greek name of the 
 same meaning, viz. Thcou prosopon. 
 
 32 . the sine<iu ajuhicb shrank] This is 
 the rendering of LXX., Vulg., Onk. Many 
 Jewish and Ch.nstian commentators have rcn- 
 .dercd it “the nerve of contraction” or “the 
 
 nerve of oblivion.” Whatever be the literal 
 sense of the words, they doubtless mean the 
 “ sciatic nerve,” the nerojus ischiadicus, which 
 is one of the largest in the body, and extends 
 down the thigh and leg to the ankle. The 
 Arabs still use this same word {Nasheh or 
 Naselj) to designate the sciatic nerve (see Ros. 
 in loc., Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 924). The cus- 
 tom prevailing among the Jews to this day of 
 abstaining religiously from eating this sinew 
 seems a lasting monument of the historical 
 truth of this wonderful event in the life of 
 Jacob. 
 
 Chap. XXXIII. 3. bowed himself to the 
 ground] A deep oriental bow, not probably 
 such profound prostration as is expressed in ch. 
 xix. i: “he bowed himself with his face to 
 the ground.” 
 
 5. IVho are those with thee?] Lit. “to 
 thee ; ” i. e. that thou hast. 
 
 8. What tneanest thou by all this drove] 
 Lit. “ What to thee is all this camp?” The 
 sheep with their shepherds assumed the ap- 
 pearance of a band or troop, hence called 
 “ camp.” 
 
V. 9 — iS.] 
 
 GENESIS. XXXIII. 
 
 183 
 
 by all this drove which I met ? And 
 he said, These are to find grace in the 
 sight of my lord. 
 
 9 And Esau said, I have enough, 
 fHeb. mv brother; ^keep that thou hast 
 
 be that to \ 1 i r 
 
 thee that unto thyselt. 
 
 thine. jQ Jacob said. Nay, I pray 
 
 thee, if now I have found grace in 
 thy sight, then receive my present at 
 my hand: for therefore I have seen 
 thy face, as though I had seen the 
 face of God, and thou wast pleased 
 with me. • 
 
 11 Take, I pray thee, my blessing 
 that is brought to thee ; because God 
 hath dealt graciously with me, and 
 because I have enough. And he 
 urged him, and he took it. 
 
 12 And he said. Let us take our 
 journey, and let us go, and I will go 
 before thee. 
 
 13 And he said unto him. My 
 
 . lord knoweth that the children are 
 
 tender, and the flocks and herds with 
 young are with me : and if men should 
 overdrive them one day, all the flock 
 will die. 
 
 14 Let my lord, I pray thee, pass 
 over before his servant : and I will 
 lead on softly, ^ according as the cattle 
 that goeth before me and the children 
 be able to endure, until I come unto 
 my lord unto Seir. 
 
 15 And Esau said. Let me now 
 Ueave with thee some of the folk that 
 are with me. And he said, ^What 
 needeth it.? let me find grace in the 
 sight of my lord. 
 
 16 ^ So Esau returned that day on 
 his way unto Seir. 
 
 17 And Jacob journeyed to Suc- 
 coth, and built him an house, and 
 made booths for his cattle : therefore 
 the name of the place is called “ Suc- 
 coth. 
 
 18 ^ And Jacob came to Shalem, 
 
 tHeb. 
 according 
 to the foot 
 of the 
 •work, «5r’C'. 
 and ac- 
 cording to 
 the foot of 
 tile chil- 
 dren. 
 
 t Heb. set, 
 or, place. 
 t Heb. 
 Wherefore 
 is this f 
 
 B That is, 
 booths. 
 
 10 . for therefore I have seen thy face., 
 &c.] Rather “for I have seen thy face, as 
 though I had seen the face of God.” The same 
 particles are rendered “because,” Gen. xxxviii. 
 26; “forasmuch as,” Num. x. 31; “because,” 
 Num. xiv. 43 (see Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 682). Ja- 
 cob pleads as a reason why Esau should accept 
 his present, that Esau’s face had seemed as 
 gracious and favourable to him as though it 
 had been God’s face. It is highly probable 
 that Jacob here refers to his vision of God in 
 the night past at Peniel. The words he uses 
 are “for I have seen thy face, like a vision 
 oi Peney El-ohimf i.e. “the face of God.” It 
 might have seemed likely that Jacob on his 
 meeting with Esau would use the special name 
 of their father’s God, Jehovah; but this, in 
 addition to the reason given above, would have 
 been like claiming to be the heir of the pro- 
 mises and under the peculiar care of Jeho- 
 vah, which would have been very offensive to 
 Esaii. 
 
 11. my hlessing\ That is, “this gift 
 which is meant to express good will and affec- 
 tion, offered with prayers for blessing on the 
 recipient” (cp. Judg. i. 15 ; i S. xxv. 32, xxx. 
 26; 2 K. V. 15). 
 
 1 have enouglo] Lit. “ I have all.” 
 
 13 . vjith young] In milk. 
 
 if men should overdrive them one day] Esau’s 
 400 horsemen would be likely to move too 
 rapidly for the milch cattle. 
 
 14 . according as the cattle that goeth 
 
 before me and the children he able to endure] 
 According to the pace (lit. “the foot”) 
 of the cattle that is before me, and ac- 
 cording to the pace of the children. 
 The word for cattle is literally “work;” thence 
 anything acquired by labour, property, and 
 hence cattle, the chief possession of a pastoral 
 people. 
 
 until I come unto my lord unto Seir] It is 
 probable that Jacob here intimated a hope that 
 he might one day visit Esau at Seir. It does 
 not necessarily mean that he was directly on 
 his way thither; his course being evidently to- 
 wards Shechem. 
 
 17 . booths] Perhaps only wattled en- 
 closures, or very possibly some simple con- 
 trivance of branches and leaves made for 
 sheltering the milch cattle from the heat of 
 the sun. 
 
 Succoth] “Booths,” from saccac., to entwine, 
 to shelter. Jacob could easily visit his father 
 from this place. Jerome (‘Qu. Heb.’ ad h.l.) 
 says that “ Sochoth is to this day a city beyond 
 Jordan in Scythopolis.” According to Josh, 
 xiii. 27, Judg. viii. 4, 5, Succoth was in the 
 valley of the Jordan, “on the other side of the 
 Jordan eastward,” and was allotted to the 
 tribe of Gad. 
 
 18 . to Shalem] Or “in peace.” The 
 LXX., Vulg., Syr. render “ Shalem.” Robin- 
 son (‘ B. R.’ HI. 322) and Wilson (‘Lands of 
 the Bible,’ ii. 72) mentidh a place still called 
 Salim to the east of Nablus. On the other 
 hand the Sam. Pent, has Shalom^ i.e. “ safe.” 
 
[v. 19—7. 
 
 184 GENESIS. XXXIII. XXXIV. 
 
 I Called, 
 Acts 7. 16, 
 Sychern 
 
 » Called, 
 Acts 7. 16 
 Emmor. 
 UOr, 
 lambs. 
 
 Il That is. 
 Cod the 
 God of 
 Israeli 
 
 a city of “Shechem, which is in the 
 land of Canaan, when he came from 
 Padan-aram ; and pitched his tent 
 before the city. 
 
 19 And he bought a parcel of a 
 field, where he had spread his tent, 
 at the hand of the children of "Ha- 
 rnor, Shechem’s father, for an hundred 
 “ pieces of money. 
 
 20 And he erected there an altar, 
 and called it " El-elohe-Israel. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 I Dinah is ravished by Shcchem. 4 He sueth 
 to rna)‘ry her. 13 The sons of Jacob offer the 
 condition of circumcision to the Shechemites. 
 10 Hamor and Shechetn persuade them to 
 accept it. 75 The sons of Jacob ttpon that 
 advantage slay thetn, 27 and spoil their city. 
 30 Jacob reproveth Simeon and Levi. 
 
 AND Dinah the daughter of Leah, 
 which she bare unto Jacob, went 
 out to see the daughters of the land. 
 
 2 And when Shechem the son of 
 
 Hamor the Hivite, prince of the 
 country, saw her, he took her, and 
 lay with her, and Mefiled her. 
 
 3 And his soul clave unto Dinah her. ^ 
 the daughter of Jacob, and he loved 
 
 the damsel, and spake ^kindly unto 
 the damsel. 
 
 4 And Shechem spake unto his fa- 
 ther Hamor, saying. Get me this dam- 
 sel to wife. 
 
 5 And Jacob heard that he had de- 
 filed Dinah his daughter : now his 
 sons were with his cattle in the field : 
 and Jacob held his peace until they 
 were come. 
 
 6 H And Hamor the father of She- 
 chem went out unto Jacob to com- 
 mune with him. 
 
 7 And the sons of Jacob came out 
 of the field when they heard it: and 
 the men were grieved, and they were 
 very wroth, because .he had wrought 
 
 Onkelos renders “in peace,” and he is follow- 
 ed by Saadias, Rashi and most Jewish com- 
 mentators,. by Rosenm., Schum, Gesen., 
 Tuch, Del., Knobel, Keil. 
 
 a city of Shechenf] If instead of “ to Sha- 
 lem” we adopt the rendering “ in peace,” or 
 “in safety;” then we must render here “to 
 the city of Shechem.” It was perhaps called 
 after Shechem the son of Hamor (v. 19). In 
 ch. xii. 6 (where see note), we read of “the 
 place of Sichem,” i.e. perhaps the site on 
 which Sichem or Shechem was afterwards built. 
 It was the first place in which God appeared 
 to Abraham, and it is the place at which 
 Jacob re-enters the promised land; for Suc- 
 coth, whence he came to it, was on the other 
 side of Jordan. Abraham only- purchased a 
 burial-place, Jacob purchases a dwelling-place. 
 Perhaps the country had now become more 
 fully inhabited, and therefore land must be 
 secured before it could be safely lived upon. 
 
 19 . an hundred pieces of money'] “A hun- 
 dred Kesita.” All the ancient Versions (except 
 Targg. Jems, and Jonath.) render “a hun- 
 tlred lambs,” whence it has been inferred that 
 the Kesita was a piece of money bearing the 
 impression of a lamb. It appears however to 
 have been either an ingot or bar of silver of 
 certain weight, or perhaps merely a certain 
 weight of silver; a word of the same root in 
 Arabic signifying “a balance,” “a pair, of 
 scales.” (See Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 1241. Lee, ‘Lex.’ 
 in voc.). 
 
 20 . El-elohe-JsraeV] The name Israel 
 contains in it the syllable £/, one of the names 
 
 of God. Jacob therefore calls El the God of 
 Israel, and gives this title to the altar, which 
 he built on the spot which had already been 
 consecrated by Abraham (ch. xii. 7). Jacob 
 had hitherto always spoken of Jehovah as 
 the God of Abraham, and the God, or the 
 Fear, of his father Isaac. Now on his gra- 
 cious acceptance by Him, his change of name 
 by His appointment, his return to Canaan as 
 the heir of the land, he calls Him his own 
 God, El, the God of Israel. 
 
 Chap. XXXIV. 1. Dinah the daughter 
 of Leah] Her birth is mentioned (ch. xxx. 
 21) before the birth of Joseph (vv. 22, 23). 
 If Jacob’s sojourn in Padan-aram was 40 
 years long and not 20 only (see note at the 
 end of ch. xxxi.), it is quite possible that Dinah 
 may have been some years older than Joseph, 
 who was 17 at the beginning of the history 
 related in ch. xxxvii. (see v. 2), i.e. probably 
 about a year or two after the events related in 
 this present chapter. In any case therefore 
 she was not less than 15 years old at this time, 
 supposing her to have been no older than 
 Joseph; so that the objection urged by Tuch 
 and others that at this time she vvas but 6 or 7 
 years old cannot be maintained. 
 
 ^ent out to see the daughters of the land] 
 Josephus (‘ Ant.’ i. 21) states that a feast 
 among the Shechemites was the occasion of 
 this visit. 
 
 3. spake kindly unto the damsel] Lit. 
 “ Spake to the heart of the damsel.” So ch. 1 . 
 21; Judg. xix. 3; Isa. xl. 2; Hos. ii. 14, &c. 
 
 7. he had <vor ought folly in Israel... 'which 
 
GENESIS. XXXIV. 
 
 185 
 
 V. 8 — 2 S 0 
 
 folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s 
 daughter; which thing ought not to 
 be done. 
 
 8 And Hamor communed with 
 them, saying, The soul of my son 
 Shechem longeth for your daughter: 
 I pray you give her him to wife. 
 
 9 And make ye marriages with us, 
 and give your daughters unto us, and 
 take our daughters unto you. 
 
 10 And ye shall dwell with us: 
 and the land shall be before you ; dwell 
 and trade ye therein, and get you pos- 
 sessions therein. 
 
 11 And Shechem said unto her fa- 
 ther and unto her brethren. Let me 
 find grace in your eyes, and what ye 
 shall say unto me I will give. 
 
 12 Ask me never so much dowry 
 and gift, and I will give according as 
 ye shall say unto me : but give ine 
 the damsel to wife. 
 
 13 And the sons of Jacob answered 
 Shechem and Hamor his father de- 
 ceitfully, and said, because he had 
 defiled Dinah their sister : 
 
 14 And they said unto them. We 
 cannot do this thing, to give our sister 
 to one that is uncircumcised; for that 
 were a reproach unto us : 
 
 15 But in this will we consent un- 
 to you : If ye will be as we be^ that 
 every male of yoy be circumcised ; 
 
 16 Then will we give our daugh- 
 ters unto you, and we will take your 
 daughters to us, and we will dwell 
 with you, and we will become one 
 people. 
 
 17 But if ye will not hearken un- 
 to us, to be circumcised; then will 
 we take our daughter, and we will be 
 gone. 
 
 1 8 And* their words pleased Hamor, 
 and Shechem Hamor’s son. 
 
 19 And the young man deferred 
 not to do the thing, because he had 
 delight in Jacob’s daughter: and he 
 was more honourable than all the 
 house of his father. 
 
 20 ^ And Hamor and Shechem his 
 son came unto the gate of their city, 
 and communed with the men of their 
 city, saying, 
 
 21 These men are peaceable with 
 us; therefore let them dwell in the 
 land, and trade therein ; for the land, 
 behold, it is large enough for them ; 
 let us take their daughters to us for 
 wives, and let us give them our 
 daughters. 
 
 22 Only herein will the men con- 
 sent unto us for to dwell with us, to 
 be one people, if every male among 
 us be circumcised, as they are cir- 
 cumcised. 
 
 23 Shall not their cattle and their 
 substance and every beast of theirs be 
 ours ? only let us consent unto them, 
 and they will dwell with us. 
 
 24 And unto Hamor and unto She- 
 chem his son hearkened all that went 
 out of the gate of his city ; and every 
 male was circumcised, all that went 
 out of the gate of his city. 
 
 25 ^ And it came to pass on the 
 third day, when they were sore, that 
 
 thing ought not to he done~\ Lit. “ and so 
 it is not done.” These are not the words 
 of the sons of Jacob, but of the sacred histo- 
 rian. It is not likely that the family of Jacob 
 should by this time have acquired the generic 
 name of Israel; but Moses uses the designa- 
 tion which had becom.e familiar in his own 
 day. The words of this verse seem to have 
 become proverbial, they are almost repeated 
 in a S. xiii. 12. But this is no reason for 
 supposing that the words of this present verse 
 should be ascribed to a later hand than that of 
 Moses. 
 
 13 . and said] Schultens, Gesen. (p. 315), 
 Knobel, Del., &c. translate here “and plotted” 
 or “ laid snares:” others repeat the word “ de- 
 
 ceitfully” from the fonner clause, rendering 
 and “spoke deceitfully:” but the rendering 
 of the Authorised Version seems preferable. 
 
 18 . their (uj^rds pleased Hamor^ &c.] 
 The readiness of the Shechemites to submit to 
 circumcision may be accounted for, if circum- 
 cision had by this time become a rite known 
 to others besides the descendants of Abraham 
 (Herod. Ii. 104). At all events, it was now 
 practised not only by the sons of Jacob and 
 his household, but by the Ishmaelites, and 
 the family and household of Esau, all growing 
 into important tribes in the neighbourhood of 
 the Shechemites. 
 
 25 . Simeon and Le'vi^ Dinah's brethren^ 
 took each man his s^asord'] i.e. sons of the same 
 
i86 
 
 « chap. 
 6 . 
 
 t Heb. 
 mouth. 
 
 
 GENESIS. XXXIV. XXXV. [v. 26-3. 
 
 two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and 
 Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man 
 his sword, and came upon the city 
 49- boldly, and ^slew all the males. 
 
 26 And they slew Hamor and She- 
 chem his son with the ^edge of the 
 sword, and took Dinah out of She- 
 chem’s house, and went out. 
 
 27 The sons of Jacob came upon 
 the slain, and spoiled the city, because 
 they had defiled their sister. 
 
 28 They took their sheep, and their 
 oxen, and their asses, and that which 
 was in the city, and that which was 
 in the field, 
 
 29 And all their wealth, and all 
 their little ones, and their wives took 
 they captive, and spoiled even all that 
 was in the house. 
 
 30 And Jacob said to Simeon and 
 Levi, Ye have troubled me to make 
 me to stink among the inhabitants of 
 the land, among the Canaanites and 
 the Perizzites : and I being fev/ in 
 number, they shall gather themselves 
 
 together against me, and slay me ; and 
 I shall be destroyed, I and my house. 
 
 31 And they said. Should he deal 
 with our sister as with an harlot? 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 I God seoidcth Jacoh to Beth-el. 2 He purgeth 
 his house of idols. 6 He biiildeth an altar at 
 Beth- el. 8 Deborah dieth at Allon-bacJmth. 
 
 9 God blesseth Jacob at Beth-el. 16 Rachel 
 travaileth of Ben jamm, and dieth in the way 
 to Edar. 22 Reuben lieth with Bilhah. 23 
 The so 7 ts of Jacob. 27 Jacob cometh to Isaac 
 at Hebron. 28 The age, death, and burial of 
 Isaac. 
 
 AND God said unto Jacob, Arise, 
 
 ±\, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there : 
 and make there an altar unto God, 
 that appeared unto thee when thou « chap. 27. 
 fleddest from the face of Esau thy "^ 3 - 
 brother. 
 
 2 Then Jacob said unto his house- 
 hold, and to all that were with him, 
 
 Pkit away the strange gods that are 
 among you, and be clean, and change 
 your garments : 
 
 3 And let us arise, and go up to 
 
 mother, Leah, as well as of the same father, 
 Jacob, In ch. xxiv. 50, 55, &c. we saw La- 
 ban taking a principal part in giving his sister 
 in marriage iVIichaelis (in loc.) mentions it as 
 a prevalent opinion in the East that a man is 
 more alfected by the dishonour of his sister 
 than even by the dishonour of his wife, as he 
 may divorce his wife but can never cease to be 
 Lis sister’s brother. We are not to suppose 
 that Simeon and Levi without help from others 
 attacked and slew all the males; they had no 
 doubt a retinue from their fathead’s household 
 with them, and perhaps were accompanied by 
 some of their brothers, though they only are 
 specially mentioned, as having taken the lead 
 in the assault, and as most strongly actuated 
 by the spirit of revenge. 
 
 27 . the sorts of Jacob'] i. e. others be- 
 side Simeon and Levi, for all appear to have 
 joined in the original stratagem (see v. 13), 
 and probably all assisted in spoiling the city. 
 
 30 . I being fe^ in number] Lit. “ I 
 being men of number.” That is, I and my 
 family and followers (compare “ I am become 
 two bands,” ch. xxxii. 10) are men so few 
 that we can easily be numbered. A common 
 idiom: see Deut, iv. 27; i Chr. xvi. 19; Ps. 
 cv. 12; Isa. X.. 19; Jcr. xliv. 28. 
 
 It seems strange that Jacob should have 
 reproached his sons as having brought him 
 into danger, not as having been guilty of 
 
 treachery and murder. This is only another 
 instance of Jacob’s weak character, and of the 
 fidelity of the historian. Jacob’s own fault 
 was want of straightforward honesty. It is 
 reproduced with grievous aggravations in his 
 sons. The timidity of his disposition, a kin- 
 dred defect with untruthfulness, shews itself 
 now in his exclamation of fear rather than of 
 moral horror. His more righteous indigna- 
 tion, the result of calmer thought, is expressed 
 in his final judgment on the fierceness of their 
 anger and the cruelty of their wrath (ch. xlix. 
 5, 6, 7). 
 
 Chap. XXXV. 1. Beth-el] See on ch. 
 xxviii. 19. 
 
 2. strange gods] Not only had Rachel 
 stolen her father’s teraphim, but probably 
 others of Jacob’s company had secreted in- 
 struments of idolatrous worship in the camp. 
 As they had just spoiled a heathen city (ch. 
 xxxiv. 27), it is not unlikely that they brought 
 such instruments from that also. 
 
 be clean] “Purify yourselves.” The same 
 word is frequently used under the Law for 
 purification from legal uncleanness before 
 access to sacred ordinances (Lev. xiv. 4 ; Num. 
 viii. 7; 2 Chr. xxx. 18; Ezra vi. 20; NTh. xii. 
 30; xiii. 22). Such purification was proba- 
 bly in the patriarchal times, as often even 
 under the law, by washing merely, all such 
 
V. 4 — ”•] 
 
 GENESIS. XXXV. 
 
 Beth-el; and I will make there an 
 altar unto God, who answered me in 
 the day of my distress, and was with 
 me in the way which I went. 
 
 4 And they gave unto Jacob all the 
 strange gods which were in their hand, 
 and all their earrings which were in 
 their ears; and Jacob hid them under 
 the oak which was by Shechem. 
 
 5 And they journeyed : and the 
 terror of God was upon the cities that 
 were round about them, and they did 
 not pursue after the sons of Jacob. 
 
 6 ^1 So Jacob came to Luz, which 
 is in the land of Canaan, that /r, 
 Beth-el, he and all the people that 
 were with him. 
 
 7 And he built there an altar, and 
 
 “^called the place " El-beth-el : because *chap. 28. 
 there God appeared unto him, when 11 Thai is, 
 he fled from the face of his brother. 
 
 8 But Deborah Rebekah’s nurse 
 died, and she was buried beneath 
 Beth-el under an oak : and the name 
 
 of it was called " Allon-bachuth. n That is, 
 
 9 ^ And God appeared ui%to Jacob ^weeping{ 
 again, when he came out of Padan- 
 aram, and blessed him. 
 
 10 And God said unto him. Thy 
 name is Jacob : thy name shall not be 
 called any more Jacob, “^but IsraeDchap. 32. 
 shall be thy name : and he called his 
 name Israel. 
 
 1 1 And God said unto him, I am 
 God Almighty : be fruitful and mul- 
 tiply ; a nation and a company of na- 
 
 ceremonial washings being the prototypes of 
 baptism, by which, false religions being re- 
 jected, men are brought into the Church of 
 the living God. 
 
 4. ear-rings^ perhaps talismans or idola- 
 
 trous symbols worn in the ear. Augus- 
 tine ad h. 1.) call| them “idolatrous 
 
 phylacteries,” idolorum phylacteria^ and (‘ Epist.’ 
 CCXLV.) he mentions a superstitious use of ear- 
 rings even in his own day among the African 
 Christians “not to please men but to serve 
 demons.” 
 
 the oak rjohich njoas by Shechem] See 
 note on ch. xii. 6. It may have been under 
 the very oak, or oak-grove, where Abraham 
 pitched his tent, and which seems to have 
 been sacred even in Joshua’s time (Josh. xxiv. 
 26). 
 
 5. the terror of God] God inspired 
 into the minds of the neighbouring tribes a 
 sense of fear, so that they did not pursue 
 Jacob in order to avenge the slaughter of the 
 Shechemites. 
 
 6. Lu^] See ch. xxviii. 19. 
 
 7. El-beth-eF] i.e. “the God of Beth- 
 el,” or “the God of the House of God.” 
 At Bethel God first appeared to him. Then 
 he devoted himself to God’s service and re- 
 ceived the promises of God’s protection. He 
 accordingly called the place Bethel, which 
 name he now renew^s with addition of El. 
 
 God appeared unto him] The word for 
 God, “Elohim,” being here as generally in the 
 plural, the verb is by a kind of attraction put 
 in the plural also. Some have discovered in 
 this a relic of polytheism, and Onkelos h^is 
 rendered angels, a most unwarrantable trans- 
 lation. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the 
 
 LXX. and Vulg. Versions have the verb in 
 the singular, which may be the true reading; 
 but see on ch. xx. 13. 
 
 8. AUon-bachuth] “The oak of v/eeping.” 
 
 9. God appeared unto facob again, ^tvhen 
 he came out of Padan-aram] He was now at 
 Bethel, the place from which he may be con- 
 sidered to have set out for Padan-aram, and 
 where he made his vow that if God would 
 be with him and be his God, he would make 
 that place the house of God. He had now 
 come back again to the same spot; he had 
 fulfilled his vow by consecrating Bethel as the 
 temple of God ; this might then well be con- 
 sidered as the accomplishment of his return 
 from Padan-aram. Accordingly God ap- 
 pears. to him here once more, promises him 
 again, and more emphatically, protection, 
 blessing, inheritance, confii*ms the name of 
 Israel to him, a name given by the angel at 
 the ford of the brook Jabbok, but now^ fixed 
 and ratified, and assures him that his posterity 
 shall be numerous, powerful and blessed 
 Accordingly Jacob, recognizing the fulfilment 
 of all that had been promised him wfiien he 
 fled from Esau, and of all that his vows had 
 pointed to, rears again a stone pillar as he had 
 done forty years before, and again solemnly 
 names the place Bethel. The wfiiole of this 
 history thoroughly fits in to all that has gone 
 before, there being nothing whatever to sup- 
 port the notion that it is a mere legendary 
 repetition of the previous vision. 
 
 11. I am God Almighty] El-Shaddai. 
 It was by this name that God revealed Him- 
 self to Abram, w^hen he changed his name to 
 Abraham, and promised him the land of 
 Canaan for an everlasting possession (see ch. 
 xvii. 8). The use of the same name here is 
 
i88 
 
 GENESIS. XXXV. [v. 12-27. 
 
 tions shall be of thee, and kings shall 
 come out of thy loins ; 
 
 12 And the land v/hich I gave 
 Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will 
 give it, and to thy seed after thee will 
 I give the land. 
 
 13 And God went up from him in- 
 the place#where he talked with him. 
 
 14 And Jacob set up a pillar in the 
 place where he talked with him, even 
 a pillar of stone : and he poured a 
 drink offering thereon, and he poured 
 oil thereon. 
 
 15 And Jacob called the name of 
 the place where God spake with him, 
 Beth-el. 
 
 16 And they journeyed from 
 fHeb. Beth-el; and there was but ^a little 
 
 way to come to Ephrath : and Rachel 
 ground, travailed, and she had hard labour. 
 
 17 And it came to pass, when she 
 was in hard labour, that the midwife 
 said unto her. Fear not; thou shalt 
 have this son also. 
 
 II That is, 18 And it came to pass, as«her soul 
 uiy 7 or- departing, (for she died) that 
 
 w. ^ she called his name “Ben-oni: but 
 tiu-'scmof his father called him "Benjamin. 
 kaud'‘^ 19 Rachel died, and was bu- 
 
 ried in the way to Ephrath, which is 
 Beth-lehem. 
 
 20 And Jacob set a pillar upon her . 
 grave : that is the pillar of Rachel’s 
 grave unto this day. 
 
 21 ^ And Israel journeyed, and 
 spread his tent beyond the tower of 
 Edar. 
 
 22 And it came to pass, when Is- 
 rael dwelt in that land, that Reuben 
 went and ‘^lay v/ith Bilhah his fa- chap, 
 ther’s concubine : and Israel heard it. 
 
 Nov/ the sons of Jacob were twelve: 
 
 23 The sons of Leah ; Reuben, 
 Jacob’s firstborn, and Simeon, and 
 Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and 
 Zebulun : 
 
 24 The sons of Rachel; Joseph, 
 and Benjamin : 
 
 25 And the sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s 
 handmaid; Dan, and Naphtali: 
 
 26 And the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s 
 handmaid; Gad, and Asher: these 
 are the sons of Jacob, which were 
 born to him in Padan-aram. 
 
 27 ^ And Jacob came unto Isaac 
 his father unto Mamre, unto the city 
 of Arbah, which is Hebron, where 
 Abraham and Isaac sojourned. 
 
 therefore singularly appropriate, and Jacob 
 refers to it with evident comfort and satisfac- 
 tion at the close of his life (see ch. xlviii. 3). 
 
 16 . a little ^aj] These words pro- 
 bal-ly in the original denote a definite space. 
 The LXX. does riot translate the principal 
 word. The Vulg. impi-operly i-enders “in the 
 Spring time.” Onk. has “an aci'e of land;” 
 the Syi*. “a parasang;” S.iad. and Arab. 
 Erpen. “a mile.” The Jews generally incline 
 to understand “a mile,” because of the tra- 
 ditions that Rachel’s tomb was a mile from 
 Bethlehem or Ephrath (v. 19). 
 
 18 . Ben-oni\ /.f-. “son of my sorrow.” 
 
 Benjamin'] i.e. “son of the right hand,” a 
 name of good significance, the right hand 
 being connected with prospei'ity, as the left 
 hand was with calamity. Some ancient vei'- 
 sions (favoured by the Samaritan Pentateuch) 
 interpnt Benjamin as “son of days,” i.e. 
 “son of old age.” There is evidently, how- 
 evcT, an antithesis between Benoni, “son of 
 sorrow,” and Benjamin, “son of prosperity.” 
 It might possibly be interpreted “son of 
 strength,” from the “strong right hand.” 
 
 20. unto this day'] i.e. till Moses wrote. 
 It was worthy of notice that the pillar still 
 
 stood after the land had been so long inhabit- 
 ed by unfriendly tribes. On the knowledge 
 of the geography of Palestine by Moses, see 
 Introduction to the Pentateuch, p. 17. 
 
 21 . tower of Edar] i.e. “tower of the 
 flock.” It was apparently a watch-tower for 
 the protection of flocks against robbers and 
 wild beasts. (Gp. % K. xviii. 8 ; % Chr. xxvi. 
 10, xxvii. 4.) 
 
 22. Reuben] The incest of Reuben is 
 punished by his being deprived of his right of 
 primogeniture, ch. xlix. 3, 4; i Chr. v. i. 
 
 and Israel heard it] The LXX. adds 
 “and it was evil in his sight.” The silence 
 of the Hebrew expresses more eloquently the 
 indignation of the offended patriarch. 
 
 26 . in Padan-aram] i.e. except Ben- 
 jamin, whose birth has just been recorded in 
 Canaan (v. 18). 
 
 27 . Jacob came unto Isaac his father] 
 Whether this was just before Isaac’s death, 
 or whether Jacol) spent some time at Mamre 
 with his father, we do not read. If this were 
 only just before his death it is very probable 
 that Jacob had visited him from time to time 
 before. 
 
189 
 
 V. 28 - 13 .] GENESIS. XXXV. XXXVI. 
 
 28 And the days of Isaac were an 
 hundred and fourscore years. 
 
 29 And Isaac gave up the ghost, 
 ^ckap. 25. and died, and ""was gathered unto his 
 
 people, being old and full of days : and 
 his sons Esau and Jacob buried him. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 1 Esau's three wives. 6 His removing to mount 
 Seir. 9 His sons. 15 The dukes 7 ohich de- 
 scended of his sons. 20 •The so?is and dukes of 
 Seir. 2 \ Allah findeth mules, The kings 
 of Edom. 40 The dukes that descended of 
 Esau. 
 
 N OW these are the generations 
 of Esau, who is Edom. 
 
 2 Esau took his wives of the daugh- 
 ters of Canaan; Adah the daughter 
 of Elon the Hittite, and Aholibamah 
 the daughter of Anah the daughter 
 of Zibeon the Hivite ; 
 
 3 And Bashemath IshmaePs daugh- 
 ter, sister of Nebajoth. 
 
 «iChron. 4 And "Adah bare to Esau Eli- 
 phaz ; and Bashemath bare Reuel ; 
 
 5 And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and 
 Jaalam, and Korah: these are the 
 sons of Esau, which were born unto 
 him in the land of Canaan. 
 
 6 And Esau took his wives, and 
 
 his sons, and his da*Lighters, and all 
 the ^ persons of his house, and his cat- t Heb. 
 tie, and all his beasts, and all his 
 substance, which he had got in the 
 land of Canaan; and went into the 
 country from the face of his brother 
 Jacob. 
 
 7 For their riches were more than 
 that they might dwell together; and 
 the land wherein they were strangers 
 could not bear them because of their 
 cattle. 
 
 8 Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir: <5 josh. 24. 
 Esau is Edom. 
 
 9 ^ And these are the generations 
 
 of Esau the father of ^ the Edomites t Heb. 
 in mount Seir : Edom. 
 
 10 These are the names of Esau’s 
 
 sons; ‘^Eliphaz the son of Adah the^^iChroD, 
 wife of Esau, Reuel the son of Bashe- 
 math the wife of Esau. 
 
 11 And the sons of Eliphaz were 
 Teman, Omar,. Zepho, and Gatam, 
 and Kenaz. 
 
 12 And Timna was concubine to 
 Eliphaz Esau’s son ; and she bare to 
 Eliphaz Amalek: these were the sons 
 of Adah Esau’s wife. 
 
 1 3 And these are the sons of Reu- 
 
 Ghap. XXXVI. 2 , 3 . Adah, &c.] See 
 note A at the end of the Chapter. 
 
 6. nuent into the countrj\ Lit. “into 
 a land.” Onk. and Vulg. has “into another 
 land.” The Sam. Pen tat. has “from the land 
 of Canaan.” The LXX. “from the land.” 
 The Syr. reads “ into the land of Seir,” which 
 is adopted by Ewald, Knobel, Delitzsch, Keil, 
 &c. In ch. xxxii. 3, Esau is mentioned as in 
 the land of Seir, but then probably he was 
 only there for a time, perhaps engaged in its 
 conquest, now he finally takes up his abode 
 there. See note on xxxii. 3. 
 
 7. the land nvherein they nvere strangers 
 could not bear them because of their cattle'^ 
 They were not settled inhabitants, but only 
 sojourners in the land; and though they were 
 allowed to pasture their flocks in the land, yet 
 it was not to be expected that the settled in- 
 habitants would tolerate more than a reason- 
 able number of cattle from one family to eat 
 up the produce of their fields. 
 
 8. mount Mount Seir was the 
 
 mountainous country between the Dead Sea 
 and the Elamitic Gulf, the northern part of 
 which is called i.e. “the hill country,” 
 
 by the Arabs. So the Targums of Jerusalem 
 
 and Pseudo- Jonathan put here Gabala for 
 Seir. The southern part is called Sherah. 
 
 9. the father of the Edomites'] Lit. “the 
 father of Edom,” i.e. either “ the father of the 
 Edomites,” or “ the founder of Idumaea.” 
 
 11. Teman] We read elsewhere of a dis- 
 trict in Idumaea called Teman, famous for its 
 wisdom (Jer. xlix. 7, 20; Amos i. 12; Hab. 
 hi. 3); and in Job we meet with Eliphaz the 
 Temanite, probably descended from this Te- 
 man, the son of Eliphaz, the son of Esau. 
 Pliny (‘ H. N.’ vi. 32) speaks of the Thima- 
 naei in connection with Petra. 
 
 Omar] is compared by Knobel with the 
 Beni Ammer in Southern Palestine and Nor- 
 thern Idumaea, and with the Amarin Arabs 
 and the Amir Arabs, all mentioned by Seet- 
 zen, Burckhardt, and Robinson. 
 
 Zepho] Compare Zaphia, a place to the 
 south of the Dead Sea (Knobel). 
 
 Kenaz] Compare Aneizeh, the name of an 
 Arab tribe, and of a fortress to the north-east 
 of Petra (Knobel). 
 
 12. Amalek] The ancestor of the Ama- 
 lekites, who probably at an early period sepa- 
 rated themselves from the rest of the Edom- 
 
GENESIS. XXXVI. 
 
 [v. 14—24. 
 
 190 
 
 el; Nahath, and Zerah, Shammah, 
 and Mizzah : these were the sons of 
 Bashemath Esau’s wife. 
 
 14 And these were the sons of 
 Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah 
 the daughter of Zibeon, Esau’s wife: 
 and she bare to Esau Jeush, and 
 Jaalam, and Korah. 
 
 15 ^ I'hese were dukes of the sons 
 of Esau : the sons of Eliphaz the first- 
 born ion of Esau; duke Teman, duke 
 Omar, duke Zepho, duke Kenaz, 
 
 16 Duke Korah, duke Gatam, and 
 duke Amalek : these are the dukes 
 that came of Eliphaz in the land of 
 Edom; these were the sons of Adah. 
 
 17 ^ And these are the sons of 
 Reuel Esau’s son ; duke Nahath, duke 
 Zerah, duke Shammah, duke Mizzah : 
 these are the dukes that came of Reuel 
 in the land of Edom ; these are the 
 sons of Bashemath Esau’s wife. 
 
 18 ^ And these are the sons of 
 Aholibamah Esau’s wife; duke Jeush, 
 duke Jaalam, duke Korah : these were 
 the dukes that came of Aholibamah 
 the daughter of Anah, Esau’s wife. 
 
 19 These are the sons of Esau, v/ho 
 is Edom, and these are their dukes. 
 
 20 These the sons of Seir«^i Chron. 
 the Horite, who inhabited the land ; 
 
 Lotan, and Shobal, and Zibeon, and 
 Anah, 
 
 21 And Dishon, and Ezer, and Di- 
 shan : these are the dukes of the Elor- 
 ites, the children of Seir in the land 
 of Edom. 
 
 22 And the children of Lotan were 
 Hori and Hemam; and Lotan’s sister 
 was Timna. 
 
 23 And the children of Shobal 
 were these ; Alvan, and Manahath, 
 and Ebal, Shepho, and Onam. 
 
 24 And these are the children of 
 
 itcs, and formed a distinct and powerful tribe. 
 The Arabs have a legend concerning an abo- 
 riginal tribe of Amalek, with whom it has 
 been thought that the Eiomitish Amalekites 
 were fused, Noldeke has a monograph on 
 the Amalekites, in which he shews that the 
 Arabian legends concerning them are drawn 
 directly or indirectly from the Old Testa- 
 ment, and are utterly valueless when they de- 
 part from that only historical source. There 
 is no authority in the Old Testament for the 
 existence of this aboriginal tribe, except the 
 mention in ch. xiv. 7 of “ the country of the 
 Amalekites.” This name, however, is pro- 
 bably given by anticipation, not because the 
 country was so called in Abraham’s time, but 
 because it had become known by that title 
 before the time of Moses and the Exodus. 
 I'he Amalekites, having their chief seat to the 
 south of the mountains of Judah, as far as 
 Kadesh (Num. xiii. 29, xiv. 43, 45), spread 
 over the whole of the northern part of Arabia 
 (Y’trasa, from Havilah to Shur on the border 
 of Egypt (i S. XV. 3, 7, xxvii. 8); whilst one 
 branch penetrated into the heart of Canaan 
 (Judg. xii. 15). 
 
 13 . Nri/mt/y] “ A descent.” Cp. with 
 the valley of Akaba of like significance 
 (Knob.). 
 
 Sbammah\ Cp. the Samcni, a tribe of No- 
 mad Arabs mentioned by Steph. Byzant. 
 (Knob.) 
 
 14 . Aholibamah'] Sec note A on vv. z, 
 3 below. 
 
 Korah] Perhaps perpetuated in the mo- 
 dem tribe of Kurayeh (Knobel). 
 
 15 . dukes] i.e. duces ^ leaders of tribes, 
 phylarchs. I'he Hebrew alluph is connected 
 with eleph^ which signifies either “ a thousand” 
 or “a family.” Hence Bochart and others 
 understand here chiliarchs, leaders of thou- 
 sands; whilst others, with more probability, 
 understand phylarchs^ heads of tribes or fami- 
 lies, (see Ges. ‘Thes.’ pp. 10.^, 106). Ro- 
 senmiiller thinks that the word is used meto- 
 nymically for a family, and would render 
 “ These are the families (or tribes) of the sons 
 of Esau.” This interpretation would apply 
 well throughout the catalogue, but does not 
 so v/cll correspond with the etymology and 
 formation of the word. 
 
 16 . Duke Korah] These words are 
 omitted in one MS. in the Sam. Pent, and 
 Version. They are considered as having 
 crept in through a clerical error from v. 18, 
 by Kennicott, Tuch, Knobel, Delitzsch, 
 Keil, &c. 
 
 20. sons of Seir the Horite] The in- 
 habitants of the country previously to the 
 Edomitish invasion. The Horites (i.e. Trog. 
 lodytes or dwellers in caves), mentioned ch. 
 xiv. 6 as an independent people, were partly 
 exterminated and partly subdued by Esau and 
 his descendants (Deut. ii. 12, 22). 
 
 Lotan] is compared with Leyathan., the 
 name of a fierce tribe in the neighbourhood of 
 Petra (Knobel). 
 
 22. Hemam] Cp. Homaima, a place to 
 the south of Petra (Knoliel). 
 
 23 . AHan] Cp. the Alabin., a tribe of 
 Arabs of evil notoriety to the north of Akaba 
 (Knobel) 
 
V. 25— 33-] 
 
 GENESIS. XXXVI. 
 
 191 
 
 Zibeon ; both Ajah, and Anah : this 
 was that Anah that found the mules 
 in the wilderness, as he fed the asses 
 of Zibeon his father. 
 
 25 And the children of Anah were 
 these; Dishon, and Aholibamah the 
 daughter of Anah. 
 
 26 And these are the children of 
 Dishon; Hemdan, and Eshban, and 
 Ithran, and Cheran. 
 
 27 The children of Ezer are 
 these; Bilhan, and Zaavan, and A- 
 kan. 
 
 28 The children of Dishan are 
 these; Uz, and Aran. 
 
 29 These are the dukes that came 
 of the Horites; duke Lotan, duke 
 Shobal, duke Zibeon, duke Anah, 
 
 30 Duke Dishon, duke Ezer, duke 
 Dishan: these are the dukes that came 
 of Hori, among their dukes in the 
 land of Seir. 
 
 31 ^ And these are the kings that 
 reigned in the land of Edom, before 
 there reigned any king over the chil- 
 dren of Israel. 
 
 32 And Bela the son of Beor 
 reigned in Edom : and the name of 
 his city was Dinhabah. 
 
 33 And Bela died, and Jobab the 
 
 Manahath'] Ptolemy, v. 17, 3, mentions 
 Manycbiates west of Petra (Knobel). 
 
 Shepho] Cp. the hill Shafeh north of Akaba 
 (Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ i. 256; Knobel). 
 
 24. Anah that found the mules\ Anah that 
 fonndthe hot springs. (Seenoteon vv. 2, 3 
 below.) The Greek Versions do not translate 
 the word yemim (the LXX. has rov ’la^teiV). 
 The Samaritan text has “the Emim,” a gigan- 
 tic ptx^ple, with which agrees the Targum of 
 Onkelos, “the giants.” This is followed by 
 Bochart, Patrick, and others. The Targum 
 of Pseudo- Jonathan renders “mules,” being 
 followed herein by Saad., Kimchi, and many 
 Rabbins, by Luther, and the Authorised Ver- 
 sion. The Vulgate renders “warm waters,” 
 aqtias calldas^ and the Syriac has “waters,” 
 a rendering adopted by Gesen. (see ‘Thes.’ 
 p. 586), Rosenm., Schumann, and most mo- 
 dern interpreters. There were many warm 
 springs in this region, the most famous being 
 Callirrhoe, in the Wady Zerka Maein, which 
 some suppose to have been the very springs 
 discovered by Anah. 
 
 31. And these are the kings that reigned 
 in the land of Edom^ before there reigned any 
 king o'ver the children of Israel] These words 
 have led many to suppose that this and the 
 follov/ing verses were a late interpolation, as, 
 it is thought, they must have been written 
 after kings had reigned in Israel. Spinoza 
 argued from them that it was clearer than 
 midday that the whole Pentateuch was written 
 centuries after the time of Moses; a most il- 
 logical conclusion, for the utmost that could 
 be inferred Avould be that (as Kennicott sup- 
 posed) these verses were taken from i Chron. 
 i. 43 — 54, and having been inserted in the 
 margin of a very ancient MS. of Genesis, had 
 crept into the text. 
 
 There is however nothing inconsistent with 
 the Mosaic origin of the whole passage. In 
 the last chapter (ch. xxxv. ii) there had been 
 
 an emphatic promise from God Almighty 
 (El-Shaddai) to Jacob that “kings should 
 come out of his loins.” The Israelites, no 
 doubt, cherished a constant hope of such a 
 kingdom and such a kingly race. Moses him-, 
 self (Dent, xxviii. 36) prophesied concerning 
 the king that the Israelites should set over 
 them; and hence it was not unnatural that, 
 when recording the eight kings, who had 
 reigned in the family of Esau up to his own 
 time, he should have noted that as yet no 
 king had risen from the family of his brother 
 Jacob, to whom a kingly progeny had been 
 promised. The words in the original are 
 “before the reigning of a king to the sons of 
 Israel;” and might be rendered, “whilst as 
 yet the children of Israel have no king;” there 
 being nothing in the words expressive of a 
 past tense, or indicating that before the writ- 
 ing of the sentence a king had reigned in 
 Israel. 
 
 The other difficulty in the passage is chro- 
 nological, it being thought that so many dukes 
 and kings could not have succeeded one an- 
 other in the period which elapsed from Esau 
 to Moses. But there is no reason to suppose 
 that the dukes, mentioned from v. 15 to 19, 
 reigned in succession, then the kings from v. 
 31 to 39, and then again the dukes mentioned 
 from V. 40 to 43. On the contrary, a compari- 
 son of Num. XX. 14 with Exod. xv. 15 shews, 
 that a single king was reigning in Edom con- 
 temporaneously with several dukes or phyl- 
 archs. The dukes (as their title indicates) 
 were not sovereigns of the whole of Idumaea, 
 but princes or rulers of tribes or provinces: 
 moreover the kings do not appear to have 
 succeeded by inheritance, the son never suc- 
 ceeding to his father, flence they were pro- 
 bably elected by the dukes. 
 
 33. Jobab] The LXX. and some of the 
 fathers consider this to have been the same 
 person as Job; and the mention of Eliphaz in 
 V. II in connection with Teman, and of Eli- 
 
192 
 
 GENESIS. XXXVI. 
 
 [v. 34— 43- 
 
 son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in 
 his stead. 
 
 34 And Jobab died, and Husham 
 of the land of Temani reigned in his 
 stead. 
 
 35 And Husham died, and Hadad 
 the son of Bedad, who smote Midian 
 in the field of Moab, reigned in his 
 stead : and the name of his city was 
 Avith. 
 
 36 And Hadad died, and Samlah 
 of Masrekah reigned in his stead. 
 
 37 And Samlah died, and Saul of 
 Rehoboth hy the river reigned in his 
 stead. 
 
 38 And Saul died, and Baal-hanan 
 the son of Achbor reigned in his 
 stead. 
 
 39 And Baal-hanan the son of 
 
 Achbor died, and Hadar reigned in 
 his stead : and the name of his city 
 was Pau; and his wife’s name was 
 Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, 
 the daughter of Mezahab. 
 
 40 And these are the names of the 
 dukes that came of Esau, according 
 to their families, after their places, by 
 their names; duke Timnah, duke 
 Alvah, duke Jetheth, 
 
 41 Duke Aholibamah, duke Elah, 
 duke Pinon, 
 
 42 Duke Kenaz, duke Teman, duke 
 Mibzar, 
 
 43 Duke Magdiel,- duke I ram : 
 these be the dukes of Edom, accord- 
 ing to their habitations in the land of 
 their possession: he is Esau the fa- 
 ther of ^ the Edomites. 
 
 t Heb. 
 Edo^tu 
 
 phaz the Temanite in the book of Job favours 
 this belief. 
 
 Bo%rah'\ A famous city of Idumaea (see 
 Isa. xxxiv. 6, Ixiii. i, &c.), remains of w'hich 
 are still traced in El Buseireh^ a ruined village 
 in Jebal. (Burckhardt, ‘Syr.’ 407; Robinson, 
 II. 167.) 
 
 37 . Rehoboth by the ri^er'\ or Rehoboth 
 Hannahar^ so distinguished from Rehoboth Ir^ 
 ch. X. II. The river here is probably the 
 Euphrates. 
 
 39 . Hadar] Called Hadad in i Chr. i. 
 50, and here also in the Samaritan text. He 
 probably was living when Moses wrote, as no 
 mention is made of his death, an argument for 
 the Mosaic origin of this chapter; for Hadad 
 could hardly have been living after the time of 
 the kings of Israel, to which period those who 
 from V. 31 consider it to be an interpolation 
 would assign this genealogy, or perhaps the 
 whole chapter. 
 
 40 . Atid these are the names of the 
 dukes ^ &c.] From comparing the words in 
 
 this verse “ after their places, by their names” 
 with those in v. 43, “according to their habi- 
 tations in the land of their possession,” it is 
 inferred with great probability, that this se- 
 cond catalogue of dukes is, not a catalogue of 
 dukes who reigned subsequently to the kings 
 of the preceding verses, nor a different version 
 of the catalogue given in vv. 15 to 19, but ra- 
 ther a territorial catalogue, recounting, not 
 the names, but the cities in which the various 
 dukes or phylarchs before named had their 
 seat of government. If so, we must render 
 “ the duke of Timnah, the duke of Alvah, the 
 duke of Jetheth, &c.” Two of the names in 
 this list correspond with two in the former 
 list, viz. Timnah and Kenaz, because, as it is 
 supposed, the dukes Timnah and Kenaz called 
 their cities after their own names. Aholiba- 
 mah may have been a city called after the 
 Horite princess (v. 25). (So Schumann, Kno- 
 bel, Del., Keil, Kalisch, &c.). 
 
 43 . the father of the Edomites] See on 
 
 V. 9. 
 
 NOTE A on Chap, xxxvi. vv. 2 , 
 
 Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite^ and 
 Aholibamah the daughter of Atiah^ the daugh~ 
 ter ofZibeon the Hrvite; and Bashemath, Ish- 
 maeP s daughter^ sister of Nebajoth] The dif- 
 ficulty of reconciling this with the names of 
 the three wives of Ksau, as given in ch. xxvi. 
 34, xxviii. 3, will be seen by comparing the 
 two accounts as follows; 
 
 Ch. xxvi. 34, xxviii. 9. 
 
 1. Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite. 
 
 2. ikishcmath, daughter of Elon the Hittite. 
 
 3 . Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael, sister 
 
 to Nebaioth. 
 
 Ch. xxxvi. 2. 
 
 1 . Aholibamah, daughter of Anah daugh- 
 
 ter of Zibeon the Hivite. 
 
 2 . Adah, daughter of Elon the Hittite. 
 
 3. Bashemath, daughter of Ishmael, sister 
 
 to Nebaioth. 
 
 F rom this table it appears that every one of 
 the three wives is designated by a different 
 name in the earlier history from that in the 
 later genealogy. Yet there can be little doubt 
 that 2 Bashemath the daughter of Elon = Adah 
 the daughter of Elon, nor that 3 Mahalath = 
 Bashemath, both being described as daughter 
 
GENESIS. XXXVII. 
 
 193 * 
 
 V. 1, 2.] 
 
 of Ishmael, and sister of Nebaioth. We may 
 therefore conclude also that 1 Judith — A holi- 
 bamah. This excludes the explanation sug- 
 gested by several commentators, that the wives 
 of Esau, named in ch. xxvi. 34 had died with- 
 out offspring, and that Esau had married 
 others. It seems far more probable that the 
 one set of names were those which they bore in 
 their father’s house, the other set having been 
 given to them by Esau, or by the Edomites, 
 after they had become mothers of tribes. 
 
 1 . The identity of Judith and Aholibamah 
 may appear thus. J udith is called the daugh- 
 ter of Beeri the Hittite, whilst Aholibamah is 
 called “the daughter of Anah, the daughter 
 of Zibeon the Hivite.” Anah was probably 
 not the mother, but the father of Aholibamah, 
 the second “daughter” being referrible back 
 to Aholibamah, and not attributable to Anah 
 (unless the reading of the Samaritan, LXX., 
 and Syriac, “ the son of Zibeon,” be the right 
 reading); for in v. 24 we find that Anah was 
 the son of Zibeon, and the grandson of Seir 
 the Horite. The reason why the same person 
 has been called Anah and Beeri has been de- 
 rived by Hengstenberg and others from the 
 fact that Anah is said, in v. 24, to have dis- 
 covered the hot springs, from which very pro- 
 bably he acquired the name of Beeri, Le. font- 
 anus^ “ the well-finder.” A greater difficulty 
 is apparent in his being called a “Hittite” 
 (xxvi. 34), a “Hivite” (xxxvi. 2), and a 
 “ Horite” (xxxvi. 20). It is observed that 
 these three words “ Hittite,” “ Hivite,” and 
 “ Horite,” differ in Hebrew by one letter 
 only, and that they were easily interchanged 
 in transcription. It is, however, clear (from 
 xxvii. 46) that Rebekah calls Judith a daugh- 
 ter of Heth. And from xxxvi. 20, 24, 25, 
 that Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, was 
 a Horite. The difficulty seems therefore rather 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 2 foseph is hated of his brethren. 5 Plis tivo 
 dreams. 13 facob sendeth him to visit his 
 brethren. 1 8 His brethren co 7 ispire hii death. 
 21 Reuben saveth him. 26 They sell hhn to 
 the Ishmeelites. 31 His father, deceived 'by 
 the bloody coat, momnieth for him. 36 He is 
 sold to Potiphar in Egypt. 
 
 to admit of solution by saying that Hittite 
 (like Amorite) was a generic name for a large 
 portion of the Ganaaaitish people, compre- 
 hending both Hivites and Horites. It is not 
 improbable that Hivite in v. 2 may be an 
 error of transcription for Horite ('in for 'in), 
 in which case we have only to conclude that 
 the Horites of Mount Seir were reckoned by 
 Isaac and Rebecca as among the Hittite in- 
 habitants of Canaan. If, however, the read- 
 ing Hivite be correct, it is not impossible that 
 the Hivites, a southern people, may originally 
 have come from Mount Seir, and have been 
 dwellers in its rocky fastnesses, which is the 
 meaning of the word Horite (troglodyte, 
 dweller in caves). If this be correct, then 
 we must conclude that Judith the daughter 
 of Anah, called Beeri, from his fiiiding the 
 hot springs, and the granddaughter of Zibeon 
 the Horite, one of the tribes reckoned in the 
 great Hittite family, when she married Esau, 
 assumed the name of Aholibamah (“the tent 
 of the height”). 
 
 2. Bashemath is described exactly as Adah 
 is, i.e. as the daughter of Elon the Hittite. 
 There is no difficulty here except in the 
 change of name into Adah, “ornament,” a 
 change not improbable for Esau to have made. 
 
 3 . In the same manner Mahalath is the 
 daughter of Ishmael the sister of Nebaioth, 
 and Bashemath is the daughter of Ishmael the 
 sister of Nebaioth. There would be no diffi- 
 culty in this, except that Bashemath, the se- 
 cond name of the daughter of Ishmael, is the 
 same with the first name of the daughter of 
 Elon the Hittite. If this seems to some irre- 
 concileable with probability, it may be ascribed 
 to an error of transcription, likely enough to 
 occur in the writing out of genealogies, and 
 the Samaritan text reads Mahalath in the ge- 
 nealogy as well as in the history. 
 
 A nd Jacob dwelt in the land 
 
 Wherein his father was a stranger, + Heb. 
 in the land of Canaan. fhel^/so- 
 
 2 These are the generations of 
 cob. Joseph, being seventeen years 
 old, was feeding the flock with his 
 brethren; and the lad was with the 
 
 Chap. XXXVII. 1. And Jacob dwelt in 
 the land, &c.] Ch. xxxv. concluded the his- 
 tory of Isaac. Ch. xxxvi. disposed of the 
 history of Esau and his descendants down to 
 the very time of the Exodus. (See on ch. 
 xxxvi. 39.) This first verse of ch. xxxvii. 
 now lands us in the time and place, from 
 whence the succeeding history is to begin. 
 Jacob dwelt in the land of his father’s 
 sojournings, in the land of Canaan. 
 Esau had left Canaan to Jacob, who after 
 their father’s death became the sojourner in the 
 land, which his posterity were to possess. 
 
 VoL. I. 
 
 2 . These are the generations of Jacob.'] 
 The Toledoth, or genealogical history of Isaac 
 began (ch. xxv. 19) after the death of his 
 father Abraham, a few verses having been 
 allotted (w. 12 — 18) to dispose of the his- 
 tory of his brother Ishmael. In the same 
 manner, the Toledoth of Jacob are given in this 
 chapter after the death of his father Isaac, 
 ch. xxxvi. having intei*vened to account for 
 Esau and his family. Many of the preceding 
 chapters had been occupied with the histoi*y 
 of Jacob and his sons, but Jacob’s Toledoth 
 begin at this point, because now he has become 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 GENESIS. XXXVII 
 
 [v. 3 — 10 . 
 
 H Or, 
 pieces. 
 
 sons ofBi]hah,and with the sons of Zil- 
 pah, his father’s wives: and Joseph 
 brought unto his father their evil report. 
 
 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more 
 than all his children, because he was 
 the son of his old age : and he made 
 him a coat of many “ colours. 
 
 4 And when his brethren saw that 
 their father loved him more than all 
 his brethren, they hated him, and 
 could not speak peaceably unto him. 
 
 5 ^ And Joseph dreamed a dream, 
 and he told it his brethren : and they 
 hated him yet the more. 
 
 6 And he said unto them. Hear, I 
 pray you, this dream which I have 
 dreamed : 
 
 7 For, behold, we were binding 
 
 sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf 
 arose, and also stood upright ; and, be- 
 hold, your sheaves stood round about, 
 and made obeisance to my sheaf. 
 
 8 And his brethren said to him, 
 Shalt thou indeed reign over us.? or 
 shalt thou indeed have dominion over 
 us? And they hated him yet the 
 more for his dreams, and for his 
 words. 
 
 9 ^ And he dreamed yet another 
 dream, and told it his brethren, and 
 said. Behold, I have dreamed a dream 
 more ; and, behold, the sun and the 
 moon and the eleven stars made obei- 
 sance to me. 
 
 10 And he told it to his father, 
 and to his brethren: and his father 
 
 the sole head and father of the chosen seed. 
 Th^Toledoth, or family history, of Jacob con- 
 tinues now till his death ch. 1. 
 
 2. Joseph., being seventeen years old.'] This 
 history goes back a few years; for Isaac must 
 have been living when Joseph was seven- 
 teen. (See note at the end of ch. xxxi.) 
 But the historian had fully wound up the 
 history of Isaac, before commencing the Tole~ 
 doth of Jacob; and he now gives unity to the 
 history of the descent into Egypt by beginning 
 with the adolescence of Joseph, his father’s 
 fondness for him, and his brothers’ jealousy 
 of him. 
 
 3 . the son of his old age] It is not im- 
 possible that the greater part of this narrative 
 may have been chronologically before the birth 
 of Benjamin and the death of Rachel, related 
 
 in ch. XXXV. i8. 
 
 coat of many colours] (i). The LXX. 
 Vulg. and most modern versions render a 
 garment made of different pieces, of patch- 
 work, and so of many colours. In the well- 
 known scene from the tomb of Chnoumhotep 
 at Beni Hassan, a tomb of the X I Ith dynasty, 
 the Semitic visitors who are offering presents 
 to the Governor are dressed in robes of rich 
 colouring, apparently fomaed of separate small 
 pieces or patches sewn together. There is an 
 excellent engraving and explanation in Brugsch, 
 ‘Histoire d’Egypte,’ p. 63. 
 
 (2). The versions ot Aquila, Symm., Syr. 
 render a tunic with sleeves or fringes extending 
 to both hands and feet, tunica manicata et 
 talaris (see Hieron, ‘ Qu.’ ad h. 1 .), which is 
 the interpretation adopted by most modern 
 Hebraists (see Ges. ‘d'hes.’ p. 1 1 1 7). We find 
 Thamar, the daughter of David, wearing this 
 same dress (2 S. xiii. 18): and Josephus 
 (‘Ant.’ vii. 8. i) speaks of long garments reach- 
 
 ing to the hands and ankles as worn by Jewish 
 maidens. But the engraving at Beni Hassan 
 just mentioned makes the former interpreta- 
 tion (i) the more probable. 
 
 It has been thought by some that Jacob, 
 in his anger at thje sins of his elder sons, 
 especially of Reuben his firstborn, and in his 
 partiality for Joseph, the firstborn of Rachel, 
 designed to give him the right of primogeniture, 
 that this robe was the token of birthright, and 
 perhaps even designating the priestly office of 
 the head of the family. (See Heidegger, Tom. ii. 
 p. 581. Braunius ‘de Vestitu sacerdotali,’ pp. 
 473 sqq., Kurtz, Vol.i. p.378, Clark’s transla- 
 tion, Blunt, ‘Undesigned Coincidences,’ p. 15.) 
 
 7 . we were binding sheaves in the field] 
 It appears from this, that Jacob was not a 
 mere nomad, but, like his father Isaac (ch. 
 xxvi. 12), had adopted agricultural as well as 
 pastoral employments. 
 
 10 . his father rebuked him] Joseph 
 may have told the dream in the simplicity 
 of his heart, or perhaps he may have been 
 elated by his father’s partiality and by “the 
 abundance of the revelations” (2 Cor. xii. 7). 
 
 thy mother] It is possible that Rachel 
 may have been living now, for neither the date 
 of the dream nor of Rachel’s death are clearly 
 given. The dream may have been some time 
 before the selling of Joseph, and is only re- 
 lated here as one of the reasons which caused 
 his brethren to hate him. If, however, Ra- 
 chel was dead, we must then understand Jacob 
 to mean by “thy mother” either Leah, who 
 would be his step-mother, or perhaps more 
 likely Bilhah, who was Rachel’s handmaid, 
 and at once nurse and step-mother to Jo- 
 seph; and it is not impossible that in either 
 Leah or Bilhah the dream may have been ful- 
 filled; for we do not know whether they were- 
 
V. II — 24.] 
 
 GENESIS. XXXVII. 
 
 195 
 
 rebuked him, and said unto him, 
 What is this dream that thou hast 
 dreamed? Shall I and thy mother 
 and thy brethren indeed come to bow- 
 down ourselves to thee to the earth ? 
 
 1 1 And his brethren envied him ; 
 but his father observed’ the saying. 
 
 12 ^ And his brethren went to feed 
 their father’s flock in Shechem. 
 
 13 And Israel said unto Joseph, 
 Do not thy brethren feed the flock 
 in Shechem? come, and I will send 
 thee unto them. And he said to 
 him, Here am I. 
 
 14 And he said to him. Go, I pray 
 \ Heb. thee, ^ see whether it be well with thy 
 ^flcac^of brethren, and well with the flocks; 
 fkren'&^c bring me word again. So he 
 
 sent him out of the vale of Hebron, 
 and he came to Shechem. 
 
 15 ^ And a certain man found 
 him, and, behold, he was wandering 
 in the field: and the man asked him, 
 saying. What seekest thou ? 
 
 16 And he said, I seek my bre- 
 thren : tell me, I pray thee, where 
 they feed their flocks. 
 
 17 And the man said. They are 
 departed hence ; for I heard them say. 
 Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph 
 
 went after his brethren, and found 
 them in Dothan. 
 
 18 And v/hen they saw him afar 
 off, even before he came near unto 
 them, they conspired against him to 
 slay him. 
 
 19 And they said one to another, 
 
 Behold, this ^ dreamer cometh. t Heb. 
 
 20 Come now therefore, and let 
 us slay him, and cast him into some 
 pit, and we will say. Some evil beast 
 hath devoured him : and we shall see 
 what will become of his dreams. 
 
 21 And "Reuben heard /V, and he chap. 42. 
 delivered him out of their hands; and 
 
 said. Let us not kill him. 
 
 22 And Reuben said unto them. 
 
 Shed no blood, but cast him into this 
 pit that is in the wilderness, and lay 
 no hand upon him; that he might rid 
 him out of their hands, to deliver him 
 to his father again. 
 
 23 ^ And it came to pass, when 
 Joseph was come unto his brethren, 
 that they stript Joseph out of his 
 coat, hii coat of many ” colours that “ Or, 
 
 1 . pieces. 
 
 was on him ; 
 
 24 And they took him, and cast 
 him into a pit: and the pit was empty, 
 there was no water in it. 
 
 alive or not when Jacob went down into 
 Egypt. 
 
 14 . out of the 'vale of Hebron, and he 
 came to Shechem'] It appears from this that 
 Jacob was now dwelling in the neighbourhood 
 of Hebron where his father Isaac was still 
 living (see on v. 3). After the slaughter of 
 the Shechemites (see ch. xxxiv.) Jacob jour- 
 neyed southward; but from the fact that his 
 sons were sent to feed sheep in Shechem, it is 
 not impossible that he may have left some of 
 his cattle still in their old pastures, and his 
 anxiety here about his sons, who were thus 
 feeding in Shechem, may have arisen in part 
 from the enmity excited against them in that 
 neighbourhood by their violence. In ch. xxxv. 
 we trace Jacob’s southward joumeyings from 
 Shechem lirst to Bethel, v. 6 ; then to Bethle- 
 hem, vv. 16, 19; then to the tower of Edar, 
 V. 21; and finally to Hebron, v. 27, where 
 Isaac died, v. 29. But from this verse, ch. 
 xxxvii, 14, we infer that Jacob must have 
 ai rived at Hebron several years before his 
 father’s death. 
 
 17 . Dothan'] or Dothaln, the two wells or 
 cisterns. They may have gone there because 
 
 of the water in these wells. Dothan is said 
 (Euseb. ‘ Onomasticon’) to have been twelve 
 Roman miles north of Sebaste {i.e. Shechem 
 or Samaria) towards the plain of Jezreel. It 
 still retains its ancient name (Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ 
 III. 122). 
 
 20 . some pit] A cistern, or well, dug by 
 the shepherds of the country, to catch and 
 preserve the rain-water. Some of these cis- 
 terns were very deep, and a lad thrown into 
 one of them would have been unable to escape. 
 
 24 . the pit rivas empty, there avas no 
 riuater in it] Apparently referred to by Zech. 
 ix. II, in a prophecy of the Messiah. Joseph 
 has been recognised by most Christian inter- 
 preters as a type of Christ; in his father’s love 
 for him, in his being sent to his brethren, re- 
 jected by them, sold to the Gentiles, delivered 
 to death, in the sanctity of his life, in his hu- 
 miliation, in his exaltation to be a Prince and 
 a Saviour, in that his father and mother and 
 brethren all came and bowed down to him. 
 We may notice here, that the counsels of his 
 brethren to prevent the fulfilment of his dreams, 
 like the counsels of Herod and the Jews to 
 prevent the fulfilment of the prophecies con- 
 
 N 2 
 
 ''i 
 
GENESIS. XXXVII. 
 
 [v- 25—35- 
 
 196 
 
 25 And they sat down to eat 
 bread: and they lifted up their. eyes 
 and looked, and, behold, a company 
 of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with 
 their camels bearing spicery and balm 
 and myrrh, going to carry it down to 
 Egypt. 
 
 26 And Judah said unto his bre- 
 thren, What profit is it if we slay 
 our brother, and conceal his blood ? 
 
 27 Come, and let us sell him to 
 the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand 
 be upon him; for he is our brother 
 
 1 Heb. andouv fiesh. And his brethren Were 
 
 hearke^iea, 
 
 content. 
 
 28 Then there passed by Midian- 
 ites merchantmen ; and they drew and 
 
 * Psai. 105. lifted up Joseph out of the pit, ^and 
 
 'Vvisd. 10. sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for 
 
 A^its 7. 9. twenty pieces of silver : and they 
 brought Joseph into Egypt. 
 
 29 ^ And Reuben returned unto 
 the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not 
 in the pit; and he rent his clothes. 
 
 30 And he returned unto his bre- 
 thren, and said, The child is not; 
 and I, whither shall I go? 
 
 31 And they took Joseph’s coat, 
 and killed a kid of the goats, and 
 dipped the coat in the blood; 
 
 32 And they sent the coat of many 
 colours, and they brought it to their 
 father ; and said. This have we found : 
 know now whether it be thy son’s 
 coat or no. 
 
 33 And he knew it, and said. It is 
 my son’s coat; an “^evil beast hath de- 
 voured him;- Joseph is without doubt 
 rent in pieces. 
 
 34 And Jacob rent his clothes, and 
 put sackcloth upon his loins, and 
 mourned for his son many days. 
 
 35 And all his sons and all his 
 daughters rose up to comfort him ; 
 but he refused to be comforted; and 
 he. said. For I will go down into the 
 grave unto my son mourning. Thus 
 his father wept for him. 
 
 ccrning Jesus, only served to bring about 
 God's counsels, which were wrought out by 
 the very means taken to defeat them. If 
 Joseph had not been sold to the Midianites, 
 he would never have been exalted to be gover- 
 nor in Egypt. If Christ had not been perse- 
 cuted and at last crucified, He would not 
 have worked out redemption for us, have risen 
 from the dead, and ascended up into His 
 glory. 
 
 25 . they sat donvn to eat bread] In 
 this heartless meal Reuben can have taken 
 no part. It appears from verse 29, that 
 he must have left his brethren, perhaps with 
 the very purpose of seeking means to rescue 
 Joseph. I'he simplicity and truthfulness of 
 the narrative are all the more apparent by 
 the indifference of the writer to the ques- 
 tion how and why it was that Reuben was 
 absent at this point of the history. A forger 
 would have been likely to tell all about it, and 
 make it all plain. Yet strangely enough, this 
 vc‘ry artlessness has been made an argument 
 against the historical truth of the narrative, as 
 Ixing clumsily arranged, and inconsistent in 
 these details. 
 
 25 . a company of Ishyiieelitts] “A tra- 
 velling company” or “caravan.” Ishmaelites 
 afterwards called Midianites in v. 28, and 
 .Medanim in v. 36. See note on ch. xxv. 2. 
 Medan and Mifiian were sons of .Abraham 
 by Keturah; Ishmael his son by Hagar. The 
 Ishmaelites and Midianites were near neigh- 
 
 bours, and ver)' probably joined together in 
 caravans and commercial enterprizes. Very 
 probably too the Ishmaelites, being the more 
 powerful tribe, may have by this time become 
 a general name for several smaller and asso- 
 ciated tribes. 
 
 spicery] probably “storax,” the gum of the 
 styrax-tree. So Aqu. followed by Bochart, 
 ‘Hieroz.’ II. p. 532, Gesen. ‘Thes.’ p-883, &c. 
 The LXX. and Vulg. give only “perfumes.” 
 
 balm] Probably the gum of the opobalsam 
 or balsam-tree, which grew abundantly in 
 Gilead, and was especially used for healing 
 wounds. This is the interpretation commonly 
 given by the Jews, and adopted by Bochart 
 (‘Hieroz.’ 1. 628) ; Celsius (‘ Hierob.’ ii. 180) ; 
 Ges. ‘Thes.’ 1185, &c.). Lee (Lex. in loc.) 
 contends for “mastich” as the right rendering. 
 
 ynyrrh] According to almost all modern 
 interpreters Ladanum, an odoriferous gum 
 found on the leaves of the cistus creticus or 
 cistus ladanifera. (See Celsius, ‘Hierob.’ I. 
 280 — 288, Gesen. ‘Thes.’ p. 748, Smith, ‘ Diet, 
 of Bible,’ s.v. Myrrh.) 
 
 27 . '^vere content] hearkened. 
 
 35 . his daughters] See on ch. xxx. 21. 
 hito the gra've] To sheol. He thought 
 his son devoured by wild Ix'asts, therefore the 
 word Sheol translated “grave” must here mean 
 the place of the departed. The word appears 
 to signify a hollow subterraneous place (comp. 
 hell hole^ See.). (See Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 1348.) 
 
 ). 44. 
 
v.36-6.] genesis. XXXVII. XXXVIII. 
 
 197 
 
 IHeb. 
 eunuch. 
 But the 
 word doth 
 signify not 
 only e7i- 
 nuchs, blit 
 also cham- 
 ber lains, 
 courtiers, 
 and o£i- 
 cers. 
 t Heb. 
 chief rf the 
 slaughter- 
 men, or, 
 execution- 
 ers. 
 
 I Or, 
 
 chief 7uar- 
 shal. 
 
 36 And the Midianites sold him 
 into Egypt unto Potiphar, an*^ officer 
 of Pharaoh’s, and ^ “ captain of the 
 guard. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 I yiidah begetteth Er, Onan, and Shelah. 6 
 Ennai'rieth Tamar. 8 The trespass of Onan. 
 II Tamar stayeth for Shelah. 13 She de- 
 ceiveth fiidah. 27 She beareth twins, Pharez 
 and Zarah. 
 
 K 
 
 ND it came to pass at that time, 
 that Judah went down from his 
 brethren, and turned in to a certain 
 Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. 
 
 2 And Judah saw there a daughter 
 of a certain Canaanite, whose name 
 
 was " Shuah ; and he took her, and i Chron. 
 went in unto her. 
 
 3 And she conceived, and bare a 
 son ; and he called his name Er. 
 
 4 ^ And she conceived again, and 
 bare a son ; and she called his name 
 Onan. 
 
 5 And she yet again conceived, 
 
 and bare a son; and called his name 
 Shelah : and he was at Chezib, when 
 she bare him. ' 
 
 6 And Judah took a wife for Er 
 
 36 . Potiphar'] Generally supposed to be 
 the same as Potiphera, i.e. “devoted to Ra,” 
 the Sun-God. (See Ges. ‘Thes.,’ p. 1094.) 
 It is far more probably “devoted to Par or 
 Phar,” i.e. to the Royal House or Palace. 
 (See ‘Excursus on Egyptian Words’ at the 
 end of this volume.) 
 
 an officer of Pharaoh's] Heb. ‘ ‘ an eunuch ; ” 
 but used also of chamberlains and other offi- 
 cers about the court. The immediate prede- 
 cessor in Manetho of Sesostris, who was of 
 the same dynasty with Joseph’s Pharaoh, was 
 slain by his eunuchs. 
 
 captain of the guar cT] Chief of the execu- 
 tioners, or “commander of the body guard,” 
 who executed the sentences of the king, (Cp. 
 2 K. XXV. 8; Jer. xxxix. 9, lii. 12.) Herod. 
 ( 1 1. 168) tells us that “a thousand Calasirians 
 and the same number of Hermotybians form- 
 ed in alternate years the body-guard of the 
 king” of Egypt. 
 
 exception of that which was involved in the 
 history of Joseph. There is also a remark- 
 able contrast brought vividly out by this 
 juxtaposition of the impure line, of Judah and 
 his children with the chastity and moral in- 
 tegrity of Joseph as seen in the succeeding 
 chapter. 
 
 at that time] It is by no means certain 
 that this note of time is to be immediately 
 connected with the events in the last chapter. 
 The strict chronological sequence in these 
 Toledoth is not always followed. Episodes, 
 like the genealogies of I shmael and Esau above 
 referred to, are introduced here and there, in 
 order to avoid interrupting the general order 
 of another narrative, and so this episode of the 
 history of Judah is brought in to prevent an 
 interruption in the history of Joseph. If the 
 chronology in note at the end of ch. xxxi. be 
 adopted, Judah' would have been at least 26 
 at the time of Jacob’s flight from Padan- 
 aram, and from that time to the going down 
 to Egypt there would be an interval of 33 
 years. 
 
 civent doewn from his brethren] i. e. went 
 southward (Abenezra, Rosenm. &c.). 
 
 Adullamite] Adullam, a place afterwards 
 famous in the history of David, i S. xxii. i 
 (see also Josh. xii. 15; 2 S. xxiii. 13; i Chr. 
 xi. 15; 2 Chr. xi. 7; Micah i. 15), is men- 
 tioned by Jerome as existing in his day, then 
 a small village to the east of Eleutheropolis. 
 It must have lain in the southeni part of the 
 plain of Judah, but its site has not been dis- 
 covered by modern travellers. 
 
 2. a certain Canaanite, nvhose name <voas 
 Shuah] Shuah was the name of the father 
 of Judah’s wife, not of the wife herself, 
 as appears from the Hebrew and from v. 
 12. This marriage of Judah with one of the 
 daughters of the land was the fruitful source 
 of sin and misery in, his family. 
 
 5 . at Chezib] Probably the same 3s Achzib 
 mentioned with Adullam, Mic. i. 14, 15. 
 
 Chap. XXXVIII. 1. it came to pass at 
 that time] This chapter may appear to be 
 an useless digression inserted at an incon- 
 venient time; but in reality it supplies a very 
 important link, and this was probably the 
 best place for its introduction. In the Tb/e- 
 doth, or family history, of Jacob, the two 
 chief persons were Joseph and Judah; Joseph 
 from his high character, his personal import- 
 ance, his influence in the future destinies of 
 the race, and his typical foreshadowing of the 
 Messiah; Judah, from his obtaining the vir- 
 tual right of primogeniture, and from his 
 being the ancestor of David and of the Son of 
 David. Hence, at a natural pause in the 
 history of Joseph, viz. when he had been 
 now sold into Egypt and settled in Potiphar’ s 
 house, the historian recurs to the events in 
 the family of Judah, which he carries down 
 to the birth of Pharez, the next link in the 
 ancestry of the Saviour. Thus he clears 
 away all that was necessary to be told of 
 the history of the twelve patriarchs, with the 
 
[V. 7—17. 
 
 198 
 
 GENESIS. XXXVIII. 
 
 his firstborn, whose name was Ta- 
 mar. 
 
 fNumb. 7 And ^ Er, Judah’s firstborn, was 
 wicked in the sight of the Lord ; and 
 the Lord slew him. 
 
 8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go 
 in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry 
 her, and raise up seed to thy brother. 
 
 9 And Onan knew that the seed 
 should not be his; and it came to 
 pass, when he went in unto his bro- 
 ther’s wife, that he spilled it on the 
 ground, lest that* he should give seed 
 to his brother. 
 
 10 And the thing which he did 
 t Heb. ^ displeased the Lord : wherefore he 
 
 mas evil . * , . . 
 
 m the eyes SleW him alSO. 
 
 11 Then said Judah to Tamar his 
 daughter in law. Remain a widow at 
 thy father’s house, till Shelah my son 
 be grown : for he said. Lest perad- 
 venture he die also, as his brethren 
 did. And Tamar went and dwelt in 
 her father’s house. 
 
 12 And Mn process of time the 
 
 ^meri"^mui- daughter of Shuah Judah’s wife died; 
 tipued. Judah was comforted, and went 
 
 of tne 
 Lord. 
 
 Heb. 
 
 up unto his sheepshearers to Tim- 
 nath, he and his friend Hirah the 
 Adullamite. 
 
 13 And it was told Tamar, saying. 
 Behold thy father in law goeth up to 
 Timnath to shear his sheep. 
 
 14 And she put her widow’s gar- 
 ments off from her, and covered her 
 with a vail, and wrapped herself, and 
 
 sat in ^ an open place, which is by the f Heb. 
 way to Timnath; for she saw 
 Shelah was grown, and she was not 
 given unto him to wife. 
 
 1 5 When J udah saw her, he thought 
 her to be an harlot; because she had 
 covered her face. 
 
 16 And he turned unto her by the 
 way, and said. Go to, I pray thee, 
 let me come in unto thee; (for he 
 knew not that she was his daughter 
 in law.) And she said. What wilt 
 thou give me, that thou mayest come 
 in unto me.? 
 
 17 And he said, I will send thee 
 
 ^ a kid from the flock. And she said, t Heb. 
 Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou 
 send itP 
 
 8. Tamar] /.£■.“ a palm-tree.” 
 
 8. raise up seed to thy brother'] As this 
 was before the law of Moses, it would appear 
 probable that this lex k'viratus^ law of mar- 
 riage with a brother’s widow, rested on some 
 traditional custom, very probably among the 
 Chaldees. The law of Moses did not abo- 
 lish it, but gave rules concerning it (Deut. 
 XXV. 5), as was the case as regards many 
 other ancient practices. This law of levirate 
 marriage prevailed among Indian, Persian, 
 African, and some Italian races (Diod. Sic. 
 XII. 18). 
 
 11. Then said Judah to Tamar] Judah 
 perhaps superstitiously seems to have thought 
 Tamar in some way the cause of his son’s 
 death (cp. Tobit iii. 7); or he may have 
 thought Shelah too young to marry. 
 
 12, Timnath] Probably not the border town 
 of Dan and Judah, between Ekron and Beth 
 Shemesh (Josh. xv. 10), but Timnah in the 
 mountains of Judah (Josh. xv. 57). 
 
 his friemf] The LXX., and Vulg. have 
 “ his shepherd,” but Onkelos, Syr., Arab, and 
 most modern interpreters, render as the Au- 
 thorised Version, which is probably right. 
 
 14 . in an open place] In the gate of 
 Enaim. So the LXX., Jerome (in ‘Loc. 
 
 Heb.’), Gesen., Winer and most modem in- 
 terpreters. Enaim is probably the same as 
 Enam, Josh. xv. 34. Enam is a place in the 
 plain which lay on the road from Judah’s 
 dwelling-place to Timnath (Knobel). Other 
 possible renderings are “at the opening of the 
 eyes,” i.e. in a public place, such as “the 
 crossing of two roads,” (so Vulg., Syr., and 
 many Jewish interpreters); and “at the break- 
 ing forth of two fountains” (so Abenezra, 
 Rosenm. and others): but the first is pretty 
 certainly the true. 
 
 15 . an harlot'^ because she had covered her 
 face] Probably Judah thought her to be 
 a woman having a vow. In v. 21, he calls 
 her by a title translated “harlot,” meaning 
 literally “consecrated,” i.e. to the impure 
 worship of Astarte, as was the custom of 
 Babylon in the worship of Mylitta (Herod. I. 
 199). This abominable worship was very 
 early introduced into Canaan and Egypt. So 
 Kedeshah.^ “a consecrated woman,” appears to 
 have come into use as a kind of euphemism. 
 The veil probably led Judah to think her thus 
 under a vow ; for there is no reason to sup- 
 pose that mere profligates so covered their 
 faces (see Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 1197). The worship 
 of the Dea Syr a at Byblos is recorded at a 
 very early age. In the time of Rameses II. it 
 was already very ancient. 
 
199 
 
 V. i8-i.] GENESIS. XXXVIII. XXXIX. 
 
 1 8 And he said, What pledge shall 
 I give thee ? And she said, Thy sig- 
 net, and thy bracelets, and thy stalF 
 that h in thine hand. And he gave 
 it her, and came in unto her, and she 
 conceived by him. 
 
 19 And she arose, and went away, 
 and laid by her vail from her, and 
 put on the garments of her widow- 
 hood. 
 
 20 And Judah sent the kid by the 
 hand of his friend the Adullamite, to 
 receive his pledge from the woman’s 
 hand : but he found her not. 
 
 21 Then he asked the men of that 
 place, saying. Where is the harlot, 
 
 ii Or, in that was ” openly by the way side ? 
 .nnjm,. There was no harlot 
 
 in this place. 
 
 22 And he returned to Judah, and 
 said, I cannot find her; and also the 
 men of the place said, that there was 
 no harlot in this place. 
 
 23 And Judah said. Let her take 
 tHeb. it to her, lest we Te shamed: be- 
 
 hold, I sent this kid, and thou hast 
 * not found her. 
 
 24 f And it came to pass about 
 three months after, that it was told 
 Judah, saying, I'amar thy daughter 
 in law hath played the harlot; and 
 also, behold, she is with child by 
 whoredom. And Judah said. Bring 
 her forth, and let her be burnt. 
 
 25 When she was brought forth, 
 she sent to her father in law, saying. 
 
 By the man, whose these are^ am I 
 with child: and she said. Discern, I 
 pray thee, whose are these, the signet, 
 and bracelets, and staff. 
 
 26 And Judah acknowledged them., 
 and said. She hath been more righteous 
 than I ; because that I gave her not 
 to Shelah my son. And he knew her 
 again no more. 
 
 27 And it came to pass in the 
 time of her travail, that, behold, twins 
 were in her womb. 
 
 28 And it came to pass, when she 
 travailed, that the one put out his hand : 
 and the midwife took and bound upon 
 his hand a scarlet thread, saying. This 
 came out first. 
 
 29 And it came to pass, as he drew 
 back his hand, that, behold, his brother 
 came out : and she said, “ How hast ii Or, 
 thou broken forth? this breach he up- 
 
 on thee : therefore his name was called 
 
 , this breach 
 
 *^rharez. agaUst 
 
 30 And afterward came out his 11 tLi is, 
 brother, that ‘ had the scarlet thread " j’Jhfon 
 upon his hand : and his name was 2 4. 
 called Zarah. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 I Joseph advanced in Poiiphars house. 7 He 
 resisteth his 7nistress's tetnptatioit. 1 3 He is 
 falsely accused. •20 He is cast in prison. 2 1 
 God is. ivith him the^-e. 
 
 A nd Joseph was brought down to 
 L Egypt ; and Potiphar, an officer 
 of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an 
 Egyptian, bought him of the hands 
 
 18. Thy signet\ A seal or signet-ring. 
 The ancients wore it sometimes, not as a ring 
 on the finger, but hanging round the neck by 
 a cord or chain (Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 534 ). 
 
 thy bracelets'] Thy cord; the cord or string 
 by which the seal was suspended (so Ges., 
 Rosenm., Schum., Lee). 
 
 staff] It was probably of -considerable 
 value, as among the Babylonians, and on 
 Egyptian monuments. 
 
 21. openly] At Enaim. See on v. 14 . 
 
 26. She has been more righteous than i] 
 Judah acknowledges that he had done wrong 
 to Tamar in not giving her his son Shelah, 
 according to the lex le-viratus., that the bro- 
 ther should raise up seed to his brother. 
 It appears further from Ruth ch. iii. iv. that, 
 according to the patriarchal custom, the 
 
 nearest of kin was to take the widow to wife, 
 hence when Shelah does not take her, she 
 considers Judah the right person with whom 
 to form such an alliance. 
 
 29. //o-w hast thou broken forth? this breach 
 be upon thee] Or, “why hast thou made 
 A rent for thyself?” or “hast rent a rent for 
 thy.self?” 
 
 Pharez.] i.e. “breach” or “breaking forth.” 
 
 30. Zarah] i.e. “I'ising.” 
 
 Chap. XXXIX. 1 . And Joseph ^vas 
 brought donvn to Egypt, &c.] A recapitula- 
 tion of the nan'ative in ch. xxxvii. 36 , which 
 had been interrupted by the history of Judah’s 
 family in ch. xxxviii. 
 
 Ishmeelites] 5be on ch. xxxvii. 25 . 
 
200 
 
 GENESIS. XXXIX. 
 
 [v. 2—13. 
 
 of the Ishmeelites, which had brought 
 him down thither. 
 
 2 And the Lord was with Joseph, 
 and he was a prosperous man ; and he 
 was in the house of his master the 
 Egyptian. 
 
 3 And his master saw that the 
 Lord was with him, and that the 
 Lord made all that he did to prospei 
 in his hand. 
 
 4 And Joseph found grace in his 
 sight, and he served him : and he 
 made him overseer over his house, 
 and all that he had he put into his 
 hand. 
 
 5 And it came to pass from the 
 time that he had made him overseer 
 in his house, and over all that he had, 
 that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s 
 house for Joseph’s sake ; and the bless- 
 ing of the Lord was upon all that he 
 had in the house, and in the field. 
 
 6 And he left all that he had in 
 Joseph’s hand; and’ he knew not 
 ought he had, save the bre^td which 
 he did eat. And Joseph was a goodly 
 person^ and well favoured. 
 
 7 ^1 And it came to pass after these 
 things, that his master’s wife cast her 
 eyes upon Joseph ; and she said, Lie 
 with me. 
 
 8 But he refused, and said unto 
 his master’s wife. Behold, my master 
 wotteth not what is with me in the 
 house, and he hath committed ail that 
 he hath to my hand ; 
 
 9 There is none greater in this house 
 than I ; neither hath he kept back any 
 thing from me but thee, because thou 
 art his wife : how then can I do this 
 great wickedness, and sin against God ? 
 
 10 And it came to pass, as she 
 spake to Joseph day by day, that he 
 hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, 
 or to be with her. 
 
 1 1 And it came to pass about this 
 time, that yoseph went into the house 
 to do his business ; and there was none 
 of the men of the house there within. 
 
 12 And she caught him by his gar- 
 ment, saying. Lie with me : and he 
 left his garment in her hand, and fled, 
 and got him out. 
 
 13 And it came to pass, when she 
 
 
 2. the Lord <vjas 'with Joseph'] The 
 variety in the use of the Divine names in the 
 history of Joseph is very observable. The 
 name Jehovah occurs only where the 
 narrator is speaking in his own person; until 
 we come to ch. xlix. where Jacob uses it in 
 the midst of his blessing on Dan, ch. xlix. 18. 
 In all other speeches in the history we have 
 Elohim, sometimes Ha-Elohim with the arti- 
 cle, and sometimes El, or Ha-El. The rea- 
 son of this is generally apparent. The whole 
 history, though given by an inspired writer 
 to whom the name Jehovah was familiar, 
 concerns the history of Joseph and his kindred 
 in contact with a heathen people. It is there- 
 fore on all accounts natural that the general 
 name Elohim, and not the specially revealed 
 name Jehovah, should be used in dialo- 
 gue. Even the narrative, as in ch. xlvi.. is 
 most naturally carried on in a so-called Elo- 
 histic form, the name Elohim being of com- 
 mon use to both Hebrews and Egyptians. 
 The adoption of the name El (or Ha- El) in 
 xlvi. 3, is probably with marked reference to 
 the blessing on Abraham pronounced in die 
 name of El-Shaddai in ch. xvii. i. 
 
 4 . o'v^rseer] 'I'he Egyptian sculptures 
 represent the property of rich men as super- 
 intended by scribes or stewards, who are 
 exhibited as carelully registering all the opera- 
 
 tions of the household, the garden, the field, 
 &c. 
 
 6 . Joseph was a goodly person^ and well 
 favoured] Lit. “was fair of form and fair of 
 aspect,” or “appearance.” 
 
 7 . his masters wife] The licentious- 
 ness of the Egyptian women has always been 
 complained of (see Herod, ii. in; Diod. i. 
 59). The same appears from the monuments, 
 which prove also that women did not live so* 
 retired a life in Egypt as in other ancient and 
 especially Eastern countries (Wilkinson, Vol. 
 II. p. 389, Hengstenb. ‘ Egypt.’ p. 26). There 
 is a very remarkable resemblance between this 
 passage in the history of Joseph and a very 
 ancient Egyptian Romance in the Papyrus 
 d’Orbiney in the British Museum, called 
 “d'he Two Brothers,” in which the wife of 
 the elder brother acts in the same manner 
 and uses almost the same words towards 
 the younger brother as Potiphar’s wife uses 
 towards Joseph (see Ebers, ‘jEgypten,’ 
 
 P- 311)- 
 
 9. sin against God] The direct sin 
 would have been against his master; but 
 Joseph clearly recognized that the true guilt 
 of all sin consists in its breach of the law, and 
 disobedience to the will of God. 
 
V. 14— 3-] 
 
 GENESIS. XXXIX. XL. 
 
 201 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 great. 
 
 saw that he had left his garment in 
 her hand, and was fled forth, 
 
 14 That she called unto the men 
 of her house, and spake unco them, 
 saying. See, he hath brought in an 
 Hebrew unto us to mock us ; he came 
 in unto me to lie with me, and I cried 
 with a Moud voice : 
 
 15 And it came to pass, when he 
 heard that I lifted up my voice and 
 cried, that he left his garment with 
 me, and fled, and got him out. 
 
 16 And she laid up his garment 
 by her, until his lord came home. 
 
 1 7 And she spake unto him accord- 
 ing to these words, saying, I'he He- 
 brew servant, which thou hast brought 
 • unto us, came in unto me to mock me : 
 
 18 And it came to pass, as I lifted 
 up my voice and cried, that he left his 
 garment v/ith me, and fled out. 
 
 19 And it came to pass, when his 
 master heard the words of his wife,- 
 which she spake unto him, saying. 
 After this manner did thy servant to 
 me ; that his wrath was kindled. 
 
 20 And Joseph’s master took him, 
 and put him into the prison, a place 
 where the king’s prisoners bound : 
 and he was there in the prison. 
 
 21 ^ But the Lord was with Jo- 
 
 seph, and Lhewed him mercy, and^Heb. 
 gave him favour in the sight of the %luhfesi 
 keeper of the prison. unto him. 
 
 22 And the keeper of the prison 
 committed to Joseph’s hand all the 
 prisoners that were in the prison ; and 
 whatsoever they did there, he was the 
 doer of it. 
 
 23 The keeper of the prison looked 
 not to anything that was under his 
 hand; because the Lord was with 
 him, and that which he did, the Lord 
 made it to prosper. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 I The butler and baker of Pharaoh -in prison. 
 4 Joseph hath charge f them. 5 He inter- 
 preteth their dreams. 20 They come to pass 
 according to his interpretation. 23 The in- 
 gratitude of the butler. 
 
 A nd it came to pass after these 
 things, that the butler of the 
 king of Egypt and his baker had of- 
 fended their lotd the king of Egypt. 
 
 2 And Pharaoh was wroth against 
 two of his officers, against the chief 
 of the butlers, and against the chief 
 of the bakers. 
 
 3 And he put them in ward in the 
 house of the captain of the guard, 
 into the prison, the place where Jo- 
 seph was bound. 
 
 20. prison~\ The word here used oc- 
 curs only here and in ch. xl. It probably 
 means a turret or rounded (perhaps arched) 
 building or apartment, arched or rounded for 
 strength, used as a prison or dungeon. It 
 ♦appears from ch. xl. 3, to have been a part of 
 the house of the captain of the guard or chief 
 of the executioners, in which the state pri- 
 soners were kept, and to have had a special 
 jailer or keeper of the pri.son, an officer of the 
 chief of the executioners, placed over it. In 
 ch. xl. 15, Joseph speaks of it as “a dungeon” 
 or pit, which would quite correspond with 
 the character of an arched or vaulted room. 
 In Ps. cv. 17, 18, the imprisonment of Joseph 
 is represented as having been very severe, 
 “whose feet they afflicted with the fetters, 
 the iron entered into his soul.” It is most 
 probable that at first Joseph’s treatment may 
 have been of this character, the crime with 
 which he was charged having been such that 
 a slave would m.ost likely have been instantly 
 put to death for it. By degrees, however, he 
 gained, under God’s Providence, the confi- 
 dence of the jailer (v. 22), when the rigour 
 
 of his confinement was mitigated, and at 
 length the chief of the executioners himself 
 (either Potiphar, or, as some think, his suc- 
 cessor) intrusts him with the care of im- 
 portant state prisoners. The fact that Joseph 
 was not put to death, and by degrees treated 
 kindly in prison, has given rise to the conjec- 
 ture, that Potiphar did not wholly believe his 
 wife’s story, though he to a certain extent acted 
 on it (Cleric in loc., Keil, &c.). 
 
 Chap. XL. 2. the chief of the butlers'] 
 The chief of the cupbearers. The office 
 of cupbearer to the sovereign was one of im- 
 portance and high honour in the East. See 
 Herod, iii. 34. 
 
 chief of the bakers] or “confectioners.” 
 The Targum of Pseudo- Jonathan adds that 
 “they had taken counsel to throw the poison 
 of death into his food and into his drink, to 
 kill their master, the king of Mi'/raim.” This 
 is probably only a conjecture from the fact 
 that the two offending persons were im- 
 mediately concerned with the food and the 
 drink of the king. 
 
202 
 
 GENESIS. XL. 
 
 [v. 4— 1 6. 
 
 4 And the captain of the guard 
 charged Joseph with them, and he 
 served them : and they continued a 
 season in ward. 
 
 5 H And they dreamed a dream 
 both of them, each man his dream in 
 one night, each man according to the 
 interpretation of his dream, the butler 
 and the baker of the king of Egypt, 
 which bound in the prison. 
 
 6 And Joseph came in unto them 
 in the morning, and looked upon them, 
 and, behold, they were sad. 
 
 7 And he asked Pharaoh’s officers 
 that were with him in the ward of his 
 
 + Heb. lord’s house, saying. Wherefore Uook 
 /aJZviir ye " sadly to day 
 
 8 And they said unto him, We 
 have dreamed a dream, and there is 
 no interpreter of it. And Joseph said 
 unto them. Do not interpretations be- 
 long to God ? tell me them^ I pray you. 
 
 9 And the chief butler told his 
 dream to Joseph, and said to him. In 
 my dream, behold, a vine was before 
 me ; 
 
 10 And in the vine were three 
 
 branches : and it was as though it 
 budded, a 7 id her blossoms shot forth ; 
 and the clusters thereof brought forth 
 ripe grapes : 
 
 1 1 And Pharaoh’s cup was in my 
 hand : and I took the grapes, and 
 pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and 
 I gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand. 
 
 12 And Joseph said unto him. This 
 is the interpretation of it: The three 
 branches are three days : 
 
 13 Yet within three days shall 
 Pharaoh “ lift up thine head, and re- « Or, 
 store thee unto thy place: and thou 
 shalt deliver Pharaoh’s cup into his 
 hand, after the former manner when 
 thou wast his butler. 
 
 14 But Yhink on me when it shall tHeb. 
 be well with thee, and shew kindness, 
 
 I pray thee, unto me, and make men- 
 tion of me unto Pharaoh, and bring 
 me out of this house : 
 
 15 For indeed I was stolen away 
 out of the land of the Hebrews : and 
 here also have I done nothing that 
 they should put me into the dungeon. 
 
 16 When the chief baker saw that 
 
 4. they continued a season'] Lit. “days,” 
 by which the Jews very generally understand 
 a year. 
 
 9. a 'vine] Herodotus denies the ex- 
 istence of vines in ancient Egypt, and says 
 that the Egyptian wine was made of barley 
 (ii. 77). Yet Herodotus himself (ii. 4a, 48, 
 144) and Diodorus (l. ii) identify Osiris 
 with the Greek Bacchus, the discoverer of the 
 vine, and Diodorus (l. 15) expressly ascribes 
 to Osiris the first cultivation of the vine. But, 
 moreover, it now appears from the monu- 
 ments that both the cultivation of grapes and 
 the art of making wine w^ere well known in 
 Egypt from the time of the Pyramids. Wine 
 was universally used by the rich throughout 
 Egypt, and beer supplied its place at the tables 
 of the poor, not because “they had no vines 
 in the country, but because it was cheaper.” 
 (Sir G. Wilkinson’s note in Rawlinson’s 
 Herod, ii. 77. See also Rosellini, Vol. Ii. 
 PP- 365, 373 , 377; Wilkinson, Vol. Ii. 143; 
 Hengstenberg, ‘ Egypt,’ &:c. p. 16; Havcrnick, 
 
 ‘ Introd. to Pentateuch,’ in h.l. ; Ebers, ‘Tgyp- 
 
 ten,’p.323-) 
 
 11. I took the grapes^ and pressed them] 
 Some have thought that this indicates that the 
 Egyptians did not at this time practise the 
 fermentation of the grape, but merely drank 
 
 the fresh juice, which would accord with the 
 statement of Plutarch (‘Is. et Osir.’ § 6) that 
 the Egyptians before the time of Psam.metichus 
 neither drank wine nor made libations thereof, 
 as esteeming it to have sprung from the blood 
 of those w'ho made war with the gods ; but 
 the monuments represent the process of fer- 
 menting wine in very early times. See last 
 note. 
 
 13 . shall Pharaoh lift up thine head] Some 
 think this expression merely means “wfill take 
 count of thee,” “wall remember thee.” Cp. 
 Ex. xxx. 12; Num. i. 49; where the marginal 
 reading is “reckon.” More probably the 
 meaning is, “will take thee out of prison” 
 (see Ges. p. 914). 
 
 15 . the land of the Hebreavs] Though 
 the patriarchs had been strangers and pilgrims, 
 yet Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had effected 
 something like permanent settlements in the 
 neighbourhood of Mamre, Hebron, Shechem, 
 &c. Probably too the visit of Abraham to 
 Egypt and the intercourse of the Egyptians 
 with the Hittites and other Canaanitish tribes, 
 had made the name of Hebrew known to the 
 Egyptians. Joseph does not say “ the land of 
 Canaan,” lest he should be confounded with 
 the Canaanites, who were odious to himself as 
 being idolaters. 
 
 « 
 
V. 17—6.] 
 
 GENESIS. XL. XLI. 
 
 203 
 
 , the interpretation was good, he said 
 unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, 
 i Or, full and, behold, / had three "white bas- 
 
 0/ holes. . 
 
 17 And in the uppermost basket 
 t Heb. thef'e was of all manner of ^ bakemeats 
 Thdrfoh, lor Pharaoh; and the birds did eat 
 dfdddker ^^^^n out of the basket upon my head, 
 or, cook. 18 And Joseph answered and said. 
 This is the interpretation thereof : 
 
 ^ The three baskets are xhroo days: 
 
 19 Yet within three days shall 
 «Or, Pharaoh ‘lift up thy head from off 
 7kde%n^ thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; 
 Sfice/^>wz ^rid the birds shall eat thy flesh from 
 off thee. 
 
 . 20 ^ And it came to pass the third 
 day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, 
 that he made a feast unto all his ser- 
 DOr, vants : and he "lifted up the head of 
 reckoned. chief butler and of the chief baker 
 among his servants. 
 
 21 And he restored the chief but- 
 ler unto his butlership again ; and he 
 gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand: 
 
 22 But he hanged the chief baker: 
 as Joseph had interpreted to them. 
 
 23 Yet did not the chief butler re- 
 member Joseph, but forgat him. 
 
 16 . three white baskets'] Probably “baskets 
 of white bread so LXX., Aq., Vulg., Syr., 
 Onk. Some prefer “ baskets full of holes,” 
 “ perforated,” or “ wicker baskets.” 
 
 on my head] See Herod. II. 35, of the men 
 bearing burdens on their heads. 
 
 17 . bakemeats for Pharaoh] Lit. “food 
 for Pharaoh, the work of a baker.” The 
 Egyptians appear to have been very luxurious 
 in the preparation of different kinds of bread 
 and pastry. (See Rosellini, Vol. ii. 264; Wil- 
 Idnson, ii. 384; Hengstenberg, p. 27.) 
 
 19 . shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off 
 thee] The same words as those used in v. 13, 
 with the addition of “from off thee,” making 
 the most vital difference. The mode of pu- 
 nishment was probably decapitation, the most 
 common form of execution in Egypt (Ges. 
 p. 915); though some have thought hanging 
 or crucifixion, as Onkelos in loc. Possibly 
 the words may only indicate capital punish- 
 ment, like the capite plecti of the Latins. 
 
 Chap. XLI. 1. the ri'ver] The*“yeor,” 
 an Egyptian word signifying “great river,” 
 or “canal,” used in Scripture for the Nile. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 1 Pharaoh'' s two dreams. 25 Joseph inter- 
 p 7 'eteth thefu. 33 He giveth Pharaoh coimseL 
 38 Joseph is advanced. 50 He begettetk 
 Manasseh and Ephraim. 54 The famme 
 heghineth, 
 
 AND it came to pass at the end 
 ±\, of two full years, that Pharaoh 
 dreamed: and, behold, he stood by 
 the river. 
 
 2 And, behold, there came up out 
 of the river seven well favoured kine 
 and fatfleshed ; and they fed in a 
 meadow. 
 
 3 And, behold, seven other kine 
 came up after them out of the river, 
 ill favoured and leanfleshed ; and stood 
 by the other kine upon the brink of 
 the river. 
 
 4 And the ill favoured and lean- 
 fleshed kine did eat up the seven well 
 favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh 
 awoke. 
 
 5 And he slept and dreamed the 
 second time: and, behold, seven ears 
 of corn came up upon one stalk, 
 
 ^ rank and good. ♦ Heb. /a/. 
 
 6 And, behold, seven thin ears and 
 blasted with the east wind sprung up 
 after them. 
 
 The Nile had a sacred and a profane 
 name. The sacred name was Hapi., i.e. Apis. 
 The profane name was jiur., with the 
 epithet aa great. The Coptic forms IA.pO, 
 lApCJO, correspond exactly to the Hebrew 
 year. 
 
 2. k'me] The Egyptians esteemed the 
 cow above all other animals. It was sacred 
 to Isis (Herod, ii. 41), or rather to Athor, 
 the Venus Genetrix of Egypt, and was looked 
 on as “ a symbol of the Earth and its cultiva- 
 tion and food” (Clem. Alex. ‘Strom.’ v. p. 
 671). Hence it was very natural that in Pha- 
 raoh’s dream the fruitful and unfruitful years 
 should be typified by well-favoured and -ill- 
 favoured kine (see Hengstenb. ‘ Egypt,’ p. 28). 
 
 in a meadow] In the reed grass. The 
 word (Achu) is of Egyptian origin. It is 
 not common, but occurs in a papyrus of early 
 date {akh-akh., green, verdant). Jerome (on 
 Isai. xix. 7) says that “when he enquired of 
 the learned what the word meant, he was told 
 by the Egyptians that in their tongue every 
 thing green that grows in marshes is called by 
 this name.” It probably therefore means the 
 sedge, reed, or rank gi'ass by the river's side. 
 
204 
 
 GENESIS. XLI. [v. 7-18. 
 
 7 And the seven thin ears devour- 
 ed the seven rank and full ears. And 
 Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a 
 dream. 
 
 8 And it came to pass in the 
 morning that his spirit was trou- 
 bled ; and he sent and called for 
 all the magicians of Egypt, and all 
 the wise men thereof : and Pharaoh 
 told them his dream; but there was 
 none that could interpret them unto 
 Pharaoh. 
 
 9 ^ Th&n spake the chief butler 
 unto Pharaoh, saying, I do remem- 
 ber my faults this day : 
 
 10 Pharaoh was wroth with his 
 servants, and put me in ward in the 
 captain of the guard’s house, both me 
 and the chief baker: 
 
 11 And we dreamed a dream in 
 one night, I and he; we dreamed 
 each man according to the interpreta- 
 tion of his dream. 
 
 12 And there was there with us a 
 young man, an Hebrew, servant to 
 the captain of the guard ; and we told 
 
 TiSc.’ him, and he interpreted to us our 
 
 dreams; to each man according to * 
 his dream he did interpret. 
 
 13 And it came to pass, as he in- 
 terpreted to us, so it was; me he 
 restored unto mine office, and him 
 he hanged. 
 
 14 ^ “^Then Pharaoh sent and Psai. 105. 
 called Joseph, and they ' brought him ' 
 hastily out of the dungeon : and he 
 shaved himself^ and changed his rai- 
 ment, and came in unto Pharaoh. 
 
 15 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, 
 
 I have dreamed a dream, and there 
 is none that can interpret it: and 
 
 I have heard say of thee, that " thou 11 Or, 
 canst understand a dream to inter- 
 pret it.' 
 
 16 And Joseph answered Pharaoh, interpret 
 saying. It is not in me : God shall 
 
 give Pharaoh an answer of peace. 
 
 17 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, 
 
 In my dream, behold, I stood upon 
 the bank of the river: 
 
 18 And, behold, there came up 
 out of the river seven kine, fatfleshed 
 and well favoured; and they fed in a 
 meadow : 
 
 6. east (wind'\ Probably put for the 
 S. E. wind (Chamsin), which blows from the 
 desert of Arabia. The East wind of Egypt is 
 not the scorching wind, and indeed seldom 
 blows; but the South-east wind is so parching 
 as to destroy the grass entirely, if it blows 
 very long (see Hengstenberg, p. 10). 
 
 7 . behold^ it (was a dream] The impression 
 on Pharaoh’s mind was so strong and vivid, 
 that he could hardly believe it was not real. 
 The particulars of the dream are all singu- 
 larly appropriate. The scene is by the Nile, 
 on which depends all the plenty of Egypt. 
 The kine and the corn respectively denote the 
 animal and the vegetable products of the 
 country. The cattle feeding in the reed grass 
 shewed that the Nile was fertilizing the land 
 and supporting the life of the beasts. The lean 
 cattle and the scorched-up corn foreshadowed 
 a time when the Nile, for some reason, ceased 
 to irrigate the land. The swallowing up of 
 the fat by the lean signified that the produce 
 of the seven years of plenty would be all con- 
 sumed in the seven years of scarcity. 
 
 8. magicians] Apparently “ sacred scribes 
 the name, if Hebrew, Ixbig composed of 
 two words signifying respectively a style and 
 sacred. Some have thought the word to be 
 of Egyptian origin, or perhaps a Hebrew 
 
 compound imitating an Egyptian name (see 
 Ges. ‘ Thes.’ p. 521). There has, however, 
 no Egyptian name been found like it. The 
 magicians appear to have been a regular order 
 of persons among the Egyptians, learned 
 priests, who devoted themselves to magic and 
 astrology (see Hengstenberg, p. 28, and Poole 
 in Smith’s ‘ Diet, of the Bible,’ art. Magic). 
 
 13 . me he restored] Joseph prophesied 
 that I should be restored, and, as he prophe- 
 sied, so it came to pass. 
 
 14 . s hawed himself] The Hebrews che- 
 rished long beards, but the Egyptians cut both 
 hair and beard close, except in mourning for 
 relations, when they let both grow long (Herod, 
 ir. 36). On the monuments when it was 
 “ intended to convey the idea of a man of low 
 condition or a slovenly person, the artists 
 represented him with a beard” (Wilkinson, 
 Vol. III. p. 357; Hengstenberg, p. 30). Jo- 
 seph, therefore, when about to appear be- 
 fore Pharaoh, was careful to adapt himself to 
 the manners of the Egyptians. 
 
 15 . that thou canst understand a dream 
 to interpret it] Lit. tliat tLou Nearest a 
 dream to. interpret it. 
 
 13 . in a mccdowd] In the reed grass. 
 See on v. 2. 
 
V. 19—40-] 
 
 205 
 
 
 GENESIS. XLI. 
 
 19 And, behold, seven other kine 
 came up after them, poor and very 
 ill favoured and leanfleshed, such as 
 I never saw in all the land of Egypt 
 for badness : 
 
 20 And the lean and the ill fa- 
 voured kine did eat up the first seven 
 fat kine : 
 
 had ^ eaten 
 
 inward^ them up, it could not be known that 
 them. ^ they had eaten them; but they were 
 still ill favoured, as at the beginning. 
 So I awoke. 
 
 22 And I saw in rriy dream, and, 
 behold, seven ears came up in one 
 stalk, full and good: 
 
 23 And, behold, seven ears, ■■ wi- 
 thered, thin, and blasted with the 
 east wind, sprung up after them : 
 
 24 And the thin ears devoured the 
 seven good ears: and I told this unto 
 the magicians ; but there was none 
 that could declare it to me. 
 
 25 ^ And Joseph said unto Pha- 
 raoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: 
 God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is 
 about to do. 
 
 26 The seven good kine are seven 
 years; and the seven good ears are 
 seven years : the dream is one. 
 
 27 And the seven thin and ill 
 favoured kine that came up after 
 them are seven years; and the seven 
 empty ears blasted with the east wind 
 shall be seven years of famine. 
 
 28 This is the thing which I have 
 spoken unto Pharaoh: What God is 
 about to do he sheweth unto Pharaoh. 
 
 29 Behold, there come seven years 
 of great plenty throughout all the 
 land of Egypt: 
 
 30 And there shall arise after them 
 seven years of famine; and all the 
 plenty shall be forgotten in the land 
 
 of Egypt; and the famine shall con- 
 sume the land ; 
 
 31 And the plenty shall not be 
 
 known in the -land by reason of that 
 famine following; for it shall be very 
 ^grievous. tHeb. 
 
 32 And for that the dream was 
 doubled unto Pharaoh twice ; it is 
 because the thing is “ established by 'J Or, 
 God, and God will shortly bring 
 
 to pass. 
 
 33 Now therefore let Pharaoh look 
 out a man discreet and wise, and set 
 him over the land of Egypt. 
 
 34 Let Pharaoh do this^ and let 
 him appoint “ officers over the land, ti Or, 
 and take up the fifth part of the 
 land of Egypt in the seven plenteous 
 years. 
 
 35 And let them gather all the 
 food of those good years that come, 
 and lay up corn under the hand of 
 Pharaoh, and let them keep food in 
 the cities. 
 
 36 And that food shall be for store 
 to the land against the seven years of 
 famine, which shall be in the land of 
 Egypt ; that the land ^ perish not t Heb. 
 through- the famine. 
 
 37 ^ And the thing was good in 
 the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes 
 of all his servants. 
 
 38 And Pharaoh said unto his ser- 
 vants, Can we find such a one as 
 this A, a man in whom the Spirit of 
 God is? 
 
 39 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, 
 Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee 
 all this, there is none so discreet and 
 
 wise as thou art: ^Psai. 105. 
 
 40 ^ Thou shalt be over my house, 
 and according unto thy word shall all 
 my people be ^ ruled : only in the t He 
 throne will I be greater than thou. 
 
 S4. take up the ffth part of the land] 
 i. e. Let him exact a fifth of the produce of 
 the land. The Hebrew is literally “let him 
 fifth the land.” (Compare our phrase “ to 
 tithe the land.”) It has been questioned whe- 
 ther the advice was to purchase a fifth of all 
 the produce, or rather to impose a tax amount- 
 ing to one fifth of the. produce of the land. 
 It has been not improbably conjectured that 
 
 the Egyptian kings usually imposed a tribute 
 of one tenth, and that in this season of un- 
 usual abundance Joseph advises Pharaoh to 
 double the impost, with the benevolent inten- 
 tion of afterwards selling the corn so collected 
 in the time of famine (Cleric, in loc.). On 
 the large storehouses and granaries of Egypt, 
 see Hengstenb., p. 36 , A^'Vlkinson, ii. 135 . 
 
 40. according unto thj civord shall all mj 
 
2o6 
 
 GENESIS. XLI. 
 
 [v. 41—45- 
 
 41 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, 
 See, I have set thee over all the land 
 of Egypt. 
 
 42 And Pharaoh took off his ring 
 from his hand, and put it upon Jo- 
 seph’s hand, and arrayed him in ves- 
 
 Or, silk, tures of " fine linen, and put a gold 
 chain about his neck; 
 
 43 And he made him to ride in 
 the second chariot which he had ; and 
 
 they cried before him, *^Bow the" Or, 
 knee : and he made him ruler over /at/ffr. 
 all the land of Egypt. _ 
 
 44 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, 
 
 I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall 
 no man lift up his hand or foot in all 
 the land of Egypt. 
 
 45 And Pharaoh called Joseph’s 
 name Zaphnath-paaneah ; and he gave 
 him to wife Asenath the daughter 
 
 people be rulel\ So, or nearly so, (“at thy 
 word shall all my people arm themselves, or 
 dispose themselves,”) the Versions, Targg, and 
 most commentators. But Kimchi, Gesenius, 
 Knobel, &c., render “and all my people shall 
 kiss thy mouth,” as a token of reverence and 
 obedience. The objections to the latter in- 
 terpretation are that the kiss of reverence was 
 on the hand or the foot, not on the mouth, 
 which was the kiss of love, and that the con- 
 struction here is with a preposition never used 
 with the verb signifying “to kiss.” 
 
 42 . ring] The signet-ring was the 
 special symbol of office and authority. The 
 seal to this day in the East is the common 
 mode of attestation, and therefore when Pha- 
 raoh gave Joseph his ring he delegated to him 
 his whole authority. 
 
 Jine linen] The byssus or fine linen of the 
 Egyptians. The word used for it is Shes.^ a 
 well-ascertained Egyptian word. It is men- 
 tioned in Ezek. xxvii. as imported into Tyre 
 from Egypt. It was the peculiar dress of the 
 Egyptian priests. 
 
 a gold chain] Probably “ a simple gold 
 chain in imitation of string, to which a stone 
 scarabseus set in the same precious metal was 
 appended.” (Wilkinson, ill. 376. See also 
 Hengstenberg, p. 31.) 
 
 43 . jBo-xy the knee] Abrech. If the 
 word be Hebrew, the rendering of the Au- 
 thorised Version is probably correct. The 
 Targums all give “father of the king” (cp, ch. 
 xlv. 8), deriving from the Hebrew a father, 
 and the Chaldee Kech., a king, which, how- 
 ever, is thought, to be a corruption of the 
 Latin Rex. It is generally thought to be an 
 Egyptian word signifying “Bow the head,” 
 having some resemblance in form to the 
 Hebrew (He Rossi, ‘ Etymol. Egypt.’ p. i. 
 So Gesen. ‘Thes.,’ p. 19, and most of the 
 Germans). A more probable interpretation 
 is that which is given in the Excursus on 
 Egyptian Words at the end of this volume, 
 viz. “Rejoice” or “Rejoice thou!” 
 
 45 . Jjaphnaih-paaneah] In the LXX. 
 Psonthomphanek. The V'ulg. renders 
 Mundi., “Saviour of the World.” Several learn- 
 ed in the language and anticpiities of Egypt, 
 Bernard (in Joseph, ‘Ant.’ 11. 6); Jablonski 
 
 (‘Opusc.’ I. 207); Rosellini (‘Monuments,’ i. 
 p. 185), have so interpreted it. They are 
 followed in the main by Gesenius (p. 1181, 
 “the supporter or preserver of the age”) and 
 a majority of modern commentators. The true 
 meaning appears to be “the food of life,” or 
 “of the living.” (See Excursus on Egyptian 
 Words at the end of this volume.) The 
 Targg., Syr., Arab, and Hebrew interpp. ren- 
 der “a revealer of secrets,” referring to a 
 Hebrew original, which is on every account 
 improbable. There can be no doubt that 
 Pharaoh would have given his Grand Vizier 
 an Egyptian name, not a Hebrew name, just 
 as the name of Daniel was changed to Belte- 
 shazzar, and asHananiah, Azariah and Mishael, 
 were called by Nebuchadnezzar, Shadrach, 
 Meshach, and Abednego. 
 
 Asenath] either “ devoted to Neith,” the 
 Egyptian Minerva (Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 130), or 
 perhaps compounded of the two names Isis 
 and Neith, such a form of combination of two 
 names in one being not unknown in Egypt. 
 (See Excursus on Egyptian Words at the end 
 of this volume.) 
 
 Poti~pherab] i.e. “belonging” or “devoted 
 to Ra,” i.e. the Sun, a most appropriate 
 designation for a priest of On or Heliopolis, 
 the great seat of the Sun-worship. (See Ex- 
 cursus on Egyptian Words at the end of this 
 volume.) 
 
 On] Heliopolis (LXX), called, Jer. xliii. 
 13, Beth-shemesh, the city of the Sun. Cy- 
 ril (ad. Hos. V. 8), says, “On is with them 
 the Sun.” The city stood on the Eastern 
 bank of the Nile a few miles north of Mem- 
 l^his, and was famous for the worship of Ra, 
 the Sun, as also for the learning and wisdom 
 of its priests (Herod, ii. 3). There still re- 
 mains an obelisk of red granite, part of the 
 Temple of the Sun, with a dedication sculp- 
 tured by Osirtasen or Sesortasen 1 . It is the 
 oldest and one of the finest in lEgypt ; of the 
 12th dynasty. (Ges. p. 52, Wilkinson, Vol. 
 1. p. 44; also Rawlinson’s Herod. II. 8, 
 Brugsch, ‘H. E.’ p. 254.) 
 
 The difficulty of supposing that the daugh- 
 ter of a priest of On should have been married 
 to Joseph, a worshipper of J eiiovaii, has been 
 unduly magnified. Neither the Egyptians nor 
 the Hebrews were at this time as exclusive as 
 
V. 4^ — 2.] 
 
 GENESIS. XLI. XLII. 
 
 207 
 
 II Or, of Poti-pherah "priest of On. iVnd 
 
 pince. jQseph went out over all the land of 
 
 Egypt. 
 
 46 ^ And Joseph was thir'^y years 
 old when he stood before Pharaoh 
 king of Egypt. And Joseph went 
 out from the presence of Pharaoh, 
 and went throughout all the land of 
 Egypt. 
 
 47 And in the seven plenteous 
 years the earth brought forth by 
 handfuls. 
 
 48 And he gathered up all the 
 food of the seven years, which were 
 in the land of Egypt, and laid up 
 the food in the cities: the food of 
 the field, which was round about 
 every city, laid he up in the same. 
 
 49 And Joseph gathered corn as 
 the sand of the sea, very much, until 
 he left numbering; for it was with- 
 out number. 
 
 rf chap. 46. 5 ^ ^And unto Joseph were born 
 
 g two sons before the years of famine 
 ' came, which Asenath the daughter 
 
 B Or, of Poti-pherah " priest of On bare 
 
 unto him. 
 
 51 And Joseph called the name of 
 « That is, the firstborn “Manasseh: For God, 
 Yefims, ^^id he^ hath made me forget all my 
 
 toil, and all my father’s house. 
 
 52 And the name of the second 
 
 tThatis, called he "Ephraim: For God hath 
 Fruitful. fruitful in the land 
 
 of my affliction. 
 
 they became afterwards. The Semitic races 
 were treated with respect in Egypt. Joseph 
 had become thoroughly naturalized (see 
 V. 51 andch. xliii. 3a), with an Egyptian name 
 and the rank of Viceroy or Grand Vizier. 
 Abraham had before this taken Hagar, an 
 Egyptian, to wife, which would make such 
 an alliance less strange to Joseph. Whether 
 Asenath adopted Joseph’s faith we are not told, 
 but, in the end at least, she probably did. (See 
 also Excursus on Egyptian Words, on “Ase- 
 nath wife of Joseph,” at the end of this volume.) 
 
 46 . thirty years old] He must therefore 
 have been thirteen years in Egypt, either in Poti- 
 phar’s house or in- prison. (See ch. xxxvii. a.) 
 
 51 . Manasseh] i.e. “causing to forget.” 
 He was comforted by all his prosperity, so 
 that he no longer mourned over his exile. It 
 does not follow that he was ungratefully for- 
 getful of his home. 
 
 53 11 And the seven years of plen- 
 teousness, that was in the land of 
 Egypt, were ended. 
 
 54 ^And the seven years of dearth ‘•Psai. 105. 
 began to come, according as Joseph 
 
 had said: and the dearth was in all 
 lands; but in all the land of Egypt 
 there was bread. 
 
 55 And when all the land of Egypt 
 was famished, the people cried to Pha- 
 raoh for bread : and Pharaoh said un- 
 to all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; 
 what he saith to you, do. 
 
 56 And the famine was over all 
 the face of the earth : And Joseph 
 opened ^ all the storehouses, and sold t Heb. 
 unto the Egyptians ; and the famine 
 waxed sore in the land of Egypt. 
 
 57 And all countries came into 
 Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; 
 because that the famine was so sore 
 in all lands. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 I yacob senckth his ten sons to bny corn in 
 Egypt. 16 They are imprisotted by yoseph 
 for spies. 18 T hey are set at liberty on con- 
 dition to bring Betijamin. n They have 
 remorse for yoseph. •24 Simeon is kept for a 
 pledge. 25 They return with corn, and their 
 money. 29 Their relation to yacob. 36 
 yacob refuseth to send Benjamin. 
 
 N OW when Jacob saw that® Acts 7 
 there was corn in Egypt, Ja- 
 cob said unto his sons. Why do ye 
 look one upon another? 
 
 2 And he said. Behold, I have 
 
 52 . Ephraim] i.e. “doubly fruitful,” a 
 dual form. 
 
 54 . the dearth] Notwithstanding the 
 fertility generally produced in Egypt by the 
 overflowing or the Nile, yet the swelling of the 
 Nile a few feet above or below what is neces- 
 sary, has in many instances produced destruc- 
 tive and protracted famines, such that the 
 people have been reduced to the horrible ne- 
 cessity of eating human flesh, and have been 
 almost swept away by death. (See Hengsten- 
 berg, ‘Egypt,’ &c., pp. 37, 38; Havernick, 
 Int. to Pentateuch, p. 218 ; also Smith’s ‘Diet, 
 of Bible,’ art. Famine.^ 
 
 in all lands] The drought which affected 
 Egypt reached the neighbouring countries also. 
 Ethiopia, Arabia, Palestine, and Syria, would 
 be especially affected by it ; and the Egyptians, 
 and Hebrews also, would look on these lands 
 as comprehending the whole known world. 
 
2o8 
 
 GENESIS. XLIL [v. 3-19. 
 
 heard that there is corn in Egypt: 
 get you down thither, and buy for 
 us from thence ; that we may live, 
 and not die. 
 
 3 ^ And Joseph’s ten brethren 
 went down to buy corn in Egypt. 
 
 4 But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, 
 Jacob sent not with his brethren; for 
 he said. Lest peradventure mischief 
 behill him. 
 
 5 And the sons of Israel came to 
 buy corn among those that came: for 
 the famine was in the land of Canaan. 
 
 6 And Joseph was the governor 
 over the land, and he it was that 
 sold to all the people of the land : and 
 Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed 
 down themselves before him with 
 their faces to the earth. 
 
 7 And Joseph saw his brethren, 
 and he knew them, but made him- 
 self strange unto them, and spake 
 
 f Heb. ^ roughly unto them ; and he said un- 
 ^thhf^s them. Whence come ye? And 
 
 with them. Said, From the land of Canaan 
 to buy food. 
 
 8 And Joseph knew his brethren, 
 but they knew not him. 
 
 * chap. 37. 9 And Joseph ^remembered the 
 
 5 - dreams which he dreamed of them, 
 
 and said unto them, Y e are spies ; to 
 see the nakedness of the land ye are 
 come. 
 
 10 And they said unto him. Nay, 
 
 my lord, but to buy food are thy 
 servants come. 
 
 11 We are all one man’s sons; we 
 are true men^ thy servants are no spies. 
 
 12 And he said unto them. Nay, 
 but to see the nakedness of the land 
 ye are come. 
 
 13 And they said. Thy servants 
 are twelve brethren, the sons of one 
 man in the land of Canaan; and, 
 behold, the youngest is this day with 
 our father, and one is not. 
 
 14 And Joseph said unto them. 
 That is it that I spake unto you, 
 saying. Ye are spies: 
 
 15 Hereby ye shall be proved: By 
 the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go 
 forth hence, except your youngest 
 brother come hither. 
 
 16 Send one of you, and let him 
 fetch your brother, and ye shall be 
 ^ kept in prison, that your words may 
 be proved, whether there be any truth 
 in you : or else by the life of Pharaoh 
 surely ye are spies. 
 
 1 7 And he ^ put them all together 
 into ward three days. 
 
 18 And Joseph said unto them the 
 third day, This do, and live; for 1 
 fear God: 
 
 19 If ye be true men^ let one of 
 your brethren be bound in the house 
 of your prison : go ye, carry corn for 
 the famine of your houses ; 
 
 Chap. XLII. 6. he it that sold 
 
 to all the people of the lancP^ ^ e are not 
 to suppose that Joseph personally sold the 
 corn to all buyers, but that he ordered the 
 selling of it, and set the price upon it ; and 
 very probably, when a company of foreigners 
 came to purchase in large quantities, they 
 were introduced personally to Joseph, that 
 he might enquire concerning them and give 
 directions as to the sale of corn to them. 
 
 7 . spoke roughly unto theni\ Lit, “spake 
 hard things with them,” as the margin. This 
 did not arise from a vindictive spirit. It was 
 partly that he might iK)t he recognized by 
 them, and j)artly that he might prove them 
 and see whether they were penitent for what 
 they had done to him. 
 
 8. they kne^ju not him'] He was only 17 
 when they sold him ; he was now at least 37, 
 and had adopted all the habits and man- 
 ners of tlie Egyptians; probably even his com- 
 
 plexion had been much darkened by living so 
 long in a southern climate. 
 
 9 . the nakedness of the land] i. e. the de- 
 fenceless and assailable points of the country; 
 like the Latin phrases, nuda urbs pra:sidio^ nu^ 
 data castra, nudi defensoribus muri (Ros. ; Cp. 
 Horn. ‘ II.’ XTI. 399, Tei;fOf eyvixvdOr]'). The 
 Egyptians were always most liable to be as- 
 sailed from the East and North-east. (See 
 Herod. 11 1. 5.) The various Arab and 
 Canaanitish tribes seem to have constantly 
 made incursions into the more settled and 
 civilized land of Egypt. Particularly the 
 Hittites were at constant feud with the Egyp- 
 tians. Moreover the famous Hyesos invasion 
 and domination may have been very nearly 
 impending at this period. 
 
 15 . By the life of Pharaoh] Cp. similar 
 phrases (i S. i. 26; xvii. 55; a S. xiv. 19 ; 
 2 R. ii. 2, 4, 6). Not distinctly an oath, but 
 a strong asseveration. 
 
V. 20—35-] 
 
 GENESIS. XLII. 
 
 209 
 
 ‘^chap. 43. 20 But bring your youngest bro- 
 
 ther unto me ; so shall your words be 
 verified, and ye shall not die. And 
 they did so. 
 
 21 ^ And they said- one to an- 
 other, We a 7 'e verily guilty concern- 
 ing our brother, in that we saw the 
 anguish of his soul, when he be- 
 sought us, and we would not hear; 
 therefore is this distress come upon us. 
 
 22 And Reuben answered them, 
 chap. 37. saying, Spake I not unto you, say- 
 ing, Do not sin against the child; 
 and ye would not hear? therefore, 
 behold, also his blood is required. 
 
 23 And they knew not that Joseph 
 tHeb * understood them; for ^ he spake unto 
 
 them by an interpreter. 
 
 ^4 turned himself about 
 
 from them, and wept; and returned 
 to them again, and communed with 
 them, and took from them Simeon, 
 ' and bound him before their eyes. 
 
 25 ^ Then Joseph commanded to 
 fill their sacks with corn, and to 
 restore every man’s money into his 
 sack, and to give them provision for 
 the way : and th-us did he unto them. 
 
 26 And they laded their asses with 
 the corn, and departed thence. 
 
 27 And as one of them opened his 
 sack to give his ass provender in the 
 inn, he espied his money; for, behold, 
 it was in his sack’s mouth. 
 
 28 And he said unto his brethren. 
 
 My money is restored; and, lo. It 
 Is even in my sack: and their heart 
 
 ^ failed them^ and they were afraid, f Heb. 
 saying one to another. What Is this/^^/j. 
 that God hath done unto us ? 
 
 29 ^ And they came unto Jacob 
 their father unto the land of Canaan, 
 and told him all that befell unto 
 them; saying, 
 
 30 The man, who Is the lord of 
 
 the land, spake ^ roughly to us, and f Heb. 
 took us for spies of the country. 
 
 31 And we said unto him. We are 
 true men; we are no spies; 
 
 32 We be twelve brethren, sons of 
 our father; one Is not, and the young- 
 est Is this day with our father in the 
 land of Canaan. 
 
 33 And the man, the lord of the 
 country, said unto us. Hereby shall 
 I know that ye are true men; leave 
 one of your brethren here with me, 
 and take food for the famine of your 
 households, and be gone : 
 
 34 And bring your youngest bro- 
 ther unto me: then shall I know 
 that ye are no spies, but that ye 
 are true men: so will I deliver you 
 your brother, and ye shall traffick in 
 the land. 
 
 35 ^ And it came to pass as they 
 emptied their sacks, that, behold, 
 every man’s bundle of mon^y was in 
 
 20 . bring your youngest brother unto me'\ 
 There seems some needless severity here on 
 the part of Joseph in causing so much anxiety 
 to his father. We may account for it per- 
 haps in the follovring ways, ist, Joseph felt 
 that it was necessary to test the repentance of 
 his brethren and to subject them to that kind 
 of discipline which makes repentance sound 
 and lasting, andly, He niay have thought 
 that the best mode of persuading his father to 
 go down to him in Egypt was first of all to 
 bring Benjamin thither. 3 rdly, He was mani- 
 festly following a Divine impulse and guiding, 
 that so his dreams should be fulfilled, and 
 his race brought into their house of bondage 
 and education. 
 
 24. Simeon\ It has been thought that 
 he took Simeon, either because he was the 
 next in age to Reuben, whom he would not 
 bind as having been the brother that soug-ht 
 tv. .save him, or perhaps because Simeon had 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 been one of the most , unfeeling and cruel 
 towards himself, according to the savage tem- 
 per which he shewed in the case of the She- 
 chemites. See ch. xxxiv, xlix. 5 . 
 
 25. their sacks'] Rather, their vessels; 
 the word is different from that elsewhere used 
 for sacks, and apparently indicates that they 
 had some kind of vessel for corn which they 
 carried within their sacks. 
 
 27. in the inn] The khan, or caravan- 
 serai, in the East was, and is still, a place, 
 where men and cattle can find room to rest, 
 but which provides neither food for man nor 
 fodder for cattle. It is doubtful, however, 
 whether anything of this kind existed so early 
 as the time of Joseph. The word means only 
 “a resting place for the night,” and very 
 probably was only a station, at which cara- 
 vans were wont to rest, near to a well, to 
 trees, and to pasture, where the tents were 
 pitched and the cattle wei'e tethered. 
 
 O 
 
210 
 
 GENESIS. XLII. XLIII. 
 
 his sack: and when both they and 
 their father sav/ the bundles of money, 
 they v/ere afraid. 
 
 36 And Jacob their father said 
 unto them, Me have ye bereaved of 
 my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon 
 is not, and ye will take Benjamin 
 away: all these things are against me. 
 
 37 And Reuben spake unto his 
 father, saying. Slay my two sons, if 
 I bring him not to thee : deliver him 
 into my hand, and I will bring him 
 U) thee again. 
 
 38 And he said, My son shall not 
 go down with you; for his brother 
 is dead, and he is left alone : if mis- 
 chief befall him by the way in the 
 which ye go, then shall ye bring 
 down my gray hairs with sorrow to 
 the grave. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 I Jacob is hardly pe'rsnaded to send Benjamin. 
 15 Joseph entertaineth his brethrefi. 31 He 
 inaketh them a feast. 
 
 K 
 
 ND the famine was sore in 
 land. 
 
 the 
 
 2 And it came to pass, when they 
 had eaten up the corn which they 
 had brought out of Egypt, their fa- 
 ther said unto them. Go again, buy 
 us a little food. 
 
 3 And Judah spake unto him, say- 
 f Hei). ing. The man ^ did solemnly protest 
 
 unto us, saying. Ye shall not see my 
 "chap 42 hice, except your ^brother with you. 
 20. 4 If thou wilt send our brother 
 
 [v. 36—11. 
 
 with us, we will go down and buy 
 thee food : 
 
 5 But if thou wilt not send him.^ 
 we will not go down: for the man 
 said unto ue. Ye shall not see my 
 face, except your brother be with you. 
 
 6 And Israel said. Wherefore dealt 
 ye so ill with me, as to tell the man 
 whether ye had yet a brother ? 
 
 7 And they said, .The man ^ asked ^ , 
 
 ' . , / ' I r askins: 
 
 US straitly or our state, and or our asked 7(s. 
 kindred, saying. Is your father yet 
 alive? have ye another brother? and 
 we told him according to the ^ tenor 
 of these words : ^ could we certainly t Heb.’ 
 know that he would say. Bring your ZTtd7£ 
 brother down ? 
 
 8 And Judah said unto Israel his 
 father, Send the lad with me, and 
 we will arise and go; that we may 
 live, and not die, both we, and thou, 
 and also our little ones. 
 
 9 I will be surety for him ; of my ' 
 hand shalt thou require him: ^if I* chap. 44. 
 bring him not unto thee, and set him 
 before thee, then let me bear the 
 blame for ever : 
 
 10 For except we had lingerM, 
 surely now we had returned “ this " Or, 
 
 •' 1 . tiuice by 
 
 second time. this. 
 
 1 1 And their father Israel said un- 
 to them, If it must be so now, do 
 this; take of the best fruits in the 
 land in your vessels, and carry down 
 the man a present, a little balm, and 
 a little honey, spices, and myrrh, 
 nuts, and almonds : 
 
 36. Me have ye bereaved'\ Jacob sus- 
 pects that they had been in some way the 
 cause of Joseph’s supposed death and of 
 Simeon’s captivity. 
 
 against me'] Lit. “upon me,” i.e. upon me 
 as a burden too heavy for me to bear. 
 
 CliAl’. XLIII. 11. of the best fruits in 
 the land] Lit. “of the song of the land,” 
 i.e. the most prai.sed produce, the fruits cele- 
 brated in song. 
 
 balm] See xxxvii. 25. 
 
 honey] So rendered in all the Versions, 
 though some think th.it it was composed of the 
 juice of grapes boiled down to a syrup of the 
 consistency of honey, called in Arabic Dihs; 
 which even in modern times has been im- 
 
 ported into Egypt annually from the neigh- 
 bourhood of Hebron (see Ros. and Ges. 
 P- 319)- 
 
 spices] Probably Storax. See on xxxvii. 
 25- 
 
 myrrh] L a dan u in. See on xxxvii. 25. 
 
 nuts] Pistachio nuts. So Bochart (‘Hie- 
 roz.’ II. iv. 12) ; Cels. (‘ Hierobot.’ Tom. i. p. 
 24); Ges. (p. 202). The LX X., followed by 
 Onk., Syr., Arab., renders terebinth.^ probably 
 because the pistachio nut tree was considered as 
 a species of terebinth. All these fruits may 
 have grown in the land of Canaan, though the 
 corn-harvest may have utterly failed. Thus 
 also may we account for the fact, that the 
 small supjily, which could be carried from 
 Egypt by ten asses, sufheed for a time to sup- 
 
V. 12— 29.J 
 
 GENESIS. XLIII. 
 
 2 1 1 
 
 
 la And take double money in your 
 hand ; and the money that was brought 
 again in the mouth of your sacks, 
 carry /V again in your hand; perad- 
 venture it was an oversight ; 
 
 13 Take also your brother, and 
 arise, go again unto the man ; 
 
 14 And God Almighty give you 
 mercy before the man, that he may 
 send away your other brother, and 
 
 Wr,A»d Benjamin. “If I be bereaved ^ my 
 iaveieen, children^ I am bereaved. 
 
 15 ^ And the men took that pre- 
 sent, and they took double money in 
 their hand, and Benjamin; and rose 
 up, and went down to Egypt, and 
 stood before Joseph. 
 
 16 And when Joseph saw Benja- 
 min with them, he said to the ruler of 
 his house. Bring these men home, and 
 
 tHeb. ^slay, and make ready; for these men 
 tiifc. shall ^dine with me at noon. 
 
 17 And the man did as Joseph 
 bade; and the man brought the men 
 into Joseph’s house. 
 
 18 And the men were afraid, be- 
 cause they were brought into Joseph’s 
 house; and they said, Because of the 
 money that was returned in our sacks 
 at the first time are we brought in ; 
 
 tiieb. that he may ^seek occasion against us, 
 7e\fupon and fiill upon US, and take us for bond- 
 men, and our asses. 
 
 19 And they came near to the 
 
 ^cbap. 42. Qf Joseph’s house, and they 
 
 tHeb. communed with him at the door of 
 
 coining 
 
 downivg the house, 
 
 'doZi. 20 And said, O sir, ‘^^we came in- 
 
 deed down at the first time to buy 
 food : 
 
 21 And it came to pass, when we 
 came to the inn, that we opened our 
 sacks, and, behold, every man’s money 
 was in the mouth of his sack, our 
 money in full weight: and we have 
 brought it again in our hand. 
 
 22 And other money have we 
 •brought down in our hands to buy 
 food : we cannot tell who put our 
 money in our sacks. 
 
 23 And he said. Peace he to you, 
 fear not : your God, and the God of 
 your father, hath given you treasure 
 
 in your sacks : ^ I had your money. ^ Heb. 
 And he brought Simeon out unto them » 'money 
 
 24 And the man brought the men 
 
 into Joseph’s house, and ^gave is. 
 
 water, and they washed their feet ; & 24. 32. 
 and he gave their asses provender. 
 
 25 And they made ready the pre- 
 sent against Joseph came at noon : 
 for they heard that they should eat 
 bread there. 
 
 26 ^ And when Joseph came home, 
 they brought him the present which 
 was in their hand into the house, and 
 bowed themselves to him to the earth. 
 
 27 And he asked them of their 
 ^welfare, and said, ^ Is your father well, t Heb. 
 the old man of whom ye spake.? AfnS 
 he yet alive ? "pcZZil 
 
 28 And they answered. Thy sqy- yonr /.i- 
 vant our father is in good health, he 
 
 is yet alive. And they bowed down 
 their heads, and made obeisance. 
 
 29 And he lifted up his eyes, and 
 
 ply Jacob’s household. There was a griev- 
 ous famine, but still all the fruits of the earth 
 had not failed. Corn was needed ; but life 
 can be supported, especially in a warm climate, 
 with but a moderate amount of the more solid 
 kinds of food. 
 
 14 . God Almighty] El Shaddai. Jacob 
 here uses that name of the Most High, by 
 which He made Himself known to Abraham, 
 and afterwards renewed His covenant with 
 Jacob himself (ch. xvii. i, xxxv. ii; where 
 see note). Hereby he calls to mind the pro- 
 mise of protection to himself and his house, as 
 well as the power of Him who had pro- 
 mised. 
 
 If 1 be herea'ved of my children^ I am be- 
 
 reanjed.] Cp. Esth. iv. 16; 2 K.vii. 4. The 
 expression seems partly of sorrow and partly 
 of submission and resignation. 
 
 18 . that he may seek occasion against us] 
 Lit. “that he may roll himself upon us,” that 
 is, probably, “ that he may rush out upon us.” 
 
 20. O Sir] “Pray, my lord,” or “Hear, 
 my lord,” the word translated 0 is a particle 
 of earnest entreaty. 
 
 26 . and bonved themselves] Joseph’s 
 first dream is nov/ fulfilled. The eleven 
 sheaves make obeisance to Joseph’s sheaf. It 
 is observable, that Joseph’s dream, like Pha- 
 raoh’s, had reference to sheaves of corn, evi- 
 dently pointing to the supply of food sought 
 by the brethren. 
 
 02 
 
212 
 
 GENESIS. XLIII. XLIV. 
 
 [v. 30—5- 
 
 saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s 
 son, and said. Is this your younger 
 brother, of whom ye spake unto me ? 
 And he said, God be gracious unto 
 thee, my son. 
 
 30 And Joseph made haste, for 
 his bowels did yearn upon his brother : 
 and he sought where to weep ; and he 
 entered into his chamber, and wept 
 there. 
 
 31 And he washed his face, and 
 went out, and refrained himself, and 
 said. Set on bread. 
 
 32 And they set on for him by 
 himself, and for them by themselves, 
 and for the Egyptians, which did eat 
 with him, by themselves : because the 
 Egyptians might not eat bread with 
 the Hebrews ; for that is an abomina- 
 tion unto the Egyptians. 
 
 33 And they sat before him, the 
 firstborn according to his birthright, 
 and the youngest according to his 
 youth : and the men marvelled one 
 at another. 
 
 34 And he took and sent messes 
 unto them from before him : but 
 Benjamin’s mess was five times so 
 
 much as any of theirs. And they 
 drank, and ^ were merry with him. t Heb. 
 
 they drank 
 largely. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 I Joseph's policy to stay his breLlcren. 14 Ju- 
 dahs hunibk supphcatioyi to Joseph. 
 
 A nd he commanded Hhe steward t Heb. 
 
 L of his house, saying. Fill 
 men’s sacks with food, as much 
 they can carry, and put every man’s 
 money in his sack’s mouth. 
 
 2 And put my cup, the silver cup, 
 in the sack’s mouth of the youngest, 
 and his corn money. And he did 
 according to the word that Joseph had 
 spoken. 
 
 3 As soon as the morning was light, 
 the men were sent away, they and 
 their asses. 
 
 4 Jnd when they were gone out 
 of the city, and not yet far off, Joseph 
 said unto his steward. Up, follow after 
 the men; and when thou dost over- 
 take them, say unto them. Wherefore 
 have ye rewarded evil for good ? 
 
 5 Is not this it in which my lord 
 drinketh, and whereby indeed he ” di- " 
 vineth ? ye have done evil in so doing, trian 
 
 29. my son] Joseph addresses Benjamin 
 his younger brother with this paternal saluta- 
 tion, not only from the difference in their 
 ages, but as being a governor he speaks with 
 the authority and dignity of his position. 
 
 32. the Egyptians might not eat bread 
 <voith the Hebreavs] The Egyptians feared to 
 eat with foreigners, chiefly because they 
 dreaded pollution from such as killed and ate 
 cows, which animals were held in the highest 
 veneration in Egypt. Hence Herodotus says, 
 that an Egyptian would not kiss a Greek, nor 
 use a knife or a spit belonging to a Greek, 
 nor eat any meat that had been cut with a 
 Greek knife (Her. ii. 45). Joseph probably 
 dined alone from his high rank, the distinc- 
 tions of rank and caste being carefully ob- 
 sened ; but, as he was naturalized in Egypt, 
 and had, no doubt, conformed to their do- 
 mestic customs, he would probably not have 
 needed to separate himself at meals from the 
 native Egyptians, as would his brethren from 
 the land of the Hebrews. 
 
 33. they sat before him] The Egyp- 
 tians sat at their meals, though most of the 
 ancients, and, in later times at least, the He- 
 brews, reclined. 
 
 the men maraoelled otw at another] They 
 
 marvelled that strangers should have seated 
 them exactly according to their ages. 
 
 34 . sent messes unto them] The custom 
 is met with elsewhere, as a mark of respect 
 to distinguished guests (see i S. ix. 23, 24). 
 
 f’ve times so much] Herodotus mentions 
 the custom of giving double portions as a 
 mark of honour. The Spartan kings “are 
 given the first seat at the banquet, they are 
 served before the other guests, and have a 
 double portion of everything” (vi. 57; cp. 
 also Horn. ‘II.’ vii. 321, viii. 162). 
 
 <vjere merry] Drank freely. The word is 
 chiefly used of drinking to excess, but not 
 always; see for instance Hagg. i. 6. 
 
 Chap. XLIV. 2. my cup] or rather 
 bowl. In Jer. xxxv. 5 the word is rendered 
 “pots.” In Ex. XXV. 31, xxxvii. 17, it is 
 used of the “ bowl” or calix of the sculptured 
 flowers. It was evidently a larger vessel, 
 flagon or bowl, from which the wine was 
 poured into the smaller cups. 
 
 5 . dianneth] Divination by cups was 
 frecjuent in ancient times. Jamblichus (‘ Dc 
 Myst.’ III. 14) mentions it, so Varro (ap. 
 August. ‘Civ. Dei,’ vii. 35), Pliny (‘ H. N.’ 
 xx.wii. 73, &c.). The latter says that “in 
 
V. 6 — 18.] 
 
 GENESIS. XLIV. 
 
 21 
 
 6 11 And he overtook them, and he 
 spake unto them these same words. 
 
 7 And they said unto him, Where- 
 fore saith my lord these words ? God 
 .forbid that thy servants should do 
 according to this thing: 
 
 8 Behold, the money, which we 
 found in our sacks’ mouths, we brought 
 again unto thee out of the land of 
 Canaan : how then should we steal 
 out of thy lord’s house silver or gold 
 
 9 With whomsoever of thy servants 
 it be found, both let him die, and we 
 also will be my lord’s bondmen. 
 
 10 And he said. Now also let it he 
 according unto your words : he with 
 whom it is found shall be my servant; 
 and ye shall be blameless. 
 
 1 1 Then they speedily took down 
 every man his sack to the ground, and 
 opened every man his sack. 
 
 12 And he searched, and began at 
 the eldest, and left at the youngest: 
 and the cup was found in Benjamin’s 
 sack. 
 
 13 Then they rent their clothes, 
 and laded every man his ass, and re- 
 turned to the city. 
 
 14 ^ And Judah and his brethren 
 came to Joseph’s house; for he was 
 yet there : and they fell before him 
 on the ground. 
 
 15 And Joseph said unto them. 
 
 What deed is this that ye have done 
 wot ye not that such a man as I can 
 certainly "divine.? li Or, 
 
 16 And Judah said. What shall we ’trith 
 say unto my lord .? what shall we 
 speak.? or how shall we clear our- 
 selves .? God hath found out the ini- 
 quity of thy servants : behold, we are 
 
 my lord’s servants, both we, and he 
 also with whom the cup is found. 
 
 17 And he said, God forbid that 
 I should do so : but the man in whose 
 hand the cup is found, he shall be my 
 servant; and as for you, get yoiuup 
 in peace unto your father. 
 
 18 11 Then Judah came near unto 
 him, and said. Oh my lord, let thy 
 
 this hydromantia images of the gods were 
 called up.” It was practised either by drop- 
 ping gold, silver, or jewels, into the water, 
 and then examining their appearance; or sim- 
 ply by looking into the water as into a mirror, 
 somewhat probably as the famous Egyptian 
 magician did into the mirror of ink, as men- 
 tioned by the duke of Northumberland and 
 others in the present day. (See Lane, ‘ Mod. 
 Egypt.’ II. 362.) 
 
 The sacred cup is a symbol of the Nile, 
 into whose waters a golden and silver patera 
 were annually thrown. The Nile itself, both 
 the source and the river, was called ‘ ‘ the cup 
 of Egypt” (Plin. ‘ H. N.’ viii. 71). This 
 cup of Joseph was of silver, while in ordinary 
 cases the Egyptians drank from vessels of 
 brass (Hecatseus in ‘ Athen.’ xi. 6; Herod. 
 II. 37 ; see Havernick, ‘ Introd. to Pentateuch,’ 
 ad h. 1.). 
 
 15 . ivot ye not that such a man as I can 
 certainly di'vinef] Joseph here adapts him- 
 self and his language to his character as it 
 would naturally appear in the eyes of his bre- 
 thren. We are not to assume that he actually 
 used magical arts. This would be quite in- 
 consistent with what he said to Pharaoh, ch. 
 xli. 16, disclaiming all knowledge of the fu- 
 ture, save as revealed by God. It has been 
 questioned how far Joseph was justified in the 
 kind of dissimulation which he thus used to 
 his brethren. That he was perfectly justified 
 
 in not declaring hirriself to them until he had 
 tested their repentance and had brought his 
 schemes concerning his father to a point, there 
 can be little doubt. He was never tempted 
 to deny that he was Joseph, for no one sus- 
 pected that he was. In fact he simply pre- 
 served his disguise. But in the present pas- 
 sage he seems to have used words which, 
 though not affi lining that he could divine, yet 
 nearly implied as much. It is to be observed, 
 however, that whatever may be thought on 
 this head, Joseph is not held up to us as 
 absolutely perfect. As it was in the case of 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the history is 
 simply told of the events as they occurred. 
 Joseph was a man of singular piety, purity, 
 and integrity, in high favour with Heaven, 
 and even at times inspired to declare the will 
 of God. It does not follow that he was perfect. 
 If inspired apostles were sometimes to be 
 blamed (Gal. ii. ii, 13), the holiest patriarchs 
 are not likely to have been incapable of error. 
 If the act was wrong, we must not consider 
 it as the result of Divine guidance, but as 
 the error of a good but fallible man, whilst in 
 the main carrying out the designs of Provi- 
 dence. Making the worst that can be made 
 of it, it is difficult to say that any character in 
 Scripture, save One, (of which at least we have 
 any detailed account) comes out more purely 
 and brightly in the whole course of its history 
 than the character of Joseph. 
 
214 
 
 " chap. 
 
 * chap. 
 33 - 
 
 GENESIS. XLIV. XLV. [v. 19-4- 
 
 servant, I pray thee, speak a word in 
 my lord’s ears, and let not thine anger 
 burn against thy servant : for thou art 
 even as Pharaoh. 
 
 19 My lord asked his servants, say- 
 ing, Have ye a father, or a brother? 
 
 20 And we said unto my lord, We 
 have a father, an old man, and a child 
 of his old age, a little one; and his 
 brother* is dead, and he alone is left of 
 his mother, and his father loveth him. 
 
 21 And thou saidst unto thy ser- 
 vants, Bring him down unto me, that 
 I may set mine eyes upon him. 
 
 22 And we said unto my lord. The 
 lad cannot leave his father : for if he 
 should leave his father , father would 
 die. 
 
 23 And thou saidst unto thy ser- 
 43. vants, "Except your youngest brother 
 
 come down with you, ye shall see my 
 facg no more. 
 
 24 And it came to pass when we 
 came up unto thy servant my father, 
 we told him the words of my lord. 
 
 25 And our father said. Go again, 
 and buy us a little food. 
 
 26 And we said. We cannot go 
 down : if our youngest brother be 
 with us, then will we go down : for 
 we may not see the man’s face, except 
 our youngest brother be with us. 
 
 27 And thy servant my father said 
 unto us. Ye know that my wife bare 
 me two sons: 
 
 28 And the one went out from me, 
 37. and I said, '^Surely he is torn in pieces ; 
 
 and I saw him not since ; 
 
 29 And if ye take this also from 
 me, and mischief befall him, ye shall 
 bring down my gray hairs with sorrow 
 to the grave. 
 
 30 Now therefore when I come to 
 thy servant my father, and the lad be 
 
 not with us; seeing that his life is 
 bound up in the lad’s life; 
 
 31 It shall come to pass, when he 
 seeth that the lad is not with us^ that 
 he will die : and thy servants shall 
 bring down the gray hairs of thy 
 servant our father with sorrow to the 
 grave. 
 
 32 For thy servant became surety 
 for the lad unto my father, saying, 
 
 ‘^If I bring him not unto thee, then I ^ chap. 43. 
 shall bear the blame to my father for 
 ever. 
 
 33 Now therefore, I pray thee, let 
 thy servant abide instead of the lad a 
 bondman to my lord ; and let the lad 
 go up with his brethren. 
 
 34 For how shall I go up to my 
 father, and the lad be not with me? 
 lest peradventure I see the evil that 
 shall Tome on my father. 
 
 Jinf my 
 
 fatlie'^, 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 I yoseph viakeih himself htown to his brethren, 
 5 He comforteth them in God's providence. 
 9 He sendeth for his father. 16 Pharaoh 
 confirmeth it. 2 1 foseph furnisheth the 7 }i for 
 their jonimey, afid exhorteth them to concord. 
 25 facob is revived unth the news. 
 
 T hen Joseph could not refrain 
 himself before all them that 
 stood by him; and he cried, Cause 
 every man to go out from me. And 
 there stood no man with him, while 
 Joseph made himself known unto his 
 brethren. 
 
 2 And he ^ wept aloud ; and the 
 Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh 
 
 1 ^ 1 voire in 
 
 weepvzg, 
 
 3 And Joseph said unto his bre- 
 thren, am Joseph; doth my father « Acts 7. 
 yet live ? And his brethren could not 
 answer him ; for they were “ troubled i' Or, 
 at his presence. 
 
 4 And Joseph said unto his bre- 
 
 terri/ied. 
 
 28. Surely he is torn in pieces'^ From 
 these words probably for tlie first time Joseph 
 learns what had been Jacob’s belief as to his 
 son’s fate. 
 
 34. ho<vo should I fro up to my f ext her'] 
 The character of Judah comes out most fa- 
 vourably in this speech. He had, in the first 
 instance, saved Joseph from death, but yet he 
 had propesed the alternative of selling him as 
 
 a slave. He is evidently now much softened; 
 has witnessed Jacob’s affliction with deep sym- 
 pathy and sorrow, and so has been brought to 
 contrition and repentance. The sight of his 
 repentance finally moves Joseph at once to 
 make himself known to his brethren. 
 
 Chap. XLV. 2. <wept aloud] Lit., as the 
 margin, “ gave forth his voice in weeping.” 
 
V. 5->5] GENESIS. XLV. 
 
 IHeb. 
 neither let 
 ihe7-e be 
 aiie;er in 
 yo7{r eyes. 
 
 chap. 50. 
 20. 
 
 ' Heb. 
 tc f>ut for 
 ; on a rem- 
 I, lint. 
 
 thren, Come near to me, I pray you. 
 And they came near. And he said, 
 I am Joseph your brother, whom ye 
 sold into Egypt. 
 
 5 Now therefore be not grieved, 
 ^nor angry with yourselves, that ye 
 sold me hither : '^for God did send 
 me before you to preserve life. 
 
 6 For these two years hath the 
 famine been in the land : and yet there 
 are five years, in the which there shall 
 neither be earing nor harvest. 
 
 7 And God sent me before you ^ to 
 preserve you a posterity in the earth, 
 and to save your lives by a great de- 
 liverance. 
 
 8 So now it was not you that sent 
 me hither, but God : and he hath 
 made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord 
 of all his house, and a ruler through- 
 out all the land of Egypt. 
 
 9 Haste ye, and go up to my father, 
 and say unto him. Thus saith thy son 
 Joseph, God hath made me lord of 
 
 all Egypt : come down unto me, tarry 
 not ; 
 
 10 And thou shalt dwell in the 
 land of Goshen, and thou shalt be 
 near unto me, thou, and thy children, 
 and thy children’s children, and thy 
 flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou 
 hast : 
 
 1 1 And there will I nourish thee ; 
 for yet there are five years of famine ; 
 lest thou, and thy household, and all 
 that thou hast, come to poverty. 
 
 12 And, behold, your eyes see, and 
 the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that 
 it is my mouth that speaketh unto 
 you. 
 
 13 And ye shall tell my father of 
 all my glory in Egypt, and of all that 
 ye have seen ; and ye shall haste and 
 bring down my father hither. 
 
 14 And he fell upon his brother 
 Benjamin’s neck, and wept; and 
 Benjamin wept upon his neck. 
 
 15 Moreover he kissed all his bre- 
 
 6. earing^ i. e. “ ploughing.” To 
 “ear” is an old English word from the An- 
 glo-Saxon root erian, “to plough,” cognate 
 with the Latin arare. (See Bosworth, ‘ An- 
 glo-Saxon Diet.’ 25 k.) It occurs in the Au- 
 thorised Version; Ex. xxxiv. 21 ; Deut. xxi. 4 ; 
 
 I S. viii. 12; Isa. xxx. 24. 
 
 7. to preserve you a posterity in the earth., 
 and to save your lives by a great deliverance'^ 
 To make you a remnant in tlie earth 
 (that is, to secure you from utter destruction), 
 and to preserve your lives to a great 
 deliverance {i.e. to preserve life to you, so 
 that your deliverance should be great and 
 signal). 
 
 8. but God~\ Lit. “The God.” That 
 great Personal God, who had led and guard- 
 ed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who still 
 watched over the house of Israel. 
 
 a father to Pharaoh'] i.e. a wise and confi- 
 dential friend and counsellor. The Caliphs 
 and the Sultan of Turkey appear to have 
 given the same title to their Grand Viziers. 
 (See Burder, ‘Oriental Customs,’ ad h. 1 . ; 
 Gesen. p. 7 ; Ros. in loc.). 
 
 10 . the land of Goshen] The land of 
 Goshen was evidently a region lying to the 
 north-east of lower Egypt, bounded appa- 
 rently by the Mediterranean on the north, by 
 the desert on the east, by the Tanitic branch 
 of the Nile on the west (hence called “the 
 
 field of Zoan” or Tanis, Ps. Ixxviii. 12, 43), 
 and probably extending south as far as to the 
 head of the Red Sea, and nearly to Memphis. 
 It appears, in Gen. xlvii. ii, to be called the 
 land of Rameses, and the Israelites, before the 
 Exodus, are said to have built in it the cities 
 of Raamses and Pithom (Exod. i. ii). It 
 was probably, though under the dominion of 
 the Pharaohs, only on the confines of Egypt. 
 Hence the LXX. here renders “.Gesen of 
 Arabia.” In ch. xlvi. 28, where Goshen oc- 
 curs twice, the LXX. call it “ the city of 
 Heroopolis in the land of Ramasses.” Joseph 
 placed his brethren naturally on the confines 
 of Egypt, nearest to Palestine, and yet near 
 himself. It is probable, that either Memphis 
 or Tanis was then the metropolis of Egypt, 
 both of which are in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of the region thus marked out. 
 (See Ges. p. 307; Poole, in Smith, ‘Diet, 
 of Bible’ Art. Goshen] Hengstenb. ‘Egypt,’ 
 &;c. p. 42 sq.). 
 
 11. and thy household] The household of 
 Abraham and of Isaac consisted of many 
 servants and dependents, besides their own 
 families. So Jacob, when he came from Pa- 
 dan-aram, had become “two bands.” It is 
 probable that some hundreds of dependents 
 accompanied Jacob in his descent into Egypt, 
 and settled with him in Goshen. So again in 
 V. 18, Joseph’s brethren are bidden to take 
 their “ father and their households.^"' 
 
 C/l 
 
2 I 6 
 
 GENESIS. XLV. XLVI. 
 
 [v. 1 6 2. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 7i'ns good 
 in ike eyes 
 of Pha- 
 raoh. 
 
 ' TTeb. 
 let not 
 your eye 
 spare, ^c. 
 
 t lieb. 
 month. 
 
 I Tfeb. 
 carrying. 
 
 thren, and wept upon them : and after 
 that his brethren talked with him. 
 
 16 ^ And the fame thereof was 
 heard in Pharaoh’s house, saying, 
 Joseph’s brethren are come: and it 
 ^ pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. 
 
 17 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, 
 Say unto thy brethren. This do ye; 
 lade your beasts, and go, get you unto 
 the land of Canaan ; 
 
 18 And take your father and your 
 households, and come unto me : and 
 I will give you the good of the land 
 of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of 
 the land. 
 
 19 Now thou art commanded, this 
 do ye ; take you wagons out of the 
 land of Egypt for your little ones, 
 and for your wives, and bring your 
 hither, and come. 
 
 20 Also ^ regard not your stuff; for 
 the good of all the land of Egypt is 
 yours. 
 
 21 And the children of Israel did 
 so: and Joseph gave_ them wagons, 
 according to the Commandment of 
 Pharaoh, and gave them provision for 
 the way. 
 
 22 'Eo all of them he gave each 
 man changes of raiment; but to Ben- 
 jamin he gave three hundred pieces of 
 silver, and five changes of raiment. 
 
 23 And to his fiither he sent after 
 this manner I ten asses Uadenwith the 
 
 good things of Egypt, and ten she asses 
 laden with corn and bread and meat 
 for his father by the way. 
 
 24 So he sent his brethren away, 
 and they departed : and he said unto 
 them,. See that ye fall not out by the 
 way. 
 
 25 ^ And they went up out of 
 Egypt, and came into the land of 
 Canaan unto Jacob their father, 
 
 26 And told him, saying, Joseph 
 is yet alive, and he is governor over 
 
 all the land of Egypt. And ^Jacob’s t Heb. 
 heart fainted, for he believed them not. 
 
 27 And they told him all the words 
 of Joseph, which he had said unto 
 them : and when he saw the wagons 
 which Joseph had sent to carry him, 
 the spirit of Jacob their father revived : 
 
 28 And Israel said. It is enough ; 
 Joseph my son is yet alive : I will go 
 and see him before I die. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 I yacob is comforted by God at Beer-sheba: 5 
 Thence he ivith his company goeth into Egypt. 
 
 8 The number of his family that went into 
 Egypt. 29 foseph ineeteth facob. 31 Pie 
 instructeth his brethren henu to ansvoer to 
 Pharaoh. 
 
 AND Israel took his journey with 
 jlf\_ all that he had, and came to 
 Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices unto 
 the God of his father Isaac. 
 
 2 And God spake unto Israel in 
 the visions of the night, and said. 
 
 24 . See that ye fall not out by the ‘zvay^ 
 So all the Versions; but as the word rendered 
 “fall out” expresses any violent emotion as 
 of fear or anger, some prefer to render, “ Be 
 not afraid in the journey;” so Tuch, Baumg., 
 Gesen., and many moderns. The ancient in- 
 terpretation is more probable. They had al- 
 ready travelled on that journey several times 
 ■without meeting with any evil accident; but 
 there was some danger that they might (juar- 
 rel among themselves, now that they wen* re- 
 conciled to Joseph, perhaps each one being 
 n'ady to throw the blame of former miscon- 
 duct on the others (Calvin). 
 
 27 . (zvagons^ Carts and wagons were 
 known early in Egypt, which was a flat coun- 
 try and highly cultivated; but they were pro- 
 bably unknown at this time in Palestine and 
 Syria. The Egyptian carts, as dej)icted on 
 the monuments, are of two \\'heels only, when 
 •used for carrying agricultural produce. The 
 
 four-wheeled car, mentioned by Herodotus, 
 was used for carrying the shrine and image 
 of a deity. (See Sir G. Wilkinson’s note to 
 Rawlinson’s Herodotus, ii. 63, and the en- 
 graving there.) When Jacob saw the wagons, 
 he knew that they had come from Egypt, and 
 so he believed his sons’ report, and was com- 
 forted. 
 
 Cll.^P. XLVI. 1 . to Beer-sheba., and 
 offered sacrifices, &;c.] Here Abraham and 
 Isaac, built altars (ch. xxi. 33, xxvi. 25), and 
 worshipped. Jacob naturally felt it to be a 
 place hallowed by sacred memories, and being 
 anxious as to the propriety of leaving the land 
 of promise and going down into Egypt, he here 
 sacrificed to the God of his fathers, and no 
 doubt sought guidance from Him. Beer- 
 sheba was South of Hebron on the road 
 bv which facob would naturally travel into 
 Egypt. 
 
V. 3 — 12 -] 
 
 GENESIS. XLVL 
 
 217 
 
 Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here 
 am I. 
 
 3 And he said, I am God, the God 
 of thy father : fear not to go down 
 into Egypt; for I will there make of 
 thee a great nation : 
 
 4 I will go down with thee into 
 Egypt; and I will also surely bring 
 thee up again: and Joseph shall put 
 his hand upon thine eyes. 
 
 5 And Jacob rose up from Beer- 
 sheba: and the sons of Israel carried 
 Jacob their father, and their little ones, 
 
 ‘ and their wives, in the wagons which 
 Pharaoh had sent to carry him. 
 
 6 And they took their cattle, and 
 their goods, which they had gotten in 
 
 a Josh. 24. qP Canaan, and came into 
 
 Psai. 105. Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with 
 
 li 52. 4. him : 
 
 7 His sons, and his sons’ sons with 
 him, his daughters, and his sons’ 
 daughters, and all his seed brought 
 he with him into Egypt. 
 
 8 ^ And these are the names of^-Exod. i. 
 the children of Israel, which came into 
 Egypt, Jacob and his sons : ‘^Reuben, 
 
 Jacob’s firstborn. iChron. 5. 
 
 9 And the sons of Reuben ; Ha- 
 noch, and Phallu, and Hezron, and 
 Carmi. 
 
 10 ^ ^And the sons of Simeon ; 
 
 Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and tChron. 4, 
 Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the 
 
 son of a Canaanitish woman. 
 
 1 1 And the sons of ^Levi ; Ger- 
 shon, Kohath, and Merari. 
 
 12 ^ And the sons of /Judah ; Er,-^^Chron. 
 and Onan, and Shelah, and Pharez, & 1 2t. 
 and Zarah : but Er and Onan died in 3. 
 
 3. I am God^ the God of thy father] “I 
 am EP '' — a reference again to the name “El- 
 Shaddai,” by which the Most High so specially 
 made covenant with the patriarchs. See on 
 ch. xliii. 14. 
 
 fear not to go donun into Egypt] Abraham 
 had gone down there and been in great danger. 
 Isaac had been forbidden to go thither (ch. 
 xxvi. a). Abraham, Isaac, Jacob had all been 
 placed and settled in Canaan with a promise 
 that they should in future possess the land. 
 Moreover, Egypt was, not only a heathen land, 
 but one in which heathenism was specially de- 
 veloped and systematized. Jacob might there- 
 fore naturally fear to find in it dangers both 
 worldly and spiritual. Hence the promise of 
 God’s presence and protection was signally 
 needed. 
 
 4 . Joseph shall put his hand upon thine 
 eyes] The ancients, Gentiles as well as Jews, 
 desired that their dearest relatives should close 
 their eyes in death (Horn. ‘II.’ xi. 453; ‘Od.’ 
 XXIV. 296; Eurip. ‘Hec.’ 430; ‘Phoen.’ 1465; 
 Virg. ‘Ain.’ ix. 487; Ov. ‘Heroid.’ I. i6a). 
 
 5 . the sons of Israel carried Jacob their 
 father] The scene depicted on the tomb of 
 
 Chnoumhotep at Beni Hassan cannot be the 
 Egyptian version of the arrival of the Israelites 
 in Egypt; but it is strikingly illustrative of the 
 history of that event. The date of the inscrip- 
 tion is that of the rath dynasty, which was 
 probably the dynasty under which Joseph lived; 
 a number of strangers, with beards (which the 
 Egyptians never wore, but which in the sculp- 
 tures indicate uncivilized foreigners), and with 
 dress and physical characteristics belonging to 
 tht" Semitic nomads, appear before tlie governor 
 offering him gifts. They carry their goods 
 
 with them on asses, have women and children 
 with them, and are anned with bows and clubs. 
 They are described as Absha and his family, 
 and the number 37 is written over in hiero- 
 glyphics. The signs, which accompany the 
 picture, indicate that they were either captives 
 or tributaries. Sir G. Wilkinson, however, 
 has suggested that possibly this indication may 
 result from the contemptuous way in which 
 the Egyptians spoke of all foreigners, and the 
 superiority which they claimed over them. 
 Moreover, they are anned, one of them is play- 
 ing on a lyre, and others bring presents; which 
 things point rather to an immigration than to 
 a captivity. (See Wilkinson, Vol. ii. p. 296, 
 and plate. Brugsch, ‘H. E.’ p. 63, where the 
 scene is well engraved, and a good description 
 annexed.) 
 
 7 . his daughters] Only one daughter 
 is named and one granddaughter. This verse 
 implies that there were more. Mai rietl women 
 would not be mentioned in a Hebrew gene- 
 alogy; hence Jacob’s sons’ wives are not re- 
 counted among the seventy souls that camie into 
 Egypt. See v. 26. Dinah remained unmar- 
 ried. Hence she only of Jacob's daughters is 
 named. 
 
 10 . JemueP^ Called Nemuel, Num. xxvi. 
 12; I Chron. iv. 24. 
 
 Ohad] Not named in Num. xxvi. 12 ; i Chr. 
 iv. 24 - 
 
 Jachin] “ Jarib,” i Chr. iv, 24. 
 
 7 johar] “Zerah,” Num. xxvi. 13; i Chr. 
 iv. 24. 
 
 11. Gershon] ‘ Gershom,’ i Chr. vi. 16. 
 
 12 . And the sons of Pharez ‘^vere Hezron 
 and Haniul] The difficulties in the chro- 
 
2i8 
 
 GENESIS. XLVI. 
 
 [v. 13—21. 
 
 the land of Canaan. And the sons of 
 Pharez were Hezron and Hamul. 
 
 /ri Chron. 13 ^ -S' And the sons of Issachar; 
 Tola, and Phuvah, and Job, and 
 Shimron. 
 
 14 ^ And the sons of Zebulun; 
 Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel. 
 
 15 These be the sons of Leah, 
 which she bare unto Jacob in Padan- 
 aram, with his daughter Dinah : all 
 the souls of his sons and his daughters 
 were thirty and three. 
 
 16 ^ And the sons of Gad; Zi- 
 phion, and Haggi, Shuni, and Ezbon, 
 Eri, and Arodi, and Areli. 
 
 ji^Chron. And the sons of Asher; Jim- 
 
 nah, and Ishuah, and Isui, and Beriah, 
 and Serah their sister : and the sons of 
 Beriah ; Heber, and Malchiei. 
 
 18 These are the sons of Zilpah, 
 whom Laban gave to Leah his daugh- 
 ter, and these she bare unto Jacob, 
 even sixteen souls. 
 
 19 The sons of Rachel Jacob’s 
 wife; Joseph, and Benjamin. 
 
 20 *11 ' And unto Joseph in the land 4^- 
 of Egypt were bor-n Manasseh and 
 Ephraim, which Asenath the daughter 
 
 of Poti-pherah " priest of On bare unto " 
 
 , . * * prince. 
 
 him. 
 
 21 ^ -^'And the sons of Benjamin ^ 
 were Belah, and Becher, and Ashbel, ’ 
 
 nology of this catalogue have suggested the 
 thought that it did not foi*m a part of the 
 original history of Genesis. The difficul- 
 ties are really no greater than v^e might expect 
 to find in a document so ancient, and where 
 names and numbers are concerned, which of 
 all things are most likely to puz/le us. In this 
 verse it appears that Er and Onan having died in 
 Canaan, two of Judah’s grandchildren are sub- 
 stituted for them. It has been said that Hezron 
 and Hamul could not have been born before 
 the descent into Egypt, as the events related 
 in ch. xxxviii. took place after the selling of 
 Joseph, and that, therefore, Pharez could not 
 have been old enough to have two sons at the 
 time of that descent. Moreover, it is argued, 
 that Judah himself could not have been more 
 than 4z at this time, which is inconsistent with 
 the apparent statement that his third son, Pha- 
 rez. no't born till after the marriage and death 
 of his two elder brothers, Er and Onan, should 
 himself have had two sons. To this it may be 
 replied, (i), that we must not assum.e that the 
 events in chap, xxxviii. necessarily took place 
 after those in ch. xxxvii. It is most likely that 
 ch. xxxviii. was introduced episodically at a 
 convenient point in the history, to avoid break- 
 ing the continuity of the story. (See note on 
 xxxviii. I.) (2) Again, if the chronology of 
 
 the life of Jacob proposed in the note at the 
 end of eh. xxxi. be correct, Judah was, not 42, 
 but 62, at the descent into Egypt, in which case 
 the two sons of Pharez may easily have been 
 born then. (3) Moreover, it is quite possible 
 tliat the names in this catalogue may have 
 comprised, not only those that were actually 
 of the company, which went down into Egypt, 
 but also all the grandchildren or great grand- 
 children of Jacob born before Jacob’s death. 
 'I'his would not be inconsistent with the com- 
 mon usage of Scripture language, and it would 
 allow 17 years more for the birth of those two 
 grandsons of Judah and for the ten sons of 
 
 Benjamin. Now Judah was probably 79 at 
 Jacob’s death, at which age his son Pharez 
 may easily have had two sons. Indeed, the 
 statement immediately coupled with the names 
 of Hezron and Hamul, viz. that Er and Onan 
 had died in Canaan, seems introduced on pur- 
 pose to accoimt for the reckoning of these 
 grandchildren of Judah, born in Egypt, with 
 others who had been born in Canaan. 
 
 13 . Joh\ Called ‘Jashub’ Num. xxvi. 24; 
 I Chr. vii. i. 
 
 15 . thirty and three] that is, including 
 Jacob himself, but not Er, or Onan, who 
 were dead, nor perhaps Leah. 
 
 16 . 7Jphion] ‘Zephon’ in Num. xxvi. 15. 
 
 Ezbo7i] ‘Oziii,’ Num. xxvi. 16. 
 
 Arodi] ‘A rod,’ Num. xxvi. 17. 
 
 17 . Ishuah] Not mentioned in Numbers. 
 Probably lie had not left descendants and 
 founded families. 
 
 20. And unto Joseph, &:c.] At the end 
 of this verse the LXX. insert the names of 
 Machir the son of Manasseh, and Galaad the 
 son of Machir, and Sutalaam and Taam the 
 sons of Ephraim, and Edem the son of Suta- 
 laam. (See Numb. xxvi. 28 — 37; i Chr. vii. 
 14.) Thus the whole number of persons be- 
 comes 75. The passage however is not in the 
 Samaritan, with which the LXX. mostly agrees. 
 
 21 . the sons of Benjamin] These are 
 ten in number. According to Numb. xxvi. 40 
 two of them, Naaman and Ard, were grand- 
 sons of Benjamin. According to the common 
 chronology Benjamin was only 23 at the com- 
 ing into Egypt; an age at which he could 
 hardly have had ten sons, or eight sons and 
 two grandsons, even if he had two wives and 
 some of the children had been twins. The 
 considerations alluded to at v. 12, however, will 
 allow us to calculate that Benjamin was 32 at 
 
V. 2 2 — 34 -] 
 
 GENESIS. XLVI. 
 
 i Dent, 
 
 < Heb. 
 thi^h. 
 
 219 
 
 Gera, and Naaman, Ehi, and Rosh, 
 Muppim, and Huppim, and Ard. 
 
 22 These are the sons of Rachel, 
 which were born to Jacob: all the 
 souls were fourteen. 
 
 23 11 And the sons of Dan; Hu- 
 shirn. 
 
 24 H And the sons of Naphtali; 
 Jahzeel, and Guni, and Jezer, and 
 Shillem. 
 
 25 These are the sons of Bilhah, 
 which Laban gave unto Rachel his 
 daughter, and she bare these unto 
 Jacob: all the souls were seven. 
 
 26 '^All the souls that came with 
 Jacob into Egypt, which came out 
 of his Moins, besides Jacob’s sons’ 
 wives, all the souls were threescore 
 and six; 
 
 27 And the sons of Joseph, which 
 were born him in Egypt, were two 
 souls : all the souls of the house of 
 Jacob, which came into Egypt, were 
 threescore and ten. 
 
 28 H And he sent Judah before 
 him unto Joseph, to direct his face 
 unto Goshen ; and they came into 
 the land of Goshen. 
 
 29 And Joseph made ready his 
 
 chariot, and went up to meet Israel 
 his father, to Goshen, and presented 
 himself unto him ; and he fell on his 
 neck, and wept on his neck a good 
 while. 
 
 30 And Israel said unto Joseph, 
 Now let me die, since I have seen 
 thy, face, because thou art yet alive. 
 
 31 And Joseph said unto his bre- 
 thren, and unto his father’s house, 
 
 I will go up, and shew Pharaoh, and 
 say unto him. My brethren, and my 
 father’s house, which were in the 
 land of Canaan, are come unto me ; 
 
 32 And the men are shepherds, 
 
 for ^ their trade hath been to feed t He’-, 
 cattle; and they have brought their 
 flocks, and their herds, and all that 
 they have. 
 
 33 And it shall come to pass, when 
 Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say. 
 What Is your occupation ? 
 
 34 7 Tat ye shall say. Thy servants’ 
 trade hath been about cattle from our 
 youth even until now, both we, and 
 also our fathers : that ye may dwejl 
 in the land of Goshen; for every 
 shepherd is an abomination unto the 
 Egyptians. 
 
 the going down to Egypt (see note at the end 
 of ch. xxxi.), and therefore forty-nine at the 
 death of Jacob, by which age he might easily 
 have been the father of ten sons. 
 
 Three of Benjamin’s sons, Becher, Gera and 
 Rosh, are wanting in the table given in Num. 
 xxvi., probably because they had not left chil- 
 dren enough to form independent families. 
 
 Ehi^ Muppim^ and Huppim\ Called ‘ Shup- 
 ham, Hupham, and Ahiram,’ in Num. xxvi. 38, 
 39 - 
 
 27 . all the souls of the house of Jacoby 
 tiuhich came into Egypt^ 'were threescore and 
 teii\ The number is made up of the 66 men- 
 tioned in the last verse, Jacob himself, Joseph, 
 and the two sons of Joseph. The LXX. 
 reads here “ The sons of Joseph, which were 
 born to him in Egypt, were nine souls. All 
 the souls of the house of Jacob, who came with 
 Jacob into Egypt, were seventy-five.” See 
 above note on verse 20. St Stephen (Acts vii. 
 14) adopts the number 75, probably because 
 he, or St Luke, quotes the LXX. version, as 
 all Greek-speaking Jews would naturally have 
 done; and it may be fairly said, that both 
 numbers were equally correct, and that the 
 variation depends on the different mode of 
 
 reckoning. The genealogical tables of the Jews 
 were drawn up on principles unlike those of 
 modern calculation. And there would be no 
 impropriety, on these principles, in reckoning 
 the children of Joseph only, or in adding to 
 them his grandchildren also, especially if the 
 latter became founders of important families 
 in Israel. 
 
 28 . he sent Judah before him unto Joseph^ 
 to direct his face unto Goshen\ i.e. He sent 
 Judah before himself (Jacob) to Joseph, that 
 Joseph might direct him to Goshen. 
 
 34 . e'very shepherd is an abomination unto 
 the Egyptians'] Herodotus speaks of the 
 aversion of the Egyptians for swineherds (ii. 
 47). The monuments indicate their con- 
 tempt for shepherds and goatherds by the 
 mean appearance always given to them. Nei- 
 ther mutton nor the flesh of goats was ever 
 eaten or offered. Even woollen garments, 
 though sometimes worn over linen, were es- 
 teemed unclean. No priest would wear them. 
 They were never worn in temples, nor were 
 the dead buried in them. To this day, sheep- 
 feeding is esteemed the office of women and 
 slaves. The fact that the Egyptians themselves 
 were great agriculturists, tillers of land, and 
 
220 
 
 GENESIS. XLVII. 
 
 [''• •— 9 - 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 I Joseph presenteth five of his brethren^ 7 and 
 his father^ before Pharaoh. 1 1 He giveth 
 them habitation and maintenance. 13 He 
 getteth all the Egyptians' money, 16 their 
 cattle, 18 their lands to Pharaoh. 22 The 
 priests' land was not bought. 23 He letteth 
 the land to them for a fifth part. 28 Jacob's age. 
 29 He sweareth Joseph to bury him with his 
 fathers. 
 
 T hen Joseph came and told 
 Pharaoh, and said, My father 
 and my brethren, and their flocks, 
 and their herds, and all that they 
 have, are come out of the land of 
 Canaan ; and., behold, they are in the 
 land of Goshen. 
 
 2 And he took some of his bre- 
 thren, even five men, and presented 
 them unto Pharaoh. 
 
 3 And Pharaoh said unto his bre- 
 thren, What is your occupation ? 
 And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy 
 servants are shepherds, both we, and 
 also our fathers. 
 
 4 They said moreover unto Pha- 
 raoh, For to sojourn in the land are 
 
 we come; for thy servants have no 
 pasture for their flocks; for the fa- 
 mine is sore in the land of Canaan : 
 now therefore, we pray thee, let thy 
 servants dwell in the land of Goshen. 
 
 5 And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, 
 saying. Thy father and thy brethren 
 are come unto thee : 
 
 6 The land of Egypt is before 
 thee ; in the best of the land make 
 thy father and brethren to dwell; in 
 the land of Goshen let them dwell : 
 and if thou knowest any men of acti- 
 vity among them, then make them 
 rulers over my cattle. 
 
 7 And Joseph brought in Jacob 
 his father, and set him before Pha- 
 raoh : and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 
 
 8 And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, 
 
 ^ How old art thou? t Heb. 
 
 9 And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, 
 
 " The days of the years of my pil- thHdays 
 grimage are an hundred and thirty of 
 years: few and evil have the days off'Hetf'L. 
 the years of my life been, and have ^3- 
 
 that their neighbours the Arab tribes of the 
 desert, with whom they were continually at 
 feud, were nomads only, may have been suffi- 
 cient to cause this feeling. The Egyptians 
 looked on all the people of Egypt as of noble 
 race(Diod. v. 58), and on all foreigners as low- 
 born. Hence they would naturally esteem 
 a nomadic people in close proximity to them- 
 selves, and with a much lower civilization 
 than their own, as barbarous and despicable. 
 A\’hatever be the historical foundation for the 
 existence of three dynasties of Hyesos or Shep- 
 herd-kings extending over a period of from 
 500 to I coo years, there can be little doubt 
 that the Egyptians were frequently harassed 
 by incui-sions from the nomadic tribes in their 
 neighbourhood. Some of these tribes appear 
 to have subdued portions of Lower Egypt and 
 to have fixed their seat of govemment at 
 I'anis (Zoan), or even at Memphis. The 
 great Hyesos invasion was after the time of 
 Joseph, who probably lived under a Pharaoh 
 of the twelfth dynasty (see Excursus); but 
 the hostility lietween the Egyptians and the 
 nomad trilx.*s of Asia had no doubt been of 
 long duration. 
 
 Chap. XLVII. 6. in the best of the land~\ 
 The modern province of Es-Shnrkiveh. u hich 
 appears nearly to correspond with the land of 
 Goshen, is said to bear the highest valuation 
 and to yield the largest revenue” of any 
 
 in Egypt. (Robinson, ‘B. R.’ i. p. 78, 79; 
 Kurtz, Vol. II. p. 15.) M. Chabas has collected 
 notices of great interest showing the riches 
 and beauty of the district under the 19th 
 dynasty (‘Mel. Egypt.’ ii.) 
 
 7 . and Jacob blessed Pharaoh'] Some 
 here render “ Jacob saluted Pharaoh,” a pos- 
 sible translation, as the Eastern salutation is 
 often with words of blessing: but the natural 
 sense of the word is “to bless;” and if Jacob 
 had bowed himself to the ground before Pha- 
 raoh according to a familiar Eastern custom, 
 it would probably have been so related in the 
 history. More probably the aged patriarch, 
 with the conscious dignity of a prophet and 
 the heir of the promises, prayed for blessings 
 upon Pharaoh. 
 
 8. Ho^ old art thou?] How many are 
 the day.s of the years of thy life? 
 
 9 . my pilgrimage] Lit. “ my sojourn- 
 ings.” Pharaoli asked of the days of the years 
 of his life, he replies by speaking of the days 
 of the years of his pilgrimage. Some have 
 thought that he called his life a pilgrimage, 
 because he was a nomad, a wanderer in lands 
 not his own: but in reality the patriarchs 
 spoke of life as a pilgrimage or sojourning, 
 because they sought another country, that is a 
 heavenly (Heb. xi. 9, 13). Earth was not 
 their home, but their journey homewards. 
 
 fe^jo and evil] The Jews speak of Jacob’s 
 
221 
 
 V. 10— 21.] GEN ESI 
 
 not attained unto the days of the 
 years of the life of my fathers in the 
 days of their pilgrimage. 
 
 10 And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and 
 went out from before Pharaoh. 
 
 11 ^ And Joseph placed his father 
 and his brethren, and gave them a 
 possession in the land of Egypt, in 
 the best of the land, in the land of 
 Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. 
 
 12 And Joseph nourished his fa- 
 ther, and his brethren, and all his 
 
 J Or, father’s household, with bread, “ ^ ac- 
 cording to their families. 
 
 13 ^ And there was no bread in 
 all the land ; for the famine was very 
 
 little ones, sore, SO that the land of Egypt and 
 all the land of Canaan fainted by rea- 
 son of the famine. 
 
 14 And Joseph gathered up all the 
 money that was found in the land of 
 Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, 
 for the corn which they bought: and 
 Joseph brought the money into Pha- 
 raoh’s house. 
 
 15 And when money failed in the 
 land of Egypt, and in the land of 
 Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto 
 Joseph, and said. Give us bread: for 
 why should we die in thy presence ? 
 for the money faileth. 
 
 seven afflictions: (i) the persecution of Esau; 
 (2) the injustice of Laban ; (3) the result of 
 his wrestling with the Angel; (4) the viola- 
 tion of DiUah; (5) the loss of Joseph; (6) 
 the imprisjnment of Simeon; (7) the depar- 
 ture of Benjamin for Egypt. They might 
 well have added the death of Rachel and the 
 incest of Reuben (Schumann). 
 
 11 . the^ land of Rameses'] In Ex. i. ii, 
 the Israelites are said to have built treasure 
 cities for Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses. It 
 is possible that Goshen is here called the land 
 of Rameses by anticipation, as it may have 
 become familiarly known to the Israelites by 
 the name “ land of Rameses” after they had 
 built the city Rameses in it. Very probably, 
 however, the Israelites in the captivity only 
 fortified and strengthened the city of Rameses 
 then already existing, and so fitted it to be a 
 strong treasure-city. The name Rameses be- 
 came famous in after times from the exploits 
 of Rameses II., a king of the 19th dynasty : 
 but he was of too late a date to have given 
 name to a city, either in the time of Joseph, 
 or even at the time of the Exodus. Rameses, 
 
 S. XLVII. 
 
 16 And Joseph said. Give your 
 cattle ; and I will give you for your 
 cattle, if money fail. 
 
 17 And they brought their cattle 
 unto Joseph: and Joseph gave them 
 bread in exchange for horses, and for 
 the flocks, and for the cattle of the 
 herds, and for the asses: and he ^fed ^ 
 them v/ith bread for all their cattle 
 for that year. 
 
 18 When that year was ended, 
 they came unto him the second year, 
 and said unto him, We will not hide 
 it from my lord, how that our money 
 is spent; my lord also hath our herds 
 of cattle; there is not ought left in 
 the sight of my lord, but our bodies, 
 and our lands : 
 
 19 Wherefore shall we die before 
 thine eyes, both we and our land ? 
 buy us and our land for bread, and 
 we and our land will be servants unto 
 Pharaoh : and give ns seed, that we 
 may live, and not die, that the land 
 be not desolate. 
 
 20 And Joseph bought all the land 
 of Egypt for Pharaoh ; for the Egyp- 
 tians sold every man his field, because 
 the famine prevailed over them : so 
 the land became Pharaoh’s. 
 
 21 And as for the people, he re- 
 
 according to the LXX. corresponded with the 
 Heroopolis of after times. (See on this city 
 Hengstenberg, ‘ Egypt,’ p. 51, and Excursus 
 at the end of the volume.) 
 
 12. according to their families] Lit. “to 
 the mouth of their children;” meaning very 
 probably, “ even to the food for their chil- 
 dren.” 
 
 20. Joseph bought all the land of Egypt 
 for Pharaoh] All the main points in ""the 
 statements of this chapter are confirmed by 
 Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, and the monu- 
 ments. Herodotus (ii. 109) says that Sesos- 
 tris divided the soil among the inhabitants, 
 assigning square plots of land of ‘equal size 
 to all, and obtained his revenue from a rent 
 paid annually by the holders. Diodorus (1.54) 
 says that Sesoosis divided the whole country 
 into 36 nomes and set nomarchs over each to 
 take care of the royal revenue and administer 
 their respective provinces. Strabo (xvii. p. 
 787) tells us that the occupiers of land held 
 it subject to a rent. Again, Diodorus (i. 73, 
 74) represents the land as possessed only by 
 the priests, the king, and the warriors, which 
 
2 2 2 
 
 GENESIS. XLVII. 
 
 1 Or, 
 princes. 
 
 / 
 
 [V. 2 2 26. 
 
 moved them to cities from oyie end 
 of the borders of Egypt even to the 
 other end thereof. 
 
 22 Only the land of the ^ priests 
 bought he not; for the priests had 
 a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, 
 and did eat their portion which Pha- 
 raoh gave them: wherefore they sold 
 not their lands. 
 
 23 Then Joseph said unto the peo- 
 ple, Behold, I have bought you this 
 day and your land for Pharaoh : lo, 
 here is seed for you, and ye shall sow 
 the land. 
 
 testimony is confirmed by the sculptures 
 (Wilkinson, i. p. 263). The discrepancy of 
 this from the account in Genesis is apparent 
 in the silence of the latter concerning the 
 lands assigned to the warrior caste. The re- 
 servation of their lands to the priests is ex- 
 pressly mentioned in v. ; but nothing is 
 said of the warriors. There was, however, 
 a marked difference in the tenure of land by 
 the warriors from that by the priests. Hero- 
 dotus (II. 168) says that each warrior had 
 assigned to him twelve arura of land (each 
 arura being a square of 100 Egyptian cu- 
 bits); that is to say, there were no landed 
 possessions vested in the caste, but certain 
 fixed portions assigned to each person : and 
 these, as given by the sovereign’s will, so 
 apparently were liable to be withheld or 
 taken away by the same will ; for we find 
 that Sethos, the contemporary ot Sennacherib 
 and therefore of Hezekiah and Isaiah, actu- 
 ally deprived the warriors of these lands, 
 wliich former kings had conceded to them 
 (Herod, ii. 141). It is therefore, as Knobel 
 remarks, highly probable that the original 
 reseiwation of their lands was only to the 
 priests, and that the warrior caste did not 
 come into possession of their twelve arurte 
 each, till after the time of Joseph. In the 
 other important particulars the sacred and 
 profane accounts entirely tally, viz. that, by 
 royal appointment, the original proprietors of 
 the land became crown tenants, holding their 
 land by payment of a rent or tribute ; whilst 
 the priests only were left in full possession of 
 their fornier lands and revenues. As to the 
 particular king to whom this is attributed by 
 I lerodotus and Diodorus, Lepsius (‘ Chronol. 
 Egypt.’ I. p. 304) supposes that this was not 
 the Sesostris of Manetho’s 12th dynasty 
 (Osirtasen of the Monuments), but a Sethos 
 or Sethosis of the 19th dynasty, whom he 
 considers to be the Pharaoh of Joseph. The 
 19th dynasty is, however, certainly much too 
 late a date for Joseph. It may be a (juestion 
 whether the division of the land into 36 
 
 24 And it shall come to pass in 
 the increase, that ye shall give the 
 fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four 
 parts shall be your own, for seed of 
 the field, and for your food, and for 
 them of your households, and for food 
 for your little ones. 
 
 25 And they said, Thou hast saved 
 our lives: let us find grace in the 
 sight of rny lord, and we will be 
 Pharaoh’s servants. 
 
 26 And Joseph made it a law over 
 the land of Egypt unto this day, that 
 Pharaoh should have the fifth part; 
 
 nomes and into square plots of equal size by 
 Sesostris be the same transaction as the pur- 
 chasing and restoring of the land by Joseph. 
 The people were already in possession of 
 their property when Joseph bought it, and 
 they received it again on condition of paying 
 a fifth of the produce as a rent. But whetly^r 
 or not this act of Sesostris be identified with 
 that of Joseph (or the Pharaoh of Joseph), 
 the profane historians and the monuments com- 
 pletely bear out the testimony of the author 
 of Genesis as to the condition of land ten me 
 and its origin in an exercise of the sovereign’s 
 authority. 
 
 21. he remo’ved them to citles'\ He had 
 collected all the corn, which he had stored 
 up for the fiimine, into the various cities of 
 Egypt, and so he removed the people into the 
 cities and their neighbourhood, that he might 
 the better provide them with food (Schum.). 
 
 22. Only the land of the priests bought he 
 not\ See on v. 20. 
 
 the priests had a portion assigned them of 
 Pharaoh, and did eat their portion cwhich Pha- 
 raoh ga-ve theni] This does not mean that 
 the priests were Pharaoh’s stipendiaries, vyhich 
 would be inconsistent with the immediately 
 preceding wmrds, as wHl as with the statement 
 of profane authors as to the landed possessions 
 of the priests. On the contrary, it means, 
 that Pharaoh had such respect for the minis- 
 ters of religion, that, instead of suffering 
 Joseph to sell corn to them and so to buy up 
 their land, he ordered a portion of corn to 
 be regularly distributed to them during the 
 famine, and so they were not reduced to the 
 necessity of selling their lands. This regard 
 for the priests is expressly assigned to Pha- 
 raoh, not to Joseph, and so there can be no 
 need to apologize for Joseph’s respect to an 
 idolatrous priesthood. 
 
 20 . Joseph made it a la^'] The finsl 
 result of Joseph’s policy was that the land 
 was restored to the Egyptians, w'ith an obli- 
 gation to pa\- one fifth of it to Pharaoh for the 
 
V. =7-^-] GENESIS. XLVII. XLVIIi. 
 
 cor, except the land of the "priests only, 
 fnnccs. became not Pharaoh’s. 
 
 2/ And Israel dwelt in the land 
 of Egypt, in the country of Goshen ; 
 and they had possessions therein, and 
 grew, and multiplied exceedingly. 
 
 28 And Jacob lived in the land of 
 t Hci.. Egypt seventeen years : so ^ the whole 
 
 age of Jacob was an hundred forty 
 seven years. 
 
 29 And the time drew nigh that 
 Israel must die; and he called his son 
 Joseph, and said unto him. If now 
 I have found grace in thy sight, 
 
 I' rhap. 24. ^ put, I pray thee, thy hand under 
 my thigh, and deal kindly and truly 
 with me; bury me not, I pray thee, 
 in Egypt; 
 
 30 But I will lie with my fathers. 
 
 and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, 
 and bury me in their buryingplace. 
 
 And he said, I will do as thou hast 
 said. 
 
 31 And he said. Swear unto me. 
 
 And he sware unto him. And ‘^Is-'^Heb. 
 rael bowed himself upon the bed’s 
 head. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 I yoseph with his so 7 ts visiteth his sick father, 
 
 2 Jacob strengtheiieth hunself to bless them. 3 
 He repeateth the promise. 5 He taketh 
 Ephraim and Manasseh as his own. 7 He 
 telleth Joseph of his mother s grave. 9 He 
 blesseth Ephraim and MaJiassch. 17 He 
 preferreth^ the younger before the elder. 21 
 He prophesieth their return to Canaan. 
 
 AND it came to pass after these 
 Jf\^ things, that one told Joseph, 
 Behold, thy father is sick ; and he 
 
 purpose of maintaining the revenues of the 
 state. Much has been written in condemna- 
 tion, and again in vindication of theiie pro- 
 ceedings. Was Joseph a mere creature of 
 Pharaoh’s, desirous only of his master’s ag~ 
 grandi'/ement ? or was he bent on establishing 
 a tyrannical absolutism in violation of the 
 rights and liberties of the subject ? The bre- 
 vity, of the narrative and our imperfect ac- 
 quaintance with the condition of the people 
 and the state of agriculture in ancient Egypt 
 make it impossible fully to judge of the wis- 
 dom and equity of Joseph’s laws. This much, 
 however, is quite evident. The land in favour- 
 able years was very productive. In the plente- 
 ous years it brought forth by handfuls (ch. 
 xli. 47). Even the fifth part of the revenue of 
 corn (v. 34) was so abundant that it is de- 
 scribed as like “the sand of the sea,” and 
 “ without number” (v. 49). Yet there was a 
 liability to great depression, as shewn by the 
 seven years of famine : the monuments too in- 
 dicate the frequent occurrence of scarcity, and 
 there was evidently no provision against this 
 in the habits of the people or the management 
 of the tillage. If Pharaoh had not been moved 
 to store up corn against the famine years, the 
 population would most probably have perished. 
 The peculiar nature of the land, its dependence 
 on the overflow of the Nile, and the unthrifty 
 habits of the cultivators, made it desirable to 
 establish a system of centralization, perhaps to 
 introduce some general principle of irrigation, 
 in modem phraseology, to promote the pros- 
 perity of the country by great government 
 works, in preference to leaving all to the uncer- 
 tainty of individual enterprize. If this was so, 
 then the saying, “Thou hast saved our lives,” 
 was no language of Eastern adulation, but the 
 verdict of a grateful people. 
 
 The “ fifth part” which was paid to Pha- 
 raoh for the revenues of the state, and perhaps 
 for public works of all kinds, agricultural 
 and others, was not an exorbitant impost. 
 The Egyptians appear to have made no diffi- 
 culty in paying one-fifth of the produce of 
 their land to Pharaoh during the years of 
 plenty ; and hence we may infer that it would 
 not have been a burdensome rent when the 
 system of agriculture was put on a better 
 footing. 
 
 28 . the ^vhole age of Jacob'] Lit. the 
 days of Jacob, even the years of his life. 
 
 29 . bury me not. ..in Egypt] Jacob had 
 a firm faith that his descendants should innerit 
 the land of Canaan, and therefore desired to 
 be buried there. Moreover, he very probably 
 wished to direct the minds of his children to 
 that as their future home, that they might be 
 kept from setting up their rest in Egypt. 
 
 31 . bonved himself upon the bed's head] 
 So the Masorites point it. So the Targg., 
 Symm., Aquila, Vulg., but the LXX., Syr., 
 and Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 21), read “ on 
 the top of his staff.” The Hebrew word with- 
 out the vowel points means either “bed” or 
 “ staff.” The only distinction is in the vowel 
 points, which do not exist in the more ancient 
 MSS. It is therefore impossible to decide 
 with certainty which was the original sense of 
 the word. It is quite possible that the mean- 
 ing is, as the Apostle quotes the passage, that 
 after Joseph had sworn to bury him in Ca- 
 naan, Jacob bowed himself upon the staff 
 which had gone with him through all his wan- 
 derings (Gen. xxxii. 10), and so worshipped 
 God. And this seems the more likely from 
 the fact that it is not till after these things 
 that one told Joseph, “ Behold, thy father is 
 
1 
 
 224 
 
 took with him his two sons, Manas- 
 seh and Ephraim. 
 
 2 And otie told Jacob, and said, 
 Behold, thy son Joseph cometh unto 
 thee : and Israel strengthened himself, 
 and sat upon the bed. 
 
 3 And Jacob said unto Joseph, 
 God Almighty appeared unto me at 
 
 « chap. 28. in the land of Canaan, and 
 
 & 35- 6. blessed me, 
 
 4 And said unto me. Behold, I 
 will make thee fruitful, and multiply 
 thee, and I will make of thee a mul- 
 titude of people ; and will give this 
 land to thy seed after thee for an 
 everlasting possession. 
 
 f chap. 41. 5 ^ And now thy ^'two sons, Eph- 
 
 Tosh. 13. raim and Manasseh, which were born 
 7 - unto thee in the land of Egypt before 
 
 I came unto thee into Egypt, are 
 mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they 
 shall be mine. 
 
 6 And thy issue, which thou be- 
 gettest after them, shall be thine, and 
 Shall be called after the name of their 
 brethren in their inheritance. 
 
 [v. 2 — 12. 
 
 7 And as for me, when I came 
 
 from Padan, ‘^Rachel died by me in c chap. 35. 
 the land of Canaan in the way, when 
 yet there was but a little way to come 
 unto Ephrath : and I buried her there 
 in the way of Ephrath ; the sam>e is 
 Beth-lehem. 
 
 8 And Israel beheld Joseph’s sons, 
 and said, Who are these? 
 
 9 And Joseph said unto his father. 
 
 They are my sons, whom God hath 
 given me in this place. And he said. 
 
 Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, 
 and I will bless them. 
 
 10 Now the eyes of Israel were 
 Mim for age, so that he could not see. t Heb. 
 And he brought them near unto him ; 
 and he kissed them, and embraced 
 them. 
 
 11 And Israel said unto Joseph, I 
 had not thought to see thy face : and, 
 lo, God hath shewed me also thy 
 seed. 
 
 12 And Joseph brought them out 
 from between his. knees, and he bowed 
 himself with his face to the earth. 
 
 GENESIS. XLVIII. 
 
 sick” (ch. xlviii. i), so that Jacob probably 
 had not as yet taken to his bed. At the same 
 time we must not always press the quotations 
 in the New Testament as proof of the true 
 sense of the Hebrew original, for it is natu- 
 ral for the Apostles to quote the LXX. as 
 being the Authonsed Version, just as modern 
 divines quote m.odern versions in the vernacu- 
 lar languages without suggesting a correction 
 of tf.eir language, v. hen such correction is un- 
 neces.sary for their a.igument. 
 
 Chap. XLVIII. 3 . God Almighty^ “ El- 
 Shaddai.” See on ch. xliii. 14. 
 
 at Luz] i.e. Bethel. See ch. xxviii. 17, 19, 
 
 XXXV. 6, 7. 
 
 5 . as Reuben and Simeon^ they shall be 
 mine'\ Thy two sons shall be as much count- 
 ed to be my sons, as Reuben and Simeon, my 
 own two eldest sons, are counted to be mine ; 
 accordingly Ephraim and Manasseh became 
 patriarchs, eponymi, heads of tribes. Some 
 think that, as Reuben was deprived of his 
 birthright, so here the birthright is given to 
 Ephraim, the elder son of the firstborn of 
 Rachel. But the birthright seems rather to 
 have lx?en trans^rred to Judah, his three 
 elder brothers being disinherited, the first for 
 incest, the other Iwo for cruelty (see ch. xlix. 
 8-10) Accordingly, Judah became the royal 
 tribe, from whom as conceniing the flesh 
 
 Christ came, who is over all God blessed for 
 ever. There was, however, a kind of se- 
 condary birthright given to Ephraim (see xlix. 
 22 sq,), who became ancestor of the royal 
 tribe among the ten tribes of Israel. 
 
 6. shall be tailed after the name of their 
 brethren'] Shall not give names to separate 
 tribes, but shall be numbered with the tribes 
 of Ephraim and Manasseh. We hear nothing 
 of any younger sons of Joseph, and do not 
 know for certain that any were born to him; 
 but it has been thought that they may be men- 
 tioned in Num. xxvi. 28 — 37, i Chr. vii. 
 
 14—29- 
 
 7 . Rachel died by me] When adopting 
 the sons of Joseph, Jacob turns his thoughts 
 back to his beloved Rachel, for whose sake 
 especially he had so dearly loved Joseph. Ro- 
 senm,, Gesenius and some others propose to 
 translate here “Rachel died to my sorrov.q” 
 lit. “upon me,” and therefore as a heavy 
 burden to me; but. the received translation is 
 supported by the Versions, and by the frequent 
 use of the preposition in the sense of “near 
 me,” “by my side.” 
 
 12 . Joseph brought them out from be- 
 tween his knees] Joseph brought them out 
 from betwet'n Jacob’s knees, where they had 
 gone that he might embrace them, and pro- 
 bably placed them in a reverent attitude to 
 receive the patriarch’s blessing 
 
V. T3 2 2.] 
 
 GENESIS. XLVIII. 
 
 22 
 
 13 And Joseph took them both, 
 Ephraim in his right hand toward 
 Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh in 
 his left hand toward Israel’s right 
 hand, and brought them near unto him. 
 
 14 And Israel stretched out his 
 right hand, and laid it upon Eph- 
 raim’s head, who wj.s the younger, 
 and his left hand upon Manasseh’s 
 head, guiding his hands wittingly; for 
 Manasseh was the firstborn. 
 
 ^Heb. ir. ^5 ^ And ^hc blessed Joseph, and 
 said, God, before whom my fathers 
 Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God 
 which fed me all my life long unto 
 this day, 
 
 16 The Angel which redeemed me 
 from all evil, bless the lads; and let 
 my name be named on them, and the 
 name of my fathers Abraham and 
 iHeb. Isaac; and let them ^grow into a 
 multitude in the midst of the earth. 
 crease. jy when Joseph saw that his 
 father laid his right hand upon the 
 head of Ephraim, it displeased him : 
 and he held up his father’s hand, to 
 
 remove it from Ephraim’s head unto 
 Manasseh’s head. 
 
 18 And Joseph said unto his fa- 
 
 ther, Not so, my father: for this is 
 the firstborn ; put thy right hand upon 
 his head. » 
 
 19 And his father refused, and said, 
 
 I know /V, my son, I know it: he 
 also shall become a people, and he 
 also shall be great : but truly his 
 younger brother shall be greater than 
 
 he, and his seed shall become a ^mul- t Heb. 
 titude of nations. /uIhcss. 
 
 20 And he blessed them that day, 
 saying. In thee shall Israel bless, say- 
 ing, God make thee as Ephraim and 
 as Manasseh : and he set Ephraim 
 before Manasseh. 
 
 21 And Israel said unto Joseph, 
 Behold, I die: but God shall be with 
 you, and bring you again unto the 
 land of your fathers. 
 
 22 Moreover I have given to thee 
 one portion above thy brethren, which 
 I took out of the hand of the Amorite 
 with my sword and with my bow. 
 
 and he bonued himself <u)lth his face to the 
 eart/j] i.e. Joseph bowed down respectfully 
 and solemnly before his father. The LXX. 
 has “They bowed themselves,” which differs 
 but by the repetition of one letter from the 
 received reading. 
 
 14 . guiding his hands nvittingly^ So Ge- 
 sen., Rosenm., and most modern interpreters; 
 but the LXX. Vulg. &c. “putting his hands 
 crosswise.” This has been defended by some, 
 comparing an Arabic root, which has the 
 sense “to bind, to twist,” but it cannot be 
 shewn ever to have had the sense “to cross.” 
 
 16 . Tihe Angel (which redeemed me from 
 all e'vif] There is here a triple blessing: 
 
 “The God, before whom my fathers walked, 
 
 “The God, which fed me like a shepherd, all 
 my life long, 
 
 “The Angel, which redeemed (or redeemeth 
 . me) from all evil.” 
 
 It is impossible that the Angel thus identified 
 with God can he a created Angel. Jacob, 
 no doubt, alludes to the Angel who wrestled 
 with him and whom he called God (ch. xxxii. 
 24 — 30), the same as the Angel of the Cove- 
 nant, Mai. lii. I. Luther observes that the 
 verb “bless,” which thus refers to the God of 
 his fathers, to the God who had been his 
 Shepherd, and to the Angel who redeemed 
 him, is in the singular, not in the plural, 
 VOL. I. 
 
 showing that these three are but one God, and 
 that the Angel is one with the fathers’ God 
 and with the God who fed Jacob like a sheep. 
 
 22. Moreon^er I hawe ginjen to thee one 
 portio 7 i\ There is little doubt but that this 
 rendering is correct. The past tense is used 
 by prophetic anticipation, and the meaning is, 
 “I have assigned to thee one portion of that 
 land, which my descendants are destined to 
 take out of the hands of the Amorites.” The 
 word rendered portion is Shechem.^ meaning 
 literally “a shoulder,” thence probably a ridge 
 or neck of land, hence here rendered by most 
 versions and commentators “portion.” She- 
 chem, the city of Samaria, was probably named 
 from the fact of its standing thus on a ridge 
 or shoulder of ground. (See on Gen. xii. 6.) 
 Accordingly here the LXX., Targ. of Pseudo- 
 Jonath., as also Calvin, Rosenm., and some 
 moderns, have rendered not “portion,” but 
 “Shechem,” a proper name. The history of 
 Shechem is doubtless much mixed up with the 
 history of the Patriarchs, and was intimately 
 connected with all their blessings. It was 
 Abraham’s first settlement in Palestine, and 
 there he first built an altar (ch. xii. 6). There 
 too Jacob purchased a piece of ground from 
 Hamor the father of Shechem, and built an 
 altar (xxxiii. 18 — 20). This was, however, 
 not “taken out of the hand of the Amorite 
 with sword and bow,” but obtained peaceably 
 
 P 
 
 to 
 
226 
 
 GENESIS. XLIX. 
 
 [v. 1 — 5 - 
 
 chapter XLIX. 
 
 I Jacob calleth his sons to bless them. 3 Their 
 blessing in particular. 2g He chargeth them 
 about his burial. 33 He dicth. 
 
 AND Jacob called unto his sons, 
 £\_ and said, Gather yourselves to- 
 gether, that I may tell you that which 
 shall befall you in the last days. 
 
 2 Gather yourselves together, and 
 hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken 
 unto Israel your father. 
 
 3 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, 
 my might, and the beginning of my 
 strength, the excellency of dignity, 
 and the excellency of power: 
 
 4 Unstable as water, ^thou shalt 
 not excel; because thou '^wentest up 
 to thy father’s bed ; then defiledst 
 thou it: “he went up to my couch. 
 
 5 Simeon and Levi brethren ; 
 “instruments of cruelty are in their 
 habitations. 
 
 t Heb. 
 dofibtthou 
 excel, 
 a chap. 35. 
 22. 
 
 I Chror.. 5. 
 ilbr, 
 
 wy couch 
 is y:o 7 te. 
 
 II Or, their 
 swords are 
 weapons oj 
 violence. 
 
 by purchase. Some have thought therefore 
 that the allusion is to the victory over the 
 Shechemites by Simeon and Levi related in 
 ch. xxxiv., the Shechemites being here called 
 Amorites, though there Hivites, because Am- 
 orite was a generic name, like Canaanite: but 
 it is hardly likely that Jacob should boast of a 
 conquest by his sons, as though it were his 
 own, when he strongly reprobated their action 
 in it, and even “cursed their anger, for it was 
 tierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel" (ch. 
 xlix. 7). Though, therefore, it is undoubtedly 
 told us, that Jacob gave Shechem to Joseph, 
 and that Joseph was therefore buried there 
 (Josh. xxiv. 3a; John iv. 5. See also Je- 
 rome, ‘Qu. in Gen.’ xlix.); and though there 
 may be some allusion to this gift in the words 
 here made use of, by a paronomasia so com- 
 mon in Hebrew, it is most likely that the 
 rendering of the Authorised Version is correct. 
 The addition of “one” to “ portion ” seems to 
 decide for this interpretation. “I have given 
 thee one Shechem,” would be very hard to 
 interpret. 
 
 Chap. XLIX. 1. in the last da}y'\ The 
 future generally, but with special reference to 
 the times of Messiah. The Rabbi Nachmani- 
 des says, “ According to the words of all, the 
 last days denote the days of Messiah.” The 
 passages in which it occurs are mostly Messi- 
 anic predictions (see Num. xxiv. 14 ; Isa. ii. 2 ; 
 Jer. X.XX. 24; E'/ek. xxxviii. 16; Dan. x. 14; 
 Hcs. iii. 5; Mic. iv. i). The exact words of 
 the LXX. are usi'd in Heb. i. i, and virtually 
 the same in Acts ii. 17 ; 2 Tim. iii. i ; i Pet. i. 
 20; 2 Pet. iii. 3, where the reference is to the 
 times of Christ. (See Heidegger, Vol. ii. 
 XX 1 1 1. 6; Gesen. ‘Thes.’ p. 73.) The pro- 
 phecy of Jacob does not refer exclusively to 
 the days of Messiah, but rather sketches gene- 
 rally the fortunes of his family; but all is 
 leading up to that which was to be the great 
 consummation, when the promised Set'd should 
 come and extend the blessings of the Spiritual 
 Israel throughout all the world. It is to be 
 caiefully noted, that the occupation of Canaan 
 by the twelve triD s under Joshua was not the 
 point to which his expectations pointed as an 
 
 end, but rather that from which his predic- 
 tions took their beginning. It was not the 
 terminus ad quern., but the terminus a quo. 
 The return to Canaan was a fact established in 
 the decrees of Providence, the certainty of 
 which rested on promises given and repeated 
 to the Patriarchs. Jacob therefore does not 
 repeat this, farther than by the injunction, in 
 the last chapter, and again at the end of this, 
 that he should be buried, not in Egypt, but 
 at Machpelah, the buryingplace of his fathers. 
 
 3 . the beginning of my strength^ Some 
 important Versions (Aquila, Symm., Vulg.) 
 render “the beginning of my sorrow,” a pos- 
 sible translation, but not suited to the parallel- 
 isms. For the expression, as applied to first- 
 born sons, comp. Deut. xxi. 17; Ps. Ixxviii. 
 51, cv. 36. 
 
 4 . Unstable as ciuater~\ or “boiling over 
 like water.” The meaning of the word is 
 uncertain. The same root in Syriac expresses 
 “wantonness;” in Arabic, “pride,” “swelling 
 arrogance.” In this passage it is clearly con- 
 nected with water. The Vulgate translates, 
 “Thou art poured out like water.” Symma- 
 chus renders “Thou hast boiled over like 
 water.” The translation of the LXX. is pecu- 
 liar, but it also seems to point to boiling as 
 well as to the insolence of pride {i^v^picras cos 
 vdcop, pq (Kj(rT]s). Modem lexicographers 
 (as Gesen., Ltv, &;c.) generally give “boiling 
 over.” 
 
 thou shall not exceP^ Perhaps, though, 
 through thy swelling wantonness, thou risest 
 up like water when it boils, yet it shall not be 
 so as to excel and surpass thy brethren. Not 
 one great action, not one judge, prophet, or 
 leader from the tribe of Reuben is ever men- 
 tioned in history. 
 
 then defiledst thou it] “Thou hast polluted” 
 or “ desecrated it.” 
 
 5 . instruments of cruelty are in their ha~ 
 bitations] Probably, “Their swords are in- 
 struments of violence;” so the Vulg., several 
 Rabbins, and the most eminent moderns. The 
 word occurs only here, is very variously ren- 
 dered by the Versions, and is of doubtful deri- 
 vation. 
 
GENESIS. XLIX. 
 
 227 
 
 BOr, 
 
 IiOHghed 
 
 oxen. 
 
 V. 6 — 10.] 
 
 6 O my soul, come not thou into 
 their secret ; unto their assembly, 
 mine honour, be not thou united : 
 for in their anger they slew a man, 
 and in their selfwill they "digged down 
 a wall. 
 
 7 Cursed be their anger, for it was 
 fierce ; and their wrath, for it was 
 cruel : I will divide them in Jacob, 
 and scatter them in Israel. 
 
 8 ^ Judiih, thou art he whom thy 
 
 brethren shall praise: thy hand shall 
 be in the neck of thine enemies; thy 
 father’s children shall bow down be- 
 fore thee. 
 
 9 Judah is a lion’s whelp: from 
 the prey, my son, thou art gone up: 
 he stooped down, he couched as a 
 lion, and as an old lion ; who shall 
 rouse him up? 
 
 10 The sceptre shall not depart 
 from Judah, nor a lawgiver from be- 
 
 6. mine honour] Probably a synonym 
 for “my soul” in the first clause of the paral- 
 lelism. The soul as being the noblest part of 
 man is called his glory. See Ps. viii. 5 (6 
 Heb.), xvi. 9, xxx. 12 (13 Heb.), Ivii. 8 (9 
 Heb.), cviii. i (2 Heb.); (Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 655). 
 
 digged do^'n a nvalT] Hamstrung an ox. 
 So the margin “ houghed oxen.” The singu- 
 lar “ an ox” must be used to retain the paral- 
 lelism with “a man” in the former clause, 
 both have a collective intention. This is the 
 rendering of the LXX. and gives the com- 
 moner sense of the verb. It is therefore adopt- 
 ed by most recent commentators. The same 
 flebr-ew word, with a distinction only in the 
 vowel point, means “ox” and “wall.” 
 
 7. / w/ 7 / divide them in Jacob., and scat- 
 ter them in Israel] This was most literally 
 fulfilled, for when Canaan was conquered, on 
 the second numbering under Moses, the tribe 
 of Simeon had become the weakest of all the 
 tribes (Numb. xxvi. 14); in Moses’ blessing 
 (Deut. xxxiii.) it is entirely passed over; and 
 in the assignment of territory it was merely 
 mingled or scattered among the tribe of Ju- 
 dah, having certain cities assigned it within the 
 limits of Judah’s possession (Josh. xix. i — 9); 
 whilst the Levites had no separate inheritance, 
 but 'merely a number of cities to dwell in, scat- 
 tered throughout the possessions of their bre- 
 thren (Josh. xxi. 1—40). With regard to 
 the latter, though by being made dependent on 
 the tithes and also on the liberality of their fel- 
 low countrymen, they were punished, yet in 
 process of time the curse was turned into a 
 blessing. (See Mede, ‘ Works,’ Bk. i. Disc. 
 XXXV.) Of this transformation of the curse 
 into a blessing there is not the slightest intima- 
 tion in Jacob’s address: and in this we have a 
 strong proof of its genuineness. After this 
 honourable change in the time of Moses (due 
 in great part to the faithfulness of Moses him- 
 self and of the Levites with him), it would 
 never have occurred to the forger of a pro- 
 phecy to cast such a reproach, and to foretell 
 such a judgment on the forefather of the Le- 
 vites. In fact, how different is the blessing 
 pronounced by Moses, himself upon the tribe 
 of Levi in Deut, xxxiii. 8 sqq. (See Keil.) 
 
 8. Judah., thou art he vahom thy brethren 
 shall praise] Judah, thou, thy brethren 
 shall praise thee. The word “thou” is 
 emphatic, probably, like “ Judah,” in the voca- 
 tive, not, as some would render it, “Thou art 
 Judah,” which is far tamer. The reference is 
 to the meaning of the name. Leah said, “ Now 
 will I praise the Lord, therefore she called his 
 name Judald'' (ch. xxix. 35). Judah, not- 
 withstanding the sad history of him and his 
 house in ch. xxxviii., shewed on the whole 
 more nobleness than any of the elder sons of 
 Jacob. He and Reuben were the only two 
 who desired to save the life of Joseph (ch. 
 xxxvii. 22, 26); and his conduct before Jo- 
 seph in Egypt is truly noble and touching (see 
 ch. xliv. 18 — 34). Hence, when Reuben is 
 deprived of his birthright for incest, Simeon 
 and Levi for manslaughter, Judah, who is 
 next in age, naturally and rightly succeeds 
 to it. 
 
 thy hand shall be in the neck of thine ene 
 mies ,■ thy fatheds children shall bovo dovon 
 before thee] He was to be victorious in war, 
 and the leading tribe in Israel; the former 
 promise being signally fulfilled in the victories 
 of David and Solomon, the latter in the eleva- 
 tion of Judah to be the royal tribe; but both 
 most fully in the victory and royalty of Da- 
 vid's Son and David’s Lord. 
 
 9 . Judah is a lions <ivhelp: from the prey., 
 my son., thou art gone up] Judah is com- 
 pared to the most royal and the most powerful 
 of beasts. The image is from the lion retiring 
 to the mountains after having devoured his 
 prey: not probably, as Gesenius and others, 
 “thou hast grown up from feeding upon the 
 prey.” 
 
 as an old lion] As a lioness (Bochart, 
 ‘Hieroz.’ i. p. 719; Ges. ‘Thes.' p. 738). 
 The standard of Judah v/as a lion, very pro- 
 bably derived from these words of Jacob. 
 
 10 . The sceptre shall not depart from 
 Judah, &c.] Render 
 
 A sceptre shall not depart from Judah 
 
 Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, 
 Until that Shiloh come. 
 
 And to him shall be the obedience of 
 
228 
 
 GENESIS. XLIX. 
 
 [v. II— 13. 
 
 tween his feet, until Shiloh come; 
 and unto him shall the gathering of 
 the people be. 
 
 II Binding his foal unto the vine, 
 and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine ; 
 
 A remarkable prophecy of the Messiah, and 
 so acknowledged by all Jewish, as well as 
 Christian, antiquity. The meaning of the 
 verse appears to be “The Sceptre (either of 
 royal, or perhaps only of tribal, authority) 
 shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver 
 (senator or scribe) from before him, until Shi- 
 loh (i.e. either ‘the Prince of peace,’ or ‘he 
 whose right it is’) shall come, and to him 
 shall the nations be obedient.” There are 
 some obscure expressions, but we may confi- 
 dently hold that the above paraphrase conveys 
 the true sense of the passage. 
 
 1. The word sceptre, originally denoting a 
 staff of wood, a strong rod taken from a tree 
 and peeled as a wand, is used (i) for “ the rod 
 of correction, (2) for “the staff of a shep- 
 herd,” (3) lor “the sceptre of royalty” (as 
 Ps. xlv. 7; cp. Horn. ‘II.’ II. 46, loi), (4) 
 for “a tribe,” which may be because the 
 sceptre denoted tribal as well as regal au- 
 thority, or because tribes were considered as 
 twigs or branches from a central stem. (See 
 Ges. p. 1353.) It is probable that the sceptre 
 in Balaam’s prophecy (Num. xxiv. 17) has a 
 reference to these words of Jacob. 
 
 2. “A lawgiver,” so, more or less, all the 
 Ancient Versions. The LXX. and Vulg. ren- 
 der “a leader,” the Targums paraphrasing by 
 “ scribe or interpreter of the law.” The word 
 certainly means “a lawgiver” in Deut. xxxiii. 
 21; Isa. xxxiii. 22; and all ancient interpreta- 
 tion was in favour of understanding it of a 
 pei-son. The R. Lipmann, however, proposed 
 the sense of “a rod or staff” answering to 
 “the sceptre” in the former clause, in which 
 he has been followed by eminent critics, such 
 as Gesenius, Tuch, Knobel, who think that 
 this sense is more pertinent here, and in Num. 
 xxi. 18; Ps. lx. 7 (see Heidegger, Vol. ii. p. 
 738; Ges. p. 514); but it requires proof that 
 the word, naturally signifying “ lawgiver,” 
 sometimes undoubtedly meaning “lawgiver,” 
 and always so rendered in the Versions, can 
 mean lawgiver's staff' or sceptre. 
 
 3. “ From between his feet” is rendered 
 by the Versions, and generally by commenta- 
 tors “ from among his posterity. (See Ges. 
 p. 204 .) 
 
 4. “ Until Shiloh come.” F'or fuller con- 
 sideration of the name “Shiloh,” stv Note A at 
 the end of the Chapter. 'Phe only two admis- 
 sible interpretations are that the word is (i) 
 a proper name, meaning “the Peace-maker,” 
 “the Prince of peace,’’ or, (2) according to 
 the almost unanimous consent of the Versions 
 and Targums, “He, whose right it is.” All 
 
 he washed his garments in wine, 
 and his clothes in the blood of grapes : 
 
 12 His eyes shall be red with wine, 
 and his teeth white with milk. ^ 
 
 13 ^ Zebulun shall dwell at the 
 
 the Targums add the name of Messiah, and 
 all the more ancient Jews held it to be an 
 undoubted prophecy of Messiah. 
 
 5. “Unto him shall the gathering of the 
 people be.” Rather, “Unto him shall be the 
 obedience of the nations.” The word for obe- 
 dience occurs only once besides, in Prov. xxx. 
 1 7 ; but, if the I'eading be correct, there is little 
 doubt of its significance. (See Ges. pp. 620, 
 1200; Heidegger, Tom. ii. p. 748.) 
 
 As regards the fulfilment of this prophecy, 
 it is undoubted that the tribal authority and 
 the highest place in the nation continued with 
 Judah until the destruction of Jerusalem. It 
 is true that after the Babylonish Captivity the 
 royalty was not in the house of Judah; but 
 the prophecy is not express as to the possession 
 of absolute royalty. Israel never ceased to be 
 a nation, Judah never ceased to be a tribe with 
 at least a tribal sceptre and lawgivers, or ex- 
 positors of the law. Sanhedrim or Senators, and 
 with a general pre-em.inence in the land, nor 
 was there a foreign ruler of the people, till at 
 least the time of Herod the Great, just before 
 the birth of the Saviour; and even the Herods, 
 though of Idumasan extraction, were consi- 
 dered as exercising a native sovereignty in 
 Judah, which did not quite pass away till a 
 Roman procurator was sent thither after the 
 reign of Archelaus, the son of Herod the 
 Great : and at that very time the Shiloh came, 
 the Prince of peace, to whom of right the 
 kingdom belonged. (On the meaning of the 
 name Shiloh., see Note A at the end of the 
 Chapter.) 
 
 11. Binding his foal unto the •vine., &c.j 
 Many think that the patriarch, having spoken 
 of the endurance of the reign of Judah till the 
 coming of Christ, returns to speak of Judah’s 
 temporal prosperity during all that period; 
 but the Targums of Jerusalem and Pseudo- 
 Jonathan refer this verse to the Messiah. So 
 also several Christian fathers {e.g. Chrysos- 
 tom, in loc., Theodoret, ‘ Qii. in Gen.’); in- 
 terpreting the vine of the Jewish people, and 
 the wild ass of the gentile converts brought 
 into the vineyard of the Church. The wash- 
 ing ot the garments in wine they consider an 
 allusion to Christ as the true vine (John xv. 1), 
 to His treading “the winepress alone” (Isa. 
 Ixiii. I — 3), and empurpling His garments with 
 His own Blood. (See Heidegger, ii. pp. 752, 
 sqq.) 
 
 12. His eyes shall be red r^jith -xvine,'^ See. 
 Or perhaps (as the LXX., Vulg., Targg. Je- 
 ms., and Pseudo-Jon.), “His eyes shall be 
 
V. 14 — 1 9 -] 
 
 GENESIS. XLIX. 
 
 229 
 
 haven of the sea ; and he shall be 
 for an haven of ships ; and his border 
 shall be unto Zidon. 
 
 14 ^ Issachar is a strong ass couch- 
 ing down between two burdens : 
 
 15 And he saw that rest was good, 
 and the land that it was pleasant; 
 and bowed his shoulder to bear, and 
 became a servant unto tribute. 
 
 16 ^ Dan shall judge his people, 
 as one of the tribes of Israel. 
 
 17 Dan shall be a serpent by the 
 way, ^an adder in the path, that biteth tHeb. 
 the horse heels, so that his rider shall snake. 
 fall backward. 
 
 18 I have waited for thy salvation, 
 
 O Lord. 
 
 19 ^ Gad, a troop shall overcome 
 
 redder than wine, and His teeth whiter than 
 milk.” This is generally supposed to refer to 
 the land flowing with milk and honey, and 
 abounding in vineyards; but the fathers ap- 
 plied it to the Messiah’s kingdom in the same 
 manner with the last verse, e.g. “That His 
 eyes shine as with wine know all those mem- 
 bers of His Body mystical, to whom it is 
 given with a sort of sacred inebriation of mind, 
 alienated from the fleeting things of time, to 
 behold the eternal brightness of wisdom.” 
 (Augustin. ‘ C. Faust.’ xii. 42, Tom. viii. 
 p. 24). 
 
 13 . 7 ,ebulun shall d^zvell at the ha'ven of 
 the sea''\ “Zebulun shall dwell on the shore of 
 the sea, and he shall be for a shore of ships,” 
 (/.<?. suited for ships to land on), “and his 
 border” (or farthest extremity) “ shall be by 
 Zidon.” As far as we knoAv of the limits of 
 Zebulun, after the occupation of Canaan, it 
 reached from the sea of Gennesareth to Mount 
 Carmel, and so nearly to the Mediterranean. 
 It did not reach to the city of Zidon. but its 
 most western point reaching to Mount Car- 
 mel brought it into close proximity to Zido- 
 nia, or the territory of Tyre and Sidon. The 
 language here used, though in all material 
 points fulfilled in the subsequent history, is 
 just what would not have bwn written by a 
 forger in after times. Zebulun had not pro- 
 perly a maritime territory; yet its possessions 
 reached very nearly to both seas. It was far 
 from the city of Zidon ; and yet, as approxi- 
 mating very closely to the land of the Syrians, 
 might well be said to have its border by or to- 
 wards Zidon. T'yre probably was not built 
 at this time, and therefore is not named in tlie 
 prophecy. 
 
 14 . Issachar is a strong ass couching 
 do^jisn bet'ween two burdens')^ Probably “Issa- 
 char is a strong-boned ass, couching down 
 between the cattle pens,” or “ sheepfolds.” 
 The last word occurs only here and in Judg. 
 V. 16, where it is rendered sheepfolds (see 
 Rcediger in Ges. ‘Thes.’ p. 1470). The 
 prediction all points to the habits of an in- 
 dolent agricultural people, and to what is 
 likely to accompany such habits, an endur- 
 ance of oppression in preference to a war of 
 independence. 
 
 16 . Dan shall judge his people, &c.] 
 
 A paronomasia on Dan (i.e. a judge). The 
 Avords may mean that, though he was only a 
 son of Bilhah, he shall yet have tribal autho- 
 rity in his own people. The word translated 
 “tribe” is the same as that translated “ scep- 
 tre” in V. 10. Onkelos and others after him 
 suppose the allusion to be to the judgeship of 
 Samson, who was of the tribe of Dan (Judg. 
 XV. 20). 
 
 17 . Dan shall be a serpent by the way, 
 an adder in the pails'] The word for adder, 
 Shephiphon, is translated by the V ulg. cerastes 
 the homed snake, the coluber cerastes of Lin- 
 nffius, a small snake about 14 inches long and 
 one inch thick, lurking in the sand and by the 
 way side, very poisonous and dangerous. 
 (Bochart, ‘ Hieroz.’ Pt. ii. Lib. iii. c. 12.) 
 The people of Dan in Judges xviii. 27, shewed 
 the kind of subtlety here ascribed to them. 
 Perhaps the local position of the tribe is 
 alluded to. It was placed originally on the 
 outskirts of the royal tribe of Judah, and 
 might in times of war have to watch stealthily 
 for the enemy and fall on him by subtlety as 
 he was approaching. The comparison of 
 Dan to a serpent lying in wait and biting the 
 heel seems to imply some condemnation. 
 It is certainly observable that the first intro- 
 duction of Idolatry in Israel is ascribed to the 
 tribe of Dan (Judg. xviii.), and that in the 
 numbering of the tribes in Rev. vii., the name 
 of Dan is omitted. From these or other 
 causes many of the fathers were led to believe 
 that antichrist should spring from the tribe of 
 Dan (Iren. v. 30, 32; Ambros. ‘De Bene- 
 dict. Patriarch.’ c. 7; Augustin. ‘ In Josuam,’ 
 Quasst. 22 ; Theodoret, ‘ In Genes.’ Quaest. 
 109 ; Prosper, ‘De Promiss. et Praedict.’ p. 4; 
 Gregorius, ‘Moral.’ c. 18, &c.). 
 
 18 . / ha've waited for thy salivation, O 
 Lord] This ejaculation immediately follow- 
 ing the blessing on Dan is very remarkable, 
 but not easy to interpret. The Targg. Jerus. 
 and Pseudo-Jonath. (and according to the 
 Complutensian Polyglot Onkelos also, though 
 the pas'sage is probably spurious) paraphrase 
 the words by saying that Jacob looked not 
 for temporal redemption, such as that 
 vrrought by Gideon or Samson, but for the 
 eternal redemption promised by Messiah. Is 
 it not possible, that Jacob, having been moved 
 
230 
 
 GENESIS. XLIX. 
 
 [v. 20—25. 
 
 him: but he shall overcome at the 
 last. 
 
 20 ^ Out of Asher his bread shall 
 be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties. 
 
 21 ^ Naphtali is a hind let loose; 
 he givcth goodly words. 
 
 22 ^ Joseph is a fruitful bough, 
 
 f Heb ^ fruitful bough by a well ; whose 
 
 daughters. ^ braiichcs run over the wall : 
 
 23 The ardicrs have sorely grieved 
 him, and shot at him.^ and hated 
 him ; 
 
 24 But his bow abode in strength, 
 and the arms of his hands were made 
 strong by the hands of the mighty 
 God of Jacob ; (from thence is the 
 shepherd, the stone of Israel;) 
 
 25 Even by the God of thy father, 
 
 by the Spirit of God to speak of the serpent 
 biting the heel, may have had his thoughts 
 called back to the primal promiise made to 
 Eve, the Protevangelium, where the sentence 
 that the serpent should bruise the heel was 
 succeeded by the promise that the serpent’s 
 head should be crushed by the coming Seed ? 
 This combination of thoughts may easily have 
 elicited the e>:ciamation of this verse. 
 
 19. Gad., a troop shall overcome him: 
 hut be shall overcome at the last\ Perhaps 
 “ Gad, troops shall press on him, but he 
 shall press upon their rear” (so Gesen. p. 
 271 ; Ros., Schum.); the allusion being to the 
 Arab tribes in the neighbourhood of Gad, 
 who would invade him, and then retire. Gad 
 following them and harassing their retreat. 
 Every word but two in the verse is some 
 form of the same root, there being a play 
 of words on the name Gad and Gediid., i. e. a 
 troop; we might express it, “Gad, troops 
 shall troop against him, but he shall troop on 
 their retreat.” (See on ch. xxx. ii.) 
 
 20. Out of Asher his bread shall he fat., 
 a 7 id he shall yield royal dainties^ The trans- 
 lation may be a little doubtful ; but the sense 
 is probably that expressed by the Authorised 
 Version. The allusion is to the fertility of 
 the territory of Asher extending from Mount 
 Carmel along the coast of Sidonia nearly to 
 Mount Lebanon. It was specially rich in 
 corn, wine and oil (Heidegger), containing 
 some of the most fertile land in Palestine 
 (Stanley, ‘S. and P.’ p. 265). 
 
 21. Naphtali is a hind let loose ; he giv~ 
 eth goodly vjords'] The Targg. Pseudo- Jon. 
 and Jems, explain this that “ Naphtali is a 
 swift messenger, like a hind that runneth on 
 the mountains, bringing good tidings.” So 
 virtually the Syr. and Sam. Versions. The 
 allusion is obscure, as wc know so little of 
 the history of Naphtali. The Targums 
 above cited say that Naphtali first declared 
 to Jacob that Joseph was yet alive. As the 
 tribe of Naphtali occupied part of that re- 
 gion which afterwards became Galilee, some 
 have supposed that there was contained in 
 these words a projihecy of the Apostles (in 
 Hebrew Hheluchmi, the same word with She- 
 luchn here rendered “let loose”), who were 
 Galileans and of whom it was said, “ How 
 
 beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of 
 him that iDringeth good tidings.” 
 
 Bochart, after whom Michaelis, Schulz, 
 Dathe, Ewald and others, follow the LXX. 
 .altering the vowel points, and render, “ Naph- 
 tali is a spreading tree, which puts forth 
 goodly branches.” 
 
 22. Joseph is a fruitful houglP^ Per- 
 haps “Joseph is the son,” or branch, “of a 
 fruitful tree, the son of a fruitful tree by a 
 well, as for the branches” (lit. the daughters) 
 “each one of them runneth over the wall” 
 (see Ges. 218, 220). The construction is 
 difficult and the difference of translations very 
 considerable ; but so, or nearly so, Gesen., 
 Tuch, Knobel, Delitzsch, &c. The pro- 
 phecy probably refers to the general pros- 
 perity of the house of Joseph. The fruitful 
 tree is by some supposed to be Rachel. The 
 luxuriance of the tendrils running over the 
 wall may point to Joseph’s growing into two 
 tribes, whilst none of his brethren formed 
 more than one: so Onkelos. 
 
 23. 'The ai'chers have sorely grieved 
 him~] Though the Targums and others have 
 referred this to Joseph's trials in Egypt, the 
 ])rophetic character of the whol.'^ chapter 
 shows that they point rather to the future 
 wars of his tribes and the strength which he 
 received from the hands of the mighty God 
 of Jacob. 
 
 24. from thenee is the shepherd, the stone 
 of Israel^ “ From thence,” referring to “the 
 mighty one of Jacob ” in the last clause. Some 
 understand here that Joseph, having been 
 defended from the malice of his enemies, 
 was raised uj). by God to be a Shepherd or 
 Guardian both to the Egyptians and to his 
 own family, and a stone or rock of support 
 to the house of Israel. Others see in this 
 a prophecy of Joshua, the great captain 
 of his people, who came of the tribe of 
 Ephraim, and led the Israelites to the .pro- 
 mised land. Others again have thought that, 
 when Jacob was speaking of the sufferings 
 and subsequent exaltation of his son Joseph, 
 his visions were directed forward to that 
 greater Son, of whom Josej>h was a type, 
 whom the archers vexed, but who was vic- 
 torious over all enemies, and that of Him he 
 says “ From God cometh the Shepherd, the 
 
V. 26 — 33 -] 
 
 GENESIS. XLIX. 
 
 231 
 
 who shall help thee ; and by the AI- 
 mighty, who shall bless thee with 
 blessings of heaven above, blessings 
 of the deep that lieth under, blessings 
 of the breasts, and of the womb : 
 
 26 The blessings of thy father have 
 prevailed above the blessings of my 
 progenitors unto the utmost bound 
 of the everlasting hills: they shall be 
 on the head of Joseph, and on the 
 crown of the head of him that was 
 separate from his brethren. 
 
 27 ^ Benjamin shall ravin as a 
 wolf : in the morning he shall devour 
 the prey, and at night he shall divide 
 the spoil. 
 
 28 *^1 All these are the twelve tribes 
 of I srael : and this is it that their father 
 spake unto them, and blessed them; 
 every one according to his blessing he 
 blessed them. 
 
 29 And he charged them, and said 
 
 unto them, I am to be gathered unto 
 my people : “^bury me with my fathers *chap. 47. 
 in the cave that is in the field of Eph- 
 ron the Hittite, 
 
 30 In the cave that is in the field of 
 Machpelah, which is before Mamre, 
 
 in the land of Canaan, which Abra- <’chap. 23. 
 ham bought with the field of Eph- * ' 
 ron the Hittite for a possession of a 
 buryingplace. 
 
 31 There they buried Abraham 
 and Sarah his wife ; there they buried 
 Isaac and Rebekah his wife ; and there 
 I buried Leah. 
 
 32 The purchase of the field and 
 of the cave that is therein was from 
 the children of Heth. 
 
 33 And when Jacob had made an 
 end of commanding his sons, he ga- 
 thered up his feet into the bed, and 
 yielded up the ghost, and was gather- 
 ed unto his people. 
 
 Rock of Israel.” As both Joseph and Joshua 
 were eminent shadows and forerunners of the 
 Saviour, it is quite possible that all these 
 senses, more or less, belong to the words, 
 though perhaps with special reference to the 
 last. The translation advocated by many 
 recent commentators, “From thence — from 
 the Shepherd —the Rock of Israel ” is against 
 tlie original and the Versions. 
 
 25 . E-ven by the God of thy father^ ^uho 
 shall help thee, &c.] Rather “ From the God 
 of thy father and He shall help thee, and with 
 (the aid of) the Almighty, even He shall bless 
 thee.” 
 
 26 . The blessings of thy father ha've 
 prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors 
 unto the utmost hound of the everlasting hills'] 
 If this be the right rendering of a very obscure 
 passage in the original, the meaning obviously 
 is, that the blessings of Jacob on the head of 
 Joseph and his offspring are greater than those 
 which Abraham had pronounced on Isaac 
 and Isaac on Jacob, and that they should 
 last as long as the everlasting hills. This is 
 more or leSs the interpretation of all the 
 Jewish com.mentators following the Targums 
 and the Vulg. The LXX (with which 
 agrees the reading of the Samaritan Penta- 
 teuch) has a rendering which is adopted by 
 Michaelis, Dathe, Vater, Tuch, Winer, 
 Maurer, Schumann, Knobel, and Gesen. 
 (see Ges. pp. 38, 391), “The blessings of thy 
 father prevail over the blessings of the eternal 
 mountains, even the glory of the everlasting 
 hills.” By this the parallelism of the two 
 
 clauses is preseiwed, and the violence done to 
 the two words translated in Authorised Ver- 
 sion “progenitors” and “utmost bounds” 
 is avoided. 
 
 separate from his brethren] So Onkelos. 
 The V ulg. and Saad. have ‘ ‘ the Nazarite 
 among his brethren.” Either of these transla- 
 tions would allude to the separation of Joseph 
 from his fam.il y, first by his captivity and 
 afterwards by his elevation. The word for 
 “separate” means “one set apart,” “conse- 
 crated,” especiallv used of a Nazarite like 
 Samson (Judg. xiii., xvi. 17), and of the Naza- 
 rite under the law (Num. vi. 2). It is possi- 
 ble that this consecration may apply also to 
 princes who are separated to higher rank in 
 dignity, just as the word ne%er, “ consecra- 
 tion,” signifies a royal or high-priestly diadem. 
 Accordingly, the LXX., Syr., Targg. Jerus., 
 Pseudo- Jon. and many recent interpreters, ren- 
 der “a prince or leader of his brethren” (see 
 Ges. p. 871). 
 
 27 . Benjamin shall ravin as a vuof 
 &:c.] The reference is, no doubt, to the war- 
 like character of the tribe of Benjamin. Ex- 
 amples of this may be seen Judg. v. 14, xx. 
 16; I Chron. vii. 7, xii. 17; 2 Chron. xiv. S, 
 xvii. 17. Also Ehud the Judge (Judg. iii. 15) 
 and Saul the king, with his son Jonathan, were 
 Benjamites. The fathers (Tei*tul., Ambrose, 
 August., Jerom.) think that there is a refer- 
 ence also to St Paul, who before his conver- 
 sion devastated the Church and in later life 
 brought home the spoils of the Gentiles. 
 
22,2 
 
 GENESIS. XLIX. 
 
 NOTE A on Chap. xlix. v. io. Shiloh. 
 
 i. Different renderings of word. i. “ He who shall be sent.” 2. “His son.” 3. “Until he 
 come to Shiloh.” 4. “The Peace- Maker.” 5. “He, whose right it is.” ii. Choice 
 
 of renderings, either 4 or 5. iii. Messianic, by consent of Jewish and Christian 
 antiquity. iv. Answer to objections. 
 
 Shiloh. A word of acknowledged difficulty. 
 
 1. The Vulgate renders “ He, who shall be 
 sent” (comp. Shiloah, Isai. viii. 6; John ix. 7 
 — ii). This would correspond with a title of 
 the Messiah, “He that should come” (Matt.xi. 
 3). Such a translation is unsupported from 
 other sources and rests on a different reading 
 of the original, the letter il (cheth) being sub- 
 stituted for n (he) of the received text. 
 
 2. The Targum of Pseudo- Jonathan and 
 some rabbins render “ his son.” So Kimchi, 
 Pagninus, Calvin and others: but it requires 
 proof that the word jhilj “a son,” has any 
 existence in Hebrew. 
 
 3. The Rabbi Lipmann, in his book called 
 “Nizzachon,” suggests that it was the name of 
 the city Shiloh, and that we should render 
 “until he (Judah) shall come to Shiloh.” A 
 similar construction occurs i S. iv. 12 (he 
 “ came to Shiloh”), and it is said that Judah, 
 in the march to the encampments in the wil- 
 derness, always took the first place (Num. ii. 
 3 — 9, X. 14), but that, when the Israelites came 
 to Shiloh, they pitched the talx^rnacle there 
 (Josh, xviii. i — 10), and, the other tribes de- 
 parting from Judah, his principality closed. 
 
 It seems fatal to this theory, that every 
 ancient Version, paraphrase and. commentator 
 make Shiloli, not the objective case after the 
 verb, but the subject or nominative case before 
 the verb. Moreover, whether it were a pro- 
 phecy by Jacob, or, as many who adopt this 
 theory will have it, a forgery of after date, 
 nothing could be less pertinent than the sense 
 to be elicited from the words, “ till he come to 
 Shiloh.” Probably the town of Shiloh did 
 not exist in Jacob’s time, and Judah neither 
 lost nor acquired the pre-eminence at Shiloh. 
 He was not markedly the leader in the wilder- 
 ness, for the people were led by Moses and 
 Aaron; nor did he cease to have whatever 
 pre-eminence he may have had when they 
 came to Shiloh. This has induced some to 
 vary the words, by translating, ^johen he 
 comes to Shiloh,” a translation utterly inad- 
 missible; but it will give no help to the solu- 
 tion of the passage, for Judah did not acquire 
 any fresh authority at Shiloh. It was the 
 place of the rest of the tabernacle and there- 
 fore perhaps was named Shiloh, “Rest:” but 
 it was no turning point in the history of 
 Judah. Notwithstanding therefore the autho- 
 rity of Teller, Eichhorn, Bk'ek, Hitzig, Tuch, 
 Ewald, Delitzsch, Kalisch, &c., we may pro- 
 nounce with Hofmann, that the rendering is 
 utterly impossible. 
 
 4. Far more probable is the rendering 
 which makes Shiloh a proper name, and the 
 subject of the verb, signifying “Peace,” or 
 rather, “the Peace-maker,” the “Prince of 
 peace.” So, with slight variations, Luther, 
 Vater, Gesenius, Rosenmiiller, Hengstenberg, 
 Knobel, Keil and others of the highest authori- 
 ty. The title is one most appropriate to Messiah 
 (see Isai. ix. 6). The word is legitimately 
 formed from the verb Shalah., to rest, to be at 
 peace; and if the received reading be the true 
 reading, there need be little doubt that this is 
 its meaning. It has been thought by some 
 that Solomon received his-name Shelomo., the 
 “ peaceful,” with an express reference to this 
 prophecy of Shiloh, and it may be said that in 
 Solomon was a partial fulfilment of the pro- 
 mise. Solomon was very markedly a type of 
 the Messiah, himself the son of David, whose 
 dominion was from sea to sea, who established 
 a reign of peace in the land and who built the 
 temple of the Lord; but Solomon was not 
 the true Shiloh, any more than he was the 
 true “Son of David.” 
 
 5. The authority of the Ancient Versions ■ 
 is all but overwhelming in favour of the 
 sense, “ He, to whom it belongs,” or “ He, 
 whose right it is.” So, more or less, 
 LXX., Aq., Symm., Syr., Saad., Onk., 
 Targ. Jer., all, in fact, except Vulg. and 
 Pseudo- Jonathan. 
 
 The objections to this are : 
 
 (1) That if the letter (expressed by the 
 i in Sh/loh) be genuine, the translation is in- 
 admissible: but it is replied that very many 
 Hebrew MSS. and all Samaritan MSS. are 
 without the and that the evidence is much 
 in favour of the belief that the yod did not 
 appear till the loth century (see Prof. Lee, ‘ Lex.’ 
 in voc.). It may be added that, as the reading 
 without the yod is the harder and apparently 
 the less probable, the copyists were more like- 
 ly to have inserted it by mistake than to have 
 omitted it by mistake. 
 
 (2) It is said, that by this reading so inter- 
 preted, a form is introduced unknown to the 
 Pentateuch, Aramsean and of later date. To 
 this it is replied, that the forai occurs in the 
 Song of Deborah (Judg. v. 7), which is very 
 ancient; that Aramcean forms were either very 
 ancient or decidedly modern, to be met with 
 in Hebrew when the patriarchs were in con- 
 tact with the Chaldxans (and Jacob had been 
 forty years in Mesopotamia), or not again 
 till the Jews were in captivity at Babylon. 
 An Aramaism or Chaldaism therefore was na- 
 
233 
 
 GENESIS. L. 
 
 V. I, 2.] 
 
 tural in the moutli of Jacob, though not in 
 the mouth of David or Solomon. 
 
 This rendering of the Vss. is supported by . 
 the early Christian writers, as Justin M. 
 (‘Dial.’§ i2o) and many others. It is thought 
 that Ezekiel (xxi. 27) actually quotes the 
 words, “Until he come whose right it is,” 
 expanding them a little, and St Paul (in Gal. 
 iii. 19) is supposed to refer to them. 
 
 On the whole, rejecting confidently the 
 senses i, 2, 3, we may safely adopt either 4 or 
 5 ; 4, if the reading be correct; 5, if the read- 
 ing without the yod be accepted. 
 
 All Jewish antiquity referred the prophecy to 
 Messiah. Thus the Targum of Onkelos has 
 “until the Messiah come, whose is the king- 
 dom;” the Jerusalem Targum, “until the time 
 that the king Messiah shall come, whose is the 
 kingdom.” The T argum of Pseudo- J onathan, 
 “till the king the Messiah shall come, the 
 youngest of his sons.” So the Babylonian 
 Talmud (‘Sanhedrim,’ cap. II. fol. 982), 
 “What is Messiah^s name? His name is 
 Shiloh, for it is written. Until Shiloh come.” 
 So likewise the Bereshith Rabba, Kimchi, 
 Aben-ezra, Rashi, and other ancient Rabbins. 
 The more modern Jews, pressed by the argu- 
 ment, that the time appointed must have 
 passed, refer to David, Saul, Nebuchadnezzar 
 and others (see Schoettgen, ‘Hor. Heb.’ p. 1264). 
 There can be no doubt that this prophecy was 
 one important link in the long chain of predic- 
 tions which produced that general expectation 
 of a Messiah universally prevalent in Judasa at 
 the period of the Christian era, and which 
 Suetonius, in the well-known passage in his 
 life of Vespasian, tells us had long and 
 constantly pervaded the whole of the East. 
 V/ith the Jewish interpreters agreed the whole 
 body of Christian fathers, e.g. Justin M. 
 
 ‘ Apol.’ I. §§ 32, 54; ‘ Dial.’ §§ 52, 20; Iren. 
 IV. 23 ; Origen, ‘ C. Cels.’ i. p. 41, ‘ Horn.’ 
 in Gen. 17; Cyprian, ‘ C. Jud.’ i. 20; Cyril. 
 Hieros. ‘Cat.’ xii.; Euseb. ‘ H. E.’ i. 6; 
 Chrys. ‘Horn. 67, in Gen.’; Augustine, ‘ De 
 Civ. D.’ XVI. 41 ; Theodoret, ‘ Quasst. in Gen.’ 
 no; Hieron. ‘ C^aest. in Gen.’, &:c. 
 
 The only arguments of any weight against 
 the Messianic character of the prophecy, ex- 
 cept of course a denial that prophecy is possi- 
 ble at all, seem to be the following. 
 
 r. The patriarchal age had no anticipation 
 of a personal Messiah, though there may have 
 been some dim hope of a future deliverance. 
 This is simply a gratuitous assertion. Ad- 
 mitting even that the promise to Adam may 
 have been vaguely Understood, we cannot tell 
 how much the rite of sacrifice, the prophecies 
 of men like Enoch and Noah, and the pro- 
 mises to Abraham and Isaac, had taught the 
 faith of the fathers. There is the highest of 
 all authority for saying that “ Abraham re- 
 joiced to seethe day of Christ; he saw it, and 
 was glad” (Joh. viii. 56). It was not indeed 
 to be expected, that much beyond general in- 
 timations should be given in very early times, 
 the light gradually increasing as the Sun-rise 
 was drawing near : but there seems no more 
 likely time for a special teaching on this vital 
 point than the time of Jacob’s death. He 
 was the last of the three patriarchs to whom 
 the promises were given. He was leaving, his 
 family in a foreign land, where they were to 
 pass some generations surrounded by idolatry 
 and error. He was foretelling their future 
 fortunes on their promised return to Canaan. 
 What more natural than that he should be 
 moved to point their hopes yet farther forward 
 to that, of which the deliverance from Egypt 
 was to be an emblem and type ? 
 
 2. The New Testament does not cite this 
 as a prediction of Christ. 
 
 Bishop Patrick has well obseiwed, that the 
 fulfilment of the prophecy was not till the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, when- not only the 
 Sceptre of Royalty, but even the tribal autho- 
 rity, and the Sanhedrim or council’ of elders 
 (“the lawgiver”) wholly passed from Judah. 
 Then, and not till then, had the foretold for- 
 tunes of Judah’s house been worked out. 
 The sceptre and the lawgiver had departed, 
 and “ He, whose right it was,” had taken the 
 kingdom. The “Prince of peace” had come, 
 and nations were coming into His obedience. 
 But it would have been no argument to the 
 Jew to cite this prophecy, whilst the Jewish 
 nation was still standing and still struggling 
 for its freedom, still possessing at least a 
 shadow of royal authority and judicial 
 power. There is therefore abundant reason 
 why the New Testament should not refer 
 to it. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 I The mourning for Jacob. 4 Joseph getteth 
 leave of Pharaoh to go to hny him. 7 The 
 ftneral. 15 Joseph coinforteth his bi-ethren., 
 who craved his pardon. 22 Plis age. 23 
 He seeth the third gi.neration of his sons. 
 'i\ He prophesicth nnto his brethren of their 
 
 return. 25 /A iaheth an oath of them for 
 his hones. 26 Pie dicth, and is chested. 
 
 AND Joseph fell upon his father’s 
 jf\^ face, and wept upon him, and 
 kissed him. 
 
 2 Arid Joseph commanded his ser- 
 vants the physicians to embalm his 
 
 CiiAr. L. 2 . his sernrants the physi- all places were crowded with physicians for 
 dans'] Herod, (ii. 84) tells us, that in Egypt every different kind of disease. The physi- 
 
234 
 
 GENESIS. L. 
 
 [v. 3— II. 
 
 father: and the physicians embalmed 
 Israel. 
 
 3 And forty days were fulfilled for 
 him; for so are fulfilled the days of 
 those which are embalmed : and the 
 
 tHeb, Egyptians ^mourned for him three- 
 score and ten days. 
 
 4 And when the days of his mourn- 
 ing were past, Joseph spake unto the 
 house of Pharaoh, saying. If now I 
 have found grace in your eyes, speak, 
 I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh.^ 
 saying, 
 
 «chap. 47 . 5 "My father m^ade me swear, say- 
 
 ing, Lo, I die : in my grave which 
 I have digged for me in the land 
 
 Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. 
 Now therefore let me go up, I pray 
 thee, and bury my father, and I will 
 come again. 
 
 6 And Pharaoh said. Go up, and 
 bury thy father, according as he made 
 thee swear. 
 
 7 ^ And Joseph went up to bury 
 his father: and with him went up all 
 the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of 
 his house, and all the elders of the 
 land of Egypt, 
 
 8 And all the house of Joseph, 
 and his brethren, and his father’s 
 house : only their little ones, and 
 their flocks, and their herds, they left 
 in the land of Goshen. 
 
 9 And there went up with him 
 both chariots and horsemen ; and it 
 was a very great company. 
 
 10 And they came to the threshing- 
 floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, 
 and there they mourned with a great 
 and very sore lamentation : and he made 
 a mourning for his father seven days. 
 
 11 And when the inhabitants of 
 the land, the Canaanites, saw the 
 mourning in the floor of Atad, they 
 said, I'his is a grievous mourning to 
 the Egyptians : wherefore the name 
 
 cians of Egypt were famous in other lands 
 also (Herod. ]ir. i, 129), It is not wonder- 
 ful therefore that Joseph, with all his state, 
 should have had several physicians attached to 
 his establishment. Physicians, however, were 
 not ordinarily employed to embalm, which 
 was the work of a special class of persons 
 (Herod. II. 85; Dibdor. i. 91) ; and the cus- 
 tom of embalming and the occupation of the 
 embalmer were probably anterior to Moses 
 and to Joseph. Very probably the physicians 
 embalmed Jacob because he was not an 
 Egyptian, and so could not be subjected to 
 the ordinary treatment of the Egyptians, or 
 embalmed by their embalmers. 
 
 3 . ylfid forty days ^Mcre fulfilled for 
 him'] The account given by Diodorus (i. 91) 
 is that the embalming lasted more than 30 
 days, and that when a king died tliey mourned 
 for him 72 days. This very nearly corre- 
 sponds with the number in this verse. The 
 mourning of 70 days probably included the 
 40 days of embalming. Herodotus (11. 86), 
 who descrilx's at length three processes of em- 
 balming, seems to speak of a subsequent steep- 
 ing in natron {i.e. subcarbonale of soda) for 
 70 days. He probably expresses himself with 
 some inaccuracy, as both the account in 
 Genesis, which is very much earlier,* and the 
 account in Diodorus which is later, give a 
 much shorter time for the whole embalming, 
 i.e. either 30 or 40 days, and seem to make 
 the w hole mourning last but 70 days. It is 
 possible, however, lo understand Herodotus 
 
 as meaning the same as the Scriptural account 
 and that of Diodorus. His words are, 
 “Having done this they embalm in natron, 
 covering it up' for 70 days. Longer than this 
 it is not lawful to embalm.” (See Sir G. Wil- 
 kinson in Rawlinson, ‘ Herod.Ti. 86; Heng- 
 stenb. ‘ Egypt,’ &c. p. 68.) 
 
 4. Joseph spake unto the house of Pha- 
 raolS] He probably did not go himself to 
 Pharaoh, because in mourning for his father 
 he had let his hair and beard grow long, which 
 was the custom in Egypt at the death of rela- 
 tions (Herod, ii. 36) : and it would have been 
 disrespectful to go into the presence of Pha- 
 raoh without cutti.ng the hair and shaving the 
 beard. (See on ch. xli. 14, and Plengstenb. 
 
 ‘ t^gypk’ P- 7 I-) 
 
 7. ^ujith him ^joent up all the ser^mnts of 
 PharaolS] Such large funeral processions are 
 often seen on the Egyptian monuments (Ro- 
 sellini, ii. p. 395 ; Hengstenb. p. 71; Wilkin- 
 son, ‘A.;E.’ Vol. V. ch. xvi. and plates 
 there). 
 
 10 . threshingfoor of At ad\ Or “Goren- 
 Atad,” or “ the threshingfloor of thorns.” 
 
 beyond Jordati] i.e. to the West of Jor- 
 dan. Moses wrote before the Israelites had 
 taken possession of the land of Israel, and 
 therefore wliilst they were on the East of Jor- 
 dan. I'his accords with what we hear of the 
 site of Goren^Atad and Abel-Mizraim ; for 
 Jerome (‘ Onom.’ s. v. Area- Atad) identi- 
 
V. 12 — 25.] 
 
 genesis: l. 
 
 235 
 
 I That is, of it was called Abel-mizraim, which 
 
 i/te mourn- • 1 1 t 1 
 
 ingofi/ie IS beyoiid Jordan. 
 
 did unto him ac- 
 cording as he commanded them : 
 
 * Acts 7 . 1 2 For ^his sons carried him into 
 
 the land of Canaan, and buried him 
 in the cave of the field of Machpe- 
 ^chap. 23. lah, which Abraham '^bought with 
 the field for a possession of a buiy- 
 ingplace of Ephron the Hittite, be- 
 fore Mam re. 
 
 14 ^ And Joseph returned into 
 Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all 
 that went up with him to bury 
 his father, after he had buried his 
 father. 
 
 15 5 when Joseph’s brethren 
 saw that their father was dead, they 
 said, Joseph will perad venture hate 
 us, and will certainly requite us all 
 
 , the evil which v/e did unto him. 
 tHeb. 16 And they ^sent a messenger 
 charged. Joseph, Saying, Thy father did 
 
 command before he died, saying, 
 
 17 So shall ye say unto Joseph, 
 Forgive, I pray thee now, the tres- 
 pass of thy brethren, and their sin; 
 for they did unto thee evil : and now, 
 v/e pray thee, forgive the trespass of 
 the servants of the God of thy father. 
 And Joseph wept when they spake 
 unto him. 
 
 18 And his brethren also went 
 and fell down before his face; and 
 they said, Behold, we be thy ser- 
 vants. 
 
 19 And Joseph said unto them, 
 
 ^Fear not; for am I in the place of chap. 45. 
 God? 5. 
 
 20 But as for you, ye thought evil 
 against me; but God meant it unto 
 good, to bring to pass, as it is this 
 day, to save much people alive. 
 
 21 Now therefore fear ye not: I 
 will nourish you, and your little ones. 
 
 And he comforted them, and spake 
 
 ^ kindly unto them. t Heb. 
 
 22 % And Joseph dv/elt in Egypt, 
 he, and his father’s house ; and Joseph 
 lived an hundred and ten years. 
 
 23 And Joseph saw Ephraim’s 
 children of tho, thirA generation: ^the'^^''"^* 
 children also of Machir the son of^^’^^ 
 Manasseh were Trought up upon Jo- 
 seph’s knees. 
 
 24 And Joseph said unto his bre- 
 thren, I die: and -^God will surely Heb. n. 
 visit you, and bring you out of this 
 
 land unto the land which he sware 
 to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 
 
 25 And -^Joseph took an oath of-'Exod.is. 
 the children of Israel, saying, God 
 
 will surely visit you, and ye shall 
 carry up my bones from hence. 
 
 ties it with Beth-Hoglah, which lay between 
 the Jordan and Jericho, the ruins of which 
 are probably still to be seen (Rob. i. 544; see 
 Smith’s ‘ Diet, of Bible,’ i. p. 200.) 
 
 11. Abel-mi%raim\ Means either “ the 
 field of Egypt,” or “ the mourning of Egypt,” 
 according to the vowel-points. The violence 
 of the I'vgyplian lamentations is described by 
 Herodotus (ii. 85). See also Wilkinson, 
 
 ‘ A. E.’ ch. XVI. 
 
 19 . Am I in the place of God?'] i.e. it 
 is God’s place to avenge, not mine. See Rom. 
 xii. 19. 
 
 23 . Were brought up upon Joseph's knees] 
 Lit. “were born on Joseph’s knees.” Comp, 
 the phrase ch. xxx. 3. It seems as if they 
 were adopted by Joseph as his own children 
 from the time of their birth. 
 
 26 . They embahned him.^ and he <ujas put in 
 a coffin] The word for coffin is literally 
 “ark” or “chest;” a word used always of 
 a wooden chest, elsewhere almost exclusively 
 
 of “the ark of the covenant.” Herodotus, 
 after describing the embalming, says, “The 
 relatives inclo.se the body in a wooden image 
 which they have made in the shape of a man. 
 Then fastening the case, they place it in a 
 sepulchral chamber, upright against the wall. 
 This is the most costly way of embalming the 
 dead” (ii. 86). The description is of that 
 which we commonly call a mummy-case. 
 Such coffins, made of wood, chiefly of syca- 
 more wood, were the commonest in Egypt ; 
 and though some very rich people were buried 
 in basaltic coffins, yet, both from Herodotus’ 
 description above and fiom other sources, we 
 know that wooden coffins were frequent, 
 for great men, even for kings. The coffin 
 of king Mycerinus, discovered a.d. 1837 in 
 the third Pyramid of Memphis, is of syca- 
 more wood. The command of Joseph and 
 the promise of the Israelites, that his bones '' 
 should be carried back into Canaan, were 
 reason enough for preferring a wooden to 
 a stone coffin. (See Hengstenb. ‘ Egypt,’ pp. 
 
 71, 72. Various coffins of wood, stone, and 
 
236 
 
 GENESIS. L. 
 
 [v. 26. 
 
 26 So Joseph died, being an hun- embalmed him, and he was put in 
 dred and ten years old : and they a coffin in Egypt. 
 
 earthenware are described and engraved in 
 Wilkinson’s ‘A. E.’ Vol. v. p. 479.) The 
 coffin was, no doubt, deposited in some se- 
 pulchral building (see Herod, above) and 
 guarded by his own immediate descendants 
 till the tim.e of the Exodus, when it was car- 
 ried up out of Egypt and finally deposited in 
 Shechem (Josh. xxiv. 32). The faith of Jo- 
 seph (Heb. xi. 22) must have been a constant 
 
 remembrance to his children and his people, 
 that Egypt was not to be their home. His 
 coffin laid up by them, ready to be carried 
 away according to his dying request whenever 
 God should restore them to the promised land, 
 would have taught them to keep apart from 
 Egypt and its idolatries, looking for a better 
 country, which God had promised to their 
 fathers. 
 
EXODUS 
 
 INTROD 
 
 PACp 
 
 Divisions of the Book^ § i • • *237 
 Mosaic Authorships § i . . *2139 
 Miracles in Egypt ^ § 3 . .241 
 
 Personal knovuleclge of the Peninsula of 
 
 .§ I. '^HE Book of Exodus consists 
 of two distinct portions. The 
 former (cc. i — xix) gives a detailed ac- 
 count of the circumstances under which 
 the deliverance of the Israelites was ac- 
 complished. The second (cc. xx — xl) 
 describes the giving of the law, and the 
 institutions which completed the organi- 
 zation of the people as “ a kingdom of 
 priests, and an holy nation^” c. xix. 6. 
 
 These two portions are unlike in 
 style and structure, as might be ex- 
 pected from the difference ©f their sub- 
 ject-matter: but their mutual bearings 
 and interdependence are evident, and 
 leave no doubt as to the substantial 
 unity of the book. The historical por- 
 tion owes all its significance and interest 
 to the promulgation of God’s will in 
 the law. The institutions of the law 
 could not, humanly speaking, have been 
 established or permanently maintained 
 but for the deliverance which the his- 
 torical portion records. 
 
 The name Exodus, i. e, “ the going 
 forth,” applies rather to the former por- 
 tion than to the whole book. It was 
 very naturally assigned to it by the 
 Alexandrian Jews, by whom the most 
 ancient translation was written. Like 
 their forefathers they were exiles in 
 Egypt, and looked forward to their de- 
 parture from that land as the first con- 
 dition of the accomplishment of their 
 
 UCTION. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Sinai shovun by the authors § 4 *244 
 
 Argument from the account of the 
 
 Tabernacles § 5 • . • -247 
 
 Chronology s § 6 . . . . .248 
 
 hopes. The Hebrews of Palestine simply 
 designated the book by its first words 
 Elleh Shemoth, i. e. “ these are the 
 names,” regarding it not as a separate 
 work, but as a section of the Pentateuch. 
 
 The narrative, indeed, is so closely 
 connected with that of Genesis as to 
 shew not only that it was written by 
 the same author, but that it form.ed 
 part of one general plan. Still it is a 
 distinct section; the first events which 
 it relates are separated from the last 
 chapter in Genesis by a considerable 
 interval, and it presents the people of 
 Israel under totally different circum- 
 stances. Its termination is marked with 
 equal distinctness, winding up with the 
 completion of the tabernacle. 
 
 The book is divided into many smaller 
 sections; each of which has the marks 
 which throughout the Pentateuch indi- 
 cate a subdivision. They are of different 
 lengths, and were probably written on 
 separate parchments or papyri, the long- 
 est not exceeding the dimensions of con- 
 temporary documents in Egypt*. They 
 
 1 A single page of Egyptian papyrus contains 
 very frequently as much subject-matter as is 
 found in any section of the Pentateucli. Thus, 
 for instance, the 17th chapter of the Ritual in a 
 papyrus, of which a facsimile has been pub- 
 lished by M. de Roug^, occupies one page of 
 49 lines: each line is equivalent to three lines of 
 Hebrew, as may be proved by transcription of 
 the two languages in Egyptian and Phoenician 
 
238 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 were apparently so arranged for the con- 
 venience of public reading. This is a 
 point of importance, accounting to a great 
 extent for apparent breaks in the narra- 
 tive, and for repetitions, which have been 
 attributed to the carelessness of the com- 
 piler, who is supposed to have brought 
 separate and unconnected fragments 
 into a semblance of order. 
 
 The first seven verses are introduc- 
 tory to the whole book. In accordance 
 with the almost invariable custom of 
 the writer, we find a brief recapitulation 
 of' preceding events, and a statement of 
 the actual condition of affairs. The 
 names of the Patriarchs and the number 
 of distinct families at the time of the 
 immigration into Egypt are stated in 
 six verses: a single paragraph then re- 
 cords the rapid and continuous increase 
 of the Israelites after the death of Joseph 
 and his contemporaries. 
 
 The narrative begins with the 8th 
 verse, c. i. The subdivision which in- 
 cludes the first two chapters relates very 
 briefly the events which prepared the 
 way for the Exodus : the accession of 
 a new king, followed by a change of 
 policy and measures of extreme cruelty 
 towards the Israelites; and the birth 
 and early history of Moses, destined to 
 be their deliverer. The second division, 
 from c. iii. i to vi. i, opens after an inter- 
 val of some forty years. From this point 
 the narrative is full and circumstantial. 
 
 letters. The longest section in the Pentateuch 
 scarcely exceeds 150 lines in Van cler Hooght’s 
 edition. Several papyri of the i8th dynasty 
 are of eonsiderable length. Thus, the papyrus 
 called Anastasi I., in the Ihitish Museum, con- 
 tains -38 pages, each page of 9 lines, equal to 
 three lines of ancient Helirew characters. This 
 exceeds the length of any one division of the Pen- 
 tateuch. The^ papyrus in question is undoubt- 
 edly of the age in which the generality of modern 
 critics hold the Exodus to have occurred, d'he 
 assertion that Moses probably used parchment 
 rests on the fact that it was commonly em- 
 ployed at an early time, and more especially, as 
 it would seem, for sacred compositions. Thus, 
 in an inscription of Thotmes III., either con- 
 temjiorary with Moses, or much older, we read 
 that an account of his campaigns was written 
 on parchment, and hung up m the temple of 
 Ammon. Sec Prugsch, ‘ Dictionnaire Ilierogly- 
 phicpie,’ ]i. '20(8. .'V iar more ancient instance 
 
 of the use of ]iarchmcnt in sacred writings is 
 given by ^[. Chabas and Mr Goodwin in the 
 ‘Egj'ptischc Zeit-schrift’ for Nov. 1S65 and 
 June 1867. 
 
 It describes the call of Moses; the reve- 
 lation of Clod’s will and purpose; the 
 return of Moses to Egypt, and his first 
 application to Pharaoh, of which the 
 immediate result was a treatment of the 
 Israelites, which materially advanced the 
 work, on the one hand preparing them 
 for departure from their homes, and on 
 the other attaching 'them more cio.sely 
 to their native officers by the bonds of 
 common suffering. 
 
 c. vi. 2 — 27 forms a distinct portion. 
 Moses is instructed to explain the bear- 
 ings of the Divine name (of which the 
 meaning had been previously intimated, 
 see iii. 14) upon the relations of God 
 to the people. He then receives a 
 renewal of his mission to the Israelites 
 alid to Pharaoh, Aaron being formally 
 appointed as his coadjutor: the gene- 
 alogy of both is then introduced, mark- 
 ing their position as leaders of the 
 people. 
 
 Idiis portion stands in its right place. 
 It is necessary to the full understanding 
 of the following, and is closely con- 
 nected with the preceding, section; but 
 it stands apart from both, it begins with 
 a solemn declaration and ends with a 
 distinct announcement. 
 
 c. vi. 28 to the end of c. xi. In 
 this division the narrative makes a 
 fresh start. It begins, as usual in a 
 nevv section, with a brief statement to 
 remind the reader of the relative posi- 
 tion of Moses and Aaron and of the 
 work apjDointed to them. Then follows 
 in unbroken order the history of nine 
 plagues, in three groups, each increasing 
 in severity. At the close of this division 
 the tenth and most terrible plague is 
 denounced, and the failure of the other 
 nine, in turning Pharaoh, is declared in 
 the often recurring form, “ the Lord 
 hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he 
 would not let the children of Israel go 
 out of his land” (xi. 10). 
 
 The next section, xii. i — 42, gives an 
 account of the institution of the Pass- ' 
 over, and the departure of the I.sraelites 
 from Rameses: the close of the section 
 is distinctly marked by the chronological 
 statement. This important section is 
 closely connected with the preceding 
 narrative, but it was evidently intended 
 to be read as a separate lesson, and may 
 
THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 239 
 
 possibly have been rewritten or revised 
 for that purpose towards the close of 
 the life of Moses. From xii. 43 to xiii. 16 
 special injunctions touching the Passover 
 are recorded; they may have been in- 
 serted here as the most appropriate place 
 when the separate documents were put 
 together. 
 
 The narrative begins again c. xiii. 17. 
 After a brief introduction, stating the 
 general direction of the journey, comes 
 the history of the marcli towards the 
 Red Sea, the passage across it, and the 
 destruction of Pharaoh’s host. This 
 subdivision extends to the end of the 
 xivth chapter. 
 
 The Song of Moses' is inserted here: 
 it does not interrupt the narrative, which 
 proceeds without a break until, in the 
 third month after the Exodus, Israel 
 came to the Wilderness of Sinai and 
 camped before the Mount: c. xix. In 
 this chapter and the next the promulga- 
 tion of the law is described. The re- 
 mainder of the book gives the directions 
 received by Moses touching the Taber- 
 nacle and its appurtenances, and the 
 institution of the Aaron ic priesthood. 
 It then relates the sin of the Israelites, 
 and their forgiveness at the intercession 
 of Moses: and concludes with an ac- 
 count of the making of the ta.bernacle, 
 and a description of the symbolical 
 
 ^ Tlie length and structure of this great hymn 
 have been represented as proofs of a later origin. 
 A comparison with Egyptian poems of the age 
 of Moses, or much earlier, gives these results. 
 The hymn to the Nile, in the ‘Pap. Sallier,’ ii., 
 was written at the time when the Exodus is fixed 
 by most Egyptologers. It is more than twice 
 the length of the Song of Moses. The structure 
 is elaborate and the cadences resemble the He- 
 brew. It begins thus, “Hail, O Nile, thou 
 comest forth over this land, thou comest in peace, 
 giving life to Egypt, O hidden God.” Again, a 
 poem inscribed on the walls of a temple built by 
 Thotmes HI. is about twice as long as the Song. 
 Its style is artificial and the cadences even more 
 strongly marked. It is some two centuries older 
 than the hymn to the Nile. We have also exact 
 information as to the time which it would take 
 to write out such a hymn. An Egyptian scribe 
 writing, witli the greatest care, with rubrical head- 
 ings, &c. would have done it in half a day : a few 
 hours would suffice in the simpler characters 
 used by the Semitic races. This comparison 
 leaves no doubt as to the possibility of such a 
 hymn being written by Moses, who was trained 
 in the schools of Egypt ; and no one denies his 
 genius. 
 
 manifestation of God’s Presence with 
 J-Jis people. 
 
 This general view of the structure of 
 the book meets several questions which 
 have been raised as to its integrity. 
 That the several portions are distinct, 
 forming complete subdivisions, may not 
 only be admitted without misgiving, but 
 this fact is best accounted for by the 
 circumstances under which the work 
 must have been composed, if Moses was 
 its author. It was the form in which a 
 man engaged in such an undertaking 
 would naturally present at intervals an 
 account of each series of transactions, 
 and in which such an account would be 
 best adapted for tlie instruction of the 
 people. The combination of all the do- 
 cuments into a complete treatise might 
 naturally occupy the period of compara- 
 tive leisure towards the end of his life, 
 and, w’hile it involved some few addi- 
 tions and explanations, would be effected 
 without any substantial change. 
 
 § 2. The principal arguments for the 
 Mosaic .authorship have been stated in 
 the Introduction to the Pentateuch: but 
 many objections apply especially to this 
 book; and some of the most convincing 
 evidences are supplied by its contents. 
 This might be expected. On the one 
 hand the question of authorship is in- 
 separably bound up with that of the mi- 
 raculous character of many transactions 
 which are recorded. Critics who reject 
 miracles as simply incredible under any 
 circumstances, have ever felt that the 
 narrative before us could scarcely have 
 been written by a man in the position 
 and with the character of Moses, and 
 could not certainly have been addressed 
 to eye-witnesses or contemporaries of 
 the events which it relates. It is a fore- 
 gone conclusion with writers of this 
 school. On the other hand a narrative 
 of the personal history .of Moses, of the 
 circumstances under which the greatest 
 work in the world’s annals was accom- 
 plished, if it be authentic and veracious, 
 must abound in internal coincidences 
 and evidences sufficient to convince 
 any inquirer not shut up to the opposite 
 theory. In fact no critic of any weight, 
 either in France or Germany, who admits 
 the supernatural character of the trans- 
 actions, rejects the authorship of Moses. 
 
240 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 One argument is drawn from the re- 
 presentation of the persona] character 
 and qualifications of Moses. In its 
 most important features it is such as 
 could never have been produced by a 
 writer collecting the traditional reminis- 
 cences or legends of a later age: not 
 such even as might have been drawn by 
 a younger contemporary. To posterity, 
 to Israelites of his own time, Moses was 
 simply the greatest of men : but it is evi- 
 dent that the writer of this book was un- 
 conscious of the personal greatness of 
 the chief actor. He was indeed tho- 
 roughly aware of the greatness of his 
 mission, and consequently of the great- 
 ness of the position, which was recog- 
 nized at last by the Egyptians, see ch. xi. 
 3 ; but as to his personal qualifications, 
 the points which strike him most forcibly 
 are the deficiencies of natural gifts and 
 powers, and the defects of character, 
 which he is scrupulously careful to re- 
 cord, together with the rebukes and pe- 
 nalties which they brought upon him, 
 and the obstacles which they opposed 
 to his work. His first attempt to deliver 
 the people is described as a complete 
 failure ; an act which, however it might 
 be palliated by the provocation, is evi- 
 dently felt by the writer to have been 
 wrongful, punished by a long exile ex- 
 tending over the best years of his life. 
 When he receives the Divine call he is 
 full of hesitation, and even when his un- 
 belief is overcome by miracles he still 
 recoils from the work, dwelling with 
 almost irreverent pertinacity upon his 
 personal disqualifications, ch. iii. lo — 13. 
 On his homeward journey he is severely 
 chastised for neglect of a religious duty, 
 ch. iv. 24 — 26. When his first application 
 to Pharaoh brings increased suffering to 
 his people, he bursts out into i)assionate 
 remonstrance. The courage and mag- 
 nanimity of his conduct to Pharaoh are 
 never the subject of direct commenda- 
 tion. No act is attributed to his per- 
 sonal character. Even in the passage 
 over the Red Sea and in the journeying 
 tlu'ough the wilderness, nothing recalls 
 ^ his individuality. Each step is under 
 Divine guidance: no intimation is given 
 of wisdom, skill, or foresight in the di- 
 rection of the march. The first conflict 
 with assailants is conducted by Joshua. 
 
 The only important act in the organiza- 
 tion of the nation, which is not distinctly 
 assigned to a Divine revelation, is attri- 
 buted to the wisdom, not of Moses, but 
 of his kinsman Jethro. The few notices 
 of personal character in the other books 
 accord with this portraiture: the repug- 
 nance to all self-assertion in the contro- 
 versy with Aaron and Miriam; the hasty 
 and impetuous temper which, manifested 
 on one important occasion, brought upon 
 him the lasting displeasure of God, and 
 ultimately transferred the execution of 
 his great work to the hands of his suc- 
 cessor Joshua. 
 
 Such a representation is perfectly in- 
 telligible, as proceeding from Moses him- 
 self : but what in him was humility would 
 have been obtuseness in an annalist : 
 such as never is found in the accounts 
 of other great men, nor in the notices 
 of Moses in later books*. What other 
 men have seen in Moses is the chief 
 agent in the greatest work ever intrusted 
 to man, an agent whose peculiar and 
 unparalleled qualifications are admitted 
 alike by those who accept and by those 
 who deny the Divine interposition^: 
 what the writer himself sees in Moses is 
 a man whose only qualification is an in- 
 voluntary and reluctant surrender to the 
 will of God. The only rational account 
 of the matter is, that we have Moses’ 
 own history of himself and of his work. 
 
 The next argument is even less open 
 to objection, since it rests not on sub- 
 jective impressions, but on external 
 facts. The book of Exodus could not 
 have been written by any man who had 
 not passed many years in Egypt, and 
 who had not also a thorough know- 
 ledge, such as could only be acquired 
 by personal observation, of the Sinaitic 
 Peninsula. But it is improbable that 
 any Israelite between the time of Moses 
 and Jeremiah could have possessed either 
 of these qualifications; it is not credible, 
 or even possible, that any should have 
 
 ^ .See especially the three last verses of Deute- 
 ronomy, added either by a younger contempo- 
 rary of Moses, or at a later time by a reviser. 
 
 d'he two writers by whom the greatness of 
 the character and work of Moses are perhaps 
 most thoroughly appreciated and developed with 
 greatest power are Ewald, ‘G. I.’ vol. ir., and 
 Salvador, ‘ Ilistoire des Institutions de Moise 
 ct dll peuple IIcbr6u.’ 
 
THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 
 
 241 
 
 combined • both. Israelites may have 
 been, and probably were, brought into 
 Egypt as captives by the Pharaohs in 
 their not unfrequent invasions of Syria, 
 but in that position they were not likely 
 to become acquainted with the institu- 
 tions of Egypt : still less likely is it that 
 any should have returned to their native 
 land. Again, no Israelite, for centuries 
 after the occupation of Palestine, is likely 
 to have penetrated into the Sinaitic Penin- 
 sula, occupied as it was by hostile tribes, 
 while it is certain that none could have 
 had any motive, or opportunity, for tra- 
 versing the route from Egypt to Horeb, 
 with which no one doubts the writer of 
 the Pentateuch was personally familiar. 
 The notices are too numerous, and inter- 
 woven with the narrative too intimately, 
 to be accounted for as mere traditional 
 reminiscences, or even as derived from 
 scanty records in the possession of the 
 Israelites at a later period. We have no 
 probable alternative but to admit that 
 the narrative in its substance came from 
 Hoses, or from a contemporary. Either 
 alternative might suffice so far as regards 
 the accuracy and trustworthiness of the 
 narrative, and consequently the miracu- 
 lous character of the transactions which 
 .it records; but we can have little hesita- 
 tion as to our choice between these al- 
 ternatives, when we consider that none 
 of the contemporaries of Moses had 
 equal opportunities of observation, and 
 that none were likely to have received 
 the education anct training^ which would 
 have enabled them to record the events. 
 
 § 3. A weighty argument is drawn 
 from the accounts of the miracles, by 
 which Moses was expressly bidden to 
 attest his mission, and by which he was 
 enabled to accomplish the deliverance of 
 his people. One characteristic, common 
 to all scriptural miracles, but in none 
 more conspicuous than in those record- 
 ed in the book of Exodus, is their 
 strongly marked, and indeed unmistake- 
 a*ble, local colouring. They are such as 
 no later writer living in Palestine could 
 have invented for Egypt. From begin- 
 ning to end no miracle is recorded which 
 
 ^ On the education of Moses see note at the 
 end of ch. ii. 
 
 VOL. I, 
 
 does not strike the mind by its peculiar 
 suitableness to the place, time, and cir- 
 cumstances under which it was wrought. 
 The plagues are each and all Egyptian ; 
 and the modes by which the people’s 
 wants are supplied in the Sinaitic Penin- 
 sula recall to our minds the natural 
 conditions of such a journey in such a 
 country. We find nature everywhere, 
 but nature in its master’s hand. 
 
 Detailed accounts of the plagues and 
 of the natural phenomena in Egypt with 
 which they were severally connected 
 will be found in the notes; but it may 
 be well to bring together a -few points 
 which shew the effects produced both 
 by the miracles, and by the apparent 
 failure of all but the last in determining 
 the immediate deliverance of the people. 
 The direct and indirect effects were in 
 fact equally necessary, humanly speak- 
 ing, for the accomplishment of that 
 event. 
 
 In the first place it must be remarked, 
 that the delay occasioned by Pharaoh’s 
 repeated refusals to listen to the com- 
 mands afforded ample time for prepara- 
 tion. Two full months elapsed between 
 the first and second interview of Moses 
 with the king; see notes on v. 7 and 
 vii. 17. During that time the people, 
 uprooted for the first time from the 
 district in which they had been settled 
 for centuries, were dispersed throughout 
 Egypt, subjected to severe suffering, and 
 impelled to exertions of a kind differing 
 altogether from their ordinary habits, 
 whether as herdsmen or bondsmen. 
 This was the first and a most important 
 step in their training for a migratory 
 life in the desert. 
 
 Towards the end of June, at the be- 
 ginning of the rise of the annual inun- 
 dation, the first series of plagues began. 
 The Nile was stricken. Egypt was 
 visited in the centre both of its physical 
 existence, and of its national supersti- 
 tions. Pharaoh did not give way, and 
 no intimation as yet was made to the 
 people that permission for their depar- 
 ture would be extorted; but the inter- 
 vention of their Lord was now certain, 
 the people, on their return wearied and 
 exhausted from the search for stubble, 
 had an interval of suspense. Three 
 
INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 242 
 
 months appear to have intervened be- 
 tween this and the next plague. There 
 must have been a movement among all 
 the families of Israel; as they recapitu- 
 lated their wrongs and hardships, the suf- 
 ferings of their officers, and their own 
 position of hopeless antagonism to their 
 oppressors, it is impossible that they 
 should not have looked about them, 
 calculated their numbers and resources, 
 and meditated upon the measures which, 
 under the guidance of a leader of ability 
 and experience, might enable them to 
 effect their escape from Egypt. Five 
 months might not be too much, but were 
 certainly sufficient, to bring the people 
 so far into a state, of preparation for 
 departure. 
 
 The plague of frogs followed. It will 
 be shewn in the notes that it coincided 
 in time with the greatest extension of 
 the inundation in September. Pharaoh 
 then gave the first indication of yielding; 
 the permission extorted from him, though 
 soon recalled, was not therefore ineffec- 
 tual. On the one hand native worship 
 in one of its oldest and strangest forms 
 was attacked*; on the other hand Moses 
 was not likely to lose any time in trans- 
 mitting instructions to the people. The 
 first steps may have been then taken 
 towards an orderly marshalling of the 
 people. 
 
 I'he third plague differed from the 
 preceding in one important point. There 
 was no previous warning®. It must have 
 followed soon after that of frogs, early 
 in October. It marks the close of the 
 first series of inflictions, none of them 
 causing great suffering, but quite suffi- 
 cient on the one hand to make the 
 Egyptians conscious of danger, and to 
 confirm in the Israelites a hope of no 
 remote cJeliverance. 
 
 ^ This has been shewn by Lepsius ; see note 
 in loc. There is a curious vignette in Mariette’s 
 work, ‘ b'ouillcs d’Abydos,’ Part II. Vol. i. p. 30, 
 No. evil!. It represents Seti, the father of 
 Raineses 1 1., offering two vases of wine to a frog 
 inslirined in a small chapel, with the legend, 
 ‘The Sovereign Lady of both worlds.’ Ma- 
 riette’.s work has been withdrawn from circu- 
 lation. 
 
 2 'I'his peculiarity, which applies to the third 
 plague in each group, was pointed out by 
 ftlaimonidcs. 
 
 The second series of plagues was far 
 more severe; it began with swarms of 
 poisonous insects, probably immediately 
 after the subsidence of the inundation. 
 It is a season of great importance to 
 Egypt; from that season to the follow- 
 ing June the land is uncovered; culti- 
 vation begins; a great festival (called 
 Chabsta) marks the period for plough- 
 ing, At that time there was the first 
 separation between Goshen and the rest 
 of ‘Egypt The impression upon Pha- 
 raoh was far deeper than before, and 
 then, in November, the people once 
 more received instructions for departure ; 
 there was occasion for a rehearsal, so to 
 speak, of the measures requisite for the 
 proper organization of the tribes and 
 families of Israel. 
 
 The cattle plague broke out in De- 
 cember, or at the latest in January. It 
 was thoroughly Egyptian both in season® 
 and in character. The exemption of 
 tlie Israelites was probably attributed 
 by Pharaoh to natural causes; but the 
 care then bestowed by the Israelites 
 upon their cattle, the separation from 
 all sources of contagion, must have ma- 
 terially advanced their preparation for 
 departure. 
 
 Then came the plagues of boils, severe 
 but ineffectual, serving however to make ‘ 
 the Egyptians understand that continu- 
 ance in opposition would be visited on 
 their persons. With this plague the 
 second series ended. It appears to have 
 lasted about three months. 
 
 The hailstorms followed, just when 
 they now occur in Egypt, from the mid- 
 dle of February to the early weeks of 
 March. The time was now drawing 
 near. The Egyptians for the first time 
 shew that they are seriously impressed. 
 There was a division among them, many 
 feared the word of the Lord, and took 
 the precautions, which, also for the first 
 time, Moses then indicated. This plague 
 
 ^ In an Egyptian calendar, written in the 
 reign of Rameses II., and lately translated by 
 IM. Cliabas, the 72nd of Tobi, corresponding to 
 January, has this notice, “Ilyades ouragans 
 dans le ciel ce jour-lh,, la contagion annuelle s’y 
 mele abondamment.” ‘ Pap. Saltier,’ iv. pp. 14, 
 15. This applies even more specially to the 
 following plague. 
 
THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 
 
 243 
 
 drew from Pharaoh the first confession 
 of guilt; and now for the third time, be- 
 tween one and two months before the 
 Exodus, the Israelites receive permission 
 to depart, when formal instructions for 
 preparation were of course given by- 
 Moses. The people now felt also for 
 the first time that they might look for 
 support or sympathy among the very 
 servants of Pharaoh. 
 
 I The plague of locusts, when the leaves 
 were green, towards the middle of March, 
 was preceded by another warning, the last 
 but one. The conquest over the spirit 
 of Egypt was now complete. All but the 
 king gave way; see x. 7. Though not 
 so common in Egypt as in adjoining 
 countries, the plague occurs there at 
 intervals, and is peculiarly dreaded. 
 Pharaoh once more gives permission to 
 depart; once more the people are put 
 in an attitude of expectation. 
 
 The ninth plague concludes the third 
 series. Like the third and the sixth, 
 each closing a series, it was preceded 
 by no warning. It was peculiarly Egyp- 
 tian. Though causing comparatively but 
 little suffering, it was felt most deeply 
 as a menace and precursor of destruc- 
 tion. It took place most probably a 
 very few days before the last and crown- 
 ing plague, a plague distinct in character 
 from all others, the first and the only 
 one which brought death home to the 
 Egyptians, and accomplished the deliver- 
 ance of Israel. 
 
 We have thus throughout the charac- 
 teristics of local colouring, of adaptation 
 to the circumstances of the Israelites, and 
 of repeated announcements followed by 
 repeated postponements, which enabled 
 and indeed compelled the Israelites to 
 complete that organization of their na- 
 tion, without which their departure might 
 have been, as it has been often repre- 
 sented, a mere disorderly flight. 
 
 There are some who fear to compro- 
 mise the miraculous character of events 
 by admitting any operation of natural 
 causes to a share of them. Yet the in- 
 spired writer does not fail to record that 
 it was by the east wind that the Lord 
 brought the locusts (Exod. x. 12) and 
 sent back the sea (xiv. 21), and by the 
 mighty strong west wind (x. 19) took 
 
 back the plague that he had sent. Nor 
 is the miracle at all lessened, because 
 the winds of heaven were made God’s 
 messengers and instruments in the doing 
 it. In order to guard against misappre- 
 hensions from such readers, let us state 
 with some precision the view we take 
 of the miracles in Egypt. They were 
 supernatural in their greatness, in their 
 concentration upon one period, in their 
 coming and going according to the 
 phases of the conflict between the t3Tant 
 and the captive race, in their measured 
 gradation from weak to strong, as each 
 weaker wonder failed to break the stub- 
 born heart. And king and people so 
 regarded them; they were accustomed 
 perhaps to frogs and lice and locusts; 
 but to such plagues, so intense, so threat- 
 ened, and accomplished, and withdrawn, 
 as it were so disciplined to a will, they 
 were not accustomed ; and they rightly 
 saw them as miraculous and divinely 
 sent. This being clearly laid down it is 
 most desirable to notice that the pheno- 
 mena that are put to this use are such, 
 as mark the country where this great 
 liistory is laid. No Jewish writer, who 
 had lived in Palestine alone, could have. 
 imagined a narrative so Egyptian in its 
 marks. Much evidence will appear in 
 the course of the Commentary tending 
 this way; that the history was Written 
 by some one well conversant with Egypt; 
 and we shall look in vain for any one, 
 other than Moses himself, who pos- 
 sessed this qualification for writing under 
 divine guidance the history of the eman- 
 cipation of the Israelites. 
 
 A point of subordinate, but in the 
 present state of biblical criticism of 
 practical importance, is suggested by 
 the view here presented. The two facts 
 that between all the miracles there is 
 an intimate connection, and that each 
 and all are shewn to be nearly allied 
 to analogous phenomena recorded in 
 ancient and modern accounts of Egypt, 
 leave no place for interpolations of 
 any considerable extent, none certainly 
 for the introduction of any single visi- 
 tation. In the commentaries of some' 
 scholars, to whose learning and ability 
 the student of Holy Scripture is deeply 
 indebted, some of the accounts are at- 
 
 (^2 
 
244 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 tributed to- the Elohistic, others to the 
 Jehovistic writer. The arguments based 
 upon language are considered in their 
 proper places^; those resting on merely 
 subjective impressions, varying to a most 
 remarkable extent in writers of the same 
 school, are too vague and indefinite to 
 be capable of disproof, as they are inca- 
 pable of demonstration, and will proba- 
 bly leave no trace in biblical literature ; 
 but the characteristics here pointed out 
 are common to all the plagues, and they 
 are conclusive. In fact no one plague 
 could be omitted without dislocating the 
 whole narrative, and breaking the order 
 distinctly intimated, though nowhere 
 formally stated, by the writer. The re- 
 sults weje brought about by the com- 
 bined operation of all the plagues; they 
 could never have been produced by a 
 merely fortuitous concurrence of natural 
 events, and the narrative which records 
 them, remarkable as it is for artlessness 
 and simplicity, is certainly not one which 
 could have been concocted from docu- 
 ments of different ages, constructed on. 
 
 ^ The attention of scholars is specially called 
 to the following list of words. They are either 
 found only in this book and marked a. X., or 
 in the Pentateuch and later Psalms taken directly 
 from it, marked P. All marked E. have Egyp- 
 tian equivalents, and are derived from roots either 
 common to Egyptian and Hebrew, or found only 
 in Egyptian. 
 
 Ch. i. 7, were fruitful, E., increased exceed- 
 ingly, P. E. V. II, taskmasters, d. X., E. 
 I’ithon and Rameses, E. v. i6, the stools, d. X. 
 ii. 3, ark, P. E. bulrushes, E. pitch, E. 
 flags, E. river’s brink, E. v. 5, wash, E. 
 V. 10, drew out, P. E. v. 16, troughs, P., once 
 in Cant. iii. a bush, P. E. v. 12, stubble and 
 straw, E. vii. 3, magicians, sorcerers, E. 
 V. 22, enchantments, d. X., E. v. 27, frogs, P. 
 Pk viii. 13, lice, d. X., i.e. here and Ps. cv. 
 31, E. V. 17, swarms of flies, d. X., E. ix. 8, 
 ashes, d. X. , Ik furnace, P. E. v. 9, a boil, Pk 
 breaking forth, E., blains, d. X., E. x, 31, 
 flax, Pk boiled, d. X., E. v. 32,. spelt, E. 
 not grown up, d. X., E. xii. 4, number, d. X. 
 7.'. 6, two evenings, d. X. v. 7, lintel, d. X. 
 vj. 8, II, passover, E. v. 15, leaven, d. X., E. 
 xiii. 16, frontlets, P. xiv. horse, E. xv. i, 
 hath triumphed gloriously, E. 7/. 2, I will 
 ])reparc him an habitation? d. X. v. 7, heaped 
 up, d. X. V. 8, congealed: in this sense, d. X., E. 
 V. 20, timbrel, E. xvi. 3, flesh-pots, E. v. 15, 
 manna, Ik v. 16, omer, ]’. E. v. 33, pot, P. Ik 
 
 It is to be observed that these words occur 
 indiscriminately in the so-called Jehovistic and 
 Elohistic passages. The list may be extended. 
 
 different principles, and full of internal 
 discrepancies and contradictions. It is 
 the production of one mind, written by 
 one man, and by one who had alone 
 witnessed all the events which it records, 
 who alone was at that time likely to pos- 
 sess the knowledge or ability required to 
 write the account. 
 
 § 4. The portion of the book, which 
 follows the account of the departure from 
 Egypt, has characteristics marked with 
 equal distinctness, and bearing with no 
 less force upon the question of authorship. 
 It has never occurred to any traveller 
 who has traversed the route from Suez 
 to Sinai, or from Sinai to Palestine, to 
 doubt that the chapters of Exodus which 
 touch that ground were written by one to 
 whom the localities were known from 
 personal observation. It is not merely 
 that the length of each division of the 
 journey, the numerous halting places are 
 distinctly marked; for although such no- 
 tices could not possibly have been in- 
 vented, or procured at any later period 
 by a dweller in Palestine, the fact might 
 be accounted for by the supposition, 
 gratuitously made, but hard to be re- 
 butted, that some ancient records of the 
 journey had been preserved by written 
 or oral tradition; but the chapters which 
 belong either to the early sojourn of 
 Moses, or to the wanderings of the Is- 
 raelites, are pervaded by a peculiar tone, 
 a local colouring, an atmosphere so to 
 speak of the desert, which has made 
 itself felt by all those who have explored 
 the country, to whatever school of reli- 
 gious thought they may have belonged. 
 And this fact is the more striking when 
 we bear in mind that, although the 
 great general features of the Peninsula, 
 the grouping of its arid heights and the 
 direction of its innumerable wadys are 
 permanent, still changes of vast, and 
 scarcely calculable importance in matters 
 which personally affect the traveller and 
 modify his impressions, have taken place 
 since the time of Moses; changes to 
 which, for obvious reasons, it is neces- 
 sary to call special attention. 
 
 At present one great difiiculty felt by 
 all travellers is the insufficiency of the 
 resources of the Peninsula to support 
 such a host as that which is described in 
 
THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 
 
 245 
 
 the narrative; a difficulty not wholly re- 
 moved by the acceptance of the accounts 
 of providential- interventions, which ap- 
 pear to have been not permanent, but 
 limited to special occasions. But facts 
 can be adduced which confirm, and in- 
 deed go far beyond, the conjectures of 
 travellers, who have pointed out that the 
 supply of water, and the general fertility 
 of the district, must have been very dif- 
 ferent before the process of denudation, 
 which has been going on for ages, and 
 is now in active progress, had com- 
 menced. We have now proofs from in- 
 scriptions coeval with the pyramids, 
 both in Egypt and in the Peninsula, that 
 under the Pharaohs of the third to the 
 eighteenth dynasty, ages before Moses, 
 and up to his time, the whole district 
 was occupied by a population, whose 
 resources and numbers must have been 
 considerable, since they were able to re- 
 sist the forces of the Egyptians, who 
 sent large armies in repeated, but un- 
 successful, attempts to subjugate the 
 Peninsula. Their principal object how- 
 ever was effected, since they establish- 
 ed permanent settlements at Sarbet el 
 Khadim, and at Mughara, to work the 
 copper-mines'. These settlements were 
 under the command of officers of high 
 rank, and are proved by monuments 
 and inscriptions to have been of an 
 extent, which implies the existence of 
 considerable resources in the imme- 
 diate neighbourhood. It is well known 
 
 ^ Brugsch differs from all Egyptian scholars in 
 a point of secondary importance, holding that the 
 mines here were worked chiefly for the sake of 
 turquoises (see Leps. ‘Zeits.’ 1866, p. 74, n. 3) ; 
 but h’is treatise, entitled ‘ Wanderung nach den 
 Tiirkis Minen,’ gives a good account of the in- 
 scriptions. They are very numerous in the Wady 
 Mughara; the earliest dates from Snefru, of the 
 third dynasty; 8 Pharaohs of the three following 
 dynasties have left many inscriptions, a consider- 
 able number belong to Amenemha III., dating 
 from his 2nd to his 42nd year; and one of great 
 importance describes an expedition under Ra- 
 maaka, i.e. Hatasu, the widow of Thotmes II. 
 These inscriptions repeatedly speak of victories 
 over native tribes : the very earliest inscription 
 in existence, earlier than any in Egypt, records 
 a victory achieved by Snefru over the Mentu, 
 the general designation of the mountaineers of 
 the Peninsula. The mines were lately worked by 
 an Englishman, Major Macdonald, of whom 
 ^ Brugsch gives a full and very interesting account. 
 
 that the early Egyptian kings were 
 careful to provide for the security and 
 sustentation of the caravans and bodies 
 of troops, by which the communica- 
 tions with settlements under such cir- 
 cumstances were carried on: and every 
 spot where the modern traveller still 
 finds water on the route was doubtless 
 then the object of special attention ^ 
 The vegetation which even now protects 
 the wells of Moses, from which the 
 dwellers at Suez obtain a supply of 
 brackish water, must have been then far 
 more luxuriant; and tli£ seventy palm- 
 trees, which Moses found at Pdim, 
 doubtless sheltered fountains, from which 
 streams far more copious tlian those 
 which now water the wady, flowed over 
 the adjoining district. See note, ch. xv. 
 27. Where the superficial water was in- 
 sufficient, it was customary in that early 
 age to dig wells of whatever depth might 
 be needed’''; and every tree, now reck- 
 lessly destroyed, was the object of spe- 
 cial care, and even superstitious rever- 
 ence. During the long ages which 
 have elapsed since the Egyptian power 
 passed away, the Peninsula has never 
 been subjected to an Empire which has 
 had a sufficient motive, or sufficient wis- 
 dom and resources, to arrest the process 
 of deterioration : and every horde of 
 Arabs, who have since been virtually its 
 masters, bent only on supplying their own 
 limited wants, cut down without remorse 
 the shrubs and trees, on which the water 
 supply, and consequently the general 
 fertility of the district, mainly depend. 
 The aspect of the whole country when 
 
 ^ In one of the most ancient papyri we find a 
 notice of a place called She-Snefru, that is, the 
 reservoir of Snefru, named after Snefru, the 
 earliest Pharaoh who is known to have estab- 
 lished an Egyptian settlement in the Peninsula 
 of Sinai. M. Chabas remarks “ She-Snefru 
 dtait sans doute Tune des stations qu’il avait 
 dispos^es au desert d’Arabie, sur la route de la 
 Mer-Rouge.” ‘Les Papyrus Hi^ratiques de 
 Berlin,’ p. 39. 
 
 ^ See, for instance, the inscription relating 
 to the gold mines near Dakkeh, explained by 
 Mr IPrch. It mentions a well 180 feet deep, 
 and another still deeper, on a route where water 
 could not be procured, dug by the order of 
 Seti I. and Raineses Ilf The works of pre- 
 ceding Pharaohs, especially under the 12th 
 dynasty, were equally remarkable for fore- 
 thought. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 246 
 
 it was first visited by Christian pilgrims 
 who have left us accounts of their jour- 
 neyings, must have differed greatly from 
 that which it presented to the Israelites, 
 when, under the guidance of Moses, 
 they found pasturage for their flocks 
 and herds. But far greater is the differ- 
 ence at present. Under Turkish mis- 
 rule the Arabs carry on the work of 
 desolation with no effective interfei- 
 ence ; no plantations are made, no wells 
 are dug, the fountains are unprotected; 
 and as though natural causes were insuf- 
 ficient, the annual tribute demanded by 
 the Pasha consists in charcoal, each 
 contribution laying waste a whole dis- 
 trict. The devastation which began ages 
 ago has in fact continued without cessa- 
 tion, and if it goes on at the present rate 
 of increase, wdll ere long reduce the 
 whole district to a state of utter aridity 
 and barrenness. When Niebuhr visited 
 the country, at the beginning of the last 
 century, large supplies of vegetable pro- 
 duce w^ere exported regularly to Egypt, 
 shewung that the original fertility w'as not 
 even then exhausted. Those supplies 
 have ceased ; and the only wonder is 
 that so much remains to satisfy a careful 
 inquirer of the possibility of the events 
 recorded in Exodus. 
 
 Taking summarily the points in this 
 part of the argument, w'e find the fol- 
 lowing coincidences between the narra- 
 tive and accounts of travellers. Absence 
 of w^ater where no sources now exist, 
 abundance of water where fountains are 
 still found, and indications of a far more 
 copious supply in former ages; tracts, 
 occupying the same time in the journey, 
 in wEich food would not be found; and 
 in some districts a natural production 
 similar to manna, most abundant in 
 rainy seasons (such as several notices 
 shew the season of the Exodus to have 
 been), but not sufficient for nourishment, 
 nor fit for large consumption, wuthout 
 such modifications in character and 
 quantity as are attributed in the narra- 
 tive to a divine intervention. We have 
 the presence of Nomad hordes, and an 
 attack made by them precisely in the 
 district, and undfer the circumstances 
 w'hen their presence and attack might 
 be expected. We have a route which 
 
 the late exploration of the Peninsula, of 
 which an account will be found at the 
 end of the notes on this book, will 
 shew to have been probably determined 
 by conditions agreeing with incidental 
 notices in the history ; and when we 
 come to the chapters in which the cen- 
 tral event in the history of Israel, the 
 delivery of God’s law, is recorded, we 
 find localities and scenery which travel- 
 lers concur in declaring to be such as 
 fully correspond to the exigencies of 
 the narrative, and which in some accounts 
 (remarkable at once for scientific accu- 
 racy and graphic power) are described 
 in terms which shew they correspond, 
 so far as mere outward accessories can 
 correspond, to the grandeur of the mani- 
 festation. 
 
 Throughout this portion it will be 
 observed that the notices on which the 
 argument mainly rests are interwoven 
 with the narrative and inseparable from 
 it. It is easy to assert that any single 
 notice may have been retained by oral 
 tradition, or preserved for ages in scanty 
 documents, such as were formerly sup> 
 posed to be alone likely or possible to 
 have been produced in the time of 
 Moses; and such is the course generally 
 adopted when any coincidence is pointed 
 out too clear to be explained away; a 
 course which, were it applied to any 
 secular history, would be condemned as 
 disingenuous or uncritical, making it in 
 fact impossible to establish the authen- 
 ticity of any ancient writing. But in 
 addition to the positive arguments thus 
 adduced, a negative argument at least 
 equally conclusive demands attention. 
 No history or composition in existence, 
 which is known to have been written 
 long after the events which it describes, 
 is without internal indications which con- 
 clusively prove its later origin; contem- 
 porary documents may be interwoven 
 with it, and great pains taken in ages of 
 literary refinement and artifice to disguise 
 its character, but even when anachro- 
 nisms and errors of detail are avoided, 
 which is seldom, if ever, effectually done, 
 the genuine touch of antiquity, the 
 dpxaio7rp€7rrj^, is invariably and inevita- 
 bly absent. Whether we look at the 
 general tone of this narrative, the style 
 
THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 
 
 247 
 
 equally remarkable for artlessness and 
 power, or at the innumerable points of 
 contact with external facts capable of 
 exact determination, we are impressed 
 by the weight of this internal evidence, 
 supported as it has been shewn to be 
 by the unbroken and unvarying tradition 
 of the nation to whom the narrative was 
 addressed, and by whom it was held too 
 sacred not to be preserved from wilful 
 mutilation or interpolation. 
 
 § 5. An argument which many readers 
 may feel to be even less open to objec- 
 tion is drawn from the account of the 
 Tabernacle. In the notes on this part 
 of the work the following facts are de- 
 monstrated. 
 
 In form, structure, and materials, the 
 tabernacle belongs altogether to the wil- 
 derness. The wood used in the struc- 
 ture is found there in abundance. It 
 • appears not to have been used by the 
 Israelites in Palestine; when the temple 
 was rebuilt .it was replaced by cedar. 
 (See note on xxv. 10.) The whole was a 
 tent, not a fixed structure, such as would 
 naturally have been set up, and in point 
 of fact was very soon set up, in Palestine; 
 where wooden doors and probably a sur- 
 rounding wall existed under the Judges 
 of Israel. The skins and other native 
 materials belong equally to the locality. 
 One material whiph entered largely into 
 the construction, the skin of the Tachash, 
 was in all' probability derived from the 
 Red Sea; with the exception of one re- 
 ference in Ezekiel xvi. 10, no traces of 
 its use are found at a later period, or 
 in any other district. The metals, bronze, 
 silver and gold, were those which the 
 Israelites knew, and doubtless brought 
 with them from Egypt; nor is it proba- 
 ble that they possessed equal resources 
 for a long time after their settlement in 
 Palestine. The names of many of the 
 materials and implements which they 
 used, and the furniture and accessories 
 of the tabernacle, the dress and orna- 
 ments of the priests, are shewn to have 
 been Egyptian. It is also certain that 
 the arts required for the construction 
 of the tabernacle, and for all its acces- 
 sories, were precisely those for which 
 the Egyptians had been remarkable for 
 ages; such as artizans who had lived 
 
 under the influence of Egyptian civiliza- 
 tion would naturally have learned. The 
 rich embroidery of the hangings, the 
 carving of the cherubic forms, the or- 
 namentation of the capitals, the .natu- 
 ralistic character of the embellishments, 
 were all things with which the Israelites 
 had been familiar in Egypt; but which 
 for ages after their settlement in Pales- 
 tine, in which the traces of Canaanitish 
 culture had been destroyed as savouring 
 of idolatry, and where the people were 
 carefully separated from the contagious 
 influences of other nations on a par 
 with Egypt, must have died out, if not 
 from their remembrance, yet from all 
 practical application. There are ex- 
 ceedingly few indications of any such arts 
 among the Israelites during the period 
 from the occupation of Palestine to the 
 accession of Solomon; the ephod of Mi- 
 cah, and the teraphim in David’s bed, 
 being scarcely noticeable exceptions. It 
 is improbable that any portion of the 
 decorations of the tabernacle could have 
 been produced, even had the rich mate- 
 rials been forthcoming; and it is to be 
 noted as a fact of very special importance 
 in this inquiry, that when Solomon, in 
 the height of his prosperity, with the re- 
 sources of a vast empire at his disposal, 
 erected the temple which was to re- 
 place the tabernacle, he was compelled 
 to seek the aid of foreigners, and to bring 
 Tyrian artists to accomplish the work 
 which Bezaleel had produced, when his 
 native genius, trained in the school of 
 Egypt, was developed by the Spirit of 
 God. 
 
 The peculiar way in which the history 
 of the erection of the T^abernacle is re- 
 corded suggests another argument, which 
 has not hitherto received due attention. 
 Two separate accounts are given. In 
 the first Moses relates the instructions 
 which he received, in the second he 
 .describes the accomplishment of the 
 work. Nothing would be less in ac- 
 cordance with the natural order of a 
 history written at a later period than 
 this double account. It has been re- 
 presented as an argument for a double 
 authorship, as though two sets of docu- 
 ments had been carelessly or supersti- 
 tiously adopted by a compiler. It is 
 
248 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 however fully accounted for by the 
 obvious hypothesis, adopted through- 
 out this part of the commentary’ that 
 each part of the narrative was written 
 at the time, and on the occasion, to 
 which it immediately refers. When Mo- 
 ses received these instructions he wrote 
 a full account of them for the informa- 
 tion oT the people. This was on all 
 accounts probable and necessary : among 
 other obvious reasons it was necessary 
 in order that the people might learn 
 exactly what amount of materials and 
 what amount of work would be required 
 of them. When again he had executed 
 his task, it was equally proper, and 
 doubtless also in accordance with the 
 habits of a people keen and jealous in 
 the management of their affairs, and at 
 ^ no time free from tendencies to sus- 
 picion, that he should give a formal 
 account of every detail in its execution 
 a proof, to such as might call for proof, 
 that all their precious offerings had been 
 devoted to the purpose; and what was 
 of far more importance, that the divine 
 instructions had been completely and 
 j literally obeyed. It is a curious fact, 
 
 ! that in the two accounts the order of the 
 narrative is systematically reversed. In 
 the instructions given to Moses and re- 
 corded for the information of the people, 
 the most important objects stand first. 
 The ark, the mercy-seat, the cherubs, 
 the table of shew-bread, the golden can- 
 dlestick, the whole series of symbolic 
 forms by which the national mind was 
 framed to comprehend the character of 
 the divine revelation, are presented at 
 once to the worshippers. Then come 
 instructions for the tabernacle, its equip- 
 ments and accessories ; and when ail 
 else is completed, the dress and orna- 
 ments of the ofliciating priests. But 
 when the work of Bezaleel and his assist- 
 ants is described, the structure of the 
 tabernacle comes first, as it naturally 
 
 ' ' It is also to be observed that a very large 
 
 i portion of the papyri, written at nearly tlie same 
 ; period in Bgypt, consist of minute accounts of 
 the work done, and the sums expended under 
 tlie superintendence of tlie writers. In an in- 
 scription on the statue of an Egyptian architect, 
 IJokenchons, who lived under Sethos I. and 
 Rameses II., special note is made of his accu- 
 racy in accounting for expensive buildings. 
 
 would do when the work was commenced; 
 the place was first prepared, and then 
 the ark and all the sacred vessels, ac- 
 cording to all that the Lord commanded 
 Moses. 
 
 § 6. The Chronology of Exodus in- 
 volves two questions, the duration of the 
 sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, and 
 the date of their departure. So far as 
 regards the direct statements in the He- 
 brew text, the answers to both questions 
 are positive and unambiguous. Exodus 
 xii. 40 gives 430 years for the sojourn, 
 Genesis xv. 13 gives 400 years for the 
 whole, or the greater portion of the same 
 period. Again, the istbook of Kings, c. 
 vi. 1, fixes the Exodus at 480 years before 
 the building of the Temple in the fourth 
 year of Solomon’s reign. This would 
 settle the date within a few years, about 
 1490 B.c. See note on c. xii. 40. 
 
 Both statements are taken in their ob- ^ 
 vious and literal meaning by critics of 
 different schools in Germany and Eng- 
 land. The latter statement presents some 
 difficulties. On the one hand it involves 
 a longer period than appears to be con- 
 sistent with the genealogies, especially 
 with the genealogy of David. This ob- 
 jection loses its weight if the omission 
 of several links in the genealc^ies be 
 admitted as probable: in some cases of 
 the highest importance it is certain, e.g. 
 in that of Ezra and of our Lord. On 
 the other hand it involves a shorter 
 period than is deduced from notices in 
 the book of Judges; an objection met 
 by the probable hypothesis that many 
 transactions in that book may have taken 
 place at the same period in different 
 parts of Palestine. Egyptian chrono- 
 logy is too uncertain to determine the 
 question, as is shewn in the Appendix. 
 The date appears on the whole to be 
 reconcileable with the facts of history, 
 and to rest on higher authority than any 
 other which has been proposed. 
 
 The grounds on which the duration 
 of the sojourn is determined are con- 
 sidered in the note at the end of c. xii. 
 
 It is especially important with reference 
 to the number of the Israelites, which 
 amounted to 600,000 males at the time 
 of the Exodus. Such an increase of a 
 pati'iarclial family within 215 years, the 
 
THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 
 
 249 
 
 period deduced by the Rabbins from admit they must have been to effect the 
 genealogical computations, and adopted conquest of Canaan and to retain their 
 by many theologians, presents great, if national integrity in the midst of a hostile 
 not insuperable difficulties, which are population, 
 removed if we accept the statement of 
 Moses in the sense attached to it by 
 
 most commentators. It needs no ela- The commentary on this book was 
 borate calculation to shew that in a originally assigned to. the Rev. R. C. 
 period extending over more than four Pascoe, Principal of the Theological 
 centuries, a family which counted 70 college at Exeter. His death in June 
 males with their households, probably 1868 was preceded by a long illness, 
 amounting to many hundreds, occupy- which prevented him from preparing 
 » ing the most fertile district in Egypt, notes which could be used for this work, 
 under circumstances most favourable to In consequence of this very serious loss 
 rapid and continuous increase specially the first 19 chapters, together with the 
 recorded in this book, should become a Introduction and appendices on Egyptian 
 mighty nation, such as they are repre- subjects, were undertaken by the Editor, 
 sented in the narrative, and as critics and the remaindei by the Rev. S. Clarke. 
 
THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES, 
 
 CALLED 
 
 EXODUS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1 The children of Israel, after Joseph's death, 
 do multiply. 8 The more they are oppressed 
 by a new king, the 7nore they multiply. 1 5 
 The godliness of the midivives, in saving the 
 7}ien ehildre7i alive. 22 Pha7'aoh co77ima7ideth 
 the male ehild7'e7i. to he east mto the 7'iver. 
 
 N ’ OW these are the names of the 
 "children of Israel, which came 
 chap. 6. into Egypt; every man and his house- 
 hold came with Jacob. 
 
 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 
 3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, 
 4 Dan,andNaphtali,Gad, and Asher. 
 
 27 . 
 
 Deut. 10 . 
 
 all his 22. 
 
 5 And all the souls that came out 
 
 of the Hoins of Jacob were ^ seventy ^ Heb. 
 souls : for Joseph was in Egypt al- 46 
 ready. 
 
 6 And Joseph died, and 
 brethren, and all that generation. 
 
 7 ^ ^And the children of Israel ‘'Acts 7 , 
 w’ere fruitful, and increased abundant- 
 
 ly, and multiplied, and waxed exceed- 
 ing mighty; and the land was filled 
 with them. 
 
 8 Now there arose up a new king 
 over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. 
 
 Chap. I. 1. No2v\ Literally “and.” This 
 conjunction is omitted by the LXX. but it 
 is commonly used at the beginning of the 
 historical books after Genesis, and here indi- 
 cates a close connection with the preceding 
 narrative. This chapter in fact contains a 
 fulfilment of the predictions recorded in Gen. 
 xlvi. 3, that God would make of Jacob “a 
 great nation” in Egypt: and in Gen. xv. 13, 
 that the people of that land would “afflict 
 them four hundred years.” 
 
 e 2 }ery man and his household] It may be in- 
 ferred from various notices that the total 
 number of dependents was considerable, a 
 point of importance in its bearings upon the 
 history of the Exodus. See Gen. xiii. 6, xiv. 
 14, from which we learn that Abram had 318 
 trained servants bom in his house. The 
 daughters are not mentioned, nor are the 
 names of their husbands given; it is more 
 likely that they were married to their near re- 
 lations, or to dependents than to heathens; 
 and in that case they with their families would 
 form part of the patriarchal households. 
 
 5 . se’vojty] This number includes Joseph, 
 his two sons, and by a mode of reckoning not 
 uncommon, Jacob himself; see Gen. xlv. ii, 
 xlvi. 27 ; Deut. x. 22. The object of the 
 writer in this introductory statement is to 
 give a complete list of the heads of separate 
 families at the time of their settlement in 
 . Egypt. See note on Num. xxvi. 5. The 
 LXX. place the last clause, “Joseph was in 
 Egypt,” at the beginning of the verse, an ar- 
 rangement which seems preferable, and is de- 
 fended by Egli; sec ‘ Zeitschrift fur wissen- 
 schaftliche Theologie,’ 1870, p. 326. 
 
 7 . The narrative begins, properly speak- 
 ing, with this paragraph. This is clearly shewn 
 by the construction of the Hebrew, which 
 does not connect the word “was fruitful” 
 with the preceding verse. Egypt was always 
 celebrated for its fruitfulness, and in no pro- 
 vince does the population increase so rapidly 
 as in that occupied by the Israelites. See 
 notes on Gen. xlvii 6. At present it has 
 more flocks and herds than any province in 
 Egypt, and more fishermen, though many 
 villages are deserted; it is calculated that 
 another million might be sustained in it. (See 
 Robinson, Vol. i. p. 55.) Until the acces- 
 sion of the new king, the relations between 
 the Egyptians and the Israelites were undoubt- 
 edly friendly. The expressions used in this 
 verse imply the lapse of a considerable period 
 after the death of Joseph. 
 
 the land ^as filed nvith them] i. e. the dis- 
 trict allotted to them, extending probably from 
 the Eastern branch of the Nile to the borders 
 of the desert. It appears from other pas- 
 sages (see iii. 22) that they did not occupy 
 this land exclusively, but were intermingled 
 with the native Egyptians. 
 
 8. The expressions in this verse are pe- 
 culiar, and emphatic. “A new king” is a 
 phrase not found elsewhere. It is understood 
 by most commentators to imply that he did 
 not succeed his predecessor in natural order 
 of descent and inheritance. He “arose up 
 over Egypt,” occupying the land, as it would 
 seem, on different terms from the king whose 
 place he took, either by usurpation or con- 
 quest. The fact that he knew not Josepn 
 implies a complete separation from the tradi- 
 
V. 9—12, 
 
 EXODUS. I. 
 
 251 
 
 9 And he said unto his people, 
 Behold, the people of the children, of 
 Israel are more and mightier than we : 
 
 10 Come on, let us deal wisely 
 with them; lest they multiply, and 
 it come to pass, that, when there 
 falleth out any war, they join also 
 unto our enemies, and fight against 
 us, and so get them up out of the land. 
 
 11 Therefore they did set over 
 them taskmasters to afflict them with 
 their burdens. And they built for 
 Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and 
 Raamses. 
 
 12 ^ But the more they afflicted 
 them, the more they multiplied and^^o"*/- 
 grew. And they were grieved be- them, so 
 cause of the children of Israel. 
 
 tions of Lower Egypt. At present the gene- 
 rality of Egyptian scholars identify this Pha- 
 raoh with Rameses II. The question is dis- 
 cussed in the Appendix, where it is shewn that 
 all the conditions of the narrative are fulfilled 
 in the person of Amosis I., the head of the 
 1 8th Dynasty. He was the descendant of the 
 old Theban sovereigns, but his family resided 
 for many years at Eileithyia, (El Kab, south 
 of Thebes,) and was tributary to the Dynasty 
 of the Shepherds, the Hyksos of Manetho, then 
 ruling in the North of Egypt. Amosis mar- 
 ried an Ethiopian princess, Nephertari, and 
 in the third year of his reign captured Avaris, 
 or Zoan, the capital of the Hyksos, and 
 completed the expulsion of that race. 
 
 9. unto his people] This expression has a 
 peculiar fitness as addressed by the represen- 
 tative of the old Egyptian kings to his coun- 
 trymen immediately after their emancipation 
 from the dominion of aliens. 
 
 more and mightier] This may have been 
 literally true, if, as was natural, the king com- 
 pared the Israelites of Goshen with the popu- 
 lation of the North Eastern district after the 
 expulsion of the shepherds. The first im- 
 pression made upon his mind would be the 
 insecurity of a frontier occupied by a foreign 
 race. 
 
 10. any <ujar] The king had good cause to 
 anticipate war. The North Eastern frontier 
 was infested by the neighbouring tribes, the 
 Shasous of Egyptian monuments, and war 
 was waged with Egypt by the confederated 
 nations of Western Asia under the reigns of 
 his successors. These incursions were re- 
 pulsed with extreme difficulty. In language, 
 features, costume, and partly ^Iso in habits, 
 the Israelites probably resembled those ene- 
 mies of Egypt, and were regarded by the 
 Egyptians as their natural allies. 
 
 out of the land] This is important as the 
 first indication of a motive which determined 
 the policy of the Pharaohs in dealing with the 
 Israelites : they apprehended the loss of revenue 
 and power, which would result from the with- 
 drawal of a peaceful and industrious race. 
 
 11. taskmasters] The writer uses the pro- 
 per Egyptian designation for these officers, 
 viz. Chiefs of tributes (see Note at the end 
 of the Chapter). They were men of rank. 
 
 superintendents of the public works (LXX. 
 enia-TaTai tSv epycoi/), such as are often re- 
 presented on Egyptian monuments, and care- 
 fully distinguished from the subordinate 
 overseers. The Israelites were employed in 
 forced labours, probably in detachments, 
 each under an Egyptian “taskmaster:” but 
 they were not reduced to slavery, properly 
 speaking, nor treated as captives of war. They 
 continued to occupy and cultivate their own 
 district, and they retained possession of their 
 houses, flocks, herds, and other property until 
 they emigrated from Egypt. Amosis had 
 special need of such labourers. He restored 
 the temples and other buildings destroyed by 
 the shepherds, employing foreigners, either as 
 subjects or mercenaries, for the transport of 
 materials. This is proved by an inscription, 
 dated in his 22nd year, see ‘ yEg. Zeitschrift,’ 
 November 1867. 
 
 treasure cities] The Hebrew word corre- 
 sponds very closely both in form and mean- 
 ing with “magazines,” depots, of ammunition 
 and provisions: the same word is used i 
 Kings ix. 19 ; 2 Chron. viii. 4 and xxxii. 28. 
 Captives were employed in great numbers 
 for building and enlarging such depots under 
 the Egyptian kings of the i8th and 19th 
 dynasties. 
 
 Pithom and Raamses] Both cities were situ- 
 ate on the canal, which had been dug or 
 enlarged long before, under Osertasen, of the 
 12th dynasty. The names of both cities are 
 found on Egyptian monuments : the former 
 is known to have existed under the i8th dyn- 
 asty : both were in existence in the beginning 
 of the reign of Rameses II., by whom they 
 were fortified and enlarged. The name “ Pi- 
 thom” means “House or temple of Turn,” 
 the Sun God of Heliopolis. The name of 
 Raamses, or Rameses is generally assumed to 
 have been derived from Rameses II., the Se- 
 sostris of the Greeks, but it was previously 
 known as the name of the district. See 
 Genesis xlvii. ii, and Appendix. The LXX. 
 add “ On, which is Heliopolis:” a reading com- 
 mended by Egli, l.c. but On existed long be- 
 fore that age. 
 
 12. they (were grieved] The Hebrew ex- 
 presses a mixture of loathing and alami. Foi 
 “they” the LXX. read “the Egyptians.” 
 
ux 
 
 2 EXODUS. I. [v. r3-2i. 
 
 13 And the Egyptians made the 
 children of Israel to serve with rigour: 
 
 14 And they made their lives bit- 
 ter with hard bondage, in morter, 
 and in brick, and in all manner of 
 service in the field: all their service, 
 wherein they made them serve, was 
 with rigour. 
 
 15^ And the king of Egypt spake 
 to the Hebrew midwives, of which 
 the name of the one was Shiphrah, 
 and the name of the other Puah : 
 
 16 And he said. When ye do the 
 office of a midwife to the Hebrew 
 women, and see t/jem upon the stools ; 
 if it be a son, then ye shall kill him : 
 but if it be a daughter, then she shall 
 live. 
 
 17 But the midwives feared God, 
 and did not as the king of Egypt 
 commanded them, but saved the men 
 children alive. 
 
 18 And the king of Egypt called 
 for the midwives, and said unto them. 
 Why have ye done this thing, and 
 have saved the men children alive ? 
 
 19 And the midwives said unto 
 Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew wo- 
 men are not as the Egyptian women ; 
 for they are lively, and are deliver- 
 ed ere the midwives come in unto 
 them. 
 
 20 Therefore God dealt well with 
 the midwives: and the people multi- 
 plied, and waxed very mighty. 
 
 21 And it came to pass, because 
 
 13 . rigourl The word is repeated 
 V. 14 ; but does not occur elsewhere. 
 
 14 . morter and brick'] The use of brick, 
 at all times common in Egypt, was es- 
 pecially so under the i8th dynasty. An ex- 
 act representation of the whole process of 
 brickmaking is given in a small temple at 
 Thebes, erected by Thctmes III., the fourth 
 in descent from Amosis. The persons there 
 employed are captives, taken by that Pharaoh 
 in his Asiatic campaigns. They are under a 
 general superintendent, or “ taskmaster,” and 
 are driven to work by overseers, armed with 
 heavy lashes, who cry out “work without faint- 
 ing.” A report from a scribe at a later date, 
 under the 19th dynasty, shews the rigour with 
 which the labour, generally assigned to captives 
 or to slaves, was enforced. See Brugsch, ‘ His- 
 toire d’Egypte,’ p. 1 74, and Chabas, ‘ Melanges 
 cgyptologiques,’ il. p. 121. Immense masses 
 of brick are found at Belbeis, the modern 
 capital of Sharkiya, i.e. Goshen, and in the 
 adjoining district. There is no intimation 
 that the Israelites were employed in build- 
 ing pyramids, which were erected by kings 
 of Lower Egypt, with few exceptions, long 
 before this period. 
 
 all manner of service in the field] Not 
 merely agricultural labours to which the Is- 
 raelites were accustomed, but probably the 
 digging of canals and processes of irrigation 
 which are pcH:uliarly onerous and unhealthy, 
 and on both accounts likely to have been im- 
 posed upon the Israelites. The word used 
 throughout by the I'argumist (see Note at 
 the end of the Chapter) is interesting; the 
 designation Fellahs, forced workers, is derived 
 from it. 
 
 15 . HebrevJ mukvives] Or “ mid wives of 
 
 the Hebrew women.” This measure at once 
 attested the inefficacy of the former measures, 
 and was the direct cause of the event which 
 issued in the deliverance of Israel, viz. the 
 exposure of Moses. Two midwives only are 
 named. They may have been the two chief 
 midwives, but it is not improbable that they 
 were the only ones in Goshen. At present 
 all travellers state that midwives are very sel- 
 dom employed by Egyptian women, never by 
 the common people, and by women of station 
 only in cases of peculiar difficulty. Two 
 might therefore have sufficed for the Israelites. 
 It may perhaps be inferrai from this state- 
 ment that the object of the king was not to de- 
 stroy all the male infants, a course obviously 
 contrary to his interests, but those of the chiefs, 
 whose wives were alone likely to call in the 
 midwives. Both midwives bear names which 
 are supposed by some to be of Hebrew origin, 
 signifying personal beauty. They were how- 
 ever probably Egyptians, as would seem to 
 be implied in the expressions in vv. 1 7 and 19 : 
 an Egyptian etymology of each name may be 
 suggested : Puah from a word which means 
 “child bearing,” and Shiphrah, “prolific.” 
 See Note belcfiv. 
 
 16 . upon the stools] The Hebrew means 
 literally “ two stones.” The meaning is doubt- 
 ful, as the expression does not occur elsewhere, 
 but it probably denotes a peculiar seat, such 
 as is represented on monuments of the i8th 
 dynasty, and according to Lane is still used 
 by Egyptian midwives. So it is understood 
 by our translators, by the Targumist, and the 
 Arabian translatoi^Saadia, a resident in Egypt 
 and a man of great learning, whose authority 
 on such a point has considerable weight. 
 Gesenius, however, takes it to mean the stone 
 
253 
 
 V. 22.] EXODUS. I. 
 
 the midwives feared God, that he people, saying, Every son that is born 
 made them houses. ye shall cast into the river, and every 
 
 22 And Pharaoh charged all his daughter ye shall save alive. 
 
 laver in which the newborn infant was 
 washed, and he quotes a striking passage from 
 Thevenot, stating that the Persian kings order 
 the newborn male infants of their relatives to 
 be killed in the stone basin in which they are 
 washed. See Note below. 
 
 21. made them houses'] i.e. they mar- 
 ried Hebrews and became mothers in Israel. 
 The expression is proverbial. See a Sam. vii. 
 II, ay. 
 
 22 . Pharaoh thus made the people agents 
 in the crime. The command, though gene- 
 ral, may have been understood to apply to 
 the leading families by whom the midwives 
 had been employed, or to be in force until 
 the population was reduced, so as to remove 
 all apprehensions for the security of the fron- 
 
 tier. The extreme cruelty of the measure 
 does not involve improbability. Hatred of 
 strangers was always a characteristic of the 
 Egyptians, see Gen. xliii. 32, and was likely 
 to be stronger than ever after the expulsion 
 of an alien race. Before Psammetichus 
 chance visitors were taken as slaves or put 
 to death, see Diod. Sic. i. 67. Under the 
 12th dynasty, in the time of Abraham, the 
 wives and children of foreigners were the 
 property of the king (Chabas, ‘Pap. Hier.’ 
 p. 14). The Spartans were even more guilty; 
 they systematically murdered their Helots 
 when their increased numbers excited alarm ; 
 on one occasion they slew 2,000, who had 
 offered themselves as volunteers at the invita- 
 tion of the state. Plut. ‘ Lyc.’ § 28, and 
 Thuc. IV. 80. 
 
 NOTES on vv. ii, 14, 15, 16. 
 
 11. The Hebrew is D'DD"nK^, Sare mas- 
 sim. Sar means chief, or prince in Semitic 
 languages, in Assyrian it has lately been 
 shewn to be the proper phonetic for king; 
 and it is common in Hebrew: but it is an 
 Egyptian title, found on very ancient monu- 
 ments, and it is the title specially given to the 
 head of the works in the representation of brick 
 making underThotmosisIII., to which allusion 
 is more than once made in these notes. The 
 word massim has no satisfactory etymology 
 in Hebrew. Gesenius supposes it to be a 
 contracted form, Michaelis suggests an im- 
 probable derivation from Arabic. The Egyp- 
 tian mas, gives a good and natural sense, 
 it means to bring tribute, mas-mas to divide or 
 number in portions. See the Egyptian forms 
 in the Appendix. 
 
 14 . The Chaldee paraphrase of Onkelos 
 is always meant when reference is made to 
 the Targum in these notes; it is of great 
 antiquity and authority. The Targum at- 
 tributed to Jonathan is of late date and 
 comparatively of little value. Saadia, who is 
 often mentioned, was a Jew of great learning, 
 a native of Fayoum in Egypt, towards the 
 end of the 9th century. His Arabic trans- 
 lation is priiited in Walton’s Polyglott. 
 
 15 . The Hebrew derivations of the two 
 names are not satisfactory. Simonis makes 
 nyiQ equivalent to nyiD', splendid, from yst , a 
 form for which there is no authority. Gese- 
 nius suggests the Arabic countenance; 
 
 this would require a change of letters, and is 
 quite improbable. The Egyptian gives a sim- 
 ple and very satisfactory etymology ; pa = VQ 
 with one determinative or explanatory sign 
 means “splenduit” (coinciding in sense with 
 Simonis’ conjecture) ; with another and equally 
 common sign it means “parturio, accoucher 
 d’un enfant.” Brugsch, ‘ D. H.’ p. 463. 
 Shiphra is rendered “child of Ra,” by Bunsen, 
 ‘Bibelwerk.’ This is inadmissible; “seh” 
 means “child,” but the transcription of both 
 syllables is inexact. The sense “prolific” 
 given above is derived from one of the com- 
 monest words in Egyptian, Cheper; the tran- 
 scription is very close, the ch and sh being 
 regularly interchanged; the meaning “esse, 
 fieri, nasci, procreare,” with the additional 
 notion of rapid increase and reproduction. 
 
 16 . Professor Selwyn proposes an emenda- 
 tion which would entirely remove the difficulty ; 
 instead of he would read D'33, when ye 
 
 look upon the children. The insertion of them 
 in the Authorised Version is unauthorised. 
 The only objection to the conjecture is that the 
 change from so plain and intelligible a reading 
 can scarcely be accounted for. Hirsch, chief 
 Rabbi at Frankfort, whose commentary has 
 appeared since these notes were printed, ob- 
 serves very truly that there is no authority for 
 the interpretation most commonly received of 
 but the explanation which he suggests 
 is forced and improbable. Like many other 
 words it belongs to the age of Moses. 
 
5 54 
 
 EXODUS. II. 
 
 
 [v. I— s- 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I Moses is born, 3 and in an ark cast into the 
 flags, 5 He is found, and brought tip by 
 JViaraoh's daughter . 1 1 He slayeth an Egyp- 
 tian. 13 He reproveth an Hebrew. 15 He 
 fleeth into Midian. 21 He marrieth Zippo- 
 rah. 22 Gcrshom is born, 23 Godrespecteth 
 the Israelites' cry. 
 
 AND there went '*a man of the 
 Nt Mb. 26. house of Levi, and took to wife 
 a daughter of Levi. 
 
 2 And the woman conceived, and 
 ^ bare a son : and when she saw him 
 
 that he was a goodly child.^ she “^hid 
 ”■ him three months. 
 
 3 And when she could not longer 
 hide him, she took for him an ark of 
 bulrushes, and daubed it with slime 
 and with pitch, and put the child 
 therein ; and she laid it in the flags by 
 the river’s brink. 
 
 4 And his sister stood afar offj to 
 wit what would be done to him. 
 
 5 ^ And the daughter of Pharaoh 
 came down to wash herself at the river ; 
 and her maidens walked along by the 
 river side ; and when she saw the ark 
 among the flags, she sent her maid to 
 fetch it. 
 
 Chap. II. 1. a man of the house of LenoT^ 
 The marriage of Amram and Jochebed took 
 place so long after the immigration of the 
 Israelites, that it seems scarcely possible that 
 Amram should have been the grandson, and 
 Jochebed the daughter of Levi, The idiom 
 which calls even a remote descendant the son 
 or daughter is common to the Old and New 
 Testament, and this passage may be under-, 
 stood to mean that both parents ot Moses 
 were of the house and lineage of Levi. Thus 
 the Vulgate renders the verse, “and he took 
 a wife of his own family;” the LXX. has 
 “a wife of the daughters of Levi.” See the 
 Introduction, and note on ch. vi. 20, and 
 on Num. xxvi. 59. 
 
 2. bare a son'] Not her firstborn, Aaron 
 and Miriam were older than Moses. In this 
 part of the book the object of the writer is 
 simply to narrate the events which led to the 
 Exodus, and, as usual, he omits to notice 
 what had no direct bearing upon that object. 
 It is remarkable that any critic conversant 
 with the style of the sacred writers should 
 have drawn from this omission an argument 
 against the accuracy or veracity of the writer. 
 
 a goodly child] This is the only allusion in 
 the Pentateuch to the personal appearance of 
 Moses, upon which much stress is laid by later 
 tradition. Jochebed probably did not call in a 
 midwife, see note on ch. i. 15, and she was of 
 course cautious not to shew herself to Egyp- 
 tians, The hiding of the child is spoken of as 
 an act of faith, see Heb. xi. 23. It was done 
 in the belief that God would watch over the 
 child. 
 
 3 . an ark of bulrushes] Both of these 
 words, like the other words used in this 
 description, are cither common to Hebrew' 
 and Egyptian, or simply Egyptian. See 
 Appendix, 'I'lie ark was made of the papy- 
 rus which was commonly used by the Egyp- 
 tians for light’ and swift boats. The species 
 is no longer found in the Nile below Nubia. 
 It is a strong rush, like the bamboo, about 
 
 the thickness of a finger, not quite cylin- 
 drical but three cornered, and attains the 
 height of 10 to 15 feet. It is represented 
 with great accuracy on the most ancient mo- 
 numents of Egypt; as for instance in the 
 tomb of Tei under the 6th dynasty. An 
 article on the Papyrus is given in the ‘Me- 
 moires de I’Academie des Inscriptions et de 
 belles lettres,’ Tom. xix. p. 156. 
 
 slime and pitch] The “slime” is under- 
 stood by most critics to be asphalt, but it 
 more probably means the mud, of which 
 bricks were usually made in Egypt, and 
 which in this case was used to bind the stalks 
 of the papyrus into a compact mass, and 
 perhaps also to make the surface smooth for 
 the infant. The pitch or bitumen (com- 
 monly used in Egypt, bearing the name here 
 used by Moses,) made the small vessel water- 
 tight. 
 
 in the flags] This is another species of the 
 papyrus, called tufi, or sufi, (an exact equiva- 
 lent of the Hebrew suph,] which was less in 
 size and height than the rush of which the ark 
 was made. The brink, or “lip of the river” 
 is an expression common to Egyptian and 
 Hebrew ; both words correspond in meaning 
 and form. That which is rendered “river,” 
 viz. Jor is not used in the Bible of any river 
 out of Egypt, except once by Daniel xii. 5, on 
 which see Ges. ‘ Thes.’ s.v. 
 
 5 . the daughter of Pharaoh] The tradi- 
 tions which give a name to this princess are 
 probably of late origin, and merely conjectu- 
 ral. Josephus calls her Thermuthis; which 
 means “the great Mother,” a designation of 
 Neith, the special deity of Lower Egypt : but 
 it does not occur as the name of a princess. 
 The names Pharia, Merris, and Bithia are also 
 found in Syncellus, Eusebius, and the Rab- 
 bins, It is of more importance to obseiwe that 
 the Eg)'ptian princesses held a very high and 
 almost independent position under the ancient 
 and middle empire, with a separate house- 
 hold and numerous officials. This was espe- 
 
EXODUS. 11. 
 
 255 
 
 V. 6— II.] 
 
 6 And when she had opened /V, she 
 saw the child : and, behold, the babe 
 wept. And she had compassion on 
 him, and said. This is one of the He- 
 brews’ children. 
 
 7 Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s 
 daughter. Shall I go and call to thee a 
 nurse of the Hebrew women, that she 
 may nurse the child for thee? 
 
 8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to 
 her. Go. And the maid went and 
 called the child’s mother. 
 
 9 And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto 
 her. Take this child away, and nurse 
 
 dally the case with the daughters of the first 
 sovereigns of the i8th dynasty: in two in- 
 stances at least they were regents or co-regents 
 with their brothers. See Appendix. 
 
 The facts recorded in these verses, accord- 
 ing to M. Quatremde, suggest a satisfactory 
 answer as to the residence of the daughter of 
 Pharaoh and of the family of Moses. It 
 must have been in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of the Nile, and therefore not at On or 
 Heliopolis, at which place Amosis put down 
 human sacrifices offered by the Hyksos: it 
 must have been near a branch of the Nile not 
 Ln Tested by crocodiles, or the child would not 
 have been exposed, nor would the princess 
 have bathed there : therefore not near Mem- 
 phis, where Amosis rebuilt the great temple 
 of Ptah, from which the city took its name. 
 At present crocodiles are not often found be- 
 low the cataracts, but under the ancient 
 empire they were common as far north as 
 Memphis. These and other indications agree- 
 ing with the traditions recorded by Euty- 
 chius (see Milman, ‘ H. J.’ i. p. 68), point to 
 Zoan, Tanis, now San, the ancient Avaris, 
 on the Tanitic branch of the river, near the 
 sea, where crocodiles are never found, which 
 was probably the western boundary of the 
 district occupied by the Israelites. Avaris 
 was captured by Amosis, and was the most 
 suitable place for the head quarters of the 
 Pharaohs, ■ both as commanding the districts 
 liable to incursions from Asiatic nomads, and 
 as well adapted for carrying out the measures 
 for crushing the Israelites. The field of Zoan 
 was always associated by the Hebrews with 
 the mangels which preceded the Exodus. See 
 Ps. Ixxviii. 43, 
 
 /o avaj/j] It is not customary at present 
 for women of rank to bathe in the river, but 
 it was a common practice in ancient Egypt. 
 See Wilkinson, iii. p. 389. The Nile was 
 worshipped as an emanation (aTropporj) of 
 Osiris, and a peculiar power of imparting 
 life and fertility was attributed to its waters, 
 a superstition still prevalent in the country. 
 
 it for me, and I will give f/oee thy 
 wages. And the woman took the 
 child, and nursed it. 
 
 10 And the child grew, and she 
 brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, 
 and he became her son. And she 
 called his name " Moses : and she said, “That is, 
 Because I drew him out of the water, oju. 
 
 1 1 And it came to pass in those 
 days, when Moses was grown, that he 
 went out unto his brethren, and looked 
 on their burdens: and he spied an 
 Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of 
 his brethren. 
 
 (Thus Strabo, jElian, and Pliny and Seet- 
 zen, Vol. III. p. 204. See also Brugsch, 
 ‘ Zeitschrift,’ 1868, p. 123, and ‘D. H.’ p.413.) 
 The habits of the princess, as well as her cha- 
 racter, must have been well known to the 
 mother of Moses, and probably decided her 
 choice of the place. 
 
 6. she had compassion on hint] A touch 
 of natural feeling, to which throughout the 
 narrative Moses is careful to direct attention. 
 The Egyptians indeed regarded such ten- 
 derness as a? condition of acceptance on the 
 day of reckoning. In the presence of the 
 Lord of truth each spirit had to answer, “ I 
 have not afflicted any man, I have not made 
 any man weep, I have not withheld milk from 
 the mouths of sucklings.” See the ‘Funeral 
 Ritual,’ c. 125. There was special ground 
 for mentioning the feeling, since it led the 
 princess to save and adopt the child in spite 
 of her father’s commands. 
 
 10. he became her son'] This expression 
 leaves no doubt as to the formal adoption 
 of Moses. He became a member of the 
 royal household, where the training and edu- 
 cation which he received would be such as 
 St Stephen describes, he became learned in 
 all the wisdom of the Egyptians. (See Note at 
 the end of the Chapter.) Such a preparation 
 was indeed humanly speaking all but indispens- 
 able to the efficient accomplishment of his 
 work as the predestined leader and instructor 
 of his countrymen. Moses probably passed the 
 early years of his life in Lower Egypt, where 
 the princess resided ; all the notices in this book 
 indicate a thorough familiarity with that por- 
 tion of the country, and scarcely refer to the 
 Thebaid. There may however be substantial 
 grounds for the tradition in Josephus that he 
 was engaged in a campaign against the Ethio- 
 pians, thus shewing himself, as St Stephen 
 says, “ mighty in word and deed.” See ‘ Ex- 
 cursus’ I. at the end of the volume. 
 
 Moses] The Egyptian origin of this word 
 is generally admitted. The name itself is not 
 uncommon in ancient documents. The exact 
 
256 
 
 EXODUS. II. 
 
 [v. 12 16. 
 
 12 And he looked this way and that 
 way, and when he saw that there was 
 no man, he slew the Egyptian, and 
 hid him in the sand. 
 
 13 And v/hen he went out the 
 second day, behold, two men of the 
 Hebrews strove together : and he said 
 to him that did the wrong. Wherefore 
 smitest thou thy fellow? 
 
 14 And he said, Who made thee 
 
 ^a prince and a judge over us? 
 tendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst/^;' 
 the Egyptian ? And Moses feared, 
 and said. Surely this thing is known. 
 
 15 Now when Pharaoh heard this 
 thing, he sought to slay Moses. But 
 Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, 
 and dwelt in the land of Midian : and 
 he sat down by a well. 
 
 16 Now the “priest of Midian had]) 2 w^. 
 
 meaning is “ son,” but the verbal root of the 
 word signifies “produce,” “drawforth.” The 
 whole sentence in Egyptian would exactly cor- 
 respond to our version. She called his name 
 Moses, i.e. “son,” or “brought forth,” be- 
 cause she brought him forth out of the water. 
 See Appendix. 
 
 11. Moses records no incident of his life 
 during the following years. His object, as 
 Ranke observes, was not to write his own 
 biography, but to describe God’s dealings 
 with his people. Later tradition would have 
 been full of details. At the end of 40 years, 
 when according to St Stephen, Moses visited 
 his brethren, the princess was probably dead, 
 as Syncellus relates, and the events which fol- 
 low took place under another Pharaoh. 
 
 ^juent out unto his brethren^ This shews 
 that the Egyptian princess had not concealed 
 from him the fact of his belonging to the 
 oppressed race, nor is it likely that she had 
 debarred him from intercourse with his foster- 
 mother and her family, whether or not she 
 became *aware of the true relationship. 
 
 an Egyptian^ This man was probably one 
 of the overseers of the workmen, natives under 
 the chief superintendent, who are represented 
 in the well-known picture of brickmakers un- 
 der Thotmes III. See note on c. i. 13. They 
 were armed with long heavy scourges, made of 
 a tough pliant wood imported from Syria. 
 See Chabas, ‘ Voyage d’un Egyptien,’ pp. 119 
 and 136. The discipline of the Egyptian ser- 
 vices, both military and civil, was maintained 
 by punishments of excessive severity, even in 
 the case of native officers. lienee the proverbial 
 saying, “ the child grows up and his bones 
 are broken like the bones of an ass,” and 
 again, “the back of a lad is made that he 
 may hearken to him that beats it.” (Cha- 
 bas, 1 . c. p. 136, and ‘Pap. Anast.’ V. 8, 6.) 
 The “smiting” must have been unusually 
 cruel to excite the wrath of Moses. The 
 slaying of the Egyptian is not to be justified, 
 or attributed to a divine inspiration, which 
 Moses would not have omitted to mention; 
 but it is to be judged with reference to the 
 provocation, the impetuosity of Moses’ natu- 
 ral character, perhaps also to the habits de- 
 veloped by his training at the court of Pharaoh. 
 
 See the excellent remarks of St Augustine, 
 ‘c. Faust.’ XXII. 70. The act involved a com- 
 plete severance from the Egyptians ; but far 
 from expediting, it delayed for many years the 
 deliverance of the Israelites. Forty years of a 
 very different training prepared Moses for the 
 execution of that appointed work. 
 
 13 . did the cwro 7 ig~\ Lit. “the wicked 
 one,” i. e. the aggressor. 
 
 thy fellow] Tliy neighbour: so the 
 word should be rendered : the reproof was that 
 of a legislator who established moral obliga- 
 tions on a recognized principle. Heace in the 
 following verse the offender is represented as 
 feeling that the position claimed by Moses 
 was that of a Judge. The act could only 
 have been made known by the Hebrew on 
 whose behalf Moses had committed it. 
 
 14 . a prince] lit. as in the margin, a man, 
 a prince. The Hebrew for Prince is Sar^ used 
 in i. II. The word “Sar” implies the power, 
 “judge” the right, of interfering. 
 
 15 . Pharaoh heard it] No Egyptian king 
 would have left such an offence unpunished, 
 even had it been committed by a native of high 
 rank : it is not even necessary to assume the 
 death of the princess (see note on v. 2) to rebut 
 the objectio^i Ihat her adopted son found no 
 defender. It is observed however (by Hirsch) 
 that the expression “sought to kill him” im- 
 plies that the position of Moses, as adopted son 
 of a princess, made it necessary even for a des- 
 potic sovereign to take unusual precautions. 
 
 the land of Midian] The Midianites occu- 
 pied an extensive district from the eastern 
 coast of the Red Sea to the borders. of Moab. 
 It is not improbable that in the time of 
 Moses they may have had a settlement in the 
 peninsula, at Sherm, where the two harbours, 
 the only safe ones on that coast, offered pecu- 
 liar advantages to them, engaged as they were 
 from the earliest times in the transport of 
 merchandize. (See Note at the end of the 
 Chapter.) 
 
 by a well] The well. The well is spoken 
 of as well known, the chief feature of the 
 locality ; such was the case whichever site be 
 accepted as the residence of Reuel. 
 
 16 . the Priest of Midiati] Not “the 
 prince” as in the margin. The word Cohen 
 
V. 17 22. J 
 
 EXODUS. II. 
 
 257 
 
 seven daughters: and they came and 
 drew water^ and filled the troughs to 
 water their father’s flock. 
 
 17 And the shepherds came and 
 drove them away : but Moses stood 
 up and helped them, and watered their 
 flock. 
 
 18 And when they came to Reuel 
 their father, he said. How is it that ye 
 are come so soon to day ? 
 
 19 And they said, An Egyptian 
 delivered us out of the hand of the 
 
 shepherds, and also drew water enough 
 for us, and watered the flock. 
 
 20 And he said unto his daughters, 
 And where is he? why is it that ye 
 have left the man ? call him, that he 
 may eat bread. 
 
 2 1 And Moses was content to dwell 
 with the man: and he gave Moses 
 Zipporah his daughter. 
 
 22 And she bare him a son, and he 
 called his name ‘^Gershom : for he said, * ch; 
 I have been a stranger in a strange land. 
 
 may have that meaning in some passages, but 
 there is no reason for assuming it in this. 
 Josephus and most of the ancient versions 
 render it “priest.” A Jewish tradition, derived 
 probably from the Targum (which styles him 
 Rabba, or Lord), represents Reuel as the prince, 
 or probably as combining, like Melchizedek, 
 the hereditary offices of chieftain and priest of 
 the tribe, the Imam, the word used in the 
 Arabic Version. The name of Reuel, and the 
 detailed notices in c. xviii. (where see notes), 
 prove that he was a priest of the one true 
 God, known to the patriarchs especially under 
 the name El; although the great bulk of the 
 tribe, certainly those who lived farther north 
 and more closely in contact with the Hamites 
 of Canaan, were already plunged in idolatry. 
 The conduct of the shepherds may indicate 
 that his person and office were lightly re- 
 garded by the idolatrous tribes in his imme- 
 diate neighbourhood. 
 
 dre^v nx.mter'] This act would not be un- 
 becoming or uncommon for the daughters of 
 a priest whether chief of his tribe or not. At 
 present the watering of cattle in that district 
 is a work of maidens, from which even the 
 daughters of sheickhs are not exempt. See 
 Burcldiardt, ‘Syria,’ p. 531. Thus Dr Stanley 
 speaks of flocks climbing the rocks or gathered 
 round the brooks and springs of the valleys 
 under the charge of the black-vested Bedouin 
 women of the present day. 
 
 18 . Reuel'\ Or as in Num. x. 29, Raguel. 
 The name means “friend of God.” It ap- 
 pears to have been not uncommon among He- 
 brews and Edomites; see Gen. xxxvi. 4, 10 ; 
 I Chron. ix. 8; Tobitvi. 10. Commentators, 
 who identify Reuel with Jethro, a point open 
 to grave objections (see Note at the end of 
 the Chapter), generally accept the conjecture 
 of Josephus, viz. that Reuel was his proper 
 name, and Jether or Jethro, which means 
 “excellency” (corresponding, as Knobel ob- 
 serves, to Imam), was his official designation. 
 Moses naturally used the former name when 
 he first mentioned his father-in-law, on other 
 occasions he might take that by which the 
 Priest was probably best known to the Israelites. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 19 . An Egyptian'] Of course they spoke 
 judging from his costume, or language, 
 which must have been Egyptian at that time ; 
 a slight coincidence, but such as may be 
 looked for only m a narrative of facts. Had 
 Moses lived long among the Israelites, the 
 Midianitish maidens would not have mistaken 
 him for an Egyptian: a later writer would 
 scarcely have noted the occurrence. 
 
 21. <ivas content to dwell with the man] 
 This conveys the true sense of the Hebrew. 
 It implies that Moses recognized in Reuel a 
 man in whom he could confide; and in his 
 family a fitting home. So quietly, and yet so 
 impressively, Moses records the entrance up- 
 on a long period, extending over forty years 
 of mature life. Moses tells us nothing of 
 what he may have learned from his father-in- 
 law, but he must have found in him a man 
 conversant with the traditions of the family 
 of Abraham; nor is there any improbability 
 in the supposition that, as hereditary priest, 
 Reuel may have had written documents con- 
 cerning their common ancestors. The use 
 of letters was well known to the Phoenicians, 
 whose trade with the dwellers in that very 
 district is recorded on Egyptian monuments 
 of the 13th dynasty, long anterior to the 
 age of Moses: (see Brugsch, ‘Histoire d’E- 
 gypte,’ p. 74,) and inscriptions which re- 
 cord the campaigns of Pharaohs of the 1 8th 
 and 19th dynasties, make express mention of 
 scribes and historians of nations, e.g. of the 
 Kheta or Hittites, who were probably not 
 in advance of the Miidianites. 
 
 22 . Gershom] According to most Hebrew 
 scholars the nam.e is derived from a word 
 meaning “ expulsion.” This, however, is 
 scarcely reconcileable with Moses’ own ac- 
 count, of which the Egyptian supplies an exact 
 and satisfactory explanation. The first syllable 
 “ Ger” is common to Hebrew and Egyptian, 
 and means “ sojourner.” The second syllable 
 “Shorn” answers exactly to the Coptic 
 “Shemmo,” which means “a foreign or 
 strange land.” For the old Egyptian forms, 
 see Appendix. 
 
 R 
 
258 
 
 EXODUS. 11. 
 
 [v. 23—25. 
 
 23 ^ And it came to pass in process 
 of time, that the king of Egypt died : 
 and the children of Israel sighed by 
 reason of the bondage, and they cried, 
 and their cry came up unto God by 
 reason of the bondage. 
 
 24 And God heard their groaning,and 
 God remembered his ‘^covenant with Gen. 
 Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. & 46. 4 
 
 25 And God looked upon the 
 children of Israel, and God ^ had re- t Heb. 
 spect unto them. 
 
 23. in process of time] Nearly forty years : 
 some delay intervened between the call of 
 Moses and his departure for Egypt. This 
 verse marks the beginning of another section. 
 We now enter at once upon the history of 
 the Exodus. 
 
 their cry came up unto God] This statement, 
 taken in connection with the two following 
 verses, proves that the Israelites retained their 
 faith in the God of their Fathers. The divine 
 name God, Elohim, is chosen because it was 
 that which the Israelites must have used in 
 their cry for help, that under which the cove- 
 nant had been ratified with the Patriarchs. 
 Dr Stanley would illustrate this by an ac- 
 count of the cries of the Fellahs in Egypt : 
 but the distinction ought to be marked be- 
 
 tween their execrations, and the prayers which 
 reached God from the Israelites. 
 
 24. remembered] This means that God 
 was moved by their prayers to give effect to 
 the covenant, of which an essential condition 
 was the faith and contrition involved in the 
 act of supplication. The whole history of Is- 
 rael is foreshadowed in these words. The 
 accumulation of so called anthropomorphic 
 terms in this passage is remarkable. God 
 heard, remembered, looked upon, and knew 
 them. It evidently indicates the beginning of a 
 crisis marked by a personal intervention of God. 
 
 25. had respect unto them] lit. and ,God 
 knew. The LXX. “and was known unto 
 them.” This involves only a change of 
 punctuation and may be preferable. 
 
 NOTES on vv. 10, 13, 18. 
 
 10. The education which would be given to 
 a youth belonging to the royal household, and 
 destined for military or civil service under the 
 Middle Empire, has lately been illustrated by 
 the labours of Goodwin, Chabas, and other 
 Egyptologers, from the select papyri pub- 
 lished in 1844 by the Trustees of the British 
 Museum. These documents belong for the 
 most part to the reigns of Rameses II. and 
 his immediate successors, but the literary 
 habits and attainments which they describe 
 are known to have been far more ancient; 
 collections of manuscripts, and scribes hold- 
 ing high offices of state, are frequently men- 
 tioned in the monuments of the early dynasties 
 (see M. de Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ p. 73), and 
 some of the most valuable papyri are pro- 
 ductions of the ancient empire. M. Maspero 
 has lately collected the most important facts 
 in the introduction to his work on a portion 
 of a papyrus of the 19th dynasty, entitled 
 ‘Hymne au Nil.’ 
 
 He observes that we know for certain that 
 a literary education was the first condition 
 for admission to the public service; the title 
 of scribe was necessary in order to obtain the 
 lowest appointment in the civil administration 
 or in the army. Hence a real enthusiasm for 
 study is manifested by men of letters, such as 
 Enna and Pentaour, whose compositions, in- 
 deed whose autographs are preserved. We 
 have addresses to Thoth, the Hermes of the 
 Greeks, the god of learning, in which the 
 
 superiority of his work to all works is pas- 
 sionately maintained. “Thy works are better 
 than all works; he who devotes himself to 
 them becomes a noble ; all successes achieved 
 in life are due to thee ; under thy inspiration 
 a man becomes great, powerful, rich ; of him 
 all the world, all generations of men cry out, 
 
 ‘ Great is he, great is the work of Thoth.’” 
 
 The education so highly valued began at a 
 tender age; the infant, when it was weaned, 
 was sent to school, and there instructed by 
 scribes officially appointed. The discipline 
 was severe, but due care was taken for the 
 child’s maintenance: the mother brought his 
 food daily from his home, and in the upper 
 schools rations of bread and salt fish seem to 
 have been supplied regularly by the govern- 
 ment: the register of distribution being, as in 
 our colleges, accepted as proofs of the scholars’ 
 attendance (see Chabas, ‘Voyage d’un Egyp- 
 tien,’ p. 23). 
 
 The scholar learned the elements of letters, 
 the rules of orthography and gramm.ar ; and as 
 he advanced, the art of expressing his thoughts 
 in simple and perspicuous prose, of which the 
 story of the two brothers in the D’Orbiney 
 papyrus is a fair specimen ; or in the epistolary 
 style adapted for official communications, 
 which occupy a large portion of the papyri ; or 
 in poetical composition, in which extant ex- 
 amples shew a genuine feeling for art; resem- 
 bling Hebrew poetry in the carefully balanced 
 parallelisms, and skilful combination of anti- 
 
EXODUS. II. 
 
 259 
 
 theses, though differing from it as markedly 
 in the absence of the essential characteristics 
 of simplicity and grace. It was indeed no 
 slight thing to master the qualifications of a 
 man of letters. The mere art of writing pre- 
 sented difficulties so serious that we find 
 scribes boasting of a thorough knowledge of 
 the mysteries of sacred letters as a rare and 
 wonderful attainment. According to Diodorus 
 special pains were bestowed upon arithmetic 
 and geometry, an assertion borne out by late 
 inquiries, which shew that the system of 
 notation was remarkably clear, and that exact 
 accounts were kept in every large household ; 
 a treatise on geometry in the British Museum 
 now engages the attention of scholars, and 
 will probably be published by Mr Birch. 
 The mystic writings, in which ancient truths 
 were imbedded in dark and dreary supersti- 
 tions, occupied much of the time, not only 
 of the priests, but of all men of learning. 
 Schools of interpretation existed at an age 
 long before Moses, which have left abundant 
 traces in various readings, glosses, and mys- 
 tic explanations of the so-called Funeral Ri- 
 tual or Book of the Dead, a work which the 
 literal translation of Mr Birch, remarkable 
 for learning and ingenuity, has made to 
 some extent accessible to English readers. 
 The earliest extant copy of the chapter (the 
 17th) which gives the deepest insight into the 
 ancient theosophy of Egypt* dates from the 
 nth dynasty, and has even in that form 
 numerous glosses bearing witness to a remote 
 antiquity. In an address to an officer , of 
 rank, whose adventures in Syria have been 
 illustrated by Goodwin and Chabas, the scribe 
 whose autograph is before us, says, “Thou 
 art a scribe skilful above thy equals, learned 
 in the sacred writings, chastened in heart, dis- 
 ciplined in tongue; thy words pierce me, one 
 phrase has thrice gone forth, thou hast broken 
 me with terror.” In a work just published 
 (‘Moses der Hebraer’) M. l.auth attempts 
 to identify this personage so remarkable for 
 talents, learning, and bold speculations on 
 religion, \^th Moses the Hebrew; an identifi- 
 cation not likely to approve itself to scholars, 
 but which serves to show the course of thought, 
 and to some extent the state of mental de- 
 velopment, in Egypt at a time not far remote 
 from that in which Moses became learned in 
 all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and mighty 
 in word and deed. 
 
 13 . The question whether the residence of 
 Reuel was on the eastern or western coast of 
 the Tdanitic gulf is not easily settled. The 
 older and more general tradition is in favour 
 of the former. The ruins of the city of Ma- 
 dian, described by Edrisi and Abul-feda and 
 visited by S^etzen, lay on the east of the 
 gulph, five days’ journey from Aila, i. e. 
 Akaba, and a well was shewn there as that 
 from which Moses watered the flocks of his 
 
 father-in-law. It would seem scarcely proba- 
 ble that Moses would be secure from pursuit 
 within the peninsula, which was frequented 
 by the Egyptians, who long before that time 
 worked the copper mines and carried on a 
 considerable traffic. Under the i8th and 19th 
 dynasties the power of the Pharaohs appears 
 to have extended over the whole country. It 
 is also to be observed that the Israelites did 
 not come into contact with the Midianites 
 while they were in the peninsula, and that 
 Jethro appears from the notices in ch. xviii. 
 vv. I, 27 to have come from some con- 
 siderable distance to meet Moses. It is ob- 
 jected that the distance of this city would 
 have been too great for Moses to have pas- 
 tured the flocks of Jethro in the peninsula, 
 but we find instances of much longer distances 
 in the history of Jacob and Laban, and at 
 present in the accounts of the Bedouins. Thus 
 Bochart, D’Anville, Mannert, and Quatre- 
 mere, ‘ Memoires de I’Academie des Inscrip- 
 tions et Belles Lettres.’ 
 
 On the other hand it is argued by Laborde, 
 Knobel and others, that Reuel must Lave 
 lived on the west of the gulf. The communi- 
 cations between the two coasts have always 
 been frequent ; at present sheep and goats are 
 brought in great numbers from Mukna, near 
 Madian, for sale in the peninsula, and at dif- 
 ferent times settlements have been made by 
 Bedouins from the Hedjaz. The Towara, who 
 are now the most powerful and most civilized 
 tribe in the Peninsula, and have been recog- 
 nized as the true descendants of the Midian- 
 ites by most geographers (see Ritter, ‘ Sinai,’ 
 p. 936), occupied Madian in the time of Ma- 
 homet, who received one of their chieftains 
 with the exclamation, “welcome to the bro- 
 thers-in-law of Moses, welcome to the race 
 of Shoeib, i.e. Jethro.” If Reuel lived in this 
 district, it must have been at Sherm, about 10 
 miles from Ras Mohammed, the southern 
 headland. There are proofs that peculiar 
 sanctity attached to that place at a very early 
 period. The notices of ancient geographers 
 (Strabo, Artemidorus, and Agatharchides, ap. 
 Diodor. Sic., collected and examined by 
 Knobel) speak of extensive palm-groves, abun- 
 dant sources of fresh water, and a sanctuary 
 under the charge of an hereditary priest and 
 priestess, who held their office for life. The 
 same writers testify to the existence of an 
 ancient tribe in that neighbourhood bearing 
 a name (Maptai/rif) nearly resembling and 
 probably identical with ^lidianites; the d 
 and r are frequently interchanged, or con- 
 founded owing to the similarity of *1 and "1, 
 
 A similarity even more striking in the most 
 archaic forms of the two letters. The place, 
 though sharing the general desolation of 
 Turkish provinces, is at present of some im- 
 portance. “There are two large bays afford- 
 ing the only safe anchorage for large ships , ^n• 
 the southern bay is the tomb of an unknown 
 
 R 2 
 
26o 
 
 EXODUS. III. 
 
 Lv- I- 
 
 sheickh, near the northern bay are several co- 
 pious wells of brackish water, deep, and lined 
 with ancient stones, apparently an ancient work 
 of considerable labour.” Burckhardt, ‘ Syria,’ 
 P- 52 - 
 
 18 . The identity of Reuel with Jethro rests 
 chiefly on the assumption that }nn, which is 
 applied to Jethro repeatedly in the 3rd and 
 1 8th chapters, means “father-in-law.” If 
 Jethro were the father-in-law of Moses he 
 would of course be the same person as Reuel. 
 But in all other passages when the word tnn 
 occurs, it means simply a “relation by mar- 
 riage.” In the Pentateuch it is applied to the 
 sons-in-law of Lot, Gen. xix. 12, 14: to the 
 brother-in-law of Moses, Hobab, Num. x. 
 29 : to Moses himself, as husband of Zipporah, 
 Exod. iv. 25, 26. In the book of Judges it 
 is used once (xix. 4) of “a father-in-law,” 
 twice of “a son-in-law,” twice of “a brother- 
 in-law.” The meaning in other passages is far 
 more commonly son-in-law. The LXX. uses 
 7,-ev6(pus and yapppos- The usage in Hebrew, 
 Syriac, and Arabic is the same. Thus Freytag, 
 socer, vel omnis propinquus ab uxoris 
 
 parte, scil. pater ejus, aut frater, &c. : ita apud 
 genuinos Arates: vulgo autem est gener. ^Our 
 rendering follows the Targums and Saadia. 
 I'he Coptic word “Shorn” has the same 
 
 range of meaning. The meaning “ circum- 
 cidit” has no authority in Hebrew, unless 
 the very improbable explanation of ch. iv. 21, 
 proposed by Gesenius, were admitted. The 
 relationship therefore between Jethro and 
 Moses cannot be decided by this word; it 
 depends upon the internal evidence of the 
 narrative. But Reuel must have been advanced 
 in years, having seven grown up daughters 
 when Moses arrived in Midian. When Moses 
 was eighty years old, it is more probable 
 that Reliefs son had succeeded him in his 
 hereditary priesthood than that he was still 
 living: and no difficulty is presented by the 
 supposition that Jethro was the brother-in- 
 law, not the father-in-law of Moses. The 
 identity in that case of Jethro and Hobab, 
 see Numb. x. 29, may be regarded as possible, 
 but by no means as certain. Jethro returned 
 to his own land before the promulgation of 
 the law on Sinai, nor does his name occur 
 afterwards. Hobab appears to have accom- 
 panied Moses on his journey, casting in his 
 lot with the Israelites (see Judges iv. ii). Fie 
 may have been, and very probably was, a 
 younger brother of Jethro, not bound, like 
 him, to his own tribe by the duties of an he- 
 reditary priesthood. This combination seems 
 to meet all the conditions of the narrative, 
 which would otherwise present serious, if not 
 insuperable, difficulties. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I Moses kcepeth Jethro's fiock. 2 God appeareth 
 to him in a burning bush. 9 He sendcth him 
 to deliver Israel. 1 4 The name of God. 1 5 
 His 7?iessage to Israel. 
 
 N OW Moses kept the flock of 
 Jethro his father in law, the 
 priest of Midian : and he led the flock 
 to the backside of the desert, and 
 
 Chap. III. The connection between this 
 chapter and the preceding is very close, al- 
 though many years intei-vened between the 
 arrival of Moses in Midian and the transac- 
 tions described in it. It marks however a 
 distinct epoch, the commencement of the sc- 
 ries of events which immediately preceded the 
 Exodus. Hitherto the narrative has been stu- 
 diously brief, stating only what was necessary 
 to b-e known as preparatory to those events; 
 but from this point Moses dwells minutely on 
 the details, and enables us to realize the cir- 
 cumstances of the catastrophe which in its 
 immediate and remote consequences stands 
 alone in the world’s history. Idiis chapter is 
 attributed by some Avriters to the so-called 
 Jehovist; by others it is broken up into frag- 
 ments, in order to meet the obvious objection 
 that the name Elohim is found in it seventeen 
 times, that of Jehovah six times only. But 
 the internal evidence of unity is irresistible, 
 and the fact that both the divine names occur 
 far more frc(]uently than in tlie preceding 
 chapters is sufficiently accounted for by our 
 
 having here a record of the personal interven- 
 tion of the Lord God. 
 
 1. the flock'] The expression is precise 
 in Hebrew as in English, meaning not the 
 cattle, but the sheep and goats. At present 
 neither oxen nor horses are kept in ♦he Penin- 
 sula, which does not supply fodder for them, 
 under ordinary circumstances. It was how- 
 ever far more fertile in the time of Moses. 
 
 Jethro his father-in-lazv] Or “brother- 
 in-law,” see note above. An indefinite word 
 such as affinis, signifying relation by marriage, 
 would be preferablo, but Jethro was probably 
 the brother-in-law of Moses. 
 
 the backside] Gesenius explains this to mean 
 “to the west of the district.” This follows 
 from the Hebrew system of orientation. The 
 East is the region which is looked upon as 
 before a man, the west behind him, the south 
 and north as the right and left hand. 
 
 desert] Or w i i d e r n e s s. T he word here 
 used does not mean a barren waste, but a dis- 
 trict supplying pasturage. The district near 
 
' V. 2 6 .] 
 
 EXODUS. III. 
 
 261 
 
 came to the mountain of God, even 
 to Horeb. 
 
 2 And the angei of the Lord ap- 
 - Acts 7 peared unto him in a flame of fire 
 
 out of the midst of a bush : and he 
 looked, and, behold, the bush burned 
 with fire, and the bush was not con- 
 sumed. 
 
 3 And Moses said, I will now turn 
 aside, and see this great sight, why the 
 bush is not burnt. 
 
 4 And when the Lord saw that he 
 turned aside to see, God called unto 
 him out of the midst of the bush, and 
 said, Moses, Moses. And he said. 
 
 Here am 1 . 
 
 5 And he said. Draw not nigh 
 hither: ^put off thy shoes from off d josh 5. 
 thy feet, for the place whereon thou ^ 
 standest is holy ground. 
 
 6 Adoreover he said, am the God 22. 
 of thy father, the God of Abraham, 7. 32. 
 
 Sherm, where Jethro may have resided, is 
 described by ancient and modern travellers as 
 barren and parched ; on the west and east are 
 rocky tracts, but to the north-west, at a dis- 
 tance of three or four days’ journey, lies the 
 district of Sinai, where the pasturage is good 
 and water abundant. The Bedouins drive 
 their flocks thither from the lowlands at the 
 approach of summer. From this it may be 
 inferred that the events here recorded took 
 place at that season. 
 
 the mountain of God^ eTen to Horeb~\ More 
 exactly. To the mountain of God, to- 
 wards Horeb. The meaning is that Moses 
 came to the mountain of God, i.e. Sinai, on 
 his way towards Horeb. The name Horeb 
 appears to belong to the northern part of the 
 Sinaitic range, and to reach it Moses probably 
 followed the road from Sherm, which passes 
 through the deep valley between the Gebel ed 
 Deir and the range terminated on the south 
 by the commanding height called Gebel Musa. 
 The tract which leads to the height is half 
 way between the two extremities, about three 
 miles distant from each other: this would 
 bring Moses to the lower part of the range 
 towards the north, which is best adapted for 
 pasturage. An argument is drawn from the 
 expression “mountain of God” against the 
 Mosaic authorship: but Moses, who appears to 
 have written, or to have revised, this book to- 
 wards the end of his life, may naturally have 
 given this name by anticipation, with refer- 
 ence to the manifestation of God. The 
 paraphrase in the Targum gives the true 
 meaning, “the mountain in which the glory of 
 Jah was revealed to him.” On the other 
 hand, it is assumed that the spot was previ- 
 ously held sacred. For this there is no ancient 
 authority; though it has been lately shewn 
 that the whole Peninsula was regarded by the 
 Egyptians as specially consecrated to the gods 
 from a very early time. An inscription at 
 Sarbut el Chadem, dated the 25 th year of 
 Thotmes III., speaks of an offlcer charged to 
 bring copper from the land of the gods. 
 
 2 . the angel of the Lord] Or an angel 
 of Jebovab; the article is not in the He- 
 
 brew. On the meaning and usage of the ex- 
 pression see note on Gen. xii. 7. In this pas- 
 sage it appears to designate a manifestation of 
 God by the agency, or instrumentality of a 
 created being. What Moses saw was the 
 flame of fire in the bush ; what he recognised 
 therein was an intimation of the presence of 
 God, who maketh “ a flame of fire His angel.” 
 Ps. civ. 4. The words which Moses heard 
 were those of God Himself, as all ancient and 
 most modern divines have held, manifested in 
 the Person of the Son. 
 
 out of the midst of a bush] Literally “ of the 
 busk, or seneh,” a word which ought perhaps 
 to be retained as the proper name of a thorny 
 shrub common in that district, a species of 
 acacia according to Dr Stanley. The name is 
 very ancient, in Coptic Sheno ; it is found in 
 papyri of the 19th dynasty and in inscriptions 
 quoted by Brugsch, ‘D. H.’ p. 1397, who 
 translates it Dorn-Acacia, thorny acacia. The 
 use of the article is peculiar: it seems to mean 
 that bush of which Moses must have spoken 
 frequently to the Israelites. 
 
 4 . the Lord saw] The interchange of the 
 two divine names is to be observed ; Jehouah 
 saw, God called. 
 
 5. put off thy shoes] The reverence due to 
 holy places thus rests on God’s own command. 
 The custom itself is well known from the 
 observances of the Temple, it was almost 
 universally adopted by the ancients, and is 
 retained in the East. 
 
 holy ground] This passage is almost con- 
 clusive against the assumption that the place 
 was previously a sanctuary. Moses knew no- 
 thing of its holiness after some 40 years spent 
 on the Peninsula. It became holy by the 
 presence of God. 
 
 6. Moreo-ver] Literally And. 
 
 thy father] The word seems to be used 
 collectively for the forefathers of Moses; it 
 may, however, refer specially to Abraham, the 
 father of the faithful ; with whom the covenant 
 was first m.ade. 
 
 Our Saviour adduces the passage as a proof 
 that the doctrine of the resurrection was 
 taught in the Old Testament, and he calls this 
 
262 
 
 EXODUS. III. 
 
 . 7 12 
 
 the God of Isaac, and the God of 
 Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for 
 he was afraid to look upon God. 
 
 7 H And the Lord said, I have 
 surely seen the affliction of my people 
 which are in Egypt, and have heard 
 their cry by reason of their task- 
 masters ; for I know their sorrows ; 
 
 8 And I am come down to deliver 
 them out of the hand of the Egyptians, 
 and to bring them up out of that land 
 unto a good land and a large, unto a 
 land flowing with milk and honey; 
 unto the place of the Canaanites, and 
 the Hittites, and the Amorites, and 
 the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and 
 the Jebusites. 
 
 book the book of Moses (see marg.), two 
 points to be borne in mind by readers of the 
 Pentateuch. 
 
 7. taskmasters\ A different word from 
 that used in ch. i. ii. It means oppressors. 
 
 I Xwo-xu] The expression implies a personal 
 feeling, tenderness, and compassion. 
 
 8. a good land^ Slc.'] The natural richness 
 of Palestine, the variety and excellence of its 
 productions, are attested by all ancient writers, 
 whose descriptions are strongly in contrast 
 with those of later travellers. The expression 
 “flowing with milk and honey” is used pro- 
 verbially by Greek poets. Knobel assumes 
 very unnecessarily, that the honey of wine, not 
 of bees, is meant ; Euripides, describing a 
 paradisiacal state, says: “It flows with milk, 
 it flows with the honey of bees,” ‘Bacchae,’ 1. 
 142. On the abundance of honey in Palestine 
 see Tristram, ‘Land of Israel,’ p. 88. 
 
 the place of the Canaanites^ I'his is the first 
 passage in this book where the enumeration, 
 so often repeated, of the nations then in pos- 
 session of Palestine, is given. Moses was to 
 learn at once the extent of the promise, and 
 the greatness of the enterprise. In Egypt, 
 the forces, situation, and character of these 
 nations were then well known. Aahmes I. 
 had invaded the south of Palestine in his 
 pursuit of the Shasous ; Thotmes 1. had 
 traversed the whole land on his campaign in 
 Syria and Mesopotamia; representations of 
 Canaanites, of the Cheta, identified by most 
 Egyptologers with the Hittites, are common 
 on monuments of the i8th and 19th dynas- 
 ties, and give a strong impression of their 
 civilization, riches, and especially of their 
 knowledge of the arts of war. In this 
 passage, the more general designations come 
 first — “Canaanites” probably includes all the 
 races; the Hittites, who had great numbers of 
 chariots (892 were taken from them by Thot- 
 
 9 Now therefore, behold, the cry 
 of the children of Israel is come unto 
 me : and I have also seen the oppres- 
 sion wherewith the Egyptians oppress 
 them. 
 
 10 Come now therefore, and I will 
 send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou 
 mayest bring forth my people the 
 children of Israel out of Egypt. 
 
 1 1 ^ And Moses said unto God, 
 Who am I, that I should go unto 
 Pharaoh, and that I should bring 
 forth the children of Israel out of 
 Egypt? 
 
 12 And he said. Certainly I will 
 be with thee ; and this shall be a token 
 unto thee, that I have sent thee : 
 
 mes III. in one battle), occupied the plains; 
 the Amorites were chiefly mountaineers, but 
 gave their name to the whole country in 
 Egyptian inscriptions; the name Perizzites 
 probably denotes the dwellers in scattered 
 villages, the half-nomad population ; the Hi- 
 vites, a comparatively unwarlike, but influential 
 people, held 4 cities in Palestine proper, but 
 their main body dwelt in the north-western dis- 
 trict, from Hermon to Hamath (see Josh. xi. 3, 
 and Judg. iii. 3) ; the Jebusites at that time 
 appear to have occupied Jerusalem and the 
 adjoining district. Soon after their expulsion 
 by Joshua, they seem to have recovered pos- 
 session of part of Jerusalem, probably Mount 
 Zion, and to have retained it until the time of 
 David. 
 
 11. Who am 7] The change in the character 
 of Moses since his first attempt, is strongly 
 marked by these words, which, however, 
 iridicate humility, not fear. Amongthegrounds 
 which he alleges for his hesitation, in no in- 
 stance is there any allusion to personal danger; 
 what he feared was failure owing tc incom- 
 petcncy, especially in the power of expres- 
 sion. This shrinking from self-assertion is the 
 quality which seems to be specially intimated 
 by the word rendered “meek” in Numbers 
 ch. xii. 3. 
 
 12. a token unto thee] Or the sign. This 
 passage illustrates a peculiar use of the word. 
 It generally means any act, whether super- 
 natural or not, which is made the pledge of 
 some future event; but sometimes, as un- 
 doubtedly in this place, it means a declaration 
 or promise of God, which rests absolutely on 
 His word, and demands faith. The pro- 
 mise that God would have the people serve 
 Him in that place was an assurance, if fully 
 believed^ that all intervening obstacles would 
 be removed by His power. 
 
V. 13— 1 8.] 
 
 EXODUS. III. 
 
 263 
 
 When thou hast brought forth the 
 people out of Egypt, ye shall serve 
 God upon this mountain. 
 
 « 13 And Moses said unto God, Be- 
 
 hold, when I come unto the children 
 of Israel, and shall say unto them. 
 The God of your fathers hath sent 
 me unto you; and they shall say to 
 me. What is hisr name ? what shall I 
 say unto them? 
 
 14 And God said unto Moses, I 
 AM THAT I AM: and he said. 
 Thus shalt thou say unto the children 
 of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto 
 you. 
 
 15 And God said moreover unto 
 Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the 
 children of Israel, The Lord God of 
 vour fathers, the God of Abraham, 
 the God of Isaac, and the God of Ja- 
 cob, hath sent me unto you: this is 
 
 my name for ever, and this is my 
 memorial unto all generations. 
 
 16 Go, and gather the elders of 
 Israel together, and say unto them. 
 The Lord God of your fathers, the 
 God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of 
 Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I 
 have surely visited you, and seen that 
 which is done to you in Itgypt: 
 
 17 And I have said, I will bring 
 you up out of the affliction of Egypt 
 unto the land of the Canaanites, and 
 the Hittites, and the Amorites, and 
 the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and 
 the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with 
 milk and honey. 
 
 18 And they shall hearken to thy 
 voice : and thou shalt come, thou and 
 the elders of Israel, unto the king of 
 Egypt, and ye shall say unto him. 
 The Lord God of the Hebrews hath 
 
 13. What is bis name] The meaning of 
 this question is evidently: By which name 
 shall I tell them the promise is confirmed? 
 Each name of the Deity represented some 
 aspect or manifestation of His attributes. El, 
 Elohim, or Shaddai would speak of majesty, or 
 might; either would probably have sufficed 
 for Moses, but he would not use any one of 
 them without God’s special permission. What 
 he needed was not a new name, but direction 
 to use that Name which would bear in itself 
 a pledge of accomplishment. It is not pro- 
 bable that Moses alluded to the multitudinous 
 gods of Egypt ; but he was familiar with the 
 Egyptian habit of choosing from their many 
 names that which bore specially upon the wants 
 and circumstances of their worshippers (see 
 especially the formulse in the ‘Papyrus ma- 
 gique d’ Harris,’ Ghabas), and this may possi- 
 bly have suggested the question which he was 
 of course aware would be the first his own 
 people would expect him to ansv/er. 
 
 14. I am that I am] That is “I am 
 what I am.” The words express absolute, 
 and therefore unchanging and eternal Being. 
 So they are understood by ancient and modern 
 interpreters (On the meaning and use of the 
 name see the General Introduction). To 
 Moses and the Israelites this was an explana- 
 tion of the name Jehovah, which had been 
 known from the beginning, but of which pro- 
 bably the meaning, certainly the full import, 
 v/as not comprehended. The word “I am” 
 in Hebrew is equivalent in meaning to Jehovah, 
 and differs from it very slightly in form. This 
 
 is much obscured by our substitution of 
 Lord for Jehovah. The name, which Moses 
 was thus commissioned to use, was at once 
 new and old ; old in its connection with 
 previous revelations; new in its full interpre- 
 tation, and in its bearing upon the covenant 
 of which Moses was the destined mediator. 
 
 15. The Lord God] In this passage it is 
 of great importance to keep the divine name 
 Jehovah God of your fathers, God 
 of Ahraham, God of Isaac, and God 
 of Jacob. It corresponds exactly to the pre- 
 ceding verse, the words lam and Jehovah 
 being equivalent. This enables us to omit 
 the article before “God,” which is not in the 
 Hebrew, and may be misunderstood, as though 
 distinguishing Jehovah from other gods. The 
 name met all the requirements of Moses, in- 
 volving a twofold pledge of accomplishment; 
 the pledges of ancient benefits and of a new 
 manifestation. 
 
 name... memorial] The name signifies that 
 by which God makes himself known, the 
 memorial that by which His people worship 
 Him; or as Bishop Wordsworth, following 
 Keil, expresses it “the name declares the 
 objective manifestation of the Divine Nature ; 
 the memorial, the subjective recognition by 
 man.” 
 
 18. hath met ^ith ns] This translation 
 has been questioned, but it is now generally 
 adopted. The Ancient Versions generally 
 have “ hath commanded or called us.” 
 
 t 
 
264 
 
 EXODUS. III. 
 
 [v. 19—22. 
 
 met with us : and now let us go, we 
 beseech thee, three days’ journey into 
 the wilderness, that we may sacrifice 
 to the Lord our God. 
 
 19 ^ And I am sure that the king 
 
 \%rons will not let you go, “no, not 
 
 by a mighty hand. 
 
 20 And I will stretch out my hand, 
 and smite Egypt with all my wonders 
 which I will do in the midst thereof: 
 and after that he will let you go. 
 
 21 And I will give this people fa- 
 
 vour in the sight of the Egyptians: 
 and it shall come to pass, that, when 
 ye go, ye shall not go empty : » 
 
 22 ^But every woman shall borrow «rchap. 
 of her neighbour, and of her that^-^^^’ 
 sojourneth in h?r house, jewels of 
 silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment : 
 
 and ye shall put f/ 7 em’upon your sons, 
 and upon your daughters ; and ye shall 
 spoil “the Egyptians. 
 
 f/?ree days' journey^ i.e. A journey which 
 would occupy three days in going and re- 
 turning. The request which the Israelites 
 were instructed to make was therefore most 
 probably not a permission to go beyond the 
 frontier, but into the part of the desert adjoin- 
 ing Goshen. In this there, was no deception. 
 The Israelites were to ask what could not 
 reasonably be refused, being a demand quite in 
 accordance with Egyptian customs. The re- 
 fusal of Pharaoh and his subsequent proceed- 
 ings led to the accomplishment of the ultimate 
 purpose of God, which was revealed to Moses 
 at once, since without it his mission would 
 have had no adequate object. It is important 
 to observe that the first request which Pharaoh 
 rejected could have been granted without any 
 damage to Egypt, or any risk of the Israelites 
 passing the strongly fortified frontier. The 
 point is well drawn out by M. de Quatremere. 
 See ‘MC-moires de 1 ’ Academic des Inscriptions 
 et Belles Lettres,’ Vol. xix. 
 
 19. And I am sure] Or, I know. 
 
 no, not] The marginal rendering “but by 
 a mighty hand” probably gives the true mean- 
 ing, but the construction presents some diffi- 
 culty. The LXX. have iav iirj, unless. Keil 
 renders the phrase “not even by a mighty 
 hand,” and explains it to mean Pharaoh will 
 not let the people go even when severely 
 smitten. This is a satisfactory explanation, 
 and is borne out by the history; even after 
 the 8th plague, we read “Pharaoh would not 
 let them go.” 
 
 22 . shall borro'w] or shall ask. (See 
 Note at the end of the Chapter.) Our trans- 
 lation is unfortunate. The word is exceed- 
 ingly common, and always means ask or de- 
 mand. Setting aside this passage no proof or 
 justification of the rendering “borrow” is ad- 
 duced, except 1 Sam. i.a8,and 2 Kingsvi.5. In 
 the foiTuer passage the meaning is “asked,” 
 and granted, not “borrowed.” In the latter the 
 meaning “borrowed” is true, but secondary. 
 Of course “asked” may apply either to a gift or 
 a loan, a sense to be determined by the context, 
 as in Exod. xxii. 14 , where the construction 
 is different. , Iii this case there is no indication 
 
 that the jewels which were demanded when the 
 final departure of the Israelites was settled, 
 and strongly urged upon their acceptance by 
 the Egyptians, were expected to be returned. 
 The Egyptians had made the people serv'e 
 “with rigour, in all manner of service in the 
 fields,” and the Israelites when about to leave 
 the country for ever were to ask, or claim the 
 jewels as a just, though very inadequate remune- 
 ration for services which had made “their lives 
 bitter.” The Egyptians doubtless would have 
 refused had not their feelings towards Moses 
 (see ch. xi. 3) and the people been changed 
 under God’s influence, by calamities in which 
 they recognized a divine interposition, v/hich 
 also they rightly attributed to the obstinacy of 
 their own king, (see ch. x. 7). The Hebrew 
 w^omen were to make the demand, and were 
 to make it to women, who would of course 
 be specially moved to compliance by the loss 
 of their children, the fear of a recurrence of 
 calamity, perhaps also by a sense of the fitness 
 of the request in connection with a religious 
 festival. 
 
 jewels] The Hebrew may be rendered more 
 generally “vessels” or simply “articles.” (The 
 Vulgate has vasa, the LXX. (tk€vtj.) But the 
 word probably refers chiefly to trinkets. The 
 ornaments of gold and silver worn at that 
 time by Egyptian women were beautiful and 
 of great value. It is probable that, as at 
 present, husbands invested their earnings in 
 j ewels. The wife of a tradesman or of a drago- 
 man is thus often in possession of bracelets and 
 collars of gold which in Europe would indicate 
 wealth or high station. It is to be observed 
 that these ornaments were actually applied to 
 the purpose for which they were probably de- 
 manded, being employed in making the vessels 
 of the sanctuary. 
 
 sojourneth hi her house] This indicates a 
 degree of friendly and neighbourly intercourse, 
 which could scarcely be inferred from the 
 preceding narrative, but it is in accordance 
 with several indirect notices, and was a natural 
 result of long and peaceable sojourn in the 
 district. The Egyptians did not all necessaiily 
 share the feelings of their new king. 
 
V. I — 8 .] 
 
 EXODUS. IV. 
 
 265 
 
 NOTE on Chap. hi. v. 22. 
 
 The true translation is important. The 
 word has in fact but one true meaning, ‘ask.’ 
 The ancient Versions take it in this sense. 
 The LXX. has the Vulgate, postu- 
 
 labit. The Syriac and the Targum use the 
 same word, in< the same sense as the Hebrew. 
 Thus too the Samaritan paraphrase. Saadia 
 
 has V which is incorrectly ren- 
 
 dered in Walton's Polyglott, mutuabitur. 
 Freytag, ‘Lex. Arab.’ s. v., gives the true 
 sense, rogavit donum, aut petiit dono sibi dari 
 quid. See also the note on c. xii. 36. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I Moses's rod is ht.rned into a serpent. 6 His 
 hand is leprous. 10 He is loth to be sent. 
 14 Aaron, is appointed to assist him. 18 
 Moses departeth fro 7 n JetJu’o. -21 God's mes- 
 sage to Pharaoh. 24 Zipporah circmnciseth 
 her son. 27 Aaron is se^it to meet A/oses. 
 31 The people believeth them. 
 
 AND Moses answered and said, 
 But, behold, they will not be- 
 lieve me, nor hearken unto my voice : 
 for they will say, The Lord hath not 
 appeared unto thee. 
 
 2 And the Lord said unto him. 
 What is that in thine hand? And 
 he said, A rod. 
 
 3 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. 
 
 4 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 Put forth thine hand, and take it by 
 the tail. And he put forth his hand. 
 
 and caught it, and it became a rod in 
 his hand ; 
 
 5 That they may believe that the 
 Lord God of their fathers, the God 
 of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and 
 the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto 
 thee. 
 
 6 ^ And the Lord said further- 
 more 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. 
 
 7 And he said, Put thine hand into 
 thy bosom again. And he put his 
 hand into his bosom again ; and pluck- 
 ed it out of his bosom, and, behold, it 
 was turned again as his other flesh. 
 
 8 And it shall come to pass, if they 
 will not believe thee, neither hearken 
 to the voice of the first sign, that they 
 will believe the voice of the latter sign. 
 
 Chap. IV. With this chapter begins the 
 series of miracles which resulted in the de- 
 liverance of Israel. Long intervals of sacred 
 history pass without any notice of miracle; 
 not one, properly speaking, is recorded in con- 
 nection with the previous history of the chil- 
 dren of Jacob; but they cluster around great 
 and critical events, occurring where they are 
 demonstrably necessary. It is clear that un- 
 less a spiritual miracle transcending out- 
 ward mai-vels had been wrought in the hearts 
 both of the Israelites and of their oppressors, 
 some special manifestations of divine power 
 were indispensable. The first miracle was 
 wrought to remove the first obstacle, viz. the 
 reluctance of Moses, conscious of his own 
 weakness, and of the enormous power with 
 which he would have to contend. The LXX. 
 add, “what shall I say unto them?” a pro- 
 bable, but not a necessary reading. 
 
 ‘2. A rod'] The word seems to denote 
 the long staff which on Egyptian monuments 
 is borne by men in positions of authority. 
 See Wilkinson, iir. pp. 367 and 386. It was 
 usually made of .acacia wood, such as is still 
 
 sold for that purpose by the monks of the 
 convent of Mount Sinai. 
 
 3 . a serpent] This miracle had a meaning 
 which Moses could not mistake. The serpent 
 was probably the basilisk or Urceus, the Cobra. 
 See Tristram, ‘Nat. Hist.’ p. 271. This was 
 the symbol of royal and divine power on the 
 diadem of every Pharaoh. It was a poisonous 
 snake, as is shown by the flight of Moses and 
 by most passages in which the same word 
 occurs, nabash., derived from hissing. This 
 snake never attacks without first inflating its 
 neck, and then hissing ; on the monuments it 
 is always represented with its neck enormously 
 swollen. The conversion of the rod was not 
 merely a portent (repa?), it was a sign (o-T^peioA^ 
 at once a pledge and representation of victory 
 over the king and gods of Egypt. 
 
 6. hprous] The instantaneous production 
 and cure of the most malignant and subtle 
 disease known to the Israelites was a sign of 
 their danger if they resisted the command, 
 and of their deliverance if they obeyed it. The 
 infliction and cure v'ere always regarded as 
 special proofs of a divine intervention. 
 
266 
 
 EXODUS. IV. 
 
 [v. 9 — j6. 
 
 9 And it shall come to pass, if they 
 will not believe also these two signs, 
 neither hearken unto thy voice, that 
 thou shalt take of the water of the 
 river, and pour it upon the dry land: 
 and the water which thou takest out 
 tHeb. ol* the river Uhall become blood upon 
 ‘he dry land. 
 
 tc’. 10 ^ And Moses said unto the 
 
 fHeb Lord, O my Lord, I am not ^elo- 
 amano/ Quent, neither ^heretofore, nor since 
 
 luords. Ill 1 
 
 t Heb. thou hast spoken unto thy servant ; 
 TerdayT ^ speech, and of a 
 
 'tr >aurd tongue. 
 
 day. 1 1 And the Lord said unto him. 
 
 Who hath made man’s mouth ? or 
 who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or 
 the seeing, or the blind? have not I 
 the Lord ? 
 
 12 Now therefore go, and I will 
 
 be "with thy mouth, and teach thee " Matt. lo. 
 what thou shalt say. Mark 13. 
 
 1 3 And he said, O my Lord, send, lAc 12 
 
 I pray thee, by the hand of' him whom “• 
 thou " wilt send. “ Or, 
 
 14 And the anger of the Lord was 
 kindled against Moses, and he said. Is 
 not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I 
 know that he can speak well. ’ And 
 also, behold, he cometh forth to meet 
 thee : and when he seeth thee, he 
 will be glad in his heart. 
 
 15 And thou shalt speak unto him, 
 and put words in his mouth : and I 
 v/ill be with thy mouth, and with his 
 mouth, and will teach you v/hat ye 
 shall do. 
 
 16 And he shall be thy spokesman 
 
 9 . shall become^ This rendering is prefer- 
 able to that in the margin. 
 
 10. eloquent] Lit. a man of •words, as 
 in margin. The expressions -which Moses 
 uses do not imply a natural defect or im- 
 pediment, but an inability to speak fluently. 
 “Slow of speech,” literally heavy, is specially 
 used of persons speaking a foreign language 
 imperfectly (see Ezek. iii. 5). The double 
 expression slow of speech and of a slow tongue 
 seems to imply a difliculty both in finding 
 words and in giving them utterance, a very 
 natural result of so long a period of a shep- 
 herd’s life, passed in a foreign land, and as 
 such to be counted among the numerous latent 
 coincidences of the narrative. 
 
 since thou hast spoken] This expression 
 seems to imply that some short time had inter- 
 vened between this address and the first com- 
 munication of the divine purpose to Moses. 
 
 12. Compare with this our Lord’s pro- 
 mise to His Apostles; Matt. x. 19, Mark 
 xiii. II, It applies to both difficulties; “be 
 with thy mouth ” giving prompt utterance, 
 and “teach thee” supplying or eliciting the 
 best expression of the right thought. 
 
 13 . And he said] The reluctance of Moses 
 is a point of great moment. It had a per- 
 manent effect, for it caused the transfer of 
 a most important part of his work to his 
 brother, and its record supplies a strong evi- 
 dence of the Mosaic authorship of this por- 
 tion, attributed by Knobel to the so-called 
 Jehovist. Like every other circumstance in 
 the narrative it is in accordance with the in- 
 ner law of man's spiritual development, and 
 specially with the character of Moses ; but 
 under the circumstances it indicates a weak- 
 ness of faith, such as no late writer would 
 
 have attributed to the greatest of the descend- 
 ants of Abraham. 
 
 send... by the hand] The Hebrew phrase is 
 curt, so to speak, and ungracious; literally 
 “ send I pray by hand, thou wilt send,” 
 i.e. by whomsoever thou wilt; an expression 
 which has scarcely a precedent and which may 
 serve to illustrate Moses’ (Bvn account of his 
 heavy and awkward utterance: cf. Note on 
 Numb. xiv. 13 — 17. 
 
 14 . anger] This proves that the words of 
 Moses indicated more than a consciousness 
 of infirmity; somewhat of the vehemence and 
 stubbornness, characteristic failings of strong, 
 concentrated natures, which had previously 
 been displayed in the slaying of the Egyptian. 
 
 Aarori] This is the first mention of Aaron. 
 The exact meaning of the words “he can 
 speak well,” lit. “speaking he can speak,” has 
 been questioned, but they probably imply that 
 Aaron had both the power and will to speak. 
 Aaron is here called “the Levite,” with refer- 
 ence, it may be, to the future consecration 
 of this tribe ; but not, as Knobel assumes, 
 as though at that time the office and duties of 
 the priesthood were assigned to him. 
 
 he cometh forth] i. e. is on the eve of setting 
 forth. The Hebrew does not imply that 
 Aaron was already on the way, but that he 
 had the intention of going to his brother, pro- 
 bably because the enemies of Moses were now 
 dead, see v. 19. The divine intimation was 
 given afterwards, v. 27; it told Aaron where 
 his brother was to be found. The expression 
 “glad in his heart” should be noted as cne of 
 many indications of the divine sympathy with 
 strong and pure natural affections. 
 
 15 . thou shalt speak] Moses thus retains 
 his position as “mediator;” the word comes 
 to him first, he transmits it to hif brother. 
 
V. 17 2 2.] 
 
 EXODUS. IV. 
 
 267 
 
 unto the people : and he shall be, 
 even he shall be to thee instead of a 
 * chap. 7. niouth, and “^thou shalt be to him in- 
 stead of God. 
 
 17 And thou shalt take this rod in 
 thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do 
 signs. 
 
 18 H And Moses went and return- 
 ed to kis father in law, and 
 
 said unto him. Let me go, I pray 
 thee, and return unto my brethren 
 which are in Egypt, and see whether 
 they be yet alive. And Jethro said 
 to Moses, Go in peace. 
 
 19 And the Lord said unto Moses 
 in Midian, Go, return into Egypt : 
 
 for all the men are dead which sought 
 thy life. 
 
 20 And Moses took his wife and 
 his sons, and set them upon an ass, 
 and he returned to the land of Egypt : 
 and Moses took the rod of God in his 
 hand. 
 
 21 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 When thou goest to return into Egypt, 
 see that thou do all those wonders be- 
 fore Pharaoh, which I have put in 
 thine hand : but I will harden his heart, 
 that he shall not let the people go. 
 
 22 And thoif shalt say unto Pha- 
 raoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel h 
 my son, even my firstborn : 
 
 16 . instead of a mouth~\ We may bear in 
 mind Aaron’s unbroken habitude of speak- 
 ing Hebrew and his probable familiarity with 
 Egyptian. The Arabic translator (Saadia) 
 uses the word tarjaman, i.e. dragoman, inter- 
 preter. Thus also the Syriac and the Targum. 
 
 instead of God\ The word God is used 
 of persons who represent the Deity, as kings, 
 or judges, and it is understood in this sense 
 by the Targumist and Saadia: “Thou shalt 
 be to him a master.” 
 
 18 . Jethro'^ In the Hebrew Jether, see 
 not? on ch. ii. Moses says nothing of his 
 divine mission to Jethro; it was a secret 
 thing between him and God. 
 
 19 . in Midian~\ The LXX. insert before 
 this verse “ but after those many days the 
 king of Egypt died.” Egli, 1 . c., holds this 
 to be the ancient reading, but it was probably 
 introduced to explain the following state- 
 ment, which is clear without it. There was 
 apparently some delay on the part of Moses, 
 who did not set out until he received a distinct 
 assurance that all his enemies were removed. 
 Such notices would never have occurred to a 
 later writer, nor could they have originated in 
 popular impressions. They show moreover 
 how entirely Moses acted under an influence 
 overruling the feelings, in which some would 
 find the key to his acts. 
 
 20. an ass'] Lit. “the ass,” which ac- 
 cording to Hebrew idiom means that he set 
 them upon asses, not upon one ass, which 
 would imply that they were both infants. 
 This is the first notice of other sons besides 
 Gershom. 
 
 the rod of God] The reference to the miracle 
 recorded in v. 2, and to the express com- 
 mand in V. 17, is so obvious that it would 
 be unnecessary to point it out but for the 
 strange statement (Knobel) that the rod is here 
 first mentioned. The staff of Moses was con- 
 secrated by the miracle and became the rod of 
 God. 
 
 21. see that thou do^ &c.] The Hebrew 
 has, See all the wonders which I have put 
 into thy hand, and do them before Pharaoh. 
 Moses is called upon to consider the signs and 
 to be prepared to produce them. The con- 
 struction however is not certain ; and the old 
 Versions for the most part agree with our 
 Authorised Version, which gives the general 
 sense. 
 
 I 'will harden] Calamities which do not 
 subdue the heart harden it ; and the effects of 
 God’s judgments being foreknown are willed 
 by Him. We should not therefore adopt a 
 forced interpretation of this expression in order 
 to explain away its apparent harshness. The 
 hardening itself is judicial, and just, when it is 
 a consequence of previously formed habits ; in 
 the case of Pharaoh it was at once a righteous 
 judgment, and a natural result of a long series 
 of oppressions and cruelties. Theodoret thus 
 deals with the question: “The sun by the 
 action of heat makes wax moist, and mud dry, 
 hardening the one while it softens the other, by 
 the same operation producing exactly opposite 
 results; thus from the long-suffering of God 
 some derive benefit and others harm, some are 
 softened while others are hardened.” ‘ Qusest. 
 XII. in Exod.’ The reason why the action of 
 God rather than the character of Pharaoh is 
 dwelt on in this passage would seem to be 
 that it was necessary to sustain the spirit of 
 Moses and the people during the process of 
 events, which they were thus taught were 
 altogether foreseen and predetenuined by God. 
 
 22. my firstborn] The expression would 
 be perfectly intelligible to Pharaoh, whose 
 official designation was Si Ra, son of Ra. In 
 numberless inscriptions the Pharaohs are styled 
 “own sons” or “beloved sons” of the deity. 
 It is here applied for the first time to Israel; 
 and as we learn from 2^. 23, emphatically in 
 antithesis to Pharaoh’s own firstborn. The 
 menace however was not uttered until it was 
 called forth by Pharaoh’s sin. See ch. xi. 5, 
 
268 
 
 EXODUS. IV. 
 
 IV. 23—29. 
 
 I Or, 
 
 kni/e. 
 t Heb. 
 made it 
 tottck. 
 
 23 And I say unto thee, Let my 
 son go, that he may serve me : and if 
 thou refuse to let him go, behold, I 
 will slay thy son, even thy firstborn. 
 
 24 ^ And it came to pass by the 
 way in the inn, that the Lord met 
 him, and sought to kill him. 
 
 25 Then Zipporah took a sharp 
 ° stone, and cut off the foreskin of her 
 son, and Tast it at his feet, and said. 
 Surely a bloody husband art thou to 
 me. 
 
 26 So he let him go: then she said, 
 A bloody husband thou art^ because of 
 the circumcision. 
 
 27 ^ And the Lord said to Aaron, 
 Go into the wilderness to meet Mo- 
 ses. And he went, and met him in 
 the mount of God, and kissed him. 
 
 28 And Moses told Aaron all the 
 words of the Lord who had sent 
 him, and all the signs which he had 
 commanded him. 
 
 29 And Moses and Aaron went 
 
 24. in the inn\ Or “resting place,” it 
 probably does not mean a building, but 
 the place where they rested for the night, 
 whether under a tent, or in the open air. The 
 khans or caravanserais, now common in the 
 East, appear to have been unknown to the 
 ancient Israelites and Egyptians. 
 
 met him^ and sought to kill him\ The ex- 
 pression is obscure, but is understood to 
 mean that Moses was attacked by a sudden 
 and dangerous illness, which he knew was 
 inflicted by God. The word ‘ sought to kill’ 
 implies that the sickness, whatever might be 
 its nature, was one which threatened death 
 had it not been averted by a timely act. We 
 are not told for what cause the visitation 
 came; but from the context it may be inferred 
 that it was because Moses had neglected the 
 duty of an Israelite and had not circumcised 
 his son. From the words of Zipporah it is 
 evident that she believed the illness of Moses 
 was to be thus accounted for; the delay was 
 probably owing to her own not unnatural re- 
 pugnance to a rite, which though practised 
 by the Egyptians under the 19th dynasty, and 
 perhaps earlier, was not adopted generally in 
 the East, even by the descendants of Abraham 
 and Keturah. Moses appears to have been 
 utterly prostrate and unable to perform the 
 rite himself. 
 
 25. sharp stone'\ Not “knife,” as in the 
 margin. Zipporah used a piece of flint, in 
 accordance with the usage of the patriarchs. 
 'Fhe Egyptians never used bronze or steel in 
 the preparation of mummies because stone 
 was regarded as a purer and more sacred 
 material than metal. See Wilkinson, Vol. ii. 
 p. 16 and M. de Rougemont, ‘Age du 
 Brori/.e,' p. 152. 
 
 cast it at his feet] The Hebrew is ob- 
 scure, but the Authorised Version probably 
 gives the true meaning. Zipporah threw it 
 at the feet of Moses, not of her .son, as some 
 commentators suppose; showing at once her 
 abliOrrence of the rite, and her feeling that by 
 it she had saved her husband's life. 
 
 a bloody husband] Lit. “A husband of 
 blood.;” or “bloods:” the plural form signifies 
 
 effusion of blood; the word (jrin) rendered 
 husband (as in Psalm xix. 5, bridegroom) in- 
 cludes all relations by marriage; see note at 
 the end of c. ii. The meaning is, the marriage 
 bond between us is now sealed by blood. In the 
 next verse Zipporah repeats the expression, 
 as though she would say, thou art bound to 
 me by a second covenant of which this bloody 
 rite is the sign and pledge. By performing it 
 Zipporah had recovered her husband ; his life 
 was purchased for her by the blood of her 
 child. See the remarks of Hooker, ‘ E. P.’ v. 
 62. The Targum Onk. gives a paraphrase, 
 “ had it not been for the blood of this circum- 
 cision my husband had been condemned to 
 death.” This appears to be the true explanation 
 of a very obscure passage ; other interpretations, 
 which make the words refer to the child, or 
 to the Angel of the Covenant, are generally 
 admitted to be untenable. 
 
 26. So he let him go] i.e. God withdrew 
 His visitation from Moses. The Hebrew 
 allows no other interpretation. 
 
 We learn from ch. xviii. 2, that Moses sent 
 Zipporah and her children back to Jethro 
 before he went to Egypt. It was probably on 
 this occasion. The journey would hjve been 
 delayed had he waited for the healing of the 
 child. 
 
 27. ydnd the Lord said] See ns. 14. Aaron 
 now receives direct intimation where he is to 
 meet his brother. He might otherwise have 
 undertaken a long and fruitless journey to 
 the residence of Jethro. 
 
 in the mount of God] Horeb lies on the 
 direct route from Shenn to Egypt; this pas- 
 sage is therefore in favour of the supposition 
 that Jethro's residence was on the west of the 
 gulf. See note on c. ii. 
 
 28. w/jo had sent him] The meaning is, 
 probably, “which God had charged him to 
 do.” Thus the Vulgate, LXX., Knobel, and 
 other commentators; but it is not necessary 
 to alter the translation, which is literal and 
 supported by Rosenmiillcr, who renders it, 
 “qui eum miserat.’’ 
 
V. 30—4-] 
 
 EXODUS. IV. V. 
 
 269 
 
 and gathered together all the elders of 
 the children of Israel : 
 
 30 And Aaron spake all the words 
 which the Lord had spoken unto 
 Moses, and did the signs in the sight 
 of the people. 
 
 31 And the people believed; and 
 when they heard that the Lord had 
 visited the children of Israel, and that 
 he had looked upon their affliction, 
 then they bowed their heads and wor- 
 shipped. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1 Pharaoh chideth Moses and Aaron for iheir 
 message. 5 He hicreaseth the Israelites’ task. 
 15 He checketh their cotnplaints. 'lo They 
 cry out npon Moses and Aaron. 22 Moses 
 complameth to God. 
 
 AND afterward Moses- and Aaron 
 ±\, went in, and told Pharaoh, 
 
 Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, 
 
 Let my people go, that they may hold 
 a feast unto me in the wilderness. 
 
 2 And Pharaoh said. Who is the 
 Lord, that I should obey his voice to 
 let Israel go? I know not the Lord, 
 neither will I let Israel go. 
 
 3 And they said, '^The God of the cliap. 
 Hebrews hath met with us : let us go, 
 
 we pray thee, three days’ journey 
 into the desert, and sacrifice unto 
 the Lord our God; lest he fall upon 
 us with pestilence, or with the 
 sword. 
 
 4 And the king of Egypt said unto 
 
 29 . all the elders'] The Israelites retained 
 their awn national organization; their affairs 
 were administered by their own elders. 
 
 31 . the people] This implies that the elders 
 called a public assembly to hear the message 
 brought by Moses and Aaron. 
 
 and ^du.orshipped] There is no reason to 
 doubt that this act of worship was addressed 
 to God, not to Moses and Aaron. It is im- 
 portant to remark that in this narrative there 
 is no indication of ignorance of the history 
 of the patriarchs, or of abandonment of the 
 worship of God, sometimes attributed to the 
 Israelites. 
 
 Chap. V. 1. Pharaoh] This king, pro- 
 bably (see Appendix) Thotmes II. the great 
 grandson of Aahmes, the original persecutor 
 of the Israelites, must have been resident at this 
 time in a city of lower Egypt, situate on the 
 Nile. It could not therefore have been Helio- 
 polis, and we have to choose between Memphis 
 and Tanis; and there can be little doubt that 
 most of the events which follow occurred at 
 the latter city, the Zoan of Scripture. The 
 notice in Psalm Ixxviii. 12, 43, is admitted by 
 all critics to be of great weight, and all the 
 circumstances confirm it. See on ix. 31 and 
 on ii. 5. Tanis was a very large city, and 
 strongly fortified. The remains of buildings 
 and the obelisks are numerous; they bear for 
 the most part the name of Rameses II.; but 
 it was the place of rendezvous for the armies 
 of the Delta, and an imperial city in the 12th 
 dynasty; it is identified by M, de Rouge with 
 Avaris the capital of the Hyksos, who pro- 
 bably gave it its Hebrew nam.e; both Avaris 
 and Zoan mean “going out.” This Pharaoh 
 had waged a successful war in the beginning 
 of his reign against the Shasous, the nomad 
 tribes of the adjoining district, and his resi- 
 
 dence in the north-west of Egypt would be 
 of importance at that time. 
 
 the Lord God] This version rather obscures 
 the meaning; Jehovah God of Israel 
 demanded the services of his people. The 
 demand according to the general views of 
 the heathens was just and natural; the Israel- 
 ites could not offer the necessary sacrifices in 
 the presence of Egyptians. 
 
 2. I kno^v not the Lord] This may mean 
 either that Pharaoh had not heard of Jehovah, 
 or that he did not recognize Him as a God. 
 The former is possible, for though the name 
 was ancient, it was apparently less used by 
 the Israelites than other designations of God. 
 The Targum thus paraphrases: “the name 
 of Jah has not been revealed to me.” 
 
 3 . three days' journey] This would not 
 suffice for the journey to the “Mountain 
 of God.” See note on iii. 18. All that Moses 
 was instructed to ask for was permission to 
 go into a part of the desert where the people 
 might offer sacrifices without interruption 
 from the Egyptians; and that might be found 
 on the frontiers of Egypt, or, at least, in a 
 district commanded by the king’s army. It 
 is evident from Pharaoh’s answer that he did 
 not see in the request any indication of an 
 intention to escape from Egypt. Ewald (Vol. 
 II. pp. 84, 85) recognizes the reasonableness 
 and modesty of this demand, which he re- 
 presents as a manifest proof that the sober 
 and noble spirit of prophecy in its best age 
 has interpenetrated the narrative; words 
 which do but express the old truth that the 
 transaction and record bear equally the marks 
 of divine governance and inspiration. 
 
 'With pestilence., or with the sword] This 
 notice is important as shewing that the plague 
 was well known to the ancient Egyptians. It 
 
270 
 
 EXODUS. V. 
 
 [v. 5—13- 
 
 them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and 
 Aaron, let the people from their 
 works ? get you unto your burdens. 
 
 5 And Pha-raoh said. Behold, the 
 people of the land now are many, and 
 ye make them rest from their burdens. 
 
 6 And Pharaoh commanded the 
 same day the taskmasters of the 
 people, and their officers, saying, 
 
 7 Ye shall no more give the people 
 straw to make brick, as heretofore : 
 let them go and gather straw for 
 themselves. 
 
 8 And the tale of the bricks, which 
 they did make heretofore, ye shall 
 lay upon them ; ye shall not diminish 
 ought thereof : for they he idle ; there- 
 fore they cry, saying. Let us go and 
 sacrifice to our God. 
 
 9 ^ Let there more work be laid + Heb. 
 upon the men, that they may labour wJr/fe 
 therein ; and let them not regard vain ^^po^the 
 words. 
 
 10 And the taskmasters of the 
 people went out, and their officers, 
 and they spake to the people, saying, 
 
 Thus saith Pharaoh, I will not give 
 you straw. 
 
 1 1 Go ye, get you straw where ye 
 can find it: yet not ought of your 
 work shall be diminished. 
 
 12 So the people were scattered 
 abroad throughout all the land of 
 Egypt to gather stubble instead of 
 straw. 
 
 1 3 And the taskmasters hasted ^ 
 them^ saying. Fulfil your works, "'your a matter 
 daily tasks, as when there was straw, fnhf^day. 
 
 was probably less common than at present 
 under the ancient Pharaohs, who bestowed 
 great care on the irrigation and drainage of 
 the country, but there are other indications of 
 its ravages. See Chabas, ‘Mel. Eg.’ i. p. 40. 
 The reference to the sword is equally natural, 
 since the Israelites occupied the eastern dis- 
 trict, which was frequently disturbed by the 
 neighbouring Shasous. See note on v. i. 
 
 6. the taskmasters'] This word, which 
 means “exactors” or “oppressors,” desig- 
 nates the Egyptian overseers, who were sub- 
 ordinate to the officers called “taskmasters” 
 in ch. i. II, but whose name is different in 
 Hebrew. See note on ch. i. ii, and 14. 
 
 their officers] Or scribes. These were He- 
 brews, appointed by the Egyptian superin- 
 tendents, and responsible to them for the work ; 
 see V. 14. The Hebrew name shoter is equiva- 
 lent to “scribe and it is probable that persons 
 were chosen who were able to keep accounts 
 in writing. Subordinate officers are frequent- 
 ly represented on Egyptian monuments giving 
 m written accounts to th'cir immediate 
 superiors. Rosellini (ii. 3, p. 272) observes 
 that Egyptians made more use of writing on 
 ordinary occasions than modern Europeans. 
 “Shoterim” are often mentioned in the Old 
 Testament, generally in connection with 
 judges or leaders, by whom they were em- 
 ployed to transmit orders to the people and 
 superintend the execution. It is evident how 
 much this measure must have advanced the 
 organization of the Israelites, and prepared 
 them for their departure. See Note at the 
 end of the Chapter. 
 
 7. stra~>.u] Some of the most ancient build- 
 ings in Egypt constructed of bricks 
 
 not burned, but dried in the sun; they were 
 
 made of clay, or more commonly of mud, 
 mixed with straw chopped into small pieces. 
 Baked bricks are seldom found in ruins more 
 ancient than the Exodus, never, according to 
 Sir G. Wilkinson, (see Quarterly Review, 
 1859, April, p. 421), but there is a specimen 
 in the British Museum belonging to the reign 
 of Thotmosis III. An immense quantity of 
 straw must have been wanted for the works on 
 which the Israelites were engaged, and their 
 labours must have been more than doubled by 
 this requisition. In a papyrus of the 19th 
 dynasty (‘Anast.’ iv. 12, 16) the writer 
 complains: “I have no one to help me in 
 making bricks, no straw.” The expression 
 at that 'time was evidently proverbial, whether 
 or not as a reminiscence of the Israelites may 
 be questioned, but it shows the thoroughly 
 Egyptian character of the transaction. 
 
 9 . may labour therein] The LXX. have 
 “ that they may attend to it and not attend 
 to vain words;” a good and probable reading. 
 
 12. stubble instead of stra^] Rather, for 
 the straw. See Note at the end of the 
 Chapter. The Israelites had to go into the 
 fields after the reaping, was done, to gather 
 the stubble left by the reapers, who then, as 
 at present in Egypt, cut the stalks close to the 
 ears. They had then to chop it into morsels 
 of straw before it could be mixed with the 
 clay: seethe previous note. This implies that 
 some time must have elapsed before Moses 
 again went to Pharaoh ; and it also marks the 
 season of the year, viz. early spring, after the 
 barley or wheat haiwest, towards the end of 
 April. Their suffering must have been severe, 
 since at that season the pestilential sand-wind 
 blows over Egypt some 50 days, hence its 
 name Chamsin. 
 
V. 14— 23-] 
 
 EXODUS. V. 
 
 271 
 
 • 14 And the officers of the children 
 of Israel, which Pharaoh’s taskmas- 
 ters had set over them, were beaten, 
 demanded. Wherefore have ye not 
 fulfilled your task in making brick both 
 yesterday and to day, as heretofore ? 
 
 15 H Then the offi'cers of the chil- 
 dren of Israel came and cried unto 
 Pharaoh, saying. Wherefore dealest 
 thou thus with thy servants ? 
 
 16 There is no straw given unto 
 thy servants, and they say to us. Make 
 brick : and, behold, thy servants ar^ 
 beaten ; but the fault is in thine own 
 people. 
 
 17 But he said. Ye idle, ar^ 
 idle : therefore ye say. Let us go a/7.^ 
 do sacrifice to the Lord. 
 
 18 Go therefore now, and work; 
 for there shall no straw be given 
 you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of 
 bricks. 
 
 19 And the officers of the children 
 of Israel did see f/^at they in evil 
 
 after it was said. Ye shall not 
 minish ought from your bricks of your 
 daily task. 
 
 20 ^ And they met Moses and Aa- 
 ron, who stood in the v/ay, as they 
 came forth from Pharaoh : 
 
 21 And they said unto them. The 
 Lord look upon you, and judge; be- 
 cause ye have made our savour To be f Heh. 
 abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and 
 
 in the eyes of his servants, to put a 
 sword in their hand to slay us. 
 
 22 And Moses returned unto the 
 Lord, and said, Lord, wherefore hast 
 thou so evil entreated this people ? 
 why is it that thou hast sent me .? 
 
 23 For since I came to Pharaoh 
 
 to speak in thy name, he hath done J^^cb. 
 evil to this people; neither hast thou thou hast 
 ^ delivered thy people at all, Ihefc'd. 
 
 13. hasted than] See the words of the 
 overseer quoted above on ch. i. 14. In a pas- 
 sage of the papyrus ‘ Anast.’ III. translated by 
 M. Chabas, ‘Mel. Eg.’ ii. p. 122, twelve 
 labourers employed in the same district are 
 punished for negligence in failing to make up 
 their daily tale of bricks. 
 
 14. tVere beaten] The beating of these 
 officers is quite in accordance with Egyptian 
 customs; even natives of rank in civil and 
 military service were subject to severe cor- 
 poral punishments. See note on ch. ii. ii. 
 
 16. the fault is in thine o<njon people] Lit. 
 thy people sin: which may possibly 
 mean thy subjects, i.e. the Israelites, are made 
 guilty and punished: but the Authorised Ver- 
 sion probably gives the true meaning ; thus the 
 Vulg., Targ. and Saadia. The LXX. and Syr. 
 have “thou hast sinned against thy people.” 
 
 17. Te are idle] The old Egyptian lan- 
 guage abounds in epithets which shew con- 
 tempt for idleness. The charge was equally 
 offensive and ingenious; one which would be 
 readily believed by Egyptians who knew how 
 much public and private labours were impeded 
 by festivals and other religious ceremonies. 
 Among the great sins which involved con- 
 
 NOTES on Chap. 
 
 6. The question whether the were 
 
 Egyptians or Hebrews is important in its 
 bearings on the narrative. The word is com- 
 mon, and always denotes the class of persons 
 described in the foot-note. Gesenius finds 
 
 demnation in the final judgment, idleness is 
 twice mentioned ; see funeral ritual in Bunsen’s 
 ‘ Egypt,’ ed. 2, Vol. v. pp. 254, 255. 
 
 19. in e'vil case] They saw plainly that 
 the object of Pharaoh was to find a pretext 
 for further cruelty ; probably for cutting off 
 the leaders of the Israelites; s^e v. 21. The 
 effect, however, would be to bring them into 
 closer union and sympathy with the people. 
 
 20. ^vho stood in the <^ay\ Or “waiting 
 to meet them,” i.e. Moses and Aaron stood 
 without the palace to learn the result of the 
 interview. 
 
 21. in the eyes] The change of metaphor 
 shows that the expression was proverbial. 
 Thus an Egyptian of rank complains to the 
 scribe, who writes his history, “Thou hast 
 made my name offensive, stinking, to all 
 men.” ‘Anast.’ i. 27, 7. 
 
 23. The earnestness of this remon- 
 strance, and even its approach to irreverence, 
 are quite in keeping with other notices of 
 Moses’ naturally impetuous character, see 
 especially, ch. iil. 13 ; but such a speech would 
 certainly not have been put into his mouth 
 by a later writer. See note on ch. iv. 10. 
 
 V. vv. 6 and 12. 
 
 its root in the Arabic he wrote. The 
 LXX. render it roi? ypafiixaTevaiv'. the Syr. 
 f^£D, writer or scribe. Thus also the 
 Samaritan version. The Targum Onk. uses 
 the word which is incorrectly rendered 
 
272 
 
 EXODUS. VI. 
 
 [v. 1—7. 
 
 “exactor” in Walton’s Polyglott It corre- 
 sponds exactly to shoter^ and is applied to 
 the native officers of Israel: see Buxtorf, 
 ‘ Lex. Chal.’ s. v. Saadia uses a w^ord which 
 Walton renders “exactor;” but its true 
 meaning is “ cognitor, qui suos cognitos 
 habet;” a very apt expression for these 
 '-lebrew officials. ^ 
 
 L2. The Hebrew has stubble, and pH?, 
 
 which does not mean instead of, but “for,” 
 i.e. to be prepared as pH, “ straw chopped 
 small:” stramenta minutim concisa. Thus 
 the ancient versions and Targ.Onk., which is 
 incorrectly translated in Walton. The ety- 
 mology of pn is doubted; no Semitic root is 
 found. The Egyptian has tebu^ chaff. ‘ Pap. 
 Sallier,’ v. 6. Kash also is Egyptian for 
 stubble, or stalk. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I God rcnewetJi his promise by his name 
 JEHOVAH. 14 The gejiealogy of Reuben., 
 i.'i of Jim eon, 16 of Lezd, ^ whom came 
 Moses and Aaron. 
 
 T hen the Lord said unto Moses, 
 Now shalt thou see what I will 
 do to Pharaoh : for with a strong hand 
 shall he let them go, and with a strong 
 hand shall he drive them out of his 
 land. 
 
 2 And God spake unto Moses, and 
 said unto him, I am " the Lord : 
 
 3 And I appeared unto Abraham, 
 unto Isaac,* and unto Jacob, by the 
 name of God Almighty, but by my 
 name JEHOVAH was I not known 
 to them. 
 
 4 And I have also established my 
 covenant with them, to give them the 
 land of Canaan, the land of their pil- 
 grimage, wherein they were strangers. 
 
 5 And I have also heard the groan- 
 ing of the children of Israel, whom 
 the Egyptians keep in bondage; and 
 I have remembered my covenant. 
 
 6 Wherefore say unto the children 
 of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will 
 bring you out from under the burdens 
 of the Egyptians, and I will rid you 
 out of their bondage, and I will re- 
 deem you with a stretched out arm, 
 and with great judgments : 
 
 7 And I will take you to me for a 
 people, and I will be to you a God ; 
 and ye shall know that I am the Lord 
 
 Chap. VI. 1. av'ith a itrong hand'\ Or, 
 by a strong band, i.e. compelled by the 
 power of God, manifested in judgments. In 
 the 2nd clause the LXX. have “by a stretched 
 out arm:” a probable reading, adopted by 
 Egli, 1 . c. 
 
 2, 3. There appears to have been an 
 interval of some months between the pre- 
 ceding events and this renewal of the promise 
 to Moses. The oppression in the mean time 
 was not merely driving the people to despera- 
 tion, but preparing them by severe labour, 
 varied by hasty wanderings in search of 
 stubble, for the exertions and privations of 
 the wilderness. Hence the formal and solemn 
 character of the announcements in the whole 
 chapter. 
 
 2 . I am the Lor id] See General Introduc- 
 tion, p. 25. The meaning, as is there shewn, 
 seems to be this. I am Jehovah, and I ap- 
 peared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El 
 Shaddai, but as to my name Jehovah, I was 
 not made known to them. In other words, 
 the full import of that name was not disclosed 
 to thorn. On the one hand it i? scarcely 
 possible to doubt, and it is in fact admitted 
 by most critics, that the sacred name Jehovah 
 was known from very early times; on the 
 
 other, the revelation on Mount Sinai clearly 
 states that the derivation and full meaning 
 of the name were then first declared. On 
 this special occasion it was important or ne- 
 cessary, for the support and encouragement of 
 Moses and the people to whom he gave the 
 announcement, to repeat the declaration as 
 a pledge of the fulfilment of the promises 
 made on the “Mountain of God.” 
 
 3 . God Almighty] Rather, “El Shaddai,” 
 it is better to keep this as a proper name; the 
 meaning is correctly given in the text. 
 
 4 . And I have also] The connection be- 
 tween this and the following verse is marked 
 by the repetition of these words. Two 
 reasons are assigned for the promise, viz. the 
 old covenant with the patriarchs, and the 
 divine compassion for the sufferings of Is- 
 rael. 
 
 6. a.vith a stretched out ^rm] The figui'^ 
 is common and quite intelligible; it may have 
 struck Moses and the people the more forcibly 
 since they were familiar with the hieroglyphic 
 which represents might by two outstretehed 
 arms. On the obelisk at Heliopolis, Moses 
 had been from infancy familiar with the symbol 
 in the official name of Osertasen P^acheperka, 
 i.e. Ra is might. 
 
V. 8—15.] 
 
 EXODUS. VI. 
 
 273 
 
 your God, which bringeth you out 
 from under the burdens of the Egyp- 
 tians. 
 
 8 And I will bring you in unto 
 the land, concerning the which I did 
 
 f Heb. ^ swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, 
 
 and to Jacob; and I will give it you 
 for an heritage : I am the Lord. 
 
 9 *!T And Moses spake so unto the 
 children of Israel : but they hearkened 
 
 trieb. not unto Moses for ^anguish of spirit, 
 irTtrTit- cruel bondage. 
 
 ness. 10 And the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 
 ses, saying, 
 
 1 1 Go in, speak unto Pharaoh king 
 of Egypt, that he let the children of 
 Israel go out of his land. 
 
 12 And Moses spake before the 
 Lord, saying. Behold, the children of 
 
 Israel have not hearkened unto me; 
 how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who 
 am of uncircumcised lips ? 
 
 13 And the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 ses and unto Aaron, and gave them a 
 charge unto the children of Israel, and 
 unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring 
 the children of Israel out of the land 
 of Egypt. 
 
 14 These he the heads of their 
 fathers’ houses : ^The sons of Reuben " Gen. 46. 
 the firstborn of Israel ; Hanoch, and ?'chron. 
 Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi : these be 
 
 the families of Reuben. 
 
 15 ^And the sons of Simeon; Je--^i Chri,n. 
 muel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Ja- 
 
 chin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of 
 a Canaanitish woman : these a^^e the 
 families of Simeon. 
 
 8 . I am the Lord'] Rather, I the 
 Lord: the word “am” obscures the con- 
 struction. 
 
 9. they hearkened not] The contrast be- 
 tween the reception of this communication 
 and that recorded in ch. iv. 31 , is dwelt upon 
 by some critics as indicating different authors, 
 but it is distinctly accounted for by the change 
 of circumstances. On the former occasion 
 the people were comparatively at ease, accus- 
 tomed to their lot, sufficiently afflicted to long 
 for deliverance, and sufficiently free in spirit 
 to hope for it. 
 
 for anguish] Literally as in the margin, 
 for shortness of spirit; out of breath, 
 as it were, after their cruel disappointment, 
 they were quite absorbed by their misery, 
 unable and unwilling to attend. to any fresh 
 communication ; an effect which might seem 
 recorded expressly to preclude the notion that 
 the deliverance of Israel was the result of a 
 religious struggle, such as is assumed in some 
 accounts of the transaction. 
 
 11. go out qf his land] There is now a 
 change in the demand ; the first of a series of 
 changes. Moses is now bidden to demand 
 not a permission for a three days’ journey, 
 which might be within the boundaries of 
 Egypt, but for departure from the land. 
 
 12. uncircumcised lips] An uncircumcised 
 car is one that does not hear clearly ; an uncir- 
 cumcised heart one slow to receive and under- 
 stand warnings; uncircumcised lips, such as 
 Ccmnot speak fluently. Thus LXX., Syr., 
 Targ., &c. There is no ground for assuming 
 a natural defect. See note on ch. iv. 10 . The 
 
 VoL. I. 
 
 recurrence of Moses’ hesitation is natural ; 
 great as was the former trial this was far 
 more severe; yet his words as ever imply 
 fear of failure, not of personal danger. 
 
 13. unto Moses and unto Aaron] The final 
 and formal charge to the two brothers is given, 
 as might be expected, before the plagues are 
 denounced. With this verse begins a new 
 section of the history, and as in the book 
 of Genesis “ there is in every such case a 
 brief repetition of so much of the previous 
 account as is needed to make it an intel- 
 ligible narrative in itself; a peculiarity which 
 extends to the lesser subdivisions also.” Quarry 
 ‘On Genesis,’ p. 322 . 
 
 14; These he the heads] We have in the 
 following verses, not a complete genealogy, 
 but a summary account of the family of the 
 two brothers. It has been objected to as out 
 of place, interrupting the narrative, and there- 
 fore probably an interpolation ; but, as Rosen- 
 muller and other unbiassed critics have ob- 
 sei-ved, the reason is clear why Moses should 
 have recorded his own genealogy and that of 
 his brother, when they were about to ex- 
 ecute a duty of the highest importance which 
 had been imposed upon them; just then it 
 was right and natural to state, for the satis- 
 faction of Hebrew readevs, to whom genea- 
 logical questions were always interesting, the 
 descent and position of the designated leaders 
 of the nation. 
 
 The sons of Reuben] Moses mentions in the 
 first place the families of the elder brothers of 
 Levi, in order to shew the exact position of 
 his own tribe and family. Thus Rashi and 
 Rosenmuller. 
 
 S 
 
EXODUS. VI. 
 
 [v. 1 6 — 26. 
 
 274 
 
 16 ^ And these are the names of 
 <^Numb. 3. the “^sons of Levi according to their 
 J Chron. 6. generations ; Gershon, and Kohath, 
 
 and Merari : and the years of the life 
 of Levi were an hundred thirty and 
 seven years. 
 
 17 T'he sons of Gershon; Libni, 
 and Shimi, according to their families. 
 
 '^Numb. 18 And ^the sons of Kohath; Am- 
 iChron.6. tam, aiid Izhar, and Hebron, and 
 Uzziel : and the years of the life of 
 Kohath were an hundred thirty and 
 three years. 
 
 19 And the sons of Merari; Ma- 
 hali and Adushi : these are the families 
 of Levi according to their generations. 
 «fchap. 2. 20 And ^Amram took him Joche- 
 
 Jjumb. 26. father’s sister to wife ; and she 
 
 59- bare him Aaron and Moses : and the 
 years of the life of Amram were an 
 hundred and thirty and seven years. 
 
 21 ^ And the sons of Izhar; Ko- 
 rah, and Nepheg, and Zithri. 
 
 22 And the sons of Uzziel; Mi- 
 shael, and Elzaphan, and Zithri. 
 
 23 And Aaron took him Elisheba, 
 daughter of Amminadab, sister of 
 Naashon, to wife; and she bare him 
 Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and 
 Ithamar. 
 
 24 And the sons of Korah ; Assir, 
 and Elkanah, and Abiasaph : these are 
 the families of the Korhites. 
 
 25 And Eleazar Aaron’s son took 
 him one of the daughters of Putiel to 
 wife; and -^she bare him Phinehas :-^Numb. 
 these are the heads of the fathers of 
 
 the Levites according to their families. 
 
 26 These that Aaron and Moses, 
 to whom the Lord said. Bring out the 
 children of Israel from the land of 
 Egypt according to their armies. 
 
 16 . sons of Levi\ Thus Moses shews 
 that of the three great divisions of the tribe, 
 the one to which he and Aaron belonged, and 
 to which the priesthood was afterwards con- 
 fined, was the second, not the first. Again, 
 he does not trace the descent of other families, 
 but passes at once from Kohath, the son of 
 Levi, to the heads of Kohath’s tamily in his 
 own time. 
 
 the years of the life of Le^'i\ It is usual 
 throughout Genesis in each genealogy to give 
 the age of the chief person in each principal 
 family, and to omit it in the case of secondary 
 families. 
 
 20. Amrani] This can scarcely be the 
 same person who is mentioned in -i;. 1 8 ; but 
 his descendant and representative in the gene- 
 ration immediately preceding that of Moses. 
 The intervening links are omitted, as is the 
 rule where they are not needed for some 
 special purpose, and do not bear upon the 
 history. Between the death of Amram and 
 the birth of Moses was an interval which 
 can scarcely be brought within the limits 
 assigned by any system of chronology to the 
 sojourn in Egypt. Thus Tiele, quoted by 
 Kcil: “According to Numbers iii. 27, &c. 
 in the time of Moses the Kohathites were 
 divided into four branches, that of Amram, 
 I/har, Hebron, and U/.ziel : their number 
 amounted to 8600 males; of these the Am- 
 ramites were about one fourth, i.e. more 
 than 2000 males. This would be impossible 
 were Amram the son of Kohath identical 
 with Amram the Either of Moses. We must 
 therefore admit an omission of several links 
 
 between the two.” Thus in the genealogy 
 of Ezra (Ezra vii. 3, compared with i Chron. 
 V. 33 — 35) five descents are omitted between 
 Azariah the son of Meraioth and Azariah 
 son of Johanan, and several between Ezra 
 himself and Seraiah, who was put to death 
 by Nebuchadnezzar 150 years before the 
 time of Ezra.” 
 
 Jochebed] Here named for the first time, 
 and, as might be expected, not in the general 
 narrative but in a genealogical statement. The 
 name means “the glory of Jehovah,” one 
 clear instance of the usage of the sacred name 
 before the Exodus. 
 
 father's sister] This was within the pro- 
 hibited degrees after the law was given, but 
 not previously. 
 
 23 . Elisheba] Her brother Naashon was 
 at that time captain of the children of Judah, 
 Num. ii. 3. Theodoret remarks, /Sao-t- 
 Ka\ rrjs UpariKrjs (bvXrjs rrjv inipi^iav 
 bL^da-Ket. ‘Qusest. in Exod.’ i.e. (Moses) 
 shews the intermixture of the royal and 
 priestly tribes. 
 
 25 . Putiel] This name is remarkable, being 
 compounded of Puli, or Poti, in Egyptian 
 “ devoted to,” and “ El,” the Hebrew name 
 of God. See De Vogue, ‘ Inscriptions semi- 
 tiques,’ p. 125. 
 
 26 , 27 . This emphatic repetition shews 
 the reason for inserting the genealogy. The 
 names of Moses and Aaron are given twice 
 and in a different order; in the 26th verse 
 probably to mark Aaron as the elder in the 
 genealogy, and in the 27th to denote the 
 leadership of Moses. 
 
V. 27 — 1 .] 
 
 EXODUS. VI. VII. 
 
 2 
 
 27 These are they which spake to 
 Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring out 
 the children of Israel from Egypt : 
 these are that Moses and Aaron. 
 
 28 ^ And it came to pass on the 
 day when the Lord spake unto Moses 
 in the land of Egypt, 
 
 29 That the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, I a?n the Lord : speak 
 thou unto Pharaoh king of Egypt all 
 that I say unto thee. 
 
 30 And Moses said before the 
 
 Lord, Behold, I an/ of uncircumcised 
 lips, and how shall Pharaoh hearken 
 unto me.^ 
 
 CFIAPTER VII. 
 
 I Moses is encoitraged to go to Pharaoh. 7 His 
 age. 8 llis rod is turned into a serpent. 1 1 
 T he sorcerers do the like. 1 3 Fharao/i’s heart 
 is hardened. 14 God's message to Pharaoh. 
 19 The river is turned into blood. 
 
 AND the Lord said unto Moses, 
 See, I have made thee a god to 
 Pharaoh ; and Aaron thy brother shall 
 be thy prophet. 
 
 28 . This and the following verses belong 
 to the next chapter. They mark dis- 
 tinctly the beginning of a subdivision of 
 the narrative, and according to the general 
 rule in the Pentateuch (see note on ver. 14), 
 begin with a brief recapitulation. Moses 
 once more, like other sacred writers, dwells 
 strongly upon his personal deficiencies and 
 faults of character (see Ewald, ii. p. 84), an 
 all but certain indication of autobiography 
 in the case of great and heroic personages. 
 
 Chap. VII. With this chapter begins the 
 series of miracles wrought in Egypt. They 
 are progressive. The first miracle is wrought 
 to accredit the mission of the brothers; it is 
 simply credential, and unaccompanied by any 
 infliction. Then come signs which shew that 
 the powers of nature are subject to the will 
 of Jehovah, each plague being attended with 
 grave consequences to the Egyptians, yet not 
 indicting severe loss or suffering; then in ra- 
 pid succession come ruinous and devastating 
 plagues, murrain, boils, hail and lightning, 
 locusts, darkness, and lastly, the death of the 
 firstborn. Each of the inflictions has a demon- 
 strable connection with Egyptian customs and 
 phenomena; each is directly aimed at some 
 Egyptian superstition; all are marvellous, not, 
 for the most part, as reversing, but as de- 
 veloping forces inherent in nature, and direct- 
 ing them to a special end. The effects cor- 
 respond with these characteristics; the first 
 miracles are neglected ; the following plagues 
 first alarm, and then for a season, subdue, 
 ^he king, who does not give way until his 
 firstborn is struck. Even that blow leaves 
 him capable of a last effort, which completes 
 his ruin, and the deliverance of the Israelites. 
 
 It is admitted by critics that the deliver- 
 ance of the Israelites must have been the 
 result of heavy calamities indicted upon the 
 Egyptians, who certainly would never have 
 submitted to so great a loss had they been 
 in a state to prevent it. Nor could it have 
 been effected by a successful uprising of the 
 Israelites, who were not in a position to resist 
 the power of Egypt, and who, had such been 
 
 the case, would certainly have preserved the 
 record of a war issuing in so glorious a re- 
 sult. It is also generally admitted that the 
 calamities, w'hatever they might have been, 
 did not include an overthrow of Egyptian 
 powder by foreign enemies, or national in- 
 surrections. No notice of cither, as Knobel 
 remarks, is found in Hebrew traditions; 
 and it may be added, that in neither of the 
 reigns to which the Exodus has been assigned, 
 are there any indications of either calamity. 
 Egypt was in the highest state of poAver 
 and prosperity through the whole period 
 within which all agree that the Exodus took 
 place. The reign of Thotmes II., which has 
 been shewn in the Appendix to be that 
 which tallies best with all ascertained facts, 
 intervened between two of the ablest and 
 most successful sovereigns in Egypt, and 
 though obscure and uneventful, it gives no 
 indications of loss or disturbance; the only 
 war recorded was one that extended or con- 
 firmed his power. Late investigations have also 
 shewn that the reigns of Merneptah and his 
 successor (under whom these events are sup- 
 posed by most critics to have occurred), were 
 on the wdiole prosperous; one only invasion is 
 recorded in the beginning of that period and 
 it was completely repelled. A succession of 
 such plagues as are described in Exodus must 
 therefore be assumed, and is in fact accepted 
 by .critics, as the only conceivable cause of 
 the result. The question whether it was 
 miraculous, depends upon the ulterior ques- 
 tion, whether miracles under any circum- 
 stances are conceivable; if in any case possible 
 no case can be imagined in which the necessity 
 of a divine interposition, and its direct and 
 permanent results upon the whole state of 
 humanity, could be more satisfactorily shewn. 
 
 1. I ha-ve made thee'\ Or “appointed 
 thee.” The expression “a god” is not un- 
 frequently used of an appointed representative 
 of God; but here it implies that Moses will 
 stand in this peculiar relation to Pharaoh, 
 that he will address him by a prophet, i. e. by 
 one appointed to speak in his name. The pas- 
 . 82 
 
276 
 
 EXODUS. VII. 
 
 [v. 2—12. 
 spake unto 
 
 2 Thou shalt speak all that I com- 
 mand thee: and Aaron thy brother 
 shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send 
 the children of Israel out of his land. 
 
 3 And I will harden Pharaoh’s 
 heart, and multiply my signs and my 
 wonders in the land of Egypt. 
 
 4 But Pharaoh shall not hearken 
 unto you, that I may lay my hand 
 upon Egypt, and bring forth mine 
 armies, and my people the children of 
 Israel, out of the land of Egypt by 
 great judgments. 
 
 5 And the Egyptians shall know 
 that I am the Lord, when I stretch 
 forth mine hand upon Egypt, and 
 bring out the children of Israel from 
 among them. 
 
 6 And Moses and Aaron did as the 
 Lord commanded them, so did they. 
 
 7 And Moses was fourscore years 
 old, and Aaron fourscore and three 
 
 sage is an important one as illustrating the pri- 
 mary and essential characteristic of a prophet, 
 he is the declarer of God’s will and purpose. 
 
 3 . and my <^jjonders'] The distinction between 
 signs and the word here rendered “wonders,” 
 according to Kimchi, is that the former is 
 used more generally, the latter only of por- 
 tents wrought to prove a divine interposition ; 
 they were the credentials of God’s messengers. 
 
 9 . thy rod'\ Apparently the rod before 
 described, which Moses on this occasion gives 
 to Aaron as his representative. 
 
 a serpent'] A different word is used in ch. 
 iv. 3, when the rod of IVIoses is changed. In 
 that passage the snake is called “Nahash,” 
 which corresponds to the Egyptian Ara, or 
 Uneus. Here another and more general term, 
 “Tannin,” is employed, wliich in other pas- 
 sages includes all sea or river monsters, and 
 is more specially applied to the crocodile as 
 a symbol of Egypt. It occurs in the Egyp- 
 tian ritual, c. 163, nearly in the same form, 
 “ d'anem,” as a synonym of the monster 
 serpent which represents the principle of an- 
 tagonism to light and life. I'he ancient ver- 
 sions either render the word coluber, hpciKOiv^ 
 or simply transcribe the Hebrew; thus Syr., 
 Targ., Sam., and Saadia. 
 
 11. tnagictans] See Note rft the end of 
 the chapter. 
 
 (with their enchantments] The derivation of 
 the original expression is ambiguous. It may 
 come from a woril meaning “flame,” or from 
 another meaning “conceal;” in cither case it 
 
 years old, when they 
 Pharaoh. 
 
 8 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 
 
 9 When Pharaoh shall speak unto 
 you, saying, Shew a miracle for you : 
 then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take 
 thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, 
 and it shall become a serpent. 
 
 10 ^ And Moses and Aaron went 
 in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as 
 the Lord had commanded : and Aaron 
 cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and 
 before his servants, and it became a 
 serpent. 
 
 1 1 Then Pharaoh also called the 
 wise men and the sorcerers ; now the 
 magicians of Egypt, they also did in 
 like manner with their enchantments. 
 
 12 For they cast down every man 
 his rod, and they became serpents : but 
 Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. 
 
 implies a deceptive appearance, an illusion, a 
 juggler’s trick, not an actual putting forth of 
 magic power. It bears a very near resem- 
 blance to an Egyptian term for a magic for- 
 mula, sc. Ra, or Ea, ap. Chabas, ‘P. M.’ p. 
 170. Moses describes the act of the sorcerers 
 as it appeared to Pharaoh and the spectators; 
 living serpents may have been thrown down 
 by tlie jugglers, a feat not transcending the 
 well-known skill of their modern representa- 
 tives, with whom it is a common trick to 
 handle venomous serpents, and benumb them 
 so that they are motionless and stiff as rods. 
 Pharaoh may or may not have believed in 
 a real transformation; probably he did, for 
 the jugglers have always form.ed a separate 
 caste, and have kept their arts secret; but in 
 cither case he would naturally consider that if 
 the portent wrought by Aaron differed from 
 theirs, it wvas a difference of degree only, im- 
 plying merely superiority in a common art. 
 The miracle which followed was sufficient to 
 convince him had he been open to conviction. 
 The accounts in the Koran, Sur. vii. and 7 :t., 
 are curious. They represent the magicians 
 as deceiving the spectators by acting upon 
 their imagination. 
 
 12. s-ivallouued up their rods] The miracle 
 here is distinctly stated, and is bound up with 
 tlie very substance of the narrative. Its mean- 
 ing is obvious. Ewald remarks truly that 
 this miracle was the clearest expression of the 
 truth which underlies all these stories, as be 
 is pleased to call the miracles, vi/. the trnih 
 and power of the religion of Jehovah in con- 
 trast w'ith others. 
 
V. 13 — > 9 ] 
 
 EXODUS. VII. 
 
 277 
 
 13 And he hardened Pharaoh’s 
 heart, that he hearkened not unto 
 them ; as the Lord had said. 
 
 14 And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he 
 refuseth to let the people go. 
 
 15 Get thee unto Pharaoh in the 
 morning; lo, he goeth out unto the 
 water; and thou shalt stand by the 
 river’s brink against he come ; and the 
 rod which was turned to a serpent 
 shalt thou take in thine hand. 
 
 16 And thou shalt say unto him. 
 The Lord God of the Hebrews hath 
 sent me unto thee, saying. Let my 
 people go, that they may serve me in 
 the wilderness : and, behold, hitherto 
 thou wouldest not hear. 
 
 17 7 'hus saith the Lord, In this 
 thou shalt 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. 
 
 18 And the fish that/r in the river 
 shall die, and the river shall stink; 
 and the Egyptians shall lothe to drink 
 of the water of the river. 
 
 19 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy 
 rod, and stretch out thine hand upon 
 the waters of Egypt, upon their 
 streams, upon their rivers, and upon 
 their ponds, and upon all their ^ pools ^ Heb. 
 of water, that they may become their 
 blood ; and that there may be blood 
 
 13 . And he hardened^ Or Pharaoh's 
 heart was hardened. The word is here 
 used intransitively, as in many passages : thus 
 all the Ancient Versions. 
 
 15 . he goeth out unto the <zvater'\ The 
 Nile was worshipped under various names and 
 symbols, at Memphis especially, as Hapi, i.e. 
 Apis, the sacred bull, or living representation of 
 Osiris, of whom the river was regarded as the 
 embodiment or manifestation. See ‘Zeitschrift 
 Eg.’ 1868, p. 123. It is therefore probable 
 that the king went in the morning to offer his 
 devotions. This gives a peculiar force and 
 suitableness to the miracle. The reason which 
 Knobel assigns is not incompatible with this. 
 It was the season of the yearly overflowing, 
 about the middle of June. (The Arabic 
 almanacs give the i8th of Payni, i.e. the 12th 
 of June, for the festival of the rising of the 
 Nile.) The daily rise of the water was accu- 
 rately recorded, probably in the time of Moses, 
 as some centuries later, under the personal 
 superintendence of the king. In early inscrip- 
 tions the Nilometer is the symbol of stability 
 and providential care. According to Diodorus 
 a Nilometer was erected at Memphis under the 
 ancient Pharaohs; one is described by Lepsius 
 which bears the name of Amenemha III., of 
 the'izth dynasty, by whom the system of 
 irrigation was completed. See Appendix. 
 
 The First Plague. 
 
 17 . turned to blood~\ In accordance with 
 the general character of the narrative it might 
 be expected that this miracle would bear a 
 certain resemblance to natural phenomena, 
 and therefore be one which Pharaoh might 
 see with amazement and dismay, yet without 
 complete conviction. It is well known that 
 before the rise the water of the Nile is green 
 
 and unfit to drink. About the 25th of June 
 it becomes clear, and then yellow, and 
 gradually reddish like ochre; this effect has 
 been generally attributed to the red earth 
 brought down from Sennaar, but Ehrenberg 
 proves that it is owing to the presence of 
 microscopic cryptogams and infusoria. The 
 depth of the colour varies in different years ; 
 when it is very deep the water has an offensive 
 smell. Late travellers say that at such seasons 
 the broad turbid tide has a striking resem- 
 blance to a river of blood. The supernatural 
 character of the visitation was attested by 
 the suddenness of the change ; by its immediate 
 connection with the words and act of Moses, 
 and by its effects. It killed the fishes, and 
 made the water unfit for use, neither of which 
 results follows the annual discoloration. 
 
 18 . shall lothe'] Lit. “be weary of,” but 
 the Authorised Version expresses the meaning. 
 The word has a special force as applied to 
 the water of the Nile, which has a certain 
 sweetness when purified of the slime, and has 
 always been regarded by Egyptians as a bless- 
 ing peculiar to their land. It is the only pure ' 
 and wholesome water in their country, since 
 the water in wells and cisterns is unwhole- 
 some, while rain water seldom falls, and 
 fountains are extremely rare. Maillet, ap. 
 Kalisch. 
 
 19 . The expressions in this verse shew an 
 accurate knowledge of Egypt, where the water 
 ‘system was complete at a period long before 
 Moses. Lepsius (‘Zeitschrift,’ 1865) describes 
 it carefully.. Their streams mean the natural 
 branches of the Nile in Lower Egypt. The 
 word rh'ers should rather be canals. Mo- 
 ses uses the Egyptian word explained above 
 (ch. ii.). It includes canals. They were of 
 great extent, running parallel to the Nile, and 
 
278 
 
 EXODUS. VII. 
 
 [v. 2C 25. 
 
 throughout all the land of Egypt, 
 both in vessels of wood, and in vessels 
 cf stone. 
 
 20 And Moses and Aaron did so, 
 as the Lord commanded; and he 
 
 « chap. 17. ^ lifted up the rod, and smote the 
 waters that were in the river, in the 
 sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of 
 '^Psai. 78. his servants; and all the “^waters that 
 were in the river were turned to blood.’ 
 
 21 And the fish that was in the 
 river died ; and the river stank, and 
 the Egyptians could not drink of the 
 water of the river; and there was 
 blood throughout all the land of Egypt. 
 
 22 ^And the magicians of Egypt 17, 
 did so with their enchantments: and 
 Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, neither 
 
 did he hearken unto them; as the 
 Lord had said. 
 
 23 And Pharaoh turned and went 
 into his house, neither did he set his 
 heart to this also. 
 
 24 And all the Egyptians digged 
 round about the river for water to 
 drink; for they could not drink of 
 the water of the river. 
 
 25 And seven days were fulfilled, 
 after that the Lord had smitten the 
 river. 
 
 communicating with it by sluices, which were 
 opened at the rise, and closed at the subsidence 
 of the inundation. The word rendered 
 ^'ponds'" refers either to natural fountains, or 
 more probably to cisterns or tanks found in 
 every town and village. The “poo/j,” lit. 
 “gathering of waters,” were the reservoirs, 
 always large and some of enormous extent, 
 containing sufficient water to irrigate the 
 country in the dry season. 
 
 in ‘vessels of nvood'\ Lit. “in wood and 
 stone;” but the word “vessels” is understood 
 and should be retained. This also marks the 
 familiarity of the writer with Egyptian cus- 
 toms. I'he Nile water is kept in vessels and 
 is purihcd for use by filtering, and by certain 
 ingredients such as the paste of almonds. At 
 present the vessels are generally earthenware. 
 'Ehe words in the text appear to include all 
 household vessels in which the water was kept. 
 
 21. the fsh^ &c.] The expression may 
 not necessarily mean “all the fish;” but a 
 great mortality is of course implied, and 
 
 would be a most impressive warning. The 
 Egyptians subsisted to a great extent on the 
 fish of the Nile, though salt-water fish was 
 regarded as impure. A mortality among the 
 fish was a plague much dreaded. In a hymm 
 to the Nile written by the scribe Enna it is 
 said that the wrath of Hapi the Nile-God 
 is a calamity for the fisties. See Maspero, 
 
 ‘ Hymne au Nil,’ p. 27. 
 
 22. did j(?] From this it must be in- 
 ferred that the plague though general was not 
 universal. In numberless instances the He- 
 brew terms which imply universality must 
 be understood in a limited sense. 
 
 24 . digged round about the r/Trr] This • 
 statement c.orroborates the explanation given 
 above on -v. 17. The discoloured water would 
 be purified by a natural filtration. 
 
 25 . se’veyi days'\ This marks the duration 
 of the plague. 4 'he natural discoloration of 
 the Nile water lasts generally much longer, 
 about 20 days. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. vii. ii. 
 
 11. Three n.ames for the magicians of 
 ‘"^re given in this verse. The first and 
 last occur in Genesis, ch. v. The word 
 (C/Orn), wise men, is used specifically of 
 men who know occult arts. Correspond- 
 ing expressions in Arabic are well known, 
 as araph, alam, &c. Thus in the Acts the 
 sorcerer Bar-jesus is called Elymas, “the 
 knowing one.” In ancient Egyptian the most" 
 general name is Rechiu Chetu, i.e. people 
 who know things, the word “things” being 
 applied technically to .secret and curious 
 things, 'Ehe word rendered “sorcerers” 
 (□'eebt:) occurs first in this passage. It is 
 used in the sense “muttering magic fonuul^E.” 
 According to Gesenius the original meaning. 
 
 as retained in Syriac and Ethiopic, is simply 
 to worship or pray. No exact parallel is found 
 for this word am.ong the numerous desig- 
 nations for sorcerers in Egyptian documents ; 
 but it seems not improbable that it may be 
 connected with “Chesef,” a very common 
 word used specially in the sense of repelling, 
 driving away, conjuring all noxious creatures 
 by magic formulse. Thus in the funeral ritual 
 there are no less than 1 1 chapters (32 — 42) con- 
 taining forms for “stopping” or driving away 
 crocodiles, snakes, asps, &c. It was natural 
 that Pharaoh should have sent especially for 
 persons armed with such formulae on this occa- 
 sion. The more general word “chartummim,” 
 which corresponds in meaning to Upoypa>i' 
 
V. I— 3-] 
 
 EXODUS. VIII. 
 
 fiarevs or e^rjyrjriisj “sacrcd scribe” or “inter- 
 preter,” has not been yet traced in Egyptian. 
 If however it is resolved into its probable 
 elements, the first syllable "in (char) answers 
 exactly to “cher,” one of the commonest Egyp- 
 tian words, used in compound teians as “bear- 
 ing,” “having,” “possessing;” the second part 
 corresponds to “temu” or “turn,” “to speak, 
 utter,” which is applied specifically to uttering 
 a sacred name, and apparently as “a spell.” 
 Thus on certain days of the calendar it was 
 unlawful to utter (temu) the name of .Set or 
 Sutech, the Typhon, or spirit of force and 
 destruction. See ‘Papyrus Sallier,’ iv. p. 12, 
 last line; and Brugsch, ‘D. H.’ s. v. In the 
 trilingual inscription lately discovered at San, 
 “turn” means to recite a sacred hymn, 1. 34. 
 Cher-tum would thus mean “bearer of sacred 
 words.” 
 
 The most complete and interesting account 
 of Egyptian magic is given by M. Chabas in 
 his work called ‘Le Papyrus Magique,’ Har- 
 ris, 1866. Books containing magic formuhc 
 belonged exclusively to the king; no one was 
 permitted to consult them but the priests and 
 wise men, who formed a council or college, 
 and were called in by the Pharaoh on all 
 occasions of difficulty. These “wise men” 
 are called “scribes” (see Brugsch, ‘D. H.’ 
 p. 1576), “scribes of the sacred house,” or 
 
 279 
 
 “te-ameni,” i.e. “scribes of occult writings,” 
 
 &c. Under the 20th dynasty, the use of these 
 books was interdicted under pain of death. 
 Two curious documents (the Papyrus Lee and 
 Rollin explained by M. Chabas, and lately 
 edited by Pleyte) give a full account of the 
 trial and execution of a criminal who fraudu- 
 lently obtained possession of some books kept 
 in the archives of the palace. No fonnulae are 
 more common than those which were used to 
 fascinate, or to repel serpents. 
 
 The names of the two principal magicians, 
 Jannes and Jambres, who “withstood Moses” 
 are preserved by S. Paul, 2 Tim. iii. 8. Both 
 names are Egyptian, in which language An, 
 or Anna, identical with Jannes, means scribe. 
 
 It was also a proper name borne by a writer 
 well known in Papyri of the time of Ra- 
 meses II. Jambres may mean Scribe of the 
 South. The tradition was widely spread. It 
 is found in the Talmud, in the later Targum, 
 and in other Rabbinical writings quoted by 
 Buxtorf, ‘Lex. H. C.’ p. 946. Pliny, who 
 makes Moses, Jamnes, and Jotape heads of 
 magic factions, seems to have derived his in- 
 formation from other sources, and he is fol- 
 lowed by Apuleius. Numenius, a Pythago- 
 rean, quoted by Eusebius, comes nearer to 
 the truth, though according to Greek habit 
 he transforms Moses into Musieus. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 X Frogs are sent. 8 Pharaoh sneth to Moses, 
 1 2 a 7 id Moses by pi-ayer reni(roeth theni muay. 
 16 The dust is turned into lice, which the 
 magicians could not do. 20 The swarms of 
 flies. 25 Pharaoh, inclineth to let the people 
 go, 32 but yet is hardened. 
 
 K 
 
 ND the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 Go unto Pharaoh, and say 
 
 unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let 
 my people go, that they may serve me. 
 
 2 And if thou refuse to let them 
 go, behold, I will smite all thy bor- 
 ders with frogs : 
 
 3 And the river shall bring forth 
 frogs abundantly, which shall go up 
 and come into thine house, and into 
 
 The Second Plague. 
 
 Chap. VIII. 2 . 'with frogs~\ The an- 
 noyance and suffering caused by frogs are 
 described by ancient writers, quoted by Bo- 
 chart, ‘Hier.’ iii. In Egypt they sometimes 
 amount at present to a severe visitation. Some 
 months appear to have elapsed between this 
 and the fonner plague, if they made their 
 appearance at the usual time, that is (accord- 
 ing to Seetzen, who gives the fullest and most 
 accurate account of them, Vol. iii. p. 492) 
 in September. He describes two species, the 
 rana Nilotica, and the rana Mosaica, called 
 by the natives “Dofda,” which exactly cor- 
 responds to the Hebrew word used in this 
 and no other passage, except in the psalms 
 taken from it; it is not a general designation, 
 but restricted to the species, and probably of 
 
 Egyptian origin. See Appendix and end of 
 volume. They are small, do not leap much, 
 are much like toads, and fill the whole country 
 with their croakings. They are generally con- 
 sumed rapidly by the Ibis (ardea Ibis)', which 
 thus preserves the land from the stench de- 
 scribed 07 . 14. This plague was thus, like the 
 preceding, in general accordance with natural 
 phenomena, but marvellous both for its extent 
 and intensity, and for its direct connection 
 with the words and acts of God’s messengers. 
 It had also apparently, like the other plagues, 
 a direct bearing upon Egyptian superstitions. 
 A female deity with a frog’s head, named 
 Heka, was worshipped in the district of Sah 
 (i.e. Benihassan) as the wife of Chnum, the 
 god of the cataracts, or of the inundation ; see 
 ] 3 rugsch, ‘Geog.’ p. 224. Lepsius has shewn 
 that the frog was connected v/ith the most 
 
28 o 
 
 EXODUS. VIII. 
 
 [v. 4—I5- 
 
 thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, 
 and into the house of thy servants, 
 and upon thy people, and into thine 
 nor, ovens, and into thy " kneadingtroughs : 
 daugh. ^ frogs shall come up 
 
 both on thee, and upon thy people, 
 and upon all thy servants. 
 
 5 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth 
 thine hand with thy rod over the 
 streams, over the rivers, and over the 
 ponds, and cause frogs to come up 
 upon the land of Egypt. 
 
 6 And Aaron stretched out his 
 hand over the waters of Egypt; and 
 the frogs came up, and covered the 
 land of Egypt. 
 
 «wisd. 17. 7 "And the magicians did so with 
 
 their enchantments, and brought up 
 frogs upon the land of Egypt. 
 
 8 ^ Then Pharaoh called for Mo- 
 ses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the 
 Lord, that he may take away the 
 II Or, frogs from me, and from my people ; 
 
 and I will let the people go, that they 
 over me, rnay do sacrifice unto the Lord. 
 a Or, 9 And Moses said unto Pharaoh, 
 
 ' Glory over me : “ when shall I in- 
 
 treat for thee, and for thy servants, 
 and for thy people, ^ to destroy, the t Heb. 
 frogs from thee and thy houses, ' that^° 
 they may remain in the river only r 
 
 10 And he said, ‘'Tomorrow. And " O’-,, 
 he said. Be it according to thy word ; to mor- 
 that thou mayest know that there is 
 none like unto the Lord our God. 
 
 1 1 And the frogs shall depart from 
 thee, and from thy houses, and from 
 thy servants, and from thy people; 
 they shall remain in the river only. 
 
 1 2 And Moses and Aaron went 
 out from Pharaoh : and Moses cried 
 unto the Lord because of the froo;s 
 which he had brought against Pha- 
 raoh. 
 
 13 And the Lord did according 
 to the word of Moses ; and the frogs 
 died out of the houses, out of the 
 villages, and out of the fields. 
 
 14 And they gathered them to- 
 gether upon heaps : and the land 
 stank. 
 
 15 But v/hen Pharaoh saw that 
 there was respite, he hardened his 
 heart, and hearkened not unto them ; 
 as the Lord had said. 
 
 ancient forms of nature-worship in Egypt. 
 See also Duemichen, ‘Tg. Zeitschrift,’ 1869, 
 p. 6. According to Choeremon (see Bunsen’s 
 ‘Egypt,’ Vol. V. p. 736) the frog was regarded 
 as a symbol of regeneration. See the ijote, 
 p. 242, on the adoration of the frog by the 
 father of Rameses 1 1. 
 
 3 . into tkine bouse'] This appears to have 
 been peculiar to the plague, as such. No 
 mention is made of it by travellers. It was 
 specially the visitation which would be felt by 
 the scrupulously clean Egyptians. 
 
 bneadingt roughs] Not “dough,” as in the 
 margin. 
 
 7 . The magicians would seem to have 
 been able to increase the plague, but not to 
 remove it ; hence Pharaoh’s application to 
 Moses, the first symptom of yielding. An 
 explanation, which is certainly ingenious and 
 not improbable, is suggested by a late com- 
 mentator (Hirsch, 1869). He assumes that 
 the words “ the magicians did so,” mean that 
 they imitated the action of Aaron, stretching 
 out their rods, but using magic formiiiljE 
 with the intention of driving away the frogs, 
 the result being not only a frustration of their 
 object, but an increase of the plague. 
 
 9 . Gloiy over me"] The expression is 
 rather obscure, but it is supposed by most of 
 the later, and by some early commentators, to 
 mean, as the margin renders it, “have honour 
 over me,” have the honour, or advantage 
 over me, directing me when I shall entreat 
 God for thee and thy servants, &c. Moses 
 thus accepts the first intimation of a change 
 of mind in Pharaoh, and expresses him- 
 self, doubtless in accordance with Egyptian 
 usage, at once courteously and deferentially. 
 It is, however, obvious that such an expression 
 would not have been attributed to him by a 
 later writer. The old versions, LXX., Vulg., 
 Saadia, who are followed by Gesenius, gene- 
 rally render the word, appoint for me, deter- 
 mine for me when, &c., the Syriac has “ask 
 for me a time when ; ” this agrees well with 
 the answer “ to-morrow.” 
 
 <^uheri] Or by wlien; for what exact 
 time. Pharaoh's answer in 2;. 10 refers to this, 
 by to-morroviT. The shortness of the time 
 would, of course, be a test of the supernatural 
 character of the transaction. 
 
 13 . villages] Lit. “inclosures, or court- 
 yards.” . 
 
EXODUS. VIIL 
 
 281 
 
 V. 16 21.] 
 
 16 ^ And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy 
 rod, and smite the dust of the land, 
 that it may become lice throughout 
 all the land of Egypt. 
 
 17 And they did so; for Aaron 
 stretched out his hand with his rod, 
 and smote the dust of the earth, 
 and it became lice in man, and in 
 beast; all the dust of the land be- 
 came lice throughout all the land of 
 Egypt. 
 
 18 And the magicians did so with 
 their enchantments to bring forth lice, 
 but they could not: so there were lice 
 upon man, and upon beast. 
 
 19 Then the magicians said unto 
 Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: 
 
 and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, 
 and he hearkened not unto them; as 
 the Lord had said. 
 
 20 ^ And the Lord said unto 
 Moses, Rise up early in the morning, ^ 
 and stand before Pharaoh ; lo, he 
 cometh forth to the water; and say 
 
 unto him. Thus saith the Lord, Let 
 my people go, that they may serve 
 me. 
 
 21 Else, if thou wilt not let my 
 people go, behold, I will send " swarms n Or, 
 
 of flies upon thee, and upon thy fnfisoZ 
 servants, and upon thy people, and 
 into thy houses : and the houses of 
 the Egyptians shall be full of swarms 
 of flies^ and also the ground whereon 
 they are. 
 
 The Third Plague. 
 
 It is observed by Hebrew commentators 
 that the nine plagues are divided into three 
 groups: distinct warnings are given of the first 
 two plagues in each group ; the third in each is 
 inflicted without any previous notice, the third, 
 Uce^ the sixth, boils^ the ninth, darkness. 
 
 16 . the dust of the land'\ The two pre- 
 ceding plagues fell upon the Nile. This fell 
 on the earth, which was worshipped under 
 the name Seb, its personification, regarded, in 
 the pantheistic system of Egypt, as the father 
 of the gods. See Brugsch, ‘Zeitschrift,’ 1868, 
 p. 123. An especial sacredness was attached 
 to the black fertile soil of the basin of the Nile, 
 called Chemi, from which the ancient name 
 of Egypt is supposed to be derived. 
 
 lice'\ In Hebrew “Kinnim.” The word 
 occurs only in connection with this plague. 
 These insects are generally identified with 
 mosquitos, a plague nowhere greater than in 
 Egypt. They are most troublesome towards 
 October, i.e. soon after the plague of frogs, and 
 are dreaded not only for the pain and annoyance 
 which they cause, but also because they are 
 said to penetrate into the body through the 
 nostrils and ears. Thus the LXX. (cr/cH(j6es'), 
 Philo, and Origen, whose testimony as resi- 
 dents in Egypt is of great weight. The mos- 
 quito net is an indispensable article to Egyptian 
 travellers. There are however some grave 
 objections to this interpretation. Mosquitos 
 are produced in stagnant waters where their 
 larvse are deposited, whereas these kinnim 
 spring from the dust of the earth. The word 
 in our version may be nearer to the original, 
 which is probably Egyptian; see Appendix. 
 Late travellers {e.g. Sir S. Baker) describe the 
 visitation of vermin in very similar terms, “it 
 
 is as though the very dust were turned into 
 lice.” The lice which he describes are a sort 
 of tick, not larger than a grain of sand, which 
 when filled with blood expands to the size of 
 a hazel nut. Saadia renders the word “ lice.” 
 
 17 . ail the dust\ The sense is here ne- 
 cessarily limited : the meaning being, the dust 
 swarmed with lice in every part of the land. 
 
 19 . the fnger of God~\ This expression 
 is thoroughly Egyptian; it need not imply 
 that the magicians recognised Jehovah as the 
 God who wrought the marvel, which they 
 attributed generally to the act of the Deity. 
 They may possibly have referred it to a god 
 hostile to their own protectors, such as Set, or 
 Sutech, the Typhon of later mythology, to 
 whom such calamities were attributed by 
 popular .superstition. 
 
 The Fourth Plague. 
 
 20. cometh forth to the 'njoater'\ See note 
 ch. vii. 15. It is not improbable that on this 
 occasion Pharaoh went to the Nile with a 
 procession in order to open the solemn festi- 
 val, which w^as held 120 days after the first 
 rise, at the end of October or early in No- 
 vember, when the inundation is abating and 
 the first traces of vegetation are seen on the 
 deposit of fresh soil. 
 
 The plague now denounced may be re- 
 garded as connected with the atmosphere, each 
 element in turn being converted into a scourge. 
 The air was an object of worship, personified 
 in the deity Shu, the son of Ra, the sun-god; 
 or in Isis, queen of heaven. 
 
 21. s^joarms of flies'\ The Hebrew has 
 the word “ Arob,” which most of the ancient, 
 and some modern interpreters, understand 
 to mean a mixture of beasts and insects, a sense 
 
282 
 
 EXODUS. VIIL 
 
 [v. 2 2 27. 
 
 22 And I will sever in that day 
 the land of Goshen, in which my 
 people dwell, that no swarms of fies 
 shall be there; to the end thou may- 
 A* est knov/ that I am the Lord in the 
 midst of the earth. 
 
 t Hcb. 23 And I will put ^a division be- 
 tween my people and thy people : " to 
 morrow shall this sign be. 
 
 by to 7nor- a 1 i t ° 1 • 1 1 
 
 rozo. 24 And the Lord did so; and 
 
 b wisd. 16. ^ there came a grievous swarm of fies 
 ^ into the house of Pharaoh, and into 
 
 his servants’ houses, and into all the 
 Egypt: the land was 'cor- 
 rupted by reason of the sv/arm of flies. 
 
 25 ^ And Pharaoh called for 
 Moses and for Aaron, and said. Go 
 ye, sacrifice to your God in the 
 land. 
 
 26 And Moses said. It is not meet 
 so to do; for we shall sacrifice the 
 abomination of the Egyptians to the 
 Lord our God: lo, shall we sacrifice 
 the abomination of the Egyptians be- 
 fore their eyes, and will they not 
 stone us ? 
 
 27 We will go three days’ journey 
 into the wilderness, and sacrifice to 
 
 the Lord our God, as ^he shall com- ^chap. 
 mand us. 
 
 derived from the Arabic “Arab,” “mixed.” 
 (Thus the Vulg., Targ., Saadia, Syr., and 
 Aquila.) It is now, however, more generally 
 supposed that a particular species of fly is de- 
 scribed, the dog-fly {KvvoyzvLa, LXX.), which 
 at certain seasons is described as a far worse 
 plague than mosquitos. The bite is exceedingly 
 sharp and painful, causing severe inflammation, 
 especially in the eyelids. Coming in immense 
 swarms they coverall objectsin black and loath- 
 some masses and attack every exposed part of a 
 travellers person with incredible pertinacity. 
 Some commentators however adopt the opinion 
 of GEdmann, who identifies the species here 
 described with the blatta orientalis, or the 
 kakerlaque, a species of beetle, of which Munk 
 (‘Palestine,’ p. 120) says: “Ceux qui ont 
 voyage sur le Nil savent combien cet in- 
 secte est incommode: les bateaux en sont in- 
 festes, et on les y voit souvent par milliers.” 
 Kalisch quotes passages which prove that they 
 inflict painful bites and consume all sorts of 
 materials. There would be a special fitness 
 in tiiis plague, since the beetle was reverenced 
 by the Egyptians as the symbol of life, of re- 
 productive or creati\e power. No object is 
 more common in hieroglyphics, where it 
 represents the word “cheper,” “to exist,” or 
 “to become.” The sun-god, as creator, bore 
 the name Chepera, and is represented in the 
 form, or with the head, of a beetle. The 
 word “arob,” which occurs nowhere else, 
 moreover bears a very near resemblance to 
 an old Egyptian word, retained in Coptic, 
 which designates a species of beetle. See 
 Brugsch, ‘J). H.’ p. 178, s.v. ‘Abeb.’ 
 
 22. I sever, &c.] This severance con- 
 stituted a specific difference between this and 
 the jJix'ceding plagues. Pharaoh could not of 
 course attribute the exemption of Goshen from 
 a scourge, which fell on the valley of the Nile, to 
 an Egyptian deity, certainly not to Chepera 
 (see the last note), a special object of worship 
 in lower Egypt. 
 
 in the midst] Literally “ heart.” The idiom 
 is common in Hebrew, but there may possibly 
 be an allusion to the Egyptian “heart” used 
 specially to designate lower Egypt. 
 
 25. to your God] Pharaoh now admits 
 the existence and power of the God whom he 
 had professed not to know; but, as Moses is 
 careful to record, he recognises Him only as 
 the national Deity of the Israelites. 
 
 in the land] i.e. In Egypt, not beyond the 
 frontier. 
 
 26. the abomination] The expression may 
 mean either the object of an abominable wor- 
 ship (as Chemosh is called the abomination 
 of Moab, and Moloch the abomination of 
 Ammon, see i Kings xi. 7), or an animal 
 which the Egyptians held it sacrilegious to 
 slay. The latter meaning seems more probable, 
 considering that the words were addressed 
 to Pharaoh. Thus Ros., Knob., but the 
 former meaning is preferred by Bp. Words- 
 worth, and is given by the LXX., Targ., 
 Vulg., and Syr. In either case the ox, bull, 
 or cow, is meant. The cow was never sacri- 
 ficed in Egypt, being sacred to Isis; but as 
 a general rule, no animal vras slaughtered in 
 a district where it represented a local dcit)a 
 Erom a very early age the ox was worshipped 
 throughout Ifgypt, and more especially at 
 Heliopolis and Memphis under various desig- 
 nations, Apis, Mnevis, Amen-Ehe, as the 
 symbol or manifestation of their greatest 
 deities, Osiris, Atum, Ptah, and Isis. 
 
 27. three days' journey] See note on ch. 
 iii. 18. The demand does not refer to a 
 journey to Sinai, which would have oc- 
 cupied much longer time. In the next verse 
 Pharaoh grants the permission, not however 
 without imposing a condition which w'ould 
 have enabled him to take effectual measures to 
 prevent the final emigration of the Israelites. 
 'Efie power of the Pharaohs extended far 
 beyond the frontier, espscially on tlie road to 
 
V. 28 — 8.] 
 
 EXODUS. VIII. IX. 
 
 283 
 
 28 And Pharaoh said, I will let 
 you go, that ye may sacrifice to the 
 Lord your God in the wilderness; 
 only ye shall not go very far away : 
 intreat for me. 
 
 29 And Moses said. Behold, I go 
 out from thee, and I will intreat the 
 Lord that the swarms of flies may 
 depart from Pharaoh, from his ser- 
 vants, and from his people, to mor- 
 row: but let not Pharaoh deal de- 
 ceitfully any more in not letting the 
 people go to sacrifice to the Lord. 
 
 30 And Moses went out from Pha- 
 raoh, and intreated the Lord. 
 
 31 And the Lord did according to 
 the word of Moses ; and he removed 
 the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, 
 from his servants, and from his peo- 
 ple; there remained* not one. 
 
 32 And Pharaoh hardened his heart 
 at this time also, neither would he let 
 the people go. 
 
 CPIAPTER IX. 
 
 I The murrain of beasts. 8 The plague of boils 
 
 a 7 id blahis. 13 This message aboict the hail. 
 
 22 The plague of hail. 27 Pharaoh siieth to 
 
 Moses, 35 but yet is haj'dened. 
 
 T hen the Lord said unto Ado- 
 ses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and 
 
 tell him. Thus saith the Lord God 
 of the Hebrews, Let my people go, 
 that they may serve me. 
 
 2 For if thou refuse to let the?n go, 
 and wilt hold them still, 
 
 3 Behold, the hand of the Lord 
 is upon thy cattle which is in the 
 field, upon the horses, upon the asses, 
 upon the camels, upon the oxen, and 
 upon the sheep: there shall be a very 
 grievous murrain. 
 
 4 And the Lord shall sever be- 
 tween the cattle of Israel and the 
 cattle of Egypt : and there shall no- 
 thing die of all that is the children’s of 
 Israel. 
 
 5 And the Lord appointed a set 
 time, saying. To morrow the Lor.d 
 shall do this thing in the land. 
 
 6 And the Lord did that thing on 
 the morrow, and all the cattle of 
 Egypt died : but of the cattle of the 
 children of Israel died not one. 
 
 7 And Pharaoh sent, and, behold, 
 there was not one of the cattle of 
 the Israelites dead. And the heart 
 of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did 
 not let the people go. 
 
 8 And the Lord said unto A/lo- 
 ses and unto Aaron, Take to vou 
 
 Palestine, which was commanded by fortresses 
 erected by the early sovereigns of the i8th 
 dynasty. 
 
 The Fifth Plague. 
 
 Chap. IX. 3 . a very grievous 7 nurrain\ 
 Or “pestilence;” but the vrord murrain, i.e. a 
 great mortality, exactly expresses the meaning. 
 This terrible visitation struck far more severely 
 than the preceding, which had caused distress 
 and suffering ; it attacked the resources of the 
 nation. The disease does not appear to have 
 been common in ancient times, no distinct 
 notice is found on the monuments, unless it is 
 included, as seems not improbable, under the 
 term “Aat,” which, as M. Chabas shews, 
 applies to the contagious or epidemic pestilence 
 which frequently, as it would almost seem 
 annually, broke out after the subsidence of the 
 inundation; see ‘ Melanges Egyptologiques,’ i. 
 p. 39. Within the last few years the murrain 
 has thrice fallen upon Egypt, in 1842, 1863, and 
 1866 (also 60 years previously); when nearly 
 the whole of the herds have been, destroyed. 
 The disease appears to have been of the same 
 kind as that which lately fell so severely upon 
 
 England. The exact time of the infliction is not 
 mentioned; but in Egypt the cattle are in the 
 fields from December to the end of April, and 
 the disease may have broken out in the form.er 
 month when the cattle were predisposed to it by 
 the change from confinement to the open air, 
 and from old to fresh pastures; a change more 
 dangerous than usual in so exceptional a year. 
 In 1863 the murrain began in November, and 
 was at its height in December. 
 
 the camels'] These animals are only twice 
 mentioned, here and Gen. xii. 16, in connec- 
 tion with Egypt. In this passage the enu- 
 meration of cattle is studiously complete. It 
 is shewn in the Appendix, that though camels 
 are never represented on the monuments, they 
 were known to the Egyptians and were pro- 
 bably used on the frontier bordering on the 
 desert. 
 
 7 . veas hardened] Pharaoh may iiave at- 
 tributed to natural causes both the severity 
 of the plague and even the exemption of the 
 Israelites, a pastoral race well acquainted with 
 all that appertained to the care of cattle; 
 and dwelling in a district probably far more 
 healthy than the rest of lower Egypt. 
 
EXODUS. IX. 
 
 [v. 9 -15.. 
 
 2? I 
 
 handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and 
 let Adoses sprinkle it toward the hea- 
 ven in the sight of Pharaoh. 
 
 9 x\nd it shall become small dust 
 in all the land of Egypt, and shall be 
 a boil breaking forth with blains upon 
 man, and upon beast, throughout all 
 the land of Egypt. 
 
 10 xA.nd they took ashes of the 
 furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; 
 and Adoses sprinkled it up toward 
 heaven; and it became a boil break- 
 ing forth with blains upon man, and 
 upon beast. 
 
 1 1 And the magicians could not 
 stand before Adoses because of the 
 boils ; for the boil was upon the ma- 
 gicians, and upon all the Egyptians. 
 
 12 And the Lord hardened the 
 
 heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened 
 not unto them; "as the Lord had "chap. 4. 
 spoken unto Adoses. 
 
 13 ^1 And the Lord said unto Ado- 
 ses, Rise up early in the morning, and 
 stand before Pharaoh, and say unto 
 him. Thus saith the Lord God of the 
 Hebrews, Let my people go, that 
 they may serve me. 
 
 14 For I will at this time send all 
 my plagues upon thine heart, and 
 upon thy servants, and upon thy 
 people; that thou mayest know that 
 there is none like me in all the 
 earth. 
 
 15 For now I will stretch out my 
 hand, that I may smite thee and thy 
 people with pestilence ; and thou shalt 
 be cut off from the earth. 
 
 The Sixth Plague. 
 
 This marks a distinct advance and change 
 in the character of the visitations, flitherto 
 the Egyptians had not been attacked directly 
 in their own persons. It is the second plague 
 which was not preceded by a demand and 
 warning, probably on account of the peculiar 
 hardness shewn by Pharaoh in reference to the 
 murrain. 
 
 8 . ashes of the furnace'] The Hebrew word 
 occurs only in the Pentateuch, and is proba- 
 bly of Egyptian origin. The act was evidently 
 symbolical ; the ashes were to be sprinkled 
 towards heaven, challenging, so to speak, the 
 Egyptian Deities, and specially it may be Neit, 
 who bore the designation “The Great Mother 
 Queen of highest heaven,” and was wor- 
 shij)])ed as tlie tutelary Goddess of lower 
 Egypt. I'here may possibly be a reference to 
 an Egyptian custom of scattering to the 
 winds ashes of victims offered to Sutech, or 
 'Eyphon. Human sacrifices said to have been 
 offered at Heliopolis under the Shepherd 
 dynasty were abolished by Amosis I., but 
 some jiart of the rite may have been retained, 
 and the memory of the old superstition would 
 give a terrible significance to the act. Thus 
 Purder, Haivcrnick and Kurtz. 
 
 9. a boil breaking forth (with blains] The 
 word rendered boil is derived from “burn- 
 ing inflammation,” and is used elsewhere of 
 plague-boils; of tlie leprosy, and elephantiasis. 
 See IDeut. xxviii. 27 , and .^ 5 , which may specially 
 refer to this passage. Here it means probably 
 a burning tumour or carbuncle breaking out 
 in pustulous ulcers. Cutaneous eruptions of 
 extieine severity arc common in the valley of 
 the Nile, some bearing a near resemblance to 
 
 the symptoms described in this passage. The 
 date is not marked. It was probably soon 
 after the last plague. In an old Egyptian 
 calendar m.ention is made of severe contagious 
 diseases in December, Pap. Sail. IV. The 
 analogy of natural law is still preserved, the 
 miracle consisting in the severity of the plague 
 and its direct connection with the act of 
 Moses. 
 
 11 . This verse seem.s to imply that the ma- 
 gicians now formally gave way and confessed 
 their defeat. 
 
 The Seventh Plague. 
 
 13 — 34. The plague of hail: with this 
 begins the last series of plagues, which differ 
 from the former both in their severity and 
 their effects. Each produced a temporary, 
 but real change in Pharaoh’s feelings. 
 
 14. all my plagues] This applies to 
 all the plagues which follow ; the effect of 
 each was foreseen and foretold. The words 
 “at this time” are understood by some to limit 
 the application to the plague of hail, but they 
 point more probably to a rapid and continu- 
 ous succession of blows. The plagues which 
 precede appear to have been spread over a 
 considerable time ; the first message of Moses 
 was delivered after the early harvest of the 
 year before, when the Israelites could gather 
 stubble, i.e. in April and May: the second 
 mission, when the plagues began, was proba- 
 bly towards the end of June, and they went 
 on at intervals until the winter; this plague 
 was in Eebruary; see note on 'v. 31 . 
 
 15. For noav, &c.] This verse (as scholars 
 are agreed,- Rosenmiiller, Ewald, Knobel, 
 Keil) should be rendered thus: For now in- 
 
V. 1 6 — 27.] 
 
 EXODUS. IX. 
 
 285 
 
 * Rom. 9. 16 And in very deed for ‘^’this 
 
 ?Heb. cause have I Uaised thee up, for to 
 
 shew zVz thee my power; and that my 
 name may be declared throughout all 
 the earth. 
 
 17 As yet exaltest thou thyself 
 against my people, that thou wilt not 
 let them go ? 
 
 18 Behold, to morrow about this 
 time I will cause it to rain a very 
 grievous hail, such as hath not been 
 in Egypt since the foundation thereof 
 even until nov/. 
 
 19 Send therefore now, and gather 
 thy cattle, and all that thou hast in 
 the field ; for upon every man and 
 beast which shall be found in the field, 
 and shall not be brought home, the 
 hail shall come down upon them, and 
 they shall die. 
 
 20 He that feared the word of the 
 Lord among the servants of Pharaoh 
 made his servants and his cattle flee 
 into the houses : 
 
 l-nwi/u's Regarded not the 
 
 lieartu7iio. word of the Lord left his servants 
 and his cattle in the field. 
 
 22 ^ And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Stretch forth thine hand toward 
 heaven, that there may be hail in all 
 the land of Egypt, upon man, and 
 upon beast, and upon every herb of 
 the field, throughout the land of Egypt. 
 
 23 And Moses stretched forth his 
 rod toward heaven: and the Lord 
 sent thunder and hail, and the fire 
 ran along upon the ground; and the 
 Lord rained hail upon the land of 
 Egypt.^ 
 
 24 So there was hail, and fire min- 
 gled v/ith the hail, very grievous, such 
 as there was none like it in all the 
 land of Egypt since it became a nation. 
 
 25 And the hail smote throughout 
 all the land of Egypt all that was in 
 the field, both man and beast; and 
 the hail smote every herb of the field, 
 and brake every tree of the field. 
 
 26 Only in the land of Goshen, 
 where the children of Israel were^ was 
 there no hail. 
 
 27 ^ And Pharaoh sent, and called 
 for Moses and Aaron, and said unto 
 them, I have sinned this time : the 
 
 deed had I stretched forth my hand 
 and smitten thee and thy people with 
 the pestilence then hadst thou been 
 cut off from the earth. The next verse 
 gives the reason why God had not thus in- 
 (iicted a summary punishment once for all. 
 
 16. hu’ve I raised thee up\ The margin 
 made thee stand is correct: the mean- 
 ing is, not that God raised Pharaoh to a posi- 
 tion of rank and power, but that he kept him 
 standing, i.e. permitted him to live and hold 
 out until His own purpose was accomplished. 
 
 18. a ‘very grie'vous hail'\ This verse dis- 
 tinctly states that tfle miracle consisted in the 
 magnitude of the infliction and in its imme- 
 diate connection with the act of Moses. 
 Travellers in lower Egypt speak of storms 
 of snow, thunder and lightning in the winter 
 months; and Seetzen and Willman (quoted 
 by Knobel) describe storms of thunder and 
 hail in March. A friend (Rev. T. H. Tooke) 
 describes a storm of extreme severity, which 
 lasted 24 hours, in the middle of February, 
 at Benihassan. The natives spoke of it as 
 not uncommon at that season. 
 
 19. thy cattle] In Egypt the cattle are 
 sent to pasture in the open country from Ja- 
 nuary to April, when the grass is abundant ; 
 
 see note on -z;. 3 . They are kept in stalls the 
 rest of the year. The word “gather” does 
 not exactly express the meaning of the ori- 
 ginal, “cause to flee,” i.e. bring them rapidly 
 under cover. 
 
 20 . the msord of the Lord] This gives 
 the first indication that the warnings had a 
 salutary effect upon the Egyptians. See ch. 
 xi. 3 . 
 
 22 . in all the land of Egypt] The stonus 
 described above fell on lower Egypt : the ex- 
 pression here may imply that this extended 
 to the upper valley of the Nile, but it is pos- 
 sible that the land of Mizraim is used specially 
 to designate the Delta and the adjoining dis- 
 trict. 
 
 23 . and the fire ran along upon the ground] 
 The expression is peculiar (literally “ fire 
 walked earthwards”), and appears to describe 
 a succession of flashes mingled with the hail : 
 our Authorised Version seems to present a true 
 and graphic account of the phenomenon. 
 
 25. smote] The words imply heavy da- 
 mage both to herbs and trees, but not total 
 destruction : the loss however must have been 
 enormous. 
 
 27. this time] i.e. I acknowledge now 
 that I have sinned. 
 
286 
 
 EXODUS. IX. X. 
 
 [v. 28 1. 
 
 Lord is righteous, and I and my people 
 are wicked. 
 
 28 Intreat the Lord (for it is 
 t Heb. enough) that there be no more ^ mighty 
 
 of thunderings and hail ; and I will let 
 you go, and ye shall stay no longer. 
 
 29 And Moses said unto him, As 
 soon as I am gone out of the city, I 
 will spread abroad my hands unto the 
 Lord ; are/ the thunder shall cease, 
 neither shall there be any more hail ; 
 that thou mayest know how that the 
 
 fPsai. 24. ^earth is the Lord’s. 
 
 30 But as for thee and thy servants, 
 I know that ye will not yet fear the 
 Lord God. 
 
 31 And the flax and the barley was 
 smitten : for the barley zaas in the 
 ear, and the flax was boiled. 
 
 32 But the wheat and the rie were 
 » Heb. not smitten : for they were ^ not grown 
 
 hiddeti^ or, ^ ° 
 
 dark. up. 
 
 33 And Moses went out of the city 
 
 from Pharaoh, and spread abroad his 
 hands unto the Lord : and the thun- 
 ders and hail ceased, and the rain was 
 not poured upon the earth. 
 
 34 And when Pharaoh saw that 
 the rain and the hail and the thunders 
 
 were ceased, he sinned yet more, and 
 hardened his heart, he and his servants. 
 
 35 And the heart of Pharaoh v/as 
 hardened, neither would he let the 
 children of Israel go; as the Lord 
 had spoken ^by Moses. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 I God threatenetk to scud locusts. ^Pharaoh, 
 viovcd by his servants., inclineth to let the 
 Israelites go. 12 The flagiie of the locusts. 
 16 Pharaoh sucth to Moses. 21 The plagite 
 of darkness. 24 Pharaoh sueth unto Moses, 
 27 bict yet is hardened. 
 
 t Heb. 
 by the 
 hand of 
 Moses. 
 
 AND the Lord said unto Moses, 
 
 Go in unto Pharaoh: for «I^^chap.4 
 have hardened his heart, and the heart 
 of his servants, that I might shew 
 these my signs before him : 
 
 the Lord'] Thus for the first time Pharaoh 
 explicitly recognizes Jehovah as God. 
 
 28 . for it is enough] The Authorised Ver- 
 sion is not literal, but it probably expresses 
 the meaning of the original, which is some- 
 what obscure, and it is much, i.e. enough, 
 that there should be voices of God (thunder- 
 ings) and hail, no more are needed nov.\ 
 
 29 . the earth is the Lords] This de- 
 claration has a direct reference to Egyptian 
 superstition. Each God was held to have 
 special power within a given district; Pharaoh 
 had learned that Jehovah was a God, he was 
 now to admit that his power extended over 
 the whole earth. The unity and universality 
 of the Divine power are tenets distinctly pro- 
 mulgated in the Pentateuch, and though occa- 
 sionally recognized in ancient Egyptian docu- 
 ments {e.g. in the early copies of the 17th 
 chapter of the Funeral Ritual under the nth 
 dynasty), were overlaid at a very early period 
 by systems alternating between Polytheism and 
 Pantheism. 
 
 31 . the fax eivas boiled] i.e. in blos- 
 som. d'his is a point of great importance. 
 It marks the time. In the north of Egypt 
 the barley ri[)ens and (lax blossoms about the 
 middle of Febru.ary, or at the latest early in 
 March, and both arc gathered in before April, 
 when the wheat harvest begins (Forskal and 
 Seetzen ap. Knobel). 'Fhe cultivation of flax 
 must have Ixx'U of gr(*at importance; linen 
 was preferred to any material and exclusively 
 
 used by the priests. It is frequently men- 
 tioned on Egyptian monuments. Four kinds 
 are noted by Pliny (xix. i) as used in Egypt, 
 fie makes special mention of Tanis, i.e. Zoan, 
 as one of the places famous for flax. The 
 texture was remarkably fine, in general qua- 
 lity equal to the best now made, and for the 
 evenness of the threads, without knot or break, 
 superior to any of modern manufacture. Wil- 
 kinson on Herod, ii. c. 37, p. 54. 
 
 32 . rie] Rather spelt, triticum spelta, the 
 common food of the ancient Egyptians, now 
 called doora by the natives: the only grain, 
 according to Wilkinson (on Herod, ii. c. 36), 
 represented on the sculptures : the name how- 
 ever occurs on the monuments very frequently 
 in combination with other species. See Brugsch, 
 ‘D. H.’p. 442. 
 
 34 . hardened] Different words are used 
 in this and the following verse: here the word 
 means “heavy,” i.e. obtuse, incapable of 
 forming a right judgment; the other, which 
 is more frequently used in this narrative, is 
 stronger and implies a stubborn resolution. 
 The LXX. render the former word efSapuye, 
 the latter laKXrjpvudr). The other old Versions 
 mark the distinction with equal clearness. 
 
 The Eighth Plague. 
 
 Chap. X. 1 — 20 . 1 ha-ve hardened] Lite- 
 rally “made heavy.” This state of mind, 
 though judicial, may be accounted for psy- 
 chologically by the fact that the corn, 10 
 
V, 2 8.] 
 
 EXODUS. X. 
 
 287 
 
 2 And that thou mayest tell in the 
 ears of thy son, and of thy son’s son, 
 what things I have wrought in Egypt, 
 and my signs which I have done among 
 them ; that ye may know how that I 
 arn the Lord. 
 
 3 And Moses and Aaron came in 
 unto Pharaoh, and said unto him. Thus 
 saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, 
 How long wilt thou refuse to humble 
 thyself before me ? let my people go, 
 that they may serve me. 
 
 4 Else, if thou refuse to let my 
 people go, behold, to morrow wrll I 
 
 rwisd. bring the ^locusts into thy coast: 
 
 ? lieb eye. 5 covct the ^ face 
 
 of the earth, that one cannot be able 
 to see the earth : and they shall eat 
 the residue of that which is escaped, 
 
 which remaineth unto you from the 
 hail, and shall eat every tree which 
 groweth for you out of the field : 
 
 6 And they shall fill thy houses, 
 and the houses of all thy servants, and 
 the houses of all the Egyptians ; which 
 neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers’ 
 fathers have seen, since the day that 
 they were upon the earth unto this 
 day. And he turned himself, and went 
 out fromi Pharaoh. 
 
 7 And Pharaoh’s servants said unto 
 him. How long shall this man be a 
 snare unto us? let the men go, that 
 they may serve the Lord their God : 
 knowest thou ; not yet that Egypt is 
 destroyed ? 
 
 8 And Moses and Aaron were 
 brought again unto Pharaoh : and he 
 
 which he and his people attached most im- 
 portance had been spared in the visitation. 
 The word “I” is emphatic, equivalent to 
 “as for me I have,” &c. 
 
 2. thou\ Moses is addressed as the re- 
 presentative of Israel. 
 
 eivrought\ The Hebrew word is not very 
 commonly used. It implies an action which 
 brings shame and disgrace upon its objects, 
 making them, so to speak, playthings of di- 
 vine power (bbynn, LXX. eixTrenaixa). Ges. 
 
 ‘ Thes.’ interprets it with reference to i Sam. 
 xxxi. 4, “animum explevit illudendo,” which 
 appears to be the true meaning in this passage, 
 as in most others. 
 
 4 . the locust s\ The locust is less cqm- 
 mon in Egypt than in many eastern countries, 
 yet it is well known, and dreaded as the most 
 terrible of scourges. In the papyrus Anast. 
 V. p. 10, it is mentioned as a common enemy 
 of the husbandmen. Niebuhr and Forskal wit- 
 nessed two visitations; Tischendorf describes 
 one of unusual extent in March which covered 
 the whole country : they come generally from 
 the western deserts, but sometimes from the 
 east and the south-east. Denon saw an enor- 
 mous cloud of locusts in May, which came 
 from the east, settling upon every blade of 
 grass, and after destroying the vegetation of a 
 district passing on to another. No less than 
 nine names are given to the locust in the Bible, 
 the word here used is the most common; it 
 signifies “multitudinous,” and whenever it 
 occurs reference is made to its terrible devas- 
 tations. See notes on Leviticus xi. 12. 
 
 5 . the facel Literally “ the eye of the 
 earth,” alluding doubtless to the darkness when, 
 as Olivier describes it, “the whole atmosphere 
 
 is filled on all sides and to a great height by 
 an innumerable quantity of these insects — in 
 a moment all the fields are covered by them.” 
 
 shall eat euery tree~\ Not only the leaves, 
 but the branches and even the wood are at- 
 tacked and devoured. Pliny says, xi. 29, 
 “ omnia morsu erodentes et fores quoque tec- 
 torum.” The Egyptians were passionately 
 fond of trees; in hieroglyphics one of the 
 most ancient names of Egypt is “the land of 
 the sycomore:” see De Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ 
 p. 80, under the 5th dynasty; Saneha, i.e. 
 “son of the sycomore,” is found as a name 
 given to a court favourite under the 12th dy- 
 nasty. The widow of Thotmes 11 . a few 
 years after his death, imported a large numiber 
 of trees from Arabia Felix; a singular coin- 
 cidence if, as seems probable, that was the 
 date of the Exodus. See Duemichen’s ‘ Fleet 
 of an Egyptian Queen.’ 
 
 6. fill thy houses'] The terraces, courts, 
 and even the inner apartments are said to be 
 filled in a moment by a locust storm. Cf. 
 Joel ii. 9. 
 
 7 . Pharaoh's ser-vants] This marks a very 
 considerable advance in the transaction. For 
 the first time the officers of Pharaoh inteiwene 
 before the scourge is inflicted, shewing at once 
 their belief in the threat, and their special 
 terror of the infliction. Pharaoh also for the 
 first time takes measures to prevent the evil; 
 he does not indeed send for Moses and Aaron, 
 but he permits them to be brought into his 
 presence. 
 
 let the men go] i. e. the men only, not all 
 tlie people ; the officers assumed that the women 
 and children would remain as hostages, and 
 Pharaoh was now ready to consent to the 
 proposal so limited. 
 
288 
 
 EXODUS. X. [v. 9 — 19. 
 
 ♦Heb. 
 who and 
 who, &c. 
 
 said unto them, Go, serve the Lord 
 your God: but Evho are they that 
 shall go? 
 
 9 And Moses said, W e will go with 
 our young and with our old, with our 
 sons and with our daughters, with 
 our flocks and with our herds will we 
 0-0 : for we 7 nust hold a feast unto the 
 
 O ^ 
 
 Lord. 
 
 10 And he said unto them, Let the 
 Lord be so with you, as I will let you 
 go, and your little ones : look to it; 
 for evil is before you. 
 
 11 Not so: go nov/ ye that are 
 men, and serve the Lord; for that 
 ye did desire. And they were driven 
 out from Pharaoh’s presence. 
 
 12 HI And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Stretch out thine hand over the 
 land of Egypt for the locusts, that 
 they may come up upon the land 
 of Egypt, and eat every herb of 
 the land, even all that the hail hath 
 left. 
 
 13 And Moses stretched forth his 
 rod over the land of Egypt, and the 
 Lord brought an east v/ind upon the 
 land all that day, and all that night ; 
 
 and when it v/as morning, the east 
 wind brought the locusts. 
 
 14 And the locusts went up over 
 all the land of Egypt, and rested in 
 all the coasts of Egypt : very grievous 
 were they; before them there were no 
 such locusts as they, neither after 
 them shall be such. 
 
 15 For they covered the face of the 
 whole earth, so that the land was 
 darkened; and they did eat every herb 
 of the land, and all the fruit of the 
 trees which the hail had left: and 
 there remained not any green thing 
 in the trees, or ‘in the herbs of the 
 field, through all the land of Egypt. 
 
 16 HI Then Pharaoh Tailed for t Heb. 
 Moses and Aaron in haste ; and he iTcali. 
 said, I have sinned against the Lord 
 your God, and against you. 
 
 17 Now therefore forgive, I pray 
 thee, my sin only this once, and in- 
 treat the Lord your God, that he may 
 take away from me this death only. 
 
 18 And he went out from Pharaoh, 
 and intreated the Lord. 
 
 19 And the Lord turned a mighty 
 strong west wind, which took away 
 
 9 . ^^vitb our youngs &c.] The demand was 
 not contrary to Egyptian usage, as great festi- 
 vals were kept by the v*^hole population : see 
 Herod, ii. 58 , “the numbers who attend (J.e. 
 the festival at Bubastis) counting only the 
 men and women, and omitting the children, 
 amounted, according to the native reports, 
 to seven hundred thousand.” 
 
 10. e-vil is before yoii\ The meaning is 
 ambiguous. It may be a threat, but most 
 commentators (LXX., Vulg., Rosen., Kno- 
 bel, &c.) render it, “for your intentions are 
 evil,” and this doubtless expresses the exact 
 motive of the king: great as the possible in- 
 fliction might be, he held it to be a less evil 
 than the loss of so large a population. 
 
 13. an east ^Mind'] Moses is careful to record 
 the natural and usual cause of the evil, porten- 
 tous as it was in its extent, and in its connec- 
 tion with his denouncement. The east wind 
 sometimes brings locusts into Egypt, see note 
 on 'V. 4 , nor is there any reason for departing 
 from the common meaning of the word which 
 is given in the Authorised Version. 
 
 14. ^vent ?//>] The expression is exact 
 and graphic ; at a distance the locusts ap- 
 pear hanging, as it were, like a heavy cloud 
 
 over the land ; as they approach they seem to 
 rise, and they fill the atmosphere overhead on 
 their arrival. 
 
 o'ver all the land~\ The expression may be 
 taken in the broadest sense. Accounts are 
 given by Major Moore of a cloud of locusts 
 extending over 500 miles, and so compact 
 while on the wing that, like an eclipse, it com- 
 pletely hid the sun. Brown states (‘Travels in 
 Africa’), that an area of nearly two thousand 
 scjuare miles was literally covered by them. 
 This passage describes a swarm unprecedented 
 in extent. 
 
 17. this death only~\ Pliny calls locusts 
 “Pestis irae Deorum,” a pestilence brought 
 on by divine wrath. Pharaoh now recognizes 
 the justice of his servants’ apprehensions, 'v. 7 . 
 
 19. ^cvest <^vind'] Literally “a sea wind,” 
 which in Palestine of course is from the west : 
 but in this passage it may, and probably does, 
 denote a wind blowing from the sea on the 
 north-west of Egypt. A direct westerly wind 
 would come from the Lybian desert and be 
 far less effectual than one rushing transversely 
 over the whole surface of lower Egypt (which 
 was doubtless the main centre of the visita- 
 tion), and driving the locusts into the Red 
 
V. 20 2 9- 
 
 EXODUS. X. 
 
 289 
 
 tHeb. the locusts, and ^cast them into the 
 fastened, , there remained not one 
 
 locust in all the coasts of Egypt. 
 
 20 But the Lord hardened Pha- 
 raoh’s heart, so that he would not let 
 the children of Israel go. 
 
 21 And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Stretch out thine hand toward 
 heaven, that there may be darkness 
 
 tHeb. over the land of Egypt, ^even dark- 
 
 tJiat one L V. C 
 
 may feel ness which may be relt. 
 dar/:ness. Moses Stretched forth his 
 
 hand toward heaven j and ther^ was 
 a thick darkness in all the land of 
 Egypt three days: 
 
 23 They saw not one another, nei- 
 ther rose any from his place for three 
 
 ^wisd. 18. days : '^but all the children of Israel 
 had li^t in their dwellings. 
 
 24 ^ And Pharaoh called unto 
 Moses, and said. Go ye, serve the 
 Lord; only let your flocks and your 
 
 herds be stayed : let your little ones 
 also go with you. 
 
 25 And Moses said. Thou must 
 give ^us also sacrifices and burnt I ^eb. 
 
 ° . . . f. into our 
 
 offerings, that we may sacrifice unto hands. 
 the Lord our God. 
 
 26 Our cattle also shall go with 
 us ; there shall not an hoof be left 
 behind; for thereof must we take to 
 serve the Lord our God ; and we 
 know not with what we must serve 
 the Lord, until we come thither. 
 
 27 ^ But the Lord hardened Pha- 
 raoh’s heart, and he would not let 
 them go. 
 
 28 And Pharaoh said unto him. 
 
 Get thee from me, take heed to thy- 
 self, see my face no more ; for in that 
 day thou seest my face thou shalt die. 
 
 29 And Moses said. Thou hast 
 spoken well, I will see thy face again 
 no more. 
 
 Sea. The rendering “cast” in the text is 
 preferable to that in the margin ; the Hebrew 
 Avord means to drive in by a sharp stroke or 
 blow. 
 
 Red sea] The Hebrew has the Sea of Siiph: 
 the exact meaning of Suph is disputed. Gese- 
 nius renders it “rush” or “sea- weed;” but it 
 is probably an Egyptian word. A sea-weed 
 resembling wool is thrown up abundantly on 
 the shores of the Red Sea. The origin of the 
 modern name is uncertain. The Egyptians 
 • called it the sea of Punt, i.e. of Arabia. The 
 sudden and complete disappearance of the 
 locusts, generally effected by a strong wind 
 (gregatim siiblatas vento in maria aut stagna 
 decidunt, Plin. ‘ H. N.’ xi. 35), is a pheno- 
 menon scarcely less remarkable than their 
 coming ; the putrefaction of such immense 
 masses not unfrequently causes a terrible pesti- 
 lence near the coasts of the sea into which 
 they fall. 
 
 The Ninth Plague. 
 
 21. darkness] This infliction was specially 
 calculated to affect the spirits of the Egyp- 
 tians, whose chief object of worship was Ra, 
 the Sun-god, and its suddenness and severity 
 in connection with the act of Moses mark it 
 as a preternatural withdrawal of light. Yet 
 it has an analogy in physical phenomena. 
 After the vernal equinox the south-west wind 
 from the desert blows some fifty days, see 
 note on v. 12, not however continuously but 
 at intervals, lasting generally ’some two or three 
 days. (Thus Lane, Willman and others 
 VOL. I. 
 
 quoted by Knobel.) It fills the atmosphere 
 with dense masses of fine sand, bringing on 
 a darkness far deeper than that of our worst 
 fogs in winter. While it lasts no man “ rises 
 from his place; men and beasts hide them- 
 selves: people shut themselves up in the in- 
 nennost apartments or vaults.” “So satu- 
 rated is the air with the sand that it seems 
 to lose its transparency, so that artificial light 
 is of little use.” The expression “even dark- 
 ness which might be felt,” has a special ap- 
 plication to a darkness produced by such a 
 cause. The consternation of Pharaoh proves 
 that, familiar as he may have been with the 
 phenomenon, no previous occurrence had 
 prepared him for its intensity and duration, 
 and that he recognized it as a supernatural 
 visitation. The rendering, which has been 
 questioned, is correct, LXX. \lnj\a<pr]T 6 v 
 (TKuros-, Vulg. tarn densce ut palpari queant. 
 Thus Rosen., Maurer, Knobel, &c. 
 
 23. kad light in their d^iveUings] The 
 sandstonn, if such were the cause, may not 
 have extended to the district of Goshen ; but 
 the expression clearly denotes a miraculous 
 intei*vention, whether accomplished or not by 
 natural agencies. 
 
 24. your flocks and your herds] Pharaoh 
 still exacts what would of course be a complete 
 security for their return : but the demand was 
 wholly incompatible with the object assigned 
 for the journey into the wilderness. Every 
 gradation in the yielding of Pharaoh and in 
 the demands of Moses is distinctly noted: but 
 it should be observed that these do not yet 
 
 T 
 
 
EXODUS. XI. 
 
 [v. 1—4. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 1 God'‘s message to the Israelites to borrow 
 je'wcls of their neighboitrs. 4 Moses threaten- 
 eth Pharaoh with the death of the firstborn. 
 
 AND the Lord said unto Moses, 
 Yet will I bring one plague 
 more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt ; 
 afterwards he will let you go hence : 
 when he shall let you go, he shall 
 surely thrust you out hence altogether. 
 
 2 Speak now in the ears of the 
 people, and let every man borrow of 
 
 his neighbour, and every woman of 
 her neighbour, "jewels of silver, and « chap. 3. 
 jewels of gold. & 12. 35- 
 
 3 And the Lord gave the people 
 favour in the sight of the Egyptians. 
 Moreover the man Moses was very ^.Eccius. 
 great in the land of Egypt, in the 
 sight of Pharaoh’s servants, and in the 
 sight of the people. 
 
 4 And Moses said. Thus saith the 
 Lord, ^ About midnight will I go out ^chap. 12. 
 into the midst of Egypt : 
 
 extend to a permission to emigrate from the 
 country. Had Pharaoh even then yielded he 
 could have taken measures to compel them to 
 come back, a result only at last rendered im- 
 possible by the destruction of the whole army 
 stationed on the frontier of lower Egypt. 
 
 Chap. XI. 1. the Lord said'\ Or “the 
 Lord had said.” Commentators generally 
 agree that the first three verses of this chapter 
 are parenthetical. The most probable account 
 of their insertion m this place appears to be 
 that, before Moses relates the last warning 
 given to Pharaoh, he feels it right to recall to 
 his readers’ minds the revelation and command 
 which had been previously given to him by 
 the Lord. Thus Aben-Ezra, who proposes 
 the rendering “had said,” which is adopted 
 by Rosenmiiller, Keil, Kalisch, Ranke, Smith 
 (‘Pentateuch,’ pp. 557 — 560), who com- 
 pletely disposes of the objections of German 
 and English critics. No grammatical objec- 
 tion is made to this construction, which is 
 common in the Old Testament and belongs 
 to the simple and inartificial style of the 
 Pentateuch. The command may have been 
 given immediately before the last intei-view with 
 Pharaoh ; such repetition when a work is on 
 the eve of accomplishment is customary in 
 Holy Writ. Here it accounts “both for the 
 confidence with which Moses, remembering 
 the words of Jehovah, had just told the king 
 that he would no more see his face, and for 
 the prediction which immediately follows, that 
 Pharaoh’s court would come humbly to en- 
 treat him to depart.” Smith, /. c. 
 
 <whcn he shall let you go., &c.] The original is 
 obsfiure, but it may probably be rendered when 
 heletsyougo altogether he will surely 
 thrust you out hence; see note below. 
 The meaning is, when at last he lets you de- 
 part with children, flocks, herds, and all your 
 possessions, he will compel you to depart in 
 haste. 'Phis part of the command is important, 
 as shewing that Moses was already aware that 
 the last plague would be followed by an im- 
 mediate departure, and, therefore, that mea- 
 sures had probably Ixx'n taken to prepare the 
 
 Israelites for the journey. In fact on each 
 occasion when Pharaoh relented for a season, 
 immediate orders would of course be issued 
 by Moses to the heads of the people, who 
 were thus repeatedly brought into a state of 
 more or less complete organization for the 
 final movement. See Introduction. 
 
 2. eojery ma}i\ In ch. iii. 2% women only 
 were named; the command is more explicit 
 when the time is come for its execution. 
 
 borroqju'] Or “demand.” See note on ch. 
 iii. 22. 
 
 3. ga-ve the people fa'vour'\ See note on 
 iii. 22. 
 
 Moreoojer the man Moses <u)af •very greaf 
 No objection would have been taken to this 
 statement had it been found in any other 
 book. It does not assert, however, what was 
 perfectly true, that Moses was a great man by 
 reason of personal qualifications, but that he 
 was great in the estimation of Pharaoh, of his 
 servants, and of all the Egyptians. This has^ 
 a very important bearing upon the narrative,* 
 shewing the effect produced upon the Egyp- 
 tians by the previous visitations, and by the 
 conduct of Moses, especially by the care he 
 had taken to warn them, and, so far as was 
 practicable, to save them from suffering. See 
 ch. ix. 19, 20. It accounts for their ready 
 compliance with the demand of the Israelites. 
 God gave them a kindly feeling, by an in- 
 ward act, not changing their nature, but 
 eliciting their better feelings, the sense of obli- 
 gation, and gratitude for benefits which Dio- 
 dorus specially mentions as a characteristic of 
 the Egyptians. The reasons above assigned 
 appear sufficient to account for the intro- 
 duction of these verses, which undoubtedly 
 interrupt the narrative; but there would be no 
 objection in point of principle to the sup- 
 position that they may have been inserted 
 either by Moses at a later period, when he 
 probably put together and revised the detached 
 portions of the books; or by one of his younger 
 contemporaries, who must have been equally 
 conversant with the facts, and aware of the 
 
V. 5— IO-] 
 
 EXODUS. XI. 
 
 291 
 
 5 And all the firstborn in the land 
 of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn 
 of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, 
 even unto -the firstborn of the maid- 
 servant that is behind the mill ; and 
 all the firstborn of beasts. 
 
 6 And there shall be a great cry 
 throughout all the land of Egypt, 
 such as there was none like it, nor 
 shall be like it any more. 
 
 7 But against any of the children 
 of Israel shall not a dog move his 
 tongue, against man or beast : that 
 ye may know how that the Lord 
 doth put a difference between the 
 Egyptians and Israel. 
 
 8 And all these thy servants shall 
 come down unto me, and bow down 
 themselves unto me, saying. Get thee 
 out, and all the people ^ that follow 
 
 thee : and after that I will go out. t/iy /eel!' 
 And he went out from Pharaoh in ^ a + Heb. 
 
 , heat 0/ 
 
 great anger. a7tgcr. 
 
 9 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; 
 that my wonders may be multiplied 
 in the land of Egypt. 
 
 10 And Moses and Aaron did all 
 these wonders before Pharaoh : and 
 the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, 
 so that he would not let the children 
 of Israel go out of his land. 
 
 importance of the statement in its bearings 
 upon the whole transaction. 
 
 4 . And Moses said^ The following words 
 must be read in immediate connection with 
 the last verse of the preceding chapter. It is 
 not there stated that Moses left the presence of 
 Pharaoh ; this passage tells us what took place 
 after his declaration that this would be his last 
 interview. 
 
 About midnight'] This marks the hour, but 
 not the day, on which the visitation would 
 ta-ke place. There may have been, and pro- 
 bably was, an inteiwal of some days, during 
 which preparations might be made both for 
 the celebration of the Passover, and the de- 
 parture of the Israelites: in the meantime 
 Egypt remained under the shadow of the 
 menace. ’ 
 
 5 . the firstborn] Two points are to be 
 noticed: i. The extent of the visitation : the 
 whole land suffers in the persons of its first- 
 born, not merely for the guilt of the sovereign, 
 but for the actual participation of the people 
 in the crime of infanticide. 2, The limitation. 
 
 Pharaoh’s command had been to slay all the 
 male children of the Israelites, one child only 
 in each Egyptian family was to die. If Thot- 
 mes II, was the Pharaoh (see Appendix) the 
 visitation fell with special severity on his 
 family. He left no son, but was succeeded by 
 his widow’. 
 
 the mill] The mill used by the Israelites, 
 and probably by the Egyptians, consisted of 
 two circular stones, one fixed in the ground, 
 the other turned by a handle. The work of 
 grinding was extremely laborious, and per- 
 formed by women of the lowest rank. 
 
 firstborn ofi beasts] This visitation has a 
 peculiar force in reference to the worship of 
 beasts, which was universal in Egypt; each 
 nome having its owm sacred animal, adored as 
 a manifestation or representative of the local 
 tutelary deity. 
 
 8. in great anger] Or in heat of anger, 
 as in the margin. 
 
 9, 10. These tw^o verses refer to the whole 
 preceding narrative, and mark the close of one 
 principal division of the book. 
 
 NOTE on a*. I. 
 
 The force of the word appears to 
 
 have, been overlooked by our translators, w^ho 
 misplace it, as also by the Vulgate, which 
 takes no notice of it. The Targum of Onke- 
 los renders it correctly The LXX. 
 
 dvv TTavrl: the Syriac less accurately, “all of 
 you.” It reads also in both clauses, “ I will 
 dismiss you.” The Arabic forcibly and cor- 
 rectly 11^^. 
 
 r2 
 
292 
 
 EXODUS. XII. 
 
 [''• I— 5- 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 I The beginning of the year is changed. 3 The 
 fassover is instituted, i r The rite of the 
 passover. 15 Ujileavened bread. •29 The 
 firstborn are slain. 31 The Israelites are 
 driven out of the land. 37 They come to 
 Succoth. 43 The ordinance of the passover. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses 
 ]f\_ and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 
 saying, 
 
 2 This month shall be unto you 
 the beginning of months : it shall be 
 the first month of the year to you. 
 
 3 ^ Speak ye unto all the congre- 
 
 gation of Israel, saying. In the tenth 
 day of this month they shall take to 
 them every man a “ lamb, according “ On 
 to the house of their fathers, a lamb 
 for an house : 
 
 4 And if the household be too little 
 for the lamb, let him and his neierh- 
 
 ’ . ^ to 
 
 hour next unto his house take it ac- 
 cording to the number of the souls; 
 every man according to his eating 
 shall make your count for the lamb. 
 
 5 Your lamb shall be without t Heb.. 
 blemish, a male Tf the first year: 
 
 Chap. XI I. 1. in the land of Egypt\ It 
 seems evident that this verse, and consequently 
 the rest of the chapter, was written some time 
 after the Exodus, probably when Moses put 
 together the portions of the book towards the 
 end of his life. The statements that these in- 
 structions were given in the land of Egypt, 
 and that they were given to Moses and Aaron, 
 are important: the one marks the peculiar 
 dignity of this ordinance, which was established 
 before the Sinaitic code, the other marks the 
 distinction between Moses and Aaron and all 
 other prophets. They alone, as Aben-Ezra 
 observes, were prophets of the Law, i.e. no 
 law was promulgated by any other prophets. 
 
 2 . This month'] The name of the month, 
 Abib, is given xiii. 4. It was called by the 
 later Hebrews Nisan, a name found in early 
 Syrian inscriptions, De Vogue, ‘Syrie cen- 
 trale,’ p. 5, and derived from the Nisannu of 
 the Assyrians and Babylonians, with whom it 
 was the first month of the year. It corresponds 
 nearly to our April, since the last full moon 
 in March or the iirst in April fell in the 
 middle of the month. It is clear that in 
 this passage the Israelites are directed to 
 take Abib henceforth as the beginning of the 
 year; the year previously began with the 
 month Tisri, when the harvest ' was gathered 
 in; see xxiii. 16. They do not appear to 
 have adopted the Egyptian division, in which 
 the fixed year began in June, at the rise of 
 the Nile. The injunction touching Abib or 
 Nisan referred only to religious rites; in other 
 affairs they retained the old arrangement, 
 even in the beginning of the Sabbatic year; sec 
 Levit. XXV. 9; and Josephus, ‘Ant.’ i. 25. 9. 
 The assumption that an ancient festival was 
 previously held at this season to celebrate the 
 ripening of the wheat has no grounds in 
 history or tradition. 
 
 3 . a lamb] The Hebrew word, used in 
 the same way in Arabic and Chaldee, is 
 general, meaning cither a sheep or goat, male 
 or female, and of any age; the age and sex are 
 therefore specially defined in the following 
 
 verse. The direction to select the lamb on 
 the tenth day, the fourth day before it was 
 offered, is generally assumed to have applied 
 to the first institution only, but there is no 
 indication of this in the text, and it seems more 
 probable that the injunction was intended to 
 secure due care in the preparation for the 
 greatest national festival. The custom cer- 
 tainly fell into desuetude at a later period, 
 but probably not before the destruction of the 
 Temple. The later Targum, which asserts 
 that the rule was not intended to be of per- 
 manent obligation, records the traditions of 
 Rabbins of the sixth century. 
 
 the house of their fathers] Lit. a house of 
 fathers, or parents; i.e. for each family. 
 
 4 . if the household be too little., &c.] The 
 meaning is clear, if there be not persons 
 enough to consume a lamb at one meal : 
 tradition specifies ten as the least number ; 
 thus Josephus says, not less than ten attend 
 this sacrifice, and twenty are generally assem- 
 bled, ‘De B. J.’ VI. 9. 3. The later* Targum 
 paraphrases the passage thus: “If the men of 
 the household be less than ten in number.” 
 There is, however, no indication of such a 
 rule earlier than Josephus, and it was pro- 
 bably left altogether to the discretion of the 
 heads of families. The women and children 
 were certainly not excluded, though the Rab- 
 bins held their attendance to be unnecessary, 
 and the Karaites permitted none but adult 
 males to be partakers. 
 
 The last clause should be rendered: “let 
 him and his neighbour who is near to his 
 house take according to the number of souls, 
 each man according to his eating ye shall 
 count for the lamb.” Our Version only re- 
 quires the insertion of ye, ox you. before “shall 
 make your count.” See note below. 
 
 5. ^without blemish] This is in accordance 
 with the general rule laid down in Levit. 
 xxii. 20: so also is the choice of a male, Levit. 
 i. 3: although in this case there is a special 
 reason, since the lamb was in place of the 
 firstborn male in each household. The re- 
 
V. 6 — 8.] 
 
 EXODUS. XII. 
 
 293 
 
 shall take it out from the sheep, or 
 from the goats : 
 
 6 And ye shall keep it up until the 
 fourteenth day of the same month ; 
 and the whole assembly of the con- 
 <Hcb. greo-ation of Israel shall kill it Mn the 
 ihetwo evening. 
 
 ez.enings. ^ And they shall take of the 
 
 blood, and strike it on the two side 
 posts and on the upper door post 
 of the houses, wherein they shall 
 eat it. 
 
 8 And they shall eat the flesh in 
 that night, roast with fire, and un- 
 leavened bread ; and with bitter herbs 
 they shall eat it. 
 
 striction to the first year is peculiar, and 
 refers apparently to the condition of perfect 
 innocence in the antitype, the Lamb of 
 God. 
 
 cr from the goats'] There is no indication of 
 a preference, but the Hebrews have generally 
 held that a lamb was the more acceptable 
 offering. 
 
 6. ye shall keep it up] The Hebrew implies 
 that it was to be kept with great care, which 
 appears to be the meaning of the expression 
 “keep it up.” 
 
 until the fourteenth day] It should be 
 observed that the offering of our Lord on 
 the selfsame day is an important point in 
 determining the typical character of the trans- 
 action. Masius on Josh. v. 10 quotes a re- 
 markable passage from the Talmud : “It was 
 a famous and old opinion among the ancient 
 Jews that the day of the new year which 
 was the beginning of the Israelites’ deliverance 
 out of Egypt should in future time be the 
 beginning of the redemption by the Messiah.” 
 
 in the evening] The Hebrew has betv/een 
 the two evenings. The meaning of the 
 expression is disputed. The most probable 
 explanation is that it includes the time from 
 afternoon, or early eventide, until sunset. 
 This accords with the ancient custom of the 
 Hebrews, who slew the paschal lamb imme- 
 diately after the offering of the daily sacrifice, 
 which on the day of the passover took place a 
 little earlier than usual, between two and three 
 p.m. This would allow about two hours and 
 a half for slaying and preparing all the lambs. 
 It is clear that they would not wait until 
 sunset, at which time the evening meal would 
 take place. This interpretation is supported 
 by Rashi, Kimchi, Bochart, Lightfoot, Cleri- 
 cus, and Patrick. Thus Josephus : “they offer 
 this sacrifice from the ninth to the eleventh 
 hour.” The Greeks had the same idiom, dis- 
 tinguishing between the early and late even- 
 ing. Other interpreters understand it to 
 mean the interval l^tween sunset and total 
 darkness, an exceedingly short time in the 
 East, and quite insufficient for the work. 
 Rosenmuller shews from the Talmud that 
 the twilight as strictly defined did not last 
 longer than it would take to walk half a mile, 
 i.e. about ten minutes. If, moreover, the 
 
 Iamb were slain after sunset, it would not 
 have been on the fourteenth day of the month, 
 since the day was reckoned from sunset to 
 sunset. Knobel observes that the expression 
 is peculiar to the so-called Elohist; it is in fact 
 peculiar to the Pentateuch, and its meaning 
 was evidently ascertained only by conjecture 
 at a later period. It is to be observed that 
 the slaying of the lamb on the former hypo- 
 thesis coincides exactly with the death of our 
 Saviour, at the ninth hour of the day. 
 
 7 . the upper door post] Or lintel, as 
 it is rendered v. 23. This meaning is gene- 
 rally accepted, but the word occurs only in 
 this passage ; it is derived from a root which 
 means to “look out,” and may signify a lat- 
 tice above the door: thus Aben-Ezra and Ro- 
 senmiiller. This direction was understood by 
 the Hebrews to apply only to the first Pass- 
 over: it was certainly not adopted in Pales- 
 tine. The meaning of the sprinkling of blood 
 is hardly open to question. It was a repre- 
 sentation of the offering of the life, substi- 
 tuted for that of the firstborn in each house, 
 as an expiatory and vicarious sacrifice. 
 
 8. in that night] The night is thus clearly 
 distinguished from the evening when the lamb 
 was slain. It was slain before sunset, on the 
 14th, and eaten after sunset, the beginning of 
 the 15th. 
 
 vuith fire] Among various reasons given 
 for this injunction the most probable and 
 satisfactory seems to be the special sanctity 
 attached to fire from the first institution of 
 sacrifice. The memory of this primeval sanc- 
 tity is preserved by universal tradition, e.g. 
 among the Aryans, as is shewn by the hymns 
 in the Rig Veda to Agni, the fire-god, and 
 by the whole system of the Zend Avesta. 
 
 and unleavened bread] Or, and they shall 
 eat unleavened cakes with bitter 
 herbs. See note below. The Hebrew word 
 is certain in meaning, but of doubtful origin; 
 see note below. Like many others in this 
 account it is archaic, found only in the Pen- 
 tateuch, except in passages which refer to the 
 Passover. The importance of the injunction 
 is admitted; the unleavened cakes give one 
 of the two general designations to the festival. 
 This may in part be accounted for by its 
 being a lasting memorial of the circumstances 
 
294 
 
 EXODUS. XII. 
 
 9 Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at 
 all with water, but roast with fire; 
 his head with his legs, and with the 
 purtenance thereof. 
 
 10 And ye shall let nothing of it 
 
 remain until the morning; and that 
 which remaineth of it until the morn- 
 ing ye shall burn with fire. 
 
 1 1 ^ And thus shall ye eat it; with 
 your loins girded, your shoes on your 
 
 of the hasty departure, allowing no time for 
 the process of leavening: but the meaning dis- 
 cerned by St Paul, i Cor. v, 7, and recognized 
 by the Church in all ages, was assuredly 
 implied, though not expressly declared in the 
 original institution ; and though our Lord 
 may not directly refer to the Passover, yet 
 His words, Matt. xiii. 33, are conclusive as 
 to the symbolism of leaven. 
 
 bitter herbs'] The word occurs only here 
 and in Numbers ix. ii, in reference to herbs. 
 The symbolical reference to the previous suf- 
 ferings of the Israelites is generally admitted. 
 Various kinds of bitter herbs are enumerated 
 in the Mishna; but the expression should be 
 taken generally; the bitter heros of Egypt 
 would of coulee differ in kind from those of 
 other countries where the Passover was to 
 be eaten. 
 
 9 . razv] Another obsolete word, proba- 
 bly Egyptian, found only in this passage: the 
 corresponding root in Arabic means “ half- 
 cooked,” and this appears to be the sense 
 here: raw meat was not likely to be eaten, 
 though some interpreters find here a reference 
 to the Wfiojsayln^ “ feasting on raw food,” in 
 some Gentile festivals. The prohibition of 
 eating it sodden with water has been consi- 
 dered in reference to “roast with fire:” it 
 was probably more common to seethe than to 
 roast meat; hence the regrets expressed by 
 the Israelites for the seething pots of Egypt; 
 on other occasions the flesh of sin and peace- 
 offerings, whether consumed by the people or 
 the priests, was ordered to be sodden: see 
 Lev. vi. 28; Num. vi. 19. 
 
 sodden... ^ith nvater] or “ sodden,” omitting 
 “water,” which is added in Hebrew because 
 the word in that language may be used either 
 of roasting (as in 2 Chron. xxxv. 13) or 
 boiling. 
 
 the purtenance thereof ] orits intestines. 
 This verse directs that the lamb slunild be 
 roasted and placed on the table whole. No 
 bone was to be broken (see v. 46, and Num, 
 ix. 12, an injunction which the LXX. insert 
 in the next verse)’. According to Rashi and 
 other Rabbins the bowels were taken out, 
 washed and then replaced, I'he 'Ealmud 
 prescribes the form of the oven of earthen- 
 ware, in which the lamb was roasted, open 
 above and below with a grating for the fire. 
 Lambs and sheep are roasted whole in Persia, 
 nearly in the same manner. 'Lhevenot doscri bes 
 the process, Vol. 11. p, 180, cd. 1674. 
 
 This entire consumption of the lamb con- 
 stitutes one marked difference between the 
 Passover and all other sacrifices, in which 
 either a part or the whole was burned, and 
 thus offered directly to God. The whole sub- 
 stance of the sacrificed lamb was to enter 
 into the substance of the people, the blood 
 only excepted, which was sprinkled as a pro- 
 pitiatory and sacrificial offering. Another 
 point of subordinate importance is noticed. 
 The lamb was slain and the blood sprinkled 
 by the head of each family: no separate priest- 
 hood as yet existed in Israel; its functions be- 
 longed from the beginning to the father of the 
 family : when the priesthood was instituted the 
 slaying of the lamb still devolved on the heads 
 of families, though the blood was sprinkled on 
 the altar by the priests; an act which essen- 
 tially belonged to their office. The typical 
 character of this part of the transaction is 
 clear. Our Lord was offered and His blood 
 shed as an expiatory and propitiatory sacrifice, 
 but His whole humanity is transfused spiri- 
 tually and effectually into His Church, an effect 
 which is at once symbolized and assured in 
 Holy Communion, the Chnstian Passover, 
 
 10 . And ye shall let 7iotbing.i St.c.] This was 
 afterwards a general law of sacrifices ; at once 
 preventing all possibility of profanity, and of 
 superstitious abuse, such as was practised 
 among some ancient heathens, who were wont 
 to reserve a portion of their sacrifices; sec 
 Herod, i. 132; and Baruch vi. 28. The in- 
 junction is on both accounts justly applied by 
 our Church to the Eucharist. 
 
 burn <with fire] Not being consumed by 
 man, it was thus offered, like other sacrifices, 
 to God. 
 
 11. '■voith your loins girded., &c,] These in- 
 structions are understood by the Jews to 
 apply only to the first Passover, when they 
 belonged to the occasion. There is no trace 
 of their observance at any later time; a strik- 
 ing instance of good sense and power of dis- 
 tinguishing between accidents and substantial 
 characteristics. Each of the directions marks 
 preparation for a journey; the long flowing 
 robes are girded round the loins; shoes or 
 sandals, not worn in the house or at meals, 
 were fastened on the fee^; and the traveller’s 
 staff was taken in hand. 
 
 the Lord's passonjer] A most important 
 statement. It gives at once the great and 
 most significant name to the whole ordinance. 
 The word Passover renders as nearly as pos- 
 
EXODUS. XII 
 
 295 
 
 V. 12 1 4 .] 
 
 II Or, 
 J>rinces. 
 
 feet, and your staff in your hand; 
 and ye shall eat it in haste ; it is the 
 Lord’s passover. 
 
 12 P'or I will pass through the land 
 of Egypt this night, and will smite all 
 the firstborn in the land of Egypt, 
 both man and beast; and against all 
 the “gods of Egypt I will execute 
 judgment: I am the Lord. 
 
 13 And the blood shall be to you 
 
 for a token upon the houses where ye 
 are: and when I see the blood, I will 
 pass over you, and the plague shall 
 not be upon you ^to destroy you^ 
 when I smite the land of Egypt. 
 
 14 And this day shall be unto you 
 for a memorial ; and ye shall keep it 
 a feast to the Lord throughout your 
 generations; ye shall keep it a feast 
 by an ordinance for ever. 
 
 t Heb. 
 for a de- 
 stniction. 
 
 sible the true meaning of the original, of 
 which the primary sense is generally held to 
 be “ pass rapidly,” like a bird with outstretched 
 wings, but it undoubtedly includes the idea 
 of sparing. See Ges. ‘ Thes.’ s.v. It is a word 
 which occurs very seldom in other books, 
 twice in one chapter of i K., xviii. 21, where 
 it is rendered “ halt,” and seems to mean 
 “ waver,” flitting like a bird from branch to 
 branch, and 26, where our A.V. has in the 
 margin “ leaped up and down,” A passage 
 in Isaiah xxxi. 5 is of more importance, since 
 it combines the two great ideas involved 
 in the word: “As birds flying, so will the 
 Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending 
 also he will deliver it; and passing over 
 he will preserve it.” This combination of 
 ideas is recognized by nearly all ancient and 
 modern critics. It is remarkable that the 
 word is not found in other Semitic languages, 
 except in passages derived from the Hebrew 
 Bible. In Egyptian the word Pesh, which 
 corresponds to it very nearly in form, means 
 to “spread out the wings over,” and “to pro- 
 tect;” see Brugsch, ‘ D. H.’ p. 512. 
 
 12. I <will pass through~\ The word ren- 
 dered “ passthrough” is wholly. distinct from 
 that which means “ pass over.” The passing 
 through was in judgment, the “passing 
 over” in mercy. 
 
 against all the gods of Egypf\ The meaning 
 of this and of the corresponding passage, Num. 
 xxxiii. 4, is undoubtedly that the visitation 
 reached the gods of Egypt, not “ the princes” 
 as in the margin. The true explanation in this 
 case is that in smiting the firstborn of all living 
 beings, man and beast, God smote the objects 
 of Egyptian worship. It is not merely that 
 the bull and cow and goat and ram and cat 
 were worshipped in the principal cities of 
 Egypt as representatives, or, so to speak, in- 
 carnations, of their deities, but that the wor- 
 ship of beasts was universal; every nome, 
 every town had its sacred animal, including 
 the lowest forms of animal life ; the frog, the 
 beetle, being especial objects of reverence as 
 representing the primeval deities of nature. 
 In fact not a single deity of Egypt was 
 unrepresented by some beast. This explana- 
 tion, which is adopted by many critics, e.g. 
 
 Michaelis, Rosenmuller, forces itself upon our 
 minds in proportion to our closer and more 
 accurate knowledge of Egyptian superstitions. 
 It would not however have occurred to an 
 Israelite living in Palestine, and the Rabbins 
 in course of time adopted a different view, 
 which approved itself to some of the early 
 Fathers of the Church. Thus Jerome, ‘ Ep. 
 ad Fabiolam,’ says: “The Hebrews think 
 that in the night v/hen the people went forth 
 all the temples in Egypt were destroyed 
 either by earthquake or lightning:” and the 
 second Targum, which gives the traditions of 
 a still later time, asserts that each and every 
 idol was destroyed. The explanation given 
 above meets the whole requirement of the 
 text. 
 
 13 . a tokenl A sign to you, so to speak, 
 a sacramental pledge of mercy. 
 
 I rjoill pass o^er you'] The same word as in 
 2;. II. The sense of sparing is clear. The 
 Targum renders it “ I will spare you,” and 
 the LXX. “ I will protect you.” 
 
 to destroy you] or “to destruction,” but 
 our version gives the true sense and may be 
 retained. 
 
 14 . a mefnorial] The following verses to 
 end of 2;. 20 contain explicit instructions for 
 the future celebration of the Passover. They 
 appear from a;. 17 to have been given to Mo- 
 ses after the departure from Egypt, but are 
 inserted here in their proper place, in connec- 
 tion with the history. The passover was to 
 be a memorial, a commemorative and sacra- 
 mental ordinance of perpetual obligation. As 
 such it has ever been observed by the He- 
 brews. By the Christian it is spiritually ob- 
 served; its full significance is recognized, and 
 all that it foreshadowed is realized, in the 
 Sacrament of Holy Communion. It is not 
 therefore necessary to limit the meaning of 
 the words “throughout your generations” 
 and “ for ever,” although both expressions are 
 frequently used with reference to an exist- 
 ing dispensation, or to a limited period. 
 
 ye shall keep it a feast] The word chag 
 is used twice in this passage, for “keep a 
 feast.” The radical meaning is festivity, 
 expressed in outward demonstrations of joy. 
 
296 
 
 EXODUS. XII. 
 
 [v. 15—21. 
 
 15 Seven days shall ye eat unlea- 
 vened bread ; even the first day ye 
 shall put a\vay leaven out of your 
 houses : for whosoever eateth leaven- 
 ed bread from the first day until the 
 seventh day, that soul shall be cut off 
 from Israel. 
 
 16 And in the first day there shall 
 be an holy convocation, and in the 
 seventh day there shall be an holy 
 convocation to you ; no manner of 
 work shall be done in them, save that 
 
 t Heb. which every ^ man must eat, that only 
 may be done of you. 
 
 17 And ye shall observe the feast 
 of unleavened bread ; for in this self- 
 same day have I brought your armies 
 out of the land of Egypt: therefore 
 shall ye observe this day in your gene- 
 rations by an ordinance for ever. 
 
 18 ^^In the first mouthy on the “ “3- 
 
 fourteenth day of the month at even. Numb. 23. 
 ye shall eat unleavened bread, until 
 
 the one and twentieth day of the 
 month at even. 
 
 19 Seven days shall there be no 
 leaven found in your houses : for 
 whosoever eateth that which is lea- 
 vened, even that soul shall be cut off 
 from the congregation of Israel, whe- 
 ther he be a stranger, or born in the 
 land. 
 
 20 Ye shall eat nothing leavened; 
 in all your habitations shall ye eat 
 unleavened bread. 
 
 21 ^ Then Moses called for all the 
 elders of Israel, and said unto them. 
 
 Draw out and take you a "lamb ac-"^*", 
 cording to your families, and kill the 
 passover. 
 
 15 . Senjen days\ From the evening of the 
 fourteenth of Nisan to the end of the 21st 
 day. The leaven was removed from the houses 
 before the paschal lamb was slain, in accord- 
 ance with the general instruction, “ Thou 
 shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with 
 leavened bread;” xxiii. 18. The unleavened 
 bread was an essential element in the celebra- 
 tion : see note on 'v. 8. The penalty inflicted 
 on those who transgressed the command may 
 be accounted for on the ground that it was 
 an act of rebellion; but additional light is 
 thrown upon it by the typical meaning as- 
 signed to leaven by our Lord, Matt, xvi. 6. 
 The period of seven days does not settle the 
 question as to the previous observance of the 
 week, since this command may have been first 
 given after the institution of the Sabbath, but 
 it adds considerable weight to the argument 
 in its favour. 
 
 16 . an holy conn}ocation'\ This rendering 
 exactly expresses the sense of the original; 
 an assembly called by proclamation for a 
 religious solemnity. The proclamation was 
 directed to be made on some occasions by 
 the blowing of the silver trumpets. See Num. 
 
 2 3. In the East the proclamation is made 
 by the Muezzins from the minarets of the 
 mosques. 
 
 sa've that, &c.] In this the observance of 
 the festival differed from the Sabbath, when 
 the preparation of food was prohibited. The 
 same word for “ work” is used here and in 
 the 4th Commandment; it is very general, 
 and includes all laborious occupation, not 
 howc\'er all bodily exercise, as it is under- 
 stood by the stricter sects of the Rabbins. 
 
 17 . the feast of unleavened hreaeT] lit. “the 
 unleavened bread;” which may mean either 
 the festival, or the instructions relating to 
 the unleavened bread. The Samaritan Pen- 
 tateuch and the LXX. read “the precept,” 
 taking a word which differs slightly in form 
 in the unpunctuated Hebrew : but our read- 
 ing and translation are accepted by most 
 critics. 
 
 18 . In the first month'\ or “ in the beginning,” 
 which may mean at the beginning of the fes- 
 tival, on the evening of the 14th Nisan. 
 Thus the LXX.; but the other ancient ver- 
 sions agree with our own, and their render- 
 ing is supported by Rosenmiiller. 
 
 19 . leaven\ The Hebrew word used here 
 occurs only in the Pentateuch. It denotes 
 the leaven itself ; the word in the next clause, 
 which is also found only in the Pentateuch, 
 means the leavened dough, or bread, 
 
 born in the la 72 d~\ or “a native of the 
 land ;” a .stranger or foreigner might be born 
 in the land, but the word here used means 
 indigenous, belonging to the country in vir- 
 tue of descent, that descent being reckoned 
 from Abraham, to whom Canaan was pro- 
 mised as a perpetual inheritance. The He- 
 brews had no tinge of the opinion which 
 takes human races to be autochthonous. It 
 is indeed remarkable that that opinion was 
 entertained most strongly of old by the Athe- 
 nians, a people whose foreign origin is incon- 
 testably proved by their language, customs 
 and religion, 
 
 21 . Then Moses called]^ From this verse to 
 end of the 28th Moses records the directions 
 
V. 2 2 29-] 
 
 EXODUS. XII. 
 
 297 
 
 . Heb. XI. 22 '^Aiid yc shall take a bunch of 
 hyssop, and dip it in the blood that 
 is in the bason, and strike the lintel 
 and the two side posts with the blood 
 that is in the bason ; and none of you 
 shall go out at the door of his house 
 until the morning. 
 
 23 For the Lord will pass through 
 to smite the Egyptians ; and when he 
 seeth the blood upon the lintel, and 
 on the two side posts, the Lord will 
 pass over the door, and will not suffer 
 the destroyer to come in unto your 
 houses to smite you. 
 
 24 And ye shall observe this thing 
 for an ordinance to thee and to thy 
 sons for ever. 
 
 25 And it shall come to pass, when 
 ye be come to the land which the Lord 
 will give you, according as he hath pro- 
 mised, that ye shall keep this service. 
 
 26 '^And it shall come to pass, 4. 
 when your children shall say unto 
 
 you, W hat mean ye by this service r 
 
 27 That ye shall say. It is the 
 
 sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who 
 passed over the houses of the children 
 of Israel in Egypt, when he smote 
 the Egyptians, and delivered our 
 houses. And the people bowed the 
 head and worshipped. » 
 
 28 And the children of Israel went 
 away, and did as th*e Lord had com- 
 manded Moses and Aaron, so did 
 they. 
 
 29 ^ '^And it came to pass, that at '^chap. n. 
 midnight the Lord smote all the 
 firstborn in the land of Egypt, ^from ^wisd. is. 
 the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on 
 
 his throne unto the firstborn of the 
 captive that was in the ^ dungeon ; 
 and all the firstborn of cattle. tkipa. 
 
 which, in obedience to the command, he gave 
 at the time to the people. This method of 
 composition occurs frequently in the Penta- 
 teuch: it involves of course some repetition, 
 from which no very ancient writer would 
 shrink, but it would scarcely have been 
 adopted by a compiler. Moses is ever careful 
 to record first the commands which he re- 
 ceives, and afterwards the way m which he 
 executed them. 
 
 Draw out~\ The expression is clear, but 
 the sense has been questioned. Moses directs 
 the elders to draw the lamb from the fold 
 and then to take it to their houses. 
 
 the pas soever'] The vrord is here applied 
 to the lamb ; an important fact, marking the 
 lamb as the sign and pledge of the exemption 
 of the Israelites. 
 
 22. a bunch of hyssop] The word ren- 
 dered hyssop occurs only in the Pentateuch, 
 with two exceptions, Ps. li. 7, which refers 
 to the Mosaic rite, and i K. iv. 33, where it 
 is applied to a herb growing on the wall, 
 probably a small species of fern, mentioned 
 as the smallest of plants and therefore not 
 likely to be used for the sprinkling. The 
 species here designated does not appear to be 
 the plant now bearing the name. If we fol- 
 low the Hebrew tradition, which in such 
 matters is of weight, and is supported by most 
 critics, it would seem to be a species of 
 origanum, common in Palestine and near 
 Mount Sinai, an aromatic plant with a long 
 straight stalk and leaves well adapted for the 
 purpose. See note on Lev. xiv. 4. 
 
 bason] The rendering rests on good au- 
 thority and gives a good sense: but the word 
 
 means threshold in some other passages and 
 in Egyptian, and is taken here in that sense 
 by the LXX. and Vulgate. If that render- 
 ing were correct it would imply that the 
 lamb was slain on the threshold. 
 
 none... shall go out., &c.] There is no safety 
 outside of the precincts protected by the 
 blood of the lamb ; a symbolism too obvious 
 to require pointing out. 
 
 23 . the destroyer] The word certainly 
 denotes a personal agent; see note on u. 29. 
 
 24 . this thing] The injunction would seem 
 to apply specially to the sprinkling of blood 
 on the lintel and doorposts ; but the authority 
 for changing the rite is unquestioned ; see note 
 on ‘n. 9 ; and the Hebrew tradition is uniform. 
 It may therefore be admitted, with Aben-Ezra 
 and Knobel, who represent very different 
 schools, that this charge refers to the general 
 observance of the Passover. 
 
 27 . It is the sacrifice of the Lord's pass- 
 over] or This is the sacrifice of the 
 Passover to Jehovah. The most formal and 
 exact designation of the festival is thus given : 
 but “the Passover” may mean either the act 
 or God’s mercy in sparing the Israelites, or 
 the lamb which is offered in sacrifice: more 
 probably the latter, as in v. 21, “and kill the 
 passover.” This gives a clear sense to the 
 expression “to Jehovah;” it was a sacrifice 
 offered to Jehovah by His ordinance. 
 
 The Tenth and Last Plague. 
 
 29 . smote all the firstborn] This plague 
 is distinctly attributed here and in -v. 23 to 
 
298 
 
 EXODUS. XII. 
 
 30 And Pharaoh rose up in the 
 night, he, and all his servants, and all 
 the Egyptians ; and there was a great 
 crv in Egypt; for there vjas not a 
 house where there was not one dead. 
 
 .31 ^ And he called for Moses and 
 Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, 
 and get you forth from among my 
 people, both ye and the children of 
 Israel ; and go, serve the Lord, as ye 
 have said. 
 
 32 Also take your flocks and your 
 herds, as ye have said, and be gone; 
 and bless me also. 
 
 33 And the Egyptians were urgent 
 upon the people, that they might send 
 
 them out of the land in haste; 
 they said. Wo. be ail dead men. 
 
 34 And the people took their dough 
 before it was leavened, their ” knead- ^2,^^ 
 ingtroughs being bound up in their 
 clothes upon their shoulders. 
 
 35 And the children of Israel did 
 
 according to the word of Moses ; 
 and they borrowed of the Egyptians 
 -^jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, ■/'chap. 3. 
 and raiment : 2. 
 
 36 And the Lord gave the people 
 favour in the sight of the Egyptians, 
 so that they lent unto them such 
 things as they required. And they 
 spoiled the Egyptians. 
 
 the personal intervention of the Lord; but 
 it is to be obsei'ved that although the Lord 
 Himself passed through to smite the Egyp- 
 tians, He employed the agency of “the de- 
 stroyer,” in whom, in accordance with Heb. 
 xi. 28, all the Ancient Versions, and most 
 critics,* recognize an angel. Such indeed is 
 the express statement of Holy Writ with 
 reference to other visitations, as 2 Kings xix. 
 35, and more especially 2 Sam. xxiv. 16. The 
 employment of angelic agency, however, does 
 not always exclude the operation of physical 
 causes. In the same chapter of 2 Sam. which 
 describes the destruction of 70,000 Israelites 
 by an angel, whose personality is distinctly at- 
 tested, see 'v'v. 15 — 17, it is no less distinctly 
 declared to have been effected by a pestilence ; 
 see n.i’v. 13 and 25. Nature accomplishes 
 God’s purposes under His control. As in 
 every other case the hand of God was dis- 
 tinctly shewn by the previous announcement, 
 the suddenness, intensity, and limitation of 
 the calamity. No house of the Egyptians 
 escaped; the firstborn only perished in each; 
 the Israelites were unscathed. 
 
 the capti-ve] In ch. xi. 5, the woman at the 
 mill is mentioned. Such variations are common 
 in Holy Writ, and are to be noticed as shew- 
 ing the disregard of slight or apparent dis- 
 crepancies. The notices of captives under the 
 1 8th dynasty are numerous on the monuments: 
 they were generally employed in brick-making 
 and building, and this passage implies that 
 they were treated to some extent as settlers in 
 the land, d'he word “dungeon” translated 
 more literally in the margin “house of the 
 pit,” corresponds to the Egyptian “Rar,” or 
 “ Lar,” in meaning; the same word for “pit” 
 is found in both languages. See Brugsch, 
 * D. H.’ p. 402, who considers it to be Semitic. 
 
 31 . the Lord] The LXX. add “ your 
 God,” a very probable reading. 
 
 32 . bless me also] No words could 
 shew more strikingly the complete, though 
 temporary submission of Pharaoh. 
 
 34 . kneadingt roughs] Not “dough” as 
 in the margin. The same word is used in 
 ch. viii. 3, and Deut. xxviii. 5. The troughs 
 were probably small, such as are now used 
 by the Arabians; wooden bowls in which the 
 cakes when baked are preserved for use. The 
 Hebrews used their outer garment, or mantle, 
 in the same way as the Bedouins at present, who 
 make a bag of the voluminous folds of their 
 haiks or burnous. See Ruth iii. 15 ; 2 Kings 
 iv. 39. 
 
 35 . borrowed] Or “asked of.” See note 
 ch. iii. 22. 
 
 36 . lent] Or gave. The word here 
 used in the Hebrew means simply “granted 
 their request.” Whether the grant is made 
 as a loan, or as a gift, depends in every in- 
 stance upon the context. In this case the 
 (juestion is whether the Israelites asked for 
 the jewels and the Egyptians granted them 
 as a loan with reference to the festival in the 
 wilderness ; or whether this was regarded on 
 both sides as a moderate remuneration for long 
 service, and a compensation for cniel wrongs. 
 The word “spoiling” (iii. 22) ought to be re- 
 garded as conclusive for the latter sense. The 
 Arabic translator, Saadia, uses the word ‘ ‘ gave.” 
 The Syriac and theTargum Onk. have the exact 
 equivalent of the Hebrew. Rosenmuller says 
 truly, in Hebrew the word means simply “to 
 give;” often with the idea of willingness or 
 readiness. Thus^ too Knobel, who altogether 
 rejects the notion of lending; and Kalisch. 
 Even if the word were taken, as it is by some 
 distinguished scholars, in the sense “lent,” 
 it must be remembered that the actual cause 
 which prevented the Egyptians from recover- 
 ing their property was, that the return of the 
 
V. 37—42.] 
 
 EXODUS. XII. 
 
 299 
 
 rNumb. 37 ^ And the children of Israel 
 journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, 
 about six hundred thousand on foot 
 that were men, beside children. 
 tHeb. 28 And ^a mixed multitude went 
 miZuU. up also with them; and flocks, and 
 herds, even very much cattle. 
 
 39 And they baked unleavened 
 cakes of the dough which they brought 
 forth out of Egypt, for it was not 
 leavened; because they were thrust 
 out of Egypt, and could not tarry, 
 neither had they prepared for them- 
 selves any victual. 
 
 40 ^ Now the sojourning of the 
 
 children of Israel, who dwelt in 
 Egypt, was four hundred and thirty Gen. 15. 
 years. ^ Sts 7. 6. 
 
 41 And it came to pass at the ^7- 
 end of the four hundred and thirty 
 years, even the selfsame day it came 
 
 to pass, that all the hosts of the 
 Lord went out from the land of 
 Egypt. 
 
 42 It is ^ a night to be much ob- f Heb. 
 served unto the Lord for bringing 
 them out from the land of Egypt : 
 this is that night of the Lord to be 
 observed of all the children of Israel 
 
 in their generations. 
 
 Israelites was cut off by the treachery of 
 Pharaoh. Thus Ewald, ‘G. I.’ ii. p. 87. 
 Ewald also accepts the application of the 
 transaction found so commonly in the Fathers, 
 who see in it a figure of the appropriation 
 by the Israelites of Egyptian rites and ceremo- 
 nies, and of the truths thereby represented. 
 
 The Departure of the Israelites. 
 
 37 . Rameses] See note on ch. i. ii. Ra- 
 meses was evidently the place of general ren- 
 dezvous, well adapted for that purpose as 
 the principal city of Goshen. The Israelites, 
 by whom it had been built, were probably 
 settled in considerable numbers in it and about 
 it. Pharaoh with his army and court were at 
 that time near the frontier, and Rameses, 
 where a large garrison was kept, was pro- 
 bably the place where the last interview with 
 Moses occurred. Under the 19th dynasty the 
 Pharaohs received foreign embassies, trans- 
 acted treaties, and held their court in this 
 city, which was considerably enlarged and 
 embellished by Rameses II. A discussion on 
 the route of the Israelites from Rameses to 
 Sinai will be found in the Appendix to this 
 book. The first part of the journey appears 
 to have followed the course of the ancient 
 canal. The site of Succoth cannot be exactly 
 determined, but it lay about half-way between 
 Rameses and Etham. It could not therefore 
 have been on the road to Palestine which 
 ran north-east of the lake of crocodiles (Birket 
 Timseh), but to the south of that lake by 
 the road which led by the shortest way to 
 the edge of the wilderness. The frontier to 
 the east of the road appears to have been 
 covered in ancient times by the so-called 
 bitter lakes, which exfended to the Gulf of 
 Suez. The name Succoth (i.e. “tents” or 
 “booths” in Hebrew), may have been given 
 by the Israelites, but the same, or a similar 
 word, occurs in Egyptian in connection with 
 
 the district. Thus in De Rouge, ‘ Recher- 
 ches,’ p. 50, we find an officer of state in 
 possession of a domain called Sechet, or So- 
 chot, in the time of Chufu. That domain was 
 certainly in lower Egypt, and probably at no 
 great distance from Memphis. 
 
 600,000] This includes all the males who 
 could mar^h. The total number of the Is- 
 raelites should therefore be calculated not from 
 the men above twenty years old, but from the 
 males above twelve or fourteen, and would 
 therefore amount to somewhat more than two 
 millions. This is not an excessive population 
 for Goshen, nor does it exceed a reasonable 
 estimate of the increase of the Israelites, in- 
 cluding their numerous dependents. See 
 Payne Smith’s ‘ Bampton Lectures,’ 1869, 
 L. III. p. 88. The number 600,000 is con- 
 firmed by many distinct statements and details, 
 and is accepted by Ewald and other critics. 
 
 38 . a mixed multitude] They consisted 
 probably of remains of the old Semitic popu- 
 lation, whether or not first' brought into the 
 district by the Hyksos is uncertain. As 
 natural objects of suspicion and dislike to the 
 Egyptians who had lately become masters of 
 the country, they would be anxious to escape, 
 the more especially after the calamities which 
 preceded the Exodus. 
 
 n-iery much cattle] This is an important fact, 
 both as shewing that the oppression of the 
 Israelites had not extended to confiscation of 
 their property, and as bearing upon the ques- 
 tion of their maintenance in the Wilderness. 
 
 40 . 'vjho dwelt] Read, which they so- 
 journed. The obvious intention of Moses 
 is to state the duration of the sojourn in 
 Egypt. On the interpretation and chrono- 
 logy see note below. , 
 
 41 . At the end of this verse the LXX. 
 add “ by night.” 
 
300 
 
 EXODUS. XIL 
 
 [v. 43—5 
 
 43 ^ And the Lord said unto 
 Moses and Aaron, This is the ordi- 
 nance of the passover: There shall 
 no stranger eat thereof : 
 
 44 But every man’s servant that 
 is bought for money, when thou hast 
 circumcised him, then shall he eat 
 thereof. 
 
 45 A foreigner and an hired ser- 
 vant shall not eat thereof. 
 
 • Numb. house shall it be eaten ; 
 
 thou shalt not carry forth ought of 
 the flesh abroad out of the house j 
 -6 John 19. -^^neither shall ye break a bone thereof. 
 
 47 All the congregation of Israel 
 t Heb. shall ^ keep it. 
 
 48 And when a stranger shall so- 
 
 journ with thee, and will keep the 
 passover to the Lord, let all his 
 males be circumcised, and then let 
 him come near and keep it; and he 
 shall be as one that is born in the 
 land : for no uncircumcised person 
 shall eat thereof. 
 
 49 One law shall be to him that 
 is homeborn, and unto the stranger, 
 that sojourneth among you. 
 
 50 Thus did all the children of 
 Israel ; as the Lord commanded Mo- 
 ses and Aaron, so did they. 
 
 51 And it came to pass the self- 
 same day, that the Lord did bring 
 the children of Israel out of the land 
 of Egypt by their armies. 
 
 43. And the Lord said'\ The following 
 passage, from this verse to v. 16 of the next 
 chapter, contains additional instructions re- 
 garding the Passover. Such instructions were 
 needed when the Israelites were j'oined by the 
 “mixed multitudes” of strangers; and they 
 were probably given at Succoth, on the morn- 
 ing following the departure from Rameses. 
 I'he antiquity of this section is admitted by 
 critics of all schools. The first point which 
 required to be determined was the condition 
 of participation in the rite; it is simple and 
 complete. No one was to be admitted without 
 being circumcised: all were to be admitted 
 who were qualified by that rite. 
 
 no stranger] lit. “ son of a stranger.” The 
 term is general; it includes all who were 
 aliens from Israel, until they were incorpo- 
 rated into the nation by circumcision. The 
 Arabic translator is probably right in using 
 a word which involves the idea of persistence 
 in a false religion; the Targum goes farther, 
 and takes a word which means apostate, 
 
 44. sera'ant] or “ slave.” It seems better 
 to retain the word “servant,” for although 
 the servant was, strictly speaking, a slave, 
 being the property of his master, his condi- 
 tion differed very widely from that of a slave 
 in heathen countries, or those Christian na- 
 tions wherein slavery is legalized. The circum- 
 cision of the slave, thus enj’oined formally on 
 the first day that Israel became a nation, in 
 accordance with the law given to Abraham 
 Gen. xvii. 12, made him a true member of the 
 family, equally entitled to all religious privi- 
 
 leges. In the household of a priest the slave 
 was even permitted to eat the consecrated 
 food: Lev. xxii. 11. 
 
 45 . A foreigner] or sojourner. The 
 Hebrew means one who resides in a country, 
 not having a permanent home, nor being at- 
 tached to an Israelitish household. A differ- 
 ent word is used -z;. 43. 
 
 46 , In one house] The Targum renders 
 this “in one company,” a translation which, 
 though not literal, expresses the true meaning 
 of the injunction. Each lamb was to be 
 entirely consumed by the members of one 
 company, whether they belonged to the same 
 household or not. 
 
 break a bone] The typical significance of 
 this injunction is recognized by St John; see 
 marginal reference. It is not easy to assign 
 any other satisfactory reason for it. This 
 victim alone was exempt from the general 
 law by which the limbs were ordered to be 
 separated from the body. 
 
 48 , ^Lvhen a stranger shall sojouni] or 
 “ when a stranger shall settle with thee.” 
 It is not easy to express in English the exact 
 meaning of these words. The sojourner and 
 the hired servant did not come under the defi- 
 nition of a permanent settler. When circum- 
 cised any foreigner became one of the chosen 
 race. 
 
 50 . Thus did^ &e.] This verse and the fol- 
 lowing apply apparently to the stay of the 
 people at Succoth, where they may have 
 remained a short time, completing their pre- 
 paration for final departure from Egypt. 
 
301 
 
 EXODUS. XIL 
 
 NOTES on 
 
 4. The variations in translating this verse 
 do not affect the general sense, but indicate 
 some difficulty in the construction. “ Each 
 man according to his eating” is understood 
 by the V ulg. to mean the number which may 
 be sufficient to consume the Iamb : but the 
 evident sense is that the head of the family 
 must judge what quantity each person will 
 probably consume, a quantity varying of 
 course according to age, strength, and other 
 circumstances. The Hebrew root DD 3 , with 
 its derivatives, does not occur in any book 
 but the Pentateuch, and with one exception, 
 Num. xxxi., only in connection with this 
 special transaction, nor is it found in any of 
 the Semitic languages. It is evidently archaic, 
 unknown to later Hebrews except from this 
 book. Gesenius points out the analogy with 
 other roots with the same or similar initials, 
 and Fuerst compares the Sanscrit cas^ kshi, 
 which however differ, having, as well as the 
 Egyptian kesha^ the sense of cutting, wound- 
 ing, &c. 
 
 8. Hebrew JTlVD ; derived by Gesenius 
 from fi’D, “cum voluptate hausit, gustavit.” 
 Brugsch, ‘ D. H.’ s. v., suggests an Egyptian 
 etymology. The cakes offered at the festival 
 of the New Year to Osiris were called mest^ 
 or It is possible that the word was 
 
 commonly used while the Israelites were ki 
 Egypt to denote sweet, or unleavened, cakes 
 used exclusively for sacred purposes. Knobel 
 and Keil agree in referring maz-zoth to a word 
 extant in Arabic, in the sense “pure:” but that 
 sense is secondary and probably not ancient; 
 the root has the meaning assigned above to 
 At the end of this verse the LXX. 
 and Vulg. omit “it” after “eat.” This gives 
 a preferable construction to that of our A.V.; 
 and the authority of the LXX., always high 
 in the Pentateuch, is especially so in this book. 
 
 40 . The rendering of the Authorised Ver- 
 sion, “who dwelt,” is peculiar. It has no 
 support in the Ancient Versions: (the LXX. 
 have fjv KarcoKTja-av'^ the Vulg. qua manse- 
 runt; thus also the Arabic, Syriac, Chaldee 
 and Samaritan;) nor does it appear to be 
 adopted by any modern commentator. In 
 fact the mention of the sojourning without 
 reference to its duration would be beside the 
 mind of the writer. If the Hebrew text be 
 taken as it stands, it fixes that duration to 430 
 years; and this is accepted by the majority of 
 critics of all schools. It agrees substantially 
 with Genesis xv. 13, 14, when the announce- 
 ment was first made to Abraham, “know of a 
 surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a 
 land that is not theirs, and shall serve them ; 
 and they shall afflict them four hundred years; 
 and also that nation, whom they shall serve, 
 will I judge: and afterwards shall they come 
 out with great substance.” The expressions 
 here used apply to Egypt and not to Canaan, 
 
 vv. 4, 8, 40. 
 
 in which the Patriarchs were certainly not 
 made to serve. The additional statement in 
 v. 16 of the same chapter “in the fourth gene- 
 ration they shall come hither again” pre- 
 sents some difficulty ; it is however probably 
 identical in sense with the preceding one, 
 referring to the time during which the people 
 would serve in a strange land; the term gene- 
 ration is understood by Gesenius and other 
 Hebrew scholars to be equivalent to a cen- 
 tury. 
 
 The correctness of the Hebrew text has 
 however been questioned. The LXX. ac- 
 cording to the Vatican codex inserts after 
 Egypt, “and in the land of Canaan:” or ac- 
 cording to the Alexandrian codex and Coptic 
 Version, ed. De Lagarde, “which they and 
 their fathers dwelt in the land of Egypt and 
 the land of Canaan.” The Samaritan Penta- 
 teuch has “which they dwelt in the land of 
 Canaan and the land of Egypt.” This is 
 supposed by some to represent a various 
 reading in the original : but the authority of 
 both witnesses is impaired by the variations 
 which indicate an intention to meet a diffi- 
 culty, and by the fact that the most ancient 
 Greek codices omit the words altogether and 
 agree with the Hebrew text. For this we 
 have the evidence of Theophilus Ant. who 
 states twice, ‘ad Aut.’ iii. § 9 and 24, that 
 the Israelites sojourned 430 years in Egypt: 
 the Samaritan text and that of one late Hebrew 
 MS. which agrees with it are suspected of 
 interpolation. Scholars at present generally 
 accept the Hebrew as genuine, differing only 
 in the interpretation. 
 
 . There can be no doubt that at an early 
 time the Jews felt the difficulty of reconciling 
 this statement with the genealogies, which 
 they held to be complete. If Levi were the 
 grandfather of Moses on the mother’s side 
 through Jochebed, and separated only by two 
 descents on the father’s, through Kohath and 
 Amram, it is clear that a space of 430 years 
 could not be accounted for. Levi was past 
 middle age when he went into Egypt; Moses 
 was born 80 years before the Exodus. The 
 difficulty however appears to be insuperable 
 even on the hypothesis that 430 years in- 
 cluded the whole interval between Abraham 
 and the Exodus. Isaac was born 25 years 
 after Abraham’s arrival in Canaan, Jacob was 
 born in Isaac’s 60th year, and was 130 years 
 old when he entered Egypt. This accounts 
 for 215 years, leaving 215 for the sojourn. 
 But in order to make out 215 years it is 
 necessary to assume that Levi was 95 years 
 old when Jochebed was born, and that Joche- 
 bed was 85 years old when she became 
 mother of Moses. This is said by a com- 
 mentator of great weight not to be im- 
 probable; but it involves two miracles, for 
 which there is no authority in Scripture. 
 
302 
 
 EXODUS. XIII. 
 
 [''• 1 — 3 - 
 
 In the later Targum on Exodus ii. i a rab- 
 binical tradition is recorded that Jochebed 
 was miraculously restored to youth at the 
 age of 130 years. But even these assumptions 
 would not remove the objection, that the 
 m.ale descendants of Kohath (the grandfather 
 of Moses on this hypothesis) amounted to 
 8600 at the time of the Exodus; see Num. iii. 
 28. The Kohathites were then divided into 
 four families, each of which must have num- 
 bered, including females, about 4300, when 
 Moses was 80 years of age. Whether the 
 longer or shorter period be adopted it is 
 equally necessary either to assume a succes- 
 sion of miracles, or to admit that an indefi- 
 nite number of links in the genealogies are 
 omitted; a fact for which we have positive 
 evidence in the most important of all genealo- 
 gies, that of our Lord, and in that of Ezra, 
 which therefore there can be no irreverence 
 in assuming in a case when it clears up 
 every difliculty in the narrative. 
 
 The Jewish tradition is assumed to be in 
 favour of 215 years; this may be true in re- 
 ference to the later Rabbis : but it is far from 
 being uniform. Josephus adopts it in one 
 passage, ‘Ant.’ ii. 15. 2, but in others he 
 distinctly asserts that the period of affliction 
 in Egypt after the death of Joseph lasted 400 
 years; see ‘ Ant.’ 11. 9. i and ‘ B. J.’ v. 9. 4. 
 The evidence is worth little, being self-con- 
 tradictory, but it shews that both opinions 
 were held at his time. In the New Testa- 
 ment St Stephen’s speech. Acts vii. 6, recog- 
 
 nizes 400 years as the period when the seed of 
 Abraham should be in bondage and evil en- 
 treated, terms which could only apply to 
 Egypt. St Paul however seems to support 
 the other view, Gal. iii. 17, when he says that 
 the law was given 430 years after Abraham: 
 but the period accepted generally by the Jews 
 in his time sufficed for his purpose, and a 
 discussion upon a point which did not affect 
 his argument would have been out of place. 
 
 It may be possible to reconcile the num- 
 ber of the Israelites at the time of the Exo- 
 dus with the shorter period; but it certainly 
 is far more probable if we accept without any 
 reserve the statement of Moses in this pas- 
 sage, made as it is in the most formal and 
 precise terms, with the express purpose of 
 fixing the length of the sojourn permanently 
 upon the national mind. 
 
 The determination of the date of the Ex- 
 odus rests mainly upon the statement in 
 I K. vi. I, that 480 years elapsed between the 
 fourth year of Solomon and the time when 
 the children of Israel came out of the land of 
 Egypt. That date is supported by all the 
 ancient versions (the slight deviation in the 
 LXX., 440 for 480, being accounted for by 
 Winer and Thenius in loc. as a lapsus calami, 
 D = 4o for D = 8o), it is accepted by able 
 critics, and it appears to the writer of this 
 note to accord best with the indications 
 o£ time in the historical books ; but the sub- 
 ject belongs properly to the commentatary on 
 Kings. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 I The firstborn are sanctified to God. 3 The 
 memorial ofi the pas 507 !Cr is commanded. 1 1 
 The firstlings of beasts are set apart. 17 The 
 Israelites go out of Egypt, and carry JoseplC s 
 bones 7 vith them. 20 They come to Etham. 
 2 1 God guideth them by a pillar of a cloud, 
 and a pillar of fire. 
 
 A 
 
 ND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 " Sanctify unto me all the first- 
 born, whatsoever openeth the womb & 34- 19* 
 among the children of Israel, both of Numb^X ’ 
 man and of beast : it is mine. 
 
 3 ^ And Moses said unto the peo- Luke 2; 33. 
 pie. Remember this day, in which 
 
 ye came out from Egypt, out of the 
 house of ^ bondage ; for by strength 1 Heb. 
 of hand the Lord brought you out 
 
 Chap. XIII. The instructions in the first 
 part of this chapter are not necessarily con- 
 nected with the rest of the narrative, and 
 there may have been special reasons for add- 
 ing some of them, together with the grounds 
 for their observance, when the people were 
 preparing for the invasion of Palestine. This 
 might have been before the beginning of their 
 long wandering in the wilderness of Tih, at 
 tlie same time when Moses sent the spies to 
 explore (lanaan. Whether written later or 
 .not, this si'ction contains much which must 
 have been orally given at the first celebration 
 of the Passover. 
 
 2. Sanctify unto me'] The command is 
 addressed to Moses. It was to declare the 
 
 will of God that all firstborn were to be 
 consecrated to him, set apart from all other 
 creatures. The command is expressly based 
 upon the Passover. The firstborn exempt 
 from the destruction became in a new and 
 special sense the exclusive property of the 
 Lord: the firstborn of man as His ministers, 
 the firstborn of cattle as victims. In lieu of 
 the firstborn of men the Levites were devoted 
 to the temple services. The consecration of 
 all firstborn is admitted to be peculiar to the 
 Hebrews; nor can any satisfactory reason for 
 such a law be assigned by those who nffuse 
 to accept the Scriptural statement, which they 
 admit to be explicit. Knobel refutes the the- 
 ories of other writers. 
 
V. 4 — I 3 -J 
 
 EXODUS. XIII. 
 
 303 
 
 from this place: there. shall no leaven- 
 ed bread be eaten. 
 
 4 This day came ye out in the 
 month Abib. 
 
 5 ^ And it shall be when the Lord 
 shall bring thee into the land of the 
 Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the 
 Amorites, and the Hivites, and the 
 Jebusites, which he sware unto thy 
 fathers to give thee, a land flowing 
 with milk and honey, that thou shalt 
 keep this'service in this month. 
 
 6 Seven days thou shalt eat un- 
 leavened bread, and in the seventh 
 day shall be a feast to the Lord. 
 
 7 Unleavened bread shall be eaten 
 seven days; and there shall no lea- 
 vened bread be seen with thee, nei- 
 ther shall there be leaven seen with 
 thee in all thy quarters. 
 
 8 ^1 And thou shalt shew thy son 
 in that day, saying. This is done be- 
 cause of that which the Lord did 
 
 unto me when I came forth out of 
 Egypt. 
 
 9 And it shall be for a sign unto 
 thee upon thine hand, and for a 
 memorial between thine eyes, that 
 the Lord’s law may be in thy mouth : 
 for with a strong hand hath the Lord 
 brought thee out of Egypt. 
 
 10 Thou shalt therefore keep this 
 ordinance in his season from year to 
 year. 
 
 11 And it shall be when the 
 Lord shall bring thee into the land 
 of the Canaanites, as he sware unto 
 thee and to thy fathers, and shall 
 give it thee, 
 
 12 ‘^That thou shalt Uet apart ^ chap. 22. 
 unto the Lord all that openeth the 
 matrix, and every firstling that com- 44- 
 eth of a beast which thou hast ; the t Heb. 
 males shall be the Lord’s. ^pass\!ver. 
 
 13 And every firstling of an ass 
 
 thou shalt redeem with a lamb ; and 11 Or, kid. 
 
 4. Abib'\ It is uncertain whether this 
 name was ancient or given then for the first 
 time. It is found only in the Pentateuch, 
 twice in the sense of young wheat, six times 
 as the name of the first month. The two 
 former instances leave little doubt as to the 
 etymology, viz. the month when the wheat 
 began to ripen. Thus the LXX., Targ. and 
 Saadia. In Arabic abbon means green herbs. 
 The name resembles the Egyptian Epiphi, 
 April, and may possibly have been derived 
 from it ; that name is ancient. See Brugsch, 
 ‘ H. E.’ p. 162. 
 
 5 . the Canaanites] Five nations only 
 are named in this passage, whereas six are 
 named in iii. 8, and ten in the original pro- 
 mise to Abraham, Gen. XV. 19 — 31. The LXX. 
 add the Perizzites and Girgashites, probably 
 on MSS. authority. The first word Canaan- 
 ite is generic, and includes all the Hamite 
 races of Palestine. 
 
 9 . And it shall be for a sign unto thee., &c.] 
 Hebrew writers have generally regarded this 
 as a formal injunction to write the precepts 
 on slips of parchment, and to fasten them 
 on the wrists and forehead; but other com- 
 mentators are generally agreed that it is 
 to be understood metaphorically. The words 
 appear to be put into the mouths of the 
 parents. They were to keep all the facts of 
 the passover constantly in mind, and, referring 
 to a custom prevalent ages before Moses in 
 EgypL, to have them present as though they 
 were inscribed on papyrus or parchment 
 
 fastened on the wrists, or on the face between 
 the eyes. It is improbable that Moses should 
 have adopted that custom, which was scarcely 
 separable from the Egyptian superstition of 
 amulets; but modern Israelites generally al- 
 lege this precept as a justification for the use 
 of phylacteries. Moses states distinctly the 
 object of the precept, which was that the law 
 of Jehovah should be in their mouth: see 
 •v. 16. The expression may have been pro- 
 verbial in the time of Moses, as it certainly was 
 at a later period; see Proverbs vi. 20 — 22, vii. 
 3, where the metaphorical sense is not ques- 
 tioned. Jerome gives a clear and rational 
 interpretation in his commentary on Matthew 
 xxiii. 5, “ Prsecepta mea sint in manu tua, 
 ut opere compleantur, sint ante oculos tuos 
 ut nocte et die mediteris in illis.” 
 
 12. thou shalt set apart] lit. as in the 
 margin “cause to pass over,” but the sense 
 is correctly expressed in the text, which follows 
 the Old Versions, and is preferable to the 
 marginal rendering, which suggests a refer- 
 ence to the word “ Passover.” 
 
 13 . an ass] The reason of the injunction 
 is evidently that the ass could not be offered 
 in sacrifice, being an unclean animal : possibly 
 the only unclean animal domesticated among 
 the Israelites at the time of the Exodus. 
 The principle of the law being obvious, it 
 was extended to the horse and camel, and 
 generally to every unclean beast; see Num. 
 xviii. 15. The mention of the ass only would 
 scarcely have occurred to an Israelite of a 
 
304 
 
 EXODUS. XIII. 
 
 [v. 14—19- 
 
 if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou 
 shalt break his neck ; and all the first- 
 born of man among thy children shalt 
 thou redeem. 
 
 14 ^ And it shall be when thy son 
 
 i Heb. asketh thee ^ in time to come, saying, 
 tomorrow, shalt say 
 
 unto him. By strength of hand the 
 Lord brought us out from Egypt, from 
 the house of bondage : 
 
 15 And it came to pass, when Pha- 
 raoh would hardly let us go, that 
 the Lord slew all the firstborn in 
 the land of Egypt, both the firstborn 
 of man, and • the firstborn of beast : 
 therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all 
 that openeth the matrix, being males ; 
 but all the firstborn of my children I 
 redeem. 
 
 16 And it shall be for a token 
 
 upon thine hand, and for frontlets 
 between thine eyes: for by strength 
 of hand the Lord brought us forth 
 out of Egypt. 
 
 17 ^ And it came to pass, when 
 Pharaoh had let the people go, that 
 God led them not through the way of 
 the land of the Philistines, although 
 that was near; for God said. Lest 
 peradventure the people repent when 
 they see war, and they return to 
 Egypt : 
 
 18 But God led the people about, 
 through the way of the wilderness of 
 the Red sea : and the children of Is- 
 rael went up “ harnessed out of the « Or, 
 land of Egypt. 
 
 19 And Moses took the bones of 
 Joseph with him: for he had straitly 
 sworn the children of Israel, saying. 
 
 later age. It has been observed that the ass 
 was held by the Egyptians to be typhonic, 
 i. e. in a peculiar sense unclean : but that feeling 
 appears to belong to a comparatively later 
 period; in early monuments the ass is fre- 
 quently represented, and in the ‘Ritual,’ c.40, 
 it is even a type of Osiris. 
 
 thou shalt redeem\ The lamb, or sheep, 
 was given to the priest for the service of the 
 sanctuary. 
 
 firstborn of man\ The price of redemption 
 was fixed at five shekels of the sanctuary: 
 Num. iii. 47, where see note. 
 
 16 . it shall b/\ This passage confirms the 
 interpretation given above on -i;. 9. 
 
 17 — 19 . These verses do not appear to 
 be a continuation of the narrative, which is 
 resumed at v. 20. It is not improbable that 
 some short time was passed at Succoth, and 
 that Moses then gave final injunctions touch- 
 ing the celebration of the Passover, and re- 
 ceived general instructions as to the ultimate 
 direction of the journey. Succoth may very 
 probably have been the head-quarters of the 
 f lebrews in Goshen. The name in Hebrew 
 indicates an assemblage of booths, or moveable 
 huts (see ch. xii. 37), such as were probably 
 used by the Israelites, ever mindful of their 
 condition as sojourners in a strange land: the 
 notice in 2.’. 19 naturally leaves the impression 
 that the bones of Joseph were kept there, of 
 course in the charge of his own descendants. 
 
 17 . the ctwy of the land of the Philistines'] 
 The occupancy of southern Palestine by the 
 Philistines, at a mucli earlier period than is 
 assigned by any critics to the Jfxodus, is 
 attested by the narrative in Genesis xxvi. i. 
 
 It has lately been questioned on the ground 
 that the inhabitants of Ascalon, when it 
 was captured by Rameses II. did not wear 
 the well-known costume of the Philistines, 
 but that of the ancient Canaanites, and that 
 the name Pulisha, i.e. Philisfines, occurs first 
 in monuments of the time of Rameses III. 
 Brugsch, ‘Geog. Ins.’ ii. p. 86. The objection 
 is answered in the Appendix at the end of 
 the volume: here it may sufiice to notice that 
 the persons represented on the monuments of 
 Rameses II. were probably Israelites; for they 
 actually took possession of the cities of the 
 Philistines, who did not recover the territory 
 until a considerable time had elapsed after tlie 
 death of Joshua. The warlike character of 
 the Philistines is equally conspicuous in the 
 Egyptian and Hebrew records. 
 
 18 . harnessed] This interpretation of the 
 Hebrew word rests on the authority of some 
 ancient versions, and a possible etymology is 
 suggested by Rabbinical writers. It seems, 
 however, more probable that the meaning is 
 marshalled or in orderly array. See note below. 
 The objection (grounded on the rendering in 
 our version) that the Israelites were not likely 
 to have been armed is unreasonable. There is 
 not the least indication that they were disarmed 
 by the Egyptians, and as occupying a frontier 
 district frequently assailed by the nomads of the 
 desert they would of necessity be accustomed 
 to the use of arms. The fear expressed by 
 Pharaoh (see ch. i. 10) that they might at any 
 time join the invaders and fight against Egypt 
 was t!ie avowed and doubtless the true motive 
 for the crafty measures by which he hoped to 
 subdue their spirit and prevent their increase. 
 
V. 20 2 2 .] 
 
 EXODUS, xrn. 
 
 305 
 
 '’Gen. 50. ^-00(1 will suFcIy visit you; and ye 
 Josh. 24. shall carry up my bones away hence 
 ^"^Numb. with you. 
 
 'Numb ^ And ^ they took their journey 
 
 DeuY'i Succoth, and encamped in E- 
 
 33. ’ ’ tham, in the edge of the wilderness, 
 fcorio'^’ 21 And ^the Lord went before 
 
 them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to 
 lead them the way; and by night in 
 a pillar of fire, to give them light ; to 
 go by day and night: 
 
 22 He took not away the pillar of 
 the cloud by day, -''^nor the pillar 
 fire by night, yr<?/ 7 z before the people. 
 
 20. Ethani\ The Egyptian notices of 
 Etham will be found in the Appendix at the end 
 of this volume. The most probable result of 
 those notices is that Etham, which means the 
 house or sanctuary of Turn (the Sun God 
 worshipped specially by that name in lower 
 ILgypt), was in the immediate vicinity of Hero- 
 opolis, called by the Egyptians the fortress of 
 Zar, or Zalu (/. e. of foreigners) ; the frontier 
 city where the Pharaohs of the 1 8th dynasty 
 reviewed their forces when about to enter upon 
 a campaign on Syria. The name Pithom has 
 precisely the same meaning with Etham, and 
 may possibly be identified with it. It was 
 at this point that the Bedouins of the adjoin- 
 ing wilderness came into contact with the 
 Egyptians. Under the 19th dynasty we find 
 them applying in a time of famine for admis- 
 sion to the fertile district commanded by the 
 fortress called the sanctuary of Turn. 
 
 21. pillar of cloud'] The Lord Himself 
 did for the Israelites by preternatural means 
 that which armies were obliged to do for 
 themselves by natural agents. Passages are 
 quoted from classical writers which shew 
 that the Persians and Greeks used fire and 
 
 smoke as signals in their marches. Cuitius 
 describes the practice of Alexander, who gave 
 the signal for departure by a fire on a tall 
 pole over his tent, and says, observabatur 
 ignis noctu fumus interdiu. Vcgetius and 
 Frontinus mention it as a general custom, 
 especially among the Arabians. The success 
 of some important e.^pcditions, as of Thrasybu- 
 lus and Timoleon, was attributed by popular 
 superstition to a divine light guiding the lead- 
 ers. To these well-known instances may be 
 added two of peculiar interest, as bearing 
 witness to a custom known to all the contem- 
 poraries of Moses. In an inscription of the 
 Ancient Empire an Egyptian general is com- 
 pared to “a flame streaming in advance of 
 an ai-my.” (See Chabas ‘V. E.’ p. 54; the 
 inscription is in the Denkmasler, ii, pi. 150, 
 2). Thus too in a wellknown papyrus, 
 (Anast. i) the commander of an expedition 
 is called ‘ ‘ A flame in the darkness at the head 
 of his soldiers.” By this sign then of the 
 pillar of cloud, the Lord shewed Himself as 
 their leader and general. “The Lord is a 
 man of war . . . thy right hand, O Lord, 
 hath dashed in pieces the enemy ” (xv.). 
 
 NOTE on V. 18. 
 
 The Hebrew is rendered “armati” 
 
 by the Vulg., I'TITD by Onkelos, i.e. accincti, 
 expediti, rather than armati. as it is rendered 
 in Walton’s Polyglott. This would suit the 
 etymology proposed by Abulwalid, Kimchi, 
 and Tanchum, and adopted by Kalisch, viz. 
 
 ilia, abdomen. The sense however would 
 be not “ full-armed,” but simply “with their 
 loins girded,” as men prepared for a journey. 
 Thus in Joshua i. 14 it is rendered by 
 
 the LXX. The Arabic in Walton (by Saadia) 
 
 has i.e. instruct!, marshalled; and this 
 
 meaning is adopted by many critics, though 
 different etymologies are proposed. Knobel 
 says that it must signify assembled, arranged 
 in orderly divisions, in contradistinction from 
 a disorganised rabble. He derives it from 
 Arabic roots, such as &c. It seems 
 
 however preferable to take the obvious Hebrew 
 etymology from i. e. five, probably con- 
 nected with agmen instructum, pr. 
 
 quinquepartiturn, which is pointed at by the 
 singular rendering of the LXX. “in the fifth 
 VOL. i. 
 
 generation.” Ewald, ‘ G. L’ explains.it “ar- 
 ranged in five divisions,” i.e. van, centre, two 
 wings and rear-guard. The promptitude with 
 which so vast a multitude was marshalled and 
 led forth justifies admiration, but is not mar- 
 vellous, nor without parallels in ancient and 
 modem history (see Introduction). The Israel- 
 ites had been prepared for departure, some pre- 
 liminary measures must have been taken after 
 each of the plagues when Pharaoh had given a 
 temporary assent to the request of Moses, see 
 viii. 8, 28, ix. 28, x. 16, four several occasions 
 on which notice must have been given to the 
 people. It must also be borne in mind that 
 the despotism of Pharaoh had supplied the 
 Israelites with native officers whom they were 
 accustomed to obey, and with whom they 
 wei-e united by the bond of a common suffer- ‘ 
 ing (see ch. v. 14—21). Their leader had 
 trie experience of an early life at a warlike 
 court, and of long years passed among the 
 fierce tiloes of the desert. I'he nation more- 
 over has shewn in every age a remarkable talent 
 for prompt and systematic organization. 
 
 U 
 
3o6 
 
 EXODUS. XIV. 
 
 [v. 1—3. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 I God instriicicth the Israelites iti their journey. 
 5 Pharaoh pnrsneth after them. 10 7 he 
 Israelites juuminr. \ 3 Moses comforteth them. 
 1 5 God instructeth Moses, i y The cloud re- 
 moveth hehmd the camp. 21 The Israelites 
 pass through the Red sea, 23 which drowneth 
 the Egyptians. 
 
 ND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, 
 that they turn .and encamp before 
 
 Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the ‘*Numix 
 sea, over against Baal-zephon : before 
 it shall ye encamp by the sea. 
 
 3 For Pharaoh will say of the 
 children of Israel, They are entangled 
 in the land, the wilderness hath shut 
 them in. 
 
 The Passage ever the Red Sea. 
 
 Chap. XIV. 2. That they turn\ The nar- 
 rative is continued from ne. ^o of the preced- 
 ing chapter. The people were then at Etham, 
 or Pitnom, the frontier city towards the wil- 
 derness : they are now commanded to change 
 the direction of their march, and to go south- 
 wards, to the west of the Bitter Lakes, which 
 completely separated them from the desert: 
 see note on c. xii, 37. 
 
 Pi-hahiroth'] The derivation of this name 
 is doubtful. If it is Semitic, like the two 
 other names mentioned in connection with it, 
 the meaning may be “mouth, or entrance 
 of the holes or caverns, ” but it is more pro- 
 bably Egyptian, with the common prefix Pi, 
 i. e. hcu.se. In an ancient papyrus, we read of 
 a place called Hir, or Pe-Hir, where there was 
 a large well, at no great distance from Ra- 
 ineses, which it supplied with garlands. See 
 Chabas, ‘ Ml- 1. Eig.’ ii. p. 123. The place is 
 generally identified with Ajrud, a fortress with 
 a very large well of good water (see Niebuhr, 
 
 ‘ Voyage,’ i. p. 175), situate at the foot of an 
 elevation commanding the plain which extends 
 to Sue/,, .at a distance of four leagues. The 
 journey from Etham might occupy two, or 
 even three days ; had however Etham been, as 
 many geographers suppose, half-way between 
 Mukfar and Ajrud (see Robinson’s ‘ Chart’), 
 Pharaoh could not possibly have overtaken 
 the Israelites, whether his head-quarters were 
 at Zoan, or even at Rameses, which was two 
 days' jouniey from Etham. 
 
 MigdoT\ The word means a tower, or 
 fort: it is probably to be identified with Bir 
 Suweis, about two miles from Suez. The 
 water is said by Niebuhr to be scarcely drink- 
 aide; according to Robinson, p. 45, it is used 
 only for cooking an<l washing. This traveller 
 obsei'\'es justly, that if the wells were in exist- 
 ence at the time of the Exodus they would 
 mark the site of a town. Now M. Chabas 
 has lately shewn that .Maktal, or Magdal, 
 an Egyptian fort (which on other grounds he 
 identifies with Migdol), visited by Sethos I. on 
 his return from a campaign in Syria, was built 
 over a large well : sec ‘ Voyage d'un Egypticn,’ 
 p. 286. 'Phis leaves scarcely any room for 
 doubt as to the locality; it is a point of im- 
 
 portance with reference to the passage over the 
 sea. 
 
 Baal^z.ephon'] This appears to have been the 
 name under which the Phoenicians, who had a 
 settlement in lower Egypt at a very ancient pe- 
 riod, worshipped their chief Deity. The corre- 
 sponding Egyptian Deity was Sutech, who is 
 often called Bal on monuments of the 19th 
 dynasty. Sethos I. gave a name closely con- 
 nected with this to a city in the same neigh- 
 bourhood, which Chabas, 1. c., holds to be 
 Baal-Zephon. There can be no doubt it was 
 near Kolsum, or Suez. In the time of Niebuhr 
 there were considerable ruins close to Suez on 
 the north. From the text it is clear that the 
 encampment of the Israelites extended over the 
 plain from Pi-hahiroth : their head-quarters 
 being between Bir Suweis and the sea opposite 
 to Baal-Zephon. At Ajrud the road branches 
 off in two directions, one leading to the wil- 
 derness by a tract, now dry, but in the time of 
 Moses probably impassable, see next note; the 
 other leading to Suez, which was doubtless 
 followed by the Israelites. 
 
 3. They are entangled, &c.]- The mean- 
 ing evidently is, in that direction they have no 
 egress from Egypt : the latter part of the verse 
 is generally rendered as in our Version, “the 
 wildemess has shut them in,” but the sense 
 would rather seem to be “the wildemess is 
 closed to them;” see note below. The ori- 
 ginal intention of Moses was to go towards 
 Palestine by the wilderness: when that pur- 
 pose was changed by God’s direction and they 
 moved southwards. Pharaoh on receiving in- 
 formation was of course aware that they were 
 completely shut in, since the waters of the 
 Red Sea then extended to the bitter lakes. It 
 is known that the Red Sea at some remote 
 period extended considerably further towards 
 the north than it does at present. In the 
 time of Moses the water north of Kolsum 
 joined the bitter lakes, though at present the 
 constant accumulation of sand has covered 
 the intervening space to the extent of 8000 
 to 10000 yards, not however rising higher 
 than six feet above the level of the lakes, 
 and from 40 to 50 feet below the level of the 
 Red Sea. xMr Malan, p. 5117, obseiwes that 
 tht lake Timseh, still further north, is full of 
 
V. 4 — II-] 
 
 EXODUS. XIV. 
 
 307 
 
 4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s 
 heart, that he shall follow after them ; 
 and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, 
 and upon all his host ; that the Egyp- 
 tians may know that I am the Lord. 
 And they did so. 
 
 5 f And it was told the king of 
 Egypt that the people fled: and the 
 heart of Pharaoh and of his servants 
 was turned against the people, and 
 they said. Why have we done this, 
 that we have let Israel go from serv- 
 ing us ? 
 
 6 And he made ready his chariot, 
 and took his people with him : 
 
 7 And he took six hundred chosen 
 chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, 
 and captains over every one of them. 
 
 8 And the Lord hardened the 
 heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and 
 he pursued after the children of Is- 
 rael : and the children of Israel went 
 out with an high hand. 
 
 9 But the “^Egyptians pursued after ^ Josh. 24. 
 them, all the horses and chariots offMac. 4. 
 Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his ^ 
 army, and overtook them encamping 
 
 by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, before 
 Baal-zephon. 
 
 10 ^ And when Pharaoh drew nigh, 
 the children of Israel lifted up their 
 eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians, 
 marched after them ; and they were 
 sore afraid : and the children of Israel 
 cried out unto the Lord. 
 
 1 1 And they said unto Moses, Be- 
 
 the Saris or Shari, the arundo Egyptiaca, from 
 which the Red Sea takes its local name. 
 
 5 . the people fled] This was a natural in- 
 ference from the change of direction, which 
 could have no object but escape from Egypt 
 by the pass at Suez. Up to the time when 
 that information reached Pharaoh both he and 
 his people understood that the Israelites would 
 return after keeping a festival in the district 
 adjoining Etham. From Etham the intelli- 
 gence would be forwarded by the commander 
 of the garrison to Rameses in less than a day, 
 and the cav.alry, a highly disciplined force, 
 would of course be ready for immediate de- 
 parture. 
 
 7 . SIX hundred chosen chariots] The 
 Egyptian ai*my comprised large numbers of 
 chariots, each drawn by two horses, with two 
 men, one bearing the shield and driving, the 
 other fully armed. The horses were thorough- 
 bred, renowned for strength and spirit. Cha- 
 riots are first represented on the monuments of 
 the 1 8th dynasty: they were used by Amosis 
 I. in the expedition against the shepherd kings, 
 by Thotmes I. against Syria and Mesopo- 
 tamia: under Thotmes III. we have the re- 
 cord of a battle at Megiddo in which 897 
 war-chariots were captur^ from the confede- 
 rated forces of northern Palestine and Syria. 
 By “all the chariots of Egypt” we are to un- 
 derstand all that were stationed in lower Egypt, 
 most of them probably at Rameses and other 
 frontier garrisons near the head-quarters of 
 Pharaoh. According to Diodorus Siculus, 
 I. 54, the Egyptians had 27000 chariots in the 
 time of Rameses II. 
 
 captains o'ver ensery one of them] Rather 
 captains over theVliole of them. Thus 
 
 the LXX., Vulg., Saadia, Syr. The word 
 rendered captains (Shalishim, lit. third or 
 thirtieth) is supposed by Roediger, Ges. 
 ‘Thes.’ s. V., to mean the warriors in the cha- 
 riots, but the Egyptians never put more than 
 two men in a chariot. The true meaning 
 is captains or commanders. The word may 
 represent an Egyptian title. The king had 
 about him a council of thirty, each of whom 
 bore a title corresponding to the Roman de- 
 cemvir, viz. Mapu, a “thirty man.” See 
 Pleyte, ‘.^g. Zeitschrift,’ 1866, p. 12, and 
 Chabas, ‘ Voyage d’un Egyptien.’ The word 
 occurs frequently in the books of Kings. David 
 seems to have organized the Shalishim as a 
 distinct corps, see 2 Sam. xxiii. 8, where it is 
 translated, as in this passage, captains. He 
 probably retained the old name, though it is 
 possible that he may have adopted the Egyp- 
 tian system, being on friendly terms with the 
 contemporai*y dynasty, which gave a queen to 
 Israel. 
 
 9. and his horsemen] Horsemen are not 
 represented on Egyptian monuments, even on 
 those of a later age, when they were employed 
 in great numbers ; the omission is probably 
 connected with the strict regulations of Egyp- 
 tian art ; but Diodci'us Siculus, whose autho- 
 rity is not questioned on this point, states that 
 Rameses II. had a force of 24000 cavalry, in- 
 dependent of the chariotry ; Isaiah makes the 
 same distinction between the chariots and 
 horsemen of Egypt, c. xxxi. i. The technical 
 expression for mounting on horseback is found 
 in ancient papyri. 
 
 beside Pi-i ^hiroth] This statement is urged 
 as an objection to the identification with Ajrud; 
 but the encampment of the great host of Israel 
 extended over many miles. 
 
 U 2 
 
EXODUS. XIV. 
 
 [v. 12 21. 
 
 308 
 
 cause there were no graves in Egypt, 
 hast thou taken us away to die in the 
 wilderness ? wherefore hast thou dealt 
 thus with us, to carry us forth out of 
 Egypt ? 
 
 « chap. 6. 11 ^ Is not this the word that we 
 
 did tell thee in Egypt, saying. Let us 
 alone, that we may serve the Egyp- 
 tians? For it had been better for us 
 to serve the Egyptians, than that we 
 should die in the wilderness. 
 
 13 ^ And Moses said unto the 
 people, Fear ye not, stand still, and 
 see the salvation of the Lord, which 
 
 M^here- shcw to you to day : “ for the 
 
 Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, 
 
 Egyptians ye shall see them again no more for 
 ever. 
 
 14 The Lord shall fight for you, 
 and ye shall hold your peace. 
 
 15 ^ And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Wherefore criest thou unto me ? 
 speak unto the children of Israel, that 
 they go forward : 
 
 16 But lift thou up thy rod, and 
 stretch out thine hand over the sea, 
 and divide it; and the children of Is- 
 rael shall go on dry ground through 
 the midst of the sea. 
 
 17 And I, behold, I will harden 
 the hearts of the Egyptians, and they 
 shall follow them: and I will get me 
 honour upon Pharaoh, and upon all 
 his host, upon his chariots, and upon 
 his horsemen. 
 
 18 And the Egyptians shall know 
 that I am the Lord, when I have 
 gotten me honour upon Pharaoh, 
 upon his chariots, and upon his horse- 
 men. 
 
 19 ^ And the angel of God, which 
 went before the camp of Israel, re- 
 moved and went behind them; and 
 the pillar of the cloud went from be- 
 fore their face, and stood behind 
 them : 
 
 20 And it came between the camp 
 of the Egyptians and the camp of 
 Israel ; and it was a cloud and dark- 
 ness to them^ but it gave light by night 
 to these: so that the one came not 
 near the other all the night. 
 
 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 that night, and made ^ 
 the sea dry land^ and the waters were 23. ' 
 
 ‘'divided. 
 
 11. no gra'ves in Egypt^ This bitter taunt 
 was probably suggested by the vast extent of 
 cemeteries in Egypt,, which might not impro- 
 perly be called the land of tombs: it would 
 scarcely have been imagined by one who had 
 not dwelt there. 
 
 12. Let us alone'] This is a gross exag- 
 geration, yet not without a semblance of truth : 
 for although the Israelites welcomed the mes- 
 sage of Moses at first, they gave way com- 
 pletely at the first serious trial. See the refer- 
 ence in marg. The whole passage foreshadows 
 the conduct of the people in the wilderness. 
 
 13. for the Egyptians ^kom^ &c.] Rather 
 for as ye have seen the Egyptians to- 
 day ye shall see them again no more for ever. 
 Our A.V. follows the Vulg., but the LXX., 
 Targ., Saad. give the true sense, ye shall 
 never see the Egyptians in the same way, 
 under the same circumstances. 
 
 15. Wherefore criest thou unto me?] Moses 
 does not speak of his intercession, and we 
 only know of it from this answer to his 
 prayer. This is a characteristic of the narra- 
 tive, important to be observed with reference 
 to other omissions less easily supplied. 
 
 19. the angel of God] Compare ch. xiii. ai ; 
 and see note on ch. iii. z. 
 
 20. The words in Italics are accepted as 
 explanatory by some commentators; but the 
 LXX. read “and the night passed” instead 
 of “it gave light by night.” The sense is 
 good and the reading not improbable. 
 
 21. a strong east nvind ] It is thus dis- 
 tinctly 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 circumstances, would make the passage 
 quite possible. It would seem to be scarcely 
 practicable, when the wind blows from other 
 quarters (see Tischendorf ’s account, ‘ Aus dem- 
 heiligen Lande,’ p. 21 ). Of course this would 
 not explain the effect, if the passage had been 
 made, ;is v/as formerly supposed, through the 
 deep s'^a near the Wady Musa, some leagues 
 south of Suez. All the conditions of the nar- 
 rative are satisfied by the hypothesis, that the 
 passage took place near Suez. 
 
 the nvaters ^jere dinjided] i.e. there was a 
 complete separation between t.he water of the 
 gulf and the water to the north of Kolsum. 
 
V. 2 2 28 .] 
 
 EXODUS. XIV. 
 
 309 
 
 Psai. 78. 22 And ‘'the children of Israel went 
 
 I Cor. 10. into the midst of the sea upon the dry 
 Heb. II. ground: and the waters were a wall 
 29- unto them on their right hand, and on 
 
 their left. 
 
 23 ^ And the Egyptians pursued, 
 and went in after them to the midst 
 of the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses, 
 his chariots, and his horsemen. 
 
 24 And it came to pass, that in the 
 morning watch the Lord looked unto 
 the host of the Egyptians through the 
 pillar of fire and of the cloud, and 
 troubled the host of the Egyptians, 
 
 25, And took off their chariot wheels, 
 
 II Or, “that they drave them heavily: so 
 
 V^fni to go the Egyptians said. Let us flee 
 heavily. the face of Israel ; for the Lord 
 
 fighteth for them against the Egyp- 
 tians. 
 
 26 H And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Stretch out thine hand over the 
 sea, that the waters may come again 
 upon the Egyptians, upon their cha- 
 riots, and upon their horsemen. 
 
 27 And Moses stretched forth his 
 hand over the sea, and the sea returned 
 to his strength when the morning ap- 
 peared ; and the Egyptians fled against 
 
 it; and the Lord ^overthrew the t Heb. 
 Egyptians in the midst of the sea. ^J^ookoff^ 
 
 28 And the waters returned, and 
 covered the chariots, and the horse- 
 men, and all the host of Pharaoh that 
 came into the sea after them ; there re- 
 mained not so much as-^one of them. 
 
 / 
 
 22. fivere a 'wall unto them] The waters 
 served the purpose of an intrenchment and 
 wall ; the people could not be attacked on 
 either flank during the transit ; to the north 
 was the water covering the whole district ; to 
 the south was the Red Sea. For the idiom, 
 compare Nahum iii. 8. 
 
 23. the Egyptians pursued~\ The Egyp- 
 tians might be aware that under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances there would be abundant time for 
 the passage of the chariots and cavalry, of 
 which the force chiefly consisted. 
 
 24. in the morning <watch'\ At sunrise, 
 a little before 6 A. m. in April. 
 
 troubled^ Threw them into confusion by a 
 sudden panic. 
 
 25. And took off their chariot wheels'] 
 This translation is generally accepted. The 
 LXX, however render the word “bound” or 
 clogged (truvefii/o-e — "IDN'), a probable read- 
 ing, and perhaps more suited to the context. 
 
 26. that the 'waters may come] A sud- 
 den cessation of the wind.at sunrise, coinciding 
 with a spring tide (it was full moon) would 
 immediately convert the low flat sand-banks 
 first into a quicksand, and then into a mass 
 of waters, in a time far less than would suffice 
 for the escape of a single chariot, or horseman 
 loaded with heavy corslet. 
 
 27. o'verthrew the Egyptians] Better as in 
 the margin. The Lord shook them off, 
 hurled them from their chariots into the sea. 
 Thus in the papyrus quoted above, when the 
 chariot is broken the warrior is hurled out 
 with such force that his armour is buried in 
 the sand. 
 
 28. not so much as one of them] The 
 
 statement is explicit, all the chariots and horse- 
 men and that portion of the infantry which 
 followed them into the bed of the sea. In fact, 
 as has been shewn, escape would be impossible. 
 A doubt has been raised whether Pharaoh him- 
 self perished : but independent of the distinct 
 statement of the Psalmist, Ps. cxxxvi. 15, his 
 destruction is manifestly assumed, and was in 
 fact inevitable. The station of the king was 
 in the vanguard : on every monument the Pha- 
 raoh is represented as the leader of the army, 
 and allowing for Egyptian flattery on other 
 occasions, that was his natural place in the 
 pursuit of fugitives whom he hated so in- 
 tensely. The death of the Pharaoh, and 
 the entire loss of the chariotry and cavalry 
 accounts for the undisturbed retreat of the 
 Israelites through a district then subject to 
 Egypt and easily accessible to their forces. 
 The blow to Egypt was not fatal, for the loss 
 of men might not amount to many thousands ; 
 but falling upon their king, their leaders and 
 the portion of the army indispensable for the 
 prosecution of foreign wars, it crippled them 
 effectually. If, as appears probable, Toth- 
 mosis II. were the Pharaoh, the first recorded 
 expedition into the Peninsula took place 17 
 years after his death ; and twenty-two years 
 elapsed before any measures were taken to re- 
 cover the lost ascendancy of Egypt in Syria. 
 So complete, so marvellous was the deliver- 
 ance : thus the Israelites were baptized to 
 Moses in the cloud and in the sea. When 
 they left Baal-Zephon they were separated 
 finally from the idolatry of Egypt : when they 
 passed the Red Sea their independence of its 
 power was sealed ; their life as a nation then 
 began, a life inseparable henceforth from belief 
 in Jehovah, and His servant Moses, only to be 
 merged in the higher life revealed by His Son. 
 
310 
 
 EXODUS. XV. 
 
 29 But the children of Israel walked 
 upon dry land in the midst of the 
 sea; and the w^aters vjere a wall unto 
 them on their right hand, and on 
 their left. 
 
 30 Thus the Lord saved Israel 
 that day out of the hand of the Egyp- 
 
 [v. 29 — 2. 
 
 tians; and Israel saw the Egyptians 
 dead upon the sea shore. 
 
 31 And Israel saw that great ^ work 
 which the Lord did upon the Egyp- 
 tians : and the people feared the Lord, 
 and believed the Lord, and his ser- 
 vant Moses. 
 
 NOTE on n). 3 . 
 
 The Hebrew has "liD. The 
 
 LXX. and Vulg. render crvyKeKXeiKe, 
 
 conclusit : but it is not followed by an accu- 
 sative in the Hebrew, and must be intransi- 
 tive, as it is taken by Saadia , and the 
 
 Syr. f conclusum est. Thus in 
 
 Judges iii. 22, “ The fat closed upon the blade.” 
 The correct rendering seems to be the wilder- 
 ness is closed to them. In no sense could the 
 wilderness be a barrier; the direct route led 
 them into it, the change of route shut them 
 out from it. 
 
 Wisd. 
 
 O. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 I Moses' song. 22 The people want zuater. 
 23 The waters at Mar ah are bitter. 2^ A 
 tree sweeteneth them. 27 At Elim are twelve 
 ivells, and seventy pab 7 i trees. 
 
 T hen sang Moses and the chil- 
 dren of Israel this song unto 
 
 the Lord, and spake, saying, I will 
 sing unto the Lord, for he hath 
 triumphed gloriously; the horse and 
 his rider hath he thrown into the sea. 
 
 2 The Lord is my strength and 
 song, and he is become my salvation : 
 he is my God, and I will prepare him 
 
 Chap. XV. 1 — 18 . With the deliver- 
 ance of Israel is associated the development 
 of the national poetry, which finds its first 
 and perfect expression in this magnificent 
 hymn. It is said to have been sung by Moses 
 and the people, an expression which evidently 
 points to him as the author. That it was 
 written at the time is an assertion expressly- 
 made in the text, and it is supported by the 
 strongest internal evidence. The style is ad- 
 mitted, even by critics who question its 
 genuineness, to be archaic both in the lan- 
 guage, which isequally remarkable for grandeur, 
 and severe simplicity, and in the general struc- 
 ture, which, though rhythmical and systematic, 
 differs materially from later compositions, in 
 which the divisions are more numerous and 
 the arrangement more elaborate. The sub- 
 ject matter and the leading thoughts are such 
 as belong to the time and the occasion; un- 
 like the imitations in the later Psalms, the 
 song abounds in allusions to incidents passing 
 under the eye of the composer: it has every 
 mark of freshness and originality. The only 
 objections are founded on the prophetic por- 
 tion (15 — 17): but if ever there was a crisis 
 calculated to elicit the spirit of prophecy, it 
 was that of the Exodus, if ever a man fitted 
 to express that spirit, it was Moses. Even 
 
 objectors admit that the invasion of Palestine 
 was contemplated by Moses: if so what more 
 natural than that after the great catastrophe, 
 which they accept as an historical fact, he 
 should anticipate the terror of the nations 
 through whose ten'itories the Israelites would 
 pass, and whose destruction was an inevitable 
 condition of their success. In every age this 
 song gave the tone to the poetry of Israel; 
 especially at great critical epochs of deliver- 
 ance. In the book of Revelation (xv. 3) it 
 is associated with the final triumph of the 
 Church, when the saints “having the harps 
 of God” will sing “the Song of Moses the 
 servant of God, and the Song of the Lamb.” 
 
 The division of the Song into three parts is 
 distinctly marked: i — 5,6 — 10,11 — 18: each 
 begins with an ascription of praise to God; 
 each increases in length and varied imagery 
 unto the triumphant close. 
 
 First Division. 1 — 10 . Ascription of 
 praise and brief statement of the transaction. 
 
 1, He hath triumphed gloriously'\ This 
 gives the true meaning, but not the force and 
 grandeur of the Hebrew, literally He is glori- 
 ously glorious. Among the Ancient Versions 
 the LXX, eVSo^cor deto^ao-rai, comes near, the 
 Arabic of Saadia is very fine 
 
V. 3 — 8 .] 
 
 EXODUS. XV. 
 
 311 
 
 an habitation; my father’s God, and 
 I will exalt him. 
 
 3 The Lord is a man of war : the 
 Lord is his name. 
 
 4 Pharaoh’s chariots and his host 
 hath he cast into the sea : his chosen 
 captains also are drowned in the Red 
 sea. 
 
 5 The depths have covered them : 
 they sank into the bottom as a stone. 
 
 6 Thy right hand, O Lord, is be- 
 
 come glorious in pov/cr ; thy right 
 hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces 
 the enemy. 
 
 7 And in the greatness of thine ex- 
 cellency thou hast overthrown them 
 that rose up against thee ; thou sentest 
 forth thy wrath, which consumed them 
 as stubble. 
 
 8 And with the blast of thy nostrils 
 the waters were gathered together, the 
 floods stood upright as an heap, and 
 
 the horse and his rider'] The word “ rider” 
 may include horseman, but applies properly 
 to the charioteer: the Egyptian word for 
 horse which corresponds exactly to the He- 
 brew, always designates the swift, high- 
 bred horses used for the war-cars of nobles. 
 Thus in the papyrus ‘ Anast.’ i, “The horses 
 of my chariot are swift as jackals : their eyes 
 like fire: they are like a hurricane when it 
 bursts.” 
 
 2 . The Lord is my strength and song^ 
 My strength and song is Jah. This 
 name is specially associated with victory by 
 the Psalmist, Ps. Ixviii. 4. It was doubtless 
 chosen here by Moses to draw attention to 
 the promise ratified by the name “ I am.” 
 The fonn of the word “song” in Hebrew 
 is archaic. 
 
 I (will prepare Him an habitation] I will 
 glorify Him. Scholars agree that the He- 
 brew word means to celebrate with grateful, 
 loving adoration. In fact this sense is given 
 by most of the ancient Versions. Our Au- 
 thorised Version is open to serious objection, 
 as suggesting a thought (viz. of erecting a 
 temple) which could hardly have been in the 
 mind of Moses at that time, and unsuited. to 
 the occasion. It is one of many instances of 
 undue deference to Rabbinical authorities on 
 the part of our translators. The Targum of 
 Onkelos, who is followed by Kimchi, has “ I 
 will build Him a sanctuary.” Thus too the 
 interlinear Latin in Walton’s Polyglott. The 
 LXX., Vulg.' and Syr. render the word cor- 
 rectly. Saadia has “ I will take refuge with 
 Him.” 
 
 3 . a man of nvar] Compare Ps. xxiv. 8. 
 The name has on this occasion a peculiar 
 fitness; man had no part in the victory: the 
 battle was the Lord’s. 
 
 the Lord is his name] A pregnant expres- 
 sion, implying that the manifestation of might, 
 by which the salvation of Israel was effected, 
 accorded with the name Jehovah, the most 
 perfect expression of the Divine Essence. 
 
 4 . hath He cast] The Hebrew is very 
 forcible, “hurled,” as from a sling. See 
 
 note on ch. xiv. 27. All the words which de- 
 scribe the fall of the mailed warriors of Egypt 
 are such as one who actually witnessed their 
 overthrow would naturally employ. See note 
 on the next verse. 
 
 his chosen captains] The same expression is 
 used in ch. xiv. 7, where see note. It desig- 
 nates officers of the highest rank, chosen spe- 
 cially to attend on the person of Pharaoh: 
 probably commanders of the 2000 Calasirians 
 who alternatively with the Hermotybians 
 formed his body-guard. They may have been 
 for the most part personally known to Moses. 
 
 drowned] The original is more graphic, 
 “ plunged, submerged,” describing the over- 
 throw in the rushing tide. 
 
 5. as a stone] The warriors on chariots 
 are always represented on the monuments 
 with heavy coats of mail; the corslets of 
 “ chosen captains ” consisted of plates of highly 
 tempered bronze, with sleeves reaching nearly 
 to the elbow, covering the whole body and the 
 thighs nearly to the knee; see the engraving 
 of the corslet of Rameses III. in Sir G. Wil- 
 kinson, ‘ M. and C.’ i. p. 366. They must 
 have sunk at once like a stone, or as we read 
 in V. 10, like lumps of lead. Touches like 
 these come naturally from an eye-witness. 
 
 Second Division. 6 — 10 . This division 
 presents the details more fully, and completes 
 the picture by describing the mode in which 
 the destruction was effected, and the arrogance 
 of the Egyptians by which it was provoked. 
 
 6. is become glorious] The translation is 
 correct, but inadequately represents the force 
 and beauty of the Hebrew word, which is 
 archaic in fonm and usage. 
 
 7 . thy wrath] lit. Thy burning, i.e. the 
 fire of Thy wrath, a word chosen expressly 
 with reference to the effect: it consumed the 
 enemy suddenly, completely, like fire burning 
 up stubble. The simile is not uncommon in 
 Egyptian : thus in the poem of Pentaour ad- 
 dressed to Rameses II. “The people were as 
 stubble before thy chariot :” but the superiority 
 of the Hebrew is obvious — it represents the 
 
12 
 
 EXODUS. XV. 
 
 [v. 9— II, 
 
 the depths were congealed in the heart 
 of the sea. 
 
 9 The enemy said, I will pursue, I 
 will overtake, I will divide the spoil ; 
 my lust shall be satisfied upon them ; 
 I will draw my sword, my hand shall 
 l^l’ssess. “ destroy them. 
 
 10 Thou didst blow with thy wind, 
 the sea covered them : they sank as 
 lead in the mighty waters. 
 
 1 1 Who is like unto thee, O Lord, 
 among the " gods ? who is like thee, « Or, 
 glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, 
 doing wonders ? 
 
 flame going forth from the Presence of God. 
 The Hebrew for stubble is also Egyptian. 
 
 8. This description has been strangely mis- 
 represented as though it were irreconcileable 
 vath the preceding narrative. It differs from 
 that as lyric poetry differs in its imagery 
 from prose; and as inspired poetry it brings 
 us into contact with the hidden and effectual 
 causes of the natural phenomena, which it 
 still distinctly recognizes. The blast of God’s 
 nostrils corresponds to the natural agency, 
 the east wind (ch. xiv. 21), which drove the 
 waters back. On each side the Psalmist de- 
 scribes what he must actually have seen; on 
 the north the waters rising high, overhanging 
 the sands, but kept back by the strong wind: 
 on the south lying in massive rollers, kept 
 down by the same agency in the heart, or deep 
 bed of the Red Sea. In both descriptions we 
 have precisely the same effects ; in the former 
 the bearings upon the passage of the Israelites 
 are most prominent; in this the scenery is 
 presented in the form which impressed the 
 seer’s imagination most vividly, and which 
 fixes itself most strongly on the spirit of the 
 reader. 
 
 as an heap'] The LXX. render this “as a 
 wall,” ojoret rei^of. The Hebrew word pro- 
 bably means “a dam.” It corresponds to 
 wall, xiv. 22. 
 
 9. Tb/r enemy said] The abrupt, gasping 
 utterances; the haste, cupidity and ferocity of 
 the Egyptians, the confusion and disorder of 
 their thoughts, are described in terms recog- 
 nized by critics of all schools as belonging to 
 the highest order of poetry; it must not be 
 forgotten that they enable us to realize the 
 feelings which induced Pharaoh and his host 
 to pursue the Israelites over the treacherous 
 sandbanks. 
 
 destroy them] Thus Vulg., Targ., Saad. 
 and most modern critics. The margin fol- 
 lows the LXX. and is defensible. 
 
 10. Thou didst hlo^ qvith thy ^ind] The 
 solemn majesty of these few words, in imme- 
 diate contrast with the tumult and confusion 
 of the i)receding verse, needs scarcely be no- 
 ticed : it is important to observe that Moses 
 hc.fc states distinctly the natural agency by 
 which the destruction was e^ffected. In the 
 
 direct narrative, xiv. 28, we read only, “the 
 waters returned,” here we are told that it was 
 because the wind blew. A sudden change in 
 the direction of the wind would bring back at 
 once the masses of water heaped up on the 
 north. If the tide rose at the same time, the 
 waters of the Red Sea would meet and over- 
 whelm the host : but this is not said, and the 
 Egyptians, who were close observers of na- 
 tural phenomena, would probably have been 
 aware of the danger of attempting the passage 
 had flood-time been near at hand. One cause 
 is assigned and it suffices for the effect. 
 
 they sank as lead] See note on ns. 4. The 
 sudden drowning of the charioteers as they 
 fell headlong in their heavy panoply must 
 have been one of the most striking features of 
 the scene: hence the repetition, not without a 
 variation, which gives a more exact sim.ile: 
 they fell like masses of lead, helpless, motion- 
 less, unable for a moment to struggle with the 
 waters. 
 
 Third and Last Division. After 
 the ascription of praise the seer turns to the 
 remoter, but certain consequences of this 
 unparalleled event. It was impossible that 
 a man in the position and wfith the feelings of 
 Moses should not revert to them, and at once 
 present them in clear strong language to His 
 people. The deliverance was the earnest of a 
 complete fulfilment of old promises, it was a 
 pledge also that enemies, whom the Israelites 
 could not but dread as their superiors in the 
 arts and resources of war, would be dis- 
 heartened, and speedily overcome, and that 
 they themselves would be put in possession 
 of the inheritance of Abraham. 
 
 11. among the gods] The marg. has 
 “mighty ones,” which is a possible rendering, 
 adopted in the Vulg. But the translation is 
 quite correct, and justified by other unmistake- 
 able passages; thus in Ps. Ixxxvi. 8, “Amcrg 
 the gods there is none like unto Thee,” an 
 expression which by no means admits the sub- 
 stantial power of the objects of heathen wor- 
 ship, in which the Israelite recognized either 
 evil spirits or mere phantoms of superstitious 
 imagination; see especially Deut. xxxii. 16, 17. 
 A llebrew just leaving the land in which 
 Polytheism attained its highest development, 
 with gigantic statues and temples of incom- 
 parable grandeur, might well on such an occar 
 
V 12 — 16 .] 
 
 EXODUS. XV. 
 
 313 
 
 12 Thou stretchedst out thy right 
 hand, the earth swallowed them. 
 
 13 Thou in thy mercy hast led 
 forth the people which thou hast re- 
 deemed : thou hast guided the}n in thy 
 strength unto thy holy habitation. 
 
 » Dent. 3. 14 The ^people shall hear, and be 
 
 Josh. 3. 9. afraid : sorrow shall take hold on the 
 inhabitants of Palestina. 
 
 15 Then the dukes of Edom shall 
 
 be amazed ; the mighty men of Moab, 
 trembling shall take hold upon them ; 
 all the inhabitants of Canaan shall 
 melt away. 
 
 16 ‘^Fear and dread shall fall upon *• 
 them ; by the greatness of thine arm Josh. 2. =1 
 they shall be as still as a stone; till 
 thy people pass over, O Lord, till the 
 people pass over, which thou hast pur- 
 chased. 
 
 sion dwell upon this consummation of the long 
 series of triumphs by which the “greatness 
 beyond compare” of Jehovah was once for 
 all established. 
 
 12 . the earth s^allo^ved theni] The state- 
 ment is general, not dwelling on the special 
 mode of the Egyptian overthrow, which had 
 already been fully treated, but serving to mark 
 the transition to a different subject, viz. the 
 effects of the deliverance upon Israel. 
 
 13 . thou hast guided them, &c.] Two ob- 
 jections are made to this, as indicating a later 
 origin ; (i) the use of the past tense ; but Moses 
 naturally and correctly speaks of the guidance 
 as already begun, God had redeemed the 
 Israelites, and placed them in the way to- 
 wards Canaan. (2) The words “thy holy 
 habitation ” are supposed to refer to the tempje 
 at Jerusalem. It would not however be an 
 unsuitable designation for Palestine, regarded 
 as the land of promise, sanctified by mani- 
 festations of God to the Patriarchs, and de- 
 stined to be both the home of God’s people, 
 and the place where His glory and purposes 
 were to be perfectly revealed. It is clear that 
 no Hebrew writing before the time of Solomon 
 would have introduced a reference to the 
 temple, and improbable that any one writing 
 afterwards would have put an expression with 
 that meaning into the mouth of Moses. But 
 it is possible that Moses had Mount Moriah 
 in his mind, whether in remembrance of Abra- 
 ham’s offering, or as the result of an imme- 
 diate inspiration. If so it would be an instance 
 of that not uncommon and most interesting 
 form of prediction in which events separated 
 by a wide interval from the seer’s time are 
 realized as impending. Of all predictions such 
 are least likely to be attributed to any writer 
 after their long deferred fulfilment. 
 
 14 . Tihe people'] or the peoples, an ex- 
 pression now justified by usage, and necessary 
 in this passage to give the true meaning. 
 
 the inhabitants of Palestina] In Hebrew Pe- 
 lasheth, i.e. the country of the Philistines. 
 They were the first who would expect an in- 
 vasion, and the first whose district would 
 have been invaded but for the faintheartedness 
 
 of the Israelites. It is obvious that the order 
 of thoughts would have been very different had 
 the song been composed at a later period, 
 since in fact Philistia was the last district 
 occupied by the Israelites. 
 
 15 . the dukes of Edom] The specific name 
 used in Genesis xxxvi. 15, where see note 
 It denotes the' chieftains, not the kings of 
 Edom : see also Br W. Smith, ‘ The Penta- 
 teuch,’ p. 385. 
 
 the mighty men of Moab] The physical 
 strength and great stature of the Moabites are 
 noted in other passages: see Jer. xlviii. 29, 41. 
 
 Canaan] The name in this, as in many pas- 
 sages of Genesis, designates the whole of Pa- 
 lestine: and is used of course with reference to 
 the promise to Abraham. It was known to 
 the Egyptians, and occurs frequently on the 
 monuments as Pa-kanana, which according to 
 M. Chabas designates only a large fortress in 
 Syria, but as most Egyptologers hold, and on 
 very solid grounds, applies, if not to the whole 
 of Palestine, yet to the northern district under 
 Lebanon, which the Phoenicians occupied and 
 called Canaan. 
 
 16 . shall fall upon them] Most of the 
 ancient versions use the optative fonn. Let 
 fear and dread fall upon them, l*et them be 
 still, i.e. motionless, as a stone: thus LXX, 
 V ulg. Such undoubtedly may be the meaning 
 of the Hebrew, but the future is equally, if 
 not more forcible; and the prediction is so 
 general that even those, who reject specific 
 announcements of future events, might accept 
 it as a natural expression of the anticipations 
 of Moses. An objection is taken by some 
 critics to the expression “ pass over ” as apply- 
 ing specially to the passage over Jordan; the 
 prophecy was doubtless then fulfilled, but that 
 event could not have been in the mind of Moses, 
 since he expected that the entrance would 
 be by the southern frontier; and the term 
 which he uses would be equally applicable to 
 any passing over the physical barriei-s of Ca- 
 naan ; had Indeed the song been composed 
 after that passage it is scarcely possible that 
 some allusion would not have been made to 
 the resemblance between the two miracles. 
 
EXODUS. XV. 
 
 [v. 17 22. 
 
 17 Thou shalt bring them in, and 
 plant them in the mountain of thine 
 inheritance, in the place, O Lord, 
 which thou hast made for thee to dwell 
 in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which 
 thy hands have established. 
 
 18 The Lord shall reign for ever 
 and ever. 
 
 19 For the horse of Pharaoh went 
 in with his chariots and with his horse- 
 men into the sea, and the Lord brou.t^ht 
 again the waters of the sea upon them ; 
 but the childrm of Israel went on 
 dry land in the midst of the sea. 
 
 20 ^ And Miriam the prophetess, 
 the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in 
 her hand; and all the women went 
 out after her with timbrels and with 
 dances. 
 
 21 And Miriam answered them. 
 Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath 
 triumphed gloriously; the horse and 
 his rider hath he thrown into the sea. 
 
 22 So Moses brought Israel from 
 the Red sea, and they went out into 
 the wilderness of Shur; and they went 
 three days in the wilderness, and found 
 no water. 
 
 17 . in the mountain of thine inheritance^ 
 See note on v. 13. The expressions in this 
 verse, especially the word Sanctuary, are in 
 favour of the explanation given in the latter 
 part of that note; but some critics (as Smith 
 ‘Pentateuch,’ p. 403, and Bleek, ‘ Einleitung,’ 
 p. 274) consider that Palestine is meant. 
 
 The psalm closes, not with the conquest of 
 Canaan, but with its ultimate and crowning 
 result, the settlement of the people of Jehovah 
 in the inheritance which he had promised, and 
 in the place which he destined for His Sanc- 
 tuary. 
 
 19 . For the horse^ &c.] This verse does 
 not belong to the hymn, but marks the transi- 
 tion from it to the narrative. Writers, who 
 attribute different portions of the book to 
 various authors, consider that it belongs to the 
 original composition. It is however obviously 
 a summary statement of the cause and subject- 
 matter of the preceding hymn, and as such, 
 assumes its existence. 
 
 20 And Miriam the prophetess'] The part 
 here assigned to Miriam and the women of 
 Israel is in accordance both with Egyptian 
 and Hebrew customs. The men are repre- 
 sented as singing the hymn in chorus, under 
 the guidance of Moses; at each interval Mi- 
 riam and the women sang the refrain, mark- 
 ing the time with the timbrel, and with the 
 measured rhythmical movements always as- 
 sociated with solemn festivities. Compare 
 Judg. xi. 34. I Sam. xviii. 6, and 2 Sam. vi. 5. 
 A representation of women dancing, some 
 with l)oughs in their hand, others playing on 
 timbrels, or tambourines of various shapes, 
 some square and some round, is given by Wil- 
 kinson, ‘ .M. and C.' i. p. 93. The word used 
 in this passage for the timbrel is Egyptian, and 
 judging from its etymology and the figures 
 which are joined with it in the inscriptions, 
 it was probably the round instrument. See 
 JirugscJ], ‘D. H.’ p. 1323, and 1534. 
 
 Miriam is called a prophetess-, evidently, as 
 appears from Numbers xii. 2, because she and 
 Aaron had received divine communications. 
 The word is used here in its proper sense of 
 uttering words suggested- by the Spirit of God. 
 On the use and meaning of the v/ord see note 
 on Genesis xx. 7. She is called the si.ster of 
 Aaron, most probably to indicate her special 
 position as co-ordinate, not with Moses the 
 leader of the nation, but with his chief aid and 
 instrument. It is evident, however, that this 
 designation, most natural in the mouth of 
 Moses, who would be careful to record the 
 names of his brother and sister on such an 
 occasion, was not likely to have been applied 
 to Miriam by a later writer. 
 
 22. So Hoses'] Lit. And Moses. The word 
 so gives the impression of a closer connection 
 with the preceding verse than is suggested by 
 the Hebrew.' The history of the journey 
 from the Red Sea to Sinai begins in fact with 
 this verse, which would more conveniently 
 have been the commencement of another 
 chapter. 
 
 from the Red sea\ The station where Moses 
 and his people halted to celebrate their de- 
 liverance is generally admitted to be the Ayoun 
 Musa, i.e. the fountains of Moses. It is the 
 only green spot near the passage over the Red 
 Sea. There are several wells there (17 ac- 
 cording to Dr Stanley, p. 67, 7 according to 
 Robinson, p. 62). Tischendorf, w'hose descrip- 
 tion is fuller than that of other travellers and 
 gives a more pleasing impression, counted 19, 
 and observes that the vegetation indicates a still 
 largernumber. ‘ Ausdem heiligen Lande,’p. 22. 
 The water, like all the w'ater on the western 
 coast of the Peninsula, is dark-coloured and 
 brackish, but it is drinkable, and is said to be 
 highly prized by the peojde of Suez, whose 
 richer inhabitants formerly built country 
 houses, and laid out gardens in the place. At 
 present the German consul has a garden of 
 
V. 23 — 26.] 
 
 EXODUS. XV. 
 
 315 
 
 I That is, 
 bittenuss. 
 
 * Ecclus. 
 38- 5 . 
 
 23 H And when they came to 
 Marah, they could not drink of the 
 waters of Marah, for they w^re bitter : 
 therefore the name of it was called 
 ’ Marah. 
 
 24 And the people murmured 
 against Moses, saying. What shall we 
 drink ? 
 
 25 And he cried unto the Lord ; 
 and the Lord shewed him a ^tree, 
 which when he had cast into the 
 waters, the waters w'ere made sweet : 
 
 there he made for them a statute and 
 an ordinance, and there he proved 
 them, 
 
 26 And said. If thou wilt diligently 
 hearken to the voice of the Lord thy 
 God, and wilt do that which is right 
 in his sight, and wilt give ear to his 
 commandments, and keep all his sta- 
 tutes, I will put none of these diseases 
 upon thee, which I have brought upon 
 the Egyptians : for I am the Lord 
 that healeth thee. 
 
 considerable extent and beauty, described by 
 Tischendorf. Wellsted found there about 
 twenty clumps of palm-trees, the branches of 
 which were so closely interv^oven that they 
 formed a dense impervious shade, affording 
 shelter to the Arabs. According to M. Monge 
 (quoted by Robinson, p. 62) there was for- 
 merly an aqueduct extending to the sea so as 
 to form a watering place for ships. In the 
 time of Moses the wells were probably inclosed 
 and kept with great care by the Egyptians, for 
 the use of the frequent convoys to and from 
 their ancient settlements at Sarbut el Khadem 
 and the Wady Mughara. 
 
 the qjuilderness of Sbur] This name belongs 
 to the whole district between the north-eastern 
 frontier of Egypt and Palestine. The word 
 is undoubtedly Egyptian, whether derived 
 from the name of- the fortress on the frontier, 
 called the Fort of Zor, or more probably from 
 the word Khar, which designated all the 
 country between Egypt and Syria proper. 
 Thus in a papyrus of the 19th dynasty (‘ Anast.’ 
 III. I, 1. 7) we read “The land of Khar from 
 Zor to Aup,” a city in Syria. ‘Kh’ and ‘Sh’ 
 are constantly interchanged in transcrip- 
 tion: see Chabas, ‘V. E.’ p. 97. In Numbers 
 xxxiii. 8, the more special designation is used, 
 viz. “the wilderness of Etham,” a strong corro- 
 boration of the view that Etham was not on 
 the west of the Bitter lakes, but at their north- 
 ern extremity. 
 
 three days\ The distance between Ayoun 
 Musa and Huwara, the first spot where any 
 water is found on the route, is 33 geographical 
 miles. A small fountain Abu Suweira. near 
 the sea, and another called the Cup of Sudr 
 on the east, some hours distant from the road, 
 were of course known to Moses, but would 
 be of little, if any use to the host. The whole 
 district is a tract of sand, or rough gravel ; 
 the wadys are depressions in the desert, with 
 only a few scattered herbs and shrubs, wither- 
 ed and parched by drought: the road after- 
 wards continues through -hills of limestone 
 equally destitute of vegetation, some exhibit- 
 
 ing an abundance of crystallized sulphate of 
 lime. 
 
 23 . Marah‘\ The identification of Ma- 
 rah with the fount of Eluwara, first proposed 
 by Burckhardt, is now generally accepted. 
 The fountain rises from a large mound, a 
 whitish petrifaction, deposited by the water. 
 At present no water flows, but there are traces 
 of a running stream, and in the time of Moses, 
 when the road was kept by the Egyptians and 
 vegetation was' more abundant, the source was 
 probably far more copious. The water is 
 cohsidered by the Arabians to be the worst in 
 the whole district. Two stunted palm-trees 
 now stand near it, and the ground is covered 
 by thickets of theghurkud (Peganum retusum, 
 Forskal), a low bushy thorny shrub, produ- 
 cing a small fruit which ripens in June, not 
 unlike the barberry, very juicy and slightly 
 acidulous; see Robinson, p. 66. Burckhardt, 
 ‘Syria,’ p. 474, suggested that the juice might 
 possibly be used to sweeten the water, but no 
 such process is known to the Bedouins, and 
 the fruit would not be ripe about Easter, 
 when the Israelites reached the place. Wellsted 
 observes that when he tasted the water and 
 muttered the word “Marah” his Bedouin said 
 “You speak the word of truth: they are 
 indeed Mara.” The Arabic word Huwara 
 means “ruin,” “destruction” (Freytag); but 
 “bitter” and “deadly” are with the Arabs, as 
 with the Hebrews, convertible terms. 
 
 25 . a tree'\ The statement evidently 
 points to a natural agency. The miracle was 
 nor wrought without the tree. This is in 
 accordance with the whole spirit of the narra- 
 tive. There may possibly have been some 
 resemblance to a mode of purifying stagnant 
 waters, such as Josephus and Du Boys Aime 
 describe, by thrusting long sticks into the 
 bottom of a spring and eliciting a fresh supply: 
 but the result was manifestly supernatural. 
 
 he made^ &c.] The Lord then set before them 
 the fundamental principle of implicit trust, to 
 be shewn by obedience. The healing of the 
 water was a symbol of deliverance from phy- 
 sical and spiritual evils. 
 
EXODUS. XVI. 
 
 [v. 27-5. 
 
 3i^> 
 
 'Numb. 27 ^ ‘^And they came to Elim, 
 ^ where were twelve wells of water, and 
 three score and ten palm trees: and 
 they encamped there by the waters. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 1 The Israelites come to Sin. i They murmur 
 for want of bread. 4 God promiseth them 
 bread from heaven. 11 Quails are se'nt, 14 
 and manna. 16 The ordering of manna. 
 
 It was not to be found on the sabbath. 32 
 A n omer of it is preserved. 
 
 AND they took their journey from 
 Elim, and all the congregation 
 of the children of Israel came unto 
 the wilderness of Sin, which is be- 
 tween Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth 
 day of the second month after their 
 departing out of the land of Egypt. 
 
 2 And the whole congregation of 
 the children of Israel murmured against 
 Moses and Aaron in the wilderness : 
 
 3 And the children of Israel said 
 unto them. Would to God we had 
 died by the hand of the Lord in the 
 land of Egypt, when we sat by the 
 flesh pots, and when we did eat bread 
 to the full ; for ye have brought us 
 forth into this wilderness, to kill this * 
 whoje assembly with hunger. 
 
 4 ^ Then said the Lord unto Mo- 
 ses, Behold, I will rain bread from 
 heaven for you ; and the people shall 
 go out and gather ^a certain rate every 
 
 day, that I may prove them, whether tio)i of a 
 they will walk in my law, or no. 
 
 5 And it shall come to pass, that 
 
 27 . Elini] At a distance of two hours’ 
 journey south of Huwara is the large and 
 beautiful valley of Gharandel (Girondel, Nie- 
 buhr, p. 183^. Ii. the rainy season a con- 
 siderable torrent flows through it, discharging 
 its waters in the Red Sea. Even in the dry 
 season water is still found, which though 
 somewhat brackish after long drought (Robin- 
 son), is generally good, and according to all 
 travellers the best on the whole journey from 
 Cairo to Sinai. The grass there grows thick 
 and high, there is abundance of brush- 
 wood, with tamarisks and acacias ; a few palm- 
 trees still remain, relics of the fair grove which 
 once covered this Oasis of the western side of 
 the Peninsula. The only objection to the 
 identification of this valley with Elim is the 
 shortness of the distance, but the inducement 
 for the encampment is obvious, and no other 
 site corresponds with the main conditions of the 
 narrative. The Israelites remained a consider- 
 able time in this neighbourhood, since they did 
 not reach the wilderness of Sin till two months 
 and a half after leaving Suez. They would 
 find water and pasturage in the district between 
 Elim and the station on the Red Sea, mentioned 
 in Numbers xxxiii. 10: which appears to have 
 Ix^en at the further end of the Wadi Tayibe, 
 a journey of eight hours, near the headland of 
 Ras Selima. The whole valley is said to be 
 beautiful, full of tamarisks and other shrubs, 
 the Tarfa-tree and the Palm. Water is found 
 in it, though far inferior to that in Gharandel. 
 The station at the Red Sea then visited by the 
 Israelites was of considerable importance, the 
 starting point for the roads to the copper- 
 mnies of the Wadi Mughara, Sarbut el Kha- 
 dem, and the Wadi Nasb. 
 
 twelve wells'] Read springs; the He- 
 brew denotes natural sources. These springs 
 may have been perennial when a richer vege- 
 
 tation clothed the adjacent heights. They cer- 
 tainly supplied copious streams when the Is- 
 raelites “encamped there by the waters.” 
 
 Chap. XVI. 1. the wilderness of 6’i«] 
 The desert tract, called Debbet er Ramleh, 
 extends nearly across the peninsula from the 
 Wady Nasb in a south-easterly direction, be- 
 tween the limestone district of El Tih and the 
 granite of Sinai. The journey from the station 
 at Elim, or even from that on the Red Sea, 
 could be performed in a day : at that time the 
 route was kept in good condition by the 
 Egyptians who worked the copper-mines at 
 Sarbut el Khadim. The text seems to imply 
 that the Israelites proceeded in detachments, 
 and were first assembled as a complete host 
 when they reached the wilderness of Sin. 
 
 2. murmured] The want of food was 
 first felt after six weeks from the time of the 
 departure from Egypt, see v. i: we have no 
 notice previously of any deficiency of bread. 
 
 3 . by the hand of the Lord] This evi- 
 dently refers to the plagues, especially the last, 
 in Egypt: the death which befell the Egyp- 
 tians appeared to the people preferable to the 
 sufferings of famine. 
 
 flesh pots., and... bread] These expressions 
 prove that the sei'vile labours to which they 
 had been subjected did not involve privation : 
 they were fed abundantly, either by the offi- 
 cials of Pharaoh, or more probably by the 
 produce of their own fertile district. The 
 word used for flesh-pots is Egyptian, the 
 name and representation are given in Brugsch, 
 ‘ D. H.’ p. 1264. . 
 
 4 . rain bread from heaven\ This marks 
 at the outset the strictly supernatural character 
 of the supply. Without such supply the vast 
 host of the Israelites could not have subsisted 
 
V. 6 — 1 4-] 
 
 EXODUS. XVI. 
 
 317 
 
 on the sixth day they shall prepare 
 that whith they bring in; and.it shall 
 be twice as much as they gather daily. 
 
 6 And Moses and Aaron said unto 
 all the children of Israel, At even, 
 then ye shall know that the Lord 
 hath brought you out from the land 
 of Egypt : 
 
 7 And in the morning, then ye shall 
 see the glory of the Lord ; for that 
 he heareth your murmurings against 
 the Lord : and what are we, that ye 
 murmur against us? 
 
 8 And Moses said. This shall be^ 
 when the Lord shall give you in the 
 evening flesh to eat, and in the morn- 
 ing bread to the f^ull ; for that the 
 Lord heareth your murmurings which 
 ye murmur against him : and what are 
 we? your murmurings are not against 
 us, but against the Lord. 
 
 9 ^1 And Moses spake unto Aaron, 
 Say unto all the congregation of the 
 
 children of Israel, Come near before 
 the Lord : for he hath heard your 
 murmurings. 
 
 10 And it came to pass, as Aaron 
 spake unto the whole congregation of 
 the children of Israel, that they looked 
 toward the wilderness, and, behold, 
 
 the glory of the Lord "appeared in « chap. 13. 
 the cloud. 
 
 11 ^1 And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 12 I have heard the murmurings 
 of the children of Israel : speak unto 
 them, saying. At even ye shall eat 
 flesh, and in the morning ye shall be 
 filled with bread ; and ye shall know 
 that I am the Lord your God. 
 
 13 And it came to pass, that at 
 even '^the quails came up, and covered *Numb. 
 the camp: and in the morning the 
 
 dew lay round about the host. n- ?• 
 
 14 And when ‘'the dew that lay 
 was gone up, behold, upon the face of 
 
 for a considerable time in any part of the 
 Peninsula. 
 
 a certain rate e'very. day] Lit. as in the 
 margin, “the portion of a day in its day:” 
 i. e. the quantity sufficient for one day’s con- 
 sumption : this may be better expressed “ a 
 day’s portion each day.” 
 
 that I may pr D’ve them] The trial consisted 
 in the restriction to the supply of their daily 
 wants. 
 
 5 . it shall he tnvice as much] The meaning 
 evidently is that they should collect and prepare 
 a double quantity, not (as has been assumed, 
 in order to malce out a cor*j*adiction with 
 •V. z 2) that the quantity collected would be 
 miraculously increased afterwards. 
 
 7. the glory of the Loud] Some com- 
 mentators understand this to mean the mani- 
 festation of His power and gooflness in sup- 
 plying the people with food ; but it refers to 
 the visible appearance described in <1;. 10. 
 
 8. not against us] i. e. according to a 
 common Hebrew idiom, not so much against 
 us as against the Lord; the murmuring im- 
 plied a distrust of the people in the divine 
 mission of their leaders, notwithstanding the 
 previous miracles. 
 
 9 . The preceding paragraph from v. 3 
 describes the conference between the people 
 
 ^ and their leaders : the result was a summons 
 to meet Him whom they represented, i. e. to 
 
 assemble in the open space before the taber- 
 nacle. 
 
 10 . appeared in the cloud] Or, “ was seen in 
 a cloud.” The definite article would imply that 
 the cloud was the same which is often men- 
 tioned in connection with the tabernacle. The 
 people saw the cloud here spoken of beyond 
 the camp. 
 
 12. flesh .. .bread] These expressions re- 
 fer to the previous murmuring of the people, 
 v. 3. God gives them in His own way that 
 which they longed for; this is a clear proof 
 that the nan-ative is continuous and that the 
 preceding passage is not (as Knobel assumes) 
 an interpolation : see also notes on -w. 1 6 
 and 27. 
 
 13 . quails] The identification of the 
 Hebrew, “slav,” with the common quail 
 may be assumed as certain. The name is ap- 
 plied in Arabic to that bird : it migrates in 
 immense numbers in spring from the south : it 
 is nowhere more common than in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the Red Sea. When exhausted 
 by a long flight it is easily captured even with 
 the hand. The flesh is palatable and not un- 
 wholesome when eaten in moderation. In this 
 passage we read of a single flight so dense 
 that it covered the encampment. The miracle 
 consisted in the precise time of the arrival and 
 its coincidence with the announcement. Other 
 explanations of the name have been given, but 
 this alone meets all the conditions. 
 
 the deqv lay round] Lit. “a lying of dew 
 
3i8 
 
 •EXODUS. XVI. [v. 15-20. 
 
 B Or, 
 
 H'l'tai is 
 this ? or, 
 It is a por- 
 tion. 
 
 J ohn 6. 
 
 31* 
 
 I Cor. 10. 
 3 - 
 
 t Heb. 
 by the poll, 
 cr, head. 
 t Heb. 
 souls. 
 
 the •wilderness there lay a small round 
 thing, as small as the hoar frost on 
 the ground. 
 
 15 And when the children of Israel 
 saw /V, they said one to another, "It 
 is manna : for they wist not what it 
 was. And Moses said unto them, 
 "^This is the bread which the Lord 
 hath given you to eat. 
 
 16 ^ This is the thing which the 
 Lord hath commanded, Gather of it 
 every man according to his eating, an 
 omer ^ for every man, according to the 
 number of your ^ persons ; take ye 
 
 every man for them which are in his 
 tents. , ^ 
 
 17 And the children of Israel did 
 so, and gathered, some more, some 
 less. 
 
 18 And when they did mete it with ^ a Cor. 
 an omer, ‘*’he that gathered much had 
 nothing over, and he that gathered 
 little had no lack ; they gathered every 
 man according to his eating. 
 
 19 And Moses said. Let no man 
 leave of it till the morning. 
 
 . 20 Notwithstanding they hearkened 
 not unto Moses; but some of them 
 
 round the camp.” This is generally under- 
 stood to mean there was a heavy fall of dew 
 round the encampment. Knobel explains it 
 to be a dense mist, but the usage seems to be 
 that which is recognized by the Authorised 
 Version and all the ancient versions. There 
 are many indications that the season was unu- 
 sually humid, natural agencies concurring with 
 supernatural ipterpositions. Manna is found 
 in abundance in wet seasons, in dry seasons it 
 ceases altogether. 
 
 On Manna, see note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 14 . a small round thing] The meaning of 
 the Hebrew is questioned (see note below), 
 but there is good authority for our version, 
 which is true to nature: manna appears in 
 small, compact grains. Here we have a re- 
 semblance in shape and appearance, but natu- 
 ral manna is not found on the open plain, 
 “ the face of the wilderness,” but on dry leaves, 
 or the ground under the tamarisk, from the 
 trunk and branches of which it exudes. 
 
 15 . It is mf.nnd\ This rendering is dis- 
 puted. The Old Versions concur in render- 
 ing the phrase “ What is this?” But oriental 
 scholars are generally agreed that this explana- 
 tion is not borne out by ancient usage, and 
 that the Israelites said “ this is many The 
 word “ man” they explain by reference to the 
 Arabic, in which it means “gift.” The Egyp- 
 tian language seems to afford the true solution. 
 It has be-en very lately shown that “man” or 
 man-hut, /. e. white manna, was the name 
 under which the substance was known to the 
 Egyptians, and therefore to the Israelites; 
 see note below. When they saw it on the 
 ground they would of course at once recog- 
 nize it. 'Ehey wist not what it was : for in 
 fact it was net natural manna, Irut a heavenly 
 gift. Our Version should therefore be retained, 
 and the passage may lx: thus explained. When 
 the Israelites saw the small round thing, they 
 said at once “this is manna,” but with an 
 
 exclamation of surprise at finding it on the 
 open plain, in such immense quantities, under 
 circumstances so unlike what they could have 
 expected : in fact they did not know what it 
 really was, only what it resembled. 
 
 16 . according to his eating'] This refers 
 to -z;. 4 ; it was a trial of the faith of the people, 
 since they were to gather just enough for a 
 day’s consumption. The reference is notice- 
 able as an additional argument against Kno- 
 bel’s assumption of an interpolation ; see note 
 on n). 12. 
 
 an omer] i. e. the tenth part of an Ephah, 
 see 'u. 36. The exact quantity cannot be de- 
 termined, since the measures varied at different 
 times. Josephus makes the omer equal to six 
 cotyliE, or half-pints. The ephah was an 
 Egyptian measure, supposed to be about a 
 bushel or one-third of a hin. See Brugsch, 
 
 ‘ D. H.’ pp. 49, 50. The word omer, in this 
 sense, occurs in no other passage. It was 
 probably not used at a later period, belong- 
 ing, like many other words, to the time of 
 Moses. It is found in old Egyptian, but with 
 the meaning “storehouse” (see Birch, ‘D. H.’ 
 p. 363. Brugsch does not give it). See Lev. 
 xix. 36, 
 
 man... per sons] Lit. as in the margin, 
 head, and souls, which should be retained 
 as in many oUier passages. 
 
 17 . some more., some less] It is evidently 
 implied that the people were in part at least 
 disobedient and failed in this first trial. 
 
 18 . had nothing o-irr] The result is un- 
 
 doubtedly represented as miraculous. The 
 Jewish interpreters understand by this state- 
 ment that whatever quantity each person had 
 gat hen d, wl)en he measured it in his tent, he 
 found that he had just as many omers as he 
 needed for the consumption of his family: and 
 this is probably the true meaning. It is adopt- 
 ed by Knobel and Keil. ^ 
 
 20. it bred qx'orms] This result was super- 
 
V. 21 2 g.] 
 
 EXODUS. XVI. 
 
 519 
 
 left of it until the morning, and it 
 bred worms, and stank: and Moses 
 was wroth with them. 
 
 21 And they gathered it every 
 morning, every man according to his 
 eating : and when the sun waxed hot, 
 it melted. 
 
 22 ^ And it came to pass, that on 
 the sixth day they gathered twice as 
 much bread, two omers for one man: 
 and all the rulers of the congregation 
 came and told Moses. 
 
 23 And he said unto them. This 
 is that which the Lord hath said. 
 To morrow is the rest of the holy 
 sabbath unto the Lord: bake that 
 which ye will bake to day^ and seethe 
 that ye will seethe; and that which 
 remaineth over lay up for you to be 
 kept until the morning. 
 
 24 And they laid it up till the morn- 
 ing, as Moses bade : and it did not 
 stink, neither was there any worm 
 therein. 
 
 25 And Moses said. Eat that to 
 day ; for to day is a sabbath unto the 
 Lord : to day ye shall not find it in 
 the field. 
 
 26 Six days ye shall gather it; but 
 on the seventh day, which is the sab- 
 bath, in it there shall be none. 
 
 27 H And it came to pass, that 
 there went out some of the people on 
 the seventh day for to gather, and 
 they found none. 
 
 28 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 How long refuse ye to keep my com- 
 mandments and my laws ? 
 
 29 See, for that the Lord hath given 
 you the sabbath, therefore he giveth 
 
 natural : no such tendency to rapid decompo- 
 sition is recorded of common manna. 
 
 21. it melted~\ This refers to the manna 
 which was not gathered. It is noted in all 
 accounts of common manna that it is melted 
 by the heat of the sun. 
 
 22. t^vice as much bread'\ This was in 
 accordance with God’s command to Moses 
 v.-s, which it is not probable he had omitted 
 to communicate to the people, though the fact 
 is unnoticed in the narrative. The rulers of 
 the congregation appear to have applied to 
 Moses for instructions as to what was to be 
 done under these circumstances, fearing pos- 
 sibly the recurrence of the result mentioned 
 above, v. 20. Knobel supposes that the people 
 acted unconsciously, God permitting them to 
 gather a double quantity, but the other expla- 
 nation is far more natural. 
 
 From this passage and from 'v. 5 it is infer- 
 red that the seventh day was previously known 
 to the people as a day separate from all others, 
 and if so, it must have been observed as an 
 ancient and primeval institution. No other 
 account of the command j^given without any 
 special explanation), or of the conduct of the 
 people, who collected the manna, is satisfactory: 
 thus Rosenmuller, and others. It is at the 
 same time evident that Moses took this oppor- 
 tunity of enforcing a strict and more solemn 
 observance of the day. 
 
 23 . To morro2V is the rest of the holy 
 sabbath unto the Lord'\ Or, To-morrow is 
 a rest, a Sabbath holy to Jehovah: 
 i.e. to-morrow must be a day of rest, ob- 
 served strictly as a sabbath, or festal rest, holy 
 to Jehovah. It is at once a statement, and an 
 
 injunction. The people knew it as the Sab- 
 bath, they were to observe it as a great fes- 
 tival. 
 
 bake^ &c.] These directions shew that the 
 manna thus given differed essentially from the 
 natural product. Here and in Numbers xi. 8 
 it is treated in a way which shews it had the 
 properties of corn, could be ground in a 
 mortar, baked and boiled. Ordinary manna 
 is used as honey, it cannot be ground, it melts 
 when exposed to a moderate heat forming a 
 substance like barley sugar, called manna tabu- 
 lata. In Persia it is boiled with water and 
 brought to the consistency of honey. The 
 Arabs also boil the leaves to which it adheres, 
 and the manna thus dissolved floats on the 
 water as a glutinous or oily substance (Rosen- 
 miiller, Niebuhr, &c.). It is obvious that 
 these accounts are inapplicable to the manna 
 from heaven, which had the characteristics 
 and nutritive properties of bread. 
 
 25 . Eat that to day'] The practical ob- 
 servance of the Sabbath was thus formally in- 
 stituted before the giving of the law. The 
 people were to abstain from the ordinary 
 work of every-day life : they were not to col- 
 lect food, nor, asdt would seem, even to pre- 
 pare it as on other days. 
 
 27 . there nvent out some of the people] 
 This was an act of wilful disobedience. It 
 is remarkable, being the first violation of the 
 express command, that it was not visited by a 
 signal chastisement : the rest and peace of the 
 “Holy Sabbath” were not disturbed by a 
 manifestation of wrath. 
 
 28 . Ho 2V long] The reference to 1;. 4 is 
 obvious. The prohibition involved a trial of 
 
320 
 
 EXODUS. XVI. 
 
 [v. 30— 3 ^- 
 
 you on the sixth day the bread of two 
 days ; abide ye every man in his place, 
 let no man go out of his place on the 
 seventh day. 
 
 30 So the people rested on the 
 seventh day. 
 
 31 And the house of Israel called 
 the name thereof Manna : and it was 
 like coriander seed, white ; and the 
 taste of it was like wafers 7 nade with 
 honey. 
 
 32 ^ And Moses said, This is the 
 thing which the Lord commandeth. 
 Fill an omer of it to be kept for your 
 generations; that they may see the 
 bread wherewith I have fed you in 
 
 faith, in which as usual the people were found 
 wanting. Every miracle formed some part, so 
 to speak, of an educational process. 
 
 29 . abide ye e-very man in his place^ This 
 is an adcfitional injunction. They were to 
 remain within the camp. The expression in 
 Hebrew is peculiar and seems almost to enjoin 
 a position of complete repose, “in his place,” 
 lit. under himself, as the Oriental sits with his 
 legs drawn up under him. The prohibition 
 must however be understood with reference to 
 its immediate object ; they were not to go forth 
 from their place in order to gather manna, 
 which was on other days without the camp. 
 The spirit of the law is sacred rest. The 
 Lord gave them this Sabbath, as a blessing 
 and privilege. It was “made for man.” A 
 Jewish sect called Masbothei, i.e. Sabbatarians, 
 took this text as a command that no man 
 should change his position from the morning 
 to the evening of the Sabbath; see Routh on 
 ‘ Hegesippus,’ R. S. i. p. 27,5. 
 
 31 . Manna] This refers of course to 
 their first exclamation, confirmed after a 
 week's experience. It was not indeed the 
 common manna, as they then seem to have 
 believed, but the properties which are noted 
 in this passage are common to it and the natu- 
 ral product ; in si/e, form and colour it re- 
 sembled the seed of the white coriander, a 
 small round grain of a whitish or yellowish 
 grey. I'he wafer made with honey is called 
 by the LXX. fy^pts' eV pcXtrt, i.e. according 
 to Athenxus a cake of meal, oil and honey. 
 
 32 . Fill an omer] This was probably 
 done at the end of the first week ; but the 
 order to Aaron may have lx?en repeated when 
 the tabernacle was fitted up with its appur- 
 tenances. 
 
 33 . a pot] The word here used occurs 
 in no other passage. It corresponds in form 
 and use to the Egyptian for a casket or vase 
 
 the wilderness, when I brought you 
 forth from the land of Egypt. 
 
 33 And Moses said unto Aaron, 
 
 Take a pot, and put an omer full of 
 manna therein, and lay it up before the 
 Lord, to be kept for your generations. 
 
 34 As the Lord commanded Mo- 
 ses, so Aaron laid it up before the 
 Testimony, to be kept. 
 
 35 And the children of Israel did 
 
 eat manna forty years, ^ until they /'josh. 5. 
 came to a land inhabited; they did Neh. 9. 15. 
 eat manna, until they came unto the 
 borders of the land of Canaan. 
 
 36 Now an omer is the tenth part 
 of an ephah. 
 
 in which oblations were presented. Br. D. H. 
 p. 1644. 
 
 35 . did eat manna forty years] This 
 does not necessarily imply that the Israelites 
 were fed exclusively on manna, or that the 
 supply was continuous during forty years : 
 but that whenever it might be needed, owing 
 to the total or partial failure of other food, it 
 was given until they entered the promised land. 
 They had numerous flocks and herds, which 
 w'ere not slaughtered (see Numbers xi. 22), 
 but which gave them milk, cheese and of 
 course a limited supply of flesh: nor is there 
 any reason to suppose that during a consider- 
 able part of that time they may not have 
 cultivated some spots of fertile ground in 
 the wilderness. We may assume, as in most 
 cases of miracle, that the supernatural supply 
 was commensurate with their actual necessity. 
 Dr W. Smith, p. 365, observes the peculiarity 
 of the expression. Moses gives a complete 
 history of manna till the end of his own life. 
 The manna was not withheld in fact until the 
 Israelites had passed the Jordan. Moses writes 
 as a historian, not as a prophet. What he 
 knew as fact was that it lasted until he penned 
 this passage. A later writer would have been 
 more specific. 
 
 36 . an omer] This definition of an omer 
 has been attributed to a later hand, a gloss 
 inserted to explain an obsolete word, “omer” 
 occurring only in this passage as the name of 
 a measure; on the other hand, it has been 
 argued that Mose.s, as a legislator, would be 
 careful to define what was probably a new 
 measure ; both omer and ephah are Egyptian 
 words. 
 
 Note on Manna. 
 
 It is well to bring together the facts 
 which are certainly known from ancient and 
 modern authorities. They leave no doubt, 
 on the one hand, as to the connection between 
 
EXODUS. XVI. 
 
 321 
 
 the manna of Exodus and the natural produc- 
 tion: or on the other, as to the supernatural 
 character of the former. Both points are 
 admitted alike by critics who believe, or dis- 
 believe the sacred narrative : the only question 
 between them is the truth of the writer; his 
 intention and meaning are unmistakeable. 
 
 The manna of the Peninsula of Sinai is the 
 sweet juice of the Tarfa, a species of tamarisk. 
 It exudes from the trunk and branches in hot 
 weather, and forms small round white grains. 
 In cool weather it preserves its consistency, 
 in hot weather it melts rapidly. It is either 
 gathered from the twigs of the tamarisk, or 
 from the fallen leaves underneath the tree. 
 The colour is a greyish yellow. It begins to 
 exude in May, and lasts about six weeks. 
 The Arabs cleanse it from leaves and dirt, 
 boil it down, strain it through coarse stuff 
 and keep it in leather bags: they use it as 
 honey with bread. Its taste is sweet, with a 
 slight aromatic flavour: travellers generally 
 compare it with honey. According to Ehren- 
 berg it is produced by the puncture of an 
 insect. It is abundant in rainy seasons, many 
 years it ceases altogether. The whole quan- 
 tity now produced in a single year does not 
 exceed 600 or 700 pounds. It is found in the 
 district between the Wady Gharandel, i.e. Elim, 
 and Sinai, in the Wady Sheich, and in some 
 other parts of the Peninsula. For each of 
 these statements we have the concurrent testi- 
 mony of travellers. Seetzen in 1807 was the 
 first who described the natural product with 
 scientific accuracy : see Kruse’s notes on Seet- 
 zen, Vol. IV. p. 416. The resemblance in 
 colour, shape, taste, and in the time and place 
 of the appearance is exact. The name is also 
 that now given to the product, well known 
 as its Arabic designation, and, as we have 
 shewn, found also on Egyptian monuments. 
 
 The differences however are equally unmis- 
 takeable. I. The manna of Exodus was not 
 found under the tamarisk tree, but on the 
 surface of the wilderness, after the disappear- 
 ance of the morning dew. 2. The quantity 
 which was gathered in a single day far ex- 
 ceeded the annual produce at present, and 
 probably at the time of Moses. 3. The supply 
 ceased on the Sabbath-day. 4. The properties 
 differed from common manna; it could be 
 ground, baked, and in other respects treated 
 like meal. It was not used merely as a con- 
 diment, or medicine, but had the nutritive 
 qualities of bread. 5. It was found after 
 leaving the district where it is now produced, 
 until the Israelites reached the land of Canaan. 
 
 It is to be obsei'ved that we have all the 
 conditions and characteristics of Divine inter- 
 positions. (i) The condition of a recognized 
 necessity: for all writers agree that under any 
 conceivable circumstances the preservation of 
 the Israelites would otherwise have been im- 
 possible. (2) The condition of a harmony 
 
 with a Divine purpose, the preservation of a 
 peculiar people on which the whole scheme 
 of providential government and the salvation 
 of mankind depended. (3) We have the usual 
 characteristics of harmony between the natu- 
 ral order of events and the supernatural trans- 
 action. God fed His people not with the 
 food v/hich belonged to other regions, but 
 with such as appertained to the district. The 
 local colouring is unmistakeable. We may 
 not attempt to give an explanation how the 
 change was effected; to such a question we 
 have but to answer that we know nothing. 
 One thing certain is, that if Moses wrote this 
 narrative, it is impossible that he could be 
 deceived, and equally impossible that he could 
 have deceived contemporaries and eye-wit- 
 nesses. As for ourselves, we must be content 
 to bear the reproach that we are satisfied with 
 a reference to the Almightiness of Jehovah, 
 in which alone faith finds any explanation of 
 the mystery of the universe. 
 
 DSDnt?. LXX. coarei Kopiov XevKov, Vulg. 
 quasi pilo tusum. Ch. P]'7pD, ‘"ind Syr. 
 
 decorticatum. Saad. 
 
 round. These renderings seem to be conjectu- 
 ral. . Gesenius derives the word from > 
 
 Ghal. D?]n to peel: and explains the phrase. 
 “ a small thing, as something peeled.” This 
 explanation has in its favour the Egyptian 
 usage, in which “heseb” means “peel.” 
 Brugsch, ‘ D. H.’ p. 994. Knobel points out 
 that in that case a particle of comparison 
 would be required, and compares 
 
 frost, hoar-frost, understanding it to describe 
 a small compact granular substance. In this 
 he is followed by Keil. 
 
 P is the Chaldaic form for HO, what? 
 but there is no vestige of the use in the ancient 
 language. Thus Gesenius and Knobel ; Keil 
 assumes it to be the popular, and old Semitic 
 form, but gives no proof. The meaning “ gift” 
 was first suggested by Kimchi, pS“n 
 gift and portion. Gesenius derives it from 
 iTD, to distribute or apportion. The Arabic 
 
 (mann) is adduced in support of the 
 meaning “gift,” but as Keil points out it is 
 probably taken from the Hebrew Manna. 
 Kalisch mentions the conjecture of Rashbam 
 that the word was probably Egyptian, for 
 v/hich, as he observes truly, no proof could 
 be adduced. The conjecture was a happy 
 one, and the proof is now found. Brugsch 
 gives the word, see ‘D. H.’ p. 655. “ Men- 
 
 nu,” “identical with the Flebrew ID, Arabic 
 ^ It is found among other articles in a 
 
 basket of oblations at Apollinopolis. Under 
 another form it appears as Mannu-hut, ?.V. 
 white Manna, and is described as the pro- 
 duct of a t>ee, probably a species of Tamarisk. 
 
 VoL. I. 
 
 X 
 
322 
 
 EXODUS. XVII. 
 
 Numb. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 I The people miirmiir for water at Rephidhn. 
 5 God sendeth him for water to the rock in 
 Ploreb. 8 Amalck is overcome by the holding 
 up of Moses' hands. 1 5 Moses buildeth the 
 altar jehovah-nissi. 
 
 AND all the congregation of the 
 children of Israel journeyed 
 from the wilderness of Sin, after their 
 journeys, according to the command- 
 ment of the Lord, and pitched in 
 Rephidim : and there was no water for 
 the people to drink. 
 
 2 Wherefore '^the people did chide 
 with Moses, and said. Give us water 
 that we may drink. And Moses said 
 unto them. Why chide ye with me? 
 v/herefore do ye tempt the Lord ? 
 
 3 And the people thirsted there for 
 watejr ; and the people murmured 
 against Moses, and said. Wherefore 
 IS this that thou hast brought us up out 
 
 [v. 1—7. 
 
 of Egypt, to kill us and our children 
 and our cattle with thirst ? 
 
 4 And Moses cried unto the Lord, 
 saying. What shall I do unto this 
 people ? they be almost ready to stone 
 me. 
 
 5 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 
 Go on before the people, and take 
 with thee of the elders of Israel ; and 
 
 thy rod, wherewith ^thou smotest the *chap. 7. 
 river, take in thine hand, and go. 
 
 6 “^Behold, I will stand before thee c Numb, 
 there upon the rock in Horeb; and p”v>i'73. 
 thou shalt smite the rock, and there ^5-^^ 
 shall come water out of it, that the wisd. n. 
 people may drink. And Moses did tcor. 10. 
 so in the sight of the elders of 
 Israel. 
 
 7 And he called the name of the is 
 place " Massah, and Meribah, because 11 ThS?s”’ 
 of the chiding of the children of Israel, 
 
 Chap. XVII. 1. according to their jour- 
 ney s'\ The Israelites rested at two stations 
 before they reached Rephidim, viz. Dophkah 
 andAlush: see Numbers xxxiii. 12 — 14. Ac- 
 cording to Knobel, whose view is adopted 
 by Keil, and appears, on the whole, to 
 accord best with the Biblical notices and 
 the accounts of travellers, Dophkah was in 
 the Wady Seih, a day’s journey from the 
 Wady Nasb; traces of the ancient name were 
 found by Seetzen at a place called El Tabbacha 
 in a rocky pass, El Kineh, where Egyptian 
 antiquities still remain, indicating the ancient 
 route. The wilderness of Sin properly speak- 
 ing ends here, the sandstone ceases, and is re- 
 placed by the porphyry and granite which 
 belong to the central formation of the Sinaitic 
 group. Alush lay on the way towards Re- 
 phidim; the identiti cation v»'ith Ash is doubt- 
 ful, the distance from Horeb exceeding a day’s 
 march. Alush may have been near the entrance 
 to the Wady Sheich. 
 
 Rephidim'] On the identification of Re- 
 phidim see note at the end of this book. 
 
 . 2 . tempt the Lord] It is a general cha- 
 racteristic of the Israelites that the miracles, 
 wliich met each need as it arose, failed to pro- 
 duce a habit of faith: but the severity of the 
 trial, the faintness and anguish of tliirst in 
 the burning desert, must not be overlooked in 
 appreciating their conduct. “ I thirst” was 
 the only expression of bodily suffering wrung 
 from our Lord on the Cross. 
 
 4 . they he almost ready to stone me] Lit. 
 yet a little and they will stone me. 
 The Authorised Version gives the meaning. 
 
 but not the liveliness and force of the He- 
 brew. 
 
 6. the rock in Horeb] The name Horeb 
 signifies “dry, parched,” and evidently points 
 to a distinct miracle. At what point Moses 
 struck the rock cannot be determined ; but it 
 would seem to have been in the presence of 
 the Elders as selected witnesses, not in the 
 sight of the people, and therefore not near the 
 summit. 
 
 It is questioned whether the water thus 
 supplied ceased with the immediate occasion. 
 St Paul calls it “a spiritual drink,” and adds, 
 “that all the Israelites drank of the spiritual 
 rock which followed them, and that rock was 
 Christ.” I Cor. x. 4. The interpretation of 
 that passage belongs to the New Testament: 
 but the general meaning appears to be that 
 their wants were ever supplied from Him, of 
 whom the rock was but a symbol, and who 
 accompanied them in all their wanderings. 
 Two traditions of the Rabbins are notice- 
 able: one, that the rock thus smitten actually 
 followed the Israelites, another, that the stream 
 of water went with them. There is no justi- 
 fication for these fables in the sacred narrative. 
 The repetition of the miracle (see Numbers 
 XX. ii) excludes the second, the first needs no 
 refutation. 
 
 7. Massah] The word is derived from that 
 which is used by Moses, ns. 2. Meribah, as 
 is stated in the margin, means “chiding,” 
 referring also to 1;. 2. The names were re- 
 tained from that time, nor are Rephidim and 
 Kadesh mentioned by lakn* writers: they 
 belong to the time of Moses. On the im- 
 
<^Deut. 2; 
 17- 
 
 Wisd. II. 
 
 ^Called 
 Jrsus, 
 Acts 7. 4; 
 
 V. 8-13.] EXODUS. XVII. 
 
 323 
 
 and because they tempted the Lord, 
 saying, Is the Lord among us, or not ? 
 
 8 ^Then came Amalek, and 
 foughc with Israel in Rephidim. 
 
 9 And Moses said unto ‘'Joshua, 
 Choose us out men, and go out, fight 
 with Amalek : to morrow I will stand 
 on the top of the hill with the rod of 
 God in mine hand. 
 
 10 So Joshua did as Moses had said 
 to him, and fought with Amalek : and 
 Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to 
 the top of the hill. 
 
 1 1 And it came to pass, when Mo- 
 
 ses held up his hand, that Israel pre- 
 vailed: and when he let down his 
 hand, Amalek prevailed. 
 
 12 But Moses’ hands heavy; 
 and they took a stone, and pu^ it un- 
 der him, and he sat thereon ; and 
 Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, 
 the one on the one side, and the other 
 on the other side ; and his hands were 
 steady until the going down of the 
 sun. 
 
 13 And Joshua discomfited Amalek 
 and his people with the edge of the 
 sword. 
 
 portance of this lessen see our Lord's words, 
 Matt. iv. 7. 
 
 8. T/jen came Amalek\ 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 Be- 
 douins 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 war- 
 fare is more common than a dispute for the 
 right of pasturage. The Amalekites were at 
 that time the most powerful race in the Pen- 
 insula, which from the earliest ages was 
 peopled by fierce and warlike tribes, with 
 whom the Pharaohs, from the third dynasty 
 downwards, were engaged inconstant struggles. 
 It may be conjectured that reports of the 
 marvellous supply of water may have reached 
 the natives and accelerated their movements. 
 On this occasion Amalek took the position, 
 recognized in the Sacred History, as the chief 
 of the heathens, Num. xxiv. 20; the first 
 among the heathens who attacked God’s peo- 
 ple, and as such marked out for punishment, 
 see I Sam. xv. a, especially merited by them as 
 descendants of the elder brother of Jacob, 
 and therefore near kinsmen of the Israelites. 
 
 9 . Joshua'] This is the first mention of the 
 great follower and successor of Moses. He 
 died at the age of no, some 65 years after this 
 transaction. His original name was Hosea, 
 but Moses calls him by the full name, which 
 was first given about forty years afterwards, 
 as that by which he was to be known to 
 succeeding generations. From this it may 
 perhaps be inferred that this portion of Ex- 
 odus was written, or revised, towards the end 
 of the sojourn in the wilderness. A later 
 writer, mindful of the change of namie, would 
 probably have avoided the appearance of an 
 anachronism. 
 
 the rod of God] By using the same rod 
 
 Moses gave the people an unmistakeable and 
 much needed proof that victory over hu- 
 man enemies was to be attributed altogether 
 to the divine power which had delivered them 
 from Egypt, and saved them from perishing 
 in the wilderness. The hill, on which Moses 
 stood during the combat, Knobel supposed 
 to be the height now called Feria on the north 
 side of the plain Er Rahah ; on its top is a 
 level tract with good pasturage and planta- 
 tions. The conjecture may shew the vivid 
 impression of reality made by the narrative 
 upon a critic who believes this very portion to 
 be the product of a later age. 
 
 10 . Hur] Hur is mentioned in one other 
 passage in connection with Aaron, ch. xxiv. 14. 
 He was grandfather of Bezaleel, the great 
 sculptor and artificer of the tabernacle, see 
 ch. xxxi. 2- — 5, and belonged to the tribe of 
 Judah. From the book of Chronicles we 
 learn that the name of his father was Caleb, 
 of his mother, Ephrath. That he was a 
 person of high station and of advanced years 
 is evident, but the traditions that he was the 
 husband of Miriam (Josephus), or her son by 
 Caleb (Jarchi), would seem to be mere con- 
 jecture; such a connection would scarcely 
 have been unnoticed in the account of Bezaleel. 
 
 11. The act represents the efficacy of in- 
 tercessory prayer — offered doubtless by Moses 
 — a point of great moment to the Israelites 
 at that time and to the Church in all ages. 
 This interpretation would seem too obvious to 
 insist upon, but it has-been contested by Kurtz, 
 who regards the lifting of Moses’ hands as the 
 attitude of a general directing the battle. 
 
 12. until the going do^vn of the sun] The 
 length of this first great battle indicates the 
 strength and obstinacy of the assailants, ic 
 was no mere raid of Bedouins, but a delibe- 
 rate attack of the Amalekites, who, as we 
 have seen, were thoroughly trained in warfare 
 by their struggles with Ifgypt. 
 
 13 . ^ith the edge of the s^ivord] This 
 
 X 2 
 
324 
 
 EXODUS. XVII. [V. 14-16. 
 
 14 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 Write this for a memorial in a book, 
 and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua : 
 
 /"Numb, for M will utterly put out the re- 
 15. membrance of Amalek from under 
 heaven. 
 
 15 And Moses built an altar, and 
 
 called the name of it " J^^ovah- 
 
 niSSl ; tnybamter. 
 
 16 For he said, " Because ^ the Lord “ Or, 
 hath sworn that the Lord will have the hand 
 war with Amalek from generation to ilagai'ni 
 generation. throne 
 
 C’ of the 
 
 Lord, therefore, &=c. t Heb. the hand jtpon the throve of tJie LORQ, 
 
 expression always denotes a great slaughter of 
 the enemy. 
 
 14 . in a booU\ It should be rendered in 
 the book. The plain and obvious meaning 
 is that the account of this battle, and of the 
 command to destroy the Amalekites, was to 
 be recorded in the book which contained the 
 history of God's dealings with His people. 
 In this explanation nearly all critics are agreed. 
 See Introduction to the Pentateuch, p. i, and 
 note below. Moses was further instructed to 
 impress the command specially on the mind of 
 Joshua, as the leader to whom the first step 
 towards its accomplishment would be entrusted 
 on the conquest of Canaan. The work was 
 not actually completed until the reign of Heze- 
 kiah, when 500 of the tribe of Simeon “smote 
 the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped” 
 and retained possession of Mount Seir, when 
 the bock of Chronicles was written, i Chron. 
 iv. 43. This is a point to be especially noticed. 
 True prophecy deals often with the remote 
 future, regardless of delays in its fulfilment; 
 but certainly no one writing at a later time, 
 while the Amalekites still existed as a nation, 
 would have invented the prediction. 
 
 15 . yebo'vah-nbsi] i.e. as in the margin, 
 “Jehovah my banner.” As a proper name the 
 Hebrew word is rightly preserved. The mean- 
 ing is evidently that the name of Jehovah is 
 the true banner under which victory is certain ; 
 so to speak, the motto or inscription on the 
 banners of the host. Inscriptions on the royal 
 standard were well known. Each of the Pha- 
 raohs on his accession adopted one in addition 
 to his official name. 
 
 16 . Because the Lord hath s^orn\ This 
 rendering is incorrect, but the Hebrew is 
 
 obscure and the true meaning is very doubt- 
 ful. As the Hebrew text now stands the 
 literal interpretation is “for hand on throne 
 of Jah,” which may mean, as our margin 
 and as Ciericus and Rosenmiiller explain it, 
 “because his hand {i.e. the hand of Amalek) 
 is against the throne of God, therefore the 
 Lord hath war with Amalek from generation 
 to generation;” and this on the whole, seems 
 to be the most satisfactory explanation. It 
 expresses a certain fact, and keeps most closely 
 to the Hebrew. The word rendered “throne” 
 occurs in the exact form in no other passage, 
 but it may be an archaic form of the very 
 common word from which it differs but 
 slightly (d 2 for and which is found in 
 
 the Samaritan. Our translators follow the 
 general sense given by the Targum of Onkelos 
 and Saadia, who agree in regarding the ex- 
 pression as a solemn asseveration by the throne 
 of God. To this however the objections are 
 insuperable; it has no parallel in Scriptural 
 usage: God swears by Himself, not by His 
 Throne. 
 
 An alteration, slight in form, but consider- 
 able in meaning, has been proposed with much 
 confidence, viz. “Nes,” standard for “Kes,” 
 throne ; thus connecting the name of the altar 
 with the sentence. But conjectural emenda- 
 tions are not to be adopted without necessity, 
 and the obvious a priori probability of such a 
 reading makes it improbable that one so far 
 more difficult should have been substituted for 
 it. One of the surest canons of criticism mili- 
 tates against its reception. The text as it 
 stands was undoubtedly that which was alone 
 known to the Targumists, the Samaritan, the 
 Syriac, the Latin and the Arabic translators. 
 Tile LXX. appear to have had a different 
 reading, eV xfipi RpyefsaLa rroXe/xji. 
 
 NOTE on -u. 14. 
 
 Rosenmtiller expresses himself without any 
 doubt. In his note on the passage he says 
 “Memoriale in libro quern scribere incepisti:” 
 and in the Prolegg. p. 5, “Moses dicit se divino 
 jussu (insidias) inscripsisse libro, incerpto haud 
 dubie, et in cpio jam plura exaraverat, quod 
 cum articulo "ippS (non scripsit, quo in- 
 
 miit se de certo quodam et satis noto libro 
 locjui.” Thus Keil, “the book appointed for 
 the record of the gUrious works of God;” and 
 
 Kalisch, who renders it “the book:” he quotes ’ 
 Aben-Ezra to prove that a particular book 
 was referred to, and compares other passages 
 (Exod. xxiv. 4, 7, xxxiv. 27; Num. xxxiii. i, 2, 
 xxxvi. 13; IDeiit. xxviii. 61). Knobel however 
 proposes a different interpretation, taking “in 
 the book” to mean simply, “in writing.” He 
 refers to Num. v. 23 ; i S. x. 25 ; J.er. xxxii. 10; 
 and Job xix. 23: which prove that this 
 expression might mean “a book” generally, 
 
V. 1 — 9 .] 
 
 EXODUS. XVIII. 
 
 325 
 
 provided no particular book were already in 
 existence. It is not however by any means 
 equivalent to our expression “in writing,” 
 which would be a strange tautology “write in 
 writing,” but in each case a book or schedule 
 is meant: whether a book already begun, or 
 then to be begun, is a question to be deter- 
 mined by the context. The argument for the 
 positive existence of “a book” is not mate- 
 rially affected by the proposed change: but 
 all probability is in favour of the natural and 
 obvious impression that Moses was command- 
 ed to record this particular transaction in “the 
 
 book” which related the history of God’s 
 dealings with His people. The evidence for 
 the existence of books of considerable extent is 
 stated in the Introduction to the Pentateuch. 
 To this it may be added that under the ancient 
 Empire, functionaries of the highest rank held 
 the office of governor of the Palace and of the 
 “house of manuscripts;” see De Rouge, 
 ‘Recherches,’ pp. 73, 85. The tutelary Deity 
 of writing was called Saph or Sapheh (a 
 name apparently connected with the Hebrew 
 “ sepher”) : a Pharaoh of the 5th Dynasty bears 
 the style “beloved of Saph.” 1 . c. p. 84. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 I Jethro hringeth to Moses his wife and two 
 sons. 7 Moses e 7 itertaineth hi?n. 13 Je- 
 thro's coiuisel is accepted. 27 Jethro departeth. 
 
 2- T T /"HEN "Jethro, the priest of 
 V V Midian, Moses’ father in law, 
 heard of all that God had done for 
 Moses, and for Israel his people, and 
 that the Lord had brought Israel out 
 of Egypt; 
 
 2 Then Jethro, Moses’ father in 
 law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after 
 he had sent her back, 
 
 3 And her two sons ; of which the 
 * chap. 2. ^name of the owo. was "Gershom; for 
 « That is, he said, I have been an alien in a 
 ^//^""^^"strange land : 
 
 4 And the name of the other was 
 " Eliezer ; for the God of my father, 
 
 an help. Said vjas mine help, and delivered 
 me from the sword of Pharaoh : 
 
 5 And Jethro, Moses’ father in lav/, 
 came with his sons and his wife unto 
 Moses into the wilderness, where he 
 encamped at the mount of God : 
 
 6 And he said unto Moses, I thy 
 father in law Jethro am come unto 
 thee, and thy wife, and her two sons 
 v/ith her. 
 
 7 ^ And Moses went out to meet 
 his father in law, and did obeisance, 
 and kissed him ; and they asked each 
 other of their ^ welfare ; and they came t Heb. 
 
 . 1 peace. 
 
 into the tent. 
 
 8 And Moses told his father in law 
 all that the Lord had done unto 
 Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for 
 Israel’s sake, and all the travail that 
 had ^ come upon them by the way, and f Heb. 
 how the Lord delivered them. 
 
 9 And Jethro rejoiced for all the 
 goodness which the Lord had done 
 
 Chap. XVIII. The events recorded in this 
 chapter could not have occupied many days, 
 fifteen only elapsed between the arrival of the 
 Israelites in the wilderness of Spi and their 
 final arrival at Sinai, see ch. xvi. i, and xix. i. 
 This leaves however sufficient time for the in- 
 terview and transactions between Moses and 
 Jethro. 
 
 1 . Jethro'] See note on ch. ii. 18. For “father 
 inlaw” the Vulgate has cognatus, an indefi- 
 nite expression. Jethro was in all probability 
 the “brother in law” of Moses. On the 
 parting from Zipporah, see note on ch. iv. 26. 
 
 This chapter, which abounds in personal • 
 reminiscences (and gives a vivid impression of the 
 affectionate and confiding character of Moses), 
 stands rather apart from the general narrative. 
 It may have been and probably was written on 
 a separate roll. The repetition of particulars 
 well known to the reader is a general charac- 
 teristic of such distinct portions. 
 
 5. into the ivildemess] i. e. according to 
 the view which seems on the whole most 
 probable, on the plain near the northern sum- 
 mit of Horeb, the mount of God. It is 
 described by Robinson, i. p. 88, as a naked 
 desert, — wild and desolate. The exact spe- 
 cification of the locality may indicate a pre- • 
 vious engagement between Moses and Jethro 
 
 to meet at this place. The valley which 
 opens upon Er Rahah on the left of Horeb 
 is called by the Arabs Wady Shueib, i.e. the ^ 
 vale of Hobab. 
 
 6. The LXX. read, “And it was told to 
 Moses, saying, Lo, thy father in law Jether 
 is come.” This suits the context, and is 
 probably the true reading. 
 
 7 . did obeisance] As to an elder, the priest, 
 if not the chief, of a great tribe. 
 
 asked each other of their welfare] Or, 
 addressed each other with the customary salu- 
 tation, “Peace be unto you.” 
 
326 
 
 EXODUS. XVIIL 
 
 [v. lo — 1 6 . 
 
 to Israel, whom he had delivered out 
 of the hand of the Egyptians. 
 
 10 And Jethro said, Blessed be the 
 Lord, who hath delivered you out 
 of the hand of the Egyptians, and out 
 of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath de- 
 livered the people from under the hand 
 of the Egyptians. 
 
 11 Now I know that the Lord is 
 c chap. I. greater than all gods : ‘^for in the thing 
 10,^10, 22. -yyhei-ein they dealt proudly he was 
 Sc 14 . 18 . above them. 
 
 12 And Jethro, Moses’ father in 
 law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices 
 for God: and Aaron came, and all 
 the elders of Israel, to eat bread with 
 Moses’ father in law before God. 
 
 13 H And it came to pass on the 
 
 morrow, that Moses sat to judge the 
 people : and the people stood by 
 Moses from the morning unto the 
 
 evenino;. 
 
 14 And when Moses’ father in lav/ 
 saw all that he did to the people, he 
 said. What is this thing that thou 
 doest to the people ? why sittest thou 
 thyself alone, and all the people stand 
 by thee from morning unto even 
 
 15 And Moses said unto his father 
 in law. Because the people come unto 
 me to inquire of God : 
 
 16 When they have a matter, they 
 come unto me; and I judge between 
 
 ^ one and another, and I do makenieb. 
 the?n know the statutes of God, and nmaas 
 his laws. 
 
 11 . greater than all gods^ This does not 
 prove that Jethro recognized the existence 
 or power of other Deities, for the expression 
 is not uncommon in the mouth of Hebrew 
 monotheists, and corresponds exactly to the 
 tei'rns in which Moses had himself celebrated 
 the overthrow of the Egyptians ; see note on 
 ch. XV, II. It simply indicates a conviction of 
 the incomparable might and majesty of Jeho- 
 vah. 
 
 for in.. .abo've them] Lit. For (this is sheavn) 
 in the matter wherein they dealt 
 proudly against them. The construction 
 depends upon the previous clause ; the meaning 
 is, for I know the greatness of Jehovah by the 
 very transaction whei'ein the Egyptians dealt 
 haughtily and cruelly against the Israelites. 
 Jethro refers especially to the destruction of 
 the Egyptian host in the Red Sea, and very 
 probably to the words in which Moses him- 
 self had celebrated that event; see ch. xv. ii. 
 
 12 . a burnt offering and sacrifices] This 
 verse clearly shews that Jethro was recognized 
 as a priest of the true God. The identity of 
 religious faith could not be more conclusively 
 proved than by the participation in the sacri- 
 ficial feast. I'his passage is of great import- 
 ance in its bearings upon the relation between 
 the Israelites and their congeners, and upon 
 the state of religion among the descendants of 
 Abraham. 
 
 13. In the following passage the change 
 in the organization of the people, by which 
 the burden of judicial procetxlings was trans- 
 fern'd in great part from Moses to subordinate 
 officers, is attributed entirely to the counsel of 
 Jethro. 'I'his is important for several reasons. 
 It is certain that no late writer would have in- 
 
 vented such a stoiy. and most improbable that 
 tradition would have long preserved the me- 
 mory of a transaction which to Israelites might 
 naturally seem derogatory to their legislator. 
 Nothing however can be more characteristic 
 of Moses,’ who combines on all occasions 
 distrust of himself, and singular openness to 
 impressions, with the wisdom and sound 
 judgment which chooses the best course when 
 pointed out. It is remiarkable that an institu- 
 tion so novel and important should have pre- 
 ceded the promulgation of the Sinaitic law. 
 
 fro7n the tnorning unto the evening] It may 
 be assumed as at least probable that numerous 
 cases of difficulty arose out of the division of 
 the sjioil of the Amialekites: this was more- 
 over the first station at which the Israelites 
 appear to have rested long after their departure 
 from Elim, and causes would of course ac- 
 cumulate during the journey. 
 
 15. to inquire of God] The decisions of 
 Moses were doubtless accepted by the people 
 as oracles. There is no reason to suppose 
 that he consulted, or that the people expected 
 him to consult, the Lord by Urim andThum- 
 mim, which are first mentioned xxviii. 3 c, 
 where see note. The internal prompting of 
 the Spirit was a sufficient guidance for him, 
 and a sufficient authority for the people. 
 
 16. the statutes of God, and his la^vs] 
 This would seem to imply that in deciding 
 each particular case Moses explained the prin- 
 ciples of right and justice on which his 
 decision rested. It became, so to speak, a 
 precedent; he can scarcely' be supposed to 
 refer to any existing code, the necessity for 
 which must, however, have soon become appa- 
 rent, preparing the people for the legislation 
 given within a few days at Sinai. 
 
V. 17—27.] 
 
 EXODUS. XVIII. 
 
 327 
 
 f Heb. 
 Fading 
 ihou wilt 
 fade. 
 
 Deut. I. 
 9- 
 
 17 And Moses’ father in law said 
 unto him, The thing that thou doest 
 is not good. ' 
 
 18 ^Thou wilt surely wear away, 
 both thou, and this people that is with 
 thee : for this thing is too heavy for 
 thee ; '^thou art not able to perform it 
 thyself alone. 
 
 19 Hearken now unto my voice, I 
 will give thee counsel, and God shall 
 be with thee : Be thou for the people 
 to God-ward, that thou mayest bring 
 the causes unto God : 
 
 20 And thou shalt teach them 
 ordinances and laws, and shalt shew 
 them the way wherein they must walk, 
 and the work that they must do. 
 
 21 Moreover thou shalt provide out 
 of all the people able men, such as 
 fear God, men of truth, hating covet- 
 ousness; and place such over them,' 
 to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of 
 hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers 
 of tens : 
 
 22 And let them judge the people 
 
 at all seasons : and it shall be, that 
 every great matter they shall bring 
 unto thee, but every small matter they 
 shall judge: so shall it be easier for 
 thyself, and they shall bear the burden 
 with thee. 
 
 23 If thou shalt do this thing, and 
 God command thee so., then thou shalt 
 be able to endure, and all this people 
 shall also go to their place in peace. 
 
 24 So Moses hearkened to the voice 
 of his father in law, and did all that 
 he had said. 
 
 25 And Moses chose able men out 
 of all Israel, and made them heads 
 over the people, rulers of thoasands, 
 rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, 
 and rulers of tens. 
 
 26 And they judged the people at 
 all seasons : the hard causes they 
 brought unto Moses, but every small 
 matter they judged themselves. 
 
 27 ^ And Moses let his father in 
 law depart ; and he went his way into 
 his own land. 
 
 18. Thou nvilt surely nvear a'way'\ This 
 expresses the true sense: the Hebrew word 
 implies decay and exhaustion. 
 
 19. counsel] In this counsel Jethro draws 
 a distinction, probably not previously recog- 
 nized, between the functions of the legislator 
 and the judge. Moses as legislator stands be- 
 tween the people and God. He brings the 
 cause to God, and learns from Him the prin- 
 ciple by which it is to be determined : and in 
 the next place, sets before the people the whole 
 system of ordinances and laws by which they 
 are to be henceforth guided. As judge Moses 
 decides all difficult cases in the last resort, 
 leaving questions of detail to offxcei's chosen 
 by himself from the people. 
 
 to God-qvard] lit. “before God,” standing 
 between them and God, both as His minister, 
 or representative: and also as the representa- 
 tive of the people, their agent, so to speak, or 
 deputy before God. 
 
 20. teach them] The Hebrew word is 
 emphatic, and signifies “enlightenment.” The 
 text gives four distinct points, {a) the ‘ ‘ ordi- 
 nances,” or specific enactments, {h) “the laws,” 
 or general regulations, (c) “the way, ’’the general 
 course of duty, (i) “the work,” each spe- 
 cific act. 
 
 21. able men] This gives the true force 
 of the Hebrew, literally “men of might;” 
 i.e. strength of character and ability. The 
 
 qualifications are remarkably complete, ability, 
 piety, truthfulness and unselfishness. The re- 
 commendation leaves no doubt as to the faith 
 of Jethro, though, with the usual care observed 
 by Moses in relating the v/ords of pious Gen- 
 tiles, he is represented as using the general ex- 
 pression God, not the revealed name Jehovah. 
 From Deut. i. 13, it appears that Moses left 
 the selection of the persons to the people, an 
 example followed by the Apostles; see Acts 
 vi. 3- 
 
 rulers of thousands, &c.] This minute classi- 
 fication of the people is thoroughly in accord- 
 ance with the Semitic character, and was 
 retained in after ages. The numbers appear to 
 be conventional, corresponding nearly, but not 
 exactly, to the military, or civil divisions of 
 the people. The number “ten” denotes in 
 Arabic, and may have denoted in Hebrew, 
 a family; the largest division 1000 is used as 
 an equivalent of a gens under one head, Num. 
 i. 16, X. 4; Josh. xxii. 14. 
 
 The word “rulers,” sometimes rendered 
 “princes,” is general, including all ranks of 
 officials placed in command. The same word 
 is used regularly on Egyptian monuments of 
 the time of Moses: see note on ch. i. ii. 
 
 23. to their place] i.e. to Canaan, which 
 is thus recognized by Jethro as the appointed 
 and true home of Israel. 
 
 27. into his Q<vjn land] Midian. This 
 
328 
 
 EXODUS. XIX. 
 
 [v. I — 6. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 I The people come to Sinai. 3 God's message 
 hy Moses unto the people out of the mount. 
 8 The people's answer returned agam. 10 
 • The people are prepared against the third day. 
 
 12 The motentain ?mist not be touched. 16 
 The fearful presentee of God upon the 7 noimt. 
 
 I N the third month, when the 
 children of Israel were gone forth 
 out of the land of Egypt, the same 
 . day came they jnio the wilderness of 
 Sinai. 
 
 2 For they were departed from 
 Rephidim, and were come to the desert 
 of Sinai, and had pitched in the wil- 
 derness; and there Israel camped be- 
 fore the mount. 
 
 3 ^57. ^ « Moses went up unto God, 
 
 and the Lord called unto him out of 
 the mountain, saying. Thus shalt thou 
 say to the house of Jacob, and tell the 
 children of Israel ; 
 
 4 ^ Ye have seen what I did unto * Deut. 29. 
 the Egyptians, and how I bare you on 
 eagles’ v/ings, and brought you unto 
 myself. 
 
 5 Now '^therefore, if ye will obey Deut. 5. 
 
 my voice indeed, and keep my cove- 
 nant, then ye shall be a peculiar trea- 
 sure unto me above all people : for ^all ^Deut. 10. 
 the earth is mine : ^ i 4 ai. 24. i. 
 
 6 And ye shall be unto me a ^king- ^ Pet- 2. 
 dom of priests, and an holy nation. liev. 1. 6. 
 These are the words which thou shalt 
 speak unto the children of Israel. 
 
 expression is favourable to the view that the 
 home of Midian was on the east of the Red 
 Sea, and not in the Peninsula of Sinai. If the 
 identity of Jethro with Hobab be assumed, he 
 must have returned and met Moses once more 
 after the departure from Sinai. See Numbers 
 X. 29 — 32. It seems however far more proba- 
 ble that Hobab was his brother. See note on 
 ch. ii. 18. 
 
 Chap. XIX. 1. In the third month~\ This 
 expression does not determine the exact day : 
 the word “month” is not found in the Pen- 
 tateuch in the sense of new moon, or the 
 first day of the month, which has been at- 
 tributed to it in this passage by many eminent 
 critics. Still the natural impression made by 
 this statement is that the arrival of the Israel- 
 ites coincided with the beginning of the third 
 month. 
 
 the nvilderness of Sinai] See note at the end 
 of the book. 
 
 3 . Moses nvent up unto God] This seems 
 to imply that the voice was heard by Moses 
 as he was ascending the mount. 
 
 house of Jacob] This expression does not 
 occur elsewhere in tf.e Pentateuch. It has a 
 45eculiar fitness h.ere, referring doubtless to the 
 special premises made to the Patriarch. 
 
 4 . on eagles' ru;if?gj] Bochart, after quoting 
 passages from jTlian, Appian and other 
 writers, observes that Moses gives a perfect 
 explanation of the simile in Deuteronomy 
 xxxii. II. He adds “It is to be obscived that 
 both in the law ard in Ih.e gospel the Church 
 is com.parcd to fledgelings which the mother 
 cherishes and protects under her wings: but 
 in the law that mother is an eagle, in the 
 gospel a hen ; thus shadowing forth the di- 
 versity of administration under each Cove- 
 nant: tne one ot power, which G(jd manifest- 
 
 ed when He brought His people out of Egypt 
 with a mighty hand and an outstretched aim, 
 and led them into the promised land; the 
 other of grace, when Christ came in humility 
 and took the form of a servant and became 
 obedient unto death, even the death of the 
 Cross.” Bochart however, remarks, that the 
 simile of an eagle is applied to Christ when 
 He vindicates His people from the Dragon, 
 Rev. xii. 14. See Hierozoicon, lib. il. ch. 22, 
 § 3 ancl 4 . 
 
 5. a peculiar treasure] This expresses 
 the true sense of the Hebrew word, which 
 designates a costly possession acquired with 
 exertion, and carefully guarded. The peculiar 
 relation in which Israel stands, taken out of 
 the Heathen world and consecrated to God, 
 as his slaves, subjects, and children, determines 
 their privileges, and is the foundation of their 
 duties. The same principle applies even in 
 a stronger sense to the Church. See Acts 
 XX. 28; I Cor. vi. 20; I Pet. ii. 9. 
 
 all the earth is mine] This is added, ’as we 
 m.ay believe, to impress upon the Jews that 
 their God was no mere national Deity, a point 
 of great practical importance. 
 
 6. a kingdom of priests] The exact 
 meaning of this expression, as it was under- 
 stood by all the ancient translators, and as it 
 is explained in the New Testament, is that 
 Israel collectively is a royal and priestly race: 
 a dynasty of priests, each true member unitir.g 
 in himself the attributes of a king and priest. 
 The word “kingdom” is not taken in the 
 modern sense, as a collective name for the 
 subjects of a king, but in the old Hebrew sense 
 of “royalty,” or “dynasty.” Thus nearly all 
 ancient and modern commentators explain the 
 words. (The LXX. fiacrikeiov UpaTevfxa, Tar- 
 gum Onk. kings and priests ; Jonathan, crown- 
 ed kings and ministering priests.) 
 
V. 7 — 
 
 EXODUS. XIX. 
 
 329 
 
 7 ^ And Moses came and called 
 for the elders of the people, and laid 
 before their faces all these words 
 which the Lord commanded him. 
 
 / chap. 24. g And all the people answered 
 
 iK^ut. 5. together, and said, All that the Lord 
 & 26. 17. spoken we will do. And Moses 
 
 returned the words of the people unto 
 the Lord. 
 
 9 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 Lo, I come unto thee in a thick 
 cloud, that the people may hear when 
 I speak with thee, and believe thee 
 for ever. And Moses told the words 
 of the people unto the Lord. 
 
 10 ^ And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Go unto the people, and sanctify 
 them to day and to morrow, and let 
 them wash their clothes, 
 
 1 1 And be ready against the third 
 day : for the third day the Lord will 
 come down in the sight of all the 
 people upon mount Sinai. 
 
 12 And thou shalt set bounds un- 
 to the people round about, saying. 
 
 Take heed to yourselves, that ye go 
 not up into ,the mount, or touch the 
 border of it: ^whosoever toucheth ^ 12. 
 the mount shall be surely put to 
 death : 
 
 13 There shall not an hand touch 
 it, but he shall surely be stoned, or 
 shot through ; whether it be beast or 
 man, it shall not live : when the 
 
 ■ trumpet soundeth long, they shall ti Or, 
 come up to the mount. comet. 
 
 14 ^ And Moses v/ent down from 
 the mount unto the people, and sanc- 
 tified the people ; and they v/ashed 
 their clothes. 
 
 15 And he said unto the people. 
 
 Be ready against the third day : come 
 not at your wives. 
 
 16 ^ And it came to pass on the 
 third day in the morning, that there 
 v/ere thunders and lightnings, and a 
 thick cloud upon the mount, and the 
 voice of the trumpet exceeding loud ; 
 so that all the people that was in the 
 camp trembled. 
 
 a}t holy nation] The holiness of Israel con- 
 sisted in its special consecration to God; it 
 was a sacred nation, sacred by adoption, by 
 covenant, and by participation in all means of 
 grace. The radical meaning of the Hebrew 
 “Khodesh” appears to be clean, clear 
 
 from all pollution bodily or spiritual,” rather 
 than, as many critics have assumed, “sepa- 
 rate and set apart.” The distinction between 
 official consecration, and internal holiness is 
 secondary, and scarcely seemis to have lain 
 within the scope of the Hebrew mind: the 
 ideas were inseparable. 
 
 8 . All that the Lord^ &c.J By this answer 
 the people accepted the covenant. It was the 
 preliminary condition of their complete admis- 
 sion into the state of a royal priesthood. 
 
 9 . in a thick cloud] Or “in the darkness 
 of cloud,” i.e. in the midst of the dense cloud 
 which indicated the Presence of Jehovah. The 
 people were to hear the voice of God, dis- 
 tinctly announcing the fundamental principles 
 of the eternal law. 
 
 10. sanctify theni] The injunction in- 
 volves bodily purification and undoubtedly 
 also spiritual preparation. Thus Heb. x. 22, 
 “our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, 
 and our bodies washed with pure water.” The 
 washing of the clothes was an outward symbol 
 well understood in all nations. The sup}>ly 
 
 of water in the region about Sinai is repeatedly 
 stated by Burckhardt and other travellers to 
 be abundant. In Deut. ix. 21, we read of the 
 brook descending from the mount. 
 
 11. the third day] The significance of the 
 expression “third day” scarcely needs to be 
 pointed out; whether this third day fell on 
 the Jewish or Christian Sabbath is quite un- 
 certain ; but it can scarcely have corresponded 
 to the day of Pentecost, as Bp. Wordsworth 
 holds on the authority of an ancient and 
 widely accredited tradition : more than 60 days 
 had elapsed since the Passover, See the article 
 on Pentecost in Smith’s ‘ Diet.’ 
 
 12. set bounds unto the people] The access 
 to the base of the mountain is evidently shewn 
 to have been otherwise unimpeded. Dr Stan- 
 ley speaks of the low line of alluvial mounds 
 at the foot of the cliff of Ras Safsafeh as 
 exactly answering to the bounds which v/ere 
 to keep the people off from touching the mount ; 
 but the bounds here spoken of were to be set 
 up by Moses. 
 
 13 . touch it] Rather “touch him.” The 
 person was not to be touched, since the contact 
 v/ould be pollution. He was to be stoned or 
 shot with an arrow; or probably with a jave- 
 lin, as was customary in later times. 
 
 ojjhcn the trumpet^ &c.] When the trumpet 
 sounded those wljo were specially called might 
 ascend. 
 
350 
 
 h Deut. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 contest. 
 
 EXODUS. XIX. b-i7-2. 
 
 17 And Moses brought forth the 
 people out of the camp to meet with 
 God; and they stood at the nether 
 part of the mount. 
 
 18 And mount Sinai was altoge- 
 ther on a smoke, because the Lord 
 descended upon it in lire: and the 
 smoke thereof ascended as the smoke 
 of a furnace, and the whole mount 
 quaked greatly. 
 
 19 And when the voice of the 
 trumpet sounded long, and waxed 
 louder and louder, Moses spake, and 
 God answered him by a voice. 
 
 20 And the Lord came down up- 
 on mount Sinai, on the top of the 
 mount: and the Lord called Moses 
 up to the top of the mount ; and Mo- 
 ses went up. 
 
 21 And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Go down, ^charge the people, lest 
 they break through unto the Lord to 
 gaze, and many of them perish. 
 
 22 And let the priests also, which 
 come near to the Lord, sanctify 
 
 themselves, lest the Lord break forth 
 upon them. 
 
 23 And Moses said unto the Lord, 
 
 The people cannot come up to mount 
 Sinai : for thou chargedst us, saying. 
 
 Set bounds about the mount, and sanc- 
 tify it. 
 
 24 And the Lord said unto him. 
 
 Away, get thee down, and thou shalt 
 come up, thou, and Aaron with thee : 
 but let not the priests and the peo- 
 ple break through to come up unto the . 
 Lord, lest he break forth upon them. 
 
 25 So Moses went down unto the 
 people, and spake unto them. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 I The ten commandments. 18 The people are 
 afraid. 10 Moses comfendeth them. 22 Idola- 
 tiy is forbidden. Of what sort the altar 
 should be. 
 
 A nd God spake all these words, 
 
 ^ saying, ^ ^ 
 
 2 " I am the Lord thy God, v/hich ^ 
 have brought thee out of the land of 10. ' ' 
 
 Egypt, out of the house of ' bondage, saiants. 
 
 17 . out of the camp^ The encampment 
 must liave extended far and wide over the 
 plain in front of the mountain. From one 
 entrance of the plain to the other there is 
 space for the whole host of the Israelites. This 
 is a point which has been determined by accu- 
 rate measurement of the valley. See note at 
 the end of Exodus. 
 
 18 . a furnace] The word is Egyptian, 
 and occurs only in the Pentateuch. 
 
 22. the priests also] I'he Eevitical priest- 
 hood was not yet instituted, but sacrifices 
 had hitherto been offered by persons who 
 were recognized as having the right or autho- 
 rity : according to the very probable account 
 of Rabbinical writers these were the first- 
 born, or the heads of families, until they were 
 supei'seded by the Aaronic priesthood. 
 
 The Tex Commandments. 
 
 ClIAE. XX. I — 17. 
 
 On the Ten Commanduients, taken as a 
 whole, see Note after o). 21. I'he account 
 of tlie delivery of them in chap. xix. and in 
 mv. 18 — 21 of this chap, is in accordance 
 with their imjiortance as the recognized basis 
 of the Covenant between Jehovah and His 
 ancient jieople (Exod.-xxxiv. 27, 28; Deut. 
 iv. 13; I K. viii. 21, &c.), and as the Divine 
 testimony against tlie sinful tendencies in man 
 for all ages. Jewish writers liave speculated 
 as to the mode in which the Divine com- 
 
 munication was made to the people (Philo, 
 ‘de Orac.’ c. 9; Palestine Targum, &c.). It 
 may be noticed that, while it is here said that 
 “God spake all these words,” and in Deut. 
 V. 4, that He “spake face to face,” in the New 
 Testament the giving of the Law is spoken of as 
 having been through the ministration of angels 
 (Acts vii. 53; Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2). We 
 can only reconcile these contrasts of language 
 by keeping in mind that God is a Spirit, and 
 that He is essentially present in the agents 
 who are performing His will. A similar dif- 
 ficulty was felt by some in St Augustin’s 
 time in reconciling Gen, i. i with John i. 3. 
 (‘Cont. Adimant. Man.’ c. i.) — Josephus ap- 
 pears as the only witness for the superstition, 
 which was probably common amongst the 
 Pharisees of his day, that it was not lawful to 
 utter the very words in which the Ten Com- 
 mandments were originally expressed (‘Ant.’ 
 III. 5, § 4). It is remarkable that there seems 
 to be no trace of this in the rabbinists. — The 
 Two Tables of stone on which the Com- 
 mandm.ents were inscribed are mentioned ch. 
 xxiv. 12, xxxi. 18. 
 
 2. avhich haaoe brought thee out of the land 
 of Egypt out of the house of bondage] It was a 
 rabbinical question. Why, on this occasion, 
 was not THE Lord ratlier proclaimed as “the 
 Creator of Heaven and Earth”? The true 
 answer evidently is, That the 'Pen Command- 
 ments M'ere at this time addressed by Jehovah 
 
V. 3—5-] 
 
 EXODUS. XX. 
 
 33 
 
 3 I'hou shalt have no other gods 
 before me. 
 
 » Lev. 26. 4 ^ Thou shalt not make unto thee 
 
 Psai. 97. 7. any graven image, or any likeness of 
 any thmg that is in heaven above, or 
 that is in the earth beneath, or that is 
 in the water under the earth : 
 
 5 Thou shalt not bow down thy- • 
 self to them, nor serve them: for I 
 the Lord thy God ain a jealous 
 God, visiting the iniquity of the fa- 
 thers upon the children unto the third 
 and fourth generation of them that 
 hate me; 
 
 not merely to human creatures, but to the 
 people whom He had redeemed, to those who 
 had been in bondage, but were now free men. 
 (Exod. vi. 6, 7, xix. 5.) The Command- 
 ments are expressed in absolute terms. They 
 are not sanctioned by ouHvard penalties, as if 
 for slaves, but are addressed at once to the 
 conscience, as for free men. The well-being 
 of the nation called for the infliction of penal- 
 ties, and therefore statutes were passed to 
 punish offenders who blasphemed the name of 
 Jehovah, who profaned the Sabbath, or who 
 committed murder or adultery. (See on Lev. 
 xviii. 24 — 30.) But these penal statutes were 
 not to be the ground of obedience for the true 
 Israelite according to the Covenant. He was 
 to know Jehovah as his Redeemer, and was 
 to obey Him as such. (Cf. Rom. xiii. 5 ; 
 see Note after 2;. 21, § V.) 
 
 3 . before me\ Uiter^Wy^ before my face. The 
 meaning is that no god should be worshipped 
 in addition to Jehovah. Cf. 2;. 23. The render- 
 ing in our Prayer-Book, but me., with that of 
 the LXX. TiKriv e’juou, does not so well repre- 
 sent the Hebrew. The polytheism which was 
 the besetting sin of the Israelites in later times 
 did not exclude Jehovah, but it associated 
 Him with false deities. See Note on xxxiv. 13. 
 
 4 . granjen image~\ Any sort of image is 
 here intended. The Hebrew word {pesel^ 
 strictly means a carved image, mostly denot- 
 ing one of wood or stone, and in some places 
 it is distinguished from a molten image of 
 metal (massekafS) : but as molten images were 
 finished up with a graver or carving tool, pesel 
 is sometimes applied to them (Is. xl. 19, xliv. 
 loj Jer. x. 14, &:c.), and is frequently used, 
 as it is here, for a general name for images of 
 all sorts. 
 
 or any likeness^ This may be rendered, even 
 anylikeness. What follows in the verse 
 expresses the whole material creation ; it is 
 expanded in detail in Deut. iv. 16 — 19. 
 
 5 . Thou shalt not boqv do^jun thyself to them, 
 nor sern)e theni] The antecedent to them in 
 each clause appears to be the likenesses of 
 things in heaven and earth spoken of in the 
 preceding verse. It has been observed that, 
 according to the Hebrew idiom, these clauses 
 may have a strict grammatical connection 
 with “Thou shalt not make,” &c. in 2;. 4. 
 The meaning certainly is to prohibit the making 
 of the likeness of any material thing, in order to 
 
 worship it. For a similar form of expression, 
 see Num. xxii. 12. As the First Command- 
 ment forbids the worship of any false god, 
 seen or unseen, it is here forbidden to worship 
 an image of any sort, whether the figure of a 
 false deity or one iq any way symbolical of 
 Jehovah (see on xxxii. 4). The spintual acts 
 of worship were symbolized in the furniture 
 and ritual of the Tabernacle and the Altar, 
 and for this end the forms of living things 
 might be employed as in the case of the Che- 
 rubim (see on xxv. 18): but the presence of 
 the invisible God was to be marked by no 
 symbol of Himself, but by His words written 
 on stones, preserved in the Ark in the Holy 
 of Holies and covered by the Mercy-seat. 
 On the repudiation of images of the Deity 
 by the ancient Persians, see Herodot. i. 13 1; 
 Strabo, xv. p. 732; and by the earliest legis- 
 lators of Rome, see Plut. ‘Numa,’ 8; Au- 
 gustin. ‘de Civ. Dei,’ iv. 31. 
 
 The Jews, not recognizing the connection 
 between ‘V'v. 4 and 5, have imagined uk 4 to 
 be a prohibition of the exercise of the arts of 
 painting and sculpture. Considering the Che- 
 rubim of the Mercy-seat and of the curtains 
 of the Tabernacle, the pomt^granates of the 
 High-priest’s robe, and the fruits and flowers 
 of the Candlestick, to say nothing of the 
 sculptures of the Temple in later times (i K. 
 vi. 23 sq., vii. 27 sq.), any such notion as this 
 must show the prejudiced and fragmentary 
 way in which they were tempted to study the 
 Scriptures. Philo declares that Moses con- 
 demned to perpetual banishment the cheating 
 arts (em^ovXoi re'xi'aO of painters and sculp- 
 tors (‘Quis div. rer. heres.’ c. 35; ‘de Orac.’ 
 c. 29). Josephus charges Solomon with a 
 breach of the Law, on account of the ’oxen 
 which supported the brazen sea, and the lions 
 which adorned his throne (‘Ant.’ viii. 7, § 5) : 
 and in direct contradiction of Exod. xxvi. 31, 
 he denies that the vail which concealed the 
 Most Holy Place was ornamented with living 
 creatures. (‘Ant.’ iii. 6, § 4.) This preju- 
 dice, from the time when the pharisaic tend- 
 ency began to work on the mind of the 
 nation, must have effectually checked the pro- 
 gress of the imitative arts. 
 
 for I the Lord thy^ God am a jealous God'\ 
 Deut. vi. 15 ; Josh.xxiv. 19; Is. xlii. 8, xlviii. ir ; 
 Nahum i. 2. This reason applies to the First, 
 as well as to the Second Commandment. The 
 truth expressed in it was declared more fully 
 
332 
 
 EXODUS.- XX. 
 
 [v. 6 — 8. 
 
 6 And shewing mercy unto thou- 
 
 Lev. 19. sands of them that love me, and keep 
 )eut commandments. 
 
 7 ^ Thou shalt not take the 
 3*^“- name of the Lord thy God in 
 
 vain; for the Lord will not hold 
 him guiltless that taketh his name in 
 vain. 
 
 8 Remember the sabbath day, to 
 keep it holy. 
 
 to Moses when the name of Jehovah was pro- 
 claimed to him after he had interceded for 
 Israel on account of the golden calf (xxxiv. 
 6, 7 ; see note). 
 
 'I'isiiing the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
 childreri] The visitation here spoken of can 
 hardly be any other than that which we are 
 accustomed to witness ip the common experi- 
 ence of life. (Cf. xxxiv. 7; Jer. xxxii. 18.) 
 Sons and remote descendants inherit the con- 
 sequences of their fathers’ sins, in disease, 
 poverty, captivity, with all the influences of 
 bad example and evil communications. (See 
 Lev. xxvi. 39; Lam. v. 7 sq.) The “in- 
 herited curse” seems to fall often most heavily 
 on the least guilty persons, as is abundantly 
 proved in all history and is pointedly illustrated 
 in Greek tragedy. But such suffering must 
 always be free from the sting of conscience ; it 
 is not like the visitation for sin on the in- 
 dividual by whom the sin has been committed. 
 The suffering, or loss of advantages, entailed 
 on the unoffending son, is a condition under 
 which he has to carry on the struggle of 
 life, and, like all other inevitable conditions 
 imposed upon men, it cannot tend to his 
 ultim.ate disadvantage, if he struggles Vv^ell 
 and perseveres to the end. He m.ay never 
 attaiii in this world to a high standard of 
 knowledge, or of outward conduct, compared 
 with others, but the Searcher of hearts will 
 regard him with favour, not in proportion to 
 his visible conduct, but to his unseen struggles. 
 As regards the administration of justice by 
 earthly tribunals, the Law holds good, “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” (Deut. xxiv. 16). 
 The same principle is carried out in spiritual 
 matters by the Supreme Judge. The Israelites 
 in a later age made a confusion in the use of 
 their common proverb, “The fathers have 
 eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are 
 set on edge.” I'here would have been truth 
 in this saying had it been used only in reference 
 to the mere natural consecjuences of their 
 fathers’ sins. In this sense their teeth were 
 set on edge by the sour grapes their fathers 
 liad eaten. But the Prophets pointed out the 
 falsehood involved in the jiroverb as it was 
 understood by the people. 'Phey showed that 
 it was utterly false when applied to the spiritual 
 relation in which each person stands in the 
 judgment of Him who is no respecter of per- 
 sons. (Jcr. xxxi. 29, 30; E'/ek. xviii. 2 — 4sq.) 
 
 A nother explanation of the words appears in 
 the TargumiS, and is favoured by some of the 
 Fathers and other commentators, Christian and 
 Jewish. It assumes that the words refer only 
 to the children who go on sinning so as to fill 
 up the measure of their fathers’ iniquities in 
 the manner spoken of Lev. xxvi. 39 ; Is. Ixv. 7 ; 
 Jer. xvi. 10 — 13; Matt, xxiii. 29—32. (See 
 Hengst. ‘Pent.’ Vol. ii. p. 446.) But this 
 seems unworthily to reduce the Divine words 
 to a mere truism. It makes them say in an 
 awkward mannner no more than that the 
 guilty sons shall be punished as well as the 
 guilty fathers. 
 
 6. unto thousands'] unto the thousandth 
 generation. Jehovah's visitations of chas- 
 tisement extend to the third and fourth genera- 
 tion, his visitations of mercy to the thousandth ; 
 that is, for ever. That this is the true ren- 
 dering seems to follow from Deut. vii. 9. 
 Cf. 2 S. vii. 15, 16. So S)n-., Onk., Leo Juda, 
 Geneva French, Rosen., Zunz, Schott. Kno- 
 bel, Keil, Herx.. and Wogue. Our version is 
 supported by the LXX., Vulg., Saadia, Luther, 
 and de Wette. 
 
 7 . O ur translators have followed the LXX., 
 Aquila, the Vulgate, Augustin (‘Serm.’ viii.), 
 and Theodoret (‘Queest. in Exod.’ 41), in 
 making the Third Commandment bear upon 
 any profime and idle utterance of the name of 
 God. Saadia, the Syriac, some of the Rabbin- 
 ists, and the greater number of the critics of 
 our day, give it the sense. Thou shalt not swear 
 falsely by the 7 iame of Jeho'vah thy God. The 
 Hebrew word which answers to in vain may 
 be rendered either way. The two abuses of 
 the sacred name seem to be distinguished in 
 Lev. xix. 12. C)ur Version is probably right in 
 giving the rendering which is more inclusive. 
 To swear fiilsely is undoubtedly a profanation 
 of the name of God; and looking at the matter 
 on its practical side, the man who, in a right 
 spirit, avoids the idle use of the Name will be 
 incapable of swearing falsely. Hence there 
 may be a reference to this Commandment, as 
 well as to Lev. xix. 12, in Matt. v. 33. The 
 caution that a breach of this Commandm.ent 
 incurs guilt in the eyes of Jehovah is especially 
 apj^ropriate, in consequence of the ease witli 
 which the temptation to take God's name in 
 vain besets men in their common intercourse 
 with each other. 
 
 8. Ke 7 ncmber the sabbath day] These words 
 have been taken to refer to the observance of 
 the Sabbath day as an old usage dating back 
 
V. 9 12.] 
 
 EXODUS. 
 
 XX. 
 
 333 
 
 diap. 23. Q t/SJx days shalt thou labour, and 
 JCzek. 20, do all thy work : 
 
 Jvjkei3. 10 But the seventh day is the sab- 
 bath of the Lord thy God : i?2 it 
 thou shalt not do any work, thou, 
 nor . thy son, nor thy daughter, thy 
 manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor- 
 thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is 
 within thy gates: 
 
 1 1 For ‘^in six days the Lord made *• 
 heaven and earth, the sea, and all that 
 
 in them L, and rested the seventh 
 day: wherefore the Lord blessed the 
 sabbath day, and hallowed, it. 
 
 12 -^Honour thy father and thy-^J^eut. 5. 
 mother : that thy days may be long M’att. 15. 
 upon the land which the Lord thy f^ph. o. 2. 
 God giveth thee. 
 
 to the Patriarchs, or even to the creation of 
 the world. There is however no distinct evi- 
 dence that the Sabbath, as a formal ordi- 
 nance, was recognized before the time of Mo- 
 ses. The expressions of Nehemiah (ix. 14), 
 of Ezekiel (xx. 10, ii, 12), and, perhaps, of 
 Moses himself (Deut. v. 15), may be taken 
 to intimate that the obseiwance was regarded 
 as originating in the Law given on Mount 
 Sinai, The most ancient testimonies favour 
 this view. (See Note at end of this Chapter. 
 Also note on Gen. ii. 2.) It is now generally 
 admitted that the attempts to trace the observ- 
 ance in heathen antiquity have failed. It has 
 been alleged that the word remember may be 
 reasonably explained in one of two ways with- 
 out adopting the inference that has been men- 
 tioned ; it may either be used in the sense of 
 keep in mind what is here enjoined for the first 
 time, or it may refer back to what is related in 
 ch. xvi. where the Sabbath day is first noticed, 
 in giving the law for collecting the manna. 
 
 to keep it holy\ See Note after ‘v. 21, § I. 
 
 10 . the sabbath of the Lord thy Cod'] a 
 Sa'D’oath to Jehovali thy God. It may be 
 observed that the word sabbath (more pro- 
 perly, shabbath) has no etymological connec- 
 tion with sheba\ the Hebrew for se^en. The 
 proper meaning of sabbath is, rest after labour. 
 
 thy stranger that is within thy gates'] The 
 Hebrew word geer does not mean a stranger 
 (that is an unknown person), but, according 
 to its mere derivation, a lodger., or sojourner. 
 In this place it denotes one who had come 
 from another people to take up his pennanent 
 abode among the Israelites, and who might 
 have been well known to his neighbours. Our 
 vrord foreigner., in its common use, seems best 
 to answer to it here. The LXX. renders geer 
 by Trpou-rjXvTos {^proselyte]., napoiKo?, and 
 That the word did not primarily refer to 
 foreign domestic servants (though all such 
 were included under it) is to be inferred from 
 the term used for gates {sha^ arimj., signifying 
 not the doors of a private dwelling, but the 
 gates of a town or camp. 
 
 11 . therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath 
 day] Our Communion Service and Catechism 
 follow the reading of the LXX. and the earlier 
 i'.nglish Vei-sions, in calling this the seventh 
 
 day instead of the sabbath day. On the m.ean- 
 ing of the verse, see Note after ‘i'. 21. 
 
 12 . Honour thy father and thy mother] Ac- 
 cording to our usage, the Fifth Command- 
 ment is placed as the first in the second table ; 
 and this is necessarily involved in the common 
 division of the Commandments into our duty 
 towards God and our duty towards men. 
 But the more ancient, and probably the better, 
 division allots five Commandments to each 
 Table. The connection between the first four 
 Commandments and the Fifth exists in the 
 truth that all faith in God centres in the filial 
 feeling. Our parents stand between us and 
 God in a way in which no other beings can. 
 It is worthy of note that the honouring of 
 parents and the keeping of the Sabbath day, 
 which is the same as honouring God, are com- 
 bined in one precept in Lev. xix. 3. — In con- 
 nection with this, it may be obsei*ved that the 
 Fifth Commandment and the fimt part of the 
 Fourth are the only portions of the Decalogue 
 which are expressed in a positive form. See 
 Note after 'l'. 2i,§IV. On the maintenance 
 of parental authority, see xxi. 15, 17; Deut. 
 xxi, 18 — 21. 
 
 that thy days may be long up 07 i the layid] 
 Filial respect is the ground of national per- 
 manence. When the Jews were about to be 
 cast out of their land, the rebuke of the pro- 
 phet was, that they had not walked in the old 
 paths and had not respected the voice of their 
 fathers as the sons of Jonadab had done (Jer. 
 vi. 16, XXXV. 18, 19). And when in later 
 times the land had been restored to them, 
 and they were about to be cast out of it a 
 second time, the great sin of vrhich they were 
 convicted was, that they had set aside this 
 Fifth Commandment for the sake of their own 
 traditions. (Matt. xv. 4 — 6 ; Mark vii. 10, ii.) 
 Every other nation that has a history bears 
 vritness to the same truth. Rome owed her 
 strength, as well as the permanence of her in- 
 fluence after she had politically perished, to 
 her steady maintenance of the patria potestas 
 (Maine, ‘Ancient Law,’ p. 135). China has 
 mainly owed her long duration to the simple 
 way in which she has uniformly acknowledged 
 the authority of fathers. The Divine words 
 were addressed emphatically to Israel, but they 
 
EXODUS. XX. 
 
 [v. 13—19. 
 
 334 
 
 s Matt. 5. 13^ Thou shalt not kill. 
 
 14 Thou shalt not commit adul- 
 tery. 
 
 15 Thou shalt not steal. 
 
 16 Thou shalt not bear false wit- 
 ness against thy neighbour. 
 
 h Rom. 7. 17^' Thou shalt not covet thy 
 
 neighbour’s house, thou shalt not 
 covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his 
 manservant, nor his maidservant, nor 
 
 his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that 
 is thy neighbour’s. 
 
 18 ^ And ^all the people saw the * Heb. la. 
 thunderings, and the lightnings, and 
 
 the noise of the trumpet, and the 
 mountain smoking: and when the 
 people saw /V, they removed, and 
 stood afar off. 
 
 19 And they said unto Moses, Deut. 5. 
 Speak thou with us, and we will 16. 
 
 set forth a universal principle of national life. 
 St Paul calls this Commandment, “the first 
 commandment with promise” (Eph. vi. a); 
 the promise is fulfilled in God's government 
 of the whole world. The narrow view which 
 Selden and others have taken of the Com- 
 mandment, that it implied no more than a 
 prediction that the children of Israel should 
 possess the land of Canaan on the condition 
 stated, is alien to the spirit of the Decalogue. 
 (See Note after nj. 21, § VI.) 
 
 13, 14. The Sixth and Seventh Command- 
 ments are amongst those utterances of the 
 Law which our Saviour, in the Sermon on the 
 Mount, took to illustrate the relation in which 
 the Gospel stands to the Law. Whatever 
 range of meaning we are to give to the expres- 
 sion in Matt. v. 17, that Christ came not to 
 destroy but to fulfil (TrXrjpcoaraL), we can 
 hardly exclude from it, in its bearing on the 
 discourse that follows in ‘-j-u. 18 — 48, the sense, 
 to set forth perfectly in the way of teaching. 
 (Cf. Rom. XV. 19; Col. i. 25.) The Scribes 
 and Pharisees failed perfectly to set forth the 
 Law, in their teaching as well as in their prac- 
 tice ; they taught the mere words in their 
 dry external relations; “they gave the husk 
 without the kernel.” Their righteousness, 
 both that which they taught and that which 
 they practised, therefore fell short of the true 
 standard (Matt, v, 20). If this view of the 
 word fulfil is admitted, our Saviour’s words 
 respecting these Commandments {y'u. 21 — 32) 
 cannot be taken as an external supplement to 
 the Law, or as a new adaptation of it to a 
 changed order of things, but as a perfect un- 
 folding, in the most practical form, of the 
 meaning which the Commandments had from 
 the beginning, and which had been, with 
 different degrees of distinctness, shadowed 
 forth to all who wisely and devoutly obeyed 
 the Law under the Old Dispensation, The 
 pa.ssage in St Matthew (v. 21—32) is there- 
 fore the best comment on these two verses of 
 Exodus. St Augustin says that the purpose 
 of Clirist’s coming was, uon ut Left adderentur 
 qua deerant^ sed ut ferent qua scripta erant. 
 ‘Cont. Faust.’ xvii. 6. 
 
 15, The right of property is sanctioned 
 
 in the Eighth Commandment by an external 
 rule; its deeper meaning is involved in the 
 Tenth Commandment. 
 
 17. As the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth 
 Commandments forbid us to injure our neigh- 
 bour in deed, the Ninth forbids us to injure 
 him in word, and the Tenth, in thought. No 
 human eye can see the coveting heart; it is 
 witnessed only by him who possesses it and 
 by Him to whom all things are naked and 
 open. But it is the root of all sins against 
 our neighbour in word or in deed (Jam. i. 
 14, 15). The man who is acceptable before 
 God, walking uprightly, not backbiting with 
 his tongue, nor doing evil to his neighbour, 
 is he who “ speaketh the truth in his 
 HEART.” Ps. XV. 2, 3. St Paul speaks of the 
 operation of this Commandment on his own 
 heart as the means of revealing to him the 
 holiness of the Law (Rom. vii. 7). The direct 
 connection cf the Commandments of the 
 Second Table with the principle of love be- 
 tween man and man, is affirmed Matt. xxii. 
 39, 40; Rom. xiii. 9, 10; Gal. v. 14.— On the 
 variations bet vr ecu this and the parallel place 
 in Dent. v. 21, see Note after u). 21, §11. 
 
 There is a curious interpolation in the 
 Samaritan text following the Tenth Com- 
 mandment. The Israelites are commanded to 
 set up on Mount Geri/.im two great plastered 
 stones with the words of the Law inscribed 
 on them, to build there an Altar, and to sacri- 
 fice upon it Burnt-offerings and Peace-offer- 
 ings. The passage is evidently made up from 
 Deut. xxvii. 2 — 7, with some expressions 
 from Deut. xi. 30, Gcri/.im being substituted 
 for Ebal. See on Deut. xxvii. 2 — 7, 
 
 18 — 21. This narrative is amplified in 
 Deut. V. 22—31. The people had realized the 
 terrors cf the voice of Jehovah in the utter- 
 ance of the Ten Words of the Testimony, 
 and they feared for their lives. Though 
 Moses encouraged them, they were permitted 
 to withdraw and to stand afar off, at their 
 tent doors (see Deut. v. 30). It would appear, 
 according to xix. 24, that Aaron on this 
 occasion accompanied Moses in drawing near 
 to the thick darkness. Cf. xxiv. 18. 
 
V. 20, 21.] 
 
 EXODUS. XX. 
 
 335 
 
 hear: but not God speak with 
 us, lest we die. 
 
 20 And Moses said unto the peo- 
 ple, Fear not: for God is come to 
 prove you, and that his fear rnay 
 
 be before your faces, that ye sin 
 not. 
 
 21 And the people stood afar off, 
 and Moses drew near unto the thick 
 darkness where God was. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xx. vv. i — 17. 
 
 On The Ten Commandments. 
 
 I. The Name. IT. What was written on the 
 Stones? III. The Division into Ten. IV. 
 The Tioo Tables. V. The Co?nmandments 
 as A Testimony. VI. Breadth of their 
 meaning. 
 
 § 1 - 
 
 The Hebrew name which is rendered in 
 our Version^ the Ten Commandments 
 noby) occurs in Exod. xxxiv. 
 a8; Deut. iv. 13, x. 4. It literally means the 
 Ten Words as it stands in the margin of our 
 Bible; LXX. o\ deKa Xoyoi, or rd pf 
 p-ara’.! Vulg. decern werha. But the Hebrew 
 substantive “ 1 3 *^ often denotes a mandate 
 (Josh. i. 13; Esth. i. 19); and the common 
 English rendering may be therefore justified. 
 In Ex. xxiv. T2, the Ten Commandments are 
 called the Law, even the Command- 
 ment: the latter word (njV^) occurs in its 
 plural form in the Second Commandment, 
 Ex. XX. 6; Deut. v. 10. They are elsewhere 
 called THE Words of the Covenant 
 fEx. xxxiv. 28, where the strict rendering 
 would be, the Words of the Coaeenant ., eaoen 
 the Ten Words), THE Tables OF the Cove- 
 nant (Deut. ix. 9, II, 15), and simply the 
 Covenant (Deut. iv. 13: i K. viii. 21; 
 2 Chron. vi. ii); also the Two Tables 
 (Deut. ix. 10, 17). But the most frequent 
 name for them in the Old Testament is, the 
 Testimony^ (H-nyri, LXX. rd paprvpLov 
 
 or rd p.apTvpia), or THE TWO TABLES OF 
 THE Testimony 2. In the New Testament 
 they are called simply THE Commandments^ 
 (at ivToXai). The name Decalogue (d de- 
 KdXoyos-) is found first in Clement of Alex- 
 andria, and was commonly used by the 
 Fathers v/ho followed him. 
 
 We thus know that the Tables were two, 
 and that the Com.mandments were ten, in 
 number. But the Scriptures do not, by any 
 direct statemients, enable us to determine v.uth 
 precision how tfie Ten Commandments are 
 severally to be made out, nor how they are to 
 be allotted to the Two Tables. On each of 
 these points various opinions have been held. 
 
 ^ Ex. xvi. 34, XXV. 16, 21, XXX. 6, xl. 20 ; 
 Lev. xvi. 1 3, &c. &c. 
 
 Ex. xxxi. 18, xxxii. 15, xxxiv. 29. 
 
 ^ Matt. xix. 17; Mark x. 19 ; Luke xviii. 20; 
 Rom. xiii. 9. 
 
 But there is a question which rightly claims 
 precedence of these: What actually were the 
 Words of Jehovah that were engraven on the 
 Tables of Stone? We have two distinct state- 
 ments, one in Exodus (xx. i — 17) and one in 
 Deuteronomy (v. 6 — 21), apparently of equal 
 authority, but differing from each other in 
 several weighty particulars. Each is said, with 
 reiterated emphasis, to contain the words that 
 were actually spoken by the Lord, and written 
 by Him. upon the stones'^. 
 
 The variations which are of most import- 
 ance are in the Commandm.ents which we com- 
 monly call the Fourth, the Fifth, and the Tenth. 
 The two copies of these are here placed side 
 by side. Thq expressions in Deuteronomy 
 which differ in the original Hebrew from the 
 corresponding ones in Exodus, are in italics, 
 and the additional clauses are in brackets. 
 
 EXODU.S XX. 
 
 IV. (100:. 8 — II.) 
 
 Remember the sab- 
 bath day, to keep it 
 holy. Six days shalt 
 thou labour, and do 
 all thy work: But the 
 seventh day is the sab- 
 bath of the Lord thy 
 God: in it thou shalt 
 not do any work, thou, 
 nor thy son, nor thy 
 daughter, thy man- 
 servant, nor thy maid- 
 servant, nor thy cattle, 
 nor thy stranger that 
 is within thy gates : 
 For in six days the 
 Lord made heaven 
 and earth, the sea, and 
 all that in them is, and 
 rested the seventh day : 
 wherefore the Lord 
 blessed the sabbath 
 day, and hallowed it. 
 
 Deut. v. 
 
 IV. (gunj. 12 — 15.) 
 
 Keep the sabbath 
 day to sanctify it, [as 
 the Lord thy God hath 
 commanded theei\ Six 
 days thou shalt labour, 
 and do all thy work: 
 But the seventh day 
 is the sabbath of the 
 Lord thy God: in it 
 thou shalt not do any 
 work, thou, nor thy 
 son, nor thy daughter, 
 nor thy manseivant, 
 nor thy maidservant, 
 [nor thhie ox, nor thine 
 assd\ nor any of thy 
 cattle, nor thy stranger 
 that is within thy 
 gates ; [that thy man- 
 servant and thy 7 natd- 
 servant may rest as 
 vuell as thou.'] Atzd 
 renmnber that thou 
 voast a servant in the 
 land of Egypt, and 
 that the Lord thy God 
 brought thee out thence 
 through a mighty hand 
 and by a stretched out 
 
 ^ Ex. x.x. I, xxiv. 12, xxxi. 18, xxxii. 15, 16; 
 Deut. V. 4, 5, 22, iv. 13, ix. 10. 
 
336 
 
 EXODUS. XX. 
 
 V. 12.) 
 
 Honour thy father 
 and th) mother: that 
 thy days may be long 
 upon the land which 
 the Lord thy God 
 giveth thee. 
 
 X. (^.. 17.) 
 
 TI10U shalt not covet 
 t!iy neighbour's house, 
 thou shalt not covet 
 tiiy neighbour’s wife, 
 nor his manservant, 
 nor his maidservant, 
 nor his ox, nor his ass, 
 nor any thing that is 
 thy neighbour’s. 
 
 arm : therefore the 
 Lord thy God com- 
 manded thee to keep the 
 sabbath day. ■ 
 
 V. (“z;. 16.) 
 
 Honour thy father 
 and thy mother, [as 
 the Lord thy God hath 
 commanded thee'\ ; that 
 thy days may be pro- 
 longed, [and that it 
 may go ^ell ^iththee^, 
 in the land which 
 the Lord thy God 
 giveth thee. 
 
 X. (yv. 21.) 
 
 Neither shalt thou 
 desire thy neighbour’s 
 wife, 7 ieither shalt thou 
 conjet thy neighbour’s 
 house, [his fielcf.^ or 
 his manservant, or his 
 maidservant, his ox, or 
 his ass, or any thing 
 that is thy neighbour’s. 
 
 In the Fourth Commandment, it will be 
 S;en that in Deuteronomy: — • 
 
 (1) “Keep the Sabbath day,” is 
 
 read instead of “Remember (“I'OJ) the Sab- 
 bath day.” 
 
 (2) Three fresh clauses are inserted: — 
 
 “As the Lord thy God hath commanded 
 
 thee.” 
 
 “Nor thine ox nor thine ass.” 
 
 “That thy manservant and thy maid- 
 servant may rest as well as thou.” 
 
 (3) A different reason is given for the Com.- 
 niandment, referring to the deliverance of the 
 Israelites from Egypt, instead of the rest of 
 God after the six works of Creation. 
 
 In the Fifth, Deuteronomy inserts the same 
 expression as it does in the P’ourth, “ as the 
 Lord thy God hath comm.anded thee;” and 
 also the words, “ t’nat it may go well with thee.” 
 
 In the Tenth, it transposes “thy neighbours 
 house,” and “thy neighbour’s wife;” it inserts 
 “ his held,” and it makes the two parts of the 
 Commandment more distinct by the use of a 
 different verb in the imperative mood in each. 
 The verb rendered desire is the same 
 
 that is rendered co'vet in Exodus, but the one 
 here rendered co'vet is a different one 
 
 it should also be obsen'ed that, in Deut. v. 
 verses 17, iS, 19, 20, 21 are linked together by 
 the copulative conjunction. The few other 
 slight variations do not affect the sense. 
 
 It has been generally assumed that the whole 
 of one or other of these copies was written on 
 the 'J'ablcs. Most commentators have sup- 
 posed that tlie original document is in Exodus, 
 and that the author of Deuteronomy wrote 
 from memory, with variations suggested at 
 the time. Others have conceived that Deu- 
 
 teronomy m.ust furnish the more correct form 
 since the Tables must have been in actual 
 existence when the book was written. But 
 neither of these views can be fairly reconciled 
 with the statements in Exodus and Deutero- 
 nom‘y to which reference has been made. If 
 either copy, as a whole, represents what Avas 
 written on the Tables, it is* obvious that the 
 other cannot do so. 
 
 A conjecture which seems to deserve respect 
 has been put forth by Ewald. He supposes 
 that the original Commandments were all in 
 the same terse and simple form of expression 
 as appears (both in Exodus and Deutero- 
 nomy) in the First, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth,, 
 and Ninth, such as would be most suitable for 
 recollection, and that the passages in each copy 
 in which the most important variations are 
 found were comments added when the Books 
 were written. It is not necessary to involve 
 this theory with any question as to the author- 
 ship of the Books, or with any doubt as to the 
 comments beii^ the words of God^ given by 
 Moses as much as the Commandments, strictly 
 so called, that were written on the Tables. 
 In reference to the most important of the 
 differences, that relating to the reason for the 
 observance of the Sabbath day, the thoughts 
 are in no degree discordant, and each sets 
 forth what is entirely worthy of, and consistent 
 with, the Divine Law^. Slighter verbal or 
 literal variations, with no important difference 
 of meaning (such as keep for remetnber').^ may 
 perhaps be ascribed to copyists ^ 
 
 It may be supposed then that the Ten Words 
 of Jeliovah, with the prefatory sentence, were 
 to this efiect, assuming that each Table con- 
 tained Five Commandments. See § IV. 
 
 1 am Jehouah thy God <ivho ha’ve brought 
 thee out of the land of Egypt., out of the house 
 of bondage. 
 
 First Table. 
 
 i. Thou shah hause jio other God^ before tne. 
 
 ii. Thou shalt 7 iot 7 nake to thee any graueen 
 
 image. 
 
 iii. Thou shalt not take the name of Jehousah 
 
 thy God m usahi. 
 
 iv. Thou shalt re 77 ie 77 iber the Sabbath day, to 
 
 keep it holy. 
 
 V. Thou shalt honour thy father and thy 
 
 mother. 
 
 ^ See fix. XX. I, 
 
 * See the following Note, § III. 
 
 What is assumed, on the theory here stated, 
 to be the comment on both the First and Second 
 Commandments (“For I the Lord thy God am 
 a jealous God,” &c. See on Lx. xx. 5) occurs 
 in a somewhat different and more diffuse form 
 in Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7. Docs not a comparison of 
 the two passages tend to confirm the suj^position 
 that the words are not a part of the original Ten 
 Commandments, but that they were quoted here 
 in a condensed form by Moses, as bearing on the 
 two Commandments, when the book of Exodus 
 was put together? See on Ex. xx. 3. 
 
EXODUS. XX. 
 
 Second Table. 
 
 vi. Thou shah not kill. 
 
 vii. Thou shah not commit adultery. 
 
 viii. Thou shah not steal. 
 
 ix. Thou shah not bear false witness. 
 
 X. Thou shah not co-vet. 
 
 A practical illustration from the usage of 
 different ages may tend, to shew the proba- 
 bility that the Ten Commandments were 
 familiarly known in such a compendious form 
 as this, at a time when they were used not 
 only as the common watchwords of duty, but 
 as the axioms of the Law in its actual opera- 
 tion. In those copies of tlie Commandments 
 which have been used in different branches of 
 the Church for the instruction of its members, 
 the form has almost always been more or less 
 abbreviated of a part, or the whole, of those 
 which are the most expanded in Exodus and 
 Deuteronomy; namely, the Second, Third, 
 Fourth, Fifth, and Tenth h The earliest book 
 of Christian instruction in which they are 
 given at full length as they stand in Exodus, 
 appears to be “the Prymer in English,” of 
 about A.D. 1400, printed in Maskell’s ‘Monu- 
 mentaRitualia”(Vol. ii.p, 177). They are also 
 given in full in the Primer of Edward VI. (a.d. 
 1553). When they were first introduced into 
 our Communion Service in the Second Prayer 
 Book of Edward VI. (a.d. 1552), the words 
 in the introductory sentence, “which have 
 brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out 
 of the house of bondage,” were unfortunately 
 omitted, and have not been restored in suc- 
 ceeding editions. But they are not only 
 retained in our Catechism, but are made a 
 special topic of instruction in connection with 
 the Commandments in Nowell’s larger Cate- 
 chism 2. 
 
 § 111 . 
 
 The mode in which the Commandments 
 are divided into Ten in our own Service Book 
 agrees with the most ancient authorities, Jew- 
 ish as well as Christian, and the usage of the 
 Eastern Church. It appears to be based on 
 the clearest view of the subject m.atter, as it is 
 set forth in the sacred text’h 
 
 ^ Snip. Sev. ‘Sac. Hist.’ lib. i. ‘Synopsis 
 Sac. Script.’ ascribed to St Athanasius. Suidas 
 %. irXaliv. King Alfred’s ‘ Laws.’ ‘The Luthe- 
 ran Cat.’ (in which what are here called the 
 sacred writers’ comments are named appendices). 
 ‘The Institution/ &c. and ‘The Erudition/ &c. 
 of Henry VIII. The Catechism of Edward VI. 
 The Douay •Catechism. The Catechism of the 
 Greek Church, &c. &c. 
 
 2 p. 23. Edit. Jacobson. 
 
 2 This division is recognized in Philo, ‘de 
 Orac.’ c. 12, 22, 31 ; ‘Quis rer. div. heres.’ c. 35. 
 Joseph. ‘Ant.’ iii. 5, §5. Origen ‘Plom. in Exod.’ 
 VIII. Jerome ‘in Ephes.’ VI. 2. Sulp. Sev. ‘Sac. 
 Hist.’ I. ‘ Synopsis .S. S.’ ascribed to Athanasius. 
 Suidas s. irXa^ly. The Catechism of the Greek 
 Church. ‘The Institution,’ &c. and ‘The Eru- 
 VOL. I. 
 
 But another arrangement, which is first 
 found distinctly stated in St AugustiiH, de- 
 mands attention from its having been univer- 
 sally adopted by the Western Church until 
 the Reformation. The Second Command- 
 ment is added to the First (or, in some of the 
 abridged forms, omitted altogether), and the 
 number ten is made out by treating the Tenth 
 as two Commandments. St Augustin, fol- 
 lowing Deuteronomy, and the LXX. in Exo- 
 dus (see below), makes the Ninth “Thoushalt 
 not covet thy neighbour’s wife,” and the 
 Tenth “Thou shalt not covet thy neigh- 
 bour’s house,” &c.: while others, following 
 the Hebrew text of Exodus, reverse this order. 
 In some forms used by the Western Church 
 the whole paragraph on coveting is kept entire, 
 but it is headed as “the Ninth and Tenth 
 Commandments®.” The general arrangement 
 here spoken of was .used by the Church in 
 Britain before the Reformation®, and is still re- 
 tained by the Lutheran as well as the Romish 
 Church. 
 
 An arrangement unlike either of these may 
 be traced to the fourth century, is distinctly 
 set forth in the Targum of Palestine (w^hich 
 probably belongs to the seventh century), 
 and has been adopted by Maimonides, Aben- 
 Ezra, and other Jewish authorities down to 
 the present day. The First Word is identified 
 with “I am the Lord thy God which brought 
 thee out of t’ne land of Egypt” (which cannot 
 of course be properly called a Commandment), 
 and the Second Word is made, as in the ar- 
 rangement last mentioned, to include wiiat 
 w^e reckon as the first and Second Com- 
 mandments. 
 
 The subject m.atter itself seems to suggest 
 grave and obvious objections to the two latter 
 arrangements. There is a clear distinction 
 between polytheism and idolatry which en- 
 titles each to a distinct Commandment: and 
 the sin of coveting our neighbour’s possessions 
 is^ essentially the same in its nature, whatever 
 may be the object coveted. 
 
 It is worthy of notice in regard to the se- 
 quence of the Commandments, that the LXX. 
 in Ex. XX. (according to the Vatican text) and 
 Suidas (s. TvXah'iv) place vii. and viii. before vi., 
 and transpose the house and the vjife in x.; and 
 that Philo places vii. before vi. according to 
 
 clition,’ &c. of Henry VIII. The Primer of 
 1553, &c. Sec . — The testimony of Clement of 
 Alexandria, ‘ Stromat. ’ VI. § 137, is ambiguous, 
 and has been quoted both for and against the 
 arrangement ; see Suicer s. dcKdXoyos, and Kurtz, 
 ‘Old Covenant,’ III. 124. 
 
 ^ ‘Queest. in Exod.’ Lxxr. Serm. vni. ix. 
 &c. 
 
 ® The Trent and Lutheran Catechisms. 
 
 ® King Alfred’s ‘Law^s.’ — The ‘Speculum’ of 
 St Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury (1234 — 
 1242), and the ‘Treatises’ of Richard Hampole 
 (circ. 1340). published by the Early English Text 
 Society. — The Primer of 1300, Sec. Sec. ‘ 
 
 Y 
 
EXODUS. XX. 
 
 338 
 
 the order recognized in Mark x. 19; Luke 
 xviii. 20; Rom. xiii. 9; James ii. ii. The 
 usual order is preserved by the other ancient 
 versions in Exodus, and by the LXX. in 
 Deut. V. ; as it is also, as regards vi. and vii., 
 in Matt. v. 21, 27, xix. t8. 
 
 § IV. 
 
 The distribution of the Commandments be- 
 tween the Two Tables which is most familiar 
 to us, allotting four to the First Table and 
 six to the Second, is first mentioned by St 
 Augustine, though it is not approved by him. 
 It is based on a distinction that lies on the 
 surface, and that easily adapts itself to mo- 
 dern ethical systems, between our duty to- 
 wards God and our duty towards our neigh- 
 bour b The division approved by St Augus- 
 tine was, in relation to the matter in each 
 Table, the same; but as he united the First 
 and Second Commandments into one, and di- 
 vided the Tenth into two, he made the First 
 Table to comprise three Commandments, and 
 the Second Table, seven. He mystically as- 
 sociated the first of these numbers with the 
 Persons of the Trinity, and the latter with the 
 Sabbatical institution b 
 
 But the more symmetrical arrangement 
 which allots five Commandments to each Table 
 is supported by the most ancient authorities^, 
 and is approved by several modern critics. It 
 is also countenanced by Rom. xiii. 9, where the 
 complete Second Table appears to be spoken 
 of as not including the Fifth Commandment. 
 
 Philo places the Fifth Commandment last 
 in the First Table, and calls it a link between 
 the Two Tables. On the reason of this desig- 
 nation of his, see on Ex. xx. 12. The real 
 distinction between the Tables appears to be 
 that the F'irst relates to the duties which arise 
 from our Filial relations, the Second to those 
 which arise from our Fraternal relations'*. 
 But as the Commandments represent the es- 
 sence of law, they assume the strict form of 
 law. They are expressed, almost exclusively, 
 in the prohibitory form, because it belongs to 
 law to say what a man shall not do, rather 
 than what he shall do. The Commandments 
 therefore set forth neither of the relations that 
 have been mentioned on the positive side. 
 They contain no injunctions to love God, like 
 that in Deut. vi. 5, x. 12, &c.; nor to love our 
 brethren, like that in Lev. xix. 18; nor do 
 they tell us to lo've our parents. 
 
 * See on Exod. xx. 12. 
 
 ^ ‘ Quocst. in Exod. ’71. The notion is adopted 
 ki the ‘Speculum’ of St FMmund. See p. 337, 
 note 6. 
 
 ^ Philo, ‘de Orac.’ 25; ‘ Quis rer. div. heres.’ 
 35. Josephus ‘ Ant.’ in. 5, § 8 and §5. Ire- 
 nieus, ‘Adv. hacres.’ ii. 24, §4. Gregor. Naz. 
 ‘Carrn. Var.’ xxxv. 
 
 ^ Knobel observes that the subject of the First 
 Table is pUtas, that of the Second Table, probi- 
 
 tas. 
 
 §V. 
 
 The name most frequently used by Moses 
 for the Decalogue (nnyn) signifies something 
 strongly affirmed, literally, something spoken 
 again and again : it is therefore properly 
 rendered in our version The Testimony 
 (see § I.). Taking this in connection with 
 the prohibitory foriji of the Commandments, 
 the name must have been understood as the 
 Testimony of Jehovah against the tendency to 
 transgress in those to whom the document 
 was addressed. When Moses laid up the 
 completed Book of the Law, of which the 
 Commandments were the central point, by 
 the side of the Ark of the Covenant, his de- 
 clared purpose was “that it may be there for a 
 witness against thee; for I know thy rebellion 
 and thy stiff neck” (Deut. xxxi. 26, 27)^ 
 
 It was by the Law, as it was represented in 
 these Commandments, that there came “the 
 knowledge of sin^.” The disturbance of the 
 conscience which results from doing wrong, 
 when there is no expressed law, is a vague 
 discomfort to the person with no clear appre- 
 hension as to its cause. But when the voice 
 of the Lord has given forth the Law in words 
 intelligible to the mind, then comes the know- 
 ledge of sin, as the transgression of righteous 
 obligation to a gracious God^. 
 
 And this knowledge of sin necessarily in- 
 volves a consciousness of condemnation. 
 Hence the Tables given to Moses were 1.‘ a 
 ministration of condemnation” — “a ministra- 
 tion of death written and engraven on stones” 
 (2 Cor. iii. 7, 9; cf. Eph. ii. 15). Yet was 
 this ministration of condemnation a true reve- 
 lation of Him who had redeemed His people 
 in love, and it is, in the truest sense, a de- 
 mand on them for the tribute of their love®. 
 
 It is love in the creature which alone can obey 
 the Law in reality and with acceptance'-*. 
 
 The relation in which the condemning 
 strictness of the Law stood to the forgiving 
 mercy of Jehovah was distinctly shewn in the - 
 
 ® Hengstenberg takes nearly the same view 
 as is here given of the application of the word 
 nnP, and of the relation of the Mercy seat to 
 the Decalogue. ‘Pentateuch,’ Vol. ir. p. 524. 
 
 ** Rom. iii. 20, vii. 7 ; cf. note on Ex. xx. 17. 
 
 " On the mode in which this was figured in 
 the Sacrifices of the Law, see notes on Lev. iv. 
 
 ^ “For though the Law, being love, may 
 seem to reveal God who is love, yet is it rather a 
 demand for love than a revelation of love ; and 
 though it might have been, in the light of high 
 intelligence, and where there was no darkening 
 of sin, concluded that love alone could demand 
 love, yet does the mere demand never so speak 
 to sinners ; but ‘ by the Law is the knowledge 
 of sin:’ wherefore ‘the Law worketh wrath.’ ” 
 Campbell, ‘The Nature of the Atonement,’ p. 41. 
 Cf. Rom. vii. 7 — 14. 
 
 Matt. xxii. 37 — 40; Markxii. 29—31; Luke 
 X. 26, 27 ; Rom. xiii. 8, 10; Gal. v, 4; Jam. 
 ii. 8. See on Ex. xx. 2. 
 
EXODUS. XX. 
 
 339 
 
 symbolism of the Sanctuary. When the Ta- 
 bles of the Law were deposited in the Ark of 
 the Covenant, they were covered by the Mer- 
 cy seat, which, in accordance with its name, 
 was the sign of the Divine lovingkindness (see 
 Note on ch. xxv. 17). The Cherubim which 
 were on the Mercy seat appear to have figured 
 the highest condition of created intelligence in 
 the act of humble adoration and service, and 
 so to have expressed the condition on which 
 were obtained forgiveness, deliverance from 
 the letter that killeth (z Cor. hi. 6), and com- 
 munion with Jehovah. This view of the sig- 
 nificance of the Ark and what pertained to it 
 seems aptly to suit the words in which the 
 arrangement of the symbols is prescribed; 
 “and thou shalt put the mercy seat above 
 upon the ark ; and in the ark thou shalt put 
 the testimony that I shall give thee. And 
 there I will meet with thee, and I will com- 
 mune with thee from above the mercy seat, 
 from between the two cherubims which are 
 upon the ark of the testimony,” Ex. xxv. 
 21, 22. 
 
 The Ark, as the outward and visible sign 
 of the Covenant between Jehovah and His 
 people, thus expressed, in a way suited to the 
 time and the occasion, the Divine purpose in 
 the Atonement. The Law was the charac- 
 teristic feature in the dispensation which was 
 then present; and accordingly the essence of 
 the Law was expressed, not in a symbol, but 
 in plain words written by the finger of God. 
 But the sentence of condemnation implied in 
 the Commandments could not be exhibited in 
 its naked severity as the basis of the Covenant. 
 It was enclosed in the Ark, and over it the 
 Divine mercy was symbolized in such shadowy 
 outline as was to edify the faithful believers 
 
 until the fulness of the time came, when the 
 Son was sent “whom God hath set forth to 
 be .1 propitiation (^IXacrTijpiov, a rnsrey seat) * 
 through faith in his blood, to declare his 
 righteousness for the remission of sins that 
 are past, through the forbearance of God ; to 
 declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: 
 that He might be just, and the justifier of him 
 that believeth in Jesus” (Rom. iii. 25, 26). 
 
 The significance of the whole Sanctuary 
 may be said to be concentrated in the Tables 
 of the Law, and the Mercy seat. The other 
 holy things, with every external arrangement, 
 were subordinated to them 2. And hence the 
 place in which they were deposited was the 
 Holy of Holies, closely shut off by the vail, 
 entered by no one but the High-priest, and 
 by him only once in the year. Ex. xl. 20, 21; 
 Lev. xvi. 2. 
 
 § VI. 
 
 It is to be observed that the Decalogue, in 
 respect to its subject-matter, does not set 
 forth what is local, or temporary, or peculiar 
 to a single nation 3 . Its two Tables are a 
 standing declaration of the true relation be- 
 tween morality and religion for all nations 
 and agesk The Fourth Commandment is, in 
 its principle, no exception to this^. The 
 Decalogue belonged to the Israelites, not be- 
 cause the truths expressed in it were exclu- 
 sively theirs, but because it was revealed to 
 them in a special manner (see on Ex. xx. 2). 
 The breadth of meaning which rightly belongs 
 to it may be compared to that of the Lord’s 
 Prayer, whfoh, though it was especially given 
 by Christ to His followers for their own use, 
 contains nothing unsuitable for any believer 
 in One God. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xx. v. 8. 
 
 On The Sabbath Day. 
 
 I. The Sabbath according to the Law ; II. ac- 
 cording to Tradition. III. Its connection 
 with the Creation. IV. Its relation to Sun- 
 day, V. Its connection 7vith the deliverance 
 from Egypt. VI. Its compass of meaning. 
 
 § 1 . 
 
 That the formal observance of the Sabbath 
 day originated in the Law of Moses appears 
 to have been the opinion of Philo and of most 
 
 ^ .See Note on ch. xxv. 17. 
 
 See Note at the end of ch. xl. § III. 
 
 ^ Philo seems to have been impressed with 
 this when he lays an emphasis on the fact that 
 the Ten Commandments were given by Him 
 who was the Father of the Universe (6 Trar^p run' 
 bXuv), the God of the lVo7'ld (Geos Kcap-ov), ‘ de 
 decern Orac.’ q, 10. 
 
 ^ “ It was the boast of Josephus (‘Cont. Ap.’ 
 
 II. 17), that whereas other legislators had made 
 religion to be a part of virtue, Moses had made 
 
 of the Fathers and Rabbinists®, and is held by 
 many modern critics k But see note on 
 Gen. ii. 3. 
 
 In what way was the Sabbath day to be 
 kept holy in accordance wnth the Fourth 
 Commandment? It is expressly said that the 
 ordinary work of life should be intermitted 
 by the whole community, not only the mas- 
 ters, servants, and foreign residents®, but also 
 the cattle; and the period of this intermission 
 
 virtue to be a part of religion.” Stanley, ‘Jewish 
 Church,’ Vol. I. 175 . 
 
 ^ See Note ‘ On the Sabbath day,’ § IV. 
 
 ® Philo, ‘de Orac.’ c. 20. Justin Martyr, 
 
 ‘ Dialog, cum Tryph.’ § [9. Irenseus, iv. 16. 
 Tertullian, ‘ Adv. Jud.’ 2, 4. Otho, ‘ Rabb. 
 Lex.’ p. 603. 
 
 7 See Hengst. ‘On the Lord’s Day,’ p. 7 ; 
 Ewald, ‘Alterthiim.’ p. 3 ; ‘Hist, of Israel,’ i. 
 576. Hessey, ‘Sunday,’ 'Lect. IV., &c. On the 
 word Remember in Ex. xx. 8, see note. 
 
 ® See on Ex* xx. 10. 
 
 Y 2 
 
EXODUS. XX. 
 
 340 
 
 was from the evening of the sixth day of the 
 week to the evening of the seventh The 
 following occupations are expressly mentioned 
 as unlawful in different parts of the Old 
 Testament ; sowing and reaping (Ex. xxxiv. 
 21), pressing grapes, and bearing burdens of 
 all kinds (Neh. xiii, 15; Jer. xvii, 21), holding 
 of markets and all kinds of trade (Neh. xiii. 
 15; Amos viii. 5), gathering wood, and kin- 
 dling a fire for cooking (Ex. xxxv. 3 ; Num. 
 XV. 32). The Sabbath was to be a day of 
 enjoyment like other festivals (Isa. Iviii. 13; 
 Hos. ii. ii), and such restrictions as were 
 imposed could have been unacceptable to 
 none but the disobedient and the avaricious, 
 such as are spoken of in Amos viii. 5, 6. 
 
 In the service of the Sanctuary, the Morn- 
 ing and Evening Sacrifices were doubled 2, the 
 Shewbread was changed^, and, after the 
 courses of the Priests and Levites had been 
 instituted by David, each course in its turn 
 commenced its duties on the Sabbath day*. 
 When the Temple was built, there is reason 
 to believe that there was a special musical ser- 
 vice for the day 
 
 The term Holy Con-vocation^ which belongs 
 to the Sabbath day in common with certain 
 other Festival days, would seem to imply that 
 there was a meeting together of the people for 
 a religious purpose®. From the mode in 
 which the commands to keep the Sabbath day 
 and to reverence the Sanctuary are associated, 
 it may be inferred with probability that there 
 was such a meeting in the Coprt of the Sanc- 
 tuary ^ At later periods, in places remote 
 from the Temple, we know that it was a cus- 
 tom to resort on this day to public teachers, 
 and to hear the reading of the Old Testament, 
 with addresses of exposition and exhortation, 
 in the Synagogues®. It is not unreasonable to 
 suppose that some usage of this kind may 
 have been observed at the Sanctuary itself 
 from the first institution of the Sabbath®. 
 
 ■ * See Lev. xxiii. 32. 
 
 Nuni. xxviii. 9 ; 2 Chro. xxxi. 3 ; Ezek. xlvi. 
 
 4 * 
 
 ® Lev. xxiv. 8 ; 1 Chro. ix. 32 ; Matt. xii. 4, 
 
 &c. 
 
 * 2 K. xi. 5 ; 2 Chro. xxiii. 4 ; cf. i Chro. 
 ix. 25. 
 
 " This is favoured by a comparison of the 
 lieading of I’s. Ixxxi. with v. 3 of the Psalm 
 itself, as well as by the Talmud. 
 
 ® I.ev. xxiii. 2, 3. 
 
 ^ Lev. xix. 30; Ezek. xxiii. 38. 
 
 ® 2 K. iv. 23 ; Luke iv. 13, 16 ; Acts xiii. 14, 
 
 15, 27, XV. 21. 
 
 ® There may be references to such a custom 
 Lev. X. 1 1 ; Leut. xxxiii. 10. The earlie.st and 
 best Jewish traditions state that one great object 
 of the .Sabbath day was to furnish means and 
 opportunity for spiritual edification. Philo, ‘ de 
 Orac.’ c. 20. ‘Vit. Mos.’ ill. 27. Jos. ‘Ant.’ 
 >^VI. 2. § 3. ‘ Cont. .‘\p.’ I. 20, II. 18. For rab- 
 binical authorities to the same effect, see Cart- 
 wright on I-ix. XX. 8, in the ‘ Critici Sacri.’ 
 
 Such are the particulars that can be gather- 
 ed out of the Scriptures as to the mode of 
 observing the Sabbath day. In the time of 
 the Legislator an entire rest from the work 
 of daily life was to reign throughout the 
 Camp: and it may be conjectured that the 
 people assembled before the Altar at the hours 
 of the Morning and Evening Sacrifices for 
 prayer and contemplation, and to listen to the 
 reading of portions of the Divine Law, per- 
 haps from the lips of Moses himself. 
 
 The notices of the Sabbath day in the Pro- 
 phets are most frequently accompanied by 
 complaint or A^ arning respecting its neglect 
 and desecration*®. But in the time of Isaiah 
 (i. 13) a parade of observing it had become a 
 cloak for hypocrisy, probably under a kindred 
 influence to that which turned the public fasts 
 into occasions for strife and debate (Isa. Iviii. 
 4). These diverse abuses may have co-existed 
 as belonging to two opposite parties in the 
 community, both being in the wrong. 
 
 §n. 
 
 In another age, after _ the Captivity, the 
 Pharisees multiplied the restraints of the Sab- 
 bath day to a most burdensome extent. It 
 was forbidden to pluck an ear of corn and 
 rub out the grains to satisfy hunger in passing 
 through a cornfield (Matt. xii. 2) ; or to re- 
 lieve the sick (Matt. xii. 10; Luke xiii. 14). 
 1 1 was however permitted to lead an ox or an 
 ass to water, or to lift out an animal that had 
 fallen into a pit (Matt. xii. ii; Luke xiv. 5), 
 to administer circumcision, if the eighth day 
 after the birth of a child fell on a Sabbath 
 (Joh. vii. 22), and to invite guests to a social 
 meal (Luke xiv. i). According to rabbinical 
 authorities, it was forbidden to travel more 
 than 2000 cubits on the Sabbath**, to kill the 
 most offensive kinds of vennin, to write two 
 letters of the alphabet, to use a wooden leg or 
 a crutch, to carry a purse, or, for a woman, 
 to carry a seal-ring or a smelling bottle, to 
 wear a high head-dress or a false tooth. 
 Amongst other restraints laid upon animals, 
 the fat-tailed sheep was not allowed to use the 
 little truck on which the tail was borne to 
 save the animal from suffering. These are a 
 portion of 39 prohibitions of the same kind*^. 
 
 *•* Is. Ivi. 2 — 6, Iviii. 13; Jer. xvii. 21, 27; 
 Ezek. XX. 13, 16, 20 ; Amos viii. 5, &c. 
 
 ** On the Sabbath-day’s journey, see Joseph. 
 
 ‘ Ant.’ XIII. 8. § 4 with the Note on Ex. xvi. 
 29: also Walther, ‘ de Itin. Sabb.’ in ‘ Thes. 
 Fhilolog.’ II. p. 417. Winer, ‘ E. B.’ s. ‘ Sab- 
 bathsweg.’ 
 
 *"^ Mishna, ‘ de Sabbatho.’ We are told by 
 a eulogist of the Talmud that the rabbinical 
 Sabbath was not “ a thing of grim austerity ” 
 (‘Quarterly Rev.’ Dec. 1867.) Its austerity was 
 indeed somewhat mitigated by qualifying regula- 
 tions. Though the Jew could not light a fire on 
 the Sabbath, "he was formally permitted, at the 
 latest moment of the eve of the Sabbath, to pack 
 
EXODUS. XX. 
 
 34T 
 
 Connected with this trifling of the Pharisees 
 and the Rabbinists, is the notion that the in- 
 tention of the Law was, that the Sabbath 
 should be, as nearly as possible, a day of mere 
 inaction. This has been held not only by 
 Jewish writers', but by some Christians in 
 the time of S. Chrysostom 2, and by critics of 
 more modern date (Spencer, Vitringa, Ld Clerc). 
 Our Lord decides this very point by declaring 
 that there is a kind of work which is proper 
 for the Sabbath day^. See the next section. 
 
 § 111 . 
 
 In examining the two distinct grounds for 
 the observance of the Sabbath day which 
 ai-e assigned by Moses the first step is to 
 trace the nature of the connection between 
 the Day and the Creation of the world. 
 What is clearly stated is, that the Day was 
 hallowed by the Divine Law as a memorial 
 of the rest of God when the Creation of the 
 world was completed^. Man was to rest be- 
 cause God had rested. But the rest. of man 
 can only partially resemble the rest of God. 
 “The Creator of the ends of the earth faint- 
 eth not, neither is weary®.” His work in the 
 world did not cease at the close of the six 
 days, nor has it ever been remitted since 7 , 
 His hand must be ever holding the corners of 
 the earth and the strength of the hills®. His 
 rest cannot therefore be like that inaction 
 which belongs to night and sleep, which man, 
 in common with all animals, requires for the 
 restoration of his wasted powers. But yet a 
 man may have conscious experience, after well 
 performed work, of a restful condition that 
 bears an analogy to the occasion on which 
 “ God saw every thing that He had made, 
 and, behold, it was very goodV’ And this 
 Sabbath feeling is only to be enjoyed by those 
 whose work, performed in a spirit of trustful 
 dependence, has kept pace with the day during 
 the week ; those who obey not only the com- 
 mand, “Remember the Sabbath day,” but 
 also the command, “Six days shalt thou la- 
 bour'®.” 
 
 up hot food in such a way as to keep it hot as 
 long as possible (‘de Sabb.’ iv. i. 2). Under 
 particular conditions, the sick might be relieved 
 (Mish. ‘ VIII. 6). Fasting on the Sabbath 
 
 was strictly prohibited (Otho, ‘Rab. Lex.’ p. 608 ; 
 cf. Judith viii. 6). Whether or not a Sabbath re- 
 gulated by rabbinical rules was, on the whole, 
 grimly austere, we need not scruple to call the 
 rules themselves grossly absurd. 
 
 ' Buxtorf. ‘Synag. Jud.’ cxvi. 
 
 ^ ‘ Horn, in Matt.’ XXXI. 
 
 ^ Matt. xii. 12 ; Mark iii. 4, &c. 
 
 ^ See Ex. XX. ii ; Deut. v. 15; Note ‘On 
 the Ten Commandments,’ § II. 
 
 ® Ex. XX. II, xxxi. 17. Cf. Gen. ii. 3. 
 
 ® Is. xl. 28. 
 
 ^ See John v. 17. 
 
 ® Ps. xcv. 4, 5. 
 
 ^ Gen. i. 31. 
 
 Moses (says Philo) iKeXevffev tovs /xeWovTUi 
 
 The true rest of man then is so far like the 
 rest of the Creator, that it is remote in its 
 nature from the sleep of insensibility as it is 
 from the ordinary struggle of the world. The 
 weekly Sabbath, as representing that state, 
 was “a shadow of things to come",” a fore- 
 taste of the life in which there is to be no 
 more toilsome fatigue (7701/0?'^), that life which 
 is the true keeping of Sabbath (o-a(3l3aTiafx6s) 
 into which our Saviour entered as our fore- 
 runner when He ceased from His works on 
 earth, as God had ceased from His works on 
 the seventh day (Heb. iv. 9, 10). 
 
 The works of the Creation are described 
 as culminating in the creation of man. The 
 Sabbath crowned the completed works, and 
 as it was revealed to the Israelite, it reminded 
 him of “the fact of his relation to God, of 
 his being' made in the image of God ; it was 
 to teach him to regard the universe not chiefly 
 as under the government of sun or moon, or 
 as regulated by their courses; but as an order 
 which the unseen God had created, which in- 
 cluded Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, and all the 
 living creatures that inhabit them. The 
 week, then, was especially to raise the Jew 
 above the thought of Time, to make him feel 
 that though he was subject to its laws, he yet 
 stood in direct connection with an eternal 
 law ; with a Being who is, and was, and is to 
 come'®.” Philo aptly calls the day the irnag- 
 ing forth {eKfiaydou) of the first beginning. 
 Some of the wisest Jewish teachers (Aben- 
 Ezra, Abarbanel) have said that he who 
 breaks the Sabbath denies the Creation. The 
 Sabbath, in this connection, became to the 
 Israelite the central point of religious observ- 
 ance, and represented every appropriation of 
 time to the public recognition of Jehovah. 
 Hence the injunction to observe it appears to 
 be essentially connected with the warning 
 against idolatry". 
 
 §IV. 
 
 But this great idea did not exclusively be- 
 long to the Israelite, although it was revealed 
 to him, above all men, in its true relation to 
 God and man. Real worship for every man, 
 always and everywhere, is of course based on 
 the truth of a Creator distinct from the Crea- 
 tion. A nd thus the Law of the Sabbath was 
 the expression of a universal truth. Hence, the 
 Commandment bears its meaning for all man- 
 kind. The day which we observe, in accord- 
 ance with ecclesiastical usage, holds another 
 place in the week, and its connection with 
 
 h TavT-T) ^7]u Trj iroXiTeig., Kaddirep eu rots d'XXots, 
 Kal Kara rovd' eirecrdaL (9e<p, irpos p.€v 'ipya rpe- 
 Tropiivovs ecp' -qp-lpas dvixovras Kai (piXoao- 
 (povvTas T-p e^86p.r] /cat Oeospiais /xev rOiv ryjs (pdaews 
 crxoXdfoi/xas, /c.t.X. ‘ de decern Orac.’ c. 20. 
 
 " Col. ii. 16, 17. 
 
 '2 Cf. Rev. xiv. 13. 
 
 Maurice ‘On the Old Testament,’ Serm. I. 
 
 See Lev. xix, 3. 4 ; Ezek. xx. 16, 20. 
 
EXODUS. XX. 
 
 the Creation of the world has thus been put 
 into the background. But the meaning of 
 the Lord’s day cannot be separated from the 
 great meaning of the Sabbath. As the Sab- 
 bath reminded the believer under the Old 
 Covenant that God had rested after He had 
 created man and breathed into him the breath 
 of life before sin had brought death into the 
 world, so the Sunday now reminds the be- 
 liever that Christ rested after He had over- 
 come death, that he might restore all who 
 believe in Him to a new life, that they may 
 become the sons of God by adoption L What 
 therefore the Sunday, as a commemoration of 
 the Resurrection, is to the dispensation of 
 Christ, the Sabbath, in respect to its connec- 
 tion with the rest of God, was to the dispen- 
 tion of Moses. On this ground then there is 
 reason enough why the Fourth, as well as 
 the other Commandments, should be address- 
 ed to Christian congregations and should hold 
 its place in our Service. 
 
 §v. 
 
 It was at a later period that the inspired 
 I.egislator set forth a second ground on which, 
 obedience to the Commandment was required. 
 It was said to. the Israelite that he should ob- 
 serve the Day in order that his manservant 
 and his maidservant might rest as well as he ; 
 and the words were added; “and remember 
 that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, 
 and that the Lord thy God brought thee out 
 thence thiough a mighty hand and a stretched 
 out arm: therefore the Lord thy God com- 
 manded thee to keep the Sabbath day*-*.” By 
 the command that the manservants and the 
 maidservants were to rest on the Day as well 
 as their masters, witness was borne to the 
 equal position which every Israelite might 
 claim in the pres^'iice of Jehovah. The Sab- 
 bath was thus made a distinguishing badge, 
 a sacramental bond, for the whole people, ac- 
 cording to the words, “it is a sign between 
 me and you throughout your generations; 
 that ye may know that I am the Lord that 
 doth 'sanctify you^.” The wealthy Israelite, 
 in remembrance of what he himself, or his 
 forefathers, had suffered in Egypt, was to 
 realize the fact on this Day that the poorest 
 of his brethren had enjoyed the same deliver- 
 ance's, and had the same share in the Co- 
 venant, as himself. The whole nation, as one 
 man, was to enjoy rest. He who outraged 
 the Sabbath, either by working himself, or by 
 
 * Rom. iv. 25, vi. 4, viii. 13, 15. 
 
 ® Deut. v. 14, i.s. 
 
 3 Kx. xxxi. 13, 17 ; cf. Lev. xx. 8 ; Is. Ivi. 2, 
 4; Ezek. XX. 12. 20, xxii. 8, 26. 
 
 suffering his sen'ants to work, broke the Co- 
 venant with Jehovah, and at the same time 
 cut himself off from his people so as to incur 
 the sentence of death 
 
 This latter ground for the observance of 
 the Sabbath day furnishes a not less strict an- 
 alogy with the Sunday than that which has 
 been noticed. What the Sabbath was to 
 “the kingdom of priests, the holy nation 
 on the score that they had been redeemed 
 from the bondage of Egypt and made free 
 men, such the Sunday is to “ the chosen gene- 
 ration, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, 
 the peculiar people®,” as those whom Christ 
 has redeemed from the bondage of corruption, 
 and brought into the glorious liberty of the 
 children of God". 
 
 § VI. 
 
 In order rightly to apprehend the compass 
 of the Fourth Commandment in reference to 
 the public worship of the Israelites, it should 
 be kept 'in view that the Sabbath did not 
 stand by itself, as an insulated observance. 
 Not only did the original ground of the 
 Weekly Sabbath connect it with all true wor- 
 ship, but it formed the centre of an organ- 
 ized system including the Sabbatical year, and 
 the Jubilee year«. Besides this, the recur- 
 rence of the Sabbatical number in the cycle 
 of yearly festivals is so frequent and distinct, 
 as plainly to indicate a set purpose. Without 
 laying stress on the mystical meaning of the 
 number senjen^ as Philo, Bahr, and others 
 have done, it is evident that the number was 
 the Divinely appointed symbol, repeated again 
 and again in the public services, suggesting 
 the connection between the entire range of the 
 Ceremonial Law and the consecrated Seventh 
 Day. And this may be compared with the 
 important remark of Biihr, that the ritual of 
 the Sabbath day, in spite of the superlative 
 sanctity of the Day, was not, like that of 
 other Festivals, distinguished by offerings or 
 rites of a peculiar kind, but only by a dou- 
 bling of the common daily sacrifices. It was 
 thus not so much cut off from the Week as 
 marked out as the Day of Days, and so sym- 
 bolized the sanctification of the daily life of 
 the people. In whichever way we regard it, 
 the Fourth Commandment appears to have 
 stood to the Israelite as an injunction in the 
 broadest sense to maintain the national Wor- 
 ship of Jehovah. 
 
 ** Ex. xxxi. 14, 15— XXXV. 2 ; Jer. xvii. 21—27. 
 
 " Ex. xix. 6. 
 
 ® i Pet. ii. 9. 
 
 7 Roin. viii. 21. 
 
 ® Lev. XXV. 
 
V. 22 I.J 
 
 EXODUS. XX. XXL 
 
 343 
 
 22 ^ And the Lord said unto 
 Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the 
 children of Israel, Ye ha^e seen 
 that I have talked with you from 
 
 * heaven. 
 
 23 Ye shall not make with me 
 gods of silver, neither shall ye make 
 unto you gods of gold. 
 
 24 H An altar of earth thou shalt 
 make unto me, and shalt sacrifice 
 thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy 
 peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine 
 oxen : in all places where I record my 
 
 /Dent. 27. j Yvill come unto thee, and I 
 
 31. will bless thee. 
 
 build them 25 And ^if thou wilt make me an 
 
 Nmh hew- shalt not ^ build 
 
 it of hewn stone : for if thou lift 
 up thy tool upon it, thou hast pol- 
 luted it. 
 
 26 Neither shalt thou go up by 
 steps unto mine altar, that thy naked- 
 ness be not discovered thereon. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 I Laivs for menso'vants. 5 For the sei^jant 
 luhose ear is bored. 7 For womeiiservants. • 
 12 For maiislatighter. 16 For stealers of 
 7 nen. 1 7 For cursors of parents. 1 8 For 
 s miters. 22 For a hurt by chance. 28 For 
 an ox that goreth. 33 For him that is an 
 occasion of harm. 
 
 N ’ OW these are the judgments 
 which thou shalt set before 
 
 them. 
 
 The Book of the Covenant. 
 
 Ch. XX. 22 — xxiii. 33. 
 
 Introductory Note. 
 
 Now follows a series of laws, some of 
 them addressed simply to the conscience, like 
 the Ten Commandments, and others having 
 the sanction of a penalty attached. The con- 
 text seems to make it clear that v/e may idefl- 
 tify this series with what was written by 
 Moses in the book called the Book of the 
 Covenant, and read by him in the audience 
 of the people (see xxiv. 4, 7). There has 
 been a difference of opinion as to the compass 
 of matter contained in this Book. But the 
 weight of authority is in favour of its com- 
 prising the last five verses of ch. xx. with 
 chaps, xxi, xxii, xxiii (de Wette, Ewald, 
 Hupfeld, Knobel, Keil, Herxheimer, &;c.). 
 A few would add the Ten Commandments 
 (Hengst., Kurtz, &c,). Some Jewish Com- 
 mentators imagine that the Book of the 
 Covenant included very considerable por- 
 tions of Genesis and of the earlier part of 
 Exodus. 
 
 Adopting the conclusion as by far the most 
 probable one, that the Book of the Cove- 
 nant included from ch, xx. 22 to xxiii. 33, it 
 is evident that the document cannot be re- 
 garded as a strictly systematic whole. Por- 
 tions of it were probably traditional rules 
 handed down from the Patriarchs, and re- 
 tained by the Israelites in Egypt. Probable 
 traces of prns-Mosaic antiquity may be seen in 
 XX, 24 — 26, xxi. 6, xxiii. 19, &c. Some of 
 the laws relate to habits of fixed abode, not 
 (at least if taken in their strict form) to such 
 a mode of life as that of the Israelites in their 
 march through the Wilderness (see xxii. 5,6, 
 29, xxiii. 10, ii): some, especially those re- 
 lating to slavery, would seem to have been 
 modifications of ancient usages (see on xxi. 
 
 20, 21). These more or less ancient maxims 
 may have been associated with notes of such 
 decisions on cases of difference as had been up 
 to this time pronounced by Moses and the 
 judges whom he had appointed by the advice 
 of Jethro, See xviii. 13—26. 
 
 In whatever way these laws may have ori- 
 ginated, as they are here brought together, 
 they are clearly enforced by Jehovah as con- 
 ditions of conduct for the covenanted people. 
 The adoption of Patriarchal maxims accords 
 with the spirit of the Mosaic legislation, as 
 expressed in the Fifth Commandment, 
 
 Chap. XX. 22 — 26 . Nothing could be 
 more appropriate as the commencement of the 
 Book of the Covenant than these regulations 
 for public worship. 
 
 23 . Assuming this to be an old formula, 
 its meaning is brought out more compre- 
 hensively in the Second Commandment, and 
 is strengthened by the fact declared in -v. 22, 
 that Jehovah had now spoken from Heaven. 
 
 24 — 26 , These must have been old and 
 accepted rules for the building of altars, and 
 they are not inconsistent with the directions 
 for the construction of the Altar of the 
 Court of the Tabernacle, ch. xxvii. i — 8. 
 There is no good reason to doubt that they 
 were observed in “the Brazen Altar,” as it is 
 called, although no reference is made to them 
 in connection with it. That Altar, according 
 to the directions that are given, must indeed 
 have been rather an altar case., with a mass of 
 earth or stone within, when it was put to use. 
 See notes on xxvii. i — 8, and cf. losli. xxfu 
 26 — 28. 
 
 Chap. XXI. The Book of the Covenant, 
 continued, 
 
 1. judgments'] i.e. decisions of the Law. It 
 is worthy of remark that these judgments 
 
 i 
 
344 
 
 EXODUS. XXL 
 
 [v. 2 II. 
 
 «^Lev. 25. 2 ^ If thou buy an Hebrew ser- 
 
 Deut. 15. vant, six years he shall serve : and in 
 jir. 34. 14. the seventh he shall go out free for 
 nothing. 
 
 tHeb. 2 If he came in ^ by himself, he 
 shall go out by himself: if he were 
 married, then his wife shall go out 
 with him. 
 
 4 If his master have given him a 
 wife, and she have born him sons or 
 daughters; the wife and her children 
 shall be her master’s, and he shall go 
 out by himself. 
 
 tHeb. 5 And if the servant ^ shall plainly 
 ThaiUay. say, I love my master, my wife, and 
 my children ; I will not go out free : 
 
 6 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 aul; and he shall 
 serve him for ever. 
 
 7 ^ And if a man sell his daugh- 
 ter to be a maidservant, she shall not 
 go out as the menservants do. 
 
 8 If she ^ please not her master, 
 
 who hath betrothed her to himself, tke eyes of, 
 then shall he let her be redeemed : to 
 sell her unto a strange nation he shall 
 have no power, seeing he hath dealt 
 deceitfully with her. 
 
 9 And if he have betrothed her 
 unto his son, he shall deal with her 
 after the manner of daughters. 
 
 10 If he take him another voife-, 
 her food, her raiment, and her duty 
 of marriage, shall he not diminish. 
 
 1 1 And if he do not these three 
 unto her, then shall she go out free 
 without money. 
 
 begin with some that relate to slavery {ynj. 
 2 — 16); other judgments on the same subject 
 occur in 20, 21, 26, 27. 
 
 2. A Hebrew might* be sold as a bond- 
 man in consequence either of debt (Lev. xxv. 
 39) or of the commission of theft (Ex. xxii, 
 3). But his servitude could not be enforced 
 for more than six full years. The law is 
 more fully expressed in Deut. xv. 12- — 18, 
 where it enjoins that the bondman should 
 not be sent away at the end of his period of 
 service without a liberal supply of provisions; 
 and it is further supplemented by other regu- 
 lations, especially in reference to the Jubilee, 
 in Lev. xxv. 39—43, 47 — 55. Foreign slaves 
 arc expressly spoken of Lev. xxv. 44, 46. 
 
 3. If a married man became a bondman, 
 his rights in regard to his wife were respected: 
 but if a single bondman accepted at the hand 
 of his master a bondwoman as his wife, the 
 master did not lose his claim to the woman, 
 or her children, at the expiration of the hus- 
 band’s term of service. Such wives, it may 
 he presumed, were always foreign slaves. 
 
 5, 6. But if the bondman loved his wife 
 so as to be unwilling to give her up, or if he 
 was strongly enough attached to his master’s 
 service, he might, by submitting to a certain 
 ceremony, prolong his term “forever;” that 
 is, most probably, till the next Jobilcc, when 
 every Hebrew was set free. So Josejdius 
 (‘Ant.’ IV. 8, § 28) and the Rabbinists un- 
 derstood the phrase. See i.ev. xxv. 40, 50. 
 The custom of boring the ear as a mark of 
 slavery appears to have been a common one 
 in ancient times, obscrvtxl in many nations. 
 See Xenoph. ‘ Anab.’ iii, i, § 31; Plaut. 
 
 ‘ Poenul.’ V. ii. 21; Juvenal, i. 104; Pint. 
 ‘ Cicero,’ c. 26, &c. 
 
 6. unto the judges'] Literally, before the. 
 g§ds (elohim). The w^ord does not denote 
 judges in a direct way, but it is to be under- 
 stood as the name of God, in its ordinary 
 plural form, God being the source of all 
 justice. (So Gesen., de Wette, Knobel, 
 f iirst, Herxh., &c.) LXX. 7rpo? to KpLr-qpiov 
 Tov Qeov. The name in this connection 
 ahvays has the definite article prefixed. See 
 xxii. 8, 9, &c. 
 
 7. A man might, in accordance with ex- 
 isting custom, sell his daughter to another 
 man with a view to her becoming an inferior 
 wnfe, or concubine. In this case, she \vas not 
 “to go out,” like the bondman; that is, she 
 w^as not to be dismissed at the end of the 
 sixth year. But women wdio were bound in 
 any other way, would appear to have been 
 under the same conditions as bondmen. See 
 Deut. XV. 17. 
 
 8. shad he let her he redeemed^ More 
 strictly, he shall cause her to he re- 
 deemed. The meaning seems to be that he 
 should either return her to her father as set 
 free, or find another Hebrew master for her 
 who wa)uld grant her the same privileges as 
 she wmuld have had if she had remained with 
 himself. The latter sentence of the verse ap- 
 pears to signify that, although he was not 
 forced to keep* literal faith wfitli the woman 
 by making her his concubine, he was not per- 
 mitted to sell her to a foreigner. Even in 
 the case of a foreign captive who had been 
 accepted as a concubine, and had displeased 
 her master, she could not be sold as a slave, 
 
V. 12 — 20.] 
 
 EXODUS. XXL 
 
 * Lev. 24. 12 ^ '^He that smiteth a man, so 
 
 that he die, shall be surely put to death. 
 
 13 And if a man lie not in wait, 
 but God deliver him into his hand; 
 
 f Deut. 19. then I will appoint thee a place whi- 
 3 - ther he shall flee. 
 
 14 But if a man come presump- 
 tuously upon his neighbour, to slay 
 him with guile; thou shalt take him 
 from mine altar, that he may die. 
 
 15 ^ And he that smiteth his fa- 
 ther, or his mother, shall be surely 
 put to death. 
 
 16 ^ And he that stealeth a man, 
 and selleth him, or if he be found 
 in his hand, he shall surely be put 
 to death. 
 
 345 
 
 17 ^ And ‘^he that curseth his Lev. 20. 
 
 father, or his mother, shall surely be frov. 20. 
 put to death. ^ 
 
 18 ^ And if men strive tojjether, , 
 
 j . I . , o ’ Mark 7. 10. 
 
 and one smite another with a stone, n Or, 
 or with his flst, and he die not, but 
 keepeth his bed : 
 
 19 If he rise again, and walk a- 
 broad upon his staff, then shall he 
 that smote hi?n be quit : only he 
 shall pay for Uhe loss of his time, tHeb. 
 and shall cause hi?n to be thoroughly 
 healed. 
 
 20 ^ And if a man smite his ser- 
 
 vant, or his maid, with a rod, and he 
 die under his hand; he shall be surely 
 'punished. ' 
 
 \ 
 
 but was entitled to her freedom. See Deut. 
 xxi. 14. 
 
 11. if he do not these three unto her^ Most 
 commentators refer these three things to the 
 food, raiment, and duty of marriage, men- 
 tioned in V. 10. But Knobel and others pre- 
 fer the interpretation of most of the Rabbin- 
 ists, which seems on the whole best to suit 
 the context, that the words express a choice 
 of one of three things, in which case their 
 sense is, if he do neither of these three things. 
 The man was to give the woman, whom he 
 had purchased from her father, her freedom, 
 unless (i) he caused her to be redeemed by a 
 Hebrew master (gj. 8) ; or, (ii) gave her to 
 his son, and treated her as a daughter (-t’. 9) ; 
 or, (iii) in the event of his taking another 
 wife (g). 10), unless he allowed her to retain 
 her place and privileges. These rules (yu. 
 7 — ii) are to be regarded as mitigations of 
 the then existing usages of concubinage. The 
 form in which they are expressed confirms 
 this view. 
 
 12. No distinction is expressly made here 
 or elsewhere between the murder of a free 
 man and that of a bondman. See on nj. 20. 
 The law was afterv/ards expressly declared to 
 relate also to foreigners. Lev. xxiv. 1-7, 21, 22 ; 
 cf. Gen. ix. 6. 
 
 13 . 14 . There was no place of safety for 
 the guilty murderer, not even the Altar of 
 Jehovah. Thus all superstitious notions con- 
 nected with the right of sanctuary were ex- 
 cluded. Adonijah and Joab appear to have 
 vainly trusted that the vulgar feeling would 
 protect them, if they took hold of the horns 
 of the Altar on v/hich atonement with blood 
 was made (i K. i. 50, ii. 28; Lev. iv. 7). 
 But for one who killed a man “ at unawares,” 
 that is, without intending to do it, the Law 
 afterwards appointed places of refuge, Num. 
 
 XXXV. 6 — 34; Deut. iv. 41 — 43, xix. 2 — 10; 
 Josh. XX. 2 — 9. It is very probable that 
 there was some provision answering to the 
 Cities of Refuge, that may have been based 
 upon old usage, in the Gamp in the Wil- 
 derness. 
 
 15 , 16 , 17 . The following offences were 
 to be punished with death : — 
 
 Striking a parent, cf. Deut. xxvii. 16. 
 
 Cursing a parent, cf. Lev. xx. 9. 
 
 Kidnapping, whether with a view tg retain 
 the person stolen, or to sell him, cf. Deut. 
 xxiv. 7. 
 
 18 , 19 . If one man injured another in a 
 quarrel so as to oblige him to keep his bed, 
 he who had inflicted the injury was set free 
 from the liability to a criminal charge (such 
 as might be based upon 2;. 12) when the in- 
 jured man had so far recovered as to be able 
 to walk with a staff: but he was required to 
 compensate the latter for the loss of his time 
 until his recovery was complete, and for the 
 cost of his healing. 
 
 20, 21. The Jewish authorities appear 
 to be right in referring this law, like those 
 in vu. 26, 27, 32, to foreign slaves (see Lev. 
 XXV. 44 — 46). All Hebrew bondmen Vv'ere 
 treated, in regard to life and limb, like free- 
 men, and the Law would take this for grant- 
 ed. The master was permitted to retain the 
 power of chastising his alien slave with a rod, 
 but the indulgence of unbridled temper was 
 so far kept in check by his incurring punish- 
 ment if the slave died under his hand. If 
 however the slave survived the castigation a 
 day or two, it was assumed that the offence 
 of the master had not been so heinous, and he 
 did not become amenable to the law, because 
 the loss of the slave who, by old custom, 
 was recognized as his property, was account- 
 ed, under the circumstances, as a punish- 
 
34*3 EXODUS. XXI. k 21-31. 
 
 21 Notwithstanding, if he continue 
 a day or two, he shall not be punish- 
 ed : for he is his money. 
 
 22 ^ If men strive, .and hurt a 
 woman with child, so that her fruit 
 depart from her^ and yet no mischief 
 follow : he shall be surely punished, 
 according as the woman’s husband 
 will lay upon him ; and he shall pay 
 as the judges determine. 
 
 23 And if any mischief follow, then 
 thou shalt give life for life, 
 
 ^ Lev. 24. 24 ^ Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, 
 
 Deut. 19. hand for hand, foot for foot. 
 
 Matt. 5. 25 Burning for burning, wound for 
 
 3^- wound, stripe for stripe. 
 
 26 ^ And if a man smite the eye 
 of his servant, or the eye of his maid, 
 that it perish ; he shall let him go free 
 for his eye’s sake. 
 
 27 And if he smite out his man- 
 servant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s 
 
 tooth ; he shall let him go free for his 
 tooth’s sake. 
 
 28 ^ If an ox gore a man or a 
 woman, that they die: then -^the ox Gen. p 5. 
 shall be surely stoned, and his flesh 
 
 shall not be eaten ; but the owner of 
 the ox shall be quit. 
 
 29 But if the ox were wont to 
 push with his horn in tim.e past, and 
 it hath been testified to his owner, 
 and he hath not kept him in, but 
 that he hath killed a man or a wo- 
 man ; the ox shall be stoned, and his 
 owner also shall be put to death. 
 
 30 If there be laid on him a sum 
 of money, then he shall give for the 
 ransom of his life whatsoever is laid 
 upon him. 
 
 31 Whether he have gored a son, 
 or have goied a daughter, according 
 
 to this judgment shall it be done unto ^ 
 him. 
 
 ment. It is not said how the master was to 
 be treated in the event of the immediate death 
 of the slave. It may have been left to the deci- 
 sion of the judges as to whether the case should 
 come under the law of v. 12, or some second- 
 ary punishment should be inflicted, — The 
 protection here afforded to the life of a slave 
 may seem to us but a slight one; but it is the 
 very earliest trace of such protection in legis- 
 lation, and it stands in strong and favourable 
 contrast with the old laws of Greece, Rome, 
 and other nations. The same may be said of 
 'vnj. 26, 27, 32. These regulations were most 
 likely, as much as was feasible at the time, to 
 mitigate the cruelty of ancient practice; they 
 were as much as the hardness of the hearts of 
 the people would bear. Matt. xix. 8. See 
 .Air Goldwin Smith's admirable essay, “Does 
 the Bible sanction American Slavery f’’ 
 
 22 — 25 . The sense is rather obscure. 
 The rule would seem to refer to a case in 
 which the wife of a man engaged in a quarrel 
 interfered. If the violence did no more than 
 occasion premature birth, he who inflicted it 
 was punished by a hoe to be proposed by the 
 husband, and approved by the magistrates. 
 But if the injury was more serious, so as to 
 affect life or limb, a penalty was to be inflict- 
 ed in accordance with the law of suffering 
 like for like, the jus talionis . — This law is re- 
 peated in substance, Lev. xxiv, 19, 20, 21; 
 Deut. xix. 21; cp. (}cn. ix. 6. It has its root 
 in a simple conception of justice, and is found 
 in the laws of many ancient nations. It was 
 ascribed to Rhadamanthus (Arist. ‘ Kthic.’ V. 
 
 5). It was recognized in the laws of Solon 
 (Diog. Laert. i, 57), in the Laws of the 
 Twelve Tables (Aul. Gell. x. i; Festus, s. 
 talio)^ by the ancient Indians (Strab. xv. p. 
 710), and by the Thurians (Diod. Sic. xii. 
 17). It appears to be regarded in this place 
 as a maxim for 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 per- 
 son. This view appears to be in accordance 
 with Jewish tradition (Mishna, ‘ Baba Kama,’ 
 VIII. i). Michaelis has some good remarks 
 on the jus taliouis (‘ Laws of Moses,’ Vol. ill. 
 p. 448). — Our Lord quotes 2;. 24 as represent- 
 ing the form of the Law, in order to illustrate 
 the distinction between the Letter and the 
 Spirit (Matt. v. 38). The tendency of the 
 leaching of the Scribes and Pharisees was to 
 confound the obligations of the conscience 
 with the external requirements of the Law. 
 I'he Law, in its place, was still to be “holy 
 and just and good,” but its direct purpose 
 was to protect the community, not to guide 
 the heart of the believer, who was not to exact 
 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but to love his 
 enemies, and to forgive all injuries. 
 
 26 , 27 . When a master inflicted a per- 
 manent injury on the person of his bondser- 
 vant, freedom was the proper equivalent for 
 the disabled or lost member. 
 
 28 — 31 . If an ox killed a person, the ani- 
 mal was slain as a tribute to the sanctity of 
 human life (Gen. ix. 6; cf. Gen. iv. ii). It 
 
V. 32—4.] 
 
 347 
 
 EXODUS. XXL XXIl! 
 
 32 If the ox shall push a man- 
 servant or a maidservant *, he shall 
 give unto their master thirty shekels 
 of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. 
 
 33 ^ And if a man shall open a 
 pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and 
 not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall 
 therein ; 
 
 34 The owner of the pit shall make 
 it good, and give money unto the 
 owner of them; and the dead beast 
 shall be his. 
 
 35 ^ And if one man’s ox hurt 
 another’s, that he die ; then they shall 
 sell the live ox, and divide the money 
 of it ; and the dead ox also they shall 
 divide. 
 
 36 Or if it be known that the ox 
 hath used to push in time past, and 
 his owner hath not kept him in; he 
 shall surely pay ox for ox; and the 
 dead shall be his own. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 I 0/ theft. 5 Of damage. 7 Of trespasses. 
 14 Of borrowing. 16 Of foriiication. 18 
 Of witchcraft. 19 Of beastiality. 20 Of 
 idolatry. 2 1 Of strangers, widows, and 
 fatherless. 25 Of nsiuy. 26 Of pledges. 28 
 Of reverence to magistrates. 29 Of the first- 
 fruits. 
 
 I 
 
 F a man shall steal an ox, or a 
 sheep, and kill it, or sell it ; hen Or, goat. 
 shall restore five oxen for an ox, and 
 four sheep for a sheep. 2 Sam. 
 
 2 ^ If a thief be found breaking ^ 
 up, and be smitten that he die, there 
 shall no blood be shed for him. 
 
 3 If the sun be risen upon him, 
 there shall be blood shed for him ; for 
 he should make full restitution ; if he 
 have nothing, then he shall be sold 
 for his theft. 
 
 4 If the theft be certainly found 
 in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or 
 ass, or sheep ; he shall restore double. 
 
 was stoned, and its flesh was treated as car- 
 rion. In ordinary cases, the owner suffered 
 only the loss of his beast. But if the ox had 
 been previously known to be vicious, the 
 guilty negligence of its owner, in not keeping 
 it under restraint, was reckoned, prima facie, 
 as a capital offence. His life might however 
 be commuted for a fine to be determined by 
 the judges; and, as we may infer with proba- 
 bility, to be agreed to by the parents or near 
 relations of the slain person. 
 
 32 . If the slain person was a glave, the 
 ox was to be stoned to death, and its owner 
 v/as to pay to the master of the slain person 
 what appears to have been the standard price 
 of a slave, thirty shekels of silver. See on 
 Lev. XXV. 44 — 46, xxvii. 3. 
 
 33 , 34 . If a man either left his pit (or 
 well) exposed, or dug a new one without 
 protecting it, and an animal fell therein, he 
 was to pay the 'value of the animal to its 
 owner, but was allowed to appropriate the 
 carcase. The usual mode of protecting a 
 well was probably then, as it is now in the 
 East, by building round it a low circular 
 wall. 
 
 35 , 36 . The dead ox in this case, as well 
 as in the preceding one, must have been worth 
 no more than the price of the hide, as the 
 flesh could not be eaten. See Lev. xvii. i — 6. 
 There is here the same sort of prudent re- 
 straint laid upon the owners of vicious ani- 
 mals as in 2,'. 29. 
 
 Chap. XXII. The Book of the Covenant, 
 continued. 
 
 1. The theft of an ox appears to have been 
 regarded as a greater crime than the theft of 
 a sheep, not from the mere consideration of 
 value, but because it shewed a stronger pur- 
 pose in wickedness to take the larger and more 
 powerful animal. It m.ay have been on similar 
 moral ground that the thief, when he had 
 proved his persistency in crime by adding to 
 his theft the slaughter, or sale, of the animal, 
 was to restore four times its value in the case 
 of a sheep (cf. 2 S. xii. 6), and five times its 
 value in the case of an ox; but if the animal 
 was still in his possession alive (see ao. 4) he 
 had to make only twofold restitution. 
 
 2. breaking up'\ breaking in. 
 
 3 . 4 . If a thief, in breaking into a dwell- 
 ing in the night, was slain, the person who 
 slew him did not incur the guilt of blood ; but 
 if the same occurred in daylight, the slayer 
 was guilty in accordance with xxi. 12. The 
 distinction may have been based on the fact 
 that in the light of day there was a fair chance 
 of identifying and apprehending the thief, or, 
 at least, his design would be apparent : but in 
 the darkness of night there could be no reck- 
 oning as to how far his purpose might extend, 
 and there would be a great probability of his 
 escaping unrecognized. When a thief was ap- 
 prehended in the act, he could be forced to 
 make restitution if he had the means, and if 
 not he was to be sold as a bondslave. The 
 latter punishment may be likened to our penal 
 servitude; and, in the case of a Hebrew, it 
 could not be prolonged beyond six years. 
 See xxi. 2. 
 
348 
 
 EXODUS. XXII. 
 
 [v- 5—17- 
 
 5 ^ If a man shall cause a field 
 or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put 
 in his beast, and shall feed in another 
 man’s field; of the best of his own 
 field, and of the best of his own vine- 
 yard, shall he make restitution. 
 
 6 ^ If fire break out, and catch in 
 thorns, so that the stacks of corn, 
 or the standing corn, or the field, be 
 consumed therewith; he that kindled 
 the fire shall surely make restitution. 
 
 7 ^ If a man shall deliver unto 
 his neighbour money or stuff' to keep, 
 and it be stolen out of the man’s 
 house ; if the thief be found, let him 
 pay double. 
 
 8 If the thief be not found, then 
 the master of the house shall be 
 brought unto the judges, to see whe- 
 ther he have put his hand unto his 
 neighbour’s goods. 
 
 9 For all manner of trespass, whe- 
 ther it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, 
 for raiment, or for any manner of 
 lost thing, which another challengeth 
 to be his, the cause of both parties 
 shall come before the judges; a 7 id 
 whom the judges shall condemn, he 
 shall pay double unto his neighbour. 
 
 10 If a man deliver unto his neigh- 
 bour an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or 
 
 any beast, to keep; and it die, or 
 be hurt, or driven away, no man see- 
 ing it: 
 
 1 1 Then shall an oath of the Lord 
 be between them both, that he hath 
 not put his hand unto his neighbour’s 
 goods; and the owner of it shall ac- 
 cept thereof^ and he shall not make it 
 good. 
 
 12 And '^if it be stolen from him, *Gen. 31. 
 he shall make restitution unto the 
 owner thereof. 
 
 13 If it be torn in pieces, then let 
 him bring it for witness, and he shall 
 not make good that which was torn. 
 
 14 ^ And if a man borrow ought 
 of his neighbour, and it be hurt, or 
 die, the owner thereof being not with 
 it, he shall surely make it good. 
 
 15 But if the owner thereof be 
 with it, he shall not make it good : 
 if it be an hired things it came for 
 his hire. 
 
 16 ^ And if a man entice a maid ‘^Deui. 23. 
 that is not betrothed, and lie with 
 
 her, he shall surely endow her to be 
 his wife. 
 
 17 If her father . utterly refuse to 
 give her unto him, he shall ^ pay ' Heb. 
 money according to the dowry of 
 virgins. 
 
 4. See on t;. I. 
 
 5 . shall put in his beast ^ and shall feed'] 
 Rather, shall let his heast go loose, 
 and it shall feed. (Thus the LXX., 
 Vulg., Syr., Luther, Zunz, &c,) He who 
 had allowed his beast to stray and consume 
 the pasture or the grapes of his neighbour, 
 had to restore out of the best of his posses- 
 sions a like quantity of produce, without 
 regard to the quality of that which had been 
 consumed. 
 
 7. pay double] Cf. nj. 4 . 
 
 8 . It would appear that if the master of 
 the house could clear himself of imputation, 
 the loss of the pledged article fell upon its 
 owner. 
 
 judges] See on xxi. 6 . 
 
 9. all manner of trespass] In every case 
 of theft, he who was accused, and he who 
 had lost the stolen jiroperty, were both to ap- 
 pear before the judges (xviii. 25 , 26 ) : the 
 convicted thief, under ordinary circumstances, 
 was to pay double. See 'v'v. 4 , 7 . 
 
 10 — 13. 'J'his law appears to relate chief- 
 ly to herdsmen employed by the owners of 
 
 cattle. It implies that, if he to whom the 
 creatures* were entrusted could prove that he 
 had taken all reasonable care and precaution, 
 the risk of loss or injury fell upon the owner: 
 and if no witness could be produced, the oath 
 of the herdsman himself that he had performed 
 his duty was accepted. But when an animal 
 was stolen (yv. 12 ), it was presumed either 
 that the herdsman might have prevented it, or 
 that he could find the thief/ and bring him to 
 justice (see u. 4 ). When an animal was killed 
 by a wild beast, the keeper had to produce 
 the mangled carcase, not only in proof of the 
 fact, but to shew that he had, by Ins vigilance 
 and courage, deprived the wild beast of its 
 prey. 
 
 14, 15. If a man borrowed, or hired, an 
 animal, it was at his risk, unless the owner 
 accompanied it. 
 
 15, it came for his hire] These words 
 are obscure, but they probably mean that the 
 sum paid-for hiring was regarded as covering 
 the risk of accident. 
 
 16, 17. The man who seduced a girl that 
 was not betrothed had to forlvit for her bene- 
 
V. j8 — 29.] 
 
 EXODUS. XXIL 
 
 349 
 
 18 ^ Thou shalt not suffer a witch 
 to live. 
 
 19 ^ Whosoever lieth with a beast 
 shall surely be put to death. 
 
 ^Dcut. 13. 20 ^ He that sacrificeth unto any 
 
 ! Mac.2^' god, save unto the Lord only, he 
 24- shall be utterly destroyed. 
 
 ‘ Lev. 19. 21 IT ^Thou shalt neither vex a 
 
 stranger, nor oppress him : for ye were 
 strangers in the land of Egypt. 
 
 /zech. 7. 22 H -^Ye shall not afflict any 
 
 widow, or fatherless child. 
 
 23 If thou afflict them in any wise, 
 and they cry at all unto me, I will 
 surely hear their cry ; 
 
 24 And my wrath shall wax hot, 
 and I will kill you with the sword; 
 
 r Lev. 25. and your wives shall be widows, and 
 
 i)eut. 23. your children fatherless. 
 
 rtai. 15.5. 25 ^ ^If thou lend money to any 
 
 af my people that is poor by thee, 
 thou shalt not be to him as an 
 usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon 
 him usury. 
 
 26 If thou at all take thy neigh- 
 bour’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt 
 deliver it unto him by that the sun 
 goeth down : 
 
 27 For that his covering only, it is 
 his raiment for his skin ; wherein shall 
 he sleep? and it shall come to pass, 
 when he crieth unto me, that I will 
 hear; for I am gracious. 
 
 28 ^ ^^Thou shalt not revile the =’3- 
 gods, nor curse the ruler of thy n Or, 
 
 people. fHek 
 
 29 ^ Thou shalt not delay ta offer 
 
 the ' first of thy ripe fruits, and of |,Heb. 
 thy Hiquors: ^ the firstborn of thy * chap. 13. 
 sons shalt thou give unto me. & 3^; 
 
 fit a proper sum for a dowry (see on Deut. 
 xxii. 28, 29), and to marry her^ if her father 
 would allow him to do so. The seducer of a 
 betrothed girl was to be stoned. See Deut. 
 xxii. 23, 27. 
 
 18 . Tkou shalt not suffer a 'witch to llx'e'] 
 The practice of witchcraft by both sexes is 
 condemned in Lev. xx. 27 ; Deut. xviii. 9 — i2i. 
 Wizards alone are mentioned Lev. xix. 31. 
 The witch is here named to represent the 
 class. This is the earliest denunciation of 
 witchcraft in the Law. In every form of 
 witchcraft there is an appeal to a power not 
 acting in subordination to the Divine Law. 
 From all such notions and tendencies true 
 worship is designed to deliver us. The prac- 
 tice of witchcraft was therefore an act of re- 
 bellion against Jehovah, and, as such, was a 
 capital crime. The passages bearing on the 
 subject in the Prophets, as well as those in 
 the Law, carry a lesson for all ages. Isa. viii. 
 19, xix. 3, xliv. 25, xlvii. 12, 13, &c. 
 
 19 . See Lev. xviii. 23. 
 
 20 . This was probably an old formula, 
 the sense of which, on its ethical side, is com- 
 prised in the First and Second Command- 
 ments. 
 
 shall be utterly destroyed] The Hebrew 
 word here used is cherem (i.c. demoted]. See 
 on Lev. xxvii. 28. 
 
 21. a stranger] More properly, a fo- 
 reigner (Heb. geer')^ one who dwells in a 
 land to which he does not belong. See on 
 XX. 10. The command is repeated xxiii. 9. 
 See also Lev. xix. 33, 34; Deut. x. 17 — 19. 
 
 22 — 24 . The meaning of the word ren- 
 
 dered afflict^ includes all cold and contemp- 
 tuous treatment. See Deut. x. 18. The same 
 duty is enforced with the promise of a bless- 
 ing, Deut. xiv. 29. 
 
 25. See on Lev. xxv. 35 — 43 ; cf. Deut. 
 xxiii. 19. 
 
 26 , 27 . The law regarding pledges is 
 expanded Deut. xxiv. 6, 10 — ’13. 
 
 28 . the gads] Heb. elohim. See on xxi. 6. 
 
 This passage has been understood in three 
 different ways: (i) Some of the best modern 
 autlu.)nties take it as the name of God (as in 
 Gen. i. i), and this certainly seems best to 
 represent the Hebrew, and to suit the con- 
 text. So de Wette, Knobel, Schott, Keil, 
 Benisch, &c. (2) Our Version follows the 
 
 LXX., Vulg., Luther, Cranmer, &c. ; it is also 
 countenanced by Philo (‘ Vit. Mos.’ iii. 26), 
 and Josephus (‘Ant.’ iv. 8. §10; ‘ Contr. 
 Ap.’ II. 34), who make a boast of the libe- 
 rality of the sentiment as regards the gods of 
 other nations. (3) The word is rendered as 
 judges by the Targums, Saadia, the Syriac, 
 Theodoret, Geneva Fr. and Eng., Zunz, 
 Herxh., &c., and this makes good sense, but 
 it is rightly objected that elohim^ to have the 
 meaning according to which alone it could be 
 so rendered, should have the article prefixed. 
 See on xxi. 6. 
 
 curse the ruler ^ &c.] Acts xxiii. 5. 
 
 29, 30. The offering of Firstfruits ap- 
 pears to have been a custom of primitive an- 
 tiquity, and was connected with the earliest 
 acts of sacrifice. See Gen. iv. 3, 4. The re- 
 ferences to it here and in xxiii. 19 had proba- 
 bly been handed down from patriarchal times. 
 The specific law relating to the firstbom of 
 
350 
 
 EXODUS. XXIIL 
 
 [v. 30—9. 
 
 * Lev. 25 
 8 . 
 
 Ezek. 44 
 3J- 
 
 UOr, 
 
 receive. 
 
 »Heb. 
 
 ans^ver. 
 
 30 Likewise shalt thou do with 
 thine oxen, and v/ith thy sheep : seven 
 days it shall be with his dam ; on the 
 eighth day thou shalt give it me. 
 
 31 ^ And ye shall be holy men 
 unto me: ^’neither shall ye eat any 
 flesh that is torn of beasts in the 
 held; ye shall cast it to the dogs. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL 
 
 I Of slander and false zoitness. 3, 6 Of justice. 
 4 Of charitableness. 10 Of the year of rest. 
 
 1 2 Of the sabbath. 1 3 Of idolatry. \ Of 
 the three feasts. 18 Of the blood and the fat 
 of the sacrifice. 20 An Angel is promised, 
 ZL'ith a blessifig, if they obey him. 
 
 T hou shalt not 'Haise a Else 
 report : put not thine hand with 
 the wicked to be an unrighteous wit- 
 ness. 
 
 2 ^1 Thou shalt not follow a mul- 
 titude to do evil; neither shalt thou 
 ^ speak in a cause to decline after many 
 to wrest judgment: 
 
 3 ^ Neither shalt thou counte- 
 nance a poor man in his cause. 
 
 4 II If thou meet thine enemy’s 
 ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt 
 surely bring it back to him again. 
 
 5 If thou see the ass of him that "Deut. 22, 
 hateth thee lying under his burden, 
 
 II and wouldest forbear to help him, "Or. 
 thou shalt surely help with him. tj'* 
 
 6 Thou shalt not wrest the judg- 
 
 ment of thy poor in his cause. zvonidest 
 
 7 Keep thee far from a false mat- leave thy' 
 ter; and the innocent and righteous 
 
 slav thou not: for I will not justify 
 the wicked. leave 
 
 8 ^ And thou shalt take no gift : 
 for the gift blindeth ^ the wise, and 
 perverteth the words of the righteous. Ecdus. 20 
 
 9 ^ Also thou shalt not oppress a f Heb. 
 stranger : for ye know the ^ heart of a 
 stranger, seeing ye were strangers in 
 
 the land of Egypt. 
 
 living creatures was brought out in a strong 
 light in connection with the deliverance from 
 Egypt (xiii. 2, 12, 13). Regarding “the 
 eighth day,” see Lev. xxii. 27. The fonn for 
 offering Firstfruits is described Dent. xxvi. 
 2 — II. But besides these usages exclusively 
 referring to Firstfruits, there were others em- 
 bodying the same religious idea in the rites of 
 the festivals of the Passover and Pentecost. 
 See on Lev. xxiii. 
 
 the first of thy ripe fruits., and of thy liquor s'\, 
 The literal rendering of the Hebrew is given 
 in the margin (“thy fulness and thy tear”), 
 and is retained in Luther's version. First- 
 fruits (□’’"i'lIiD, xxiii. 19) are not here men- 
 tioned by name; but the connection clearly 
 shows that they are meant. The latter of the 
 two Hebrew substantives (yiDl) does not 
 occur elsewhere. But according to its ety- 
 mology, it means that which drops like a 
 tear. The J.XX. has arrapya^ dkcovns. Kal 
 XjpoG aov. Vulg. decimas tuas et primitias 
 tuas. d'hese renderings, as well as that in 
 our Bible (which nearly follows Onk. and 
 the Syr.),^ are of course paraphrases rather 
 than versions. 
 
 31 . 'Fhe sanctification of the nation was 
 emphatically symbolized by strictness of diet as 
 regards both the kind of animal, and the mode 
 of slaughtering. See Lev. chaps, xi. and xvii. 
 
 CnAi*. XXIII. The Book of the Cove- 
 nant, concluded. 
 
 1 — 3 . 'Fhese four commands, addressed 
 to the conscience without sanction of punish- 
 ment, are so many illustrations of the Ninth 
 
 Commandmertt, mainly in reference to the 
 giving of evidence in legal causes. It is for- 
 bidden : — 
 
 1. To circulate a false report (cf. Lev. 
 xix. 16). 
 
 2. To join hand in hand with another 
 in bearing false witness. 
 
 3. To follow a majority in favouring an 
 unrighteous cause. 
 
 4. To shew partiality to a man's cause 
 because he is poor (cf. Lev. xix. 15). 
 
 2. This verse might be more strictly ren- 
 dered, Thou shalt not follozv the many to e^vil ; 
 neither shalt thou bear Q.vitness in a cause so as 
 to incline after the many to perasert justice. 
 
 3. countenance'] Rather, to show par- 
 tiality to. 
 
 4. 5. So far was the spirit of the Law 
 from encouraging personal revenge that it 
 would not allow a man to neglect an oppor- 
 tunity of saving his enemy from loss. On 
 the apparently different spirit expressed in 
 Ueut. xxiii. 6, and on the reference to the 
 subject in Matt. v. 43, see in loc. Cf. Deut. 
 xxii. I — 4. 
 
 5. (ivouldest forbear to help him, «&c.] The 
 words are rather difficult, but the sense ap- 
 pears to be: — If thou see the ass of thine enemy 
 lying do^vn under his burden, tbou shalt forbear 
 to pass by him ; thou shalt help him in loosening 
 the girths of the ass. The passage is rendered 
 to this effect by Saadia, Gesenius, Knobel, &c. 
 
 6 — 9. These verses comprise four pre- 
 cepts, which are evidently addressed to those 
 in authority as judges; — 
 
V. 10 — 14 -] 
 
 EXODUS. XXIII. 
 
 351 
 
 c Lev. 25. 
 3 - 
 
 I Or, 
 
 olive trees. 
 chap. 20. 
 
 8 . 
 
 Deut. 5. 
 
 Luke 13. 
 14. 
 
 10 And ^six years thou shalt sov/ 
 thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits 
 thereof : 
 
 1 1 But the seventh year thou shalt 
 let it rest and lie still; that the poor 
 of thy people may eat : and what 
 they leave the beasts of the field shall 
 eat. In like manner thou shalt deal 
 with thy vineyard, and with thy ^ olive- 
 yard. 
 
 12 '^Six days thou shalt do thy work, 
 
 and on the seventh day thou shalt 
 rest ; that thine ox and thine ass may 
 rest, and the son of thy handmaid, 
 and the stranger, may be refreshed. 
 
 13 And in all things that I have 
 said unto you be circumspect; and 
 make no mention of the name .of 
 other gods, neither let it be heard 
 out of thy mouth. 
 
 14 ^ ^ Three times thou shalt keep 
 a feast unto me in the year. 
 
 1. To do justice to the poor. — Compar- 
 ing 'v. 6 with -t;. 3, it was the part of the 
 judge to defend the poor against the oppres- 
 sion of the rich, and the part of the witness 
 to take care lest his feelings of natural pity 
 should tempt him to falsify his evidence. 
 
 2. To be cautious of inflicting capital 
 punishment on one whose guilt was not 
 clearly proved. — A doubtful case was rather 
 to be left to God Himself, who would “ not 
 justify the wicked,” nor suffer him to go un- 
 punished though he might be acquitted by 
 an earthly tribunal. 2). 7. 
 
 3. To take no bribe or present which 
 might in any way pervert judgment (-i;. 8); 
 cf. Num. xvi. 15; I S. xii. 3. 
 
 4. To vindicate the rights of the stranger 
 (gu. 9) — rather, the foreigner. See on xx. 10. 
 This verse is a repetition of xxii. 21, but the 
 precept is there addressed to the people at 
 large, while it is here addressed to the judges 
 in reference to their official duties. This is 
 Knobel’s explanation; but Bleek and others, 
 overlooking the very distinct contexts, take 
 the repetition as merely redundant. — The 
 word rendered heart is more strictly soul 
 
 and would be better represented here 
 by feelings. Gf. on xxviii. 3 and on Lev. 
 xvii. II. 
 
 10 — 12. This is the first mention of the 
 Sabbatical year; the law for it is given at 
 length Lev. xxv. 2. Both the Sabbatical year 
 and the weekly Sabbath are here spoken of 
 exclusively in their relation to the poor, as 
 bearing testimony to the equality of the people 
 in their Covenant with Jehovah. In the first 
 of these institutions, the proprietor of the soil 
 gave up his rights for the year to the whole 
 community of living creatures, not excepting 
 the beasts: in the latter, the master gave up 
 his claim for the day to the services of his 
 servants and cattle. See Note ‘ On the 
 Sabbath day,’ § V. after ch. xx. 
 
 11 . thou shalt let it rest and lie stiir\ Some 
 understand this expression to relate to the 
 crops, not to the land, so as to mean, thou 
 shalt lea-ve them {i.e. the crops) and gi-ve them 
 up to the poor^ See. (Kranold, Hupfeld, Da- 
 
 vidson.) The words, if they stood by them- 
 selves, might bear this interpretation as well 
 as that given in our version, and neither in- 
 terpretation is opposed to Lev. xxv. 2 — 5, where 
 it is said that the land was to remain untilled. 
 But it has been presumed without the least 
 authority that the writer of Leviticus made a 
 mistake, and that the original law, as it is 
 here given, was not intended to prevent the 
 land from being tilled as usual, but only to 
 forbid that the crops should be harvested by 
 the proprietor, in order that the poor might 
 gather them for themselves. See on Lev. xxv. 
 2. It has also been objected that this origi- 
 nal law could not have been written by 
 Moses in the wilderness, where, of course, it 
 could not have been observed, and that this 
 difficulty occurred to the writer of Leviticus, 
 and induced him to prefix the words “ when 
 ye come into the land which I give you.” 
 But surely this difficulty, if we admit it to 
 have a real existence, would have been avoided 
 by any one writing a clever fictitious narra- 
 tive with a view to deceive his own, or later 
 ages. It seems easier and more reasonable to 
 regard Moses as having legislated and written 
 with the deep conviction ever in his mind 
 that the promise of the possession of the 
 land made to Abraham was sure of fulfil- 
 ment. See on 20, 31. 
 
 12 . maj be refreshed']^ Literally, may take 
 breath. 
 
 13 . Cf. Deut. iv. 9, vi. 13, 14 ; Josh. xxii. 5. 
 
 14 — 17 . This is the first mention of the 
 three great Yearly Festivals. The Feast of Un- 
 leavened Bread, in its connection with the 
 Paschal Lamb, is spoken of in ch. xii., xiii. : 
 but the two others are here first named. The 
 whole three are spoken of as if they were 
 familiarly known to the people. The points 
 that are especially enjoined are that every 
 male Israelite should attend them at the Sanc- 
 tuary (cf. xxxiv. 23), and that he should take 
 with him an offering for Jehovah. He was, 
 on each occasion, to present himself before 
 his King with his tribute in his hand. That 
 the latter condition belonged to all the Feasts, 
 
352 
 
 EXODUS. XXIII. 
 
 [v. 15—19. 
 
 :hap. 13. -/^Thou shalt keep the feast of 
 
 ^ unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat un- 
 
 leavened bread seven days, as I com- 
 manded thee, in the time appointed 
 of the month Abib; for in it thou 
 irDeut. 16. earnest out from Egypt : s and none 
 Eccius. 35. shall appear before me empty :) 
 
 4- 16 And the feast of harvest, the 
 
 firstfruits of thy labours, which thou 
 hast sown in the field : and the feast 
 of ingathering, which is in the end of 
 
 the year, when thou hast gathered in 
 thy labours out of the field. 
 
 17 Three times in the year all thy 
 males shall appear before the Lord 
 God. 
 
 18 Thou shalt not offer the blood 
 of my sacrifice with leavened bread; 
 neither shall the fat of my “ sacrifice “ Or, /mst. 
 remain until the morning. 
 
 19 ^^The first of the firstfruits of chap. 34. 
 thy land thou shalt bring into the 
 
 though it is here stated only in regard to 
 the Passover, cannot be doubted. See Deut. 
 xvi. 16, 
 
 15 , 16 . On the Feast of Unleavened Bread, 
 or the Passover, see xii. i — 28,' 43 — 50, xiii. 
 3 — 16, xxxiv. 18 — 20; Lev. xxiii. 4 — 14. 
 bn the Feast of the ^Firstfruits of Harvest, 
 called also the Feast of Weeks, and the 
 Feast of Pentecost, see xxxiv. 22; Lev. xxiii. 
 15 — 21. On the Feast of Ingathering, called 
 also the Feast of Tabernacles, see Lev. xxiii. 
 34—36, 39 — 43 - 
 
 16 . in the end of the year\ Cf. xxxiv. 22. 
 The year here spoken of must have been the 
 civil or agrarian year, which began after har- 
 vest, when the ground was prepared for sow- 
 ing. Cf. Lev. xxiii. 39 ; Deut. xvi. 13 — 15. 
 The sacred year began in spring, with the 
 month Abib, or Nisan. ^ See on Exod. xii. 2, 
 and on Lev. xxv. 9. 
 
 rivhm thou hast gathered^ Rather, when thou 
 satherest in. The Hebrew does not im- 
 ply that the gathering in was to be completed 
 before the Feast was held. In some years 
 the harvest must have fallen later than in 
 others. It was perhaps rarely completed be- 
 fore the time appointed for the Feast. And 
 hence the fitness of the expression, “ which is 
 in the end of the year,” as explained in the 
 preceding note. 
 
 18 , 19 . These verses comprise three 
 maxims, each of which, according to the best 
 interpretation, appears to relate to one of 
 the Festivals, in due order, as named in 'w. 
 
 14—17. 
 
 18 . the blood of my sacrifice'] It is gene- 
 rally considered that this must refer to the 
 Paschal Lamb. The blood that was sprin- 
 kled on the door-posts, or (after the first occa- 
 sion) on the Altar, emphatically represented 
 “the sacrifice of the Lord’.s passover.” See 
 xii. 7, II, 13, 22, 23, 27. _ . 
 
 the fat of my sacrifice] Strictly, the fat 
 of my feast. In the parallel passage xxxiv. 
 25, what appears to be the ecjuivalent expres- 
 sion is, “ the sacrifee of the feast of the pass- 
 over.” It has been inferred with great pro- 
 
 bability that the fat of my feast means not 
 literally the fat of the Paschal Lamb, but the 
 best part of the feast, that is, the Paschal 
 Lamb itself (Knobel, Keil). This explana- 
 tion best accords with xii. 10, where there is 
 no mention of the fat. If we take the words 
 in their mere literal sense, they must refer to 
 the fat of the sacrifices in general, which, 
 when the ritual of the sacrifices was arranged, 
 was burnt upon the Altar by the Priests (Lev. 
 i. 8, iii. 3—5). 
 
 19 . T^he first of the firstfruits of thy land] 
 This most probably means the best^ or chief 
 of the Firstfruits, &c. As the preceding pre- 
 cept appears to refer to the Passover, so it is 
 likely that this refers to Pentecost, as espe- 
 cially to the offering of what are called in 
 *2'. 16 “the firstfruits of thy labours;” that is, 
 the two wave loaves described Lev. xxiii. 17. 
 They are called in Leviticus, “ the firstfruits 
 unto the Lord;” and it is reasonable that 
 they should here be designated the chief of 
 the Firstfruits. If, with Keil and others, we 
 suppose the precept to relate to the offerings 
 of Firstfruits in general, the command is no 
 more than a repetition of xxii. 29. 
 
 Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's 
 milk] This precept is repeated xxxiv. 26; 
 Deut. xiv. 21. There has been much dis- 
 cussion a*s to its meaning. St Augustine 
 and somiC more recent commentators have 
 given up the explanation of it in despair. If 
 we are to connect the first of the two pre- 
 ceding precepts with the Passover, and the 
 second with Pentecost, it seems reasonable to 
 connect this with the Feast of Tabernacles. 
 The only explanation which accords with this 
 connection is one which refers to some sort of 
 superstitious custom connected with the har- 
 vest. Abarbanel speaks of such a custom, in 
 which a kid was seethed in its mother’s milk 
 to propitiate in some way the deities. But 
 the subject is more pointedly illustrated in an 
 ancient commentary on the Pentateuch by a 
 Karaite Jew, from the manuscript of which a 
 quotation is given by Cudworth (‘ On the 
 I.ord’s Supper,’ p. 36). It is there said to have 
 been a prevalent usage to boil a kid in its 
 
V. 20 23-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXIII. 
 
 353 
 
 Deut^^i^^' Lord thy God. ^ Thoii 
 
 21. shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s 
 milk. 
 
 -frchap. 33. 20 ^ ^ Behold, I send an Angel 
 
 before thee, to keep thee in the way, 
 and to bring thee into the place which 
 I have prepared. 
 
 21 Beware of him, and obey his 
 voice, pi*ovoke him not; for he will 
 not pardon your transgressions : for 
 my name is in him. 
 
 22 But if thou shalt indeed obey 
 his voice, and do all that I speak; 
 then I will be an enemy unto thine 
 enemies, and “ an adversary unto thine “ ov, 
 
 1 . ■' / luill 
 
 adversaries. a/jikt 
 
 23 '^For mine Angel shall go be- 
 fore thee, and "'bring thee in unto^'^^^'’^ 
 the Amorites, and the Hittites, and 2.'^ 
 the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, 
 
 'and the Hivites, and the Jebusites: 
 and I will cut them off. 
 
 mother’s milk, when all the crops were ga- 
 thered in, and to sprinkle with the milk the 
 fruit trees, fields and gardens, as a charm to 
 improve the crops of the coming year. The 
 explanation based upon this is preferred by 
 Bochart, John Gregory, Grotius, Knobel and 
 others. The command, so understood, is a 
 caution against the practice of magic. See on 
 xxii. 18. But in a matter so doubtful, it is 
 but fair to give such other explanations as 
 seem most worthy of notice. 
 
 1. It has been taken as a prohibition of 
 the eating of flesh and milk together (the 
 Targums, Erpenius). This is countenanced 
 by the traditional custom of the Jews (‘ Mish- 
 na,’ Cholin viii. i; Maimon. ‘de Cit. Vel.’ 
 9; Buxtorf, ‘Syn. Jud.’ p. 596J. 
 
 2. It has been supposed to forbid the 
 eating of a kid before it has been weaned 
 from its mother — Luther, Calvin, Fagius, 
 &c. 
 
 3. It has been referred to a custom now 
 existing among the Arabs, which is certainly 
 of great antiquity, of preparing a gross sort 
 of food by stewing a kid in milk, with the 
 addition of certain ingredients of a stimu- 
 lating nature, which is commonly called in 
 Arabic, “a kid in his mother’s milk.” Aben- 
 Ezra, Keil, Thomson (‘ The Land and the 
 Book,’ ch. VIII.), &c. 
 
 4. It has been brought into connection 
 with the prohibitions to .slaughter a cow and 
 a calf, or a ewe and her lamb, on the same 
 day (Lev. xxii. 28), and to take a bird along 
 with her young in the nest (Dent. xxii. 6). 
 It is thus understood as a protest against 
 cruelty and outraging the order of nature {ne 
 commisceatur germen cum radicibus). Theo- 
 doret, Vatablus, Ewald, &c. See Bochart, 
 
 ‘ Hieroz.’ 1. ii, c. 52. 
 
 20 — 33 . These verses appear to form 
 the conclusion of the Bock of the Covenant. 
 They contain promis'^s of the constant pre- 
 sence and guidance of Jehovah {yv. 20 — 22), 
 of the driving out of the nations of the Cana- 
 anites by degrees (23 — 30), and of the subse- 
 quent enlargement of Hebrew dominion (2;. 
 31). But these promises are accompanied by 
 VOL, I. 
 
 solemn exhortations and threatenings.— Cf. 
 xxxiv. 10 — 17, where similar promises and 
 warnings are prefixed to the shorter compen- 
 dium of Law which was written down after 
 the renewal of the Tables. 
 
 20, 21 . an Angel... for my name is in him'] 
 The Angel appears to mean the presence and 
 the power of Jehovah Himself, manifested in 
 the work of leading and delivering His people, 
 and maintaining His Covenant with them. 
 Cf. xxxii. 34, xxxiii. 2, 15, 16, and the notes; 
 see also on Gen. xii. 7. 
 
 20. the place 'which I ha've prepared] The 
 promise of the Land may be seen to inspire 
 the legislation and conduct of Moses through- 
 out his career. 'There is no trace of uncer- 
 tainty as to the ultimate aim of his mission. 
 He had been called to lead the people to the 
 home prepared for them, according to the 
 promise first made to Abraham, and to disci- 
 pline them in their passage through the wil- 
 derness to become a strong nation. 
 
 22. and an. ad'veNary unto thine ad^krsa-‘ 
 ries] The rendering in the margin is the 
 better one. Cf. Deut. xx. 4. 
 
 23 . The nations here mentioned are those 
 only that inhabited the land strictly called the 
 Land of Canaan, lying between the Jordan 
 and the Great Sea. See Num. xxxiv. 2 ; cf. 
 Exod. xxxiv. II. 
 
 I will cut them off] It has been too abso- 
 lutely taken for granted that it was the Divine 
 will that the inhabitants of Canaan should be 
 utterly exterminated. We know that, as a 
 matter of fact, great numbers of the Canaanite 
 families lived on, and intermarried with the 
 Israelites (see Judg. i., ii., with such cases as 
 those of the Sidonians, of Araunah, of Uriah, 
 of the family of Rahab, &c.). The national 
 existence of the Canaanites was indeed to be 
 utterly destroyed, every trace of their idola- 
 tries was to be blotted out, no social inter- 
 course was to he held with them while they 
 served other gods, nor were alliances of any 
 kind to be formed with them. These com- 
 mands are emphatically repeated and expand- 
 ed in Deuteronomy (vii. ; xii. i — 4, 29 — 31). 
 
 Z 
 
354 
 
 EXODUS. XXIII. 
 
 « Deut. 
 25 - 
 
 o Deut. 
 14. 
 
 i Heb. 
 fleck. 
 
 [v. 24—31. 
 
 24 Thou shalt not bow down to 
 their gods, nor serve them, nor do 
 
 7. after their works : " but thou shalt 
 utterly overthrow them, and quite 
 break down their images. 
 
 25 And ye shall serve the Lord 
 your God, and he shall bless thy bread, 
 and thy water; and I will take sick- 
 ness away from the .midst of thee. 
 
 7 26 ^ '’There shall nothing cast 
 
 their young, nor be barren, in thy 
 land: the number of thy days I will 
 fulfil. 
 
 27 I will send my fear before thee, 
 and will destroy all the people to 
 whom thou shalt come, and I will 
 make all thine enemies turn their 
 ^ backs unto thee. 
 
 28 And will send hornets before 24. 
 thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, 
 
 the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from 
 before thee. 
 
 29 I will not drive them out from 
 before thee in one year; lest the land 
 become desolate, and the beast of the 
 field multiply against thee. 
 
 30 By little and little I will drive 
 them out from before thee, until thou 
 be increased, and inherit the land. 
 
 31 And I will set thy bounds from 
 the Red sea even unto the sea of the 
 Philistines, and from the desert unto 
 the river: for I will deliver the in- 
 habitants of the land into your hand; 
 and thou shalt drive them out before 
 thee. 
 
 They were often broken by the Israelites, who 
 had to suffer for their transgression (Num. 
 xxxiii. 55; Judg. ii. 3). But it is alike con- 
 trary to the spirit of the Divine Law, and to 
 the facts bearing on the subject scattered in the 
 history, to suppose that any obstacle was put 
 in the way of well disposed individuals of the 
 denounced nations who left their sins and 
 were willing to join the service of Jehovah. 
 The Law, as it was addressed to the Israelites, 
 never forgets the stranger (rather, the fo- 
 reigner, LXX. 7rpo(ri]\vTos) who had volun- 
 tarily come within their gates. See xx. 10. 
 The spiritual blessings of the Covenant were 
 always open to those who sincerely and ear- 
 nestly desired to possess them. Lev. xix. 34, 
 xxiv. 22. A narrowness and cruelty in this 
 and other respects has been very generally 
 ascribed to the Law of Moses, from which it 
 has been justly vindicated by Salvador, ‘His- 
 toire des Institutions de Moi'se,’ Vol. i. p. 447. 
 
 24 . Cf. Num. xxxiii. 52; Deut. vii. 5, 
 16, xii. 29, 30, XX. 18. 
 
 27 . dcjtroy'] Rather, overthrow. See on 
 •v. 23; cf. XV. 14; Deut. ii. 25; Josh. ii. ii. 
 
 28 . hornets'] Cf. Deut. vii. 20; Josh, 
 xxiv, T2. 'Lhe Hebrew word is in the singu- 
 lar number, used for the species— the hornet. 
 Bochart (‘ Hiero/.’ lib. iv. c. 13) has collected 
 instances from ancient authorities of large 
 bodies of men being driven away by noxious 
 insects and other small creatures; and the 
 author of the Book of Wisdom (xii. 8, 9) 
 with some of the commentators have supposed 
 that hornets are literally meant (see ‘ Crit. 
 Sac.’). But there seems to be no reasonable 
 doubt that the word is used figuratively for a 
 cause of terror and discouragement. Bees 
 are spoken of in the like sense, Deut. i. 44; 
 
 Ps, cxviii. 12. The passage has been thus un- 
 derstood by most critics, 
 
 29 . beast of the field] The term is ap- 
 plied to any wild animal ; here it means a 
 destructive one, as it does also Deut. vii. 22: 
 cf. Lev. xxvi. 22; 2 K. xvii. 25; Job v. 22; 
 Ezek. xiv. 15. 
 
 31 . In ns. 23, the limits of the Land of 
 Canaan, strictly so called, are indicated; to 
 this, when the Israelites were about to take 
 possession of it, were added the regions of 
 Gilead and Bashan on the left side of the Jor- 
 dan (Num. xxxii. 33 — 42 ; Josh. xiii. 29 — 32). 
 These two portions made up the Holy Land, 
 of which the limits were recognized, with in- 
 considerable variations, till the final overthrow 
 of the Jewish polity. But in this verse the 
 utmost extent of Hebrew dominion, as it 
 existed in the time of David and Solo- 
 mon, is set forth. The kingdom then reached 
 -to Eloth and Ezion-geber on the ^Elanitic 
 Gulf of the Red Sea (i K. ix. 26), and to 
 Tiphsah on the “ River,” that is, the River 
 Euphrates (i K. iv. 24), having for its western 
 boundary “ the Sea of the Philistines,” that is, 
 the Mediterranean, and for its southern boun- 
 dary “ the desert,” that is, the wildernesses of 
 Shur and Paran (cf. Gen. xv. 18; Deut. i. 7, 
 xi. 2\\ Josh. i. 4). Hengstenberg thinks that 
 these broad descriptions of the Land are to be 
 taken as rhetorical, and not as the strict 
 terms of the promise (‘ Pentateuch,’ ii. p. 217). 
 He considers this to be the right way of meet- 
 ing those who reject the genuineness of the 
 narrative on the ground of the improbability 
 that Moses should have foretold the extent of 
 the conquests of David and Solomon. But 
 the cavils of such objectors may be met more 
 simply and effectively by urging that if Moses 
 
V. 32 — 7 -] 
 
 EXODUS. XXIII. XXIV. 
 
 355 
 
 » chap. 34. ^2 ^Thou shalt make no covenant 
 
 Deut. 7. 2. with them, nor with their gods. 
 
 33 They shall not dv/ell in thy 
 land, lest they make thee sin against 
 '■Deut. 7. rne : for if thou serve their gods, ^it 
 jo'sh. 23. will surely be a snare unto thee. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 I Moses is called icp into the mountain. 3 The 
 , people promise obedience. 4 A/oses buildcth an 
 
 altar., and tivelve pillars. 6 He sprinkleth the 
 blood of the covenant. 9 The glory of God 
 appcareth. 14 Aaron and Hur have the 
 charge of the people. 15 Moses goeth into the 
 mountain, where he co7itbiueth forty days and 
 forty nights. 
 
 AND he said unto Moses, Come 
 ±\^ up unto the Lord, thou, and 
 Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and se- 
 venty of the elders of Israel ; and wor- 
 ship ye afar off. 
 
 2 And Moses alone shall come 
 near the Lord : but they shall not 
 come nigh ; neither shall the people 
 go up with him. 
 
 3 ^ And Moses came and told the 
 
 people all the words of the Lord, 
 and all the judgments: and all the 
 people answered with one voice, and 
 said, All the words which the Lord " 
 hath said will we do. & 24. 3, 7 
 
 4 And Moses wrote all the words 
 of the Lord, and rose up early in the 
 morning, and builded an altar under 
 the hill, and twelve pillars, according 
 to the twelve tribes of Israel. 
 
 5 And he sent young men of the 
 children of Israel, which offered burnt 
 offerings, and sacrificed peace offer- 
 ings of oxen unto the Lord. 
 
 6 And Moses took half of the 
 blood, and put it in basons; and half 
 of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. 
 
 7 And he took the book of the 
 covenant, and read in the audience of 
 
 the people : and they said, ^ All that ^ ver. 3. 
 the Lord hath said will we do, and 
 be obedient. 
 
 was acquainted with the geography of the 
 region (which can hardly be called in ques- 
 tion), he might certainly have foreseen that 
 the Hebrew power, when it became very 
 strong in the Land of Canaan, could not fail 
 to exercise domination over all the country 
 from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean and 
 the Red Sea. 
 
 CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 Tbe Sealing of the Co-venant. 
 
 1—8. 
 
 1, 2 . It is not easy to trace the proper 
 coni'kection of these two verses as they stand 
 here. Ev/ald, with great probability, thinks 
 that their right place is between verseS 8 and 
 9 in this chapter (‘Hist, of Israel,’ p. 529). — 
 It has been suggested that they may relate to 
 what was said to Moses immediately after the 
 utterance of the Ten Commandments, ch. xx. 
 19 (Knobel).^ — If they are here placed in due 
 order of time (as Rosenmuller, Keil and 
 'others suppose), the direction to Moses con- 
 tained in them was delivered on the mount 
 (see XX. 21), but its fulfilment was deferred 
 till after he had come down from the mount 
 and done all that is recorded in •vo). 3 — 8. 
 
 3 , 4 . The narrative in these verses seems 
 naturally to follow the end of the preceding 
 chapter. Moses leaves the mount and re- 
 peats the words of the Book of the Cove- 
 nant to the people, they give their assent, and 
 the next morning he arranges the ceremony 
 for the formal ratification of the Covenant. 
 
 4. t^juel’ve pillars'] As the altar was a 
 symbol of the presence of Jehovah, so these 
 twelve pillars represented the presence of the 
 Twelve Tribes with whom He was making 
 the Covenant. Keil suggests that the pillars 
 were perhaps arranged as boundary stones 
 for the spot consecrated for the occasion. 
 
 5. young r7ien of the children of Israel] The 
 Targums and Saadia call these the firstborn 
 sons. There is no fair ground for this inter- 
 pretation. Moses was on this occasion per- 
 forming the office of a priest (the fomily of 
 Aaron not being yet consecrated), and he 
 employed young men whose strength and skill 
 qualified them to slaughter and prepare the 
 sacrifices. The Law did not regard these acts 
 as necessarily belonging to the priests, and it is 
 probable that they were regarded in the same 
 way in earlier times, when the sacerdotal 
 character belonged especially to the firstborn 
 sons. See on Lev. i. 5, and Exod. xxviii. i. 
 
 burnt offerings... peace offerings] The Burnt 
 offerings figured the dedication of the nation 
 to Jehovah, and the Peace offerings their 
 communion with Jehovah and with each 
 other. 
 
 6. he sprinkled] Rather, he cast. See on 
 Lev. i, 5. The same word is used -v. 8. 
 
 7. the book of the coneenant] See o). 4, 
 and Introd. note on xx. 22. The people had 
 to repeat their assent to the Book of the Cove- 
 nant before the blood was thrown upon them. 
 Cf. 2 K. xxiii. 2, 21; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 30. 
 
 Z 2 
 
356 
 
 EXODUS. XXIV. 
 
 ^V. 8 12 . 
 
 8 And Moses took the blood, and 
 sprinkled it on the people, and said, 
 
 firet. I. Behold ‘^the blood of the covenant, 
 Heb.g. 20. which the Lord hath made with you 
 concerning all these words. 
 
 9 ^ Then went up Moses, and 
 Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and se- 
 venty of the elders of Israel : 
 
 10 And they saw the God of Is- 
 
 rael : and there was under his feet as 
 it were a paved work of a sapphire 
 stone, and as it were the body of 
 heaven in his clearness. 
 
 1 1 And upon the nobles of the 
 children of Israel he laid not his 
 hand : also they saw God, and did 
 eat and drink. 
 
 12 ^ And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 
 S. the blood of the con)enant\ It should be 
 observed that the blood v^hich sealed the Co- 
 venant was the blood of Burnt offerings and 
 Peace offerings. The Sin offering had not yet 
 been instituted. That more complicated view 
 of human nature which gave to the Sin offer- 
 ing its meaning, had yet to be developed by 
 the Law, which was now only receiving its 
 ratification. The Covenant between Jehovah 
 and His people therefore took precedence of 
 the operation of the Law, by which came the 
 knowledge of sin. Rom. iii. 20; Note on the 
 Ten Commandments, § V. 
 
 Half of the blood had been put into basins, 
 and half of it had been cast upon the Altar. 
 The Book of the Covenant was then read, and 
 after that the blood in the basins was cast 
 “ uix)n the people.” It was cast either upon 
 the elders, or those who stood foremost ; or, 
 as Abarbanel and others have supposed, upon 
 the twelve pillars representing the Twelve 
 Tribes, as the first half had been cast upon 
 the altar, which witnessed the presence of 
 Jehovah. The blood thus divided between 
 the two parties to the Covenant signified the 
 sacramental union between the Lord and His 
 people. Cf. Ps. 1 . 5; Zech. ix. ii. 
 
 The instances from classical antiquity ad- 
 duced as parallels to this sacrifice of Moses 
 by Biihr, Knobel and Kalisch, in which ani- 
 mals were slaughtered on the making of co- 
 venants, are cither those in which the animal 
 was slain to signify the punishment due to 
 the party that might break tlie covenant 
 (Horn. ‘II.’ III. 298, XIX. 252; Liv. ‘Hist.’ 
 I. 24, XXI. 45); those in which confederates 
 dipped their hands, or their weapon-, in the 
 same blood (Alsch. ‘ Sept. c. 'Pheb.’ 43 ; 
 Xenoph. ‘ Anab.’ 11. 2, §9); or those in 
 which the contracting parties tasted each 
 others blood (Herodot. i. 74, iv. 70; Tac. 
 
 ‘ Annal.’ xii. 47). All these usages are based 
 upon ideas which are but very superficially 
 related to the subject; they have indeed no 
 true connection whatever with the idea of 
 sacrifice as the seal of a covenant between 
 God and man. See on Kx. xxix. 20. 
 
 The Feast of the Peace offerin^^s. 
 
 9— II. 
 
 9 . It would appear that Moses, Aaron 
 with his two sons, and seventy of the ciders 
 
 (xix. 7) went a short distance up the moun- 
 tain to eat the meal of the Covenant (cf. 
 Gen. xxxi. 43 — 47), which must have con- 
 sisted of the flesh of the Peace offerings 
 {y. 5.). Joshua is not named here, but he 
 accompanied xMoses as his servant. See -v. 13. 
 
 10 . And they smv the God of IsraeF] As 
 they ate the sacrificial feast, the presence of 
 Jehovah was manifested to them with special 
 distinctness. In the act of solemn worship, 
 they perceived that he was present with them, 
 as their Lord and their Deliverer. It is idle 
 to speculate, as Keil and others have done, 
 on the mode of this revelation. That no 
 visible form was presented to their bodily eyes, 
 we are expressly informed, Deut. iv. 12; see 
 on xxxiii. 20; cf. Isa. vi. i. 
 
 there <ivaj under his feet as it 'were a paojed 
 work of a sapphire stone ^ and as it were the 
 body of he ansen in his clearness^ Rather, under 
 Flis feet^ it was like a work of bright sajsphire 
 sto 7 ie^ and like the heu'^jen itself in clearness. 
 On the sapphire, see xxviii. 18; cf. Ezek. i. 
 26. The pure blue of the heaven above them 
 lent its influence to help the inner sense to 
 realize the vision which no mortal eye could 
 behold. 
 
 Tl. he laid not his hancT] i.e. he did not 
 smite them. It was believed that a mortal 
 could not survive the sight of God (Gen. 
 xxxii. 30; Ex. xxxiii. 20; Judg. vi. 22,.xiii. 
 22): but these rulers of Israel were permitted 
 to cat and drink, while they were enjoying in 
 an extraordinary degree the sense of the 
 Divine presence, and took no harm, “ When 
 the heads of the people venture to draw near 
 their God, they find his presence no more a 
 source of disturbance and dread, but radiant 
 in all the bright loveliness of supernal glory; 
 a beautiful sign that the higher religion and 
 state of conformity to law, now established, 
 shall work onwards to eternal blessedness.” 
 Ewald, ‘ Hist, of Israel,’ Vol. i. p. 529. 
 
 Moses goes up to recei’ve the Tables. 
 
 12 — 18. 
 
 12. tables of stone., and a law., arid com- 
 mandments'] Maimonides and many of the 
 Jews understand the tables of stone to denote 
 the Ten Commandments; the law, the Law 
 written in the Pentateuch ; and the command- 
 
V. 13— 1-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXIV. XXV. 
 
 357 
 
 ses, Come up to me into the mount, 
 and be there ; and I will give thee 
 tables of stone, and a law, and com- 
 mandments which I have written; 
 that thou mayest teach them. 
 
 13 And Moses rose up, and his 
 minister Joshua: and Moses went up 
 into the mount of God. 
 
 14 And he said unto the elders. 
 Tarry ye here for us, until we come 
 again unto you : and, behold, Aaron 
 and Hur (U’e with you: if any man 
 have any matters to do, let him come 
 unto them. 
 
 15 And Moses went up into the 
 mount, and a cloud covered the 
 mount. 
 
 16 And the glory of the Lord 
 abode upon mount Sinai, and the 
 
 cloud covered it six days : and the 
 seventh day he called unto Moses out 
 of the midst of the cloud. 
 
 17 And the sight of the glory of 
 the Lord was like devouring fire on 
 the top of the mount in the eyes of 
 the children of Israel. 
 
 18 And Moses went into the midst 
 
 of the cloud, and gat him up into the 
 mount : and "^iMoses was in the mount ‘^chap. 
 forty days and forty nights. g 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 r What the Israelites must offer for the making 
 of the tabernacle. 10 The form of the ark. 
 
 17 The 7 nercy seat, ivith the cherubitns. 23 
 The table, with the fiu'nitnre thereof 31 The 
 candlestick, with the instrnnients thereof 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 ses, saying. 
 
 ments (it should be the commandment'), the 
 oral or traditional law which was in after 
 ages put into writing in the Mishna and the 
 Gemara. Ewald takes the words to mean 
 the Ten Commandments, and “ other sacred 
 books of the Law” (‘ H. of I.’ r. p. 606). But 
 it is more probable that the Ten Command- 
 ments alone are spoken of, and that the mean- 
 ing is, the Tables of stone eeoith the Lam, eneen 
 the Commandment. So Knobel, Keil, Herx. 
 See Note on the Ten Commandments, § I, 
 
 that thou tnayest teach them~\ More strictly, 
 to teach them. The promise of the Tables 
 is fulfilled after the directions for the Taber- 
 nacle have been given, xxxi. 18. 
 
 13 . Joshua'] See on 9; cf. xxxii. 17; 
 xxxiii. II. 
 
 mount of God] See on iii. i. 
 
 14 . It need not be supposed that the 
 Elders were required to remain on the very 
 spot where Moses parted with them, but 
 simply that they were to advance no further. 
 Aaron and Hur were to represent the autho- 
 rity of Moses 'during his absence. 
 
 15 . Moses ment up] Moses appears to have 
 left Joshua and gone up alone into the cloud. 
 See -V, 2. 
 
 16 . Cf xix. 18 sq. 
 
 18 . During this period of forty days, and 
 the second period when the Tables were re- 
 newed, Moses neither ate bread nor drank 
 water. Deut. ix. 9; Exod. xxxiv. 28. Elijah 
 in like manner fasted for forty days, when he 
 visited the same spot (i K. xix. 8). The 
 two who met our Saviour on the Mount of 
 Transfiguration, the one as representing the 
 l.aw, the other as representing the Prophets, 
 thus shadowed forth in their own experience 
 
 the Fast of Forty days in the wilderness of 
 Judaea. 
 
 The Ark and the Tabernacle. 
 
 Chap. XXV. XXVI. 
 
 Jehovah had redeemed the Israelites from 
 bondage. He had made a Covenant with them 
 and had given them a Law. He had pro- 
 mised, on condition of their obedience, to 
 accept them as His own “ peculiar treasure,” 
 as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” 
 (xix. 5, 6). And now He was ready visibly 
 to testify that He made his abode with them. 
 He claimed to have a dwelling for Himself, 
 which was to be in external form a tent of 
 goats’ hair, to take its place among their own 
 tents, formed out of the same material (on 
 Ex. xxvi. 7). The special mark of His pre- 
 sence within the Tent was to be the Ark or 
 chest containing the Ten Commandments on 
 two tables of stone (Ex. xxxi. 18), symbolizing 
 the divine Law of holiness, covered by the 
 Mercy seat, the type of reconciliation. — Moses 
 was divinely taught regarding the construc- 
 tion and arrangement of every part of the 
 Sanctuary. The directions which were given 
 him are comprised in Ex. xxv. i — xxxi. ii. 
 The account of the performance of the work, 
 expressed generally in the same terms, is given 
 Ex. XXXV. 20— xl. 33. 
 
 The meaning of the Tabernacle, with the 
 relation in which it stood to the Tables of 
 the Law, is considered more at length in the 
 Note at the end of ch. xl. 
 
 Chap. XXV. 1 — 9. Moses is command- 
 ed to invite the people to bring their gifts for 
 the construction and service of the Sanctuary 
 and for the dresses of the Priests. 
 
358 
 
 EXODUS. XXV. 
 
 [v. 2—4. 
 
 f Heb. 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, 
 that they ^ bring me an "offering: "of 
 "O*'. , every man that ^iveth it willingly 
 
 heave of- ^ in 1 
 
 fering. With his heart ye snail take my 
 
 ” chap. 35. offering. 
 
 3 And this Is the offering which ye 
 shall take of themj gold, and silver, 
 and brass, 
 
 4 And blue, and purple, and scarlet, 
 
 and " fine linen, and goats’ hair^ “ Or, sUk. 
 
 2. an offering] The Hebrew word is 
 tcrwnah, which occurs here for the first time. 
 On the marginal rendering “heave offering,” 
 see note on Ex. xxix. 27. The word in this 
 place appears to denote no more than offerings 
 in its general sense, being equivalent to korban. 
 It is used with the same compass of meaning 
 Ex. XXX. 13, XXXV. 5, &c. In Num. xviii. 24, 
 tithes are called a terumah. 
 
 that gi'veth it willingly ^vith his heart] Liter- 
 ally, whose heart shall freely give it. 
 The public service of Jehovah was to be insti- 
 tuted by freewill offerings, not by an enforced 
 tax. Cf. I Chron. xxix. 3, 9, 14; Ezra ii. 
 68, 69; 2 Cor. viii. ii, 12, ix. 7. On the 
 zeal with which the people responded to the 
 call, see Ex. xxxv. 21 — 29, xxxvi. 5 — 7. 
 
 my offering] The recipient of the offering 
 is here denoted by the possessive case, accord- 
 ing to the common Hebrew idiom. Ex. xxx. 
 13, xxxv. 5, 21, 24, &:c. 
 
 3 . gold^ and sih'er^ and brass] The sup- 
 ply of these metals possessed by the Israelites 
 at this time probably- included what they had 
 inherited from their forefathers, what they had 
 obtained from the Egyptians (Ex. xii. 35), 
 and what may have been found amongst the 
 spoils of the Amalekites (Ex. xvii. 8 — 13). 
 But with their abundant flocks and herds, it 
 can hardly be doubted that they had carried 
 on important traffic with the trading caravans 
 that traversed the wilderness, some of which, 
 most likely, in the earliest times were fur- 
 nished with silver, with the gold of Cphir 
 (or gold of Sheba, as it seems to have been 
 indifferently called), and with the bronze of 
 Phoenicia and Egypt (Gen. xxxvii. 25, 28; 
 Dcut. xxxiii. 25 ; i K. ix. 28, x. 15 ; i Chron. 
 xxix. 4 ; 2 Chron. ix. 14 ; Job xxii. 24, xxviii. 
 16; Ps. xlv. 9). — Cf. note on Ex. xxxviii. 24. 
 
 brass] I'he Hebrew word nehosheth [see 
 on 2 K. xviii. 4] must mean pure copper in 
 such passages as Deut. viii. 9, xxxiii. 25 ; 
 Job xxviii. 2. But it commonly denotes (as 
 it does most likely in this place) the hardened 
 alloy of copper and tin, more strictly called 
 bronze than brass, which was so largely used 
 for weapons and implements before the art of 
 working iron was well understood. On the 
 bronze of the I'igyptians see Wilkinson's 
 ‘Popular Account,’ Vol. i. p. 148, ii. p. 152, 
 and He Rougemont, ‘Age du Bronze,’ p. 180. 
 'Phe latter writer proves that the Egyptians 
 were well acquainted with bronze and with the 
 art of working in all the common metals, 
 
 except iron, under the fourth dynasty, ages 
 before the time of Abrahani. 
 
 4 . blue^ and purple^ and scarlet] The 
 names of the colours are used for the material 
 which was dyed with them. The Jewish tra- 
 dition has been very generally received that 
 this material was wool. Cf. Heb. ix. 19 
 with Lev. xiv. 4, 49, Sac. But the question 
 is not quite without difficulty. See on xxviii, 
 5, and Lev. xix. 19. — The material, having 
 been spun and dyed by the women, appears 
 to have been delivered in the state of yarn. 
 The Egyptians were well skilled in the art 
 of dyeing (Wilkinson, 11. p, 83). The weav- 
 ing and embroidering were left to Aholiab 
 and his assistants. Ex. xxxv., cf. nj. 25 with 
 •V. 3j, The Egyptians in like manner used 
 to dye the threads of their stuffs before Aveav- 
 ing them., and to employ women in spinning, 
 and men in weaving and embroidering. (Wil- 
 kinson, ‘Ancient Egyptians,’ ii, p. 79 sq.). 
 Respecting the names of the colours, see Note 
 at the end of the chapter. 
 
 ffie Imen] The word shesh^ which is here 
 used, is Egyptian (Birch in Bunsen’s ‘Egypt,’ 
 Vol. V. p. 571). It is rendered by the LXX. 
 ^v(T(ros, which must be allied to butz, the 
 name of the “fine linen” of Syria, in Ezek. 
 xxvii. 16, which was that used in the time of 
 Solomon for the hangings of the Temple and 
 for other purposes (i Chron. xv. 27 ; 2 Chron. 
 ii. 14, iii. 14, V. 12). That the word shesh 
 denoted the fine flax, or the manufactured 
 linen, for which Egypt was famous [see Ezek. 
 xxvii. 7, where the original word is shesh: 
 but in Prov. vii. 16 “fine linen of Egypt” is 
 a mistranslation, see note in loc.], and Avhich 
 the Egyptians were in the habit of using for 
 dresses of state (Gen. xli, 42); and not cotton^ 
 as some have imagined, nor silk [as the word 
 shesh is rendered Prov. xxxi. 22, and in the 
 margin here and elsewhere], is now clearly 
 proved. Wilkinson, ‘Pop. Account,’ See. ii. 
 p. 73, and his note to Herodot. ii. 86. The 
 linen cloth of Persia is mentioned, Esth. i. 6, 
 by its Persian name karpas (the parent of 
 KapTTao-oi and carbasusf which in our version 
 is wrongly rendered green, as the name of a 
 colour. The occurrence of these three native 
 names, shesh, butz, and karpas, for the same 
 article produced in three different countries, 
 in strict consistency with the narratives in 
 which they occur, is worthy of remark. The 
 LXX. translates each of the three by ^vaaos. 
 Cf, notes on Ex. ix. 31, xxxix. 28. The esti- 
 mation in which fine linen was held in differ- 
 
V. 5, 6-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXV. 
 
 359 
 
 5 And rams’ skins dyed red, and 6 Oil for the light, spices for an- 
 badgers’ skins, and shittirn wood, ointing oil, and for sweet incense, 
 
 ent ages, before silk was generally known, 
 may be seen i Chron. xv. ay; Prov. xxxi. aa; 
 Ezek. xvi. lo, 13; Luke xvi. 19; Rev. xix. 8, 
 i^. If silk is anywhere spoken of in the 
 Hebrew Bible, it is only in Ezek. xvi. 10, 
 where the word is not sbesh but meshi^ which 
 Fuerst thinks may be of Chinese derivation. — ■ 
 It would seem that, for the use of the Taber- 
 nacle, the flax was spun by the women, like 
 the coloured wools, and was delivered in the 
 state of thread to be woven by Aholiab and 
 his assistants (Ex. xxxv. 25, 35). The fine 
 linen appears to have been used as the ground- 
 work of the figured curtains of the Taber- 
 nacle as well as of the embroidered hangings 
 of the Tent and the Court. See on xxxv. 35. 
 
 goats’’ hair\ The hair of the goat has furnish- 
 ed the material for tents to the Roman armies 
 (Virg. ‘Georg.’ iii. 313) and to the Arabs and 
 Eastern Nomads of all ages, as it did to the 
 Israelites in the wilderness. The tent which 
 was to be the chosen dwelling-place of Je- 
 hovah was to be formed of the same material 
 as the tents of His people. See Introd. Note. 
 
 5 . rams’’ skins dyed m/] These skins may 
 have been tanned and coloured like the leather 
 now known as red morocco, which is said to 
 have been manufactured in Libya from the 
 remotest antiquity. On the manufaefure of 
 leather by the Egyptians, see Wilkinson, ‘ Pop. 
 Account,’ II. pp. 102 — 106. 
 
 badgers' sk’ms'\ The skins here spoken of 
 were certainly not those of the badger, as was 
 supposed by Luther and Gesenius. That 
 animal is often found in the Holy Land, but 
 it is very rare in the wilderness, if it exists 
 there at all (Tristram, ‘N. H.’ p. 44). The 
 Hebrew name here used, tachash^ occurs in 
 the Old Testament only in connection with 
 these skins, which were employed for the 
 outer covering of the Tent of the Tabernacle 
 (Ex. xxvi. 14), and in wrapping up the holy 
 things when they were moved (Num. iv. 8, 10, 
 &:c.), and which are mentioned as the material 
 of the shoes of the prophetic impersonation of 
 Jerusalem by Ezekiel (xvi. 10). The word 
 bears a near resemblance to the Arabic tuchash^ 
 which appears to be the general name given to 
 the seals, dugongs and dolphins found in the 
 Red Sea (Tristram), and, according to some 
 authorities, to the sharks and dog-fish (Fiirst). 
 The substance spoken of w'ould thus appear 
 to have been leather formed from the skins of 
 marine animals, which was well adapted as a 
 protection against the weather. Pliny speaks 
 of tents made of seal skins as proof against the 
 stroke of lightning (‘ H. N.’ ii. 56) , and one of 
 these is said to have been used by Augustus 
 whenever he travelled (Sueton. ‘Octav.’ 90). 
 The skins of the dolphin and dugong are cut 
 
 into sandals by the modern Arabs, and this 
 may explain Ezek. xvi. 10. The question 
 seems thus to be determined on pretty certain 
 grounds. But it is remarkable that the LXX., 
 with Josephus, the Vulgate, the Targums, and 
 most of the ancient versions, treat the word 
 tachash as the name of ordinary leather, dis- 
 tinguished only by a particular colour. But 
 there is a difference as to whether the colour 
 was black, red, violet, or blue. Most of the 
 ancient authorities, followed by Bochart and 
 Rosenmuller, imagine the colour to have been 
 hyac’inth’ine^ the first of the three colours in 
 the embroidered work of the Tabernacle [see 
 Note at the end of the Chapter]. From 
 Josephus speaking of the colour of these 
 skins, such as he conceived it to be, as like 
 the heavens (‘Ant.’ iii. 6, §4), we may infer 
 with confidence that he conceived hyacinth’me 
 to be sky-blue. [Note, § IL] 
 
 sh’itt'im ^'ooc[\ The word shittirn is the 
 plural form of sh’ittah.^ which occurs as the 
 name of the growing tree Is. xli. 19. The tree 
 is satisfactorily identified with the Acac'ia 
 seyal., “a gnarled and thorny tree, somewhat 
 like a solitary hawthorn in its habit and man- 
 ner of growth, but much larger. [See note 
 on Ex. xxvi. 15.] It flourishes in the driest 
 situations, and is scattered more or less nume- 
 rously over the Sinaitic Peninsula” (Tristram). 
 It is rare in the Holy Land except in the 
 neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, where it 
 appears to have given its name to two places 
 in ancient times. See Num. xxv. i ; Joel iii. 
 18. It grows in Egypt in some regions at a 
 distance from the coast. The timber is hard 
 and close-grained, of an orange colour with a 
 darker heart, well adapted for cabinet work. 
 The LXX. call it ^ood that <will not rot., ^vXa 
 aarjTTTa. It appears to be the only good wood 
 produced in the wilderness. No other kind 
 of wood was employed in the Tabernacle or 
 its furniture. In the construction of the 
 Temple cedar and fir took its place (i K. v. 
 8, vi. 18; 2 Chron. ii. 8). A distinct species 
 of Acacia is mentioned by Dr Robinson, 
 Dr Royle and others, as A. gumm’tfera. But 
 Mr Tristram states that the gum arabic of 
 commerce is obtained from the A. seyal., and 
 forms an important article of traffic on the 
 shores of the Red Sea, as it did in ancient 
 times. See also Bunsen, v. 414. As the plural 
 form, sb’ittim., is always applied to the 
 wood, never being used like the singular 
 sh'ittah (Is. xli. 19) for the growing tree, the 
 conjecture will hardly stand that the plural 
 name is to be accounted for from “the 
 tangled thicket into which its stem expands.” 
 (Tristram ‘H, N.’ p. 390; Stanley, ‘S. and P.’ 
 p. 20; ‘Jewish Ch.’ i, p. 163; Houghton, 
 
36 o 
 
 EXODUS. XXV. 
 
 [v. 7—10. 
 
 7 Onyx stones, and stones to be set 
 « chap. 28. jj^ the -^ephod, and in the ‘^breastplate, 
 f chap. 28. 8 And let them make me a sanc- 
 
 tuary ; that I may dwell among them. 
 
 9 According to all that I shew thee, 
 after the pattern of the tabernacle. 
 
 and the pattern of all the instruments 
 thereof, even so shall ye make it. 
 
 10 ‘^And they shall make an ark ^ 37- 
 of shittim wood: two cubits and a 
 half shall be the length thereof, and 
 a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. 
 
 ‘Smith’s Diet.’ iii. 1295; Royle, ‘ Kitto’s 
 Cycl.’ III. 841.) See also on Ex. iii. 2. 
 
 6. Oil for the light'] The oil was to be 
 “pure olive oil beaten,” see on Ex. xxvii. 20. 
 
 spices for anointing oiF] What these spices 
 were see Ex. xxx. 22 — 25. 
 
 sqveet incense] See Ex. xxx. 34, 35. 
 
 7. On the materials and construction of 
 the ephod and breastplate, see ch. xxviii. 
 
 8. sanctuary] Heb. mikdash^ i.e. a hallow- 
 ed place. This is the most comprehensive 
 of the words that relate to the place dedi- 
 cated to Jehovah. It included the Tabernacle 
 with its hirniture, its Tent and its Court. 
 
 that 1 may d-well among them] The pur- 
 pose of the Sanctuary is here definitely declared 
 by the Lord Himself. It was to be the con- 
 stant witness of His presence amongst His 
 people, xxix. 42 — 46, xl. 34 — 38, &c. 
 
 9. According to all that I she^ thee] The 
 Tabernacle and all that pertained to it were 
 to be in strict accordance with the ideas re- 
 vealed by the Lord to Moses: nothing in the way 
 of form or decoration was to be left to the taste 
 or judgment of the artificers. The command 
 is emphatically repeated t’. 40, xxvi. 30; cf. 
 Acts vii. 44; Heb. viii. 5. — The word here 
 translated pattern is also used in Chronicles 
 to denote the plans for the Temple which 
 were given by David to Solomon (i Chron. 
 xxviii. II, 12, 19); it is elsewhere rendered 
 form^ likeness, similitude., Deut. iv. 16, 17; 
 Ezek. viii. 3, 10. The revelation to the mind 
 of Moses was, without doubt, such as to 
 suggest the exact appearance of the work td 
 be produced. Hut there is no need to adopt 
 the materialistic notion of some of therabbin- 
 ists, that a Tabernacle in the heavens was set 
 forth before the bodily eyes of the Legislator. 
 
 the tabernacle] I'he Hebrew word ham- 
 mishkdn, signifies the dwelling-place.^ It here 
 denotes the wooden structure, containing the 
 holy place and the most holy place, with the 
 tent which sheltered it. See on' xxvi. i. 
 
 The Ark of the Co'uenant. 
 
 XXV. 10 — 16 (cf. xxxvii. I — 5). 
 
 The Ark is uniformly designated in Exo- 
 dus the Ark or tiik Testimony ( xxv . 22, 
 xxvi. 34, xxx. 6, 26, xxxi. 7, xl. 3, &c.); 
 it is so called also Num. iv. 5, vii. 89; Josh, 
 iv. 16: it is called simply tiif. Testimony 
 Ex. xvi. 34, xxvii. 21; Lev. xvi. 13, xxiv. 3; 
 Num. xvii. 10. But in Num. x. 33 it is 
 
 named the Ark of the Covenant, and 
 this is its most frequent name in Deuterono- 
 my and the other books of the Old Testament. 
 In some places it is named the Ark of the 
 Lord (Josh. iii. 13, iv. ii, vii. 6; i S. iv. 6; 
 2 S. vi. 9, &c.), the Ark of God (i S. iii. 
 3, iv. II, V. I, &c.), THE Ark of the 
 strength of the Lord (2 Chron. vi. 41; 
 Ps. cxxxii. 8), and the holy Ark (2 Chron. 
 XXXV. 3). Cf. note on -u. 16. 
 
 The Ark of the Covenant was the central 
 point of the Sanctuary. It was designed to 
 contain the Testimony (xxv. 16, xl. 20; Deut, 
 xxxi. 26), that is, the Tables of the Divine 
 Law, the terms of the Covenant between 
 Jehovah and His people: and it was to sup- 
 port the Mercy seat with its Cherubim, from 
 between which He was to hold communion 
 with them (Ex. xxv. 22). On this account, 
 in these directions for the construction of the 
 Sanctuary, it is named first of all the parts. 
 But on the other hand, in the narrative of 
 the w'ork as it was actually carried out, w^e 
 find that it w^as not made till after the Taber- 
 nacle (Ex. xxxvii. I — 9). It was more suitable 
 that the receptacle should be first provided 
 to receive and shelter the most sacred of the 
 contents of the Sanctuary as soon as it wMs 
 completed. The practical order of the w'orks 
 seems to be given in Ex. xxxi. 7 — 10, and 
 XXXV. II — 19. — On the Golden Altar, see on 
 xxx. I. — The completion of the Ark is re- 
 corded xxxvii. I — 5. On its history, see con- 
 cluding note on ch. xl. 
 
 10, an ark] The Hebrew name is aron., 
 w^hich means a box, or coffer (Gen. 1 . 26; 
 2 K. xii. 9, 10; 2 Chro. xxiv. 8, &c.). The 
 word ark exactly answers to it ; but our trans- 
 lators have employed the same to render quite 
 a different word itebdh)., which is used now^here 
 in the Hebrew Bible except to denote what 
 we familiarly call “the ark” of Noah, and the 
 “ark of bulrushes” (Gen. vi. 14; Ex. ii. 3). 
 In the first instance, there is the same confu- 
 sion in both the LXX. and the Vulgate, but 
 not in the latter one. The word tebdh is 
 Egyptian, having nearly the same meaning. 
 vSee on Ex. ii. 3. — Taking the cubit at eighteen 
 inches (see on Gen. vi. 15), the Ark of the 
 Covenant w^as a box 3 ft. 9 in. long, 2 ft. 3 in. 
 wade, and 2 ft. 3 in, deep. 
 
 of shiitim nvood] It is well observed that 
 if the Ark, w'hich appears to have been pre- 
 served till the destruction of Jerusalem (2 
 Chro. XXXV. 3; Jer. iii. 16), had originated 
 
T. II — 1 6 .] 
 
 EXODUS. XXV. 
 
 and a cubit and a half the height 
 thereof. 
 
 1 1 And thou shalt overlay it with 
 pure gold, within and without shalt 
 thou overlay it, and shalt make upon 
 it a crown of gold round about. 
 
 12 And thou shalt cast four rings 
 of gold for it, and put them in the four 
 corners thereof; and two rings shall' 
 be in the one side of it, and two rings 
 in the other side of it. 
 
 13 And thou shalt make staves of 
 shittim wood, and overlay them with 
 gold. 
 
 14 And thou shalt put the staves 
 into the rings by the sides of the ark, 
 that the ark may be borne with them. 
 
 15 The staves shall be in the rings 
 of the ark: they shall not be taken 
 from it. 
 
 16 And thou shalt put into the ark 
 the testimony which I shall give thee. 
 
 in Palestine, it would not have been made of 
 shittim wood, the wood of the Wilderness 
 (see on v. 5), but either of oak, the best 
 wood of the Holy Land, or of cedar, which 
 took the place of shittim wood in the con- 
 struction of the Temple (Stanley, ‘ Jewish 
 Church,’ I. p. 163). 
 
 11. on.'erlay it n.uith pure gold~\ Accord- 
 ing to the rabbinists, the Ark was lined and 
 covered with plates of gold. But there is no- 
 thing in the original which might not aptly 
 denote the common process of gilding. The 
 Egyptians in early times were acquainted with 
 both the art of gilding and that of covering 
 a substance with thin plates of 'gold. (Wilkin- 
 son’s ‘Pop. Acc.’ II. 145.) 
 
 a crown of gold'\ That is, an edging or 
 moulding of gold round the top of the Ark, 
 within which the cover or Mercy seat (t>. 17) 
 may have fitted (cf. Ex. xxxvii. 2). There 
 were golden mouldings, called by the same 
 name, to the Table of Shewbread {yv. 24, xxxvii. 
 II, 12) and to the Golden Altar (xxx. 3, 
 xxxvii. 26). The Heb. word z,eer signifies, 
 according to its etymology, a band, or cinc- 
 ture, and is naturally applied to a crown. 
 Our Version in here rendering it crown ^ 
 follows the Vulgate and some other ancient 
 Versions. But the renderings of the LXX., 
 Josephus, the Targums, Luther, de Wette, 
 Zunz, Wogue, See., more nearly agree with 
 our word moulding, i.e. a small cornice, and 
 this ansvrers to the radical meaning of %eer 
 as well as crown does. See Reland, ‘ De 
 Spoliis Templi,’ c. vil. 
 
 12. four corners thereof Rather, its 
 four bases, or feet. The Hebrew sub- 
 stantive is rendered corners in most of the 
 ancient versions. But the LXX. have /cXiVj^ 
 (which appears to be rather vaguely used to 
 
 extremities, c^. 'vv. 12, 19), and there 
 seems no doubt that the original means feet 
 (Aben-Ezra, Abarbanel, Gesen., Furst, Kno- 
 bel, &c.). The word may possibly denote the 
 lowest part of each corner : but it is not un- 
 likely that there were low blocks, or plinths, 
 placed under the corners to which the rings 
 were attached (see on n.\ 26), and that it is to 
 
 them the word is here applied. The Ark, 
 when it was carried, must thus have been raised 
 above the shoulders of the bearers. The rings 
 of the Golden Altar were placed immediately 
 under the golden moulding (xxx. 4); but 
 those of the Table of Shewbread were fasten- 
 ed to the feet of the four legs. It has been 
 imagined by some Jewish and other authori- 
 ties that the Ark was raised on high when it 
 was carried in order to display the most sacred 
 symbol of the Sanctuary. But we may infer, 
 from there being a similar arrangement of the 
 rings on the Table of Shewbread, as well as 
 from the distinctive character of the Ark 
 itself, that this could not have been the case. 
 The Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah was 
 never carried about like the arks of the gen- 
 tile nations, for display. See Note at the 
 end of chap. xl. 
 
 15 . they shall not he taken from f This 
 direction was probably given in order that 
 the Ark might not be touched by the hand 
 (cf. 2 S. vi. 6). There is no similar direction 
 regarding the staves of the Tabernacle of Shew- 
 bread (gj. 27), those of the Golden Altar (xxx. 
 5), nor those of the Altar of Burnt offering 
 (xxvii. 7). These were of less sanctity than 
 the Ark and might be touched. — The for- 
 mula in Num. iv. 6, 8, ii, 14, as it is ren- 
 dered in our version, may seem to contradict 
 the direction here given in regard to the Ark. 
 But it might rather be translated in a, more 
 general sense, as, put the sta-ves in order 
 (see note in loc.). 
 
 16 . the testimony which I shall gi-ve thee'] 
 The stone Tables of the Ten Command- 
 ments (Ex. xxiv. 12, xxxi. 18, xxxiv. i, 28) 
 are called the Testimony, or, the Tables of 
 the Testimony (xxxi. 18, xxxii. 15, xxxiv. 
 29), as the Ark which contained them is 
 called the Ark of the Testimony (see Introd.), 
 and the Tabernacle in which the Ark was 
 placed, the Tabernacle of the Testimony (Ex. 
 xxxviii. 21; Num. i. 50, &c.); they are also 
 called the Tables of the Covenant (Ex. xxxiv. 
 28; Dcut. ix. 9, II, 15), as the Ark is called 
 the Ark of the Covenant. The meaning 
 of the latter name admits of no doubt: the 
 
362 
 
 EXODUS. XXV. 
 
 [v. 17 20. 
 
 17 And thou shall make a mercy 
 seat of pure gold : two cubits and a 
 half shall be the length thereof, and 
 a cubit and a half the breadth there- 
 of. 
 
 18 And thou shall make two che- 
 rub i ms of gold, of beaten v/ork shall 
 thou make them, in the two ends of 
 the mercy seat. 
 
 19 And make one cherub on the one 
 
 end, and the other cherub on the other 
 end: even^ of the mercy seat shall ye 
 make the cherubims on the tv/o ends of the 
 
 thereof. 
 
 20 And the cherubims shall stretch 
 forth their wings on high, covering the 
 mercy seat with their wings, and their 
 faces shall look one to another; to- 
 ward the mercy seat shall the faces 
 of the cherubims be. 
 
 Ten Commandments contained “the word 
 of the Covenant” between Jehovah and His 
 people (Ex. xxxiv. 28 ; Dent, iv. 13). But there 
 has been a difference regarding the interpre- 
 tation of the former name, which derives 
 additional importance from its being the 
 name used here and in ch. xl, 20 in imme- 
 diate connection with the first placing of the 
 Tables within the Ark and under the Mercy- 
 seat. The reasons for taking the word Tes- 
 timony, in its application to the Ten Com- 
 mandments, as signifying the direct testi- 
 mony of Jehovah against sin in man, and thus 
 bringing it into connection wdth Deut. xxxi. 
 26, 27, is given elsewhere. See Note on the 
 Ten Commandments, after ch. xx. 21. 
 
 The Mercy Seat. 
 
 XXV. 17 — 22. (Cf. xxxvii. 6 — 9.) 
 
 17 . a mercy seat of pure gold~\ In ex- 
 ternal form, the Mercy seat was a plate of 
 gold with the cherubim standing on it, the 
 whole beaten out of one solid piece of metal 
 (xxxvii. 7); it was placed upon the Ark and so 
 took the place of a cover. Its Hebrew name 
 is kapporetb, and on the true meaning of this 
 word there is a very important difference of 
 opinion. The greater number of recent trans- 
 lators and critics, Jewish and others, with the 
 Arabic amongst the ancient versions, render it 
 as simply co-ver. Our version, following the 
 general voice of antiquity, with Luther, Cran- 
 mer, and others of the early translators in 
 modern languages, gives, as we believe, the 
 truer rendering, calling it the Mercy seat. 
 [See Note at the end of the chapter.] 
 
 18 20. The way in which the Cheru- 
 
 bim of the Mercy seat are here mentioned, 
 with reference to their faces, wings and 
 posture, is in favour of the common Jewish 
 tradition (Otho, ‘ Rabb. Lex.’ p. 129), that 
 they were human figures, each having two 
 wings, d'hcy must have been of small size, 
 proportioned to the area of the Mercy scat. 
 (.)n the other notices of Clicrubim in the 
 Scriptures, sec Note on Gen. iii. 24. Com- 
 paring the different I'eferences to form in this 
 place, in 2 Sam. xxii, ii (Ps. xviii. 10), in 
 Kzek. ch. i., x. and in Rev. ch. iv., it would 
 appear that the name Cherub was applied to 
 various combinations of animal forms. Similar 
 
 combinations were made by most ancient 
 peoples in order to represent conceivable 
 combinations of powers, sufh as are denied 
 to man in his earthly state of existence. It 
 is remarkable that amongst the Egyptians, 
 the Assyrians and the Greeks, as well as the 
 Hebrews, the creatures by very far most 
 frequently introduced into these composite 
 figures, were man, the ox, the lion, and the 
 eagle. These are evidently types of the most 
 important and familiarly known classes of 
 living material beings. The rabbinists recog- 
 nized this in the Cherubim as described by 
 Ezekiel, which they regarded as representing 
 the whole creation engaged in the worship 
 and service of God (Schoettgen, ‘ Hor. Heb.' 
 p. 1108). Cf.- Rev. iv. 9 — II, V. 13. It 
 would be in harmony with this view to sup- 
 pose that the more strictly human shape of 
 the Cherubim of the Mercy seat represented 
 the highest form of created intelligence en- 
 gaged in the devout contemplation of the 
 divine Law of love and justice. Cf. i Pet. 
 i. 12. They were thus symbols of worship 
 rendered by the creature in the most exalted 
 condition (See Augustin. ‘ Qusest. in Exod.’ 
 cv.). — It is worthy of notice that the golden 
 Cherubim from between which Jehovah spoke 
 to His people bore witness, by their place on 
 the Mercy seat, to His redeeming mercy ; 
 while the Cherubim that took their stand 
 with the flaming sword at the gate of Eden, 
 to keep the way to the tree of life, witnessed 
 to His condemnation of sin in man. The 
 most perfect finite intelligence seems thus to 
 be yielding assent to the divine Law in its 
 twofold manifestation. 
 
 IS. of beaten ’zvork'] i. e. elaborate! y wrought 
 with the hammer. 
 
 19 . e'vcn of the mercy seat^ Rather, out 
 of the Mercy seat. The sense appears to 
 be that the Cherubim and the Mercy seat 
 were to be wrought out of one mass of gold. 
 (Cf. xxxvii. 7.) This meaning agrees with 
 Onkelos, Saadia, and most modern interpreters. 
 But the LXX., Vulg. and Syr, translate the 
 words in question as if the second clause of 
 the verse were, in sense, only a repetition of 
 the first clause. 
 
 20 . See on v. 18. 
 
V. 21 26.] 
 
 EXODUS. XXV. 
 
 363 
 
 21 And thou shalt put the mercy 
 seat above upon the ark; and in the 
 ark thou shalt put the testimony that 
 I shall give thee. 
 
 22 And there I will meet with thee, 
 and I will commune with thee from 
 
 ^ Numb. 7. above the mercy seat, from ^between 
 the two cherubims which are upon 
 the ark of the testimony, of all things 
 which I will give thee in command- 
 ment unto the children of Israel. 
 
 / chap. 37. 23 ^ -^Thou shalt also make a table 
 
 of shittim wood : two cubits shall be 
 the length thereof, and a cubit the 
 
 breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half 
 the height thereof. 
 
 24 And thou shalt overlay it with 
 pure gold, and make thereto a crown 
 of gold round about. 
 
 25 And thou shalt make unto it a 
 border of an hand breadth round 
 about, and thou shalt make a golden 
 crown to the border thereof round 
 about. 
 
 26 And thou shalt make for it four 
 rings of gold, and put the rings in the 
 four corners that are on the four feet 
 thereof. 
 
 21. the testimony'] See on v. 16. Cf. xl. 20. 
 
 22. I 'will commune with thee] See Note 
 on the Ten Commandments, § V. 
 
 • The Table of Shewbread. 
 
 23 — 30. (Gf. xxxvii. 10 — 16.) 
 
 23. a table of shut im wood] This Table 
 is one of the most prominent objects in the 
 triumphal procession sculptured in relief on the 
 Arch of Titus. The most important of the 
 sculptures of the Arch were carefully copied 
 under the direction of Reland in 1710. Since 
 that time they have gone on to decay, so that 
 the engravings of them in his work ‘De Spo- 
 liis Templi,’ &c., are now of great interest 
 and value. Reland has interpreted the sculp- 
 tures with his accustomed learning and 
 sagacity. 
 
 The Shewbread Table with its incense cups and the 
 two Silver Trumpets (Num. x. 2). * 
 
 The Table which is here represented could 
 not, of course, have been the one made for 
 the Tabernacle. The original Ark of the Tes- 
 timony was preserved until it disappeared 
 when Jerusalem was captured by the Baby- 
 lonians : it was never replaced by an A rk of 
 more modern construction. See concluding 
 note on ch. xl. But the Shewbread Table, the 
 
 Golden Altar, and the Golden Candlestick, 
 were renewed by Solomon for the Temple. 
 Of the Candlestick, ten copies were then made, 
 (i K. vii. 48, 49; 2 Chro. iv. 19). From the 
 omission of them amongst the spoils carried 
 home from Babylon (Ezra i. 9 — ii) we may 
 infer that the Table and the Golden Altar 
 with a single Candlestick were rc-made by 
 Zerubbabel (see i Macc. i. 21, 22), and again 
 by the Maccabees (i Macc. iv. 49). There 
 cannot therefore be a doubt that the Table 
 and the Candlestick figured on the Arch are 
 those of the Maccabsean times: and it must 
 have been these which are described, and 
 must have been seen, by Josephus (‘ Ant.’ 
 III. 6. §6, 7; ‘B. J.’ VII. 5. § 5). It is however 
 most likely that the restorations were made 
 as nearly as possible after the ancient models. 
 In representing the Table it will be seen that 
 the sculptor has exhibited its two ends, in 
 defiance of perspective. The details and size 
 of the figure, and the description of Jose- 
 phus, appear to agree very nearly with the 
 directions here given to Moses, and to illus- 
 trate them in several particulars. Josephus 
 says that the Table was like the so-called 
 ]3elphic tables, richly ornamented pieces of 
 furniture in use amongst the Romans, which 
 were sometimes, if not always, covered with 
 gold or silver (Martial, xii. 67; Cicero, ‘in 
 Verr.’ i v. 59 ; cf Du Cange, Art. ‘ Delphica’). 
 
 24. onjerlay it] See on u. \i. 
 
 a crown of gold] Rather, a moulding 
 of gold. See on n. ii. The moulding of 
 the Table is still seen at the ends of the 
 sculptured figure. 
 
 25. a border] Rather a framing, v.^hich 
 reached from leg to leg so as to make the 
 Table firm, as well as to adorn it with a second 
 moulding of gold. Two fragments of such a 
 framing are still seen in the sculpture attached 
 to the legs half-way down. 
 
 26. in the four corners that are on the four 
 feet thereof ] The word here rendered feet is 
 
3^4 
 
 EXODUS. XXV. 
 
 [v. 27—31. 
 
 27 Over against the border shall 
 the rings be for places of the staves to 
 bear the table. 
 
 28 And thou shalt make the staves 
 of shittim wood, and overlay them with 
 gold, that the table may be borne with 
 them. 
 
 29 And thou shalt make the dishes 
 thereof, and spoons thereof, and covers 
 
 thereof, and bowls thereof, " to cover “ 
 withal : of pure gold shalt thou make wthai. 
 them. 
 
 30 And thou shalt set upon the 
 table shewbread before me alv/ay. 
 
 31 ^ ^ And thou shalt make a can- ^ chap. 37. 
 dlestick of pure gold : of beaten work 
 
 shall the candlestick be made: his 
 shaft, and his branches, his bowls, his 
 
 the common name for the feet of men or 
 animals. Josephus says that the feet of the 
 Table were like those that the Dorians used 
 to put to their couches, which appear to have 
 been famous for their splendour (Ailian, ‘ Var. 
 Hist.’ XII. 29; Athenasus, II. 47). Comparing 
 this with the sculpture, it would seem that the 
 legs terminated in something like the foot of 
 an animal, such as in modern furniture is 
 called a cla^zv. The like device often occurs 
 in the ancient Egyptian furniture (Wilkinson, 
 I- PP- 59^ 60, 62, &c.). The word here ren- 
 dered corner is not the same as that so rendered 
 in -2'. 12, and it may denote any extreme part. 
 We might thus render the words, upon the 
 four extremities that are atthe four 
 feet. Josephus speaks of the rings as having 
 been in part attached to the claws themselves. 
 But there is no trace of the rings in the 
 sculpture. 
 
 27 . Over against the border'] Rather, 
 Over against the framing; that is, the 
 rings were to be placed not upon the framing 
 itself, but at the extremities of the legs an- 
 swering to each comer of it. 
 
 29 . dishes] The Hebrew word is the 
 same as is employed to denote the large silver 
 vessels which were filled with fine flour and 
 formed part of the offerings of the Princes of 
 Israel in Num. vii. 13 sq., where it is rendered 
 chargers. According to its probable etymo- 
 logy, it denoted a deep vessel, and therefore 
 neither of the English words answers well to 
 it : perhaps hozuls v/ould be nearer the mark. 
 Knobel conjectures that these vessels, which 
 belonged to the Shewbread 'Fable, were used 
 to bring the birad into the Sanctuary; but it 
 is hard to imagine that vessels of sufficient 
 si/e for such a purpose (Lev. xxiv. 5) were 
 formed of gold. I'hey may possibly have 
 been the measures for the meal used in the 
 loaves. 
 
 spoons] I'lie Hebrew word is that used 
 for the small gold cups that were filled with 
 frankincense in the ofrerings of the l^rinces, 
 Num. vii. 1454. 'Fhe LXX. render it Ovlo-kcu 
 = incense cups. See on Lev. xxiv. 7. 'Fhese 
 must be the only vessels which arc mentioned 
 by Josephus in connection with the I'able — 
 hx )0 (puiXuL x^pvacai XifSavioruv 7rXr]p€Ls (‘ Ant.’ 
 
 III. c. 6. § 6. c. 10. § 7), and which are re- 
 presented on the Table in the sculpture. 
 
 covers... bow/s] According to the best au- 
 thority these were flagons and chalices, 
 such as were used for Drink offerings. LXX. 
 (TTToudua and Kvadoi. See the next note. 
 
 to cover voithal] More correctly rendered 
 in the margin, to pour out voithal. It is strange 
 that our translators in the text should have left 
 Luther and Cranmer, backed as they are by 
 the LXX., the Vulg., the Syriac, theTargunis, 
 and the most direct sense of the original words, 
 to follow Saadia and the Talmud. With 
 the exception of some recent Jewish versions, 
 the best modern authorities apply the pas- 
 sage, along with the two last names of vessels, 
 to the rite of the Drink offering, which ap- 
 pears to have regularly accompanied every Meat 
 offering (Lev. xxiii. 18 ; Num. vi. 15, xxviii. 14, 
 &c.). 'The subject is important in its bearing 
 upon the meaning of the Shewbread: the cor- 
 rected rendering of the words tends to shew 
 that it was a true Meat offering [see on Lev. 
 xxiv. 9]. — The first part of the verse might 
 thus be rendered; — And thou shalt make 
 its howls and its incense-cups and 
 its flagons and its chalices for pour- 
 ing out the Drink offerings. 
 
 30 . The Shewbread Table was placed in 
 the Holy Place on the north side (xxvi. 35). 
 Directions for preparing the Shewbread are 
 given in Lev. xxiv. 5 — 9. It consisted of twelve 
 large cakes of unleavened bread, which were 
 arranged on the Table in two piles, with a 
 golden cup of frankincense on each pile (Jos. 
 ‘Ant.’ III. 10. § 7). It was renewed every 
 Sabbath day. Tlie stale loaves were given to 
 the priests, and the frankincense appears to 
 have been lighted on the Altar for a memorial 
 [see on Lev. ii. 2]. We may presume that the 
 l)rink offering was renewed at the same time. 
 The Shewbread, with all the characteristics 
 and significance of a great national Meat offer- 
 ing, in which the twelve tribes were repre- 
 sented by the twelve cakes, was to stand 
 before Jehovah perpetually., in token that He 
 was always graciously accepting the good 
 works of His people, for whom Atonement 
 had been made by the victims offered on the 
 Altar in the Court of the Sanctuary [see notes 
 on Lev. xxiv. 5 — 9]. 
 
V. 32 , 33 -] 
 
 EXODUS. XXV. 
 
 365 
 
 knops, and his flowers, shall be of the 
 same. 
 
 32 And six branches shall come out 
 of the sides of it; three branches of 
 the candlestick out of the one side, and 
 three branches of the candlestick out 
 of the other side : 
 
 33 Three bowls made like unto 
 almonds, with a knop and a flower in 
 one branch ; and three bowls made 
 like almonds in the other branch, 
 a knop and a flov/er: so in the six 
 branches that come out of the candle- 
 stick. 
 
 The Golden Candlestick. 
 
 31 — 39. (Cf. xxxvii. 17 — 24). 
 
 31 . a candlestick of pure gold \ This would 
 more properly be called 'a lamp-stand than a 
 candlestick. Its purpose was to support seven 
 oil-lamps. Like the Shewbread Table, it is a 
 prominent object amongst the spoils of the 
 Temple sculptured on the Arch of Titus. 
 This figure is copied from Reland [see on 
 
 •z’. 23]- 
 
 The size of the Candlestick is nowhere men- 
 tioned : but we may form an estimate of it by 
 comparing the figure with that of the Table. 
 It is most likely that the two objects are re- 
 presented on the same scale. Its height ap- 
 pears to have been about three feet, and its 
 width two feet. The details of the sculpture 
 usefully illustrate the description in the text. 
 But the work and form of the pedestal here 
 represented are not in accordance with Jewish 
 taste or usage at any period. Reland con- 
 jectures that the original foot may have been 
 broken off, and lost or stolen when the 
 Candlestick was taken out of the Temple, 
 
 and that the pedestal in the sculpture was 
 added by some Roman artist to set off 
 the trophy. There are other ancient re- 
 presentations of the Candlestick on gems, 
 in tombs, and on the walls of synagogues. 
 Some of these are copied in Reland’s work, 
 and one has lately been discovered by Capt. 
 Wilson in a ruined synagogue in the valley 
 of the Jarmuk. In most of them the stem 
 is supported on three feet, or claws. This 
 arrangement however is supposed to contra- 
 dict Josephus, who says that the stem rose 
 from 2i pedestal: the word he uses (^dcris) is 
 however not quite free from ambiguity. In 
 general form the other figures of the Candle- 
 stick copied by Reland nearly agree with that 
 on the arch except in the limbs being more 
 slender, in which particular they are coun- 
 tenanced by the description in Josephus (‘B. 
 J.’ VII. 5. § 5). It is likely that the sculptor 
 may have thickened the limbs in his work to 
 give them better effect from the point of view 
 from which spectators would see them. 
 
 cf beaten ^vork'] See on t.'. 18. 
 
 his shafts and his branches, his bo^juls, his 
 knops, and his forj:ers~\ This might rather be 
 rendered, its base, its stem, its flower 
 cups [see next verse], its knobs, and its 
 lilies. 
 
 33 . Three boKvls made like unto almonds^ 
 More strictly, three cups of almond 
 flowers. These appear to be the cups in 
 immediate contact with the knobs as shewn 
 in the sculpture. 
 
 a fower^ Most of the old versions render 
 the word as a lily, and this rendering well 
 agrees with the sculpture. 
 
 the candlestick^^ Here, and in the two follow- 
 ing verses, the word appears to denote the 
 stem, as the essential part of the Candlestick. 
 It would seem from •vv. 33 — 35 that the orna- 
 mentation of the Candlestick consisted of uni- 
 form members, each comprising a series of an 
 almond fiower, a knob and a lily ; that the 
 stem comprised four of these members ; that 
 each pair of branches was united to the stem 
 at one of the knobs; and that each branch 
 comprised three members. In comparing the 
 description in the text with the sculptured 
 figure, allowance may be made for some 
 deviation in the sculptor's copy, which was 
 pardonable enough, considering the purpose 
 for which the representation was made. 
 
366 
 
 EXODUS. XXV. 
 
 [v- 34—40- 
 
 34 And in the candlestick shall be 
 four bowls made like unto almonds, 
 with their knops and their flowers. 
 
 35 And there shall be a knop under 
 two branches of the same, and a knop 
 under two branches of the same, and a 
 knop under two branches of the same, 
 according to the six branches that pro- 
 ceed out of the candlestick. 
 
 36 Their knops and their branches 
 shall be of the same; all it shall be one 
 beaten work of pure gold. 
 
 37 And thou shalt make the seven 
 lamps thereof: and they shall "li^ht”^*’* 
 
 11 1 r 1 1 . cause to 
 
 the lamps thereof, that they may give ascettd. 
 light over against ^ it. ^ Heb. 
 
 38 And the tongs thereof, and theS^'^*^^^ 
 snuffdishes thereof, shall be of pure 
 
 gold. 
 
 39 Of a talent of pure gold shall * Acts 7. 
 he make it, with all these vessels. Heb. s. 5. 
 
 40 And ^Mook that thou make them ^ 
 after their pattern, ^ which was shewed 
 thee in the mount. 
 
 caused to 
 see. 
 
 37. se-ven lamps'] These lamps were proba- 
 bly like those used by the Egyptians and other 
 nations, shallow covered vessels more or less of 
 an oval form, with a mouth at one end from 
 which the wick protruded. This may help 
 us to the simplest explanation of the rather 
 obscure words, “that they may give light 
 over against it.” The Candlestick was placed 
 on the south side of the Holy Place (xxvi. 35), 
 with the line of lamps parallel with the wall, 
 or, according to Josephus, somewhat oblique- 
 ly. If the wick-mouths of the lamps were 
 turned outwards, tlv?y would give light over 
 against the Candlestick; that is, towards the 
 north side [see Num. viii. a]. 
 
 37 . they shall light] See marginal render- 
 ing and note on Lev. xxiv. 2. 
 
 33 . the tongs] The Hebrew word is the 
 same as in Is. vi. 6. Thr* small tongs for the 
 lamps were used to trim and adjust the wicks. 
 
 the snuff-dishes] These were shallow vessels 
 used to receive the burnt fragments of wick 
 removed by the tongs. The same Hebrew 
 word is translated, in accordance with its 
 connection, patis^ xxvii. 3, xxxviii. 3; and 
 censers^ Num. iv. 14, xvi. 6, &c. For the 
 regulations respecting the Priests’ tending the 
 lamps, see xxvii. 20, ai, xxx. 8; Lev. xxiv. 
 2 — 4 (with the note); 2 Chro. xiii. ii. 
 
 39 . a talent of pure gold] Amongst the dis- 
 crepant estimates of the weight of the Hebrew 
 talent, the one that appears to be received 
 
 most generally would make it about 94 lbs. 
 See on xxxviii. 27. 
 
 ‘vessels] Rather, utensils [see on xxvii. 
 
 191- 
 
 Several writers have treated of the sym- 
 bolism of the lights of the Golden Candlestick 
 with their oil, of its ornamentation vrith the 
 knobs and flowers, and of its branched form 
 (Bahr,Hengstenberg, Keil,&c.). All these par- 
 ticulars might have been in later times appro- 
 priated by the prophetic inspiration as figures 
 illustrative of spiritual truth. See Zech. iv. 
 I — 14; Rev. i. 12, 13, 20. But in any espe- 
 cial connection with the place held by the 
 Candlestick in the Sanctuary, as its plan was 
 revealed to Moses, there appears to be only 
 one peculiar point of symbolism on which 
 stress can be laid — the fact that the lamps 
 were seven in number. The general fashion 
 of the Candlestick and its ornaments might 
 have been a matter of taste; light was of 
 necessity required in theTabOTnacle, and where- 
 ever light is used in ceremonial observance, it 
 may of course be taken in a general way as a 
 figure of the Light of Truth; but in the 
 Sanctuary of the covenanted people, it must 
 plainly have been understood as expressly sig- 
 nificant that the number of the lamps agreed 
 with the number of the Covenant. The 
 Covenant of Jehovah was essentially a Cove- 
 nant of light. 
 
 40 . See on -v. 9. 
 
 NOTE ON Chap. xxv. 
 
 On the Colours of the: Tabernacle. 
 
 L 
 
 Our version is most probably right in its 
 rendering of the names of the three colours 
 iiscil in the curtains and vails of the'Eabernacle. 
 But the subject is a doubtful one. The names 
 of coloui*s in all languages appear to have been 
 very vaguely used, until the progress of science 
 in connection with the decorative arts has 
 rendered greater precision both possible and 
 
 desirable. Our own word gray^ as applied 
 not only to the mixture of black and white 
 now so called, but also to the brown dress of 
 the “gray friars” and to the cockchafer (the 
 “ gray fly” of Milton) ; and the purpureus 
 as applied to snow, the swan and the foam 
 of the sea, to the rose, to a beautiful human 
 eye, as well as to the colour now known 
 as purple, may be taken as instances. The 
 Ifiariou 7rop(f}vf)ovif of John xix. 2 is called 
 fKapiida kokkIutjv in Matt, xxvii. 28. Mr, 
 
EXODUS. XXV. 
 
 367 
 
 Gladstone’s essay on the use of the names of 
 colours in Homer furnishes other illustrations^ 
 That the Hebrew names were used with not 
 more stedfastness is proved by Mr Bevan in 
 Smith’s ‘ Diet, of the Bible’ (Art. ‘ Colours’). 
 The Hebrew names in the text must however 
 have been applied at the time with distinct 
 denotation in reference to the use of the yarn 
 in the embroidery of the curtains. The un- 
 certainty concerns only our discovering what 
 the colours actually were. The earliest equi- 
 valents we have for the Hebrew words are 
 those used by the LXX., which have been 
 adopted by Philo and Josephus, and have been 
 followed by the ancient versions in general. 
 But we are unfortunately far from certain oi 
 the purport of the Greek words. 
 
 H. 
 
 The most important of the three colours 
 mentioned in this place is the one rendered 
 blue. The balance of evidence seems to be 
 in favour of its being a pure sky blue. The 
 Hebrew is tekeleth for which the 
 
 LXX. have vaKivOos, and the Vulgate Hya~ 
 cinthiis. As the name of a flower, the 
 Greek word has been taken for the iris, 
 the gladiolus, the delphinium, or the hya- 
 cinth : as the name of a precious stone, it 
 evidently could not, as some have supposed, 
 belong to the amethyst, since it is mentioned 
 with the amethyst (djut^uo-roj) in Rev. xxi. 
 20 ; it most likely denoted^ the sapphire^ ; 
 as the name of a colour, it has been supposed 
 to denote pure blue, purple, violet, black, red 
 or rust colour Of the different flowers to 
 which the word has been ascribed, it may be 
 remarked that the greater number are blue ; 
 for example, the common iris, the larkspur, 
 the wild hyacinth, and the starch hyacinth, 
 which is so abundant in the neighbourhood of 
 Athens. The Hebrew word has been very 
 generally taken to denote either blue, or 
 bluish purple, while “the purple” associated 
 with it has been supposed to have had a 
 stronger red tinge. Philo ■^, Josephus - 5 , and 
 Saadia, with most of the Fathers and the 
 rabbinists, appear to have understood it as 
 the colour of the sky. Philo, who took it to 
 symbolize the air, in the expression which he 
 applies to the air ((jiba-ci yap peXas), has been 
 reasonably supposed to allude to the dark full 
 
 ^ 'Essays on Homer,’ Vol. iii. p. 457. 
 
 ^ Professor Maskelyne considers that the hya- 
 cinth of Pliny (‘II. N.’ XXXVII. 40) and other 
 classical writers was what we call the sapphire, 
 while the stone called sapphire by the ancients 
 was lapis lazuli. ‘Edinb. Rev.’ No. 253. See 
 note on Ex. xxviii. 18. 
 
 ^ See Liddell and Scott’s ‘ Lex.’ 
 
 * ‘ Vit. Mos.’ III. 6. 
 
 * ‘Ant.’ III. 7. § 7. See also note on Ex. 
 
 XXV. 5. 
 
 tinge which distinguishes the skies of southern 
 latitudes 6. 
 
 That the Egyptians in early times used 
 indigo as a blue dye is certain 7 , and it is by 
 no means improbable that the Israelites did 
 the same; If, as Wilkinson and others^ sup- 
 pose, the blue border of the Israelites’ gar- 
 ments was adopted from an Egyptian custom, 
 the facts that the Egyptian borders werG 
 certainly dyed with indigo, and that the 
 Hebrew and Greek w'ords expressing the 
 colour of the Israelites’ borders (Num. xv. 
 38) are tekeleth and vaKivBus-, favour the 
 notion that these words express the colour 
 obtained from indigo. But the etymology of 
 the Flebrew term is supposed rather to in- 
 dicate that the colour w^as procured, like the 
 Tpian purple, from a shell-fish. It is con- 
 ceived that while a species of Murex pro- 
 duced the purple, a Buccinum produced the 
 blue®. Both colours w'ere obtained by the 
 Tyrians from “the Isles of Elishah,” that is, 
 the Isles of the Aegean Sea, where it seems 
 most probable that each must have been ob- 
 tained from the sea^®. The art of preparing 
 the dye from the fish is now lost, and this, 
 of course, increases the uncertainty of the 
 question at issue. 
 
 It is however likely that tekeleth was the 
 name of the well-known colour obtained 
 from more than one kind of dye. The 
 inquiry regarding the colour itself has peculiar 
 interest from its having been the predominating 
 colour in the decoration of the Sanctuary. 
 Besides taking its place with the other two 
 colours in the curtains and vails of the Taber- 
 nacle, it is found by itself in the loops of the 
 curtains (Ex. xxvi. 4), in the lace of the 
 breastplate of the High Priest (xxviii. 28), in 
 the robe of the ephod (xxviii. 31), and the 
 lace of the mitre (xxviii. 37). In wrapping 
 up the sacred utensils when the host was on 
 the march, blue cloths, purple cloths, and 
 scarlet cloths were used for the various 
 articles according to specific directions (Num. 
 iv.). The national significance of blue ap- 
 pears to be shewn in the blue fringes that 
 have been mentioned (Nuni. xv. 38 ; cf. Matt, 
 xxiii. 5). 
 
 Several Jewish commentators, followed by 
 Luther and Cranmer, have taken the word 
 tekeleth to denote yellow silk. It is hardly 
 
 ® Other grounds for rendering the Hebrew 
 word sky blue, rather than violet or bluish piirple^ 
 as Gesenius and others have preferred, may be 
 found in Bochart, ‘Op.’ Vol. ill. p. 728, and 
 Biihr, ‘Symbolik,’ Vol. 1. p. 303. 
 
 7 Wilkinson, ‘ Pop. Acc.’ Vol. ii. p. 78. 
 
 ® Henstenberg, ‘Egypt and the Books of 
 Moses,’ Smith, ‘The Pentateuch,’ p. 302. 
 
 ® Bochart, ‘Op.’ p. III. 727. Gesenius, s. v. 
 Fiirst, s. v. Wilkinson, Note on Herodot. III. 
 20. Tristram, ‘ Nat. Hist, of the Bi’ole,’ p. 297. 
 
 Ezek. xxvii. 7 ; Jer. x. 9. Cf. Plin. ‘H.N.’ 
 IX. 60, sq. 
 
EXODUS. XXV. 
 
 368 
 
 necessary to state that the material could not 
 have been silk [see note on Ex. xxv. 4]. The 
 notion that the colour was yellow seems to 
 stand upon a mere hollow conjecture sug- 
 gested by the natural colour of silk. 
 
 III. 
 
 Purple is in Heb. argaman in the 
 
 LXX. TTop 4 >vpa. The derivation of the He- 
 brew word is doubtful, but all authorities 
 seem to be in favour of its signifying the 
 purple obtained from more than one species 
 of shell- fish in the Mediterranean, which be- 
 came commonly known as the T yrian purple 
 (Ezek. xxvii. 7, 16). The colour seems to 
 have had a strong red tinge, and to have 
 approached what we call crimson. The fish 
 that produced it has been supposed to be a 
 muscle, but it is hardly to be doubted that it 
 was in fact a Murex, two species of which 
 {M. brandarh and M. trunculus) might have 
 furnished it (Tristram). Hence the dye was 
 called murex by the Latin writers. The colour 
 is mentioned in connection with the Sanctuary 
 only in combination with blue and scarlet in 
 the curtains and vails and in some of the 
 cloths for wrapping (Nurn. iv. 13). The 
 estimation in which the dye was held may be 
 inferred from Judg. viii. 26 ; Esth. i. 6 ; Prov. 
 xxxi. 22. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Scarlet is in Hebrew tolalath shdni 
 '^^), in LXX. K'jKKtros (^tTrXofs, and in 
 Vulg. “coccus bistinctush” But the literal 
 translation of the two Hebrew words is 
 scarlet <wQrni^ while in Lev. xiv. 4 , 6, 49, 51, 52, 
 the words are transposed (HJlVin 'Jy’), so as 
 to signify <2t.'or;« scarlet. '\ he word shdni., 
 by itself, demrles scarlet in Gen. xxxviii. 28, 
 30; Josh. ii. 18; Prov. xxxi. 21, &c. Ancient 
 and modern authorities agree as to the colour, 
 
 which is uniformly called scarlet in our ver- 
 sion except in Jer. iv. 30. where it is rendered 
 crimson. The dye used to produce the colour 
 in the vail of the Temple is called karmil 
 (P'pi?), 2 Chron. ii. 7, 14, iii. 14, where 
 it is rendered crimson., though there is no 
 reason to doubt that the colour was the same 
 as the scarlet of the Tabernacle. It appears 
 to have been obtained from the coccus 
 ilicis., the cochineal insect of the holm oak, 
 which was used in the East before the coccus 
 cacti., the well-known cochineal of the prickly 
 pear, was introduced from Mexico. The 
 Arabic name for it is kerme%, which is evi- 
 dently related to the Hebrew word karmil. 
 The root harm exists in our crimson and 
 carmine. In the use of the Sanctuary, it is 
 found only in the figured curtains and em- 
 broidery associated with blue and purple, and 
 in the wrapping cloths (Num. iv. 8). It 
 appears to have had a special connection with 
 the rites of purification in association with 
 hyssop and cedar (Lev. xiv. 4, 6, 49, 51, 52 ; 
 Num. xix. 6 ; Heb. ix. 19). 
 
 V. 
 
 On the whole, there does not seem to be 
 much ground to doubt that our version, in 
 rendering the names of the colours of the 
 woven and embroidered work of the Sanctuary, 
 expresses the most probable conclusions. 
 
 The three colours, blue, scarlet and purple, 
 have been recognized all but universally as 
 royal colours, such as were best suited for the 
 decoration of a palace^. This fact appears to 
 furnish sufficient ground for their having been 
 appointed as the colours for the embroidery 
 which was to adorn the dwelling-place of 
 Jehovah. Many have, however, imagined 
 that there was some other symbolical signifi- 
 cance in them. See Biihr, ‘ Symbolik,’ V0I. i. 
 p. 324; Dr W. L. Alexander in Kitto’s 
 ‘ Cyclo.’ Vol. I. p. 541, &c. 
 
 NOTE ON Chap. xxv. 17. 
 
 On the Mercy Seat. 
 
 The word /(’«A^orc//j (ri7)2I!) is never applied 
 to anything except the golden cover of the 
 Ark. The root from which it comes, kdphar 
 without doubt signifies to conjcr, and 
 bears an obvious resemblance to our word 
 cDojer. In one j^assage of the Old Testament, 
 but in one only, the Hebrew word, in its Kal 
 or ]nimitive form, is used in this sense in 
 rc*fercncc to covering the Ark of Noah with 
 pitch (Gen. vi. 14). In the Piel form (^Kipper., 
 “1S2) the root is used- nearly seventy times, 
 and always in the sense of forgi-jing or recon- 
 
 * The Greek and Latin renderings appear to 
 be ,based on a mistake in regard to the word 
 which, with other vowel jjoints, would 
 mean tunce. 
 
 ciling., that is of covering up offences. Now 
 a large number of recent authorities, Jewish 
 and others^, have preferred to take kapporetb 
 in the simple sense of a concer. Josephus and 
 Saadia give countenance to this rendering. 
 The question thus brought before us is, was 
 the kapporeth originally regarded as a mere 
 part of the Ark, or as something having a 
 distinct significance, and a recognized desig- 
 nation, of its own ? The inquiry is of great 
 imj)ortance, from its bearing on the character 
 
 ^ See Esth. i. 6, viii. 15 ; 2 S. i. 24; Cant, 
 iii. 10; Jer. x. 9; Ezek. xxiii. 6; Dan. v. 7; 
 Luke xvi. 19; Rev. xviii. 12, &c. 
 
 ^ Kimchi, Mendelsohn, de Wette, Gesenius, 
 Schott, Etirst, Zunz, Knobel, llerxheimer, 
 Lecser, Benisch, Sharpe, &c. But amongst the 
 Jewish commentators, Woguc and Kalisch are 
 exceptions. 
 
EXODUS. XXVI. 
 
 V. I.] 
 
 of the Mosaic ritual. The latter view appears 
 to deserve the preference on these'grounds;— 
 
 1. In the order of the sacred text, the 
 Mercy seat is described by itself, and is di- 
 rected to be placed “above upon the Ark” 
 (Ex. XXV. 17—22, xxvi. 34 ): it is never 
 called the conier (or kapporetb) of^ the Ark^ 
 but is always mentioned as a distinct thing 
 (Ex. XXX. 6, xxxi. 7, XXXV. 12, xxxvii. 6 — 
 9, xxxix. 35; Lev. xvi. 13; Num. vii. 89, 
 &c.). 
 
 2. The floly of Holies is called in the 
 first Book of Chronicles (xxviii. ii) the house 
 of the kapporeth (HlbSH D'S); and in Levi- 
 ticus (xvi. 2) it is called the place <ivithhi the 
 •vail before- the kapporeth^ 'which is upon the 
 Ark. Such expressions as these seem clearly 
 to indicate that the kapporeth could not have 
 been regarded as a mere subordinate part of 
 the Ark. 
 
 3. An argument scarcely less strong may 
 
 be drawn from the relationship of the word 
 kapporetb to kippurim = atonements., 
 
 in connection with the rites of the Day of 
 Atonement, or (as it is literally) thb Day of 
 Atonements. No part of the Sanctuary is so 
 intimately connected with the kippurim made 
 on that day by the High Priest as the kap- 
 poreth (Lev. xvi. 2, 13, 14, 15). The phrase- 
 ology of these passages is certainly not such 
 as could be well accounted for by the mere 
 position of the kapporeth as the cover of the 
 Ark. 
 
 4. The general current of the most ancient 
 
 369 
 
 Jewish tradition evidently favours the deriva- 
 tion of kapporeth from kipper (IS?), the Piel 
 form of the verb, which, as it has been already 
 observed, nowhere bears any other meaning 
 than to atone., or to shew mercy. The oldest 
 authority is the Septuagint, in which the word 
 is rendered IXacrr^pLov cTtlQrjfia}. Philo speaks 
 of the cover of the Ark beii^. called in the 
 Scripture IXaa-rijptou, as a symbol rijs tXea> rod 
 Oeov dvmpecosb Rabbinical tradition fur- 
 nishes evidence to the same effect. The 
 vowel points in the word kapporeth (n^b?) 
 are such as to connect it with the Piel form 
 kipper., rather than with the Kal form kaphar. 
 Another argument may be added from the 
 use in the Targums of the same expression as 
 is found I Chron. xxviii. ii, the house of the 
 kapporeth [see § 2], to answer to “the oracle” 
 (Tn’H) in I K. vi. 5. 
 
 5. We might at once settle the question 
 as to the Mercy seat having a meaning of its 
 own by referring to the passages in the New 
 Testament in which the word iXaa-rrjpiov 
 occurs (Heb. ix. 5; Rom. iii. 25). But it 
 is satisfactory to have such clear evidence as 
 exists that the New Testament use of the 
 word is not a late or artificial adaptation of 
 it, but a clear and simple application of its 
 original meaning. 
 
 ^ Fiirst, following certain Jewish authorities, 
 conceives that iXacrTppiou is a gloss of later date. 
 
 But this is evidently a mere conjecture of pre- 
 judice. 
 
 2 ‘Vit. Mos.’ III. 8 . 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 I The ten curtains of the tabernacle. 7 The 
 eleven curtains of goats' hair. 14 The co- 
 vering of rams' skins. 15 'The hoards of the 
 tabernacle., 'ivith their sockets and bars. 31 
 The vail for the ark. 36 The hanging for 
 the door. 
 
 M oreover thou shalt make 
 the tabernacle with ten cur- 
 tains of fine twined linen, and blue, f j^eb. 
 and purple, and scarlet : with cheru- the work f 
 bims of Tunning work shalt thou make workman, 
 
 1 or, em- 
 
 tnem. broideren 
 
 The Tabernacle. 
 xxvi. I — 37. (xxxvi. 8 — 38.) 
 
 Chap. XXVI. The Tabernacle was to 
 comprise three main parts, the Tabernacle, 
 more strictly so-called, its Tent, and its 
 Covering (Ex. xxxv. ii, xxxix. 33, 34, 
 xl. 19, 34 ; Num. iii. 25, &c.). These parts 
 are very clearly distinguished in the Hebrew, 
 but they are confounded in many places of 
 the English Version [see on wv. 7, 9, &c.], 
 and in still more places of the LXX., the Vul- 
 gate, and other versions, ancient and modern. 
 The Tabernacle itself was to consist of cur- 
 tains of fine linen woven with coloured figures 
 of Cherubim, and a structure of boards which 
 was to contain the Holy Place and the Most 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Holy Place ; the Tent was to be a true tent 
 of goats’ hair cloth to contain and shelter the 
 Tabernacle: the Covering was to be of red 
 rams’ skins and tachash skins [see on xxv. 5], 
 and was spread over the goats’ hair tent as an 
 additional protection against the weather. 
 On the external form of the Tabernacle and 
 the arrangement of its parts, see Note at the 
 end of the chap. The account of its comple- 
 tion is given ch. xxxvi. 8 — 38. 
 
 The Tabernacle. 
 xxvi. I — 6. (Cf. xxxvi. 8 — 13.) 
 
 1. tabernacle'] The Hebrew is mishkdn., i.e. 
 dwelling-place (Job xviii. 21, xxi. 28 ; Ps. 
 xlix. II , Is. xxii. 16, See. &c.). When it de- 
 notes the Dwelling-place of Jehovah, it is 
 
 A A 
 
370 
 
 EXODUS. XXVL 
 
 [v. 2—6. 
 
 2 The length of one curtain shall 
 be eight and twenty cubits, and the 
 breadth of one curtain four cubits : and 
 every one of the curtains shall have one 
 measure. 
 
 3 The five curtains shall be coupled 
 together one to another; and other 
 five curtains shall he coupled one to 
 another. 
 
 4 And thou shalt make loops of blue 
 upon the edge of the one curtain from 
 
 the selvedge in the coupling ; and like- 
 wise shalt thou make in the uttermost 
 edge of another curtain, in the coupling 
 of the second. 
 
 5 Fifty loops shalt thou make in 
 the one curtain, and fifty loops shalt 
 thou make in the edge of the curtain 
 that is in the coupling of the second ; 
 that the loops may take hold one of 
 another. 
 
 6 And thou shalt make fifty taches 
 
 regularly accompanied by the definite article 
 {hammishkan). The word tabernacle (which 
 our translators took from the Vulgate) might 
 fitly designate the structure of boards which 
 formed the walls of the Holy Places, but its 
 meaning does not etymologically answer to 
 mlshkan. The Hebrew word is however 
 uniformly rendered tabernacle in our Bible: 
 the confusion to which reference has been 
 made in the preceding note occurs in render- 
 ing the names of the Tent and the Covering. 
 
 It should be noticed that in this place ham- 
 mishkan is not used in its full sense as denot- 
 ing the dwelling-place of Jehovah: it denotes 
 only the tabernacle cloth. It was the textile 
 work which was regarded as the essential part 
 of the Tabernacle, and this is apparent in 
 our version of a’. 6. The tent-cloth in like 
 manner and for the like reason is called 
 simply the Tent (v. ii). The wooden parts 
 of both the Tabernacle and the Tent are evi- 
 dently mentioned as if they were subordinate 
 to the textile parts. — The word mishkan is 
 employed with three distinct ranges of mean- 
 ing, (i) in its strict sense, comprising the 
 cloth of the Tabernacle with its 'woodwork 
 (Exod. XXV. 9, xxvi. ‘30, xxxvi. 13,' xl. t8, 
 &c.); (2) in a narrower sense, for the taber- 
 nacle-cloth only (Exod. xxvi. i, 6, xxxv. ii, 
 xxxix. 33, 34, &c.) ; (3) in a wider sense, 
 for the Mishkan with its Tent and Covering 
 (Exod. xxvii. 19, xxxv. 18, &c.). 
 
 <VL>ith ten curtains'] Rather, of ten 
 breadths. The Hebrew word (yerPah) is 
 everywhere in our version rendered a curtain. 
 Some corresponding word is used in the An- 
 cient Versions (LXX. avXala, Vulg. cortina) 
 and in some modern ones. In such places as 
 Ps. civ. 2, Is. liv. 2, Jer. iv. 20, the Hebrew 
 word is evidently applied to an entire tent- 
 curtain. But in connection with the Sanctu- 
 ary it always denotes what in English would 
 more strictly be called a breadth. Five of 
 these breadths were united so as to form 
 what, in common usage, we should call a large 
 curtain. (See on v. 3.) The word curtain 
 will be used in this, its ordinary sense, in 
 these notes. I'he two curtains thus formed 
 were coupled together by the loops and taches 
 
 to make the entire tabernacle-cloth, which is 
 what is here called “the tabernacle.” See 
 preceding note. 
 
 fine t<wined linen] i.e. the most carefully 
 spun thread of flax, each thread consisting of 
 two or more smaller threads twined together 
 (see Wilkinson, ‘Pop. Account,’ li. 76). On 
 the original word for linen^ see on xxv. 4. 
 
 Z'/wc, and purple and scarlet] See on xxv. 4. 
 
 clxrubims] See on xxv. 18. 
 
 of cunning ^vork] More properly, of the 
 work of the skilled weaver. The 
 coloured figures of Cherubim were to be 
 worked in the loom, as in the manufacture of 
 tapestry and carpets : in the hangings for the 
 Tent they were to be embroidered with the 
 needle [see on 36]. On the different kinds 
 of workmen employed on the textile fabrics, 
 see on xxxv. 35. 
 
 3 . Each curtain formed of five breadths 
 (see on i), was 42 feet in length and 30 
 feet in breadth, taking the cubit at 18 inches. 
 
 4 . This verse is obscure as it stands in 
 our version, nor is it easy to render the 
 original word for word so as to make the 
 sense clear. But the meaning appears to be, 
 ylnd thou shalt tnake loops of blue on the sel- 
 vedge of the one breadth (ywhich is) on the side 
 (of the one curtain) at the coupling ; and the 
 same shalt thou do in the selvedge of the outside 
 breadth of the other (curtain) at the coupling. 
 The “coupling” is the uniting together of 
 the two curtains. This explanation substanti- 
 ally agrees with the Ancient Versions and 
 most of the modern ones. 
 
 5. The words “ in the edge of the curtain 
 that is in the coupling of the second,” mean, 
 071 the edge of the breadth that is at the coup- 
 ling in the second (curtain). — The word ren- 
 dered “loops” {lulaoth) only occurs here and 
 in xxxvi. ii. It is doubtful whether it has 
 connection with any Semitic root ; it is pro- 
 bably of Egyptian origin. Conjectures on the 
 other side may be seen in Gesenius’ ‘Hand- 
 wbrterbuch,’ and Furst’s ‘ Lex.’ 
 
 6. taches of gohl] Each clasp, or tache, 
 was to unite two opposite loops. On the 
 Heb. v'ord for tache^ see p. 375, note 7. 
 
V.7-I5-] EXODUS. XXVI. 
 
 371 
 
 of gold, and couple the curtains to- 
 gether with the taches : and it shall 
 be one tabernacle. 
 
 7 ^ And thou shalt make curtains 
 of goats’ hair to be a covering upon 
 the tabernacle : eleven curtains shalt 
 thou make. 
 
 8 The length of one curtain shall be 
 thirty cubirs, and the breadth of one 
 curtain four cubits: and the eleven 
 curtains shall be all of one measure. 
 
 9 And thou shalt couple live cur- 
 tains by themselves, and six curtains 
 by themselves, and shalt double the 
 sixth curtain in the forefront of the 
 tabernacle. 
 
 10 And thou shalt make fifty loops 
 on the edge of the one curtain that is 
 outmost in the coupling, and fifty loops 
 in the edge of the curtain which 
 coupleth the second. 
 
 1 1 And thou shalt make fifty taches 
 of brass, and put the taches into the 
 loops, and couple the “ tent together, 
 that it may be one. 
 
 12 And the remnant that remaineth 
 of the curtains of the tent, the half 
 curtain that remaineth, shall hang over 
 the backside of the tabernacle. 
 
 13 And a cubit on the one side, 
 and a cubit on the other side ^of that fHeb. 
 which remaineth in the length of the ;LSav. 
 curtains of the tent, it shall hang over 
 
 the sides of the tabernacle on this side 
 and on that side, to cover it. 
 
 14 And thou shalt make a cover- 
 ing for the tent of rams’ skins dyed 
 red, and a covering above of badgers’ 
 skins. 
 
 15 ^ And thou shalt make boards 
 for the tabernacle of shittim wood 
 standing up. - 
 
 couple the curtains'] i. e. couple the two 
 outside breadths mentioned in 4. 
 
 it shall be one tabernacle] The tabernacle- 
 cloth alone is here meant. See on *e. i . F or 
 the mode in which the tabernacle-cloth was 
 disposed, see Note at the end of the chap., 
 § IV. 
 
 The Tent-cloth. 
 
 7 — 13 (xxxvi. 14 — 18). 
 
 7 . curtains] See on ne. i. 
 of goats' hair] See on xxv. 4. 
 a covering upon the tabernacle] a tent 
 over the Tabernacle. The same Hebrew 
 words are rightly translated xxxvi, 14. The 
 name ohel.^ which is here used, is the regular 
 one for a tent of skins or cloth of any sort. 
 See introd. note to ch. xxv., and Note at the 
 end of this chap. § II. 
 
 9 . The width of each breadth of the tent- 
 cloth was to be four cubits, the same as that 
 of the breadths of the figured cloth of the 
 Tabernacle (v. 2). But the length was to be 
 two cubits more, and there was to be an addi- 
 tional breadth (v. 13). One of the curtains 
 (see on v. i) was to comprise five breadths 
 and the other six. 
 
 shalt double the sixth curtain in the fore- 
 front of the taberriacie] The last word 
 should be Tent, not tabernacle. The passage 
 might be rendered, thou shalt equally divide 
 the sixth breadth at the front of the Tent. In 
 this way, half a breadth would overhang at 
 the front and half at the back. See 12, and 
 Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 10 . The meaning may be thus given : — 
 And thou shalt make fifty loops on the selvedge 
 
 of the outside breadth of the one {curtain) at 
 the coupling., and fifty loops on the selvedge of 
 the outside breadth of tlx other {curtain) at the 
 coupling. Cf. note v. 4. 
 
 11. In the Tent, clasps of bronze were 
 used to unite the loops of the two curtains ; 
 in the Tabernacle, clasps of gold, cf. v. 6 and 
 on V. 37. 
 
 couple the tent together] This is the right 
 translation. The “covering,” as the aljier- 
 native for tent given in the margin, is wrong. 
 See introd. note to this chap. By “ the tent” is 
 here meant the tent-cloth alone. See on -u. i. 
 
 12 . the half curtain] See on v. 9, and 
 Note at the end of the chapter, § IV. 
 
 13 . The measure of the entire tabernacle- 
 cloth was 40 cubits by 28 ; that of the tent- 
 cloth was 44 cubits by 30. \^^hen the latter 
 was placed over the former, it spread beyond 
 it at the back and front two cubits (the 
 “ half-curtain” w. 9, 12) and at the sides one 
 cubit. See Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 The Covering for the Tent. 
 
 V. 14. (Cf. xxxvi. 19.) 
 
 14 . rams' skins dyed red] See on xxv. 5. 
 
 badgers' skins] The skin, not of the 
 
 badger, but of a marine animal called tachash., 
 perhaps the dugong or the seal. See on 
 xxv. 5. 
 
 The Boards and Bars of the Tabernacle. 
 
 15—30 (xxxvi. 20—34). 
 
 15 . boards] There is no reason to doubt 
 that these were simple boards or planks ( Vulg. 
 
 A A 2 
 
372 
 
 EXODUS. XXVL 
 
 [v. 1 6 — 24. 
 
 16 Ten cubits shall he the length 
 of a board, and a cubit and a half shall 
 be the breadth of one board. 
 
 : Heb. ly Two ^ tenons shall there be in 
 
 hands. ' , , *1 
 
 one board, set in order one against 
 another : thus shalt thou make for all 
 the boards of the tabernacle. 
 
 18 And thou shalt make the boards 
 for the tabernacle, twenty boards on 
 the south side southward. 
 
 19 And thou shalt make forty 
 sockets of silver under the twenty 
 boards ; two sockets under one board 
 for his two tenons, and two sockets 
 under another board for his two tenons. 
 
 20 And for the second side of the 
 tabernacle on the north side there shall 
 be twenty boards ; 
 
 21 And their forty sockets of silver ; 
 two sockets under one board, and two 
 sockets under another board. 
 
 22 And for the sides of the taber- 
 nacle westward thou shalt make six 
 boards. 
 
 23 And two boards shalt thou make 
 for the corners of the tabernacle in the 
 two sides. 
 
 24 And they shall be ^coupled to- 
 gethcr beneath, and they shall be 
 coupled together above the head of it 
 
 tabulce)., of sufficient thickness for the stability 
 of the structure. They are called pillars in 
 Greek (LXX. arvXoi, Philo and Josephus, 
 Kioves)- Bithr adopts the rabbinical notion 
 that they were a cubit in thickness; Josephus, 
 with greater probability, says that they were 
 four fingers. 
 
 of shlttim <vjood'\ The shittah tree (^Acacia 
 seyah see on xxv. 5) has been said to be too 
 small to produce boards of the size here 
 described. It has been conjectured that each 
 board was jointed up of several pieces. But 
 Mr Tristram regards this conjecture as need- 
 less, and states that there are acacia-trees near 
 Engedi which would produce boards four 
 feet in width (‘ Nat. Hist, of the Bible,’ p. 392). 
 
 there are no trees so large in the Peninsula 
 {#3inai at this time, liberal allowance may be 
 made for the diminished capabilities of the 
 region for the production of timber. 
 
 17 . tenons'] See Note at the end of the 
 chapter. 
 
 18 . The dimensions of the wooden part 
 of the Tabernacle are not directly stated ; but 
 they are easi'y made out from the measure- 
 ment, number and arrangement of the boards, 
 if we estimate each of the corner boards {'v. 
 23) as adding half a cubit to the width. The 
 entire length of the structure was thirty 
 cubits in the clear, and its width ten cubits. 
 With this agree Philo (‘ Vit. Mos.’ ill. 7), Jo- 
 sephus (‘ Ant.’ in. 6. § 3), and all tradition. 
 
 the south side south~euard] The Hebrew 
 phrase, which also occurs xxvii. 9, xxxvi. 23, 
 xxxviii. 9, is relieved from pleonasm if it is 
 rendered, the south side on the right. 
 (Geneva Fr., Zunz, Leeser; cf. Gesen. p. 600.) 
 As the entrance of the Tabernacle was at its 
 cast end, the south side, to a person entering 
 it, would be on the left hand : but we learn 
 from Josephus (‘ Ant.’ viii. 3. § 6) that it was 
 •usual in speaking of the Temple to identify 
 
 the south with the right hand and the north 
 with the left hand, the entrance being re- 
 garded as the face of the structure and the 
 west end as its back. 
 
 19 . sockets] More literally, bases. The 
 same word is rightly rendered “ foundations” 
 in Job xxxviii. 6 : most versions in this place 
 translate it by some word equivalent to bases. 
 Each base weighed a talent, that is, about 
 94 lbs. (see xxxviii, 27), and must have been a 
 massive block. Nothing is said of the form, 
 but as the tenons of the boards were “set in 
 order one against another” {y. 17), the bases 
 may have fitted together so as to make 
 a continuous foundation for the walls of 
 boards, presenting a succession of sockets, or 
 mortices (each base having a single socket), 
 into which the tenons were to fit. This seems 
 to have been the notion of Philo and Josephus 
 [see Note at the end of chapter, § I.]. The 
 bases served not only for ornament but 
 also for a protection of the lower ends of 
 the boards from the decay which would 
 have resulted from contact with the ground. 
 4 ' he word socket seems to have been adopted 
 from Josephus. The word he uses is orpo- 
 cjiiy^y which does not answer to the Hebrew 
 etymologically, as the /Satru of the LXX. and 
 Philo does; but there is an obvious resem- 
 blance which seems to have struck him be- 
 tween what is here spoken of and the socket 
 (a-Tpofiy^) in which the tenon of a door turns 
 to sene as a hinge, according to common 
 Eastern custom. 
 
 22. the sides of the tabernacle qvest^ard] 
 Ratl'icr, the back of the Tabernacle 
 towards the west. See on -z;, 18. 
 
 23 . in the t~M0 sides] Rather, at the 
 back. So I. XX., Vulg., Luther, de Wette, 
 Zunz, Herxh., (Sec. 
 
 24 . I'he corner boards appear to have 
 been of such v/idth, and so placed, as to add 
 
V. 25—33-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXVI. 
 
 373 
 
 unto one ring: thus shall it be for 
 them both ; they shall be for the two 
 corners. 
 
 25 And they shall be eight boards, 
 and their sockets of silver, sixteen 
 sockets ; two sockets under one board, 
 and two sockets under another board. 
 
 26 ^1 And thou shalt make bars of 
 shittim wood; five for the boards of 
 the one side of the tabernacle, 
 
 27 And five bars for the boards of 
 the other side of the tabernacle, and 
 five bars for the boards of the side of 
 the tabernacle, for the two sides west- 
 ward. 
 
 28 And the middle bar in the midst 
 of the boards shall reach from end to 
 end. 
 
 29 And thou shalt overlay the boards 
 with gold, and make their rings of gold 
 for places for the bars : and thou shalt 
 overlay the bars with gold. 
 
 30 And thou shalt rear up the ta- 
 bernacle '^according to the fashion ^hap. 2 r 
 thereof which was shewed thee in the Acts 7. 44 
 mount. 
 
 31 ^ And thou shalt make avail of 
 blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine 
 twined linen of cunning work; with 
 cherubims shall it be made : 
 
 32 And thou shalt hang it upon 
 four pillars of shittim woori overlaid 
 with gold : their hooks shall be of gold, 
 upon the four sockets of silver. 
 
 33 ^ And thou shalt hang up the 
 vail under the taches, that thou mayest 
 
 a cubit to the width of the structure, making 
 up with the six boards of full width (y. 22) 
 ten cubits in the clear (see on ‘v. 18). There 
 is no occasion to imagine, as some have done, 
 that each of them consisted of two strips 
 mitered together longitudinally so as to form 
 a corner by itself. They may have been 
 simple boards v'ith the width of half a cubit 
 added to the thickness of the boards of the 
 sides. The boards at the corners were to be 
 coupled together at the top “unto one ring,” 
 and at the bottom “ unto one ring,” and each 
 ring was to be so formed as to receive two 
 bars meeting at a right angle. 
 
 26 , 27 . See on -v. a8, and Note at the 
 end of the chapter, § I. 
 
 27 . /or the two sides westward~\ for the 
 back towards the west. Cf. *11. 22. 
 
 23 . in the midst of the boards'^ The middle 
 bar was distinguished from the other bars by 
 its reaching from end to end. The Hebrew 
 might mean either that’ the midst throughout 
 which it ran was the middle between the top 
 and the bottom of the boards, or that it was 
 a passage for it bored through the substance 
 of the wood out of sight. The latter would 
 seem to have been the notion of our trans- 
 lators, See xxxvi. 33. But if we suppose the 
 boards to have been of ordinary thickness 
 [see on v. 16], by far the more likely sup- 
 position is that the bar was visible and passed 
 through an entire row of rings. In either 
 case, it served to hold the whole wall to- 
 gether. On the probable relation of this 
 middle bar to the others, see Note and wood- 
 cut, p. 377. 
 
 29 . o'verlay . . . with gol(d] See on xxv. 1 1. 
 
 their rings'] See on -z;. a 8. 
 
 30 . Cf. xxv. 9, 40. 
 
 The Vail and the Holy Places. 
 
 31—35. (Cf. xxxvi. 35, 36.) 
 
 31 . •vail] The Hebrew w'ord literally 
 means separation [see on xxxv. 12]. 
 
 blue^ and purple^ and scarlet] See on xxv. 4. 
 
 twined linen] See on 21. i. 
 
 of cunning work, &c.] of work of the 
 skilled weaver [see on v. i, and on 
 xxxv. 35] shall it be made, with 
 Cherubim. 
 
 cherubims] The vail of the first Temple 
 was in like manner adorned with Cherubim 
 (2 Chron. iii. 14). It is remarkable that Jo- 
 sephus describes the vail of the Tabernacle* as 
 woven with flowers and all sorts of orna- 
 mental forms, except the figures of living crea- 
 tures (‘Ant.’ III. 6. §4). He himself calls the 
 Cherubim living creatures (‘Ant.’ III. 6. §5), 
 and he must have known that Ezekiel does so 
 (x. 20). He is thus plainly at variance with 
 the statement in Exodus. But can it be that 
 he describes the vail according to the one 
 which existed in the Temple in his time ? If 
 so, we obtain a striking instance of the 
 operation of the superstition with which the 
 Jews in later times, including Josephus him- 
 self, interpreted the second commandment 
 (see ‘ Ant.’ viii. 7. §5, and note on Ex. xx. 
 4). It may suggest a thought, if we may 
 conceive that the vail of the Temple which 
 was rent at the Crucifixion had been deprived 
 of its characteristic symbol by the dark pre- 
 judices of the chosen people. 
 
 32 . pillars of shittim wood, &c.] Rather, 
 pillars of shittim wood overlaid with gold, 
 their hooks also of gold, upon four 
 bases of silver. Cf. xxxvi. 36. 
 
 33. under the taches] These taches are 
 not, as some suppose, the same as the hooks 
 of the preceding verse. The Hebrew words 
 
EXODUS. XXVI. [v. 34-37 
 
 bring in thither within the vail the ark 
 of the testimony : and the vail shall 
 divide unto you between the holy place 
 and the most holy. 
 
 34 And thou shalt put the mercy 
 seat upon the ark of the testimony in 
 the most holy place. 
 
 35 And thou shalt set the table 
 without the vail, and the candlestick 
 over against the table on the side of 
 the tabernacle toward the south : and 
 
 thou shalt put the table on the north 
 side. 
 
 36 And thou shalt make an hang- 
 ing for the door of the tent, of blue, 
 and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined 
 linen, wrought with needlework. 
 
 37 And thou shalt make for the 
 hanging five pillars of shittim wood.^ and 
 overlay them with gold, and their hooks 
 shall be of gold : and thou shalt cast 
 five sockets of brass for them. 
 
 are quite different. These are the taches of 
 the tabernacle-cloth (see nj. 6). On the diffi- 
 culty of the statement, see Note at the end of 
 the chapter, § I. 
 
 34. mercy seat upon the ark of the testi~ 
 mony'] See on xxv. 10 — 16. The Samaritan 
 text here inserts the passage regarding the 
 Altar of Incense from ch. xxx. i — 10. The 
 omission of all mention of this altar in this 
 place is strange, but the reading of the Sama- 
 ritan bears marks of an intended emendation, 
 and cannot represent the original text. 
 
 35 . candlestick'] See on xxv. 31. 
 
 table'] See on xxv. 23. 
 
 The Front of the Tent. 
 
 36, 37. (Cf. xxxvi. 37, 38.) 
 
 36 . hanging] Rather, curtain [see on 
 
 xxvii. 16]. ^ 
 
 the door of the tent] the entrance to 
 the Tent. The word is pethach^ that is the 
 opening which it is the office of the door 
 (deleth)^ or as in this place, of the curtain 
 {mdsdkf to close. The distinction between 
 
 door and entrance is generally overlooked in 
 our version. See on Lev. viii. 3. 
 
 nvrought 'vsith needlework] the work of 
 the embroiderer. The breadths of the 
 cloth and the vail of the Tabernacle were to 
 be of the work of the skilled weaver; 
 the entrance curtain of the Tent and that of 
 the Court (xxvii. 16) were to be of the same 
 materials, but embroidered with the needle, 
 not wrought in figures in the loom. [See on 
 v. I, and on xxxv. 35.] 
 
 37 . hanging] curtain as in *i7. 36. 
 fi’ve pillars] These, it should be ob- 
 served, belonged to the entrance of the Tent, 
 not, in their architectural relation, to the 
 entrance of the Tabernacle [see Note, § III.]. 
 overlay them with goldf] See on xxv. ii. 
 their hooks] See on ns. 33. These pillars 
 had chapiters (capitals), and fillets (connect- 
 ing rods, see on xxvii. 10), overlaid with 
 gold (xxxvi. 38). Their bases fsee on ns. 19) 
 were of bron/e (like the taches of the tent- 
 cloth), not of silver, to mark the inferiority 
 of the Tent to the Tabernacle. 
 
 NOTE ON Chap. xxvi. i — 37. 
 
 On the Construction of the 
 Tabernacle. 
 
 I. The A/lshkdn, its Tent and its Covering. 
 
 II. Comnion vietu of the arrangement of 
 
 the parts. III. Mr p'ergnsson's theory. 
 
 IV. 7 'he place of the tabernacle cloth. 
 
 V. Symmetry of the proposed arrangement. 
 
 VI. 7 he Court. 
 
 The chief portions of the structure are 
 described with remarkable clearness in Exodus 
 xxvi. and a second time in ch. xxxvi. It 
 would however seem that those parts only are 
 distinctly mentioned which formed visible 
 features in the completed fabric. Merc details 
 of construction were most probably carried 
 out according to the mechanical usage of the 
 time. 
 
 If we take this for granted, the sacred text 
 appears to furnish sufficient information to 
 enable us to realize with confidence the form 
 
 and the general arrangements of the Tabernacle 
 as well as of its Court. But the subject has 
 been encumbered ever since the time of Philo' 
 with certain traditional notions which are op- 
 posed not only to the words of Exodus, but 
 to the plainest principles of constructive art. 
 
 I. 
 
 It has been already stated 2 that three princi- 
 pal parts of the Sanctuary are clearly distin- 
 guished in the Hebrew, though they are con- 
 founded in most versions. These parts are — 
 
 1. The Dwellinu Place, or the Ta- 
 
 bernacle, strictly so called ; in Hebrew, 
 hammishkdn [note on xxvi. i]. 
 
 2. The Tent, in Heb. ohel (bnb<). 
 
 3. The Covering, in Heb. (Hppp) 
 
 ' ‘ Vit. Mos.’ III. 4 sq. 
 
 2 Introd. Note to chap. xxvi. 
 
EXODUS. XXVL 
 
 I. The materials for the Misiikan were 
 a great cloth of woven work figured with 
 Cherubim measuring forty cubits by twenty- 
 eight cubits, and a quadrangular enclosure of 
 wood, open at one end, ten cubits in height, 
 ten cubits in width and thirty cubits in length. 
 
 The size of the Tabernacle cloth is indicated 
 beyond the reach of doubt by the number and 
 dimensions of the ten breadths (or “curtains”) 
 of which it consisted^. The size of the 
 wooden enclosure is made out almost as cer- 
 tainly from the number and measurements *of 
 the boards ^ 
 
 The boards were set upright, each of them 
 being furnished at its lower extremity with two 
 tenons which fitted into mortices in two heavy 
 bases of silver. The whole of these bases 
 placed side by side probably formed a con- 
 tinuous wall-plinth ^ The boards were fur- 
 nished with rings or loops of gold so fixed as 
 to form row's, when the boards were set up, 
 and through these rings bars w'ere thrust. 
 There were five bars for each side of the 
 structure and five for the back^. The middle 
 bar of each wall “was to reach from end to 
 end,” and this plainly distinguished it from the 
 other four bars. It is inferred wfith great pro- 
 bability that this middle bar w'as tw'ice as 
 long as the others, that there were three rows 
 of rings, and that the half of each wall was 
 fastened together by two of the shorter bars, 
 one near the top, the other near the bottom, 
 while the tw'O halves w'ere united into a whole 
 by the middle bar reaching from end to end®. 
 Thus each w'all must have been furnished 
 with four short bars and one long one. 
 Each of the rings near the top and the bottom 
 of the two corner boards was shaped in some 
 way so as to receive the ends of two bars, 
 one belonging to the back, the other to the 
 side, meeting at a right angle. In this way 
 the walls were “coupled together” at the 
 comers®. 
 
 There is nothing said from w'hich we can 
 decide whether the rings and bars were on the 
 outside or the inside of the wooden structure. 
 From the rich materials of w'hich they were 
 made, it seems not unlikely that they con- 
 stituted an ornamental feature on the inside. 
 It may be added, that on the inside they 
 would tend to make the structure firm more 
 than on the outside. 
 
 So far it is not diflRcult to see nearly what 
 THE Mishkan must have been. But it is 
 not so easy to determine the way in which the 
 great figured cloth that belonged to it was 
 arranged. The question must be considered 
 in connection with the description of the parts 
 of the Text. 
 
 1 Ex. xxvi, 1—6; xxxvi. 8 — 13. 
 
 2 See on Ex. xxvi. 18. 
 
 ^ See on xxvi. 19. 
 
 ^ Ex. xxvi. 26 — 28; xxxvi. 31 — 33. 
 
 . ® See on Ex. xxvi. 28, and woodcut, p. 377. 
 
 ® Ex. xxvi. 24; xxxvi. 29. 
 
 There is another difficulty, by far less easy 
 of solution, which may be stated here. It 
 affects the internal arrangement. The vail 
 which separated the Most Holy Place from 
 the Holy Place was suspended from golden 
 hooks attached to four pillars overlaid with 
 gold, standing upon silver bases. But the 
 position of these pillars is not mentioned in 
 Exodus. It is indeed said that the vail was 
 hung “under the taches^.” Now the taches 
 of the tabernacle cloth must have been fifteen 
 cubits from the back of the Mishkan, that is, 
 half way between its back and front. But 
 according to Philo, Josephus, and all tradi- 
 tion, supported by every consideration of 
 probability, the vail was ten cubits, not 
 fifteen, from the back, and the Holy of 
 Holies was a cubical chamber of correspond- 
 ing measurement. The statement that the 
 vail was hung “ under the taches” remains 
 unexplained. But this difficulty is by no 
 means such as to be set in opposition to any 
 view that may meet all other conditions ex- 
 pressed or involved in the narrative. 
 
 2. The Tent is described as consisting of 
 a great tent-cloth of goats’ hair, which, ac- 
 cording to the number and dimensions of its 
 breadths, was forty-four cubits by thirty 
 and five pillars overlaid with gold standing 
 on bases of bronze, and furnished with golden 
 hooks from which was suspended the curtain 
 that served to close the entrance of the Tent®. 
 
 3. Of the Covering of rams’ skins and 
 tachash skins, nothing whatever is said except 
 as regards the materials of which it was com- 
 posed 
 
 II. 
 
 It has been usual to represent the Tabernacle 
 as consisting of the w'ooden structure which 
 has been described, with the masses of drapery 
 and skins thrown over it “as a pall is thrown 
 over a coffin.” There was first the figured 
 
 7 Ex. xxvi. 33. This is not mentioned in ch. 
 xxxvi., where the manufacture of the parts, and 
 not their arrangement, is spoken of. It has been 
 imagined that the taches were the same as the 
 hooks from which the vail was actually hung 
 (Ex. xxvi. 32). But the words are quite dis- 
 tinct. The word rendered tache is keres (D'i?.), 
 which is supposed to be derived from a root 
 which signifies to bind ; that rendered hook, 
 is vav (11), which is the name of the Hebrew 
 letter shaped like a hock suited for hanging 
 anything on (1) ; its origin is unknown. Keres 
 is used only in reference to the taches of the 
 tabernacle-cloth and of the tent-cloth of the 
 Sanctuary (Ex. xxvi. 6, 33, &c.), and vdv only 
 in reference to the hooks of the vail and of the 
 tent-curtain. 
 
 ® Ex. xxvi. 7 — 13; xxxvi. 14 — 18. 
 
 ® Ex. xxvi. 36, 37 ; xxxvi. 37, 38. 
 
 Ex. xxvi. 14; xxxvi. 19. See on xxv. 5. 
 
EXODUS. XXVI. 
 
 376 
 
 cloth recognized as part of the Mishkan, 
 then the goats’ hair cloth of the Tent, and 
 then the twofold Covering of skins. 
 
 A modification of this arrangement was sug- 
 gested by Vater and adopted by Bilhrb which 
 has the advantage of displaying the figured 
 cloth and of connecting it more strictly with 
 the Mishkan, though in no very graceful or 
 convenient manner. It was supposed that 
 this cloth was strained over the top of the 
 structure like a ceiling and fastened to the top 
 of the boards in some way, so as to hang 
 down and cover the walls on the inside as a 
 tapestry, leaving a cubit at the bases of the 
 boards bare, to show as a sort of skirting. 
 
 With the exception of certain expressions 
 in Josephus^, the whole current of opinion 
 seems to have been in favour of this general 
 arrangement of the parts of the Tabernacle. 
 But it should be kept in view that the subject 
 is one in which tradition cannot be of much 
 value. We may allow that it is just possible, 
 though by no means probable, that some 
 points of detail besides what are actually 
 recorded, or some special knowledge of the 
 meaning of technical terms, may have been 
 handed down from the time of Moses. But 
 in a case of this kind we certainly need not 
 hesitate to set tradition aside, whenever it is 
 in conflict either with the letter of Scripture, 
 or with reasonable probability. 
 
 The objections to the common theory are 
 these: — 
 
 I. The arrangement proposed makes out 
 the £ibric to have been unsightly in its form 
 
 and to have had a great part of the beauty of 
 its materials entirely concealed. 
 
 2. It would be quite impossible to strain 
 drapery over a space of fifteen feet, so as to 
 prevent it from heavily sagging; and no flat 
 roof of such materials could by any means be 
 rendered proof against the weather. 
 
 3. It is hard to assign any use to the 
 pins and cords of the Tabernacle'* (which 
 would be essential in the construction of a 
 tent'^) if the curtains and skins were merely 
 thrown over the woodwork and allowed to 
 hang down on each side. 
 
 4. The shelter of the Mishkan is always 
 called in Hebrew by a name which, in its 
 strict use, can denote nothing but a tent, pro- 
 perly so called, of cloth or skins. 
 
 5. An essential part of the Tent was 
 the row of five pillars at its entrance^: if we 
 suppose these five pillars to have stood just 
 in front of the Mishkan, they must have been 
 strangely out of symmetry with the four 
 pillars of the vail, and the middle pillar must 
 have stood needlessly and inconveniently in the 
 way of the entrance. 
 
 We are indebted to Mr FergussonT’ for 
 what may be regarded as a satisfactory recon- 
 struction of the Sanctuary in all its main par- 
 ticulars. He holds that what sheltered the 
 Mishkan was * actually a Tent of ordinary 
 form, such as common sense and practical 
 experience would suggest as best suited for 
 the purpose. 
 
 According to this view the five pillars at 
 the entrance of the tent“ were graduated 
 as they would naturally be at the entrance of 
 any large tent of the best form, the tallest one 
 being in the middle to support one end of a 
 ridge-pole. It has been already observed 
 
 ^ ‘Symbolik,’ l. p. 63. 
 
 * See p. 379. 
 
 ® Ex. xxvi. 37. 
 
 that the descriptions in Exodus appear to pass 
 over all particulars of the construction except 
 
 4 Sec Ex. xxvii. 19; xxxv. 18. The word 
 “tabernacle” {viishkan), in these places, evi- 
 dently includes the Tent as well as the Mishkan 
 itself. Sec note on Ex. xxvi. i. 
 
 ® Cf. Jer. X. 20. Ex. xxvi. 37 ; xxxvi. 38. 
 
 7 Smith’s ‘Diet, of the Bible,’ Art. Temple . — 
 “ The Holy Sepulchre and the Temple,” 1865. 
 
EXODUS. XXVI. 
 
 377 
 
 those which foi*med visible features in the 
 fabric. On this ground we may be allowed 
 to suppose that there was not only a ridge- 
 pole, but a series of pillars at the back of the 
 Tent corresponding in height with those at 
 the front. Such a ridge-pole, which must 
 have been sixty feet in lengthy would have 
 required support, and this might have been 
 afforded by light rafters resting on the top 
 of the boards, or, as is more in accordance 
 with the usage of tent architecture, by a 
 plain pole in the middle of the structure. 
 Over this framing of wood-work the tent- 
 cloth of goats’ hair was strained with its cord 3 
 and tent-pins in the usual way. There must 
 also have been a back-cloth suspended from 
 the pillars at the back. The heads of the 
 pillars appear to have been united by con-’ 
 necting rods (in our version, “ fillets”) over- 
 laid with gold. [See xxxvi. 38.] 
 
 In this cut the woodwork of the Tent and 
 Tabernacle which is described in the text is 
 represented, the assumed positions of the por- 
 tions that are not described being shown by 
 dotted lines. 
 
 Above the tent-cloth of goats’ hair was 
 spread the covering of red rams’ skins. Mr 
 Fergusson conceives that the covering of 
 tachash skins 2 above this did not cover the 
 whole roof, but served only as “ a coping or 
 ridge-piece” to protect the crest of the roof. 
 
 ^ Mr Fergusson considers that “the middle 
 bar in the midst of the boards” (Ex. xxvi. 28; 
 xxxvi. 33) was the ridge-pole, and he would 
 render the verse, “And the middle bar which 
 is between the boards shall reach from end to 
 end.” But even if this rendering is allowable, 
 we venture to think that the expression “from 
 end to end” cannot, according to the context, 
 refer to the Tent, but only to the wooden 
 part of the Mishkan (see Plan, p. 378). More- 
 over, the methodical arrangement of the descrip- 
 tions would be disturbed by the mention of the 
 ridge-pole in Ex. xxvi. 28 and in x.xxvi. 33. It 
 could only be introduced in proper order in 
 connection either with the cloth of the Tent 
 (after xxvi. 13 and xxxvi. 18), or with its five 
 pillars (after xxvi. 37 and xxxvi. 36). As how- 
 ever, according to the view here given, there 
 must have been a ridge-pole of some sort, the 
 question involves no essential particular of the 
 construction of the fabric. See on xxvi. 28. 
 
 2 Ex. xxvi. 14; xxxvi. 19. See note on xxv. 5. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The next inquiry relates to the position of 
 the Tabemacle-cloth of fine linen and coloured 
 yarns. 
 
 It is evident that the relation in which the 
 measurement of the tabemacle-cloth stood to 
 that of the tent-cloth had an important bear- 
 ing on the place of each of them in the struc- 
 ture. The tent-cloth is said to have extended 
 a cubit on each side beyond the tabernacle- 
 cloth 3 , and it appears to have extended two 
 cubits at the back and fronts. It would 
 appear then that the tent-cloth was laid over 
 the tabernacle-cloth so as to allow the excess 
 of the dimensions of the former to be equally 
 divided between the two sides and between 
 the back and front. We may from these 
 particulars infer that the tabernacle-cloth 
 served as a lining to the other, and that they 
 were both extended over the ridge-pole. In 
 this way, the effect would have been produced 
 of an ornamented open roof extending the 
 length of the Tent. 
 
 V. 
 
 Mr Fergusson has pointed out the very re- 
 markable consistency of the measurements of 
 the different parts, if we accept this mode of 
 putting them together. Fie assumes the angle 
 formed by the roof to have been a right angle, 
 as a reasonable and usual angle for such a 
 roof, and this brings the only measurements 
 which appear at first sight to be abnormal, 
 into harmony. Every measurement given in 
 the text is a multiple of five cubits, except 
 the width of the tabernacle-cloth, vvliich is 
 twenty-eight cubits, and the length of the tent- 
 cloth, which is forty-four cubits. With a 
 right angle at the ridge, each side of the slope 
 as shewn in this section would be within a 
 
 fraction of fourteen cubits (14.08), half the 
 width of the tabernacle-cloth. The slope is 
 here carried just five cubits beyond the wooden 
 walls and to within just five cubits of the 
 ground. The tent-cloth would hang down in 
 a valance on each side, one cubit in depth 
 
 ^ Ex. xxvi. 13. 
 
 * Ex. xxxvi. 9, 13. 
 
 f Ex. xxvi. 13. 
 
378 
 
 EXODUS. XXVI. 
 
 If we allow the tabemacle-cloth, according 
 to this arrangement, to determine the length of 
 the Tent as well as its width, we obtain an area 
 for the structure of forty cubits by twenty. 
 The tent-cloth would of course overhang this 
 at the back and front by two cubits, that is, 
 half a breadth b The wooden structure being 
 placed within the Tent, there would be a space 
 all round it of five cubits in width. This is 
 shown in this Plan, in which one half repre- 
 sents the ground-plan and the other half the 
 extended tent-cloth. 
 
 The five pillars, to reach across the front of 
 the Tent, must have stood five cubits apart. 
 Their beads were united by connecting rods 
 (“fillets’’) overlaid with gold (Exod. xxxvi. 
 38). The space immediately within them, 
 according to Mr Fergusson, formed a porch 
 ot five cubits in depth-. The spaces at the 
 sides and back may have been wholly or in 
 part covered in for the use of the officiating 
 priests, like the small apartments which in 
 after times slcirted three sides of the Temple. 
 It was probably here that those portions of 
 the sacrifices were eaten which were not to 
 be cairicd out of the sacred precinct b 
 ^ The exact symmetrical relation which the 
 dimensions ot the Temple bore to those of the 
 Tabernacle is not only striking in itself, but it 
 bears a strong testimony to the correctness of 
 Mr hergusson’s theory as regards those mea- 
 
 ^ Ex. xxvi. 9, 12. 
 
 2 .See cut, p. 3 76. 
 
 3 Lev. vi. 16, 26, &c. We may infer that 
 priests also lodged in tliem from Lev. viii. 33; 
 1 S. iii. 2, 3. 
 
 surements which are not directly stated in the 
 text, but are made out by inference from 
 the theory. Each chief measurement of the 
 Temple was just twice that of the Tabernacle. 
 The Most Holy Place, a square of ten cubits 
 in the Tabernacle'*, was one of twenty cubits 
 in the Temple: the Holy Place, in each case, 
 was a corresponding double square. The 
 Porch, which was five cubits deep in the 
 Tabernacle, was ten cubits in the Temple; 
 the side spaces, taking account of the thick- 
 ness of the walls of the Temple, were re- 
 
 5 30V 20 30 40 .50 Cubitt. 
 
 I — V-*-! f ! rH 
 
 10 SO 30 40 30 60 70 75 fict, 
 
 spectively five cubits and ten cubits in width ; 
 the height of the ridge-pole of the Tabernacle 
 was fifteen cubits, that of the roof of the 
 Holy Place in the Temple thirty cubits s. 
 
 ^ It has already been observed that the length 
 of the Most Holy Place is not given in Exodus; 
 but ten cubits is universally accepted on the 
 ground of inference. .See § I. 
 
 3 I K. vi. 2. The analogy here pointed 
 out seems to shew the fitness of the word tent 
 (Ileb. ohcl, wrongly rendered “ tabernacle”) as 
 ajiplied to the Temple in the vision of Ezekiel 
 xli. i). 
 
EXODUS. XXVII. 
 
 379 
 
 V. 1—4] 
 
 Whether we believe the statements of Jose- 
 phus to contain any elements of genuine 
 tradition or not, it is worth noticing that in 
 certain particulars he strikingly countenances 
 the views of Mr Fergusson. He speaks of 
 the Tabernacle as consisting of three parts. 
 The third part v/as the Most Holy Place, the 
 second part the Holy Place ; and he seems to 
 intimate that the remaining, or first part, was 
 the entrance with its five pillars. He also 
 says that the tent-curtain was so arranged in 
 the front as to be like a gable and a porch 
 (^aercofiaTL Trapa7T\r]Giov Ka\ TraornSi)^. 
 
 it may perhaps be doubted whether there 
 is, within the entire range of ancient literature 
 (unless we should except the works of strictly 
 technical writers), a description of any struc- 
 ture more clear and practical than that of 
 the Tabernacle contained in the xxvith and 
 
 1 ‘ Ant’ III. 6. § 4. 
 
 xxxvith chapters of Exodus. Mr Fergusson's 
 testimony on this head deserves to be quoted; 
 “ it seems to me clear that it must have been 
 written by some one who had seen the Taber- 
 nacle standing. No one could have worked 
 it out in such detail without ocular demon- 
 stration of the way in which the parts would 
 fit together.” 
 
 VI. 
 
 The second Plan in the preceding page ex- 
 hibits the Tabernacle in its Court, with the 
 cords and tent-pins in their proper places^ 
 as determined by Mr Fergusson in accord- 
 ance with the practice of tent-architecture. 
 It will be seen that the width of the Tent 
 is the same as that of the enti*ance to the 
 Court, which is a coincidence connected with 
 the harmony of the arrangement that well 
 deserves to be noticed. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 I The altar of burnt offering, with the vessels 
 thereof 9 The court of the tabernacle in- 
 closed with hangings and pillars. 18 The 
 measure of the court. 20 The oil for the 
 lamp. 
 
 AND thou shalt make an altar of 
 shittim wood, five cubits long, 
 and five cubits broad \ the altar shall 
 be foursquare : and the height thereof 
 shall be three cubits. 
 
 Chap. XXVII. 
 
 The Altar of Burnt-offering. 
 
 I — 8. (Cf. xxxviii. i — 7.) 
 
 The great Altar which stood in the Court 
 immediately in front of the Tabernacle was 
 commonly called the Altar of Burnt-of- 
 fering, because on it were burnt the whole 
 Bumt-offerings, and all those parts of the 
 other animal sacrifices which were offered to 
 the Lord. It was also called the Brazen 
 Altar, because it was covered with bronze, 
 in distinction from the Golden Altar, or Altar 
 of Incense (Exod. xxxix. 38, 39, xl. 5, 6). 
 
 1. an altar] See Note at the end of ch. xl. 
 
 § 1 . 
 
 2. his horns shall be of the same] These 
 horns were projections pointing upwards in 
 the form either of a small obelisk, or of the 
 horn of an ox. They were to be actually 
 parts of the Altar, not merely superadded to 
 it. On them the blood of the Sin-offering 
 was smeared (Exod. xxix. 12; Lev. iv. 7, 
 viii. 15, ix. 9, xvi, 18). To take hold of 
 them appears to have been regarded as an 
 emphatic mode of laying claim to the right 
 of Sanctuary (Exod. xxi. 14; i K. i. 50). 
 
 2 And thou shalt make the horns 
 of it upon the four corners thereof : 
 his horns shall be of the same: and 
 thou shalt overlay it with brass. 
 
 3 And thou shalt make his pans to 
 receive his ashes, and his shovels, and 
 his basons, and his fleshhooks, and his 
 firepans: all the vessels thereof thou 
 shalt make brass. 
 
 4 And thou shalt make for it a 
 
 3. pans to receive his ashes] Rather pots 
 as in xxxviii. 3; i K. vii. 45. On the use to 
 which these pots were put in disposing of the 
 ashes of the Altar, see Lev. i. j6.— The Heb. 
 word here rendered to receive his ashes, is re- 
 markable. In its derivation it is connected 
 with fat, and it is never used in reference to 
 any ashes except those of the Altar. It occurs 
 Num. iv. 13, and Ps. xx. 3 ; where see margin. 
 But all authorities are agreed as to what it 
 denotes in these places. 
 
 his basons] According to the etymology of 
 the name (from zdrak, to scatter) it is in- 
 ferred that these vessels were used for receiv- 
 ing the blood of the victims and casting it 
 upon the Altar [see xxiv. 6, Lev. i. 5, &c.]. 
 
 his fleshhooks] These were for adjusting 
 the pieces of the victim upon the Altar [cf. 
 I S. ii. 13]. 
 
 his firepans] The same word is rendered 
 snuffdlshes, xxv. 38, xxxvii. 23 ; censers. 
 Lev. X. I, xvi. 12, Num. iv. 14, xvi. 6, &c. 
 These utensils appear to have been shallow 
 metal vessels which served either to catch the 
 snuff of the lamps when they were trimmed, 
 or to burn small quantities of incense. No- 
 
SSo 
 
 EXODUS. XXVII. 
 
 [v. 5 — II. 
 
 grate of network of brass ; and upon 
 the net shalt thou make four brasen 
 rings in the four corners thereof. 
 
 5 And thou shalt put it under the 
 compass of the altar beneath, that the 
 net may be even to the midst of the 
 altar. 
 
 6 And thou shalt make staves for 
 the altar, staves of shittim wood, and 
 overlay them with brass. 
 
 7 And the staves shall be put into 
 the rings, and the staves shall be upon 
 the two sides of the altar, to bear it. 
 
 8 Hollow with boards shalt thou 
 
 make it : as ■ it was shewed thee in the ^ 
 mount, so shall they make it, he shewed. 
 
 9 ^ And thou shalt make the court 
 of the tabernacle : for the south side 
 southward there shall be hangings for 
 the court of fine twined linen of an 
 hundred cubits long for one side : 
 
 10 And the twenty pillars thereof 
 and their twenty- sockets shall be of 
 brass; the hooks of the pillars and 
 their fillets shall be of silver. 
 
 11 And likewise for, the north side 
 
 thing however is said of the burning of in- 
 cense in immediate connection with the 
 Brazen Altar, and it has been supposed that 
 the firepans were employed merely to carry 
 burning embers from the Brazen Altar to the 
 Altar of Incense, and that this use furnishes 
 their only claim to the name of censers. See 
 on Num. xvi. 6. 
 
 5. the compass of the altar] This appears 
 to have been a shelf, or projecting ledge, of 
 convenient width, carried round the Altar 
 half way between the top and the base, on 
 which the priests probably stood when they 
 tended the fire or arranged the parts of the 
 victims. It was supported all round its 
 outer edge by a vertical net-like grating of 
 bronze that rested on the ground. The name 
 is a peculiar one, occurring only in this 
 application and only in one other place, 
 xxxviii. 4. But there appears to be scarcely 
 a doubt as to its meaning. 
 
 8. Holloa ^ivith boards] Slabs, or planks, 
 rather than boards. I'he word is that which 
 is used for the stone tables of the Law (xxiv. 
 12, xxxi. i8), not that applied to the boards 
 of the Tabernacle (xxvi, 15), 
 
 There has been considerable difference of 
 opinion regarding some points in the descrip- 
 tion of the Brazen Altar, but the most pro- 
 bable account of it seems to be this. It was a 
 hollow casing, formed of stout acacia planks 
 covered with plates of bronze, seven feet six 
 in length and width and four feet six in 
 height. Jewish as well as Christian authori- 
 ties have supposed that, when it was fixed for 
 use, it was filled up with earth or rough 
 stones. If we connect this suggestion with 
 the old rule regarding the Altar of earth and 
 the Altar of stone given in chap. xx. 24, 25, 
 the woodwork might in fact be regarded 
 merely as the case of the Altar on which the 
 victims were actually burned. The shelf 
 round the sides (-u. 5) \\as reejuired as a 
 stage for the priests to enable them to carry 
 on their work conveniently on the top of the 
 Altar. Hence it is said of Aaron that he 
 
 came doivn from the Altar (Lev. ix. 22). 
 According to rabbinical tradition, there was 
 a slope of earth banked up for the priest to 
 ascend to the stage (cf. Ex. xx. 26). Such 
 a slope could only have been at the south 
 side, as the place of ashes was on the east 
 (Lev. i. 16), the west side was opposite the 
 Tabernacle, and on the north the victims 
 appear to have been slain close to the Altar 
 [see on Lev. i, iij. The rings for the staves 
 for carrying the Altar were attached to the 
 corners of the grating {v. 4), which must 
 have been proportionally strong. 
 
 The Altar of Solomon's Temple is de- 
 scribed 2 Chro. iv. I, It was twenty cubits 
 in length and breadth and ten cubits in 
 height; so that it was unlike the Altar of the 
 Tabernacle, not only in its magnitude but in 
 its proportions. The Altar erected by Herod 
 is said by Josephus to have been fifty cubits 
 square and fifteen cubits high (‘Bell. Jud.’ v. 
 
 5. § 6> 
 
 as it nxsas sheaved thee in the mount] See 
 on XXV. 40. 
 
 The Court of the Tabernacle. 
 
 9 — 19. (Cf. xxxviii. 9 — 20.) 
 
 9 . the south side south-xvaref] the south 
 side on the right. See on xxvi. 18. 
 
 fine tavined linen] See on xxvi. i. 
 
 10 . sockets] bases. See on xxvi. 19. 
 
 filets] Rather, connecting rods. So the 
 
 Targums. The Hebrew woi^i is peculiar, 
 and may mean any sort of bonds or fastenings. 
 \V hat are spoken of in this place appear to 
 have been curtain-rods of silver connecting 
 the heads of the pillars. The hangings were 
 attached to the pillars by the silver hooks; 
 but the length of the space between the pillars 
 would render it most prob.able that they were 
 also in some way fastened to these rods. The 
 capitals of the pillars were overlaid with 
 silver, as we learn from chap, xxxviii. 17.. 
 
 11. sockets] bases. 
 
 filets] connecting rods. 
 
V. 12 19-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXVIi. 
 
 in length there shall be hangings of an 
 hundred cubits long, and his twenty- 
 pillars and their twenty sockets of 
 brass; the hooks of the pillars and 
 their fillets of silver. 
 
 12 ^ And for the breadth of the 
 court on the west side shall be hang- 
 ings of fifty cubits : their pillars ten, 
 and their sockets ten. 
 
 13 And the breadth of the court on 
 the east side eastward shall be fifty cubits. 
 
 14 The hangings of one side of the 
 gate shall be fifteen cubits : their pillars 
 three, and their sockets three. 
 
 15 And on the other side shall be 
 hangings fifteen cubits: their pillars 
 three, and their sockets three. 
 
 16 ^ And for the gate of the court 
 shall be an hanging of twenty cubits, 
 of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and 
 fine twined linen, wrought with needle- 
 work : and their pillars shall be four, 
 and their sockets four. 
 
 17 All the pillars round about the 
 court shall be filleted with silver; their 
 hooks shall be of silver, and their 
 sockets brass. 
 
 18 *tf The length of the court shall 
 be an hundred cubits, and the breadth 
 
 ^ fifty every where, and the height five i Hcb. 
 cubits of fine twined linen, and 
 sockets brass. 
 
 19 All the vessels of the tabernacle 
 in all the service thereof, and all the • 
 
 13 . the east side eastq.vard\ on the front 
 side easfward. The front [see on xxvi. 
 18, cf. 9]. 
 
 14 , 15 , 16 . See on -v. 18, note (f). 
 
 16 . att hanging'] The Hebrew word is 
 not the same as that rendered hanging in 'v'u. 
 II, 12, 14, 15, and it would be better repre- 
 sented by curtain. It strictly denotes an 
 entrance curtain, which, unlike the hangings 
 at the sides and back of the Court, could be 
 drawn up, or aside, at pleasure. The words 
 are rightly distinguished in our Bible in Num. 
 in. 26. 
 
 <iu nought ^ith needle-work] the worlc of 
 the embroiderer. See on xxvi. 36, xxxv. 
 35. On the materials, see xxv. 4. 
 
 sockets] bases. 
 
 1 7 . Jilleted with siher] connectedwith 
 silver rods. See on i'. 10. 
 
 18 . {a) The size and general construc- 
 tion of the Court of the Tabernacle are de- 
 scribed in such a way as to leave no im- 
 portant doubt. Its area was one hundred 
 and fifty feet (taking the cubit at eighteen 
 inches) in length, and seventy-five feet in 
 width. It was enclosed by hangings of fine 
 linen suspended from pillars seven feet six 
 inches in height, and standing seven feet six 
 inches apart. These pillars were connected 
 at their heads by silver rods [see on 'v. 10] ; 
 they had silver hooks for the attachment of 
 the hangings, and their capitals were overlaid 
 with silver; they stood on bases of bronze. 
 At the east end of the enclosure the linen 
 hangings on each side were continued for 
 twenty-two feet six inches, and the inter- 
 mediate space of thirty feet was the entrance, 
 which was closed by an embroidered curtain 
 (girv. 14, 15, 16). 7 'he pillars were kept firm 
 by cords and tent-pins of bronze [see -v. 19, 
 cf. Num. iii. 26]. 
 
 {b] The position of the Taberaacle in the 
 Court could hardly have been in the middle, 
 as Josephus imagined (‘ Ant.’ ill. 6. § 3). It is 
 most probable that its place was, as Philo 
 conceived (‘Vit. Mos.’ 11 1. 7), equidistant from 
 the west, the north and the south walls of 
 the Court, so as to leave between it and the 
 entrance of the Court a suitable space for 
 the Brazen Altar and the Laver. See Note 
 at the end of ch. xxvi. with the plan of 
 the Court, according to Fergusson, in which 
 the feasibility of this arrangement is strikingly 
 apparent. * 
 
 (f) There has been a difficulty raised re- 
 garding the number and distribution of the 
 pillars of the Court. Knobel, taking up the 
 notion of Philo and some other interpreters, 
 supposes that the number was fifty-six, each 
 corner pillar being reckoned both as one for 
 the side and as one for the end. Keil, who 
 contends for sixty as the number, has not 
 made the matter much clearer by his mode 
 of explanation. The mode of stating the 
 numbers involved in the arrangement in 'v'v. 
 10, II, 12, 14, 13, 16 is perhaps a technical 
 one. Taking it for granted that the number 
 sixty, as given in those verses, is the true one, 
 and that the Court measured precisely one 
 hundred cubits by fifty, the pillars must have 
 stood five cubits apart, which is in accord- 
 ance with the general symmetry of the Sanc- 
 tuary [see Note at the end of ch. xxvi. § V.]. 
 If we may suppose the numbers, referring to 
 each side of the enclosure, to have belonged 
 to the spaces between the pillars rather than 
 to the pillars themselves, the statements be- 
 come clear, in reference both to the sides 
 with their continuous hangings, and to the 
 front where there was the entrance. See Mr 
 Fergusson’s plan, p. 378. 
 
 19 . All the ^jesscls^ &c.] Our version here 
 follows the Vulgate, and is obviously wrong. 
 
382 
 
 EXODUS. XXVII. XXVIII. 
 
 [v. 2 0 — r. 
 
 pins thereof, and all the pins of the 
 court, shall be of brass. 
 
 20 And thou shalt command the 
 children of Israel, that they bring thee 
 pure oil oliv^e beaten for the light, to 
 tHeb. cause the lamp ^to burn always. 
 to ascend tabemaclc of the congre- 
 
 gation without the vail, which is before 
 the testimony, Aaron and his sons 
 shall order it from evenino; to mornino- 
 before the Lord : it shall be a statute 
 for ever unto their generations on the 
 behalf of the children of Israel. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 I Aaron and his sorts are set apart for the 
 priest's office. 2 Holy garments are appointed. 
 6 The ephod. 1 5 The breastplate with twelve 
 precious stones. 30 The Urim and Ihuin- 
 mim. 31 The robe of the ephod^ %vith pome- 
 gt'anates and bells. 36 The plate of the mitre. 
 39 The embroidered coat. 40 The garments 
 for Aaron's sons. 
 
 A nd take thou unto thee Aaron 
 k. thy brother, 'and his sons with 
 him, from among the children of Israel, 
 that he may minister unto me in the 
 priest’s office, even Aaron, Nadab and 
 
 We know that the vessels of the Tabernacle 
 were of gold, xxv. 29, 39. The Hebrew 
 word rendered vessels means in the broadest 
 sense utensils: it is in different places rendered 
 furniture.^ stuff., sacks., jewels., weapons., See. 
 In the same connection as in this place, it is 
 not incoiTectly represented by instruments., 
 Niim. iii. 8. The verse might be thus trans- 
 lated; All the tools of the Tabernacle 
 used in all its -workmanship, and all 
 its tent-pins, and all the tent-pins 
 of the court, shall be of bronze. — The 
 working tools of the Sanctuary were most 
 probably such things as axes, knives, ham- 
 mers, Stc. that were employed in making, 
 repairing, setting up and taking down the 
 structure. Cf. Num. iii. 36. 
 
 the tabernacle'\ Heb. hammishkdn. The 
 word is here to be taken as including both 
 the Mishkan and the Tent, as in Num. i. 51, 
 53, &c. [see on xxvi. i]. 
 
 the pins thereof.,... the pins of the court\ The 
 Hebrew word is the regular name for tent-pins. 
 
 The Lamps of the Sanctuary, 
 w. 20, 21. 
 
 It is not quite easy to see the reason of 
 the insertion of these verses in this place. 
 The passage, with unimportant verbal altera- 
 tions, is repeated Lev. xxiv. 2, 3, where it is 
 connected in a natural manner with the rules 
 for the supplying and ordering of the Shew- 
 bread. Cl: Exod. xxv. 6, 37; xxxv. 14, xl. 4, 
 24, 25- 
 
 20. pure oil olive beaten^ The oil was to 
 be of the best kind. It is called beaten., be- 
 cause it was ol'jtained by merely bruising the 
 olives in a mortar or mill, without the appli- 
 cation of heat. The finest oil is now thus 
 obtained from young fruit freshly gathered, 
 and hence it is sometimes distinguished as 
 “cold drawn.” The inferior kind is expressed 
 from unselected fruit, under stronger pres- 
 sure, with the application of heat. 
 
 the lamp'\ i.e. the lamps of the Golden 
 Candlestick. [See xxv. 37.] 
 
 to buni] The word is literally rendered in 
 the margin to ascend up. It should be ob- 
 served that it does not properly mean to burn 
 in the sense of to consume, and that it is the 
 word regularly used to express the action of 
 fire upon what was offered to Jehovah [see 
 on Lev. i. 9]. 
 
 always'], i.e. every night “from evening till 
 morning.” Cf. xxx. 8. 
 
 21. the tabernacle of the congregation] More 
 literally, the Tent of meeting [see Note 
 at the end of ch. xl. § 11 .]. This is the first 
 occurrence of this designation of the Taber- 
 nacle. 
 
 without the vail., which is before the testi- 
 mony] i.e. the Holy Place [see on xxv. 16]. 
 
 Chap. XXVIII. 
 
 The Investiture of Aaron and iiis 
 Sons. 
 
 1—43 (Cf. xxxix. I— 31). 
 
 Moses is now commanded to commit all that 
 pertains to the Offerings made to the Lord in 
 the Sanctuary to the exclusive charge of the 
 members of a single family, who were to hold 
 their office from generation to generation. In 
 the patriarchal times, the external rites of wor- 
 ship had generally been conducted by the head 
 of the tribe or family, in accordance with 
 the principle involved in the dedication of 
 the firstborn (Ex. xiii. 2; Num. iii. 12, 13). 
 Moses, as the divinely appointed and ac- 
 knowledged leader of the nation, had, on a 
 special occasion, appointed those who were to 
 offer sacrifice, and had himself sprinkled the 
 consecrating blood of the victims on the people 
 (xxiv. 5, 6, 8). On the completion of the 
 I'afiernacle, after Aaron and his sons had been 
 called to the priesthood, he took chief part in 
 the daily service of the Sanctuary (xl. 23 — 29, 
 31, 32) until the consecration of the family of 
 Aaron, on which occasion he appears to have 
 exercised the priest’s office for the last time 
 (Lev. viii. 14 — 29; cf. Ex. xxix. 10 — 26). 
 The setting apart of the whole tribe of Levi 
 for the entire cycle of religious services is men- 
 tioned Num. iii. 5 — 13, viii. 5 — 26, xviii. i — 3*. 
 
V. 2—5-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXVIII. 
 
 Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s 
 sons. 
 
 2 And thou shalt make holy gar- 
 ments for Aaron thy brother for glory 
 and for beauty. 
 
 3 And thou shalt speak unto all 
 that are wise hearted, whom I have 
 filled with the spirit of wisdom, that 
 they may make Aaron’s garments to 
 consecrate him, that he may minister 
 unto me in the priest’s office. 
 
 4 And'thcse are the garments which 
 they shall make ; a breastplate, and an 
 ephod, and a robe, and a broidered 
 coat, a mitre, and a girdle: and they 
 shall make holy garments for Aaron 
 thy brother, and his sons, that he 
 may minister unto me in the priest’s 
 office. 
 
 5 And they shall take gold, and 
 blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine 
 linen. 
 
 1. Nadab and Abihu, the two elder sons of 
 Aaron, had accompanied their father and the 
 seventy Elders when they went a ' part of the 
 way with Moses up the mountain (xxiv. i, 9). 
 Soon after their consecration they were de- 
 stroyed for “offering strange fire before the 
 Lord” (Lev, x. i, 2), Eleazar and Ithamar 
 are here mentioned for the first time, except 
 in the genealogy, vi. 23. Eleazar succeeded his 
 father in the High- priesthood, and was him- 
 self succeeded by his son Phinehas (Judg. xx. 
 28). But Eli, the next High-priest named in 
 the history, was of the line of Ithamar. The 
 representatives of both families held office at 
 once in the time of David. See i Chro. xxiv. 
 1—3; 2 S. viii. 17. 
 
 3 . 'Vjise hearted^ The heart was fre- 
 quently spoken of as the seat of wisdom (Ex. 
 xxxi. 6, XXXV. 10, 25, xxxvi. i; Job ix. 4; 
 Prov. xi. 29, xvi. 21, 23, &c.). The same 
 notion is traced in the Latin phrase homo cor- 
 datus; also in the language of Homer, ‘II.’ 
 XV. 52; ‘ Od.’ VII. 82, XVIII. 344. The 
 bowels, as distinguished from the heart, were 
 commonly recognized as the seat of the affec- 
 tions (Gen. xliii. 30; i K. iii. 26 ; Is. Ixiii. 15 ; 
 and, in the Hebrew text, Deut. xiii. 6 ; 2 S. 
 xxiv. 14, &c. See also Luke i. 78; 2 Cor. 
 vi. 12, vii. 15 ; Phil. i. 8, ii. i ; Philemon, 
 •v. 7, &c.). 
 
 the spirit of ^visdotn\ See on xxxi. 3. What 
 may be especially noticed in this place is, that 
 the spirit of wisdom given by the Lord is 
 spoken of as conferring practical skill in the 
 most general sense : those who possess it are 
 called because they possess it; they are not 
 first called and then endowed with it. 
 
 garments to consecrate hirn\ There is here 
 a solemn recognition of the significance of 
 an appointed official dress. It expresses that 
 the office is not created or defined by the man 
 himself (Heb. v. 4), but that he is in'vested 
 with it according to prescribed institution. 
 The rite of anointing was essentially connected 
 with investiture in the holy garments (xxix. 
 29, 30; xl. 12 — 15). — The history of all na- 
 tions shews the importance of these forms. As 
 time goes on, their “ ancient and well-noted 
 face” becomes more and more valuable as a 
 
 witness against restless longing for change. 
 The following points in this divinely ordained 
 investiture of the Priests of Jehovah seem to 
 be worthy of special notice in our own day: — 
 (i) there was nothing left to individual taste 
 or fancy, every point was authoritatively laid 
 down in minute detail: (2) the High-priest, 
 when performing his highest and holiest func- 
 tions, was attired in a plain white dress (Lev. 
 xvi. 4): (3) the only garments worn by the 
 other priests “for glory and for beauty” 
 (gv. 40), when they were engaged in the ser- 
 vice of both the Golden Altar and the Brazen 
 Altar (see Lev. vi. 10), were also white, with 
 the exception of the Girdle (pv. 40) : (4) there 
 were no changes in the dresses of the priests 
 at the three Great Festivals, nor any periodi- 
 cal change whatever, except when the High- 
 priest, on the Day of Atonement, put off his 
 robes of office for the dress of white linen. 
 
 4 . There are here mentioned six articles 
 belonging to the official dress of the High- 
 priest, which are described in the verses that 
 follow; but the description does not follow 
 the order of this enumeration, and it com- 
 prises, in addition, the gold plate of the mitre 
 (v. 36) and the garments which were com- 
 mon to all the priests. 
 
 and his sons'] These, it is evident, were the 
 representatives of the family who, in the ages 
 that followed, inherited the High-priesthood 
 in succession. But the sons who were con- 
 secrated at this time with Aaron as common 
 priests, are designated in the same way in 
 <u. AO and elsewhere. 
 
 5. gold, and blue, &c.] the gold and 
 the blue and the scarlet and the fine 
 linen. The definite article is prefixed to 
 each substantive to denote specially the quan- 
 tity and the quality of the material required 
 for the dresses. With the exception of the 
 gold, the materials were the same as those of 
 the tabernacle-cloth, the vail of the Taber- 
 nacle and the entrance-curtain of the Tent 
 (xxvi. j, 31, 36. See on xxv. 4). The gold 
 was wrought into thin fiat wires which could 
 either be woven with the woollen and linen 
 threads, or worked with the needle (see 
 
384 
 
 EXODUS. XXVIII. 
 
 [v. 6 — II. 
 
 6 And they shall make the ephod 
 of gold, (?/'blue, and of purple, of scarlet, 
 and fine twined linen, with cunning 
 work. 
 
 7 It shall have the two shoulder- 
 pieces thereof joined at the two edges 
 thereof ; and so it shall be joined to- 
 gether. 
 
 !Or, 8 And the "curious girdle of the 
 
 broidered. wliich IS upoii it, shall be of 
 
 the same, according to the work there- 
 of ; even of gold, of blue, and purple, 
 and scarlet, and fine twined linen. 
 
 9 And thou shalt take two onyx 
 stones, and grave on them the names 
 of the children of Israel : 
 
 10 Six of their names on one stone, 
 and the other six names of the rest on 
 the other stone, according to their 
 birth. 
 
 1 1 ''With the work of an engraver '^wnd.iS. 
 in stone, like the engravings of a signet, 
 
 shalt thou engrave the two stones with 
 the names of the children of Israel : 
 thou shalt make them to be set in 
 ouches of gold. 
 
 xxxix. 3 and on xxxv. 35). In rej^ard to the 
 mixture of linen and woollen threads in the 
 Ephod and other parts of the High-priest’s 
 dress, a difficulty seems to present itself in 
 connection with the law which forbad gar- 
 ments of linen and woollen mixed to be worn 
 by the Israelites (Lev. xix. 19; Dent. xxii. ii). 
 It has been conjectured that the coloured 
 threads here mentioned were not woollen but 
 dyed linen (Knobel). But see on Lev. xix. 19. 
 
 The Ephod. 
 
 6— T2 (xxxix. % — 7). 
 
 6. the ephod'] The Hebrew word is here 
 retained, which, according to its etymology, 
 has the same breadth of meaning as (iur word 
 "jestment. The garment being worn over the 
 shoulders, the word is rendered by the LXX. 
 € 7 Ta)[xis (which occurs also Ecclus. xlv. 8), and 
 by the Vulgate super hm 7 ier ale. It consisted of 
 blue, purple and scarlet yarn and “hue twined 
 linen” (on xxvi. i) wrought together in work 
 of the skilled weaver (on xxvi. i and 
 xxxv. 35). It was the distinctive vestment of 
 the fligh-priest, to which “the breastplate of 
 judgment” was attached {pvnj. 25 — 28). 
 
 7 . From this verse, and from xxxix. 4, 
 it would seem that the Ephod consisted of two 
 principal pieces of cloth, one for the back and 
 the other for the front, joined together by 
 shoulder straps (see on t.-. 27). Below the 
 arms, probably just above the hips, the two 
 j)ieccs were kept in place by a band attached 
 to one of the pieces, which is described in the 
 next verse. Most Jewish authorities have 
 thus understood the description. But Jose- 
 phus describes the Isphod as a tunic {^irdv) 
 having sleeves (‘Ant.’ ill. 7. § 5). It is 
 just possible that the fashion of it may have 
 changed before the time of the historian. On 
 the respect in which this Isphcd of the High- 
 priest was held, see i S. ii. 28, xiv. 3, xxi. 9, 
 xxiii. 6, 9, XXX, 7. lint an Isphod made of 
 linen appears to have Ix-en a recognized gar- 
 ment not only for the common priests (i S. 
 xxii. 1 8) but also for those who were even 
 
 temporarily engaged in the senice of the 
 Sanctuary (i S. ii. 18; 2 S. vi. 14; i Chro. 
 XV. 27). 
 
 8. the curious girdle of the ephod., 'which is 
 upon it, shall be of the same] The meaning 
 might rather be expressed : — the band for 
 fastening it, which is upon it, shall be of the 
 same work, of one piece with it. So de AVette, 
 Knobel, Zunz, Herx., &;c. This band being 
 woven on to one of the pieces of the Ephod 
 was passed round the body, and fastened by 
 buttons, or strings, or some other suitable 
 contrivance. 
 
 9 . two onyx stones] The Hebrew name of 
 
 the stone here spoken of is shoham. It is uni- 
 formly rendered oyiyx in our Bible and in the 
 Vulgate; Josephus calls it the The 
 
 LXX. and Philo, on the other hand, call it 
 the beryl. But the Greek translators are in- 
 consistent in translating the w6rd in different 
 places, so that, as regards this question, no 
 conhdence can be placed in them. The stone 
 was most likely one well adapted for engrav- 
 ing ; in this respect the onyx is preferable to 
 the beryl See on 2;. 17. 
 
 11. an engraver in stone] an artificer 
 in stone. See on xxxv. 35. 
 
 like the engravings of a signet] Cf. vv. 21, 
 36. These words probably refer to a peculiar 
 way of shaping the letters, adapted for en- 
 graving on a hard substance. — Seal engraving 
 on precious stones was practised in Egypt 
 from very remote times, and in Mesopotamia, 
 probably, from 2000 A. c. 
 
 ouches of gold] I'he gold settings of the 
 engraved stones are here plainly denoted; but, 
 according to the derivation of the Hebrew 
 word, they seem to have been formed not of 
 solid pieces of metal, but of woven wire, 
 wreathed round the stones in what is called * 
 cloisonnee work’ a sort of filigree, often found 
 in Egyptian ornaments. Mr King conjectures 
 that these stones, as well as those on the 
 breastplate, were “ in the form of ovals, or 
 rather ellipse^, like the cartouches, containing 
 proper names, in hieroglyphic inscriptions.” 
 
V. 12 17 -] 
 
 •EXODUS. XXVIII. 
 
 385 
 
 12 And thou shalt put the tW(^ 
 stones upon the shoulders of the e[>hod 
 for stones of memorial unto the chil- 
 dren of Israel : and Aaron shall bear 
 their names before the Lord upon his 
 two shoulders for a memorial. 
 
 13 *^1 And thou shalt make ouches 
 <?/gold; 
 
 14 And two chains of pure gold at 
 the ends ; of wreathen work shalt thou 
 make them, and fasten the wreathen 
 chains to the ouches. 
 
 15 ^ And thou shalt make the 
 breastplate of judgment with cunning 
 
 work; after the work of the ephod 
 thou shalt make it ; f gold, of blue, 
 and of purple, and of scarlet, and 
 of fine twined linen, shalt thou 
 make it. 
 
 16 Foursquare it shall be being 
 doubled; a span shall be the length 
 thereof, and a span shall be the breadth 
 thereof. 
 
 1 7 And thou shalt ^ set in it set- ^ 
 tings or stones, even tour rows of jftUingx of 
 stones : the first row shall be a >1 sar- 
 
 dius, a topaz, and a carbuncle : this 
 shall be the first row. 
 
 ‘ Ancient Gems,’ p. 136. The same word is 
 used in w. 13, 14, 25, where it seems to ex- 
 press an ornamental gold button, without 
 a stone. The word ouches is used by Shak- 
 speare, Spenser, and some of their contempo- 
 raries in the general sense of jewels. See 
 Nares’ ‘Glossary.’ 
 
 12. upon the shoulders of the ephodl] i.e. 
 upon the shoulder-pieces of the ephod. 
 See u}. 7. 
 
 upon his tnjoo shoulders'] Cf. Isa. ix. 6, xxii. 
 22. The High-priest had to represent the 
 Twelve Tribes in the presence of Jehovah ; and 
 the burden of his office could not be so aptly 
 symbolized anywhere as on his shoulders, the 
 parts of the body fittest for carrying burdens. 
 The figure is familiar enough in all languages. 
 Gf. on uj. 29. 
 
 The Breastplate. 
 
 13 — 30- (Cf xxxix. 8 — 21.) 
 
 13 . ouches] See on v. ii. These were 
 two in number, to suit the chains mentioned 
 in the next verse. Cf. uj. 25 and xxxix. 18. 
 
 14 . t^o chains of pure gold at the ends ; of 
 (wreathen (work shalt thou make them] Rather, 
 two chains of pure gold shalt thou make 
 of wreathen work, twisted like cords. 
 — They were more like cords of twisted gold 
 wire than chains in the ordinary sense of the 
 word. Such chains have been found in Egyp- 
 tian tombs, and some of these were exhibited 
 in the Paris Exhibition of 1867. 
 
 15 . the breastplate of judg 7 nent] The 
 meaning of the Hebrew word {choshen') ren- 
 dered breastplate^ appears to be simply orna- 
 nierJ. The names given to it in nearly all 
 versions must therefore be regarded as glosses. 
 The LXX., Philo, Josephus and the son of 
 Sirach (Ecclus. xlv. 10) call it Xoy (ioVf or 
 Xoy lov, and the Vulgate rationale, in reference 
 to its use as an oracle in making known the 
 judgments of the Lord. It was from this use 
 that it was designated the Choshen of Judg- 
 ment. Symmachus renders the word as a rc- 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 ceptacle, or bag {hoxiov), from what appears 
 to have been its form. The names given to it 
 by most modern translators (like our own 
 breastplate) relate merely to its place in the 
 dress. It was to be made of a piece of cun- 
 ning (Work (tke work of the skilled 
 weaver, see xxxv. 35), the same in texture 
 and materials as the Ephod. This piece was 
 a cubit (two spans) in length and half a cubit 
 (a span) in width, and it was to be folded to- 
 gether so as to form a square of half a cubit. 
 Whether it was doubled with no other pur- 
 pose than to giv§ it stability (Rosenmiiller, 
 Knobel, Kalisch), or in order to form what 
 was used as a bag (Gesenius, Blihr, Fiirst), 
 has been questioned: but the latter appears 
 to be by far the more likely alternative. On 
 the mode in which it was attached to the 
 Ephod, see 2;. 22 sq., and on its probable use 
 as a bag, see Note at the end of the Chapter, 
 
 17 . settings] The same Hebrew word is 
 less aptly rendered “inclosings” in <v. 20. 
 From xxxix. 13 it appears that they were 
 ouches of cloisonnee work, like those mentioned 
 in 'v. II as the settings of the gems on the 
 shoulder-pieces of the ephod. 
 
 four ro(ws of stones] No very near approach 
 to certainty can be obtained in the identifica- 
 tion of these precious stones. In several in- 
 stances the Hebrew names themselves afford 
 some light on the subject. The oldest ex- 
 ternal authority to help us is the LXX., and 
 next to it come Josephus (‘ Ant.’ ill. 7. § 5 ; 
 
 ‘ Bel. Jud.’v, 5. § 7) and the other old versions, 
 especially the Vulgate. It must however be 
 observed that the Greek and Latin names are 
 not always consistently applied to the same 
 Hebrew word in different places (see on v. 9). 
 One point of interest in the inquiry appears to 
 be the etymological identity of several of the 
 names of stones in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and 
 the modern languages of Europe. These 
 names were probably transmitted to the Greeks 
 and Romans by the Phoenician merchants, 
 whose traffic in most of the precious stones 
 
 B B 
 
386 
 
 EXODUS. XXVIII. 
 
 [v. 1 8, 19. 
 
 18 And the second row shall be an 
 emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond. 
 
 19 And the third row a ligure, an 
 agate, and an amethyst. 
 
 here mentioned is alluded to by Ezekiel (xxviii. 
 13). But, unfortunately, the identity of the 
 stone denoted by no means follows from the 
 identity of the name. A name was often given 
 in ancient times to a substance on account of 
 some single characteristic, such as its colour or 
 its hardness. Hence adamant was applied to 
 the diamond, to steel, and to other hard bo- 
 dies: sapphire was certainly applied to the 
 lapis-lazuli, and, though not till a much later 
 age, to what we call the sapphire. Hence 
 it is plain that our conclusions on the sub- 
 ject can rarely be quite certain. The field of 
 conjecture in the present inquiry may however 
 be somewhat narrowed from the results of the 
 study of the antique gems of Assyria, Egypt 
 and Ancient Greece. We need not hesitate to 
 exclude those stones which appear to have been 
 unknown to the ancients, and those which 
 are so hard that the ancients did not know 
 how to engrave them. On such grounds, 
 according to Prof. Maskelyne, we must at 
 once reject the diamond, the ruby, the sap- 
 phire, the emerald, the topaz, and the chry- 
 soberyl. — The best information on the subject 
 may be found in two articles in the ‘ Edinb. 
 Rev.’ Nos. 253, 254, by Prof. Maskelyne, to 
 whom these notes on the breastplate are 
 greatly indebted. 
 
 a sardius'\ Heb. odem^ i.e. the red stone; 
 LXX. adpdiov'i Vulg. sardius’^ Jds. crapbovv^ 
 in one place (‘ Ant.’ iii. 7. § 5), but adpdtov 
 in another (‘ Bel. Jud.’ v. 5. § 7). The Sar- 
 dian stone, or sard, was much used by the 
 ancients for seals; and it is perhaps the stone 
 of all others the best for engraving (see Theo- 
 phrastus, ‘de Lapid.’ 8; Pliny, ‘H.N.’xxxvii. 
 23, 31). It is mentioned Ezek. xxviii. 13. 
 
 topaz~\ Heb. pitddh\ LXX. and Jos. to- 
 Tvd^Lov\ topazhis. The word ap- 
 
 pears to have been formed by metathesis from 
 (Gesenius, Knobel, Fiirst). ThQ pitddh 
 is mentioned by Ezekiel (xxviii. 13); and it 
 is spoken of in Job (xxviii. 19) as a product of 
 Ethiopia, which tends to confirm its identity 
 with the topaz which is said by Strabo (xvi. 
 p. 770), Diodorus (ill. 39), andldiny (xxxvii. 
 32), to have been obtained from Ethiopia. It 
 was not however the stone now called the 
 topaz : it may have been the peridot, or 
 chrysolite, a stone of a greenish hue. 
 
 a carbuncle~\ Heb. bdrekeih\ LXX. and 
 Jos. rrpdpaybo^^Wd'g. smaragdus. It was cer- 
 tainly not tne carbuncle; it is not improbable 
 that it was the beryl, which is a kind of 
 •emerald (Plin. xxxvii. 16, Solinus xv. 23). 
 The Grt^-k name sometimes appears as pdpay- 
 6of, supposed to be identical with the Sanskrit 
 name of the Iveryl, marakata (FUrst), which 
 plainly appears to be allied to the Heb. bdreketh^ 
 
 and probably to our own emerald. Gesenius 
 and Liddell and Scott severally ascribe the 
 Hebrew name and the Greek to roots signify- 
 ing to glitter., or sparkle: but the character- 
 istic quality thus suggested is not one that 
 particularly distinguishes the beryl amongst 
 precious stones. The bareketh is mentioned 
 Ezek. xxviii. 13. 
 
 18 . anemeraldl Wq'o. nophek/\.c. the glow- 
 ing stone (Knobel, Fiirst); LXX. and Jos. 
 u.v 6 pa^\ carbtmculus. There seems no 
 
 reason to doubt that the garnet, which when 
 cut with a convex face is termed the car- 
 buncle, is meant. (See Theoph, ‘ de Lapid.’ 
 18). The same stone is mentioned Ezek. 
 xxvii. 16, xxviii. 13. 
 
 a sapphire~\ Heb. sapp'ir; LXX. o-a7r(/)fi- 
 po?; Vulg, sapphirus. Josephus appears to 
 have transposed this name and the next, and 
 may fairly be regarded as agreeing with the 
 LXX. as to its meaning. It is conceived 
 to have been the sapphire of the Greeks, not 
 only from the identity of the name, but from 
 the evident references to the colour in Exod. 
 xxiv. 10; Ezek. i. 26, x. i. The name also 
 occurs Job xxviii. 6, 16; Cant. v. 14; Isa. 
 liv. II ; Lam. iv. 7; Ezek. xxviii. 13. Mi- 
 chaelis and others objected to what is now 
 called the sapphire on account of its hard- 
 ness, and supposed that the lapis-lazuli is 
 most probably meant. The best recent autho- 
 rities justify this conjecture, in reference not 
 only to the sappir of the Old Testament, but 
 to the sapphire of the Greeks and Romans 
 (see the first note on this verse). According 
 to a Jewish fancy in the Talmud, the Tables 
 of the Law were formed of sappir. 
 
 a diamond] Heb. yahalom. The etymology 
 of the word is supposed to be similar to that 
 ascribed to the Greek dSapay, so as to give it 
 the meaning of the unconquerable. Hence 
 some of the ancient versions, with Aben-Ezra, 
 Abarbanel, and Luther (ivhom our translators 
 followed), have taken the diamond as the 
 stone denoted. But there is no trace of evi- 
 dence that the ancients ever acquired the skill 
 to engrave on the diamond, or even that they 
 were acquainted with the stone. The LXX. 
 
 yahalom by iaann, and the Vulg. by 
 jnspis; but these words answer more satis- 
 factorily to the jasper (see on i', 20). Some 
 imagine it to be the onyx, which is more 
 likely the shoham (v. 9) : but it may pos- 
 sibly be some other variety of chalcedony, or 
 (perhaps) rock crystal. In the uncertainty 
 which exists, the original name yalialom 
 might be retained in the version. The word 
 is found in ICzek. xxviii. 13: but it is another 
 word {shamir') which is rendered diamond or 
 adamant m]QV.yi\n.i\ Ezek. iii. 9; Zech.vii.12. 
 
t Heb. ' 
 fUlbigs. 
 
 EXODUS. XXVIII. 
 
 V. 20 27.] 
 
 20 And the fourth row a beryl, and 
 an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be 
 set in gold in their ^ inclosings. 
 
 21 And the stones shall be with 
 the names of the children of Israel, 
 twelve, according to their names, like 
 the engravings of a signet ; every one 
 with his name shall they be according 
 to the twelve tribes. 
 
 22 ^ And thou shalt make upon 
 the breastplate chains at the ends-<5/' 
 wreathen work of pure gold. 
 
 23 And thou shalt make upon the 
 breastplate two rings of gold, and 
 shalt put the two rings on the two 
 ends of the breastplate. 
 
 24 And thou shalt put the two 
 wreathen chains of gold in the two 
 
 rings which are on the ends of the 
 breastplate. 
 
 25 And the other two ends of the 
 two wreathen chains thou shalt fasten 
 in the two ouches, and put them on the 
 shoulderpieces of the ephod before it. 
 
 26 ^ And thou shalt make two 
 rings of gold, and thou shalt put them 
 upon the two ends of the breastplate 
 in the border thereof, which is in the 
 side of the ephod inward. 
 
 27 And two other rings of gold 
 thou shalt make, and shalt put them 
 on the two sides of the ephod under- 
 neath, toward the forepart thereof, 
 over against the other coupling there- 
 of, above the curious girdle of the 
 ephod. 
 
 19 . n ligure'] Heb. leshem. LXX. and Jos. 
 'kiyvpiov, Vulg. ligurius. According to Theo- 
 phrastus (‘de Lapid.’ 29) and Pliny (‘H. N.’ 
 xxxvii, ii), amber came from Liguria, and 
 this would exactly account for the names used 
 by the LXX. and Vulg., if, as is not in any 
 respect improbable, amber is here meant. On 
 the name XvyKovpiov^ see Liddell and Scott. 
 The lesheyn is not mentioned elsewhere in the 
 Old Testament except in xxxix. 12. 
 
 an agate\ Heb. she^oo^ LXX. d^arTj^f 
 Vulg. achates. Josephus appears to have 
 transposed dxdrrjs with the next name: he 
 makes several other changes in the order of 
 the stones in the list given, ‘Bel. Jud.’ v. 5. 
 §7. No question has been raised that the 
 agate is here meant. The word she^oc occurs 
 only here -and xxxix. 12; but another word 
 {kadkod) is rendered agate in our version, Isa. 
 liv. 12; Ezek. xxvii. 16. 
 
 an atnethyst\ Heb. achldmdh., l.XX. and 
 Josephus dixidvoTTos, Vulg. amethystus. Men- 
 tioned only here and xxxix. 12. 
 
 20 . a beryl] Heb. tarshish, LXX. and 
 Jos. ;^puo-oXidos, Vulg. chrysolitkus. This 
 could hardly have been the beryl (see on v. 17) 
 or the turkois, as Luther and Granmer im- 
 agined. The Hebrew name is reasonably sup- 
 posed to have been given to the stone because 
 It came from Tarshish. A kind of carbuncle, 
 or garnet, is spoken of by Pliny, called carcbe- 
 doniiis, in connection with Carthage (‘ H. N.’ 
 XXXVII. 25), and this is supposed by some 
 to be the tarshish (Knobel, Fiirst). Others 
 suppose that it was what Pliny calls the chry- 
 solite, a brilliant yellow stone (see Plin. 
 XXXVII. 42), which they identify, with what 
 is now known as the Spanish topaz (Gese- 
 nius, 8 cc.'). It would seem to be best, in 
 such uncertainty, to retain the name tarsbisli 
 
 in translating. The stone is mentioned Cant, 
 v. 14; Ezek. i. 16, x. 9, xxviii. 13; Dan. 
 
 X. 6. 
 
 an onyx] Heb. sboham. Josephus and the 
 Vulgate take it for the onyx (see on ns. 9) ; but 
 the LXX., apparently by a copyist’s transpo- 
 sition, have lirjpvWiov here, and duvxiov for 
 the next stone. The shoham is mentioned 
 Gen. ii. 12; Ex. xxv. 7; i Chro. xxix. a; Job 
 xxviii. 16; Ezek. xxviii. 13. 
 
 a jasper] Heb. yashpeh. The similarity of 
 the Hebrew name to our word jasper., to the 
 Greek ca(r7r69, the Latin jaspis., and the Arabic 
 jasb., is obvious. Josephus and the Vulgate 
 render it as beryl and the LXX. as onyx (but 
 see preceding note). The best authorities 
 take it for jasper (Gesen., Bahr, Knobel, 
 Furst): it was probably the green jasper. It 
 is mentioned nowhere else except Ex. xxxix. 
 13; Ezek. xxviii. 13. 
 
 their inclosings] their settings (see on 
 ns. 17). 
 
 22. chains at the ends of n.v re at hen nvork] 
 chains of wreathen work, twisted like 
 cords (see on ns. 14). 
 
 23 . on the t<iuo ends of the breastplate] 
 The extremities spoken of here, and in the 
 next verse, must have been the upper corners 
 of the square. The chains attached to them 
 {y. 25) suspended the Breastplate from the 
 ouch^ of the shoulder-pieces (pun). 9, ii, 12). 
 
 26 . tnvQ These two rings appear 
 
 to have been fastened to the Breastplate, near 
 its lower corners upon the inner side, so as 
 to have been out of sight. See on the follow- 
 ing two verses. 
 
 27 . “And two rings of gold shalt thou 
 make and put them on the two shoulder- 
 pieces of the Ephod, low down in the 
 
 B B 2 
 
88 
 
 EXODUS. XXVIII. 
 
 [v. 28—33. 
 
 28 And they shall bind the breast- 
 plate by the rings thereof unto the 
 rings of the ephod with a lace ot 
 blue, that it may be above the curious 
 girdle of the ephod, and that the 
 breastplate be not loosed from the 
 ephod. 
 
 29 And Aaron shall bear the 
 names of the children of Israel in the 
 breastplate of judgment upon his heart, 
 v/hen he goeth in unto the holy place^ 
 for a memorial before the Lord con- 
 tinually. 
 
 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. 
 
 31 ^ And thou shalt make the 
 robe of the ephod all of blue. 
 
 32 And there shall be an hole in 
 the top of it, in the midst thereof: 
 it shall have a binding of woven work 
 round about the hole of it, as it were 
 the hole of an habergeon, that it be 
 not rent. 
 
 33 ^ And beneath upon the hem 
 of it thou shalt make pomegranates 
 of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, 
 
 front of it, near the joining, above 
 the band for fastening it.” It would 
 seem that the shoulder-pieces were continued 
 down the front of the Ephod as far as the 
 band (see on 'v. 8); the joining appears to 
 have been the meeting of the extremities of 
 the shoulder-pieces with the band. These 
 rings were attached to the shoulder-pieces 
 just above this joining. 
 
 28 . the curious girdle of the ephof the 
 band for fastening it (see on 'v. 8). The 
 two lower rings of the Breastplate were to be 
 tied to the rings near the ends of the shoulder- 
 pieces, opposite to which they seem to have 
 been placed, by laces of blue, so as to keep the 
 Breastplate firmly in its place just above the 
 band. 
 
 29 . The names of the Tribes on the two 
 onyx stones were worn on the shoulders of 
 the High-priest to indicate the burden of 
 the office which he bore (see on nj. 12); the 
 same names engraved on the stones of the 
 Breastplate were worn over his heart, the seat 
 of the affections, as well as of the intellect 
 (see on n). 3), to symboli'/e the relation of 
 love and of personal interest which the Lord 
 recjuires to exist between the Priest and the 
 People. 
 
 30 . put in the breastplate of judgment the 
 Urim and the 'Thummim~\ It is not questioned 
 that this rendering (which agrees with the 
 Vulgate, Saadia, Luther, and most modern 
 versions) fairly represents the original words; 
 and it most naturally follows that the Urim 
 and the Thummim (whatever they were) 
 were put into the bag that was formed by the 
 doubling of the Choshen (see on v. 15), as the 
 I'ables of the Law were' put into the Ark, the 
 same verb and preposition being used in each 
 case (xxv. 16). IVlost critics are in favour of 
 this view. But it cannot be denied that the 
 words may also mean, upon the Breastplate. 
 
 So the LXX., the Syriac, de Wette, Knobel. 
 See Note at the end of the Chapter. 
 
 the Urim and the Thummim~\ These were 
 probably some well-known means for casting 
 lots which, from this time forward, were kept 
 in the bag of the Choshen. See Note. 
 
 l^he Kobe of the Ephod. 
 
 31 — 35. (xxxix. 22 — 26.) 
 
 31 . the robe of the ephod'] The Robe of 
 the Ephod was a frock or robe of the simplest 
 form, woven without seam, wholly of blue 
 (see Note at the end of ch. xxv. § IL). It 
 was put on by being drawn over the head. 
 It appears to have had no sleeves. It pro- 
 bably reached a little below the knees. It must 
 have been visible above and below the Ephod, 
 the variegated texture of which it must have 
 set off as a plain blue groundwork. 
 
 32 . Jlnd there shall 'be an hole in the top of it ^ 
 in the midst thereof] And its opening for 
 the head shall he in the middle of it. 
 So de Wette, Knobel, Kalisch, Herx., &c. 
 The meaning appears to be that the opening 
 through which the head was to be put should 
 be a mere round hole, not connected with any 
 longitudinal slit before or behind. 
 
 of (wo-ven r^vork] of the work of the 
 weaver (see on xxvi. i, xxxv. 35). This 
 was probably a stout binding of woven thread, 
 sewn over the edge of the hole for the head, 
 to strengthen it and preserve it from fraying. 
 
 an habergeon] The original word, tachardh., 
 is found in Egyptian papyri of the 19th dy- 
 nasty (Brugsch, ‘ D. H.,’ p. 1579), though its 
 root appears to be Semitic (Gesen. ‘Thes.’ 
 p, 518). Corselets of linen, such as appear to 
 be here referred to, were well known amongst 
 the Egyptians (Herodot. ii. 182, ill. 47; Uhn. 
 XIX. 2. Cf. Horn. ‘ II.’ II. 529). 
 
 33. 34. The skirt was to be adorned with 
 a border of pomegranates in colours, and a 
 
V. 34—39-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXVIII. 
 
 389 
 
 roundabout the hem thereof ; and bells 
 of gold between them round about : 
 
 34 A golden bell and a pome- 
 granate, a golden bell and a pome- 
 granate, upon the hem of the robe 
 round about. 
 
 35 ^ And it shall be upon Aaron to 
 minister : and his sound shall be heard 
 when he goeth in unto the holy place 
 before the Lord, and when he com- 
 eth out, that he die not. 
 
 36 ^ And thou shalt make a plate 
 of pure gold, and grave upon it, like 
 the engravings of a signet, HOLI- 
 NESS TO THE LORD. 
 
 37 And thou shalt put it on a 
 blue lace, that it may be upon the 
 mitre ; upon the forefront of the mitre 
 it shall be. 
 
 38 And it shall be upon Aaron’s 
 forehead, that Aaron may bear the 
 iniquity of the holy things, which 
 the children of Israel shall hallow in 
 all their holy gifts; and it shall be 
 always upon his forehead, that they 
 may be accepted before the Lord. 
 
 39 ^ And thou shalt embroider 
 the coat of fine linen, and thou shalt 
 make the mitre of fine linen, and thou 
 shalt make the girdle of needlework. 
 
 small golden bell was to be attached to the 
 hem between each two of the pomegranates. 
 
 35 . his sound] its sound, i.e. the sound 
 of the R.obe. Some conceive that the bells 
 furnished a musical offering of praise to the 
 Lord (Knobel, &c.). But it seems more 
 likely that their purpose was that the people, 
 who stood without, when they heard the 
 sound of them within the Tabernacle, might* 
 have a sensible proof that the High-priest was 
 performing the sacred rite in their behalf, 
 though he was out of their sight. The bells 
 thus became an incentive to devotional feel- 
 ings. This accords with very early tradition. 
 See Ecclus. xlv. 9. 
 
 that he die not] The bells also bore witness 
 that the High-priest was, at the time of his 
 ministration, duly attired in the dress of his 
 office, and so was not incurring the sentence 
 of death which is referred to again in ‘v. 43 in 
 connection with the linen drawers that were 
 worn by the whole body of the priests. An 
 infraction of the laws for the service of the 
 Sanctuary was not merely an act of disobe- 
 dience; it was a direct insult to the presence 
 of Jehovah from His ordained minister, and 
 justly incurred a sentence of capital punish- 
 ment Gf. Ex. XXX. 2T ; Lev. viii. 35, x. 7. 
 
 The Mitre and the Garments of Fine Linen. 
 
 36—43. (xxxix. 27—31.) 
 
 36 . In the narrative of the making of the 
 holy things (xxxix. 28, 30) the Mitre of fine 
 linen is n|^ntioned before the Golden Plate, as 
 having been first completed, and as that to 
 which the plate itself was to be attached. 
 But in these directions the plate is first de- 
 scribed, as being the most significant part of 
 the head-dress. For a similar transposition, 
 shewing the strictly practical character of the 
 narrative, see on xxxv. ii. 
 
 engra'vings of a signet] See on -z;. ii. 
 
 HOLINESS TO THE LORD] This 
 inscription testified in express words the holi- 
 ness with which the High-priest was invested 
 in virtue of his sacred calling. 
 
 37 . a blue lace] The plate was fastened 
 upon a blue band or fillet, so tied round the 
 mitre as to shew the plate in front. 
 
 the mitre] According to the derivation of 
 the Hebrew word, and fi'om the statement in 
 2;. 39, this was a twisted band of linen coiled 
 into a cap, to which the name mitre^ in its 
 original sense, closely answers, but which, in 
 modern usage, would rather be called a turban. 
 
 38 . bear the iniquity of the holy things] 
 The Hebrew expression “to bear iniquity” 
 is applied either to one who suffers the 
 penalty of sin {y. 43; Lev. v. i, 17, xvii. 16, 
 xxvi. 41, &:c.), or to one who takes away the 
 sin of others (Gen. 1 . 17; Lev. x. 17, xvi. 22; 
 Num. XXX, 15; I S. XV. 25, &c. See on Gen, 
 iv. 13). In several of these passages the verb 
 is rightly rendered to forginee. — The iniquity 
 which is spoken of in this place does not 
 mean particular sins actually committed, but 
 that condition of alienation from God in 
 every earthly thing which makes reconcilia- 
 tion and consecration needful, Cf. Num. 
 xviii. I. It belonged to the High-priest, as 
 the chief atoning mediator between Jehovah 
 and His people (see on 36), to atone for 
 the holy things that they might be “ accepted 
 before the Lord” (cf. Lev. viii. 15, xvi. 20, 
 33, with the notes): but the common priests 
 also, in their proper functions, had to take 
 their part in making atonement (Lev. iv. 20, 
 V. 10, X. 17, xxii. 16; Num. xviii. 23, &c.). 
 
 39. embroider the coat of fne linen] This 
 garment appears to have been a long- tunic, or 
 cassock. Josephus says that it was worn 
 next the skin, that it reached to the feet, and 
 that it had closely fitting sleeves (‘Ant,’ ill. 7. 
 § 2). The verb translated embroider {shdbatz^ 
 a word of very rare occurrence) appears ra- 
 
390 
 
 EXODUS. XXVIII. 
 
 [v. 40—43- 
 
 40 And for Aaron’s sons thou 
 shalt make coats, and thou shalt make 
 for them girdles, and bonnets shalt 
 thou make for them, for glory and for 
 beauty. 
 
 41 And thou shalt put them upon 
 Aaron thy brother, and his sons with 
 him ; and shalt anoint them, and 
 
 f Heb. ^ consecrate them, and sanctify them, 
 that they may minister unto me in 
 the priest’s office. 
 
 42 And thou shalt make them 
 
 linen breeches to cover Uheir naked- 
 ness ; from the loins even unto the their 
 thighs they shall ^ reach : 
 
 43 And they shall be upon Aaron, 
 and upon his sons, when they come 
 in unto the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation, or when they come near ' 
 unto the altar to minister in the 
 holy place; that they bear not ini- 
 quity, and die : it shall be a statute 
 for ever unto him and his seed after 
 him. 
 
 ther to mean weave in diaper work. The 
 tissue consisted of threads of one and the same 
 colour diapered in checkers, or in some small 
 figure. According to xxxix. 27 such tissue 
 was woven by the ordinary weaver, not by 
 the skilled weaver. (See on xxxv. 35 ; Ge- 
 sen. ‘Thes.’ p. 1356; Fiirst, ‘ Lex.’ s. v. Cf. 
 Wilkinson, ‘Pop. Account,’ Vol. ii. p. 86.) 
 It has been inferred from 'vv. 40, 41, and from 
 xxxix. 27, that this and the other linen gar- 
 ments of the High-priest, with the exception 
 of the mitre, did not differ from the dress of 
 the common priests mentioned in the next 
 verse. See Lev. vi. 10; Ezek. xliv. 17. 
 
 the mitre of fine linen'] See on v. 37. 
 
 the girdle of needle<work] tlie girdle of 
 the work of the embroiderer (xxvi. i, 
 xxxv. 35). The word translated girdle is a 
 different one from that so rendered in ‘v. 8 
 (see note). The name here used {ahnet) has 
 been supposed to be a Persian word (Gesenius), 
 but it is more likely to be an Egyptian one 
 (Furst, Brugsch, Birch). It was embroider- 
 ed in three colours (xxxix. 29). Josephus 
 says that its texture was very loose, so that it 
 resembled the slough of a snake, that it was 
 wound several times round the body, and that 
 its ends ordinarily hung down to the feet, but 
 were thrown over the shoulder when the 
 priest was engaged in his work. 
 
 40 . Aarons sons] The common priests 
 are here meant. See on v. 4. The girdle 
 worn by them is here c.alled by the same 
 name as that of the High-priest {abnet), and 
 was probably of the same make. Cf. xxxix. 
 29. Instead of the mitre consisting of a coil 
 of twisted linen, the common priests wore 
 caps of a simple construction which, accord- 
 ing to a probable explanation of the name. 
 
 seem to have been cup-shaped. They were 
 however of fine texture and workmanship 
 (xxxix. 28). The word bonnet is, in our 
 present English, less suitable than cap. The 
 description of the head-dress of the priests 
 given by Josephus (‘Ant.’ ill. 3. § 6) perhaps 
 indicates a change of foiTn in his day. Cf. 
 on "v. 7. 
 
 for glory a7id for beauty] See v. 2 and the 
 following note. 
 
 41 — 43 . The dress of white linen was the 
 strictly sacerdotal dress common to the whole 
 body of priests (Ezek. xliv. 17, 18). These 
 were “for glory and for beauty” not less than 
 the golden garments (as they were called by 
 the jews) which formed the High-priest’s dress 
 of state (t.’. 2). The linen suit which the 
 High-priest put on when he went into the 
 Most Holy place on the Day of Atonement, 
 appears to have been regarded with peculiar 
 respect (Lev. xvi. 4, 23; cf. Exod. xxxi. 10), 
 though it is nowhere stated that it was dis- 
 tinguished in its make or texture, except in 
 having a girdle (abnet) wholly of white linen, 
 instead of a variegated one. — It may here be 
 observed that the statement in Josephus, that 
 the High-priest wore his golden garments only 
 when he went into the Most Holy place 
 (‘Bel. Jud.’ v. 5. § 7) is an obvious mistake: 
 the reading is probably corrupt (see Hudson’s 
 note). — The ancient Egyptian priests, like the 
 Hebrew priests, wore nothing but white linen 
 garments in the performance of their duties 
 (Herod, ii. 37, with Wilkinson’s note; Hengst. 
 ‘Egypt and the Books of Moses,’ p. 145). 
 
 43. in unto the tabernacle] into the 
 Tent. See on xxvi. i. 
 
 that they bear not iniquity^ and die] See 
 on 'v'v. 35, 38. 
 
 NOTE on Chap, xxviii. 30. 
 
 On the Urim and the Thummim. 
 
 I. Their names. II. They 'luei'e previo7isly knenvn, 
 and distinct front the Jircastplate. III. 
 Their purpose and history. IV. Their 
 origin. V. Theories. 
 
 1 . 
 
 The expression the Urhn and the Thummim 
 (D'^nTn^l nn-INriTl^) appears to mean 
 the Light and the Truth. The primary meaning 
 of the latter term is perfection. The form 
 
EXODUS. XXVIII. 
 
 391 
 
 of the words is plural; but, according to the 
 Hebrew idiom, this does not necessarily imply 
 a plural sense. The rendering of the LXX. 
 is, 7; d^Xcoais Kol 7; dXijdeia] that of Symma- 
 chus, (pooTicrfiol Kal TeXeioTrjTes’i that of the 
 Vulgate, Doctrina et Veritas. The other 
 ancient versions substantially agree with one 
 or other of these. In most modern versions, 
 except Luther’s {Licht und Recbt) and de 
 Wette’s (das Licht und die Wahrbeit)^ the 
 words are untranslated. 
 
 II. 
 
 From the way in which they are spoken of 
 in Ex. xxviii. 30 and in Lev. viii. 8, compared 
 with Ex. xxviii. 15 — 21, it would appear, tak- 
 ing a simple view of the words, that the Urim 
 and the Thummim were some material things, 
 and that they were separate from the Breast- 
 plate itself, as well as from the gems that 
 were set upon it. It would seem most pro- 
 bable that they were kept in the bag of the 
 Breastplate (Ex. xxviii. 16). And from the 
 definite article being prefixed to each of the 
 names, from their not being described in any 
 way, and from their not being mentioned in 
 the record of the construction of the Breast- 
 plate (xxxix. 21), it seems most likely that 
 they Vv^ere something previously existing and 
 familiarly known. It is true that the Samari- 
 tan text says that Moses was to make them: 
 but even if we accept this very weak authority, 
 when the statement is compared with the fact 
 that there is no direction given as to form or 
 material, it leaves us to infer that they were 
 no novelty as regards their use. 
 
 III. 
 
 The purpose of the Urim and the Thum- 
 mim is clearly enough indicated in Num. 
 xxvii. 21; I S. xxviii. 6; and also (as they 
 were evidently regarded as belonging to the 
 Ephod) in I S. xxlii. 9 — 12, xxx. 7, 8, cf. 
 xxii. 14, 15. We are warranted in conclud- 
 ing that they were visible things of some sort 
 by which the will of Jehovah, especially in 
 what related to the wars in which His people 
 were engaged, was made known, and that 
 from this time they were preserved in the bag 
 of the Breastplate of the High-priest, to be 
 borne “upon his heart before the Lord con- 
 tinually” (Ex. xxviii. 30). They were form- 
 ally delivered by Moses to Aaron (Lev. viii. 8), 
 and subsequently passed on to Eleazar (Num. 
 XX. 28, xxvii. 21). They were esteemed as the 
 crowning glory of the Tribe of Levi (Deut. 
 xxxiii. 8). There is no instance on record of 
 their being consulted after the time of David. 
 They were certainly not in use after the Cap- 
 tivity ; and it seems to have become a proverb 
 in reference to a question of inextricable diffi- 
 culty, that it should not be solved “till there 
 stood up a priest with Urim and Thummim” 
 (Ezra ii. 63 ; Neh. vii. 65; cf. Hos. iii. 4)- — 
 Such seem to be all the particulars that can be 
 
 gathered immediately, or by easy inference, 
 from Holy Scripture, regarding the nature, 
 purpose, and history of the Urim and the 
 Thummim. 
 
 IV, 
 
 Since the time of Spencer, the opinion has 
 prevailed to a great extent that the U rim and 
 the Thummim were wholly, or in part, of 
 Egyptian origin. With this opinion is con- 
 nected the notion that they were Wo small 
 images of precious stone, which appears to 
 have taken its rise from a passage in Philo; 
 TO 8 e Xoyeiov rcrpaycovou dtTrXovv narccTK^vd- 
 ^ero, d>cravc:\ j3d(TLS, lua dvo dperds dyaXparo- 
 (jioprj, di^Xosaiv re Ka\ dX-qdeiav (‘Vlt. Mos.’ 
 III. ii). But may not the symbol of the two 
 virtues in the fancy of Philo have been rather 
 the two sides of the Choshen than two actual 
 images? Philo’s use of the verb dyaXparofpo- 
 pelv in other connections may tend to confirm 
 this view. See ‘de Confus. Ling.’ c. 13; ‘de 
 Mundi Opif.’ c. 23; but still more to the 
 point is a passage in which he says that the 
 two webs of the Choshen were called Revela- 
 tion and Truth . — ’Etti de rov Xoyeiov dirra 
 vejido-paTa KaTaTroiKlXXei, TTpocrayapevcov to pev 
 drjX(o(riv to de dX-^deiav (‘ de Monarch.’ II. 5. 
 See also ‘ Legis Alleg.’ iii. 40, where he sub- 
 stitutes cra(f)^ueia for dijXcocTLs). But it is al- 
 leged that a close analogy is furnished by the 
 image of sapphire (/aj)is lazuli, see on Ex. 
 xxviii. 18) called Truth, that was suspended 
 by a gold chain on the breasts of the Egyptian 
 Judges, with which they touched the lips of 
 acquitted persons (Diod. Sic. i. 48, 75 ; Ailian, 
 
 ‘ Var. Hist.’ xiv. 34). That such a custom as 
 this was of old standing in Egypt, is rendered 
 very probable by certain pictures of great an- 
 tiquity in which the image is represented as a 
 double one, bearing the symbols of Truth and 
 Justice. The deity endowed with this dual 
 character was called Thmei, and with this name 
 some have connected the word Thummim, 
 (Wilkinson, ii. p. 205). But this etymology 
 is entirely rejected by Egyptian scholars. — The 
 Egyptian origin of the Urim and the Thum- 
 mim has been advocated by Spencer, Gesenius, 
 Knobel, Furst, Hengstenberg, Plumptre (in 
 Smith’s ‘ Diet.’ s. v.) and others. 
 
 But an argument on the other side seems to 
 be furnished by the connection of the Tera- 
 phim with the Urim and the Thummim, 
 which may be traced in the Old Testament. 
 It has been suggested on very probable ground 
 that the Teraphim may have been employed 
 as an unauthorized substitute for the Urim 
 and the Thummim b Now we know that 
 the Teraphim belonged to patriarchal times, 
 
 ^ See Judg. xvii. 5, xvlii. 14, 17, 20; Hos. 
 iii. 4 ; and, as rightly rendered in the margin, 
 2 K. xxiii. 24; Ezek. xxi. 21; Zech. x. 2: to 
 these may be added, as it stands in the Hebrew, 
 
 I S. XV. 23. 
 
392 
 
 EXODUS. XXVIII. 
 
 to the Semitic race, and to regions remote 
 from Egypt (see Gen, xxxi. 19, &c,). Is not 
 the supposition as easy that the Urim and the 
 Thummim took the place of what must have 
 been familiarly known to the Patriarchs, and 
 which appear, in a renewal of the old degraded 
 form, to have been in later times confounded 
 with them, as that they were adopted from 
 the Egyptians? 
 
 V. 
 
 As to the form and material of the Urim 
 and the Thummim, and as to the mode in 
 which they were consulted by the High- 
 priest, there have been many conjectures, 
 some of them very wild and startling. It 
 would be out of place here to go at length 
 into a subject in which there is so little to 
 limit or to regulate the field of conjecture, 
 that anything like certainty is beyond the 
 reach of hope; but the inquiry must not be 
 entirely passed over. We may first observe 
 that the different views which have been taken 
 are based on three distinct theories : — 
 
 I. That the Divine Will was manifested 
 through the Urim and the Thummim by some 
 physical effect addressed to the eye or the ear. 
 
 a. That they were some ordained symbol 
 which, when the High-priest concentrated his 
 sight and attention on it, became a means of 
 calling forth the prophetic gift. 
 
 3. That they were some contrivance for 
 casting lots. 
 
 I. Josephus, who identified the stones of 
 the Breastplate with the Urim and the Thum- 
 mim, says that they signified a favourable 
 answer to fhe (juestion proposed by shining 
 forth with unusual brilliancy. He adds that 
 they had not been known to exhibit this power 
 for 200 years before his time (‘Ant.’ III. 8. §9). 
 As regards the mode of the answer, several 
 Jewish, and many Christian, writers, have 
 followed him. The rabbinists adopted the 
 notion, and shewed their usual tendency by 
 exaggerating it. They said tlfat the answer 
 was communicated in detail by particular 
 letters in the inscriptions on the stones shining 
 out in succession, so as to spell the words k 
 — Spencer, supposing that the Urim and the 
 Thummim were two images, or Tcraphim, 
 imagined that an angel was commissioned to 
 spc'ak through the lips of one of them with 
 an audible voice (‘ de Leg. Hebr.’ lib. iir. c. v. 
 § 3). Prideaux and others have supposed that 
 an audible voice addressed itself from the 
 Mercy-scat as the High-priest stood bt'fore it 
 wearing the Breastplate on his breast (‘ Con- 
 ucction,’ See., book i.). 
 
 ^ Sec .Sheringh.'im’s note on Yoma, in Suren- 
 husius, Vol. II. p. 251, and llie notes of Drusius 
 and Cartwright on Ex. xxviii. 30 in the ‘Crit. 
 Bac.’ 
 
 2. Some of those who have held the second 
 theory have conceived that the High-priest 
 used to fix his eyes on the gems of the Breast- 
 plate until the spirit of Prophecy came upon 
 him and gave him utterance. Others have con- 
 jectured that the object of his contemplation 
 was not the gems themselves, but some dis- 
 tinct object with sacred associations, such as 
 a gold plate or gem of some kind inscribed 
 with the name Jehovah, attached to the 
 outside of the Breastplate. This theory, 
 in some form, is adopted by the Targum of 
 Palestine, Theodoret, Lightfoot, Kalisch and 
 many others ; but it is most fully reasoned 
 out by Plumptre in Smith’s ‘Dictionary.’ 
 
 3. Michaelis, Jahn and others, have sup- 
 posed that the Urim and the Thummim might 
 have been three slips, one with yes upon it, 
 one with no, and tlie third plain, and that the 
 slip taken out of the pocket of the Breast- 
 plate at hap-hazard by the High-priest was 
 regarded as giving the answer to the question 
 proposed. — Gesenius and Fiirst have adopted 
 Spencer’s notion, that they were two images, 
 but supposed that they were used in some 
 mode of casting lots. — Winer, following Ziil- 
 lig, imagined that the Urim were diamonds cut 
 in the form of dice, and that the Thummim 
 were rough diamonds (according to the mean- 
 ing of the word, entire) with some sort of 
 marks engraved on them, which the High- 
 priest, when he sought tor an answer, took 
 out of the bag and threw down on a table 
 in the Sanctuary, drawing a meaning from 
 the mode in which they fell. 
 
 But the theory itself is not necessarily in- 
 volved in these hollow and vain conjectures as 
 to the material instruments which may have 
 been employed. 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 occa- 
 sions ‘k The divine will was manifested by 
 circumstances in themselves of as little note, 
 or of as little external connection with the 
 question at issue, as the dampness or the dry- 
 ness of a fleece laid on the ground (Judg. 
 vi. 36 — 40). It must have been a truth 
 commonly recognized by the people that 
 though “ the lot was cast into the lap, the 
 whole disposing thereof was of the Lord” 
 (Prov. xvi. 33). — The practice of casting lots 
 was not wholly discontinued till it was exer- 
 
 2 Lev. xvi. 8; Num. xxvi. 55; Josh. vii. 
 14 — 18, xiii. 6, xviii. 8; 1 8, xiv. 41, 42; Acts 
 i. 26. 
 
V. I— 13-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXIX. 
 
 393 
 
 Lev. S 
 
 &5. 2. 
 
 cised in completing the number of the twelve 
 Apostles (Acts i. a6). It seems v/orthy of 
 remark, that the Urim and the Thummim ap- 
 pear to have fallen into disuse as the prophetic 
 office became more distinct and important in 
 and after the reign of David ; and that we 
 hear nothing of the casting of lots in the 
 Apostolic History after the day of Pentecost, 
 when the Holy Ghost was given to lead be- 
 lievers into all truth. In each case, the lower 
 
 mode of revelation appears to give way to 
 the higher b 
 
 ^ It has been objected that there is nothing 
 in the etymology of the names of the Urim and 
 the Thummim to justify the conjecture that they 
 were connected with casting lots. But the words 
 in their proper meaning probably referred to the 
 result obtained (/. e. the knowledge of the divine 
 will) rather than to the mere material instruments 
 employed. 
 
 CH.APTER XXIX. 
 
 I The sacrifice and cei'emonies of consecrating 
 the priests. 38 The continual burnt offering. 
 ^ 5 God's promise to dwell amojig the children 
 of Israel. 
 
 A nd this is the thing that thou 
 shalt do unto them to • hallow 
 them, to minister unto me in the 
 !. 2. priest’s office : "Take one young bul- 
 lock, and two rams without blemish, 
 
 2 And unleavened bread, and cakes 
 unleavened tempered with oil, and 
 wafers unleavened anointed with oil : 
 of Wheaten flour shalt thou make 
 them. 
 
 3 And thou shalt put them into 
 one basket, and bring them in the 
 basket, with the bullock and the two 
 rams. 
 
 4 And Aaron and his sons thou 
 shalt bring unto the door of the ta- 
 bernacle of the congregation, and shalt 
 wash them with water. 
 
 5 And thou shalt take the gar- 
 ments, and put upon Aaron the coat, 
 and the robe of the ephod, and the 
 ephod, and the breastplate, and gird 
 him with the curious girdle of the 
 ephod ; 
 
 6 And thou shalt put the mitre 
 
 upon his head, and put the holy 
 crown upon the mitre. 
 
 7 Then shalt thou take the anoint- 
 ing ^oil, and pour it upon his head, * chap. 30. 
 and anoint him. 
 
 8 And thou shalt bring his sons, 
 and put coats upon them. 
 
 9 And thou shalt gird them with 
 girdles, Aaron and his sons, and ^ put ^Heb. 
 the bonnets on them : and the priest’s 
 office shall be theirs for a perpetual 
 statute : and thou shalt ^ consecrate 
 
 A 11* f'-^^ 
 
 Aaron and his sons. hand of. 
 
 10 And thou shalt cause a bullock 
 to be brought before the tabernacle of 
 
 the congregation: and Aaron and Lev. 1.4. 
 his sons shall put their hands upon 
 the head of the bullock. 
 
 1 1 And thou shalt kill the bullock 
 before the Lord, by the door of the 
 tabernacle of the congregation. 
 
 12 And thou shalt take of the 
 blood of the bullock, and put it upon 
 the horns of the altar with thy finger, ^ 
 
 and pour all the blood beside the bot- 11 it seem-’ 
 tom of the altar. fnaZmy, 
 
 13 And ^thou shalt take all the fat 
 
 that covereth the inwards, and “ the doctors, to 
 caul that is above the liver, and the 
 
 Chap. XXIX. 
 
 The Consecration of the Priests. 
 
 1-37* 
 
 The account of the consecration of Aaron 
 and his sons, in accordance with the direc- 
 tions contained in this chapter, is given in 
 Lev. viii., ix. The details of the ceremonies 
 involve many important references to the Law 
 of the Offerings contained in Lev. i. — vii. 
 Most of the notes on these details are there- 
 fore given under the narrative of the conse- 
 cration in Leviticus. 
 
 1, 2, 3. See on Lev. viii. a, a6. 
 
 2. cakes unlea'vened tempered with o/V] 
 
 These are called cakes of oiled bread in Lev. 
 viii. 26. See on Lev. ii. 4. 
 
 4. door of the tabernacle'\ entrance of 
 the tent. See on Lev. viii. 3. 
 
 wash thern\ See on Lev. viii. 6. 
 
 5. 6. See on Lev. viii. 7, 8, 9; Exod. 
 xxviii. 7, 8, 31 — 39, xxxix. 30. 
 
 6. the holy crown\ See on xxxix. 30. 
 
 7. the anointing oi/] See Lev. viii. ic — 12; 
 Exod. XXX. 22 — 25. 
 
 8. See on Lev. viii. 13: cf. Exod. xxxix. 
 41. 
 
 10 — 14. See on Lev. viii. 14—17; cf. Lev. 
 iv. 3. 
 
394 
 
 EXODUS. XXIX. 
 
 [v. 14—30- 
 
 two kidneys, and the fat that is upon 
 them, and burn them upon the altar. 
 
 14 But the flesh of the bullock, 
 and his skin, and his dung, shalt thou 
 burn with fire without the camp: it 
 is a sin offering. 
 
 15 ^ Thou shalt also take one 
 ram; and Aaron and his sons shall 
 put their hands upon the head of 
 the ram. 
 
 16 And thou shalt slay the ram, 
 and thou shalt take his blood, and 
 sprinkle it round about upon the altar. 
 
 17 And thou shalt cut the ram in 
 pieces, and wash the inwards of him, 
 and his legs, and put them unto his 
 
 , njwfi. pieces, and “ unto his head. 
 
 18 And thou shalt burn the whole 
 ram upon the altar: it is a burnt of- 
 fering unto the Lord : it is a sweet 
 savour, an offering made by fire unto 
 the Lord. 
 
 19 ^ And thou shalt take the 
 other ram; and Aaron and his sons 
 shall put their hands upon the head 
 of the ram. 
 
 20 Then shalt thou kill the ram, 
 and take of his blood, and put it upon 
 the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and 
 upon the tip of the right ear of his 
 sons, and upon the thumb of their 
 right hand, and upon the great toe of 
 their right foot, and sprinkle the blood 
 upon the altar round about. 
 
 21 And thou shalt take of the blood 
 that is upon the altar, and of the 
 anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon 
 Aaron, and upon his garments, and 
 upon his sons, and upon the garments 
 of his sons v/ith him : and he shall 
 be hallowed, and his garments, and 
 his sons, and his sons’ garments with 
 him. 
 
 22 Also thou shalt take of the ram 
 
 the fat and the rump, and the fat that 
 covereth the inwards, and the caul 
 above the liver, and the two kidneys, 
 and the fat that is upon them, and 
 the right shoulder; for it is a ram of 
 consecration : 
 
 23 And one loaf of bread, and one 
 cake of oiled bread, and one wafer 
 out of the basket of the unleavened 
 bread that is before the Lord : 
 
 24 And thou shalt put all in the 
 
 hands of Aaron, and in the hands of 
 his sons ; and shalt " wave them for a n Or, 
 wave offering before the Lord. ^and/rt 
 
 25 And thou shalt receive them of 
 their hands, and burn them upon the 
 altar for a burnt offering, for a sweet 
 savour before the Lord : it is an of- 
 fering made by fire unto the Lord. 
 
 26 And thou shalt take the breast 
 of the ram of Aaron’s consecration, 
 and wave it for a wave offering before 
 the Lord : and it shall be thy part. 
 
 27 And thou shalt sanctify the 
 breast of the wave offering, and the 
 shoulder of the heave offering, which 
 is waved, and which is heaved up, of 
 the ram of the consecration, even of 
 that which is for Aaron, and of that 
 which is for his sons : 
 
 28 And it shall be Aaron’s and his 
 sons’ by a statute for ever from the 
 children of Israel : for it is an heave 
 offering: and it shall be an heave 
 offering from the children of Israel of 
 the sacrifice of their peace offerings, 
 even their heave offering unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 29 ^ And the holy .garments of 
 Aaron shall be his sons’ after him, to 
 be anointed therein, and to be conse- 
 crated in them. , 
 
 30 Jnd ^ that son that is priest in t Heb. 
 his stead shall put them on seven days, 
 
 15 — 18 . See on Lev. viii. 18 — 21. 
 
 19 — 28 . See on Lev. viii. 22 — 29. 
 
 27 . On Waving and Heaving, first men- 
 tioned in their connection with the ceremonies 
 of the Altar in this chapter, see preface to 
 Leviticus. It should be noticed that the right 
 shoulder (rather perhaps the right leg^ see Lev. 
 vii. 32) was to be formally presented to the 
 
 priests {y'v. 22, 24), in order to make a re- 
 cognition of the Law of the Heave-offering, 
 though, on this special occasion, it was not to 
 be eaten like an ordinary heave-offering, but 
 to be made part of the burnt-offering, {y. 25.) 
 
 28 . This law is repeated Lev. vii. 34. Cf. 
 Lev. X. 14, 15; Num. vi. 2c. 
 
 29 , 30 . See on Lev. viii. 30, 33. 
 
V. 31 — 41 -] 
 
 EXODUS. XXIX. 
 
 395 
 
 when he cometh into the tabernacle 
 of the congregation to minister in the 
 holy place. 
 
 31 ^1 And thou shalt take the ram 
 of the consecration, and seethe his 
 flesh in the holy place. 
 
 32 And Aaron and his sons shall 
 eat the flesh of the ram, and the 
 
 /Lev. 8. /bread that is in the basket, by the 
 Matt. 12. door of the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation. 
 
 33 And they shall eat those things 
 wherewith the atonement was made, 
 to consecrate and to sanctify them: 
 but a stranger shall not eat thei'eof.^ 
 because they are holy. 
 
 34 And if ought of the flesh of the 
 consecrations, or of the bread, remain 
 unto the morning, then thou shalt 
 burn the remainder with fire : it shall 
 not be eaten, because it is holy. 
 
 35 And thus shalt thou do unto 
 Aaron, and to his sons, according to 
 all things which I have commanded 
 thee : seven days shalt thou consecrate 
 them. 
 
 36 And thou shalt offer every day 
 a bullock for a sin offering for atone- 
 
 ment : and thou shalt cleanse the altar, 
 when thou hast made an atonement 
 for it, and thou shalt anoint it, to 
 sanctify it. 
 
 37 Seven days thou shalt make an 
 atonement for the altar, and sanctify 
 it ; and it shall be an altar most holy : 
 whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be 
 holy. 
 
 38 ^ Now this is that which thou 
 shalt offer upon the altar j ^ two ^ Numb, 
 lambs of the first year day by day 
 continually. 
 
 39 The one lamb thou shalt offer 
 in the morning; and the other lamb 
 thou shalt offer at even : 
 
 40 And with the one lamb a tenth 
 deal of flour mingled with the fourth 
 part of an hin of beaten oil ; and the 
 fourth part of an hin of wine for a 
 drink offering. 
 
 41 And the other lamb thou shalt 
 offer at even, and shalt do thereto ac- 
 cording to the meat offering of the 
 morning, and according to the drink 
 oflTering thereof, for a sweet savour, 
 an offering made by fire unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 31 — 34 , See on Lev. viii. 31, 32. 
 
 33. a stranger] one of another family, 
 i.e. in this case, one not of the family of 
 Aaron. The Hebrew word (gzar) is the same 
 as is used xxx. 33, Deut. xxv. 5. 
 
 35, 36 . See on Lev. viii. 33, 35. 
 
 37 . See on Lev. viii. ii. 
 
 The Continual Burnt-offering. 
 
 38—46. 
 
 I 38 . this is that mshich thou shalt offer] The 
 
 primary purpose of the national Altar is here 
 set forth. On it was to be offered “the con- 
 tinual Burnt-offering” (gv. 42), consisting of 
 : a yearling lamb with its meat-offering and its 
 
 1 drink-offering, and this was to figure the daily 
 
 i renewal of the consecration of the nation. 
 
 [ The victim slain every morning and every 
 
 1 evening was an acknowledgment that the life 
 
 • of the people belonged to Jehovah, and the 
 
 s offering of meal was an acknowledgment that 
 
 all their right works were His due (see on 
 Lev. ii.) ; while the incense symbolized their 
 n daily prayers. (See on xxx. 6 — 8.) 
 
 ' 39 . at e'ven] Literally, between the tn.vo 
 
 ^ ensenings. See on xii. 6. 
 
 40 . a tenth deaf] z. the tenth part of an 
 Ephah; it is sometimes called an Oiner (Exod. 
 
 xvi. 36; Num. xxviii. 5. See on Lev. xxiii. 13). 
 The Ephah seems to have been rather less than 
 four gallons and a half (see on Lev. xix. 36); 
 and the tenth deal of flour may have weighed 
 about 3 lbs, 2 oz. 
 
 an hin] The word ///;, which here first 
 occurs, appears to be Egyptian. The measure 
 was one-sixth of an ephah. The quarter of a 
 hin was therefore about a pint and a half. See 
 on Lev. xix. 36. 
 
 beaten 0//] i.e. oil of the best quality. See 
 on xxvii. 20. 
 
 (ujine for a drink-offering] The earliest men- 
 tion of the Drink-offering is found in connec- 
 tion with Jacob’s setting up the stone at Bethel 
 (Gen. XXXV. 14). But it is here first associated 
 with the rites of the Altar. The Law of the 
 Drink-offering is stated Num.xv. 5 sq. Nothing 
 whatever is expressly said in the Old Testa- 
 ment regarding the mode in which the wine 
 was treated : but it would seem probable, from 
 the prohibition that it should not be poured 
 upon the Altar of Incense (Exod. xxx. 9), 
 that it used to be poured on the Altar of 
 Burnt-offering. Josephus (‘Ant.’ ill. 9. § 4) 
 says that it was poured round the Altar (^fpl 
 Tov jScofio!^) : it may have been cast upon it 
 in the same way as the blood of the Burnt- 
 
 Ii 
 
 It 
 
396 
 
 EXODUS. XXIX. XXX. 
 
 [v. 42—4. 
 
 42 Tins shall be a continual burnt 
 offering throughout your generations 
 at the door of the tabernacle of the 
 congregation before the Lord : where 
 I will meet you, to speak there unto 
 thee. 
 
 43 And there I will meet with the 
 Is^Iei children of Israel, and ” the tabernacle 
 
 shall be sanctified by my glory. 
 
 44 And I will sanctify the taber- 
 nacle of the congregation, and the 
 altar : I will sanctify also both Aaron 
 and his sons, to minister to me in the 
 priest’s office. 
 
 ^^Lev. 26. 4^ ^ And I will dwell among the 
 
 2 Cor. 6. children of Israel, and will be their 
 God. 
 
 46 And they shall know that I am 
 the Lord their God, that brought 
 them forth out of the land of Egypt, 
 that I may dwell among them : I am 
 the Lord their God. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 r The altar of incense, ii The raitsoni of 
 souls. 17 The brasen laver. 22 The holy 
 anointing oil. 34 The composition of the 
 perfume. 
 
 A nd thou shalt make an altar to 
 ^ burn incense upon : of shittim 
 wood shalt thou make it. 
 
 2 A cubit shall be the length there- 
 of, and a cubit the breadth thereof; 
 foursquare shall it be : and two cubits 
 shall be the height thereof : the horns 
 thereof shall be of the same. 
 
 3 And thou shalt overlay it v/ith 
 pure gold, the Hop thereof, and thefHeb. 
 Hides thereof round about, and the 2 //^ 
 horns thereof ; and thou shalt make 
 unto it a crown of gold round about, ‘watts'. 
 
 4 And two golden rings shalt thou 
 make to it under the crown of it, by 
 the two Horners thereof, upon the 
 two sides of it shalt thou make it; and ^ 
 
 offering and the Peace-offering (see on Lev. i.), 
 or at its foot (e? defieXia), Ecclus. i. 15. 
 This appears to agree with the patriarchal 
 usage mentioned Gen. xxxv. 14. 
 
 42 . at the door of the tabernacle'] at the 
 entrance of the Tent. 
 
 43 . the {tabernacle') shall be sanctified] 
 The word tabernacle is certainly not the right 
 one to be here supplied. From the context 
 it may be inferred that what is meant is the 
 spot in which Jehovah promises to meet with 
 the assembly of His people, who were not ad- 
 mitted into the Mishkdn itself, as the priests 
 were (see xxv, 22); that is, the Holy Pre- 
 cinct between the Tabernacle and the Altar. 
 See Lev. x. 17, 18. — This verse should be 
 rendered. And in that place will I meet 
 with the children of Israel, and it 
 shall be sanctified with my glory. 
 
 44 . 45 . The purpose of the formal con- 
 secration of the Sanctuary and of the priests 
 who served in it was, that the whole nation 
 which Jehovah had set free from its bondage 
 in Egypt might be consecrated in its daily 
 life, and dwell continually in His presence as 
 “a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.” 
 
 46 . Cf. Gen. xvii. 7. 
 
 CUAW XXX. 
 
 The Altar of Incense. 
 
 I — 10. (xxxvii. 25 — 28, xl. 26, 27.) 
 
 This pas-sage would seem naturally to be- 
 long to ch. xxv,, where directions are given 
 for the whole of the furniture of the Taber- 
 nacle, except the Altar of Incense. No satis- 
 
 factory reason appears for its occurrence in 
 this place. In the lists of the articles (xxxi. 8, 
 xxxv. 15), and in the record of their con- 
 struction (xxxvii. 25 — ^28), and of their ar- 
 rangement in the Sanctuary (xl, 26, 27), the 
 Altar of Incense is mentioned in due order. 
 It should however be observed, that the in- 
 structions here given respecting it are distin- 
 guished from those relating to the other arti- 
 cles in ch. xxv. in as far as they comprise 
 directions for the mode in which it was to be 
 used {‘v'v. 7 — 10). 
 
 The Altar was to be a casing of boards of 
 shittim wood (see on xxv. 5), 18 inches square 
 and three feet in height (taking the cubit as 
 18 inches), entirely covered with plates of 
 gold. Four “horns” were to project upwards 
 at the corners like those of the Altar of 
 Burnt-offering (xxvii. 2). A moulding of 
 gold was to run round the top. On each of 
 two opposite sides there was to be a gold 
 ring through which the staves were to be put 
 when it was moved from place to place. 
 
 3 . a crorjun of gold] a moulding of 
 gold. See on xxv. II. 
 
 4 . by the two corners thereof] The Fle- 
 brew w'ord does not mean corners. See mar- 
 gin. The sense of the first part of the verse 
 appears to be : And two gold rings shalt thou 
 make for it under its 7 noulding ; on its two 
 sides shalt thou make them {i.e. one ring on 
 each side). So de Wette, Knobel, Schott, 
 Wogue. The Ark and the Shewbread Table 
 had each four rings, two for the pole on each 
 side; but the Incense Altar, being shorter, 
 
V. 5— I 2-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXX. 
 
 397 
 
 they shall be for places for the staves 
 to bear it withal. 
 
 5 And thou shalt make the staves 
 of shittim wood, and' overlay them 
 with gold. 
 
 6 And thou shalt put it before the 
 vail that Is by the ark of the testimony, 
 before the mercy seat that is over the 
 testimony, where I will meet with 
 thee. 
 
 7 And Aaron shall burn thereon 
 ^ sweet incense every morning: v/hen 
 
 sM^s. he dresseth the lamps, he shall burn 
 incense upon it. 
 
 up. 8 And when Aaron “ lighteth the 
 ^causethio l^mps ^ at even, he shall burn incense 
 niZ^' ^ perpetual incense before the 
 
 />rfwe>n LoRD throughout youi' generations. 
 
 9 Ye shall offer no strange incense 
 
 thereon, nor burnt sacrifice, nor meat 
 ofiering; neither shall ye pour drink 
 offering thereon. 
 
 10 And Aaron shall make an atone- 
 ment upon the horns of it once in a 
 year with the blood of the sin offering 
 of atonements : once in the year shall 
 he make atonement upon it through- 
 out your generations : it is most holy 
 unto the Lord. 
 
 11 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 12 ^When thou takest the sum 
 
 the children of Israel after ^ their num- t Heb.’ 
 ber, then shall they give every man a 
 ransom for his soul unto the Lord, 
 when thou numberest them ; that 
 there be no plague among them, when 
 thou numberest them. 
 
 was sufficiently supported by a single ring on 
 each side, without risk of its being thrown off 
 its balance. 
 
 6, The place for the Altar of Incense was 
 outside the vail, opposite to the Ark of the 
 Covenant and between the Candlestick on the 
 south side and the Shewbread Table on the 
 north (xl. 22 — 24). It appears to have been 
 regarded as having a more intimate connection 
 with the fioly of Holies than the other things 
 in the Holy Place (see i K. vi. 22 ; Rev. viii. 
 3 ; also Heb. ix. 4, if we are to identify it 
 with the Ov^iaT^piov there m.entioned, see 
 on Lev. xvi. 1 2) ; and the mention of the 
 Mercy-seat in this verse, if we associate with 
 it the significance of incense as figuring the 
 prayers of the Lord’s people (Ps, cxli. 2 ; Rev. 
 V. 8, viii. 3, 4), seems to furnish additional 
 ground for an inference that the Incense 
 Altar took precedence of the Table of Show- 
 bread and the Candlestick. 
 
 7. the lamps] See on xxvii. 21. 
 
 burn incense] The word here and elsewhere 
 applied to the burning of incense is the same 
 as that used xxv. 37. See note. 
 
 7 , 8. The offering of the Incense accom- 
 panied that of the morning and evening sacri- 
 fice. The two forms of offering symbolized 
 the spirit of man reaching after communion 
 with Jehovah, both in act and utterance, ac- 
 cording to the words of the Psalmist, ‘ ‘ Let 
 my prayer be set forth before thee as incense ; 
 and the lifting up of my hands as the evening 
 sacrifice.” Ps. cxli. 2. 
 
 9 . By this regulation, the symbolism of 
 the Altar of Incense was kept free from ambi- 
 guity. Atonement was made by means of the 
 victim on the Brazen altar in the court out- 
 
 side ; the prayers of the reconciled worshippers 
 had their type within the Tabernacle. 
 
 10 . See on Lev. xvi. 18, 19. 
 
 shall he make atonement] rather, shall 
 atonement be made. 
 
 The Ransom of Souls. 
 
 II — 16. (xxxviii. 25 — 28.) 
 
 11 . 12. The materials for the textile work, 
 the wood, the gold, and the bronze, were 
 to be the free-will offerings of those who 
 could contribute them (xxv. 2, xxxv. 21 sq.). 
 But the silver was to be obtained by an en- 
 forced capitation on every adult male Israelite, 
 the poor and the rich having to pay the same 
 {"v. 15). Hence, in the estimate of the metals 
 collected for the work (xxxviii. 24—31) the 
 gold and the bronze are termed offerings 
 (strictly, wave- offerings, see preface to 
 Leviticus), while the silver is spoken of as 
 “the silver of them that were numbered.” 
 But this payment is brought into its highest 
 relation in being here accounted a spiritual 
 obligation laid on each individual, a tribute 
 expressly exacted by Jehovah. Every man of 
 Israel who would escape a curse (-t’. 12) had 
 in this way to make a practical acknowledg- 
 ment that he had a share in the Sanctuary, 
 on the occasion of his being recognised as one 
 of the covenanted people (-i;. 16).— Silver was 
 the metal commonly used for current coin. 
 See Gen. xxiii. 16. 
 
 12 . When thou takest the sum of the children 
 of Israel] The silver must have been contri- 
 buted at this time, along with the other 
 materials, since it was used in the Tabernacle, 
 which was completed on the first day of the 
 first month of the second year after coming 
 
EXODUS. XXX. 
 
 [v. 13—19. 
 
 398 
 
 13 This they shall give, every one 
 that passeth among them that are num- 
 bered, half a shekel after the shekel of 
 * Lev. 27. the sanctuary: [^2. shekel is twenty 
 Numb. 3. gerahs:) an half shekel shall be the 
 Ezek oftering of the Lord. 
 
 12. ‘ ’ 14 Every one that passeth among 
 
 them that are numbered, from twenty 
 years old and above, shall give an 
 offering unto the Lord. 
 
 \M^uipiy ^5 ^give more, 
 
 tHeb. and the poor shall not ^give less 
 dimmish, ^ shekel, when they give an 
 
 offering unto the Lord, to make an 
 atonement for your souls. 
 
 16 And thou shalt take the atone- 
 
 ment money of t«he children of Israel, 
 and shalt appoint it for the service of 
 the tabernacle of the congregation ; 
 that it may be a memorial unto the 
 children of Israel before the Lord, to 
 make an atonement for your souls. 
 
 17 *[I And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 18 Thou shalt also make a laver of 
 brass, and his foot also of brass, to 
 wash withal: and thou shalt put it 
 between the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation and the altar, and thou shalt 
 put water therein. 
 
 1 9 P'or Aaron and his sons shall wash 
 their hands and their feet thereat : 
 
 out of Egypt (xl. 17). But the command to 
 take the complete census of the nation appears 
 not to have been given until the first day of 
 the second month of that year (Num. i. i). 
 On comparing the words of Exod. xxx. 12 
 with those of Num. i. i — 3, we may perhaps 
 infer that the first passage relates to a mere 
 counting of the adult Israelites at the time 
 when the money was taken from each, and 
 that what the latter passage enjoins was a 
 formal enrolment of them according to their 
 genealogies and their order of military service. 
 
 a ransom for his soul~\ What the sincere 
 worshipper tlms paid was at once the fruit 
 and the sign of his faith in the goodness of 
 Jehovah, who had redeemed hun and brought 
 him into the Covenant. (See Introd. note to 
 ch. XXV.) Hence the payment is rightly called 
 a rafisom in as much as it involved a personal 
 appropi’iation of the fact of his redemption. 
 On the word sold., see on Lev. xvii. ii. 
 
 that there he no plague'] i. e. that they might 
 not incur punis.hment for the neglect and con- 
 tempt of spiritual privileges. Cf. i Cor. xi. 
 27 — 30; and the Exhortation in our Com- 
 munion Service. 
 
 13 . ha/fa shekel] The probable weight of 
 silver in the half-shekel would now be worth 
 about ij. 3L/. (See on Exod. xxxviii. 25.) 
 Cerah is, literally, a bean., probably the bean 
 of the carob or locust-tree (A ben- Ezra). It 
 was used as the name of a small weight, as our 
 word grain came into use from a grain of 
 wheat. 'I'he purpose of the definition of the 
 shekel here given is not quite certain. It 
 might seem to countenance the rabbinical 
 notion that there were two kinds of shekel, 
 the shekel of the Sanctuary consisting of twenty 
 gerahs, and the common shekel. (See on 
 xxxviii. 24.) But it is more likely that the 
 weight is defined rather for the sake of em- 
 phasis, to intimate that the just value should 
 be given precisely. The words in question 
 
 might rather be rendered: “half a shekel after 
 the shekel of the sanctuary, twenty gerahs 
 to the shekel; the half shekel shall 
 he the offering (Hob. terumah., as in •vn.\ 
 14, 15 ; see xxv. 2) to Jehovah.” 
 
 15 . Every Israelite stood in one and the 
 same relation to Jehovah. See on 'w. ii, 12. 
 
 16 . tabernacle of the congregation] Tent 
 of meeting. 
 
 a memorial unto the children of Is mel] The 
 silver used in the Tabernacle was a memorial 
 to remind each man of his position before the 
 Lord, as one of the covenanted people. 
 
 The Lamer of Brass. 
 
 17 — 21. (xxxviii. 8.) 
 
 18 . a lamer of brass] The bronze for the 
 Laver and its foot w^s supplied from the 
 bronze mirrors of the women “ who assembled 
 at the door of the tabernacle.” The women 
 seem to have voluntarily given up these articles 
 of luxury (see on xxxviii. 8). Bronze mirrors 
 were much used by the ancient Egyptians. 
 Wilkinson, Vol. 11. p. 345. No hint is given 
 as to the form of the Laver. It may have 
 been made with an immediate view to use 
 of the simplest and most convenient form. 
 The Brazen Sea and the ten Lavers that served 
 the same purpose in the Temple of Solomon, 
 were elaborately wrought in artistic designs 
 and are minutely described (i K. vii. 23 — 29). 
 
 tabernacle of the congregation] Tent of 
 meeting. 
 
 19 . c.oash their hands and their feet] 
 Whenever a priest had to enter the Taber- 
 nacle, or to offer a victim on the Altar, he 
 was required to wash his hands and his feet ; 
 but on certain solemn occasions he was re- 
 quired to bathe his whole person (xxix. 4 ; 
 Lev. xvi. 4). The leaver must also have fur- 
 nished the water for washing those parts of 
 the victims that needed cleansing (Lev. i. 9). 
 
V. 20 24-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXX. 
 
 399 
 
 20 When they go into the taber- 
 nacle of the congregation, they shall 
 wash with water, that they die not; 
 or when they come near to the altar 
 to minister, to burn offering made by 
 hre unto the Lord : 
 
 21 So they shall wash their hands 
 and their feet, that they die not : and 
 it shall be a statute for ever to them, 
 even to him and to his seed through- 
 out their generations. 
 
 22 ^ Moreover the Lord spake 
 unto Moses, saying, 
 
 23 Take thou also unto thee prin- 
 cipal spices, of pure myrrh five hun- 
 dred shekels^ and of sweet cinnamon 
 half so much, even two hundred and 
 fifty shekels^ and of sweet calamus two 
 hundred and fifty shekels^ 
 
 24 And of cassia five hundred she- 
 kels^ after the shekel of the sanctuary, 
 and of oil olive an ‘'hin ; 
 
 c chap. 29. 
 40. 
 
 20. tabernacle of the congregation\ Tent 
 of meeting. 
 
 that they die not\ See on xxviii. 35. 
 to burn offering made by fire unto the Lord\ 
 Literally, to send up in fire an offering to 
 Jeho-vah. The verb is the same as in ui. 7 
 and XXV 37. 
 
 The Holy Anointing Oil. 
 
 22—33* (xxxvii. 29.) 
 
 23. principal spices'] the best spices. 
 pure myrrh] There cannot be much doubt 
 as to the identity of this substance from its 
 name in different languages (Hebrew, mor; 
 Arabic, murr; Greek, afxvpva'^ Latin, myrrha'). 
 It is a gum which comes from, the stem of a 
 low, thorny, ragged tree, that grows in Arabia 
 Felix and Eastern Africa, called by botanists 
 Balsamodendron myrrha. The word here 
 rendered pure.^ is literally, freely fio^ving^ an 
 epithet which is explained by the fact that the 
 best myrrh is said to exude spontaneously 
 from the bark (Plin. ‘H. N.’ xii. 35; Theo- 
 phrast. ‘de Odorib.’ 29), while that of inferior 
 quality oozes out in greater quantity from 
 incisions made in the bark. On the estimation 
 in which myrrh was held, see Cant. i. 13 ; 
 Matt. ii. II ; on its use as a perfume, Ps. xlv. 
 8; Prov. vii. 17; Cant. v. 3; and on its use 
 in embalming, John xix. 39. This is the first 
 mention of it in the Hebrew text of the Old 
 Testament, but in our version it is named by 
 mistake in Gen. xxxvii. 25, xliii. ii. 
 
 fi<ve hundred shekels] Probably rather more 
 than 15 J- lbs. See on xxxviii. 24. 
 
 srjjeet cinnamon] This substance is satis- 
 factorily identified, like the preceding one, on 
 account of its name (Heb. Kinnamon; Gr. klv- 
 vdjjLoipov] Lat. cinnamomurn). It is obtained 
 from a tree allied to the laurel that grows in 
 Ceylon .and other islands of the Indian Ocean, 
 known in Botany as the Cinnamomun zeyla^ 
 nicum. It is the inner rind of the tree dried 
 in the sun. The origin of the name appears to 
 be found in the Malay language (Ritter, Kno- 
 bel), Herodotus says that the word is Phoe- 
 nician, but this means no more than that the 
 Greeks learned it from the Phoenicians. It 
 is probable that Cinnamon v/as imported from 
 
 India in very early times by the people of 
 Ophir, and that it was brought with other 
 spices fi-om the south part of Arabia by the 
 trading caravans that visited Egypt and Syria. 
 Hence, even in later times. Cinnamon and 
 other Indian spices were spoken of as produc- 
 tions of the land of the Sabacans (Strabo, xvi. 
 pp. 769, 774, 778). If weaccept thisexplana- 
 tion, the mention of these spices in Exodus 
 may be taken as the earliest notice we have con- 
 nected with commerce with the remote East. 
 Cinnamon is elsewhere mentioned in the Scrip- 
 tures only, Prov. vii. 17; Cant. iv. 14; Rev. 
 xviii. 13. 
 
 t^o hundred and fifty shekels] Probably 
 about 7 lbs. 14 oz. See on xxxviii. 24. 
 
 s^veet calamus] The word rendered calamus 
 {lianelS) is the common Hebrew name for a 
 stalky reed, or cane (Gen. xli. 5 ; i K. xiv. 15 ; 
 Ezek. xli. 8). The fragrant cane (or rusld) 
 here spoken of is mentioned in Isa. xliii. 24, in 
 Jer. vi, 20 (where it is called in the Hebrew 
 “the good cane from a far country”), and in 
 Cant. iv. 14; Ezek. xxvii. 19, where it is call- 
 ed simply cane. It was probably what is now 
 known in India as- the Lemon Grass {An- 
 dropogon schoenanthus'). Aromatic reeds were 
 known to the ancients as the produce of India 
 and the region of the Euphrates (Xenophon, 
 
 ‘ Anab.’ i. 5, § i; Diosc. ‘ Mat. Med.’ i. 16). 
 The statements that such reeds were produced 
 in the neighbourhood of Libanus (Theophr. 
 
 ‘ H. P.’ IX. 7 ; ‘ C. P.’ VI. 18 ; Polybius, V. 45), 
 near the Lake of Gennesaret (Strabo, xvi. 
 p. 755) and in the Land of the Sabieans 
 (Strabo, xvi. p. 778 ; cf. Diod. ii. 49), may 
 be regarded as some of the many mistakes 
 which have arisen from confounding the 
 country from which a commodity is obtained 
 with that of its original production. 
 
 24. cassia] The Hebrew name (kidddh) 
 is found elsewhere only in Ezek. xxvii. 19, 
 where it is associated, as it is here, with sweet 
 cane. The word rendered cassia in Ps. xlv. 8 
 is a diflerent one, but it is probable that the 
 same substance is denoted by it. Most of the 
 ancient versions, and all modern authorities, 
 seem to be in favour of cassia being the true 
 rendering of kidddh. Cassia is the inner bark 
 
400 
 
 EXODUS. XXX. [v. 25-34. 
 
 25 And thou shalt make it an oil 
 of holy ointment, an ointment com- 
 
 *0r, pound after the art of the “ apothe- 
 pe 7 jumer. ^ anointing oil. 
 
 26 And thou shalt anoint the ta- 
 bernacle of the congregation there- 
 with, and the ark of the testimony, 
 
 27 And the table and all his ves- 
 sels, and the candlestick and his ves- 
 sels, and the altar of incense, 
 
 28 And the altar of burnt offering 
 with all his vessels, and the laver and 
 his foot. 
 
 29 And thou shalt sanctify them, 
 that they may be most holy: what- 
 soever toucheth them shall be holy. 
 
 30 And thou shalt anoint Aaron 
 and his sons, and consecrate them, 
 
 that they may minister unto me in 
 the priest’s office. 
 
 31 And thou shalt speak unto the 
 children of Israel, saying, This shall 
 be an holy anointing oil unto me 
 throughout your generations. 
 
 32 Upon man’s flesh shall it not 
 be poured, neither shall ye make any 
 other like it, after the composition of 
 it: it is holy, and it shall be holy 
 unto you. 
 
 33 Whosoever compoundeth any 
 like it, or whosoever putteth any of 
 it upon a stranger, shall even be cut 
 off from his people. 
 
 34 ^ And the Lord said unto 
 Moses, Take unto thee sweet spices, 
 stacte, and onycha, and galbanum; 
 
 of an Indian tree (Cinnamonum cassia)^ which 
 differs from that which produces cinnamon in 
 the shape of its leaves and some other particu- 
 lars. It bears a strong resemblance to cinna- 
 mon, but it is more pungent, and of coarser 
 texture. It was probably in ancient times, as 
 it is at present, by far less costly than cinna- 
 mon, and it may have been on this account 
 that it was used in double quantity. 
 
 an hhi] Probably about six pints. See on 
 Lev. xix. 36. 
 
 25 . ] a)i oil of holy ohitment\ rather, a 
 holy anointing oil. 
 
 after the art of the apothecary~\ According 
 to Jewish tradition, the essences of the spices 
 were first extracted, and then mixed with the 
 oil (Otho, ‘Lex, Rabb.’ p. 486). That some 
 such process was employed is probable from 
 the great proportion of solid matter compared 
 with the oil. The preparation of the Anoint- 
 ing Oil, as well as of the Incense, was en- 
 trusted to Be/aleel (xxxvii. 29), and the care 
 of preserving it to Lleazar the son of Aaron 
 (Num. iv. 16). In a later age, it was prepared 
 by the sons of the priests (i Chro. ix. 30). 
 
 26 — 31 .] Cf. xl. 9 — 15. See on Lev. 
 
 viii, 10 — 12. 
 
 26 . tabernacle of the congregation'] Tent 
 of meeting. 
 
 * 29 .] See on xxix. 37. 
 
 32 . upon viayis flesh] i.e. on the persons 
 of those that were not priests who might 
 employ it for such anointing as was usual 
 on festive occasions (Ps. civ. 15 ; Prov. xxvii. 9 ; 
 Matt. vi. 17, &c.). 
 
 33 . a stranger] one of another 
 family. See on xxix. 33. The Holy 
 Anointing Oil was not even to be used for 
 the anointing of a king. See on i K. i. 39. 
 
 cut off from his people.] See on Gen. xvii. 
 14, Exod. xxxi. 14, and Lev. vii. 20. 
 
 The Holy Incense. 
 
 34—38. .(xxxvii. 29.) 
 
 34 .] The Incense, like the Anointing Oil, 
 consisted of four aromatic ingredients. 
 
 stacte] The Hebrew word is nataph {i.e. a 
 drop')., which occurs in its simple sense in Job 
 xxxvi. 27. Our version and the Vulgate have 
 adopted the word used by the LXX. (o-raKrJ), 
 which, like the Hebrew, may denote anything 
 that drops, and was applied to the purest kind 
 of myrrh that drops spontaneously from the 
 tree (see on 2;. 23). But the substance here 
 meant, Which is nowhere else mentioned in 
 the Old Testament, is generally supposed to 
 be the gum of the Storax-tree {Styrax offici- 
 nalis) found in Syria and the neighbouring 
 countries. The gum was burned as a per- 
 fume in the time of Pliny (‘H. N.’ xii. 40). 
 But it seems by no means unlikely that the 
 stacte here mentioned was the gum known as 
 Benzoin, or Gum Benjamin, which is an im- 
 portant ingredient in the incense now used in 
 churches and mosks, and is the produce of 
 another storax-tree {Styrax henjoin) that grows 
 in Java and Sumatra. See on 2;. 23. It may 
 be observed that the liquid storax of com- 
 merce is obtained from quite a different tree 
 known to botanists as Liquldainhar syraciflua. 
 
 onycha] Heb. shecheleth (which appears to 
 mean a shell., or scale)., LXX. Vulg. 
 
 onycha. The word does not occur in any 
 other place in the Old Testament. The 
 Greek word was not only applied to the well- 
 known precious stone, the onyx, from its re- 
 semblance to the human nail, but to the 
 horny operculum, or cap, of a shell. The oper- 
 culum of the strombus, or wing-shell, which 
 
V- 35— 37-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXX. 
 
 401 
 
 IHeb. 
 
 salted. 
 
 these -sweet spices with pure frank- 
 incense : of each shall there be a like 
 weight: 
 
 35 And thou shalt make it a per- 
 fume, a confection after the art of 
 the apothecary, ^ tempered together, 
 pure and holy : 
 
 36 And thou shalt beat some of it 
 very small, and put of it before the 
 
 testimony in the tabernacle of the 
 congregation, where I will meet with 
 thee : it shall be unto you most 
 holy. 
 
 37 And as for the perfume which 
 thou shalt make, ye shall not make 
 to yourselves according to the compo- 
 sition thereof: it shall be unto thee 
 holy for the Lord. 
 
 abounds in the Red Sea, is said to be employ- 
 ed at this day in the composition of perfume, 
 and to have been used as a medicine in the 
 Middle Ages under the name of Blatta Byzati- 
 tina. Pliny, most likely referring to the same 
 substance with imperfect knowledge, speaks 
 of a shell called onyx that was used both as a 
 perfume and a medicine (‘H. N.’ xxxir. 46; 
 cf. Dioscorides, ‘Mat. Med.’ ii. ii). Its iden- 
 tification with the shecheleth of the text seems 
 probable. Saadia uses the word ladanum.^ the 
 name of the gum of the Lada tree (see Plin. 
 ‘H. N.’ XII. 37). Bochart, on weak ground, 
 imagined that bdellium (Gen. ii. 12) was 
 meant. See Bochart, ‘Op.’ Vol. iii. p. 803; 
 Gesen. ‘Thes.’ p. 1388. 
 
 galbanum] Heb. chelbenah; LXX. ^aX^avt]', 
 Vulg. galbanum. It is not mentioned else- 
 where in the Old Testament. No doubt 
 has been raised as to its identity. Galbanum 
 is now well known in medicine as a gum 
 of a yellowish brown colour, in the form 
 of either grains or masses. It burns with a 
 pungent smell which is agreeable when it is 
 combined with other smells, but not else. It 
 is imported from India, Persia, and Africa; 
 yet, strange to say, the plant from w'^hich it 
 comes is not yet certainly known. (See 
 ‘ English Cyclo.’ s. v.) 
 
 pure frankincense'] Heb, lebonah; LXX. Xi- 
 ^avos'i Vulg. t/jus. This was the most impor- 
 tant of the aromatic gums. Like myrrh, it 
 was regarded by itself as a precious perfume 
 (Cant. iii. 6; Matt. ii. ii), and it was used 
 unmixed with other substances in some of the 
 rites of the Law (Lev. ii. i. 15, v. ii, vi. 15, 
 &c.). The Hebrew name is improperly ren- 
 dered incense in our Version in Isa. xliii. 23, Ix. 
 6, Ixvi. 3; Jer. vi. 20, xvii, 26, xli. 5. It is 
 certain that the supplies of it, as well as of 
 the other spices, were obtained from Southern 
 Arabia (Isa. lx. 6, Jer. vi, 20. Cf. i K. x. i, 2, 10, 
 15 ; 2 Chro. ix. 9. 14). The Greek and Latin 
 writers in general speak of its being produced 
 in that region. But they evidently knew but 
 little of the subject, as their descriptions of 
 the plant producing it differ greatly from each 
 other. (Plin. ‘H. N,’ vi. 32, xii. 31; Diod. 
 Sic. II. 49, V. 41; Theophrast. ‘de Plant.’ 
 IX. i; Arrian, ‘Perip.’ with Stuck’s note, 
 p. 49 ; Dioscor. i. 82 ; Strabo, xvi. p. 774. Cf. 
 p. 782.) The tree from which it is obtained 
 VoL. I. 
 
 is not found in Arabia, and it was most 
 likely imported from India by the Sabie- 
 ans, like Cinnamon, Cassia, and Calamus 
 (see on ns. 23). The tree is now known as the 
 Bos^vjellia serrata., or B. tburifera., and grows 
 abundantly in the highlands of India, where its 
 native name is Salat. The native name of the 
 gum is oUbanum.^ and its Arabic name, looban : 
 the Hebrew and Greek names seem to have 
 been taken directly from the Arabic. The 
 frankincense of commerce is a different sub- 
 stance, the resin of the spruce and of some 
 other kinds of fir. 
 
 35 . after the art of the apothecary] The 
 four substances were perhaps pounded and 
 thoroughly mixed together, and then fused 
 into a mass. 
 
 tempered together] With this rendering, 
 most Versions, modem as well as ancient, 
 and many of the best critics, agree. But, 
 according to its etymology, the Hebrew might 
 mean seasoned nvith salt., or (as it stands in 
 the margin) salted. It is thus explained in 
 the Talmud, which has been followed by 
 Maimonides, de Wette, Gesenius, Herxheimer, 
 Kalisch, and Keil. It is urged that this accords 
 with the law that every offering should be 
 accompanied by salt (Lev. ii. 13). But this 
 law appears to refer only to the offerings of 
 what was used as food (see note in loc., and on 
 Lev. xxiv, 7), and Knobel has well observed 
 that the use of salt in incense is contrary to 
 all known analogy, since no such combination 
 is known to have been made in the incense of 
 any people. — Josephus speaks of the incense 
 of the Temple as consisting of thirteen ingre- 
 dients, but he does not state what they were 
 (‘B. J.’ v. 5. § 5). A list of them is however 
 given by Maimonides. A change may have 
 been made in the composition in later times. 
 
 36 . A portion of the mass was to be 
 broken into small pieces and put “before the 
 testimony;” that is opposite to the Ark of 
 the Covenant, on the outside of the vail, con- 
 veniently near the Golden Altar on which it 
 was to be lighted. (See on 27. 6 , and on xl. 
 20.) It may be observed that the incense 
 thus brought into relation with the Ark was 
 styled “most holy,” while the Oil is no more 
 than “holy,” ns. 32. 
 
 37 . 38 . Cf. 2727. 32, 33. The Holy In- 
 cense, like the Holy Anointing Oil, was to be 
 
 c c 
 
402 
 
 EXODUS. XXX. XXXI. 
 
 [v. 38—6. 
 
 38 Whosoever shall make like un- 
 to that, to smell thereto, shall even be 
 cut off from his people. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 I BezaUel a7td Aholiab are called and made 
 meet for the work of the taber}tacle. 1 2 TJie 
 observation of the sabbath is agam cojnmand- 
 ed, 1 8 Moses receiveth the two tables. 
 
 K 
 
 ND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 See, I have called by name Be- 
 chron. zaleel the "son of Uri, the son of 
 Hur, of the tribe of Judah : 
 
 3 And I have filled him with the 
 spirit of God, in wisdom, and in un- 
 derstanding, and in knowledge, and in 
 ^11 manner of workmanship, 
 
 4 To devise cunning works, to work 
 in gold, and in silver, and in brass, 
 
 5 And in cutting of stones, to set 
 them., and in carving of timber, to 
 work in all manner of workmanship. 
 
 6 And I, behold, I have given with 
 him Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, 
 of the tribe of Dan : and in the hearts 
 of all that are wise hearted I have put 
 
 kept in the Sanctuary, exclusively for the 
 service of Jehovah. 
 
 Chap. XXXI. 
 
 The CaK sf Bezaleel and Aholiab. 
 
 I— II. (xxxv. 30—35.) 
 
 2 — 6. This solemn call of Bezaleel and 
 Aholiab is full of instruction. Their work was 
 * to be only that of handicraftsmen. Every 
 thing that they had to do was prescribed in 
 strict and precise detail. There was to be no 
 exercise for their original powers of invention, 
 nor for their taste. Still it was Jehovah Him- 
 self who called them by name to their tasks, 
 and the powers which they were now called 
 upon to exercise in their respective crafts, 
 were declared to have been given them by 
 the Holy Spirit. (See on xxviii. 3.) Thus is 
 every effort of skill, every sort of well-ordered 
 labour, when directed to a right end, brought 
 into the very highest sphere of association. 
 
 3 . the spirit of Cod'], Literally, a spirit of 
 Elohim. Mr Quarry (‘Genesis,’ &c. pp. 271 
 — 275) endeavours to prove that this expres- 
 sion has a lower meaning than the spirit of 
 Jehovah (which stands in our Bible, “ the spirit 
 of the Lord”), and he would rather translate 
 it, “a divine spirit.” The definite article is 
 wanting in the Hebrew in both cases. Mr 
 Quarry however conceives that the distinction 
 lies in the fact that Jehovah is a proper name, 
 while Elohim is an appellative. But there is 
 certainly no fair ground to infer any differ- 
 ence of meaning from the general use of the 
 two phrases in the sacred text. It is the spirit 
 of Elohim who inspires Balaam (Num. xxiv. 
 2), Azariah, the son of Oded (2 Chro. xv. i), 
 and Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada (2 Chro. 
 xxiv. 20), in their prophetic utterances; while 
 it is the Spirit of Jehovah who inspires the 
 Judges for their work as leaders of the people. 
 (Judg. iii. 10, vi. 34, xi. 29,) The Spirit of 
 Jehovah who inspired Saul (i S. x. 6) is the 
 same as is more frequently called the Spirit 
 of Elohim (i S. x. 10, xi. 6, &c.). The terms 
 would thus seem to be strictly equivalent. 
 nvisdotn'] The Hebrew word is derived from 
 
 a root of which the meaning is to judge or 
 decide. It is used to denote the proper endow- 
 ment of the ruler (2 S. xiv. 20; Is. xix. ii), 
 and that of the prophet (Ezek. xxviii. 3, 4; 
 Dan. V. 1 1) ; the highest exercise of the mind in 
 a general sense (Job ix. 4, xi. 6, xii. 12, xv. 8), 
 and, as in this place, the prime qualification of 
 the workman in any manner of work. (Exod. 
 xxviii. 3, xxxi. 6, xxxv. 10, 25, 26, 31, 35, 
 xxxvi. I, 2, &;c.) It is, in fact, that “right 
 judgment in all things” for which we specially 
 pray on Whitsun-day. LXX. aocjiia’, Vulg. 
 sapie7ttia. 
 
 under standmg'\ The Hebrew word is from 
 a root that signifies to discern, or discriminate ; 
 it denotes the perceptive faculty. LXX. o-w- 
 veaLs’i Vulg. intelligentia. 
 
 knovuledge'] i.e. experience, a practical ac- 
 quaintance with facts. LXX. 
 
 Vulg. scientia. 
 
 in all 7nanner of workmans hip"^ i.e. not. only 
 in the intellectual gifts of wisdom, under- 
 standing and knowledge, but in dexterity of 
 hand. 
 
 4 . to devise cunning works'] Rather, to de- 
 vise works of skill. The Hebrew phrase is 
 not the same as that rendered “cunning work” 
 in respect to textile fabrics in xxvi. i. 
 
 4 — 6. There appears to be sufficient reason 
 to identify Hur, the grandfather of Bezaleel, 
 with the Hur who assisted Aaron in support- 
 ing the hands of Moses during the battle with 
 Amalek at Rephidim (Ex. xvii. 10), and who 
 was associated with Aaron in the charge of 
 the people while Moses was on the mountain 
 (Ex. xxiv. 14). Josephus says that he was 
 the husband of Miriam (‘Ant.’ iii. 2. §4 ; vi. 
 § i). It is thus probable that Bezaleel was 
 related to Moses. He was the chief artificer 
 in metal, stone and wood; he had also to per- 
 form the apothecary’s work in the composi- 
 tion of the Anointing Oil and the Incense 
 (xxxvii. 29). He had precedence of all the 
 artificers, but Aholiab appears to have had 
 the entire charge of the textile work (xxxv. 
 35, xxxviii. 23). 
 
V. 7— 15-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXI. 
 
 403 
 
 t Heb. 
 
 Vd'SSf/s. 
 
 wisdom, that they may make all that 
 I have commanded thee ; 
 
 7 The tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation, and the ark of the testimony, 
 and the mercy seat that /s thereupon, 
 and all the Turniture of the tabernacle, 
 
 8 And the table and his furniture, 
 and the pure candlestick with all his 
 furniture, and the altar of incense, 
 
 9 And the altar of burnt offering 
 with all his furniture, and the laver 
 and his foot, 
 
 10 And the cloths of service, and 
 the holy garments for Aaron the 
 priest, and the garments of his sons, 
 to minister in the priest’s office, 
 
 1 1 And the anointing oil, and 
 sweet incense for the holy : ac- 
 
 cording to all that I have commanded 
 thee shall tliey do. 
 
 12 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 13 Speak thou also unto the chil- 
 dren of Israel, saying, Verily my 
 sabbaths ye shall keep: for it A a 
 sign between me and you through- 
 out your generations; that may 
 know that I am the Lord that doth 
 sanctify you. 
 
 14 “^Ye shall keep the sabbath ^ 
 therefore ; for it Is holy unto you : beut. 5. 
 every one that defileth it shall surely Ezck. 20. 
 be put to death : for whosoever doeth 
 
 any work therein, that soul shall be 
 cut off from among his people. 
 
 15 Six days may work be done; 
 
 6. a// that are ^aiise hearted^ See on 
 xxviii. 3. 
 
 7 . tabernacle^ Tent, in both places. 
 
 of the congregation~\ of meeting. 
 
 8. the table and his furniture'] xxv. 23 — 30. 
 
 the purs candlestick] That is, the candle- 
 stick of pure gold; xxv. 31 — 40. 
 
 the altar of incense] xxx. i— 10. 
 
 9 . the altar of burnt offering] xxvii. i — 8. 
 
 the lanjer] xxx. 17 — 21. 
 
 10 . And the cloths of sernjice] Rather, 
 
 And the garments of office; that is, the 
 distinguishing official garments of the High- 
 driest. LXX. aroXal XeirovpyiKac. With 
 this agree, more or less clearly, the Syriac, 
 Vulg., Targums, Saadia, Luther, Cranmer, 
 both the Geneva Versions, de Wette, Zunz, 
 Knobel, Kalisch, See. The three kinds of 
 dress mentioned in this verse appear to be 
 the only ones which were peculiar to the 
 Sanctuary. They were: (i) The. richly 
 adorned state robes of the High-priest (see 
 xxviii. 6 — 38, xxxix. i sq.). (2) The “holy 
 
 garments” of white linen for the High-priest, 
 worn on the most solemn occasion in the year 
 (see Lev. xvi. 4 ; Ex. xxviii. 39). (3) The gar- 
 ments of white linen for all the priests, worn 
 in their regular ministrations (see xxviii. 
 40, 41). — From the connection in which 
 the expression rendered “cloths of service” 
 here occurs, and a comparison of this verse 
 with xxxix. I, it seems strange that any doubt 
 should have arisen as to its meaning. But 
 some Jewish writers have supposed that the 
 wrapping cloths are denoted which are men- 
 tioned Num. iv. 6, 7. II, See., and our trans- 
 lators appear to have held some similar notion. 
 Gesenius imagined that the inner curtains of 
 the Tabernacle are meant. But neither of 
 
 these interpretations appears to be supported 
 by a single ancient authority, nor can either 
 of them be well reconciled with the expres- 
 sion, “to do service in the holy place” (xxxv. 
 19, xxxix. I, 41). Cf. xxviii. 35. 
 
 The Penal La^uj of the Sabbath. 
 
 12—17. (xxxv. 2, 3.) 
 
 In the Fourth Commandment the injunc- 
 tion to observe the Seventh Day is addressed 
 to the conscience of the people (see on xx. 8) : 
 in this place, the object is to declare an infrac- 
 tion of the Commandment to be a capital 
 offence. The two passages stand in a rela- 
 tion to each other similar to that between 
 Lev. xviii. xix. and Lev. xx. See note on 
 Lev. xviii. 24.^ — Considering the weighty 
 bearing of the Sabbath upon the Covenant 
 between Jehovah and His people, a solemn 
 sanction of its observance might well form the 
 conclusion of the string of messages which 
 Moses was to deliver on this occasion. But 
 from the repetition of the substance of these 
 verses in the beginning of ch. xxxv. it seems 
 likely (as many commentators have observed) 
 that the penal edict was specially introduced 
 as a caution in reference to the construction 
 of the Tabernacle, lest the people, in their 
 zeal to carry on the work, should be tempted 
 to break the divine Law for the observance of 
 the Day. In this chapter, the edict imme- 
 diately follows the series of directions given 
 to Moses on Sinai for the work; in ch. xxxv. 
 Moses utters it before he repeats any of the 
 directions to the people. 
 
 13 . a sign bet^ueen me and you, &c.] Cf. 
 2;. 17: Ezek. XX. 12, 20. See on Exod. xx. 8. 
 
 14 . put to death] This Law was very 
 soon put into operation in the case of the 
 man who gathered sticks upon the Sabbath- 
 
 CC 2 
 
404 
 
 EXODUS. XXXI. XXXII. 
 
 [v. i6 — I. 
 
 t Heb. 
 holiness. 
 
 '' Gen. I. 
 & 2 . 
 
 but in the seventh h the sabbath of 
 rest, ^ holy to the Lord : whosoever 
 doeth any work in the sabbath day, 
 he shall surely be put to death. 
 
 1 6 Wherefore the children of Israel 
 shall keep the sabbath, to observe the 
 sabbath throughout their generations, 
 for a perpetual covenant. 
 
 17 It h a sign between me and 
 the children of Israel for ever; for ^in 
 six days the Lord made heaven and 
 earth, and on the seventh day he 
 rested, and was refreshed. 
 
 18 H And he gave unto Moses, 
 when he had made an end of com- 
 muning with him upon mount Sinai, 
 
 ‘^two tables of testimony, tables 
 stone, written with the finger of God. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 I The people., in the absence of Moses, catise 
 Aaron to make a calf. 7 God is ajigered 
 thereby. 11 At the intreaty of Moses he is 
 appeased. 15 Moses cometh down with the 
 tables. 19 Pie breaketh them. -20 Pie de- 
 stroyeth the calf. 22 Aaron's excuse for 
 himself. 25 Moses causeth the idolaters to be 
 slain. 30 Pie prayeth for the people. 
 
 AND when the people saw that 
 \ Moses delayed to come down 
 out of the mount, the people gathered 
 themselves together unto Aaron, and 
 said unto him, "'Up, make us gods, « Acts 7. 
 which shall go before us ; for as for 
 
 day. Death was inflicted by stoning. Num. 
 
 XV. 35. 
 
 cut off from among his people^ This is dis- 
 tinctly assigned as a reason why the offender 
 should, or might, be put to death. The pas- 
 sage seems to indicate the distinction between 
 the meaning of the two expressions, to be cut 
 off from the people, and to be put to death. He 
 who was cut oif from the people had, by his 
 offence, put himself out of the terms of the 
 Covenant, and was an outlaw. (See on Lev. 
 xviii. 29.) On such, and on such alone, when 
 the offence was one which affected the well- 
 being of the nation, as it was in this case, 
 death could be inflicted by the public authority. 
 
 17 . eivas refreshed^ Literally, he took 
 breath. Cf. xxiii. 12; a S. xvi. 14. The ap- 
 plication of the word to the Creator, which 
 occurs nowhere else, is remarkable. 
 
 18 . The directions for the construction of 
 the Sanctuary and its furniture being ended, 
 the Tables of Stone which represented the 
 Covenant between Jehovah. and His people, 
 and which, when covered with the Mercy- 
 seat were to give the Sanctuary its significance, 
 are now delivered to Moses in accordance 
 with the promise xxiv. 12 ; cf. xxxii. 15, 16. 
 
 The history of what relates to the con- 
 struction of the Sanctuary is here interrupted, 
 and is taken up again chap. xxxv. i. 
 
 Chap. XXXII.— XXXI V. 
 
 The Golden Calf. The Covenant 
 
 AND THE Tables broken and re- 
 newed. 
 
 The exact coherence of the narrative of all 
 that immediately relates to the construction 
 of the Sanctuary, if we pass on immediately 
 from ch. xxxi. to ch. xxxv., might suggest 
 the probability that these three chapters ori- 
 ginally formed a distinct composition. This 
 suggestion is in some degree strengthened, if 
 we take account of some part of the subject 
 
 matter of ch. xxxiv. (see on xxxiv. 12 — 27). 
 But this need not involve the question of the 
 Mosaic authorship of the three chapters. The 
 main incidents recorded in them follow in 
 due order of time, and are therefore in their 
 proper place as regards historical sequence. 
 
 The Golden Calf xxxii. i — 6. 
 
 The people had, to a great extent, lost the 
 patriarchal faith, and were but imperfectly in- 
 structed in the reality of a personal unseen 
 God. Being disappointed at the long absence 
 of Moses, they seem to have imagined that he 
 had deluded them and had probably been de- 
 stroyed amidst the thunders of the mountain 
 (xxiv. 15 — 18). They accordingly gave way 
 to their superstitious fears and fell back upon 
 that form of idolatry that was most familiar 
 to them (see on ao. 4). The narrative of the 
 circumstances is more briefly given by Moses 
 at a later period in one of his addresses 
 to the people (Dent. ix. 8 — 21, 25—29, x. 
 I — 8 — ii). It is worthy of remark that 
 Josephus, in his very characteristic chapter on 
 the giving of the Law (‘Ant.’ 111. 5), says 
 nothing whatever of this act of apostasy, 
 though he relates that Moses twice ascended 
 the mountain, and renews his own profession 
 that he is faithfully following the authority 
 of the Holy Scriptures. Philo speaks of the 
 calf as an imitation of the idolatry of Egypt, 
 but he takes no notice of Aaron’s share in the 
 sin (‘Vit. Mos.’ ill. 19. 37). 
 
 1. mito Aaron'] The chief authority dur- 
 ing the absence of Moses was committed to 
 Aaron and Hur (xxiv. 14). 
 
 7nake us gods] The substantive (elohlm) 
 is plural in form and may denote gods. But 
 according to the Hebrew idiom, the meaning 
 need not be plural, and hence the word is 
 used as the common designation of the true 
 God (Gen. i. i, (See. See on xxi. 6). It here 
 denotes a god, and should be so rendered 
 
V. 2 — 7 .] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXII. 
 
 405 
 
 this Moses, the man that brought us 
 up out of the land of Egypt, we wot 
 not what is become of him. 
 
 2 And Aaron said unto them. Break 
 off the golden earrings, which are in 
 the ears of your wives, of your sons, 
 and of your daughters, and bring them 
 unto me. 
 
 3 And all the people brake off the 
 golden earrings which were in their 
 ears, and brought them unto Aaron. 
 
 *Psai. 106. ^ -^And he received them at their 
 
 likings hand, and fashioned it with a graving 
 tool, after he had made it a molten 
 
 calf: and they said. These he thy 
 gods, O Israel, which brought thee 
 up out of the land of Egypt. 
 
 5 And when Aaron saw ;V, he built 
 an altar before it; and Aaron made 
 proclamation, and said. To morrow 
 is a feast to the Lord. 
 
 6 And they rose up early on the 
 morrow, and offered burnt offerings, 
 and brought peace offerings ; and the 
 
 people sat down to eat and to drink, i Cor. 10. 
 and rose up to play. 
 
 7 ^1 And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, ^ Go, get thee down ; for thy ^ 
 
 (Saadia and most modern interpreters). It is 
 evident that what the Israelites asked for was 
 a visible god. Our version follows the LXX., 
 Viilg., &c. 
 
 2. Break off the golden earrings'] It has 
 been very generally held from early times, 
 that Aaron did not willingly lend himself to 
 the mad design of the multitude; but that, 
 when ovei'come by their importunity, he ask- 
 ed them to give up such possessions as he 
 knew they would not willingly part with, in 
 the hope of putting a check on them (Augus- 
 tin. ‘(^oest.’ 14 1 ; Theodoret. ‘ QusEst.’ 66). 
 Assuming this to have been his purpose, he 
 took a wrong measure of their fanaticism, for 
 all the people made the sacrifice at once {v. 
 3). His weakness, in any case, was un- 
 pardonable and called for the intercession of 
 Moses (Deut. ix. 20). According to a Jewish 
 tradition found in the later Targums, Aaron 
 was terrified by seeing Hur, his colleague in 
 authority (xxiv. 14), slain by the people be- 
 cause he had ventured to oppose them. 
 
 4 . And he recei‘ved...a molten calf] The 
 Hebrew is somewhat difficult. The follow- 
 ing rendering represents the sense approved 
 by most modern critics ; — and he received the 
 gold at their hand and collected it in a bag and 
 made it a molten calf (Bochart, Gesenius, 
 Rosenmilller, Fiirst, Knobel, Kurtz, &c. with 
 the later Targums). Our version is supported 
 by the LXX., Onkelos, Luther, de Wette, 
 Keil, &c. Other interpreters conceive the latter 
 part of the passage to mean that Aaron shaped 
 the gold in a mould (or, after a pattern) and 
 made it a molten calf Syriac, Vulgate, 
 
 Aben-Ezra, Michaelis, Zunz, Herx., &c.). 
 
 a molten calf] The word calf may mean 
 a yearling ox. The Israelites must have 
 been familiar with the ox-worship of the 
 Egyptians; perhaps many of them had wit- 
 nessed the rites of Mnevis at Heliopolis, 
 almost on the borders of the Land of Goshen, 
 and they could not have been unacquainted 
 with the more famous rites of Apis at Mem- 
 phis. It is expressly said that they yielded 
 
 to the idolatry of Egypt while they were in 
 bondage (Josh. xxiv. 14; Ezek. xx. 8, xxiii. 
 3, 8). The earliest Jewish tradition derives 
 the golden calf from an Egyptian origin (Philo, 
 ‘ Vit. Mo.s.’ III. 19). It seems most likely 
 that the idolatrous tendency of the people had 
 been contracted from the Egyptians, but that 
 it was qualified by what they still retained 
 of the truths revealed to their forefathers. In 
 the next verse, Aaron appears to speak of the 
 calf as if it was a representative of Jehovah — 
 “To-morrow is a feast to the LordP They 
 did not, it should be noted, worship a living 
 Mnevis, or Apis, having a proper name, but 
 only the golden type of the animal. The 
 mystical notions connected with the ox by 
 the Egyptian priests may have possessed their 
 minds, and, when expressed in this modified 
 and less gross manner, may have been applied 
 to the Lord, who had really delivered them 
 out of the hand of the Egyptians. Their 
 sin then lay, not in their adopting ano- 
 ther god, but in their pretending to worship 
 a visible symbol of Him whom no symbol 
 could represent. The close connection be- 
 tween the calves of Jeroboam and this calf is 
 shewn by the repetition of the formula, 
 
 ‘ ‘ which brought thee up out of the land of 
 Egypt” (i Kings xii. 28). 
 
 These be thy gods] This is thy god. See 
 on I. 
 
 5. a feast to the Lord] See on 'v. 4. 
 
 6. See I Cor. x. 7). Hengstenberg, Kurtz 
 and others have laid a stress upon the simi- 
 larity of what is briefly described in the words, 
 “the people sat down to eat and drink, and 
 rose up to play,”, to certain rites of the Egyp- 
 tians spoken of by Herodotus (11. 60. ill. 27). 
 But such orgies were too common amongst 
 ancient idolaters for the remark to be of 
 much worth. 
 
 The trial of Moses as a Mediator. 
 
 7—35. 
 
 The faithfulness of Moses in the office that 
 had been entrusted to him was now to be put 
 
4o6 
 
 EXODUS. XXXII. 
 
 [v. 8—14. 
 
 people, which thou broughtest out of 
 the land of Egypt, have corrupted 
 themselves : 
 
 Deut. 9. 8 ^ They have turned aside quickly 
 
 ^ out of the way which I commanded 
 
 them: they have made them a mol- 
 ten calf, and have worshipped it, and 
 have sacrificed thereunto, and said. 
 These be thy gods, O Israel, which 
 have brought thee up out of the land 
 of Egypt. 
 
 9 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 /chap. 33. /J have seen this people, and, behold, 
 Deut. q. it is a stiffnecked people : 
 
 10 Now therefore let me alone, that 
 my wrath may wax hot against them, 
 and that I may consume them : and I 
 will make of thee a great nation. 
 
 e-Psai. 106. 1 1 ^ And Moses besought ^ the 
 
 fHeb. Lord his God, and said. Lord, why 
 ^the^LoRD. thy wrath wax hot against thy 
 
 people, which thou hast brought forth 
 out of the land of Egypt with great 
 power, and with a mighty hand? 
 
 12 ^ Wherefore should the Egyp- * Numb, 
 tians speak, and say, Eor mischief 
 
 did he bring them out, to slay them 
 in the mountains, and to consume 
 them from the face of the earth? 
 
 Turn from thy fierce wrath, and re- 
 pent of this evil against thy people. 
 
 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Israel, thy servants, to whom thou 
 swarest by thine own self, and saidst 
 
 unto them, ^I will multiply your seed ‘Gen. 12. 
 as the stars of heaven, and all this & 48.76.^’ 
 land that I have spoken of will I give 
 unto your seed, and they shall inherit 
 it for ever. 
 
 14 And the Lord repented of the 
 evil which he thought to do unto his 
 people. 
 
 to the test. It was to be made manifest whe- 
 ther he loved his own glory better than he loved 
 the brethren who were under his charge; 
 whether he would prefer that he should him- 
 self become the founder of a “ great nation,” 
 or that the Lord’s promise should be fulfil- 
 led in the whole people of Israel. As in the 
 trial of Abraham, the object to be attained was 
 not that He who knows the hearts of all men 
 might be assured that the servant whom He 
 had chosen was true and stedfast, but that 
 the faith of the servant might be strengthened 
 and instructed, by its being made known to 
 him what power had been given to him to 
 resist temptation. This may have been espe- 
 cially needful for Moses, in cousequence of 
 his natural disposition. See Num. xii. 3 ; cf. 
 Ex. iii. II. With this trial of Moses may 
 be compared the third temptation which the 
 evil one was permitted to set before our Sa- 
 viour. Matt. iv. 8 — 10. 
 
 Moses was tried in a twofold manner. The 
 trial was at first base{l on the divine commu- 
 nication made to him in the mount respecting 
 the apostasy of the people: on this occasion, 
 he rejects the offer of glory for himself and 
 intercedes for the nation; the exercise was 
 a purely spiritual one, apart from visible 
 fact, and no answer is given to his interces- 
 sion (see on -u. 14). But in the second case, 
 stirred up as he was by the facts actually be- 
 fore his eyes, after he had unflinchingly car- 
 ried out the judgment of God upon the per- 
 sons of the r/ostinate idolaters, he not only 
 again intercedes for the nation, but declares 
 himself ready to sacrifice his own salvation 
 for them (x’. 32). It is thus that the hearts 
 
 of God’s saints in all ages are strengthened 
 beforehand, by inward struggles that are wit- 
 nessed by no human eye, to fight the battle 
 when outward trials come upon them. — If 
 the wonderful narrative in this passage should 
 appear to any thoughtful reader incoherent 
 or obscure, let him read it again and again 
 and apply to it the key of his own spiritual 
 experience. 
 
 On another occasion in the history, when 
 the people had rebelled on account of the re- 
 port of the ten spies, the trial of Moses’ 
 faithfulness was repeated in a very similar 
 manner (Num. xiv. ii — 23). 
 
 8. These be thy gods . . . have brought] This 
 is thy god, 0 Israel, who has brought — 
 
 10. let me alone] But Moses did not let 
 the Lord alone ; he wrestled, as Jacob had 
 done, until, like Jacob, he obtained the bless- 
 ing (Gen. xxxii. 24). 
 
 12 . repent of this evil] See on v. 14. 
 
 13 . See Gen. xv. 5, 18, xxii. 17, xxxii. 12. 
 
 14 . This states the fact that was not re- 
 vealed to Moses till after his second interces- 
 sion when he had come down from the 
 mountain and witnessed the sin of the people 
 iyv. 30 — 34). He was then assured that the 
 l.ord’s love to His ancient people would pre- 
 vail. God is said, in the language of Scrip- 
 ture, to repent, when his forgiving love is 
 seen by man to blot out the letter of His 
 judgments against sin (2 Sam. xxiv. 16; Joel 
 ii- 13; Jonah iii. 10, &c.); or when the sin 
 of man seems to human sight to have disap- 
 pointed the purposes of grace (Gen. vi. 6; 
 I Sam. XV. 35, &c.). As they exist in the 
 
V. 15—26.] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXII. 
 
 407 
 
 15 H And Moses turned, and went 
 down from the mount, and the two 
 tables of the testimony were in his 
 hand : the tables were written on both 
 their sides; on the one side and on 
 the other were they written. 
 
 ^’^chap. 31. j 5 the ^ tables were the work 
 of God, and the writing was the writ- 
 ing of God, graven upon the tables. 
 
 17 And when Joshua heard the 
 noise of the people as they shouted, 
 he said unto Moses, There is a noise 
 of war in the camp. 
 
 18 And he said. It is not the voice 
 of them that shout for mastery, neither 
 is it the voice of them that cry for 
 
 t Heb. ^ being overcome : but the noise of them 
 
 weakness . ,1 . • 1 t 1 
 
 that sing do 1 hear. 
 
 19 ^ And it came to pass, as soon 
 as he came nigh unto the camp, that 
 he saw the calf, and the dancing : and 
 Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast 
 the tables out of his hands, and brake 
 them beneath the mount. 
 
 ^Deut. 9. 20 ^And he took the calf which they 
 
 had made, and burnt it in the fire, and 
 
 ground it to powder, and strawed it 
 upon the water, and made the children 
 of Israel drink of it. 
 
 21 And Moses said unto Aaron,' 
 
 What did this people unto thee, that 
 thou hast brought so great a sin upon 
 them ? 
 
 22 And Aaron said. Let not the 
 anger of my lord wax hot : thou 
 knowest the people, that they are set 
 on mischief. 
 
 23 For they said unto me. Make 
 us gods, which shall go before us : for 
 as for this Moses, the man that brought 
 us up out of the land of Egypt, we 
 wot not v/hat is become of him. 
 
 24 And I said unto them, Whoso- 
 ever hath any gold, let them break it 
 off. So they gave it me : then I cast 
 it into the fire, and there came out 
 this calf. 
 
 25 *11 And when Moses saw that 
 the people were naked; (for Aaron 
 
 had made them naked unto their ^ 
 
 , j 1 • • \ t/wse that 
 
 shame among ^ their enemies :} rose up 
 
 26 Then Moses stood in the gateS”^'^ 
 
 Eternal Father, wrath and love are essentially 
 ONE, however they may appear to thwart 
 each other to carnal eyes. The awakened 
 conscience is said to repent^ when, having felt 
 its sin, it feels also the divine forgiveness : it 
 is at this crisis that God, according to the 
 language of Scripture, repents, towards the 
 sinner. Thus the repentance of God made 
 known in and through the One true Media- 
 tor reciprocates the repentance of the return- 
 ing sinner, and reveals to him Atonement. 
 
 17 , 18 . Moses does not tell Joshua of the 
 divine communication that had been made to 
 him respecting the apostasy of the people, but 
 only corrects his impression by calling his 
 attention to the kind of noise which they are 
 making. 
 
 19 . Though Moses had been prepared 
 by the revelation on the Mount, his righteous 
 indignation was stirred up beyond control 
 when the abomination was before his eyes. 
 
 20. We need not suppose that each in- 
 cident is here placed in strict order of time. 
 What is related in this verse must have occu- 
 pied some time and may have followed the 
 rebuke of Aaron. Moses appears to have 
 thrown the calf into the fire to destroy its 
 form and then to have pounded, or filed, the 
 metal to powder, which he cast into the 
 brook (Deut. ix. ai). He then made the 
 Israelites drink of the water of the brook. 
 
 The act was of course a symbolical one. The 
 idol was brought to nothing and the people 
 were made to swallow their own sin (cf. 
 Mic. vii. 13, 14). It seems idle to speculate, 
 as many interpreters have done (Rosen- 
 miiller, Davidson, Kurtz, &c.), on the means 
 by which the comminution of the gold was 
 efected. 
 
 21. Moses, in grave irony, asks Aaron 
 whether the people had olfended him in any 
 way to induce him to inflict such an injury 
 on them as to yield to their request. 
 
 22. my lor 1] The deference here shown 
 to Moses by Aaron should be noticed. His 
 reference to the character of the people, and 
 his manner of stating what he had done 
 (yv. 24), are very characteristic of the depre- 
 cating language of a weak mind. 
 
 23 . Make us god3\ Make us a god. 
 
 25 . naked\ Rather, unruly, or licentious. 
 
 So the LXX., Onk., Syriac, and nearly all 
 critical authorities. 
 
 shame among tloeir enemies'\ Cf. Ps. xliv. 13 ; 
 Deut. xxviii. 37; Ps. Ixxix. 4. 
 
 26 — 29 .] The Tribe of Levi, Mdses’ own 
 Tribe, now distinguished itself by immediately 
 returning to its allegiance and obeying the 
 call to fight on the side of Jehovah. We 
 need not doubt that the 3000 who were slain 
 were those who persisted in resisting Moses : 
 we may perhaps conjecture that they were 
 
4o8 
 
 EXODUS. XXXII. 
 
 H Or, And 
 Moses 
 said, Con- 
 secrate 
 yourselves 
 to day to 
 the LORD, 
 because 
 every man 
 hath been 
 against 
 his son, 
 and 
 against 
 his bro- 
 ther, &*c. 
 
 1 Heb. 
 Fill your 
 hands. 
 
 of the camp, and said, Who is on the 
 Lord’s side? let him come unto me. 
 ,And all the sons of Levi gathered 
 themselves together unto him. 
 
 27 And he said unto them. Thus 
 saith the Lord God of Israel, Put 
 every man his sword by his side, and 
 go in and out from gate to gate 
 throughout the camp, and slay every 
 man his brother, and every man his 
 companion, and every man his neigh- 
 bour. 
 
 28 And the children of Levi did 
 according to the word of Moses : and 
 there fell of the people that day about 
 three thousand men. 
 
 29 “For Moses had said, ^Conse- 
 crate yourselves to day to the Lord, 
 even every man upon his son, and 
 upon his brother ; that he may be- 
 stow upon you a blessing this day. 
 
 30 ^ And it came to pass on the 
 
 [v. 27—34. 
 
 morrow, that Moses said unto the 
 people. Ye have sinned a great sin: 
 and now I will go up unto the Lord j 
 peradventure I shall make an atone- 
 ment for your sin. 
 
 31 And Moses returned unto the 
 Lord, and said. Oh, this people have 
 sinned a great sin, and have made 
 them gods of gold. 
 
 32 Yet now, if thou wilt forgive 
 their sin — ; and if not, blot me, I 
 pray thee, out of thy book which thou 
 hast written. 
 
 33 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 Whosoever hath sinned against me, 
 him will I blot out of my book. 
 
 34 Therefore now go, lead the 
 people unto the place of which I have 
 spoken unto thee : behold, mine Angel 
 shall go before thee : nevertheless in 
 the day when I visit I will visit their 
 sin upon them. 
 
 such as contumaciously refused to drink of 
 the water of tlie brook {y. 26). The spirit of 
 the narrative forbids us to conceive that the 
 act of the Levites was anything like an indis- 
 criminate massacre. An amnesty had first 
 been offered to all in the words, “ Who is on 
 the Lord’s side ?” Those who were forward 
 to draw the sword were directed not to spare 
 their closest relations or friends; but this 
 must plainly have been with an understood 
 qualification as regards the conduct of those 
 who were to be slain. Had it not been so, 
 they who were on the Lord’s side would 
 have had to destroy each other. ATe need 
 not stumble at the bold, simple way in which 
 the statement is made. The Bible does not 
 deign to apologise for itself; and hence at 
 times it afibrds occasion to gainsayers, who 
 shut their eyes to the spirit while they are 
 captiously looking at dissevered fragments of 
 tlie letter. 
 
 29 . Consecrate yoursel-ves to day to the 
 Lori)] The margin contains the literal ren- 
 dering. Our version gives the most probable 
 meaning of the Hebrew (see Lev, viii. a 2, 27), 
 and is supported by the best authority. The 
 Levites were to prove themselves in a special 
 way the. servants of Jehovah, in anticipation 
 of their formal consecration as ministers of 
 the Sanctuary, by manifesting a self-sacrificing 
 zeal in carrying out the divine command, 
 even upon their nearest relatives (cf. Deut. 
 X. 8). Kurtz, adopting the rendering of the 
 Targums, supposes that what the Levites 
 were commanded to do was to offer sacri- 
 
 fices upon the Altar to expiate the blood 
 which they were directed to shed. But this 
 interpretation cannot be well reconciled with 
 the Hebrew, and it is hard to imagine that 
 expiation could be required for what was 
 done in direct obedience to the command of 
 the Lord. It may be added that the Sin- 
 offering, the only kind of sacrifice that would 
 be suitable on such a hypothesis, had not yet 
 been instituted. 
 
 31 . returned unto the Lord"] i.e. he again 
 ascended the Mount. 
 
 gods of gold~\ a god of gold. 
 
 32 . For a similar form of expression, in 
 which the conclusion is left to be supplied by 
 the mind of the reader, see Dan. iii. 17 ; Luke 
 xiii. 9, xix, 42 ; John vi. 62; Rom. ix. 22. — 
 For the same thought, see Rom. ix. 3. It is 
 for such as Moses and St Paul to realize, and 
 to dare to utter, their readiness to be wholly 
 sacrificed for the sake of those whom God has 
 entrusted to their love. This expresses the 
 perfected idea of the whole Burnt-offering. 
 
 thy book'] The figure is taken from the 
 enrolment of the names of citizens. This is 
 its first occurrence in the Scriptures. See 
 Ps. Ixix. 28; Isa. iv. 3 ; Dan. xii. i ; Luke x. 
 20; Phil. iv. 3; Rev. iii. 5, &c. 
 
 33 , 34 . Each offender was to suffer for 
 his own sin. On xx. 5 cf. Ezek. xviii. 4, 2.0. 
 Moses was not to be taken at his word. He 
 was to fulfil his appointed mission of leading 
 on the people towards the Land of Promise. 
 
 34 . mine Jlngel shall go before thee] See 
 on xxlii. 20, and xxxiii. 3. 
 
V- 35—3-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXII. XXXIII. 
 
 409 
 
 35 And the Lord plagued the 
 people, because they made the calf, 
 which Aaron made. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 I The Lord refiiseth io go as he had promised 
 with the people. 4 The people 7 ntir 7 niir there- 
 at. 7 The tabemtaele is re^noved oat of the 
 cafJip. 9 The Lord talketh familiarly with 
 Moses, 1 2 ALoses desireth to see the glory of 
 God. 
 
 AND the Lord said unto Moses, 
 Depart, and go up hence, thou 
 and the people which thou hast brought 
 up out of the land of Egypt, unto the 
 
 land which I sware unto Abraham, to 
 Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto " Gen. 13. 
 thy seed will I give it: 
 
 2 '^And I will send an angel before » Dent. 7. 
 thee ; and I will drive out the Ca- josh. 24. 
 naanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, ”• 
 and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the 
 Jebusite : 
 
 3 Unto a land flowing with milk 
 and honey: for I will not go up in 
 
 the midst of thee ; for thou art a “^stift- <^chap. 32. 
 necked people : lest I consume thee Deut. 9. 
 in the way. 
 
 in the day nuhen I 'visit., cSr^r.] This has been 
 supposed to refer to the sentence that was 
 pronounced on the generation of Israelites 
 then living, when they murmured on account 
 of the report of the ten spies, that they should 
 not enter the land (Num. xiv.). On that oc- 
 casion they were charged with having tempt- 
 ed God “these ten times” (pv. 22). But 
 though the Lord visited the sin upon those 
 who rebelled, yet He “repented of the evil 
 which He thought to do unto His people.” 
 He chastised the individuals, but did not take 
 His blessing from the nation. 
 
 35. and the Lord'] Thus Jehovah. 
 
 Chap. XXXIII. 
 
 The Conference between Jehovah and His 
 mediator is continued in this Chapter. It 
 had been conceded to Moses that the nation 
 should not be destroyed (see xxxii. 10 sq ), and 
 that he should lead them on towards the place 
 of which the Lord had spoken (see xxxii. 34). 
 But the favour was not to be awarded accord- 
 ing to the terms of the original promise (xxiii. 
 20 — 23). The Covenant on which the pro- 
 mise was based had been broken by the people. 
 Jehovah now therefore declared that though 
 His Angel should go before Moses (xxxii. 34) 
 and should drive out the heathen from the 
 land, He would withhold His own favouring 
 presence, lest he should consume than in the 
 'way (xxxiii. 2, 3). Thus were the people 
 forcibly warned that His presence could prove 
 a blessing to them only on condition of their 
 keeping their part of the covenant (see on 'v. 3). 
 If they failed in this. His presence would be to 
 them “a consuming fire” (Deut. iv. 24). The 
 people, when they heard the Divine message, 
 mourned and humbled themselves, stripping 
 off their accustomed ornaments in accordance 
 with the command (pw. 4- — 6). Moses now 
 appointed a religious service of a peculiar 
 kind, dedicating a Tent pitched at some dis- 
 tance from the camp, as a meeting-place for 
 Jehovah and himself ('u-i;. 7 — n). Here he 
 again intercedes with persevering fervour until 
 
 he obtains the answer, “My presence shall go 
 with thee, and I will give thee rest” {pv. 14; 
 see note). He then dares to reason on this 
 answer and to prove its necessity, as one man 
 might discuss terms with another (pv. ii). 
 The answer is at last given in a still clearer 
 and more gracious form; “I will do this 
 thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou 
 hast found grace in my sight, and I know 
 thee by name” (rv. 17). Having proved him- 
 self worthy of his calling as a mediator, both 
 in vindicating the honour of Jehovah and in 
 his self-sacrificing intercession with Jehovah 
 for the nation, he is rewarded by a special 
 vision of the Divine nature : Jehovah reveals 
 Himself to him in His essential character to 
 the utmost point that such revelation is pos- 
 sible to a finite being (-ut’. 18 — 23). 
 
 2 . See on iii. 8. 
 
 3 . fni/h and honey] See on iii. 8. 
 
 for I will not go up in the midst of thee] 
 This is the awful qualification with which the 
 possession of the promised Land might have 
 been granted: Jehovah Himself was not to go 
 before the people. A ccording to the T argums, 
 it was the shekinah that was to be withheld 
 (see on xiv. 19, 20). Hengstenberg supposes 
 that the Angel promised in xxiii. 2c — 23 was 
 “the Angel of Jehovah,” Kaf i^oxrjv, the 
 Second Person of the Trinity, in whom Jeho- 
 vah was essentially present, the same whom 
 Isaiah called “the Angel of His presence” 
 (Ixiii. 9) and Maiachi, “the Angel of the 
 Covenant” (iii. i); but that the Angel here 
 mentioned was an ordinary Angel, one com- 
 missioned for this service out of the heavenly 
 host (Christology, Vol. i. p. 107). It should 
 however be noted that this Angel is expressly 
 spoken of as the jdngel of Jehouah in xxxii. 34. 
 But in whatever way we understand the 
 mention of the A ngel in this passage as com- 
 pared with xxiii. 20, the meaning of the threat 
 appears to be that the nation should be put on 
 a level with other nations, to lose its cha- 
 racter as the people in special covenant with 
 Jehovah (see on -v. 16). — On the name Angel 
 
410 
 
 EXODUS. XXXIII. 
 
 [''• 4 — 9 . 
 
 4 ^ And when the people heard 
 these evil tidings, they mourned : and 
 no man did put on him his orna- 
 ments. 
 
 5 For the Lord had said unto 
 Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, 
 Ye are a stiffnecked people: I will 
 come up into the midst of thee in a 
 moment, and consume thee : therefore 
 now put off thy ornaments from thee, 
 that I may know what to do unto 
 thee. 
 
 6 And the children of Israel stripped 
 themselves of their ornaments by the 
 mount Horeb. 
 
 7 And Moses took the tabernacle. 
 
 and pitched it without the camp, afar 
 off from the camp, and called it the 
 Tabernacle of the congregation. And 
 it came to pass, that every one which 
 sought the Lord went out unto the 
 tabernacle of the congregation, which 
 was without the camp. 
 
 8 And it came to pass, when Moses 
 went out unto the tabernacle, that all 
 the people rose up, and stood every 
 man at his tent door, and looked after 
 Moses, until he was gone into the 
 tabernacle. 
 
 9 And it came to pass, as Moses 
 entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy 
 pillar descended, and stood at the door 
 
 of Jeho'vah^ see on Gen. ii. i. Hengstenberg’s 
 arguments have been elaborately answered by 
 Kurtz, ‘ Hist of O. C.’ Vol. i. § 50 (a), and 
 Vol. III. § 14 (3). 
 
 lest I consume thee in the ^i.vay\ See introd. 
 note to this chap. St Augustine- speaks of the 
 mystery that Jehovah should declare Himself 
 to be less merciful than His Angel (Quiest. 
 150). It would seem that the presence of 
 Jehovah represented the Covenant with its 
 penalties as well as its privileges. See pre- 
 ceding note. 
 
 4 — 6. See introd. note. 
 
 5 . I will come up...co7isume thee~\ By far 
 the greater number of versions put this con- 
 ditionally; If I were to go up for one 
 moment in the midst of thee, I should 
 consume thee (see nj. 3). This rendering 
 seems- best to suit the context. Our trans- 
 lators follow the earlier English versions, 
 which are supported by the Syriac, Vulg. 
 and Luther. 
 
 that I may knmv^ &^c.'] and I shall 
 know by that what to do unto thee. 
 That is, by that sign of their repentance Je- 
 hovah would decide in what way they were 
 to be punished. 
 
 6. by the mount Horcb~\ from mount 
 Horeb onwards. The meaning, according to 
 all the best authorities, appears to be that 
 they ceased to wear their ornaments from the 
 time they were at xMount Horeb. 
 
 The Temporary Tent of Meeting. 
 
 7— II. 
 
 7 . the tabernacle'] The original word sig- 
 nifies the Tent. The only word in the Old 
 Testament which ought to be rendered taber- 
 nacle {tn 'ishkdn ) does not occur once in this 
 narrative (see on xxvi. i). What is here called 
 The 'Lent has been understood in three dif- 
 ferent ways. It has been taken to denote : 
 
 I. The Tabernacle constructed according 
 to the pattern showed to Moses in the Mount 
 (our version and the earlier English ones, se- 
 veral Jewish authorities, Knobel, &c.). But 
 if we are in any degree to respect the order of 
 the narrative, the Tabernacle was not made 
 until after the events here recorded (see 
 xl. a). 
 
 2. An old sanctuary, or sacred tent, 
 which the Israelites had previously possessed 
 (Michaelis, Rosenmuller, &c.). But it is in- 
 credible that such a structure should not have 
 been spoken of elsewhere, had it existed. 
 
 3. A tent appointed for this temporary 
 purpose by Moses, very probably the one in 
 which he was accustomed to dwell. Accord- 
 ing to the Hebrew idiom, the article may 
 stand for the possessive pronoun, and thus it 
 is most likely that the right rendering is, his 
 tent. This is by far the most satisfactory 
 interpretation (LXX., Syriac, Jarchi, Aben- 
 Ezra, Drusilis, Grotius, Geneva French, 
 Kurtz, Wogue, &c.). 
 
 pitched it without the camp^ afar off from, the 
 camp] This tent was to be a place for meet- 
 ing with Jehovah, like the Tabernacle which 
 was about to be constructed. But in order 
 that the people might feel that they had for- 
 feited the Divine presence (see xxv. 8), the 
 Tent of meeting (as it should be called, 
 see on xxvii. 21, and Note at the end of Chap, 
 xl.) was placed “afar off from the camp,” and 
 the Mediator and his faithful servant Joshua 
 were alone admitted to it (yv. ii). 
 
 8. the tabernacle] tbe Tent. 
 
 at his tent door] at the entiance of his 
 tent (see on xxvi. 36). The people may 
 have stood up either out of respect to Moses, 
 or from doubt as to what was going to occur. 
 But as soon as the cloudy pillar was seen, 
 they joined in worship ('v. 10). 
 
 9 . as Moses entei'ed... talked 'with Moses] 
 “As Moses entered into the Tent, the cloudy 
 
V. lo — 18 .] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXIII. 
 
 4H 
 
 of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked 
 with Moses. 
 
 10 And all the people saw the cloudy 
 pillar stand at the tabernacle door: 
 and all the people rose up and wor- 
 shipped, every man in his tent door. 
 
 1 1 And the Lord spake unto Moses 
 face to face, as a man speaketh unto 
 his friend. And he turned again into 
 the camp: but his servant Joshua, the 
 son of Nun, a young man, departed 
 not out of the tabernacle. 
 
 12 ^ And Moses said unto the 
 Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring 
 up this people : and thou hast not let 
 me know whom thou wilt send with 
 me. Y et thou hast said, I know thee 
 by name, and thou hast also found 
 grace in my sight. 
 
 13 Now therefore, I pray thee, if 
 I have found grace in thy sight, shew 
 me now thy way, that I may know 
 
 thee, that I may find grace in thy 
 sight: and consider that this nation 
 is thy people. 
 
 14 And he said. My presence shall 
 go with thee, and I will give thee 
 rest. 
 
 15 And he said unto him. If thy 
 presence go not with me, carry us not 
 up hence. 
 
 16 For wherein shall it be known 
 here that I and thy people have found 
 grace in thy sight? is it not in that 
 thou goest with us? so shall we be 
 separated, I and thy people, from all 
 the people that are upon the face of the 
 earth. 
 
 17 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 I will do this thing also that thou hast 
 spoken : for thou hast found grace in 
 my sight, and I know thee by name. 
 
 18 And he said, I beseech thee, 
 shew me thy glory. 
 
 pillar came down and stood at the 
 entrance of the Tent and talked with 
 Moses” (LXX.., Viilg., Onk., de Wette, 
 Knobel, &c,). The Cloudy pillar is the proper 
 nominative to the verb talked (cf. xiii. 21, xix. 
 9, xxiv. 16, xl. 35). 
 
 10. the tabernacle door~\ the entrance 
 of the Tent. 
 
 rose up and <ivorshipped] or, began to nvor~ 
 ship. The people by this act gave another 
 proof of their penitence. 
 
 in his tent door'] at the entrance of his 
 tent. 
 
 11. face to face] The meaning of these 
 words is limited by ns. 20, see note; cf. also 
 Num. xii. 8; Deut. iv. 12. 
 
 Joshua] See on xvii. 9. 
 
 the tabernacle] the Tent. 
 
 The Mediator is rewarded. 
 
 12—13- 
 
 12. let me kno^u whom tbou wilt send with 
 me] Jehovah had just previously commanded 
 Moses to lead on the people and had promised 
 to send an Angel before him {ns. 2, xxxii. 34). 
 Moses was now anxious to know who the 
 Angel was to be. • 
 
 I know thee by name] The LORD had called 
 him by his name, iii. 4; cf. Isa. xliii. i, xlix. i. 
 
 found grace] xxxii. 10, &c. 
 
 13 . thy way] He desires not to be left in 
 uncertainty, but to be assured, by Jehovah’s 
 mode of proceeding, of the reality of the pro- 
 mises that had been made to him. 
 
 14 . ]. Ewald considers that this verse should 
 
 be read interrogatively, “ Must my presence 
 go with thee, and shall I give thee rest?” 
 This rendering may make the connection 
 more simple ; but it appears to be supported 
 by no other authority. See on xxxiv. 9. 
 
 rest] This was the common expression 
 for the possession of the promised Land. 
 Deut. iii, 20; Josh. i. 13, 15, xxii. 4, (See.; 
 cf. Heb. iv. 8. 
 
 15 , 16 ] Moses would have preferred that 
 the people should forego the possession of the 
 Land and remain in the wilderness, if they 
 were to be deprived of the presence of Jeho- 
 vah, as the witness for the Covenant, accord- 
 ing to the original promise. It was this which 
 alone distinguished (rather than “sepa- 
 rated”) them from other nations, and which 
 alone would render the Land of Promise a 
 home to be desired. 
 
 17 . Cf. 'v. 13. His petition for the na- 
 tion, and his own claims as a mediator, are 
 now granted to the full. 
 
 18 . shew me thy glory] The faithful ser- 
 vant of Jehovah, now assured by the success 
 of his mediation, yearns, with the proper 
 tendency of a devout spirit, for a more inti- 
 mate communion with his Divine Master than 
 he had yet enjoyed. He seeks for something 
 surpassing all former revelations. He had 
 talked with the Lord “ face to face as a man 
 speaketh unto his friend” {yv. ii; cf, Deut. 
 xxxiv. 10), but it was in the Cloudy pillar: 
 he, and the people with him, had seen ‘ ‘ the 
 glory of the Lord,” but it was in the form of 
 “devouring fire” (xvi. 7. 10, xxiv. 16, 17): 
 
412 
 
 EXODUS. XXXIII. XXXIV. 
 
 [v. IQ 2. 
 
 ^ Rom. 
 
 15 - 
 
 19 And he said, I will make all 
 my goodness pass before thee, and I 
 will proclaim the name of the Lord 
 before thee; ^and will be gracious to 
 whom I will be gracious, and will shew 
 mercy on whom I will shew mercy. 
 
 20 And he said. Thou canst not see 
 my face: for there shall no man see 
 me, and live. 
 
 21 And the Lord said. Behold, 
 there is a place by me, and thou shalt 
 stand upon a rock : 
 
 22 And it shall come to pass, while 
 my glory passeth by, that I will put 
 thee in a clift of the rock, and will 
 cover thee with my hand while I pass 
 by: 
 
 he had even beheld the “similitude” of the 
 Lord in a mystical sense (Num. xii. 8). But 
 he asks now to behold the face of Jehovah 
 in all its essential glory, neither veiled by a 
 cloud nor represented by an Angel. 
 
 19 , 20] But his request could not be 
 granted in accordance with the conditions of 
 human existence. The glory of the Almighty 
 in its fulness is not to be revealed to the eye 
 of man. A further revelation of the Divine 
 goodness was however possible. Jehovah was 
 to reveal Himself as the gracious One, whose 
 mercy in forgiving iniquity included, and 
 brought into harmony, all the claims of jus- 
 tice (xxxiv. 6,7; see on xxxii. 14). The pro- 
 mise here given was to be fulfilled on the 
 morrow, when the mediator was to receive 
 the twofold reward of his spiritual wrestling ; 
 the covenant was to be renewed with the na- 
 tion according to its original terms, and he 
 himself was to be permitted to penetrate 
 more deeply into the mysteries of the Divine 
 nature than had ever before been granted to 
 mortal man. 
 
 It was vouchsafed to St Paul, as it had 
 been to Moses, to have special “visions and 
 revelations of the Lord” (2 Cor. xii. i — 4). 
 He was “caught up into the third heaven” 
 and heard “ unspeakable words which it is 
 not possible for a man to utter.” But he 
 had, also like Moses, to find the narrow reach 
 of the intellect of man in the region of God- 
 head. It was long after he had heard the 
 unspeakable words in Paradise that he spoke 
 of the Lord as dwelling “ in the light which 
 no man can approach unto, whom no man 
 hath seen nor can see” (i Tim. vi, 16). He 
 knew of the Mediator greater than Moses 
 (Heb. iii. 5, 6), who being “ in the bosom of 
 the bather” had declared flim in a higher 
 sense than He had been declared to Moses, 
 but still it remains true that “ no man hath 
 
 23 And I will take away mine hand, 
 and thou shalt see my back p^arts : but 
 my face shall not be seen. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 I The tables are renewed. 5 The name of the 
 LORD proclaimed. 8 Moses intreateth God 
 to go with them. 10 God maketh a covenant 
 with them, repeating certain duties of the first 
 table. 2 8 Moses after forty days in the mount 
 Cometh down with the tables. 29 His face 
 shineth, and he covereth it with a vail. 
 
 A nd the Lord said unto Moses, 
 
 L '^Hew thee two tables of stone " Deut. la 
 like unto the first: and I will write 
 upon these tables the words that were 
 in the first tables, which thou brakest. 
 
 2 And be ready in the morning, 
 and come up in the morning unto 
 
 seen God at any time” (John i. 18). How- 
 ever intimate may be our communion with 
 the Holy One, we are still, as long as we are 
 in the flesh, “ to see through a glass darkly,” 
 w'aiting for the time when we shall see, with 
 no figure of speech, “ face to face” (i Cor. 
 xiii. 12). Then we know “that we shall be 
 like him, for we shall see him as he is” (i John 
 iii. 2). It was in a tone of aspiration lower 
 than that of Moses or St Paul, that St Philip 
 said, “Lord, shew us the Father” (John xiv. 8). 
 
 19 . ‘2C/// be gracious to <whom I (will be 
 gracious, and <will she^tv mercy on <ivhom I ^joill 
 sbe<iju mercy'] Jehovah declares His own wdll 
 to be the ground of the grace which He is 
 going to shew the nation. St Paul applies 
 these wmrds to the election of Jacob in order 
 to overthrow the self-righteous boasting of 
 the Jews (Rom. ix. 15). 
 
 20. Cf. xix. 21. Such passages as this 
 being clearly in accordance with what we 
 know of the relation of spiritual existence to 
 the human senses, shew how we are to inter- 
 pret the expressions “face to face” (y. ii), 
 “ mouth to mouth” (Num. xii. 8), and others 
 of the like kind. See especially xxiv. 10, ii ; 
 Isa. vi. I ; and cf. John xiv. 9. 
 
 21 — 23 .] The conjectures and traditions 
 on the place of this vision, inconclusive as 
 they must be, are given by Robinson, ‘ Bib. 
 Res.’ Vol. I. p. 153. 
 
 Chap. XXXIV. 
 
 The Covenant and the Tables are renenved — The 
 second revelation of the Divine Name to 
 Moses. 
 
 I — 10. 
 
 1. Hevj thee] See v. 4. The fonner tables 
 are called “the work of God,” xxxii. 16. 
 
 the vuords that ewere in the first tables, 
 (which thou brakest] These were “the words 
 
V. 3—9-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXIV. 
 
 413 
 
 mount Sinai, and present thyself there 
 to me in the top of the mount. 
 
 *chap. 19. 3 And no man shall ‘^come up with 
 
 thee, neither let any man be seen 
 throughout all the mount ; neither let 
 the flocks nor herds feed before that 
 mount. 
 
 4 ^ And he hewed two tables of 
 stone like unto the first; and Moses 
 rose up early in the morning, and v/ent 
 up unto mount Sinai, as the Lord had 
 commanded him, and took in his hand 
 the two tables of stone. 
 
 5 And the Lord descended in the 
 cloud, and stood with him there, and 
 proclaimed the name of the Lord. 
 
 6 And the Lord passed by before 
 him, and proclaimed. The Lord, The 
 Lord God, merciful and gracious, 
 longsuffiering, and abundant in good- 
 ness and truth, 
 
 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, 
 forgiving iniquity and transgression 
 and sin, and that will by no means 
 clear the guilty i ^visiting the iniquity ^ chap, 
 of the fathers upon the children, and i)eut. 5 
 upon the children’s children, unto the 32- 
 third and to the fourth generation. 
 
 8 And Moses made haste, and 
 bowed his head toward the earth, and 
 worshipped. 
 
 9 And he said. If now I have found 
 
 of the covenant, the ten commandments” {v. 
 28); see Dent. iv. 13, ix. 10, ii, x. i, 4, and 
 especially Deut. v. 6 — 22. These passages 
 would seem to leave no room for doubt that 
 what we recognize as the Ten Command- 
 ments were inscribed on the second as well 
 as the first pair of Tables. But Gothe, in 
 one of his early works, started ‘the notion 
 that what was written on these Tables was 
 the string of precepts, which may be reckoned 
 as Ten, contained in this chap. nj'v. 12 — 26. 
 Falsely regarding the Mosaic Covenant as 
 essentially narrow and exclusive, he could 
 not see how an expression of universal moral- 
 ity like the Ten Commandments of Ex. xx. 
 could possibly have formed its basis. Hitzig 
 has taken a similar view. Hengstenberg ( ‘Pent.’ 
 Vol. II. p. 31) and Kurtz (‘Old Cov.’ iii. 182) 
 have answered Hitzig at length. — Ewald holds 
 that the Tables mentioned in this verse con- 
 tained the original Ten Commandments, but 
 that the tables spoken of in 2;. 2 8 were dis- 
 tinct ones, on which Moses engraved this 
 string of precepts. But this seems an utterly 
 gratuitous supposition. 
 
 3. Lhese are similar to the instructions 
 given on the first occasion. See xix. 12, 13. 
 
 6, 7. This was the second revelation of 
 the name of the God of Israel to Moses. The 
 first revelation was of Jehovah as the self- 
 existent One, who purposed to deliver His 
 people with a mighty hand (iii. 1 4) ; this was 
 of the same Jehovah as a loving Saviour who 
 was now forgiving their sins. The two ideas 
 that mark these revelations are found com- 
 bined, apart from their historical develop- 
 ment, in the Second Commandment, where 
 the Divine unity is shewn on its practical 
 side, in its relation to human obligations (cf. 
 xxxiv. 14). Both in the Commandment and 
 in this passage, the Divine Love is associated 
 with the Divine Justice; but in the former 
 there is a transposition to serve the proper 
 
 purpose of the Commandments, and the 
 Justice stands before the Love. This is 
 strictly the legal arrangement, brought out 
 in the completed system of the ceremonial 
 Law, in which the Sin-offering, in acknow- 
 ledgment of the sentence of Justice against 
 sin, was offered before the Burnt-offering 
 and the Peace-offering (see pref. to Leviticus). 
 But in this place the truth rappears in its 
 essential order ; the retributive' Justice of 
 Jehovah is subordinated to, rather it is made 
 a part of. His forgiving Love (see on xxxii. 
 14). The visitation of God, whatever form 
 it may wear, is in all ages working out pur- 
 poses of Love towards all His children. The 
 diverse aspects of the Divine natui-e, to sepa- 
 rate which is the tendency of the unre- 
 generate mind of man and of all heathenism, 
 are united in perfect harmony in the Lord 
 Jehovah, of whom the saying is true in all 
 its length and breadth, “God is love” (i Joh. 
 iv. 8). It was the sense of this in the degree 
 to which it was now revealed to him that 
 caused Moses to bow his head and worship 
 {y. 8). But the perfect revelation of the 
 harmony was reserved for the fulness of time 
 when “ the Lamb slain from the foundation 
 of the world” was made known to us in 
 the flesh as both our Saviour and our Judge. 
 — Moses quotes the words here pronounced 
 to him in his supplication after the rebellion 
 that arose from the report of the ten spies 
 (Num. xiv. 18), 
 
 9 . Moses had been assured of the pardon 
 of the people and the perfect restoration of the 
 Covenant (xxxiii. 14, 17) : he had just had re- 
 vealed to him, in a most distinguished man- 
 ner, the riches of the Divine forgiveness. Yet 
 now, in the earnest travail of his spirit, he 
 supplicates for a repetition of the promise, add- 
 ing the emphatic petition, that Jehovah would 
 take Israel for his own inheritance (ch. xv, 
 17). This yearning struggle after assurance 
 
414 
 
 EXODUS. XXXIV. 
 
 [v. 10—21. 
 
 grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my 
 Lord, I pray thee, go among us ; for 
 it is a stiffnecked people ; and pardon 
 our iniquity and our sin, and take us 
 for thine inheritance. 
 rfDeut. 5- 10 ^ And he said. Behold, 
 
 make a covenant : before all thy peo- 
 ple I will do marvels, such as have 
 not been done in all the earth, nor in 
 any nation : and all the people among 
 which thou art shall see the work of 
 the Lord : for it is a terrible thing 
 that I will do with thee. 
 
 1 1 Observe thou that which I 
 command thee this day: behold, I 
 drive out before thee the Amorite, 
 and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, 
 and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, 
 and the Jebusite. 
 
 r chap. 23. 12 ^ Take heed to thyself, lest thou 
 
 Dcut. 7. 2. make a covenant with the inhabitants 
 of the land whither thou goest, lest 
 it be for a snare in the midst of thee : 
 
 13 But ye shall destroy their altars, 
 
 siliuis tbeir ^ images, and cut down 
 
 their groves : 
 
 14 For thou shalt worship no other 
 god: for the Lord, whose name is 
 
 /chap. 20. Jealous, is a-^^jealous God. 
 
 . 15 Lest thou make a covenant 
 
 with the inhabitants of the land, and 
 they go a whoring after their gods, and 
 do sacrifice unto their gods, and one 
 call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice ; 
 
 16 And thou take of ^ their daugh-'^ ^ Kings 
 ters unto thy sons, and their daugh- 
 ters go a whoring after their gods, 
 
 and make thy sons go a whoring after 
 their gods. 
 
 17 Thou shalt make thee no mol- 
 ten gods. 
 
 18 The feast of unleavened chap. 23. 
 bread shalt thou keep. Seven days 
 
 thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I 
 commanded thee, in the time of the 
 month Abib : for in the * month Abib * chap. 13, 
 thou earnest out from Egypt. 
 
 19 All that openeth the matrix is ^chap. 22. 
 mine; and every firstling among thy Ezek. 44. 
 cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. 
 
 20 But the firstling of an ass thou 
 
 shalt redeem with a Mamb: and if n Or, /t/zf. 
 thou redeem him not, then shalt thou 
 break hi^ neck. All the firstborn of 
 thy sons thou shalt redeem. And 
 none shall appear before me ^ empty. 
 
 21 ^ "'Six days thou shalt work, chap. 23. 
 but on the seventh day thou shalt Deut. 5. 
 rest : in earing time and in harvest ^3. 
 thou shalt rest. 
 
 is like the often-repeated utterance of the 
 heart, when it receives a blessing beyond its 
 hopes, “can this be real?” These words of 
 Moses wonderfully commend themselves to 
 the experience of the prayerful spirits of all 
 ages, — A hint may perhaps be gathered from 
 this verse in favour of reading the verbs in 
 xxxiii, 14 (see note) affirmatively rather than 
 interrogatively. 
 
 10. mar'vels\ These marvels are explained 
 in the following verse. Cf. Deut. vii. i, &c. 
 
 Conditions of th'j Covenant. 
 
 1 1 — 27. 
 
 11. The names of the nations are the same 
 as occur in the first promise to Moses in 
 iii. 8. 
 
 12 — 27 . The precepts contained in these 
 verses are, for the most part, identical in sub- 
 stance with some of those which follow the 
 Ten Commandments and are recorded in “the 
 Book of the Covenant” (xx. — xxiii. ; see 
 xxiv. 7). Such a selection of precepts in this 
 place, conncxrted with the account of the re- 
 stored Covenant and the new 'Cables, may 
 tend to support the probability that chapters 
 
 xxxii., xxxiii., xxxiv. originally formed a dis- 
 tinct composition. See introd. note to xxxii. 
 
 12 . See on xxiii, 32, 33. 
 
 13 . See on xxiii. 24, 
 
 cat do^jun thiir grooves'] See Note at the end 
 of the Chap. 
 
 14 . See on xx. 5. 
 
 15 . 16 ] An expansion of -z;. 12 (cf, Deut. 
 xxxi. 16). The unfaithfulness of the nation 
 to its Covenant with Jehovah is here for the 
 first time spoken of as a breach of the mar- 
 riage bond. The metaphor is, in any 'case, 
 a natural one, but it seems to gain point, if we 
 suppose it to convey an allusion to the abo- 
 minations connected with heathen worship, 
 such as are spoken of Num. xxv. i — 3. Cf 
 Lev. xvii. 7, xx. 5, 6; Num. xiv. 33. 
 
 15 . eat of his sacrifice] See Num. xxv. a. 
 
 17 . molten] See on xx. 4, 
 
 18 . See xxiii. 15. 
 
 19 . See on xiii. 2, 12 and Lev. xxvii. 26. 
 
 20 . See xiii. 13. 
 
 shall appear before me empty] See xxiii. 15. 
 
 21 . See XX. 9, xxiii. 12. There is here 
 added to the Commandment a particular cau- 
 
V. 22 32-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXIV. 
 
 415 
 
 w^chap. 23. 22 ^ ” And thou shalt observe the 
 
 feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of 
 wheat harvest, and the feast of in- 
 t Heb. gathering at the ^ year’s end. 
 l/theycTr. 23 ^ ThHce in the year shall all 
 your men children appear before the 
 Deut. 16. Lord God, the God of Israel. 
 
 24 For I will cast out the nations 
 before thee, and enlarge thy bor- 
 ders: neither shall any man desire 
 thy Lind, when thou shalt go up to 
 appear before the Lord thy God 
 thrice in the year. 
 
 /chap. 23, 25 ^Thou shalt not offer the blood 
 
 ^ ’ of my sacrifice with leaven ; neither 
 shall the sacrifice of the feast of the 
 passover be left unto the morning. 
 
 26 The first of the firstfruits of 
 * thy land thou shalt bring unto the 
 house of the Lord thy God. Thou 
 ? chap. 23. shalt not seethe a ^'kid in his mo- 
 Deut.i4. then’s milk. 
 
 21- 27 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 
 ^Dcut. 4. Write thou ''these words: for after 
 the tenor of these words I have made 
 a covenant with thee and with Israel. 
 
 28 And he was there with the 
 Lord forty days and forty nights ; Deut. 9. 9. 
 he did neither eat bread, nor drink 
 water. And he wrote upon the tables 
 
 the v/ords of the covenant, the ten 
 ^ commandments. 
 
 29 ^ And it came to pass, when 
 Moses came down from mount Sinai 
 with the two tables of testimony in 
 Moses’ hand, when he came down 
 from the mount, that Moses wist not 
 that the skin of his face shone while 
 he talked v/ith him. 
 
 30 And when Aaron and all the 
 children of Israel saw Moses, behold, 
 the skin of his face shone ; and they 
 were afraid to come nigh him. 
 
 31 And Moses called unto them; 
 and Aaron and all the rulers of the 
 congregation returned unto him : and 
 Moses talked with them. 
 
 32 And afterv/ard ail the children of 
 Israel came nigh : and he gave them 
 in commandment all that the Lord 
 had spoken with him in mount 
 Sinai. 
 
 tion respecting those times of year when the 
 land calls for most labour. — The old verb 
 to ear (i. e, to plough) is genuine English. 
 Though it appears to be cognate with the 
 Latin arare^ it is certainly not derived from 
 it. The English, verb is found Gen. xlv. 6, 
 in Shakespeare (‘Rich. II.’ iii. a; ‘Ant. and 
 Cleo.’ I. 4), and elsewhere. 
 
 22. See xxiii. 16. 
 
 23. See xxiii. 14, 17. 
 
 24. for 1 <ivill cast out] See xxiii. 23. 
 
 enlarge thy borders] See xxiii. 31; Deut. 
 
 xii. 20. 
 
 neither shall any man desire^ 5cc.] This is 
 the only place in which the promise is given 
 to encourage such as might fear the conse- 
 quences of obeying the Divine Law in attend- 
 ing to their religious duties. But cf. xxiii. 27. 
 
 25. 26.] See xxiii. 18, 19. 
 
 27. Write thou] Moses is here com- 
 manded to make a record in his own writing 
 of the preceding precepts (see on njv. 12 — 27). 
 The Book of the Covenant was written in 
 like manner (xxiv. 4, 7). — On the words “ he 
 wrote,” in the next verse, see note. 
 
 Moses recei^ves the Ne^iu Tables^ comes down 
 
 from the Mount^ and converses with the 
 
 people, 
 
 ,,, . ^ 8 — 35 - 
 
 28. Cf. XXIV. 18. 
 
 he wrote] According to Hebrew usage, 
 the name of Jehovah may be the subject of 
 the verb ; that it must be so, is evident from 
 V. I. Cf. xxxii. 16. 
 
 29. the two tables of testimony] Cf. xxxi. 
 18. 
 
 the skin of his face shone] Cf. Matt. xvii. 2. 
 The brightness of the Eternal Glory, though 
 Moses had witnessed it only in a modified 
 manner (xxxiii. 22, 23), w^as so reflected in 
 his face, that Aaron and the people were 
 stricken wfith aw^e and feared to approach 
 him until he gave them words of encourage- 
 ment. The Hebrew verb kciran,, to shine^ is 
 connected through a simple metaphor with 
 keren,, a horn; and hence Aquila and the 
 Vulgate have rendered the verb to be horned. 
 The latter part of the verse in the Vulg. is, 
 et ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua ex 
 consortio sermonis Do^nini, From this use of 
 the word cornuta has arisen the popular repre- 
 sentation of Mpses with horns on his fore- 
 head. 
 
 33 — 35. St Paul refers to this passage as 
 shewing forth the glory of the Law, though 
 it was but a “ministration of condemnation,” 
 and was to be done away, in order to enhance 
 the glory of the Gospel, “the ministration 
 of the spirit,” which is concealed by no vail 
 fi'om the eyes of believers, and is to last for 
 ever (2 Cor., iii. 7 — 15). 
 
4i6 
 
 2 Cor. 
 
 EXODUS. 
 
 33 And till Moses had done speak- 
 s' ing with them, he put ^a vail on his 
 
 face. 
 
 34 But when Moses went in be- 
 fore the Lord to speak with him, he 
 took the vail off, until he came out. 
 And he came out, and spake unto 
 
 XXXIV. [v. 33-35.. 
 
 the children of Israel that which he 
 was commanded. 
 
 35 And the children of Israel saw 
 the face of Moses, that the skin of 
 Moses’ face shone: and Moses put 
 the vail upon his face again, until he 
 went in to speak with him. 
 
 33. ^nd till Moses had done'] Our translators 
 give what may seem to be the easiest sense of 
 the original by supplying the word till. But 
 the Hebrew rather requires that -when, not 
 tilh should be inserted ; and this agrees better 
 with v. (so the LXX., Vulg., the Tar- 
 gums, Syriac, Saadia, and nearly all modern 
 versions, not excepting Luther and Cranmer). 
 If we adopt this rendering, Moses did not 
 wear the vail when he was speaking to the 
 people, but when he was silent. See on v. 2,s- 
 
 34 . Moses <ivent in] i.e. to the Tent of 
 meeting. 
 
 35. Our \&rsion accords with the Hebrew 
 and all the ancient versions, except the Vul- 
 gate, which has this remai-kable rendering, for 
 
 which it is difficult to account unless we may 
 suppose it to represent a different reading in 
 the original ; — •videbant faciem egredientis Moysi 
 esse cornutam ; sed operiebat ilk rursus faciem 
 suam^ siquando loquebatur ad eos. It has 
 been suggested that if we may imagine St 
 Paul to have had such a reading in his mind, 
 it would simplify the use he makes of the 
 passage in z Cor. iii. iz — 15. But it is not 
 necessary to resort to any such supposition, 
 since St Paul’s application of the narrative 
 may be well explained as referring to the 
 simple fact that it was distinctive of the old 
 dispensation that a vail should conceal the 
 glory. There was no occasion to notice the 
 particular that Moses did not wear the vail 
 just in the act of speaking. 
 
 NOTE ON Chap, xxxiv. 13. 
 
 The Groves. 
 
 This is the first reference to what is com- 
 monly known as grove-worship. The original 
 word for groz.'^ in this connection is 
 {asherdh').^ a difierent one from that so ren- 
 dered in Gen. xxi. 33 eshel). Our 
 
 translators have followed the sense given in 
 most of the passages in which the word 
 occurs by the LXX., Vulg., and Saadia, and 
 which has been adopted by most Jewish 
 authorities, by Luther, and other modern 
 translators. It was supposed that what the 
 Law commands is the destruction of groves 
 dedicated to the worship of false deities. The 
 allusions to such groves in classical writers 
 are familiar enough. The connection of 
 sacred groves and trees with the worship of 
 the powers of nature may be traced very 
 generally amongst the ancient nations of Asia 
 and Europe (see Humboldt, ‘Cosmos,’ Vol. 
 II. p. 95, Sabine’s translation). But there 
 appear to be insuperable ciiffculties in the 
 way of thus rendering asberdh. Since the 
 times of Selden and Spencer most critics 
 liave taken the word to denote either a per- 
 sonal goddess or some symbolical representa- 
 tion of one. 
 
 'Lhe following conclusions seem to be fairly 
 deduced from the references to the subject in 
 the Old Testament: 
 
 (i) According to the most probable deri- 
 
 vation of the name the asherdh represented 
 something that was upright, which was fixed, 
 or planted, in the ground; hence, if it was 
 not a tree, it must have been some sort of 
 upright pillar or monument. 
 
 (2) It was formed of wood, and when it 
 was destroyed it was cut -down and burned 
 (Deut. vii. 5; Judg. vi. 25, 26; 2 K. xxiii. 
 6, 15). It might be made of any sort of 
 wood. See note on Deut. xvi. 21. 
 
 (3) That it could not be a grove appears 
 from an asherdh having been set up “under 
 every green tree” in Judah in the time of 
 Rehoboam (i K. xiv. 23), and in Israel in 
 the time of Hoshea (2 K. xvii. 10); from an 
 asherdh idol (not “an idol in a grove,” as it 
 stands in our version) having been destroyed 
 and burnt near the brook Kidron by Asa 
 (i K. XV. 13; 2 Chr. XV. 16); and from a 
 carved image of the asherdh having been set 
 up in the Temple by Manasseh (2 K. xxi. 7), 
 which was brought out by Josiah and burnt 
 and stamped to powder (2 K. xxiii. 6). 
 
 The worship of asherdh is found associated 
 with that of Baal (Judg. iii. 7 ; i K. xviii. 19, 
 z K. xxi. 3; xxiik 4), like that of Astarte, or 
 Ashtcreth (n^h^’y) (Judg. ii. 13, x. 6; i S. 
 vii. 4). Hence it has been inferred by 
 de Wette and others that Asherdh was ano- 
 ther name for Astarte. This opinion might 
 seem to be countenanced by the LXX. in 
 
V. I — II.J 
 
 EXODUS. XXXV. 
 
 
 chap. 2 
 
 Lev. 23. 
 Deut. 5; 1 
 I-uke 13, 
 
 I Heb. 
 kolitiess. 
 
 417 
 
 % Chron. xv. 16 (where the Vulgate has 
 simulacrum Priapi)^ and by the Vulgate in 
 Judg. iii. 7. But it has been proved that the 
 words have no etymological connection Avith 
 each other, and are not likely to have had the 
 same oenotation. Movers, resting his main 
 argument upon a K. xxiii. 13 — 15, con- 
 ceived them to be the names of two distinct 
 deities. On the whole, the most probable 
 result of the inquiry seems to be that while 
 Astarte was the personal name of the god- 
 dess, the asherah was a symbol of her, pro- 
 bably in some one of her characters, wrought 
 in wood in some conventional form. If we 
 suppose it to have symbolized her as a god- 
 dess of nature, the conjecture that its form 
 resembled that of the sacred tree of the As- 
 sygans, with which we have become familiar 
 from the monuments of Nineveh^ (see Fer- 
 
 ^ It has been conjectured from the sculptured 
 figures that this was an upright stock which was 
 adorned at festive seasons with boughs, flowers, 
 and ribbons. Such might have been the asherah. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 I The sabbath. 4 The free gifts for the taber- 
 nacle. 20 The readiness of the people to offer. 
 30 Bezaleel and Aholiab are called to the 
 work. 
 
 A nd Moses gathered all the con- 
 L gregation of the children of Is- 
 rael together, and said unto them, 
 These are the words v/hich the Lord 
 hath commanded, that ye should do 
 them. 
 
 ■ 2 " Six days shall work be done, 
 3. but on' the seventh day there shall be 
 to you ^ an holy day, a sabbath of rest 
 to the Lord : whosoever doeth work 
 therein shall be put to death. 
 
 3 Ye shall kindle no fire throughout 
 your habitations upon the sabbath day. 
 
 4 ^ And Moses spake unto all the 
 congregation of the children of Israel, 
 saying, This ts the thing which ‘the 
 Lord commanded, saying. 
 
 gusson, ‘Nineveh and Persepolis,’ p. 299), 
 gains something in probability. 
 
 It has been supposed, on what seems to be 
 good ground, that the image, or rather 
 pillar (ni-^O, matzen^dlS), spoken of here 
 and elsewhere in the Kime connection, was a 
 stone pillar, set up in honour of Baal, as the 
 Asherah was a wooden pillar, set up in honour 
 of Astarte (i K. xiv. 23; 2 K. xvii. 10, xviii. 
 4, &c.). But Gesenius rightly observes that 
 these monuments may have lost in later times 
 their original meaning as regards Baal and 
 Astarte, as the herm^ of the Greeks did in 
 regard to Hermes. They probably became 
 connected with a debased and superstitious 
 worship of Jehovah, like the figure of the calf 
 (see on xxxii. 4). This perhaps explains the 
 need of the prohibition that an asherah should 
 be placed near the Altar of Jehovah. See 
 Deut. xvi. 21. (Selden, ‘ de Diis Syr.’ p. 343 
 sq. ; Spencer, ‘ de Leg. Heb.’ lib. ii. c. xxvii. 
 §1; Gesenius, ‘Thes.’ and ‘ Handworterbuch,’ 
 s. V. ; Furst, ‘ Lex.’ s. v. ; Movers, ‘ Phbnizier,’ 
 I. p. 560; Keil on i Kings xiv. 23.) 
 
 5 Take ye from among you an of- 
 fering unto the Lord : '^whosoever is 
 of a willing heart, let him bring it, an 
 offering of the Lord ; gold, and sil- 
 ver, and brass, 
 
 6 And blue, and purple, and scarlet, 
 and fine linen, and goats’ hair., 
 
 7 And rams’ skins dyed red, and 
 badgers’ skins, and shittim wood, 
 
 8 And oil for the light, and spices 
 for anointing oil, and for the sweet 
 incense, 
 
 9 And onyx stones, and stones to 
 be set for the ephod, and for the 
 breastplate. 
 
 10 And every wise hearted among 
 you shall come, and make all that the 
 Lord hath commanded j 
 
 1 1 The tabernacle, his tent, and 
 his covering, his tachc^ and his boards, 
 his bars, his pillars, and his sockets, 
 
 Chap. XXXV. The narrative of what 
 relates to the construction of the Sanctuary 
 is now resumed from xxxi. 18. 
 
 Moses deiuvers to the people the messages on the 
 supply of materials for the Sanctuary. 
 
 I— 19. 
 
 1. Moses here addresses the whole people. 
 See xxy. i; cf. on Lev. viii. 3. On 2;. 2 see 
 on xxxi. 12. 
 
 VoL. I. 
 
 3. This prohibition is here first distinctly 
 expressed, but it is implied xvi. 23. 
 
 10. mise hearted] See on xxviii. 3. 
 
 11. See on xxvi. i — 37. It has been 
 already observed that in the instructions for 
 making the Sanctuary, the Ark of the Cove- 
 nant, as the principal thing belonging to it, 
 is mentioned first; but in the practical order 
 of the work, as it is. here ari'anged, thC'. 
 
 D D 
 
4i8 
 
 EXODUS. XXXV. 
 
 V. 12 25. 
 
 12 The ark, and the staves thereof, 
 with the mercy seat, and the vail of 
 the covering, 
 
 13 The table, and his staves, and 
 all his vessels, and the shewbread, 
 
 14 The candlestick also for the 
 light, and his furniture, and his lamps, 
 with the oil for the light, 
 
 «'chrip. 30. 13 And the incense altar, and his 
 
 •staves, and the anointing oil, and the 
 sweet incense, and the hanging for 
 the door at the entering in of the 
 tabernacle, 
 
 <^chap. 27. 16 ^The altar of burnt offering, 
 
 with his brasen grate, his staves, and 
 all his vessels, the laver and his foot, 
 
 17 The hangings of the court, his 
 pillars, and their sockets, and the 
 hanging for the door of the court, 
 
 18 The pins of the tabernacle, and 
 the pins of the court, and their cords, 
 
 19 The cloths of service, to do 
 service in the holy place^ the holy 
 garments for Aaron the priest, and 
 the garments of his sons, to minister 
 in the priest’s office. 
 
 20 ^1 And all the congregation of 
 
 the children of Israel departed from 
 the presence of Moses. 
 
 2 1 And they came, every one whose 
 heart stirred him up, and every one 
 whom his spirit made willing, and 
 they brought the Lord’s offering to 
 the work of the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation, and for all his service, and 
 for the holy garments. 
 
 22 And they came, both men and 
 women, as many as were willing 
 hearted, and brought bracelets, and 
 earrings, and rings, and tablets, all 
 jewels of gold: and every man that 
 offered offered an offering of gold unto 
 the Lord. 
 
 23 And every man, with whom 
 was found blue, and purple, and 
 scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair,^ 
 and red skins of rams, and badgers’ 
 skins, brought them. 
 
 24 Every one that did offer an of- 
 fering of silver and brass brought the 
 Lord’s offering : and every man, with 
 whom was found shittim wood for any 
 work of the service, brought it. 
 
 25 And all the women that were 
 
 Tabernacle with its Tent and covering come 
 first. See on xxv. 10 — 16. 
 
 12. On the Ark and the Mercy Seat, see 
 on xxv. 10 — 22. 
 
 the 'vail of the covering] The second He- 
 brew word is not the same as that in the 
 preceding verse, which is rendered covering., 
 and denotes the Covering of the Tent (see 
 on xxvi. 14): but it is the one used for the 
 entrance curtains (see on xxvi. 36, xxvii. 16). 
 The same phrase occurs Ex. xxxv. 12, xl. 21 ; 
 Num. iv. 5. 
 
 13 , 14 . Sc-e on xxv. 23 — 38. 
 
 15 . the incense altar] Sec on xxx. i 
 
 the anointing oil'] See on xxx. 22 — 33. 
 
 the s~i.veet incense] Sec on xxx. 34 — 38. 
 
 the hanging for the door] the entrance 
 
 curtain. See on xxvi. 36, xxvii. 16. 
 
 16 . the cdtar of burnt, offering] See on 
 xxvii. I — 8. 
 
 the laver] See on xxx. 18 — 21. 
 
 17 . See on xxvii. 9 — 18. 
 
 18 . d'hcse Avere the tent-pins and cords 
 of the d'ent of tlic Tabernacle and those of 
 the jAillars of the Court. See Note at the end 
 ot (hi. XXVI. 'I'lic word 1 ahernacle f/iishkdn) 
 is here used for the full name, the Taber- 
 nacle of the Tent of meeting (sec xl. 2, 
 
 6, 29, note on xxvi. i, &c.). It denotes the 
 entire structure. 
 
 19 . the cloths of service to do service in 
 the holy place] Rather; — the garments of 
 office to do service in the Sanctuary, 
 &c. See on xxxi. 10. 
 
 21 . See on xxv. 2. 
 
 22. bracelets] R.ather, brooches. 
 
 earrings] The Hebrew word signifies a 
 
 ring, either for the nose (Prov. xi. 22; Isa. iii. 
 21) or for .the ear (xxxii. 2; Gen. xxxv. 4; 
 Judg. viii. 24). That ear-rings, not nose- 
 rings, as some have imagined, are here meant 
 is confirmed by what we know of early He- 
 brew and Egyptian customs. See Gen. xxxv. 
 4 ; Wilkinson, ‘ Pop. Acc.’ i. p. 145, ii. p. 338. 
 
 rings] signet rings. 
 
 tablets] It is not certain what the HebrcAv 
 word denotes. Gesenius and others have taken 
 it for gold beads - but Fiirst, with more pro- 
 bability, for armlets, in accordance with 
 the Ancient Versions. It is most likely that 
 all the articles mentioned in this verse were of 
 gold. 'Phe indulgence of private luxury was 
 thus given up for the honour of the Lord. 
 (rt'. xxxviii. 8 
 
 23 . 24 . See on xxv. 3, 4, 5. 
 
 25 . See on xxv. 4. 
 
V. 26—35-] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXV. 
 
 419 
 
 wise hearted did spin with their hands, 
 and brought that which they had spun, 
 both of blue, and of purple, and of 
 scarlet, and of fine linen. 
 
 26 And all the women whose heart 
 stirred them up in wisdom spun goats’ 
 hair. 
 
 'l"j And the rulers brought onyx 
 stones, and stones to be set, for the 
 ephod, and for the breastplate ; 
 
 /chap. 30. 28 And -h spice, and oil for the light, 
 
 and for the anointing oil, and for the 
 sweet incense. 
 
 29 The children of Israel brought 
 a willing offering unto the Lord, 
 every man and woman, whose heart 
 made them willing to bring for all 
 manner of work, which the Lord 
 had commanded to be made by the 
 hand of Moses. 
 
 30 ^ And Moses said unto the 
 chap. 31. children of Israel, See, ^the Lord 
 
 hath called by name Bezaleel the son 
 
 of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of 
 Judah ; 
 
 31 And he hath filled him with the 
 spirit of God, in wisdom, in under- 
 standing, and in knowledge, and in all 
 manner of workmanship ; 
 
 32 And to devise curious works, to 
 work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, 
 
 33 And in the cutting of stones, 
 to set them., and in carving of wood, 
 to make any manner of cunning work. 
 
 34 And he hath put in his heart 
 that he may teach, both he, and Aho- 
 liab, the son of Ahisamach, of the 
 tribe of Dan. 
 
 35 Them hath he filled with wis- 
 dom of heart, to work all manner of 
 work, of the engraver, and of the 
 cunning workman, and of the em- 
 broiderer, in blue, and in purple, in 
 scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the * 
 WQ2iVQr.,even of them that do any work, 
 and of those that devise cunning work. 
 
 27 . See on xxviii. 9 — 20. The precious 
 stones and spices were contributed by the 
 rulers, who were more wealthy than the 
 other Israelites. 
 
 28 . See on xxx. 22 — 38. 
 
 29 . Cf. 2;. 21. Observe the emphatic re- 
 petition. 
 
 30 . Cf. xxxi. 2 
 
 31 . Cf. xxxi. 3. 
 
 32 . to denj'ise curious nvorks~\ to devise 
 works of skill. Cf. xxxi. 4. 
 
 33 to make any manner of cunning ^ork'\ 
 
 to work in all manner of works of 
 skill. 
 
 34 . “And he hath put it into his heart 
 to teach, both into his heart and 
 into Aholiab’s,” &c. — They were qualified 
 by the Lord not only to work themselves, 
 but to instruct those who were under them. 
 
 35 . of the engraver'] of the artificer. 
 The branches of work committed to Bezaleel 
 are here included under the general term the 
 work of the artificer: they are distinct- 
 ly enumerated ‘v’u. 32, 33 and xxxi. 4, 5. But 
 what was under the charge of Aholiab is here 
 for the first time clearly distinguisheefinto the 
 work of the skilled weaver, that of the 
 embroiderer, and that of the weaver. 
 
 the cunning civorkman~\ the skilled wea- 
 ver, literally, the reckoner. He might have 
 been so called because he had nicely to count 
 and calculate the threads in weaving figures 
 in the manner of tapestry or carpet. His 
 work was chiefly used in the curtains and 
 
 vail of the Tabernacle, in the Ephod and the 
 Breastplate (xxvi. i, 31, xxviii. 6, 15, &c.). 
 It is generally called “ cunning work” in our 
 version, but the name is unfortunately not 
 restricted to it. 
 
 the embroiderer~\ He worked with a needle, 
 either shaping his design in stitches of colour- 
 ed thread, or in pieces of coloured cloth sewn 
 upon the groundwork. His work was em- 
 ployed in the entrance curtains of the 
 Tent and the court, and in the girdle of the 
 High-priest (xxvi. 36, xxvii. 16, xxviii. 39), — 
 The Hebrew root rdkarn — to work with a 
 needle, has survived in Arabic, but is not 
 found in Syriac, nor in the Targums. It is 
 a curious fact that through the Arabic have 
 come from the same Semitic root the Spanish 
 recamare and the Italian ricamare. 
 
 the <vjea‘ver'\ He appears to have worked 
 in the loom in the ordinary way with mate- 
 rials of only a single colour. The tissues 
 made by him were used for the Robe of the 
 Ephod and its binding and for the coats of the 
 priests (xxviii. 32, xxxix. 22, 27). The dis- 
 tinctions in the kinds of work mentioned in 
 this and the two preceding notes are clearly 
 expressed in the LXX. and are in accordance 
 with Jewish tradition (Bahr, ‘Sym.b.’ i, p. 
 266; Gesenius, ‘Thes.’ p. 1310). 
 
 As the names of the three classes cf 
 workers are in the masculine gender, we 
 know that they denote men, while the 
 spinners and dyers were women (y. 25). 
 f'rom what we know of the proficiency 
 
 D D 2 
 
420 
 
 ■[v. 1 — 13. 
 
 EXODUS. XXXVI. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 I The offerings are delivered to the wnrkmen. 
 
 5 The liberality of the people is restrained. 
 
 8 The curtains of cherub wis. 14 The cur- 
 tains of goats' hair. 19 The covering of 
 skins. ■20 The boards -with their sockets. 
 31 The bars. 35 The vail. 37 The hanging 
 for the door. 
 
 T hen wrought Bezaleel and 
 Aholiab, and every wise hearted 
 man, in whom the Lord put wisdom 
 and understanding to know how to 
 work all manner of work for the ser- 
 vice of the sanctuary, according to all 
 that the Lord had commanded. 
 
 2 And Moses called Bezaleel and 
 Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, 
 in whose heart the Lord had put 
 wisdom, even every one whose heart 
 stirred him up to come unto the work 
 to do it : 
 
 3 And they received of Moses all 
 the offering, which the children of 
 Israel had brought for the work of the 
 service of the sanctuary, to make it 
 withal. And they brought yet unto 
 him free offerings every morning. 
 
 4 And all the wise men, that wrought 
 all the work of the sanctuary, came 
 every man from his work which they 
 made ; 
 
 5 11 And they spake unto Moses, 
 saying. The people bring much more 
 than enough for the service of the 
 work, which the Lord commanded 
 to make. 
 
 6 And Moses gave commandment. 
 
 and they caused it to be proclaimed 
 throughout the camp, saying. Let 
 neither man nor woman make any 
 more work for the offering of the 
 sanctuary. So the people were re- 
 strained from bringing. 
 
 7 For the stuff they had was suf- 
 ficient for all the work to make it, 
 and too much. 
 
 8 ^ And every wise hearted man “ 
 among them that wrought the work 
 of the tabernacle made ten curtains 
 of fine* twined linen, and blue, and 
 purple, and scarlet: with cherubims 
 of cunning work made he them. 
 
 9 The length of one curtain was 
 twenty and eight cubits, and the 
 breadth of one curtain four cubits: 
 the curtains were all of one size. 
 
 10 And he coupled the five curtains 
 one unto another : and the other five 
 curtains he coupled one unto another. 
 
 1 1 And he made loops of blue on 
 the edge of one curtain from the sel- 
 vedge in the coupling: likewise he 
 made in the uttermost side of another 
 curtain, in the coupling of the second. 
 
 12 ^ Fifty loops made he in one ^^^chap. 26 
 curtain, and fifty loops made he in the 
 
 edge of the curtain which was in the 
 coupling of the second : the loops held 
 one curtain to another. 
 
 13 And he made fifty taches of 
 gold, and coupled the curtains one 
 unto another with the taches : so it 
 became one tabernacle. 
 
 of the textile aits in Egypt in early times, 
 we need not wonder at the exact divi- 
 sion of labour among the Hebrews which 
 the use of the temas in this verse indicates. 
 —It is remarkable in regard to the other 
 arts of construction, that the workman 
 in each of them was called by the general 
 name artificer (in Hebrew, literally, one (who 
 cuts) added to the name of the material in 
 which he worked: thus the carpenter was 
 called an artificer in wood; the smith, 
 an artificer in iron: the mason, or the 
 lapidary (xxviii. ii), an artificer in stone. 
 — The view given in these notes of the three 
 kinds of workers in textile fabrics, is sub- 
 stantially that of Gesenius, Bahr, Ftirst, Wi- 
 ner and others. Hut Knolx'l and Keil take 
 a different view respecting the embroiderer. 
 
 and consider that he worked not ^ with a 
 needle but with a loom of some peculiar kind. 
 
 Chap. XXXVI. 
 
 Bezaleel, .Aholiab. and their assistants are 
 set to work. 
 
 1 — 7 - 
 
 1. See on xxxi. 3. 
 
 4. the wise tneii] i.e. the skilful men. See 
 on xxxU 3. 
 
 3, 5 — 7 . See on xxv. 2. 
 
 The Tabernacle is made. 
 
 8—38. 
 
 8 — 13 . See on xxvi. i — 6. 
 
 8. made he theni] Rather, were they 
 made. A corresponding change should be 
 made in most of the verses in this Chapter. 
 See on xxxvii. i — 5. 
 
V. 14—38.] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXVI. 
 
 421 
 
 14 ^ And he made curtains of goats’ 
 hair for the tent over the tabernacle : 
 eleven curtains he made them. 
 
 15 The length of one curtain was 
 thirty cubits, and four cubits was the 
 breadth of one curtain : the eleven 
 curtains were of one size. 
 
 16 And he coupled hve curtains 
 by themselves, and six curtains by 
 themselves. 
 
 17 And he made fifty loops upon 
 the uttermost edge of the curtain in 
 the coupling, and fifty loops made he 
 upon the edge of the curtain which 
 coupleth the second. 
 
 18 And he made fifty taches of 
 brass to couple the tent together, that 
 it might be one. 
 
 19 And he made a covering for 
 the tent of rams’ skins dyed red, and a 
 covering (^badgers’ skins above that. 
 
 20 *![ And he made boards for the 
 tabernacle of shittim wood, standing up. 
 
 21 The length of a board was ten 
 cubits, and the breadth of a board 
 one cubit and a half. 
 
 22 One board had two tenons, 
 equally distant one from another : thus 
 did he make for all the boards of the 
 tabernacle. 
 
 23 And he made boards for the 
 tabernacle ; twenty boards for the 
 south side southward : 
 
 24 And forty sockets of silver he 
 made under the twenty boards; two 
 sockets under one board for his two 
 tenons, and two sockets under another 
 board for his two tenons. 
 
 25 And for the other side of the 
 tabernacle, which is toward the north 
 corner, he made twenty boards, 
 
 26 And their forty sockets of silver ; 
 two sockets under one board, and two 
 sockets under another board. 
 
 27 And for the sides of the taber- 
 nacle westward he made six boards. 
 
 28 And two boards made he for 
 the corners of the tabernacle in the 
 two sides. 
 
 29 And they were ^ coupled be- 
 neath, and coupled together at the 
 
 ' head thereof, to one ring : thus he did 
 to both of them in both the corners. 
 
 30 And there were eight boards; 
 and their sockets were sixteen sockets 
 of silver, ^ under every board two 
 
 , •' ■> two 
 
 sockets. sockets, 
 
 31 ^ And he made ‘^bars of shittim ^fnder^one 
 
 wood ; five for the boards of the one 2- 
 side of the tabernacle, 28. 
 
 32 And five bars for the boards of 
 the other side of the tabernacle, and 
 five bars for the boards of the taber- 
 nacle for the sides westward. 
 
 33 And he made the middle bar to 
 shoot through the boards from the one 
 end to the other. 
 
 34 And he overlaid the boards with 
 gold, and made their rings of gold to 
 be places for the bars, and overlaid the 
 bars with gold. 
 
 35 *11 And he made a vail of blue, 
 and purple, and scarlet, and fine 
 twined linen ; with cherubims made 
 he it of cunning work. 
 
 36 And he made thereunto four 
 pillars of shittim wood., and overlaid 
 them with gold : their hooks were of 
 gold ; and he cast for them four sockets 
 of silver. 
 
 37 ^ And he made an hanging for 
 the tabernacle door of blue, and purple, 
 and scarlet, and fine twined linen, ^ of ' Heix 
 
 , , , the work 
 
 needlework ; of a 
 
 38 And the five pillars of it with 'Zlikf 
 their hooks : and he overlaid their 
 chapiters and their fillets with gold : 
 
 but their five sockets were ^ brass. 
 
 14 — 18 . See on xxvi. 7 — 13. 
 
 19. See on xxvi. 14 . 
 
 20 — 34 . See on xxvi. 15 — 29. 
 
 22. equally distant one from another^ set 
 in order one against another. See 
 xxvi. 17. 
 
 27 . for the sides'] for the hack. See 
 xxvi. 22. 
 
 33 . to shoot through the hoards] rather, 1 0 
 reach across the boards. See xxvi. 28. 
 
 35 , 36 . See on xxvi. 31, 32. 
 
 37 . an hanging for the tabernacle door] 
 an entrance curtain for the entering 
 of the Tent. See on xxvi, 36. 
 
 38 . their chapiters and their filets] their 
 capitals and their connecting rods. 
 
422 
 
 EXODUS. XXXVII. [v. 1-19. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 r The ark. 6 The 7nercy scat with chcncbmis. 
 
 JO The table with his vessels. 1 7 The candle- 
 stick with his lanips and instrimients. 25 
 
 The altar of mcense. 29 The anointing oil 
 
 and sweet incense. 
 
 "chap. 25. AND Bezaleel made "the ark of 
 shittim wood: two cubits and 
 a half was the length of it, and a 
 cubit and a half the breadth of it, and 
 a cubit and a half the height of it : 
 
 2 And he overlaid it with pure 
 gold within and without, and made a 
 crown of gold to it round about. 
 
 3 And he cast for it four rings of 
 gold, to he set by the four corners of 
 it; even two rings upon the one side 
 of it, and two rings upon the other 
 side of it. 
 
 4 And he made staves of shittim 
 wood, and overlaid them with gold. 
 
 5 And he put the staves into the 
 rings by the sides of the ark, to bear 
 the ark. 
 
 /’chap. 25. 6 fl And he made the ^ mercy seat 
 
 of pure gold : two cubits and a half 
 was the length thereof, and one cubit 
 and a half the breadth thereof. 
 
 7 And he made two cherubims of 
 gold, beaten out of one piece made he 
 them, on the two ends of the mercy 
 seat ; 
 
 I, Or. 8 One cherub "on the end on this 
 
 side, and another cherub "on the oihet' 
 Qiifj on that side: out of the mercy 
 seat made he the cherubims on the 
 two ends thereof. 
 
 9 And the cherubims spread out 
 their win^rs on high, attd covered with 
 their wings over the mercy seat, with 
 their faces one to another; even to the 
 
 mercy seatward were the faces of the 
 cherubims. 
 
 10^ And he made the table (y^shittim 
 wood : two cubits was the length there- 
 of, and a cubit the breadth thereof, 
 and a cubit and a half the height 
 thereof : 
 
 1 1 And he overlaid it with pure 
 gold, and made thereunto a crown of 
 gold round about. 
 
 12 Also he made thereunto a border 
 of an handbreadth round about ; and 
 made a crown of gold for the border 
 thereof round about. 
 
 13 And he cast for it four rings of 
 gold, and put the rings upon the four 
 corners that were in the four feet 
 thereof. 
 
 14 Over against the border were 
 the rings, the places for the staves to 
 bear the table. 
 
 1 5 And he made the staves of shittim 
 wood, and overlaid them with gold, to 
 bear the table. 
 
 16 And he made the vessels which 
 
 were upon the table, his ‘^dishes, and ^Cnap. 25. 
 his spoons, and his bowls, and his 
 covers "to cover withal, of pure gold, nor, 
 
 17 ^ And he made the "^candlestick 
 
 of pure gold : of beaten work made ^hap. 2>. 
 he the candlestick ; his shaft, and his 31- 
 branch, his bowls, his knops, and his 
 dowers, were of the same : 
 
 18 And six branches going out of 
 the sides thereof ; three branches of 
 the candlestick out of the one side 
 thereof, and three branches of the 
 candlestick out of the other side 
 thereof : 
 
 19 Three bowls made after the 
 
 These rods united the heads of the pillars, 
 like the connecting rods of the Court (xxvii. 
 10). Neither these nor the capitals are men- 
 tioned in the instructions in xxvi. 37. See 
 Note at the end of Ch. xxvi. 
 
 Chap. XXXVII. 
 
 T.he Furniture of the Tabernacle is made. 
 
 1—29. 
 
 1 — 5 . See on xxv. 10 — 16 and on xxxv. ii. 
 It has been oliserved that the Ark, as the most 
 precious thing made for the Sanctuary, is ex- 
 pressly spoken of as the workmanship of Beza- 
 leel himself. The expression here is quite free 
 
 from ambiguity ; but to prevent misunder- 
 standing, it may be well to observe that in 
 chap, xxxvi. 8, 10, ii, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 
 19, 20, &c., and elsewhere, there is no nomi- 
 native expressed in the Hebrew, and the verb 
 is used indefinitely, as in the German phrase 
 with man and the French one with on. In 
 translating into English, it would be better 
 in such cases to use the passive voice. See 
 on xxxvi. 8. 
 
 6 — 9. See on xxv. 17 — 22. 
 
 7 . beaten out of one piece'\ See on xxv. 18, 
 
 10 — 16 . See on xxv. 23 — 30. 
 
 17 — 24 . See on xxv. 31 — 39. 
 
V. 20 — 8.] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXVII. XXXVIII. 
 
 423 
 
 fashion of almonds in one branch, a 
 knop and a flower; and three bowls 
 made like almonds in another branch, 
 a knop and a flower: so throughout 
 the six branches going out of the 
 candlestick. 
 
 20 And in the candlestick were four 
 bowls made like almonds, his knops, 
 and his flowers : 
 
 21 And a knop under two branches 
 of the same, and a knop under two 
 branches ’of the same, and a knop 
 under two branches of the same, ac- 
 cording to the six branches going out 
 of it. 
 
 22 Their knops and their branches 
 were of the same: all of it was one 
 beaten work of pure gold. 
 
 23 And he made his seven lamps, 
 and his snufters, and his snuffdishes, 
 of pure gold. 
 
 24 Of a talent of pure gold made 
 he it, and all the vessels thereof. 
 
 ^chap. 30. 25 ^ ^And he made the incense altar 
 
 of shittim wood : the length of it vjas 
 a cubit, and the breadth of it a cubit ; 
 It was foursquare ; and two cubits was 
 the height of it; the horns thereof 
 were of the same. 
 
 26 And he overlaid it with pure 
 gold, both the top of it, and the sides 
 thereof round about, and the horns 
 of it : also he made unto it a crown 
 of gold round about. 
 
 27 And he made two rings of gold 
 for it under the crown thereof, by the 
 two corners of it, upon the two sides 
 thereof, to be places for the staves to 
 bear it withal. 
 
 28 And he made the staves ly^shittim 
 wood, and overlaid them with gold. 
 
 29 ^ And he made Ahe holy an- 
 ointing oil, and the pure incense of" 
 sweet spices, according to the work of 
 the apothecary. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 I The altar of burnt offering. 8 The laver of 
 brass, g The court, 'i i The sum of that the 
 people ojfei'ed. 
 
 AND "he made the altar of burnt " 
 offering of shittim wood : five 
 cubits was the length thereof, and five 
 cubits the breadth thereof; It was four- 
 square ; and three cubits the height 
 thereof. 
 
 2 And he made the horns thereof 
 on the four corners of it ; the horns 
 thereof were of the same : and he over- 
 laid it with brass. 
 
 3 And he made all the vessels of 
 the altar, the pots, and the shovels, 
 and the basons, and the fleshhooks, 
 and the firepans : all the vessels there- 
 of made he brass. 
 
 4 And he made for the altar a brasen 
 grate of network under the compass 
 thereof beneath unto the midst of it. 
 
 5 And he cast four rings for the 
 four ends of the grate of brass, to be 
 places for the staves. 
 
 6 And he made the staves shittim 
 wood, and overlaid them with brass. 
 
 7 And he put the staves into the 
 rings on the sides of the altar, to bear 
 it withal ; he made the altar hollow 
 with boards. 
 
 8 ^ And he made the laver of 
 brass, and the foot of it of brass, of 
 
 25 — 28. See on xxx, i — 10. 
 
 29, See on xxx. 22 — 38. 
 
 Chap. XXXVIII. 
 
 The Braz.en Altar., the Laneer., and the Court 
 are made. 
 
 I — 20. 
 
 1 — 7. See on xxvii, i — 8. 
 
 8. the la%'er'] See on xxx. 18 — 21. It 
 appears that the nletal for this laver was sup- 
 plied by women, who gave up their bronze 
 mirrors, such as were commonly used in 
 Egypt and elsewhere (Wilkinson, ‘Pop. Acc.’ 
 II. p. 336). This is generally approved by 
 critics as the simple meaning of the Hebrew, 
 
 and it agrees with the ancient versions and 
 the Targums. The other interpretations — 
 one, that the laver was furnished with mir- 
 rors for the use of the women who served in 
 the Sanctuary (Michaelis, Bahr) ; and another, 
 that its sides were adorned with figures in 
 relief of vromen ranged in a religious proces- 
 sion (Knobel) — only deserve notice from the 
 learning and reputation of their authors. The 
 women who assem.bled at the entrance 
 of the Tent of meeting were most pro- 
 bably devout women who loved the public 
 service of religion. The giving up their 
 mirrors for the use of the Sanctuary was a fit 
 sacrifice for such women to make (cf. on 
 
424 
 
 EXODUS. XXXVIII. 
 
 [v. 9 — 24 . 
 
 '' Or, the lookingglasses of the women 
 ^iVcscs. Assembling, which assembled at the 
 tabernacle of the con- 
 
 gregation. 
 
 9 ^ And he made the court : on the 
 south side southward the hangings of 
 the court were of fine twined linen, an 
 hundred cubits : 
 
 10 Their pillars were twenty, and 
 their brasen sockets twenty ; the hooks 
 of the pillars and their fillets were of 
 silver. 
 
 1 1 And for the north side the hang- 
 i 7 igs were an hundred cubits, their pil- 
 lars were twenty, and their sockets of 
 brass twenty ; the hooks of the pillars 
 and their fillets of silver. 
 
 1 2 And for the west side were hang- 
 ings of fifty cubits, their pillars ten, 
 and their sockets ten ; the hooks of 
 the pillars and their fillets of silver. 
 
 13 And for the east side eastward 
 fifty cubits. 
 
 14 The hangings of the one side of 
 the gate were fifteen cubits ; their pil- 
 lars three, and their sockets three. 
 
 15 And for the other side of the 
 court gate, on this hand and that hand, 
 zvere hangings of fifteen cubits ; their 
 pillars three, and their sockets three. 
 
 16 All the hangings of the court 
 round about were of fine twined linen. 
 
 17 And the sockets for the pillars 
 were of brass ; the hooks of the pillars 
 
 and their fillets o/' silver; and the over- 
 laying of their chapiters of silver; and 
 all the pillars of the court were filleted 
 with silver. 
 
 1 8 And the hanging for the gate of 
 the court was needlework, of blue, and 
 purple, and scarlet, and fine twined 
 linen ; and twenty cubits was the 
 length, and the height in the breadth 
 was five cubits, answerable to the hang- 
 ings of the court. 
 
 19 And their pillars were four, and 
 their sockets ^ brass four; their hooks 
 of silver, and the overlaying of their 
 chapiters and their fillets of silver. 
 
 20 And all the ^pins of the taber- ^^hap. 
 nacle, and of the court round about, 
 were ^ brass. 
 
 21 ^ This is the sum of the taber- 
 nacle, even of the tabernacle of testi- 
 mony, as it was counted, according to 
 the commandment of Moses, for the 
 service of the Levites, by the hand of 
 Ithamar, son to Aaron the priest. 
 
 22 And Bezaleel the son of Uri, the 
 son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 
 made all that the Lord commanded 
 Moses. 
 
 23 And with him was Aholiab, son 
 of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an 
 engraver, and a cunning workman, 
 and an embroiderer in blue, and in 
 purple, and in scarlet, and fine linen. 
 
 24 All the gold that was occupied 
 
 XXXV. 22). ^Ve know from the instance of 
 Anna (Laike ii. 36) that pious women, in later 
 ..ges, used to spend much time within the pre- 
 cincts of the Temple. But there seems to be 
 but weak ground for the notion of Hengsten- 
 berg and others that these women ever form- 
 ed a regularly constituted order, like the 
 widows, or deaconesses, of the early Church, 
 and the Na/arites for life in the time of 
 the Prophets (Lam. iv. 7; Amos ii. ii). 
 Hengstenberg conceives that Moses made no 
 specilic law on the subject because the in- 
 stitution had been adopted from the customs 
 ot the Lgyptian temples. The only passages 
 quoted from the Old Testament in support 
 >f the existence of such an order of women are 
 : Sam. ii. 22, i.am. ii. 21 (Hengst. ‘Egypt,’ 
 kc. p. 184). 
 
 9 — 20. See on xxvii. 10 — 19. 
 
 18. the height in the breadth <ivas frve 
 mbits'] meaning seems to be that the 
 
 height of the curtain answered to the breadth 
 of the stuff of which it was formed; i.e. five 
 cubits. See xxvii. 18. 
 
 The sum of the metals used in the Sanctuary. 
 
 21—31. 
 
 21 . “This is the reckoning of the Ta- 
 bernacle, the Tabernacle of the Tes- 
 timony (see on xxv. 16) as it was 
 reckoned up according to the command- 
 ment oi Moses, by the service of the Levites. 
 by the hand of Ithamar,” &:c. The weight of 
 the metals was taken by the Levites, under 
 the direction of Ithamar. 
 
 23. an engra-ver] an artificer. — a cun- 
 ning qjjorkmaif] a skilled weaver. See on 
 XXXV. 35. 
 
 24. of the holy place] Rather, of the 
 Sanctuary. The gold was employed not 
 only in the Holy Place, but in the Most Holy 
 
V. 25 2 8.] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXVIIl. 
 
 425 
 
 Heb. 
 
 poll. 
 
 for the work in all the work of the 
 holy place^ eyen the gold of the offer- 
 ing, was twenty and nine talents, and 
 seven hundred and thirty shekels, after 
 the shekel of the sanctuary. 
 
 25 And the silver of them that were 
 numbered of the congregation was an 
 hundred talents, and a thousand seven 
 hundred and threescore and fifteen 
 shekels, after the shekel of the sanc- 
 tuary : 
 
 26 A bekah for ^ every man, that is. 
 
 half a shekel, after the shekel of the 
 sanctuary, for every one that went to 
 be numbered, from twenty years old 
 and upward, for six hundred thousand 
 and three thousand and five hundred 
 and fifty ?nen. 
 
 'l-j And of the hundred talents of 
 silver were cast the sockets of the 
 sanctuary, and the sockets of the vail ; 
 an hundred sockets of the hundred 
 talents, a talent for a socket. 
 
 28 And of the thousand seven 
 
 Place and in the entrance to the Tent (xxx\i. 
 38). 
 
 ths gold of the offering'^ the gold of the 
 wave offering (see pref, to Leviticus). 
 
 talents ...the shekel of the sanctuary] The 
 Shekel was the common standard of weight 
 and value with the Hebrews: but what its 
 weight w^as in early times, as compared with 
 our standard, is a m.atter on which there has 
 been much difference of opinion. There is 
 however no particular reason to suppose that 
 the Hebrew standard underw^ent much alter- 
 ation in the course of ages ; and in regard to 
 later times, we have three distinct elements 
 of calculation which lead to a tolerably har- 
 monious- result, {a) According to the rab- 
 binists, the shekel weighed 320 barley grains, 
 which are equal to about 214 English grains, 
 the weight of which w^as originally taken from 
 a grain of w^heat. (b) There are several 
 silver shekels in existence coined in the 
 Maccabean times (see i Macc. xv. 6), and, 
 making allowance for wear, each of these ap- 
 pears to have weighed 220 grains, (r) The 
 LXX,, when they do not retain the origi- 
 nal name in the form cri/cXo?, render it by 
 dldpaxisov (Gen. xxiii. 15; Ex. xxi. 32, xxx. 
 13, 15; Lev. xxvii. 3; Num. iii. 47, &c.) : 
 they also render bekah., the half shekel, by 
 (see V. 26). Now the Macedonian 
 didrachmon, wdth which they must have been 
 familiar, weighed 218 grains. It hence ap- 
 pears that we cannot be far wTong in esti- 
 mating the shekel at 220 English grains (just 
 over half an ounce avoidupois) and its value 
 in silver as 2s. 'jd . — The statement of Jose- 
 phus (‘ Ant.’ III. 8. § 2), that the shekel wns 
 equal to four Attic drachms (252 grains) is 
 evidently a rough estimate: and still further 
 from accuracy is his turning the fifty shekels 
 of 2 K. XV. 20 into fifty drachms (‘ Ant.’ 
 IX. II. § i) — A question is raised as to the 
 meaning of the term, “a shekel of the sanc- 
 tuary.” The rabbinists speak of a common 
 shekel of half the weight of the shekel of the 
 sanctuary. But there is no sufficient reason 
 to suppose that such a distinction existed in 
 ancient times, and the Shekel of the Sanctuary 
 
 (or, the Holy Shekel') would seem to denote 
 no. more than an exact Shekel, “after the 
 king’s weight” (2 S, xiv. 26), “ current money 
 of the merchant” (Gen. xxiii. 16). 
 
 In the reign of Joash, a collection similar 
 to the one here mentioned, apparently at 
 the same rate of capitation, was made for 
 the repairs of the Temple (2 Chron. xxiv. 9). 
 The tax of later times, called didrachma 
 (Matt. xvii. 27), w^hich has often been con- 
 nected with this passage of Exodus, and which 
 was recognized by our Lord as having the 
 same solemn meaning as this payment of half 
 a shekel, w^as not, like this one and that of 
 Joash, a collection for a special occasion, 
 but a yearly tax for the support of the 
 Temple, of a whole shekel (didpaxpov ). — See 
 on xxx. 13. 
 
 The Talent (Heb. kikkdr, LXX. rdX avTov) 
 contained 3000 shekels, as may be gathered 
 from 'vv. 25, 26. According to the com- 
 putation here adopted, the Hebrew Talent 
 was 94Ubs. avoirdupois. The Greek (Tgi- 
 netan) Talent, from w'hich the LXX. and 
 most succeeding versions have taken the name 
 talent., was 82|-lbs. The original word, kikkdr., 
 would denote a circular mass, and nearly the 
 same word, kerker., was in use amongst the 
 Egyptians for a mass of metal cast in the 
 form of a massive ring with its weight stamp- 
 ed upon it. 
 
 26 . A b^kah] Literally, a half: the words 
 “half a shekel,” &c. appear to be inserted 
 only for emphasis, to enforce the accuracy to 
 be observed in the payment. See on xxx. 13, 
 where there is a similar expression, and cf. 
 xxx. 15. — Respecting the capitation and the 
 numbering of the people, see on xxx. 12. 
 There must have been, in addition to the sum 
 of the half shekels, the free-will ofierings of 
 silver (see xxxv. 24), of which no reckoning is 
 here made. They may perhaps have been 
 amongst v/hat was returned to the donors as 
 being more than enough (xxxvi. 7). 
 
 27 . sockets] bases. See on xxvi. 19. 
 
 28 . The hooks, chapiters and fillets here 
 spoken of belonged to the pillars of the Court. 
 See xxvii. 10, 17. 
 
426 
 
 EXODUS. XXXVHL XXXIX. U- 29-1. 
 
 hundred seventy and five shekels he 
 made hooks for the pillars, and over- 
 laid their chapiters, and filleted them. 
 
 29 And the brass of the offering 
 zuas seventy talents, and two thousand 
 and four hundred shekels. 
 
 30 And therewith he made the 
 sockets to the door of the tabernacle 
 of the congreo-ation, and the brasen 
 
 o G J 
 
 altar, and the brasen grate for it, and 
 all the vessels of the altar, 
 
 31 And the sockets of the court 
 
 round about, and the sockets of the 
 court gate, and all the pins of the 
 tabernacle, and all the pins of the 
 court round about. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 I 77 ie cloths of service and holy garments. 2 
 The ephod. 8 The breastplate. 22 The robe 
 of the ephod. 2 7 The coats, mitre, and girdle 
 of fine linen. 30 The plate ofi the holy crown. 
 32 All is viewed and approved by Aloses. 
 And of the blue, and purple, and 
 scarlet, they made cloths of ser- 
 vice, to do service in the holy place.^ 
 
 30 . sockets to the door of the tabernacle of 
 the congregation^^ bases for the entjrance 
 of the Tent of meeting. See xxvi. 37. 
 
 the brasen altar'] See xxvii. i — 8. 
 
 31 . the sockets of the court] See xxvii. 10, 17. 
 
 the pins of the tabernacle . ..the pins of the 
 
 court] See on xxvii. 19. 
 
 According to the estimate of the shekel that 
 has here been adopted, the weight of the 
 metals mentioned in this chapter would be 
 nearly as follows, in avoirdupois weight : — 
 Gold, I ton 4 cwt. 2 qrs. 13 lbs. 
 
 Silver, 4 tons 4 cwt. 2 qrs. 20 lbs. 
 
 Bronze, 2 tons 19 cwt. 2 qrs. ii lbs. 
 
 The value of the gold, if pure, in our money 
 
 would be 75075. 13J., and of the silver 
 /I38034. 15J. lod. The quantities of the 
 precious metals come quite within the limits 
 of probability, if we consider the condition 
 of the Israelites when they left Egypt (see 
 introd. note to Exod. and on xxv. 3), and 
 the object for which the collection was made. 
 There is no reasonable ground to call in 
 question the substantial accuracy of the state- 
 ments of Strabo (xvi. p. 778) and Dio- 
 dorus (ill. 45) regarding the great stores of 
 gold collected by the Arab tribes near the 
 zElanitic Gulf, and they were probably still 
 m.ore abundant at this time when the tribes 
 must have come into frequent contact with 
 the Israelites. There may be no trace of na- 
 tive gold in those regions at present ; but the 
 entire exhaustion of natural supplies of the 
 precious metals is too familiarly known to 
 need more than a bare notice in this place (see 
 ‘ Bib. Atlas’ of the S. P. C. K. p. 38). Bahr, 
 Knobel and others have remarked that the 
 (juantities collected for the Tabernacle are in- 
 significant when compared with the hoards of 
 gold and silver collected in the East in recent, 
 as well as ancient, times. In communities in 
 which there is not much commercial stir, and 
 in consequence not much use for a circulating 
 medium, the precious metals will be more 
 readily accumulated either for a great national 
 object, as in this case, or for the gratification 
 of a ruler. The enormous wealth of the sove- 
 reigns, and also of the temples, of India, a 
 
 century ago, taking the most moderate state- 
 ments, may furnish examples. As instances 
 in ancient times, we may refer to the accounts 
 of gold in the temple of Belus (Diod. Sic. 11. 
 9; cf. Herodot. i. 183); of the wealth of 
 Sardanapalus (Ctesias, edit. Bahr, p. 431); 
 and of the spoils taken by Cyrus (Plin. ‘H. N.’ 
 XXXIII. 15, 47) and by Alexander (Diod. Sic. 
 XVII. 66). All reasonable allowance may be 
 made for exaggeration in these statements, and 
 the argument, in its connection with well as- 
 certained facts, will still be left amply strong 
 enough for our purpose. F or more examples, 
 see Bahr, ‘ Symbolik,’ i. p. 259; Knobel on 
 Ex. xxv. and xxxviii. 
 
 It is worthy of notice that silver, in the 
 time of Homer, appears to have been more 
 precious than gold amongst the Greeks (Glad- 
 stone, ‘Ju-ventus Mundi,’ p. 531). The 
 treasures of Thrace and Laurium were then 
 unknown. But it seems to have been other- 
 wise with the Asiatic nations. The word 
 silver (according to Pictet) is Sanscrit. This 
 would tend to shew that the metal was 
 known to the Aryan race before the Ger- 
 manic nations migrated to the West. The 
 forefathers of the Greeks and Romans pro- 
 bably lost all knowledge of it, and when they 
 again met with it, they gave it quite a dif- 
 ferent name {apyvpiov, argent wn). This same 
 argument may be applied to other metals. 
 But what distinguishes silver is, that it was 
 at first obtained by the people of Southern 
 Europe from sparing, and, perhaps, distant 
 sources. We know that the quantity of silver 
 at Rome was very greatly increased by the 
 contributions obtained in the Punic Wars 
 (Niebuhr, ‘Hist, of Rome,’ Vol. iii. p. 613). 
 By this time Spain had begun to yield its 
 Siipjdy. The Hebrews and Egyptians proba- 
 bly obtained the metal in the earliest times 
 both from Asia and Africa. 
 
 CiiAn. XXXIX. 
 
 The Priests' Dresses are made. 
 
 .. H- 
 
 1. See on xxviii. 5. The fine linen is omit- 
 ted in this verse, but is mentioned in the next. 
 
V. 2 — 21.] 
 
 EXODUS. XXXIX. 
 
 427 
 
 « chap. 31. and «niade the holy garments for 
 & 35- 19- Aaron; as the Lord commanded 
 Moses. 
 
 2 And he made the ephod of gold, 
 blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine 
 twined linen. 
 
 3 And they did beat the gold into 
 thin plates, and cut it into wires, to 
 work it in the blue, and in the purple, 
 and in the scarlet, and in the fine 
 linen, with cunning work. 
 
 4 They made shoulderpicces for it, 
 to couple it together: by the two 
 edges was it coupled together. 
 
 5 And the curious girdle of his 
 ephod, that was upon it, vjas of the 
 same, according to the work thereof; 
 of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, 
 and fine twined linen ; as the Lord 
 commanded Moses. 
 
 chap. 28. 6 ^ And they wrought onyx stones 
 
 inclosed in ouches of gold, graven, as 
 signets are graven, with the names of 
 the children of Israel. 
 
 7 And he put them on the shoulders 
 of the ephod, that they should be stones 
 
 fchap. 28. for a ‘^memorial to the children of Is- 
 rael ; as the Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 8 ^ And he made the breastplate 
 of cunning work, like the w'ork of the 
 ephod; (^'gold, blue, and purple, and 
 scarlet, and fine twined linen. 
 
 9 It was foursquare; they made 
 the breastplate double : a span was the 
 length thereof, and a span the breadth 
 thereof, being doubled. 
 
 10 And they set in it four rows of 
 II Or, stones : the first row was a '^sardius, 
 
 a topaz, and a carbuncle : this was the 
 first row. 
 
 1 1 And the second row, an eme- 
 rald, a sapphire, and a diamond. 
 
 12 And the third row, a ligure, an 
 agate, and an amethyst. 
 
 13 And the fourth row, a beryl, an 
 onyx, and a jasper : they were inclosed 
 in ouches of gold in their inclosings. 
 
 14 And the stones were according 
 to the names of the children of Israel, 
 twelve, according to their names, like 
 the engravings of a signet, every one 
 with his name, according to the twelve 
 tribes. 
 
 15 And they made upon the breast- 
 plate chains at the ends, of wreathen 
 work of pure gold. 
 
 16 And they made two ouches of 
 gold, and two gold rings ; and put the 
 two rings in the two ends of the 
 breastplate. 
 
 17 And they put the two wreathen 
 chains of gold in the two rings on the 
 ends of the breastplate. 
 
 18 And the two ends of the two 
 wreathen chains they fastened in the 
 tv/o ouches, and put them on the 
 shoulderpieces of the ephod, before it. 
 
 19 And they made tw^o rings of 
 gold, and put them on the two ends 
 of the breastplate, upon the border of 
 it, which was on the side of the ephod 
 inward. 
 
 20 And they made two other golden 
 rings, and put them on the two sides 
 of the ephod underneath, toward the 
 forepart of it, over against the other 
 coupling thereof, above the curious 
 girdle of the ephod. 
 
 21 And they did bind the breast- 
 plate by his rings unto the rings of the 
 
 cloths of ser'vice] more properly, the gar- 
 ments of office. On these and the Holy 
 Garments, see on xxxi. 10. 
 
 2. the ephod] See on xxviii. 6 sq. 
 
 3 . the gold] *See on xxviii. 5. 
 
 ^^ith cuyiynng <rajork] with work of the 
 skilled weaver. See on xxvi. i, xxxv. 35. 
 
 5 . the cui'ious gh'dle] See on xxviii. 8. 
 
 6, 7 . See on xxviii. 9 — 12. 
 
 8. the breastplate] See on xxviii. 15, 16. 
 
 10 — 13 . On the precious stones, see on 
 xxviii. 17 — 20. 
 
 13 . in their inclosmgs] Rather, in their 
 settings. See on xxviii. ii, 17. 
 
 15 . chains at the eytds^ of nvreathen ^vork] 
 chains of wreathen work twisted. 
 See on xxviii. 14. 
 
 16 . See on xxviii. 13, 23. 
 
 19 . See on xxviii. 26, 27. 
 
 20 . “ And they made two rings of gold 
 and put them on the two shoulder- pieces 
 of the Ephod, low down in the front 
 of it, near the joining, above the 
 band for fastening it.” See on xxviii. 
 27. 
 
 21 . See on xxviii. 28. 
 
428 
 
 EXODUS. XXXIX. 
 
 [v. 22—43. 
 
 ephod with a lace of blue, that it might 
 be above the curious girdle of the 
 ephod, and that the breastplate might 
 not be loosed from the ephod ; as the 
 Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 22 H And he made the robe of the 
 ephod 0/ woven work, all ofhlne. 
 
 23 And there ’was an hole in the 
 midst of the robe, as the hole of an 
 habergeon, with a band round about 
 the hole, that it should not rend. 
 
 24 And they made upon the hems 
 of the robe pomegranates ofhXne^ and 
 purple, and scarlet, and twined linen. 
 
 rfehap. 28. 25 And they made "^bells of pure 
 
 gUd, and put the bells between the 
 pomegranates upon the hem of the 
 robe, round about between the pome- 
 granates ; 
 
 26 A bell and a pomegranate, a bell 
 and a pomegranate, round about the 
 hem of the robe to minister /«; as the 
 Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 27 ^ And they made coats of fine 
 linen of woven work for Aaron, and 
 for his sons, 
 
 28 And a mitre of fine linen, and 
 f chap. 28. goodly bonnets y'fine linen, and linen 
 
 breeches of^ne twined linen, 
 
 29 And a girdle of fine twined 
 linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, 
 of needlework; as the Lord com- 
 manded Moses. 
 
 30 ^ And they made the plate of 
 the holy crown of pure gold, and wrote 
 upon it a writing, like to the engrav- 
 
 ./^chap. 28. ings of a signet, -^HOLINESS TO 
 I'HE LORD. 
 
 31 And they tied unto it a lace 
 of blue, to fasten it on high upon 
 the mitre; as the Lord commanded 
 Adoses. 
 
 32 ^ Thus was all the work of the 
 tabernacle of the tent of the congre- 
 
 22 - 2 G. See on xxviii. 3 1 — 35. 
 
 27 . See on xxviii. 40, 41. 
 
 28 . a )nitre~\ See on xxviii. 37. 
 
 bonnets'] See on xxviii. 40. 
 
 breeches] See on xxviii. 42. 
 
 29 . a girdle] See on xxviii. 40. 
 
 30 . the holy crovun of pure gold] Cf. xxix. 
 
 6. See on xxviii. 36. 
 
 gation finished: and the children of 
 Israel did according to all that the 
 Lord commanded Moses, so did they. 
 
 33 ^ And they brought the taber- 
 nacle unto Moses, the tent, and all his 
 furniture, his taches, his boards, his 
 bars, and his pillars, and his sockets, 
 
 34 And the covering of rams" skins 
 dyed red, and the covering of badgers’ 
 skins, and the vail of the covering, 
 
 35 The ark of the testimony, and , 
 the staves thereof, and the mercy seat, 
 
 36 The table, and all the vessels 
 thereof, and the shewbread, 
 
 37 The pure candlestick, with the 
 lamps thereof, even with the lamps to 
 be set in order, and all the vessels 
 thereof, and the oil for light, 
 
 38 And the golden altar, and the 
 anointing oil, and ^ the sweet incense, ^ 
 
 , , o, . - , , , the incense 
 
 and the hanging tor the tabernacle of sweet 
 door, 
 
 39 The brasen altar, and his grate 
 of brass, his staves, and all his vessels, 
 the laver and his foot, 
 
 40 The hangings of the court, his 
 pillars, and his sockets, and the hang- 
 ing for the court gate, his cords, and 
 his pins, and all the vessels of the ser- 
 vice of the tabernacle, for the tent of 
 the congregation, 
 
 41 The cloths of service to do ser- 
 vice in the holy place., and the holy 
 garments for Aaron the priest, and his 
 sons’ garments, to minister in the 
 priest’s office. 
 
 42 According to all that the Lord 
 commanded Moses, so the children of 
 Israel made all the work. 
 
 43 And Moses did look upon all 
 the work, and, behold, they had done 
 it as the Lord had commanded, even 
 so had they done it : and Moses blessed 
 them. 
 
 HOLINESS TO THE LORD] See on 
 xxviii. 36. 
 
 The 'whole work of the Sanctuary is submitted 
 to Moses and appro'ved. 
 
 32—4.3. 
 
 33 — 38 . See on xxxv. ii — 15, and on 
 xxvi. I. 
 
 39 , 40 . See on xxxv. 16 — 18. 
 
 41 . See 'V'v. 1,27, xxxi. 10. 
 
V. I— IS.] 
 
 EXODUS. XL. 
 
 429 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 I The tabernacle is conunattcied to he reared^ 
 9 and anointed. 13 Aaron and his sons to 
 be sanctified. 16 Moses performeth all things 
 accordingly. 34 A cloud covereth the taber- 
 nacle. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 l\ saying, 
 
 2 On the first day of the first 
 month shalt thou set up the tabernacle 
 of the tent of the congregation. 
 
 3 And thou shalt put therein the 
 ark of the testimony, and cover the 
 ark with the vail. . 
 
 « chap. 26. ^ And "thou shalt bring in the ta- 
 
 ?Heb. ble, and set in order ^the things that 
 are to be set in order upon it; and 
 thou shalt bring in the candlestick, 
 and light the lamps thereof. 
 
 5 And thou shalt set the altar of 
 gold for the incense before the ark of 
 the testimony, and put the hanging of 
 the door to the tabernacle. 
 
 6 And thou shalt set the altar of 
 the burnt offering before the door of 
 the tabernacle of the tent of the con- 
 gregation. 
 
 7 And thou shalt set the laver be- 
 tween the tent, of the congregation 
 and the altar, and shalt put water 
 therein. 
 
 Chap. XL. 
 
 Moses is commanded to arrange the holy things., 
 and to anoint them and the priests. 
 
 I — II. 
 
 2. On the first day of the first .month'] See 
 n). 17. 
 
 4 . the things that are to be set in order'] 
 The directions given in Lev. xxiv. 5 — 9 are here 
 presupposed, and must have been issued be- 
 fore this chapter was written. 
 
 5 . before the ark] See on xxx. 6. 
 
 the hanging of the door to the tabernacle] 
 
 the curtain at the entrance of the 
 Tabernacle. 
 
 6 . before the door of the tabernacle of the 
 tent of the congregation] before the en- 
 trance of the Tabernacle of the Tent 
 of meeting. 
 
 7 . 8. See Note at the end of Ch. xxvi. § VI. 
 
 8. hang up the hanging] hang up the 
 entrance curtain. 
 
 9 — 11 . The directions to anoint and con- 
 secrate the Tabernacle and the Prie.sts had 
 been previously given xxx. 26 — 31. They are 
 
 8 And thou shalt set up the court 
 round about, and hang up the hang- 
 ing at the court gate. 
 
 9 And thou shalt take the anoint- 
 ing oil, and anoint the tabernacle, and 
 all that is therein, and shalt hallow it, 
 and all the vessels thereof; and it shall 
 be holy. 
 
 10 And thou shalt anoint the altar 
 
 of the burnt offering, and all his ves- 
 sels, and sanctify the altar: and it 
 shall be an altar ^ most holy. t Heb. 
 
 1 1 And thou shalt anoint the laver )wihtcsseL 
 and his foot, and sanctify it. 
 
 12 And thou shalt bring Aaron 
 and his sons unto the door of the 
 tabernacle of the congregation, and 
 wash them with water. 
 
 13 And thou shalt put upon Aa- 
 ron the holy garments, and anoint 
 him, and sanctify him; that he may 
 minister unto me in the priest’s office. 
 
 14 And thou shalt bring his sons, 
 and clothe them with coats : 
 
 15 And thou shalt anoint them, 
 as thou didst anoint their father, that 
 they may minister unto me in the 
 priest’s office : for their anointing shall 
 surely be an everlasting priesthood 
 throughout their generations. 
 
 here repeated in a summary form. The anoint- 
 ing is described Lev. viii. 10 — 12. 
 
 9. -vessels] utensils I'he name includes 
 the whole of the furniture of the Tabernacle. 
 See on xxvii. 19. 
 
 10. -vessels] utensils. 
 
 most holy] In the piTceding verse the 
 Tabernacle and its utensils are said to be 
 rendered holy by the anointing ; the Altar 
 and its utensils are here, and in xxx. 10, 
 said to be most holy. The term most holy 
 must not in this case be taken as express- 
 ing a higher degree of holiness than that 
 which belonged to the Tabernacle; it is only 
 used for emphasis, as a caution (it has been 
 conjectured) in reference to the position of 
 the Altar exposing it to the chance of being 
 touched by the people when they assembled 
 in the Court, while they were not permitted 
 to enter the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle it- 
 self, with all that belonged to it, is called 
 most holy in xxx. 29. 
 
 12 . the door of the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation] the entrance of the Tent of 
 meeting. The directions in -v-v. 12 — 15 had 
 been previously given xxix. 4 — 9, xxx. 30 ; 
 the ceremony is described Lev. viii. 5, 6. 
 
430 
 
 EXODUS. XL. 
 
 [v. 1 6 — 23. 
 
 * Numb. 
 ?• I 
 
 16 Thus did Moses; according to 
 ali that the Lord commanded him, 
 so did he. 
 
 17 ^ And it came to pass in the 
 first month in the second year, on the 
 first day of the month, that the '^ta- 
 bernacle was reared up. 
 
 18 And Moses reared up the ta- 
 bernacle, and fastened his sockets, and 
 set up the boards thereof, and put 
 in the bars thereof, and reared up his 
 pillars. 
 
 19 And he spread abroad the tent 
 over the tabernacle, and put the co- 
 vering of the tent above upon it; as 
 the Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 20 ^ And he took and put the 
 testimony into the ark, and set the 
 staves on the ark, and put the mercy 
 seat above upon the ark ; 
 
 21 And he brought the ark into 
 
 the tabernacle, and ^set up the vail of^^^^^ar- 
 the covering, and covered the ark of 
 the testimony; as the Lord com- 
 manded Moses. 
 
 22 ^ And he put the table in the 
 tent of the congregation, upon the 
 side of the tabernacle northward, with- 
 out the vail. 
 
 23 And he set the bread in order 
 upon it before the Lord ; as the 
 Lord had commanded Moses. 
 
 Moses puts the Tabernacle in order. 
 
 17—33. 
 
 17 . on the first day ofi the month'] That is, 
 on the first of the month Nisan (xii, 2, xiii. 4), 
 one year, wanting fouiteen days, after the de- 
 parture of the Israelites from Egypt. They 
 had been nearly three months in reaching the 
 foot of Mount Sinai (xix. i); Moses had spent 
 eighty days on the mountain (xxiv. 18, xxxiv. 
 28), and some time must be allowed for what 
 is related in chap, xxiv., as well as for the in- 
 terval between the two periods which Moses 
 spent on the mountain (xxxiii. i — 23). The 
 construction of the Tabernacle and its furni- 
 ture would thus appear to have occupied 
 something less than half a year. Bleek’s ob- 
 jection to this period as too short for the 
 completion of such a work (‘Introd. to O.T.’ 
 Vol. I. p. 247) is worth nothing if we duly 
 consider the interest which the whole people 
 must have felt in it, and the nature of the 
 structure, so unlike one of solid masonry. 
 
 19 . The tent cloth was spread over the 
 tabernacle cloth, and the covering of skins 
 was put over the tent cloth. See xxvi. i, 6, 
 II, 14; and Note at the end of Ch. xxvi. § II. 
 
 20. the testimony] i.e. the Tables of stone 
 with the Ten Commandments engraved on 
 them (see xxv. 16, xxxi. 18). Nothing else is 
 said to have been put into the Ark. These 
 were found there by themselves in the time of 
 Solomon (i K. viii. 9; 2 Chron. v. 10). The 
 Pot of .Manna was “laid up before the testi- 
 mony” (Ex. xvi. 34); Aaron’s rod was also 
 placed “before the testimony” (Num. xvii. 
 10); and the Book of the Law was put at 
 “the side of the Ark” (Deut. xxxi. 26). 
 The expression “before the testimony” ap- 
 pears to mean the space immediately in front 
 of the Ark. Most interpreters hold that 
 the Pot of Manna and Aaron’s rod were 
 placed between the Ark and the Vail. It is 
 however said in the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 
 that the Ark contained “the golden pot that 
 had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and 
 the tables of the covenant” (ix. 4). From 
 this statement, and from the mode of expres- 
 sion in Kings and Chronicles (which appears 
 to indicate that the fact of the Ark’s contain- 
 ing nothing at that time but the Tables was 
 unexpected), it would seem that the other 
 articles were at some period put within the 
 Ark; and this accords with some rabbinical 
 traditions. It has however been conjectured 
 that “before the testimony” may mean the 
 space within the Ark, at the back of which the 
 Tables are supposed to have been placed. 
 But from a comparison of Ex. xxx. 36 with 
 xl. 5, it appears that the two expressions 
 “ before the testimony,” and “ before the ark 
 of the testimony,” are equivalent and denote 
 the space in front of the Ark, even extending 
 to the outside of the Vail. Besides this, it 
 is plain that Aaron’s Rod, when it was brought 
 “ before the testimony,” was merely restored 
 to the place “ before the Lord in the taber- 
 nacle of witness,” where it was first placed 
 along with the other rods (Num. xvii. ;-cf. -v. 
 7 veith ns. 10). These considerations, added 
 to the presumption from Ex. xxv. 16, xl. 20, 
 that nothing but the Tables were put into the 
 Ark, seem to afford sufficient evidence that 
 the articles in cjuestion were not at first placed 
 within it, but in front of it. It is very pro- 
 bable that the pot and the rod had been put 
 into the Ark before it was taken by the Phi- 
 listines, but that they were not sent back with 
 the Ark and the Tables, i Sam. iv. ii, vi. ii. 
 
 the mercy seat] See on xxv. 21. 
 
 21. the nsail ofi the covering] See on xxxv. 
 12. 
 
 22 — 24 . See on xxv. 23 — 29, and Lev. 
 xxiv. 5 — 9. 
 
 23 . he set the bread in order] Moses per- 
 formed these priestly functions (see on xxviii. 
 i) of setting the Bread on the Table, lighting 
 
V. 24—38.] 
 
 EXODUS. XL. 
 
 431 
 
 24 ^ And he put the candlestick 
 in the tent of the congregation, over 
 against the table, on the side of the 
 tabernacle southward. 
 
 25 And he lighted the lamps before 
 the Lord; as the Lord commanded 
 Moses. 
 
 26 ^ And he put the golden altar 
 in the tent of the congregation before 
 the vail : 
 
 27 And he burnt sweet incense 
 thereon ; as the Lord commanded 
 Moses. 
 
 28 ^ And he set up the hanging 
 at the door of the tabernacle. 
 
 29 And he put the altar of burnt 
 offering by the door of the tabernacle 
 of the tent of the congregation, and 
 offered upon it the burnt offering and 
 
 ‘^chap 30. the meatoffering; as the^LoRDcom- 
 manded Moses. 
 
 30 And he set the laver be- 
 tween the tent of the congregation 
 and the altar, and put water there, to 
 wash withal. 
 
 31 And Moses and Aaron and his 
 sons washed their hands and their feet 
 thereat : 
 
 32 When they went into the tent 
 
 of the congregation, and when they 
 came near unto the altar, they wash- 
 ed; as the Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 33 And he reared up the court 
 round about the tabernacle and the 
 altar, and set up the hanging of the 
 court gate. So Moses finished the 
 work. 
 
 34 ^ ^Then a cloud covered the Numb. 9. 
 tent of the congregation, and the J'Kings s. 
 glory of the Lord filled the taber- 
 nacle. 
 
 35 And Moses was not able to 
 enter into the tent of the congrega- 
 tion, because the cloud abode thereon, 
 and the glory of the Lord filled the 
 tabernacle. 
 
 36 And when the cloud was taken 
 up from over the tabernacle, the chil- 
 dren of Israel ^ went oiiward in all '.Heb. 
 
 I . . Jourjteyed 
 
 their journeys : 
 
 37 But if the cloud were not taken 
 up, then jhey journeyed not till the 
 day that it was taken up. 
 
 38 For the cloud of the Lord was 
 upon the tabernacle by day, and fire 
 was on it by night, in the sight of all 
 the house of Israel, throughout all 
 their journeys. 
 
 the Lamps (‘v. 25), burning Incense (‘v. 27), 
 and offering the Daily Sacrifice (t;. 29), before 
 the holy things with which they were per- 
 formed were anointed. The things had been 
 made expressly for the service of Jehovah, by 
 His command, and in this fact lay their essen- 
 tial sanctity, of which the anointing was only 
 the seal and symbol. Aaron and his sons, on 
 similar ground, having had the divine call, 
 took part in the service of the Sanctuary as 
 soon as the work was completed (v. 31). 
 But Moses took part with them, and most 
 likely took the lead, until they were conse- 
 crated and invested (Lev. viii.) and publicly 
 set apart for the office. See on Lev. viii. 14. 
 
 26 . before the n}ail~\ that is, opposite to 
 the Ark, in the middle between the Table of 
 Shewbread on the North and the Candlestick 
 on the South (see on xxx. 36). 
 
 28 . set up the hangings &c.] put up 
 the curtain at the entrance to the 
 Tabernacle. 
 
 29 . by the dQor'\ at the entrance. It 
 is here evident that the term denoted a broad 
 space in front of the Tabernacle. See Plan, 
 P* .378. 
 
 31 , 32 . See xxx. 18 — 21. 
 
 33. set up the hanging'] put up the 
 curtain. See on xxvi. 36. 
 
 The glory of the Lord is manifested on the 
 completed nvork. 
 
 34—38. 
 
 34 . 35 . On the distinction between the 
 Tent as the outer shelter and the Tabernacle as 
 the dqveUing-place of Jehovah, which is very 
 clear in these verses, see on xxvi. i. The glory 
 appeared as a light within and as a cloud on 
 the outside. 
 
 35. Cf. the entrance of the High-priest 
 into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atone- 
 ment, Lev. xvi. 2, 13. For special appear- 
 ances of this glory in the Tabernacle, see 
 Num. xiv. 10, xvi. 19, 42; cf. Ex. xvi. 10; 
 I K. viii. 10, II. 
 
 36 — 38 . This is more fully described 
 Num. ix. 15 — 23, x. II, 12, 34. 
 
 The Tabernacle, after it had accompanied 
 the Israelites in their wanderings in the wil- 
 derness, was most probably first set up in 
 the Holy Land at Gilgal (Josh. iv. 19, v. 10,^ 
 ix. 6, X. 6, 43). But before the death of 
 
432 
 
 EXODUS. XL. 
 
 Joshua, it was erected at Shiloh (Josh, xviii. 
 I, xix. 51). Here it remained as the national 
 Sanctuary throughout the time of the Judges 
 (Josh, xviii. 8, xxi. 2, xxii. 19 ; Judg. xviii. 
 31, xxi. 19; I S. i. 3, iv. 3). But its ex- 
 ternal construction was at this time some- 
 what changed, and doors, strictly so called, 
 had taken the place of the entrance curtain 
 (i S. iii. 15) : hence it seems to have been 
 sometimes called the Temple (i S. i. 9, iii. 3), 
 the name by which the structure of Solomon 
 was afterwards commonly known. After the 
 time of Eli it was removed to Nob in the 
 canton of Benjamin, not far from Jerusalem 
 (i S. xxi. I — q). From thence, in the time 
 of David, it was removed to Gibeon (i Chro. 
 xvi. 39, xxi. 29 ; 2 Chro. i. 3 ; i K. iii. 4, ix. 
 2). It was brought from Gibeon to Jerusa- 
 lem by Solomon (i K. viii. 4). After this, 
 it disappears in the narrative of Scripture. 
 When the Temple of Solomon was built, “the 
 Tabernacle of the Tent” had entirely performed 
 its work ; it had protected the Ark of the 
 
 Covenant during the miigrations of the people 
 until they were settled in the Land, and the 
 promise was fulfilled, that the Lord would 
 choose out a place for Himself in which His 
 name should be preserved and His service 
 should be maintained (Deut. xii. 14, 21, xiv. 
 24). 
 
 In accordance with its dignity as the most 
 sacred object in the Sanctuary, the original 
 Ark of the Covenant constructed by Moses 
 was preserved and transferred from the Ta- 
 bernacle to the Temple. The Golden Altar, 
 the Candlestick and the Shewbread table 
 were renewed by Solomon. They were sub- 
 sequently renewed by Zerubbabel, and lastly 
 by the Maccabees (see on xxv. 23). But the 
 Ark was preserved in the Temple until Jeru- 
 salem was taken by the forces of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar (2 Chro. XXXV. 3; Jer. iii. 16). It 
 was never replaced in the Second Temple. 
 (Jos. ‘ Bell, Jud.’ V. 5. § 5 ; Tacitus, ‘ Hist.’ 
 V. 9). According to a rabbinical tradition, 
 its place was occupied by a block of stone. 
 
 NOTE ON Chap. XL. 
 
 On the Sanctuary as a whole. 
 
 I. The Altar and the Tabernacle. * II. Names 
 ■ of the Tabernacle. III. Order of the Sacred 
 things. IV. The Ark and its belongings. 
 V. Allegorical explanations. VI. Origi- 
 nality of the 7 'aber 7 iacle. 
 
 1 . 
 
 The two chief objects within the Court 
 were the Brazen Altar and the Tabernacle. As 
 sacrificial worship was no new thing, there is 
 nothing said or intimated as to the purpose of 
 the Altar, either in the instructions for the 
 Sanctuary or in the record of its completion 1. 
 The intention was merely to provide a single 
 Altar of suitable construction for the ofter- 
 ings of the whole nation in such juxtaposition 
 with the Tabernacle as to suit the order of 
 the inspired ritual. 
 
 But the Tabernacle was an entirely new 
 matter belonging to the dispensation of the 
 Mosaic Covenant. Its purpose was therefore 
 distinctly set forth at this time. It was to 
 be the symbolical dwelling-place of Jehovah, 
 where He was to meet with His people or 
 their representatives. His own words were: 
 “Let them make me a sanctuary that I may 
 dwell among them.” — “I will meet you, to 
 speak there unto thee, and there will I meet 
 with the Clnldren of Israel^.” 
 
 11 . 
 
 The name most frequently given to the Ta- 
 bernacle in our Version is, “The Tabernacle 
 
 ^ ICx. xxvii. I — 8, xxxviii, i — 7. See note on 
 Ex. XX. 24. 
 
 Ex. xxv. 8, xxix. 42, 43. See also Ex. xxvii. 
 2i,xxviii. 12. 
 
 (or Tent-"*) of the congregation k” But the 
 latter word in Hebrew signifies meeting, 
 
 in its most general sense, and is always used 
 without the article. The better rendering of 
 the name is The Tabernacle (or The Tent) 
 of meeting, and the idea connected with it is 
 that of Jehovah meeting with either Moses, or 
 the priests, or (in only a few cases’) with the 
 people gathered into a congregation at the 
 entrance of the Tent. The English translation 
 is not supported by the old Versions, nor by 
 the best critical authorities. The complete 
 designation is given as “the Tabernacle of the 
 Tent of meeting,” Ex. xl. i, 29, See. 
 
 The Tabernacle is also called. The Taber- 
 nacle (or The Tent) of the Testimony®. 
 Now this designation evidently relates to the 
 Tabernacle as the depository of the Testi- 
 mony^, that is, the Tables of the Law. It 
 has been ])referred by the LXX. (9 (7x97/9 
 ToO iinpTvpLov) and the Vulgate {tabernaculum 
 testhno 7 iii), to render not only the Hebrew, 
 which strictly answers to it, but also the, 
 name in more common use, which means The 
 Tabernacle of meeting. It occurs in the 
 New Testament, Acts vii. 44; Rev. xv. 5. 
 
 ^ On the words Tabernacle and Tent, in some 
 cases used indifferently for the Avhole structure, 
 see on xxvi. 1 . 
 
 ^ Ex. xxvii. 21, xxviii. 43, xxix. 4, ro, ri, 30, 
 XXX. 16, 18, 20,36, xxxi. 7, XXXV. 21, xl. 2, 6, 7, 
 12 ; Lev. i. 1, 3, 5, &c. &c. 
 
 “ Lev. viii. 3, 4; Num. x. 3; cf. Ex. xxxiii, 7 * 
 
 ® The Hebrew word (n-niil)Jn this connection, 
 always has the article. Ex, xxxviii. 21 ; Num. i. 
 50, 53, ix. 15, X. 1 I, xvii. 7, 8, xviii. 2. 
 
 t See Note on Ex, xx. i — 17, § V. 
 
EXODUS. XL. 
 
 
 433 
 
 The second name, of itself, suggests that 
 the Tabernacle owed its character and sig- 
 nificance to the Ark with its sacred contents 
 and the Mercy-seat that covered it. Above 
 the Mercy-seat, in a concentrated sense, was 
 the spot where Jehovah communed with His 
 peopled The furniture of the Holy Place 
 held a subordinate position, and all its symbol- 
 ism pointed to the truth which had its deepest 
 and fullest expression in the Ark. In the form 
 and materials of the Tabernacle itself there 
 appears to have been nothing, either in its 
 wood-work or its curtains, but what was 
 most convenient for the arrangement and pro- 
 tection of the holy things and most becoming 
 for beauty. It was in fact a regal Tent-, in 
 which the Ark symbolized the constant pre- 
 sence of Jehovah, who now condescended to 
 dwell amongst the people whom He had re- 
 deemed. 
 
 III. 
 
 The order in which the chief facts con- 
 nected with the construction of the Sanctuary 
 are related in the sacred narrative, closely 
 corresponds with the essential relation in which 
 the several parts stand to each other. The 
 Ten Commandments are uttered by the voice 
 of Jehovah from the summit of Mount Sinai, 
 with every circumstance that can show their 
 solemn importance a short practical com- 
 pendium of the Law, called the Book of the 
 Covenant 4 , is written out by Moses for the 
 occasion : after the Covenant is sealed by 
 sprinkling on the people the blood of Burnt- 
 offerings and Peace-offerings, a mysterious 
 manifestation of the Divine presence is made 
 to Moses, Aaron and the Elders ^ : Moses is 
 then summoned to the Mount and receives 
 instructions first for making the Ark that was 
 to contain the tables of the Ten Command- 
 ments with the Mercy-seat that was to cover 
 them®, next for the holy things that were to be 
 placed in the Holy Place, and not till then, 
 for the Tabernacle with its Tent and its 
 Covering^: after this, the Brazen Altar and 
 the Court are described^, and directions are 
 given for the consecration of those Avho had 
 to minister at the Altar and the Tabernacle*^: 
 what may be regarded as a supplementary 
 section relating to the Golden Altar and 
 some other things, is followed by the appoint- 
 ment of the workmen and a repetition of 
 
 ^ Ex. XXV. 22 . 
 
 ^ See Note on chap. xxvi. 
 
 ^ Ex. xix, XX. 
 
 ^ See on Ex. xx. 22 . 
 
 ^ Ex. xxiv. According to the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, the Book was sprinkled as well as the 
 people; see Heb. ix. 19. 
 
 ® See on Ex. xxv. 10 — 16. 
 
 7 See Note on Ex. xxvi. 
 
 ® Ex. xxvii. 
 
 ® Ex. xxviii, xxix. 
 
 See on Ex. xxx. i. 
 
 VoL. I. 
 
 the Law for the observance of the Sabbath- 
 day h These practical instructions being com- 
 pleted, the precious gift of the Tables of the 
 Law is put into the hands of Moses**. This 
 arrangement of the particulars is the more 
 noticeable, because the articles are named in 
 reversed order in the account of the construc- 
 tion of the work 3 . 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Ten Commandments conveyed no new 
 revelation in the details of their subject matter. 
 Every duty enjoined in them may be found 
 expressed in no obscure terms in the earlier 
 portion of the Pentateuch. But the old truths 
 were now for the first time embodied and 
 proclaimed to the people in connection with 
 their lately recovered freedom. Hence they 
 were put into new relations with other truths, 
 and were combined with them in expressing 
 the will of Jehovah. The tables of the Testi-- 
 mony did not however, by themselves, form the 
 central point of the Sanctuary. It required the 
 complete Ark that contained them, with the 
 Mercy-seat that covered them, to convey the 
 true meaning of the Covenant that was based 
 on the name of Jehovah as it was revealed to 
 Moses^ 
 
 We may regard then the sacred contents 
 of the Tabernacle as figuring what was pecu- 
 liar to the Covenant of which Moses was the 
 Mediator, the closer union of God with Israel 
 and their consequent election as “a kingdom 
 of priests, an holy nation^:” while the Brazen 
 Altar in the Court not only bore witness for 
 the old sacrificial worship by which the Patri- 
 archs had drawn nigh to God, but formed an 
 essential part of the Sanctuary, signifying, by 
 its now more fully developed system of Sacri- 
 fices® in connection with the Tabernacle, those 
 ideas of Sin and Atonement, which were 
 first distinctly brought out by the revelation 
 of the Law and the sanctification of the 
 nation 
 
 V. 
 
 Keeping strictly to the conclusions that 
 appear clearly to follow from the sacred narra- 
 tive, there seems to be neither occasion nor 
 place for those allegorical explanations of the 
 Tabernacle which are so often found in com- 
 mentators, both Jewish and Christian. Philo®, 
 Josephus®, Theodoret*®, Jerome**, with other 
 Fathers, and some of the Rabbinists, supposed 
 
 * Ex. xxxi. I — 17. 2 xxxi. 18. 
 
 3 Ex. xxxvi, xxxvii. 
 
 4 Ex, xxxiv. 6, 7. See Note on ch. xx. § VI. 
 
 3 Ex. xix. 6. 
 
 ® See Lev, i. — vii. 
 
 ^ See notes on Lev. iv. 
 
 ® ‘Vit. Mos.’ III. 6. 
 
 9 ‘Ant.’ III. 7. § 7. Cf. ‘Bel. Jud.’ v. 5. § 4, 
 where the same explanation is applied to the 
 Temple. 
 
 *® ‘Qusest. in Exod.’ 60. 
 
 ** ‘Epist.’ LXiv. § 9. 
 
 E E 
 
434 
 
 EXODUS. XL. 
 
 that the structure was a type of the material 
 universe of heaven and earth which the Lord 
 had created as an abode for Himself. It 
 appears however that no two of these writers 
 agree together in the application of this theory 
 to the several parts. Bahr\ following in this 
 general track, has elaborated with curious in- 
 genuity an explanation of almost every recorded 
 particular in the description of Moses. — In 
 other lines of speculation, the Tabernacle has 
 been taken as a symbol of human nature 
 (Luther), and as a prophetic type of the 
 Christian Church (Cocceius). 
 
 VI. 
 
 It has been usual, especially since the time 
 of Spencer, to seek out parallels from heathen 
 antiquity for the Tabernacle itself, but more 
 particularly for the Ark of the Covenant. 
 The Tabernacle has been compared with 
 several moveable temples of which there are 
 notices in ancient writers, the most remarkable 
 of which seems to be -‘the Sacred Tent” (77 
 tepn cTK-qvrj) of the Carthaginians mentioned by 
 Diodorus 
 
 The Ark of the Covenant has been most 
 generally likened to the arks, or moveable 
 shrines, which are represented on Egyptian 
 monuments^. The Egyptian arks were carried 
 in a similar manner by poles resting on men’s 
 snoulders, and some of them had on the cover 
 two winged figures not unlike what we con- 
 ceive the golden Cherubim to have been. 
 Thus far the similarity is striking. But 
 there were points of great dissimilarity. Be- 
 tween the winged figures on the Egyptian 
 arks there was placed the material symbol 
 of a deity, and the arks themselves were 
 carried about in religious processions, so as 
 to make a show in the eyes of the people. 
 \Ve know not what they contained. As re- 
 gards the Ark of the Covenant, the absence 
 of any symbol of God was one of its great 
 characteristics. It was never carried in a cere- 
 monial procession: when it was moved from 
 one place to another, it was closely packed up, 
 concealed from the eyes even of the Levites 
 who bore it-*. AVhen the Tabernacle was 
 pitched, the Ark was never exhibited, but was 
 
 * ‘Symbolik,’ Vol. I. p. 75. 
 
 ^ Lib. XX. 65 : others are mentioned by Knobel. 
 
 ^ Wilkinson, ‘Pop. Acc.’ Vol, I. p. 267. — The 
 articles in Smith’s and Kitto’s Dictionaries. — 
 Smith, ‘The Pentateuch,’ p. 260, &c. &c. — On 
 the arks of other ancient nations, see Biihr, 
 ‘.Symbolik,’ Vol. i. 399, and Knobel, p. 262. 
 
 ■* Num. iv. 5, 6, 19, 20. 
 
 kept in solemn darkness. Rest, it is evident, 
 \vas its appointed condition. It was occasion- 
 ally moved out of its place in the Holy of 
 Holies, but only as long as the nation was 
 without a settled capital, and had something 
 of the character of an army on the march. 
 During this period it accompanied the army 
 on several occasions*. But it had been fore- 
 told that the time should come when the 
 Sanctuary was to be fixed^, and when this 
 was fulfilled, we are told that “the Ark had 
 rest^. ” It was never again moved .till the 
 capture of Jerusalem by the forces of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar-*. Not less, we may fairly sup- 
 pose, was it distinguished from all other arks 
 in the simple grandeur of its purpose: it was 
 constructed to contain the plain text of the 
 Ten Commandments written on stone in 
 words that were intelligible to all. 
 
 Such resemblances to foreign patterns as 
 have been mentioned are without doubt 
 interesting ; but it should always be kept 
 in view that they are extremely superficial. 
 The Israelites could hardly have been in 
 contact with the Egyptians for so long 
 a period without learning much of their arts 
 and customiS. It is most likely that they were 
 in the habit of using the sam.e tools and modes 
 of construction. In order to attain a given 
 end they probably used similar mechanical 
 contrivances. There are certain points of 
 likeness in the descriptions of Moses and 
 what we know of Egyptian art, which would 
 clearly prove that the Israelites had dwelt in 
 Egypt -^. But on the whole, it seems wonderful 
 that there is so little in the Sanctuary to remind 
 us of any foreign association. Besides such dis- 
 tinctions as might naturally be ascribed to the 
 difference between an idol's temple and a 
 structure meant to express the Covenant be- 
 tween the unseen Lord and His people, there 
 is in the Tabernacle an originality, both in its 
 general arrangement and in its details, which 
 is by far more striking than any resemblance 
 that may be traced between it and heathen 
 models. 
 
 * I S. iv. 3, xiv. 18; 2 S. xi. 11. 
 
 2 Dent, xii. ic, 11. 
 
 3 I Chro. vi. 31 ; cf. xvi. i. 
 
 * See concluding note on Exocl. xl. — It is 
 strange that Knobel and others should regard 
 such occasions as are described Josh. vi. 8, 
 2 S. vi. 12 — 16, as of the nature of ceremonial 
 processions. 
 
 * Ilengstenberg has not stated the argument 
 too confidently in his ‘Egypt and the Books of 
 Moses,’ but he has certainly brought some very 
 fanciful instances to its support. 
 
EXODUS. XVI. XVIL XIX. 
 
 435 
 
 NOTE ON THE ROUTE OF THE ISRAELITES FROM 
 RAMESES TO SINAI. F. C. C. 
 
 (Chaps. XVI. XVII. XIX.) 
 
 The commentary on the first nineteen 
 chapters of Exodus had been some time in 
 print, when the results of the survey of the 
 western districts of the Sinaitic peninsula were 
 communicated to the writer. Some conclu- 
 sions to which he had been led by the re- 
 searches of travellers, of which the fullest 
 account is given in Ritter’s work on Sinai and 
 Palestine (see Band i. p. 517 — 638), were mate- 
 rially affected by the information which he 
 received from Captain Wilson, of the Royal 
 Engineers, who with Captain Palmer, R. E., 
 conducted the survey, and from the Rev. F. 
 W. Holland, who accompanied the expedition, 
 and had previously spent much time in ex- 
 ploring the Peninsula, of which he has pre- 
 pared a valuable map, published by the Geo- 
 graphical Society. 
 
 The first part of the route, from Rameses 
 to Elim, is not affected by these new sources 
 of information, and the notes remain un- 
 touched. It may, however, be convenient to 
 touch briefly on this portion in order to pre- 
 sent a clear and connected view of the circum- 
 scances which may have determined the direc- 
 tion of the march. The first two days’ march 
 
 brought the Israelites from Rameses to Etham. 
 Rameses was the general name of the district 
 in the time of Jacob; the principal city built 
 by the Israelites was probably situate on the 
 ancient canal at some distance from the fron- 
 tier. Etham was on the edge of the wilder- 
 ness, at the point where the road towards 
 Palestine branched off; and the direction of 
 the journey was turned southwards, towards 
 the encampment by the sea at Baal-zephon. 
 See xii. 37, xiii. 20, xiv. 2, 3. Etham, which 
 is probably identical with Pithom, is held 
 by the writer of this note to correspond to 
 the ancient Heroopolis, the frontier city of 
 Egypt, near the southern extremity of Lake 
 Timsah. The journey from this place to 
 Suez would occupy sufficient time for a com- 
 munication to be made to Pharaoh, and for 
 the rapid march of his army^. The Israelites 
 
 ^ The subjoined sketch, prepared by the Rev. 
 S. Clark, shows the route of the Israelites from 
 Rameses to 'Ayun Miisa, and the probable ex- 
 tent of the Red Sea north of its present bed in 
 the time of Moses. Mr Clark identifies Etham 
 with a spot near Serapeum. 
 
 E E 2 
 
EXODUS. XVI. XVII. XIX. 
 
 436 
 
 must have had a considerable start in order to 
 reach the encampment of Suez before they were 
 overtaken, but they could scarcely have been so 
 near to Suez when at Etham as the site fixed 
 upon by Robinson would bring them, or the 
 passage could have been effected without inter- 
 ruption. That passage took place, as nearly all 
 modern critics admit, near Suez, where sands of 
 considerable extent were pa.ssable when “the 
 Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east 
 wind,” which blew all the night; see c. xiv. 21. 
 After crossing the sea the Israelites would 
 naturally make their first station at ‘Ayun 
 Mu.sa, where they would find an ample sup- 
 ply of water: passing thence by Marah they 
 reached Elim, when they encamped under the 
 palm-trees, by the waters, Elim is generally 
 identified with the Wady Gharandel. It is pro- 
 bable that the Israelites remained there several 
 days and then advanced to the station on the 
 Red Sea, near the headland called Ras-Selima, 
 or, as in the map, Ras Abu Zenimeh. 
 
 The difference of opinions as to the course 
 pursued by the Israelites up to this point is 
 limited to questions of secondary importance ; 
 but from Elim two principal routes lead to 
 Sinai, one by El Markha and Wady Feiran, 
 the other, less circuitous, through a succession 
 of Wadys on the north-east. Both these 
 routes are reported by Captain Wilson, R.E. 
 to be practicable even for a large host like that 
 of the Israelites : the former is the more easy 
 of transit ; the latter has the advantage of an 
 abundant supply of excellent water at the 
 beginning of the journey. At the one end 
 of the route it may be regarded as settled 
 that the station by Ras-Selima was the start- 
 ing-point, if not for the whole host, yet for 
 the head-quarters of the Israelites. At the 
 other extremity the reasons which will be ad- 
 duced appear to prove that Ras Sufsafeh was 
 the summit from which the Law was delivered, 
 and the Wady er Rahah the wilderness of Sinai 
 on which the people were assembled to hear it. 
 
 The facts stated in Exodus and in the itine- 
 rary in Numbers xxxiii. are these. The first 
 station was in the wilderness of Sin, which 
 lay between Elim and Sinai. The people re- 
 mained there some days : we find no com- 
 plaint of want of water, but they suffered 
 fre^m want of food, and were supplied firsf 
 with cpiails and then with manna. From 
 this wilderness they advanced, encamping first 
 at Dophkah, then at Alush ; thence they went 
 to Rephidim, where they found no water until 
 it was supplied by a miracle from the rock of 
 Floreb^ At Rephidim they were attacked by 
 the Amalekites. I'heir next encampment was 
 in the wilderness of Sinai. Some fifteen days 
 elapsed betwt'cn the first encampment in the 
 wilderness of Sin and their arrival at the 
 Mount of God: compare xvi. i, and xix. i. 
 
 W'e may first consider the claims of the 
 more direct route, advocated with great ability 
 by Knobel, whose view has been adopted by 
 
 Keil, and is accepted in the foot-notes of this 
 commentary. It has been fully described by 
 Burckhardt, Robinson and other travellers, 
 v/hose accounts are generally con'oborated by 
 Captains Wilson and Palmer and by Mr 
 Holland. 
 
 From Ras Abu Zenimeh this route passes 
 through several Wadys to a wide undulating 
 plain, the Debbet er Ramleh. This desert is 
 identified by Knobel with the wilderness of Sin. 
 It corresponds in many striking particulars 
 with the accounts of that wilderness : bare, 
 wild, and desolate, it would offer no refresh- 
 ment to the Israelites after their first long and 
 laborious march. It lies, properly speaking, 
 between Elim and the Sinaitic group in which 
 greenstone and porphyry take the place of the 
 sandstone of the desert. The word Debbet 
 mioreover corresponds exactly in meaning to 
 Sini; and at Wady Nasb, the first station on 
 this route, there is a copious supply of water: a 
 circumstance which, combined with the supply 
 of quails and manna, gives a probable reason 
 for the delay of some days in this wilderness. 
 From \^^ady Nasb the road passes by Sarabit 
 el Khadim. At this place the Egyptians work- 
 ed mines of great extent, and the remains of 
 buildings with numerous inscriptions prove 
 that it was occupied by an Egyptian colony 
 before the time of Moses. The existence of 
 this settlement presents conflicting arguments 
 for and against the selection of this route by 
 Moses. On the one hand it may be reasoned 
 that he would avoid coming into contact with 
 Egyptians, especially since this must have 
 been a military station, and a conflict would 
 seem inevitable, since the sojourn in the dis- 
 trict extended over some days. On the other 
 hand it is admitted that the Egyptians would 
 keep the entire route from Ras Selima in good 
 order, and take great care to protect the 
 sources of water: nor considering that the 
 whole colony, as Captain Wilson states, could 
 not consist of more than 1000 men, is it at all 
 probable that they would attempt to arrest 
 the advance of the vast host of the Israelites; 
 especially if, as may be assumed, they had re- 
 ceived information of the destruction of Pha- 
 raoh’s host in the Red Sea. 
 
 The road from Sarabjt el Khadim is extreme- 
 ly rough ; but, as military authorities affirm, 
 not impracticable even for light waggons, such 
 as tlie Israelites probably used. Dophkah is 
 assumed by Knobel to be in the Wady Sih, 
 both names having the same meaning 2. Alush, 
 
 ^ Freytag, in his Arabic lexicon, s. v. explains 
 the former to mean “arena aequabilis et plana,” 
 the latter .Sin, or Sinin, “arena elatior et longius 
 ])roten5a per regionis superficiem,” a most exact 
 description of this district. 
 
 ^ sift, flowing waters, the same be- 
 
 ing the meaning of J , da/aka, from which 
 npDl was probably derived. 
 
EXODUS. XVI. XVII. XIX 
 
 437 
 
 SKETCH MAP 
 
 OF PART OF THE 
 
 PENINSULA OF SINAI 
 
 FROM THE ORDNANCE SURVEY 
 MADE IN 1868, 1869, 
 
 Capts. WILSON & PALMER, 
 
 ROYAL ENGINEERS. 
 
 (Scale 16 Statute miles to i inch.) 
 
 d j Ahaiviiviam -fa run i 
 
 
 
 T/lNufen_f 
 
 
 ER.RAHRK^ 
 
 yiRnSSUFSAFEHl 
 
 
 J.NflCUS 
 
 J.ETHTHEBT //;) 
 
 Country through which the Israelites must have passed on their way to Mount Sinai. 
 
EXODUS. XVI. XVII. XIX. 
 
 43S 
 
 according to the same critic, may be the 
 Wady el ‘Esh, where there is a spring of good 
 water: a journey of two hours from this 
 point ends in the Wady es Sheikh. 
 
 The correspondence of the sites and even of 
 the names on this route, and of the circum- 
 stances of the journey, presents a strong if not 
 conclusive argument in its favour, nor is the 
 argument affected by any discoveries made in 
 the late survey. The notes On the text are 
 therefore left in their original form ; the writer 
 still retaining, though with some diffidence in 
 face of the opinions of the explorers, his con- 
 viction that Knobel is right, so far as this 
 part of the route is concerned. 
 
 We have now to consider the other main 
 route. The first day’s journey from Ras Abu 
 Zenimeh southwards leads through a narrow 
 slip of barren sand to the open plain of 
 El Markha. From this a Wady at once 
 opens on the east, leading to the Wady 
 Feiran. This route is most unlikely to have 
 been selected by the Israelites : it would have 
 brought them into contact with Egyptians in 
 a district occupied by that people for cen- 
 turies, nor do the narrow passes present any 
 features corresponding to the wilderness of 
 Sin. On the south, however, a very even and 
 tolerably wide tract of desert land extends 
 through El Markha, and at its southern ex- 
 tremity, by a sudden turn eastwards, through 
 the Wady Feiran just described. * This 
 tract is identified by the conductors of the 
 survey and by Mr Holland with the wilderness 
 of Sin. They consider it to be the route 
 which Moses would naturally have followed 
 having once reached the station by Ras Se- 
 lima. The chief objection to this view is that 
 there are no springs of water in the district ; to 
 which it is answered that the Israelites who 
 had waggons (see Num. vii. 3) and oxen would 
 of course bring with them a supply, which 
 might suffice for a rapid march until they 
 reached the upper part of the Wady Feiran. 
 The march however was not rapid, since there 
 was a considerable delay, probably a whole 
 week, in the wilderness of Sin. The route 
 then passes north east of Mount Serbal, till 
 it meets the Wady Sheikh, from which point 
 tw'o routes lead to Er Rahah and Ras-Suf- 
 safeh ; the one direct, but rough at the upper 
 end ; the other circuitous, but well adapted 
 for the march and encampment of the Israel- 
 ites. In Wady es Sheikh about midway this 
 route meets the upper route previously de- 
 scribed. 
 
 The question on which the explorers differ 
 is one of great importance. It touches the 
 site of Rephidim, where the Israelites first 
 suffered for want of water, and where they 
 defeated the Amalekites. Captains Wilson 
 and Palmer hold that the battle was fought in 
 the Wady Feiran, under Mount Serbal. Mr. 
 Holland places Rephidim at the pass of A1 
 Watiyeh, at the eastern end of Wady es 
 
 Sheikh, to the north of the point where it 
 joins the Wady ed Deir, which leads to 
 Sinai. 
 
 If indeed the Israelites passed through 
 Wady Feiran, it seems improbable that they 
 should not have come into collision with 
 the natives. From El Hesweh it is a well- 
 watered district, winding for a considerable 
 distance through defiles which could be easily 
 defended by a people who had been trained 
 for warfare by centuries of fierce struggles 
 with the Egyptians: on the adjoining high- 
 lands towards Jebel Serbal remains of curious 
 buildings, which undoubtedly belong to a 
 very ancient period, still attest the presence of 
 a numerous population along this route h The 
 site of the battle with the Amalekites is fixed by 
 Captain Wilson near the ancient city of Feiran. 
 The hill on which Moses witnessed the combat 
 is supposed by Dr Stanley, ‘S. and P.’ p. 41, 
 to be the rocky eminence which commands 
 the palm-grove, on which in early Christian 
 times stood the church and palace of the 
 bishops of Paran. Captain Wilson holds it 
 to be the Jebel Tahuneh, on the opposite 
 side of the Wady. The whole of the Wady 
 Feiran may have been cleared of the Ama- 
 lekites by the decisive victory ; after which 
 the Israelites halted some time, with their 
 head-quarters under the palm- groves, when 
 they were visited by Jethro. This view 
 assumes the identification of the Mount of 
 God where Moses encamped in the wilder- 
 ness, c, xviii. 5, with Mount Serbal, a con- 
 jecture of Ritter’s which seems open to 
 grave objection, since the Mount of God in 
 Exodus is in all probability the group of 
 Sinai, and the term “wilderness” is scarcely ap- 
 plicable to the palm-groves of Feiran. f'rom 
 this place the Israelites might have proceeded 
 to the Wady er Rahah, either by Wady es 
 Sheikh, the longer route, but presenting no 
 impediments ; or by the W. Solaf, which 
 though rugged in part is not impracticable, 
 and in Captain Wilson’s opinion would most 
 probably have been pursued. 
 
 Mr Holland, on the other hand, believes 
 that the Israelites passed through the Wady 
 Feiran without encountering opposition, and 
 that they then traversed the Wady es Sheikh ; 
 Rephidim he places at the pass, called El 
 
 ^ Mr Holland describes them in a paper read 
 at the Church Congress, 1869. After careful 
 examination he came to the conclusion that they 
 were probably the tombs and store-houses of the 
 ancient Amalekites. They evidently were the 
 work of a large and powerful people who inha- 
 bited the peninsula at a very early period. There 
 are indications that they were, to some extent, 
 an agricultural, as well as a pastoral people, a 
 ]X)int of great importance in its bearings upon 
 the probable condition of the neighbourhood of 
 .Mount Sinai at the time of the Exodus. See In- 
 troduction, p. 245. The Egyptian names of the 
 old inhabitants were Anu and Mentu. 
 
EXODUS. XVI. XVII. XIX. 
 
 439 
 
 Wat'iyeh ; it is shut in by perpendicular 
 recks on either side. The Amalekites hold- 
 ing this defile would be in a position of 
 great strength : and their choice of this 
 p<.int for the attack is well accounted for, 
 supposing the Israelites to have reached it 
 without previous molestation. It commands 
 the entrance to the Wadys surrounding the 
 central group of Sinai, on and about which 
 the Bedouins pasture their flocks during the 
 summer. All the requirements of the nar- 
 rative appear to be satisfied by this assump- 
 tion. On the north is a large plain desti- 
 tute of water for the encampment of the 
 Israelites; there is a conspicuous hill to the 
 north of the defile commanding the battle- 
 
 ^ The engravings which accompany this note 
 were supplied by General Sir Henry James, 
 F.R.S. ^ J ’ 
 
 The first is an accurate representation of a 
 raised model of that group, together with the 
 adjoining Wadys, which is at the Topographical 
 department. The model is on the scale of six 
 
 field, pre.senting a bare cliff, such as we may 
 suppose the rock to have been which Moses 
 struck with his rod. On the south of the 
 pass is another plain sufficient for the en- 
 campment of the Amalekites, within easy 
 reach of an abundant supply of water. At 
 the foot of the hill on which Moses most 
 probably sat, if this be Rephidim, the Arabs 
 point out a rock, which they call “the seat 
 of the prophet Moses.” 
 
 Taking all points into consideration we feel 
 constrained to adopt one of the following alter- 
 natives. If, as the explorers hold, the Israelites 
 passed through the Wady Feiran, the conflict 
 with the Amalekites must have taken place 
 on the spot fixed upon by Captains Wilson 
 
 inches to the mile, and represents the natural 
 features in their true proportions. 
 
 The other is taken from a photograph, which 
 represents the northern end of the Sinaitic 
 group, with Ras-Sufsafeh in the centre, and 
 the extensive plain of the Wady Rahah in 
 front. 
 
440 
 
 EXODUS. XVI. XVII. XIX. 
 
 and Palmer. If however the battle field was 
 at El Watiyeh the Israelites may have reached 
 it by the upper route, which meets the lower 
 about midway in the Wady es Sheikh. The 
 arguments appear to the writer to preponderate 
 in favour of this view, which accepts all the 
 facts ascertained by the Expedition of Survey, 
 and presents a series of coincidences of great 
 weight in the settlement of the question. 
 
 From this point the writer accepts without 
 hesitation the conclusion to which all the 
 persons concerned in the Survey unanimously 
 arrive touching the encampment of the Is- 
 raelites in the wilderness of Sinai. The re- 
 presentation of the Sinaitic group here given 
 will enable the reader to judge of the weight of 
 the arguments which led to that conclusion. 
 
 The opinion which formerly appeared to 
 the writer to be sustained by the strongest 
 evidence identified Jebel Musa with the peak 
 of Sinai. This view was advocated by Ritter. 
 He supposed that on the south of Jebel Musa 
 there is a plain of great extent, the Wady 
 Sebaiyeh, in which the Israelites could as- 
 semble in front of the mount. The pyra- 
 midal height of Jebel Musa is described as 
 rising over it like a monolithic wall of granite, 
 a sheer precipice of 2000 feet ; on the summit 
 the mosque, the Christian chapel, and even 
 the so-called stone of Moses, are seen dis- 
 tinctly from the plain ; which Wellsted, Vol. 
 
 1 1, p. 34, describes in terms which might have 
 seemed conclusive. 
 
 “ We crossed a large plain terminating 
 in a broad and extensive valley. It has been 
 objected to the identification of Jebel Musa 
 with Mount Sinai, that the narrow valleys 
 and ravines contiguous to it could not have 
 contained the immense multitude of Israel- 
 ites. In this •valley ho^vei'er there is more 
 than ample space for them: while at the same 
 time at its termination Mount Sinai stands 
 forth in naked majesty.” A traveller who 
 spent some time in the neighbourhood lately 
 informed the writer of this note that the 
 description is quite accurate, and that it is 
 the only plain where the host could have 
 been assembled. Tischendorf, who notices 
 the extent of the plain, specially adapted for 
 so great an event, observes that “ the situation 
 supplies an excellent illustration of the words 
 in c. xix. 12, ‘that ye go not up unto the 
 mount, nor touch the border of it;’ for in 
 this plain the mountain can be touched in the 
 literal sense, rising sheer from the plain, stand- 
 ing before the eye from base to summit as a 
 whole;” and again, “Seldom could one so 
 properly be said to stand at the nether part 
 of the mount as in the plain at the foot of 
 Sinai looking upwards to the granite summit 
 2000 feet high.” 
 
 The view of Jebel Musa is admitted to be 
 singularly striking. Lepsius says, of the ascent 
 that it lies between vast heights and rocks of 
 the wildest and grandest character, giving the 
 
 impression of an approach to a spot of his- 
 torical interest. The ascent from the chapel 
 of Elijah occupies about three-quarters of an 
 hour to the summit, a height of 7,530 to 7,548 
 feet. On the top is a level space 70 or 80 feet 
 in width. Travellers give different accounts 
 of the view from this spot. Seetzen and 
 Burckhardt could see nothing ; when they 
 visited it the whole district was covered with 
 a dense mist. Robinson speaks slightingly of 
 the effect: and Ruppell says that the view is 
 shut in by higher mountains on all sides except 
 the north, on which he looked over a vast 
 expanse including the desert of Er Ramleh, 
 which is identified in these notes with the 
 wilderness of Sin. Wellsted, however, who ex- 
 plored the district with unusual care, gives a 
 most impressive description of the view. Vol. 
 II. p. 97. He ascended the mount in very clear 
 weather in January 1833, took accurate 
 trigonometrical measurements over an extent of 
 90 miles. ‘ ‘ The view comprehends a vast circle. 
 The gulphs of Suez and Akaba were distinctly 
 visible, and from the dark blue waters of the 
 latter the island of Tiran, sacred to Isis, rears 
 itself. Mount Agrib on the other side points 
 to the land of bondage. Before me is St Ca- 
 therine, its bare conical peak now capped with 
 snow. In magnificence and striking effect few 
 parts of the world can surpass the wild naked 
 scenery everywhere met with in the mountain- 
 chain which girds the sea-coast of Arabia. 
 Several years wholly passed in cruising along 
 its shores have rendered all its varieties fami- 
 liar to me, but I trace no resemblance to any 
 other in that before me : it has a character of 
 its own. Mount Sinai itself and the hills 
 which compose the district in its immediate 
 vicinity, rise in sharp, isolated conical peaks. 
 F rom their steep and shattered sides huge masses 
 have been splintered, leaving fissures rather 
 than valleys between their remaining portions. 
 These form the highest part of the range of 
 mountains that, spread over the peninsula, are 
 very generally in the winter months covered 
 with snow, the melting of which occasions 
 the torrents which everywhere devastate the 
 plains below. The peculiarities of its conical 
 formation render this district yet more distinct 
 from the adjoining heights which appear in 
 successive ridges beyond it, while the valleys 
 between them are so narrow that they can 
 scarcely be perceived. No villages and castles 
 as in Europe here animate the picture: no 
 forests, lakes, or falls of water break the silence 
 and monotony of the scene. All has the ap- 
 pearance of a vast and desolate wilderness 
 either grey, or darkly brown, or wholly black. 
 Few who stand on the summit of Mount 
 Sinai, and gaze from its fearful height upon 
 the dreary wilderness below, will fail to be 
 impressed with the fitness of the whole scene 
 for the sublime and awful dispensation, which 
 an almost universal tradition declares to have 
 been revealed there.” Schubert’s description, 
 
EXODUS. XVI. XVII. XIX. 
 
 44 r 
 
 quoted by Ritter, ‘Sinai,’ p. 587, fully corrobo- 
 rates this account. “The summit of the mount 
 was reached, a holy place to the mightier half 
 of the nations of the earth, to Jews, Moslems 
 and Christians. The view from its height of 
 7000 feet extends over a circle of more than 
 360 miles in diameter, and 1600 miles in cir- 
 cumference : a rugged outline of a desert 
 panorama of terrible beauty under the blue 
 vault of the purest and brightest heaven of 
 Arabia. No other place comes near to it in 
 all this. On the east and west the eye catches 
 glimpses of the girdle of sea which encircles 
 the highlands of the Peninsula : beyond it are 
 seen the ranges of Arabian and Egyptian 
 heights. In the space between no green 
 meadow, no cultivated field, no wood, no 
 brook, no village, no Alpine hut. Only storm 
 and thunder resound in the wilderness of 
 Sinai, else for ever silent : a chain of rock 
 standing as on the third day of creation when 
 as yet there was no grass, no tree upon the 
 earth : a mass of granite, unmingled with later 
 formations; none of its abrupt deep ravines 
 are filled up with sandstone, or chalk, or other 
 alluvial deposits : strata of Grey wacke and Ba- 
 salt run like black veins for leagues through 
 its walls and peaks. Here on such a spot as 
 this was the law given, which pointed to Christ 
 by whom it was fulfilled.” 
 
 The accuracy of these descriptions is borne 
 out by the accounts of other travellers. Thus 
 Henniker quoted by Dr Stanley, ‘S. P.’ p. 12 : 
 “The view from Jebel Musa (where the par- 
 ticular aspect of the infinite complication of 
 jagged peaks and varied ridges is seen with the 
 greatest perfection) is as if Arabia Petrsea were 
 an ocean of lava, which, whilst its waves were 
 running mountains high, had suddenly stood 
 still.” 
 
 Unfortunately for this hypothesis the raised 
 model, from which the plan is taken, proves 
 that the valley immediately below Jebel Musa 
 could not have held a considerable portion of 
 the Israelites ; it is, as Dean Stanley describes 
 it, rough, uneven, and narrow. It is proved, 
 moreover, that there is no level plain in the 
 Wady Sebaiyeh on which the Israelites could 
 be assembled within sight of the summit of 
 Jebel Musa, which however is visible at 
 many points between the entrance of the 
 Wady (which lies to the south-east) and its 
 farthest end, a distance of nearly seven miles. 
 This circumstance, which rests on the au- 
 thority of military surveyors, seems con- 
 clusive. Jebel Musa, the loftiest and grandest 
 summit of the group, may have been included 
 in the tremendous manifestations of divine 
 power, but the announcement of the Law must 
 have taken place elsewhere. 
 
 On the northern extremity however there 
 is a concurrence of cvi'cumstances in favour of 
 Ras Sufsafeh. At its foot lies the plain Wady 
 ed Deir extending to the north-east, meet- 
 ing the Wady es Sheikh, which has been above 
 
 (Photograph by the Ordnance Survey.) 
 
442 
 
 EXODUS. XVI. XVII. XIX. 
 
 identified with Rephidim, and immediately 
 in front the far wider plain Er Rahah ; to the 
 left a plain of greater extent than was pre- 
 viously supposed, the Seil Leja. From every 
 part of these two Wadys the granite rock 
 of Ras Sufsafeh is distinctly visible, and there 
 is space for the entire host of the Israelites, 
 taking the highest calculation of their numbers. 
 This fact, of cardinal importance in the ques- 
 tion, is attested by the military officers who 
 conducted the survey. 
 
 Indeed Sir Henry James concurs with those 
 officers in the opinion that no spot in the 
 world can be pointed out which comibines in 
 a more remarkable manner the conditions of a 
 commanding height, and of a plain in every 
 part of which the sights and sounds described 
 in Exodus would reach an assembled multi- 
 tude of more than two million souls. The 
 description of Ras Sufsafeh, the central height in 
 the subjoined engraving, taken from the pho- 
 tographs, presents many remarkable coinci- 
 dences; and though inferior in height to the 
 peak of Jebel Musa, it satisfies the main con- 
 ditions of the narrative. 
 
 Dean Stanley, ‘S. P.’ p. 42 — 44, has drawn 
 out, with his usual felicity of expression, the 
 most striking characteristics of the scenery. 
 He observes that the existence of such a plain 
 in front of such a cliff' is so remarkable a 
 coincidence with the sacred narrative., as to 
 furnish a strong internal argument, not only 
 of its identity with the scene, but of the scene 
 itself having been described by an eye-witness. 
 He then dilates upon other not less impressive 
 circumstances. The awful and lengthened 
 approach as to some natural sanctuary; the 
 plain not broken and narrowly shut in, like 
 almost all others in the range, but presenting a 
 long retiring sweep against which the people 
 could remove and stand afar off' ; the cliff 
 rising like a huge altar in front of the Avhole 
 congregation, and visible against the sky in 
 lonely grandeur from end to end of the whole 
 
 plain, the very image of the “mount that 
 might be touched,” and from which the 
 “voice” of God might be heard far and wide 
 over the stillness of the plain below, widened 
 at that point to the utmost extent by the con- 
 fluence of all the contiguous valleys; the place 
 where beyond all other parts of the Peninsula 
 is the adytum withdrawn as if in the end of 
 the world from all the stir and confusion of 
 earthly things. We are also indebted to 
 Dean Stanley for noting other details which 
 are fully borne out by the late exploration, and 
 scarcely leave room for doubt as to the exact 
 point of the delivery of the Law. A small 
 eminence at the entrance of the convent valley 
 is marked by the name of Aaron, from which 
 he is believed to have witnessed the festival of 
 the golden calf; a tradition which fixes the 
 locality of the encamption on Wady Rahah. 
 Two other points meet here and nowhere 
 else; first Moses is described as descending the 
 mountain without seeing the people, the shout 
 strikes the ear of his companion before they 
 ascertain the cause; the view breaks on him 
 suddenly as he draws nigh to the camp, and 
 he throws down the tables and dashes them in 
 pieces “beneath the mount:” now anyone de- 
 scending the mountain path by which Ras Suf- 
 safeh is accessible (according to Captain Wilson 
 in three-quarters of an hour to a practised 
 mountaineer) through the oblique gullies which 
 flank it, would hear the sounds borne through 
 the silence of the plain, but would not see the 
 plain itself until he emerged from the lateral 
 Wady; and when he did so he would be im- 
 mediately under the precipitous cliff of Sufsa- 
 feh. The brook which came down from the 
 mount is probably identified with that which 
 flows through the Seil Leja. 
 
 Taking all these circumstances into con- 
 sideration it seems impossible to resist the 
 conclusion that the Law was delivered on Ras 
 Sufsafeh, to the Israelites encamped in the plain 
 below. 
 
( ^43 ) 
 
 ESSAY I. 
 
 ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 I. Sources of Eg}^ptian histoiy. 2. General results. 3. List of Pharaohs from 12th to 20th Dynasty. 
 4. Time of Abram’s visit; objections and proofs; Story of the two Brothers; Benihassan; 
 Story of Saneha; presents to Abram. 5. Time of Joseph; invasion of Hyksos ; inquiry into 
 Manetho’s statements; era of Set Nubte. 6. Apepi or Apophis not the Pharaoh of Joseph. 
 7. Connection of I2th Dynasty with On. 8. Tomb of Chnumhotep ; Egyptian nomes. 9. 
 Egyptian irrigation ; labyrinth under Amenemha III. 10. Probable condition of the Israelites 
 under the Hyksos. ii. Inquiry into date of Exodus. 12. Amosis or Aahmes L, a new king, 
 a conqueror, builder of ports, &c., employs forced labourers. 13. Chronology, dates examined. 
 14. Last year of Thotmes II.; probable date of the Exodus. 15. Amenophis I. 16. Thotmes I. 
 17. Thotmes IL; events of reign ; character of Queen Hatasou. 18. Campaigns of Thotmes III. 
 concluded 40 years after decease of Thotmes II. 19. Objections considered. 20. Amenophis II. 
 and Thotmes IV. 21. Amenophis III. and the Queen Tei. 22. Religious revolution in Egypt. 
 23. Statements of Manetho, Cheremon, Lysimachus, and Diodorus. 24. The identification of 
 Rameses II. with the Pharaoh of Moses considered. 25. State of Palestine under the early 
 Judges. 26. Campaigns of Seti I. against the Cheta. 27. Rameses IL, length of reign, first 
 campaign in Syria. 28. Fortresses built or enlarged. 29. Employment of Aperu identified 
 with Hebrew captives. 30. Alliance of Rameses with Cheta. 31. State of Palestine described 
 in Egyptian Papyrus. 32. State of Goshen at the same time incompatible with occupation by 
 Israelites. 33. Reign of Merneptah ; events and dates coincide wdth the first hypothesis in this 
 Essay. 34. Rameses HI. 
 
 (i.) Our knowledge of early Egyptian history 
 is derived chiefly from monumental inscrip- 
 tions and papyri, which have been deciphered 
 within the last few years: partly also from 
 fragments of Manetho, and from the accounts 
 of Greeks who visited Egypt after the close 
 of the Old Testament history.^ 
 
 The historical notices drawn from the last 
 source have little independent value, f'acts of 
 importance, corroborated by modern re- 
 searches, are recorded by Herodotus, Dio- 
 dorus, and other Greeks, but they are mixed 
 with legends, disfigured by manifest forgeries, 
 and their statements, so far as regards the 
 chronology, are irreconcileable with contem- 
 porary inscriptions. 
 
 The fragments of Manetho ^ have a higher 
 
 J The principal object of this dissertation is to 
 bring the latest discoveries to bear upon biblical 
 questions, reference is therefore seldom made to 
 works of great value already well known to all 
 students.^ It is right to observe that it was 
 printed in 1868 ; a few references have been 
 made in the notes, and two or three in the text, 
 to works which have appeared before the last 
 revision in 1870. 
 
 2 The best aceount of Manetho is given by Rev. 
 H. Browne in Kitto’s ‘ Cyclopsedia.’ All the frag- 
 
 value. He was a priest, conversant with the 
 literature of ancient Egypt, and had access to 
 monuments which, under the Ptolemies, were 
 for the most part in a state of perfect preser- 
 vation. The original history perished at a 
 very early period, and is only known from ex- 
 tracts in Josephus. The catalogue of Kings 
 begins with gods, and continues through 
 thirty dynasties of mortals, ending with Nec- 
 tanebo 343 B.C. The list is derived from 
 authentic sources, but there are numerous 
 errors and mis-statements attributable in 
 part to the ignorance or carelessness of 
 transcribers. This remark applies to names, 
 but still more to dates, which are seldom 
 confirmed, and often contradicted, by the 
 monuments.^ 
 
 The facts drawn from old Egyptian docu- 
 ments are to be found in the first volume of 
 Bunsen’s ‘Egypt.’ The extracts in Josephus 
 are taken from the AlyvimaKd ; the catalogue of 
 dynasties is preserved by Sy ocellus, 800 A.D., 
 in two widely-differing recensions, one from the 
 lost ‘Chronographia ’ of Julius Africanus, 220 
 A. D., the other from the ‘ Chronicon ’ of Euse- 
 bius, of which we have now the Armenian 
 version. 
 
 3 The regnal years of many kings ?.re deter- 
 
444 
 
 ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 ments are of the highest importance. Some 
 refer to past transactions, and are chiefly 
 valuable as showing what view the Egyptiars 
 took of their ancient history, more especially 
 of the succession and character of their an- 
 cient kiugs.^ Other inscriptions relate to 
 contemporary events, which they describe for 
 the most part in highly coloured and inflated 
 language, but apparently without careless or 
 wilful misstatement of the facts. 
 
 (2.) From these monuments the history of a 
 large portion of the ancient and middle em- 
 pire, with which alone we are now concerned, 
 has been constructed, though not without 
 long intervals of partial or total obscurity. 
 The earliest part of that history has lately 
 been investigated with great care, and the 
 results given in a work by M. de Rouge,® to 
 which reference will frequently be made in 
 the following pages. The names of nearly all 
 the Pharaohs of the first six dynasties have 
 been found, together with notices which 
 prove the extent and complete organisation of 
 their kingdom. 
 
 The interval between the sixth and the 
 eleventh dynasties is of uncertain duration. 
 No light is* thrown upon it by contemporary 
 monuments. M. de Rouge ® considers it pro- 
 bable that “ the royal families placed here in 
 the lists of Manetho do but represent sove- 
 reigns of a part of the country, contemporary 
 with other Pharaohs,” 
 
 The twelfth dynasty again stands out in 
 clear and strong relief I'he Pharaohs were 
 lords of all Egypt ; their monuments repre- 
 sent the highest development of sculpture and 
 architecture, and the main events of their 
 reigns are recorded in numerous inscriptions. 
 Some facts of importance have also been lately 
 ascertained in reference to the early kings of 
 the thirteenth dynasty, proving that they too 
 were masters of all Egypt, and therefore that 
 the invasion of the Shepherd kings could not 
 
 mined from contemporary inscriptions. The dis- 
 crepancies in Manetho are so numerous that they 
 can scarcely be accounted for by errors of trans- 
 cription. 
 
 ■* The two most important documents re- 
 ferring to the past are the Turin Papyrus 
 (published by Lepsius, ‘ Auswahl,’ 1842, and 
 ‘ Koenigsbuch,’ 1858), and the list of kings 
 lately discovered in the temple of Abydos by 
 M. Mariette. It is printed in the ‘ Zeit- 
 schrift,’ 1864, by M. de Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ 
 pi. ii., and by M. Mariette, ‘ Fouilles,’ vol. ii. 
 It represents Seti I., accompanied by his son 
 Rameses II., in the act of rendering homage to 
 sevenly-six of his ancestors, beginning with Mena 
 or .Menes. 
 
 ® ‘ Recherches sur les Monuments qu’on pent 
 attril/ucr aux six premieres Dynasties de Mane- 
 thon.’ I’aris, 1866. 
 
 ® ‘ Recherches,’ p. iv. This statement is 
 again made in M. de Rouge’s ‘Expose de I’Etat 
 actuel des Etudes egyptiennes,’ 1867. See 
 p. 17. 
 
 have taken place at the time formerly assumed 
 by Lepsius.^ 
 
 The interval between the fourth king of 
 the thirteenth dynasty and the last of the 
 seventeenth is a period of confusion and dis- 
 turbance. The monuments supply rx data by 
 which the order of events and the chronology 
 can be determined, or even probably conjec- 
 tured. That Egypt during that time was in- 
 vaded by the Hyksos, who were masters of 
 the north, has been proved by the researches 
 of M. Mariette: part of the country appears 
 to have been governed throughout the period 
 by contemporary dynasties, ending with Rase- 
 kenen ; but the most complete list of the an- 
 cestors of Seti I. gives the name of no Pha- 
 raoh between Amenemha, the last king but 
 one of the twelfth dynasty, and Aahmes, or 
 Amosis, the first of the eighteenth. 
 
 From the beginning of the eighteenth dy- 
 nasty, when the Hyksos were expelled by 
 Aahmes L, the monumental history of Egypt 
 is tolerably complete ; the succession of nearly 
 all the Pharaohs and the principal events in 
 the reigns of the most distinguished are dis- 
 tinctly recorded. The chronology, however, 
 is uncertain ; the regnal years are often found 
 on the monuments, but without even an ap- 
 proximation to completeness ; with one excep- 
 tion, to be noticed presently, no general era, 
 or computation of lengthened periods, is based 
 on the authority of ancient inscriptions. 
 
 (3.) The subjoined list embraces the whole 
 period within which the Israelites and their 
 ancestors are assumed by any scholars to 
 have been in contact with Egypt. before or 
 soon after the settlement in Canaan. 
 
 12th Dynasty. — Amenemha, Osirtasin I., 
 Amenemha II., Osirtasin II., Osirtasin III,, 
 Amenemha III., Amenemha IV., and a Q^ueen, 
 Ra-Sebek-Nefrou. 
 
 13th Dynasty. — A series of Pharaohs bear- 
 ing a general name, Sebek-hotep. 
 
 14th to 17th Dynasty. — Hyksos, and Egyp- 
 tians ; the last of the Hyksos, Apepi, or 
 Apophis : the last of the contemporary Egyp- 
 tians, Ta-aaken Rasekenen. 
 
 1 8th Dynasty. — Aahmes I. (Nefertari 
 Queen), Amenhotep I., Thotmes I. (Aahmes 
 Regent), Thotmes II., Thotmes III., Amen- 
 hotep II., Thotmes IV., Amenhotep III., 
 Amenhotep IV. (who took the name Khun- 
 Aten), three other kings not recognised as 
 legitimate, Horemheb. 
 
 19th Dynasty.— Rameses I., Seti I., Ra- 
 mescs II., Merneptah I , Seti II. or Merneptah 
 II., Amemmeses, Siptah, and Tausei. 
 
 20th Dynasty. — Rameses III., twelve kings 
 bearing the name Rameses with special desig- 
 nations. 
 
 (4.) The first contact with Egypt is generally 
 admitted,*^ and may be here assumed to have 
 
 7 See M. de Rouge, ‘Recherches,’ pp. vi. vii. 
 
 Lepsius is the only exception. All other 
 scholars in England, France, and Germany, are 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 445 
 
 taken place before the eighteenth dynasty; 
 the first question to be considered is whether 
 the visit of Abram, and the immigration of 
 the Israelites, are to be referred to the period 
 of disturbance and general misery which fol- 
 lowed the invasion of the Hyksos, and lasted 
 till their expulsion, or to the earlier period 
 when Egypt w^as united and prosperous under 
 its native sovereigns. 
 
 The natural impression made by the narra- 
 tive in the Book of Genesis would certainly 
 be that the transactions which it sets before 
 us so fully and distinctly, belong to the earlier 
 period. The account of Abram’s visit (Gen. 
 xii. 10-20) is very brief, but it evidently 
 represents Egypt as in a condition of great 
 prosperity. It was the resort of foreigners 
 in times of famine. Pharaoh and his princes 
 are rich and luxurious, nor are there any 
 indications of war or intestine troubles. 
 
 It has, however, been argued that some 
 facts in this short narrative point rather to 
 the habits of a nomad and half-savage race, 
 than to the polished and civilised Pharaohs of 
 the ancient empire. It is urged that repre- 
 sentations of camels are not found on Egyp- 
 tian monuments; but they formed part of the 
 property which Abram acquired by the favour 
 of Pharaoh. It is, however, known that long 
 before that period the Pharaohs were masters 
 of a large part of the Peninsula of Sinai, and 
 of the intervening district, nor is it likely that 
 they would have kept up their communica- 
 tions without using the ‘ ships of the desert.’ 
 Camels were not likely to be represented on 
 the sepulchral monuments at Benihassan,® far 
 from the frontiers of Egypt: they were not 
 used in the interior of the country, and were 
 probably regarded as unclean. 
 
 Two objections of more importance rest on 
 the supposed habits and feelings of the early 
 
 so far agreed, they place the visit of Abraham 
 before the eighteenth dynasty. Dr. Ebers places 
 the visit of Abraham before the Hyksos, and 
 that of Joseph some time after their expidsion. 
 This involves, according to his calculations, 
 an interval of some eight or ten centuries 
 between Abraham and Joseph. The argu- 
 ments by which he shows that neither could 
 have visited Egypt during the Hyksos period 
 corroborate the position taken in this disserta- 
 tion. Dr. Ebers’ work, ‘ Aigypten und die 
 Bucher Moses,’ published a few months since, 
 reached me after this dissertation was ready for 
 the press. Reference will be made to it in the 
 notes. 
 
 ® We have no other monuments which repre- 
 sent the habits of Egypt under the twelfth 
 dynasty. There are no representations of camels 
 on tnonuments of the Ptolemaic or the Roman 
 period, when they were of course w^ell known to 
 the Egyptians. Ebers supposes that it was con- 
 trary to the rules of Egyptian art to represent 
 these uncouth forms. This is possible, but 
 scarcely probable, since the giraffe and other 
 strange animals are common on the monuments. 
 It is more probable that they were held unclean. 
 
 Egyptian kings : late discoveries have con- 
 verted these objections into strong argu- 
 ments in favour of the earlier date. 
 
 T'he fear which Abram felt lest his wife 
 should be taken from him, and that he should 
 be slain for her sake, would seem to indicate 
 wild and savage habits, such as can scarcely 
 be attributed to native Egyptians, but in the 
 story of the two brothers,^® the Pharaoh of 
 the time, acting on the advice of his coun- 
 sellors, sends two armies to fetch a beautiful 
 woman by force and then to murder her hus- 
 band. The story is full of wild superstitions, 
 but the portraiture of manners is remarkably 
 simple and graphic, and it unquestionably 
 represents the feelings of the Egyptians at the 
 time of their highest civilisation. It belongs 
 to the age of Rameses II., and the act is at- 
 tributed not to a tyrant and oppressor, but to 
 a Pharaoh beloved by his people, and passing 
 into heaven at his decease. 
 
 Another curious coincidence has been 
 pointed out by M. Chabas, ‘ Les Papyrus 
 hieratiques de Berlin,’ p. xiv. In a very an- 
 cient papyrus of Berlin, referring to the 12th 
 dynasty, the wife and children of a foreigner 
 are confiscated as a matter of course, and 
 become the property of the king. M. Chabas 
 observes, “G’estainsi qu’a une epoque pro- 
 bablement un peu posterieure a celle des cvtne- 
 ments que raconte notre papyrus, Abraham 
 se vit enlever sa femme Sarai, qui fut placte 
 dans la maison dii Roi.” 
 
 It is again objected that Abram was not 
 likely to be admitted into the presence, much 
 less into the favour, of a native Egyptian king, 
 whereas a nomad of kindred origin and similar 
 habits might willingly receive him. 
 
 We have, however, two distinct and abso- 
 lute proofs that under the twelfth dynasty a 
 personage of the race, habits, and position of 
 Abram would be welcomed under such cir 
 cumstances as those described in Genesis. 
 
 In the sepulchral monuments at Benihassan, 
 and in the tomb of the Governor of the pro- 
 vince, a man of the highest rank, nearly related 
 to the reigning Pharaoh, Osirtasin II., is found 
 one of the most interesting and best known 
 pictures of the ancient empire. It represents 
 the arrival of a nomad chief, with his family 
 and dependents, to render homage and sedc 
 the protection of the prince. These foreigners 
 are called Amu,’^ a name which was given 
 
 This curious story, the earliest fiction in 
 existence, is among the select Papyri in the 
 British Museum : it is called the Papyrus 
 d’Orbiney : a fac-simile is published by the 
 Tnaistees of the Museum: it contains nineteen 
 pages of hieratic writing, remarkably clear and , 
 legible : the style is simple, and presents fewer 
 difficulties than any similar document. It has 
 been translated in part by Mr. Goodwin, Mr. 
 Le Page Renouf, and M. de Rouge. The story 
 abounds throughout with illustrations of the nar- 
 rative in the Pentateuch. 
 
 The word is applied to pastoral nomads, 
 
446 ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 specially to the native tribes on the north-west 
 of Egypt and in Palestine of Semitic descent. 
 I'he chief is called the Hak, or prince, corre- 
 sponding to Sheich, as used chiefly of heads 
 of tribes ; his name is Abshah.^^ The features 
 of the family, their colour, and their costume, 
 a rich tunic, or “ coat of many colours,” are 
 thoroughly Semitic. It is to be observed also 
 that, although they are represented as sup- 
 pliants, making lowly obeisance, and bringing 
 the customary gifts, yet the prince receives 
 them as persons of some distinction : a scribe 
 who presents them holds a tablet describing 
 their'number and purpose, and a slave behind 
 the governor bears his sandals, which were 
 only taken off on ceremonial occasions. 
 
 Not less striking is the evidence drawn 
 from one of the oldest papyri in existence, 
 lately translated by Mr, Goodwin. He calls 
 it the Story of Saneha: the events which it 
 relates belong to the reigns of the first two 
 kings of the twelfth dynasty, Amenemha and 
 Osirtasin. Saneha (i.e. son of the Sycomore, 
 a name probably given or assumed on his 
 adoption by the Egyptians) was, like the chief 
 above described, an Amu; he was not only 
 received into the service of the Pharaoh, but 
 rose to high rank, and, even after a long resi- 
 dence as a fugitive in a foreign land, he was 
 restored to favour, made “ a counsellor among 
 the officers, set among the chosen ones : pre- 
 cedence is accorded to him among the cour- 
 tiers, he is installed in the house of a prince, 
 and prepares his sepulchre among the tombs 
 of the chief officers.” Mr. Goodwin points 
 out the resemblance between this narrative and 
 the History of Abraham ; but it proves some- 
 thing more, for it shows that to an Egyptian of 
 that early age the circumstances in the history 
 of Abraham and of Joseph which are often 
 regarded as improbable would appear most 
 natural, facts if not of frequent, yet of certain 
 occurrence. 
 
 M. Chabas, in a treatise on the same papy- 
 rus, observes — “ Ce narrateur devint le favori 
 de ce monarque {sc. Asirtasin) et fut pendant 
 quekjue temps propose a I’administration de 
 
 and specially those of Arabia and Palestine. 
 It is an I'.gyptian word, derived from Amu 
 
 Hi? 
 
 ? a herdsman’s scourge. 
 
 The 
 
 word Shasous, which will occur frequently, is 
 aho applied to nomads, but probably with 
 reference to their w'andering habits, equivalent 
 to } 5 edouins. Ilyksos is not the name of a 
 people, but of the dynasty, and probably means 
 Prince of the Shasous. M. Chabas objects to 
 this etymology, but it is generally accepted, and 
 re'.ts on strong grounds. 
 
 Some have thought that the name is iden- 
 tical with Abraham, an ojiinion which is un- 
 doubtedly incorrect ; but there is a very remark- 
 able resemblance between the names, both in 
 form and meaning: since “shah” means sand, 
 and “ raham ” means multitude. \Vhen Abshah 
 was received, Abraham would not be rejected. 
 
 I’Egypte, pour en de'velopper les res sources. Ce 
 detail nous rappelle le role que,selon TEcriture, 
 Pharaon attribua au patriarche Joseph.” 
 
 It may also be argued that such a reception 
 was far less likely to be accorded to either 
 of these Patriarchs at any later period. The 
 little that is positively known of the Hyksos, 
 the masters of Tanis, indicates a certain harsh- 
 ness and even ferocity of character ; nor after 
 their expulsion were the kings either of the 
 eighteenth or nineteenth dynasty likely to look 
 with favour upon foreigners bearing, as may 
 be probably inferred, a close resemblance to 
 them in features and language. The presents 
 too which the Pharaoh made to Abram in- 
 clude sheep, oxen, asses, and slaves, all of 
 which are frequently represented on the early 
 monuments, and specially at Benihassan,^^-- a 
 fact the more important to be noticed since 
 V. Bohlen and others ventured to deny that 
 either sheep or asses were common in Egypt : 
 the ass was looked upon as unclean under the 
 middle and later Empire, as Typhonian, and 
 would not probably have been presented to a 
 favoured stranger. The omission of horses is 
 remarkable. The Plyksos, admitted to be 
 Arabians, probably brought the horse into 
 Egypt, and no animal was more prized by the 
 later Pharaohs but it was wholly unknown, 
 so far as we can judge from the monuments, 
 to the Egyptians of the twelfth or any earlier 
 dynasty.^^ 
 
 In fact, the notices of Abram’s visit to Egypt 
 agree so entirely with all that is certainly 
 known of the Egyptians under the twelfth 
 dynasty, and differ in so many material points 
 from what is known from the monuments or 
 early tradition of the Hyksos, and of the 
 Middle Empire, that critics of very opposite 
 schools have concurred in adopting the earlier 
 date, notwithstanding the difficulty presented 
 by their acceptance of the chronology of 
 Manetho as given by Africanus or Josephus. 
 For my own part I regard it as all but cer- 
 
 This alludes particularly to the hard, sullen 
 features, wholly unlike those of Egyptian princes, 
 found on the lately-discovered monuments \vhich 
 represent the Ilyksos at Tanis. See ‘ Rev. 
 Archeologique,’ 1861, p. 105. Dr. Ebers gives 
 the head of the Sphinx from M. Mariette, 
 1. c. 208. 
 
 Sheep are represented on the Pyramids — in 
 one inscription 3208 as the property of an 
 individual. Asses of great size and beauty are 
 found in many pictures at Benihassan. I believe, 
 but may be mistaken, that they occur compara- 
 tively seldom on the monuments of later periods. 
 
 V. Bolden infers from this omission that 
 Genesis could not have been written by an 
 author conversant with higyi)tian manners. The 
 true inference is that he describes exactly what 
 took place at the time which he gives an account 
 of. It is very ])robable that horses were first 
 introduced under the 12th dynasty, after the 
 reign of Osirtasin. From that time the inter- 
 course with Asia appears to have been constant. 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 447 
 
 tain that Abraham visited Egypt in some reign 
 between the middle of the eleventh and the 
 thirteenth dynasty, and most probably under 
 one of the earliest Pharaohs of the twelfth. 
 
 (5.) The history of Joseph belongs to a period 
 about two centuries later.’® The duration of 
 the twelfth dynasty is estimated at 2 1 3 years ; 
 and as the monuments were numerous and 
 complete in Manetho’s time, it is probable 
 that the regnal years are drawn from them, 
 and that the numbers are tolerably correct. 
 It has been lately proved beyond all doubt 
 that the invasion of the Hyksos could not 
 have taken place immediately afterwards, as 
 was formerly supposed. Colossal figures of 
 great beauty, and inscriptions, have been found 
 at Tanis, the head-quarters of the Hyksos, 
 which prove that the fourth king of the thir- 
 teenth dynasty was still in undisturbed posses- 
 sion of that city ; and monumental notices of 
 even later kings are found, both at Tanis and 
 in other parts of Egypt, scarcely reconcileable 
 with the presence of the Arabian invaders.’' 
 
 So far as the monuments and other Egyp- 
 tian documents are concerned, we are at 
 liberty to place the visit of Joseph either to- 
 wards the end of the twelfth dynasty, the ear- 
 lier portion of the thirteenth, or under the 
 first Hyksos. 
 
 We are bound to give special attention to 
 this last alternative ; it was maintained by all 
 ancient writers, and is accepted, with few but 
 important exceptions, by modern critics. 
 Thus Syncellus: “ It is asserted unanimously 
 by all that Joseph ruled over Egypt in the 
 time of Apophis Eusebius, speaking of the 
 seventeenth (Shepherd) dynasty, says Kara 
 
 TOVTOvs AlyvTTTioiu [iaaiXfVS Icocr/'/c/) ^eiKwrat. 
 
 This unanimous consent, however, refers 
 only to Josephus and to those who drew 
 their information exclusively from his account 
 of Manetho’s work. It depended wholly 
 upon chronological calculations, and it is of 
 course quite clear that, if the Shepherd dynasty 
 had lasted some 800 years, all the narrative in- 
 Genesis would have fallen within it. 
 
 This necessitates a brief inquiry into the 
 grounds for the statements in IVIanetho. 
 
 We have first an account of a dynasty of 
 six Shepherd kings: their names in Josephus 
 are Salatis, Beon, Apachnas, Apophis, Jannes, 
 Assir. The general accuracy of this list 
 may be admitted, transposing one name only, 
 viz., Apophis, who is known to have been 
 the last of the Shepherd kings. The late 
 discoveries of M. Mariette at Tanis have 
 given us contemporary authority for the 
 first name. It is Semitic, old Arabian pro- 
 bably (2aXaTi? = L 3 ’*W’ mighty, ruler), but the 
 
 The dates are not certain, but Isaac was 
 born some years after Abraham’s visit to Egypt, 
 lived 180 years (Gen. xxxv. 28), and died before 
 Joseph .was sold by his brethren. 
 
 SeeM, de Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ p. vii. We 
 owe these important facts to M. Mariette. 
 
 Egyptians transcribe it accurately and give 
 the full title, with the invariable adjuncts 
 of Egyptian etiquette, “ the Good Deity, star 
 of both worlds. Son of the Sun, Set Shalti,’® 
 beloved by Sutech, Lord of Avaris.”' So that 
 Salatis, the first of the Shepherd dynasty, 
 assumed at once the state and title of the 
 Pharaohs, and at least claimed to be sovereign 
 of all Egypt. The second name Beon or 
 “ Benon,” the m^ore correct reading of Afri- 
 canus, is also found.'® Like many other words 
 it has probably the same meaning in Semitic 
 and Egyptian, Son of the Eye, i.e. the beloved 
 one. T he order of the three last names is 
 proved by the T urin Papyrus, and by the well- 
 ascertained position of Apophis. 
 
 Up to this point we have a solid foundation ; 
 six kings, foreigners, two bearing Semitic 
 names, and recognised by ancient Egyptian 
 documents. The duration of the dynasty 
 may have been between two and three cen- 
 turies. 
 
 But in addition to these kings, Manetho, 
 according to Josephus, states that a dynasty 
 or dynasties of Shepherds ruled over all Egypt 
 r.p wards of 500 years. Africanus gives two 
 dynasties, one lasting 284 years, the other 
 518. For this statement, however, no evidence 
 is adduced. Not a single name is given by 
 Josephus. The Turin Papyrus has no indi- 
 cation of the dynasty. The monuments are 
 absolutely silent. The statement, indeed, is 
 in glaring contradiction to the fact that Salatis 
 was the first and Apophis the last of the 
 Shepherd kings. It involves an admission of 
 the most improbable of all assumptions, for 
 which not a shadow of resemblance can be 
 found in ancient or modern history, — an as- 
 sumption that, after a total suspension of the 
 national life lasting from five to ten centuries, 
 after a complete overthrow of their govern- 
 ment, institutions, and religion, the Egyptians 
 reverted to the exact point of civilisation in 
 which the invaders found them, speaking and 
 writing their own language without a trace of 
 foreign infusion,*’ worshipping the old gods 
 with the old rites, retaining their old theology, 
 
 The group is noticeable jj 
 
 It is found also in a mutilated form in the 
 Turin Papyrus. 
 
 In the Papyrus Sailier i, pi. i, 1 . 7. 
 
 I'V p. The Eg}fptian is Beben-an, which 
 Dr. Ebers derives from Ben, “son,” and “fi;;,” 
 the eye. The Egyptians have the well-known 
 Hebrew and classical term, “child of the eye ” 
 for “ darling.” 
 
 21 The strong infusion of Semitic belongs to 
 the age of Rimeses 11 . The inscriptions of the 
 eighteenth dynasty are nearly free from it. A 
 very remarkable confirmation of the above state- 
 ments is found in the account of the mummy of 
 Aah-hotep, mother of Ahmes I., given by M. Ma- 
 riette, ‘ Musee de Boulaq,’ p. 254: — “ L’Egypte 
 est revenue sous la xvii™® dynastie avec la plus 
 singuliere persistance au style de la xi“®.” 
 
448 ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 and recognising in the descendants of their 
 old Pharaohs the inheritors of all their titles 
 and prerogatives. It seems quite incredible 
 that such a statement should have been adopted, 
 as adopted it has been by critics remarkable 
 for sagacity, and some for caution approaching 
 to scepticism. It is the only ground for the 
 assumption that Joseph must needs have 
 visited Egypt while it was under the dominion 
 of the Hyksos. 
 
 A\ e do not attach much importance to 
 the chronology of this remote period, so far 
 as it rests on Egyptian documents : it is to a 
 great extent conjectural, and incapable of proof 
 or disproof. But it is a remarkable fact that 
 the only inscription on Egyptian monuments 
 of any age which mentions an era distinct 
 from the regnal year of the actual sovereign, 
 is found on a monument referring to the 
 Hyksos. The importance of this inscription 
 was pointed out by M. de Rouge, ^ and it has 
 been carefully examined by M. Chabas. The 
 personage who set up the tablet was an 
 official of high rank. Governor of Tanis under 
 Raineses II. The date which he gives is the 
 four hundredth year from the era of Set Nubte, 
 i.e. Set the golden, under the reign of a 
 Hyksos king, Set-aa-Pehti, ue. Set the mighty 
 and victorious, d'here is of course a wide 
 field for conjecture here. The reign of 
 Rameses was a very long one (see further 
 on, p. 464), and the Hyksos king is not posi- 
 tively iclentitied. AVe may consider it as 
 almost certain that the Egyptian governor, 
 a descendant of the Hyksos, believed that 
 400 years had elapsed between the era of 
 Set and some year in the reign of Rameses. 
 AVheii, again, we consider the analogy of all 
 ancient eras, and the natural course of events, 
 we are all but forced to infer that this era 
 must coincide with the formal recognition of 
 Set as the chief object of worship to the 
 dynasty. If the Papyrus Sallier were our 
 only authority, that recognition might be as- 
 signed to Apophis: but the. late discovery of 
 the style and title of the first of the Shepherd 
 Kings, Salatis the beloved of Set,^ proves 
 that the establishment of Set worship at 
 d'anis was far more ancient, contemporary in 
 fact with the inauguration of the Shepherd 
 dynasty. 
 
 d'he inferences from these facts tally very 
 remarkably with the chronology which upon 
 the whole appears to be best supported by 
 
 ‘ Revue Archeologique,’ Feb. 1864. M. 
 Mariette sent a copy to the same Review, March, 
 1865. M. Clialias lias two articles on it printed 
 in the ‘ Zeitschrift,’ April and May, 1865. The 
 tablet was found in a mass of ruins in the 
 sanctuary of the great temple at San, i.e. 
 Tanis. 
 
 It is probable that Set-aa-pehti, i.e. Set 
 the mighty and victorious, was either the 
 Egyptian translation of the Semitic Set-Shalt, 
 Set the mighty ruler, or a second title borne in 
 accordance with Egyptian usage. 
 
 Biblical and documental evidence. The end 
 of the reign of Rameses is most probably 
 about 1340 B.c. From this, 400 years would 
 bring us to the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, about 1750 b . c . The expulsion of 
 the Hyksos being taken about 1500, we have 
 thus 250 years for their dynasty, and 250 
 more would bring us to the time of Abraham. 
 Such arguments are of course open to objec- 
 tions, nor are they given here as conclusive, 
 but they have weight when they harmonize 
 with a system resting on wholly independent 
 grounds. One point at least is clear: if the 
 date is accepted it involves a considerable re- 
 duction in the length of the period assigned 
 by Lepsius and Brugsch to the dynasties 
 preceding the age of Rameses. 
 
 (6.) But the name of Apophis is specially 
 mentioned as that of the king by whom Joseph 
 was received. The question whether this is 
 possible or probable may now be decided by 
 the positive evidence of contemporary inscrip- 
 tions,^'* and of the ancient papyrus, Sallier i. 
 
 AA^e know now that Apophis was the con- 
 temporary of Rasekenen, the immediate pre- 
 decessor of Aahmes I., and that Aahmes cap- 
 tured Avaris, the capital or chief fortress of 
 Apophis, and afterwards drove out all the 
 adherents of the hostile dynasty, pursuing 
 them as far as Palestine. 
 
 This fact is conclusive. Joseph was a very 
 young man when he came first under the 
 notice of Pharaoh, and lived to an advanced 
 age, no years, the utmost limit, as has been 
 lately shown,^ of Egyptian life. He would 
 therefore have long outlived Apophis, but no 
 one supposes that he could have lived a pros- 
 perous and powerful man after the extermina- 
 tion of the dynasty by which he was raised to 
 the highest rank in the state. Nor do other 
 notices of the Pharaoh of Joseph at all accord 
 with what is known of Apophis. 
 
 Apophis was not, properly speaking. Lord 
 of all Egypt. Upper Egypt was governed by 
 ah independent dynasty ; and the very terms 
 which describe the extent of his infiuence 
 prove the limits of his dominion. Rasekenen, 
 his antagonist, retained possession of the The- 
 baid to the end of his life, and buildings of 
 great extent were erected by him in Mem- 
 phis and Thebes after the termination of a 
 successful campaign against Apophis.^® The 
 
 The inscriptions are found in the sepulchres 
 of officers who served under Ra-sekenen and the 
 first Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty. They 
 are given by Lepsius, ‘Denkmaler, ’ and have 
 been explained by M. de Rouge (whose treatise 
 on the tomb of Aahmes marked a crisis in the 
 advance of Pigyptian studies), and are, quoted 
 repeatedly in M. Brugseh’s ‘ Histoire d’Egypte.’ 
 
 By Mr. Goodwin, in the second part of the 
 ‘ Melanges egyptologiques ’ of M. Chabas. The 
 argument is good for Egypt, not for the patri- 
 archs, living the simple life and breathing the 
 pure air of the desert. 
 
 26 See Brugsch, ‘ Die Geographic des alten 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 449 
 
 Pharaoh of Joseph was certainly in a different 
 position. 
 
 We have also evidence touching the general 
 condition of Egypt under the dynasty or 
 which Apophis was the most powerful king, 
 and to whose reign the notice specially applies. 
 The account given by Manetho of their devas- 
 tations is probably exaggerated. It is certain 
 that they did not deface the monuments to 
 the extent which is generally supposed. The 
 pyramids, the obelisk at Heliopolis, colossal 
 figures and inscriptions even at Tanis (see 
 above), and monuments in Middle and Upper 
 Egypt, still bear witness in their favour. 'I'he 
 Labyrinth in the Eayoum, and the great 
 temples at Memphis and Heliopolis, were cer- 
 tainly left by them uninjured. Still the im- 
 pression made by their ravages upon the 
 Egyptians was profound : the name by which 
 they were designated means pestilential deadly 
 enemies.^^ From an inscription at Karnak,^^ 
 we find that, under the nineteenth dynasty, 
 when the Egyptians would describe a period 
 of dreadful calamity, they could find no pre- 
 cedent so strong and apt as that of the Shep- 
 herd Kings. “ One had not seen anything like 
 it even in the time of the kings of Lower 
 Egypt, when the land of Egypt was in their 
 power, when wretchedness prevailed, in the 
 time when the kings of Upper Egypt had not 
 power to repel them.” I'he account in the 
 Papyrus Sallier I. quite agrees with this, show- 
 ing that the reign of Apophis was cruel and 
 oppressive throughout, and occupied towards 
 the end, as we have seen, by an internecine 
 war. 
 
 Again, no fact about Apophis is more cer- 
 tain than that he repudiated the national reli- 
 gion.^^ The testimony of the Papyrus Sallier 
 is clear and explicit : “ the King Apepi adopted 
 
 yEgyptens,’ p. i8o.^ M. Chabas in a treatise, 
 
 ‘ Lcs Pasteurs en Egypte,’ published within the 
 last two months, assumes that three Pharaohs 
 bore the name Ra-sekenen, Ra the conqueror. 
 If this were granted, it would leave all other 
 arguments untouched. 
 
 See M. Chabas, ‘ Mel. egypt.,’ i. 
 
 See ‘ Revue Archeologique ’ for July and 
 August, 1867. M, de Rouge gives a full account 
 of the inscription, which has been lately pub- 
 lished by M. Duemichen, ‘ Historische In- 
 schriften.’ I observe that the reference to the 
 Shepherd kings is adopted by Dr. Ebers, 
 
 ‘ yEgypten,’ See., p. 207. 
 
 The name Apepi, the Egyptian form of the 
 woi'd, signifies the great serpent, the enemy of 
 Ra and Osiris. It was probably given to this 
 king, or assumed by him, to mark his antagonism 
 to the old national religion. It has, however, 
 been shov/n by M. de Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ 
 p. 9 and p. 45, that the worship of Sutech, or 
 Set, as the tutelary god of lower Egypt, dates 
 from the ancient empire. The peculiarity of 
 Apepi, and probably of his predecessors, would 
 seem to be his exclusive devotion to this deity, 
 who represented force and destruction. 
 
 Sutech as his God, he did not serve any God 
 which was in the whole land.” Sutech, or Set, 
 in later ages the representative of the evil 
 principle Typhon, is identified, and was cer- 
 tainly confounded with Baal of the Phoe- 
 nicians. The only monument on which the 
 name of Apophis is found calls him “ the be- 
 loved of Sutech :” an appellation, as we have 
 seen, borne by the first Shepherd king, and 
 probably common to all the dynasty. If we 
 accept the probable tradition of Porphyry 
 (‘ de Abst.’ II, 55 ), that Aahmes 1. suppressed 
 human sacrifices offered under the Shepherd 
 kings at Heliopolis, the form of worship must 
 have been Typhonian, and in all probability of 
 Phcenician origin.^^ 
 
 Each and all of these points are quite irre- 
 concileable with the account in Genesis. The 
 Pharaoh of Joseph was unquestionably Lord 
 of all Egypt: the country was in a state of 
 great pi'osperity : the religion, all the usages 
 and institutions of the Pharaoh and his cour- 
 tiers, were those of ancient Egypt. There 
 is not a single fact^^ in the history of Joseph 
 which is not illustrated by the inscriptions 
 and sculptures of the best and most pros- 
 perous periods of Egypt ; not one which gives 
 the least indication of the predominance of a 
 foreign religion, habits, or race.^^ 
 
 The question, however, still remains, if 
 Joseph did not enter Egypt when the Shep- 
 herds were there, did his visit and the immi- 
 gration of the Israelites take place before or 
 after that period ? We may assume that it 
 did not occur at a later time. With very few'’ 
 exceptions, critics agree that the Israelites 
 were in Egypt at the accession of the eigh- 
 teenth dynasty. If before, we have still to 
 inquire at what time. 
 
 This part of the inquiry is beset with con- 
 siderable difficulties. We have no means of 
 ascertaining the duration of the interval be- 
 tween the last sovereign of the twelfth dynasty 
 and the invasion of the Shepherds. The titles 
 of forty-eight kings of the thirteenth dynasty 
 are given in the papyrus of Turin; and the 
 names of three of them bear a very remark- 
 
 The inscription is given by Burton, ‘Ex- 
 cerpta Hieroglyphica,’ at San {i.e. Tanis), No. 7, 
 pi. XV. ; and by Brugsch, ‘ Geog. Inschr.,’ p. 88, 
 No. 576. Like Salatis, Apepi takes the style of 
 a legitimate Pharaoh. 
 
 Sutech is identified with Baal in numerous 
 inscriptions, and is represented specially as the 
 chief deity of the Cheta, masters of northern 
 Syria under the nineteenth dynasty. 
 
 32 This statement is strongly corroborated by 
 the work of Dr. Ebers. 
 
 33 It must be remembered that in Joseph’s 
 time the Egyptians would not eat with shep- 
 herds ; they were an abomination to them. This, 
 of itself, is almost, if not quite, conclusive against 
 the supposition that he was at the court of a 
 Shepherd king. M. Chabas has shown this to 
 be a true and monumental designation of the 
 invaders. 
 
450 
 
 ON TI-IE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 able resemblance to the name given by 
 Pharaoh to Joseph.^^ There appear to be 
 good grounds for the opinion that they were 
 driven out of Lower Egypt, and retained a 
 partial and precarious hold on Middle or 
 Upper Egypt within a century or two after 
 their accession ; and if so, Joseph, at the latest, 
 may have lived under one of the early kings, 
 such as the Sebekhotep, whose colossal statue 
 111 the Louvre belongs to the best age of 
 Egyptian art, and evidently also to a period of 
 unbroken prosperity. 
 
 It is however scarcely possible to resist 
 the impression made by monuments cf the 
 twelfth dynasty, which seem to connect the 
 history of Abraham, as we have already seen 
 (p. 446), and still more specially that of Joseph, 
 with this m.cst important and interesting period 
 of Egypt. 
 
 (7.) We have the fact that the princes 
 of this great dynasty stood in very special 
 relation to On or Heliopolis, d'he tem- 
 ple there was built by Osirtasin I., whose 
 name and official title, Osirtasin Cheperkara, 
 stand out in clear and perfect characters 
 on the oldest and most beautiful obelisk of 
 Egypt, still standing at On, the only but 
 certain evidence of the magnihcence of the 
 temple. The priest of that city and temple, 
 judging from the general usage of the ancient 
 Pharaohs,^^ was in all probability a near rela- 
 tive of the sovereign. We have abundant 
 notices on the monuments of that dynasty 
 which agree with the intimations of Gene- 
 sis ; proving, on the one hand, that the forms 
 of worship were purely Egyptian, and, on the 
 other hand, that the fundamental principles 
 which underlie those forms, and which be- 
 ong, as we may not doubt, to the primeval 
 religion of humanity, were still distinctly 
 recognised, although they were blended with 
 speculation and superstitious errors U® they 
 
 Viz. Zaf., t.e. food. See note on the name 
 Zat'nath Paaneah. 
 
 See M. cle Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ p. 34. 
 Nearly all the chief priests bear the titles 
 Suten sa or Suten rech — son, grandson, or 
 relative of the king. Ewald justly observes that 
 Heliopolis was, so to speak, the true sacerdotal 
 city and university of Northern Egypt. Ge- 
 schichte, ii., p. 51. 
 
 See especially Lepsius, ‘Allteste Texte des 
 Todtenbuchs. ’ The earliest known text of 
 the seventeenth chapter of the Ritual be- 
 longs to the eleventh dynasty. Its import- 
 ance is recognised as the most ancient 
 statement of Egyptian views as to the origin 
 anrl government of the universe. It undoubt- 
 edly indicates the previous existence of a pure 
 Monotheism, of which it retains the great 
 principles, the unity, eternity, self-existence of 
 the unknown Deity. I'iach age witnessed some 
 corruption and amplification of the ancient 
 religion, and corresponding interpolations of the 
 old texts. The very earliest has several glosses, 
 and the text taken apart from them approaches 
 
 were moreover associated with a system 
 which, on many essential points, inculcated 
 a sound and even delicate morality. In the 
 priest of On a Shepherd king would have seen 
 the antagonist of his ov/n special superstition, 
 the last man in Egypt whom he would have 
 brought into connection with his favourite 
 and prime minister; to an Osirtasin and to 
 Joseph himself the alliance would present 
 every inducement of policy, interest, and suit- 
 ableness. 
 
 (8.) The tombs at Benihassan have already 
 supplied us with illustrations of the history of 
 Abraham, which are equally applicable to that 
 of Joseph. The inscriptions, which describe 
 the character of Chnumhotep (a near relative 
 and favourite of Osirtasin I. and his immediate 
 successor), and the recorded events of his 
 government, remind the reader irresistibly of 
 the young Hebrew. It is said of him^'^ ‘‘he 
 injured no little child : he oppressed no widow ; 
 he detained for his own purpose no fisher- 
 man : took from his work no shepherd ; no 
 overseer's men were taken. There was no 
 beggar in his days : no one starved in his time. 
 When years of famine occurred he ploughed 
 all the lands of the district producing abun- 
 dant food : no one was starved in it : he treated 
 the widow as a woman with a husband to 
 protect her.” The mention of famine, and of 
 unusual precautions to guard against its re- 
 currence, together with other obvious traits of 
 resemblance, led some critics a few years since 
 to see in Chnumhotep the Egyptian original 
 of Joseph. At present the antecedents and 
 connections of that personage are too well 
 known to admit of any confusion; but the 
 probability must be admitted that a king, be- 
 longing to a dynasty which sought and re- 
 warded such characteristics in the great offi- 
 cers of state, should have advanced Joseph to 
 a position such as the Bible describes, such 
 too as the old Egyptian papyrus already quoted 
 (p. 446) shows to have been then within the 
 reach of a foreigner. 
 
 (9.) There are still more specific reasons for 
 fixing on this period. According to Genesis, 
 one permanent consequence of the visitation 
 was a new division of all Egypt, a redistri- 
 bution of the land and property : probably, as 
 is pointed out by the Bishop of Ely,®*^ a neces- 
 sary and politic measure, after the complete 
 break-down of the ancient system. Now we 
 are told by Herodotus and Diodorus that an 
 ancient Egyptian king so divided the lands, 
 and that the same system continued to their 
 time. This king must evidently have be- 
 longed to a native dynasty : had the division 
 been made by a foreigner and invader, it 
 
 very nearly to the truth as revealed in the 
 Bible. 
 
 Lepsius, ‘Denkmiiler,’ ii. pl. 122. Dr. 
 Bircli, who gives an interlinear translation in 
 Bunsen’s ‘Egypt,’ vol. v. p. 726-729. 
 
 See notes on Genesis. 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 451 
 
 would have been swept away when the line of 
 tlie so-called legitimate Pharaohs was restored. 
 Those two historians indeed attribute the 
 division to the sovereign called Sesostris by 
 Herodotus, and Sesoosis by Diodorus: an 
 appellation which was afterwards appropriated 
 to Rameses 11., or perhaps to his father, Seti I. 
 Hut it is well known that the exploits of the 
 great sovereigns who preceded Rameses II. 
 were transferred to him by popular tradition 
 it is certain also that the division into nomes, 
 and the exemption of the priestly lands from 
 taxation, were anterior to him by many cen- 
 turies. The system appears to have been coeval 
 with the monarchy, certainly with the pyra- 
 mids, but in all probability was modified, and 
 extended, if not completed, under the great 
 Pharaohs of the twelfth dynasty. No occa- 
 sion can be pointed out more likely to have 
 suggested it, and to have enabled the Pha- 
 raoh to accomplish it, than that described in 
 Genesis. 
 
 Again, we learn from Egyptian sources that, 
 under Amenemha III., in some respects 
 the greatest king of this noble dynasty, 
 whose reign is separated from the first by an 
 interval of some two centuries (see above)' a 
 work of extraordinary magnitude and import- 
 ance was undertaken and completed : one that 
 proves at once the terror caused by the pre- 
 vious liability to famines, and the enormous 
 resources, skill, and forethought of the Pha- 
 raoh. Amenemha III. first established a 
 complete system of dykes, canals, locks, and 
 reservoirs, by which the inundations of the 
 Nile were henceforth regulated.'*® The im- 
 mense artificial lake of Mceris in the Fayoum 
 was made by his orders; it communicated 
 with the Nile by a canal, received the over- 
 flowing waters at the time of the inundation, 
 and secured the complete irrigation of the 
 adjoining nomes in the dry season. M. Li- 
 nant de Bellefonds,^^ to whose industry and 
 
 Josephus expressly states that Manetho 
 gives the name of Sesostris to the third king of 
 the twelfth dynasty, whom he represents as con- 
 queror of Asia. The researches of M. Mariette 
 have lately shown that Rameses II. was in the 
 habit of appropriating the exploits of his prede- 
 cessors, and substituting his own name on the 
 monuments (see below, p. 465). This evil habit 
 was adopted by his son Merneptah.^ 
 
 See Brugsch, ‘ Histoire d’Egypte,’ p. 69. 
 Lepsius found a Nilometer of Amenemha and 
 several accurate notices of the height of the 
 inundations under the twelfth and thirteenth 
 dynasties at Semneh and Kumme. 
 
 ‘ Memoire sur le Lac Mceris Alexandrie, 
 1843. Mceris is not the name of a king, but 
 he Egyptian word “mer,” a lake or reservoir. 
 Fayoum is the Arabic corruption of the Coptic 
 ctlOJUL, an old Egyptian word, “the sea.” 
 According to Ptolemy, near the lake was a 
 place called Bakkhis or Banchis. M. Brugsch 
 identifies this with a place called Pi-aneh, “ the 
 house of life,” which is found on the monuments 
 
 ability we are indebted for ascertaining the 
 exact site and extent of this lake, observes 
 that the restoration of this magnificent work 
 would be one of the greatest benefits that 
 could be conferred on modern Egypt. Under 
 Amenemha III. also the great labyrinth, the 
 most stupendous work of that great age, was 
 erected. This building was probably con- 
 nected with the same series of events : it 
 consisted of a vast number of halls and build- 
 ings, in which the representatives of the Egyp- 
 tian nomes were assembled periodically to 
 consult on subjects of national interest ; and 
 certainly not* without a special view to the 
 conservation of a system which afforded the 
 best — indeed the only real— security against 
 the recurrence of the most formidable calamity 
 to which this people could be exposed. At 
 no period would an Egyptian king have such 
 special reasons for undertaking these works : 
 at none would he have such peculiar oppor- 
 tunities of carrying them into effect — the 
 reasons enforced by the seven years of famine, 
 and the means supplied by the reconstruction 
 of the territorial organisation, which placed 
 the whole resources of the nation at the dis- 
 posal of this Pharaoh."*^ 
 
 In the absence of positive evidence for or 
 against any hypotheses, these coincidences 
 may justify us in regarding it at least as a 
 very probable conjecture that the visit of 
 Abraham may have taken place under the first 
 king of the dynasty, and that of Joseph under 
 Amenemha III., the Pharaoh who is repre- 
 sented on the lately-discovered table of Aby- 
 dos as the last great king of all Egypt in the 
 ancient empire, and, as such, receiving divine 
 honours from his descendant Rameses. 
 
 ( 10 .) But if Joseph and the Israelites were 
 received and treated with great favour by the 
 native dynasty, it may seem improbable that 
 they should have remained undisturbed under 
 the Shepherd kings. We have of course no 
 conclusive evidence either for or against the 
 objection; but we have facts enough to show 
 that it is quite possible that they may have 
 occupied a relative position under the fo- 
 reigners not diflering widely from that in 
 which the invasion found them. There can 
 be no doubt that the invaders directed their 
 assaults at once against the great cities cf 
 Egypt; both to enrich themselves with the 
 spoil, and to secure their dominion over the 
 lands. We may also feel pretty confident 
 that they overthrew the national forms of 
 worship, although, as we have above shown. 
 
 in connexion with Sebek, the tutelary deity of 
 the district. See ‘ Geographic des Alten 
 Avgyptens,’ p. 233. This name has a special 
 interest for its bearing upon Joseph’s Egyptian 
 name Zafnath Paaneah, “ the food of life.” 
 
 ■*2 The-copper mines at Wady Muglftira were 
 worked under this prince ; there is a curious 
 notice of the expedition in Brugsch, ‘PI. E.,’ 
 p. 69. See also ‘ Introduction’ to Exodus. 
 
 F F 2 
 
452 
 
 ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 there is no evidence that they destroyed or 
 defaced the temples. The Israelites, then a 
 small colony lately established, would offer no 
 temptation to their cupidity; no buildings, 
 no temples, no elaborate ritual which could 
 provoke their animosity. It must also be 
 borne in mind that all historians are agreed 
 that the invasion of the Hyksos was most 
 probably preceded by peaceful visits of the 
 chieftains of Arabia and the adjoining districts 
 of Palestine, of which we have numerous 
 traces in early monuments; from them they 
 may have learned at once to appreciate the 
 riches of Egypt, and to ascertain the state of 
 the country. The jealousy with which such 
 visitors were watched is distinctly noted in 
 Genesis : every nomad company might be 
 suspected of a desire to see the nakedness — 
 that is, to spy the assailable approaches to the 
 land ; a jealousy of which also we have dis- 
 tinct notices in the story of Saneha and the 
 inscriptions of Benihassan. But when the 
 fathers of those invaders visited Egypt in 
 the time of the great famine, which, as we 
 know from other documents, wnould draw 
 them, with their flocks and herds, to the 
 frontier, the person with whom they were 
 brought into contact, and for whom they 
 would feel the deepest reverence, was the 
 master of the granaries, the distributor of 
 food. Joseph could not be unknown by name 
 or by character to the early Hyksos, who 
 were little likely to disturb the kindred and 
 descendants of the man to whom they were 
 indebted for their lives. It is also evident 
 that the rapid multiplication of the Israelites 
 might be favoured by the withdrawal of the 
 native princes from their immediate neigh- 
 bourhood : they would be relieved from a 
 superintendence ever vigilant and suspicious. 
 It is not, however, necessary to assume any 
 special favour shown to the Israelites by the 
 Shepherds ; the absence of any motive for 
 cruel and oppressive treatment is obvious, and 
 suffices for the removal of all objection on this 
 score to tlie historical combination we have 
 proposed. 
 
 (i I.) We are nowin a position to consider 
 the question at what period in Egyptian history 
 the liixodus took place. Some points of im- 
 portance may be assumed as all but certain, 
 there being no difference of opinion between 
 Egyptologers, (i.) At whatever period the 
 Israelites came into Egypt, they were settled 
 in the district assigned to them when the first 
 sovereign of the eighteenth dynasty conquered 
 and expelled the Shepherd dynasty. (2.) d'he 
 I'ixodus is admitted to have taken place under 
 the eighteenth or nineteenth dynasty, under 
 which is a question to be settled, but certainly 
 under the one or the other. (3.) d he dates re- 
 ferring to this period are still generally uncer- 
 tain, they rest on doubtful calculations ; it may 
 
 See the account of the admission of 
 Edomites under Merneptah, infra, p. 486. 
 
 suffice to quote the words of M. de Rouge, 
 adopted by M. Ghabas, ‘ M Ganges egypto- 
 logiques,’ ii. p. 112 : “On restera dans la 
 limite du probable en pla9ant Seti I. vers 1500, 
 et le commencement de la ly^dynastie vers 
 le 18® siecle. Mais il n’y aurait nullement 
 a s etonner si Ton s’etait trompe de deux cents 
 ans dans cette estimation, tant les documents 
 sont vicies dans Thistoire, ou incomplets stir 
 les monuments.” In a work of great interest 
 and importance published lately by M. Ghabas, 
 he reiterates this assertion, and rejects all the 
 dates derived from astronomical notices. See 
 ‘ Voyage d’un Egyptien,’ p. 26.'*^ This un- 
 certainty must always be borne in mind : the 
 dates derived from Egyptian monuments may 
 be implicitly relied upon so far as they go, 
 but, with one exception already noticed, they 
 never refer to any general epoch, and do not 
 supply materials for a complete chronological 
 arrangement of events under either of the 
 dynasties with which we are at present con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Egyptian scholars have hitherto been divided 
 between two opinions, some recognising in 
 Aahmes, or Amosis, the first sovereign of the 
 eighteenth dynasty, the first persecutor of 
 the Israelites, and in one of his descendants 
 the Pharaoh of the Exodus; others regard- 
 ing the third sovereign of the nineteenth 
 dynasty, i.e. Rameses II., the Sesostris of the 
 Greeks, and his son Merneptah, or his grand- 
 son Seti, as the contemporaries of Moses. 
 We will examine the grounds on which each 
 of these opinions rests ; and proceeding in 
 order of time will first inquire into the claims 
 of the eighteenth dynasty 
 
 (12.) The circumstances under which 
 Aahmes I. the Amosis of Josephus, obtained 
 possession of Lower Egypt, make it extremely 
 probable that he should have adopted such 
 measures towards the Israelites as are de- 
 scribed in the beginning of Exodus. 
 
 His accession constitutes one of the most 
 important epochs in Egyptian history ; with 
 it terminates the broken and confused period 
 of the ancient Empire; with it begins a 
 continuous series of events under succes- 
 sive dynasties. Previous to his accession, or 
 shortly afterwards, he married an Ethiopian 
 Princess, Nefertari, whose name and portrait 
 are found on many monuments,'*^ in which she 
 
 A single clear notice of a solar eclip.se would 
 settle a vast number of questions. M. Ghabas 
 has completely shown that hitherto none has 
 been found (sec ‘ Zcitschrift,’ May, 1868). On 
 the various attempts to establish a system on 
 astronomical calculations, see Mr. Browne in 
 Kitto’s ‘ Cyclopiedia,’ vol. iii. p. 52. 
 
 One of the most striking portraits of 
 Nefertari is the first plate in the third volume of 
 Lepsius’ ‘ I )enkmaler. ’ See also a coloured tablet 
 in the British Museum. She is there represented 
 as jet black, but not Avith negro features. She 
 was probably of the higher Nubian race. It 
 has been observed that the portraits of the earlier 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 453 
 
 is represented as a personage of singular dis- 
 tinction, daughter, wife, sister, and mother of 
 kings, and worshipped centuries after her 
 death as a tutelary deity. It is inferred, 
 with great probability, that this alliance with 
 Ethiopia, which under the ancient empire had 
 furnished large contingents of auxiliary troops 
 to Egypt, supplied Aahmes with resources 
 which enabled him soon after his accession to 
 undertake an expedition against the Northern 
 dynasty. That expedition was completely suc- 
 cessful: it terminated the struggle. A con- 
 temporary inscription on the tomb of one of 
 his chief officers (the naval captain Ahmes), 
 gives an account of the siege of Avaris, of a 
 battle fought in its vicinity, and of the capture 
 of that city, the stronghold of Apepi. It also 
 informs us that the expulsion of the enemy 
 was followed by an expedition to the borders 
 of Canaan, when Sarouhen was taken by 
 storm.^' 
 
 It is at once clear that the expressions used 
 in Exodus to describe the Pharaoh by whom 
 the Israelites were first persecuted, apply, in 
 the fullest and most literal sense, to tfiis 
 sovereign. To the people of the greater part 
 of Egypt, and most especially to the inhabit- 
 ants of the North, he was emphatically “a 
 new king of him it might be said, as of no 
 native king, succeeding without a struggle (as 
 was most especially the case of Rameses II.), 
 “ he arose up over ” Egypt ; he was, in the true 
 sense of the word, like the Norman William, 
 a conqueror. The name of Joseph, whether 
 as a minister of the ejected dynasty, or of one 
 more ancient than that, would probably be 
 
 kings of the dynasty bear distinct traces of black 
 blood. Rosellini gives a portrait of Amenophis I. 
 (whom, however, he confounds with Aahmes), 
 in which he is represented as a black. ‘ Monum. 
 R.,’ pi. xxix. At Karnak there is a representa- 
 tion of the shrine of Nefertari borne by twelve 
 priests; she is there associated with Rameses II., 
 after an interval of some three centuries. 
 
 M. de Rouge gives a very curious account 
 of the organisation of a negro army, under Pepi, 
 of the sixth dynasty. As in our Indian posses- 
 sions, these alien troops were drilled and com- 
 manded by native Egyptians. See ‘Recherches,’ 
 
 P- ^^3- . . 
 
 This is a very important point. It shows 
 the inaccuracy of the account given by Josephus 
 from Manetho, and, before this inscription was 
 known, adopted by Egyptian scholars, viz., that 
 the war between upper and lower Egypt con- 
 tinued to the third or fourth reign of the 
 eighteenth dynasty. There can be no question 
 as to the correctness of the contemporary inscrip- 
 tion. Ptolemy, a priest of Mendes, quoted by 
 Apion (ap. Clem. Alex. ‘Sor.,’ i, 2i, p. 178, ed. 
 Potter), says of Amosis that he Kar^cTKaxpe 
 Avapiu. He was better informed than Manetho. 
 M. de Rouge justly claims the credit of having 
 proved this capital point (question capitale). 
 See the ‘ Report on Egyptian Studies’ for 1867, 
 p. 18 ; and compare M. Chabas, ‘ Les Pasteurs 
 en Egypte,’ 1868, where the whole inscription is 
 translated. 
 
 unknown to him. Nor can there be any 
 reasonable doubt as to the feelings with which 
 a king in his position must have regarded the 
 Israelites. There is no question as to his 
 finding them in Goshen ; that is admitted 
 by all.^® They were there as the subjects, 
 apparently the favoured subjects, of the ex- 
 pelled dynasty, under whom they retained 
 undisturbed possession of the richest district 
 of Egypt, commanding the western approach 
 to the very heart of the land. The first point 
 that would naturally strike him would be 
 their number (Exod. i. 9), which, after the 
 expulsion of his enemies, would bear an 
 alarming proportion to the native population 
 of the Delta. A prudent man under such 
 circumstances would not be likely to provoke 
 rebellion by proceeding to extremities, but 
 nothing is more probable than that he should 
 do just what Moses tells us the new king 
 actually did, deal with them craftily, prevent 
 their increase, utilise their labour, and cut off 
 all communication with foreigners. The most 
 advantageous employment which would sug- 
 gest itself would of course be the construction 
 of strongly-fortified depositaries of provisions 
 and arms near the eastern frontier. The line 
 of fortresses was enlarged and strengthened 
 by Rameses II., but that king was not the 
 original founder. Traces are found which 
 prove the existence both of the canal and of 
 several forts under the ancient empire.^^ One 
 of these forts, bearing the name Pa-chtum en 
 Zaru, is mentioned in the monumental annals 
 of Thotmes III. It is identified by M. Brugsch 
 with the Pithom of the Exodus."'" The 
 name signifies “ the fortress of foreigners or 
 sojourners,” i.e. a fortress either built by 
 foreigners or assigned to immigrants as a 
 
 by M. de Rouge, Brugsch, &c. 
 
 An officer who fled from Egypt in the reign 
 of Osirtasin speaks of a wall which the king 
 had built to keep off the Sakti, i.e. Asiatic in- 
 vaders. See the story of Saneha ; and Chabas, 
 ‘ Voyage d’un Egyptien,’ p. 293 ; and on the 
 Sakti, p. 321. Dr. Ebers, 1 . c. p. 8t, entirely 
 corroborates the view taken by the writer. Pie 
 shows that the line, previously existing, inust 
 have been strengthened by one of the earliest 
 kings of the eighteenth dynasty, and completed 
 in all probability by the fortress, called the fort, 
 or the “close” of Zar. The word rendered “fort,” 
 viz. chetem, is retained in Coptic, as 
 or to shut. This fort is very specially 
 
 the key of Egypt, r] K\e\s ttjs Alyvirrou, the fron- 
 tier station for the armies of the Pharaohs, and 
 for Asiatic immigrants. 
 
 50 This identification is not accepted by M. 
 Chabas, who gives another and more probable 
 etymology for the Plebrew Pithom, viz. the 
 sanctuary of Turn. But it is probable, indeed all 
 but certain, that the fortress and the sanctuary 
 were contiguous, and formed together the princi- 
 pal rendezvous of the Egyptian troops^nd foreign 
 embassies on the frontier. On the name Raamses, 
 see infra, under Rameses. 
 
454 
 
 ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 residence.^^ We learn from Genesis that 
 Raamses was the name of the district in 
 the time of Jacob, and from the Egyptian 
 monuments that one of the sons of Aahmes 
 was named Rames ; probable grounds are 
 thus found for the designation of the second 
 fort built at the same time. It is also well 
 known that during the latter part of his reign 
 Aahmes was occupied in building and repair- 
 ing the cities of Northern Egypt. In an 
 inscription lately deciphered, dated in his 
 twenty-second year, certain Fenchu are stated 
 to be employed in the transport of blocks of 
 limestone from the quarries of Rufu (the 
 Troja of Strabo) to Memphis and other cities. 
 I'hese Fenchu are unquestionably aliens, either 
 mercenaries or forced labourers. According 
 to Brugsch, the name means “ bearers of the 
 shepherd’s staff ; ” and he describes their 
 occupation as precisely corresponding to that 
 of the Israelites.’^'^ No proper name for the 
 Israelites is found on the monuments of the 
 eighteenth dynasty ; during which period all 
 Egyptologers admit their presence in Egypt; 
 they could certainly not be designated more 
 exactly whether we regard the name or the 
 occupation of these Fenchu. 
 
 (13.) It has been shown that little depend- 
 ence can be placed on systems of Egyptian 
 chronology, yet it may be observed that either 
 of those which are most generally accepted is 
 quite reconcileable with this hypothesis. 
 
 Two dates, which differ very widely, are 
 given, not as certain, but approximative and 
 probable. 
 
 Brugsch, following Lepsius, fixes the acces- 
 sion of Aahmes I. at 1706 b.c. This would 
 be in very near accordance with Hebrew 
 history if the dates drawn from notices in the 
 Book of Judges were accepted in preference 
 to that given in i Kings vi. The last year of 
 Thotmes II., which, as will be shown, is very 
 
 This is a point of considerable importance, 
 brought out by Brugsch in the third volume. of 
 the ‘ Geographische Inscliriften,’ p. 21. lie 
 says, “I believe that I am nearer than formerly 
 to the trace of the meaning of this name. The 
 old Egyptian Zaru, orZalu, is evidently related to 
 the Coptic XUOiXl, whence pe.«JLXaOI 2 vI, 
 peregrinus, advena.” 
 
 vSee Brugsch, ‘ Zeitschrift ’ for November, 
 1867. 
 
 Brugsch observes, “With this name are 
 designated the pastoral and nomad tribes of 
 Semitic origin, who lived in the neighbourhood 
 of I'igyjJt, and who are to be thought of as stand- 
 ing to i'.gypt in the same relation as the Jews,” 
 1 . c. p. 92. This is the more important since 
 Brugsch does not connect the narrative of 
 Ibxodus with this period. 
 
 On the name “ Aperu,” supposed to repre- 
 sent Hebrews, see further on. It is found first 
 in papyri of a later date, under tlie nineteenth 
 dynasty. 
 
 probably that of the Exodus, falls on the same 
 system in 1647 b c. Now, the interval between 
 the building of the Temple, about 1010 A.c., 
 and the Exodus, is calculated to amount to 
 638 years by the advocates of the longer 
 chronology : certainly a most remarkable co- 
 incidence, the more so since neither Brugsch 
 nor the other Egyptian chronologers adopt 
 that date for the Exodus. 
 
 The other date, given also approximately, 
 is 1525 B.c. for Aahmes I., and 1463 for the 
 last year of Thotmes II. This accords 
 pretty nearly with the shorter interval of 480 
 years given in i Kings vi. i. 
 
 This later date has been lately supported in 
 a very remarkable way by a discovery which, 
 if it could be absolutely relied upon, would 
 settle the chronology.^^ Thotmes III. built a 
 temple at Elephantine : it has been destroyed 
 within the last few years by the natives, but 
 on one stone found near the ruins the name 
 of the king is distinctly read ; on another 
 stone is an inscription stating that the 28th of 
 the month Epiphi was the festival of the rising 
 of Sothis, i. e. Sirius. From this M. Biot 
 calculates the date, which he fixes as 1445 b.c. 
 Now the reign of Thotmes III. lasted about 
 forty-eight years; the temple was probably 
 built towards the end of his reign, which up to 
 the last seven years was occupied in foreign 
 warfare ; we should thus get the date from 
 1485 to 1 49 2 for the last year of Thotmes II., 
 
 This date has given occasion to much con- 
 troversy. It is utterly irreconcileable with the 
 system of some chronologers. Lepsius at once 
 met it with the assumption that the Egyptian 
 sculptor committed the error of adding a line, 
 the effect of which would be to alter the 
 calculations to the extent of 130 years. 
 He was followed by ’ Bunsen, and, though 
 with some misgiving, by Brugsch. If any 
 answer were needed, it might be given in the 
 words of M. de Rouge: “ Ce n’est pas ainsi 
 qu’on pent lever une difficulte de cette gravite : 
 le monument aujourd’hui a Paris est comme 
 gravure de la plus grande beaute ; il appartient 
 du reste a I’epoque oil les inscriptions presentent 
 la correction la plus parfaite.” See also M. 
 Chabas, M.E. ii. p. 18. A more serious objection 
 has since been raised and defended with great abi- 
 lity by M. Chabas. The inscription which gives the 
 official name of Thotmes HI., and that which gives 
 the name of the month on which the calculation is 
 based, are on different stones, and cannot be proved 
 to refer to the .same date. The latter may possi- 
 bly refer to additions to the temple. M. Chabas 
 w’rites with a strong bias, so much so that he 
 even attempts to explain away the well-known 
 phrase for the coming forth or heliacal rising of 
 Sothis ; and Mr. Goodwin, a very high authority, 
 does not consider that he has proved his points. 
 In the present state of the question, all that we 
 are entitled to assume is that the inscriptions 
 may probably refer to the same time, viz. that 
 of the erection of the temple, and give a date 
 which presents a very striking coincidence with 
 that taken from the statement in i Kings vi. 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH, 
 
 455 
 
 a date exactly in accordance with that derived 
 from I Kings vi. i “ 
 
 In the present state of inquiry it is suffi- 
 cient to point out the singular accordance 
 between two very different systems of Biblical 
 and Egyptian chronology, whichever may be 
 ultimately adopted, 
 
 (14.) Assuming for the present that the perse- 
 cution of the Israelites began under Aahmes 
 I., the question still rem^lins under which of 
 his successors the Exodus took place. In the 
 absence of monumental evidence the question 
 cannot be decisively settled, but there appear 
 to be substantial grounds for the conclusion 
 that it occurred at the close of the reign of 
 Thotmes 11 . 
 
 The length of the interval between the 
 accession of Aahmes I. and of Thotmes III. 
 cannot be accurately determined. The calcu- 
 lations of Brugsch (which are quite irrespective 
 of our question) give an interval of eighty-one 
 years. According to Josephus, Manetho gives 
 100 years 5 months for the period between 
 the expulsion of the shepherds and the acces- 
 sion of the Pharaoh whom he calls Mephra- 
 muthosis. These dates are wholly uncertain, 
 each recension of Manetho giving different 
 numbers ; but the interval probably extended 
 over one hundred years. I'his coincides very 
 closely with the period required by the Scrip- 
 tural narrative ; some years elapsed before the 
 birth of Moses, eighty years between his 
 birth and the Exodus. 
 
 (15.) The events of the succeeding reigns 
 under which Moses must have lived, assuming 
 the correctness of this hypothesis, accord with 
 inferences suggested by the brief narrative of 
 Exodus, and also with notices in Josephus, 
 which though of a legendary character may 
 have some foundation in facts. On the death 
 of Aahmes the government appears to have 
 been in the hands of Nefertari, the Ethiopian 
 princess, either as sovereign, or more probably 
 as regent.^' Little was known of Amenophis 
 
 A very curious corroboration of this hypo- 
 thesis may be drawn from some calculations of 
 Mr. Goodwin in the ‘ Zeitschrift ’ for 1867, p. 
 78. He shows that, if certain data are admitted, 
 one of the following dates would fall within the 
 reign of Thotmes III., viz. 1481, 1480, 1479, 
 1478. He says, “According to the system of 
 some of the chronologists this would suit the 
 reign of Thotmes HI.” It certainly suits that 
 chronology of the Bible which appears most 
 probable to the writer of this Essay. On 
 grounds quite independent of the astronomical 
 calculation, he would have us go back 120 years, 
 and take 1601, 1600, 1599, 1598 as the date, 
 fixing the accession of Thotmes HI, as 1623, 
 1622, 1621, or 1620. This, as he points out, 
 agrees very nearly with the date of Brugsch, viz. 
 1625 A.c. It certainly agrees also with the 
 system of those chronologers who adopt the 
 longer interval. 
 
 _ It is an obvious conjecture that such an asso- 
 ciation may have had some influence upon the 
 
 (or Amenhotep) her son, until the following 
 facts were elicited from contemporary monu- 
 ments. Ahmes, the naval officer already 
 mentioned, went with Amenophis in an expe- 
 dition into Ethiopia against an insurgent 
 chieftain. The expedition was successful. 
 Josephus gives a long and evidently legendary 
 account of an expedition of Moses into 
 Ethiopia. As a member of the royal house- 
 hold, the adopted child of the King’s sister, 
 he would naturally accompany his master ; 
 while gratitude to his benefactress would 
 of course give additional impetus to his efforts 
 against an Ethiopian rebel. Amenophis was 
 undoubtedly an able and prosperous king, 
 leaving a great name, and worshipped as a god 
 in after ages. 
 
 The circumstances which led to the flight 
 of Moses may have taken place at the close of 
 this reign,^*^ Syncellus mentions a tradition 
 that Moses left the court after the death 
 of Amosis and of his daughter, whom he 
 calls Pharie : it is more probable that this 
 occurred some years later, since Moses could 
 not have reached manhood when Aahmes 
 died. At the death of Amenophis he would 
 be about forty. It has been represented as 
 improbable that the adopted son of Pharaoh’s 
 daughter found no protector when he slew an 
 Egyptian subject, a most unreasonable objec- 
 tion even if the princess were still living ; her 
 death would of course leave him friendless, 
 
 (16,) During the reign of Thotmes I., Moses, 
 on this supposition, must have been in Midian, 
 but the events are not without bearings upon 
 his history. The reign was one of great 
 prosperity. The complete subjugation of the 
 district between Upper Egypt and Nubia 
 Proper is attested by the inscirption previously 
 quoted and by another found by the Prussian 
 expedition on the rock opposite the island of 
 Tombos.^® The latter years of his reign vrere 
 employed in a w'ar of greater interest. We 
 learn from the sepulchral inscription already 
 mentioned that he invaded Mesopotamia, won 
 a great victory, and brought back an immense 
 number of captives. A great advance was 
 thus made in the condition of Egypt. Its 
 
 feelings of Moses when in later years he married 
 an Ethiopian. 
 
 58 All the recensions of Manetho give thirteen 
 years for Chebron, i.e. Nefertari (see above), and 
 twenty-one for Amenophis. Moses is said to 
 have been forty years old at the time of his 
 flight. The coincidence of dates is perfect, as 
 he was in all probability born a few years before 
 the death of Aahmes. 
 
 Ivthiopia was henceforth governed by princes 
 of the blood royal. A list of twenty, bearing 
 the style Prince Royal of Cush, beginning with 
 this reign, is drawn from the monuments. The 
 first bears the name Me-Mes, an odd coincidence. 
 See ‘ Exc.’ on Moses. 
 
 The duration of the reign is uncertain ; the 
 m'onuments give no information, and the dates 
 of Manetho are in utter confusion. 
 
ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 456 
 
 permanent resources were increased by the 
 acquisition of Nubia, the land of gold,*^' and 
 henceforth we find the Pharaohs in possession 
 of numerous chariots, which, though not 
 unknown,®^ are not represented on early 
 monuments. We have here every indication 
 of national greatness. 
 
 (17.) On the death of Thotmes I. the govern- 
 ment was once more for some years in the 
 hands of a woman. His wife and sister 
 Aahmes,®^ called Amessis by Josephus, was 
 regent or sovereign, according to Manetho, 
 for upwards of twenty years. Thotmes II.®* 
 showed energy in the beginning of his reign ; 
 he carried on a successful war against the 
 Shasous, the nomad tribes on the north-eastern 
 frontier. No other notice is found of his acts 
 on the monuments. His reign was probably 
 short and certainly inglorious. The following 
 facts are however certain from contemporary 
 monuments.®^ He was married to his sister 
 Hatasou ; after his decease, of which the 
 circumstances are unknown, she succeeded 
 him as Queen Regnant. His death was im- 
 mediately followed by a general revolt of the 
 
 Nub is the well-known Egyptian name for 
 
 gold. 
 
 The war chariot of Aahmes I. is expressly 
 mentioned in the inscription at Elkab. 
 
 In these reigns there are several instances 
 of marriages between brother and sister. M. de 
 Rouge observes that it does not appear to have 
 been a custom under the early Pharaohs. — 
 
 ■ Recherches,’ p. 62 . 
 
 The joint reigns of Amesses and Mephres, 
 or IMisaphris, are computed at thirty-five or thirty- 
 three years in the tables of Bunsen, from Jose- 
 ])hus and Africanus. Eusebius omits both 
 Thotmes I. and Amesses. We may not place any 
 reliance on the numbers of Manetho, but they 
 were probably taken from old monuments, 
 and, though often corrupted and distorted, may 
 occasionally be correct. In this case they coin- 
 cide very strikingly with the narrative of Exodus, 
 allowing an interval of some forty years between 
 the decease of Amenophis and of Thotmes II. 
 
 According to the monuments, Tliotmes II., 
 I'lis Vidfe Hatasou, and Thotmes III., were 
 children of the same parent or parents. If the 
 joint reigns of Amesses and Thotmes II. extended 
 over thirty years, or even a much shorter period, 
 'I'liotmes III. could not have been the son of 
 Thotmes I., since he was a mere child at the 
 death of Thotmes 11. He is represented as a 
 boy of some ten or twelve years old, sitting on 
 the knees of Hatasou, on the monuments. If 
 we might assume that Thotmes 1 1, and his wife 
 were children of Thotmes I. and Amesses, and 
 that 'rhotincs HI. was a son of Amesses by 
 another husband, this would meet The difficulty. 
 It is certain that Thotmes 1 1, was son of 
 Thotmes I. Sec ‘Denkmaler,’ iii. pi. xvi. 
 a. 1. 7. 
 
 This is probably the true reading of the name, 
 which means “chief of the illustrious.” The 
 phonetic value of one of the signs is disputed by 
 Mr. Goodwin, but is shown to be correct by 
 Renouf and Eauth. 
 
 confederated nations on the north of Palestine, 
 which had been conquered by his father : no 
 attempt was made to recover the lost as- 
 cendancy of Egypt until the 22nd year of 
 Thotmes III. 
 
 Certainly no conjunction of circumstances 
 can be conceived which would adjust itself 
 more naturally to the Scriptural narrative, if 
 we assume that the, Exodus took place at this 
 time. In a history drawn entirely from public 
 inscriptions and monuments, no one would 
 expect to find records of events humiliating to 
 the national pride ; a period of heavy and 
 disgraceful calamity would present but a 
 blank.®^ Now the reigns of all other early 
 kings in this great dynasty were prosperous 
 and glorious, filled with great events attested 
 by numerous monuments. This king suc- 
 ceeded to a great place ; his first years were 
 brilliant, he cleared his frontiers : there is no 
 indication of rebellion or of foreign invasion, 
 and yet the last years are a complete blank ; 
 there is a sudden and complete collapse ; he 
 dies, no son succeeding: his throne is long 
 occupied by a woman : and no effort is made 
 to regain the former possessions of Egypt for 
 more than twenty years. We have ample 
 space for the events which preceded the 
 Exodus ; we find the conditions presupposed in 
 the accounts of the mission of Moses, and the 
 results which might have been anticipated 
 from calamities which, though not sufficient to 
 crush the nation, would cripple its resources, 
 and for a time subdue its spirit. 
 
 Assuming for the present the truth of this 
 hypothesis, we may consider what might be 
 the probable course of events. On the return 
 of Moses from Midian, in the eightieth year 
 of his age, and therefore towards the close of 
 the reign of Thotmes II., he found the Pharaoh 
 in lower Egypt, probably at Zoan (see Psalm 
 Ixxviii. 12), /T. 'I'anis, or as the Egyptians call 
 it Avaris, the city captured by his ancestor. 
 'The residence of the court for a great part of 
 the year would naturally be in that district 
 The upper country was quiet after the 
 conquest of Nubia, whereas the territory 
 occupied by the Israelites required watching, 
 and the neighbouring Shasous, or Bedouins, 
 caused constant alarms. The character of 
 the king as described in Exodus was at once 
 weak and obstinate, cruel and capricious. 
 
 M. de Rouge, .speaking of the name Aperu 
 (see further on), observes, “ C’est la seule trace 
 que la captivite dTsrael aura lai.ssee probable- 
 nicnt sur les monuments : il n’est pas a penser 
 que les klgyptiens y aient jamais consigne ni le 
 souvenir des jilaies, ni celui de la catastrophe 
 terrible de la Mer Rouge ; car leurs monuments 
 ne consacrent (jue bien rarement le souvenir de 
 leurs defaites.” See also the memoir lately 
 published ( 1869 ), ‘ Mo'ise et les Hebreux,’ p. 2 . 
 
 •'S M. Brugsch says strongly and truly, “as it 
 seems, all that had been previously conquered 
 was completely lost. — ‘ Geographie,’ i. p. 54* 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 457 
 
 such a character as is calculated to provoke 
 or accelerate great national calamities. Nor 
 can we lose sight altogether of the queen. 
 She was a very remarkable woman, daughter, 
 sister, and wife of kings, with the antecedents 
 of her mother and grandmother, both of 
 whom had been regents, and she was able to 
 retain the government of the nation during the 
 prolonged minority of the greatest and most 
 energetic king of the dynasty. Such a woman 
 may well have helped her brother and husband 
 to “ harden his heart,’" after each ague fit of 
 misgiving and terror. That she was a woman 
 of strong religious prejudices is proved by her 
 own inscriptions : as such she could not but be 
 revolted by the insults heaped upon the sooth- 
 sayers, priests, temples, and idols of Egypt. 
 W hen her heart was crushed by the loss of her 
 first-born son, we can conceive the mingled 
 feelings which would send her to the king, if 
 not to suggest, yet ‘to strengthen his resolution 
 to make one more effort to save his kingdom 
 from disgrace, and to avenge the long series 
 of calamities upon Israel.^^-* '1 hese are of course 
 but conjectures, but they rest upon facts dis- 
 tinctly recorded on contemporary Egyptian 
 monuments, and they harmonize thoroughly 
 with the narrative of Exodus. 
 
 The history of the next reign supplies some 
 remarkable coincidences. 
 
 (i8.) Thotmes I Il.remained in reluctant sub- 
 jection to his sister at least seventeen years.'® 
 On taking possession of the throne he defaced 
 her titles on the monuments, and reckoned his 
 own reign from the death of his predecessor, 
 without any notice of the intervening period. 
 It may be inferred from this that her rule was 
 distasteful to the people, associated, it may 
 be, with national disasters. It is certain that 
 during her regency there was a general revolt 
 and confederacy of the nations on the north- 
 west of Egypt from Palestine to Mesopotamia. 
 
 It was not until the twenty-second year of 
 his reign — a date, as will appear, of singular 
 importance in this inquiry — that Thotmes III. 
 began a series of expeditions unparalleled for 
 extent and grandeur in Egyptian history 
 
 The following facts are clearly proved. 
 
 The inscriptions on her obelisk, the most 
 beautiful now remaining at Thebes, give a strong 
 impression of this queen’s character. She speaks 
 of her favour with Ammon, boasts of her gra- 
 cious and popular manners, and is represented 
 in this, and also in other monuments, in mascu- 
 line attire, including a beard. See the inscrip- 
 tions in the ‘ Zeitschrift ’ for 1865, p. 34, and 
 Brugseh, ‘ Recueil,’ ii. p. 79. 
 
 Dr. Birch finds a higher date for the joint 
 government, twenty-one years. 
 
 A full account of these expeditions was in- 
 scribed on the walls of a temple dedicated to 
 Ammon after his last return to Egypt. They 
 are given by Lepsius in the ‘Denkmaler,’ vol. iii., 
 and in the ‘Auswahl some are published by 
 Brugseh, ‘ Recueil,’ and by M. de Rouge, ‘ Etude 
 
 The king left Zaru, or Pithom, early in the 
 year, and advanced without encountering any 
 opposition to Sarouhen on the southern fron- 
 tier of Palestine. He was detained by the 
 siege of Gaza, which he took early in the 
 spring of the following year. On the i6th of 
 Pachon, early in March, at a fort named 
 Souhem, he heard of the advance of the allied 
 kings of all the districts between the Euphrates 
 and the Mediterranean. The decisive battle 
 was fought at Megiddo, the earliest and one 
 of the most important of the conflicts in that 
 great battle-field of Western Asia. The allies 
 were completely defeated, the dead covered the 
 plain, horses and chariots in vast numbers 
 were taken, and on the following day the 
 chiefs, who had fled to Megiddo, came to 
 ofi'er submission and tributes, consisting of 
 gold, silver, bronze, lapis-lazuli, coders of pre- 
 cious metals, chariots plated with gold and 
 silver, magnificent vases of Phoenician work- 
 manship, a harp of bronze inlaid with gold, 
 ivory, perfumes, and wine. The proofs of an 
 advanced civilisation in the nations then domi- 
 nant in Palestine accord with all the repre- 
 sentations in Scripture. The point, however, 
 of main importance in the present inquiry is 
 that the power of the confederacy which gave 
 unity and strength to the people of Canaan 
 was completely broken by 'Thotmes III., just 
 seventeen years before the date when, on the 
 hypothesis we are now considering, the Israel- 
 ites entered Palestine. 
 
 The incursions of Thotmes continued 
 without intermission during this interval. 
 We have accounts of repeated invasions of 
 Phoenicia, conquests over the Rutens^^ in 
 Mesopotamia, where the king established a 
 fortress or military colony: we find the 
 great names of Assur, Babel, Nineveh, Shinear, 
 the Remenen, or Armenians, and most fre- 
 quently of the Cheta, the sons of Heth, 
 the Hittites of Scripture."'^ 
 
 sur divers monuments du regne deToutmes III,’ 
 1861. Mr. Birch first encountered, and to a great 
 extent overcame, the formidable difficulties of 
 decipherment and translation. His labours, and 
 those of M. de Rouge and Brugseh, have made 
 them accessible to students. 
 
 892 chariots are mentioned ; a very curious 
 coincidence with the statement in Judges v., 
 where we are told that Jabin, in the same battle- 
 field, had 900 chariots. 
 
 <r> ■JTJ 0 y 
 
 ^ Q. j Rutennu, as M. Chabas 
 
 has proved, designates the northern Syrians. 
 The name may be read Lutennu, or even Lu- 
 dennu, and is identified with Lud by M. do 
 Rougemont, ‘Age du Bronze.’ The presence of 
 Egyptians in Mesopotamia under the eighteenth 
 dynasty, and in the time of Thotmes III., is 
 proved by scarabaei found at Arban, on the 
 Cabus, a tributary of the Euphrates. 
 
 M. Chabas denies the identity of the Hittites 
 with the Cheta, chiefly on philological grounds, 
 since the names, of which several are given, indi- 
 
458 ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 One object was steadily pursued by the 
 king during these campaigns. In accordance 
 with the ancient policy of the Pharaohs/^ but 
 as it would seem because such a measure was 
 especially important at that time, and probably 
 one main motive for the repeated razzias, 
 Thotmes brought an immense number of 
 captives into Egypt. These are his own 
 words ; “ I made a great offering to Ammon 
 in recognition of the first victory which he 
 granted me, filling his domain with slaves, to 
 make him stuffs of various materials, to labour 
 and cultivate the lands, to make harvests, to 
 fill the habitation of Father Ammon.’’ At 
 Abd el Kurna, in the temple before mentioned, 
 there is a well-known picture of such captives 
 employed in making bricks. It is an ad- 
 mirable illustration of the labours of the 
 Israelites, whom it was formerly supposed to 
 represent : the inscription, however, states that 
 they are “ captives taken by his Majesty to build 
 the temple of his Father Ammon.” 
 
 We have now to call special attention to 
 this fact. The wars of I'hotmes III. were 
 terminated by the complete overthrow of all 
 his foes in Syria and Mesopotamia in the 
 fortieth year of his reign. No question is 
 raised about this date. But according to our 
 present hypothesis this took place exactly forty 
 years after the Exodus, immediately before 
 the entrance of the Israelites into Palestine. 
 
 They would then have found the country 
 in a state of utter prostration. With the 
 exception of such strongholds as might be 
 retained by the Egyptians to command the road 
 into Syria, the petty kings would keep each 
 his own ■ fortress, with no common head, no 
 powerful ally, accustomed to see their neigh- 
 bours and kinsmen beaten and subjugated, and, 
 though warlike, well supplied with arms, and 
 occupying forts well-nigh impregnable,'® yet 
 habituated to defeat, and liable, as the Scrip- 
 
 cate a different origin. Most Egyptologers, 
 however, retain the older view, which is de- 
 fended by very convincing arguments by M, de 
 Kouge. It is confirmed also by the Assyrian 
 inscriptions, which make the Kliati or llatti 
 occupy the country between the Mediterranean 
 and Carchemish, their frontier city in tlie times 
 of Tiglath Pileser I., see Rawlinson’s ‘Ancient 
 Monarchies,’ vol. ii. pp. 315, 317, and Menant, 
 
 ‘ Syllabaire Assyrien,’ p. 155, who identifies 
 them with the Hittites. The identification of the 
 Kemenen is proposed by Brugsch. 
 
 We have a very early record of this policy 
 in the reign of Pepi, of the sixth dynasty. See 
 M. de Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ p. 128. 
 
 See Brugsch, ‘ Recueil de Monuments 
 F'.gypliens,’ vol. i. p. 53. 
 
 .See Brugsch, ‘ Recueil,’ i. p. 53. 
 
 The history of the siege of Gaza, which 
 lasted more than a year, may account for the 
 Egyptians leaving so many cities untouched, re- 
 taining a partial or entire independence. This 
 applies to campaigns under the nineteenth and 
 twentieth dynasties. 
 
 tural narrative describes them, to wild fits of 
 panic at the approach of a new foe. If 
 again, as there is reason to believe, the kings 
 of Bashan, and other districts east of th^ 
 Jordan, were among the confederates defeatea 
 on his first invasion by Thotmes, it would 
 account for their exhaustion, and the extreme 
 terror of the princes of Midian and Moab.'*^ 
 
 (19.) It may be asked how could the Israel- 
 ites during that period escape the notice of the 
 king ? It is certain that the high road, always 
 followed by the Egyptian armies, ran along 
 the coast of the Mediterranean till it turned 
 off* towards Megiddo. The Israelites were 
 in the desert of Tih, a district not easily 
 accessible and offering no temptation to a. 
 conqueror whose energies were concentrated 
 in a desperate war. Flad they remained in 
 the peninsula of Sinai they would have been 
 within his reach, for its western district was 
 subject to Egypt from a very early period.®*^ 
 It is possible that their flight might have been 
 one motive for an expedition which, as we 
 learn from an inscription in the Wady 
 Mughara, was undertaken by the forces of 
 Hatasou and Thotmes in the sixteenth year 
 of their joint reign. 
 
 A far more serious objection rests on the 
 improbability that the powerful kings of the 
 eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties would 
 have permitted the invasion or the continued 
 occupation of Palestine by 'the Israelites. 
 
 We might answer in the first place that 
 this objection applies to every other date 
 suggested by chronologers. The very latest 
 date assumes that the Exodus took place under 
 the son or grandson of Raineses II., and that 
 the Israelites passed the Jordan in the time 
 of Rameses III. But that Pharaoh was one 
 of the most powerful sovereigns of Egypt, 
 and it is certain that his descendants, the 
 princes of the twentieth dynasty, retained 
 command of the communications by land and 
 water with Mesopotamia. This is proved by 
 
 This gives a peculiar force and suitableness 
 to the words of Balaam, twice repeated, “God 
 brought them out of Egypt. He hath, as it 
 were, the strength of an unicorn.” Num. xxiii. 
 22, xxiv. 8. 
 
 The intercourse between Egypt and the 
 west of the peninsula began under .Snefru, the 
 last Pharaoh of the third dynasty. He defeated 
 the Anu, the ancient inhabitants, and founded 
 a colony at the Wady Mughara. 'I'he most 
 ancient monument in existence records this 
 event, d'he copper-mines tliere were worked 
 under Chufu (Cheops) and other sovereigns of 
 tlie fourth and following dynasticsr We read 
 of a formal inspection by Pepi. See M. de Rouge, 
 ‘Recherches,’ pp. 7, 30, 31, 42, 81, 115. The 
 mines were worked under Amenemha, twelfth 
 dynasty, and the influence or sovereignty of 
 Egypt continued unbroken till long after the 
 Fixodus. M. Chabas shows that under the 
 twentieth dynasty the communications were 
 regularly carried on. 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 459 
 
 an inscription of great interest and import- 
 ance, well known to Egyptian scholars, which 
 belongs to the reign of Raineses XII., towards 
 the close of the dynasty. M. de Rouge 
 says, “ Elle suppose line domination encore 
 incontestce sur la Mesopotamie, des relations 
 amicales entreles princes d’Asie et le Pharaon, 
 ainsi que des routes habituellement parcourues 
 par le commerce.’' However it may be 
 accounted for, it is certain that during the 
 whole period between Joshua and Rehoboam 
 the Israelites were not disturbed in the posses- 
 sion of the strongholds of Palestine, although 
 the Pharaohs, as we have just seen, retained 
 an undisputed supremacy in Western Asia up 
 to the time of Samuel or Saul. 
 
 There are, however, facts, which, though 
 seldom noticed, are sufficiently obvious, and 
 may enable us to understand the policy of the 
 Pharaohs. 
 
 It is clear, even from the history of the 
 campaigns of T+iotmes 1 1 1 ., that at the end of 
 each campaign the Egyptians withdrew their 
 forces altogether from the countries which 
 they overran, content with the plunder, and 
 especially the capture of prisoners, with the 
 submission of the chiefs, and the tributes 
 ’which they were secure of exacting. This 
 might be a result of the constitution of the 
 Egyptian armies. The Calasirians and Her- 
 motybians, the warrior caste, had settled 
 homes to which they would certainly choose 
 to return, probably each year after the sub- 
 sidence of the inundation, when their labours 
 would be required for the cultivation of the 
 fields. We have no trace of permanent occu- 
 pancy of foreign stations, excepting one in 
 Mesopotamia, another at the copper-mines in 
 the Wady Mughara, and perhaps of a few 
 fortresses on the route through Syria. A 
 rapid campaign directed against the nations 
 to the north of Palestine, who were in a state 
 of chronic insurrection, and threw off the 
 yoke at every opportunity, would give an 
 Egyptian king neither the leisure nor the 
 inclination to assail the strongholds occupied 
 by the Israelites. It must also be borne in 
 mind that the Israelites attacked the most 
 powerful enemies of Egypt, the Hittites and 
 Amorites, and that, whereas their conquest 
 certainly did not result in the establishment 
 of a formidable empire, it was an effectual 
 check to the restoration and consolidation of 
 the powers which Thotmes had overthrown. 
 IfV e do not find notices of many incursions 
 under the immediate successors of Thotmes. 
 That which is recorded, under Amenophis II., 
 appears from the inscription to have been 
 
 ‘Journal Asiatique,’ 5th series, vol. viii. 
 p. 204. 
 
 The word used in reference to the invasions 
 of Asia in the reigns of Amenophis II. and III., is 
 
 which indicates a naval expe- 
 dition. See ‘ Denkmaler,’ iii. pi. 82. M. 
 
 carried on by sea. The three invasions under the 
 nineteenth and twentieth dynasties, by Seti I., 
 Rameses II., and Rameses III., had each the 
 same general object, and was pursued on the 
 same system and with the same general results, 
 although as we shall find presently a con- 
 siderable number of Israelites were probably 
 carried into captivity by the two last-named 
 kings. 
 
 If the date which is here assumed be correct, 
 we shall expect that those events which are 
 ascertained from later Egyptian monuments 
 of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties will 
 harmonise with it. An absolute contradiction 
 would be fatal to the hypothesis, which of 
 course will be materially strengthened by 
 general and special coincidences. 
 
 (20.) The reign of Thotmes 1 1 1 , was followed 
 by a period of great prosperity. The supre- 
 macy of Egypt in Western Asia was unbroken, 
 certainly during the two following reigns. Is 
 this general statement compatible with the 
 conquest of Palestine by the Israelites ? To 
 answer this question we must look closely at 
 the events in each reign, not forgetting that, 
 as we have already shown, a general supre- 
 macy was undouHedly retained from the 
 accession of the nineteenth to the termination 
 of the twentieth dynasty : that is throughout 
 the period which all chronologers hold to 
 have extended to' the end of the book of 
 Judges. 
 
 Immediately after the accession of Ameno- 
 phis II. he undertook an expedition against 
 the Rutens. He appears to have advanced 
 as far as Nineveh ; he certainly returned to 
 Egypt with the trophies of a great victory. 
 An inscription at Amada in Nubia, quoted 
 by M. Brugsch, ‘ H. E.,’ p. iii, and by M. 
 Chabas, ‘ Voyage d’un Egyptien,’p. 194, states 
 that this king slew seven princes of the con- 
 federates at Tachis (a city in Syria), and that 
 “ they were hung head downwards on the 
 prow of his Majesty’s ship.” 
 
 These facts are of considerable importance. 
 They show that the whole energies of the 
 Pharaohs were directed against the confede- 
 rates on the north of Palestine, whose defeat 
 and prostration would of course effectually 
 prevent them from marching into Palestine 
 either to support their allies, or to avenge 
 
 Chabas, who quotes the inscription, ‘Voyage 
 d’un Egyptien,’ p. 194, refers, of course by 
 oversight, to Amenophis I. It is a point of 
 much importance in this inquiry to have this 
 intimation of the transport of troops to Phfjenicia 
 by water. It is more than probable that the 
 Egyptians had a considerable navy under the 
 vigorous administration of the early kings of 
 this dynasty. We have; in fact, the representa- 
 tion of the transport of chariots and horses on 
 ships in the tomb of Ahmes at El Kab, which 
 belongs to this very period. See Rosellini, 
 M. C., pi. cx., and Duemichen, ‘Fleet of an 
 Egyptian Queen,’ taf. xxviii. 5. 
 
46o on the bearings OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 their fall before Joshua. The mention of the 
 ship of war has a special interest. It is 
 obvious that, as the Pharaohs were the undis- 
 puted masters of the sea after the conquest of 
 Phoenicia under Thotmes 1 1 1 ., the most ready 
 and effectual way of transporting their troops 
 would be by ships.®^ We have not sufficient 
 data to prove that they did adopt this mode 
 of carrying on their communications, but 
 there are other indications which make it 
 extremely probable. The word used in the 
 inscriptions which record invasions of Asia 
 under Amenophis III. is specially if not. ex- 
 clusively used of naval expeditions. (See 
 note 82.) It has been shown very 
 lately by a contemporary inscription that 
 at a far earlier period, under the sixth 
 dynasty, the Pharaoh Pepi sent large forces 
 by sea against the Herusha, probably Asi- 
 atics. See De Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ p. 126. 
 The rapid march of an Egyptian army along 
 the coast of Palestine some seven or eight 
 years after the passage over the Jordan would 
 not present any considerable difficulty, directed 
 as it was against the confederates of the Amo- 
 rites, but every semblance of a difficulty dis- 
 appears if the expedition was by sea. 
 
 Under I'hotmes IV. we have no notice of 
 Asiatic war. The tributes were probably 
 paid without any farther attempt at resist- 
 ance during that reign, which, though un- 
 distinguished and probably short, does not 
 appear to have been a period of disturbance.*^* 
 
 (21.) The reign of Amenophis III. was long 
 and prosperous. His supremacy in Syria and 
 Mesopotamia was uncontested; but though 
 the inscriptions speak of expeditions into the 
 Soudan, and of tributes brought from all 
 nations, there is no indication of Asiatic 
 warfare. It was a period of almost uninter- 
 rupted peace. I'here is no probability that the 
 struggles in Palestine would have attracted 
 the attention or called for the interposition 
 of a monarch engaged in magnificent works 
 which surpass in beauty and rival in extent 
 those which were completed under any suc- 
 ceeding dynasty. 
 
 There are, however, facts which may 
 perhaps justify a conjecture that the relations 
 iietween Egypt and the Israelites underwent 
 some modification in the interval after the 
 
 It is to be observed that the current of tlie 
 Ivivicra di Ponente runs along the Delta and 
 thence to the coast of Palestine or Syria, carrying 
 with it so much of the Kile mud as to fill up 
 the harbours. The sea voyage would be easy 
 and rapid. We find notice of the transport of 
 corn from Egyjit to the land of the Kheta under 
 Merneptah. ‘ Ilistor. Ins.,’ iii. 24. 
 
 Some scholars hokl that the Pixodus took 
 place at the clo.se of this reign. This theory is 
 supjiorted by ingenious arguments, but is scarcely 
 reconcileable with the condition of ligypt at the 
 beginning of the next reign, nor does it present 
 the coincidences which arc drawn from the reign 
 of Thotmes II. and his successors. 
 
 occupation of Palestine which corresponds to 
 this period. In i Chron. iv. 17, we read that 
 Mered, of the tribe of Judah, founded two 
 families, one by an Egyptian wife Bithia, who 
 is called a daughter of Pharaoh. This family 
 was settled at Eshtemoa, on the hilly district 
 of Judah, south of Hebron, now Isemna; the 
 ruins indicate the site of a considerable city. 
 The exact place of Ezra, the father of Mered, 
 in the genealogy is uncertain, but it belongs 
 apparently to the second generation from 
 Caleb. Now we have the fact that Ameno- 
 phis III. was married to a very remarkable 
 personage who was not of royal parentage 
 and not an Egyptian by creed. Under her in- 
 fluence Amenophis I V., her son (whose strongly 
 marked features have a Semitic, not to say 
 Jewish character),®'^ completely revolutionised 
 the religion of Egypt, more especially attack- 
 ing its most loathsome form, the phallus- 
 worship of Khem. The names of this princess, 
 Tei, and of her parents, luaa and Tuaa, bear 
 a singularly near resemblance to that of 
 Mered ’s wife.®® 
 
 (22.) However this may be, the few known 
 facts of Egyptian history from the accession 
 of Amenophis IV., or Khu-n-Aten {t.e. Glory 
 of the Sunbeam), are readily adjusted to 
 the early annals of the Judges. For a 
 few years the ascendancy of Egypt in Meso- 
 potamia was unimpaired. The Rutens and 
 their allies were kept in submission ; no 
 indication of an occupation of Palestine by 
 Egypt or its opponents is to be found : then 
 comes a time of internal struggle and confu- 
 sion, during which all the Asiatics threw off 
 the yoke. We have here a place for the inva- 
 sion of Cushan Rishathaim, the King of Meso- 
 potamia ; which must have taken place about 
 a century after the death of Joshua. The 
 
 85 The most striking portraits of this king 
 are in Prisse, ‘Monumenis,’ pi. x., and in the 
 ‘Denkmaler III. all the portraits have the 
 strongest character of individuality, wild, dreamy, 
 fanatic, with features in some points unlike those 
 of his predecessors, and approaching closely to 
 the Hebrew type. Ewald recognises and attaches 
 much importance to the traces of an attempt to 
 introduce a more spiritual form of religion at 
 this period: see ‘ Geschichte,’ v. I. ii., p. 51, 
 note, 2nd edition. 
 
 In Egyptian, ^ ^ ^ name 
 
 Bithia, exactly transcribed, would be 
 
 The name of the father of Tei, 
 
 lua, is markedly Jewish. See the inscription in 
 Brugsch, ‘ Gcographische Inscriften,’ i., taf. ix., 
 333. In a work lately published (1868), 
 ‘The Fleet of an Egyptian Queen,’ M. Due- 
 michen points out the resemblance and apparent 
 connection between Aten and pTN, Lord, ob- 
 serving that the hieroglyphic group is certainly 
 used with reference to this Semitic name of God. 
 See explanation of pi. iii. 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 growth of the power of the Moabites, and of 
 the nomads bearing the general denomina- 
 tion of Shasous in Egyptian, of Amalek, Edom, 
 Ammon, &c., in Hebrew, was a natural result 
 of the expulsion of the Mesopotamians on the 
 one side, and the prostration of Egypt on the 
 other.^' In the mean time the Gheta were gra- 
 dually acquiring the ascendancy from Cilicia 
 to the Euphrates,®'^ occupying the strongholds 
 in Syria, and encroaching gradually on the 
 borders of Palestine, a position which, not- 
 withstanding repeated and triumphant inva- 
 sions of their own territory, they occupied 
 during the whole period of the nineteenth 
 and apparently also the twentieth dynasties. 
 
 The duration assigned by M. Brugsch to 
 the eighteenth dynasty from the decease of 
 Thotmes HI. is about loo years. The cor- 
 responding period, on the hypothesis we 
 are now considering, brings us near to the 
 occupation of Palestine by Eglon King of 
 Moab. It will be observed that, although the 
 results of comparison of Egyptian and Hebrew 
 annals are, and must be to a great extent con- 
 jectural, inasmuch as no direct or distinct 
 notice of the events preceding the Exodus 
 or following the occupation of Palestine by 
 the Israelites is found on Egyptian monu- 
 ments, and no notice of Egyptian history 
 occurs in the books of Joshua, Judges, and 
 Samuel, yet the conjectures rest on data 
 established beyond all contradiction. They 
 do not profess to do more than show that the 
 two series of events dovetail, and mutually 
 sustain and explain each other: the coinci- 
 dences, whether they be held complete and 
 convincing or not, are unsought ; they forced 
 themselves on the writer’s attention, and gra- 
 dually led him to give a decided preference to 
 the hypothesis which has been here defended, 
 over that which is at present generally sup- 
 ported by Egyptian scholars. 
 
 (23.) We have now to consider what argu- 
 ments favourable or unfavourable to this hypo- 
 thesis are drawn from Manetho and other docu- 
 ments known to us through the medium of 
 Greek. Here we must carefully distinguish 
 between facts borne out by contemporary 
 monuments, and statements which, whether 
 correctly or incorrectly represented by the 
 translators and epitomizers, are contradicted 
 or not corroborated by such authority. 
 
 The Exodus is assumed by all ancient 
 chronologers, who derived their information 
 from Egyptian sources, to have taken place 
 under the eighteenth dynasty.®® Josephus, 
 
 It is also to be remarked that the Rutens, or 
 Assyrians, were so weakened towards the end of 
 the eighteenth dynasty that they lost the ascen- 
 dancy ; a fact sufficiently explained by the over- 
 throw of Cushan Rishathaim. 
 
 See Brugsch, ‘ H. E,,’ p. 127, and M. 
 Chabas, ‘Voyage,’ p. 325. 
 
 All the passages are collected in the first 
 volume of Bunsen’s ‘Egypt.’ 
 
 461 
 
 who regards the expulsion of the Hyksos to 
 be but a confused tradition of the departure 
 of the Israelites, places it under the first 
 king whom he calls Tethmosis ; Africanus, 
 who follows Ptolemy the Mendesian, under 
 Amos, ue. Amosis, or Aahmes. Eusebius 
 brings the transaction lower down, but still 
 long before the nineteenth dynasty, viz. under 
 Achencherses or Achencheres, i. e. probably 
 Khunaten, the son of Amenophis III. This 
 opinion is said by Syncellus to be avowedly 
 in contradiction to all other authorities. 
 Eusebius was probably led to it by the evident 
 indications of great disturbances under that 
 reign, and by the tradition that emigrations 
 of considerable extent took place soon after- 
 wards.®® 
 
 Passing to Manetho’s own statements, we 
 find that he represents the kings of the 
 Thebaid and of Upper Egypt as engaged in 
 a great and long-continued warfare with the 
 Hyksos: he asserts that the king, Misphrag- 
 muthosis, drove them out of all the other 
 districts in Egypt, and confined them within 
 the vast enclosure of Avaris. His son Teth- 
 mosis besieged the city with an immense army, 
 and, being unable to capture it, made a treaty 
 with them, permitting their departure: they 
 are said to have gone forth with their funii- 
 ture and their cattle, forming a host not less 
 than 240,000 in number, then to have tra- 
 versed the desert between Egypt and Syria, 
 and at last, fearing the Assyrians, at that time 
 masters of Asia, to have settled in Judaea, 
 where they built the city of Jerusalem. 
 
 Setting the account which has been given 
 in these pages side by side with the statement 
 of Manetho, we see at once the character of 
 his history, and the corroboration which it 
 supplies to what has been advanced. 
 
 (i) A war of considerable duration was car- 
 ried on between the kings of Upper Egypt 
 and the Shepherds. Here Manetho and 
 the monuments agree. (2) The king whom 
 Manetho calls Misphragmuthosis achieved 
 great successes in war, but did not capture 
 Avaris. It is true that the Shepherds were 
 attacked by the first king of the dynasty, but 
 untrue that Avaris was not captured by him. 
 Here we have a partial agreement, but the name 
 of the king is not correct. (3) Certain enemies 
 of the Egyptians were in possession of a 
 limited district under his successor. The 
 monuments are silent, but from the Penta- 
 teuch we know that the Israelites occupied 
 Goshen at this time, as nearly all Egyptian 
 scholars agree. (4) These enemies left Egypt 
 by permission, traversed Syria, and occupied 
 Palestine. Their forces amounted to 240,000. 
 The monuments are silent. We have the 
 Scriptural account with scarcely a variation. 
 
 _ Viz. the expulsion of Danaus and his settle- 
 ment at Argos. See the statement of Diodorus, 
 p. 462. 
 
ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 462 
 
 The principal inference bearing on our 
 present subject is that all these notices refer 
 to the same period, viz. the early years of the 
 eighteenth dynasty. 
 
 In another work Manetho gives what may 
 have been in his time the Egyptian account 
 of the Exodus ; it is utterly worthless, and, as 
 nearly all critics have observed, was evidently 
 invented by a person who had the Scripture 
 narrative before him.®^ It represents the 
 Israelites as lepers, and identifies Moses with 
 Osarsiph,*^- a priest of Heliopolis, evidently 
 Joseph. The Egyptian king, in whose reign the 
 enemies first made themselves masters of all 
 Egypt, committing atrocities far beyond those 
 attributed to the Hyksos, is called Amenophis. 
 According to this strange figment, Amenophis 
 committed his son Sethos, called also Rhamses, 
 to the charge of some private individual, and 
 retired into Ethiopia, whence he returned 
 with a great army, and finally ejected the 
 lepers ‘ind* their allies the Shepherds from 
 Egypt, pursuing them unto the borders of 
 Syria. 
 
 All names and events are here in hopeless 
 confusion ; but each name and each event is 
 found, though under very difi'erent circum- 
 stances, either in Egyptian or in sacred history. 
 Osarsiph and Moses, the character of the 
 Mosaic law, the prevalence of leprosy, the 
 connection of Osarsiph with Heliopolis, are 
 taken from Scripture: the names of Avaris, 
 Amenophis, Sethos, Rhamses, from Egyptian 
 monuments. The expulsion of the Shepherds 
 by an Egyptian king with forces brought 
 from Ethiopia is, as we have seen, historical. 
 Amenophis himself, the son of Amosis, made 
 an expedition into Ethiopia. There was a 
 religious aspect of the struggle between the 
 Shepherds and the Egyptians. No inference 
 of any value can be clrawn from the whole 
 narrative in favour of either hypothesis now 
 under consideration. On the one side the 
 names of Sethos and Rameses would point to 
 tlie nineteenth dynasty, but it is scarcely con- 
 ceivable that a man having the least acquaint- 
 ance with Egyptian history should have 
 confounded Sethos and his son, or have re- 
 presented Amenophis as the father of Sesostris. 
 On the other sicle, the name of Amenophis 
 would point distinctly to the eighteenth 
 dynasty, and the whole narrative might get 
 into the shape which it here assumes, if the 
 facts above proved, and the combinations 
 which we have assumed, had been manipulated 
 by an Egyptian priest under the Ptolemies. 
 
 'I'he story told by Chasremon (see Jose- 
 phus c. Apion, i. 32) is a modification of this, 
 i he Israelites are led by Moses and Joseph, 
 
 See Ihowne, ‘ Ordo Sccclorum,’ p. 581. 
 
 There is an evident reference to one or 
 both of Joseph’s names. The last syllable, 
 Siph, answers to sejdi, and also to Zaf, food, 
 Osir means rich, powerful, &c. ; Osersiph* rich 
 in food. 
 
 whose Egyptian names are said to be Tisithen 
 and Peteseph.®^ They join an army of 300,000 
 men, whom Amenophis had left at Pelusium, 
 because he did not wish to bring them into 
 Egypt. Amenophis retreated into Ethiopia, 
 where he had a son named Mepenes, who, 
 when he became a man, drove the Jews into 
 Syria, and recalled his father Amenophis from 
 Ethiopia. 
 
 An extract from Lysimachus, given also by 
 Josephus, is a mere corruption of the Scriptural 
 narrative, invented under the Ptolemies, It 
 names Bocchoris (b.c. 721) as the Pharaoh 
 of the Exodus: a striking instance of con- 
 temptuous disregard of all historical proba- 
 bilities. 
 
 Diodorus has two accounts : in one (c. 
 xxxiv. i) the adherents of Antiochus Sidetes 
 represent the Jews as a despicable race ex- 
 pelled from Egypt, hateful to the gods on 
 account of foul cutaneous diseases; in the 
 other (c. xl. i) he relates that in ancient 
 times a pestilence which raged in Egypt was 
 ascribed to the wrath of the gods on account 
 of the multitude of aliens who with their 
 strange worship were ofi'ensive to the gods of 
 the land. The aliens were therefore expelled. 
 I'he most distinguished among them betook 
 themselves to Greece and other adjoining 
 regions, among whom were Danaus and Cad- 
 mus. The main body, however, retired into 
 the country afterwards called Judaea, which 
 at that time was a desert. This colony was 
 led by Moses. 
 
 From what source Diodorus derived this 
 latter statement is quite uncertain, but the 
 colouring is Egyptian. It undoubtedly points 
 to an earlier period than the nineteenth dynasty ; 
 most probably to that assigned by Eusebius to 
 the emigration into Palestine and Greece, viz. 
 the latter reigns of the eighteenth dynasty. 
 
 As a general result from this part of our 
 inquiry, we find that, with two exceptions, 
 all the names and transactions noticed by 
 Manetho, and by Greek writers, whether 
 heathen or Christian, harmonise with the 
 course of events under the eighteenth dynasty. 
 One exception is simply noticeable for its 
 absurdity, bringing the Exodus down to the 
 eighth century and the twenty-fourth dynasty : 
 the other is more important since it intro- 
 duces the names of Sethos and Rameses, but 
 under circumstances and in a relationship 
 which evince cither an entire ignorance or 
 a wilful perversion of the best known facts 
 of Egyptian history. 
 
 One argument remains of which the im- 
 portance will not be questioned. Critics of 
 the most opposite schools who have carefully 
 
 ,Seph, the last syllable of Joseph’s Hebrew, 
 and the first of his Egyptian name, .seems to 
 have left a permanent impression, and that a very 
 natural one, as meaning “food.” See Essay 
 II. 
 
 Sec Browne, ‘ Ordo Soeclorum,’ p. 584. 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 463 
 
 considered the bearings of the facts drawn 
 from Egyptian sources upon the narrative of 
 Exodus, concur in the conclusion that the ac- 
 cession of the eighteenth dynasty was the be- 
 ginning of the persecution, and that the Exodus 
 took place in some reign before the acces- 
 sion of the nineteenth. Thus Knobel, Winer, 
 and Ewald. 
 
 (24.) We have now to consider whether the 
 facts, admitted by all Egyptologers and attested 
 by monuments and other documents of un- 
 questionable authority, which appertain to 
 the history of the 19th dynasty, accord with 
 the hypothesis here adopted, or whether we 
 should acquiesce in the conclusion to which 
 eminent scholars have been led ; that 
 which identihes Rameses II. with the first 
 persecutor of the Israelites, and places the 
 Exodus under his son Merneptah. It may be 
 well to say at once that the reader might 
 accept that conclusion without repugnance : 
 on certain conditions it may be reconciled 
 with the narrative of Exodus, which some at 
 least of its chief supporters accept as an 
 authentic document, if not as the production 
 of Moses. It is, however, a question to be 
 determined not by authority, but by circum- 
 stantial evidence. It is now universally ad- 
 mitted that no monuments of this or of any 
 other period make mention of the events 
 which preceded or immediately followed the 
 departure of the Israelites.^® In the following 
 pages every fact bearing upon this question 
 will be fairly and fully stated, together with 
 the arguments on both sides. 
 
 (25.) W e have first to inquire into the known 
 or probable condition of Palestine during the 
 interval between the early Judges and the time 
 of Deborah and Barak. It is an interval of 
 considerable duration, extending over some 
 two centuries, if we take the numbers in 
 the book of Judges literally,®^ and covering 
 
 M. de Rouge says in his ‘ Report on 
 Egyptian Studies,’ 1867, p. 27, “ Les rapports 
 de temps et de noms ont fait penser a M. de 
 Rouge que Rameses 11. devait etre considere 
 egalement comrne le Pharaon sous lequel JMoise 
 dut fuir I’Egypte et dont le tres-long regne for^a 
 le legislateur futur des Hebreux a un tres-long 
 exil. A defaut d’un texte precis qui manque 
 dans la Bible, cette conjecture rend Lien compte 
 des faits, et elle a ete generalement adoptee.’’ 
 It has in fact been adopted by Egyptian scholars 
 in Germany, France, and England. The sobriety 
 and reserve with which M. de Rouge states this 
 conjecture, to which he attaches great value, 
 stand out in strong contrast to the confidence 
 with which it is maintained as a proved fact by 
 most of his followers. 
 
 9® See the statement of M. de Rouge quoted 
 above, note 67. 
 
 97 The numbers in Judges iii. are a long but 
 uncertain time from the conquest under Joshua, 
 X, Cushan Rishathaim, 8 years ; peace, 40 years ; 
 Eglon, 18 years ; rest, 80 years ; Philistines, x ; 
 i.e. 146 + X 4- X. Brugsch calculates the in- 
 
 certainly as much time as is occupied by the 
 annals of Egypt between Amenophis III. and 
 the later kings of the nineteenth dynasty. 
 
 During the whole of that period it is dis- 
 tinctly stated that the Israelites were not in 
 exclusive possession of Palestine; they dwelt 
 among the Canaanites, Hittites, and .Amorites, 
 and Peri/zites, and Hivites, and Jebusites. 
 (Judges iii. 5.) Many of the most important 
 strongholds were occupied by these nations, 
 including nearly all those which are men- 
 tioned in the records of Seti and Rameses II.”® 
 Generally speaking, the open country was re- 
 tained by the Amorites, against whose iron 
 chariotry the Israelites could not make head 
 even in Judah (Judges i. 19). The whole 
 district from the southern frontier upward 
 belonged to them, and was apparently called, 
 as we find it even in inscriptions of the 
 twentieth dynasty, the land of the Amorites.'*® 
 This was the case even when the land was 
 at rest : in some portions of Palestine the 
 Israelites brought the inhabitants into partial 
 subjection and made them tributaries, but the 
 process was slow, alternating with many dis- 
 asters, and not completed until a very late 
 period, long after that which is now under 
 consideration. When the Israelites were 
 themselves brought under subjection the 
 whole country was in a state described 
 incidentally in the song of Deborah ; the 
 highways were unoccupied, the villages 
 ceased, there was war in the gates, i.e. the 
 strongholds were blockaded ; while not a 
 spear or shield was to be seen among 40,000 
 in Israel (Judges v. 6). 
 
 It is clear therefore that an Egyptian army 
 traversing Palestine at any part of this time 
 would not encounter Israelitish forces in the 
 open field; Israel had no chariotry, no horses, 
 and would not be concerned with expeditions 
 which were invariably directed against its 
 own enemies in Syria.^®® 
 
 We have now to remark the very exact 
 correspondence between the Hebrew and 
 
 terval between Amenophis III. and Merneptah 
 at 200 years. The elements of uncertainty on 
 both sides are considerable, but the general 
 correspondence is noteworthy. 
 
 99 E.g., Jerusalem, Bethshean, Taanach, 
 Dor, Megiddo, Zidon, Bethshemesh, Bethanath. 
 Gaza and the other four cities in the district 
 were evidently recovered during this period by 
 the Philistines. Compare Judges i. 18 with iii. 
 3 and 31. In the inscriptions of the nineteenth 
 dynasty, I cannot find any Palestinian city which 
 the book of Judges represents as occupied by 
 Israelites in the period after the conquest. 
 
 99 See e.g. Duemichen, ‘ Hist. Inschriften,’ 
 pi. xxviii., xxix. 
 
 ^99 The strongholds which the Egyptians, 
 under Seti and Rameses II., had occasion to 
 attack, and some of which they appear to have 
 garrisoned, were, with scarcely an exception, in 
 the posses.sion of Canaanites or Hittites. See 
 note 98. 
 
ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 464 
 
 Egyptian notices of the power predominant 
 in W estern Asia. 
 
 The Assyrians, called Riitens by the Egypt- 
 ians, were masters of the north lof Syria, and 
 of ail the countries extending from Cilicia to 
 Mesopotamia, when that district was invaded 
 by the early kings of the eighteenth dynasty.'®^ 
 Their influence in the confederacy opposed to 
 Egypt was gradually superseded. Up to the 
 time wlien Seti 1 . invaded Syria, i.e. according 
 to our computation about 150 years after the 
 Exodus, they were the leaders of the con- 
 federacy, which was then broken, dispersed, 
 and for a season crushed by repeated defeats. 
 M. Ghabas observes (p. 328) that under 
 Rameses II. they disappear altogether, they 
 are not even mentioned in the great campaign 
 of his 5th year. Their name is found on a 
 small number of monuments belonging to 
 later reigns, but there is no indication that 
 they had recovered their former importance. 
 
 In accordance with this we find that their 
 last appearance in Palestine was soon after 
 its occupation by the Israelites, when Gushan 
 Rishathaim was finally expelled by Othniel the 
 nephew of Caleb. 
 
 Nothing more probable than that such 
 an event should have occurred under the 
 eighteenth dynasty (see above, p. 460); its 
 occurrence at the late period which the ac- 
 ceptance of the other chronological system 
 would involve is inconceivable. 
 
 In place of the Rutens or Assyrians we find 
 the Gheta in possession of Syria at the acces- 
 sion of Seti I. The identification of this people 
 with the Hittites of Scripture has been ques- 
 tioned, chiefly on philological grounds,^'(- by 
 M. Ghabas; but is still generally admitted 
 by Egyptian scholars, and appears to rest on 
 very sulheient evidence. It is certain that the 
 Hittites, Ganaanites, Zidonians, and Amorites, 
 formed part of the confederacy opposed to 
 Seti and Rameses II. VVe learn from the 
 book of Judges (i. 26) that the country 
 north of Palestine was called the land of the 
 Hittites, that Phoenicia retained its inde- 
 pendence, and further, that at the close_ of the 
 period the whole country was in subjection 
 to Jabin King of Ganaan, the captain of 
 whose host was “Sisera,^*^^ which dwelt in 
 Plarosheth of the Gentiles.” 
 
 Taking now the contemporary history of 
 Eg\'pt derived exclusively from public inscrip- 
 tions, we have the following coincidences : — ^ 
 
 (26.) In the first year of his reign Seti 
 
 ' 0 * I'or proofs see M. Brugseh, ‘II. E. and G.,’ 
 and the dissertation by xM. Ghabas, ‘Voyage 
 d’un Kgypticn,’ p. 318-332. 
 
 i.e., from the comparison of Chetan names 
 (of which seventeen are preserved in the treaty 
 between Rameses II. and Khetasar) with the 
 names of Hittites found in the Bible. 
 
 The name is evidently Chetan ; it has the 
 most marked characteristic of the names collected 
 by M. Ghabas (see note 74), viz. the termination 
 Sera or Sar: see further on. 
 
 marched against the Shasous, who at that time 
 occupied, or were masters of, the countries 
 from Pithom to Pakanana. He defeated 
 them with great slaughter, and advanced into 
 Mesopotamia. On a second invasion he again 
 traversed the territory occupied by the Shasous 
 and took several forts. 
 
 The word Shasous, as we have before seen, 
 was a general denomination for the warlike 
 tribes who at various times overran Palestine. 
 About the time which the synchronism of 
 Egyptian and Hebrew history, on our hy- 
 pothesis, assigns to Seti and the Israelites, we 
 find Eglon King of Moab in combination 
 with the children of Ammon and Amalek, 
 master of the country. At any time within 
 the period, as we have also observed, the 
 opponents whom the Pharaohs would en- 
 counter in Palestine would come under the 
 same general designation. 
 
 The fortresses named in the inscriptions 
 which refer to this campaign were one and 
 all occupied by the enemies of Israel. 
 
 The Shasous conquered by Seti were in 
 alliance with the Syrians and the Rutens : 
 both mentioned as foes or oppressors of the 
 Israelites. 
 
 The great object of Seti and his successor 
 was to conquer Syria, and to occupy its 
 principal city called Kadesh, which is probably 
 identified by Egyptologers with Edessa, or 
 Ems, on the Orontes. 
 
 At the close of this reign Egypt was domi- 
 nant in Syria, and held some fortresses, but 
 the power of the Gheta was unbroken, and 
 we have no traces whatever of a permanent 
 occupation of Palestine. As in the time of 
 Sham gar, the Israelites were in the state de- 
 scribed as that of Seti’s foes in the inscriptions, 
 either hidden in caves or entrenched in inac- 
 cessible strongholds.^^^ The principal effect of 
 the invasion, so far as the Hebrews were 
 concerned, would be a diminution in the 
 power and resources of their foes. 
 
 The transactions in the reign of Rameses II. 
 will require very special attention. W e shall 
 best arrive at a conclusion by considering each 
 point in detail which may tell for or against 
 either hypothesis. 
 
 (27.) Rameses Merammon, the Sesostris^°®of 
 
 ^0-* It is questioned whether this means a fort 
 in Syria or Ganaan. 
 
 See Brugseh, ‘ Recueil I.,’ pi. xlv. e: 
 “throwing av/ay their bows they fled to caves 
 in terror from his majesty.” The word “caves” 
 
 here is Hebrew, ^ q IGT 1 1 
 magaratha = DHyD. 
 
 106 This is generally held, but is not certain. 
 Dr. G. Ebers doubts whether Herodotus does 
 not refer the name to Seti I., and suggests that 
 the hieroglyphic group may perhaps be read 
 Sesetres, or Sesetresu, which comes very near 
 Sesostris. See ‘ Egypten und die Bucher 
 Moses,’ i. p. 79. 1868. 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 465 
 
 the Greeks, succeeded Seti I. It was supposed 
 until very lately that he was very young, a 
 mere lad, on his accession ; but the researches 
 of M. Mariette^^^' have brought to light the 
 curious and interesting fact that he had been 
 associated with his father from infancy in the 
 royal dignity, and that he had been admitted 
 to the full prerogatives of a Pharaoh long 
 before the death of Seti : in the first year after 
 that event he is represented as surrounded 
 with a family of twenty-seven princes and as 
 many princesses. This is important in its 
 bearings on Egyptian chronology. There is 
 no doubt that he reigned full sixty-seven years, 
 a date found lately on a monument at Tanis, 
 but from what epoch the year is dated re- 
 mains uncertain ; probably from an epoch 
 long anterior to his father’s decease.^*^® The 
 argument is of still more importance in its 
 bearing upon another t)iblical question. Of 
 no king in the whole series of Pharaohs could 
 it be asserted, in such direct contradiction of 
 w'cll-known facts, that he was a ne^u king, 
 rising up over Egypt : of none can it be proved 
 more certainly that he did not at once make 
 an entire change in the policy of this kingdom. 
 The argument upon which much stress is 
 laid, viz. that his lengthened reign accords 
 with the notices in Exodus, falls with the 
 assumption that he outlived his father some 
 sixty-seven years. 
 
 ‘ Fouilles executees en F,g}^pte, en Nubie, et 
 au Soudan, d’apres les ordres de S. A. le Viceroi 
 d’Egypte, par Auguste Mariette Bey.’ Paris, 1867. 
 The second volume, in two parts, contains text 
 and plates ; the first volume is not yet published. 
 The most important inscription, from the temple 
 at Abydos', has been carefully analysed by M. 
 Maspero, 1867. It belongs to the first year of 
 the sole reign of Rameses II., Avho is represented 
 as associated from his infancy with his father, and 
 formally crowned while yet a boy. Compare 
 Maspero, p. 29, with Mariette, p. 15. Mariette’s 
 work throws an unexpected and curious light on 
 the character of Rameses, and on the state of 
 Egyptian art towards the end of his reign. In 
 the earlier inscriptions Rameses expresses the 
 highest veneration and gratitude to his father ; in 
 the latter he effaces the name of Seti, and sub- 
 stitutes his own. The earlier portions of the build- 
 ing and inscriptions are remarkable for beauty 
 and breadth of style ; the later sculptures are in- 
 correct, and the style detestable. See ‘Fouilles,’ 
 especially p. 99, Since this note was printed, 
 M. Mariette has withdrawn the volume here 
 quoted from circulation, and substituted another, 
 in which much valuable matter is suppressed. 
 
 108 materially affects the argument to 
 
 which M. de Rouge has always attached special 
 importance (see above, note 95). Moses could not 
 have^ been born until some years after the be- 
 ginning of the persecution, i.e., according to M. 
 de Rouge, Brugsch, and others, after the Syrian 
 campaign ; when Rameses is now proved to have 
 been at least in the maturity of middle life. We 
 thus lose the space of eighty years required by 
 the Biblical narrative before the Exodus. 
 
 In the 5th year of his sole reign Rameses 
 invaded Syria. In the neighbourhood of 
 Kadesh, on the Orontes, he defeated the con- 
 federates, who as usual had revolted when 
 their conqueror died. The battle would almost 
 seem to be the only one in which the Icing 
 distinguished himself ; it is described on 
 numerous monuments, and forms the subject 
 of what is called the epic poem of Pentaour.^°^ 
 The campaign was successful : one of the 
 most important results for this inquiry was 
 the capture, and perhaps the occupation, of 
 some fortresses in Palestine. We have the 
 name of Sharem, or Shalem ; it is doubtful 
 whether this is to be Identified with Jeru- 
 salem ; if so, it was, as we know, long after 
 the conquest, in possession of the Jebusites ; 
 Maram and Dapur, in the land of the Amorites, 
 are also mentioned ; Bethanath, still occupied 
 by Canaanites (see Judges i. 33); and lastly 
 Askelon. The notices of Askelon in Judges 
 show that it was taken at first by the Israelites 
 (i. i8j, and imply probably that it came 
 again into the occupation of the Philistines 
 some time later, perhaps in the time of Shamgar. 
 See Judges iii. 31. 
 
 So far the argument remains stationary. 
 The condition of Palestine under Rameses 
 continues as under Seti, quite in agreement 
 with that which we find in the 3rd chapter of 
 J udges ; Egypt commanding the high roads, 
 occupying some fortresses taken principally 
 from the Canaanites, but concentrating its 
 forces and developing all its energies in its 
 attempt to retain supremacy in Syria. We 
 should of course expect to find among the 
 numerous prisoners of war brought back by 
 Rameses some Israelites, if, as we have 
 assumed, they were then dwelling, though 
 not dominant, in the land. 
 
 (28.) It was after the king’s return to Egypt 
 that the events occurred upon which the hypo- 
 thesis rests that he reduced the Israelites of 
 Goshen to bondage. Diodorus relates that he 
 constructed a line of fortifications from Pelu- 
 sium to Heliopolis. It is, however, proved by 
 the monuments that such a line existed under 
 the ancient empire, and that it had been en- 
 larged and strengthened by his father Seti. 
 It is also known that in the latter years of his 
 reign Rameses effaced his father’s name and 
 substituted his own on many of the principal 
 constructions of Egypt ; still there can be 
 no reasonable doubt that he employed vast 
 numbers of captives in the fortresses which 
 
 109 This curious and important document was 
 first explained and afterwards translated by M. de 
 Roug 4 M. Chabas, and Mr. Goodwin. The trans- 
 lation in Brugsch, ‘Flistoire d’Egypte,’ p. 140, 
 is that of M. de Rouge. The original exists in a 
 hieratic papyrus, Sallier III,, in the Select Papyri 
 of the British Museum, and more or less complete 
 in hieroglyphic inscriptions at Karnak and Abu 
 Simbel. 
 
 See note 
 
 G G 
 
466 ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 he enlarged, or erected on the banks of the 
 great canal, now called the Wady Tumilat. 
 Among these fortresses two are mentioned 
 specially, the fort of Zaru and Pe-Ramesses, 
 'l'h«se are assumed by Brugsch to be the 
 Pithom and Rameses of Exodus. The 
 question is- fully discussed in another part 
 of this work. Here it is enough to ob- 
 serve that these two cities or forts existed 
 previously. That which Brugsch calls Pithom, 
 but of which the true name in Egyptian is 
 Pa-Ghetem en Zalou, was at least as old as 
 the time of Thotmes III. Pithom itself, the 
 Pa-T um of the inscriptions, the Udrovixos of 
 Herodotus, may have been, and probably was, 
 in its immediate neighbourhood, but it is 
 nowhere mentioned in connexion with Ra- 
 meses. The case is much stronger for the 
 other city.^^^ Pa-Ramessou, or A-Ramessou, 
 ■i.e. the residence of Rameses, was undoubtedly 
 •enlarged by this king: it was a city of the 
 highest importance, the capital of a rich 
 district, the residence of the sovereign, where 
 he received foreign embassies, reviewed his 
 troops, and held a magnificent court. Still 
 it is proved by contemporary documents that 
 it was not founded by Rameses. In the fifth 
 year of his reign, before the great works for 
 the defence of the frontier were constructed, 
 Rameses received the ambassadors of the 
 Cheta in this city, which, according to M. 
 Brugsch, is mentioned by name in the reign 
 of Seti.^^- 
 
 Considering, however, the great importance 
 of this citadel, to which additions were made 
 continually under this reign, we should expect 
 that a large number of captives would be 
 employed in the works, and among the captives 
 brought into Egypt at the end of the Syrian 
 campaign Israelites would naturally be looked 
 for. Although it was the usual policy of 
 Rameses to employ prisoners in the parts 
 of his dominions most remote from their own 
 country, there were obvious reasons why this 
 system should be departed from in their case : 
 there was a grim irony, quite in keeping with 
 Egyptian character, in reducing Israelites to 
 
 The identity of this city with Rameses is the 
 main, in fact the only substantial argument for 
 making Moses the contemporary of Rameses II. 
 Even were it admitted that the name, in the 
 exact form which it takes in Exodus, v/as first 
 given by Rameses, the argument, though strong, 
 would not be conclusive, for all hold that the 
 names of places may have been altered at succes- 
 si\e revisions of the Pentateuch, the new and 
 well-known name being substituted for the old, 
 when a modern editor would give a note. The 
 argument, moreover, has no weight at all when 
 urged by critics who suppose that the Pentateuch 
 was written after the Israelites were connected 
 with Egypt under Solomon, or later. In that 
 case the names of the district and city would of 
 course have been taken from actual usage. I 
 ’lieve the truth to be as stated in the text. 
 
 Brugsch, ‘II. E.,’ p. 156, 
 
 servitude on the scene of their forefathers’ 
 oppression ; and their escape, difficult under 
 all circumstances, could be, and, as we shall 
 see, actually was, guarded against by measures 
 of peculiar stringency. 
 
 (29.) Now, that Israelites were actually em- 
 ployed then and there has been, though not 
 really proved, yet shown to be so probable 
 that nearly all Egyptian scholars accept it as 
 a fact. M. Ghabas^^^ first called attention 
 to the circumstance that the Egyptian word 
 “ Aperu ” corresponds very closely to “He- 
 brews,” the name by which the Israelites were 
 perhaps best known to foreigners. The tran- 
 scription is not quite accurate : the letter “p” 
 is by no means the proper representation of the 
 Hebrew “ b,” norffiave I found any conclusive 
 example of a substitution but the general 
 acquiescence of Egyptologers may be regarded 
 as a sufficient ground for admitting the identifi- 
 cation. 
 
 Still the question remains whether these 
 Hebrews were in the condition described in 
 Exodus, inhabitants of the district in which 
 
 See ‘Melanges Egyptologiques,’ i. p. 42-54, 
 and ii., on Rameses and Pithom. 
 
 After a repeated examination of the Semitic 
 names transcribed on Egyptian documents, I 
 find no instance upon which full reliance can be 
 placed. Many names occur in which the B is 
 represented by the Egyptian homophones. The 
 Egyptian “p” represents the “ph” of the 
 Hebrews. Mr. Birch concurs in this statement. 
 
 The word '*^3* < 3 > “tN— Aper, or Apher, 
 
 occui'S in the annals of Thotmes III. twice in 
 an inscription at Karnak. See M. de Rouge, 
 ‘ Album Photographique,’ pi. lii., and is tran- 
 scribed by M. de Rouge, The exact and 
 
 proper transcription of the Aperu would be 
 '“IDy, not '“lHy. A still stronger objection, 
 which seems indeed insurmountable, is sug- 
 gested by one account of these Aperu. In the 
 inscription at Hamamat, under Rameses IV. (see 
 further on), they are called Aperu n napetu Anu, 
 i.e. Aperu of the Anu. The Anu are often men- 
 tioned as a warlike race in Nubia, who rebelled 
 frequently against the Pharaohs. They are here 
 written with a group which always represents 
 bowmen, whether auxiliaries or enemies. 
 
 The inference is almost irresistible that these 
 Aperu, and, if these, the others also, were 
 Nubians, condemned to work, in the quarries. 
 See Brugsch, ‘Geog. Inschriften,’ iii. p. 77 ; and 
 on the Anu, see the ‘Excursus II.,’ article 
 Anamim. It seems after all doubtful whether 
 Aperu is a proper name, or simply denotes work- 
 men. Maspero says that they were, as one 
 knows, the servants of the temple. ‘Essai,’ p, 22. 
 Neither Birch nor Brugsch give this in their Dic- 
 tionaries, but the etymology points to such a 
 meaning, “ Aper, to sujjply or prepare,” and 
 Maspero is a gootl authority. Aperu is given as 
 a variant of Shennin, attendants in the Ritual, 
 c. Ixxviii. 37. 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 467 
 
 they were employed, or prisoners of war. The 
 former alternative is generally assumed: a 
 close examination of the original documents 
 seems decidedly to point to the latter. 
 
 Four Egyptian documents give an account 
 of these Aperu. Two belong to the reign 
 ofRamesesII. They are official documents 
 of very peculiar interest. One of them was 
 written by a certain Kawisar, an officer of 
 the commissariat at Pa-Ramesson. He reports 
 that he has executed his orders, which were 
 to distribute corn to the soldiers and to the 
 Aperu, or Apuriu, who are employed in draw- 
 ing stones for the great Bek ken {i.e. fortified 
 enclosure) of Pa-Ramesson : the corn was 
 delivered to a general of mercenary troops; 
 the distribution was made monthly. In another 
 report (which however does not mention the 
 Aperu) he speaks of large supplies of fish for 
 the city. 
 
 The obvious inference from this account 
 would seem to be that persons employed in 
 such labours, fed by rations, and under military 
 superintendence, were captives, and not in- 
 habitants of the district.^'^ The name “ Ka- 
 wisar ” resembles the well-known names of 
 Cheta: Chetan officers are found in the 
 service of Rameses, and such a man was 
 peculiarly qualified for the office, both as a 
 natural enemy of the Hebrews and as familiar 
 with their language.’^® 
 
 The second document has special claims to 
 attention, since M. Ghabas has shown that it 
 is probably the original report addressed by a 
 scribe Keniamen to an officer of high rank, 
 the Kazana, or General Flui,'^^ of the house- 
 hold of Rameses. It proves that strict in- 
 junctions were given to provide food for the 
 officers of the garrison and also for the 
 “ Aperu ” who drew stones for the Pharaoh 
 
 This inference is in fact the first which 
 would suggest itself to a* scholar looking at any 
 of these documents. M. Brugsch observes (in 
 the third part of his great work on Egyptian 
 Geography, published in i860, see p. 77), “This 
 name, as the determinative shows, evidently 
 belonged to a foreign people, who had been 
 taken prisoners in the Egyptian, campaigns, and 
 condemned to work in the quarries, a custom 
 noticed by all ancient writers on Egypt, and 
 especially with reference to Rameses II.” 
 
 In the ‘Mel. E^pt.’ M. Chabas assumes 
 that the name is Semitic. He has since taken 
 much pains (see ‘ Voy. E.’, pp. 326-330) to prove 
 that the Chetan names are altogether of a dif- 
 ferent origin. The argument stands good in the 
 form above proposed, whichever view is taken. 
 
 M. Chabas treats this as a proper name. M. 
 de Rouge shows that it is equivalent to j'^p, and 
 means general of cavalry. See ‘ Revue Archeo- 
 logique,’ Aout, 1867, The name Hui is 
 ^.bYphan, and is found under the ancient em- 
 pire. This does not support Dr. Ebers’ state- 
 ment, that the cavalry u^as always under the 
 management of Semitics in this time. See 
 ‘A^gypten,’ &c., p. 229. 
 
 Rameses Merammon in a district south of 
 Memphis. 
 
 This is a strong corroboration of the con- 
 clusion that, if Israelites, they were prisoners 
 of war. The Israelites of the Exodus, from 
 first to last, are represented as forced to 
 labour in their own district under Egyptian 
 taskmasters, wdio were certainly not soldiers, 
 and with a complete national organization of 
 superintendents. 
 
 The other documents complete the argu- 
 ment. Aperu were employed in considerable 
 numbers in reigns which all admit to be 
 posterior to the Exodus. In a document of 
 great importance, of which M. Chabas gives 
 an account (see ‘ Voyage d’un Egyptien,’ p. 
 211), we find a body of 2083 Aperu residing 
 upon a domain of Rameses III. under the 
 command of officers of rank called Marinas ; 
 from the signs attached to these names it is 
 evident that they were not subjects but 
 captives.^^® Here, again, the inference is 
 natural that they were brought by Rameses 
 III. on his return from a campaign in Syria. 
 (See further on.) Another notice (see note 
 1 14) is found under Rameses IV.: 800 
 Aperu were employed in the quarries of 
 Hamamat, accompanied, as^in all the cases 
 where they are mentioned, by an armed force, 
 generally a detachment of mercenaries. With 
 regard to the Aperu in both reigns, M. 
 Chabas supposes that they may have remained 
 after the Exodus as mercenaries. It may be 
 so ; if^so, the same explanation would apply 
 to the Aperu under Rameses II.; but it 
 scarcely agrees with the descriptions of their 
 condition, and it seems very improbable that 
 any considerable number of Israelites should 
 have wished or dared to stay, or that their 
 presence would have been tolerated by the 
 Egyptians at all for a long time after the 
 Exodus. 
 
 It is to be observed .that in every case, far 
 from wishing to diminish the numbers of these 
 labourers, the Egyptian kings took great pains 
 for their maintenance; they were valuable as 
 slaves, not objects of suspicion as disafiected 
 and dangerous subjects. 
 
 ( 3 o.) Reverting now to the condition of W est- 
 ern Asia, we find that during the latter years 
 of this reign the Cheta retained their position 
 as the dominant pow'er in Syria. I n the twenty- 
 first year of Rameses he made a formal treaty 
 
 In addition to the stake, which denotes 
 foreigners or slaves, they have for a determinative 
 “a leg in a trap.” This is used sometimes for 
 dwellers in general ; but the proper meaning, as 
 given by Birch (‘Diet. Hier.’), is “entrap, 
 ravish, trample and Ebers gives the same 
 meaning to the word which is used in this pas- 
 sage. 
 
 1^® This curious document is printed in Bnigsch’s 
 ‘ Recueil.’ It has been translated, first by 
 Brugsch, and lately by M. Chabas, * Voyage 
 d’un Egyptien.’ Among the terms is one, to 
 which b^oth parties evidently attached great iin- 
 G G 2 
 
468 ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 with Chetasar, their king; both parties treat- 
 ing on terms of equality and pledging them- 
 selves to perpetual amity. The alliance was 
 confirmed by the marriage of Rameses with 
 the daughter of Chetasar. Between two great 
 powers thus evenly balanced Palestine might 
 be, and probably was, in a state of comparative 
 tranquillity for a period corresponding with 
 the uncertain interval between Eglon and 
 Shamgar. At the close of that interval, which 
 would cover the time of Rameses and extend 
 into the reign of Merneptah,the sacred history 
 represents the south of Palestine as occupied, 
 for the first time after the Exodus, by the 
 Philistines, and the north completely subju- 
 gated by Jabin King of Canaan. 
 
 (31.) Notices are found in papyri of this 
 period which give some notion of the state of 
 Palestine. The most important is that which 
 was first analysed by Mr. Goodwin, and 
 has since been translated and explained with 
 remarkable ingenuity and learning by M. 
 Chabas.*^'^ It recites the adventures of an 
 officer of cavalry employed, as it would seem, 
 on a mission into Syria towards the end of 
 the reign of Rameses II. Whether the ad- 
 ventures are real, or, as M. de Rouge and 
 others maintain,, the narrative is fictitious, 
 composed for the instruction of students pre- 
 paring for military service, may be uncertain, 
 but the notices, so far as they go, are valuable, 
 and were probably derived from persons who 
 had been engaged in the campaigns of Rameses. 
 A considerable number of names have been 
 identified, some with certainty, others with 
 more or less of probability, with cities well 
 known from the Scriptural narrative. It is, 
 however, to be remarked, that of these a very 
 small proportion, and those for the most part 
 very doubtful, belong to the interior of Pales- 
 tine : and that these lie almost exclusively on 
 the high-road, followed, as we have before 
 seen, by the Egyptian armies. The traveller 
 is represented in the first part of the narrative 
 as proceeding at once to Syria,^^ where the 
 transactions occur which occupy the greater 
 part of the story 'That country was held 
 by the Cheta, but it w^s in a state of general 
 
 portance, viz. the mutual extradition of fugitives. 
 Stress is laid upon this as bearing upon the 
 narrative in Exodus, but with little cause : it 
 was a condition not likely to be omitted, under 
 any circumstances, between the owners of im- 
 mense numbers of slaves and the lailers of dis- 
 affected districts. 
 
 Under the attractive title, ‘Voyage d’un 
 Pgyptien en .Syrie, cn Phenicie, en Palestine, 
 &c., au siecle avant notre ere.’ 1866. 
 
 See ‘ Revue Archeologique,’ Aout, 1867, 
 p. TOO, note I. 
 
 This is noticed by M. Chabas, p. 96 ; it 
 accords with the view above stated, that the 
 communications between Egypt and Syria were 
 most commonly by sea. 
 
 123 least three sections, from p. 18 to p. 
 23 - 
 
 disorganisation, overrun by Shasous, and the 
 supremacy of Egypt was evidently recognised. 
 On his return the officer crossed the Jordan, 
 and touched apparently at some places in the 
 north of Palestine; this part of the journey 
 was beset by almost insurmountable diffi- 
 culties : the country seems to have been almost 
 impassable to a charioteer ; until he entered 
 Megiddo (which, as we before saw, was in 
 possession of the Canaanites in the time of the 
 early Judges) he had to encounter the Shasous^ 
 from whom he escapes by a precipitate flight, 
 not without serious detriment to his person 
 and property. The description reminds tL*e 
 reader of all the notices in the book of Judges 
 which refer to periods when the Israelites 
 were driven to their fastnesses, or hiding in 
 caves, while the open country, or the passes, 
 were infested by robber hordes from the ad- 
 joining deserts. At Joppa, where the authority 
 of Egypt appears to be recognised, the journey 
 seems to come to an end. No mention is 
 made of Israelites in this papyrus, none indeed 
 was to be expected : the only designation for 
 the inhabitants with whom the officer came 
 into contact was Shasous — that which the 
 Egyptians gave to all the nomad and pastoral 
 tribes, probably including the Hebrews, who 
 occupied the countries between their frontiers 
 and Syria. 
 
 (32.) One point of great importance in re- 
 ference to this and the succeeding reigns, in 
 which the events recorded in Exodus are so 
 generally assumed to have occurred, remains to 
 be considered. The collection of papyri in the 
 British Museum, of which the principal have 
 been published by the trustees, belong for the 
 most part to this period. They were written 
 either under Rameses II. or his imm.ediate 
 successors. They indicate a very considerable 
 development of Egyptian literature. The 
 writing is legible, and the composition in- 
 cludes a varied treatment of many distinct 
 subjects, giving a tolerably complete idea of 
 the social and political condition of the people, 
 especially of those employed in the district 
 adjoining Pa-Ramesson. It was quite natural 
 to expect that, if the Israelites were settled in 
 Goshen, or had been very lately expelled, 
 when those documents were written, some 
 notices of them would be found, some allu- 
 sions at least to the events preceding the 
 Exodus. Accordingly a writer,^-® to whose 
 industry and ingenuity we are indebted for 
 some of the first attempts to decipher and 
 
 ^2^ The places named in the first part of the 
 fourth section are in great confusion, and, though 
 evidently Palestinian, are not clearly identified. 
 
 125 M. Chabas (‘Voyage,’ p. 220) draws an 
 argument against the })resence of Israelites from 
 the mention of camels as used for food ; but the 
 explanation of the passage is doubtful, and the 
 Shasous named in it were nomads of the desert, 
 who, as M. Chabas observes, ate camel’s flesh. 
 
 12® Mr. Dunbar Heath, ‘Papyri of the Exodus.’ 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 explain the select papyri, believed, and for a 
 time persuaded others, that he found abun- 
 dance of such notices. He speaks of a true, 
 original, and varied picture of many of the 
 very actors in the Exodus, a Jannes mentioned 
 five times, a Moses twice, a Balaam son of 
 Zippor, and the sudden and mysterious death 
 of a prince royal, 8 cc. Since his work was 
 written all the passages adduced by him have 
 been carefully investigated,^^ and every indica- 
 tion of the presence of the Israelites has dis- 
 appeared. The absence of such indications 
 supplies, if not a conclusive, yet a very strong 
 argument against the hypothesis which they 
 were adduced to support. It may be added 
 that the descriptions of that part of Egypt 
 which had been occupied by the Israelites 
 happen to be both full and graphic in these 
 documents, and they represent it as remarkably 
 rich, fertile, and prosperous, the centre of an 
 extensive commerce, occupied by a vast native 
 population, a land of unceasing festivities and 
 enjoyment, such as the district might well be 
 some centuries after the departure of the 
 Israelites, such as it certainly was not during 
 the period of their cruel persecution, and of 
 the long series of plagues which fell on their 
 oppressors. 
 
 (33.) We now come to the reign of Merne- 
 ptah, in which M. Brugsch, and many distin- 
 guished scholars, consider that the Exodus 
 took place. Merneptah succeeded his father 
 Rameses II., and is said to have reigned twenty 
 years.^^® The notices pf this Pharaoh in M. 
 Brugsch’s ‘ Histoire d'Egypte’ are but scanty ; 
 few monuments were erected in his reign ; 
 even his father's tomb was left unfinished; 
 and the indications of a decline in art, and 
 exhaustion of national resources observable 
 towards the close of his father's reign, are 
 numerous and strong. There are not, how- 
 ever, on the monuments, or in the papyri of 
 that period, any notices of internal disturb- 
 ances towards the end of his reign ; it can be 
 shown that the eastern frontier was vigilantly 
 guarded, and nomad tribes admitted under 
 due precautions to feed their cattle in the 
 extensive district occupied by the herds of 
 Pharaoh.^^® • 
 
 The beginning of this reign was, however, 
 signalised by the complete discomfiture of an 
 
 See Mr. Goodwin’s article in the ‘ Cambridge 
 Essays’ for 1858. This remarkable essay at- 
 tracted little notice in England, but made an 
 epoch in one of the most difficult and important 
 branches of Egyptian studies. This opinion is 
 completely confirmed by M. Chabas and M. de 
 Rouge, ‘ Mo’i'se et les Hebreux,’ p. 6. 
 
 12s This is quite uncertain : different recensions 
 of Manetho give nineteen and forty years. The 
 highest regnal year in Egyptian documents is the 
 seventh. 
 
 See ‘ Excursus II.,’ p. i. The passage here 
 referred to is-.quoted and translated by M. Chabas, 
 ‘Mel. Egypt.,’ ii. p. 155, from the papyrus in 
 the British Museum, Anastasi vi. pi. iv. 1 . 13. 
 
 469 
 
 invasion, which presents some points of pecu- 
 liar interest in reference to general history as 
 well as to our present inquiry The names 
 of the confederates are partly African (not 
 negro, but Libyan), and partly Asiatic or 
 European; if M. de Rouges conclusions are 
 admitted, they consisted of Tyrrhenians or 
 Etrurians, Siculi, Sardinians, Achieans, and 
 Lycians, the first appearance of these well- 
 known names in history. None of the names 
 here mentioned enter into the register of 
 ancient people given in the tenth of Gene- 
 sis.^^^ They were therefore evidently un- 
 known to Moses, who must, however, have 
 had his attention specially drawn to them had 
 he returned to Egypt at that time. The 
 ravages committed by these invaders on the 
 north-west of Egypt are described in language 
 which has an important bearing on a point 
 already discussed; “nothing,” the king says, 
 “ has been seen like it even in the times of the 
 kings of lower Egypt, when the whole coun- 
 try was in their power and reduced to a state 
 of desolation.” 
 
 Merneptah appears to have conducted the 
 campaign with considerable ability : he boasts 
 of the supplies of corn by which he saved his 
 people in some districts from perishing by 
 famine, and of a successful incursion into the 
 enemies’ territories: unlike the Pharaoh of 
 the Exodus, who led his own army and 
 perished with it in the Red Sea,^^^ but like 
 Louis XIV., of whom the reader is constantly 
 reminded in this ostentatious period, Merne- 
 ptah did not expose his sacred person to the 
 chances of war : “ his grandeur was chained to 
 the bank of the river by the divine command.” 
 The result was a complete viatory, the ene- 
 mies were driven out of Egypt, vast num- 
 bers of prisoners and spoils of great value 
 rewarded the conquerors, obelisks were 
 erected to commemorate the event, and the 
 customary self-laudations of the Pharaoh 
 were accepted and echoed by a grateful 
 people. M. de Rouge observes that the 
 terms in which the Egyptian writer de- 
 
 ^30 M. de Rouge gives a full account of the 
 inscription at Karnak (since published by M. 
 Duemichen) which describes this invasion. 
 See ‘ Revue Archeologique,’ Juillet et Aout, 
 1867. The general tenour was known to M. 
 Brugsch; see ‘ H. E.,’ p. 172. The identifica- 
 tions of M. de Rouge are maintained with equal 
 learning and acuteness, and, as I have observed 
 (since this note was written), they are for the most 
 part accepted by Dr. Ebers, p. 154. 
 
 131 It is more than probable that every name in 
 that register was known in Egypt, in Phoenicia, 
 or Assyria, before Moses wrote ; names not men- 
 tioned by him were first known in Egypt under 
 the nineteenth dynasty. If the register had been 
 written under the kings, as M. Ewald assumes, 
 the absence of these great names is incon- 
 ceivable. 
 
 ‘ 3=1 See notes on Exodus. • 
 
 133 < Revue Archeologique,’ 1 . c. M. Rouge 
 
470 
 
 ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 
 
 scribes his triumph are in striking opposition 
 to the severity with which late historians have 
 judged his character. 
 
 M. Brugsch lays some stress on an inscrip- 
 tion which proves that Merneptah lost a son 
 who is named on a monument at Tanis.'^^ 
 This he connects with the death of Pharaoh’s 
 first-born ; but it is evident from that inscrip- 
 tion that Merneptah lived some time after his 
 son’s death, certainly a longer time than can 
 be reconciled with the account in Exodus. 
 
 The little that is actually known of the 
 later years of this Pharaoh militates against 
 the assumption that they were disturbed by a 
 series of tremendous losses. The papyri 
 written about that time or a few years later 
 represent the district of Rameses or Goshen 
 as enjoying peace and remarkable prosperity 
 (see above), and there is reason to believe 
 that the Cheta and Egypt were still in alli- 
 ance (see the last note) : a state of affairs 
 which ensured peace on the eastern frontier. 
 
 On the other hand, the facts thus made 
 known, and the probable inferences from 
 them, harmonise with the account of the con- 
 dition of Palestine in Judges iii. and iv. Jabin, 
 king of Canaan, obtained the complete mas- 
 tery of the north at the close of the period. 
 The designation of this king is obscure; 
 Canaan can scarcely be the name of the whole 
 country or of the whole people descended 
 from the son of Ham. It is possible that Jabin 
 may have taken his title from the great fortress 
 in the north, Pakanana, of which mention is 
 repeatedly made in the campaigns of Seti and 
 Rameses II., retaining that title after his occu- 
 pation of Hazor. In that case he was a Cheta, 
 whether or nflt we are to identify that people 
 with the Hittites. The name of t he captain of 
 his host, Sisera, is still more striking. It bears 
 the closest possible resemblance to the prin- 
 cipal Chetan names in the treaty with Rameses, 
 of which one main characteristic is the termina- 
 tion Sar (see note 103). Sisera’s position is alto- 
 gether peculiar, and the most natural explana- 
 tion of it is that he was the chief of the con- 
 federates of Syria, and as such commanding 
 the forces of jabin. The number of chariots, 
 900, as I have already remarked, corresponds 
 most remarkably with the 892 taken by 
 
 translates the passage addressed to Merneptah, 
 ‘ lionlieur e.xtrcine dans ton retour a Thebes en 
 vainqueur. On traine ton char avec les mains. 
 Les chefs garrottes sont devant toi, et tu vas 
 les conduirea ton })ere Amon, mari de sa mere.’ 
 Anastasi, iv. ]) 1 . v. 1 . i, 2. 
 
 'I'he defunct prince is represented in the act 
 of offering a liljation and incense to Suteh, the 
 god of Avaris. The deity wears a crown exactly 
 resembling that of the Chetan king. It is 
 curious, and may indicate special amity between 
 Merneptah and that family, with which his own 
 was nearly connected : he may have been a son 
 ef the Chetan princess married by Rameses II. 
 in the twenty-second year of his reign. 
 
 Thotmes III., after defeating the confederates 
 of Syria on the same battle-field of Megiddo. 
 
 The important question of dates has still to 
 be considered. The chronology even of this 
 comparatively late period may still be regarded . 
 as open to question : but at present nearly 
 all, if not all, Egyptian scholars consider it 
 certain that the year 1320 occurred in the 
 reign of Merneptah. This rests on calcu- 
 lations too lengthy and difficult to be here 
 discussed: the agreement of scholars may 
 suffice, especially as no one assigns an earlier 
 date to the reign. But we have thus very 
 little more than 300 years, at the utmost 320, 
 between the Exodus and the building of the 
 temple. When we deduct from this number 
 the 40 years in the wilderness and some 
 30 years up to the death of Joshua on the 
 one hand, and on the other at least 100 from 
 the death of Eli to the building of the temple, 
 we get only 150 years for the whole period of 
 the Judges, including the long government of 
 Eli : little more in short than 100 years for 
 the interval between Joshua and Eli. The 
 events which the most sceptical criticism ac- 
 cepts as historical can by no possibility be com- 
 pressed within so limited an interval: 200 
 years is the very least that any manipulation 
 of the narrative can elicit for those transac- 
 tions ; the contradiction is fatal either to the 
 hypothesis of Egyptologers or to the Hebrew 
 records, i.e. either to a conjecture resting on 
 coincidences which scarcely bear a search- 
 ing criticism, or to written documents which 
 all scholars admit to contain a series of au- 
 thentic transactions. On the other hand, 
 if the reign of Merneptah be assumed to 
 coincide, as we have shown to be probable, 
 with the ascendancy of the Chetan Jabin or 
 Sisera, we have as elsewhere a very near ap- 
 proximation to complete agreement : Hebrew 
 chronologers fixing the date of the temple 
 building at 1010, and the defeat of Jabin some- 
 where about 1320.^^^ 
 
 (34.) Little is known of the interval between 
 Merneptah and Rameses III.: that it was a 
 period of weakness and disturbance is tolerably 
 certain, and as such it may supply arguments 
 for either hypothesis, for the Israelites would 
 be left in peace whether they were in the 
 wilderness or in Palestine : if the calculations 
 of Brugsch and other scholars can be depended 
 upon, the duration of the interval was some 
 33 years, nor can there be much room for 
 doubt, since the dates of Merneptah and Ra- 
 
 This odd coincidence is unsought. The 
 dates, 1340 for Jabin, 1320 for Barak, are given 
 by Browne, ‘Ordo Soedomm,’ p. 281. Thenius, 
 ‘ Excgetisches Ilandbuch,’ vol. iii. p. 469, gives 
 1429 for the death of Joshua, adding, “Von da 
 bis 1188 Othniel, Ehud, Jair, Deborah und 
 Barak, Gideon, Abimelech, Thola, Jair” {a mis- 
 print for Jephtha). This leads nearly to the same 
 conclusion, and gives ample scope for the events 
 of the scriptural narrative. 
 
UPON THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 471 
 
 meses III. are generally accepted. The im- 
 portance of this calculation will be shown 
 presently. 
 
 Rameses III. was the last Egyptian king 
 whose reign was signalised by great victories 
 in Syria. The events are recorded in numerous 
 inscriptions at Medinet Abou, published by 
 M. Duemichen: a manuscript of great extent 
 in the possession of Mr. Harris has not yet 
 been printed, but the contents so far as can 
 be ascertained conlirm the inscriptions, espe- 
 cially in the historical details. The first years 
 were occupied by wars with the same con- 
 federation of Libyans and Mediterraneans 
 who had been repulsed by Merneptah: these 
 wars began in the fifth and were terminated in 
 the twelfth year of his reign. AVe have, more- 
 over, notices of an expedition into Syria in the 
 eighth year, probably in the interval between 
 two campaigns in Africa. A decisive battle 
 was fought in Northern Syria, in which the 
 Cheta are represented as undergoing a com- 
 plete defeat.^^^ A long list of places attacked or 
 taken in this campaign is given by M. Brugsch 
 (‘ Geographische Inschriften,’ vol. ii. p. 75), 
 and some are identified with names well known 
 in Scripture. Of these by far the larger 
 number belong to Syria,’^** and the general 
 result from the notices of the war in the in- 
 scription would seem to be that this Pharaoh, 
 like his predecessors, traversed Palestine 
 rapidly,^^^ not diverging from the usual high 
 
 136 gf ^]^g niost beautiful and inte- 
 
 resting of existing papyri ; it may be hoped that 
 it will be ere long in the British Museum, and 
 published and translated by Dr. Birch, a scholar 
 to whom Egyptian students are under the very 
 deepest obligation. 
 
 ‘^7 Rameses III. employed a large fleet in this 
 wai', and of course transported the greater part 
 of his forces into Syria by sea. See Brugsch 
 and De Rouge. 
 
 The only names which are held to belong to 
 Palestine proper are each and all questionable : 
 Jamnia, Azer, Duma, Hebron, alone are iden- 
 tified by Brugsch ; the last is more probably the 
 name of a city often mentioned in. the inscrip- 
 tions referring to Northern Syida. A repeated 
 examination of the names in this list, and ot 
 those which occur in Duemichen’s inscriptions, 
 confirm my impression that Rameses did not 
 occupy Palestine either before or after his 
 Syrian campaign ; some few places he may pro- 
 bably have captured on his way. If, however, 
 Chibur or Hebron be the city in Judaea, it would 
 be a strong argument that Rameses HI. found 
 the Hebrews there; the Canaanitish name was 
 Kirjath Arba ; the old name given at its first 
 building before Abraham, was probably restored 
 after the conquest. 
 
 The Philistines were in possession of their 
 five cities in the time of Rameses HI., and are 
 represented among his captives : see Brugsch, 
 ‘ G. I.,’ ii. pi. xi. This agrees with the notices 
 of a considerable advance of the Philistines 
 in Judges iii. They probably retook the cities 
 which had been conquered by Joshua. 
 
 road, nor losing time in the siege of strong- 
 holds occupied by a people who were cer- 
 tainly not confederates of his formidable 
 enemies. Among the conquered chiefs repre- 
 sented on the walls of Medinet Abou are 
 found the king of the Cheta and the king of 
 the Amorites : from other notices it is known 
 that both designations at that period belong to 
 the district north of Palestine. 
 
 Bringing these facts to bear upon the two 
 hypotheses, we observe that, on the assump- 
 tion that the Exodus took place under Merne- 
 ptah, the campaign of Rameses III. would 
 exactly coincide with the entrance of Joshua ; 
 and inasmuch as this king reigned at least 
 twenty-six years,^'^® the conquest of Canaan 
 would have been begun and nearly completed 
 while his ascendancy was undisputed. The 
 improbability is obvious. 
 
 On the other hand, we have the following 
 indications in support of the opposite hypo- 
 thesis. Accepting the Aperu as Hebrews, we 
 find that a considerable number, evidently 
 prisoners of war, were employed on the royal 
 domain in this reign, and in the quarries of 
 Hamamat under his immediate successor (see 
 note 1 1 4). We observe also that after the 
 overthrow of Jabin the peace of Palestine was 
 undisturbed, as might be expected after the 
 discomfiture of the Chetan confederacy, when 
 the Pharaohs w^ere occupied with the internal 
 affairs of Egypt.^**^ The outbreak of the 
 Midianites, described in the sixth of Judges, 
 took place some years later, and was probably 
 a result of the increasing weakness of the 
 monarchy. It wall be remembered, however, 
 that the general ascendancy of Egypt in Syria 
 and Mesopotamia was unimpaired to the very 
 end of the twentieth dynasty, an era which, 
 according to all systems of chronology, syn- 
 chronises with the termination of the period 
 embraced in the book of Judges. Palestine 
 in the mean time went through a series of 
 alternate struggles and successes. That Israel 
 was not crushed or absorbed by the great 
 empires between whom its little territory lay, 
 and by whom it was ultimately subjugated, 
 may be attributed, under God’s providence, 
 to their mutual rivalry and nearly balanced 
 power; it was frequently overrun by nomad 
 hordes and conterminous nations, Midianites, 
 Amalekites, Ammonites, and Philistines; but 
 the character of the people was gradually 
 matured, and prepared for the vast develop- 
 ment of its resources and institutions under 
 
 The date 26 is found in the Serapeum of 
 Memphis: Brugsch, ‘H. E.,’ p. 193. 
 
 Numerous inscriptions and some papyri 
 prove that Rameses HI. and his successors were 
 employed in developing the resources of Egypt, 
 and in building palaces and temples. Rameses 
 IV., his son, boasts that he had erected as many 
 monuments in a few years as Rameses II. had 
 done in his long reign. M. de Rouge, ‘ Etudes 
 
 egypt.,’ P- 29. 
 
472 ON THE BEARINGS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY, ETC. 
 
 Saul, David, and Solomon, in whose reigns it 
 vindicated its claim to equality with the con- 
 temporary empires in Africa and Asia. 
 
 It would be too much to expect that the 
 conclusions to which the writer of this dis- 
 sertation has been irresistibly led will be ac- 
 cepted by those who are satisfied with a 
 system which rests on the authority of many 
 great names ; but the greatest care has been 
 taken throughout to separate the facts, which 
 are positively ascertained, from the inferences 
 which must to a certain extent vary according 
 to the state of the reader's mind, his judgment, 
 or his prepossessions. Those facts are stated 
 with all possible care, and with as much of 
 completeness as is compatible with the limits 
 
 of an Excursus. They have been submitted 
 to the judgment of scholars, and have an inde- 
 pendent value ; nor, although every year brings 
 important additions to our knowledge of the 
 texts and of their interpretation, is it to be 
 feared that what has hitherto been gained will 
 be overthrown, or the fair and legitimate in- 
 ferences be considerably modified. The truth 
 of the scriptural narrative does not need such 
 support, but some important links are sup- 
 plied; the series and meaning of events are 
 better understood in the light thrown upon 
 them by contemporary documents which 
 present coincidences and suggest combinations 
 hitherto unknown, or imperfectly appreciated, 
 by the students of Holy Writ. 
 
 Since this Essay was printed, two points of great importance to the argument have been 
 illustrated, (i.) In the work lately published by Duemichen, ‘ The Fleet of an Egyptian 
 Queen from the seventeenth century before our Era,’ we have an account of an expedition 
 into Poumt, i.e. Arabia. It proves that a considerable navy was fitted out early under the 
 1 8th dynasty: on one plate (xxviii.) the gradual improvement in ship-building is shown by 
 drawings from the 6th, 12th, 17th, and i8th dynasties; on two ships the transport of horses 
 and chariots is represented. (2.) M. Lieblein has published in the last number of the ‘ Revue 
 Archeologique ’ (October, 1868) a letter to M. de Rouge, in which he gives very strong 
 reasons for bringing down the date of Rameses II. to the twelfth century. Without 
 accepting all his conclusions, we can scarcely resist the impression that the lowest date 
 hitherto assigned to the i8th dynasty is remarkably confirmed by his arguments. See also 
 ‘ Zeitschrift,’ 1869, p. 122, where the same writer fixes the date of Rameses II. at 1134 b.c. 
 This argument, however, rests on genealogical calculations, which are always open to objec- 
 tion. 
 
 The writer has lately ascertained that the copper-mines in the peninsula of Sinai were 
 not worked by the Egyptians from the time when they obtained supplies of copper from 
 Syria, i.e. from theTcign of Tothmosis I.^^^ to the seventeenth year of Tothmosis III., when 
 an expedition was sent under military escort — the last occasion on which the presence of 
 Egyptians is noticed. There were therefore no Egyptians settled on the peninsula at the date 
 assigned to the Exodus in this Essay. This important fact is established, though without 
 reference to the Exodus, in an essay by Dr. Gensler, in the Egyptian ‘Zeitschrift,’ for 
 October and November, 1870. 
 
 This transcription now appears to the writer preferable to that which has been adopted ia 
 these Essays. 
 
SUMMARY VIEW, ETC. 
 
 473 
 
 A SUMMARY VIEW OF THE TRANSACTIONS ATTESTED BY EGYPTIAN 
 MONUMENTS, AND OF THEIR CONNECTION WITH HEBREW HISTORY. 
 
 
 
 Connection with Scriptural History. 
 
 Dynasties. 
 
 Transactions known from Contemporary 
 Monuments. 
 
 According to this 
 Excursus. 
 
 According to 
 Brugsch ■ 
 and others. 
 
 Xllth Dynasty : 
 
 seven Pharaohs, 
 
 from Amenemha I. 
 to Amenemha IV., 
 and a queen regnant. 
 
 A period of great prosperity ; foreigners, 
 especially from Western Asia, re- 
 ceived and promoted under the early 
 kings ; and under the later kings 
 works of extraordinary magnitude 
 executed to secure the irrigation of 
 Egypt, and to guard against the re- 
 currence of famine. 
 
 Abraham re- 
 
 ceived and fa- 
 voured. 
 
 Joseph saves 
 
 Egypt from fa- 
 mine ; the Pha- 
 raoh master of 
 the resources of 
 Egypt. 
 
 
 Xlllth to XVIIth Dy- 
 nasty : 
 
 The early pharaohs still masters of 
 Egypt. Invasion of the Hyksos. 
 Salatis master of Avaris, i.e. Tanis, or 
 Zoan. Egypt divided: the worship of 
 Set, Sutech, or Baal, established by 
 the Hyksos in the north ; wars be- 
 tween the Theban dynasty and Apepi 
 or Apophis, the last king of the 
 Hyksos. 
 
 The Israelites in 
 Goshen rapidly 
 increasing and 
 occupying the 
 whole district, 
 but in a con- 
 dition of depen- 
 dence, or partial 
 servitude. 
 
 Abraham in 
 Egypt under 
 the Hyksos. 
 Joseph mini- 
 ster of Apo- 
 phis. 
 
 XVIIIth Dynasty : 
 
 Aahmes I. (Amosis) 
 
 Aahmes I. or Amosis captures Avaris 
 and expels the Hyksos. Buildings of 
 great extent undertaken or completed 
 with the aid of forced labourers or 
 mercenaries. The worship of the 
 Theban deities re-established. 
 
 Beginning of a 
 systematic per- 
 secution of the 
 Israelites, who 
 are employed as 
 forced labourers 
 in restoring or 
 building forts 
 and magazines 
 in their own 
 district. 
 
 The Israelites 
 are supposed 
 to remain 
 
 during the 
 whole period 
 of the I 8th 
 dynasty in 
 undisturbed 
 possession of 
 the district of 
 Goshen. 
 
 Nefertari, 
 
 The Egyptian Queen, a Nubian by 
 birth, possessed of great influence, 
 both before and after the death of 
 Aahmes. 
 
 Moses saved and 
 adopted by 
 
 an Egyptian 
 princess. 
 
 
 Amenotep I. or Ame- 
 nophis. 
 
 Expeditions into Ethiopia : the Queen- 
 sister in power ; succeeding as Regent. 
 
 Flight of Moses 
 into Midian. 
 
 
 Thotmes I, 
 
 Expeditions into Nubia and Mesopo- 
 tamia ; immense increase of the Egyp- 
 tian power. 
 
 
 
 Thotmes II, and 
 Hatasou. 
 
 First part of the reign prosperous ; no 
 indication of foreign or intestine war ; 
 latter part of the reign a blank, fol- 
 lowed by a general revolt of the con- 
 federates in Syria. Blatasou, queen 
 regnant, and retaining power for 
 seventeen or twenty-two years. 
 
 Return of Moses, 
 the Exodus, 
 
 destruction of 
 Pharaoh and 
 his army. 
 
 
474 
 
 SUMMARY VIEW OF TRANSACTIONS 
 
 Dynasties. 
 
 Thotmes III. 
 
 Amenotep (Ameno- 
 phis) II. 
 
 Thotmes IV. 
 Amenotep III. 
 
 Amenotep IV. or 
 Khu-en-Aten. 
 Princes not considered 
 legitimate. 
 
 Horemheb. 
 
 XIXth Dynasty : 
 Rameses I. 
 
 Seti I. 
 
 Rameses II. 
 
 Merneptah. 
 
 Transactions known from Contemporary 
 Monuments. 
 
 First attempt to recover the ascendancy 
 in Syria in the 22nd year. Wars ; 
 repeated incursions into Palestine, 
 Phoenicia, Syria, and Mesopotamia, 
 terminating in the fortieth year 
 of this reign. 
 
 Connection with Scriptural History. 
 
 According to this According to 
 Excursus. Brugsch 
 
 and others. 
 
 The Israelites in 
 the wilderness ; 
 entrance into 
 Palestine of 
 Joshua in the 
 fortieth year 
 after the Exo- 
 dus. 
 
 Expedition into Syria by sea : over- 
 throw of the confederated nations to 
 the north of Palestine. 
 
 Progress of the 
 Israelites in 
 Palestine. 
 
 A reign without notable occurrences. 
 
 A prosperous reign ; supremacy main- 
 tained in Syria and Mesopotamia : no 
 intimations of warfare in Palestine : 
 the Queen Tei of foreign origin 
 favours a new and purer form of 
 religion. 
 
 The religious revolution completed : 
 followed by a period of disturbance 
 and exhaustion. 
 
 Cushan Risha- 
 thaim in Pales- 
 tine. 
 
 End of eighteenth dynasty. 
 
 No considerable events ; notices of war 
 with the Cheta, who from this time 
 are dominant in Syria. 
 
 The Shasous or Nomads from Egypt to 
 Syria, and the Cheta and nations of 
 Mesopotamia, broken and subdued by 
 a series of invasions. The empire 
 reaches its highest point of civilisation 
 and power. 
 
 During many years Rameses II. is 
 co-regent with his father with royal 
 dignity. On his accession as sole 
 monarch, he invades Syria, defeats 
 the Cheta, with whose king, how- 
 ever, he afterwards contracts an 
 alliance on equal terms, marrying his 
 daughter. Captives are employed in 
 great numbers in building, restoring, 
 or enlarging fortresses, cities, and 
 temples ; ixmong them Apera at Pa- 
 Rameses and Memphis. Tlie reign 
 lasts sixty-seven years, but the date 
 of its commencement, whether from 
 his father’s death, or his admission to 
 royalty, is uncertain. 
 
 Beginning of reign signalised by victory 
 over Libyan and Mediterranean in- 
 vaders : no expeditions into Asia : 
 general state of amity with the 
 Cheta : eastern frontier of Egypt 
 carefully guarded ; indications of un- 
 broken peace and prospciity in the 
 district about Pa- Rameses. 
 
 The interval be- 
 tween Cushan 
 Rishathaim, and 
 Jabin, extends 
 to the latter 
 reigns in this 
 dynasty. Pales- 
 tine remains, to 
 a great extent, 
 in the posses- 
 sion of the 
 Amorites and 
 other people of 
 Canaan; sonie- 
 times overrun 
 by neighbour- 
 ing people, and 
 towards the 
 close of the 
 period subject 
 to the Philis- 
 tines in the 
 south, and the 
 Cheta, or Ilit- 
 tites, in the 
 north. 
 
 First begin- 
 ning of the 
 persecution 
 of the Israel- 
 ites ; the 
 birth, early 
 life, and exile 
 of Moses. 
 
 The plagues 
 of Egypt, fol- 
 lowed by the 
 Exodus. 
 
ATTESTED BY EGYPTIAN MONUMENTS. 
 
 475 
 
 
 ( 
 
 Connection with Scriptural History. 
 
 Dynasties. 
 
 Transactions known from Contemporary 
 Monuments. 
 
 According to this 
 Excursus. 
 
 According to 
 Brugscti 
 and others. 
 
 Seti II., Siptah ; is 
 close of XIXth 
 Dynasty. 
 
 A period not distinguished by foreign 
 wars : letters, however, flourish, and 
 the nation appears to be peaceful and 
 contented. 
 
 Palestine in a 
 state of depres- 
 sion, Philis- 
 
 tines in the 
 south, Jabin in 
 the north ; re- 
 volt against 
 
 Jabin, over- 
 
 throw of Sisera, 
 war against Ja- 
 bin continued 
 for some years. 
 
 The Israelites 
 in the wil- 
 derness. 
 
 XXth Dynasty : 
 Rameses III. 
 
 A long series of successful wars in 
 Africa and Asia : Palestine traversed, 
 Syria invaded, and the Cheta over- 
 thrown. The reign lasts at least 
 twenty-seven years. Aperu employed 
 on the royal domains. 
 
 Israelites recover 
 possession of 
 Palestine after 
 the overthrow 
 of J abin. 
 
 The conquest 
 of Palestine 
 begun under 
 Joshua. 
 
 Rameses IV. 
 
 A peaceful reign occupied chiefly in 
 great buildings. Aperu, captives of 
 war, employed in the quarries. 
 
 
 
 Rameses V. to XI. 
 
 A period of uncertain duration, the 
 reigns generally short and undistin- 
 guished. 
 
 The events re- 
 corded in the 
 book of Judges 
 ' after the time 
 of Deborah and 
 Barak. 
 
 The entire 
 series of 
 
 events from 
 the passage 
 over the Jor- 
 dan to the 
 close of the 
 
 Rameses XII. 
 
 In this reign the Egyptians retain an 
 acknowledged pre-eminence in Syria 
 and Mesopotamia. 
 
 
 book of 
 
 Judges. 
 
 Rameses XIII. 
 
 Close of the twentieth dynasty. 
 
 / 
 
 
( 476 ) 
 
 ESSAY II. 
 
 ON EGYPTIAN WORDS IN THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 One important result of late Egyptian re- 
 searches is the establishment of a complete 
 system of transcription of Hebrew and Egyp- 
 tian characters. At present no doubt remains 
 as to the exact correspondence of the Hebrew 
 letters with phonetic signs, or groups of com- 
 mon occurrence in papyri and monumental 
 inscriptions. An attempt will be here made to 
 bring this result to bear upon the transcription 
 and explanation of the names, titles, and other 
 words of Egyptian origin in the Pentateuch.^ 
 In the first place, the Hebrew word will be 
 represented in those Egyptian characters which 
 are accepted by all Egyptologers as the exact, 
 and for the most part the invariable, equiva- 
 lents. In the next place, the meaning of the 
 Egyptian words thus represented will be 
 investigated. In no case will any doubtful 
 transcription be admitted ; nor will any mean- 
 ing be proposed for which conclusive autho- 
 rity cannot be produced from monuments or 
 papyri of the i8th, 19th, and 20th dynasties, 
 or from still earlier periods. If the interpre- 
 tation thus elicited give a clear, complete, 
 and satisfactory meaning, one in perfect ac- 
 cordance with the context, and the evident 
 intention of the writer of the Pentateuch, there 
 can be no question as to its value, whether 
 in regard to the bearings upon the exegesis of 
 the Book or upon the question of authorship. 
 It is highly improbable that any Hebrew born 
 and brought up in Palestine, within the period 
 extending from the Exodus to the accession 
 of Solomon, would have had the knowledge 
 of the Egyptian language which will thus be 
 shown to have been possessed by the writer ; 
 it is certain that no author would have given 
 the words without any explanation, or even 
 indication, of their meaning, had he not known 
 that his readers would be equally familiar with 
 them. 
 
 7'hc following table, which gives the Hebrew 
 characters and the corresponding phonetic 
 signs or letters in Egyptian, will enable the 
 reader to judge foi* himself of the accuracy 
 of the transcription. The transcription in 
 Roman characters is that which has been 
 lately proposed by M. de Rouge, and ac- 
 cepted by Lepsius, Brugsch, and other Egyp- 
 tologers. See ‘ Zeitschrift fUr Aigyptische 
 Sprache,’ 8 cc., 1866. 
 
 ’ This Essay was printed in 1868. Since that 
 time Dr. I’lbers’ work has appeared, to which 
 allusion is occasionally made in the notes. 
 
 Hebrew 
 
 1 
 
 Egyptian. 
 
 Conven- 
 
 tional 
 
 Transcrip. 
 
 tion. 
 
 The nearest 
 equivalent in 
 ordinary cha- 
 racters. 
 
 
 
 a, or a 
 
 a 
 
 n 
 
 J-3- 
 
 b 
 
 b 
 
 
 
 k 
 
 g 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 d 
 
 n 
 
 
 h 
 
 h 
 
 1 
 
 
 u 
 
 11 
 
 n 
 
 or Q 
 
 hj or X 
 
 h, or ch, hard 
 
 
 
 + t 
 
 t, or th 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 i, or ee 
 
 D 
 
 
 k 
 
 k 
 
 
 
 1, or r 
 
 1, or r 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 ra 
 
 : 
 
 — 
 
 n 
 
 n 
 
 D 
 
 L„,.^ 
 
 s 
 
 s 
 
 V 
 
 
 a 
 
 a, 0, or ao 
 
 Q 
 
 1 
 
 p, orf 
 
 p, ph, or f 
 
 
 i 
 
 t 
 
 z, or ts 
 
 P 
 
 i 
 
 k 
 
 k 
 
 *1 
 
 
 r 
 
 r 
 
 
 lilt/, rrvSJ. or C 1 
 
 s 
 
 sh, or s 
 
 
 <1 
 
 t 
 
 th, or t 
 
 In addition to the phonetic letters in this 
 list there are many homophones, and syllabic 
 signs, representing the combination of two 
 or more letters. Full lists of these are given 
 by Mr. Birch in the first and last volumes of 
 the latest edition of Bunsen's ‘Egypt;’ and 
 by M. de Rouge, in the ‘ Chrestomathie,’ 
 now in course of publication. These signs 
 will be explained when they occur in this ex- 
 cursus ; they are especially important in 
 
ESSAY ON EGYPTIAN WORDS. 
 
 477 
 
 reference to the names of places and official 
 designations. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the vowels 
 are of secondary importance both in Hebrew 
 and Egyptian. They might be disregarded in 
 the transcription were it not that certain 
 affinities between some consonants and vowels 
 are observable in both languages. 
 
 The first name in the Bible of purely Egyp- 
 tian origin, form, and meaning, is Pharaoh. 
 
 riynQ 
 
 The vocalisation and diacritic points show 
 that the Hebrews read this Par-aoh, not 
 Pa-raoh. This is important, since the name, 
 whatever it might signify, was v/ell known as 
 the proper official designation of the kings of 
 Egypt, and its correct pronunciation must 
 have been familiar to the translators of the 
 Pentateuch, and probably also to the punctua- 
 tors of the Bible. The cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions have the same division, Pir-u, not Pi-ru. 
 
 The transcription gives one of these forms : 
 
 {Pa Ra), or, adopting a syllabic 
 form of very common occurrence, tm i. e. 
 
 Per,or Phar, ID, and the elongated form -=> 
 
 which more exactly represents liy, we have 
 Cj J (Par-aoh), or one of the ordi- 
 
 nary variants of this well-known word. 
 
 The first of these transcriptions gives a 
 clear and not improbable meaning, viz., ‘ The 
 Sun.’ Ra is the well-known designation of 
 the sun from sunrise to sunset ; and it is 
 certain that the King of Egypt was regarded 
 as the favourite or living representative of 
 Ra: the question is, whether this was the 
 usual and formal designation of the king, recog- 
 nised by his subjects and known to foreigners. 
 
 Several arguments are used in support of 
 this assumption. 
 
 1. From a very early period, long before 
 the Hebrews came into contact with the 
 
 Egyptians, the sign Q ^ pronounced Ra, was 
 
 the first and most prominent word in the 
 cartouche, or ring, which contained the offi- 
 cial name of every Pharaoh, that is, the name 
 which he assumed at his accession. 
 
 But this word was not read apart from the 
 other words in the ring, in most cases it was 
 read at the end, not at the beginning of the 
 designation ; it had not the article prefixed, 
 and could not therefore be pronounced Pa 
 Ra, or Pharaoh. 
 
 2. The^ king is always called Si Ra, son of 
 Ra. This designation comes between the 
 two rings. It is very ancient, being first 
 borne by Ghafra or Ghephren. See M. de 
 Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ p. 56. 
 
 But this is in reality an argument against 
 the assumption. The king was not likely to 
 be called both Son ot Ra, and The Ra. 
 
 3. The word Pa Ra actually occurs as a 
 title of Merneptah Hotephima, the son of 
 Rameses II., in a contemporary papyrus, 
 Anastasi, VI. PI. v. 1. 2. 
 
 The sovereign, living, sound, and mighty, the 
 good Sun of the whole land. 
 
 But “the good Sun” here is not a title, 
 properly speaking. It is simply one of the 
 numerous epithets applied by the Egyptians to 
 their king ; a fact sufficiently evident from the 
 addition of the adjective good.^ The title in 
 
 this passage is the first word however, 
 
 that may be read and explained. 
 
 4. A stronger argument is drawn from the 
 Papyrus Rollin (No. 1888), which gives an 
 account of the trial and execution of a sor- 
 cerer under Rameses III. It is explained by M. 
 Ghabas, in his curious and valuable work, ‘ Le 
 Papyrus magique d’H arris.’ He writes thus 
 
 (p. 173, n. 2), “ G pera, le Soleil, 
 
 Memph. ^pa, Heb. designation ordi- 
 
 naire des rois d’Egypt.” This seems con- 
 clusive, considemg the high authority which 
 always attaches to M. Ghabas’ opinion. It 
 must, however, be observed that no other 
 passage is adduced, nor, so far as I am aware, 
 can be adduced, in support of the statement 
 that it is the ordinary designation of the sove- 
 reign ; and in this passage the word is under- 
 stood by Mr. Deveria, and by M. Pleyte (who 
 has lately published the papyrus) to mean “ the 
 Sun God,” to whom the frustration of the 
 sorcerer is attributed.^ It is true that the kings 
 of Egypt were called “Horus,” orthe “ Growned 
 Hawk” (the Sun God, as symbol of vic- 
 tory), a title taken at their accession, and 
 borne upon their standard ; but this was 
 equivalent to the epithet Si Ra, Son of 
 Ra, and constitutes, therefore, an argument 
 against the assumption, which, if not disproved, 
 must be regarded as not proven. 
 
 We have now to consider the other and 
 
 well-known form, CT^Vl < — more com- 
 monly as above, in the title of Merneptah, 
 If the transcription Per-ao, or 
 
 Phar-ao, can be relied upon, of which we 
 have presently to consider the evidence, the 
 proof of the identity of the title with Phu- 
 
 ^ Thus Rameses II. is called “ Ra, the life of 
 the world,” not as an appellation, but an epithet. 
 Mariette, ‘ Abydos,’ pi. 18, 1. 36. 
 
 ^ Mr. Goodwin observes, “I am now con- 
 vinced that Pa-Ra in the Rollin Papyrus means 
 the Sun, or God, and not, as I supposed ten 
 years ago when I first deciphered that papyrus, 
 the king or Pharaoh.” Mr. Goodwin’s remarks, 
 quoted in these notes, are taken from a letter 
 lately received on this Essay, which was for- 
 warded to him by the writer in 1868. 
 
478 
 
 ESSAY ON EGYPTIAN WORDS 
 
 raoh will be conclusive, for the following 
 reasons : — 
 
 The regular title of the King of Egypt, 
 the title, i. e., as distinguished from honorary 
 epithets, by which it is always accom- 
 
 panied, 
 
 cm 
 
 written also crp 
 
 and ^ J j or ^ These forms occur 
 
 very frequently under the ancient Empire, in 
 the inscriptions of the Denkmaeler of Lepsius, 
 and in those exam.ined and illustrated by M. 
 de Rouge, ‘ Recherches sur les Monuments 
 qu’on peut attribuer aux six premieres Dynas- 
 ties de Manethon.’ The simpler form is more 
 commonly found in the earlier inscriptions. 
 On monuments of the 19th and following 
 dynasties the latter is almost exclusively used. 
 The meaning of the group is not questioned, 
 viz., the great house, or the great double 
 house, i. e., the royal palace : nor is it doubted 
 that it stands absolutely for the sovereign. 
 It is further to be observed that whenever 
 the sovereign is spoken of as such, not by his 
 proper name, or by his distinctive official 
 name, this and no other designation is found. 
 In official letters, in reports and in treaties, 
 this designation generally precedes the proper 
 and official names : in narratives, when the 
 name of the king is not given, it is used pre- 
 cisely in the same way as Pharaoh in the 
 Bible.^ There can be no doubt but that this 
 was the title which to Egyptians and foreigners 
 represented the person of the king. 
 
 It is perhaps difficult to present the full 
 force of this argument ; but no one can look 
 through the Papyrus D’Orbiney, or other 
 papyri of the 19th and 20th dynasties, without 
 feeling that, so far as the usage is con- 
 cerned, we have in this group the exact equi- 
 valent of Pharaoh. It is the group which 
 would necessarily be used if Genesis were 
 translated into ancient Egyptian. Pharaoh 
 alone would represent to a Hebrew the 
 central group in the Egyptian formula : — “ His 
 majesty the So'vereign^ full of life, health, and 
 might.” 
 
 But the transcription presents a difficulty, 
 which for a long time prevented Egyptian 
 scholars from recognising the identity of the 
 
 designations. The group CjT is undoubt- 
 edly equivalent to 'S, or “ Pi ” in the names 
 of cities, as in Pithom, Pihahiroth, &c. M. 
 de Rouge, however, and xM. Brugsch, men of 
 the highest eminence among Egyptologers, 
 whose authority on such a point is especially 
 important, hold that the original and proper 
 
 * The word occurs ten times in seven lines of 
 the Papyrus D’tJrbiney, from p. x. 1 . 9, to p. xi. 
 1 . 4. It has almost invarialdy the addition of 
 
 , living, sound, and mighty ; and is gene- 
 preceded by “ honef,” his majesty. 
 
 pronunciation of L jd was “ per,” or “ pere,” 
 
 in Hebrew “IS.® It is possible that the r, 
 by the common process of phonetic decay, 
 was gradually disused in a word of common 
 occurrence, but it may have been, and pro- 
 bably was, retained in a title of such dignity, 
 especially as it preceded the vowel sound 
 “ a o.” 
 
 Another difficulty is presented by the dual 
 form. If L J CiTJ actually represented two 
 
 distinct houses, it would be read either Pere 
 pere or Pere-ti : but as representing not a 
 numerical dual, but a form of majesty, the old 
 pronunciation might be, and probably was, 
 retained unchanged. M. Brugsch (D. H., p. 
 452) gives several instances which seem to 
 prove that though the sign of the house-plan 
 
 j— 3 is doubled, it was pronounced in the sin- 
 gular. However this may be, it is a sufficient 
 answer to the objection that the original form, 
 as we have already seen, the form most com- 
 monly found in inscriptions unquestion- 
 ably much older than the Pentateuch, was 
 
 Crp «=— = of which the nearest possible 
 
 transcription in Hebrew is ny"iS, Pharaoh. 
 
 Another argument, which may be regarded 
 as conclusive, has been adduced by M. G. 
 Lenormant, and Professor Lauth, a dis- 
 tinguished Egyptologer. It is clear that 
 
 ® See ‘ Chrestomathie Egyptienne,’ p. 79, and 
 ‘ Dictioiinaire Hieroglyphique,’ pp. 452, 482-3. 
 This is questioned by M. Page Renouf, a very 
 high authority ; but a reference to Mr. Birch’s 
 Dictionary, in Bunsen’s ‘Egypt,’ vol. v. p. 464, 
 will shew the invariable connection between 
 
 cm and <0 , and one variant at least of q-yj 
 
 for cd points in the same direction. I believe 
 
 M. de Rouge to be, as usual, right in his con- 
 clusion. See also M. Chabas, ‘ Pap. Mag. 
 Harris,’ p. 48, and ‘ MH. Eg.’ ii. p. 204. The 
 
 m is found in ancient in- 
 
 group 
 
 CD 
 
 
 scriptions, and proves the phonetic value of the 
 shorter form. Mr. Goydwin observes, “there 
 
 can be no doubt that L J was originally par:” 
 
 he adds, ‘ ‘ I agree with your remark that in such 
 a title the pronunciation would very probably be 
 retained.” 
 
 ® Thus, for instance, M. de Rouge renders 
 
 Q suten rech (he., near relative, perhaps 
 
 grandson), du Pharaon, ‘ Rech.’ p. 97. Numerous 
 inscriptions in the Denkmceler, Abt. II., leave 
 no doubt as to the usage. I find that Dr. Ebers 
 adopts the same view, and considers it as un- 
 questionably correct, p. 264. Thus also Due- 
 inichcn, who gives an example from the time 
 of Thotmes III. See ‘ Elect qf an Egyptian 
 Queen,’ pi. vi. 
 
IN THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 479 
 
 this transcription exactly explains the asser- 
 tion of Horapollo, i, 6i ; viz. that oIkos /xe-yay, 
 “ the great house,” is the true meaning of the 
 hieroglyphic group which formally represents 
 the Egyptian king, and which therefore is the 
 equivalent of the Hebrew Pharaoh. 
 
 Other derivations of the w^ord have been 
 proposed, more or less unsatisfactory. The 
 late Duke of Northumberland suggested that 
 it might be identified with the Urscus (in 
 
 Egyptian ^ ^ , arat), the basilisk on 
 
 the diadem of every Pharaoh. To this the 
 objections are insuperable. The transcription 
 is inexact ; the w^ord is never found as a 
 royal designation; and when the sign stands 
 alone it represents a female deity. 
 
 The identification with the Coptic TTO'^TpO 
 w^as natural. It is the general designation of 
 a king ; but it appears to represent Pa-Oer, a 
 word constantly employed in the texts to 
 represent a prince, whether native or foreign, 
 but which is never applied to the Pharaoh. 
 Mr. Birch has lately shown the writer two 
 passages in the 5th volume of the Denkmaeler, 
 
 pi. 53, in wTich > OJ* appears 
 
 to stand for Pharaoh. It would seem, how- 
 ever, to be a proper name, not a title or 
 general designation. 
 
 ynD'OIS, Potiphera, 
 and 
 
 “ID'IOID, Potiphar. 
 
 The first part of both names is admitted to 
 correspond to the Egyptian ^ , Pa-ti, 
 
 “ the given,” i. e., a person devoted to, de- 
 pendent upon, &c. Instances are given by 
 Champollion (not in the Grammar, but in the 
 Precis), and by Rosellini, who says that 
 the form occurs frequently in the name 
 
 □ 0 ^ , Patipara, of which 
 
 is an exact transcription. The name signified 
 “ devoted to Ra,” the most natural designation 
 for the High, Priest of On or Heliopolis, the 
 head-quarters of Sun worship. This deriva- 
 tion is well known and universally accepted. 
 It may perhaps be used as an additional 
 
 argument that El O, Pa R a, represented the 
 
 Sun-God, not the Sovereign. 
 
 The other name presents more difficulty. 
 Gesenius and others assume that Potiphar is 
 simply anabbrevia’ion or a variant of Potiphera. 
 This is very improbable. The transcription 
 of Egyptian words in Hebrew is now ad- 
 mitted by scholars to be exceedingly accurate, 
 and the omission of the characteristic letter 
 
 a, V, w^ould be without a parallel. 
 
 The meaning of the word must be “ devoted 
 
 to Par,” or Phar. If the transcription of 
 cn , "IQ, Phar, be accepted (see above), 
 
 Potiphar would signify devoted to, or de- 
 pendent upon the house or palace, and would 
 
 be written in Egyptian ^ Though 
 
 this name does not occur in the texts it 
 seems to be in accordance with the usage 
 of the language,'^ and is a very suitable desig- 
 nation for the captain of Pharaoh's body- 
 guard. The priest thus takes his name from 
 the deity to whose service he is attached, the 
 courtier from his master’s house. 
 
 
 
 Asenath, wife of Joseph. 
 
 The first syllable may be transcribed by 
 the exact phonetic equivalent, or by 
 
 either of two well-known groups 
 
 or 
 
 io name of Isis, which has the 
 
 same phonetic value. 
 
 The second part may be read with 
 
 the determinative yv. or any of the nu- 
 
 merous variants. It represents the goddess 
 Neit, or Neith, the Athene of Greece. 
 
 The combination of these transcriptions, 
 whichever is adopted, gives a clear meaning 
 in accordance with Egyptian usage. 
 
 As-Neit would mean favourite of Neith, or 
 Minerva: the word “as” signifies precious, 
 sacred, or consecrated. ^ 
 
 -til A ^ mean Isis-Neith. 
 
 The double name seems strange, but it was 
 not uncommon in Egypt thus to combine the 
 names of two Deities in one proper name. 
 The first example of a man’s name taken from 
 
 7 We have xerp-pere, mer-pere = house- 
 steward, major-domo : common titles under the 
 ancient empire. I must add that Mr. Goodwin 
 does not admit the probability of this transcrip- 
 tion, which n^ds the support of ancient inscrip- 
 tions. 
 
 ® Mr. Goodwin has lately proposed a different 
 reading for this sign, viz., “sheps,” and he is 
 followed by Brugsch; but both M. Le Page 
 Renouf and Professor Lauth have since proved 
 that “as” is the true value in the older texts. 
 
 See ‘ Zeitschrift fiir /Egyptische Sprache,’ &c., 
 1868, pp. 42 and 45. Thus also Ma.spero, 
 ‘ ’ p. 16. Since this was printed, I have 
 
 Essai 
 
 observed 
 
 as a variant in Mariette’s 
 
 ‘ Fouilles d'Abydos.’ Mr. Goodwin now says 
 he can only admit that the group is a polyphone, 
 and may have both values. He adds that he 
 considers the combination Isis Neit supplies a 
 much more plausible explanation. 
 
480 
 
 ESSAY ON EGYPTIAN WORDS 
 
 the gods, given by Champollion in- the Gram- 
 mar, p. 135, combines the two divine names 
 Hor Phre, a second in the same page com- 
 bines Chons and Thot. It is a strong argu- 
 ment in support of this explanation that a 
 Priest of On would naturally give to his 
 daughter the name of a Deity specially con- 
 nected with the locality. The principal ob- 
 jects of worship, next to the Sun-God, were 
 Seb and Nut (not Neit), who were honoured 
 as the parents of Osiris and Lis, the two tute- 
 lary Deities. See Brugsch ‘ Geographische In- 
 schriften,’ vol. i. p. 255. Isis moreover was a 
 name commonly given to women, and most 
 likely to be borne by a daughter of Potiphera. 
 It is also to be remarked that there was a 
 close connection between Isis and Neith. Isis 
 wa.s worshipped at Sais in the temple of 
 Neith, under the name As-ta-oert, Isis the 
 Great. See Brugsch, 1 . c., p. 245. 
 
 The connection of Joseph with this family 
 would seem to have had lasting and very 
 serious consequences. Asenath may, or may 
 not,, have adopted her husband’s faith — pro- 
 bably she did so ; but, like the Avives of Jacob, 
 she may not have separated herself altogether 
 from her father's iniluence, or have cast away 
 altogether the traditional superstitions of her 
 family. It is natural to refer the idolatry 
 of the Ephraimites to this origin. Mnevis, 
 the black bull, was Avorshipped at Oft as a 
 local Deity, the living representative of the 
 God Turn, the unseen principle and first cause 
 of all existence. 
 
 The question whether a priest of On 
 Avould be disposed to give his daughter to a 
 HebreAv, the favourite and prime minister of 
 Pharaoh, ought not to be regarded as a diffi- 
 cult^-. There was nothing to create a scruple. 
 The Avorship of JehoA-ah AA'as certainly not 
 knoAvn at that age to Egyptians in its ex- « 
 elusive character. Foreigners, especially of 
 Semitic origin, Avcrc received with honour, 
 and raised to the highest rank by the greatest 
 sovereigns of the ancient Empire,® and the de- 
 scendant of Abraham, Avho had been admitted 
 to the intimacy of a former Pharaoh, Avould be 
 acknoAvledged as of noble birth. The circum- 
 cision of Joseph Avould be a strong recommen- 
 dation ; it AA'as a sign of consecration and purity 
 to Avhich the Egyptian priests artached peculiar 
 importance. If the rite Avere previously 
 knoAvn as an Egyptian custom, more especially 
 in priestly and royal families, it Avould mark 
 Joseph both to Pharaoh and Potiphar as spe- 
 cially qualified for the alliance. If it Avere 
 previously unknoAvn, no person Avas more 
 likely than Joseph to have introduced it 
 
 ° This curious fact is proved beyond all doubt 
 by the ‘ .Story of Saneha,’ a hieratic papyrus of 
 extreme anticjuity, lately translated by Mr. 
 Goodwin. See especially pp. 39 and 43. It is 
 also to be observed that Saneha, Son of the 
 Sycomore, was a name probably given to the 
 foreigner on his adoption by the Egyptians. 
 
 among the Egyptians ; and this is possibly the 
 true solution of an acknowledged difficulty 
 The first distinct representation of the rite is 
 found on a monument of the 19th dynasty, 
 long after the time of Joseph : tAvo sons of 
 Rameses II. are pictured as undergoing it. 
 See M. Ghabas’ art. in ‘Revue Archeo- 
 
 logique,’ 1861, p. 298. The w'ord 
 
 
 “ sabu ” (wdiich is translated “ circumcise ” by 
 Champollion, and after him by Mr. Birch, 
 D. H.), is not found AA'ith that sense in any 
 ancient inscription.'® A passage in the ‘ F uneral 
 Ritual’ (c. xvii. 1 . 23, ed. Leps.) is supposed 
 by M. de Rouge to refer to circumcision, but 
 the meaning is very doubtful, nor if his ex- 
 planation were accepted, would it be con- 
 clusive : for although portions of the chapter 
 are undoubtedly older than Joseph, the 
 passage is a gloss of doubtful antiquity, and 
 is omitted in the ancient copy lately published 
 by M. Lepsius. . See ‘ Aelteste Texte, Sarko- 
 phag I des Mentuhotep,’ pi. i, 1 . 16, 17. 
 
 Zaphnath Paaneah. — Gen. xli. 45. 
 
 The history of the attem.pts to explain this 
 designation of Joseph is curious and instruc- 
 tive. The most natural process before the 
 hieroglyphic inscriptions AA'ere deciphered was 
 to compare the HebreAv form with the Cop- 
 tic ; no explanation w'as derived from this 
 source Avhich was generally satisfactory to 
 scholars, and most interpreters resorted to 
 the Septuagint, which gwes several forms all 
 differing from the FlebreAV. Gesenius holds 
 that the HebreAv writer must have modified 
 the Egyptian Avords in order to bring them 
 into accordance with his own language : a 
 singular assumption, since the word is com- 
 pletely inexplicable in HebreAV. It Avill be 
 found that an exact transcription of the 
 Hebrew letters gives a clear sense in Egyp- 
 tian. 
 
 The word stands thus — 
 
 z f n t p anch. 
 
 M. Brugsch gives no such meaning in his 
 dictionary. Mr. Goodwin adds, in the letter 
 lately received by me ; the meaning adopted by 
 Birch from Champollion’s Dictionary is probably 
 based only on the Copic CG^ I? little 
 
 authority. Ebers gives another Avord 
 
 Avhich he translates “ circum- 
 
 ili 
 
 
 cise.” Brugsch and Birch have no such meaning, 
 nor do I find any example. A stronger but not 
 conclusive argument is drawn from the well- 
 known hieroglyphic for nit. The representations, 
 hoAvever, to which Ebers alludes, and the mum- 
 mies which have been examined, are much later 
 than the time of Joseph. 
 
IN THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 The letter f is invariably transcribed by 
 I or T- , and most commonly by the 
 
 latter. the nearest form for ?], ^ 
 
 could only be represented in Hebrew by ri3 
 or 0 !) ; and in the Pentateuch Cx is gene- 
 rally transcribed by n, as in Pithom and 
 Asenath. No doubt can be entertained 
 about the remaining letters : all scholars 
 would accept the identification of the 
 Egyptian word here given with the Hebrew. 
 In fact every letter in this transcription 
 rests on the unanimous authority of Egyptian 
 scholars, and is confirmed by a vast number of 
 unmistakable words in ancient inscriptions 
 and papyri. 
 
 The meaning is quite clear. The first syllable 
 
 zaf,” is a word of very common occur- 
 
 rence, both in this simple form, and with ex- 
 planatory signs called determinatives, as a 
 “ bushel,’’ or a “ widgeon,” indicating abun- 
 dance.^^ Its v/ell-ascertained meaning is 
 “ food,” especially “ corn,” or “ grain,” in 
 general. A few instances will show this usage, 
 and serve to illustrate the biblical account of 
 Joseph’s position. Under the early dynasties 
 of the ancient empire the officer of state who 
 received the tributes in kind and had the 
 superintendence of the public granaries bore 
 the title “ master of the house of (‘ zaf’ or 
 ‘zafa’) provisions.” M. de Rouge gives the 
 names of three officers who bore this title. 
 Ptah-ases, the son-in-law of a Pharaoh of 
 the 4th dynasty, Chafra or Chefren, was 
 called “ mer set zafa,” which M. de Rouge 
 renders “ charge de la maison des pro- 
 visions de bouche.” This remark on the 
 office is important, the more so since he 
 does not connect the word with the history 
 of Joseph. “ Les tributs verses en nature 
 rendaient cette fonction tres importante, ainsi 
 qu’on peut le voir par I’histoire de Joseph.” 
 The grandson and chief minister of Nepher- 
 kara bore the same title, 1 . c. p. 86. Another 
 great official of the same early age 'held the 
 three offices, master of the arsenals, of the 
 Treasury, and of the depots ot provisions, 
 “ zaf.” De Rouge renders the last title, 
 “ chef des lieux des offrandes, des denrtes,” 
 p. 87. From the last passage it is also clear 
 that the granaries throughout Egypt were 
 under the superintendence of one great officer 
 of state. M. de Rouge observes, “ Ges trois 
 titres pouvaient constituer une sorte de minis- 
 tere des finances.” 
 
 The next word “ nt ” is the prepo- 
 
 ” This complete form is 
 
 The last two signs are not phonetic ; they repre- 
 sent a widgeon or duck, and bread. 
 
 See ‘ Recherches, 
 
 VoL. L 
 
 p. 69. 
 
 481 
 
 sition “ of,” used very commonly on the 
 early monuments. Two examples may be 
 found in Egyptian words quoted by M. de 
 Rouge on the last passage which has been 
 discussed. 
 
 The meaning of “ Anch ” is not questioned. 
 It signifies “ life,” or with the article it may 
 mean “ the living.” Thus one name of Mem- 
 phis is ta-anch for the land of life or of the 
 living.'^ 
 
 The meaning, therefore, of the whole name, 
 the only meaning which it could bear to an 
 Egyptian, and of course to a Hebrew of the 
 age of Moses, is “ the food of life” or “the 
 food of the living.” No question can be 
 raised as to the appropriateness of this desig- 
 nation : it only remains to show that the word 
 “ zaf” was likely to be applied to a person. 
 To this it is a complete answer that it occurs 
 in the rings of three Pharaohs of the 13 th 
 dynasty. See Brugsch, ‘ Histoire d’Egypte,’ 
 pi. viii., nos. 162, 164, and 167; or Lepsius, 
 
 ‘ Kdnigsbuch,’ taf. xix. 282, 284.^^ 
 
 We have now to consider the remarkable 
 reading of the Septuagint. The Egyptian was 
 a living language, though it had undergone 
 considerable modification^, when the Penta- 
 teuch was translated, and it is evident from 
 Jerome’s account that the Jews in Egypt 
 attached a definite meaning to the word 
 yj/'ovdo^ <pavr})(, which on their authority he 
 renders salvator mundi. The latter part cor- 
 responds with the interpretation above given.- 
 Life, or the living, is the equivalent of “the 
 world.” The first part is more difficult to 
 explain. The transcription of yj^ovd would 
 
 give f p-sont, i. e., “ foun- 
 
 dation.” It might possibly be used in the 
 sense of “ support,” “ sustentation ; ” but I 
 am not aware that any example of such a 
 meaning can be adduced.^^ 
 
 Jablonski, ‘Opuscula,’ tom. i. p. 210, sug- 
 gests from the Coptic 'jS’CDq ItWG nGn6C|, 
 
 caput mundi ; La Crozius, UTG 
 
 TKJOn..^? thus agreeing with the transcription 
 
 here given so far as the last part is concerned. 
 There can, however, be no doubt that 
 
 represents ; whereas the phonetic value of 
 the Egyptian sign for head differs from it con- 
 siderably. 
 
 The transcription of Brugsch is more accu- 
 
 Traces of the word are 
 
 found in other rings, probably also in the name 
 of a Pharaoh of much earlier date. See De 
 Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ p. 155. In choosing the 
 name. Pharaoh might possibly have had some 
 regard to the name Joseph ; seph and zaph 
 bear a near resemblance. 
 
 Gesenius renders the word “the support of 
 life 3” but the imperfect knowledge of hiero 
 
 H H 
 
482 
 
 ESSAY ON EGYPTIAN WORDS 
 
 Another transcription of the Greek form 
 may be suggested; one more exact, since it 
 retains the consonants without any modifi- 
 cation. 
 
 
 The meaning would be “he who gives joy 
 to the world.” This name has a strong 
 Egyptian colouring. It occurs precisely in the 
 same form as that of a royal favourite under 
 
 the 5th dynasty, ^ J ^ ^ sntm het, 
 
 or, as M. de Rouge reads, “senotem het,” 
 “ deligliting the heart.” The example shows, 
 also, that the construction is correct : “ seno- 
 tem ” is a transitive form, and does not re- 
 quire or admit a preposition. It may be 
 observed that the same root occurs in the 
 names of two princes of the 21st dynasty. 
 (^See Brugsch, H. E., PL xiv,, Nos. 299 and 
 302.) 
 
 , One or other of these forms may have been 
 before the minds of the Greek translator — 
 probably the latter; but the reading of the 
 LXX is uncertain, and there is no reason what- 
 ever for departing from the simple, intelligible, 
 and well-ascertained sense of the words which 
 is elicited by transcription of the Hebrew. 
 
 This word, which Gesenius (Thes. s. tO 
 calls “ vox perdubia,” has never had a satis- 
 factory explanation. It is admitted to be 
 Egyptian, though, its usual, Gesenius supposes 
 that it was modified in the transcription in 
 order to give it a Hebrew character. The ex- 
 planation suggested by Rosellini, and adopted 
 by Gesenius, is A-nGpCR? i.e. incline or bow 
 the head. This, however, is inadmissible. The 
 transposition of the two words pGK and 
 A-UG is not in accordance with old Egyptian 
 usage. A-UG may possibly be the true sound 
 -of the hieroglyphic for head (see De 
 
 Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ p. 91, n. 2.), but it would 
 not be correctly transcribed by 3^5. pGK is 
 not found in the sense “ bow ” or “ incline ’’ 
 in old Egyptian. 
 
 The exact transcription is 
 
 
 If this give a meaning exactly applicable, 
 there can b^e no need of further inquiry. 
 
 The context tells us, not, as is commonly 
 assumed, that a herald went before Joseph, 
 addressing the people, but “ they cried before 
 him,” i. e. the people or the attendants shouted 
 out with reference to Joseph, “ Abrek.” 
 
 But ab-rek is the imperative, and the em- 
 phatic imperative, of the verb “ Ab,” which is 
 a word specially used in reference to public 
 demonstrations of rejoicing. Thus, in an in- 
 scription of Rameses II. we find ^i>-sen-nek, 
 “ they rejoice before thee : ” and in another of 
 later date, “ the world is in a state of rejoicing,” 
 in Ab ni. The termination “rek” is e(|uiva- 
 lent to the Hebrew as M. Chabas has 
 pointed out in explaining the word mai-rek, 
 /. e. come.^'^ ‘ Voyage d un Egyptien,’ p. 285. 
 
 The chief objection to this explanation is 
 that the verb is in the singular number, 
 addressing an individual, not a multitude. 
 But it seems quite natural that the attendants 
 should address Joseph, calling upon him to 
 rejoice, together with all the people, in his 
 deliverance and exaltation. Some support may 
 be found for this explanation in the fact that 
 subject princes address the Pharaoh in the 
 same form, hotep-rek. See the vignette to 
 the Sttle Pianchi in Mariette’s ‘ Fouilles 
 d’Abydos.’ 
 
 Another transcription, which comes very 
 near to the Hebrew, would give Ab Rekh, 
 i.e. “pure” and “wise:” but it is unlikely to 
 have been used as an exclamation.^^ 
 
 Moses. 
 
 In examining the form which this name 
 would properly assume in Egyptian, we must 
 bear in mind the following points: — i. The 
 
 glyphics in his time led him to the error of 
 
 identifying “sont” with ^j-* ^ ^ y, to which 
 
 it bears no real resemblance. 1 have since found' 
 the name Sont-ur, i.e. the “great foundation,” 
 as that of a high priest at Thebes. See Maricttc, 
 
 '* Fouilles,’ pi. vii. 1 . 12. The LXX. m.ay therefore 
 have meant to represent Pa-sont-om-I’aanch 
 (om = t i.e. am, or ami), belonging to the support 
 of the world. A good sense, but not so good as 
 that given Vjy the Hebrew. Mr. Goodwin con- 
 siders the transcription of the LXX, which is 
 given al)ovc, to be very probable. He trans- 
 lates it “making life ])leasant,” which is equiva- 
 lent in meaning. He observes also that the 
 article in old ligyptian would not have been 
 Avritten, but probably it was often supplied in 
 reading and speaking. This applies to the pre- 
 ceding account 'of the Hebrew form. 
 
 letter is generally represented by j // t i. e. 
 
 sh and its homophones, but in very ancient 
 transcriptions, and specially in monuments of 
 the 1 8th and 19th dynasties, it corresponds 
 
 in proper names to ^ , s. Thus we find 
 
 for nW, 
 
 It is especially used in exclamations, thus : 
 harek — stand up, see ‘ Br. D. H.’, p. 814, 
 equivalent to “ up with you.” The form occurs 
 repeatedly in the texts. 
 
 ” In the ‘/Eg. Zeitschrift’ for 1869, p. 1869, 
 the Egyptian Ap-Rech, i.e. Chief of the Wise. 
 The transcription is not accurate, p for b, and 
 ch for k. 
 
IN THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 483 
 
 I ) Askelna, for As- 
 
 kalon, and ^ ^ [| , Pulistha, for 
 
 M. Brugsch, a high authority in all 
 such questions, gives d or as the corres- 
 ponding letters to the Egyptian ^ (See 
 
 ‘ Geographische Inschriften,’ p. 15). This is 
 a point of importance, considering the remark- 
 able accuracy of the transcriptions in the 
 Pentateuch. 
 
 2. The final letter n is adequately 
 represented by a vowel sound, either \\ =/, 
 
 or more commonly by «, corresponding 
 
 to the Hebrew v 
 
 3. The vowel sound in Mo is not repre- 
 sented either in Hebrew or Egyptian, but in 
 the transcription a preference should be given 
 to the vowel 0, which appears from Coptic 
 and Greek to be associated witl^the con- 
 sonants Ms. 
 
 4. It is also to be observed that Moses 
 undoubtedly lays the stress on the verb “ draw 
 out,” not on the noun “ water.” The name 
 in Egyptian ought to bear the sense “drawn 
 out,” “ brought forth.” The verb may have 
 borne the same sense in Hebrew also (a fact 
 of extremely common occurrence), but if the 
 writer knew Egyptian he certainly would not 
 have chosen a word for which that language 
 does not supply a natural interpretation. 
 
 Among transcriptions which are probable 
 or possible, one exactly fulfils all these condi- 
 tions. The word ^ unquestion- 
 
 ably corresponds in form to the Hebrew, 
 letter for letter, on the principles laid down 
 above. The vowel sound, which is required 
 for the first syllable, may be assumed to have 
 been 0, and this for several reasons. The 
 
 syllable (ttr occurs in many names of the 
 
 1 8th dynasty, and is always transcribed by 
 Manetho or his Greek translators by mos ; 
 thus we find Amosis and Thotmosis. 
 
 The question of equal importance as to the 
 meaning remains to be answered. 
 
 The explanation, suggested first as it would 
 seem by Gesenius (Thes. s. -v.) “ child ” or 
 “ son,” is quite accurate so far as it goes. 
 Mesu, or Moses, undoubtedly does bear that 
 signification, and may be rendered exactly by 
 “ son.” But if we had no other information 
 as to the original and common sense of the 
 verb from which it is derived, this interpreta- 
 tion, which contradicts the statement in Exo- 
 dus, would present an insuperable difficulty, 
 unless we were satisfied with the usual evasion 
 that the word was altered so as to adapt it to 
 a Hebrew etymology. The difficulty, how- 
 ever, is entirely removed when the original 
 
 meaning, as well as usage, of the word in 
 Egyptian is examined. In his ‘ Hieroglyphic 
 Dictionary’ M. Brugsch shows that the sense 
 “ drawing out ” is the original one. It is taken 
 from the work of the potter (p. 705). It there 
 means “ produce,” “ bring forth,” and, as M. 
 Brugsch affirms in another passage (p. 698), 
 the derivation of from the Hebrew root 
 traxit, extraxit, suitably also in the sense 
 “ extraxit e ventre matris,” would preserve 
 the true sense of the Egyptian.*** 
 
 The word used by Moses may of course 
 be Semitic ; although it must be observed that 
 it occurs only in this passage, and in one 
 other which is evidently taken from it, Ps. 
 xviii. 17 (repeated 2 Sam. xxii. 17); but at 
 any rate it is so exceedingly rare that we can 
 best account for its selection by Moses by the 
 supposition that it came exceedingly near to, 
 or exactly represented, the Egyptian. It is 
 far from improbable that it was, in fact, a 
 simple transcription of words, which must 
 have been perfectly intelligible to the Israelites 
 of that age. What the Egyptian princess 
 said— and her words were not likely to be 
 forgotten or misrepresented by her adopted 
 son — was this: “ I give him the name Moses 
 — ‘ brought forth ’ — because I brought him 
 forth from the water.” 
 
 The probability that this was actually the 
 Egyptian name of Moses comes very near a 
 certainty when we learn that it was very com- 
 mon under the Middle Empire. In the se- 
 lect papyri (Anastasi, vi. p. 3, 1. 4)^** it occurs 
 as the names of a keeper of goats, the super- 
 intendent of the “ house of measures,” where 
 corn was measured or weighed. It was also 
 borne by a prince of the blood-royal of Egypt 
 who held the office of Viceroy of Nubia 
 under the nineteenth dynasty. There is no 
 reason for identifying either of these persons 
 with Moses, but the coincidences with the 
 biblical history and with the legends in Jose- 
 phus and other writers are curious. This ascer- 
 tained use of the word appears to give it a 
 very decided preference over two other senses 
 suggested by a faithful transcription. The 
 
 A family of words closely resembling, or 
 identical with, is found in Egyptian. 
 
 See Brugsch D. H., p. 711, j. z/. |j ^ 4 
 
 In the Egyptian the translation would run 
 thus : 
 
 /■ S’ = 2x0 
 
 iliP5TUt^£= 
 
 An set hi tat naf pa ran Mesu em tat pe-un 
 mesna su emta pa mu. 
 
 See Brugsch, D. H., p. 1162. 
 
 H H 2 
 
484 
 
 ESSAY ON EGYPTIAN WORDS 
 
 word 
 
 -ScT-a 
 
 in the sense 
 
 “ to bring,” is common, not only as the in- 
 stances given by Birch and Brugsch would 
 lead us to suppose, in reference to tributes, 
 but to the simple transfer of objects.^^ It 
 would be quite intelligible in Egyptian were 
 we to read, “ She called his name Masi^ saying 
 because I brought (masi) him out of the 
 waters.” It is, however, doubtful whether 
 such a proper name would be in accordance 
 with Egyptian usage. Again, it might be 
 possible, with our present knowledge of Egyp- 
 tian, to give a more plausible etymology de- 
 rived from the word “ water,” than either of 
 those which Jablonski and other scholars 
 formerly proposed. The phonetic value of 
 
 the group admitted to be Mu, or 
 
 Mo, and Il2ZZf 
 
 shl, denotes a child. 
 
 Mo-shi, a water-child, would not be an im- 
 possible transcription or rendering, were it 
 justified by Egyptian usage. Still it is clear 
 that the stress is laid, not on the noun, but 
 on the verb, and there appears no reason to 
 depart from the simple and natural explana- 
 tion which has been given above. 
 
 It may, however, appear to require some 
 additional evidence that Moses should have 
 used an Egyptian word, or have selected, to 
 ,say the least, a very unusual Hebrew word to 
 represent it. Here we may call attention to a 
 fact which has hitherto been unnoticed. In 
 that part of the narrative which deals specially 
 with Egyptian matters, words are constantly 
 used which are either of Egyptian origin or 
 common to Hebrew and Egyptian. The 
 following instances are taken from one verse, 
 that in which Moses gives the history of his 
 exposure. His mother made him an ark of 
 bulrushes. The word “ark,” n::n (of which 
 Rbdiger says, “ falsi sunt, qui etymon in lin- 
 gnis Semiticis qinererent), is admitted to be 
 Egyptian. It is, indeed, very common in the 
 sense “ chest ” or “ cofl'er,” also in the sense 
 
 “ cradle,” ^ ^ , teb, with several 
 
 variants. (Birch D. N., p. 5359; Br. D.H., 
 1628.) The Septuagint retains the Hebrew 
 doubtless as a well-known Egyptian 
 word. '\ he material of Avhich this ark 
 was m.ade is called ND 3 . Brugsch(‘ Diet. 
 Hier.,’ p. 145) identifies this word with 
 the Coptic KA-JULi “ junciisquo fiunt funes.” 
 Brugsch show's, moreover, that it wms specially 
 used for making the light boats of the Nile. 
 
 ** It is used for bringing a harp to a man in a 
 tavern. See ‘ Stele Pianchi ap. Brugsch, 1 ). II.’, 
 p. 157. Jirugsch writes the word Masib, but 
 ijirch gives Masi, wliich seems correct. I'he leg 
 is not phonetic, but determinative. 
 
 He gives the word K A. JLR., papy- 
 
 rus myopea, p. 1452. See also p. 2320, 
 where a basket of green papyrus (kam nat) 
 is mentioned. 
 
 Again, “ when .she made it, she daubed it 
 with slimeJ^ The w'ord is used in the 
 original both for the process and the material. 
 This corresponds exactly with the original 
 meaning and use of the Egyptian word 
 
 0 ^ ’ which has the same letters, though, 
 
 as is very commonly the case, in a different 
 order. The Hebrew is ch-m-r, the Egyp- 
 tian m-r-ch. Brugsch (‘ Diet. Hier.,’ p. 7*69) 
 says, “ Die Grundbedeutung der W urzel Merh 
 ist ‘ beschmieren, bestreichen, iiberzeichen et- 
 was mit einem feuchten gegenstande.” Mr. 
 Goodwin has very lately shown the identity 
 of the words. “The root appears again in 
 A.iLJLpH^ej bitumen, pitch, 
 
 in Hebrew TOH.” — ‘ Zeits.,’ 1867, P- 86- 
 Whether'iiHoses had this word in mind may, 
 of course, be questioned, but it is evidently 
 the most suitable that could be suggested. 
 
 The next word, “pitch,” is common to 
 
 Hebrew and Egyptian. nST, 
 
 The Egyptian w^ord is very 
 
 common; the Hebrew occurs only twice in 
 the Bible, but is well known in Arabic, and was 
 probably common to Egyptian and HebrewA 
 Jochebed then placed the ark in “ the flags.” 
 The Hebrew is for which no plausible 
 etymology has been suggested, nor is the word 
 found in any Semitic language. It answers, 
 however, very nearly to the Egyptian name 
 for a species of papyrus found in marshy 
 places and on the banks of rivers. The 
 
 word was written either 
 
 (Sallier, i, 4, 9), ie., tufi, or ^ ^ , 
 
 also to be read “tufi.” The Coptic equivalent 
 is XOOCj, which indic!?ites a predominance of 
 the sibilant sound common to dentals. It 
 seems probable that it was also written with 
 
 , “ z,” both because of the Coptic form, 
 
 and because ? “ f^et ” (which seems 
 
 to be an abbreviation), also m.eans papyrus. 
 In that case “tufi” would be translated 
 “ zufi ” = qiD- The identification of the 
 Egyptian and Hebrew is so probable as to 
 approximate to a certainty. In the last num- 
 ber of Brugsch ’s Dictionary, published since 
 this was printed, I find that he also identifies 
 
 tufi, XOO^q and P]fD, p. 1580. 
 
 Lastly, we read “ by the river’s brink.” 
 "iN'n hv- T be form and meaning are 
 Egyptian. It is well known that IN' is 
 
IN THE PENTATEUCH. 485 
 
 Egyptian. The Nile has two names : the sa- 
 cred name Hapi, and the common name, 
 meaning “ river,” which is here exactly tran- 
 scribed /) ^ ^ Aor. The word 
 
 /. e. “ lip,” for “ brink,” is sufficiently common 
 in Hebrew, but it is interesting to find in a 
 papyrus of the 1 9th dynasty precisely the same 
 word with the same meaning. “ I sat down by 
 
 the lip of the river, 
 
 /. e. “ spot Atur.” Atur is another form of 
 “ Aor.” The same idiom occurs in the 
 ‘ Funeral Ritual,’ c. ii. 3, 1 . 2. 
 
 It would be very difficult to resist the im- 
 pression that this verse was written by a man 
 equally familiar with both languages, or, on 
 the other hand, to admit the possibility that 
 coincidences coming so near together were 
 purely accidental, as they must have been in 
 the mouth of a Palestinian Jew. 
 
 One more instance of equal interest is taken 
 from the ist chapter of Exodus, ver. 1 1. We 
 there read that the Egyptians set CDD '"ibs 
 “ sari massim,” over Israel. The words are 
 both common in Hebrew, but they are also 
 common in Egyptian, and precisely in the 
 
 same signification. Birch gives 
 
 mas, tribute. ‘ Dictionary of Hieroglyphics,’ 
 s.n). The official name “ser” is still more 
 striking. It is common in the sense “ chief- 
 tain,” but we find it specially applied to the 
 officer appointed by Tothmosis III. to su- 
 perintend the work of captives employed in 
 making bricks. In the inscription on the 
 well-known picture which represents the pro- 
 cesses, we find the proper official designation 
 of the overseers, who were armed with 
 heavy whips, and also of the chief superintend- 
 ent. He is called of which the 
 
 Hebrew “ ser,” is the exact transcription. 
 His rank is denoted by the long staff, and 
 by the determinative, viz. the head and neck 
 of a giraffe. Had this title occurred first 
 under the 19th dynasty it might have been 
 regarded as Semitic (for a vast number of 
 military and civil titles were then introduced 
 into Egypt) ; but occurring, as it does, under 
 the 1 8th dynasty, it is unquestionably Egyp- 
 tian. It is found, indeed, in inscriptions far 
 more ancient, e. g. under Pepi of the 6th 
 dynasty. See De Rouge, ‘ Recherches,’ p. 
 118.^ We have, in any case, a proof that in 
 relating Egyptian transactions Moses either 
 used the native Egyptian word, or that he 
 
 adopted the Hebrew word which expressed it 
 most exactly both in meaning and form. 
 
 QHQ, Pithom. This city was formerly 
 identified by Brugsch with the fort of Djar, 
 Pachtum n Zar. This was a point of im- 
 portance, since it is certain that that fort or 
 city was in existence early in the i8th dynasty, 
 before the accession of Tothmosis IIP, the 
 grandson of Amosis I., to whom its erection 
 may be unhesitatingly ascribed. The fortress 
 in question is shown, on grounds which ap- 
 pear conclusive, to have been known at a later 
 period by the name Heroopolis, near the ruins 
 of Mukfar, or Abn Kasheb. See Brugsch, 
 ‘ Geographic des Alien Aiigyptens,’ p. 263. 
 The word Pithom, however, does not corre- 
 spond to the Egyptian form with sufficient 
 accuracy, and it is now admitted to be iden- 
 tical with ’ Pe-tum, the 
 
 house, i. e. dwelling or temple of Turn. Still 
 the conclusions drawn by Brugsch do not 
 lose their interest, since it has lately been 
 shown that this place was in the immediate 
 vicinity of the fortress, and was in all proba- 
 bility built at the same time as the adjoin- 
 ing sanctuary, giving name to the whole set 
 of edifices, or it might have been a second 
 name of the same place. Thus On is called 
 Pitum, with the same meaning, “ house of 
 Turn.” This is probably the true explana- 
 tion. The passage translated by M. Chabas, 
 ‘Met. Egypt.,’ ii., p. 155, shows that certain 
 nomads of Atema (or, as the name should be 
 transcribed, Edom) applied to the guards of 
 Merneptah Hotephima, the son of Rameses, 
 for permission to feed their cattle in the dis- 
 trict adjoining the fortress, to which that so- 
 vereign had then given his own name. The 
 place of conference was the great reservoir at 
 Pithom. F rom this we learn that Pithom was 
 on the frontier of the desert. The name here 
 used for reservoir in the papyrus is Semi- 
 
 J ^ J y] 4 Chabas 
 
 transcribes it Bere-koavota, i. e. ni 3 “l 3 , cis- 
 terns or reservoirs: a curious illustration of 
 the biblical narrative, built as the place was 
 by Israelites, and probably occupied by them 
 up to the date of the Exodus. In the time 
 of Merneptah there is no indication of their 
 presence, nor is it at all probable that had the 
 Delta at that time been in the state supposed 
 by Brugsch (see ‘ Histoire d'Egypte,’ p. 174), 
 the king would have admitted a nomad tribe 
 into the district. 
 
 The meaning of the 
 
 group is the head work-givers, the eye denot- 
 ing superintendence. 
 
 In the eleventh line of the inscription, which 
 is read ffom right to left. See Brugsch, ‘ His- 
 toire d’Egypte,’ p. 106. 
 
 DnX, Etham. Exod. xiii. 20. The tran- 
 scription of this name comes exceedingly 
 
 near to Pithom. ^ , A-tum, 
 
 I 
 
 A 
 
 Pitum. The meaning is 
 
ESSAY ON EGYPTIAN WORDS 
 
 486 
 
 identical, ^ ra -A,and ■* per, mean 
 
 “ house,” “ dwelling,” and are applied indif- 
 ferently as designations of one and the same 
 locality: thus Pi Ramessu and A-Ramessu 
 (Chab., ‘ Mel. Eg.’) Etham and Pithom are to 
 be rendered “ house of T um.” The site of 
 Etham was on the extreme border of the 
 desert, such, as we have seen, must have been 
 the site of Pithom. The identification of the 
 two names which M. Chabas (‘Voy. Eg.,’ 
 p. 286) proposes as probable, may therefore 
 be regarded as all but certain. The LXX. 
 give ’O^d/Li, or ’Odaix, for Etham. This repre- 
 sents the Egyptian exactly, for the ^ ' 
 
 corresponds generally to O. In Numbers 
 xxxiii. 6, 7, they give Bovddv, or, as it should 
 be read, BovOdfx. The Bou, as in the well- 
 known Busiris for Pe-bsiri, represents the 
 
 Egyptian (not the article, but the group 
 
 for “ house ” or Pe) : this corroborates the 
 argument for the identification. 
 
 The derivation proposed by Jablonski, and 
 accepted by F orster, viz. At-iom, not-sea, may 
 illustrate the shifts to which men of learning 
 were formerly driven by their ignorance of 
 the ancient language of Egypt. 
 
 DDOyn, Gen. xlvii. ii ; DD)Oy"), Exod. i. it. 
 In the former passage the name “ Rameses” is 
 that of a district; in the latter, “ Raamses,” 
 it is the name of a city. The pointing of the 
 former name is preferable. The first syllable 
 
 yi is the exact transcription of Ra, the 
 
 well-known name of the Sun -God. The 
 second part of the word, DDtD, represents with 
 
 equal fidelity the Egyptian ^ ^ P “ meses.” 
 This latter part is a reduplicated form of the 
 very common w^ord [{] P ? “ nies,” a child. It 
 
 occurs in the name Rameses, wTich was borne 
 by two Pharaohs of the 19th, and by all the 
 kings of the 20th dynasty. In the name of 
 the sovereign the meaning of the word is either 
 “ Ra begat,” or “ Ra begat him.” Hence it is 
 inferred that the name both of the district 
 and of the city must have been derived from 
 that of the king. 
 
 It is, however, clear that the writer of the 
 Pentateuch represents the name as that of 
 the district at the time of its occupation by the 
 Israelites, that is, at a time admitted by all to 
 be ages before the 19th dynasty. Had the pas- 
 sage in Genesis occurred in a papyrus of the 
 age of the Exodus, it would have been held as 
 a sufficient proof that the name must have been 
 ancient ; nor is there any reason to doubt the 
 statement, or to suppose that the name was 
 simply given as that by which the district was 
 know'n at the time when Moses wrote. The 
 only question is whether it was a name likely 
 
 to be given to a place or district at an early 
 age, in accordance with Egyptian usage. 
 
 Late researches have shown that “ Ra,” the 
 first part of the word, entered very commonly 
 into names of places, districts, and cities under 
 the ancient empire : far more commonly than 
 at a later period. Thus we find, from in- 
 scriptions in the tomb of Tei (son-in-law of a 
 Pharaoh of the 5th dynasty. An, or Ranuser), 
 that not less than four cities, or districts, in 
 his government were called Ra-asket, Ra- 
 shephet, Ra-Seket, and Ra-hotep (De Rouge, 
 
 ‘ Recherches,’ p. 94; see also p. 72, where 
 M. de R. observes that the frequent notices 
 of Ra have been much overlooked). Under a 
 preceding Pharaoh we meet with Ra-heb, i.e., 
 festival of Ra; this w'as a royal residence. 
 Such names might be expected to be found 
 very frequently in the country about On, 
 Which was called Pe-Ra, Es-Ra, Nes-Ra, and 
 Aa-Ra. (See Brugsch, ‘ Geog.,’ Nos. 1213, 
 1214.) 
 
 Ra-meses may therefore well have been 
 the old name of the district : whether it 
 represents the original form, “ Ra-messon,” 
 with the sense “ Ra the self-begetting,” an 
 ancient appellation of Ra in the Ritual ; or 
 Ra-meses, “ Ra the creator, former, or be- 
 gotten,” a sense equally suitable and harmo- 
 nizing with Egyptian notions; or“Ra-mesu,” 
 children of Ra. The Egyptians called them- 
 selves children of Ra, i.e., Ra-mesu, from the 
 earliest times ; it was probably their character- 
 istic name as distinguished from foreigners: 
 this appears from a well-known inscription on 
 the tomb of Seti Merneptah, the father of 
 Rameses II. A city, of which the site is 
 unknown, bore the name Mis-Ra rfor is it 
 at all improbable that this is connected with 
 the name given to the Egyptians in the Bible, 
 viz , Mizraim.^^ That some district should 
 have borne the name, and, if any district, that 
 which was peculiarly associated with the 
 earliest forms of Sun worship, presents no 
 improbability,'^® nothing which can justify us 
 in questioning the accuracy of Moses. 
 
 The same arguments apply to the name of the 
 city of Rameses. It was a name very naturally 
 given to the capital of the district. The certain 
 fact that Rameses II. gave his own name to a 
 fortress of considerable extent in this district, 
 as well as to others in different parts of Egypt, 
 has been regarded by Egyptologers as a 
 
 .See Brugsch, ‘Geog.,’ No. 1517. 
 
 This lias been suggested by M. Rouge- 
 mont, ‘ Age de Bronze,’ and is supported by 
 M. Rheinisch. Dr, Ebers rejects, but does not 
 disprove, the identification. In an Essay lately 
 published by Mr. Birch, on the trilingual in- 
 scription of San, he observes that Mizraim is 
 supposed by some to represent the common 
 Egyptian word for Egypt, viz. ta-men. This 
 requires two transpositions, mer-ta and met-ra. 
 
 This is, in fact, admitted even by M. Chabas, 
 ‘ Mel, egypt.,’ ii. p. 125. 
 
IN THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 487 
 
 conclusive proof that it could not have borne 
 the name previously. It should, however, be 
 observed that Moses does not call the city, 
 or arsenal. Pi Ramessu, but simply Rameses. 
 The word Pi, or its equivalent signifying 
 house or residence, so far as I can ascertain, 
 is never omitted in the Egyptian designations 
 of places named after the king. It is found 
 in all the names given by M. Chabas, ‘ Mel. 
 Eg.,’ ii. p. 126. It is extremely unlikely that 
 it should have been omitted by Moses in the 
 very same sentence in which he gives the full 
 and accurate transcription of Pithom. Again, 
 the name which the fortress bore after its 
 enlargement by Rameses was invariably that 
 of the Sovereign, who is not called in Egyptian 
 documents Rameses simply, but Rame.ses 
 Meiamon, or Meramon. I'his is not con- 
 clusive, but it adds some weight to the argu- 
 ment. it is known, moreover, that the fortress 
 was in existence at the beginning of the reign 
 of Rameses, and apparently bearing the name 
 Rameses. In addition to these facts we find 
 that Amosis, or Aahmes, to whom the build- 
 ing of several cities in the Delta is attributed 
 by contemporary monuments, gave the name 
 “ Rames ” to one of his own sons. It has 
 been observed above, that in the names 
 of early kings, the Greeks transcribe Mes 
 by Moses, which points to a duplicate s 
 in Egyptian. It may not be assumed that 
 the name of the city was taken from this 
 prince, but the probability that the same, or 
 that a similar name should be given to both at 
 the same time, is sufficiently obvious. It may 
 be added that Ramesses was likely to be the 
 true name of one of the treasure cities built 
 by Aahmes, because the king was a restorer 
 of the worship of Ra. He was a great builder, 
 and had special reasons for fortifying the East- 
 ern district, which previously bore the name 
 Rameses. It is also certain that Egyptian 
 cities often took their name from a district, 
 in which case the prefix “ Pi ” is not used 
 One argument of great weight remains to 
 be considered. The city of Rameses Meiamon, 
 with its parks, lakes, and the whole adjoining 
 district, was the centre of a great Egyptian 
 population, a place of festivities ; whereas, at 
 the time described in the Pentateuch, the two 
 fortresses built by the Israelites were in the 
 district which they occupied, and of which there 
 is no indication whatever that they were 
 dispossessed. In the time of Rameses it 
 was a rich, fertile, and beautiful district, 
 described as the abode of happiness, where 
 
 Brugsch, ‘ Histoire d’Egypte,’ p. 156. “ Les 
 papyrus mentionnent ces deux endroits existants 
 deja sous Sethos I. par leurs noms egyptiens.” 
 
 Thus the fortress of Zar is found" without the 
 prefix in numerous inscriptions. See Brugsch, 
 ‘Geog.,’ p. 260, and Nos. 1263, 1267, taf. xlvii. 
 Dr. Haigh suggests. that a synonym of Zar may 
 be read Ka-sen, or Kashen ; but his arguments 
 are not very satisfactory. See ‘Zeits.’ 1861, 
 p. 47. 
 
 all alike, rich and poor, lived in peace and 
 plenty; but in'the time of Moses it was the 
 abode of a suflering race, resounding not with 
 the jubilant shouts of Egyptians, but with the 
 groans and execrations of an oppressed popu- 
 lation. A stronger contrast can scarcely be 
 drawn than that of the state of the district at 
 the Exodus and that which it presented under 
 Rameses II. and his successors. 
 
 ri"l'nn''2^ Pihahiroth. It is not certain 
 
 that the word is Egyptian. If so, it may, 
 like some other names, have been adopted 
 and modified either by the Israelites or other 
 Semitic occupants of the district. There 
 appear to be indications of the name in one 
 of the Select Papyri (Anast. iii. i, 2), in 
 which the scribe Penbesa gives an account 
 of a visit of Rameses to the adjoining dis-r 
 trict. The passage is translated by M. 
 Chabas, ‘ Mel. Egypt.,’ ii. p. 133. Garlands 
 of flowers were sent from a place called 
 
 ^ > z. from the de- 
 
 terminatives, it appears that the place was 
 on a river or reservoir. Chabas, however, 
 
 connects the word “ hir,” 
 
 with the Hebrew q^n. We may, there- 
 fore, translate Pihahiroth (regarding it as 
 partly Egyptian, partly Semitic) “the house 
 of wells, the watering-place in the desert.” 
 
 M. Brugsch, however, compares Pihahiroth 
 with the name of a place called “ Pehuret,” 
 but of which nothing is known. ‘ Geog.,’ p. 
 298. 
 
 There can be no doubt that this name 
 is Egyptian, although, as the Israelites occupied 
 the district during the whole period of their 
 sojourn, the form may have been modified. 
 No probable interpretation is supplied by the 
 Coptic, nor does any name exactly corres- 
 ponding to Goshen appear on the monuments. 
 It is, however, to be remarked that three 
 Egyptian nomes, situate in the Delta, and 
 extending over great part of the district of 
 Goshen, bore each a name beginning with the 
 word Ka, i. e. a bull. This word would be 
 represented in Hebrew by the first syllable 
 of Goshen. The Egyptian for bull is written 
 
 either with |_J or ^ (see Birch, D. H., p. 
 417, 75 regular tran- 
 
 scription of ( |_J being a homophone) 
 
 is g. The vowel sound is vague, but 
 the Greek transcription of Ka-kem is 
 Kcox^jj-r]. See Brugsch, ‘ Geographic,’ Index. 
 We may accept “ go ” as the transcription of 
 the first syllable without any hesitation. That 
 of the second remains doubtful. 
 
 If, again, we can depend upon the transcrip- 
 tion of M# Brugsch, the name of the 12th 
 
488 
 
 ESSAY ON EGYPTIAN WORDS 
 
 Romos in Lower Egypt was Ka-she, of which 
 the Hebrew transcription would be 
 This comes exceedingly near to the form now 
 in question. The Egyptian ideographs to 
 which Brugsch gives this phonetic value, 
 represent a bull and a leaping calf.^® See 
 Brugsch, ‘ Geographic des Alten Aiigyptens,’ 
 p. 253. The name of the principal city in 
 the district was She-nefer, i.e. “the sacred* 
 calf,” a name which has an obvious and 
 striking bearing upon the history of the 
 Israelites. From another notice it is proved 
 that this city, Neter-she, was situate in a dis- 
 trict adjoining that of which Zar was the 
 capital. But Zar, or, as it is written more 
 fully, “the fortress of Zar,” was close to 
 Pithom, and was formerly identified with it 
 by Brugsch. So that there is sufficient reason 
 to assume that the Egyptian name of the 
 district may have been pronounced Goshe. 
 It is of course possible that the name Goshen 
 may have represented to the Israelites an 
 adjoining district beginning with the word 
 Ka; or that some name even nearer than 
 “ Goshe ” may have been in use. Ka-kem, 
 u e. the black bull, appears to have been the 
 origin of the LXX. and Coptic K6C6.SJL* 
 The monumental inscriptions in Lower Egypt 
 are scanty. 
 
 The bull represented in the names of these 
 districts was Mnevis, worshipped specially at 
 On as the living representative of Turn, the 
 unknown principle and source of all existence. 
 See Brugsch, /. c. 
 
 Gershom. Moses explains this name 
 to mean a sojourner in a strange land, Exodus 
 ii. 22. Gesenius finding no Hebrew authoiity 
 for this meaning of assumes a double 
 error, viz. that the writer took “ there,” 
 
 The leaping calf is the D. o{ A b, “thirst.” 
 
 I do not find the value assigned to it by Brugsch. 
 
 to be the equivalent of a strange land, and 
 that he was ignorant of the true derivation 
 from banished. The Egyptian gives a 
 complete etymology. The first syllable is 
 common to both languages: is the exact 
 
 equivalent and transcription of S 
 
 ® » dweller, or sojourner. The 
 
 word is preserved in Coptic in the form 
 ZCOI 2 xL inwhichX = /I\ and X == . 
 
 Moses, as we have seen, usually takes a word 
 common to both languages. The second 
 syllable is pure Egyptian, retained in the 
 Coptic in the common word 
 shemmo, a foreigner, or a foreign land. Thus 
 in this passage the Coptic version of n'lDi 
 a foreign land, is Ft 
 
 The meaning to an Egyptian would be exactly 
 what the Hebrew expresses “ a dweller in a 
 foreign land.” The Coptic, according to 
 Brugsch, D. H., is the equivalent of 
 “ shumer,” a bow, used commonly as the 
 hieroglyphic of “ foreigners.” 
 
 Genesis xli. 2, .in«, LXX. axei, Coptic 
 The word has long been recognised 
 as Egyptian. It occurs only in this passage and 
 in Job viii. ii, where it is used in parallelism 
 with (see above, p. 485), and described as 
 a water plant. The old Egyptian corresponds 
 
 exactly, 1] (§) [j ^ as a verb to be 
 
 green, to grow and fiower. The determinative 
 points to herbage by a stream. Another form 
 
 of the word 
 
 axu, is used for 
 
 reeds, rushes, &c. The radical meaning is 
 bright luxuriant growth. 
 
 In the Introduction to Exodus the atten- 
 tion of scholars was specially called to a list 
 of words taken from the first fifteen chapters 
 of Exodus, which contain the history of 
 the transactions in Egypt. They are either 
 a-ira^ Xf-yo/xei/a, 01* peculiar to the Pentateuch, 
 occurring, if at all elsewhere, only in the 
 Psalms of later date, which recapitulate the his- 
 tory. Nearly all are words which are found in 
 Egyptian documents of unquestioned antiquity, 
 either older or not much later than Moses. 
 
 C. i. 7. In Pentateuch only, 
 
 except in Psalm cv., taken from this pas- 
 sage, the root is found in Arabic and Aithio- 
 
 pic. The Egyptian ^ s wr itten with 
 
 all the dentals, e. g.^ with \ , which is 
 
 the exact equivalent of P.* It exactly corre- 
 
 * Thus do Rouge, Chr. p. 103. Br.*D. H. s. v. 
 
 sponds to the Tthiopian pullulavit; 
 
 the p represents the impulsive mood, equi- 
 valent to Hiphil. This accounts for 
 being followed by the objective of the object 
 produced. 
 
 niD, not an uncommon word, but far moro 
 frequently found in the Pentateuch (nineteer 
 times) than elsewhere (eleven times alto- 
 gether) : the Eg. root is per, i.e., come 
 forth, grow abundantly, corn and all kinds c. 
 grain. 
 
 1 1. D'D/D 'Td*. see above, p. 486. 
 
 13. T 122 occurs once only, Ez. xxxiv. 4 
 out of the Pent. 
 
 16. D'iDNn, the two stones. Th. 
 meaning is purely conjectural: there is 
 trace of the expression in Hebrew, or of th*" 
 usage to which it is supposed to refer ?./ 
 
 Pale/i»ne. The root A , ben. Is 
 
IN THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 489 
 
 in many derivatives in Egyptian ; it has the 
 sense to roll, twist, turn, Sec. ; also to pro- 
 duce, engender. Brugsch connects it with 
 I DIN- Possibly it may have some connexion 
 with die very doubtful Hebrew. 
 
 G. ii. 3 - nnn, ark. 27 times in the Pen- 
 tateuch, not found elsewhere. It is only 
 used of the ark of Noah, and of the cradle of 
 Moses. It has no Semitic root or equiva- 
 lent, the Arabic being derived entirely from 
 this passage. In Egyptian it is a common 
 word in the sense of chest, coffer, and cradle. 
 
 N^:!, a word found in Job and Isaiah ; but 
 from Egyptian, see above. 
 
 riDT? pitch, occurs twice only out of Pen- 
 tateuch, Isaiah xxxiv. 9 ; xxxv. 9 : common 
 in Egyptian, see above. "IN', the Nile, long 
 known as Egyptian. 
 
 5. }*m, wash, a common word, but used 
 in Egyptian rakat, and recht in the same 
 sense. 
 
 10. HD’D, “to draw forth,” only here 
 and in the i8th Psalm ; no satisfactory ety- 
 mology in Semitic, but common in the form 
 mesu, and with variants in the sense bring 
 forth, draw forth, &c. See above. 
 
 16. Dm, once only in Cant. i. 17. 
 
 hi, 2. n::D, only in Exodus and Deut. ; 
 shown in note ad loc. to be Egyptian in the 
 sense “ thorny acacia.” 
 
 7. pn, straw, common in the Pen- 
 tateuch, rare elsewhere. In Egyptian tebn 
 means chaff.” Pap. Sail. 4, p. 5. D’p, 
 stalk, not uncommon in Hebrew, but 
 Egyptian in exactly the same form and 
 sense. 
 
 9. look to, trust in ; very rare in this 
 sense, occurs nine times in Pent., thirty 
 times in Job, very rare in later books. 
 
 vi. 25, The father-in-law and the son of 
 Eleazer both bear Egyptian names, Putiel, 
 “ devoted to El.” Phineas occurs under 
 Rameses II. 
 
 vii. 3. On the names of magicians and 
 sorcerers see note on this chapter, at the end. 
 
 Dn^, a. X., and v. 22, 12^, correspond to 
 Egyptian words for magic and medical 
 formulae. 
 
 2 7- y“nD\*, zeparda, frog: only found in 
 Exodus and in one Psalm taken from it. It 
 is a purely local name, adopted by the Arabs 
 in Egypt. The radicals of which it is com- 
 posed ^ occur in a modified form in the 
 Egyptian for “ tadpole,” hefennu, or hefenr : 
 
 \ j and > which Brugsch 
 
 renders “ tadpoles,” giving as the Arabic equi- 
 
 valent the young dofda. The 
 
 ■word has also the secondary meaning 100,000 
 or an indefinite number. 'I'he interchange of 
 aspirates^ and sibilants is common, indeed 
 regular in Zend and Sanscrit, in Greek and 
 Latin. Another word comes even nearer. 
 
 LnV , tsfdt, which has the exact corre- 
 
 spondents of y, t], and ^ ; the word means 
 snake or “ viper,” but appears to be generic 
 for reptiles. It is to be observed also that 
 
 hefed, means to squat ; a very 
 probable etymology. 
 
 19- D 3 N: found in Isaiah, but uncommon. 
 No satisfactory etymology is given, nor does 
 the word occur in the same sense in the 
 cognate languages. In this passage four 
 words are given, rivers, streams, agammim, 
 and generally every reservoir or collection of 
 water. “ Agam ” may be assumed to be a 
 well knov/n local term. I find, no exact 
 Egyptian equivalent, and the Hebrews pro- 
 bably modified that which they adopted. But 
 
 , chnum, le puits, la citerne, 
 
 Brugsch, D. H., p. 1100, would answer the 
 conditions of an exact correspondence in 
 sense, and resemblance in sound. A well 120 
 cubits deep is mentioned in an inscription 
 quoted p. 246. Another word occurs in the 
 Ritual, 99, 26, which comes nearer in form, 
 viz., Achem, which is mentioned in con- 
 nexion with the Nile, but the meaning is un- 
 certain. 
 
 viii. 3. The combination of these words, 
 shown above to be probably Egyptian, is 
 remarkable, D'yTID^ “iN'r! It is' an 
 
 instance of the custom of Moses, in describing 
 Egyptian events, to use words either purely 
 Egyptian or common to the two languages. 
 
 "llJn, oven. The word is not uncom- 
 mon, but occurs more frequently in the 
 Pentateuch than elsewhere. The etymo- 
 
 logy is uncertain. The Coptic op!p> 
 or Tplp, comes very near ; the permutation 
 of p and It is common. The Egyptian sup- 
 plies “ nennu’’ to bake or roast, D. H., p. 784, 
 and “ hir,” an oven ; combined, the two words 
 give all the elements, but the connection is 
 scarcely probable. The old Egyptian must 
 have had a form from which the Coptic cer- 
 tainly, and probably the Hebrew also, was 
 derived. 
 
 14. “iDn, in the sense “ heap,” is peculiar to 
 this passage. 
 
 16. D'DD : the word occurs six times in this 
 passage, and nowhere else, except in Ps. cv. 
 31, which is taken from it. , No probable 
 Hebrew root is suggested, nor is the word 
 extant in the Semitic dialects. The Arabic 
 Chaldee and Syriac translators use a word 
 quite distinct from it. The Egyptian has no 
 name for an insect corresponding to this, but 
 
 it has the root “ken,” 
 
 A X 
 
 in the 
 
 sense force and abundance, a sense which in 
 one word is developed into multitudinous 
 
 , one of the commonest 
 
 words in the language; and in another, 
 
 H H 5 
 
ESSAY ON EGYPTIAN WORDS 
 
 490 
 
 ^ , takes t}ie sense plague, calamity, 
 
 &c. The Coptic has xrtG> percussit. This 
 sense is further determined in one variant by the 
 
 sign ^ , which associates the plague with a 
 
 bad smell and corruption. One passage quoted 
 by Brugsch is curious, since it points to a peri- 
 odical visitation : “ The year did not bring the 
 plague (ken) at the usual time,” This quotation 
 gives a peculiar force to the exclamation of 
 Pharaoh’s magicians, “ It is the finger of God; ” 
 they recognised it as a severe visitation. 
 The word is identified by Brugsch with the 
 
 Egyptian ^ ^ J} 
 
 chenemms, 
 
 the mosquito. It is retained in the Coptic 
 ^oXj?Jl.e5 Ka>u(o\l/, culex. See D. H., p. 
 1x03, 
 
 21. : the word occurs nowhere but 
 
 in the description of this plague, seven times 
 here, and twice in Psalms Ixxviii. 45, and cv. 
 31. The Semitic root iny is very common, 
 but is nowhere connected with insects or a 
 plague of any kind. A late Egyptian word, 
 
 S.J Abeb, /. e. a beetle, resembles 
 
 the Hebrew in form, and is connected 
 with several words, 
 
 which represent species of flies : as for 
 
 I find no Egyptian equivalent; the nearest 
 in form and sense is © J P 2 , a burn- 
 
 instance 
 
 
 , D. H., p. 183, Cham- 
 
 pollion Gr., p. 74, which evidently de- 
 notes a venomous fly. It is possible either 
 that the Hebrews, adopting the Egyptian 
 word, accommodated it to their own common 
 root, or that the middle letter “i may have 
 been, for the same reason, substituted for 2 
 in the transcription. The oldest forms of 
 
 "1 and 3, i.e. ^ ^ , are scarcely distinguish- 
 able ; and even in the Samaritan, which adds 
 a line to the b, they are easily confused, 
 0 q Y'- Coptic Pentateuch uses the 
 
 wordaf, adding “ dog,” 
 
 to express the kvvuixvux of the LXX. This 
 conjecture is somewhat confirmed by the 
 affinity thus brought out with 3inT, the fly, 
 especially “the fly that is in the uttermost 
 parts of the rivers of Egypt,” Isaiah vii. 18. 
 
 23. nn2, separation, not found elsewhere 
 in this sense : it is from Semitic. 
 
 ix. 8. ri'D, (!• A. Gesenius derives it from 
 niQ = n^j. If this probable connection be 
 correct, the word would be common to the 
 Egyptian and Hebrew, nef, nefu, to breathe, 
 or blow. 
 
 lL‘’3D occurs only in the Pentateuch. 
 The Arabic has ignem extudit, which 
 
 may, or may not, be the root. No Semitic 
 etymology is satisfactory. The Chaldee, 
 Syriac, and Arabic employ a different word. 
 
 ing lamp. Perhaps , to bake, of 
 
 which would be the trans:;ription, may 
 have had a variant nearer to the Hebrew. 
 The word is used in a late variant in the 
 sense of baking bricks, or more probably 
 “ using a lime kiln.” A curious word lately 
 discovered by Mr. Birch, very probably gives 
 
 the true form ’ kabusa, in 
 
 Coptic fi eCj av 6 pa^, carbo. ‘ Egypt. 
 Zeitschrift,’ 1868, p. 121. Mr. Birch widtes 
 
 XA,iKcc; Peyron gives x£.KeC ; and 
 
 X.^6C- — Copt. This meets the two 
 conditions of agreement in sense and radical 
 letters. 
 
 9. p3N*, “fine dust,” is a very rare word, 
 twice in the Pentateuch, four, times in later 
 books. 
 
 I'niix, A. V. boils. The word occurs in 
 Job ii. 7, and in reference to Hezekiah. 
 
 Gesenius compares the Arabic ^ to 
 
 be hot, used specially of fever heat : but the 
 word never occurs in connection with erup- 
 tions. A Coptic MS., quoted by Peyron, 
 renders this and the word niD which follows 
 XltOTq ^ep^-Cp, in which the radical 
 letters partly correspond with the Hebrew, 
 X often == ^ . Possibly the Egyptian came 
 nearer still. The true derivation, however, ap- 
 pears to be ^UO^, prurire, of which the Egyp- 
 tian form was A ^ t , to scratch, a 
 
 word which occurs frequently in early papyri. 
 The exact transcription is ;)^aku. A variant 
 somewhat nearer probably existed, or the 
 Hebrews may have adopted and modified it, 
 substituting, as in many words, sh for x, and 
 ch for k. 
 
 me. = jS.epS-ep» see last note, 
 nynynx, a. X. The assumed root, 3 ;n, is 
 
 not extant. Egyptian has ‘ —r* 
 
 baba. Cop. overflow. The x pre- 
 
 sents no difficulty. 
 
 15. "iriD, cut off. In this sense it occurs 
 once in Zechariah, otherwise only here and in 
 Job iv. 7; XV. 28; xxii. 20. The Coptic 
 KUOp'tr casdere, abscindere, is connected 
 
 with the root A j , HD- ^ , cut, 
 
 , engrave, carve ; still nearer is 
 
 (JctGcOT, concidere, caedere. 
 
 31-. nntJ’Q, flax, a common word, is pro- 
 bably Egyptian. No satisfactory Semitic 
 
IN THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 491 
 
 etymology is proposed ; the Arabic has 
 to which Fuerst gives the sense “ carminar,” 
 without authority as it would seem : nor is 
 the meaning assigned to it by Gesenius sup- 
 ported by Arabic Lexicographers. A glance 
 at Freytag will show ho-w utterly uncon- 
 nected the meaning is with flax. Gesenius 
 observes that it is found in Avicenna. I 
 believe that in Syriac and Arabic it is merely 
 a derivative meaning. Gesenius observes 
 that the word does not occur in any Semitic 
 dialect. He had good reason to reject the 
 conjectures of Forster; he would probably 
 not have hesitated to adopt the etymology 
 
 suggested by the Egyptian ® , Pek, flax, 
 
 (a) 
 
 linen, and linen stuffs. It is a very common 
 word, known first from the Rosetta stone. 
 The change of “k” to “sh” is normal. 
 Briigsch, p. 515, compares it with nnS^Q- 
 
 «• The assumed root ^33 does 
 not occur in any Semitic dialect. In Egyp- 
 
 tian ^ ,gabu, blossom, corre- 
 
 sponds very nearly. ‘D. H.,’ p. 755. 
 
 32. nf3DD, “spelt,” occurs very seldom. 
 The Arabic which resembles it is uncommon. 
 
 it is used by Saddia in translating 
 
 Is. xxviii. 25. Freytag gives 
 vicia, vetch, but without a root, and 
 it evidently is a strange word, probably 
 a compound word, and of Egyptian origin. 
 
 , sim, Coptic CIAiLj is a general 
 
 name for herbs, and is used in the Coptic 
 Version of v. 25. A compound word of 
 uncertain meaning, but denoting some vege- 
 table food, is found in the ‘Ritual,’ c. 124, 4: 
 
 m 
 
 5 chersemau, which corre- 
 sponds very nearly to the Hebrew grain 
 , kemetta, or kemdut, written also 
 
 , means a kind of corn, represented 
 
 on the Sarcophagus of Seti; Bon., p. 2, 
 
 B. 1 . 43; B. 43; D. H., p. 1497. 
 
 32. «. X. No Semitic root is found ; 
 
 that suggested by Gesenius is unsatisfactory, 
 
 S' 
 
 has the sense deficit, latuit, whence 
 G. elicits the meaning, late in season, tender. 
 
 In Egyptian ^ , pirt, or pilt. Brugsch 
 
 renders the word “ jeunes plantes qui viennent 
 de pousser,” the exact meaning of the 
 Hebrew. 
 
 xii. II. nDS» passover. The Semitic de- 
 rivations are doubtful, see note in loc. 
 The Egyptian *13 X , pesh-t, corre- 
 
 sponds very nearly in form, and exactly in 
 meaning and construction. Champollion, Gr., 
 p. 446, gives two examples, to extend the 
 arms or wfings over a person, protecting 
 him. 
 
 15* "iNb, leaven; the word occurs only 
 in this chapter. Gesenius compares T'D, to 
 
 boil. 
 
 In Egyptian ^ — , with vari- 
 
 ants pronounced seri, means “seethe,” 
 “ seething pot.” It is connected with sent, 
 cheese, or buttermilk. There can be little 
 doubt of the connexion with the Hebrew, 
 and the Egyptian probably supplies the true 
 root. I'fOn, leavened dough, does not occur 
 in the same sense out of, the Pentateuch, 
 unless it be in Amos iv. 5, when it seems 
 rather to mean “spoil.” The Coptic has 
 ^SiX'Xi acid, which, corresponding with it 
 exactly in form and nearly in sense, implies 
 an Egyptian root ; but it may be taken from 
 the Arabic. The Egyptian for fermentation 
 does not seem to be connected with it. 
 
 , stf ; which is represented by the 
 
 Coptic C^KTCiSee Chabas ‘ Mel.’ii.p. 219; 
 though the radical letters might be brought 
 under the common law of transmutation 
 between aspirants and sibilants. 
 
 22. F|D, basin, or, according to some, 
 “ threshold,” see note in loc. The latter 
 sense is somewhat confirmed by the Eg. 
 
 P D ^ , sep, a step, or threshold. 
 
 Considerable additions may be made to 
 this list, which will probably form the basis 
 of a separate treatise. Enough has been 
 said to show that Moses habitually uses 
 words which existed in Egyptian, and for the 
 most part cannot be shown to have a true 
 Semitic etymology. 
 
 Since the preceding pages were finally re- 
 vised for the press the writer has received the 
 ‘Journal Asiatique’ for March and April, 1870. 
 It contains an article by M. Harkavy, en- 
 titled, “ Les Mots Egyptiens de la Bible.” It 
 does not include proper names. In some 
 important points the writer has the satisfac- 
 tion of finding his conclusions supported by 
 this Egyptologer, who appears not to have 
 seen these Essays, which were sent to Paris 
 towards the end of last year. 
 
 The following derivations are partly new 
 and of much interest. 
 
 Gen. xli. 43. M. Harkavy adopts Ap-rech, 
 chief of the Rech, or men of learning ; a deri- 
 
492 
 
 ESSAY ON EGYPTIAN WORDS. 
 
 vation noticed above, p. 483. He defends the 
 transcription of p by and ch by and cer- 
 tainly shows that in words common to Hebrew 
 and Egyptian they are sometimes interchanged. 
 He gives also what appears to be the true 
 equivalent of D'JD, see above, p. 491, viz. 
 Chenemms. 
 
 Gen. xli. 2, Achu. The same derivation 
 as that given above. 
 
 xli. 8. Chartummim, magicians. In a 
 note, p. 109, M. Harkavy observes: “Un 
 savant distingue, qui a lu notre travail, re- 
 marque qu’il avait pense au radical tern qui 
 signitie prononcer, enoncer, avec la particule 
 cher. L’initiale cher forme en effet des titres 
 avec d’autres mots.” The reader will find 
 this derivation stated and defended in the 
 note at the end of Exodus, c. vii., p. 279. It 
 was mentioned by the wi*iter to some scholars 
 both in England and Paris, by whom it was 
 approved. 
 
 XDID, tena, a sacred basket. The deriva- 
 tion has been given in note on Exod. xvi. 
 
 Exod. vii. II, 22. Mr. Harkavy derives 
 12 n*? 12*? from Rech-chet, a magician, or man 
 of learning. The writer prefers the ety- 
 mology proposed, p. 276. 
 
 Gen. xlix. 5, milD, rendered habitation, 
 probably equivalent to Macher, a granary. 
 
 Gen. xii. et pa«sim, “ Pharaoh.” The deri- 
 vation proposed above is defended. 
 
 Gen. xli. 45. Zaphnath Paaneh. M. 
 Harkavy gives the same value to the first 
 syllable, Zaph, food, and to the word Paaneh, 
 life. For the middle syllable he proposes net, 
 saviour. The transcription given above still 
 appears preferable to the writer, who is glad 
 to find M. H. in accord with him in regard 
 to the more important terms, food and life. 
 
 The derivations of Shesh and Pak, fine 
 linen, have been already noted. 
 
 END OF PART I. 
 
THE 
 
 Holy Bible 
 
 ACCORDING TO THE AUTHORIZED VERSION (A.D. i6ii), 
 
 WITH AN EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL 
 
 Cominxiitarjj 
 
 AND 
 
 % lUbismn 0f ffje 
 
 BY BISHOPS AND OTPIER CLERGY 
 
 OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 
 
 EDITED 
 
 By F. C. cook, M.A., Canon of Exeter. 
 
 VoL. I.— Part II. 
 
 LE VITICUS— DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAELES SOEIBNEK & CO., 654 BEOADAVAY. 
 
 1871. 
 
LEVITICUS 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Title ^ 493 
 
 II. Authorship ib. 
 
 III. Contents 494 
 
 I. T EVITICUS, that is, the Levitical 
 J ' Book (LXX. AeuiTtKOE, Vulg. Le- 
 viticus)^ is the name by which this portion 
 of the Law of Moses has always been 
 called by the Hellenistic Jews and the 
 Christian Church. But according to the 
 text of the Masorites, it does not appear 
 certain that the Book was originally 
 named, or in any way regarded by them, 
 as a whole. It would rather seem that 
 they reckoned it simply as ten out of 
 the fifty-four sections into which the 
 entire Book of the Mosaic writings is 
 divided. The ten Sections are as fol- 
 low : — 
 
 Sect. 
 
 24, 
 
 Chap. 
 
 i. — vi. 7. 
 
 
 25, 
 
 
 vi. 8 — viii. 
 
 5 ) 
 
 26, 
 
 ?> 
 
 ix. — xi. 
 
 }} 
 
 27, 
 
 
 xii. xiii. 
 
 j; 
 
 28, 
 
 
 xiv. XV. 
 
 jj 
 
 29, 
 
 7) 
 
 xvi. — xviii. 
 
 5> 
 
 30, 
 
 if 
 
 xix. XX. 
 
 5 > 
 
 3 L 
 
 a 
 
 xxi. — xxiv. 
 
 ?> 
 
 32, 
 
 a 
 
 XXV. xxvi. 2. 
 
 J) 
 
 33 > 
 
 i) 
 
 xxvi. 3 — xxvii. 
 
 Each 
 
 Section, in accordance 
 
 rabbinical custom, is named from the 
 word, or phrase, with which it com- 
 mences. Section 24 is called Vayiki'a 
 (Xip'!), which means, “ and he (the 
 Lord) called.” But it appears that the 
 Kabbinical Jews in the time of S. Je- 
 rome used the Pentateuchal division, 
 and gave to each of the five Books the 
 VoL. 1. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IV. The Ritual of the Sacrifices . . 495 
 
 V. Historical development of Sacri- 
 
 50 % 
 
 name of its first section*. The modern 
 Jews apply the title Vayikra both to the 
 whole book of Leviticus, and, in its more 
 strict sense, to Sect. 24 of the Pentateuch. 
 
 As regards its subject matter, Leviticus 
 is closely connected with Exodus at its 
 commencement and with Numbers at its 
 conclusion. The first link of connec- 
 tion is clearly shewn by the fact that 
 while the directions for the Consecration 
 of the priests are given in Exodus, the 
 Consecration itself is narrated in Leviti- 
 cus in nearly the same words, changing 
 the tense of the verbs. See prel. note 
 to Ex. xxix. 
 
 The Book however has a certain claim 
 to unity from so large a portion of it 
 being occupied with instructions for the 
 service of the Sanctuary. It is true 
 that much matter of the same kind 
 is found in Exodus and Numbers. But 
 Leviticus differs from those Books in 
 in its general exclusion of historical nar- 
 rative. The only historical portions are 
 the accounts of the Consecration of the 
 priests, with the deaths of Nadab and 
 Abihu (ch. viii. — x.), and of the punish- 
 ment of the blasphemer (xxiv. 10 — 23). ' 
 
 II. As regards the question of au- 
 thorship, most, even of those who hold 
 a different opinion on the other books 
 of the Pentateuch, ascribe it in the 
 
 ^ Hieron. ‘Prologus Galeatus.’ 
 
 I I 
 
494 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 main to Moses. The theories which are 
 counter to its MosaiS origin are so much 
 at variance with each other — no two of 
 them being in anything like substantial 
 agreement — that it does not seem worth 
 while to notice them in this place. 
 
 Leviticus has no pretension to system- 
 atic arrangement as a whole, nor does 
 it appear to have been originally written 
 all at one time. Some repetitions occur 
 in it^; and in many instances, certain 
 particulars are separated from others 
 with which, by the subject-matter, they 
 are immediately connected ^ There ap- 
 pear to be in Leviticus, as well as in 
 the other Books of the Pentateuch, proe- 
 Mosaic fragments incorporated with the 
 more recent matter^. There are also 
 passages which may probably have been 
 written by Moses on previous occasions 
 and inserted in the places they now 
 occupy when the Pentateuch was put 
 together. It is by no means unlikely 
 that there are insertions of a later 
 date which were written, or sanctioned, 
 by the Prophets and holy men who, after 
 the Captivity, arranged and edited the 
 Scriptures of the Old Testament^ The 
 fragmentary way in which the Law has 
 been recorded, regarded in connection 
 with the perfect harmony of its spirit 
 and details, may tend to confirm both 
 the unity of the authorship of the Books 
 in which it is contained, and the true 
 inspiration of the Lawgiver. 
 
 III. In the following table, the con- 
 tents of the Book of Leviticus are shewn 
 in the order in which they occur. 
 
 ‘ For examples, compai'e Lev. xi. 39, 40 with 
 xxii- 8 ; and Lev. xix. 9 with xxiii. 22. Put on 
 some of the most considerable alleged cases of 
 mere repetition in the Pentateuch, see notes on 
 ch. XX. xxiii. 
 
 ^ See Prel. notes to ch. xii. and ch. xv. ; 
 note on xiii. 39; also xix. 5 — 8, xxii. 17 — 25. 
 
 ^ See Introd. Note to Ex. xx. 22; notes 
 on Lev. xxiii. xxv. 
 
 ■* We seek in vain for any clear internal evi- 
 dence of such interpolations in Leviticus. But 
 the probal)ility of their existence may be easily 
 admitted, taking account of the literary habits of 
 ])ast ages, before the sjurit of modern criticism 
 I'.ad introduced a curious desire to appropriate 
 every sentence to its author, (hi the objections 
 to ^Iosaic authorship which have been based on 
 ])assagcs relating to the future history of the 
 nation, see Note after Chap, xxvi, and cf. notes 
 on P^x. xxiii. 20, 31 . 
 
 Laws for the Altar 
 
 La-vjs addressed to the people 
 Burnt-offerings, i. Meat-offer- 
 ings, ii. Peace-offerings, iii. 
 Sin-offerings, iv. i — v. 13. 
 T respass-offerings, V. 1 4 — vi. 7 . 
 La'ws addressed to the priests 
 Burnt-offerings, vi. 8 — 13. 
 Meat-offerings, vi. 14 — 23. 
 Sin-offerings,vi.24 — 30. Tres- 
 pass-offerings, vii.i — 7. Meat- 
 offerings, Peace-offerings, &c. 
 8 — 21. 
 
 Laws addressed tg the people 
 Fat and blood not to be eaten, 
 vii. 22 — 27. The priests’ por- 
 tions of the Peace-offerings, 
 vii. 28 — 38. 
 
 The Consecration of the Priests 
 
 (cf. Ex. xxix. ) 
 
 Aaron and his sons enter upon 
 
 their office 
 
 Nadab and Abihu are punished 
 The laws of clean and unclean 
 
 animal food 
 
 Purification after child-birth ... 
 
 The Leprosy 
 
 Examination of suspected 
 cases, xiii. i — 44. Exclusion 
 of lepers from the camp. xiii. 
 45, 46. The Leprosy in 
 clothing and leather, xiii. 47 
 — 59. The cleansing and 
 restoration of the healed leper, 
 xiv. I — 32. The Leprosy in 
 a house, xiv. 33 — 53. Con- 
 clusion, xiv. 54 — 5.7. 
 Purifications on account of se- 
 cretions 
 
 The Day of Atonement 
 
 The slaughtering of animals for 
 
 food 
 
 U nlawful marriages 
 
 Abominable lusts 
 
 Precepts on duties 
 
 Precepts on duties, for the most 
 part with punishments pre- 
 scribed 
 
 Precepts on holiness for the priests 
 Choice of victims for the Altar, 
 and rules for eating the flesh 
 
 of the Peace-offerings 
 
 The days of Holy Convocation 
 and the Festivals in their con- 
 nection with agriculture 
 
 The Lamps and the Shewbread 
 
 for the Sanctuary 
 
 The blasphemer punished, with 
 an interpolation on retribution 
 The Sabbath year, and the Ju- 
 bilee in connection with the 
 
 rights of the poor 
 
 Promises and Threatenings for 
 
 the nation 
 
 Vows 
 
 i. — vii. 
 i. — vi. 7. 
 
 vi. 8 — vii. 21 
 
 vii. 22 — 38. 
 
 viii. 
 
 ix, 
 
 X. 1 — 20. 
 
 xi. 
 
 xii. 
 
 xiii. xiv. 
 
 XV. 
 
 xvi. 
 
 xvii. 
 
 xviii. I — 18. 
 xviii. 19 — 30. 
 xix. 
 
 XX. 
 
 xxi. xxii. 16. 
 
 xxii. 17— 33. 
 
 xxiii. 
 
 xxiv. I — 9. 
 xxiv. 10 — 23. 
 
 xxv. 
 
 xxvi. 
 xxvii. 
 
THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 
 
 495 
 
 * 
 
 IV. The Ritual of the Sacri- 
 fices. 
 
 The instructions respecting the offer- 
 ings for the Altar contained in Leviticus 
 are given, like most of the other por- 
 tions of the Law, in a more or less dis- 
 joined and occasional way. They were 
 recorded with a view to the guidance of 
 those who were practically conversant 
 with the service of the Tabernacle. They 
 do not as they stand furnish a methodi- 
 cal statement for the information of those 
 who are strangers to the subject. A 
 compact and systematic sketch of the 
 ritual of the Altar, may therefore well 
 form part of an Introduction to the study 
 of this Book. 
 
 § i. In regard to the whole sacrificial 
 system of the Hebrew Law, it is most 
 necessary that we should keep in view 
 that it was intended for a people already 
 brought into covenant with the living 
 God, and that every sacrifice was as- 
 sumed to have a vital connexion with 
 the spirit of the worshipper. A Hebrew 
 Sacrifice, like a Christian Sacrament, pos- 
 sessed the inward and spiritual grace, 
 as well as the outward and visible sign. 
 The mere empty form, or the feeling of 
 an opus operatum, was as alien to the 
 mind of an enlightened Israelite who 
 brought his gift to the Altar, as it is to 
 the well instructed Christian who comes 
 to the Table of the Lord. This fact will 
 be found not obscurely intimated in the 
 words of the Law itself. But it is most 
 clearly expressed by the sacred writers 
 in later ages, when it became necessary 
 that they should remind their backsliding 
 countrymen of the truth b 
 
 It may however be supposed that 
 to those who came to the Sanctuary 
 in sincerity and truth, a sacrifice may 
 have borne a very different amount of 
 meaning,' according to the religious con- 
 ditions of their minds. One may have 
 come in devout obedience to the voice 
 of the Law, with little more than a vague 
 sense that his offering in some way ex- 
 ]3ressed his own spiritual wants, and that 
 the fact that he was permitted to offer it, 
 was a sacramental pledge of God’s good 
 
 ^ Ps. xl. 6; 1 . 8 — 15; Prov. xxi. 3; Is. i. 
 II — 15; Jer. vii. 21 — 23; Hos. vi. 6; Mic. vi. 
 7, 8. Cf. I Sam. xv. 22 ; Matt. v. 23, 24. 
 
 will and favour towards him. But to 
 another, with clearer spiritual insight, the 
 lessons conveyed in the symbols of the 
 Altar must have all converged with more 
 or less distinctness towards the Lamb 
 slain from the foundation of the workU, 
 Who was to come in the fulness of times 
 that He might fulfil all righteousness^, 
 and realize in the eyes of men the true 
 Sin-offering, Burnt-offering, and Peace- 
 offering; Who has now been made sin 
 lor us, though He knew no sin, that we 
 might be made the righteousness of God 
 in HinP, Who has given Himself for us 
 an offering and a sacrifice to God for a 
 sweet-smelling savour^. Who is our peace 
 that He might bring us nigh by His 
 blood b our very Paschal Lamb which has 
 been slain for us’^, to the end that by eat- 
 ing His flesh and drinking His blood we 
 might have eternal life®. 
 
 The Classification of Offerings. 
 
 § ii. The general name for what 
 was formally given up to the service of 
 God was korbdn (p“ip), which exactly 
 answers to the English words, offerhig 
 and oblation. It is rendered by Sdlpoi/ 
 (gift) in the SeptuaginP. Under this 
 name were included what was paid for 
 the maintenance of the Priests and Le- 
 vites in the shape of first-fruits and 
 tithes'®, whatever was contributed for the 
 endowment of the Sanctuary”, and what- 
 ever offerings were brought to be sacri- 
 ficed on the Altar. The last, which alone 
 belong to our present purpose, may be 
 thus classed: — 
 
 Offerings for the Altar. 
 
 Animal. 
 
 1 Burnt-offerings, 
 
 2 Peace-offerings, 
 
 3 Sin-offerings. 
 
 Vegetable. 
 
 1 Meat- and Drink-of- 
 
 ferings for the Altar 
 in the Court. 
 
 2 Incense and Meat-of- 
 
 ferings for the Holy 
 Place within the Ta- 
 bernacle. 
 
 Besides the three ordinary classes of 
 animal sacrifices, there were several 
 
 2 Rev. xiii. 8. 
 
 ^ 2 Cor. V. 2 1. 
 
 6 Eph. ii. 13, 14. 
 
 ® Joh. vi. 54. 
 
 Lev. ii. 12; xxvii. 
 Num. vii. 3; xxxi, 
 
 ^ INTatt. iii. 15. 
 
 ® Eph. V. 2. 
 
 ^ I Cor. V. 7. 
 
 ^ Cf. Mark vii. i r. 
 30; Num. xviii. 12,26. 
 50. 
 
 I I 2 
 
INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 496 
 
 offerings which were peculiar in their 
 nature, such as the Paschal lamb\ the 
 Scape goat^, and the Red heiferl There 
 was also the sort of Peace-offering called 
 C/iagiga/i, connected mainly with the 
 Passover, and apparently referred to in 
 the Law, though not mentioned by 
 name^ the Firstlings^, and the Tithe 
 animals®. 
 
 The offerings for the Altar were (i) 
 public sacrifices, offered at the cost and 
 on behalf of the community (such as the 
 victims offered in the morning and even- 
 ing service of the Sanctuary and in the 
 public festivals)^, and ( 2 ) private sacri- 
 fices which were offered either by express 
 enactment of the Law on particular oc- 
 casions, or by the voluntary devotion of 
 the sacrificer. It will be seen that the 
 first three chapters of Leviticus relate 
 entirely to private voluntary offerings®. 
 But it may be observed that the mode 
 of conducting a sacrifice of any given 
 kind was nearly the same, whether it 
 was a public or a private one. The 
 main points of exception were that in 
 the public sacrifices the priests, or the 
 Levites, did what was else done by the 
 person who brought the offering, or by 
 those who were employed by him ; 
 and, according to the Mishna®, that the 
 laying of the hand upon the head of 
 the victim was required in the public 
 sacrifices only in particular cases, which 
 are specified in the Law'®. 
 
 71ie Afiimal Sacrifices. 
 
 § iii. The external distinction be- 
 tween the three classes of animal sacri- 
 fices may be thus broadly stated : — the 
 Burnt-oftering was wholly burnt upon 
 the Altar; the Sin-offering was in part 
 burnt on the Altar, and in part, either 
 given to the priests or burnt outside 
 the camp; and the Peace-offering was 
 shared between the Altar, the priests and 
 the sacrificer. This formal difference is 
 immediately connected with the distinc- 
 
 ^ Ex. xii. 3. 2 Lev. xvi. 10. 
 
 ^ Num. xix. -2. 
 
 * .See Nuni. x. 10; Deut. xvi. 2. 
 
 ^ Ex. xiii. \ 7 , 13. 6 Lev. xxvii. 32. 
 
 ^ Ex. xxix. 38—44; Num. xxviii. xxix. 
 
 ® See Lev. i. 2 ; ii. i, &c. 
 
 ® Menach, ix. 7. 
 
 Lev. iv. 15; xvi. 21; 2 Chron. xxix. 23. 
 See Outram, i. xv. § 7. 
 
 tive meaning of each kind of sacrifice. 
 See § xvi. 
 
 The names by which the animal sa- 
 crifices are called in the Hebrew text 
 are as follows : — 
 
 The general name is zehach (nnr), 
 that is, a slaughtered animal. In the 
 English Bible it is commonly rendered 
 sacrifice, but sometimes offering. It is 
 opposed to minchdh (nn:D), literally, a 
 gift", which denotes a vegetable-offering, 
 called in our version a Meat-offering. 
 
 The Burnt -offering is called 'oldh 
 (n^V), that which ascends, or ishsheh 
 that which is burnt; it is also 
 occasionally called kdileel (igh'S), that 
 which is whole, because the whole vic- 
 tim was given to the altar. In our ver- 
 sion, 'oldh is rendered “burnt-offering,” 
 or “burnt sacrifice,” and Jzdleel^ “whole 
 burnt sacrifice'®.” 
 
 The Peace-offering is called shelem 
 that is peace, or concord. The 
 Thank-offering, a Peace- offering made 
 under certain conditions'®, was called 
 tdddh (min), a thanksgiving. 
 
 The Sin-offering was called chattdth 
 (n^ion), strictly either a sin, or punish- 
 ment for sin. 
 
 The Trespass-offering which, as re- 
 gards its meaning, was a kind of Sin- 
 offering always accompanied by a pecu- 
 niary fine, was called dshdm i.e. 
 
 a forfeit 
 
 The Selection of Animals for Sacrifice. 
 
 § iv. Five animals are named in 
 the Law as suitable for sacrifice, the ox, 
 the sheep, the goat, the dove and the 
 pigeon. It is worthy of notice that these 
 were all offered by Abraham in the great 
 sacrifice of the Covenant. The divine 
 command was, “Take me an heifer of 
 three years old, and a she-goat of three 
 years old, and a ram of three years old, 
 and a turtledove and a young pigeon'®.” 
 These animals are all clean according to 
 
 Ps. xl. 6; Jer. xvii. 26; Dan. ix. 27. See 
 on Lev. ii. i. 
 
 Deut. xxxiii. 10; Ps. li. 19. The words 
 us:d by the Septuagint are bXoKavTuixa, bXoKOLv- 
 TWTis and bXoKapirojixa •, and by the Vulgate, 
 hoi Kaiistum. 
 
 See on T>ev. vii. 11, 12. 
 
 See on Lev. v. 14. 
 
 15 Gen. XV. 9. 
 
THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 
 
 497 
 
 the division into clean and imclean which 
 was adopted in the Law\ but which had 
 its origin in remoter ages ^ They are also 
 the most important of those which are 
 used for food and are of the greatest 
 utility to man. The three kinds of quad- 
 rupeds were domesticated in flocks and 
 herds ^ and were recognized as pro- 
 perty, making up in fact a great part of 
 the wealth of the Hebrews before they 
 settled in the Holy Land. It would 
 thus appear that three conditions met 
 in the sacrificial quadrupeds; (i) they 
 were clean according to the Law ; (2) 
 they were commonly used as food ; and, 
 being domesticated, (3) they formed a 
 part of the home wealth of the sacrificers. 
 If there were any birds which were do- 
 mesticated by the Israelites in the time 
 of Moses, they were most probably the 
 dove and the pigeon, for dove-cots and 
 pigeon-houses have been from very early 
 times common appendages to the houses 
 of the Holy Land and the neighbouring 
 countries k But even if it could be 
 proved that the doves and the pigeons 
 used in sacrifice were wild, and did not 
 therefore fulfil the last-mentioned con- 
 dition of the sacrificial quadrupeds, it 
 would make no real difficulty, since it 
 appears that, in the regular sacrifices, 
 birds were accepted only from the poor 
 who possessed no other clean animals 
 which they could offer*. It is not in 
 the least probable that the domestic 
 fowl was known in Western Asia till 
 after the time of Solomon®. 
 
 “ The roebuck and the hart” (more pro- 
 perly, the gazelle and the deer), though 
 they were clean and were commonly 
 used for food^, were not offered in 
 sacrifice, most probably because they 
 
 ^ Lev. xi.; Deut. xiv. 
 
 ^ Gen. vii. 2 . ^ Lev. i. 2. 
 
 ^ Josephus, ‘Bell. Jud.’ V. 4. § 4. See Tris- 
 tram, ‘Nat. Blist.’ p. 212. 
 
 ® Lev. V. 7. See note on Lev. i. 14. 
 
 ® See note on Neh. v. 18. Smith’s ‘Diet.’ 
 III. 1575. Ducks and geese appear to have 
 abounded in ancient Egypt, but the Israelites 
 could hardly have had them in considerable 
 numbers in the Wilderness. That the ancient 
 Egyptians were acquainted with the common 
 fowl rests on no earlier testimony than Plutarch’s. 
 See Wilkinson, ‘ Pop. Account,’ &,c. Vol. i. 
 p. 250. 
 
 7 Deut. xii. 15, 22, xiv. 5, XV. 22; i Kings 
 iv. 23. Cf. on Lev. xi. 7. 
 
 were not domesticated nor regarded 
 as property: the camel and the ass, 
 though they were domesticated, were 
 not offered because they were unclean®. 
 These instances, as well as the ex- 
 clusion from the vegetable offerings of 
 grapes, figs, pomegranates, honey and 
 milk, contradict the notion of B'ahr and 
 others, that the materials for sacrifice 
 were chosen mainly because they were 
 the chief natural productions of the land. 
 The view of Philo®, which has been 
 adopted by some in modern times, that 
 the animals were chosen on account of 
 their mild and tractable disposition, is 
 sufficiently answered by referring to the 
 habitual tempers of the bull, the goat 
 and the ram, which are so plainly re- 
 cognized in Scripture^®. 
 
 Every animal offered in sacrifice was 
 to be perfect, without spot or blemish. 
 It was to have neither disease nor de- 
 formity of any kind". An exception 
 was however made in regard to a limb 
 out of proportion in a victim for a Free- 
 will offering, which was an inferior sort 
 of Peace-offering^®. A male animal was 
 required in most offerings^®. 
 
 The age of the victims was, for the 
 most part, limited. It would seem to- 
 have been a primitive law that no animal 
 was to be sacrificed which was less than 
 a week old". The four-footed animals 
 offered by Abraham were three years 
 old". These may be taken in a general 
 way as the two limits of the ages of the 
 animals offered in sacrifice. The case 
 of a victim of seven years old in Judg. 
 vi. 25 must be regarded as exceptional, 
 having a peculiar significance of its own. 
 
 The ox was sacrificed either as a calf 
 ('pjy which might be a year old"’, 
 
 ® Amongst the Gentile nations, the camel 
 M^as offered in sacrifice by the Arabians, the 
 horse by the Hindoos, the swine by the Greeks, 
 Romans and Egyptians, the goose and otlier 
 domestic birds by the Egyptians. 
 
 ‘De Victimis,’ cap. I. De Maistre, Heng- 
 stenberg, &c. 
 
 See Ps. xxii. 12; Jer. xxxi. 18; Jer. 4. 8; 
 Dan. viii. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Cf. also Note after 
 Lev. xi. § II. 
 
 Lev. xxii. 18 — 25. 
 
 See Lev. vii. 16, 17, xxii. 23. 
 
 See on Lev. i. 3. 
 
 Ex. xxii. 30; Lev. xxii. 27. 
 
 Gen. XV. 9. 
 
 Micah vi. 6. Cf. on Ex. xxxii. 4; Lev. ix. 
 
 2, 3, 8- 
 
INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 498 
 
 or as a bull (“i3 par) from one to three 
 years old*. 
 
 In like manner, the sheep was offered 
 either as a lamb of a year old or under, 
 or as a young sheep from one to three 
 years old. But a single name (b’DD 
 kebcs, or 2^3 keseb^ different forms of 
 the same word) for these is found in the 
 Law. The age in the case of the lamb 
 is expressly defined ^ Our version has 
 lamb in some places where sheep would, 
 according to common usage, be more 
 appropriated 
 
 The same custom was most likely 
 followed in regard to the age of the 
 goat But there appear to have been 
 two breeds of goats, one shaggy and 
 the other smooth-haired, distinguished 
 in sacrificial use, but mistaken in our 
 version for distinctions of aged 
 
 The Presentation and Slaughter of the 
 Victims. 
 
 § v. It was the duty of the man 
 who offered a private sacrifice to lead 
 with his own hands the victim into the 
 court of the Sanctuary, and to “ offer it 
 before the Lord,” that is, formally to 
 present it to the priest in front of the 
 Tabernacled It is said that a priest 
 selected for the service first carefully 
 examined the animal to see that it was 
 without spot or blemish. The sacrificer 
 then laid, or rather pressed, his hand 
 upon its head. According to some Jew- 
 ish traditions, both hands were used, 
 as they were by the priest on the head 
 of the Scape goatd Nothing is said 
 in the Law of the imposition of hands 
 being accompanied by any form of 
 prayer or confession. The confession 
 made by the High priest over the Scape 
 goat’^ was evidently peculiar ; and the 
 confessions spoken of in connection with 
 
 * See on Lev. ix. 3 ; Lev. iv. 3, viii. 2 ; xvi. 
 3, &c. 
 
 ^ Ex. xii. 5, xxix. 38; Lev. ix. 3, xii. 6 (see 
 note), xxiii. 12, 18, &c. 
 
 ^ Lev. iii. 7, iv. 32, xiv. 10, xxiii. 12, &c. — The 
 words laml), ewe, and sheep, are also often em- 
 ployed to translate seh which would be 
 
 more fairly represented by one of the flock., that 
 is, cither sheep or goat. See Lev. v. 7, xii. 8, 
 xxii. 23, 28, xxvii. 26, &c. 
 
 * See on Lev. iv. 23. 
 
 ® See note on Lev. i. 3. 
 
 ® Lev. i. 4, xvi. 21. 
 
 ^ Lev. xvi. 21. 
 
 the Sin-offerings® were evidently made 
 before the sacrificial ceremony had com- 
 menced, and had nothing immediately 
 to do with the imposition of hands. 
 But according to the Rabbinists the 
 sacrificer always uttered a prayer or 
 confession of some sort while his hand 
 rested on the head of the victim, except 
 in the case of Peace-offerings®. There 
 does not appear to have been an im- 
 position of hands in the sacrifices of 
 birds'®: nor, according to the Mishna, 
 was there any in the sacrifice of the 
 Paschal lamb, or in the offering of any 
 of the public sacrifices, except the Scape 
 goat and the Sin-offering for the people". 
 
 The regular place for slaughtering the 
 animals for Burnt-offerings, Sin-offerings 
 and Trespass-offerings, was the north 
 side of the Altar'®. Tradition tells us 
 that before the sacrificer laid his hand 
 upon the head of the victim, it was bound 
 by a cord to one of the rings fixed for 
 the purpose on the north side of the 
 Altar'®, and that at the very instant when 
 the words of the prayer, or confession, 
 were ended, the fatal stroke was given 'b 
 The Peace-offerings and the Paschal 
 lambs, might, it would seem, be slain in 
 any part of the court'®. 
 
 If we take the text of Leviticus in 
 its most obvious meaning as our guide, 
 the person who brought the sacrifice had 
 to slay it'®. But some Jewish authorities 
 state that this was the duty of the priest 
 or an assistant 'h The Hebrew idiom is 
 not free from ambiguity'®. It is how- 
 ever most likely that the duty devolved 
 on the sacrificer, but that he could em- 
 ploy a deputy who might be’ a priest or 
 not'®. In the public sacrifices, and on 
 certain peculiar occasions in later times, 
 the priests, or the Levites, were appointed 
 
 ® See on Lev. v. 5. 
 
 ^ Maimonides, ‘ Corban,’ ill. 15. Otho, 
 
 ‘ Rab. Lex.’ p. 634. Outram, i. c. 15. 
 
 Otho, p. 658. 
 
 Lev. iv. 15. ‘ Menach,’ ix. 7. 
 
 Lev. i. 1 1 ; vi. 25 ; vii. 2. On the arrange- 
 ment of the court, see Note after Ex. xxvi. § vi. 
 
 Mishna, ‘Middoth,’ III. 5. 
 
 Otho, p. 634. 
 
 Cf. Lev. i, II with iii. 2. Mishna, ^Zebach,’ 
 
 V. 6 . 
 
 See Lev. i. 5, &c. &c. 
 
 Philo, ‘ De Victimis,’ cap. 5. Otho, 
 P- 
 
 See on P3x. xxxvii. r. 
 
 Cf. 2 Chron. xxx. 17. 
 
THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 
 
 499 
 
 to do it‘. The mode of killing ap- 
 pears not to have differed from that 
 of slaughtering animals for food. The 
 throat was cut while a priest or assistant 
 held a bowl under the neck to receive 
 the blood ^ The sacrificer, or his assist- 
 ant, then flayed the victim and cut it 
 into pieces ^ probably while the priest 
 was engaged in disposing of the blood. 
 
 Up to this point the ritual was the 
 same for all sacrifices of quadrupeds, 
 whether they were destined to be Burnt- 
 offerings, Peace-ofterings, or Sin-offer- 
 ings, except in the license allowed in 
 the case of Peace-offerings as to the 
 place of slaughter, and, according to 
 tradition, in the prayer accompanying 
 the imposition of hands. But from this 
 point a very important divergence takes 
 place, and the distinctive mark of each 
 kind of offering comes into view. The 
 treatment of the blood was the same in 
 the Burnt-offering, the Peace-offering, and 
 the Trespass- offering, but it was pecu- 
 liar in the Sin-offering: the burning of 
 certain parts on the Altar was the same 
 in the Sin-offering, the Trespass-offering, 
 and the Peace-offering, but the burning 
 of the whole was peculiar to the Burnt- 
 offering : the sacrificial meal was pecu- 
 liar to the Peace-offering. 
 
 The Treatment of the Blood. 
 
 § vi. In sacrificing the Burnt-offer- 
 ings^ the Peace-offerings^ and the Tres- 
 pass-offerings®, we read that the priests 
 were to “ bring the blood and sprinkle 
 the blood round about upon the altar.” 
 In the Sin-offerings, the priest had to 
 take some of the blood with his finger 
 and put it upon the horns of the Altar 
 of Burnt-offering, and to pour out what 
 remained at the bottom of the Altar. 
 This was all that was required for the 
 blood of the Sin-offering for one of the 
 common people, or for a ruler^ But in 
 the Sin-offering for the Congregation and 
 that for the High-priest®, in addition to 
 
 ^ Lev. iv. 4. xvi, 11, 15; 'i Chron. xxix. 24, 
 34, &c. 
 
 ^ L’Empereur, notes to ‘ Middotb,’ cap. iir. 
 Carpzqv. ‘ Mantissa de Sacrif.’ p. 712. Philo, 
 
 ‘ De Victimis,’ cap. 5. See on Lev. ix. o, xvii. 3. 
 
 Lev. i. 5, 6, &c. 
 
 4 Lev. i. 5, II. 5 Lev. hi. 2, 8, 13. 
 
 ® Lev. vii. 2. On the relation of the Trespass- 
 offering to the Sin-offering, see on Lev. v. 14. 
 
 7 Lev. iv. 25, 30. 8 note Lev. iv. 3. 
 
 these two processes, the High-priest him- 
 self had to bring a portion of the blood 
 into the Sanctuary, to sprinkle it with 
 his finger seven times before the vaiF, 
 and to put some of it upon the horns of 
 the Altar of incense'®. 
 
 Now there are here to be distin- 
 guished four different modes of dispos- 
 ing of the blood. In regard to the three 
 of these which belong to the Sin-offering, 
 our version exactly represents the ori- 
 ginal : — (i) the putting the blood with the 
 finger upon the horns of the two Altars, 
 (2) the sprinkling it with the finger before 
 the vail, and (3) the pouring out of what 
 remained at the base of the Altar of 
 Burnt-offering. But as regards the blood 
 of the other offerings, which it is said 
 the priests were to “ sprinkle round about 
 upon the altar,” our translation may mis- 
 lead. The Hebrew verb {zdrak, pnr) is 
 a quite different one from that rendered 
 sprinJzle {Jiizzdh^ ntn), in reference to the 
 blood of the Sin-offering: and as zdrak 
 is applied to the whole of the blood of the 
 victim, it must evidently denote a more 
 copious way of disposing of the blood 
 than is expressed by our word sprinkling. 
 While liizzdh is used for what was done 
 with the finger, or a bunch of hyssop, 
 zdrak is applied to an action performed 
 with the bowl" in which the blood of 
 the victim was received as it flowed from 
 the carcase. The verb is to be under- 
 stood in the sense of casting abroad., so 
 as to make the liquid cover a consider- 
 able surface. The two Hebrew words 
 are clearly distinguished in the Septua- 
 gint and Vulgate. They render zdrak 
 by Trpoo-xdiv and f under e; and liizzdh by 
 paivecv and aspergere. But almost all 
 modern versions confound the words. 
 
 The Mishna tells us that the great 
 Altar of the Temple was furnished 
 with two holes at its south-west corner 
 through which the blood ran into a drain 
 which conveyed it to the Cedron. There 
 must have been some arrangement of 
 this kind for taking the blood away from 
 the Altar in the Wilderness. We are 
 further told that in casting the blood 
 
 See note Lev. iv. 6. 
 
 Lev. iv. 5 — 7, 16 — 18. 
 
 The name of this bowl was mizrak (p"lT? 0 b ’ 
 which is immediately formed from the verb 
 zdrak. See Ex. xxvii. 3; Num. iv. 14, vii. 13; 
 Note after Lev. xvii., &c. 
 
500 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 “ round about upon' the altar,” it was the 
 custom to throw it in two portions, one 
 at the north-eastern corner and the other 
 at the south-western, so as to wet all the 
 four sides \ In accordance with this 
 statement, it has been very generally 
 held' that it was intended that the 
 blood should be diffused over the walls 
 of the Altar; and this seems to be con- 
 firmed by what is said of the blood of 
 the bird for a burnt-offering — “the blood 
 thereof shall be wrung out at the side of 
 the altar — But it is urged, on the other 
 hand^ that it is improbable that the blood 
 should have been suffered, as it must 
 thus have been, to run down upon the 
 bank or ledge round the Altar, on which 
 the officiating priests stood. It has been 
 conjectured that it was cast upon the 
 margin of the top of the Altar in such a 
 way as to flow round the space occupied 
 by the fire. This is of course conceivable, 
 if a channel was provided to conduct 
 the blood round the four sides, inclining 
 towards the openings at the south-western 
 cornerk 
 
 The Biu'ning on the Altar. 
 
 § vii. AVhen the blood was disposed 
 of, the skin removed, and the animal cut 
 into pieces, the sacrificer, or his assist- 
 ant, washed the entrails and feet^ In 
 the case of a Burnt-offering, all the pieces 
 were then taken to the Altar and salted 
 in accordance with the command, “with 
 all thine offerings thou shalt offer saltk” 
 It is said that the salting took place on 
 the slope of the Altar ^ The priest next 
 piled the pieces on the Altar, in order, 
 with the wood, upon the fire which he had 
 ])reviously made up*’. The expression 
 “ in order*"” is understood by the Jewish 
 writers to signify that the pieces were to 
 be placed in the pile, so as to stand in 
 the same relation to each other as they 
 
 ^ ‘ Micldoth,’ III. 2. Otho, p. 636. 
 
 ^ Outram, Carpzov., Bahr, Xnobel, Keil, &c. 
 \vith the general voice of rabbinical traditions. 
 Otho, p. 635 ; Outram, I. c. xvi. § 2. 
 
 Lev i. 15. 
 
 By Kurtz and Hofmann. 
 
 This may have some countenance from 
 the wonls of Philo (‘de \bct.’ c. 6), and of the 
 Vulgate, Lev. i. 1 1. 
 
 *' .See note on l.ev. i. 9, 
 
 ' Lev. ii. 13; ]'>.ek. xliii. 24; Mark ix. 49. 
 
 ® Otho, p. 637. See on Lev. i. 1 1 ; Ex. xxvii. 5. 
 
 •’ .See note Lev. vi. 13, 
 
 Lev. i. 7, S, 1 2, vi. 12; cf. xxiv. 8. 
 
 did in the living animal". The hind 
 limbs were probably put at the base of 
 the pile, then the entrails and other vis- 
 cera with the fat, then the fore limbs, 
 with the head at the top. — It should here 
 be remarked that a peculiar word is uni- 
 formly applied to the action of the fire 
 of the Altar, one which means rather to 
 send up in smoke than to consume. See 
 on Lev. i. 9. 
 
 The Fat and its Accompaniments. 
 
 § viii. The parts burned upon the 
 Altar of the Peace-offering, the ' Sin- 
 offering and the Trespass-offering, were 
 the same in each case. They consisted 
 mainly of the internal fat, the “sweet fat,” 
 or suet*^ The Hebrews called this fat 
 chelev and distinguished it from 
 
 the fat which is diffused in the flesh, 
 which was called mishmdn or 
 
 shdmeen The Law strictly for- 
 
 bad that the chelev should ever be 
 eaten; “It shall be a perpetual statute 
 ...that ye eat neither fat {chelev) nor 
 blood On the contrary, it was allowed 
 to eat the other fat*". — It is remarkable 
 that another word, peder (na), is used 
 to denote the fat of the Burnt-offering 
 which was burned along with the flesh, 
 not exclusively selected for the Altar like 
 the chelev of the other sacrifices*^. 
 
 The portions burned are briefly sum- 
 med up as “ the fat, and the kidneys, and 
 the caul above the liver*";” but they are 
 generally described more in detail in this 
 way*" — 
 
 1. “The fat that covereth the in- 
 wards;” that is, the caul or great omen- 
 tum, a transiDarent membrane which has 
 upon it a net-work of fatty tissue. 
 
 2. “The fat that is upon the in- 
 wards,” the small lumps of suet found 
 upon the intestines of healthy animals. 
 
 3. “ The two kidneys with the fat 
 that is on them which is by the flanks.” 
 
 Maimon. ap. Outram, I. 16. 
 
 See Richardson’s ‘Diet.’ s. Suet. 
 
 Ex. xxix. 13, 22 ; Lev. iii. 4, 10, 15, iv. 
 9, vii. 4, &c. 
 
 Num. xiii. 20; Ps. Ixxviii. 31 ; Is.'x. 16, xxx. 
 
 Lev. iii. 17. See Neh. viii. 10. 
 
 Lev. i. 8, 12; viii. 20. On the meaning of 
 peder, see Gesenius, ‘ Thes.’ 
 
 I.ev. ix. 10. 
 
 Ex. xxix. 13, 22; Lev. iii. 4, 10, 15, iv. 9, 
 vii. 4, viii. 16, &e. 
 
THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 
 
 SOI 
 
 4. The caul above the liver.” 
 There is a doubt as to the part which 
 is here designated. The Hebrew word 
 rendered caul is yothereth (mni'), which 
 appears to be derived from a root signify- 
 ing to abound or to spread over. The two 
 interpretations of the word which have 
 found most favour appear to have taken 
 their rise from the different renderings 
 of the Septuagint and the Vulgate. It is 
 translated by the former, o o eVl tov 
 r/Traro'i, and, in other places, o XojSog rov 
 y-n-aTog. It has hence been supposed by 
 many critics^ to mean the great upper 
 lobe of the liver. But this lobe is a part 
 of the liver, and cannot therefore pro- 
 perly be said to be “above the liv^er.” 
 The word has been rendered by the 
 Vulgate reticulum jecoiis^ a name which 
 answers very well to the membrane co- 
 vering the upper part of the liver, some- 
 times called the small omentum. This 
 is taken to be what is here meant by the 
 greater number of modern critics and 
 translators' . A third opinion, of less au- 
 thority, is that which is given in the mar- 
 gin of our Bible, that the word means the 
 midriff, or diaphragm, the broad muscle 
 which forms the division between the 
 abdomen and the thorax. On the whole, 
 it must be admitted that the question as 
 to what yothereth really denotes has not 
 been satisfactorily settled, though much 
 learning has been expended on it^ 
 
 5. When the offering was a sheep, 
 the fat tail which characterizes several 
 breeds of sheep, was added ^ 
 
 On the significance of burning the 
 fat, see on Lev. iii. 17. 
 
 On the Priests' Portions. 
 
 § ix. The parts of the victims which 
 regularly fell to the priests were : — 
 
 Of the Burnt-offerings, only the hide^, 
 the whole of the flesh being consigned 
 to the Altar. 
 
 Of the Peace-offerings, the breast and 
 the right shoulder (or leg), which might 
 be eaten by the priests and their families 
 
 ^ Philo, Josephus, Saadia, Bochart, Gesenius, 
 Bahr, Schott, Ewald, Kalisch. 
 
 ^ Luther, the English Version, Nic. Fuller, 
 Furst, DeWette, Knobel, Bunsen, Kurtz, Keil, 
 Zunz, Herxheimer, Luzzatto, Wogue. 
 
 2 See Nic. Fuller, ‘ Misc. Sacr.’ v. 14. Bo- 
 chart, ‘ Hieroz.’ 11. 45. Gesenius, ‘ Thes.’ S2i,b 
 voce. Knobel on Lev. iii. 4, &c. &c. 
 
 ^ See on Lev. iii. 9. ^ Lev. vii. 8. 
 
 in any unpolluted place. The hide ap- 
 pears to have been retained by the 
 sacrificer*’. 
 
 Of the Sin-offerings and the Tres- 
 pass-offerings, the whole of the flesh 
 (except the fat portions burnt on the 
 Altar), and probably the hide. The flesh 
 could only be eaten within the precinct 
 of the Tabernacle. It was distinguished 
 from the “holy” flesh of the Peace-offer- 
 ings as being “most holyh” 
 
 As regards the two portions of the 
 flesh of the Peace-offerings which were 
 assigned to be “Aaron’s and his sons’ 
 by a statute for ever from: the children 
 of Israel V’ and which probably, from the 
 great number of Peace-offerings which 
 were offered, furnished them with their 
 chief supply of animal food, it appears 
 certain that one was what we call the 
 breast or brisket, but there is a doubt 
 as to the other. The Hebrew word 
 shok (pity) means leg rather than 
 shoulder. In rendering it shoulder in this 
 connection, our translators have the 
 authority of the LXX., Vulg., and Onke- 
 los. But wherever the word occurs in 
 other parts of the Old Testament, with a 
 single exception, our own version, (in 
 agreement with the LXX. and Vulg.) 
 takes it for the leg or hip*’. Josephus, 
 in speaking of the priests’ portions, men- 
 tions the leg^‘^. But the regular word for 
 shoulder zeroa' (VIIT) is used in Num. vi. 
 19 and Deut. xviii. 3. The leg is gene- 
 rally regarded as the choicer joint of the 
 two, but Sir Gardiner Wilkinson says that 
 shoulder was preferred by the ancient 
 Egyptians". Many recent critics are in- 
 clined to the opinion that it was the right 
 leg which was given to the priests; but 
 the question is not satisfactorily settled. 
 
 Connected with the priests’ breast 
 and shoulder is the inquiry as to the 
 two ceremonies called waving and heav- 
 
 ® Lev. vii. 31, 32, x. 14. Note on vii. 8. 
 
 7 Lev. vi. 26, vii. 6 ; Note after Ex. xxvi. 
 
 § V. Cf. Ezek. xlii. 13. On the peculiar holiness 
 of the flesh, see on Lev. vi. 
 
 ^ Ex. xxix. 28. Cf. 2 Chron, xxx. 22 — 24, 
 
 XXXV. 7, 8. 
 
 9 Deut. xxviii. 35; Juclg. xv, 8; Prov. xxvi. 7; 
 Cant. V. 15; Isa. xlvii. 2. The exception is 
 1 Sam. ix. 24. The Mishna in one place at 
 least seems to favour the same view. ‘ Cholin/ 
 x. 4, with Bartenora’s note 
 
 KvrjiJt.r], ‘Ant.’ III. 9, § 2. 
 
 Note on Herodot. ii. 39. 
 
502 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 ing. The shoulder, which belonged to 
 the officiating priest, was heaved, and 
 the breast, which was for the common 
 stock of the priests in general, was 
 waved before the Lord^ Each process 
 appears to have been a solemn form of 
 dedicating a thing to the use of the 
 Sanctuary. The term strictly rendered 
 Heave-offering (teruindh, HDlin) ap- 
 pears to be used in as wide a sense as 
 ko 7 'bdn^ for offerings in general. It is so 
 applied to all the gifts for the construc- 
 tion of the Tabernacled That rendered 
 Wave-offering {ienuphdh, nss'ljn) is not 
 so broadly applied, but it is used to de- 
 note the gold and bronze that were con- 
 tributed for the same purpose^: it is 
 also applied to the Levites as dedi- 
 cated to the divine serviced From the 
 clearly marked distinction between the 
 heave shoulder and the wave breast, it 
 can hardly be doubted that the terms, 
 in their proper meaning, referred to two 
 distinct forms of dedication. The verb 
 from which tci'iimdh is derived, signifies 
 •to lift up, that from which iejiuphdh 
 comes, to move repeatedly either up and 
 down, or to and fro. The Rabbinists say 
 that heaving was a moving up and down, 
 waving a moving to and frod But, as 
 waving appears to have been the more 
 solemn process of the two, it w^as pro- 
 bably, in accordance with its derivation®, 
 a movement several times repeated, 
 while heaving was simply a lifting up 
 once. 
 
 The Meat-offer mgs and the Dj'ink-offeidngs. 
 
 § X. On the Meat-offerings (rather 
 Vegetable-offerings) in general, see Lev. 
 ii. with the notes. 
 
 On the Drink-offerings, see on Ex. 
 xxix. 40. 
 
 Every Burnt-offering and Peace-of- 
 fering was accompanied by a Meat-offer- 
 ing and a Drink-offering. There is no 
 mention of this in Leviticus. The quan- 
 tities of flour, oil and wine were thus 
 
 ^ Kx. xxix. 26 , 27 ; Lev. vii. 32 — 34. 
 
 “ ICx. XXV. 2. See also Num. v. 9 ; Deut. 
 xii. 6, &c. 
 
 I'lx. XXXV. 22, xxxviii. 24, 29. 
 
 * Nuin. viii. 1 1 . 
 
 ® Carpzov. ‘ App. Crit.’ p. 709. 
 
 ^ The Hebrew verb i» applied to such actions 
 as using a saw, or other tool, Ex. xx. 25 ; Josh, 
 viii. 31 ; Isa. x. 15, xxx. 28, &c. For instances 
 of waving, see Lev. xxiii. ii. 17. 
 
 proportioned to the importance of the 
 victims^: — 
 
 "With a bullock : 
 
 Flour. 
 
 3 of an I 
 ephah. j 
 
 Oil. 
 
 of a hin. 
 
 Wine. 
 
 - of a hin. 
 a 
 
 With a ram ; 
 
 Flour. 
 
 2 of an 
 Ti ephah. 
 
 Oil. 
 
 - of a hin. 
 3 
 
 Witte. 
 
 - of a hin. 
 3 
 
 With a young sheep or goat : 
 
 Flour. Oil. 
 
 I of an 
 ephah. 
 
 - of a hin. 
 4 
 
 Wine. 
 
 - of a hin. 
 4 
 
 The whole of the Meat-offerings and 
 Drink-offerings, with the exception of 
 what was burnt, or poured, on the Altar, 
 fell to the lot of the priests. Lev. ii. 3. 
 
 The Sin-offering and the Trespass- 
 offering were sacrificed without either 
 Meat-offering or Drink-offering. 
 
 The Public-offperings. 
 
 § xi. On the daily Burnt-offerings, 
 see Ex. xxix. 38 — 42. 
 
 On the offerings for the Day of Atone- 
 ment and the Great Festivals, see Lev. 
 xvi. xxiii. and Num. xxviii. xxix. 
 
 V. ■ Historical Development of 
 Sacrifice. 
 
 § xii. In the earliest record of sacri- 
 fice the name given in common to the 
 animal and vegetable offerings is min- 
 chdh {i. e. a gift), which the Law after- 
 wards restricted to the vegetable- offer- 
 ings®. It is said that “Cain brought of 
 the fruit of the ground an offering {min- 
 chdh) unto the Lord. And Abel, he 
 also brought of the firstlings of his flock 
 and of the fat thereof. And the Lord 
 had respect unto Abel and to his offer- 
 ing {niinchdh)', but unto Cain and his 
 offering {minehdh) he had not respect.” 
 Cen. iv. 3 — 5. We are told nothing, 
 and from the narrative itself we can infer 
 nothing, as to the mode in which the 
 offerings were made, except that the fat® 
 (ehe/ev) appears to have been treated as 
 a distinct part of the offering of Abel. 
 
 The sacrifices of Noah after the flood 
 consisted of Burnt-offerings of clean 
 
 ^ Num. XV. 5 sq., xxviii. 5 sq.; Ex. xxix. 
 40. On the measures here named, see Lev. xix. 
 
 ^ See § iii. 
 
 ® See § viii. 
 
THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 
 
 503 
 
 beasts and birds offered upon an altar *. 
 The historian tells us on this occasion 
 that the Lord smelled “ a sweet savour,” 
 using for the first time the phrase which 
 came into current use in reference to 
 the Burnt-offerings and whatever por- 
 tions of the other sacrifices were offered 
 on the altar ^ 
 
 The Covenant sacrifice of Abraham ^ 
 consisted of one of each of the five ani- 
 mals which the Law afterwards recog- 
 nized as fit for sacrificed This is the 
 earliest instance of an offering being for- 
 mally commanded by the Lord and of 
 its matter being prescribed. But the cut- 
 ting in twain of the four-footed victims 
 appears to mark it as a peculiar rite be- 
 longing to a personal covenant®, and to 
 distinguish it from the classes of sacri- 
 fices ordained by the Law. 
 
 In none of the other references to 
 sacrifice in the life of Abraham is there 
 an indication of any kind of offering 
 except the Burnt-offering. He built an 
 altar at Shechem, another between Beth- 
 el and Ai, a third at Hebron and a 
 fourth at Beersheba. At two of these we 
 are told that he “called upon the name 
 of the Lord,” but there is no mention of 
 any particular act of sacrificed 
 
 Among the different aspects under 
 which the offering up of Isaac may be 
 viewed, this is perhaps the one which 
 most directly connects it with the his- 
 tory of sacrifice. Abraham had still one 
 great lesson to learn. He did not clearly 
 perceive that Jehovah did not require 
 his gifts. The Law had not yet been 
 given which would have suggested this 
 truth to him by the single victim ap-. 
 pointed for the Burnt-offering and for 
 the Sin-offering, and by the sparing 
 handful of the Meat-offering^. To cor- 
 rect and enlighten him, the Lord tempted 
 him to offer up as a Burnt-offering, his 
 most cherished possession, the centre of 
 his hopes. The offering, had it been 
 completed, would have been an actual 
 
 * Gen. viii. -20, 11 . 
 
 * Lev. i. 9, ii. 2, 9, 12, iii. 5, &c. The fat por- 
 tions of the Sin-offering formed no exception, 
 see Lev. iv. 31. 
 
 ^ Gen. XV. 9 — 17. 
 
 ^ See § iv. 
 
 ® See on Gen. xv. 8. Cf. Jer. xxxiv. 18, 19. 
 
 * Gen. xii. 7. 8, xiii 4, 18, xxvi. 25. Cf. 
 
 xxi. 33. » 
 
 Lev. ii. 2, &c. 
 
 gift to Jehovah, not a ceremonial act of 
 worship : it would have been not an 
 outward and visible sign of an inward 
 and spiritual grace, but a stern reality in 
 itself®. Isaac was not, as regards his 
 father’s purpose, in any proper sense a 
 symbol or representative. Nor is there 
 any hint that would justify us in making 
 the voluntary submission of Isaac a sig- 
 nificant part of the transaction. The 
 act of the patriarch in giving up his own 
 flesh and blood was an analogue rather 
 than a type of the sacrifice of the Great 
 High Priest who gave up Llimself as a 
 victim. In order to instruct Abraham 
 that the service of the Altar fulfilled its 
 purpose in being the expression of the 
 spiritual condition of the worshipper, the 
 Lord Himself provided a ram which 
 was accepted instead of the beloved son. 
 He had already made the offering of 
 himself in his ready faith and obedience; 
 the acceptable means for expressing this 
 fact was appointed in the “ ram caught 
 in a thicket by his horns.” 
 
 Isaac, as his father had done, “built 
 an altar and called upon the name of 
 the Lord” at Beersheba®. Jacob built 
 at Shechem an altar that he called 
 El-elohe-Israel {i.e. the God, the God of 
 Israel), and another at Bethel, which he 
 called El-Bethel {i.e. the God of Bethel)'®. 
 
 The sacrifices offered by Jacob at 
 Mizpeh when he parted with Laban, and 
 at Beersheba Avhen he was taking his 
 last farewell of the Land of Promise", 
 appear to have been strictly Peace- 
 offerings. 
 
 There is no reference to the offering 
 of sacrifice during the sojourn of the 
 Israelites in Egypt. But that the rite 
 was familiarly known to them in con- 
 nection with the worship of Jehovah, 
 appears from Moses alleging as a reason 
 for taking them out of Egypt, that they 
 might hold a festival and offer sacrifices 
 unto the Lord’®. 
 
 Jethro offered both Burnt-offerings and 
 Peace-offerings when he met Moses and 
 the Israelites. This seems to show that 
 sacrificial worship of substantially the 
 same kind was common to the two great 
 
 8 Cf. Micah vi. 7. ^ Gen. xxvi. 25. 
 
 Gen. xxxiii. 20, xxxv. i, 7. See notes in 
 
 loc. 
 
 Gen. xxxi. 54, xlvi. i. 
 
 Ex. iii. 18, V. I, 3, 8, 17. 
 
 i 
 
504 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 branches of the Semitic stock \ — The 
 sacrifices of Balaam were Burnt-offerings 
 of oxen and rams, Num. xxiii. 2, 3, 6, 15. 
 — Those of Job were Burnt-offerings ( Job 
 i. 5, xlii. 7, 8); but the language used 
 respecting them is distinguished by the 
 mention of a particular that will be no- 
 ticed presently ^ 
 
 § xiii. We thus see that if we take 
 the narrative of Scripture for our guide, 
 the most ancient sacrifices were Burnt- 
 offerings. There is a reference in the 
 very earliest instance to the fat of the 
 victim ; no reference whatever, through- 
 out the patriarchal age, to the blood. 
 The Burnt-offering must have had the 
 very same significance in the case of 
 Noah’s sacrifices, when the Lord is said 
 to have smelled “a sweet savour,” as it 
 had under the Law. The Peace-offer- 
 ing is not mentioned till a later period 
 of patriarchal history, in connection with 
 a more advanced development of social 
 life. The order in which the kinds of 
 sacrifice are placed by Moses in the first 
 chapters of Leviticus is in agreement 
 with this historical succession as it is 
 traced in the Pentateuch^ 
 
 It would seem to follow that the radi- 
 cal idea of sacrifice is to be sought in 
 the Burnt-offering rather than in the 
 Peace-offering, or in the Sin-offering. 
 Assuming that the animal brought to 
 the Altar represented the person of him 
 who offered it, the act of sacrifice from 
 the very first figured the ascent of the 
 reconciled and accepted creature to Je- 
 hovah. According to the strict meaning 
 of the Plebrew, as shown in the name 
 by which the Burnt-offering was com- 
 monly called ^ signifying that which as- 
 cends, as well as in the verb uniformly 
 applied to the act of burning on the 
 Altar, the flesh was spoken of not as 
 destroyed by burning, but as sent up in 
 the fire like incense towards heaven 
 It was in this way that the believer 
 confessed the obligation of surrendering 
 himself, body, soul and spirit, to the 
 Lord of heaven and earth who had been 
 revealed to him. The truth expressed 
 then in the whole Burnt-offering is the 
 
 ^ Kx. xviii. 12. See note in loc. 
 
 * See § xiv. 
 
 3 See on Lev. ii. i. ^ 'olakf see § iii. 
 
 ® See on Lev. i. 9. 
 
 unqualified self-sacrifice of the person. 
 “The keynote of all the sacrificial sys- 
 tems is the same ; self-abdication and a 
 sense of dependence on God are the 
 feelings which gifts and victims strive to 
 express 
 
 In the Peace-offerings of the patri- 
 archal age, before the institution of a 
 national priesthood, there is no reason 
 to doubt that, as in the Peace-offerings 
 of the Law, certain portions of the 
 victim were burned upon the altar, and 
 that the remainder of the flesh was eaten 
 by the offerer, and those who were asso- 
 ciated with him by participation in the 
 spirit of the sacrifice. The method of 
 the Peace-offering in its great features 
 would so far answer to the earliest re^- 
 corded heathen sacrifices, in which the 
 thighs, enveloped in the caul and masses 
 of fat, were the chief portions burnt upon 
 the altar, while the other parts of the 
 victim furnished materials for a feast k 
 It may however be doubted whether the 
 fat in the Homeric sacrifices had any 
 special significance, since we find the fat 
 of animals employed to cover the body 
 of Patroclus on the pyre merely in order 
 that thefcorpse might be consumed more 
 quickly and completely”. The whole 
 Burnt-offering does not appear to be 
 distinctly named in any Greek writer 
 before the time of Xenophon”, though it 
 may probably have been offered in much 
 earlier times. 
 
 § xiv. In the scriptural records there 
 is no trace either of the Sin-offering, or 
 of any special treatment of the blood of 
 victims, before the time of Moses. We 
 cannot however imagine a single act of 
 sacrifice to have been performed since 
 the first transgression, without a con- 
 sciousness of sin in the mind of the 
 worshipper. Earnest devotion to a Holy 
 God in a fallen creature must necessa- 
 rily include a sense of sin and unworthi- 
 ness. It is not to be imagined that 
 Noah made his offerings at the foot 
 of Ararat, without the sin of past gene- 
 rations being present to his mind, ac- 
 
 ® Thomson, ‘ Bampton T^ectures,’ p. 40. 
 
 7 Horn. ‘ 11 .’ I. 45H, II. 421, XI. 770; /Esch. 
 ‘Prom.’ 496; Soph. ‘Antig.’ xoio, &c. In ‘II.’ 
 I. 315 there is no reference to a feast. 
 
 « ‘ 11 .’ XXIII. 168. 
 
 See ‘Anab.’ vii. 8. § 4; ‘Cyrop.’ VIII. 3. 
 24. • 
 
THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 
 
 505 
 
 companied by awe at the thought that 
 he was a brother of the same race, with 
 a consciousness of the same tendencies 
 to evil in his own heart. In the account 
 of the .sacrifices of Job, the idea of 
 atonement is expressly connected with 
 the Burnt-offerings h But the feeling 
 which most prominently found its expres- 
 sion in the Burnt-offerings of Noah, must 
 have been of a different kind. The sense 
 of present deliverance, of thankfulness 
 deeper than words, of complete self- 
 surrender to the solemn bond now laid 
 upon him in the Covenant, must rather 
 have been figured in the victims which 
 were sent up in the flame of the Altar as 
 a sweet savour to Jehovah. 
 
 There is certainly no countenance 
 whatever to be found in the Scriptures 
 for the notion of de Maistre^ and other 
 writers of more recent date, that the fire 
 of the Altar s^anbolized retribution for sin. 
 
 § XV. The first instance of the blood 
 of a sacrifice being noticed in any way 
 occurs in the account of the institution 
 of the Passover^ It is there commanded 
 that the blood of the Paschal lamb 
 should be sprinkled on the door-posts 
 of the houses of the Israelites, as a 
 mark that the destroyer might not enter 
 when he was smiting the firstborn of the 
 Egyptians. No further hint is given of 
 its sacrificial meaning. 
 
 The next notice of blood is in con- 
 nexion with the Burnt-offerings and 
 Peace-offerings of the Covenant of Sinai 
 Moses having built an altar and twelve 
 pillars, according to the twelve tribes of 
 Israel, at the foot of the mountain “sent 
 young men of the children of Israel, 
 which offered burnt offerings and sacri- 
 ficed peace-offerings of oxen unto the 
 Lord,” and “took half the blood and 
 put it in basons ; and half of the blood 
 he sprinkled (threw^) on the altar.” After 
 reading the Book of the Covenant, the 
 people giving their assent to it, he took 
 the blood in the basons and “ sprinkled 
 (threw) it on them, and said. Behold the 
 blood of the covenant which the Lord 
 
 * Jobi. 5, xlii. 7, 8. Cf. Lev. i. 4; see also 
 § xvi. ^ 
 
 ^ ‘ Eclaircissement sur les sacrifices,’ p. 234. 
 
 ^ Ex. xii. 7, 22, 23. 
 
 ^ Ex. xxiv. 4 — 8. See notes in loc. 
 
 ® The blood was not sprinkled but cast forth 
 out of the basons. See § vi. 
 
 hath made with you concerning all these 
 words.” Cf Heb. ix. 19, 20, xiii. 20. On 
 this occasion we find the first mention of 
 throiving the blood upon the Altar which 
 became the established mode in the 
 Burnt-offerings, Peace-offerings, and Tres- 
 pass-offerings, but not in the Sin-offer- 
 ings'’'. 
 
 With this rite should be compared the 
 use of the blood of the Ram of consecra- 
 tion which was offered in the Consecra- 
 tion of the priests after the Law of the 
 offerings had been given. The ram was 
 essentially a Peace-offering, though it was 
 in some respects peculiar. The greater 
 part of its blood was thrown upon the 
 Altar, but a portion of it was taken by 
 Moses to be put on the persons of the 
 priests and to be sprinkled upon their 
 garments k 
 
 It should be observed that the treat- 
 ment of the blood in these two ceremo- 
 nies was very different from that which 
 was practised in the Sin-ofterings. Here 
 a portion of the blood was applied to 
 the persons of those who were especially 
 concerned in the sacrifice, while the re- 
 mainder was thrown upon the Altar : in 
 the Sin-offering, a portion was offered to 
 the Lord by being put upon the horns 
 of the Altar, and on certain occasions, 
 by being sprinkled within the Taber- 
 nacle, while the rest was merely poured 
 away at the base of the Altar k 
 
 We are left in no doubt as to the 
 sacrificial meaning of the blood. As 
 the material vehicle of the life of the 
 victim, it was the symbol of the life of 
 the offerer. In contrast with the flesh 
 and bones it expressed in a distinct 
 manner the immaterial principle which 
 survives death. This is distinctly assign- 
 ed as the reason for its appointed use 
 m the rites of atonement In the two 
 cases of Consecration (and probably in 
 the case of the Paschal lamb) the blood 
 of the sacrifice appears to have stood 
 for the collective life of those who were 
 to be consecrated. Having been accept- 
 ed by Jehovah in the presentation of the 
 victim before the Altar, it expressed, in 
 the earlier instance, that the life of the 
 chosen nation, and, in the latter in- 
 
 ® See § vi. 
 
 ^ See Lev. viii. 23, 24, 30. 
 
 ® Lev. iv. 6, 7, 17, 18, 25, &c. xvi. 18, &C. 
 
 ^ See Lev. xvii. 11, with the note. 
 
5o6 introduction TO 
 
 stance, that the life of the priests in 
 their official calling, had been made 
 holy ; and now in the drops applied to 
 their persons it symbolized that the con- 
 secrated life was given back to them 
 in order that it should be devoted to the 
 service of the Lord. 
 
 It is evident that in these instances the 
 ideas of Consecration and Dedication are 
 signified, rather than the idea of Atone- 
 ment. Had the Covenant sacrifice at 
 Mount Sinai been a solitary instance, it 
 might indeed be supposed that, the Sin- 
 offering not having as yet been instituted, 
 atonement was ascribed to the blood of 
 the Burnt-offering, as it appears to have 
 been in the sacrifices of Job. But in the 
 Consecration of the priests any such no- 
 tion is precluded. In this ceremony a Sin- 
 offering was the first victim offered, and 
 its blood was passed by for that of the 
 Peace-offering h We are therefore brought 
 to the conclusion that “ the blood of the 
 covenant” was, both in form and signifi- 
 cance, the blood of the Burnt-offering 
 and the Peace-offering, not that of the 
 Sin-offering ^ 
 
 § xvi. The Sin-offering is to be re- 
 garded as a creation of the Law, It was 
 the voice of the Law that a^wakened the 
 distinct consciousness of sin in the in- 
 dividual mindk This clearer develop- 
 ment of the nature of man’s struggle 
 upon the earth required to be embodied 
 in a new form. The institution of the 
 Sin-offering appears in this way as a 
 necessary consequence of the giving of 
 the Lavv. 
 
 In the perfected sacrificial system, the 
 three classes of offerings are to be re- 
 garded as representing distinct aspects 
 of divine truth connected with man’s re- 
 lation to Jehovah. But it is important 
 to observe that in no sacrifice was the 
 idea of the Burnt-offering left out. Of 
 every victim which was offered an ap- 
 pointed portion was sent up to Jehovah 
 in the flame of the Altar : the ashes of 
 “the continual Burnt-offering” of the 
 
 ‘ Lev. viii. 14, 23. 
 
 ^ Hebr ix. iS — 22, x. 29, &c. 
 
 2 The only otncr instances in which the Law 
 speaks of the application of the blood of animals 
 to the person, are in Lev. xiv. 7, 14 ; where see 
 the notes. 
 
 * Korn. iii. 20 , vii. 7. See ‘Note* on the Ten 
 Commandments ’ after Ex. xx. i — 17. § v. 
 
 morning and evening service were never 
 quenched ^ The central idea of sacri- 
 ficial worship was thus kept constantly 
 on view. On the other hand, the truth 
 that every sacrifice, for the Israelite to 
 whom the Law had been revealed, must 
 be based upon Atonement, is declared in 
 the words that his Burnt-offering “shall 
 be accepted for him to make atonement 
 for him^” 
 
 The natural order of victims in the 
 sacrificial service of the Law was, first 
 the Sin-offering, then the Burnt-offering, 
 and last the Peace-offering k This an- 
 swers to the spiritual process through 
 which the worshipper had to pass. He 
 had transgressed the Law, and he needed 
 the atonement signified by the Sin-of- 
 fering : if his offering had been made in 
 truth and sincerity, he could then offer 
 himself to the Lord as an accepted per- 
 son, as a sweet savour, in the Burnt- 
 offering**; and in virtue of this accept- 
 ance, he could enjoy communion with 
 the Lord and with his brethren in the 
 Peace-offering. But when the occasion 
 was one in which the consideration ot 
 personal holiness was subordinate to that 
 of the consecration of the nation, as was 
 the case in the offerings of the princes 
 at the dedication of the Altar, and in 
 the rite for reconsecrating the Nazarite 
 who had been ceremonially, not morally, 
 defiled, the order was changed and the 
 Burnt-offering was sacrificed before the 
 Sin-offering 
 
 The main additions made to the 
 ritual of sacrifice by the Levitical Law 
 consisted in the establishment of one 
 national Altar the ins.titution of the 
 national Priesthood*', and all those par- 
 ticulars that were peculiar to the Sin- 
 offerings and the Trespass-offerings, ' 
 
 While therefore the essential idea of all 
 sacrifice continued to be the same which 
 had been conveyed in the Burnt-offer- 
 
 ® See Exod. xxix, 31 — 42. The importance 
 of the fact here noticed is shown in the expres- 
 sions used in Lev. iii. 5 (see note), iv. 35, vi. 9, 
 12, &c. 
 
 Lev. i. 4. 
 
 ^ See Lev. viii. 14 — 22, ix. 8 — 14, 15 — 22, 
 xii. 8, xiv, 19, 20. 
 
 ® See Ps. li. 19. 
 
 ® Niim. vi. I4,vii.i5 — 17, &c. Cf. Ezek.xlv. 17. 
 
 See ‘Note on the Sanctuary as a whole’ after 
 Ex. xl. 
 
 " See preliminary note to Ex. xxviii. 
 
TO THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS^. 
 
 ings and Peace-offerings of the patri- 
 archal ages, the Sin-offering embodied 
 the expression of a distinct idea in order 
 to meet the more complicated aspect of 
 human nature, which had been revealed 
 by the giving of the Law on Mount 
 Sinai. The fullest and most intense 
 setting forth of the relation which grace 
 was to produce between the Lord and 
 the worshipper was still reserved for the 
 Burnt-offering. But as the knowledge 
 of personal sin had been more clearly 
 unveiled in the Law, the believer be- 
 came conscious that sin was separating 
 him from Jehovah, and that it must be 
 removed before he could attain to a 
 state of acceptance \ Sinner as he felt 
 himself to be, the Law allowed him to 
 bring his victim to the door of the Taber- 
 nacle, to present it before the Lord, to 
 slay it, and to cut it in pieces. So far 
 the ceremony was his own act : so far 
 it was the same with the Sin-offering as 
 with the Burnt-offering and the Peace- 
 offering. But now came the necessity of 
 a mediator, of one who had been con- 
 secrated to perfect the work for him. 
 The priest took the victiiff thus far pre- 
 pared entirely out of the hands of the 
 worshipper. This was done, according 
 to the Law, with the Burnt-offering as 
 well as with the Sin-offering; but it is 
 evident that the meaning of the priest’s 
 taking part in the ceremony belonged 
 with more peculiar significance to the 
 latter ^ When the sacrifice was a Sin- 
 offering, the first duty of the priest was 
 in certain prescribed cases to sprinkle a 
 portion of the blood within the Taber- 
 nacle, and in all cases to put some of 
 the blood upon the horns of one of the 
 Altars. It has been conjectured that, 
 as the horns were the highest part of 
 the Altar, this act signified a near ap- 
 proach to the Lord of heaven, in token 
 that the offering was approved, and 
 that acceptance was ready for the of- 
 ferer. He then had to place in the 
 fire of the Altar the fat portions of 
 the victim which were acknowledged as 
 a “sweet savour” to the Lord^ The 
 penitent worshipper had now recovered 
 his position by the atonement of the 
 
 ^ See ‘ Note on The Ten Commandments’ 
 (Exod* XX. ) § V. 
 
 2 See Lev. iv. 24 — 26, 34, 35, v. 6, 8 — 10; 
 cf.vii. 29, 30, also note on vi. 25. ^ Lev. iv. 31. 
 
 507 
 
 Sin-offering, as one who might claim 
 acceptance ; but the full expression of 
 self-dedication as a condition was still 
 looked for at his hands in another sa- 
 crificial act, in offering his whole Burnt- 
 offering. 
 
 With the exception of the parts which, 
 in all the animal offerings, were assigned 
 to the Altar, the whole of the flesh of the 
 Sin-offering was given for the use of the 
 priests as the servants of the Sanctuary. 
 It was removed from all ordinary use or 
 contact, it could be eaten by the priests 
 only within the holy precinct, it was pro- 
 nounced “ most holy,” because the offer- 
 ing the life which had dwelt in it upon the 
 horns of the Altar had specially conse- 
 crated it to the purpose of atonementb 
 
 But an Israelite who had studied the 
 Divine Law must have perceived a 
 mystery and a contradiction in the per- 
 fectness and freedom from guilt of the 
 animal which he brought as his Sin- 
 offering. On the one hand he must 
 have felt that an offering without blemish 
 was the only one which could be fit for 
 the Altar of J ehovah : on the other hand, 
 he must have felt that it could not fairly 
 represent himself, in his actual condi- 
 tion, as bringing his offering expressly 
 because he was burdened with the con- 
 sciousness of sin and imperfection®. He 
 must also have learned from the lan- 
 guage of the Law, in prescribing what 
 part of the ceremony was to be per- 
 formed by the priest, that he could not 
 be his own atoner. He was told that the 
 priest should “make atonement for him®.” 
 In these particulars, which in spite of 
 prophetic teaching must have been diffi- 
 cult and obscure to him, we cap now 
 clearly trace the forecast shadows of the 
 spotless Saviour who was to come, to 
 stand for the sinful race as its head, to 
 make the offering of Himself as both 
 priest and victim, to perfect the work of 
 redemption by Himself, and so to enter 
 into the presence of God for us as a 
 sweet savourb 
 
 § xvii. It was not merely by the in- 
 stitution of another kind of sacrifice that 
 the Law set forth its new development 
 of the history of man’s spiritual struggle; 
 
 See on Lev. vi. 25. Cf. xvii. 11. 
 
 5 Ps. li. 17. 
 
 ® Lev. iv. 20, 26, V. 6, vi. 7, xii. 8, &c. &c. 
 
 ^ Heb. X. 19, 20, 21. 
 
5o8 introduction TO THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 
 
 it carried out the same lesson still m»re 
 fully by an addition to the great cere- 
 monial observances of the year. The 
 three festivals of Unleavened bread, 
 Pentecost, and Tabernacles, with the 
 Feast of trumpets and the New moons, 
 may have been based upon patriarchal 
 usages, whatever additional meaning 
 they may have received from Moses \ 
 But the Day of Atonement took its rise 
 in the working out of the Law itself. 
 Its ceremonial was a showing forth in 
 distinct analytical detail of the truth 
 which was compendiously expressed in 
 the single rite of the Sin-offering^ 
 
 § xviii. A different view from that 
 here given of the fundamental idea of sa- 
 crifice, and of the relation in which the 
 Sin-offering stood to the entire sacrificial 
 system, has been very generally held. It 
 has been said that “ the first word of the 
 original man was probably a prayer, and 
 the first action of fallen man a sacri- 
 ficed” In accordance with this view the 
 key to the idea of sacrifice has been sup- 
 posed to be given in the passage that 
 sets forth the sacrificial significance of 
 the blood in making atonement — “I 
 have given it to you upon the altar to 
 make an atonement for your souls d” 
 Expiation has thus been regarded as the 
 essential meaning of sacrifice. But, as 
 we have seen, the blood seems not to 
 have been recognized in the patriarchal 
 sacrifices; it held but a very subordinate 
 place under the Law in the Burnt-offer- 
 ing and the Peace-offering, no place at 
 all in the Meat-offering. It has been 
 said, not without reason, that sacrifices 
 “ might have been offered by man even 
 before the fall as certainly as it was his 
 duty to' devote himself to God, to thank 
 Him for His benefits, and to vow to 
 walk in His waysd” We may take still 
 higher ground. If we accept the ex- 
 pression, “ the Lamb slain from the 
 foundation of the world”” as actually de- 
 noting the highest truth of which cere- 
 monial sacrifice is the symbol, the Son 
 
 ^ See notes on T^ev. xxiii. 
 
 ' See notes on Lev. xvi. 
 
 ^ Von Lasaulx, ‘Die Siihnopferder Griechen 
 nnd Rdmer und ihr verhiiltniss zu dein einen auf 
 Golgotha,’ p. I. 
 
 Lev. xvii. 1 1. 
 
 I lengstenbcrg, ‘The Sacrifices of Holy 
 Scripture,’ in Clark’s Theological Library. 
 
 Kev. xiii. 8. Cf. i Let. i. j8 — 20. 
 
 of God Himself realized the meaning of 
 the Burnt-offering before the actual de- 
 velopment of sin in the world. 
 
 Hengstenberg appears to be right in 
 objecting to the line which has been taken 
 by de Maistre^, von Lasaulx, and others, 
 in endeavouring to trace in the records 
 of heathen sacrifice the significance of 
 the blood of victims as an atonement 
 for sin. Instances may indeed be easily 
 found of blood having been regarded as 
 a propitiation to a hostile demon, or as 
 a healing charm; but we seem to seek in 
 vain for an instance in which the blood, 
 as the natural symbol of the soul, was 
 offered as an atoning sacrifice”. 
 
 § xix. Another view, widely different 
 from the one that has just been men- 
 tioned, has been revived by some mo- 
 dern biblical critics”. It has been im- 
 agined that the first sacrifices were en- 
 tirely eucharistic and consisted wholly of 
 vegetable substances. This was the no- 
 tion of Plato'”, Porphyry", and other 
 heathen philosophers. Many, starting 
 from nearly the same ground of thought, 
 have conceived that the first sacrifices 
 were Peace- offerings connected with social 
 feasts, such as are described in Homer 
 It is needless to point out that these 
 theories are directly opposed to the his- 
 torical development of the subject in 
 the Pentateuch; hardly necessary to ob- 
 serve that the Burnt-offering and the 
 Sin-offering could never have originated 
 in any mere eucharistic service, unless 
 we are to regard them as gross corrup- 
 tions of the original institution^”. 
 
 ^ ‘ Eclaii'cissement,’ &c. p. 232. 
 
 ® See on Lev. xvii. ir. In the instance of 
 the ancient Persians, on which de JMaistre (p. 260) 
 and others have strongly rested, in which the 
 blood seems to be clearly recognized as the 
 symbol of the soul, we are told that the victim 
 Avas cut into pieces, the flesh being distributed 
 amongst the worshippers, and that the blood 
 i^vxv) was given up to God as the only part he 
 Avould accept (Strabo, xv. p. 732). But, though 
 neither altar nor fire appears to have been used, 
 the ideas here expressed are surely those of the 
 Burnt-offering and the Peace-offering rather than 
 of the vSin-offering. 
 
 ^ Especially by Knobel. 
 
 ^0 ‘ De Leggn’vi. 22. ‘De Abst’ II. 5, 27. 
 
 See 1 ; xiii. 
 
 Plutarch seems to have perceived this diffi- 
 culty. I le supposed that the first offerings were 
 of vegetables, but imagined that animal sacrifices 
 were instituted at the command of an oracle. 
 ‘Sympos.’ VIII. 8, 3. 
 
THE THIRD BOOK OF MOSES, 
 
 CALLED 
 
 LEVITICUS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I The burnt offerings. 3 Of the herd, 10 of the 
 flocks, 14 of the folds. 
 
 AND the Lord called unto Mo- 
 ses, and spake unto him out of 
 the tabernacle of the congregation, 
 saying, 
 
 The Offerings for the Altar. 
 
 Chap. I— VII. 
 
 Chap, I. 1. the Lord'] In the Hebrew 
 text of Leviticus, J ehovah is the name by 
 which God is always called, except when the 
 word Elohim is used with a possessive pro- 
 noun, so as to designate Him as the God of 
 the chosen people (Lev. ii. 13; xi. 45; xviii. 
 21; xix. 12, 14, 32, &c.). Neither Adondi 
 nor Shaddai occur throughout the book. (See 
 on Exod. vi, 3.) 
 
 the tabernacle of the congregation] Rather, 
 the Tent of meeting. See on Ex. xl. § II. 
 When Jehovah was about to give His peo- 
 ple the law of the Ten Commandments (Exod. 
 xix. 3) He called to Moses from the top of 
 Mount Sinai in thunders and lightnings and 
 a thick cloud. M^hen He was now about to 
 give ^em the laws by which their formal 
 acts of worship were to be regulated. He 
 called to Moses out of the Tabernacle which 
 had just been constructed at the foot of the 
 mountain. The promise which He had made 
 to Moses was now fulfilled : — “ And there 
 I will meet with thee, and I will commune 
 with thee from above the mercy seat, from 
 between the cherubims, which are upon the 
 ark of the testimony, of all things which 
 I will give thee in commandment unto the 
 children of Israel” (Exod. xxv. 22). 
 
 ^ 2 . Speak unto the children of Israel] The 
 directions for the different kinds of sacrifice 
 contained in ch. i. 2 — iii. 17, are addressed to 
 the people, and contain such instructions as 
 were required for persons who voluntarily 
 offered sacrifice (see Introd. § ii.). There 
 are other directions concerning each sort of 
 offering, formally addressed to the priests in 
 ch. vi. 8 — vii. 21. It is important to observe 
 that these first instructions are addressed ex- 
 VOL. I. 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, and say unto them. If any man 
 of you bring an offering unto the 
 Lord, ye shall bring your offering of 
 the cattle, even of the herd, and of 
 the flock. 
 
 3 If his offering be a burnt sacrifice 
 
 pressly to the individual who felt the need 
 of sacrifice on his own account. They were 
 not delivered through the priests, nor had the 
 officiating priest any choice as to what he 
 was to do. He was only to examine the 
 victim to see that it was perfect (xxii. 17 — 24), 
 and to perform other strictly prescribed 
 duties. The act of offering was to be volun- 
 tary on the part of the worshipper, but the 
 mode of doing it was in every point defined 
 by the Law. The presenting of the victim at 
 the entrance of the Tabernacle was in fact a 
 symbol of the free will submitting itself to 
 the Law of the Lord. The obligation to offer 
 lay beyond the sphere of the mere ceremonial 
 law. Such acts of sacrifice are to be distin- 
 guished from the public offerings, and those 
 ordained for individuals on special occasions 
 (see on iv. 2), which belonged to the religious 
 education of the nation. 
 
 offering] Heb. korbdn. (See Introd. § ii.) 
 ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, e'ven 
 of the herd, and of the flock] O ur version here 
 follows the LXX., the Vulg., and Luther. 
 But the Hebrew text should rather be ren- 
 dered, If any man of you bring an of- 
 fering to Jehovah, from the beasts, 
 from the herd or from the flock ye 
 shall bring your offering. The purpose 
 of the words is to define which kinds of 
 beasts are to be offered. (See Introd. § ii.) 
 The expression answers to that respecting 
 birds in n). 14, and that respecting vegetable 
 offerings ch. ii. i. 
 
 The Burnt-offerings, i. 3 — 17. 
 
 The Burnt-offering from the Herd. 
 i- 3 — 9 - 
 
 3 . burnt sacrifice] Heb. "'oldh. See Introd. 
 
 § iii. 
 
 K K 
 
510 
 
 LEVITICUS. I. 
 
 [v. 4—9. 
 
 ^ Exod. 
 29. 10. 
 
 of the herd, let him offer a male with- 
 out blemish : he shall offer it of his 
 own voluntary will at the door of the 
 ■tabernacle of the congregation before 
 the Lord. 
 
 4 ® And he shall put his hand upon 
 the head of the burnt offering; and it 
 shall be accepted for him to make 
 atonement for him. 
 
 5 And he shall kill the bullock 
 before the Lord : and the priests, 
 Aaron’s sons, shall bring the blood, 
 and sprinkle the blood round about 
 
 upon the altar that is by the door of 
 the tabernacle of the congregation. 
 
 6 And he shall flay the burnt of- 
 fering, and cut it into his pieces. 
 
 7 And the sons of Aaron the priest 
 shall put fire upon the altar, and lay 
 the wood in order upon the fire : 
 
 8 And the priests, Aaron’s sons, 
 shall lay the parts, the head, and the 
 fat, in order upon the wood that is on 
 the fire which is upon the altar : 
 
 9 But his inwards and his legs 
 shall he wash in water: and the 
 
 a male ^without blemish~\ See Introd. § iv. 
 Males were required in most offerings, as the 
 stronger sex which takes precedence of the 
 other. But females were allowed in Peace- 
 offerings (Lev, iii. i, 6), and were expressly- 
 prescribed in the Sin-offerings of the common 
 people. (Lev. iv. 28, 32, v. 6.) 
 
 of his own 'voluntary Ty/V/] The English 
 version is supported by Grotius and several 
 of the older critics. But most interpreters, 
 ancient and modern, give it the meaning, for 
 his acceptance; that is, that he may be accept- 
 ed. The latter part of the verse might be 
 thus translated: at the entrance of the 
 Tent of meeting shall he offer it-that 
 he may be accepted before Jehovah. 
 (See on 'v. 4.) The Hebrew phrase here used 
 is rightly translated in several places in our 
 Bible (Exod. xxviii. 38; Lev. xxii. 20, 21, 
 xxiii. II, &c.), but in others, it is rendered as 
 it is here. (Lev. xix. 5, xxii. 19, 29.) 
 
 at the door of the tabernacle of the congre~ 
 gation'] Wherever these words occur they 
 should be rendered, at the entrance of 
 the Tent of meeting. See preceding note. 
 The place denoted is that part of the court 
 which lay in front of the Tabernacle, in 
 which stood the brazen Altar and the laver, 
 and where alone sacrifices could be offered. 
 See Note on Ex. xxvi. § VI. 
 
 4. Jlnd he shall put his hand upon the head 
 of the burnt offering'] The ceremony appears 
 never to have been omitted in the private 
 sacrifices of quadrupeds (see on 'v. 10 and 
 Introd. § V.). By it the sacrificer identified 
 himself witli his victim. Introd. § xvi. 
 
 and it shall be accepted] The word here 
 used belongs to the same root as that in 'v. 3, 
 to which it evidently answers. 
 
 to make atonement for him] This phrase 
 belongs more especially to the Sin-offerings 
 and the Trespass-offerings. (Lev, iv, 20, 26, 
 .11, 35, V. 16, 18, vi. 7, &c.) It is not used 
 in reference to the Peace-offerings, and but 
 rarely in reference to the Burnt-offerings. It 
 should be noticed that it is here introduced 
 
 in close connection with the imposition of 
 hands by the worshipper, not, as it is when 
 it refers to the Sin-offering, with the special 
 functions of the priest, iv. 26, 35. See Introd. 
 §§ xiv, xvi. 
 
 5. And he shall kill the bullock] See 
 Introd. § V. 
 
 the bullock] Strictly, the son of the bull^ a 
 common Hebrew periphrasis for a young ox. 
 (See Introd. § iv.) In like manner young 
 pigeons are called in the Hebrew sons of the 
 pigeon. (Lev, i. 14, v. 7, ii, xii. 6, &c.) 
 
 ''before the Lord] i.e. before the Taber- 
 nacle. 
 
 sprinkle the blood] Rather, throw the 
 blood. See Introd. § vi. 
 
 by the door of the tabernacle] at the en- 
 trance of the Tent. 
 
 6. And he shall fay] The sacrificer, or 
 his assistant, had to skin and cut up the vic- 
 tim. The hide was the perquisite of the 
 officiating priest. (Lev. vii. 8.) 
 
 his pieces] That is, its proper pieces, the 
 parts into which it was usual for a sacrificed 
 animal to be divided. 
 
 7 . the sons of Aaron] i.e. the common 
 priests. 
 
 put fre upon the altar] Knobel observes 
 that tins must specifically refer to the first 
 Burnt-offering on the newly constructed 
 Altar. The rule was afterwards to be, “ The 
 fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it 
 shall never go out,” Lev. vi. 13. 
 
 8. It would seem that the parts of the 
 victim were then salted by the priest in con- 
 formity with the rule, “ with all thine offer- 
 ings thou shalt offer salt” (Lev. ii. 13; Ezek. 
 xliii. 24; Mark ix. 49), and placed in order 
 with the wood upon the altar. See Introd. 
 § vii. 
 
 the fat] See Introd. § viii. 
 
 9. his in^uards and his legs shall he <wash 
 in water] The parts which were washed ap- 
 pear not to have been the whole of the vis- 
 
V. 10 12.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. I. 
 
 511 
 
 priest shall burn all on the altar, to 
 he a burnt sacrifice, an offering made 
 by fire, of a sweet savour unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 10 ^ And if his offering he of the 
 flocks, namely^ of the sheep, or of the 
 goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall 
 bring it a male without blemish. 
 
 1 1 And he shall kill it on the 
 side of the altar northward before the 
 Lord : and the priests, Aaron’s sons, 
 shall sprinkle his blood round about 
 upon the altar. 
 
 12 And he shall cut it into his 
 pieces, with his head and his fat : and 
 the priest shall lay them in order on 
 
 cera, with the whole of the legs; but only the 
 stomach and bowels, and the feet, divided 
 from the carcase at the knee-joint. The 
 Septuagint has ra eyKoiXia Ka\ oi nodes, and 
 the Vulgate, intestina et pedes. With these 
 agree Onkelos, Philo, Josephus, and most 
 modern authorities. 
 
 the priest shall burn] The verb here trans- 
 lated hum (^hikfir), is applied exclusively 
 to the burning of the incense, of the lights 
 of the Tabernacle, and of the offerings on 
 the Altar. The primary meaning of its 
 root seems to be to exhale odour (Gesen., 
 Fiirst). It is in some places rendered in the 
 margin of our Bible, “to cause to ascend” 
 (Exod. XXX. 8; Lev. xxiv. a, &c.). The 
 word for burning in a common way is a 
 quite different one (sdraph), and this is ap- 
 plied to the burning of those parts of victims 
 which were burned without the camp (Lev. 
 iv. 12, 21; Num. xix. 5, &c.). The import- 
 ance of the distinction is great in its bearing 
 on the meaning of the Burnt-offering (see 
 Introd. § xiii.). The substance of the victim 
 was regarded not as something to be con- 
 sumed, but as an offering of sweet-smelling 
 savour sent up in the flame to Jehovah. The 
 two words are distinguished in the LXX., 
 the Vulg., Geneva Fr., De Wette, Herxh., 
 and other versions. Mr Sharpe renders the 
 sacrificial word “ to burn as incense.” 
 
 a burnt sacrifice, an offering made hy fire] 
 There is no tautology in the original, which 
 might be rendered an offering sent upwards, a 
 sacrifice made hy fire. 
 
 a s'^Meet sa'vour] The expression, a snveet 
 sauour unto Jehovah, is applied to offerings 
 of all kinds which were burnt upon the altar, 
 but it finds its fullest application in the whole 
 Burnt-offering. (Lev. ii. 12, hi. 5, 16, iv. 
 31; Num. XV. 7, 10, &c.) It may be re- 
 garded as belonging more especially to the 
 Burnt-offerings, as the phrase, to make atone- 
 ment, belongs more especially, but not ex- 
 clusively, to the Sin-offerings. See on v. 4. 
 
 The Burnt-offering from the Flock. 
 i. 10—13. 
 
 10 . of the flocks] The directions for the 
 sheep or the goat are more briefly given than 
 those for the bullock. There is no mention 
 made of the presentation of the victim in the 
 court of the Sanctuary (2;. 3), of the imposi- 
 
 tion of hands, or of the flaying. The place 
 of slaughter is however more clearly defined 
 (v. ii). But there is no good reason to 
 doubt that the victims were all treated in the 
 'bame manner in these respects. — The LXX. 
 add the words, koX encdijo-ei r^v 
 
 KfchaXrji/ avTov. The Burnt-offering of the 
 sheep must have been that with which the 
 people were most familiar in the daily morn- 
 ing and evening service. Ex. xxix. 38 — 42. 
 
 of the goats] It would seem that sheep 
 were preferred for sacrifice when they could 
 be obtained, except in some special Sin-offer- 
 ings in which goats were required, such as 
 that of the ruler and the high-priest, and the 
 Sin-oflering with the Scape-goat of the Day 
 of atonement (Lev. iv. 23, ix. 3, xvi. 5). 
 Maimonides says that the public Burnt-offer- 
 ings could be only of bullocks or sheep, not 
 of goats (‘ Gorban,’ i. 15).; and Theodoret 
 probably preserves a genuine Jewish tradition 
 when he says that it was the duty of him 
 who had a lamb for the Passover to slaughter 
 it, but that if he had not a lamb he might 
 slay a kid. (‘ Quaest. in Exod.’ 24.) 
 
 11. northward before the Lord] That is, 
 on the north side of the altar. This was the 
 appointed place for killing the Burnt-offerings, 
 the Sin-offerings, and the Trespass-offerings. 
 (Lev. iv. 24, 29, 33, vii. 2.) Nothing is said 
 in the Pentateuch regarding the place where 
 the Peace-offerings were to^be slain, but the 
 Mishna tells us that they might be slain in 
 any part of the court. (See on iii. 2.) — There 
 has been a strange divergence of opinion re- 
 garding the reason of this rule. Some sup- 
 pose that it was because the north is the 
 region of sunless gloom (Tholuck) ; others, 
 that it was in accordance with a primitive 
 notion, that God’s dwelling-place was in the 
 north, traces of which are supposed to exist 
 in the position of the table of shew-bread 
 (the bread of the presence) (Exod. xxvi. 35); 
 and in several passages of Scripture (Ps. 
 xlviii. 2; Is. xiv. 13; Ezek. i. 4); also in the 
 Hindoo Puranas and the apocryphal book 
 of Enoch (see Ewald, Alterthumer, p. 48). 
 But it m.ay have been an arrangement of 
 mere practical convenience. On the west side 
 of the Altar stood the laver; on the east side 
 was the place of ashes (see on v. 16), and the 
 south side, where appears to have been the 
 slope by which the priests went up to the 
 
 K K 2 
 
 4 
 
512 
 
 LEVITICUS. I. 11. 
 
 Lv. 13— I. 
 
 B Or, 
 
 pmck off 
 the head 
 ivith the 
 nail. 
 
 the wood that is on the fire which is 
 upon the altar: 
 
 13 But he shall wash the inwards 
 and the legs with water: and the 
 priest shall bring it all, and burn it 
 upon the altar: it is a burnt sacrifice, 
 an offering made by fire, of a sweet 
 savour unto the Lord. 
 
 14 ^ And if the burnt sacrifice for 
 his offering to the Lord he of fowls, 
 then he shall bring his offering of 
 turtledoves, or of young pigeons. 
 
 15 And the priest shall bring ij; 
 unto the altar, and I' wring off' his 
 head, and burn it on the altar; and 
 the blood thereof shall be wrung out 
 at the side of the altar : 
 
 16 And he shall pluck away his 
 
 crop with “ his feathers, and cast it n Or, 
 beside the altar on the east part, by ^Ihereff 
 the place of the ashes : 
 
 17 And he shall cleave it with the 
 wings thereof, but shall not divide it 
 asunder: and the priest shall burn it 
 upon the altar, upon the wood that is 
 upon the fire : it is a burnt sacrifice, 
 an offering made by fire, of a sv/eet 
 savour unto the Lord. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 I The meat offering of flour zvitk oil and in- 
 cense, 4 either baken in the oven, 5 or on a 
 plate, 7 or in a fryhigpan, iz. or of the first- 
 fruits in the ear. 1 3 The salt of the meat 
 offering. 
 
 A nd when any will olTer a meat 
 ^ offering unto the Lord, his of- 
 
 Altar (Joseph. ‘Bell. Jud.’ v. 5. § 6), must 
 have been left clear for thoroughfare. The 
 north side must, therefore, have been the 
 most convenient for slaughtering the victims. 
 (Rosenmiiller, Knobel, Kurtz, Keil.) See 
 Note after Ex. xxvi. § VI, 
 
 The Burnt-offering of the Do-ve or the Pigeon. 
 
 i. 14—17- 
 
 14 . of turtledoajes, or of young pigeons'] The 
 offering of a bird was permitted to one who 
 was too poor to offer a quadruped. (Cf. 
 V. 7 — II, xii. 8.) But in certain rites of 
 purification birds were appointed for all, what- 
 ever might be their circumstances. See xv. 
 14, 29; Num. vi. 10. It is to be noticed 
 that there is a limitation of the age of the 
 pigeons, but none in regard to the doves. 
 This may, perhaps, be accounted for from 
 the natural habits of the birds. It would 
 seem that the species which are most likely 
 to have been the sacrificial dove and pigeon 
 are the common turtle, Turtur auritus, and the 
 blue-rock pigeon, sometimes called the Egyp- 
 tian rock-pigeon, Columba Schimperi, which 
 is always called the pigeon by the Arabs. The 
 latter bears a considerable resemblance to our 
 stock-dove, and is considerably larger than 
 the turtle. Now the turtles come in vast 
 flocks (Cant. ii. ii, 12; Jer. viii. 7), with 
 great regularity, in the early part of April, 
 and for a portion of the year the full-grown 
 birds can be easily taken by nets or other 
 contrivances; but as the season advances they 
 wholly disappear. 'I'he pigeons, on the con- 
 trary, do not leave the country. They have 
 three or four broods in the year, and, in 
 common with the doves and other pigeons, 
 they hatch two eggs at a time, and no more. 
 The adult birds are very wild and rapid of 
 flight, and it is almost impossible to obtain 
 
 them without fire-arms. But their nests, with 
 young ones in them, may be easily found at 
 any season of the^ year. (Tristram, ‘ Land 
 of Israel,’ pp. 446, 509; ‘Nat. Hist, of the 
 Bible,’ p. 213.) Hence it would appear, that 
 when turtledoves could not be obtained nest- 
 ling pigeons were accepted as a substitute. 
 
 15 . And the priest shall bring] The 
 mode of sacrificing the bird was simple. The 
 marginal rendering agrees with the Mishna 
 (‘ Zebach,’ vi. 5). In the Sin-offering of 
 birds the blood was sprinkled on the side of 
 the Altar. See Lev. v. 9. 
 
 16 . his crop 'vuith his feathers] Our ver- 
 sion here follows the LXX., the Vulg., and 
 Luther, and agrees with some of the modern 
 Jewish versions. But the weight of authority 
 is in favour of the marginal rendering (Onke- 
 los, the Syriac, Gesenius, De Wette, Fiirst, 
 Knobel, &c.). It is most probable that the 
 feathers were burnt with the body, and that 
 the wings, mentioned in nj. 17, were not 
 mutilated. 
 
 the place of the ashes] It is said that the 
 ashes were daily removed from the Altar (ex- 
 cept on certain holy days) and thrown into 
 a heap on its eastern side. (Mishna, ‘Tamid,’ 
 II. 2, with the notes.) It would appear that 
 when the heap became inconveniently large, 
 they were removed in vessels appropriated to 
 the purpose (see Exod. xxvii. 3) to a spot with- 
 out the camp, designated as the place “where 
 the ashes are poured out.” (Lev. iv. 12, vi. 1 1.) 
 
 17 . a burnt sacrifice., &c.] See on 0^. 9. 
 
 The MEA.T-OFFERINGS. 
 
 Chap. 1 1 . 1. a meat offering] The two 
 Hebrew words thus rendered are the same 
 which in t;. 4 are better translated an oblation 
 of a meat-ofifering (korbdn minchdh). The 
 
V. 2, 3.J 
 
 LEVITICUS. II. 
 
 513 
 
 fering shall be of fine flour; and he 
 shall pour oil upon it, and put frank- 
 incense thereon : 
 
 2 And he shall bring it to Aaron’s 
 sons the priests*: and he shall take 
 thereout his handful of the flour 
 thereof, and of the oil thereof, with 
 all the frankincense thereof; and the 
 
 priest shall burn the memorial of it 
 upon the altar, to he an offering made 
 by fire, of a sweet savour unto the 
 Lord : 
 
 3 And "the remnant of the meat of- " KccIu 
 fering shall be Aaron’s and his sons’ : 
 it is a thing most holy of the offer- 
 ings of the Lord made by fire. 
 
 latter word (minchab) signifies literally a gift; 
 and it appears to have been applied specially 
 to what was given by an inferior to a superior 
 (Gen. xxxii, 18 — 20, xliii. ii; Jiidg. iii. 15; 
 I S. X. 27). It was sometimes used for any 
 sort of offering to the Lord, in the same 
 sense as korbhi (Gen. iv, 3, 4; i S, ii. 17; 
 Isa. i. 13, &c.). But in the technical language 
 of the Law, Minchah regularly denoted the 
 vegetable offerings as distinguished from the 
 animal offerings (see Introd. § iii.). Luther 
 rendered it food-offering (Speis-opfer)^ and our 
 translators followed him, applying the word 
 meat, according to old usage, as a general 
 term for food. Vegetable-offering or Meal-of- 
 fering would be a more convenient rendering. 
 
 It may seem strange that the Minchah is 
 here introduced between the Burnt-offering 
 and the Peace-offering. The order in which 
 the kinds of offering are named agrees with 
 their development in order of time. The 
 Burnt-offering and the Minchah answer to the 
 first two offerings on record (Gen. iv. 3, 4; 
 Amos V. 22). It may be added that they ap- 
 pear to be cognate in the simplicity of their 
 meaning. (See Introd. § xii.) 
 
 It has been supposed that the Minchah was 
 never offered but when it accompanied an ani- 
 mal sacrifice (Bilhr, Kurtz, Bonar). But the 
 mode in which it is spoken of in this verse, in 
 ‘v. 2, vi. 14, Num. V. 15, and elsewhere, would 
 seem to leave but little doubt that it was, 
 on occasions, offered as a distinct sacrifice. 
 The Drink-offering (which is mentioned no- 
 where in Leviticus, except in chap, xxiii.), on 
 the other hand, appears never to have been 
 offered by itself. The laws of the Drink- 
 offering and the Minchah, when offered as 
 accompaniments of the Burnt-offering and 
 the Peace-offering, are given Num. xv. i — 12. 
 
 Salt (y. 13) and oil (see Note at the end of 
 the chap.) were ingredients in every Minchah, 
 but leaven and honey were wholly excluded 
 from them (<1;. n). 
 
 Three kinds of Minchah are here mention- 
 ed; (i) fine flour with frankincense, w. i — 3; 
 
 (2) cakes and wafers of fine flour, ^'^v. 4 — 8 ; 
 
 (3) parched grains of the first gathered corn, 
 with frankincense, w. 14 — 16. Of each of 
 them a small portion was burnt on the Altar 
 “for a memorial,” and the remainder was 
 given to the priests. The offerings of flour 
 belonged to the priests at large, but those of 
 
 cakes and wafers to the officiating priests, 
 vii. 9, 10.— Instructions to the priests regard- 
 ing the Minchahs are given vi. 14 — 23. 
 
 The Offering of Fine flour^ i — 3. 
 
 1. fine four] That is, finely bolted flour 
 of wheat. See Ex. xxix. 2; LXX. o-eixidaXis’-, 
 Vulg. simila. It was probably always present- 
 ed in a bowl. The Minchahs of the princes 
 at the dedication of the Tabernacle were pre- 
 sented in bowls of silver, Num. vii. 13. 
 
 oib] See Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 frankincense~\ See on Ex. xxx. 34. 
 
 2. This verse might rather be rendered, 
 “ And he shall bring it to Aaron’s sons, the 
 priests; and the (officiating) priest shall 
 take from it a handful of its flour 
 and its oil with all its frankincense, 
 and this shall he hum as its memo- 
 rial upon the Altar,” &c. 
 
 memorial] The English word literally an- 
 swers to the Hebrew (azkarah')^ which was 
 the regular name not only for the portion of 
 the Minchah which was burnt on the Altar 
 9, 16, v. 12, vi. 15 ; Num. v. 26), but for 
 the frankincense which was laid upon the 
 Shewbread (Lev. xxiv. 7). The LXX. call it 
 TO fjLvrjfjLoa-vuov, the word which is applied to 
 the prayers and alms of Cornelius, Acts x. 4. 
 This application of the Greek word seems 
 well to illustrate the meaning of the a%karah. 
 Cf. on Ex. xxx. 8. 
 
 3 . a thing most holy] Literally, a holy of 
 holies. As there was a distinction between 
 the places dedicated to the divine service into 
 holy and most holy (Ex. xxvi. 33), so was 
 there a similar distinction in what was offered 
 to Jehovah. All offerings were holy., includ- 
 ing the portions of the Peace-offerings which 
 were eaten by the laity; but that was most 
 holy of which every part was devoted either 
 to the Altar, or to the use of the priests. Such 
 were the Minchahs (y. 10, vi. 16, x. 12), 
 the Shewbread (Lev. xxiv. 9), the incense 
 (Ex. xxx. 36), and the flesh of the Sin- and 
 Trespass-offerings (Lev. vi. 17, 18, vii. i, 6, 
 X. 17, xiv. 13; Num. xviii. 9, to). Every 
 son of Aaron, even he who had a bodily 
 defect and could not perform, any priestly 
 office, was permitted “to eat the bread of 
 his God, both of the most holy and of the 
 holy,” Lev. xxi. 22. The most holy sacrificial 
 
LEVITICUS. IL 
 
 [v. 4— II. 
 
 5H 
 
 4 ^ And if thou bring an oblation 
 of a meat offering baken in the oven, 
 it shall be unleavened cakes of fine 
 flour mingled with oil, or unleavened 
 wafers anointed with oil. 
 
 5 ^1 And if thy oblation be a meat 
 I! Or, on a ofiei'lng bakeu ” in a pan, it shall be of 
 'irlfiice!' flour unleavened, mingled with 
 
 oil. 
 
 6 Thou shalt part it in pieces, and 
 pour oil thereon : it is a meat offering. 
 
 7 ^ And if thy oblation be a meat 
 offering baken in the fryingpan, it shall 
 be made of fine flour with oil. 
 
 8 And thou shalt bring the meat 
 
 offering that is made of these things 
 unto the Lord : and when it is pre- 
 sented unto the priest, he shall bring 
 it unto the altar. 
 
 9 And the priest shall take from 
 
 the meat offering '^'a memorial thereof, ^ver. 2, 
 and shall burn it upon the altar : it is 
 ^an offering made by fire, of a sweet <r Exod. 
 savour unto the Lord. ^9- 18. 
 
 10 And that which is left of the 
 meat oftering shall be Aaron’s and his 
 sons’ : it is a thing most holy of the 
 oft'erings of the Lord made by fire. 
 
 1 1 No meat offering, which ye shall 
 bring unto the Lord, shall be made 
 
 food was eaten in “the holy place,” that is 
 the precinct of the Tabernacle, probably in 
 the priests’ lodgings. See Note after Ex. xxvi. 
 § V. ; but the priests’ portion of the Peace- 
 offerings might be eaten by the priests and 
 their families in any “ clean place” (x. 12 — 14). 
 It should however be observed that the term 
 most holy is not always used strictly in accord- 
 ance with this distinction. See on Ex. xl. 10: 
 cf. also Ex. xxix. 37, and Lev. xxvii. 28. 
 
 The offerings of Cakes and Wafers. 
 
 4 — 10. 
 
 The four kinds of bread and the three 
 cooking utensils which are mentioned in this 
 section were probably such as were in com- 
 mon use in the daily life of the Israelites; and 
 there appears no reason to doubt that they were 
 such as are still used in the East. — There is no 
 indication of any difference in the significance 
 of the different offerings. The variety was most 
 likely pemiitted to suit the circumstances of 
 the worshippers. The fine flour and oil, with 
 its frankincense fv. i), seems to have been the 
 most costly of the Minchahs, and the most 
 liberal in quantity: cf. Num. vii. 13. The 
 cakes and wafers mentioned in -v. 4 would 
 require that the offerer should at least possess 
 an oven. The “pan” and the “frying pan” 
 {n'-v. 5, 7) may have been the common cooking 
 implements of the poorest of the people. 
 
 4 . o'ven'\ This was most likely a port- 
 able vessel of earthenware. It was liable 
 to be broken (see xi. 35). Its shape may 
 have bet'n like the oven represented in Wil- 
 kinson (Vol. I, p. 176, fig. 209, ^ truncated 
 cone about 3 ft. 6 in. high, and i ft. 6 in. 
 diameter. Similar jars are now used for 
 the same purpose by the Arabs. After the 
 vessel has btrn thoroughly heated by a fire 
 lighted in the inside, the cakes are placed 
 within it, and the top is covered up until they 
 are sufficiently baked. Meantime the outside 
 of the vessel is turned to account. Dough 
 
 rolled out very thin is spread over it, and a 
 sort of wafer is produced considerably thinner 
 than a Scotch oat-cake. Harmer, ‘ Observa- 
 tions,’ Vol. I. p. 476. Such wafers are a 
 common accompaniment of an Arab meal. 
 Tristram, ‘ Land of Israel,’ p. 262. Both 
 cakes and wafers are mentioned Ex. xxix. 2. 
 The cakes, from the apparent derivation of 
 their Hebrew name, are supposed to have 
 been pricked like our biscuits. The word 
 aptly rendered (wafer signifies something 
 spread out. 
 
 5 . a pan'] Rather, as in the margin, a 
 fiat plate. It was probably of earthenware, 
 like the oven. In later times it was some- 
 times of iron (Ezek. iv. 3). The Bedouins 
 use such a plate of earthenware, which they 
 call tajen.^ a name that seems to be identical 
 with TTiyavov.! the word here used by the 
 LXX. Robinson, ‘Bib. Res.’ i. p. 485: 
 Harmer, ‘ Observations,’ i. p. 477. 
 
 6. part it in pieces] The Hebrew word 
 for part signifies to break, not to cut. The 
 Bedouins are in the habit of breaking up their 
 cakes when warm and mixing the fragments 
 with butter when that luxury can be obtained. 
 Robinson, ii. p. 118. 
 
 7. fryingpan] Rather, pan. The word, 
 according to the best authorities (Maimo- 
 nides, Gesenius, Knobel, Fiirst, &c.), signi- 
 fies a vessel deeper than a fryingpan, and 
 its derivation seems to shovv^ that it was com- 
 monly used for boiling. Jewish tradition as- 
 signs a lid to it (Mishna, ‘ Menach.’ v. 8). 
 It may have been a pan or pot used either for 
 baking or for boiling. It should however be 
 observed that the word baken in this verse and 
 w. 5 rests on no authority, but is supplied by 
 our translators. It is possible that the cakes 
 here spoken of wej'e boiled in oil. It can 
 hardly be doubted that the LXX. and the 
 Vulgate are wrong in translating the word 
 ecr^apa and craticula. 
 
V. 12 — 15 .] 
 
 LEVITICUS. II. 
 
 5^5 
 
 with leaven : for ye shall burn no 
 leaven, nor any honey, in any offer- 
 ing of the Lord made by fire. 
 
 12 ^ As for the oblation of the first- 
 fruits, ye shall offer them unto the 
 
 liw. Lord : but they shall not ^ be burnt 
 on the altar for a sweet savour. 
 
 13 And every oblation of thy meat 
 offering ^shalt thou season with salt; 
 neither shalt thou suffer the salt of 
 
 the covenant of thy God to be lacking 
 from thy meat offering : with all thine 
 offerings thou shalt offer salt. 
 
 14 And if thou offer a meat offer 
 ing of thy firstfruits unto the Lord, 
 thou shalt offer for the meat offering 
 of thy firstfruits green ears of corn 
 dried by the fire, even corn beaten out 
 of full ears. 
 
 15 And thou shalt put oil upon it. 
 
 11 , 12 . As for the oblation of the firstfruits^ 
 Rather, As an oblation of firstfruits. 
 The words refer to the leaven and honey 
 mentioned in nj. 11 which might be offered 
 amongst the firstfruits and tithes (Dent. xxvi. 
 a, 12; cf. a Chro. xxxi. 5): leaven was also a 
 regular constituent in the bread of the Thank- 
 offering (vii. 13) and in the Pentecostal loaves 
 (xxiii. 17). The exclusion of honey from the 
 offerings of the Altar appears to have had 
 the same meaning as the exclusion of leaven. 
 Vfe know that honey was used in ancient 
 times to produce fermentation in the pre- 
 paration of vinegar (Plin. ‘ Hist. Nat.’ xi. 15, 
 XXL 48); and there is reason to believe that 
 the same use of it was made by the He- 
 brews (Buxtorf, ‘ Lex. Talm.’ p. 500). The 
 leaven commonly used was, as it still is in 
 many countries, a small piece of fermented 
 dough. Fermentation of all kinds seems to 
 furnish an apt symbol of the working of cor- 
 ruption in the human heart. See Schottgen, 
 
 ‘ Hor. Heb.’ p. 597. This was perceived by 
 the Romans: Aul. Gell. ‘ Noct. Att.’ x. 15; 
 Plut. ‘ Quaest. Rom.’ c. 109. Compare the 
 language of S. Paul, i Cor. v. 6—8. 
 
 13 . ^ith all thine offerings thou shalt offer 
 salt~\ Not only every Minchah, but every ani- 
 mal offering was to be accompanied by salt. 
 Considering the emphatic form of this com- 
 mand, and the importance subsequently as- 
 cribed to it (Ezek. xliii. 24; Mark ix. 49, 50), 
 it is remarkable that this appears to be the 
 only reference to salt in the ceremonial Law. 
 pn Ex. XXX. 35 (where some suppose that salt 
 is mentioned) see note. The significance of 
 it, as a sacrificial symbol, is set forth in the ex- 
 pression “ the salt of the covenant of thy God” 
 (cf. Num. xviii. 19; 2 Chro. xiii. 5). It was 
 the one symbol which was never absent from 
 the Altar of Burnt-offering, showing the im- 
 perishableness of the love of Jehovah for His 
 people. In its unalterable nature, it is the 
 contrary ot leaven. The Arabs are said to 
 letain in common use the expression, “a co- 
 venant of salt,”^ and the respect they pay to 
 bread and salt in their rites of hospitality is 
 well known. Cf. Ezraiv. 14. In heathen sacri- 
 fip‘S its use seems to have been all but universal. 
 
 I Lny says, after praising its virtues in food and 
 
 medicine, maxirne tamen in sacris intelUgitur 
 auctoritas^ quando nulla conficiuntur sihe mola 
 salsa. ‘ H. N.’ xxxi. 41. The mola salsa 
 was meal mixed with salt, which was either 
 sprinkled on the head of a victim about to be 
 slain (Cicero, ‘ de Div.’ 11. 16; Virg. ‘Ed.’ 
 VIII. 82; Hor. II. Sat. iii. 200; Festus s. 
 mola- Val. Max. ii. 5, § 5 ; Pseudo-Didymus 
 in Horn. ‘ II.’ i. 449) ; or offered in place of a 
 more costly offering (Hor. iii. Od. xxiii. 20). 
 Cf. Lev. V. II. 
 
 The Minchah of Firstfruits. 
 
 14 — 16. 
 
 The place of these instructions may suggest 
 that they were added to the chapter as a sup- 
 plement. — There is certainly no sufficient 
 ground to suppose, with the rabbinists and 
 rnodern Jewish authorities, that this Minchah 
 differed from the others in being a national 
 offering, identical with the offering of the 
 Wave-sheaf prescribed xxiii. 10: it seems to 
 be the same kind of offering as is mentioned 
 Num. xviii. 12, 13. 
 
 14 . green ears of corn'] Rather, “fresh 
 ears of com;” that is, corn just ripe, freshly 
 gathered. Parched corn, such as is here 
 spoken of, is a common article of food in 
 Syria and Egypt, and was very generally eaten 
 in ancient times. Cf. xxiii. 14; Josh. v. n- 
 I S. xvii. 17, XXV. 18; 2 S. xvii. 28, &c. ’ 
 
 beaten out] Not rubbed out by the hands, 
 as described in Luke vi. i, but bruised or 
 crushed so as to form groats. 
 
 The meaning of the Minchahs appears to be 
 much more simple than that of the animal 
 sacrifices. This is indicated by the simplicity 
 of the only name by which they are desig- 
 nated (see on i). The Minchah, as a sacri- 
 fice, was something surrendered to God, 
 which was of the greatest value to man an 
 a means of living. It might thus seem to be 
 merely eucharistic. But it should not be over- 
 looked that the grain had been modified, and 
 made useful, by man’s own labour. Hence it 
 has been supposed that the Minchah expressed 
 a confession that all our good works are 
 wrought in God and are due to Him.— On 
 the Great Minchah of the Shewbread, see Ex. 
 xxy. 30. — On the Drink-offerings, see on Ex. 
 xxix. 40; Lev. xxiii. 18. 
 
LEVITICUS. 11. III. 
 
 [v. 1 6 2. 
 
 516 
 
 and lay frankincense thereon : it is a 
 meat offering. 
 
 16 And the priest shall burn the 
 memorial of it^part of the beaten corn 
 
 thereof, and part of the oil thereof, 
 with all the frankincense thereof : it 
 is an offering made by fire unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. 11. i. 
 
 On the symbolical use of Oil. 
 
 There were three principal uses of oil fa- 
 miliar to the Hebrews, (i) It was employed 
 to anoint the surface of the body in order to 
 mollify the skin, to heal injuries, and to 
 strengthen the muscles (Ps. civ. 15, cix. 18, 
 cxli. 5; Isa. i. 6; Mic. vi. 15; Luke x. 34; 
 Mark vi. 13; Jam. v. 14, &c.): (2) it was 
 largely used as an ingredient of food (Num. 
 xi. 8; I K. xvii. 12; i Chro. xii. 40; Ezek. 
 xvi. 13, 19; Hos. ii. 5, &c.); and (3) it was 
 commonly burned in lamps (Ex. xxv. 6; 
 Matt. xxv. 3, &c.). — In each of these uses 
 it may be taken as a fit symbol of divine 
 grace. It might figure it as conferring on each 
 believer the strength and faculties required to 
 carry on his work (i Cor. xii. 4); as sup- 
 porting and renewing him day by day with 
 fresh supplies of life (i Cor. iii. 16, Tit. hi. 
 5) ; and as giving light, comfort, and guidance 
 into all truth (Job xxxii. 8; John xiv. 16, 
 XV. 26). 
 
 There was what closely answered to each 
 of the ordinary uses of oil in the different 
 modes in which it was employed in the Sanc- 
 tuary. It was used for anointing the priests 
 and the holy things, it served as food in the 
 
 Minchahs, and it was what kept alive the 
 lights in “the pure candlestick,” “the lamp 
 of God” (i S. iii. 3) in the holy place. In 
 the first of these applications in the Sanctuary, 
 oil served no practical purpose; it was simply 
 typical, and it is in this connection that it 
 bears its highest significance. As if to keep 
 this significance in view, the mode in which it 
 was added to the Minchah seems to be spoken 
 of as an anointing (see w. i, 15, 16). In the 
 language of both the Old and the New Testa- 
 ments, the figurative references to oil most 
 frequently turn upon this meaning. See Isa. 
 Ixi. i; 2 Cor. i. 21; I Joh. ii. 20, 27; Heb. 
 i. 9, &c. Its most perfect application is found 
 in the words Messiah and Christ as the 
 names of Him whose anointing was the gift 
 of the Spirit without measure, Joh. iii. 34. 
 On the anointing of the holy things, see on 
 viii. II. — On the holy anointing oil, see Ex. 
 XXX. 22—33. 
 
 The offering of oil on the Altar involved 
 an acknowledgment on the part of the wor- 
 shipper that his spiritual gifts were from 
 Jehovah and belonged to Him. It was in 
 this that it became specially connected with 
 the Minchah. See the preceding note. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I The peace offering of the herd, 6 of the flock, 
 7 either a lamb, 12 or a goat. 
 
 K 
 
 of peace offering, if he offer it 
 of the herd; whether it be a male 
 
 or female, he shall offer it without 
 blemish before the Lord. 
 
 2 And he shall lay his hand upon 
 the head of his offering, and kill it at 
 the door of the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation : and Aaron’s sons the priests 
 
 The Peace-offerings. 
 
 The Peace-offering from the Herd. 
 
 1 — 5 - 
 
 Chap. III. 1. The Peace-offering (like 
 the Burnt-oflering, i. 3, and the Minchah, ii. 
 i) is here spoken of as if it was familiarly 
 known before the giving of the Law. See 
 Introd. § xii. I'he Sin-offering and the Tres- 
 pass-offering are introduced in a different 
 manner (iv. i, v. i, &c.). It would also seem 
 that the alternative of a male or a female was 
 in accordance with old usage. There is no 
 specified limitation in respect to age, such as 
 there is in the cases of the Hiirnt-offering and 
 the Sin-offering. The point of this first in- 
 junction is that the animal should be “with- 
 out blemish.” 
 
 peace offering^ This rendering of the He- 
 brew is in accordance with the ancient ver- 
 sions and seems preferable to “thank-offering,” 
 which occurs in several places in the margin 
 of our Bible, and has been used by Luther 
 and many modern translators. Thank-offer- 
 ing appears to be the right name for a subor- 
 dinate class of Peace-ofterings. See on vii. 12. 
 
 2. at the door of the tabernacle of the con- 
 gre'.rntion'] at the entrance of the Tent 
 of meeting. See on i. 3. We are not told 
 on which side of the Altar, as we are in re- 
 ference to Burnt-offerings and Sin-offerings 
 (i. II, iv. 24, 29, vii. 2). As a matter of 
 convenience, it is likely that all victims were 
 usually slaughtered in one place : but, as the 
 Peace-offerings were sometimes very numerous, 
 
V. 3— 13-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. III. 
 
 5^7 
 
 ‘I Fj<od. 
 29. 22. 
 
 II Or, suet. 
 
 «Or, 
 midriff 
 over the 
 liver, and 
 over the 
 kidneys. 
 
 shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar 
 round about. 
 
 3 And he shall offer of the sacrihce 
 of the peace offering an offering made 
 by fire unto the Lord; "^the "fat that 
 covereth the inwards, and all the fat 
 that is upon the inwards, 
 
 4 And the two kidneys, and the fat 
 that is on them, which is by the flanks, 
 and the " caul above the liver, with the 
 kidneys, it shall he take away. 
 
 5 And Aaron’s sons shall burn it on 
 the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, 
 which is upon the wood that is on the 
 fire : it is an offering made by fire, of 
 a sweet savour unto the Lord. 
 
 6 ^ And if his offering for a sacri- 
 fice of peace offering unto the Lord 
 be of the flock; male or female, he 
 shall offer it without blemish. 
 
 7 If he offer a lamb for his offer- 
 ing, then shall he offer it before the 
 Lord. 
 
 8 And he shall lay his hand upon 
 the head of his offering, and kill it 
 
 before the tabernacle of the cono;re- 
 gation : and Aaron’s sons shall sprinkle 
 the blood thereof round about upon 
 the altar. 
 
 9 And he shall offer of the sacrifice 
 of the peace offering an offering made 
 by fire unto the Lord ; the fat there- 
 of, and the whole rump, it shall he 
 take off hard by the backbone ; and 
 the fat that covereth the inwards, and 
 all the fat that is upon the inwards, 
 
 10 And the two kidneys, and the 
 fat that is upon them, which is by the 
 flanks, and the caul above the liver, 
 with the kidneys, it shall he take 
 away. 
 
 1 1 And the priest shall burn it upon 
 the altar: it is the food of the offer- 
 ing made by fire unto the Lord. 
 
 12 ^ And if his offering he, a goat, 
 then he shall offer it before the Lord. 
 
 13 And he shall lay his hand upon 
 the head of it, and kill it before the 
 tabernacle of the cono-re2:ation : and 
 the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the 
 
 a licence was probably permitted in respect 
 of them when occasion required it. See 
 on i. Ti. 
 
 shall sprinkle] Rather, shall throw. See 
 Introd. § vi. 
 
 3 , 4 . On the parts of the Peace-offerings, 
 the Sin-offerings and the Trespass-offerings 
 which were put on the Altar, see Introd. § viii. 
 
 5 . upon the burnt sacrifice] This is the 
 right rendering, and it appears to mean, upon 
 the ashes of the continual Burnt-offering (Ex. 
 xxix. 38), in accordance with Lev. vi. 12, 
 “and the priest shall burn wood on it {i-e. 
 the Altar) every morning, and lay the burnt- 
 offering in order upon it ; and he shall burn 
 thereon the fat of the peace-offerings.” But 
 the same phrase is rendered “according to the 
 offerings made by fire,” &c. in iv. 35, v. tz, 
 giving a different sense to the preposition. 
 Knobel and some other modern interpreters 
 adopt the latter interpretation. 
 
 The Peace-offering from the Flock. 
 
 6—15. 
 
 7 . a lamb] a sheep. The word signifies 
 a full-grown sheep, in its prime. The same 
 Hebrew word is frequently rendered sheep in 
 our version. Gen. xxx. 32; Lev. i. 10, vii. 23. 
 See on ns. i ; Introd. § iv. 
 
 8. See notes on i. 4, 5. 
 
 9 . the nvhole rump] It should be rendered 
 the whole fat tail. The substantive 
 {aleydlo) has this meaning in Arabic. It oc- 
 curs nowhere in the Hebrew Bible except in 
 this connection. (Ex. xxix. 22; Lev. vii. 3, 
 viii. 25, ix. 19.) The ancient translators in 
 general, and Josephus, have taken the word 
 to denote the tail, but the LXX. in this place 
 and two others have rendered it by da-t^A, 
 the loin. There is no doubt that what is 
 meant is the tail of the kind of sheep well 
 known in the East, and in Africa, called by 
 naturalists Offis laticaudata. (Robinson, ‘ Bib. 
 Res.’ I. p. 477. Tristram, ‘Nat. Hist.’ p. 
 143.) Mr Fellowes describes the tail as “an 
 apron of rich marrowy fat extending to the 
 width of the hind-quarters and often trailing 
 on the ground.” (‘ Asia Minor,’ p. 10.) Dr 
 Russell says that the tails often weigh i ^lbs. 
 and even as much as 5olbs. when they have 
 been increased by artificial fattening (‘ Nat. 
 Hist, of Aleppo,’ ii. p. 147). It appears 
 that a custom has existed from early times of 
 attaching the heavy tail to a small truck to 
 save the animal from the pain occasioned by 
 its trailing on the ground (Herodot. iii. 113. 
 Mishna, ‘ de Sabb.’ v. 4.) The whole tail 
 was to be taken off “ hard by the backbone,” 
 where the pad of fat commences. 
 
 11. burn it] See on i. 9. 
 
 the food of the offering., &c.] See on ni. 16. 
 
 i 
 
LEVITICUS. III. IV. 
 
 [v. 14—2. 
 
 blood thereof upon the altar round 
 about. 
 
 14 And he shall olFer thereof his 
 offering, even an offering made by fire 
 unto the Lord ; the fat that covereth 
 the inwards, and all the fat that is 
 upon the inwards, 
 
 15 And the two kidneys, and the 
 fat that is upon them, which is by the 
 flanks, and the caul above the liver, 
 with the kidneys, it shall he take 
 away. 
 
 16 And the priest shall burn them 
 upon the altar: it is the food of the 
 offering made by fire for a sweet 
 savour: ^all the fat is the Lord’s. 
 
 17 It shall be a perpetual statute 
 for your generations throughout all 
 your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat 
 nor ^ blood. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Gen. 9. 4. 
 chap. 7. 26. 
 &. 17. 14. 
 
 r The sm offc 7 'ing of ignorance, for the priest, 
 13 for the congregation, 22 for the ruler, 
 2 7 for any of the people. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 f\_ saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Israe. 1 , 
 saying. If a soul shall sin through 
 ignorance against any of the command- 
 ments of the Lord concerning things 
 which ought not to be done, and shall 
 do against any of them : 
 
 12, When the alternative is permitted, the 
 sheep always takes precedence of the goat. 
 See on i. 10. Birds were not accepted as 
 Peace-offerings, most probably because they 
 were, by themselves, insufficient to make up 
 a sacrificial meal. 
 
 16 . it is the food of the offering made by fire 
 for a s~joeet saajour : all the fat is the LoRffs^ 
 This might rather be rendered, as food of 
 an offering made by fire for a sweet 
 savour, shall all the fat be for Jeho- 
 vah. So de Wette, Zunz, Herxh., &c. In 
 this expression, our bodily taste and smell 
 furnish figures of the satisfaction with which 
 the Lord accepts the appointed symbols of 
 the true worship of the heart. All that was 
 sent up in the hre of the Altar, including the 
 parts of the Sin-offering (iv. 31), as well as 
 the Burnt-offering (i. 9, &c.), was accepted 
 for “a sweet savour:” but the word food 
 may here have a peculiar fitness in its appli- 
 cation to the Peace-offering, which served 
 for food also to the priests and the offerer, 
 and so symbolized communion between the 
 Lord, LI is ministers, and His worshippers. 
 I'he omission of the word food in connection 
 with the Burnt-offering in ch. i. is at least 
 worthy of remark. Cf. xxi. 6, 17, ai, 22, 
 xxii. II ; Num. xxviii. 2, &c. 
 
 17 . a perpetual statute, &c.] This is re- 
 peated witli increased emphasis as regards the 
 fat, vii. 23—25. 
 
 fat'] i. e. the suet and the marrowy fat of the 
 tail. See Introd. § viii. The significance of of- 
 fering fat to Jehovah appears to consist in the 
 fact that its proper development in the animal 
 is, in general, a mark of perfection. This is 
 immediately connected with what seems to be 
 its purpose in the body. “Its remarkable 
 absorption in certain cases of disease and of 
 deficiency of proper food, seems to point it 
 out as a source of nutriment of which the 
 
 animal economy may avail itself on emer- 
 gency ; and accordingly in cases of emaciation 
 or atrophy it is the first substance which dis- 
 appears.” Todd’s ‘Cyclopedia of Physiology,’ 
 Vol. I. p. 232. 
 
 blood] See on xvii. ii. 
 
 throughout . . .your d-ivellings] The meaning is 
 that the suet is neither to be eaten in sacrificial 
 meals in the Sanctuary, nor in ordinary meals 
 in private houses. 
 
 On the classification of Peace-offerings, on 
 the Meat-offerings and Drink-offerings which 
 accompanied them, and on the portions awarded 
 to the priests, see vii. ii — 21; Num. xv. 2 — 
 II. On the Chagigah, a sort of social feast 
 allied to the Peace-offering, which forms the 
 subject of a treatise of the Mishna, and is 
 supposed to be alluded to Deut. xiv. 26, xvi. 
 2; 2 Chro. XXX. 22, 24; John xviii. 28, see 
 notes in loc. and Smith’s ‘ Diet.’ 11. p. 717. 
 
 The Sin-offerings. 
 
 iv. I— V. 13. 
 
 Chap. IV. 1, 2 . y'lnd the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying. Speak unto the children of Israel] 
 This formula answers to that which intro- 
 duces the three previous chapters as a whole 
 (i. I, 2). It is the commencement 6f a dis- 
 tinct section of the Law. See following note. 
 
 2. If a soul shall sin] The Sin-offering 
 was a new thing, instituted by the Law. 
 ^See Introd. §xvi.) The older kinds of sacri- 
 fice (see iii. i) when ofiered by individuals 
 were purely voluntary : no special occasions 
 were prescribed when they were to be offered. 
 Hence the form, “ If any man of you bring,” 
 &c., i. 2, cf. ii. I, iii. i. But it was plainly 
 commanded that he who was conscious that 
 he had committed a sin should bring his Sin- 
 offering. Lach of these offerings and of the 
 Trespass-offerings is accordingly introduced 
 
V. 3 — 8 .] 
 
 LEVITICUS. IV. 
 
 3 If the priest that is anointed do 
 sin according to the sin of the people ; 
 then let him bring for his sin, which 
 he hath sinned, a young bullock with- 
 out blemish unto the Lord for a sin 
 oft'ering. 
 
 4 And he shall bring the bullock 
 unto the door of the tabernacle of the 
 congregation before the Lord ; and 
 shall lay his hand upon the bullock’s 
 head, and kill the bullock before the 
 Lord. 
 
 5 And the priest that is anointed 
 
 shall take of the bullock’s blood, and 
 bring it to the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation ; * 
 
 6 And the priest shall dip his finger 
 imthe blood, and sprinkle of the blood 
 seven times before the Lord, before 
 the vail of the sanctuary. * 
 
 7 And the priest shall put some of 
 the blood upon the horns of the altar 
 of sweet incense before the Lord, 
 which IS in the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation ; and shall pour all the blood “ s 
 of the bullock at the bottom of the 
 
 altar of the burnt offering, wh'ch is 
 at the door of the tabernacle cf the 
 congregation. 
 
 8 And he shall take off from it all 
 the fat of the bullock for the sin offer- 
 ing ; the fat that covereth the inwards, 
 
 by a definition of the circumstance which ren- 
 ders the sacrifice necessary. The antecedent 
 condition for Sin-offerings in general is here 
 stated; for particular cases, see iv. 3, 13, 22, 
 27, V. I— 15. 
 
 sin through ignorance] Sin through er- 
 ror; that is, through straying from the right 
 way. See Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 The Sin-offering for the High-priest, 3 — 12. 
 
 3. the priest that is anointed] The High- 
 priest was thus called because he alone of the 
 priests was anointed on the head in consecra- 
 tion. Ex. xxix. 7 ; Lev. viii. 12, xxi. 10. 
 On the anointing of the other priests see note 
 on viii. 13. The High-priest is generally called 
 in Leviticus the Anointed priest (iv. 5, 16, vi. 
 22, xvi. 32). He is called the High-priest 
 (strictly the great priest) Lev. xxi. 10 ; Num. 
 XXXV. 25, 28 ; Josh. XX. 6; and in later times, 
 the Chief-priest (2 K. xxv. 18; 2 Chro. xix. 
 
 ii). 
 
 The gradation of the Sin-offerings is re- 
 markable. It was not like the choice offered 
 to meet cases of poverty, v. 7 — ^13, xii. 8, &c. 
 It might seem that the distinction addressed 
 itself more pointedly to each individual accord- 
 ing to his rank and consequent responsibility. 
 That there is nothing akin to it in the Trespass- 
 offering seems to have arisen from the latter 
 having had a less direct relation to the consci- 
 ence, and a closer connection with the amount 
 of harni that had been done by the offence for 
 which atonement was sought. See on v. 14. 
 
 according to the sin of the people\ Rather, 
 to bring guilt on the people. These 
 words have been supposed to limit the occa- 
 sion of this Sin-offering to the offences of the 
 High-priest in his official capacity (Lev. x. 
 17 ; Mai. ii. 7, 8) as the head of the nation 
 (Knobel, Keil, Herxh.). But on the other 
 hand it has been fairly urged that the whole 
 nation is concerned in every transgression of 
 its representative. 
 
 4 . See on i. 3, 4. 
 
 5 . The presentation of the victim, the 
 imposition of hands and the slaughtering of 
 all the Sin-offerings were the same as in the 
 other sacrifices (see Introd. § v.). The dif- 
 ference lay in the treatment of the blood. 
 In the inferior Sin-offerings the officiating 
 priest smeared some of the blood on the 
 horns of the Altar of Burnt-offering {yhj. 25, 
 30, 34), while in this offering for the High- 
 priest, and in that for the nation, the High- 
 priest himself sprinkled the blood seven times 
 within the Tabernacle and smeared it on the 
 horns of the Altar of incense (gv^. 6, 7, 17, 
 18). Compare the sprinklings on the Day 
 of Atonement, xvi. 14, 19. The different 
 modes of sprinkling appear to have marked 
 successive degrees of consecration in advanc- 
 ing from the Altar of Burnt-offering to the 
 presence of Jehovah within the vail. 
 
 6. before the 'uail of the sanctuary] This is 
 generally understood to mean the floor of the 
 holy place in front of the vail (Onk., Luther, 
 Knobel, Keil, and others). It is, however, 
 objected that the priests in this case would 
 tread on the blood (Kurtz, Kalisch, &c.) ; 
 and the LXX. and Vulgate may rather coun- 
 tenance the notion that the sprinkling was on 
 the vail itself (^ara to KaTanerao-fxa — contra 
 ‘veluni). But the quantity sprinkled with the 
 finger must have been very small, and the 
 area it would occupy of the floor might have 
 been easily left untrodden. 
 
 7. pour all the blood] The Hebrew word 
 for pour (shdpbak) is not like that in i. 5, &c. 
 See Introd. § vi. The meaning is, that all 
 the blood that was left after the sprinkling 
 and the smearing should be disposed of in such 
 a manner as to suit the decorum of divine 
 service. It had no sacrificial significance. 
 
 at the door of the tabernacle of the congrega- 
 tion] See on i. 3. 
 
 8. the fat] See Introd. § viii. 
 
LEVITICUS. IV. 
 
 [v. 9—17. 
 
 320 
 
 and all the fat that /h upon the in- 
 wards, 
 
 9 And the two kidneys, and the fat 
 that IS upon them, which is by the 
 flanks, and the caul above the liver, 
 with the kidneys, it shall he take 
 away, 
 
 10 As it was taken off from the 
 bullock of the sacrifice of peace offer- 
 ings : and the priest shall burn them 
 upon the altar of the burnt offering. 
 
 Exod. 1 1 And tfie skin of the bullock, and 
 Numb. 19. all his flesh, with his head, and with his 
 and his inwards, and 'his dung, 
 
 12 Even the whole bullock shall he 
 I Heb. carry forth ^ without the camp unto a 
 
 to Withotit , , , , , ^ J 
 
 thecariip. Clean place, where the ashes are poured 
 ‘Heb. 13. <^burn him on the wood with 
 
 ^ where the ashes are poured out 
 Po2iring shall he be burnt. 
 
 ashes. 1 3 ^1 And if the whole congregation 
 
 of Israel sin through ignorance, "^and '^^hap. 
 the thing be hid from the eyes of the 
 assembly, and they have done some- 
 what against any of the command- 
 ments of the Lord concerning things 
 which should not be done, and are 
 guilty ; 
 
 14 When the sin, which they have 
 sinned against it, is known, then the 
 congregation shall ofter a young bul- 
 lock for the sin, and bring him before 
 the tabernacle of the congregation. 
 
 15 And the elders of the congre- 
 gation shall lay their hands upon the 
 head of the bullock before the Lord : 
 and^the bullock shall be killed before 
 the Lord. 
 
 16 And the priest that is anointed 
 shall bring of*the bullock’s blood to 
 the tabernacle of the congregation ; 
 
 17 And the priest shall dip his 
 
 10 . shall burn] See on i. 9. 
 
 12. Even the vohole bullock shall he carry 
 forth] The Hebrew verb strictly signifies 
 shall cause to go forth. Or, according to a 
 common Heb. idiom (see on Ex. xxxvii. i — 5), 
 it might be rendered, the vohole bullock shall be 
 carried forth (cf. Lev. xvi. 27). Our verb 
 carry., in the active voice, was however rightly 
 used by our translators in this connection, ac- 
 cording to the old usage. Thus Nebuchad- 
 nezzar “ carried away all Jerusalem, and all 
 the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, 
 ten thousand captives,” 2 K. xxiv. 14; and 
 Jacob “carried away all his cattle” from 
 Padan-aram, Gen. xxxi. 18. See also 2 K. 
 xvii. 6, xviii. ii, xxv. ii; 2 Chro. xxxvi. 6; 
 Jer. xxxix. 7, &c. The word was so used 
 very frequently by the writers of the last 
 century. A recent critic, overlooking these 
 simple facts, has imagined that the words 
 mean that the High-priest himself had to carry 
 the whole bullock a distance which is estimat- 
 ed at three-quarters of a mile, and has drawn 
 an argument from his own mistake to prove 
 the statement fictitious. — There is a solemn 
 reference to the burning of the flesh of the 
 Sin-offering without the camp, Heb. xiii. 
 
 II— 13. 
 
 a clean place., qjohere the ashes are poured out] 
 'J'he spot outside the camp to which the ashes 
 were conveyed from the side of the Altar (i. 1 6). 
 It was a place free from impurities, not like 
 those referred to xiv.40, 45. The flesh, though 
 it was burned in an ordinary way, and not 
 sent up in the fire of the Altar (see on i. 9), 
 was not to be confounded with carrion, but 
 was associated with the remains of the sacri- 
 
 fices.— The priests could not eat the flesh of 
 this victim or of that offered for the sin of 
 the congregation, as they ate that of other Sin- 
 offerings, because they were in these cases in 
 the position of offerers. The same rule was 
 observed in regard to the Meat-offering of the 
 priests, vi. 23. It was only of the Peace- 
 offering that the offerer himself could partake. 
 See on x. 17, 18, xvi. 27; Heb. xiii. ii. 
 
 The Sin-offering for the Congregation. 
 
 13—21. 
 
 13 . congregation... assembly] Each of the 
 Hebrew words signifies the people in a col- 
 lected body. It does not appear that there is 
 any difference between them in the connection 
 in which they are here used. Cf. Num. xv. 
 24, 26. 
 
 sin through ignorance] See Note at the end 
 of the chapter. 
 
 14 . When the sin... is knovon] Such a case 
 seems to have been that related i S. xiv. 31 
 — 35 - 
 
 15 . In this case the imposition of hands is 
 performed by the elders in behalf of the nation. 
 But in other respects the rites were performed 
 by the High-priest in the same manner as in 
 the Sin-offering for himself. According to 
 the Mishna this and the Scape-goat were the 
 only pubfic acts of sacrifice in which there 
 was the imposition of hands (‘ Menach,’ ix. 7), 
 while it was observed in all private sacrifices. 
 See on i. 4. If this is correct, there was no 
 such observance in the continual Burnt-offer- 
 ing nor in the Festival offerings. 
 
 16 . the priest that is anointed] See on *1;. 3. 
 
 17 . See V. 6. 
 
V. 18—27.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. iV. 
 
 521 
 
 finger m some of the blood, and sprinkle 
 it seven times before the Lord, even 
 before the vail. 
 
 18 And he shall put some of the 
 blood upon the horns of the altar 
 which is before the Lord, that is in 
 the tabernacle of the congregation, 
 and shall pour out all the blood at the 
 bottom of the altar of the burnt of- 
 fering, which is at the door of the 
 tabernacle of the congregation. 
 
 19 And he shall take all his fat 
 from him, and burn it upon the altar. 
 
 20 And he shall do with the bul- 
 lock as he did with the bullock for a 
 sin offering, so shall he do with this : 
 and the priest shall make an atone- 
 ment for them, and it shall be for- 
 given them. 
 
 21 And he shall cany forth the 
 bullock without the camp, and burn 
 him as he burned the first bullock ; it 
 is a sin offering for the congregation. 
 
 22 ^ When a ruler hath sinned, 
 and done somewhat through ignorance 
 against any of the commandments of 
 
 the Lord his God concerning things 
 which should not be done, and is 
 guilty; 
 
 23 Or if his sin, wherein he hath 
 sinned, come to his knowledge; he 
 shall bring his offering, a kid of the 
 goats, a male without blemish : 
 
 24 And he shall lay his hand upon 
 the head of the goat, and kill it in the 
 place where they kill the burnt ofl'ering 
 before the Lord : it is a sin offering. 
 
 25 And the priest shall take of the 
 blood of the sin offering with his 
 finger, and put it upon the horns of 
 the altar of burnt offering, and shall 
 pour out his blood at the bottom of 
 the altar of burnt offerino-. 
 
 O 
 
 26 And he shall burn all his fat 
 upon the altar, as the fat of the sacri- 
 fice of peace offerings : and the priest 
 shall make an atonement for him as 
 concerning his sin, and it shall be for- 
 given him. 
 
 27 ^ And if ^any one of the Tom- ^ , 
 
 mon people sin through ignorance, ^ Heb. 
 while he doeth somewhat against any 
 
 18 . the altar... in the tabernacle'] i.e. the 
 Altar of incense (cf. ‘t’. 7). 
 
 20. the bullock for a sin-offering] “The 
 bullock for the sin-olfering,” i.e. for his own 
 sin-offering, v. 3. 
 
 21. See on v. 12. 
 
 The Sin-offering for the Ruler. 
 
 22 — 26. 
 
 22. ruler] The Hebrew word denoted 
 either the head of a tribe (Num. i. 4 — 16), or 
 the head of a division of a tribe (see Num. 
 xxxiv. 18; cf. Josh. xxii. 30). It is variously- 
 rendered in our Bible by (Gen. xvii. 20,' 
 xxiii. 6; Num. i. 16, 44, vii. 2, 3, 10, 16, &c.), 
 by ruler (Ex. xvi. 22, xxii. 28, &c.), by cap- 
 tain (Num. ii. 3, 5, 7, &c.), by chief (Num. 
 iii. 24, 30, 32 ; 2 Chro. v. 2, &c.), hy governor 
 (2 Chro. i. 2). 
 
 through ignorance] See on n.'. 2. 
 
 23 . Or if his sin] Rather, And if his 
 sin. 
 
 come to his kno^vledge] i. e. when he has be- 
 come conscious of his sin. 
 
 a kid of the goats] Strictly, a shaggy buck 
 of the goats, that is, a shaggy h e-go at. Our 
 version seems to stand almost alone in ren- 
 dering the Heb. sdeer by kid. The word 
 literally means a rough shaggy goat, in dis- 
 tinction from a smooth-haired he-goat, "‘attud., 
 
 Gen. xxxi. 10, 12; Num. vii. 17, 23, 83, 
 &c. Sa'eer occurs Lev. ix. 3, xvi. 5, xxiii. 
 19; Num. vii. 16, &c. It is rendered densil., 
 Lev. xvii. 7, 2 Chro. xi. 15 ; satjr^ Isa. xiii. 21, 
 xxxiv. 14; rough goat., Dan. viii. 21; ard is 
 applied to Esau, Gen. xxvii. ii. Bochart sup- 
 posed sa'eer and 'attud to represent varieties 
 of breed, and this seems most probable, see 
 ‘2’. 28 ; but Knobel supposes the first to denote 
 an old goat with a beard, and the latter a 
 younger one. The sa'eer was the regular Sin- 
 offering at the yearly Festivals, Lev. xvi. 9, 15, 
 xxiii. 19; Num.xxviii.15, 22, 3o,xxix.5,i6, &c., 
 and at the consecration of the priests, Lev. ix. 
 3, 15, X. 16, while the 'attud appears to have 
 been generally offered for ’the other sacrifices, 
 Ps. 1 . 9, 13, Ixvi. 15; Isa. 1 . II, xxxiv. 6; 
 &c. Ezek. xxxix. 18, &c. 
 
 24 . <vjhere they kill the burnt-offering] On 
 the north side of the Altar. See on i. ii. 
 
 25 . the horns of the altar of burnt-offering] 
 See on -t;. 5. 
 
 The Sin-offering for one of the People. 
 
 27 . any one of the common people] Lite- 
 rally, any one of the people of the land. These 
 words are so rendered Lev. xx. 2, 4; 2 K. xi. 
 18, 19, xvi. 15. It was the ordinary designa- 
 tion of the people, as distinguished from the 
 priests and the rulers. 
 
LEVITICUS. IV. [v. 28-35. 
 
 of the commandments of the Lor.d 
 concerning things which ought not to 
 be done, and be guilty ; 
 
 '28 Or if his sin, which he hath 
 sinned, come to his knowledge : then 
 he shall bring his offering, a kid of the 
 goats, a female without blemish, for 
 his sin which he hath sinned. 
 
 29 And he shall lay his hand upon 
 the head of the sin offering, and slay 
 the sin offering in the place of the 
 burnt offering. 
 
 30 And the priest shall take of the 
 blood thereof with his finger, and put 
 it upon the horns of the altar of burnt 
 offering, and shall pour out all the 
 blood thereof at the bottom of the 
 altar. 
 
 ^chap. 3. 31 And ^he shall take away all the 
 
 fat thereof, as the fat is taken away 
 from off the sacrifice of peace offer- 
 ings ; and the priest shall burn it upon 
 ./Exod.29. the altar for a^sweet savour unto the 
 Lord ; and the priest shall make an 
 
 atonement for him, and it shall be for- 
 given him. 
 
 32 And if he bring a lamb for a 
 sin offering, he shall bring it a female 
 without blemish. 
 
 33 And he shall lay his hand upon 
 the head of the sin offering, and slay 
 it for a sin offering in the place where 
 they kill the burnt offering. 
 
 34 And the priest shall take of the 
 blood of the sin offerino- with his finp-er, 
 and put it upon the horns of the altar 
 of burnt offering, and shall pour out 
 all the blood thereof at the bottom of 
 the altar: 
 
 35 And he shall take away all the 
 fat thereof, as the fat of the lamb is 
 taken away from the sacrifice of the 
 peace offerings; and the priest shall 
 burn them upon the altar, according 
 to the offerings made by fire unto the 
 Lord : and the priest shall make an 
 atonement for his sin that he hath com- 
 mitted, and it shall be forgiven him. 
 
 28. Or if his shi] And if his sin. 
 
 a kid of the goats'] A shaggy she-goat. 
 The word is the feminine of ‘v. 23. 
 
 31 . for a s^jueet savour] See on i. 9. 
 
 32 . a lamb] Rather, a sheep; one be- 
 tween one and three years old. See on iii. 7. 
 Introd. §iv. Three points are to be observed 
 in regard to the victims for Sin-offerings. — The 
 common people had to offer a female, as the 
 less valuable animal ; they might present either 
 a sheep or a goat to suit their convenience, 
 
 while the rulers had always to offer a male- 
 goat ; and the goat was preferred to the sheep, 
 unlike the victim for a Peace-offering or a 
 Burnt-offering. 
 
 35 . according to the offerings made by fire] 
 Rather, upon the offerings made by fire. See 
 on iii. 5. 
 
 It should be observed, that the Sin-offerings 
 were not accompanied by Meat-offerings or 
 Drink-offerings. See Num. xv, 3 — 11. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. iv. 2. 
 
 Ox SIXXIXG ’THKOUGII IGXORAXCE. 
 
 This verse defines the kind of sin for which 
 Sin-offerings were accepted. In the abridged 
 rules f.ir c>in-offerings in Numbers xv. this 
 kind of sin is contrasted with that which cut 
 off the perpetrator from among his people (cf. 
 V. 2z with V. 30). 'Phe two classes are dis- 
 tinguislied in the language of our Bible as 
 sin through ignorance and presiunp! uous sin. 
 The distinction is clearly recognized Ps. xix. 
 12, 13 and ileb. x. 26, 27. It seems evident 
 that the classification thus indicated refers 
 immediately to the relation of the conscience 
 to God, not to outward penalties, nor, imme- 
 diately, to outward actions. 'I'he presump- 
 tuous sinner, literally he who sinned “with 
 
 a high hand,” might or might not have 
 committed such a crime as to incur punish- 
 ment from the civil law : it was enough 
 that he had with deliberate purpose, rebelled 
 against God (see Prov. ii, 13—15), and ipso 
 facto was “cut off from among his people” 
 and alienated from the divine covenant (see 
 on Ex. xxxi. 14; Lev. vii. 20; cf. Matt. xii. 
 31; I Joh. V. 16). But the other kind of 
 sin, that f()r which the Sin-offering was ap- 
 pointed, WHS of a more complicated nature. 
 It appears to have included the entire range of 
 “sins, negligences and ignorances” for which 
 we are accustomed to ask forgiveness. It is 
 what the Psalmist spoke of, “Who can un- 
 derstand his errors? Cleanse thou me from 
 secret faults.” When he examined his heart, 
 
V. I— 3-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. V. 
 
 523 
 
 he found his offences multiply to such extent 
 that he felt them to be beyond calculation, 
 and so prayed to be cleansed from those which 
 were concealed not only from others, but 
 from himself. It was not the outward form 
 of the offence which determined the class to 
 which it belonged. It might have been merely 
 an indulgence of sinful thought. Or, on the 
 other hand, it might have been a gross offence 
 in its external aspect (see v. i, 4, vi. 2, 3, 5); 
 but if it was not clearly premeditated as a sin, 
 if the offender now felt himself amenable to 
 Jehovah and recognized the Covenant, be- 
 coming thereby the more conscious of his sin, 
 he might bring the symbol of his repentance 
 to the Altar, and the priest was to make 
 atonement for him. 
 
 If we accept this view, the designation of 
 “sin through ignorance” cannot be the right 
 one. The Hebrew word rendered in our ver- 
 sion “ignorance” comes from a root which 
 signifies to err or go astray (see Ps. cxix. 67) 
 ( 3 JC^, shagag). The substantive is rendered 
 error, Eccles. v. 6, x. 5, and used with a pre- 
 position, as an adverb, unawares, Num. xxxv. 
 II, 15 ; Josh. XX. 3, 9 ; it seems strictly to de- 
 note inadvertence. It is true that the writer of 
 the Ep. to the Hebrews has dypo^fia in the 
 same sense (Heb. ix. 7). But dyvornia and 
 dyvoia are used in Hellenistic Greek not 
 
 merely to denote sins of ignorance but as 
 general words for ofl'ences. (LXX. Gen. xxvi. 
 10; 2 Chro. xxviii. 15; Lev. xxii. 14. See 
 Schl. ‘Lex. in LXX.’ Schweighseuser, ‘Lex. 
 Polyb.’) The rendering, through inadnjertence^ 
 would substantially agree with most of the 
 versions ancient and modern. The LXX. 
 have aKova-Lcos' the old Italic has imprudenter. 
 Our translators followed the Vulgate and 
 Onkelos. 
 
 It should however be observed that Sin- 
 offerings were required not only when the 
 conscience accused the offender of having 
 yielded to temptation, but sometimes for what 
 were breaches of the Law committed strictly 
 in ignorance (v. 17, iv. 14, 23, 28), and 
 sometimes on account of ceremonial pollu- 
 tion. They are thus to be regarded as protests 
 against everything which is opposed to the 
 holiness and purity of the divine Law. They 
 were, in short, to be offered by the worshipper 
 as a relief to the conscience whenever he felt 
 the need of atonement. 
 
 The notion of Ebrard (on Heb. 'v. i — 10), 
 and others, that the priest had to decide 
 whether each particular case which came be- 
 fore him was one for which a Sin-offering was 
 available, seems to be quite hostile to the idea 
 of the Mosaic ritual and to what we know of 
 the functions of the priesthood. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I He that sinneth in concealing his knowledge, 
 2 in totiching an unclean thmg, 4 or in 
 making an oath. 6 His trespass offering, of 
 the fiock, 7 of foivls, i\ or of flour. 14 The 
 trespass .offering in saci'ilege, 17 and in sins 
 of ig7iorance. 
 
 AND if a soul sin, and hear the 
 T~\. voice of swearing, and is a wit- 
 ness, whether he hath seen or known 
 of it; if he do not utter A, then he 
 shall bear his iniquity. 
 
 2 Or if a soul touch any unclean 
 thing, whether it be a carcase of an 
 unclean beast, or a carcase of unclean 
 cattle, or the carcase of unclean creep- 
 ing things, and if it be hidden from him j 
 he also shall be unclean, and guilty. 
 
 3 Or if he touch the uncleanness 
 of man, whatsoever uncleanness it he 
 that a man shall be defiled withal, and 
 it be hid from him ; when he knoweth 
 of it., then he shall be guilty. 
 
 Chap. V. i — 13] The subject of the Sin- 
 offering is continued in this chapter to -u. 14. 
 See on no-v. 6,* 7. Special occasions are men- 
 tioned on which Sin-offerings are to be made 
 with a particular confession of the offence for 
 which atonement is sought {pv. 5). These 
 Sin-offerings are thus brought into a class 
 clearly distinguished by this additional form 
 from those prescribed in the preceding chap- 
 ter. 
 
 1. hear the voice of svuearing^ Rather, 
 “ hear the voice of adjuration.” The case 
 appears to be that of one who has been put 
 upon his oath as a witness by a magistrate 
 and fails to utter all he has seen and heard 
 (cf. Prov. xxix. 24; Numb. v. 21 ; Matt. xxvi. 
 
 63). The fabrication of what is false in giving 
 evidence is not here mentioned (see Deut. xix. 
 16—19). 
 
 2 , 3. Cases of ceremonial uncleanness. — 
 If a person took immediate notice of his pol- 
 lution from either of these sources, simple 
 forms of purification were provided for him. 
 Lev. xi._ 24, 25, 28, 39, 40, XV. 5, 8, 21; 
 Num. xix. II, 22. But if the thing was 
 “hid from him,” either through forgetfulness 
 or indifference, so that purification had been 
 neglected, a Sin-offering was required. There 
 had of course in such a case been a guilty 
 negligence. But on the essential connection 
 between impurity and the Sin-offering, see 
 Note after ch. xv. 
 
524 
 
 LEVITICUS. V. 
 
 [v. 4—13- 
 
 4 Or if a soul swear, pronouncing 
 with his lips to do evil, or to do good, 
 whatsoever it be that a man shall pro- 
 nounce with an oath, and it be hid 
 from him ; when he knoweth of it^ 
 then he shall be guilty in one of these. 
 
 5 And it shall be, when he shall be 
 guilty in one of these things^ that he 
 shall confess that he hath sinned in 
 that thing: 
 
 6 And he shall bring his trespass 
 offering unto the Lord for his sin 
 which he hath sinned, a female from 
 the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats, 
 for a sin offering j and the priest shall 
 make an atonement for him concern- 
 ing his sin. 
 
 t Heb. n And if ^ he be not able to bring 
 
 a lamb, then he shall bring for his 
 7 kel!ffi- trespass, which he hath committed, 
 ciency of a turtledoves, ot two young pigeons, 
 
 unto the Lord ; one for a sin offering, 
 and the other for a burnt offering. 
 
 8 And he shall bring them unto the 
 priest, who shall offer that which is 
 -2 chap. I. for the sin offering first, and "wring 
 off his head from his neck, but shall 
 not divide it asunder: 
 
 4. The case of rash or forgotten oaths. — 
 
 pronouncing Rather idly speaking (Ps. 
 
 cvi. 3 L- The reference is to an oath to do 
 something littered in recklessness or passion 
 and forgotten as soon as uttered. 
 
 5. The confession of the particular offence 
 here spoken of appears to be no part of the 
 sacrificial ceremony. Cf. Num. v. 6, 7. It 
 is not therefore to be confounded with the 
 general prayer or confession which, according 
 to Jewish tradition, accompanied the imposition 
 of' hands on the head of the victim. See In- 
 trod. § V. 
 
 6. his trespass-offering] Rather, as kis 
 forfeit, that is, whatever is due for his 
 ollence. In its old wsQfforfeit seems to have 
 answered exactly to the Heb. asbani^ meaning 
 cither an offence, or the penalty for an offence. 
 Sec the quotations in Richardson’s I^fct. 1 he 
 word asbam is generally translated Trespass- 
 offering, and that rendering might have con- 
 veyed the sense here had not the term Trespass- 
 offering become the current designation for a 
 distinct kind of Sin-offering mentioned in the 
 next section (see on ni. 14). 
 
 a Iamb or a kid of the goats] a sheep 
 (iv. 32) or a shaggy shc-goat (iv. 23). 
 
 9 And he shall sprinkle of the blood 
 of the sin offering upon the side of 
 the altar; and the rest of the blood 
 shall be wrung out at the bottom of 
 the altar : it is a sin offering. 
 
 10 And he shall offer the second 
 for a burnt offering, according to the 
 
 ” manner : and the priest shall make " Or, 
 
 r 1 • r 1 • • 1 ' 1 ordinance. 
 
 an atonement for him for his sin which 
 he hath sinned, and it shall be forgiven 
 him. 
 
 11 But if he be not able to bring 
 two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, 
 then he that sinned shall bring for his 
 offering the tenth part of an ephah of 
 fine flour for a sin offering ; he shall 
 put no oil upon it, neither shall he 
 put any frankincense thereon: for it 
 is a sin offering. 
 
 12 Then shall he bring it to the 
 priest, and the priest shall take his 
 handful of it, ^ even a memorial thereof, ^ chap. 2. 
 and burn it on the altar, ^according to ?'chap. 4. 
 the offerings made by fire unto the 35 - 
 Lord : it is a sin offering. 
 
 13 And the priest shall make an 
 atonement for him as touching his sin 
 that he hath sinned in one of these, 
 
 7 — 10 . See i. 14 — t 6, xii. 8. In the larger 
 offerings of the ox and the sheep, tfie fat which 
 was burnt upon the Altar represented, like the 
 Burnt-offering, the dedication of the wor- 
 shipper ; in this case, the same meaning was 
 conveyed by one of the birds being treated as 
 a distinct Burnt-offering (See Introd. § xvi.). 
 According to Josephus (‘Ant.’ iii. 9. § 3) and 
 the Mishna (‘Zebach,’ vi. 4) the body of the 
 bird for the Sin-offering was eaten by the 
 priests, like the flesh of the larger Sin-offerings. 
 
 7. a lamb] one of the flock, either a 
 sheep or a goat. See Introd. § iv. 
 
 for bis trespass^ c^vhich he hath committed^] 
 as his forfeit for the sin he hath 
 committed. 
 
 11. tenth part of an ephah] i.e. “the tenth 
 deal probably less than half a gallon. See 
 on xix. 36. This Sin-offering of meal was 
 distinguished from the ordinary Minchah by 
 the absence of oil and frankincense. Gf. the 
 absence of the Meat- and Drink-offerings in 
 the animal Sin-offenngs. 
 
 12. according to the offerings made by fire] 
 Rather, upon" the Burnt-offerings. See 
 on Lev. iii. 5. 
 
V. 14—2.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. V. VI. 
 
 52 
 
 and it shall be forgiven him : and the 
 remnant shall be the priest’s, as a meat 
 offering. 
 
 14 ^1 And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 15 If a soul commit a trespass, and 
 sin through ignorance, in the holy 
 things of the Lord ; then he shall 
 bring for his trespass unto the Lord 
 a ram without blemish out of the 
 flocks, with thy estimation by shekels 
 of silver, after the shekel of the sanc- 
 tuary, for a trespass offering : 
 
 16 And he shall make amends for 
 the harm that he hath done in the 
 holy thing, and shall add the fifth part 
 thereto, and give it unto the priest : 
 and the priest shall make an atone- 
 ment for him with the ram of the 
 trespass offering, and it shall be for- 
 given him. 
 
 17 ^ And if a “^soul sin, and com- 
 mit any of these things which are for- 
 
 bidden to be done by the command- 
 ments of the Lord \ though he wist 
 it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear 
 his iniquity. 
 
 18 And he shall brino- a ram with- 
 
 O 
 
 out blemish out of the flock, with thy 
 estimation, for a trespass offering, unto 
 the priest : and the priest shall make 
 an atonement for him concerning his 
 ignorance wherein he erred and wist 
 it not, and it shall be forgiven him. 
 
 19 It /r a trespass offering : he hath 
 certainly trespassed against the Lord. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I The trespass offering for sins done wittingly. 
 8 The law of the burnt offerings 1 4 and of 
 the meat offering. 19 The offering at the 
 consecration of a priest. 24 The law of the 
 sin offering. 
 
 AN D the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 If a soul sin, and commit a 
 trespass against the Lord, and lie 
 
 The Trespass-offerings. 
 
 V. 14. — vi. 7. 
 
 14 . The Trespass-oiferings as they are 
 described in this section and in vii. i — 7, are 
 clearly distinguished from the ordinary Sin- 
 ofterings in these particulars: — 
 
 (1) They were offered on account of of- 
 fences which involved an injury to some per- 
 son (it might be the Lord Himself) in respect 
 to property. See no. 16, vi. 4, 5. 
 
 (2) They were always accompanied by a 
 pecuniary fine equal to the value of the injury 
 done, with the addition of one-fifth. It has 
 hence been proposed that they should be 
 called “Fine-offerings.” Cf. Num. v. 5 — 8. 
 
 (3) The treatment of the blood was more 
 simple. It was disposed of in the same way 
 as the blood of the Burnt-offerings and the 
 Peace-offerings, none of it being put on the 
 horns of the Altar. 
 
 (4) The victim was a ram, instead of a 
 female sheep or goat. 
 
 (5) There was no such graduation of offer- 
 ings to suit the rank or circumstances of the 
 worshipper as is set forth iv. 3 — 35, v. 7 — 13, 
 xii. 8, xiv. 21, 
 
 It appears from the treatment of the blood 
 that the Trespass-offering had less intimate 
 connection with the conscience than the Sin- 
 offering ; and, from the absence of any gra- 
 duation to suit the circumstances of the 
 sacrificer, that it was regarded with a strict 
 reference to the material injury inflicted. See 
 on iv. 3. 
 
 VoL. I. 
 
 15 . commit a trespass'] Rather, perpe- 
 trate a wrong. The word {pidal) is differ- 
 ent from that rendered trespass elsewhere in 
 these chapters {ashani). 
 
 through ignorance] through inadver- 
 tence. See Note on iv. 2. 
 
 in the holy things of the Lord] The refer- 
 ence is to a failure in the payment of first- 
 fruits, tithes or fees of any kind connected 
 with the public service of religion by which 
 the Sanctuary suffered loss; cf. Num. v. 6 — 8. 
 
 shekel of the sanctuary] See on Exod. 
 xxxviii. 24. 
 
 17 , 18 . It has been conjectured that the 
 Law of the Trespass-offering was first laid 
 down in regard to frauds on the Sanctuary. 
 It is here expanded so as to include all wrongs 
 which could be compensated for by money. 
 On the form of the law cf. iv. 2, 13, 27. 
 
 17 . these things] It should be “the things.” 
 
 though he ovist it not] Ignorance of the 
 
 Law, or even of the consequences of the act 
 at the time it was committed, was not to 
 excuse him from the obligation to offer the 
 sacrifice. 
 
 18 . his ignorance] his inadvertence. 
 
 Chap. VI. i. In the Hebrew Bible w. 
 1 — 7 form part of Ch. v. It is evident that 
 they ought to do so. See on 2;. 7. Our trans- 
 lators unfortunately adopted the division of 
 the LXX. Cf. on vii. i. 
 
 2 . commit a trespass against the Lord] 
 perpetrate a wrong against Jehovah. 
 
 L L 
 
LEVITICUS. VI. 
 
 [v. 3—10. 
 
 526 
 
 unto his neighboui in that whiph 
 vvas delivered hin? to keep, or "in 
 fellowship, or in a thing taken 
 ^way by violence, or hath deceived 
 his neighbour; 
 
 3 Or have found that which was 
 lost, and lieth concerning it, and 
 
 « Numb. « sweareth filsely ; in any of all these 
 ■ that a man doeth, sinning therein : 
 
 4 Then it shall be, because he 
 hath sinned, and is guilty, that he 
 shall restore that which he took vio- 
 lently away, or the thing which he 
 hath deceitfully gotten, or that which 
 was delivered him to keep, or the lost 
 thing which he found, 
 
 5 Or all that about which he hath 
 f> chap. 5. sworn falsely ; he shall even ^ restore 
 
 it in the principal, and shall add the 
 \he'day ^/th part more thereto, and give it 
 0/ his be- yj-jto him to whom it appertaineth, 
 guilty. II in the day or his trespass orrenng. 
 in tile day 6 Aiid lie shall bring his trespass 
 offering unto the Lord, a ram with- 
 
 out blemish out of the flock, with s* 
 thy estimation, for a trespass offering, 
 unto the priest : 
 
 7 And the priest shall make an 
 atonement for him before the Lord : 
 and it shall be forgiven him for any 
 thing of all that he hath done in tres- 
 passing therein. 
 
 8 And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 9 Command Aaron and his sons, 
 saying. This is the law of the burnt 
 offering : It is the burnt offering, 
 
 " because of the burning upon the 
 altar all night unto the morning, and ifig. 
 the fire of the altar shall be burning 
 
 in it. 
 
 10 And the priest shall put on his 
 linen garment, and his linen breeches 
 shall he put upon his flesh, and take 
 up the ashes which the fire hath 
 consumed with the burnt offering on 
 the altar, and he shall put them be- 
 side the altar. 
 
 See on V. i^. The law expressed in its most 
 compendious way in v. 17 is here carried 
 out into detail. The distinct heading, “And 
 the Lord spake” (--v. 1), may suggest that it 
 was written down somewhat later by way 
 of explanation, or comment on v. 17, and 
 inserted in its right place when the book of 
 Leviticus was put together. The connection 
 into which the offences named are here brought, 
 placed the mulct which the civil law would 
 have exacted (see Exod. xxii. 7—15, &c.) 
 in direct relation with sacrificial devotion to 
 Jehovah. 
 
 5. in the day of his trespass offering]^ The 
 re.stitution was thus to be associated with the 
 religious act by which the offender testified 
 his penitence. 
 
 7. 'Fhis is the proper conclusion of ch. v. 
 See on v. i. 
 
 'I'he confusion which prevailed amongst 
 the older critics regarding the distinction be- 
 tween the 'Trespass-offering and the ordinary 
 Sin-offering was without doubt connected 
 with the false division of the chapters in the 
 LXX. and other versions. It was imagined 
 that ch. V. I — I.; (which relates to the Sin- 
 offering) related to the Trespass-offering. 
 Neither Jewish traditions, nor the rendering 
 of the old versions, throw much light on the 
 subject. Josephus (‘ Ant.’ ni. 9. § 3), and 
 l^hilo (‘ de V'ict.’ xi.) conceive that the Sin- 
 offering was offered for open transgressions, 
 the 'Trespass-offering for what \\'as known 
 
 only to the conscience of the offender: this 
 view has been adopted by Reland and others. 
 Many have supposed, with some countenance 
 from the LXX., that the distinction was based 
 upon that between sins of omission and sins 
 of commission (Grotius, Michaelis, &c.). For 
 the best views of the old state of the contro- 
 versy, see Carpzov. “ App. Grit.” p. 707, Biihr, 
 ‘ Symbolik,’ ii. p. 400. 
 
 Instructions on the Offerings for 
 THE Priests, vi. 8 — vii. 21. 
 
 9 . Command Aaron and his sons^ The 
 Directions on sacrifices in previous chapters 
 were intended for the guidance and instruc- 
 tion of those who brought their gifts to the 
 Altar (see i. 2, iv. 2) ; those which follow 
 were for the guidance of the priests who 
 officiated at the Altar, 
 
 On the Burnt-oJJ'ering and the Meat-offering. 
 
 8—18. 
 
 9. It is the burnt offering., because of the 
 burning upon the altar., &c.] Rather, “This, 
 the Burnt-offering, shall he upon the 
 fire on the Altar all night unto the morn- 
 ing.” This refers to the continual Burnt-offer- 
 ing which represented its class. See Exod. 
 xxix. 38 — 46, with the notes. Introd. § xvi. 
 
 10 . linen garment., &:c.] See Ex. xxviii. 
 41 — 43 - 
 
 nvhich the fire hath consumed ^vith the burnt- 
 
V. II 22.] 
 
 lp:viticus. vi. 
 
 527 
 
 11 And he shall put ofF his gar- 
 ments, and put on other garments, 
 and cany forth the ashes without the 
 camp unto a clean place. 
 
 12 And the fire upon the altar 
 shall be burning in it ; it shall not be 
 put out : and the priest shall burn 
 wood on it every morning, and lay 
 the burnt offering in order upon it ; 
 and he shall burn thereon the fat of 
 the peace offerings. 
 
 13 The hre shall ever be burning 
 upon the altar ; it shall never go out. 
 
 'I' chap. 2. 14 ^ ^And this is the law of the 
 
 Nhimb. 15. meat offering : the sons of Aaron shall 
 offer it before the Lord, before the 
 altar. 
 
 15 And he shall take of it his 
 handful, of the flour of the meat 
 offering, and of the oil thereof, and 
 all the frankincense which is upon 
 the meat offering, and shall burn it 
 upon the altar for a sv/eet savour, 
 
 '■ chap. 2. even the memorial of it, unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 16 And the remainder thereof shall 
 Aaron and his sons eat : with un- 
 leavened bread shall it be eaten in the 
 holy place ; in the court of the taber- 
 
 nacle of the congregation they shall 
 eat it. 
 
 17 It shall not be baken with 
 leaven. I have given it unto them 
 for their portion of my offerings 
 made by fire ; it is most holy, as is 
 the sin offering, and as the trespass 
 offering. 
 
 18 All the males among the chil- 
 dren of Aaron shall eat of it. It 
 shall be a statute for ever in your 
 generations concerning the offerings. 
 
 of the Lord made by fire : every one-Z'Exod. 29 
 that toLicheth them shall be holy. 
 
 19 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 20 This is the offering of Aaron 
 and of his sons, which they shall offer 
 unto the Lord in the day when he 
 is anointed ; the tenth part of an 
 
 ^ ephah of fine flour for a meat offer- .^^E.xod. if, 
 ing perpetual, half of it in the morn- 
 ing, and half thereof at night. 
 
 21 In a pan it shall be made with 
 oil ; and when it is baken, thou shalt 
 bring it in : a?id the baken pieces of 
 the meat offering shalt thou offer for 
 a sweet savour unto the Lord. 
 
 22 And the priest of his sons that 
 
 offering'] Rather, to which the fire hath 
 consumed the Burnt-offering. 
 
 beside the altar] See on i. 16. 
 
 11 . clean place] See iv. 12. 
 
 12. burn thereon the fat] The verb is 
 different from that applied to the burning of 
 the wood. See i. 9. 
 
 13 . The fire shall ever be burning] This 
 was a symbol of the never-ceasing worship 
 which Jehovah required of His people. It 
 was essentially connected with their acts of 
 sacrifice, and was therefore clearly distin- 
 guished from the sacred fire of Vesta, that of 
 the Persians, and of other heathen peoples 
 with which it has often been compared. 
 
 14 — 18 . These directions might relate to 
 Minchahs in general. See ii. i — 10. But 
 some would refer them more especially to the 
 daily Minchahs mentioned Ex. xxix. 40, 41. 
 
 15 . Cf. ii. 2. 
 
 16 . voith unleavened bread it shall be eaten] 
 This should be, it shall be eaten unlea- 
 vened. 
 
 in the holy place] See Note after Ex. xxvi. 
 
 § V. 
 
 18 . All the males] See xxi. 22. 
 
 The High-Priest's Minch ah. 19 — 23. 
 
 20. in the day avhen he is anointed] See on 
 iv. 3. As this must refer to a rite in the 
 consecration of the High-priest, Aaron’s sons 
 here spoken of (as in v. 22) must be the 
 succession of High-priests who succeeded 
 him. See on Ex. xxviii. 4. The day of 
 this offering was probably the eighth day of 
 the ceremony of consecration (viii. 35, ix. i), 
 when the High-priest appears to have entered 
 upon the duties of his office. 
 
 a yneat offering perpetual] Jewish tradition 
 is in favour of these words implying that this 
 Minchah was offered by the High-priest as a 
 daily rite from the time of his conseci'ation 
 (Philo, ‘ de Viet.’ 15 ; Jos. ‘ Ant.’ ill. 10. § 7, 
 Ecclus. xlv. 14; Saadia, Mishna, ‘ Menach, ’ 
 IV. 5, xi. 3). This view is defended on pro- 
 bable grounds by Delitzsch (on Heb. vii. 27), 
 Kurtz and others. But some understand 
 the word perpetual to refer to the obseiwance 
 of the law at every time of consecration, and 
 suppose the ceremony to have been performed 
 but once by eacli High-priest. Knobel, Kiel, 
 Kalisch. 
 
 21. In a pan] Rather, Upon a flat plate. 
 See on ii. -. 
 
 L L 2 
 
528 
 
 is anointed in his stead shall offer it: 
 it is a statute for ever unto the Lord ; 
 it shall be wholly burnt. 
 
 23 For every meat offering for the 
 priest shall be wholly burnt: it shall 
 not be eaten. 
 
 24 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Mose^, saying, 
 
 25 Speak unto Aaron and to his 
 sons, saying. This is the law of the 
 sin offering: In the place where the 
 burnt offerinp; is killed shall the sin 
 offering be killed before the Lord : it 
 is most holy. 
 
 26 The priest that offereth it for sin 
 shall eat it : in the holy place shall it 
 be eaten, in the court of the taber- 
 nacle of the congregation. 
 
 27 Whatsoever shall touch the flesh 
 thereof shall be holy : and when there 
 is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon 
 any garment, thou shalt v/ash that 
 
 [v. 23—1. 
 
 'whereon it was sprinkled in the holy 
 place. 
 
 28 But the earthen vessel where- 
 in it is sodden ^ shall be broken : and ^ chap, 
 if it be sodden in a brasen pot, it 
 shall be both scoured, and rinsed in 
 water. 
 
 29 All the males among the priests 
 shall eat thereof: it is most holy. 
 
 30 ^ And no sin offering, whereof * Heb. 
 any of the blood is brought into the “ 
 tabernacle of the congregation to re- 
 concile withal in the holy place^ shall 
 
 be eaten : it shall be burnt in the fire. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I The law of the trespass offering, 1 1 and of 
 the peace offerings, it, whether it be for a 
 thanksgiving, 16 or a vow, or a freewill 
 offering. 22 The fat, 26 and the blood, are 
 forbidden. 28 The priests' portion in the 
 peace offerings. 
 
 L ikewise this is the law of the 
 trespass offering : it is most holy. 
 
 LEVITICUS. VI. VII. 
 
 22. it shall be av holly burnt] Literally, 
 it shall ascend in fire as a ^whole Burnt-offering. 
 The noun is kdleel. See Introd. § iii. 
 
 23 . it shall not be eaten] Cf. ‘z?. 30. No 
 sacrificer could eat of his own offering except 
 in the case of the Peace-offerings. See on iv. 1 2. 
 
 On the Sin-Offering. 24 — 30. 
 
 25 . Where the burnt offering is killed] See 
 on i. II. 
 
 it is most holy] On this phrase see ii. 3. 
 Much has been written on the grounds of the 
 peculiar sanctity of the flesh of the Sin-offer- 
 ing, as set forth in oj-v. 26 — 30. The key to 
 the subject must, it would seem, be found in 
 those words of Moses to the priests, in which 
 he tells them that God required them to eat 
 the flesh, in order that they might “ bear the 
 iniquity of the congregation, to make atone- 
 ment for them before the Lord” (Lev. x. 17). 
 The flesh of the victim, which represented 
 the sinner for whom atonement was now 
 made, was to be solemnly, and most exclu- 
 sively, appropriated by those who were 
 appointed to mediate between the sinner and 
 the Lord. The far-reaching symbolism of 
 the act met its perfect fulfilment in the One 
 Mediator who took our nature upon Himself 
 and was essentially “ victima sacerdotii sui, 
 et sacerdos suae victimas” (S. Paulinus). For 
 a fuller treatment of the subject, see Thom- 
 son, ‘ Hampton Lectures,’ Lect. in.; Heng- 
 stenberg, ‘Sacrifices of ffoly Scripture,’ p. 
 379; Kurt/, ‘Sacrificial Worship,’ .p. 239; 
 Hiihr, ‘Symbolik,’ Vol. i. p. 386. 
 
 28 . the earthen noesseT] Unglazed pottery 
 would absorb some of the juices of the meat; 
 cf. xi. 33, 35, where the case is of a vessel 
 polluted, not, as here, of one made holy. In 
 neither case could the vessel be put to any 
 other purpose. 
 
 30 . This refers to the Sin-offering for the 
 High-priest and the Congregation (iv. 5 — 7, 
 16 — 18) and the Sin-offering of the Day of 
 Atonement (xvi. 27). The priests were of 
 course participants in all these as sacrificers. 
 The law mentioned in the note on nj. 23 
 would therefore apply here. Cf. Heb. xiii. ii. 
 
 to reconcile nvithal] The same word is 
 generally rendered “ to make atonement 
 for.” 
 
 the holy place] This denotes here the outer 
 apartment of the Mishkan. See Ex. xxvi. 33; 
 note on Lev. x. 18. 
 
 Instructions for the Priests continued. 
 vii. I — 21. 
 
 Chap. VII. 1— 10. In the LXX. these 
 verses are part of Chap. vi. This is evidently 
 the better arrangement. Our Bible follows 
 the Hebrew here, and the LXX. in the com- 
 mencement of Chap. vi. (see on vi. i), in both 
 cases for the worse. 
 
 On the Trespass-offering, i — 7. 
 
 1. Likeojoisc] Rather, And, as in no. ii. 
 The law of the Trespass-offering is here 
 placed as co-ordinate with that of the Sin- 
 offering (vi. 25 — 30) and that of the Peace- 
 offerings (vii. II — 21). 
 
 it is most holy] Cf. no. 7, and see on vi. 25. 
 
V. 2 14 - 
 
 LEVITICUS. VII. 
 
 529 
 
 2 In the place where they kill the 
 burnt offering shall they kill the tres- 
 pass offering: and the blood thereof 
 shall he sprinkle round about upon 
 the altar. 
 
 3 And he shall offer of it all the 
 fat thereof; the rump, and the fat 
 that covereth the inwards, 
 
 4 And the two kidneys, and the 
 fat that is on them, which is by the 
 flanks, and the caul that is above 
 the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he 
 take away: 
 
 5 And the priest shall burn them 
 upon the altar for an offering made 
 by Are unto the Lord : it is a tres- 
 pass offering. 
 
 6 Every male among the priests 
 shall eat thereof: it shall be eaten in 
 the holy place : it is most holy. 
 
 7 As the sin offering L, so is the 
 trespass offering: there is one law for 
 them: the priest that maketh atone- 
 ment therewith shall have it. 
 
 8 And the priest that offereth any 
 man’s burnt offering, eve?i the priest 
 
 shall have to himself the skin of the 
 burnt offering which he hath offered. 
 
 9 And all the meat offering that 
 is baken in the oven, and all that 
 
 is dressed in the frvinp-pan, and " in " , 
 
 1 1111 1 > 1 r thefint 
 
 the pan, shall be the priest s that or- plate, or, 
 fereth it. 
 
 10 And every meat offering, min- 
 gled with oil, and dry, shall all the 
 sons of Aaron have, one as much as 
 another. 
 
 11 And this is the law of the sa- 
 crifice of peace offerings, which he 
 shall offer unto the Lord. 
 
 12 If he offer it for a thanksgiv- 
 ing, then he shall offer with the 
 sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened 
 cakes mingled with oil, and unlea- 
 vened wafers anointed with oil, and 
 cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour, 
 fried. 
 
 13 Besides the cakes, he shall offer 
 for his offering leavened bread with 
 the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his 
 peace offerings. 
 
 14 And of it he shall offer one out 
 
 2 — 7 . See on v. 14. In % “sprinkle” 
 should rather be cast. Introd. § vi. There 
 is no mention here of the placing the hands on 
 the head of the victim, but it is not likely (as 
 Knobel and others have conjectured) that that 
 rite was omitted. A^^e may infer that such 
 a point of difference between this and the Sin- 
 offering, had it existed, would have been ex- 
 pressly mentioned. — Cf. on i. 10. It is worthy 
 of remark that all the details regarding the 
 parts put on the Altar are repeated for each 
 kind of sacrifice, because the matter was one 
 of paramount importance. See Introd. § xvi. 
 
 On the Burnt-offer'mg and the Meat-offering. 
 
 8 — 10. 
 
 2) belonged to the priests. But the remains of 
 those that were baked or fried (see on ii. 4, 
 5, 7) belonged to the officiating priest, those 
 of the others to the priests in general. 
 
 On the Peace-offerings . 
 
 II — 21. 
 
 11 . On the mode of offering the victim, 
 see iii. i — 17. On the omission of the place 
 of slaughter, as compared with vi. 25, vii. 2, 
 see on iii. 2. — What is here added, relates to 
 the accompanying Minchah, the classification 
 of Peace-offerings into (i) Thank-offerings, 
 (2) Vow-offerings and (3) Voluntary-offer- 
 ings, and the conditions to be observed by 
 the worshipper in eating the flesh. The por- 
 tions for the priests ai'e mentioned in a dis- 
 tinct section, 'vnj. 28 — 36. Cf. with this sec- 
 tion xxii. 17 — 25. 
 
 12. for a thanks gi'ving'l That is, a Thank- 
 offering for mercies received. On the three 
 kinds of Minchah which formed parts of the 
 offering, see ii. 4 — ii, viii. 26. 
 
 13 . for his offering\ The leavened bread 
 was a distinct offering, not a part of the sacri- 
 fice for the Altar as the Minchahs were, of 
 which the azkdrdh was burned. See ii. 2, 
 9, II. 
 
 8. the skin of the burnt-offering~\ It is most 
 likely that the skins of the Sin-offering and the 
 Trespass-offering also fell to the lot of the 
 officiating priest. The point is probably 
 noticed in regard to the Burnt-offering alone, 
 because all the rest of the victim was con- 
 signed to the Altar. In accordance with this 
 view the Mishna says that the skins of the most 
 holy victims were all given to the priests, those 
 of the less holy (i. e. the Peace-offerings) were 
 retained by the sacrificer. (‘ Zebach,’ xii. 3). 
 
 9 , 10. All that was left of every sort of 
 Minchah after the offering of the azkdrdh (ii. 
 
530 
 
 LEVITICUS. VII. 
 
 [v. 15—24. 
 
 of the whole oblation for an heave 
 offering unto the Lord, and it shall 
 be the priest’s that sprinkleth the 
 blood of the peace offerings. 
 
 15 And the flesh of the sacrifice 
 of his peace offerings for thanksgiving 
 shall be eaten the same day that it is 
 offered; he shall not leave any of it 
 until the morning. 
 
 16 But if the sacrifice of his of- 
 fering be a vow, or a voluntary offer- 
 dug, it shall be eaten the same day 
 that he offereth his sacrifice : and on 
 the morrow also the remainder of it 
 shall be eaten : 
 
 17 But the remainder of the flesh 
 of the sacrifice on the third day shall 
 be burnt with fire. 
 
 18 And if any of the flesh of the 
 sacrifice of his peace offerings be 
 eaten at all on the third day, it shall 
 not be accepted, neither shall it be 
 imputed unto him that offereth it : it 
 shall be an abomination, and the 
 soul that eateth of it shall bear his 
 iniquity. 
 
 14 . out of the <whole oblation\ Rather, 
 out of each offering. That is, one loaf 
 or cake out of each kind of Meat-offering 
 was to be a heave-offering (Introd. § ix) for 
 the officiating priest. According to Jewish 
 tradition, there were to be ten cakes of each 
 kind of bread in every Thank-offering. The 
 other cakes were returned to the sacrificer. 
 In other Meat-offerings what was not put 
 upon the Altar belonged to the priests. See 
 •v'v. 9, 10, ii. 3, 10. 
 
 sprinkletli^ casteth forth. 
 
 16 . The Vow-offering appears to have 
 been a Peace-offering vowed upon a certain 
 condition; the Voluntary-offering, one offered 
 as the simple tribute of a devout heart rejoic- 
 ing in peace with God and man offered on 
 no external occasion (cf.xxii. 17— 25). Heng- 
 stenberg would identify the latter with the 
 'Phank-offering, and thus make but two classes 
 of Peace-offerings. But this seems to be at 
 variance with the distinction laid down in 
 'V'v. 15, 16. That distinction marks these 
 two kinds as inferior to, as well as distinct 
 from, the Thank-offering, which in xix. 5 — 8 
 is called the Peace-offering par excelletice. 
 
 18 , 19 . It was proper that the sacrificial 
 meat should not be polluted by any approach 
 to putrefaction. But Theodoret and many 
 later commentators have supposed that the 
 rule in regard to the Peace-offerings was in 
 
 19 And the flesh that toucheth 
 any unclean thing shall not be eaten ; 
 it shall be burnt with fire : and as for 
 the flesh, all that be clean shall eat 
 thereof. 
 
 20 But the soul that eateth of the 
 flesh of the sacrifice of peace offer- 
 ings, that pertain unto the Lord, 
 
 having his uncleanness upon him, ^ chap. rs. 
 even that soul shall be cut oft' from 
 his people. 
 
 21 Moreover the soul that shall 
 touch any unclean things as the un- 
 cleanness of man, or a?iy unclean beast, 
 or any abominable unclean things and 
 eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace 
 oft'erings, which pertain unto the Lord, 
 even that soul shall be cut off from his 
 people. 
 
 22 *^1 And the Lor.d spake unto 
 Adoses, saying, 
 
 23 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, saying, ^Ye shall eac no manner ^chap. 3. 
 of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat. 
 
 24 And the fat of the ^ beast that 
 dieth of itself, and the fat of that 
 
 part, at least, intended to exclude the ope- 
 ration of a mean-spirited economy. This 
 m.ay have furnished the ground for the dis- 
 tinction between the Thank-offerings and the 
 others. The most liberal distribution of the 
 meat of the offering, particularly amongst 
 the poor who were invited to partake, would 
 plainly be becoming when ■ the sacrifice was 
 intended especially to express gratitude for 
 mercies received. (Philo, Abarbanel, &c.) 
 
 21. unclean bea 5 t\ That is, carrion of any 
 kind. To touch an ass or a camel when 
 alive would not have communicated pollu- 
 tion. See Note after ch. xi. 
 
 shall be cut of] See on Ex. xxxi. 14. It 
 is here used as a stronger expression than 
 “shall bear his iniquity” (pu. 18), which is 
 equivalent to, shall incur guilt. 
 
 Instructions for the People, 22 — 38. 
 
 On the fat and the bloody 22 — 27. 
 
 23 . Speak unto the children of Israel] This 
 is emphatically addressed to the people. The 
 same command is succinctly given in iii. 17. 
 Cf. xvii. 10. The subject may be introduced 
 here as an especial caution for those who par- 
 took of the Peace-oflerings. They were not 
 to eat in their own meal what belonged to the 
 Altar of Jehovah, nor what was the perquisite 
 of the priests. See ‘v'v. 33 — 36. 
 
 fat] Heb. chele-v^ suet. Introd. § viii. 
 
 24 . Cf. xvii. 15, xxii. 8. 
 
V. 25—37-] 
 
 LEVITICUS, vir. 
 
 531 
 
 which is torn with beasts, may be used 
 in any other use : but ye shall in no 
 wise eat of it. 
 
 25 For whosoever eateth the fat of 
 the beast, of which men offer an offer- 
 ing made by fire unto the Lord, even 
 the soul that eateth it shall be cut off 
 from his people. 
 
 Gen. 9.4. 26 '^Moreover ye shall eat no man- 
 
 r blood, whether it be of fowl or 
 
 of beast, in any of your dwellings. 
 
 27 Whatsoever soul it be that eat- 
 eth any manner of blood, even that 
 soul shall be cut off from his people. 
 
 28 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 29 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, saying. He that offereth the sacri- 
 fice of his peace offerings unto the 
 Lord shall bring his oblation unto the 
 Lord of the sacrifice of his peace 
 oft'erings. 
 
 30 His own hands shall bring the 
 offerings of the Lord made by fire, 
 the fat with the breast, it shall he bring, 
 
 rfE-xod. that ^the breast may be waved for a 
 wave offering before the Lord. 
 
 31 And the priest shall burn the fat 
 upon the altar : but the breast shall be 
 Aaron’s and his sons’. 
 
 32 And the right shoulder shall ye 
 give unto the priest for an heave 
 offering of the sacrifices of your peace 
 offerings. 
 
 33 He among the sons of Aaron, 
 that offereth the blood of the peace 
 offerings, and the fat, shall have the 
 right shoulder for his part. 
 
 34 For the wave breast and the 
 heave shoulder have I taken of the 
 children of Israel from off the sacri- 
 fices of their peace offerings, and hav^ 
 given them unto Aaron the priest and 
 unto his sons by a statute for ever 
 from among the children of Israel. 
 
 35 ^ This is the portion of the an- 
 ointing of Aaron, and of the anointing 
 of his sons, out of the offerings of the 
 Lord made by fire, in the day when 
 he presented them to minister unto 
 the Lord in the priest’s office ; 
 
 36 Which the Lord commanded 
 to be given them of the children of 
 Israel, in the day that he anointed 
 them, b_y a statute for ever throughout 
 their generations. 
 
 37 This is the law of the burnt 
 offering, of the meat offering, and of 
 the sin offering, and of the trespass 
 offering, and of the consecrations, and 
 
 25 . This restriction included not merely 
 the sacrificial fat of the animals which were 
 actually brought to the Altar, but that of all 
 animals of the same kinds which were slain 
 for food, which were all to be offered before 
 the Lord in the court. See xvii. 6. But it 
 probably did not include the fat of animals 
 which were eaten but not sacrificed, such as the 
 roebuck and the hart. See on xi. 7. 
 
 26 . no manner of bloody The prohibition of 
 blood was more absolute and inclusive than 
 that of fat for obvious reasons. See on Lev. 
 xvii. 10. 
 
 On the Priests’’ portions of the Peace-offering. 
 
 28—34. 
 
 29 , 30 . He who brought a Peace-offering 
 was, with his own hands, to present the parts 
 destined for the Altar and for the priests. In 
 the Sin-offering the priest appears to have 
 taken a more active part: iv. 25, 26. Introd. xvi. 
 
 30 . a <iva^e-offering~\ See Introd. § ix. 
 
 32 . the right shoulder'] See Introd. § ix. 
 
 The shoulder which was heaved, was for the 
 officiating priest; the breast which was waved, 
 for the priests in general and their families; 
 
 •v. 31. Cf. X. 14, 15. In Deut. xviii. 3, 
 the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the maw 
 are mentioned as the due of the priest, but 
 not the breast. The Mishna (‘ Cholin,’ x. i) 
 explains this apparent discrepancy by referring 
 the law in Deuteronomy to animals slaughtered 
 for food in the court (Lev. xvii. 3, 4), that in 
 Leviticus to the sacrifices of the Altar. 
 
 Conclusion of the Lanv of the Offerings, 
 35—38. 
 
 35 , 36 . Whether this passage refers only 
 to the wave-breast and the heave-shoulder 
 (Knobel, Keil), or to all that belonged to the 
 priests of the sacrifices, is not very important. 
 The latter is the more probable. Cf. Num. 
 xviii. 8 — 10. 
 
 35 . the portion of the anointing] Rather, 
 the appointed share. So Syriac, Saadia, 
 and most modern critics. Our version follows 
 the LXX., Vulg., Onk. So also in Num. 
 xviii. 8. 
 
 37 , 38 . This is the formal conclusion of 
 the whole section, i — vii. 
 
 37 . of the consecrations] That is, of the 
 
532 
 
 LEVITICUS. VII. VIII. 
 
 [v. 38-5. 
 
 of the sacrifice of the peace offer- 
 ings ; 
 
 38 Which the Lord commanded 
 Moses in mount Sinai, in the day that 
 he commanded the children of Israel 
 to offer their oblations unto the Lord, 
 in the wilderness of Sinai. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I Moses consecrateih Aai'ou and his sons. 14 
 Their sin off'ering. 1 8 Their burnt offering. 
 ■22 The ram of consecrations. 31 The place 
 mid time of their consecration. 
 
 K 
 
 ND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying. 
 
 2 ^Take Aaron and his sons with-^Exod. 
 him, and the garments, and '^the an-fExodiy>. 
 ointing oil, and a bullock for the sin 
 offering, and two rams, and a basket 
 
 of unleavened bread ; 
 
 3 And gather thou all the congre- 
 gation together unto the door of the 
 tabernacle of the congregation. 
 
 4 And Moses did as the Lord 
 commanded him ; and the assembly 
 was gathered together unto the door 
 of the tabernacle of the congrega- 
 tion. 
 
 ^ And Moses said unto the cono-re- 
 
 -j t) 
 
 sacrifices which were to be offered in the Con- 
 secration of the priests. See Ex. xxix. 
 
 38 . rjoilderness of Sinaf\ Cf. Ex. xix. i, 
 Num. i. I sq., xxvi. 63, 64. 
 
 THE SERVICE OF THE SANCTUARY 
 
 INAUGURATED. Ch. Hii. ix. x. 
 
 • This is the only historical portion of the 
 Book of Leviticus, with the exception of the 
 short narrative of the execution of the blas- 
 phemer, xxiv. 10 — 23. The commandment to 
 appoint Aaron and his sons to the priesthood, 
 with directions for the preparation of the offi- 
 cial dresses and for the mode of consecration, 
 had been given in connection with the instruc- 
 tions respecting the construction and arrange- 
 ment of the Tabernacle and its furniture, 
 Ex. xxviii. I — 43, xxix. i — 37, xl. 9 — 16. But 
 the ceremonial could not be properly carried 
 out until the Law of the Offerings had been 
 laid down, as it was necessary that each kind 
 of sacrifice to be offered on the occasion should 
 be duly defined. 
 
 The Con.secration of the Priests and 
 OF THE Sanctuary and Altar. 
 viii. I — ^36. 
 
 2. a bullock. ..t^vo rams ...a basket\ The 
 definite article should be placed before each of 
 these words. The bullock -the two rams 
 — the basket of unleavened bread are thus 
 specifically mentioned in the Hebrew text 
 as the offerings for which directions are 
 given in ICx. xxix. i — 3. This shews the co- 
 herence of this part of I.eviticus with the 
 latter part of Exodus. The basket of unlea- 
 vened bread used on this occasion appears, 
 from T. 26 and Ex. xxix. 2, 3, 23, to have 
 contained three sorts of bread ; cakes or loaves 
 of the ordinal*)' unleavened bread ; cakes of 
 oiled bread, rather, oil bread, which appears 
 to have been kneadixl with oil (see Ex. xxix. 
 2, and note on Lev. ii. 4); and oiled wafers 
 (see on ii. 4, 6). Rabbinical tradidon says 
 there were six cakes of each sort. 
 
 3 . gather thou all the congr.gat'on together 
 
 unto the door of the ta^>ernacle of the congre-e;a- 
 tion] gather all the assembly together 
 towards the entrance of the Tent of 
 meeting [see Note on Ex. xl.§II]. The word 
 here rendered congregation is the same which is 
 rendered assembly in ‘l». 4. See on iv, 13. Keil 
 and others suppose that “all the congregation” 
 means the nation represented by its elders. But 
 it appears that the whole body of the people 
 were summoned on this occasion, though the 
 elders may probably have occupied the first 
 places. The elders are specially called together 
 in an unequivocal manner to receive directions 
 to provide the first sacrifices for the nation to 
 be offered by the newly consecrated priests 
 (ix. i), and the body of the people afterwards 
 assemble as they do here (ix. 5). — The spot 
 designated was the portion of the court in front 
 of the Tabernacle (see on i. 3). Towards 
 this space the people were commanded to as- 
 semble to witness the great national ceremony 
 of the Consecration of the priesthood, the 
 solemn setting apart of one of their families, 
 the members of which were henceforth to stand 
 as mediators between them and Jehovah in 
 carrying out the precepts of the ceremonial 
 law. Those who could do so, may have come 
 into the court, and a great number of others 
 may have occupied the heights which over- 
 looked the enclosure of the court. As the 
 series of ceremonies was repeated every day 
 during a week (t». 33), it is natural to sup- 
 pose that some of the people attended on one 
 day and some on another. 
 
 This is one of the passages which have pre- 
 sented a difficulty to the mind of a living 
 writer, who strangely imagines that the cere- 
 mony was “ to be performed inside the Taber- 
 nacle itself, and could only, therefore, be seen 
 by those standing at the door.” See on -t;. 33. 
 The number who could be thus favoured at 
 one time he calculates at not more than nine ! 
 On such ground he rejects the narrative as a 
 fiction. 
 
 4 . unto the door.^ &c.] towards the en- 
 trance. See the preceding note. 
 
r 
 
 V. 6—13.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. VIII. 
 
 533 
 
 <^Exod.29. gation, ‘^This is the thing which the 
 ^ Lord commanded to be done. 
 
 6 And Moses brought Aaron and 
 his sons, and washed them with water. 
 
 7 And he put upon him the coat, 
 and girded him with the girdle, and 
 clothed him with the robe, and put 
 the ephod upon him, and he girded 
 him with the curious girdle of the 
 
 ‘ ephod, and bound it unto him there- 
 with. 
 
 8 And he put the breastplate upon 
 rfExod. him: also he ^put in the breastplate 
 
 3 °' the Urim and the Thummim. 
 
 9 And he put the mitre upon his 
 head ; also upon the mitre, even upon 
 his forefront, did he put the golden 
 
 plate, the holy crown; as the Lord 
 ‘^commanded Moses. '^Exod. 23 . 
 
 10 And Moses took the anointing 
 oil, and anointed the tabernacle and all 
 that was therein, and sanctified them. 
 
 11 And he sprinkled thereof upon 
 the altar seven times, and anointed 
 the altar and all his vessels, both the 
 laver and his foot, to sanctify them. 
 
 12 And he poured of the anointing 
 
 oil upon Aaron’s head, and anointed PsaiA33. 
 him, to sanctify him. 
 
 13 And Moses brought Aaron’s 
 sons, and put coats upon them, and 
 girded them with girdles, and 
 bonnets upon them ; as the Lord ' 
 commanded Moses. 
 
 5 - This is the thing qvhich the Lord com- 
 manded to be doned] This refers to Ex, xxviii. 
 I — 43, xxix. I — 37, xl. 9 — 16. 
 
 The Cleansing.^ In-vesting and Anointing. 
 
 6—13. 
 
 6,. cashed them with <ivater~\ Moses caused 
 them to bathe entirely (cf. xvi. 4), not merely 
 to wash their hands and feet, as they were 
 to do in their daily ministrations. See Ex. 
 XXX. 19, This bathing, which the High- 
 priest had also to go through on the Day of 
 Atonement, was symbolical of the spiritual 
 cleansing required of all (2 Cor. vii. i), but 
 especially of those who had to draw near to 
 God to make reconciliation for the sins of the 
 people (Heb. vii. 26; Matt. iii. 15)- 
 
 7 — 9. On the parts of the High-priest’s 
 dress, with the breastplate and the Urim and 
 the Thummim, see notes on Exod. xxviii. 
 
 9. the holy crown\ The golden plate of 
 the mitre was so called as the distinctive badge 
 of the bligh-priest’s consecration. Seexxi. 12. 
 
 10 — 12.] Moses first anointed with the 
 holy oil the Tabernacle {mishkdn^ not ohel., see 
 Note on Ex. xxvi. § 1 .) and all that was therein, 
 that is, the Ark of the Covenant, the Table of 
 Shewbread, the Candlestick and the Golden 
 Altar, with all the articles that belonged to 
 them; he then sprinkled the Altar of Burnt- 
 offering with the oil seven times and anointed 
 it, with all its utensils, and the Laver with its 
 foot ; last of all, he poured some of the oil on 
 the head of Aaron, and conferred on him 
 “ the crown of the anointing oil of his God,” 
 Lev. xxi. 12. The oil is spoken of as running 
 down upon Aaron’s beard and his garments 
 to their skirts in Ps. cxxxiii. 2. 
 
 10 . On the holy anointing oil, see Ex. 
 XXX, 23—25. 
 
 11. sprinkled. . .the altar semen thnes~\ The 
 Altar of Burnt -offering was distinguished 
 by this sevenfold sprinkling with the holy oil. 
 Cf. xvi. 14, 19. The number of the Covenant 
 was thus brought into connection with those 
 acts of sacrifice by which the Covenant between 
 Jehovah and the worshipper was formally re- 
 newed and confirmed. 
 
 On the symbolical use of oil, see Note after 
 Chap. ii. As investing the priest with official 
 garments was a recognition before men of the 
 , official position of the person (see on Ex. 
 xxviii. 3), the anointing him with oil was an 
 acknowledgment that all fitness for his office, 
 all the powers with which he would rightly 
 fulfil its duties, must come from the Lord. 
 
 In the anointing of the Sanctuary with its 
 contents and' of the Altar with its utensils the 
 same idea evidently held its place. -As Aaron 
 was sanctified by the act, so were they sancti- 
 fied (‘t'-z;. 10, II, 12). The pouring the oil on 
 the head of Aaron stands in the narrative as 
 the culmination of the ceremony of anointing. 
 All the holy things had been made after the 
 heavenly patterns shewed to Moses in the 
 mount (Ex. xxv. 40, Heb. ix. 23), and each 
 of them was intended by divine wisdom to 
 convey a spiritual meaning to the mind of 
 man. They were means of grace to the de- 
 vout worshipper. 7 'he oil poured upon them 
 was a recognition of this fact, and at the same 
 time it m.ade them holy and set them apart 
 from all profane and ordinary uses. On kin- 
 dred grounds, though to express another idea, 
 the Altar was to be sanctified also by blood. 
 See on m. 15. — With the anointing of the holy 
 things of the Sanctuary may be compared the 
 anointing of memorial stones. Gen. xxviii. 18, 
 
 XXXV. 14. 
 
 13 . Aaron’’ s sons'] These were the com- 
 mon priests. On the articles of dress, see 
 Ex. xxviii. 40. Nothing is here, or in Ex. xxix. 
 
534 
 
 LEVITICUS. VIII. 
 
 [v. 14, 15. 
 
 ^ Exod. 
 
 14. ^And he brought the bullock 
 for the sin* offering: and Aaron and 
 his sons laid their hands upon the 
 head of the bullock for the sin offer- 
 ing. 
 
 1 5 And he slew zV; and Moses took 
 
 the blood, and put it upon the horns 
 of the altar round about with his 
 finger, and purified the altar, and 
 poured the blood at the bottom of the 
 altar, and sanctified it, to make recon- 
 ciliation upon it. 
 
 7 — 9, said of the anointing of the common 
 priests, though it is expressly commanded, 
 Ex. xxviii. 41, xl. 15, and is evidently implied 
 as a fact. Lev. vii. 36, x. 7, Num. iii. 3. 
 The simplest and best mode of explaining 
 this appears to be to regard as the only 
 anointing of the common priests the process 
 described in ‘v. 30, where it is said that Moses, 
 at a later period of the ceremony of Consecra- 
 tion, sprinkled them, as well as Aaron him- 
 self, with the holy oil mixed with the blood of 
 the Peace-olfering. Many however would 
 make a distinction between sprinkling with 
 oil and anointing, and are inclined to follow 
 the Jewish traditions, according to which the 
 common priests were anointed immediately 
 after their investiture, but the oil, instead of 
 being poured upon the head as in the case of 
 the High-priest, was only smeared on the fore- 
 head with the finger. Keil, Wordsworth, 
 Selden, ‘ de Succ. in Pontif.’ ii. 9; Reland, 
 
 ‘ Ant.’ ii. 5, 7 ; Carpzov. ‘ App, Grit.’ p. 67. 
 Some have held that the distinction lay in the 
 fact that while each succeeding High-priest 
 was anointed, the common priests were re- 
 garded as anointed once for all on this occa- 
 sion in the persons of the immediate sons of 
 Aaron. Outram, i. v. 7. — It is evidently as- 
 sumed that the High-priest had a distinct 
 anointing belonging peculiarly to his office in 
 his common designation in Leviticus (see on 
 Lev. iv. 3J. But it would seem that the 
 anointing of the common priests consisted 
 in some rite common to them and the High- 
 priest (Lx. xl. 15), and this can answer only 
 to the sprinkling mentioned in ’v. 30. The 
 same view seems to accord with a comparison 
 of the expression regarding the High-priest, 
 “ the crown of the anointing oil of his God is 
 upon him,” Lev. xxi. 12, with that regarding 
 the common priests, “the anointing oil of the 
 Lord is upon you,” Lev. x. 7. 
 
 The Sacrifices of Consecration. 
 
 14—36. 
 
 Moses as the mediator of the Covenant of 
 the Law (Gal. iii. 19, Heb. viii, 6) was called 
 to perform the priestly functions, in conse- 
 crating those on whom henceforth those func- 
 tions were to devolve, and in inaugurating 
 the legal order of sacrifices. In the same ca- 
 pacity he had performed the daily service of 
 the Sanctuary from the day of the setting up 
 of the 'Labcrnacle and the Altar. See on Lx. 
 xl. 23. The Sin-offering was now offered for 
 
 the first time. The succession in which the 
 sacrifices followed each other on this occa- 
 sion, first the Sin-offering, then the Burnt- 
 offering, and lastly the Peace-offering, has 
 its ground in the meaning of each sacrifice, 
 and became the established custom in later 
 ages. See Introd. § xvi. But there are several 
 points in which the mode of sacrificing the 
 Sin-offering and the Peace-offering here de- 
 scribed differed from the ordinary instruc- 
 tions of the Law. These differences were evi- 
 dently designed to adapt the sacrifices to their 
 special object as parts in the rite of Conse- 
 cration. 
 
 14 — 17 . Cf. the directions for the regular 
 Sin-offering of the High-priest, iv. 3 — 12. 
 
 15 . And he slenv ii] If we take this to 
 refer to Moses he took on himself one of 
 the duties generally performed by the sacri- 
 ficer, though Aaron and his sons had pressed 
 their hands upon the head of the victim. (See 
 Introd. § V., cf. on 19.) 
 
 15 — 17 . This Sin-offering was sacrificed 
 in the usual manner as regards the blood and 
 the fat. See iv. 25, 30, 34. But what was 
 peculiar in it was that the flesh was not eaten, 
 and though none of the blood was sprinkled 
 in the Tabernacle, or put on the horns of the 
 Altar of incense, as in the sacrifice of the 
 Sin-offerings for the High-priest and the nation, 
 the flesh was yet carried outside the camp to 
 be consumed, v. 17. This burning does not 
 therefore fall under the rule that “ the bodies 
 of those beasts whose blood is brought into 
 the Sanctuary by the High-priest for sin are 
 burned without the camp,” Heb. xiii. ii ; 
 cf. Lev. X. 18. The ground of this distinction 
 may be seen in the note on iv. 12. The flesh 
 of the Sin-oftering could not be eaten by any 
 but a legally consecrated priest (on vi. 25). 
 Moses therefore could not eat of it himself, 
 though he was, for the occasion, performing 
 the duties of a priest. Those whom he was 
 consecrating could not eat it, not only because 
 they were not yet duly installed, but because 
 the sacrifice was offered on their behalf, and 
 the body of the victim stood to them in the 
 same relation as that of the regular Sin- 
 offering afterwards stood to the High-priest. 
 
 15 . purified the altar ...sanctified it., to make 
 reconciiiation upon it] Atonement was thus 
 made fhr the Altar itself as well as for the 
 priests. 'Phe Altar had been sanctified by the 
 
V. iC — 24.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. VIII. 
 
 535 
 
 16 And he took all the fat that was 
 upon the inwards, and the caul above 
 the liver, and the two kidneys, and 
 their fat, and Moses burned it upon 
 the altar. 
 
 17 But the bullock, and his hide, 
 his flesh, and his dung, he burnt with 
 fire without the camp; as the Lord 
 
 h Exod. 29. commanded Moses. 
 
 18 ^ And he brought the ram for 
 the burnt offering : and Aaron and his 
 sons laid their hands upon the head 
 of the ram. 
 
 19 And he killed it\ and Moses 
 sprinkled the blood upon the altar 
 round about. 
 
 20 And he cut the ram into pieces ; 
 and Moses burnt the head, and the 
 pieces, and the fat. 
 
 21 And he washed the inwards and 
 the legs in water; and Moses burnt 
 
 the whole ram upon the altar : it was 
 a burnt sacrifice for a sweet savour, 
 and an offering made by fire unto the 
 Lord ; as the Lord commanded 
 Moses. 
 
 22 ^ And ^’he brought the other ^Exod. 2 > 
 ram, the ram of consecration : and 
 Aaron and his sons laid their hands 
 
 upon the head of the ram. 
 
 23 And he slew zV; and Moses took 
 of the blood of it, and put it upon the 
 tip of Aaron’s right ear, and upon the 
 thumb of his right hand, and upon 
 the great toe of his right foot. 
 
 24 And he brought Aaron’s sons, 
 and Moses put of the blood upon the 
 tip of their right 'ear, and upon the 
 thumbs of their right hands, and up- 
 on the great toes of their right feet : 
 and Moses sprinkled the blood upon 
 the altar round about. 
 
 anointing oil {y. it) like the priests who 
 were to officiate at it ; it was now, like them, 
 sanctified by blood. The anointing with oil 
 consecrated it for its special purpose in the 
 service of Jehovah, but it was now anointed 
 with blood as an acknowledgment of the 
 alienation of all nature, in itself, from God, 
 and the need of a reconciliation to Him of all 
 things by blood. Col. i. 20 ; Heb. ix. 21, 22. 
 See on Ex. xxviii. and on Lev. xvii. ii. 
 
 16 . See Introd. § viii. 
 
 17 . burnt ^ith fire ^vithout the camp\ See 
 on iv. 12. 
 
 18 — 21 . Atonement having . been made, 
 Aaron and his sons were now permitted, by 
 the laying on of their hands, to make them- 
 selves one (see Introd. §xiii.) with the victim, 
 which was to be sent up to Jehovah as “a 
 burnt sacrifice for a sweet savour, an offering 
 made by fire unto the Lord.” There was no 
 peculiarity in the m.ode of offering this sacri- 
 fice. All was done strictly according to the 
 ritual (i, 3 — 9), except that Moses performed 
 the duties of the priest. 
 
 19. And he killed it\ And it was slain. 
 See Introd. § v. So in 23. 
 
 sprinkled^ &c.] Rather, east upon the 
 Altar. See Introd. § vi. 
 
 21. legs'] See on i. 9. 
 
 burnt] See on i. 9. 
 
 22 the ram of consecration] The sacri- 
 fice of this ram was by far the most peculiar 
 part of the whole ceremony. There was 
 something marked in the fact of the victim 
 being a ram. An ordinary Peace-offering 
 
 might be either male or female, from the herd 
 or from the flock, iii. i, 6. But a ram was 
 enjoined in this case, as it was also in the 
 Peace-offerings for the nation, ix. 4, cp. -u. 8 ; 
 for the princes of the tribes, Num. vii. 17, and 
 for the Nazarite, Num. vi. 14, 17. It is here 
 called “the other ram,” as being the second of 
 the two rams mentioned in t;. 2. The words 
 rightly translated the “ram of consecration” 
 may be literally rendered the ram of the fillings^ 
 and the name has been supposed to have refer- 
 ence to the ceremony in which Moses fills 
 the hands of the priests; see ‘i;. 27. Luther 
 calls it the ram of the fill-offering {Fiillopfer'). 
 But the LXX. has d Kpws rrjs reAeicdcreo)?, the 
 old Italic, aries perfectionis ^ and St Augustin, 
 sacrificium consummationis. The renderings of 
 the Targums, the Syriac, and Saadia all mean 
 “the ram of completion.” The offering was in 
 the highest sense the sacrifice of completion or 
 fulfilling^ as being the central point of the con- 
 secrating rite. The final perfection of the 
 creature is Consecration to the Lord. With 
 the TeXeLocxTLs of the LXX. in this connection 
 may be compared the use which the writer of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews makes of the 
 derivatives of riXos- ii. 10, v. 9, vii. 28, x. 14, 
 xii. 23. 
 
 23, 24. Before casting forth the blood 
 round the Altar in the usual manner, Moses 
 took a portion of the blood and put some of 
 it on the right extremities of each of the 
 priests. This, being performed with the 
 blood of the Peace-offering, has been sup- 
 posed to figure the readiness of the priest 
 who is at peace with Jehovah to hear with 
 the ear and obey the divine word, to perform 
 
536 
 
 LEVITICUS. VIII. 
 
 [V. 25—32. 
 
 25 And he took the fat, and the 
 rump, and all the fat that was upon 
 the inwards, and the caul above the 
 liver, and the two kidneys, and their 
 fat, and the right shoulder: 
 
 26 And out of the basket of un- 
 leavened bread, that was before the 
 Lord, he took one unleavened cake, 
 and a cake of oiled bread, and one 
 wafer, and put the?n on the fat, and 
 upon the right shoulder : 
 
 Exod.^ 27 And he put all ^^upon Aaron’s 
 ^ ■ hands, and upon his sons’ hands, and 
 waved for a wave offering before 
 the Lord. 
 
 28 And Moses took them from off 
 their hands, and burnt them on the 
 altar upon the burnt offering: they 
 were consecrations for a sweet savour : 
 it is an offering made by hre unto 
 the Lord. 
 
 29 And Moses took the breast, and 
 v/aved it for a wave offering before 
 
 the Lord : for of the ram of con- 
 secration it was Moses’ ^part ; as the ^ Exod. 29. 
 Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 30 And Moses took of the anoint- 
 ing oil, and of the blood which was 
 upon the altar, and sprinkled it upon 
 Aaron, and upon his garments, and 
 upon his sons, and upon his sons’ 
 garments with him; and sanctified 
 Aaron, and his garments, and his 
 sons, and his sons’ garments with 
 him. 
 
 31 ^ And Moses said unto Aaron 
 and to his sons. Boil the flesh at the 
 door of the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation : and there =''^eat it with the Exod. 
 bread that is in the basket of con- 
 secrations, as I commanded, saying, 
 
 Aaron and his sons shall eat it. 
 
 32 And that which remaineth of 
 the flesh and of the bread shall ye 
 burn with fire. 
 
 33 And ye shall not go out of the 
 
 with the hand the sacred duties of his office, 
 and to walk with the feet in the way of holi- 
 ness. Had the ceremony been, as some have 
 supposed, a symbolical cleansing of the natural 
 powers of the priest, it seems more likely 
 that it would have been performed with the 
 blood of the Sin-offering than with that 
 of the Peace-offering. (See Introd. § xv.). In 
 the case of the cured Leper the same parts 
 were touched with the blood of the Trespass- 
 offering. See Lev. xiv. 14 — 17. 
 
 25 — 28 . In the rite of filling the hands 
 of the priests, Moses took the portions of 
 the victim w’hich usually belonged to the 
 Altar, with the right shoulder (or leg; see 
 Introd. § ix.), placed upon them one cake of 
 each of the three kinds of unleavened bread 
 contained in the basket (see on ‘v. 2), and then 
 put the whole first upon the hands of Aaron 
 and in succession upon the hands of his sons, 
 in each case, according to Jewish tradition, 
 putting his own hands under the hands of the 
 jiriest, moving them backwards and forw'ards, 
 so as to wave the mass to and fro. See In- 
 trod. § ix. He then offered them on the 
 Altar as a Burnt-offering. 
 
 In this remarkable ceremony the gifts of the 
 people appear to have been made over to the 
 priests, as if in trust, for the senice of the 
 Altar. 'Pile articles were presented to Jeho- 
 vah and solemnly waved in the hands of the 
 l)ric*sts, but not by their own act and deed. 
 'I'he mediator of the Law, wlio \vas expressly 
 
 commissioned on this occasion, w^as the agent 
 in the process. 
 
 25 . the rump\ TI18 fat-ta.il. See on 
 iii. 9. 
 
 26 . unlea’vened cake^ liCC.] See on ‘v. 2. 
 
 29 . The heave-shoulder w^as the ordinary 
 perquisite of the officiating priest (Introd. 
 § ix.), but the wvave-breast appears to have 
 been awarded to Moses as the servant of 
 Jehovah now especially appointed for the 
 priestly service. 
 
 30 . In the instructions for the ceremony 
 of Consecration in Exod. xxix. the sprinkling 
 with the mingled blood and oil is mentioned 
 immediately after the casting forth of the 
 blood of the Peace-offering upon the Altar, 
 See Exod. xxix. 21. But in its practical order 
 the ceremony of Consecration was concluded 
 with this ceremony. Whether it was the 
 only anointing performed on the common 
 priests or not, see on t*. 13. The sprinkling 
 was on their garments as well as their persons, 
 because it belonged to them in reference to 
 the office with which they had been fonnally 
 invested by putting on the garments, (See 
 on Exod. xxviii. 3.) The union of the two 
 symbols of the atoning blood and the inspiring 
 unction appears to be a lit conclusion of the 
 entire rite. 
 
 31 . 32 . The prohibitions that none but 
 the priests must eat of the flesh (Exod. xxix. 
 33), and that none but unleavened bread should 
 
V. 33 — 6 -] 
 
 LEVITICUS. VIIL IX. 
 
 537 
 
 « Exod. 
 29 - 35 - 
 
 door of the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation in seven days, until the days 
 of your consecration be at an end : 
 for "seven days shall he consecrate 
 you. 
 
 34 As he hath done this day, so 
 the Lord hath commanded to do, to 
 make an atonement for you. 
 
 35 Therefore shall ye abide at the 
 door of the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation day and night seven days, and 
 keep the charge of the Lord, that ye 
 die not : for so I am commanded. 
 
 36 So Aaron and his sons did all 
 things which the Lord commanded 
 by the hand of Moses. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I The first offerings ofi Aaron, for himselfi and 
 the people. 8 The sin offering, 12 and the 
 Inirnt offering for himself. 1 5 The offerings 
 for the people. ?3 lldoses and Aaron bless the 
 people. 24 Fire comet h from the Loi'd, ttpon 
 the altar. 
 
 AND it came to pass on the eighth 
 XX day, that Moses called Aaron 
 and his sons, and the elders of Israel ; 
 
 2 And he said unto Aaron, ^Take^Exod. 
 thee a young calf for a sin offering, 
 
 and a ram for a burnt offering, with- 
 out blemish, and offer them before the 
 Lord. 
 
 3 And unto the children of Israel 
 thou shalt speak, saying. Take ye a 
 kid of the goats for a sin offering; 
 and a calf and a lamb, both of the first 
 year, without blemish, for a burnt 
 offering ; 
 
 4 Also a bullock and a ram for 
 peace offerings, to sacrifice before the 
 Lord ; and a meat offering mingled 
 with oil : for to day the Lord will 
 appear unto you. 
 
 5 ^ And they brought that which 
 Moses commanded before the taber- 
 nacle of the congregation ; and all the 
 congregation drew near and stood be- 
 fore the Lord. 
 
 6 And Moses said. This is the thing 
 which the Lord commanded that ye 
 should do : and the glory of the Lord 
 shall appear unto you. 
 
 be eaten with it, distinguished this from an 
 ordinary sacrificial meal on the flesh of a 
 Peace-offering, of which any invited guest 
 might partake, and in which ordinary leaven- 
 ed bread might be eaten. See vii. 13. 
 
 33 — 36 . The rites of Consecration were 
 to last a whole week, and thus, like the longer 
 of the annual festivals, were connected in an 
 emphatic manner with the sabbatical number 
 of the Covenant. During this period the 
 priests were not to leave the holy precinct for 
 the sake of any worldly business, and the whole 
 series of ceremonies, including the sacrifice 
 of the Ram of Consecration, was to be gone 
 through on each day. Cf. Ex. xxix. 35, 36, 37. 
 
 33. ye shall not go out of the door of the 
 tabernacle'] Rather, ye shall not g.o away 
 from the entrance of the Tent. With 
 this agree Cranmer, the Geneva Bible, &c. 
 The meaning is evidently that they were not 
 to go out of the court, as is more clearly ex- 
 pressed in 2 ). 35. The authorized version ap- 
 pears to have misled a recent writer (to vrhom 
 reference has already been made) into the 
 notion that the consecration was “ performed 
 inside the Tabernacle itself.” See on -v. 3. 
 
 shall he consecrate you, &c.] Rather, shall 
 ye he consecrated. So Vulg,, Syriac, Sa- 
 adia, &c. On the original idiom, see on Ex. 
 xxxvii. I. Cf. 00 . 19. On the word consecrate, 
 see on 00. %%. 
 
 35 . at the door of the tabernacle] See on 
 
 that ye die not] See on Exod. xxviii. 35. 
 Chap. IX. 
 
 The Priests enter upon their Office. 
 ix. I — 24. 
 
 1 — 6. on the eighth day] That is, on the 
 first day after the week of Consecration. 
 
 2. a young calf] Literally, a calf the son 
 of a bull. See on i. 5. The meaning is not 
 “a young calf,” but a hull calf which might 
 have been what we should call a yearling ox. 
 
 3 . a kid of the goats] a shaggy he- 
 goat. See on iv. 23. 
 
 both of the first year] Literally, sons of a 
 year. See on xii. 6. This is the only in- 
 stance in which the age of a calfis prescribed. 
 The age of sheep and goats for sacrifice is 
 very commonly stated.. Exod. xxix. 38 ; Lev. 
 xii. 6; Num. xxviii. 3, 9, n, &c. Introd. § 
 iv. The clear distinction between the words 
 fgel^calf and par — ox, may sufficiently ac- 
 count for this difference in usage. 
 
 4. mingled ovith oil] Rather, with oil 
 poured over it. The offering was of the 
 sort described ii. i, consisting of fine hour 
 with oil and frankincense. 
 
 6. the glory of the Lord] Cf. Exod. xvi. 7. 
 See no. 23. 
 
538 
 
 LEVITICUS. IX. 
 
 [v. 7—15. 
 
 y 
 
 7 And Moses said unto Aaron, Go 
 unto the altar, and offer thy sin offer- 
 ing, and thy burnt offering, and make 
 an atonement for thyself, and for the 
 people : and offer the offering of the 
 people, and make an atonement for 
 them; as the Lord commanded. 
 
 8 ^ Aaron therefore went unto the 
 altar, and slew the calf of the sin of- 
 fering, which was for himself. 
 
 9 And the sons of Aaron brought 
 the blood unto him : and he dipped 
 his finger in the blood, and put it upon 
 the horns of the altar, and poured 
 out the blood at the bottom of the 
 altar : 
 
 10 But the fat, and the kidneys, 
 and the caul above the liver of the sin 
 
 offering, he burnt upon the altar; as 
 the Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 1 1 And the flesh and the hide he 
 burnt with fire without the camp. 
 
 12 And he slew the burnt offering ; 
 and Aaron’s sons presented unto him 
 the blood, which he sprinkled round 
 about upon the altar. 
 
 13 And they presented the burnt 
 offering unto him, with the pieces 
 thereof, and the head : and he burnt 
 them upon the altar. 
 
 14 And he did wash the inv/ards 
 and the legs, and burnt them upon the 
 burnt offering on the altar. 
 
 15 And he brought the people’s 
 offering, and took the goat, which was 
 the sin offering for the people, and 
 
 Aaron offers sacrifice for himself. 
 
 7—14. 
 
 Moses now commands Aaron first to offer 
 the sacrifices for himself and then those for the 
 people. It is to be remarked that Aaron offers 
 no Peace-offering for himself. The Sin-offer- 
 ing and the Burnt-offering have a more strict 
 connexion with the person of the sacrifice!' : 
 the Peace-offering, with its sacrificial feast, 
 connects him as a reconciled believer v/ith his 
 brethren as well as wirh Jehovah. It appears 
 therefore to have been enough that he should 
 participate in the Peace-offerings of the Con- 
 secration, viii. 31, and in the two Peace-offer- 
 ings about to be sacrificed for the people. 
 
 Aaron's Sin-offering being a calf was of 
 inferior dignity to the Sin-offering of the Con- 
 secration ceremony, which was a bullock (viii. 
 14), and to that which the High-priest was 
 commanded on subsequent occasions to offer 
 for his own sins (iv, 3). This offering was 
 probably regarded not so much as a .sacrifice 
 for his own actual sins as a typical acknow- 
 ledgment of his sinful nature and of his future 
 duty to offer for his own sins and those of the 
 people. Heb. v. 3, vii. 27, That this offer- 
 ing and the Burnt-offering had some such 
 broad and official signification as this, seems 
 to be shewn in the words of Moses in v. 7, 
 “offer thy Sin-offering, and thy Burnt-offer- 
 ing, and make an atonement for thyself and 
 for the people: and offer the offering for the 
 people, and make an atonement for them.” 
 'J'he Septuagint has “make an atonement for 
 thyself and thy house,” (Trfpl acavTov kcu tov 
 oi.Kov (ToC), but the meaning of the Hebrew 
 text is plainly in accordance with our own 
 version. It was a striking acknowledgment 
 of the true character of the Levitical Priest- 
 hood, that the very first official act of the 
 anointed priest should be to offer a sacrifice 
 
 for his own sinful nature. “The law maketh 
 men High-priests which have infirmity ; but 
 the word of the oath, which was since the law, 
 maketh the Son, who is consecrated (in the 
 margin, perfected., see on viii. 22) for ever- 
 more.” Heb. vii. 28. 
 
 9. Aaron did not take the blood into the 
 Tabernacle according to the ordinary Law of 
 the Sin-offerings for the High-priest and for 
 the people (iy. 5, 6, 7, 16, 17, 18), but he put 
 some of it upon the horns of the brazen Altar, . 
 as in the sacrifice of the other Sin-offerings 
 (iv. 25, 30, 34), and as Moses had done in the 
 Sin-offering of the Consecration ceremony, 
 viii. 15, The probable reason of this was 
 that he had not yet been formally introduced 
 as the High-priest into the Holy Place of the 
 Tabernacle. See on 23. 
 
 brought the b!ood~\ They most likely held 
 the basons in which the blood was received as 
 it ran from the victim, and then handed them 
 to their father. Introd, § v. 
 
 11. See iv. ii, 12. 
 
 12 — 14 . In offering his Burnt-sacrifice, 
 Aaron and his sons took the same respective 
 parts as they had done in the Sin-offering, ob- 
 serving the Law in all particulars, i. 3 — 9. 
 
 12. sprinklecV^ rather cast, Introd. § vi. 
 
 13 . <zuith the pieces thereof ~\ Rather, piece 
 by piece, literally, according to its pieces. 
 
 No Meat-offering is said to have been 
 offered with Aaron’s own Burnt-offering. 
 The xMeat-offering may however have been 
 made as a thing of course without being men- 
 tioned, or possibly the law of Num. xv. 3, 4, 
 may not yet have been in full force. 
 
 Aaron offers the sacrifices for the People. 
 
 23. 
 
 In this first complete series of offerings 
 made by the High-priest, the sacrifices take 
 
LEVITICUS. IX. 
 
 539 
 
 V. 1 6 — 24.] 
 
 slew it, and offered it for sin, as the 
 first. 
 
 1 6 And he brought the burnt offering, 
 " Or, and offered it according to the "manner. 
 ordinance. bi'ought the meat offer- 
 
 t Heb. ing, and ^ took an handful thereof, and 
 handout burnt it upon the altar, ^beside the 
 fExod.29. burnt sacrifice of the morning. 
 
 3^- 18 He slev/ also the bullock and 
 
 the ram for a sacrifice of peace offer- 
 ings, which was for the people : and 
 Aaron’s sons presented unto him the 
 blood, which he sprinkled upon the 
 altar round about, 
 
 19 And the fat of the bullock and 
 of the ram, the rump, and that which 
 covereth the inwards^ and the kidneys, 
 and the caul above the liver: 
 
 20 And they put the fat upon the 
 breasts, and he burnt the fat upon the 
 altar : 
 
 21 And the breasts and the right 
 shoulder Aaron waved for a wave 
 offering before the Lord ; as Moses 
 commanded. 
 
 22 And Aaron lifted up his hand 
 toward the people, and blessed them, 
 and came down from offering of the 
 sin offering, and the burnt offering, 
 and peace offerings. 
 
 23 And Moses and Aaron went 
 into the tabernacle of the congrega- 
 tion, and came out, and blessed the 
 people : and the glory of the Lord 
 appeared unto all the people. 
 
 24 And ^ there came a fire out 
 
 . from before the Lord, and consumed 38^^^ 
 upon the altar the burnt offering and 
 the fat : which when all the people 
 saw, they shouted, and fell on their 
 faces. 
 
 their appointed order; first, the Sin-Offer- 
 ing to make atonement, the Burnt-offering, 
 to signify the surrender of the body, soul 
 and spirit to Jehovah in heaven ; and lastly 
 the Peace-offering, to show forth the com- 
 munion vouchsafed to those who are justified 
 and sanctified. Introd. § xvi. 
 
 15 . the sin offering for the people~\ In the 
 regular Sin-offering for the people the High- 
 priest offered also for his own sins as the head 
 of the nation, and hence he was not allowed 
 to eat of the flesh, which was burned without 
 the camp (iv. 21). But on this occasion, as 
 the priests had already offered a Sin-offering 
 for themselves, the sacrifice was exclusively for 
 the people, and the ordinary law should have 
 taken effect, that they should eat the appointed 
 portions of the victim (vi. 26). In conse- 
 quence of their failing to do this, they were 
 rebuked by Moses. (See x. 16 — 18.) 
 
 as the first\ That is, as his own Sin-offering. 
 
 16 . according to the manner~\ Rather as 
 in the margin. He offered the Burnt-offering 
 of the yearling calf and lamb, observing the 
 Law in ch. i. 
 
 17 . the meat-offering\ See ii. i , 2 ; vi. 1 4 — 1 6. 
 
 burnt sacrifice of the 7 norning\ See Ex. 
 
 xxix. 39; also. Lev. iii. 5. 
 
 18 . sprinkled\ cast, Introd. § vi. 
 
 20. the breasts'] i.e. the briskets of the 
 bullock and the ram, vii. 30 ; Introd. § ix. 
 
 21 . right shoulder] On the ceremony of 
 waving, see Introd. § ix. 
 
 Nothing is said of the Meat-offering. See 
 on 2). 13. 
 
 22 . Aaron having completed the offerings, 
 before he came down from the stage sur- 
 rounding the Altar on which the priests used 
 to stand to officiate (see on Exod. xxvii. 8), 
 turns toward the people, and blesses them ; 
 probably using the form which became the 
 established one for the priests (Num. vi. 
 24 — 26), and which is still maintained in the 
 synagogues (Stanley, Jewish Churchy il. p. 
 4 ^ 9 )- 
 
 Aaron is inducted into the Tabernacle, 
 ix. 23—24. 4 
 
 23 . Aaron, having now gone through the 
 cycle of priestly duties connected with the 
 Brazen Altar, accompanies Moses into the 
 Tent of Meeting. It was reasonable that 
 Moses, as the divinely appointed leader of the 
 nation, should induct Aaron into the Taber- 
 nacle. 
 
 blessed the people] This joint blessing of the 
 mediator of the Law and the High-priest was 
 the solemn conclusion of the Consecration and 
 Inauguration. (Cf. Solomon’s blessing the 
 people, 2 Chron. vi. 3 — 12.) According to one 
 tradition the form used by Moses and Aaron 
 resembled Ps. xc. 17. But another form is 
 given in the Targum of Palestine, “ May 
 your offerings be accepted, and may the Lord 
 dwell among you and forgive you your sins.” 
 
 23 — 24 . the glory of the Lord appeared... 
 there came a fire out from before the Lord] 
 Cf. Exod. xvi. 10, xl. 34 ; Num xiv. 10, xvi. 
 19, XX. 6; 2 Chron. vii. i, &c. St Augus- 
 tine characteristically says, “ Quid dixerit, 
 a Domino., quasri potest, utrum quia nutu 
 et voluntate Domini factum est, an ab eo loco 
 ignis exiit ubi erat area testimonii. Non 
 
540 
 
 LEVITICUS. X. 
 
 [v. I, 2. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1 Nadab and Abihii, for offering of strange 
 fre, ai'e burnt by fire. 6 AaroH and his 
 sons are forbidden to mourn for them. 8 
 I'he p'iests are forbidden mine when they are 
 to go into the tabernacle. I2 The law of 
 eating the holy things. i6 Aaron's excuse 
 for transgressing thereof 
 
 AND "Nadab and Abihu, the sons«Num. 3. 
 of Aaron, took either of them & 26. 61. 
 his censer, and put fire therein, and 
 put incense thereon, and offered strange 
 
 hre before the Lord, which h 
 
 com- 
 
 manded them not. 
 
 2 And there went out fire from the 
 
 enim in loco aliquo ita est Uominiis, quasi 
 alibi non sit.” ‘ Quaest. in Lev.’ xxx. 
 
 24 . The very ancient Jewish tradition has 
 been widely adopted that the sacred fire of the 
 Altar originated in this divine act, and that it 
 was afterwards preserved on the Altar of the 
 Tabernacle until the dedication of the Temple, 
 when fire again “came down from heaven, and 
 consumed the burnt-offering and the sacrifices; 
 and the glory of the Lord filled the house”' 
 (2 Chron. vii. i). Some Jewish authorities 
 allow that this sacred fire became extinct 
 when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem-; but 
 others say that it was miraculously kept alive 
 during the captivity and restored to its use 
 on the Altar of the second Temple by Nehe- 
 rniah. 2 Macc. i. 19 — 22. See Fagius /;/ /or.; 
 Bochart, ‘ Hieroz.’ 11. 35.^ — But according to 
 the sacred narrative the Altar- fire had been 
 lighted in a natural way before this occasion. 
 It had burned the morning and evening sacri- 
 fices (Exod. xl. 29) and the sacrifices of Con- 
 secration (Lev. viii. 16, 21, 28); and Aaron 
 had previously employed it on this day for the 
 offerings for himself and the people (ojoj. 10, 
 13, 14, 17, 20). It is evident that the fire of 
 the morning sacrifice was burning at the time 
 when the special sacrifices for the occasion 
 were olfered (see v. 17). It would therefore 
 seem that the fire w'hich “came out from 
 Ixrfore the Lord” manifested itself, according 
 to the words of 'v. 24, not in kindling the fuel 
 on the Altar, but in the sudden consuming 
 of the victim. For the like testimony to the 
 acccjjtance of a sacrifice, see Judg. vi. 21, 
 xiii. 19, 20; I K. xviii. 38; i Chron. xxi. 
 26, and probably Gen. iv. 4. The phrase to 
 turn a sacrfce to ashes, became equivalent to 
 accepting it (Ps. xx. 3, see margin). The fire 
 of tlie Altar was maintained in accordance 
 with Lev. vi. 13, 
 
 ClIAl>. X. 
 
 'File events recorded in this chapter must 
 have occurred immediately after the offering 
 of the sacrifices of inauguration, on the even- 
 ing of llie same day. See t,’. 19. 
 
 Nadab and Ahibu are stricken : the priests are 
 forbidden to mourn for them. 
 
 X. 1—7. 
 
 1. Nadab and Abihii] 'Idle two elder sons 
 of Aaron (Exod. vi. 23, Num. iii. 2), who 
 were amongst those invited to accompany 
 Moses when he was going uj) Mount Sinai, 
 
 but who were “to worship afar off,” and not 
 “ come near the Lord.” Exod. xxiv. 1,2. 
 
 censer~\ See on Exod. xxv. 38. 
 
 strange fre~\ The particular offence which 
 was perpetrated by Nadab and Abihu has been 
 a subject of much discussion. The greater 
 number of commentators, Jewish as well as 
 Christian, have supposed that the “strange 
 fire” was common fire, not taken from the 
 holy fire of the Altar. See on ix. 24. But it 
 should be observed that no law is found in 
 the Pentateuch to forbid the burning of in- 
 cense by iTieans of ordinary fire: it is only 
 for a single occasion in the year that the 
 High-priest is commanded to fill his censer 
 with coals from the Altar, Lev. xvi. 12. 
 Some suppose that the offence lay in break- 
 ing the commandment of Exod. xxx. 9, and 
 burning “strange incense,” that is incense not 
 prepared according to the instructions given 
 in Exod. xxx. 34 — 38. Others have suggested 
 that they offered incense at an unauthorized 
 time, that is, not at either of the hours of the 
 daily service: and this is favoured by the order 
 of the narrative. Many have connected their 
 sin with the prohibition of the use of wine 
 and strong drink to those engaged in the 
 service of the Sanctuary (see 9, 10), and 
 have supposed that they performed their 
 sacred office in a state of intoxication [Tar- 
 gum of Palestine, de Lyra, Patrick, Rosen- 
 muller, Herxheimer, Wordsworth]. But 
 the outward point of their offence is evi- 
 dently expressed in the term “strange fire.” 
 'Fhis may very probably mean that the in- 
 cense was lighted at an unauthorized time. 
 And we may reasonably unite with this the 
 supposition that they were intoxicated, as well 
 as the conjecture of Knobel’s, that they made 
 their offering of incense an accompaniment to 
 the exultation of the people on the manifesta- 
 tion of the glory of the Lord, ix. 24. As 
 they perished not within the Tabernacle, but 
 in front of it, it seems likely that they may 
 have been making an ostentatious and irreve- 
 rent display of their ministration to accom- 
 pany the shouts of the people, on their way 
 towards the Tabernacle. 'Fhe offence for 
 which they were immediately visited with 
 outward punishment was thus a flagrant out- 
 rage on the solemn order of the divine service, 
 while the cause of their offence may have been 
 their guilty excess. 
 
 before the Loan'] These words might denote 
 the whole space between the Ark of the Cove- 
 
V. 3— 6.J 
 
 LEVITICUS. X. 
 
 541 
 
 Lord, and devoured them, and they 
 died before the Lord. 
 
 3 Then Moses said unto Aaron, 
 This is it that the Lord spake, saying, 
 I will be sanctified in them that come 
 nigh me, and before all the people I 
 will be glorified. And Aaron held 
 his peace. 
 
 4 And Moses called Mishael and 
 
 Elzaphan, the sons of Uzzicl the uncle 
 of Aaron, and said unto them. Come 
 near, carry your brethren from before 
 the sanctuary out of the camp. 
 
 5 So they went near, and carried 
 them in their coats out of the camp; 
 as Moses had said. 
 
 6 And Moses said unto Aaron, and 
 unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his 
 
 nant and the Brazen Altar, both that within 
 the Tabernacle and that without it. Cf. i. 5. 
 The death of Nadab and Abihu occurred out- 
 side the Tabernacle “before the Sanctuary,” 
 
 4. See the preceding note. 
 
 2. Jire from the Lord] “The fire which 
 had just before sanctified the ministry of 
 Aaron as well pleasing to God, now brought 
 to destruction his two eldest sons because they 
 did not sanctify Jehovah in their hearts, but 
 dared to perform a self-willed act of worship ; 
 just as the same Gospel is to one a savour 
 of life unto life, and to another a savour of 
 death unto death.” 2 Cor. ii. 16. (Keil.) 
 On the patristic applications of the sin of 
 Nadab and Abihu, see especially Irenaeus. 
 
 ‘ Adv. Her.’ iv. 43. Cyprian, ‘de Unit. 
 Ecc.’ XVIII. Thcod. ‘ Qucest. in Lev.’ ix. 
 Hesych. in loc. &c. 
 
 3 . Moses now declares to Aaron the mean- 
 ing of this visitation, and the father “holds 
 his peace,” not daring to gainsay the righteous 
 judgment of Jehovah. Cf. Psalm xxxix. 9. 
 His silence on this occasion may be compared 
 with his reasonable and natural expostulation 
 with Moses when his suiviving sons are re- 
 buked for not having eaten the flesh of the 
 Sin-oftering. n). 19. 
 
 I ^ill be sanctified in them that come nigh 
 me^ and before all the people I qjuill be glor'fed] 
 The priests are often designated as those who 
 draw near to the Lord (Exod. xix. 22 ; Num. 
 xvi. 5 ; Ezek. xlii. I3 ; xliii. 19). If the verbs 
 ill this passage are rendered as reflexive rather 
 than as passive it makes the connection with 
 what had just happened more strict; — I will 
 sanctify myself in tliem that come 
 near to me (i.e. the priests), and I will 
 glorify myself before all the people. 
 [So de Wette, Luzzato, Keil, &c.] The 
 Hebrew forms here used (like the kindred 
 ones in many other languages ancient and 
 modern) were originally reflexive, but came 
 to be as commonly emiployed in a passive 
 sense. The words used by Moses on this 
 occasion are not found elsewhere in the Penta- 
 teuch ; it has been supposed that they had been 
 previously spoken to Moses, but that he had 
 not committed them to writing. [St Augustin, 
 ‘C^asst. in Lev.’ 31.] But the sense is im- 
 plied in such passages as Exod. xix. 22, xxviii. 
 ai, xxix. I, 44. 
 
 VoL. I. 
 
 4 . Mishael and Elzaphan, the first cousins 
 of Aaron (Exod. vi. 22), are selected by Moses 
 to convey the bodies of Nadab and Abihu out 
 of the camp, and, as we may presume, to bury 
 them, probably because they were the nearest 
 relations who were not priests. It has been 
 conjectured by Blunt that they were the m.en 
 who could not keep the Passover when it v/as 
 observed on the 14th of Nisan at the beginning 
 of the second year after the Exodus, because 
 they were “defiled by the dead body of a 
 man,” and on whose account “ the little Pass- 
 over,” to be observed on the 14th of the second 
 month, Zif, was first instituted. Num. ix. 6. 
 Blunt’s ‘Undesigned Coincidences,’ i. 14. 
 
 brethren] i.e. near relations, as in Gen. xiii. 
 8, xiv. 16, xxix. 12, 15, &c. 
 
 from before the sanctuary] See on 2;. i. 
 
 5 . coats] The long white tunics, which 
 were the most characteristic part of the priest’s 
 dress. See on Exod. xxviii. 40, 41. Life had 
 been extinguished as if by a flash of lightning, 
 but neither the bodies nor the dresses were 
 destroyed. 
 
 6. 7 . Aaron and his two surviving sons are 
 forbidden to show the accustomed signs of 
 mourning, or to leave the Court of the Taber- 
 nacle in order to attend the funeral, because, 
 from their office, they were especially con- 
 cerned as consecrated priests in outwardly 
 maintaining the honour of Jehovah. They 
 were to bear visible testimony to the righte- 
 ousness of the punishment of Nadab and 
 Abihu, lest they themselves should incur guilt 
 by seeming personally to participate in the 
 sin which had been committed. The claims 
 of natural relationship were superseded by 
 this consideration. The people, on the other 
 hand, as not formally standing so near to 
 Jehovah, were permitted to “bewail the 
 burning which the Lord had kindled,” as an 
 acknowledgment that the nation had a share 
 in the sin of its priests, (i Cor. xii. 26.) It 
 should be observed that the ground of the 
 priests being forbidden to mourn on this 
 particular occasion, appears not to be merely 
 the same as that on which the general law 
 was based prohibiting the High-priest from 
 mourning even for his nearest relation, which 
 was evidently designed to keep him entirely 
 out of the way of defilement. See Lev. xxi. 
 10, II. 
 
 M M 
 
542 
 
 LEVITICUS. X. 
 
 [v. 7—12. 
 
 sons, Uncover not your heads, neither 
 rend your clothes ; lest ye die, and 
 lest wrath come upon all the people : 
 but let your brethren, the whole house 
 of Israel, bewail the burning which 
 the Lord hath kindled. 
 
 7 And ye shall not go out from 
 the door of the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation, lest ye die : for the anoint- 
 ing oil of the Lord is upon you. 
 And they did according to the word 
 of Moses. 
 
 8 f And the Lord spake unto 
 Aaron, saying, 
 
 9 Do not drink wine nor strong 
 
 drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, 
 when ye go into the tabernacle of the 
 congregation, lest ye die : it shall be a 
 statute for ever throughout your gene- 
 rations : 
 
 10 And that ye may put difference 
 between holy and unholy, and between 
 unclean and clean j 
 
 1 1 And that ye may teach the 
 children of Israel all the statutes which 
 the Lord hath spoken unto them by 
 the hand of Moses. 
 
 12 ^ And Moses spake unto Aaron, 
 and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, 
 his sons that were left. Take the meat 
 
 6. Unco'ver not your heads\ Our version 
 follows the LXX. and Vulgate. The word 
 rendered “ uncover” signifies, to set free — to let 
 go loose. It was a custom to cut off or pluck 
 out the hair as a sign of grief (Ezra ix. 3 ; Job 
 i. 20 ; Is. XV. ; Jer. xli. 5, xlviii. 37), and 
 it has been supposed that this mode of un- 
 covering the head is what is here meant. But it 
 was also a custom to let the hair grow long and 
 fall loosely over the head and face (xiii. 45 ; 
 2 Sam. XV. 30, xix. 4) ; and this is most likely 
 what is expressed by the Hebrew word in this 
 connection. The weight of authority is on this 
 side. The substance of the command would 
 thus be that they should not let the hair go 
 dishevelled. It is so rendered by Saadia and 
 others. — Rending the clothes in front so as to 
 lay open the breast was one of the commonest 
 manifestations of grief. Gen. xxxvii. 29, xliv. 
 13; 2S.i. ii; Job i. 20 ; Joel ii. 13, &c. &c. 
 The garments as well as the persons of the 
 priests were consecrated ; this appears to be 
 the reason of the prohibition of these ordinary 
 signs of mourning. Cf. Lev. xxi. 10. 
 
 lest ye die~\ See on Exod. xxviii. 3 5. 
 
 7 . out from the door'] away from the 
 entrance. See on i. 3 and viii. 33. 
 
 the anointing oil... is upon you] See viii. 30. 
 The holy oil, “the oil of gladness,” Ps. xlv. 7, 
 Heb. i. 9, as the symbol of the Holy Spirit, 
 the Spirit of Life and immortality and joy, 
 was the sign of the priests being brought near 
 to Jehovah. See Note after ch. ii. It was 
 therefore in its meaning connected both with 
 the ground of the general law which forbad 
 the High-priest ever to put on signs of mourn- 
 ing on account of death (xxi. 10 — 12), and 
 with the more special reason for the prohibi- 
 tion on this occasion. 
 
 The priests are forbidden to drink nvine, (when 
 officiating, x. 8 — ii. 
 
 9 — 11 . This restraint is to be understood 
 as relating to the entire cycle of priestly func- 
 
 tions. When the priest was on duty he was 
 to abstain from wine and strong drink, lest he 
 should commit excess and so become dis- 
 qualified for carrying out the precepts of the 
 ceremonial Law. 
 
 9 . strong drink] Heh. shekdr, LXX.. aiKc pa 
 (Luke i. 15). The Hebrew word is used as 
 a general name for intoxicating drinks, in- 
 cluding wine, Num. xxviii. 7. But it is more 
 frequently employed as it is here, to denote 
 strong drinks of any kind (the <vina ficticia of 
 Pliny) except wine made from the grape. St 
 Jerome says that the Hebrews applied the 
 name shekdr to any drink prepared from 
 wheat, barley (like the beer of the Egyptians, 
 Herod. 11. 77 ; Diod. i. 20), millet, the juice 
 of apples, or dates. Hieron. in Is. xxviii. 7 ; 
 Pliny, ‘ H. N.’ xiv. 19. 
 
 lest ye die] See -u. 6. 
 
 10. The Hebrew word rendered “holy” 
 (fiodeslS) has no etymological relation to that 
 rendered “unholy” (chol). The first denotes 
 what is consecrated to the service of the 
 Sanctuary, the latter , all which is not so con- 
 secrated and should therefore be called com- 
 mon rather than “unholy.” 
 
 unclean] That is, what occasions defilement 
 by being touched or eaten. All else is reckoned 
 as clean. Cf. Acts x. 14. 
 
 11. That is, “that you may, by your 
 example in your ministrations, preserve the 
 minds of the Israelites from confusion in 
 regard to the distinctions made by the divine 
 Law.” 
 
 "The priests'' share 'in the Meat-offerings and 
 Peace- offerings . 12—15. 
 
 12 — 15 . Moses now reminds the priests 
 of the laws regarding the portions of the 
 offerings which were awarded to them (vi. 16 
 18, 26, 29, &c.), probably in the way of 
 warning in connection with what had just 
 happened. This connection is the more plain, 
 if we suppose that Nadab and Abihu had 
 
LEVITICUS. X. 
 
 543 
 
 V. 13—18.] 
 
 offering that remaineth of the offerings 
 of the Lord made by fire, and eat it 
 without leaven beside the altar : for it 
 is most holy: 
 
 13 And ye shall eat it in the holy 
 place, because it is thy due, and thy 
 sons’ due, of the sacrifices of the 
 Lord made by fire : for so I am com- 
 manded. 
 
 /'Exoci. 14. And “^the wave breast and heave 
 shoulder shall ye eat in a clean place ; 
 thou, and thy sons, and thy daughters 
 with thee : for they be thy due, and 
 thy sons’ due, which are given out of 
 the sacrifices of peace offerings of the 
 children of Israel. 
 
 15 The heave shoulder and th-e 
 wave breast shall they bring with the 
 offerings made by fire of the fat, to 
 
 wave it for a v/ave offering before the 
 Lord ; and it shall be thine, and thy 
 sons’ with thee, by a statute for ever; 
 as the Lord hath commanded. 
 
 16 And Moses diligently sought 
 the goat of the sin offering, and, be- 
 hold, it was burnt : and he was angry 
 with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of 
 Aaron which were left alive^ saying, 
 
 17 Wherefore have ye not eaten 
 the sin offering in the holy place, seeing 
 it is most holy, and God hath given it 
 you to bear the iniquity of the con- 
 gregation, to make atonement for them 
 before the Lord? 
 
 18 Behold, the blood of it was not 
 
 brought in within the \\o\y place: ye 
 should indeed have eaten it in the holy ^ 
 place ^ “^as I commanded. 26^ 
 
 indulged to excess in the Drink-offerings (see 
 on 'v. i). The argument would thus be, that 
 as such meals were appointed in honour of 
 Jehovah Himself, they ought to be conducted 
 with due reverence and discretion. 
 
 12. the meat-offering that remameth~\ See 
 ii. 3. 
 
 beside the altar'] What is called “the holy 
 place” in u. 13: it should be rather, a lioly 
 place, any part ‘of the holy precinct, as dis- 
 tinguished from a merely “clean place” (gu. 
 14), either v/ithin or without the court of the 
 Tabernacle. Cf. on 17. 
 
 most holy] See on ii. 3 . 
 
 14 . ^a’ve breast and hea've shoulder] Introd. 
 
 § ix. 
 
 thy sons and thy daughters] The priests’ 
 portions of the Peace-offerings were holy^ but 
 not most holy^ and any member of their 
 femilies, either male or female, might partake 
 of them. 
 
 15 . ^vanje offering] Introd. § ix. 
 
 The Priests rebuked on account of the flesh of 
 the Sin-offering. 16 — 20. 
 
 The Law had expressly commanded that 
 the flesh of those Sin-offerings the blood of 
 which was not carried into the Sanctuary 
 should belong to the priests, and that it should 
 be eaten by them alone in a holy place. See on 
 ii. 3. The Sin-offerings of which the blood 
 was carried into the Sanctuary were those for 
 the High-priest and for the people, iv. 5, 16. 
 But on this occasion, though the Sin-offering 
 which had been offered by Aaron was for the 
 people (ix. 15), its blood was not carried into 
 the Tabernacle. See ix. 9, x. 18. The priests 
 might therefore have too readily supposed that 
 their eating the flesh, or burning it, was a 
 
 matter of indifference. A doubt was in some 
 way raised in the mind of Moses as to the 
 fact, and he “ diligently sought the goat of the 
 Sin-offering, and, behold, it was burnt.” In 
 his rebuke he tells them that the flesh of the 
 Sin-offering is given to the priests “to bear 
 the iniquity of the congregation to make 
 atonement for them before the Lord.” The 
 appropriation of the flesh by the priests is thus 
 made an essential part of the act of atonement. 
 See on vi. 25. 
 
 16 . the goat of the sin offering] See ix. 15. 
 
 it nvas burnt] It was consumed by fire in 
 
 an ordinary way, not in the fire of the Altar. 
 See on i. 9. 
 
 Eleazar and Ithamar] Aaron is not men- 
 tioned, perhaps because it was the appointed 
 duty of his sons to see to the sacrificial meals. 
 But in his apology he appears to acknowledge 
 that he participated in the offence, 
 
 17 . in the holy place] i.e. within the holy 
 precinct. See on 2;, 12. 
 
 to hear the iniquity] See on Exod. xxviii. 
 38; Lev. vi.*25. 
 
 18 . the holy place] “The holy place f as 
 it is called in our version, within the Taber- 
 nacle (see Exod. xxvi. 33, xxviii. 29, &c,) 
 into which the blood was carried, is regularly 
 called in Hebrew, simply, the Holy (as the in- 
 nermost chamber is called the Holy of Holies), 
 the adjective being used substantively ; while 
 the precinct in which the flesh of the Sin-offer- 
 ing was eaten is generally called in full the Holy 
 Place, the substantive being expressed. But in 
 this verse, in the second sentence, the usual 
 Hebrew name of the former is given to the 
 latter, to give point to the sense. — In a trans- 
 lation the ambiguity, which is awkward in 
 many places, woukl be avoided by uniformly 
 
 MM2 
 
544 
 
 LEVITICUS. X. XL [v. 19-1. 
 
 19 And Aaron said unto Moses, 
 Behold, this day have they offered 
 their sin offering and their burnt offer- 
 ing before the Lord ; and such things 
 have befallen me : and if I had eaten 
 the sin offering to day, should it have 
 been accepted in the sight of the 
 Lord ? 
 
 20 And when Moses heard that^ he 
 was content. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 1 What beasts may^ 4 and what may not be 
 eaten. 9 What fishes. 1 3 What fowls, ag 
 The crefiing things zohich are 2inclean. 
 
 A nd the Lord spake unto Moses 
 ^ and to Aaron, saying unto them, 
 
 calling one tlie Holy precinct, and the 
 other the Holy place. 
 
 19 . Aaron’s apology appears to amount to 
 this; — “Behold this very day, in which we 
 have done our part in sacrificing Sin-offerings 
 and Burnt-offerings to the Lord, this great 
 calamity has befallen me. Could it have been 
 well-pleasing to the Lord if those who have 
 been so humbled as I and my sons have been 
 by the sin of our relations and the divine judg- 
 ment, had feasted on the most holy flesh 
 of the Sin-offering ?” He and his sons would 
 seem to have been bowed down by a sense of 
 self-humiliation and awe suggested by the 
 fearful example which they had witnessed and 
 by grief at the loss of their kindred. This 
 working of natural feeling seems to be suffi- 
 cient to account for their abstinence and for 
 Aaron’s words. — There is another view of 
 the subject which may just be noticed. It 
 has been conceived that Moses suspected 
 that the priests had shrunk from eating the 
 flesh of the Sin-offering as something awful 
 containing the nature of a curse ; that they 
 might have been swayed by a superstitious 
 notion derived from Egypt that the Sin-offering 
 was a sort of Typhonic sacrifice (Ewald, 
 Kurtz, &c.). But any such theory as this is 
 OjUite gratuitous. Moses simply charges the 
 priests with an obvious transgression of the 
 Law. 
 
 It has been said that Aaron might have 
 alleged in vindication of himself the Law that 
 the carcase of the people’s Sin-offering should 
 be burned without the camp (Lev. iv. 21); 
 and an argument lias been based on this, that 
 the narrative is inconsistent \j’ith the earlier 
 chapters of Leviticus, and must have been 
 written by a different author (Knobel). But it 
 has been shown that this offering was sacrificed 
 in a peculiar relation, in behalf of the people, 
 apart from the priest (on ix. 15), and the flesh 
 was therefore under the same conditions as 
 that ot the ordinary Sin-offering (see vi. 26). 
 Aaron was not blamed for burning the flesh 
 of his own Sin-offering of the calf (see ix. 2), 
 because, being offered on his behalf, it fell 
 under the Law of Lev. iv. 21. On the holiness 
 of the flesh of the Sin-offering, see on vi. 25. 
 
 20. he axeas content] Moses admitted 
 Aaron’s plea, but it is not stated whether he 
 was conscious that he had himself spoken 
 hastily and now conceded the point at issue 
 
 (as we find him doing on another occasion, 
 in reference to the settlement of the two tribes 
 and a half, Num. xxxii. 6), allowing that the 
 priests had done what was in itself right, as 
 S. Augustin, the later Targums, Kurtz, and 
 others, interpret the passage ; or whether he 
 yielded out of sympathy with Aaron’s natural 
 feelings. The latter alternative is perhaps the 
 more probable one. 
 
 Chap. XL 
 
 Glean and Unclean Animal Food. 
 
 1 — 47 - 
 
 Preliminary Note. 
 
 This chapter contains directions to regu- 
 late the animal food of the Israelites, and to 
 keep them from defilement by contact with 
 any sort of dead flesh which they were not 
 permitted to eat. The instructions appear to 
 have been given in the way which was most 
 convenient, and most generally intelligible, at 
 the time. Some animals are prohiWted in 
 easily defined classes ; while others, with 
 which the people were probably familiar as 
 articles of food that had been eaten by them- 
 selves or were eaten by their neighbours, are 
 forbidden in detail. The same rules are given 
 with no important variations of meaning in 
 Dent. xiv. 
 
 Of quadrupeds, those only might be eaten 
 which completely divide the hoof and chew 
 the cud, ojoj. 3 — 8. 
 
 Of fish, all those might be eaten which have 
 both scales and fins, but no others, 9 — 12. 
 
 Of birds, nineteen are prohibited by name 
 which appear to comprise types of all sorts of 
 birds of prey, along with the bat, which was 
 classed as a bird, ajax. 13 — 19. — From the 
 words of Deut. xiv. ii, 20 we may infer that 
 all birds which do not belong to the kinds 
 here mentioned were to be regarded as clean. 
 
 Of flying insects, those only which are 
 furnished with two long legs for leaping, like 
 the grasshopper, were permitted to be eaten. 
 OJO.'. 20 23. 
 
 Of creeping things, or vermin (see on 
 ax. 20), including .small quadrupeds, such as 
 rats and mice, with reptiles, worms, mollusks 
 and crawling insects, none might be eaten, axax. 
 29 — 38, aiax. 41 — 44. The kinds of these are 
 enumerated in ax. 42, and eight of them are 
 distinguished by name in axax. 29, 30. 
 
 No flesh could be lawfully eaten by an 
 
'T- 2 — 5 -] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XI. 
 
 545 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, 
 "Deut. 14. saying, "These are the beasts which 
 Acts 10. ye shall eat among all the beasts that 
 
 are on the earth. 
 
 3 Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and 
 is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, 
 among the beasts, that shall ye eat. 
 
 4 Nevertheless these shall ye not 
 
 eat of them that chew the cud, or of 
 them that divide the hoof: as the 
 camel, because he cheweth the cud, 
 but divideth not the hoof; he Is un- 
 clean unto you. 
 
 5 And the coney, because he chew- 
 eth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; 
 he IS unclean unto you. 
 
 Israelite, or even touched without defilement, 
 unless it was that of a clean animal which 
 had been properly slaughtered {yTi. 8, ii, 24, 
 25, 27, 28, 31, 39, 40). On slaughtering, see 
 xvii. 3—7, 13, i4._ ^ 
 
 It was unconditionally forbidden to taste 
 the flesh of any unclean animal {y^v. 8, 13, 
 41, 42, 47) ; but if anyone ate of the flesh of 
 a clean animal which had not been properly 
 slaughtered, he was to purify himself. See on 
 39, 40. 
 
 It may be observed that the words of the 
 Law are not so strong regarding the unclean 
 quadrupeds as they are regarding the unclean 
 fish, birds and creeping things. The flesh of 
 the former is simply declared to be unclean 
 ( yu . 4 — 8, 26 — 28), that is, unfit for the food 
 of the people of Jehovah (see on x. 10) ; but 
 the flesh of the others is pronounced to be 
 not only unclean but “ an abomination,” 
 something to be cast away ( ynj . 10, it, 12, 
 13, 20, 23, 41, 42, 43)- See on vnj. 41—43- 
 It is not however clear that the different ex- 
 pressions mark any practical difference. 
 
 [On the grounds of this law, see Note at 
 the end of the Chapter.] 
 
 Chap. XI. 1 . This is one of the places 
 in Leviticus in which Jehovah speaks to Moses 
 and Aaron conjointly. Others are xiii. i, xv. 
 I. The High-priest, in regard to the legal 
 purifications, is treated as coordinate with 
 the legislator. 
 
 The Clean and Unclean Quadrupeds. 2 — 8. 
 
 2 . These are the beasts., This should 
 
 rather be “These are the animals which 
 ye may eat out of all the beasts;” that is, 
 out of the larger creatures, the quadrupeds, 
 as distinguished from birds and reptiles. See 
 Gen. i. 24. 
 
 3 . parteth the hoof., and is clovenfooted\ 
 Rather, is clovenfooted and completely 
 separates the hoofs. 
 
 4 . dinjideth not the hoof~\ The toes of the 
 camel are divided above, but they are united 
 below in a sort of cushion or pad resting upon 
 the hard bottom of the foot, which is “like 
 the sole of a shoe.” Bell ‘ On the Hand,’ p. 94. 
 The Moslems eat the flesh of the camel, and 
 it is the most esteemed of the animals which 
 they offer in sacrifice, the others being the 
 cow, the goat, and the sheep (Lane's ‘ Modern 
 Egyptians,’ i. p. 134; ‘ Hedaya,’ iv. p. 81; 
 
 ‘ Koran,’ Sura xxii.). The flesh and milk 
 were eaten by the ancient Arabians, as we 
 learn from St Jerome (‘ Adv. Jov.’ ii. 7). 
 The flesh is however said not to be whole- 
 some (Tennent’s ‘ Ceylon,’ i. p. 76). 
 
 5. the co 7 iey\ In Hebrew, shdphdn, i.e. the 
 hider. Bruce appears to have been right in 
 his conjecture that this is the animal called by 
 the Southern Arabs thofun (the same word as. 
 shaphdn')., and by the Arabs in Syria and Pales- 
 tine, q.ueber. Naturalists call it Hyrax Syriacus.. 
 It is “about the size of a well-grown rabbit, 
 with short ears, round head, long plantigrade 
 foot, no tail, and nails instead of claws. With 
 its weak teeth and short incisors, there seem 
 few animals so entirely without the means for 
 self-defence. But ‘ the stony rocks are a 
 refuge for the coneys’ (Prov. xxx. 26, Ps. civ. 
 18), and tolerably secure they are in such 
 rocks as these (near Ain Feshkhah on the 
 shore of the Dead Sea). No animal ever gave 
 us so much trouble to secure.” Tristram, 
 
 ‘ Land of Israel,’ p. 250. It is said to be more 
 common in the Sinaitic Peninsula than in the 
 Holy Land. The animal seems to bear some 
 resemblance to the guinea-pig or the marmot, 
 and in its general appearance and habits it 
 might easily be taken for a rodent. But Cuvier 
 discovered that it is, in its anatomy, a true 
 pachyderm, allied to the rhinoceros and the 
 tapir, inferior to them as it is in size. Its 
 physiology is peculiarly interesting. See 
 ‘ Penny Cyclo.’ and the Duke of Argyll’s 
 ‘ Reign of Law,’ p. 264 ; with Rodiger in 
 Gesenius’ ‘Thes.’ p. 1467. The LXX. ren- 
 der shaphdn by ^^oLpoypvXXios, a porcupine. 
 Luther, following Jewish authorities, took it 
 for a rabbit, and the English translators took 
 the same line in translating it by coney, the 
 ordinary old English name for a rabbit ; but 
 it is very doubtful whether the rabbit was 
 known in South-Western Asia in ancient 
 times. — Bochart supposed the name to denote 
 the jerboa, an animal that abounds in the Holy 
 Land, but which docs not suit the Scripture 
 notices of the shaphdn, as it lives in the sand 
 and not in the rocks. See on ^v. 29. 
 
 he chevjeth the cudl] Not one of the animals 
 which have been taken for the shdphdn (nor 
 the hare mentioned in the next’ verse) chews 
 the cud in the proper sense of the words. 
 They have not the peculiar stomach of the 
 true ruminants, which is essential to the act 
 
546 
 
 LEVITICUS. XL 
 
 ^ 2 Mac. 
 
 i8. 
 
 [v. 6 — 8. 
 
 6 And the hare, because he cheweth 
 the cud, but divideth not the hoofj he 
 is unclean unto you. 
 
 7 And ^the swine, though he divide 
 the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he 
 
 cheweth not the cud; he is unclean 
 to you. 
 
 8 Of their flesh shall ye not eat, 
 and their carcase shall ye not touch ; 
 they are unclean to you. 
 
 of rumination. But the Hyrax has the same 
 habit as the hare, the rabbit, the guinea-pig, 
 and some other rodents, of moving its jaws 
 when it is at rest as if it was masticating. 
 Mr Tristram says, “It is quite sufficient to 
 watch the creature working and moving its 
 jaws, as it sits in a chink of the rocks, to 
 understand how anyone writing as an ordi- 
 nary observer, and not as a comparative 
 anatomist, would naturally thus speak of it ; 
 and this apart from the question whether the 
 Hebrew word signifies anything more than 
 re-chew.” ‘Land of Israel,’ -p. 251. The 
 Hebrew phrase, according to its etymology, 
 certainly does refer rather to the act of cough- 
 ing up the half-m.asticated food than to that of 
 moving the jaws. But by a process common 
 enough in all languages, its meaning became 
 expanded, and the rodents and pachyderms, 
 which have the habit of grinding with their 
 laws, were familiarly spoken of as ruminating 
 animals, as the bat was reckoned amongst 
 birds because it flies (see nj. 19), and as we 
 might speak of whales and their congeners as 
 fish, when there is no occasion for scientific 
 accuracy. It was not the object of the legis- 
 lator to give a scientific classification of ani- 
 mals nor formally to ground the law upon 
 the facts of mastication and dividing the hoof. 
 He had merely to furnish the people with a 
 ready index by which they could recognise 
 certain animals the flesh of which, for some 
 reason, was not to be eaten. See Note at 
 the end of this Chapter. It was enough 
 for his purpose, in laying down a practical 
 rule for the people, that the Hyrax and the 
 hare with other animals allied to them were 
 commonly known to move their jaws in the 
 same manner as the ox, the sheep and the 
 camel. The limits of the prohibition could 
 in no way have been rendered more easily in- 
 telligible. See Prel. Note. It may also be 
 observed that these creatures were excluded 
 from the clean animals by the rule subse- 
 (jiicntly given in ‘t'. 27, as being comprised 
 within “ whatsoever goeth upon his paws.” 
 'I'liey are mentioned here only by way of 
 illustration to enforce the .caution that no 
 beast should be regarded as clean which does 
 not completely divide the hoof as well as 
 chew the cud. The flesh of the Hyrax is said 
 to be eaten by the Arabs of Mount Sinai, but 
 not by the Moslems in general. 
 
 6. the hare] Sec the preceding note. 
 There is no reasonable doubt as to the identity 
 of the animal : the name {ciniebeth') is the 
 same in Arabic and other cognate languages. 
 
 The Moslems have the express permission of 
 their prophet to eat the flesh of the hare 
 (‘Hedaya,’ iv. p. 75 ; Lane, 1. 135); and the 
 Arabs avail themselves of it, but according to 
 Dr Russell (Vol. i. p. 158), not the Turks of 
 Aleppo. The Parsees are said to abstain from 
 it. Forbes, ‘Orient. Mem.’ ii. p. 138. Ac- 
 cording to Csesar, its flesh was not eaten by 
 the ancient Britons (‘de Bell. Gal.’ v. 12). 
 
 7. the s^'ine^ though he di’vide the hoof^ and 
 be clo^enfootedT] Rather, “the swine, though 
 it is clovenfooted and completely 
 separates the hoofs.” See on 2;. 3. Of 
 all the quadrupeds of Vhich the Law forbids 
 the flesh to be eaten, the pig seems to have 
 been regarded as the most unclean. Is. Ixv. 4, 
 Ixvi. 3, 17 ; 2 Macc. vi. 18, 19. Several other 
 nations have agreed with the Hebrews in this 
 respect. Though pigs were sacrificed by the 
 ancient Egyptians at the yearly festival of the 
 Moon and Bacchus, and their flesh on that 
 occasion was eaten by the people, they were 
 regarded at all other times with the utmost 
 aversion, and swineherds were banished from 
 society : the priests appear never to have 
 eaten of their flesh, nor even to have taken 
 part in sacrificing it. Herodot. Ii. 47, 48 ; 
 .Elian, ‘Hist. Anim.’ x. 16; Joseph. ‘ Cont. 
 Ap.’ II. 14. The Brahmin is degraded im- 
 mediately who intentionally tastes swine's 
 flesh. ‘ Menu,’ v. 19. The ancient Arabians 
 held the animal in no better esteem. Solinus, 
 XXXIII. 4; Hieron. ‘ Adv. Jov.’ ii. 7. Swine's 
 flesh is singled out from the forbidden flesh 
 of other animals by the Koran and named in 
 several places along with “the flesh of that 
 which dies of itself, and blood.” Suras ii., 
 V., VI., XVI, &c. And according to the 
 Moslem laws, the flesh of men and that of 
 swine are the only kinds of flesh which can- 
 not be rendered pure by zabbah^ that is, by 
 cutting the throat according to a prescribed 
 form. . ‘Hedaya,’ iv. pp. 62 — 75. See note 
 after ch. xvii. The dirty habits and uncouth 
 form of the creature may have no doubt 
 tended to bring it into disrepute. There is 
 a curious passage to this ofiect, too long for 
 quotation, in Lactantius, ‘ Institut.’ iv. 17. 
 But a very general notion has prevailed that 
 its flesh is unwholesome, especially in warm 
 climates. According to a Jewish proverb, it 
 promotes leprosy. Manetho speaks to the 
 same purpose (ap. Aidian, ‘H. A.’ x. 16; cf. 
 Tacitus, ‘ Hist.’ v. 4), and there seems good 
 reason to believe that it has under certain 
 circumstances a tendency to produce diseases 
 of the skin. Michaelis, ‘ Laws of Moses,’ 
 
LEVITICUS. XI. 
 
 547 
 
 V. 9 — 1 3 -] 
 
 9 ^ These shall ye eat of all that 
 are in the waters: whatsoever hath 
 fins and scales in the waters, in the 
 seas, and in the rivers, them shall 
 ye eat. 
 
 10 And all that have not fins and 
 scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of 
 all that move in the waters, and of 
 any living thing which is in the waters, 
 they shall he an abomination unto you : 
 
 1 1 They shall be even an abomi- 
 nation unto you ; ye shall not eat of 
 their flesh, but ye shall have their 
 carcases in abomination. 
 
 12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor 
 scales in the waters, that shall be an 
 abomination unto you. 
 
 13 ^ And these are they which ye 
 shall have in abomination among the 
 fowls ; they shall not be eaten, they 
 
 III. p. 230. Lord Clyde forbad the use of 
 swine’s flesh in the Indian army on sanitary 
 grounds. Tennent’s ‘Ceylon,’ i. p. 76. Sir 
 Gardiner Wilkinson says, “the reason of the 
 meat not being eaten (by the Egyptians) was 
 its iinwholesomeness, on which account it 
 was forbidden to the Jews and Moslems; and 
 the prejudice naturally extended from the 
 animal to those who kept it, as at present in 
 India and other parts of the East, where 
 a Hindoo (that is, one of l:Hgh caste) or a 
 Moslem is, like an ancient Egyptian, defiled 
 by the touch of a pig, and looks with horror 
 on those who tend it and eat its flesh.” Note 
 on ‘Herodotus,’ ii. 47. See also Lane, ‘Mod. 
 Egypt.’ I. p. 134. Much curious learning has 
 been expended on the causes of the disesteerti 
 in which the pig has been held amongst Eastern 
 nations, by Spencer, ‘De Leg. Heb.’ i. 7, § 4, 
 and by Bochart, ‘Hieroz.’ ii. 57. 
 
 It should be noticed that the law regarding 
 quadrupeds is given in a positive form in 
 Deut. xiv. 3, 4, 5, “Thou shalt not eat any 
 abominable thing. These are the beasts 
 which ye shall eat: the ox, the sheep, and 
 the goat,” &c. Then follow seven names 
 which appear to belong to the roebuck, the 
 gazelle and four other kinds of antelope, 
 with the wild sheep. (See notes in loc.) 
 These most likely constituted the game with 
 which the Israelites were familiar in the 
 Wilderness and on the borders of the Holy 
 Land. Cf. Lev. xvii. 13. 
 
 The Clean and Unclean Fish^ 9 — 12. 
 
 (Deut. xiv. 9, 10.) 
 
 9 . The rule here is simple and compre- 
 hensive. Any fish, either from salt water or 
 fresh, might be eaten if it had both scales and 
 fins, but no other creature that lives in the 
 waters. Shellfish of all kinds, whether mol- 
 lusks or crustaceans, and cetaceous animals, 
 were therefore prohibited, as well as fish which 
 appear to have no scales, like the eel. 
 
 Fish were generally forbidden to the Egyp- 
 tian priests, but were largely eaten by the rest 
 of the people. Wilkinson, i. p. 322 ; Porphyry, 
 ‘De Abstin.’ iv. 7. The eel was held sacred in 
 several parts of Egypt, and was not eaten. 
 Sir Gardiner Wilkinson supposes that “the 
 reason of its sanctity, like that of the Oxyrhyn- 
 
 chus, was owing to its being unwholesome; 
 and the best way of preventing its bdng eaten 
 was to assign it a place among the sacred 
 animals of the country,” ii. 192. This theory 
 however is not easily reconciled with the con- 
 secration of such animals as the ox and the 
 sheep; or of the fish called Lepidotus^ which 
 had large scales and must have been a whole- 
 some fish, whether it was allied to the salmon, 
 the carp, or the perch. See ‘ Herod.’ ii. 72 ; 
 Wilkinson’s ‘ Ancient Egypt.’ ii. p. 192. The 
 modern Egyptians consider all fish without 
 scales to be unwholesome. Lane, i. p. 135. 
 The Moslem law, like the Hebrew, forbids the 
 eating of shellfish, mollusks of all kinds, and, 
 according to the best authorities, of seals and 
 other marine beasts. “ No animal that lives in 
 water is lawful except fish.” ‘ Hedaya,’ iv. 
 75. It is said that Numa Pompilius made a 
 law that no scaleless fish should be offered in 
 sacrifice, though, if we are to trust the tradi- 
 tion in the form in which it has reached us, 
 not in consequence of their being looked upon 
 as impure. Plin. ‘ H. N.’, xxxii. 10. Festus 
 refers to a similar law (s. v. pollucere')^ and 
 states that any fish having scales might be 
 sacrificed except the Scarus. 
 
 There is probably a reference to the dis- 
 tinction between clean and unclean fishes in 
 Matt. xiii. 48. See Trench ‘on the Parables,’ 
 p. 137. The scaleless fish which most abounds 
 in the Sea of Galilee is the Silurus; of those 
 which have scales, some of the most abun- 
 dant are the chub, the barbel and the bream. 
 Robinson, ‘ Physical Geography of the Holy 
 Land,’ p. 182; Tristram, ‘ Land of Israel,’ pp. 
 426, 42B, 435, 575 - 
 
 The Unclean Birds ^ 13 — 19. 
 
 No general rule is given for the distinction 
 between clean and unclean birds, but there is 
 merely a list of twenty which are prohibited, 
 nothing being said of those which might be 
 eaten. See Prel. Note. It will be seen that, 
 as far as they can be identified, the birds here 
 mentioned are such as live upon animal food. 
 The Mishna (‘ Cholin,’ iii. 6) lays it down as 
 a rule that every bird is unclean which strikes 
 its talons into its prey ; and quotes one autho- 
 rity which puts into the same class every 
 bird which divides its toes equally in climb- 
 
548 
 
 LEVITICUS. XL 
 
 [v. 14—16. 
 
 are an abomination : the eagle, and 
 the ossifrage, and the ospray, 
 
 14 And the vulture, and the kite 
 after his kind ; 
 
 1 5 Every raven after his kind ; 
 
 16 And the owl, and the night 
 hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk 
 after his kind, 
 
 ing, like the parrot and woodpecker. The 
 distinction between birds in the Moslem law 
 appears similarly to hinge upon their food. 
 
 ‘ Hedayaf iv. 74. According to Porphyry, 
 the Egyptian priests also followed the same 
 rule. ‘ De Abstin.’ iv. 7. The list of species 
 here given is evidently not intended to be an 
 exhaustive one. It is likely that the birds 
 which are distinguished by name were those 
 which the Israelites might have been tempted 
 to eat, either from their being easy to obtain, 
 or from the example of other nations, and 
 which served as types of the entire range of 
 prohibited kinds. — In the notes which follow, 
 the Hebrew names are, in general, follow- 
 ed by the names in the Septuagint and the 
 V ulgate. 
 
 13 . the eagle'\ ties her ; deros ; aqiiila. 
 Rather, the great vulture. It has been 
 generally taken for the golden eagle, which is 
 commonly called the king of birds. But Mr 
 Tristram seems to prove that the bird which 
 is meant is the Gritfon Vulture, Viiltur fulnjus^ 
 called by the Arabs, N'ur. “The identity of 
 the Hebrew and Arabic terms can scarcely 
 be questioned. However degrading the sub- 
 stitution of the ignoble vulture for the royal 
 eagle may at first sight appear in many pas- 
 sages, it must be borne in mind that the 
 griffon is in all its movements and charac- 
 teristics a majestic and royal bird, the largest 
 and most powerful which is seen on the wing 
 in Palestine, and far surpassing the eagle in 
 size and power.” Smith’s ‘ Diet.’ and ‘ Land 
 of Israel,’ p. 447. In Micah i. 16, baldness 
 is ascribed to the yiesher^ which certainly does 
 not belong to the eagle, but is appropriate to 
 the griffon vulture. The Egyptians are known 
 to have ranked the vulture as the first amongst 
 birds. I'he nesher is mentioned 2 S. i. 23; 
 Ps. ciii. 5 ; Prov. xxiii. 5, &c. 
 
 the ossifrage^ and the ospray] The latter of 
 these English words is but a corruption of the 
 former, though they are used to distinguish 
 different birds. The flebrew words are peres 
 and 'ozneeydh. The first, peres^ is exactly 
 rendered in its etymological sense by ossifrage^ 
 i.c. the bone-breaker, and the bird known as 
 the ossifrage is probably the one here denoted. 
 Smith’s ‘ Diet.’ s. v. It is sometimes called 
 the larnergeyer, and by naturalists, Gypaetus 
 harhatus^ the bearded vulture. It is the rival 
 of the griffon in strength and size, but is a 
 much rarer bird. 'J'he other, 'ozneeydh^ may 
 be eith'T the ospray, or sea-eagle {Pandion Ha- 
 liaetus)^ in accordance with the rendering of 
 the Septuagint, riAiateror ; or the short-toed 
 
 eagle, Circaetus gallicus^ which feeds upon 
 reptiles. Smith’s ‘ Diet.’ 
 
 14 . the 'vulture] dddh • mil'vus. 
 
 Rather, the kite. The English vei'sion has 
 followed the Septuagint, but the Vulgate ap- 
 pears to be more correct. The Arabic name 
 for a kite is dayah^ the same as this Hebrew 
 word. The species denoted is probably the 
 black kite, Mihms ater^ the gregarious habits 
 of which agree with the mode in which the 
 ddydh is mentioned Isaiah xxxiv. 15. Tristram, 
 ‘ Land of Israel,’ p. 204. 
 
 the kite] ayah; tVriv ; •vultur. The Sep- 
 tuagint and our version are here probably more 
 correct than the Vulgate. See on •v. 18. The 
 red kite, Milzms regalis^ which is remark- 
 able for its piercing sight, to which reference 
 is made where fhe same bird is named in Job 
 xxviii. 7, is supposed to be the bird here 
 meant. Tristram in Smith’s ‘ Diet.’ The 
 words “after his kind,” might include all 
 allied species. 
 
 15 . Every raven after his kin I] The names 
 of the raven and the birds allied to it, in many 
 languages, appear to be formed by onoma- 
 topoeia, from the cry of the birds. Heb. "'oreb ; 
 Kopa^] corvus ; Germ, rabe; English, raven^ 
 crovo^ rook. There can be no doubt that the 
 whole family of corvidas are here designated. 
 The raven, the rook, the crow and the jack- 
 daw are very abundant in the neighbourhood 
 of Jerusalem. ‘Land of Israel,’ p. 184. The 
 raven and the crow are forbidden to be eaten 
 by the Moslem law, but not rooks which feed 
 on grain. ‘ Hedaya,’ Vol. iv. p. 74. 
 
 16 . the ovyf] bath hayd'andh; arpovObs, 
 struthio. Most probably, the ostrich. The 
 Hebrew name appears to mean “the daughter 
 of greediness” (Gesenius), but others explain 
 it as “ the daughter of wailing” (Fiirst). It 
 is rendered ostrich in the margin in Job xxx. 
 29, Is. xxxiv. 13, xliii. 20, in agreement with 
 the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Targums, the 
 Syriac, and Saadia. Though the name is 
 formally feminine, it is to be taken to denote 
 the species, and not necessarily, as some have 
 imagined, the hen-bird. The flesh of the 
 ostrich is eaten by some of the Arabs, but not 
 by all. An African people called Strutho- 
 phagi (ostrich-eaters), are mentioned by Strabo 
 and other writers (Knobel). Our translators 
 appear to have been misled in rendering the 
 word in the text by the notion that ya'‘andh 
 means shouting., which they thought applied 
 best to the owl. Neither Luther, Cranmer, 
 nor the Geneva translators fell into the same 
 mistake. 
 
V. 17, i8.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XL 
 
 549 
 
 17 And the little owl, and the cor- 18 And the swan, and the pelican, 
 morant, and the great owl, and the gier eagle. 
 
 night ha<^)k'\ tachnas (literally, the violent 
 one); y\av^ \ noctua. Rather, the owl. Some 
 high authorities, rejecting the ancient versions, 
 suppose the male ostrich to be intended, on 
 the ground of the Arabs calling him by a 
 name having the same meaning, and take bath 
 haya'anah exclusively for the female bird 
 (Bochart, Gesenius). But it may be doubted 
 whether the Hebrews gave radically different 
 names to the male and female of the same 
 species, except in the case of domesticated or 
 familiarly known animals, like our own bull 
 and cow, horse and mare, ram and ewe. By 
 some tachmas has been taken for the cuckoo, 
 from its well-known violence towards the eggs 
 and the young of other birds (Knobel, Keil), 
 and by some Jewish authors for the swallow 
 (Saadia, Targ. Pal.). But it appears reason- 
 able on the whole to follow the ancient ver- 
 sions, and to understand the word as denoting 
 some species of owl, of ferocious habits, 
 such as the Strix orientalis of Hasselquist. See 
 Hasselquist, ‘Travels,’ p. 196. 
 
 the cucko^'\ shachaph] Xdpoi ; /arus. Proba- 
 bly, the gull. There seems to be nothing 
 to favour the claims of the cuckoo. The 
 Greek name denotes a gull, and it is likely 
 that some sea-bird is meant. See Lewysohn, 
 
 ‘ Die Zoologie des Talmuds,’ § 223. The He- 
 brew word is found nowhere else but in Deut. 
 xiv. 15. Bochart and Gesenius are inclined to 
 identify shachaph with the of Aristotle, 
 
 the storm petrel. It may perhaps be “the 
 light and elegant Andouini’s gull” {Larus 
 Andouni)^ which abounds on the shores of 
 Syria (Tristram, ‘ Land of Israel,’ p. 102, &c.), 
 and is certainly a more likely bird to be the 
 object of a prohibition than the storm petrel, 
 which is so seldom seen on land. 
 
 the hawk after his kind~\ neets - Upa^\ ac- 
 cipiter. There is no reason to question that 
 the whole family of hawks is here intended. 
 
 17 . the little owl~\ kos ; vvKTiKopa^] bubo. 
 Mr Tristram has no hesitation in identifying 
 this with the small owl, Athene meridionalis 
 “which stands out on the coins of old Athens, 
 the emblem of Minerva, dignified, yet occa- 
 sionally grotesque, in its motions; with all 
 the gravity, yet without the heaviness, of the 
 owls of our own woods and towers; and it 
 is the only kind universally distributed and 
 everywhere common and familiar in Syria, 
 Greece, and the Levant.” ‘ Land of Israel,’ 
 p. 68. It is “the owl of the desert” men- 
 tioned in Ps. cii. 6. 
 
 the cormorant'] shdldk (/. e. the diver) ; Kara- 
 pciKTYjs] mergulus. The name occurs only here 
 and in Deut. xiv. 17. The KarappnKTrjs is 
 mentioned by Aristotle (‘Hist. Anim.’ ix. 13, 
 
 &c.), and has been supposed to be the gannet 
 (Su/a bass ana]. But it is doubted whether 
 the gannet is to be found in or near Syria. 
 It is as likely to have been the common 
 cormorant {Phalacrocorax car bo] ^ which is 
 often seen in Syria, and occasionally visits the 
 Sea of Galilee. 
 
 the great owl] yanshuph] Deut. xiv. 16; 
 Is. xxxiv. II. Our version is most likely 
 right. The bird was probably the horned 
 owl {Bubo maximus], well known in Egypt 
 (Wilkinson, i. 249). According to the LXX,, 
 as its text stands (see the next note), the 
 Vulg., and Onkelos, the yanshuph was the 
 ibis, the sacred bird of the Egyptians, Ibis 
 religiosa., which, although it is not found in 
 Palestine, must have been familiar to the He- 
 brews in the wilderness. But the habits of 
 the ibis do not agree with the reference to the 
 yanshuph in Is. xxxiv. ii. The best Jewish 
 authorities agree with our version (Lewysohn, 
 
 § 188). The etymology of the name may 
 connect it either with the twilight (Bochart), 
 or with the act of puffing out the breath 
 (Knobel). Either meaning would accord with 
 the habits of the great owl. 
 
 18 . the swan] iinshemeth. Our version 
 follows the authority of the LXX. and Vulg. 
 according to the present order of the texts. 
 (kukz/o?, cygnus.] But a more probable ren- 
 dering is the ibis. — By comparing the Sep- 
 tuagint, the Vulgate, Onkelos, and the He- 
 brew text here and in Deut. xiv. 16, 17, and 
 the various readings of the LXX., it becomes 
 evident that the order of the names has been 
 disturbed in the versions. There is a similar 
 disturbance, though not such a complicated 
 one, in verses 5 and 6. It appears highly, 
 probable that the word intended by the LXX. , 
 to answer to tmshenieth is ifhs (as it stands 
 in Deut. xiv. 16), and that the right bird is 
 the Ibis religiosa mentioned in the preceding 
 note. It is an unclean feeder, by no means 
 good for food. It is difficult to suppose that 
 the swan could have been reckoned amongst 
 unclean birds: the LXX. and Vulg. were 
 most likely wrong in introducing it anywhare 
 into this list. — The name tinshemeth belongs 
 to another unclean animal, most likely the 
 chameleon. See on 'v. 30. 
 
 the pelican] kddth; TreXe/cav; onocratalus ; 
 Deut. xiv. 17 ; Ps. cii. 6; Is. xxxiv. ii; Zeph. 
 ii. 14. In the latter two places our version 
 has cormorant in the text, but pelican in the 
 margin. Two species of pelican are known 
 in the Levant, Pelkanus onocratalus and 
 P. crispus. There is reason to suppose that 
 pelicans were formerly by far more numerous 
 than they are at present, though they are 
 
550 
 
 LEVITICUS. XL 
 
 [V. 19 , 20. 
 
 19 And the stork, the heron after 20 All fowls that creep, going upon 
 her kind, and the lapwing, and the all four, shall he an abomination unto* 
 bat. you. 
 
 frequently seen now on the upper Jordan. 
 See ‘ The Rob Roy on the Jordan,’ p. a 8 6. 
 
 the gier eagle~\ racham. The bird here 
 mentioned is most likely tlie Egyptian 
 vulture (^Neophron percnopterus)^ called rac- 
 ham by the modern Arabs. It is a bird of 
 unprepossessing appearance and disgusting 
 habits, but fostered by the Egyptians as a 
 useful scavenger. Hasselquist has a lively de- 
 scription of its appearance and habits, p. 195. 
 It is doubtful, according to the present state 
 of the text, by what word the LXX. intended 
 to render racham. All the best authorities 
 appear to identify it with the Egyptian vul- 
 ture. 
 
 19 . the stork~\ chaseedah’ epcoSioy; herodius • 
 Job xxxix. 13 (see the margin); Zech. v. 9. 
 The Hebrew name appears to be derived 
 from a root which signifies affection, and this 
 answers to the well-known character of the 
 stork in respect to its love of its offspring. 
 The common white stork {Ciconia alba') is not 
 so abundant in the Holy Land and the East as 
 the black stork (^Ciconia nigra). — Tristram, 
 ‘Land of Israel,’ pp. 438, 539; ‘Nat. Hist.’ 
 p. ^44: but it M'as well-known in Egypt 
 (Wilk. I. p. 25). — The word used by the Sep- 
 tuagint denotes, and has most likely furnished 
 with its name, the common heron. See Du- 
 cange, sub herodius. The heron was a bird of 
 omen with the ancient Greeks (‘ Iliad,’ x. 
 274). As it is said to be very fond of its 
 young and abounds in Palestine (Tristram, 
 pp. 456, 587) as well as Egypt, it might per- 
 haps answer as well as the stork to the mean- 
 ing of chaseedah; and if we accept it we 
 should be able to account for the Septuagint 
 not using the familiar word for the stork, 
 ne'kapyos- But as regards the scope of the 
 prohibition, to whichever of the birds in 
 question the name strictly belongs, the two 
 allied species would most likely here be in- 
 cluded under it. 
 
 the heron) andphdh; gapahpLos; charadrius. 
 Rather, the great plover. Our version 
 and the earlier English translators have follow- 
 ed a weak rabbinical authority in rendering 
 dndphah by heron. See Lewysohn, § 2CO. 
 Luther, following -other Jewish authorities, 
 has translated it by jay. The derivation of 
 the Hebrew name is doubtful (.see Fiirst). 
 The word of the Septuagint denotes some 
 bird of which the name was a proverb for 
 greediness amongst the Greeks (see Liddell and 
 Scott). It is identified on pretty safe ground 
 with the great or thick-kneed plover (Cha- 
 radrius cedicnemus)^ a bird widely diffused in 
 Europe, Asia, and North Africa, and well 
 known to the ancient Egyptians (Wilkinson, 
 
 I, p. 251). It lives on coarse food such as 
 slugs, worms, frogs and toads. The Charadrius 
 had magical qualities ascribed to it by the 
 Egyptians. Heliodorus, ‘Aiithiop.’ Lib. in. 
 
 the lapvjing) dukiphath ; erro -^ ; upupa. 
 Rather the hoopoe. Our translators have 
 followed the older English versions with no 
 good authority. The Hebrew name cannot 
 be satisfactorily explained (Fiirst). There 
 appears to be no reason for preferring any 
 rendering to that of the Septuagint, the hoopoe 
 (Upupa epops). Its peculiar cry or whoop is 
 expressed m its name in most languages. It 
 lives upon insects, and it is often found in 
 Syria. Its flesh is said to be very good. 
 But the bird has been generally regarded 
 with superstitious feelings from early times, 
 especially by the Egyptians. Ailian, ‘ H. A.’ 
 X. 16. Aristoph. ‘ Av.’ 94. Mr Tristram 
 says, “ The Arabs have a superstitious reve- 
 rence for this bird, which they believe to pos- 
 sess marvellous medicinal qualities, and they 
 call it ‘the doctor.’ Its head is an indis- 
 pensable ingredient in all charms and in the 
 practice of witchcraft.” The Bedouins are 
 said to believe that it is inhabited by the spirits 
 of the departed. ‘ Penny Cyclo.’ Art. Upuptdce. 
 Rabbinical authorities take the dukiphath for 
 some kind of grouse. Lewysohn, § 267. 
 But it is highly improbable that any bird 
 allied to the grouse should have been deemed 
 unclean. 
 
 the bat) 'hatalleph ; uvKrep'is ; njespertilio. 
 There is no doubt that the baf is the animal 
 here intended (see Fiirst). Luther and Cran- 
 mer with some of the rabbinists have however 
 preferred the swallow. The word "‘hatalleph 
 signifies a creature which flies in the dark. 
 It is mentioned along with the mole as sym- 
 bolical of darkness, Isaiah ii. 20. It is reckoned 
 in this place amongst birds in accordance with 
 popular notions, as the coney and the hare are 
 placed amongst ruminants. See on 2;. 5. 
 
 Creeping things., 20 — 23. 
 
 The word rendered creeping things (sheretz) 
 is applied to insects (2.’^’. 20 — 23), reptiles, 
 and small land animals of different kinds (see 
 2;. 29). In a general way, it may be regarded 
 as coextensive with our word ^vermin. It is 
 derived from a verb which signifies not only to 
 cre'ep, but to teem, or bring forth abundantly 
 (Gen, i. 21, viii. 17 ; Exod. viii. 3 ; Ps. cv. 30), 
 and so easily came to denote creatures which 
 are apt to abound, to the annoyance of man- 
 kind. 
 
 20. All fonvls that creep, going upon all 
 four) This should rather be, “All creep- 
 ing things which have wings, going 
 
V. 2 1 — 23.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XL 
 
 551 
 
 
 21 Yet these may ye eat of every 
 flying creeping thing that goeth upon 
 all four, which have legs above their 
 feet, to leap with'al upon the earth ; 
 
 22 Even these of them ye may eat ; 
 the locust after his kind, and the bald 
 
 locust after his kind, and the beetle 
 after his kind, and the grasshopper 
 after his kind. 
 
 23 But all other flying creeping 
 things, which have four feet, shall he 
 an abomination unto you. 
 
 upon all four.” It has been considered that 
 the words refer to the bat, spoken of in the 
 preceding verse, and not to insects which have 
 more than four legs (Gesenius). But it is not 
 certain that the Hebrew expression, “going 
 upon all four,” is to be taken in its literal 
 sense. It may be a general expression for 
 walking upon feet with the body in a hori- 
 zontal position (so far like a quadruped), as 
 distinguished from flying, leaping or crawling. 
 The Jewish writers appear thus to have under- 
 stood the phrase here and in *1;. 23 : they con- 
 sidered that it refers to such creatures as the 
 fly and the wasp (see Targum of Palestine, 
 and R. Levi quoted by Drusius). 
 
 21. legs abon^s their feet^ to leap withal 
 upon the earth'] There are three families of 
 orthopterous insects furnished with a pair of 
 long legs for leaping, distinguished by the 
 name Saltatoria. The common cricket, the 
 common grasshopper, and the migratory 
 
 , locust, may be taken as types of these three 
 families. Several species of these creatures 
 are eaten in the East at this day. They are 
 formally permitted to be used as food by 
 the Moslem law, ‘ Hedaya,’ iv. p. 75. They 
 are dressed in different ways. For the most 
 part, they are thrown alive into boiling water 
 with salt in it, and the heads, wings, and legs are 
 pulled off. The bodies are then either roasted 
 on hot plates, baked in ovens, stewed, or fried 
 in butter, for immediate use, or dried and 
 smoked to be kept in store. They are eaten 
 either with salt or with spice and vinegar. 
 The inhabitants of Senegal grind them, when 
 dried, to powder, and mix them with flour to 
 make cakes of the mixture. According to 
 Hasselquist the Arabs of Mecca treat them in 
 the same manner, p. 23a. They are eaten by 
 some of the Bedouin tribes, but not by all 
 (Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ Vol. ii, p. 204). In East- 
 ern Arabia, according to Mr Palgrave, a large 
 reddish-brown locust is esteemed as a pecu- 
 liar delicacy (Vol. ii. p. 138). In some of the 
 Arabian markets locusts are sold in a dried 
 state either by measure, or by number, strung 
 upon threads. Pliny speaks of a nation of 
 Ethiopians who used to live entirely upon 
 them (‘ H. N.’ vi. 35. See also Arist. 
 
 ‘ H. A. V.’ 30; Aristoph. ‘ Acharn.’ 1116; 
 Solinus, XXX. 8). The field-cricket and the 
 cicada are eaten by the native peoples of West- 
 ern America (Lord, ‘ At home in the Wilder- 
 ness,’ p. 250). 
 
 22. the locust] arbeh ; ^povgos] bruchus: 
 
 more frequently and more correctly rendered 
 in the LXX. d/cpiy : the (Bpovgos was a wing- 
 less insect. Theophrastus, Fragm. 14. 4. ^r- 
 beh appears to be the name of one species of 
 the migratory locusts, which are those best 
 known in the East as the most destructive and 
 the most generally eaten by the Arabs. There 
 are three distinct species, called by naturalists 
 QLdipoda mlgratoria^ Acrydium peregrinum^ and 
 Acrydium lineola. The arbeh is the one com- 
 monly mentioned in the Old Testament. See 
 Ex. X. 4 ; Job xxxix. 20 ; Ps. Ixxyiii. 46, cv. 
 34 ; Joel i. 4, &c. &c. 
 
 bald locust] soPam- arraKr]] attacus. It is 
 not mentioned elsewhere. The Hebrew name 
 seems to be identical with the Egyptian name 
 for the locust (Brugsch). There is no evi- 
 dence to identify it with any known species. 
 Our version has called it “the bald locust,” 
 in accordance with a mere rabbinical fancy. 
 (See Drusius in loc.) It may have been one 
 of the two migratory species mentioned above. 
 
 the beetle] chargol ; 6(f)iopaxT]9 ; ophioma- 
 chus. Neither is this mentioned elsewhere in 
 the Old Testament. There seems to be no 
 authority for calling it “the beetle.” It must 
 certainly be some species of the Saltatoria. 
 No one of them appears to have been noticed 
 which, from its enmity to the serpent, could have 
 any claim to the name given in the Septua- 
 g'nf. The Mishna mentions the chargoh 
 says that its eggs were worn in the ears of 
 women as a sort of charm. ‘ De Sabb.’ vi. 10. 
 
 the grasshopper] chdgdb ; arpis', locusta. 
 This is mentioned Num. xiii. 33 ; 2 Ghron. vii. 
 13 ; Eccles. xii. 5 ; Is. xl. 22. That this was 
 one of the destructive locusts, is evident from 
 2 Ghron. vii. 13; and that it is one of the 
 smaller ones, is probable from Num. xiii. 33 ; 
 Ecc. xii. 5. 
 
 In the uncertainty of identifying these four 
 creatures, it has been suggested that some of 
 the names may belong to locusts in an imper- 
 fect state of development ; but this can hardly 
 meet the case, since the larva of any insect 
 would necessarily be unclean according to -v. 
 42. Most versions in modern languages, in- 
 cluding the older English versions, have taken 
 a safer course than our translators, by retain- 
 ing the Hebrew names. The Geneva Bible 
 wisely adds in the margin, “These were cer- 
 tain kinds of grasshoppers which are not now 
 properly known.” ' 
 
 23 . four feet] See on t;. 20. 
 
 In the law given in Dent. xiv. 19, flying 
 
52 
 
 LEVITICUS. XL 
 
 [v. 24—30. 
 
 24 And for these ye shall be un- 
 clean : whosoever toucheth the carcase 
 of them shall be unclean until the even. 
 
 25 And whosoever beareth ought 
 of the carcase of them shall wash his 
 clothes, and be unclean until the even. 
 
 26 The carcases of every beast 
 which divideth the hoof, and is not 
 clovenfooted, nor cheweth the cud, 
 are unclean unto you ; every one that 
 .toucheth them shall be unclean. 
 
 27 And whatsoever goeth upon his 
 paws, among all manner of beasts that 
 
 go on all four, those are unclean unto 
 you : whoso toucheth their carcase 
 shall be unclean until the even. 
 
 28 And he that beareth the carcase 
 of them shall wash his clothes, and be 
 unclean until the even ; they are un- 
 clean unto you. 
 
 29 ^ These also shall be unclean 
 unto you among the creeping things 
 that creep upon the earth ; the weasel, 
 and the mouse, and the tortoise after 
 his kind, 
 
 30 And the ferret, and the chame- 
 
 insects are prohibited without qualification. 
 Locusts are not mentioned as an exception, 
 but they must have been so understood. That 
 they were' actually eaten by the Jews, we 
 know from the case of St John the Baptist. 
 This is of itself sufficient to confute the in- 
 ference of Knobel, that the permission to eat 
 locusts was withdrawn when Deuteronomy 
 was written. 
 
 Contact ^itb the carcases of unclean animals. 
 
 24 — 28. 
 
 The law is here laid down regarding con- 
 tact with the dead bodies, (i) of unclean 
 insects ; (2) of quadrupeds unclean because 
 they do not ruminate and divide the hoof; 
 and (3) of quadrupeds unclean because they 
 walk on their toes. See on 27. Whoever 
 merely touched a carcase of either of these 
 creatures was to be unclean until the evening 
 of the day, but whoever carried one, was, 
 besides this, to wash his clothes. If the due 
 purification was omitted at the time, through 
 negligence or forgetfulness, a Sin-oftering was 
 required. See on v. 2. 
 
 26 . e'very one that toucheth theni] i.e. not 
 the living animals, but their carcases. 
 
 27 . goeth upon his pa’U!s~\ Like the dog, 
 cat, and all beasts of prey. I'hese are included 
 in the preceding class of those which do not 
 ruminate and divide the hoof, but they appear 
 to be mentioned for emphasis. 
 
 Unclean Creeping things.^ and the Pollution of 
 domestic Utensils. 29 — 43. 
 
 29 . These also shall be unclean^ &c.] “The 
 creej)ing things” (see on 'vv. 20 — 23) which 
 are here named are most likely those which 
 were occasionally eaten. 
 
 the -jseasef choled ; yaXrj ] mustela ; so the 
 I'argums. 'J'he word choled occurs nowhere 
 else in the (). T. According to its etymology, 
 it would denote an animal that glides, or slips 
 away. 'i'here can be no doubt that the 
 Mishna uses it for a weasel, or some such 
 animal, when it speaks of a creature which 
 catches birds by the head or poll (‘ Cholin,’ 
 III. 4. Sec also ‘Taharoth,’ iv. 2; Buxt. 
 
 ‘Lex. Tab’ 756; Lewysohn, § 135). These 
 authorities are strong in favour of the weasel. 
 But Mr Tristram is inclined to follow Bo- 
 chart in taking choled for the same as the 
 Arabic khlunt or khald., which denotes the 
 mole. ‘Land of Israel,’ p. 186. The regular 
 Hebrew name for the mole appears to be 
 chephar.. Is. ii. 20. 
 
 the mouse'\ akbdr; ixvs’i mus. i S. vi. 4 ; Is. 
 Ixvi. 17. The word is said to mean a ^coaster 
 of fields. It has been supposed to be the jerboa 
 or “jumping mouse” {Dipus jEgyptius) that 
 abounds in Egypt and Syria, which is some- 
 times eaten and is very destructive to grain. 
 Bochart, Gesenius, Knobel; see Hasselquist, ’ 
 p. 186. But Mr Tristram with great pro- 
 bability conjectures that ’’akbdr may be the 
 equivalent of the Arabic far ah which is ap- 
 plied to any small rodent. 
 
 the tortoise'] t%db. Rather, the great 
 lizard. The Septuagint calls it the land- 
 crocodile (which is mentioned by Herodotus, 
 IV. 192, where see Sir G. Wilkinson’s note), 
 and the other ancient versions simply the croco- 
 dile. It is not mentioned elsewhere in the 
 O. T. Bochart considers the Hebrew word 
 to be allied to the Arabic dhab., the name of 
 a large lizard, often two feet long, which 
 abounds in Egypt and Syria. Tristram identi- 
 fies it with the Uromastix spinipes (‘ Nat. 
 Hist.’ p. 255). According to Hasselquist, its 
 flesh is dried by some of the Eastern nations 
 as a charm or medicine, which in past ages 
 was sent to Venice and Marseilles as an article 
 of commerce. He adds that the Arabs make 
 broth of its fresh flesh, p. 220. St Jerome, 
 who calls it the land-crocodile, says that the 
 Syrians in his time were accustomed to eat its 
 flesh, ‘ Adv. Jovin.’ ii. 7, p. 334. Some have 
 taken t%ab for the toad. Lewysohn, § 281. 
 
 30 . the ferret] andkdh ; fivydXr ] ; my gale. 
 Rather, the gecko. The Hebrew word 
 appears to mean the squeaker or croaker. 
 While the Septuagint and the Vulgate identify 
 this with the shrew mouse, the Eastern ver- 
 sions take it on better ground for some sort of 
 lizard. Bochart, Gesenius, Knobel, and Tris- 
 
V- 31— 35-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XL 
 
 553 
 
 Icon, and the lizard, and the snail, and 
 the mole. 
 
 31 These are unclean to you among 
 
 all that creep : whosoever doth touch 
 them, when they be dead, shall be un- 
 clean until the even. # 
 
 32 And upon v/hatsoever any of 
 them, when they are dead, doth fall, 
 it shall be unclean ; whether it be 
 any vessel of wood, or raiment, or 
 skin, or sack, whatsoever vessel it he^ 
 wherein any work is done, it» must 
 be put into water, and it shall be 
 unclean until the even \ so it shall be 
 cleansed. 
 
 tram agree with the latter. Rosenmuller sup- 
 poses it to be the gecko (Lacerta gecko), which 
 makes a noise something like the croaking of 
 a frog, and has feet of a peculiar construction 
 which enable it to walk on ceilings. It 
 often intrudes into dwelling-rooms. The 
 animal is not named in any other passage of 
 the O. T. 
 
 tije cha^neleori] koach. Our translators have 
 here followed the Septuagint, Vulgate and 
 Targums. But a word, to be noticed lower 
 down, has better claims to denote the chame- 
 leon. Knobel, comparing koach with the Arab 
 word keek, with kou^, the word by which 
 Aristophanes represents the croaking of frogs, 
 and the Latin coaxare, supp*oses it to denote 
 the frog. According to its supposed etymo- 
 logical sense (the strong one) it might fairly 
 belong to the frog, from the great muscular 
 power which that animal exhibits in leaping. 
 Gesenius, Robinson and Keil prefer to apply 
 it to one of the Monitors, especially the Lacerta 
 Nilotica. 
 
 the lizard] let a ah', d(rKa\aj3(oTr]s’i stellio. 
 All the ancient versions take this to be a newt 
 or lizard of some kind. The Septuagint 
 identifies it with the gecko mentioned above. 
 It may rather be one of the Monitors men- 
 tioned in the preceding note. The Talmud 
 appears to use the word as a general name for 
 lizards. Lewysohn, § ^72. 
 
 the snail] c hornet ; o-avpa', lacerta. Our 
 version here follows the Targum of Palestine 
 and most Jewish authorities. The old ver- 
 sions in general take c hornet for a lizard of 
 some kind. The word appears to come from 
 a root which signifies to lie flat. Some have 
 supposed that the slow- worm (^Anguis fragiUs) 
 is intended, which forms a link between the 
 snakes and the lizards. The proper Hebrew 
 word for “the snail” is shanjlul. P's. Iviii. 8. 
 
 the mole] Rather, the chameleon; tinshe- 
 meth {i.e. the breather or inflater); dcr’Koka^', 
 talpa. The same Hebrew name is applied to 
 a bird in nj. 18. The ancient versions agree 
 
 33 And every earthen vessel, where- 
 into any of them falleth, whatsoever 
 is in it shall be unclean ; and ^ye shall 
 break it. 
 
 34 Of all meat which may be eaten, 
 that on which such water cometh shall 
 be unclean : and all drink that may be 
 drunk in every such vessel shall be 
 unclean. 
 
 35 And every thing whereupon any 
 part of their carcase falleth shall be 
 unclean ; whether it he oven, or ranges 
 for pots, they shall be broken down : 
 for they are unclean, and shall be un- 
 clean unto you. 
 
 with ours in rendering the word 7nole, in 
 this place. It is however supposed by most 
 modern critics to denote the chameleon, to 
 which the name might belong either from the 
 old notion that it lives upon air or from its 
 well-known habit of inflating the body when 
 it is excited (Bochart, Gesenius, Knobel, Keil, 
 Herxheimer, Tristram). Its flesh was sup- 
 posed by the ancients to possess medicinal 
 virtues. Pliny, ‘H. N.’ xxviii. 29. 
 
 31 . (Lvhen they be dead] That is, whether 
 they had died naturally or had been killed. 
 Cf. 07 . 39. 
 
 32 — 35 . These regulations seem to be given 
 in consequence of its being more probable that 
 the bodies of the animals which are mentioned 
 in 0 ) 07 . 29, 30 should accidentally come into 
 contact with cooking apparatus and other 
 domestic furniture than the bodies of the 
 other unclean animals. It may also have 
 served as an emphatic caution in connection 
 with the use that might have been made of 
 such creatures in gravy or soup, “the broth of 
 abominable things,” Is. Ixv. 4. The rule can 
 hardly be intended to intimate, as some 
 Jewish and other commentators (Maimonides, 
 Kurtz, &c.) have imagined, that their flesh 
 would communicate a peculiar degree of pol- 
 lution, beyond that spoken of in 0707. ii, 12, 13. 
 
 32 . 07essel of ovood...ovhatsoeo7er 07essel] 
 utensil rather than vessel. The word here 
 and in 07. 33 is a term of wide meaning like 
 the Greek o-/ceGoj. See on Ex. xxvii. 19. 
 
 33 . ea7'then 07esser] See on vi. 28 ; cf. 
 07 . 34. 
 
 35 . 00701, or ranges for pots] The word 
 
 here used for oven is tanur, the name for the 
 earthenware oven in common use. See on 
 Lev. ii. 4. The word rendered “ ranges for 
 pots ” is a peculiar one, in the dual number. 
 It has been conjectured to mean either an 
 excavated fireplace, fitted to receive a pair of 
 ovens (Kimchi, Gesenius, Rosenmuller, Herx- 
 heimer), a vessel consisting of two parts, like 
 
554 
 
 36 Nevertheless a fountain or pit, 
 ■Heb. wherein there is plenty of water, shall 
 Iff/o-"'' be clean: but that which toucheth 
 pettier of tj^eir carcase shall be unclean. 
 
 if any part of their carcase 
 fall upon any sowing seed which is to 
 be sown, it shall be clean. 
 
 38 But if any water be put upon 
 the seed, and any part of their carcase 
 fall thereon, it shall be unclean unto 
 you. 
 
 39 And if any beast, of which ye 
 may eat, die ; he that toucheth the 
 carcase thereof shall be unclean until 
 the even. 
 
 40 And he that eateth of the car- 
 case of it shall wash his clothes, and 
 be unclean until the even : he also 
 that beareth the carcase of it shall 
 wash his clothes, and be unclean until 
 the even. 
 
 41 And every creeping thing that 
 creepeth upon the earth shall be an 
 abomination ; it shall not be eaten. 
 
 42 Whatsoever goeth upon the 
 t Heb. belly, and whatsoever goeth upon all 
 
 or whatsoever Uiath more feet 
 
 [v. 36—47. 
 
 among all creeping things that creep 
 upon the earth, them ye shall not eat ; 
 for they are an abomination. 
 
 43 Ye shall not make your ^selves iHeb. 
 abominable with any creeping thing 
 that creepeth, neither shall ye make 
 )murselves unclean with them, that ye 
 should be defiled thereby. 
 
 44 For I a?n the Lord your God: 
 ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, 
 and shall be holy; for L am holy: 
 neithe/ shall ye defile yourselves with fpet. 1.15 
 any manner of creeping thing that 
 creepeth upon the earth. 
 
 45 For I am the Lord that bringeth 
 you up out of the land of Egypt, to 
 be your God: ye shall therefore be 
 holy, for I am holy. 
 
 46 This is the law of the beasts, 
 and of the fowl, and of every living 
 creature that moveth in the waters, 
 and of every creature that creepeth 
 upon the earth : 
 
 47 To make a difference between 
 the unclean and the clean, and between 
 the beast that may be eaten and the 
 beast that may not be eaten. 
 
 LEVITICUS. XL 
 
 a stewpan and its cover (Knobel, Keil, the 
 Targums), or a support to sei-ve as a trevit 
 (LXX.), perhaps like a pair of andirons._ Mr 
 Palgrave speaks of a contrivance found in the 
 remoter parts of Arabia which may illustrate 
 and contirm the last of these conjectures. 
 He describes it as “an open fireplace hollow- 
 ed in the ground-floor, with a raised stone 
 border, and dog-irons for the fuel, and so 
 forth, just like what may be seen in Spain and 
 some old English manor-houses.” ‘Travels 
 in Arabia,’ Vol. I. p 50. 
 
 36 . That is, whatever touched the carcase, 
 in the act of removing it, or otherwise, be- 
 came unclean. 
 
 37 , 38 . If the seed had been wetted it 
 would imbibe the pollution. The exemption 
 applied exclusively to dry grain which was to 
 be used for seed. That which was to be eaten 
 recpiired purification like other things. 
 
 39, 40 . 'Fhe carcase of a clean beast which 
 had not been properly slaughtered (cf. Lev. 
 xvii. 15) was under the same conditions, as 
 regards mere contact, as the dead body of an 
 uncl'.‘an beast. Hut the eating of its llesh is 
 treated as what m’ght possibly occur, and the 
 terms of puritication for him who had eaten 
 are given. 'J'his may have been to meet the 
 probability of the body of an ox, a sheep, or 
 a goat, bciUg recovered from a wild beast and. 
 
 from need or economy, eaten by its owner. 
 See on xvii. ii, 15, 16. 
 
 41_43. But all “creeping things” are 
 unconditionally forbidden, because “they are 
 an abomination.” In like manner the prohi- 
 bitions to eat of the other unclean animals are 
 expressed without condition, 'vnj. 8, ii, 13. 
 The command is, not that he who may eat of 
 them should purify himself, but that they 
 should not be eaten at all. 
 
 42 . WhaUoe'ver goeth upon the bslly] That 
 
 is, all footless reptiles, and mollusks, such as 
 snakes of all kinds, snails, slugs, and worms. 
 Whatsoever goeth upon all four; that is, of 
 “creeping things,” or vermin; such as the 
 weasel, the mouse or the lizard. See on vv. 
 20 — 23. Whatsoever hath more feet; all in- 
 sects, except the locust family {y. 22), myria- 
 pods, spiders, and caterpillars. 
 
 One letter in the Hebrew word which is 
 rendered belly in this verse is said by the Jews 
 to be the middle ‘letter of the Pentateuch, and 
 is printed in the Hebrew Bibles in a larger 
 type than the rest. 
 
 44, 47 . Then follows, in immediate con- 
 nection with the prohibition of creeping things, 
 a setting forth of the spiritual ground on which 
 the distinction between clean and unclean is 
 based. Cf.x. 10, xx. 25, 26; i Peter i. 15, 16. 
 
55 
 
 LEVITICUS. XL 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xi. 2 — 30. 
 
 On the Distinction between Clean 
 AND Unclean in respect to Food. 
 
 I. T^he distinction made by the Lazu a special 
 mark of the chosen people. II. Different 
 theories of the details. III. The primary 
 distinction., that^ bet^ueen Life and Death. 
 
 * IV. Conditions of animal food. V. The 
 distinction on Its practical side not peculiar 
 to the La^v. VI. The 'wisdom of It on 
 sanitary grounds. VII. hi what was 
 the Mosaic Law of distinction peculiar 1 
 
 I. The object of this law is declared in 
 nr'v. 43, 47, and is emphatically repeated in ch. 
 XX. 24 — 26, “ I am the Lord your God, which 
 have separated you from other people. Ye 
 shall therefore put difference between clean 
 beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls 
 and clean : and ye shall not make your souls 
 abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any 
 manner of living thing that creepeth on the 
 ground, which I have separated from you as 
 unclean. And ye shall be holy unto me: for 
 I the Lord am holy, and have severed you 
 from other people, that ye should be mine.” 
 
 The basis of the obligation to maintain the 
 prescribed distinction is thus declared to be 
 the call of the Hebrews to be the peculiar 
 people of Jehovah. It was to be something 
 in their daily life to remind them of the 
 Covenant which distinguished them from 
 the nations of the world. It might so become 
 an apt type of the call itself, the clean animals 
 answering to the Israelites and the unclean to 
 the Gentiles. St Peter’s vision of the vessel 
 like a sheet knit at the four corners, “ wherein 
 were all manner of foorfooted beasts of the 
 earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, 
 and fowls of the air” (Acts x. 12), appears 
 to recognize it in this way. It was at that 
 time made known to the apostle that the 
 revelation, which had broken down the middle 
 wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, 
 had pronounced every creature of God to be 
 clean; that every creature of God is good, 
 and nothing to be refused, if it be received 
 with thanksgiving (i Tim. iv. 4); that it is 
 not that which goeth into the mouth which 
 defileth a man, but that which cometh out 
 of the mouth. Matt. xv. ii. The elect peo- 
 ple were no longer to be tied by the letter of 
 the Law in regard to their food, but were to 
 be left to the exercise of a regenerated judg- 
 ment. They were to learn that the kingdom 
 of God is not eating, or abstaining, from meats 
 and drinks; but righteousness, and truth, and 
 peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Rom. 
 xiv. 17. 
 
 II. Various opinions have been formed as 
 to what considerations directed the line by 
 which clean animals were separated from un- 
 clean. 
 
 It has been held, (i) That the food forbid- 
 
 den was such as was commonly eaten by the 
 neighbouring nations, and that the prohibition 
 served as a check to keep the people away 
 from social intercourse with the Gentiles*. 
 (2) That the flesh of certain animals from 
 which the Egyptians abstained, because they 
 held it to be sacred, was pronounced clean, 
 and treated as common food; and that the 
 flesh of other animals, which was associated 
 with the practice of magic, was abominated 
 as unclean, in order that the Israelites might 
 in their daily life bear a testimony against 
 idolatry and superstition^. (3) That it is 
 impossible to refer the line of demarcation to 
 anything but the arbitrary will of God-k 
 (4) But the notion which has been accepted 
 with most favour is that the distinction is 
 based wholly or mainly upon symbolical 
 ground. By some it has been connected with 
 the degradation of all creation through the 
 fall of man. The apparent reflection of moral 
 depravity in the disposition of some animals 
 has been identified in rather a loose way with 
 the unclean crealTires of the Law 4 . Follow- 
 ing in the wake of many of the Fathers, qr 
 perhaps rather turning their figurative lan- 
 guage into formal interpretation, some modern 
 critics have attached symbolism also to the 
 particulars in the form and physiology of 
 animals, from which rules are laid down for 
 distinguishing the classes of clean and un- 
 clean animals. The cloven hoof, standing 
 firmly on the ground, and yet well adapted 
 for locomotion, has been taken as a figure of 
 the standing in the world and the walk in the 
 road of life of the believer: the ruminating 
 process is regarded as intended to remind the 
 Israelites of the duty of forming a habit of 
 meditating again and again on the divine coun- 
 sels (Josh. i. 8). As the fins of a fish are 
 intended to raise it out of the mud in which 
 such creatures as the eel dwell, so prayer and 
 faith are meant to raise the soul out of dark- 
 ness and pollution®. (3) Many have consi- 
 dered that the prohibition of the unclean 
 animals was based mainly or entirely upon 
 sanitary grounds, their flesh being regarded as 
 unwholesome®. 
 
 Davidson, Hnt. to O. T.’ I. 258. 
 
 ^ Origen, ‘Cont. Cels.’ iv. p. 225. See on 
 Lev. xi. iS, 19, 29. — It is surprising to find Ewald 
 imagining that the Israelites ate oxen and other 
 animals out of ridicule of the idolatry of those 
 animals by the Egyptians. ‘Hist, of Israel,’ I. 
 p. 5 73. Beef was eaten by the Egyptians as freely 
 as by the> Israelites. Wilkinson, i. p. 166. 
 
 ® CuniEus, ‘de Rep. Fleb.’ Ii. 24 in ‘Critici 
 Sacri.’ 
 
 Barnabas, ‘Ep.’ ch. x. Aristoeus in Euseb. 
 ‘Prep. Evan.’ viir. 9. Jones of Nayland, ‘Zoo- 
 logia Ethica.’ Keil. 
 
 ^ See Kurtz, ‘Sac. Worship,’ pp. 28, 20. 
 
 ® hlaimon. ‘Mor. Nev.’ HI. 48. Spencer, ‘de 
 
55<5 
 
 LEVITICUS. XI. 
 
 The different views which have been held 
 on the subject are discussed at length by 
 Spencer ancl by Michaelis. We may briefly 
 remark, in regard to the First view we have 
 stated, that the animal food of the ancient 
 Egyptians and Arabians appears to have 
 been, with but little exception, the same as 
 that of the Israelites E in regard to the 
 Second, that the clean ox, sheep, goat, and 
 stag were amongst the animals which were 
 held as most sacred by the Egyptians. O n the 
 Third nothing need be said, except that it is 
 arbitrary and unsatisfactory In regard to the 
 Fourth, it is strange that its advocates should 
 overlook the facts that the morose and 
 sulky bull and the capricious goat are clean, 
 while the patient camel and the hare are 
 unclean; and that the hoof of the unclean 
 horse and the foot of the unclean camel seem 
 to be better adapted to symbolize the outward 
 life of the faithful believer than the foot of the 
 ox or the sheep. 
 
 III. In order to come to anything like a 
 satisfactory conclusion on the subject, it seems 
 necessary to look more strictly than some 
 have done at the way in which this law was 
 regarded in the practical life of the Flebrews. 
 The division which was the foundation of the 
 law was not one of li'ving animals. Unclean- 
 ness, as such, belonged to no creature while 
 it was alive. The Hebrew treated his camel 
 and his ass with as much care as he did his 
 ox or his sheep, and came into contact with 
 them as freely. And further, regarding them 
 as authorized symbols of spiritual truth, the 
 Eion and the Eagle were in the vision of the 
 prophet coordinate with the Ox and the Man, 
 Ezek. i. lo. But according to the whole spirit 
 of the Eaw, as well as its letter, every dead 
 body, whether of a human being, of an animal 
 clean or unclean, if it had died of itself or had 
 been killed in a common way, was a polluted 
 thing, not to be touched. We have thus 
 brought before us the great opposition be- 
 tween Life and Death. As every living animal 
 was clean, so every dead animal, in its natural 
 condition, was unclean. 
 
 IV. But it was necessary to make pro- 
 vision for human food. The Law therefore 
 pointed out those animals which Divine wi.s- 
 dom decided to be the best for the purpose ; 
 and it ordained that, when they were required as 
 food, they should be slaughtered in a particular 
 manner and sanctihed by being brought to the 
 door of the'Fabernacle (l.ev. xvii. 3 — 6). They 
 thus became ceremonially excepted from the 
 general taint of tleath. 'Fhe blood, in which 
 was “tlv* life of the flesh” (Lev. xvii. ii, see 
 note), was carefully drawn off from the meat, 
 which having been presented before Jehovah, 
 was endowed with a new relation. It was made 
 
 I.eg. Ileb.’ I. ch. 7. Michaelis, ‘Laws of 
 Moses,’ Xo. ccii., &c. 
 
 ^ See below, § V. 
 
 clean and fit to be the food of Jehovah’s 
 people. See Note after ch. xvii. 
 
 V. The distinction between clean and un- 
 clean animals was no new thing at the time of 
 the giving of the Law. It had been recognized 
 before the flood and immediately afterwards 
 (Gen. vii. 2, 3, viii. 20). But we are not told 
 how far the patriarchal rule coincided with 
 the Mosaic. , 
 
 The chief part of the animal food of culti- 
 vated nations has in all ages and in all parts of 
 the world been taken from the same kinds of 
 animals. The ruminating quadrupeds, the 
 fishes with fins and scales, the gallinaceous 
 birds and other birds which feed on veget- 
 ables, are evidently preferred by the general 
 choice of mankind. Where there has been 
 no prescribed law the common usage has 
 tended to the same practical result. The 
 ancient Gentile laws on the subject, as far as 
 we are acquainted with them, are, with very 
 inconsiderable exceptions, in agreement with 
 this law of Moses. The Egyptian priests, we 
 are told, abstained from the flesh of all solid- 
 hoofed quadrupeds, all which have toes and 
 all which have not horns ; from birds of 
 prey and from fishL The Parsees are said 
 to reject the flesh of all beasts and birds of 
 prey and of the hare. The ancient Arabians, 
 though, like the modern Moslems, they ate 
 the flesh of the camel, carefully abstained from 
 pork (see notes on 4, ?)• According tc 
 the Moslem law, all beasts and birds of prey, 
 the ass, the mule, and (in the judgment of the 
 best authorities) the horse, all insects except 
 locusts, and all animals living in the water ex- 
 cept true fish, are prohibited^. The Brahmin 
 rule is based upon an appeal to a certain divine 
 law which is infringed in the ordinary facts of 
 nature. It is assumed to be right that only 
 the higher creature should eat the flesh of the 
 lower. When, as in’the case of beasts and birds 
 of prey, an animal feeds upon another in the same 
 rank with itself, the order is disturbed, and its 
 flesh becomes impure and unfit for the food of 
 the Brahmin. Menu says, “ for the sustenance 
 of the vital spirit, Brahma created all this animal 
 and vegetable system ; and all that is move- 
 able or immoveable that spirit devours. Things 
 which do not move are eaten by creatures with 
 locomotion ; toothless animals, by animals with 
 teeth ; those without hands, by those to whom 
 hands are given ; and the timid, by the bold. 
 He who eats according to (this) law commits 
 no sin, even though every day he taste the flesh 
 of such animals as may lawfully be tasted ; since 
 both the animals which may be eaten, and 
 those who eat them, were equally created by 
 Brahma ”. It would seem that the flesh of the 
 cow, from which nearly all modern Hindoos 
 
 ^ Chicremon, quoted by Porphyry, ‘De Abst.’ 
 IV. 7. 
 
 ^ ‘ Iledaya,’ Vol. IV. p. 74. 
 
 3 ‘InstiUilcs of Menu,’ ch. v. 28 — 35. 
 
V. 1—4.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIL 
 
 557 
 
 strictly abstain, was originally not excepted 
 from the lawful diet of the Brahmins h But 
 beasts of prey, quadrupeds which have solid 
 hoofs and those which have five toes (except the 
 hare and a few others), the tame pig, car- 
 nivorous birds, webfooted birds, the heron, 
 the raven, the parrot, and fish of all kinds, 
 appear to have been expressly prohibited from 
 the earliest times 
 
 VI. It cannot be doubted that the dis- 
 tinction which is substantially recognized by 
 these different nations is in agreement with the 
 laws of our earthly life. All experience tends to 
 shew that the animals generally recognized as 
 clean are those which furnish the best and most 
 wholesome sorts of food. The instinct of our 
 nature points in the same direction. Every 
 one dislikes the snake and the toad. No one 
 likes the form and habits of the pig’. We 
 shrink from the notion of eating the flesh 
 of the hycena or the vulture. When we 
 ai'e told of our fellow-creatures eating slugs, 
 snails and earthworms, and accounting the 
 grubs found in rotten wood a peculiar de- 
 licacy the feeling of disgust which arises 
 within us would not seem to be the off- 
 spring of mere conventional refinement. 
 This conclusion is not invalidated by the 
 fact that our own repugnant feelings have 
 been subdued in the case of the oyster and 
 the pig. In regard to the distinction as it 
 is laid down in the Mosaic Law, Cyril ap- 
 pears to be amply Justified in saying that it 
 
 ^ Colebrooke, quoted in ‘The Hindoos,’ pub- 
 lished by Knight, ch. viii. 
 
 ^ Menu, V. ii — 18. 
 
 ^ See note on Lev. xi. 7. 
 
 See Hieron. ‘adv. Jovin.’ ii. 7. 
 
 coincides with our natural instinct and obser- 
 vation 
 
 It has indeed been alleged by modern critics 
 that the Law “cannot be supposed to have a 
 dietetic object.” (Kurtz, Keil, &c.) But this 
 is surely taking a very contracted view of the 
 subject. He who gave the Law to Moses 
 created the earth with all that it contains 
 and man who lives upon it. It cannot have 
 been beneath Him or His chosen servant to 
 instruct His people to live in accordance 
 with the harmony of which He is the author, 
 and to obey His laws whether they relate to 
 the body or the spirit. 
 
 VII. But if the distinction of animals laid 
 down by Moses agreed in the main with that 
 recognized by other nations than the Hebrews, 
 we may ask what just claim has this law to the 
 distinctive character ascribed to it in Lev. xi. 
 43 — 47 i XX. 25, 26? In what way was it 
 essentially connected with the separation of 
 Israel from the nations of the world ? The 
 answer appears to be this; — the ordinance 
 of Moses was for the avbole nation. It was 
 not, like the Egyptian law, intended for priests 
 alone ; nor like the Hindoo law, binding only 
 on the twice-born Brahmin ; nor like the 
 Parsee law, to be apprehended and obeyed 
 only by those disciplined in spiritual matters. 
 It was a law for the people, for every man, 
 woman and child of the race chosen to be 
 “a kingdom of priests, an holy nation” 
 (Exod. xix. 6). It was to be one of the 
 foreshadows of the higher spiritual equality of 
 the better seed of A braham which was in later 
 ages pronounced ‘ ‘ a chosen generation, a royal 
 priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people.” 
 
 I Pet.ii. 9 ; cf. Is. Ixi. 6, also i Cor. x. 17. 
 
 ® ‘Cont. Jul.’ IX. p. 316. 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 I The purification of women after childbirth. 
 6 Her offerings for her purifying. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, 
 saying. If a woman have conceived 
 
 seed, and born a man child : then she 
 shall be unclean seven days ; accord- 
 ing to the days of the separation for 
 her infirmity shall she be unclean. 
 
 3 And in the “^eighth day the flesh 
 
 of his foreskin shall be circumcised. John 7. 22 
 
 4 And she shall then continue in . 
 the blood of her purifying three and 
 
 CEREMONIAL PURIFICATIONS. 
 
 Chapters XIL— XV. 
 
 The Purifications of the Law fall under 
 three heads; (i) those for defilement arising 
 from secretions; (ii) those for the Leprosy; 
 (iii) those for pollution from corpses. The 
 first and second classes are described in these 
 chapters; the last, as relates to human corpses, 
 in Num. xix., and as relates to the bodies of 
 dead animals, in Lev. xi. 24 — 28, 31 — 40. 
 
 VoL. 1 . 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 
 Purification after Child-birth. 
 
 It would seem that this chapter would more 
 naturally follow the fifteenth. See Prel. Note 
 to ch. XV. 
 
 1. untoMQses'\ The Lawgiver is now again 
 addressed alone, not along with Aaron, as in 
 the preceding chapter and the following one. 
 
 2. according to., &c.] Rather, “tlie same 
 as the days of separation.” Her un- 
 
 N N 
 
558 
 
 LEVITICUS. XII. 
 
 [v. 5—8. 
 
 thirty days j she shall touch no hallowed 
 thing, nor come into the sanctuary, 
 until the days of her purifying be ful- 
 filled. 
 
 5 But if she bear a maid child, then 
 she shall be unclean two weeks, as in 
 her separation : and she shall continue 
 in the blood of her purifying three- 
 score and six days. 
 
 6 And when the days of her puri- 
 fying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a 
 
 Heb. daughter, she shall bring a lamb ^of 
 ' the first year for a burnt offering, 
 
 and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, 
 for a sin offering, unto the door of 
 
 cleanness was accounted to be of the same 
 degree as that described xv. 19 sq. 
 
 3 . On circumcision, see Gen. xvii. 10, 13. 
 
 4. During the first period of seven days 
 the mother was called “unclean ’’and commu- 
 nicated defilement to whomever, or to whatever, 
 she touched. During the second period of 
 thirty-three days she was said to be “in the 
 blood of her purifying,” Her impurity at this 
 time was not infectious, but she was restrained 
 from joining in the public religious sennces. 
 It should be obseiwed that the Levitical law 
 ascribed impurity exclusively to the Mother, 
 in no degree to the Child. See Note after 
 ch, XV. 
 
 5. No very satisfactory reason appears to 
 have been given for this doubling of each of 
 the two periods. Some of the Fathers, and 
 several modern writers, conceive that it was 
 intended to remind the people of the fact that 
 woman represents the lower side of human 
 naUire, and was the first to fall into tempta- 
 tion. I Tim. ii. 13 — 15; i Pet. iii. 7. But to 
 whatever reason it is to be assigned, a notion 
 appears to have prevailed amongst the ancients 
 that the mother suffers for a longer time after 
 the birth of a girl than after the birth of a 
 Iwy. According fo Hippocrates and Aris- 
 totle, the period required for the restoration 
 of her health in the one case was thirty days, 
 and in the other, it was forty or forty-two 
 days. This notion may have been connected 
 with a general custom of observing the distinc- 
 tion as early as the time of Moses. Arist. 
 
 ‘ Hist. An.’ VII. 3, § a; 4 , § 3 I Hippoc. Vol, 
 I. p. 392, edit. Kuhn; Hesychius in loc. 
 
 6 — 8 . d’he purification of the mother is 
 completed by a sacrificial act which expressed 
 an acknowledgment of sin and a dedication 
 of herself to Jehovah. The same was done by 
 those who were purified from their issues (xv. 
 14) 15) ^9) 30); addition of a 
 
 the tabernacle of the congregation, 
 unto the priest : 
 
 7 Who shall offer it before the 
 Lord, and make an atonement for 
 her; and she shall be cleansed from 
 the issue of her blood. This is the 
 law for her that hath born a male or 
 a female. 
 
 8 ^ And if ^ she be not able to ^ Luke 2. 
 bring a lamb, then she shall bring 
 
 two turtles, or two young pigeons ; 
 the one for the burnt offering, and s^lffidency 
 the other for a sin offering : and the 
 priest shall make an atonement for 
 her, and she shall be clean. 
 
 Trespass-offering, by the cleansed Leper (xiv. 
 12 — 20), and the reconsecrated Nazarite(Num'. 
 vi. II, 12). Every complete act of sacrificial 
 worship under the Law began with a Sin- 
 offering. See Introd. § xvi. That there is 
 nothing emphatic in the Sin-offering in con- 
 nection with childbirth (as some have ima- 
 gined) is evidently shewn not only by these 
 parallel cases, but by the inferiority of the vic- 
 tim for a Sin-offering compared with that for 
 the Burnt-offering, the first being a bird, the 
 other a lamb.— The Virgin Mary availed her- 
 self of the liberty which the Law allowed to 
 the poor, and offered the inferior Burnt-offer- 
 ing, Luke ii, 24. 
 
 6 . of the first year'] Literally, as in the 
 margin, of his year] cf. xiv, 10. This 
 expression is supposed to mean one less than 
 a year old, while the son of a year is one that 
 has just completed its first year. 
 
 8. a lamb] Rather, one of the flock; 
 either a sheep or a goat, Heb. seh\ in ns. 6, 
 the word is kebes. See Introd. § iv. 
 
 t^-ivo turtles^ or tdeo young pigeons] See on 
 
 i. 14. 
 
 she shall be clean] Unclean ness was gene- 
 rally ascribed to childbirth, according to the 
 usages of the most ancient nations. The Hindoo 
 law pronounced the mother of a newborn child 
 to be impure for forty di^^’s, required the father 
 to bathe as soon as the birth had taken place, 
 and debarred the whole family for a period 
 from religious rites, while they were to “ con- 
 fine themselves to inward remembrances of the 
 Deity:” in a Brahmin family this rule ex- 
 tended to all relations within the fourth degree, 
 for ten days, at the end of which they had to 
 bathe. According to the Parsee law, the mo- 
 ther and child were bathed, and the mother 
 had to live in seclusion for forty days, after 
 which she had to undergo other purifying 
 rites. I’he Arabs are said, by Burckhardt, to 
 regard the mother as unclean for forty days. 
 
LEVITICUS. XIII. XIV. 
 
 The ancient Greeks suffered neither childbirth, 
 nor death, to take place within consecrated 
 places : both the mother and child were bathed, 
 and the mother was not allowed to approach 
 an altar for forty days. The term of forty days, 
 it is evident, was generally regarded as a criti- 
 cal one for both the mother and the child. — 
 The day on which the Romans gave the name 
 to the child, the eighth day for a girl and the 
 ninth for a boy, was called lustricus dies^ “the 
 day of purification,” because certain lustral 
 rites in behalf of the child were performed on 
 the occasion, and some sort of offering was 
 
 made. The Amphidromia of the Greeks was 
 a similar lustration for the child, when the 
 name was given, probably between the seventh 
 and tenth days (Menu, v. 62; Ayeen Akbery, 
 Vol. II. p. 556; Zend Avesta, ap. Bahr; 
 Thucyd. iii. 104; Eurip. ‘ Iph. Taur.’ 382; 
 Callim. ‘ Hym. ad Jov.’ 16, ‘ Hym. ad Del.’ 
 123 ; Censorin. ‘ De Die Nat.’ cap. xi. p. 51 ; 
 Gelsus, II. i; Festus, s. Lustrici Dies, with 
 the note in Lindemann ii. 480; Smith, ‘ Diet, 
 of Antiquities,’ s. Aynphidromid). On the 
 essential distinction of the Mosaic purification, ' 
 see Note at the end of ch. xv. 
 
 Chapters XIII. XIV. 
 
 The Laws relating to Leprosy. 
 
 Preliminary Note on the Character of the 
 Disease. 
 
 I, Importance of the subject. II. Names of 
 the Disease. III. Its nature. IV. The 
 Tuberculated 'variety. V. The Anesthetic 
 'variety. VI. Each form recognised by 
 the ancients. VII. Subordinate 'varieties. 
 VIII. Is it incurable^ IX. Is it heredi- 
 tary'? X. Is it endemic? XI. What cir- 
 cumstances foster it? XII. Is it contagious? 
 
 1 . The Leprosy is the most terrible of all 
 the disorders to which the body of man is sub- 
 ject. There is no disease in which hope of 
 recovery is so nearly extinguished. From a 
 commencement slight in appearance, with but 
 little pain or inconvenience, often in its earlier 
 stage insidiously disappearing and reappearing, 
 it goes on in its strong but sluggish course, 
 generally in defiance of the efforts of medical 
 skill, until it reduces the patient to a mutilated . 
 cripple with dulled or obliterated senses, the 
 voice turned to a croak, and ghastly deformity 
 of features. When it reaches some vital part 
 it generally occasions what seem like the 
 symptoms of a distinct disease (most often 
 Dysentery), and so puts an end to the life of 
 the sufferer. 
 
 Its mode of selecting its victims has some- 
 thing of the same mysterious deliberation as 
 its mode of attack. It passes on slowly from 
 country to country and from race to race, as 
 little checked by variations of climate as by 
 artificial remedies. If the type of disease is in 
 some degree modified in different countries, 
 or in particular cases, by local circumstances 
 or constitutional peculiarities, it never fails to 
 have its own way in the general character of 
 the effect produced. From the time of Moses 
 till the coming of Christ we know that it pre- 
 vailed amongst the Hebrew race. At this 
 time, that race, as a whole, does not seem to 
 be especially subject to it. It has moved off 
 and has in turn visited almost every other 
 branch of the human family. On the most 
 superficial view of the subject, it would seem 
 that no disease could so well deserve to be 
 
 singled out by Divine wisdom as the object of 
 special lawsk 
 
 Owing to the happy exemption in modern 
 times of the greater part of Europe from the 
 dreadful scourge, as well as to the lurking 
 secrecy of its own nature, the subject in its 
 bearing on the Levitical law has been beset 
 with doubts until within the last few years. 
 Our information respecting it was incoherent 
 and unsatisfactory, being mainly derived from 
 the insulated and imperfect reports of indivi- 
 dual observers in distant lands, not one of 
 whom had well examined a sufficient number 
 of cases to furnish ground for fair generaliza- 
 tion. Even to this day, the great question as 
 to the disease being contagious cannot be an- 
 swered with well-grounded confidence. It 
 was not until the appearance of a Report on 
 the Leprosy in Norway, drawn up under the 
 sanction of the government by Dr Daniels- 
 sen, chief physician of the leper hospital at 
 Bergen, and Prof. Boeck (published in Paris, 
 1848), that there were materials for treating 
 the inquiry in a methodical way. Recent medi- 
 cal writers, especially Mr Erasmus Wilson and 
 Dr A. T. Thomson, have added some im- 
 portant observations. Mr Wilson has devoted 
 a chapter of his book ‘On Diseases of the 
 Skin’ to the illustration of Lev. xiii. (4th 
 edit. p. 384). But since the publication 
 that work, the College of Physicians have is 
 sued a series of questions regarding the nature 
 of Leprosy, its prevalence, and its treatment, 
 to which answers have been received from the 
 best qualified persons in above fifty places on 
 the shores of the Mediterranean, in India, 
 China, our African and North American colo- 
 nics and the West Indies: from these an- 
 swers a Report has been drawn up. Mr E. 
 Atkinson of Leeds, formerly surgeon to the 
 Jews’ hospital at Jerusalem, collected a valu- 
 able body of observations, in his visits to the 
 leper houses from 1856 to i860, with which 
 the writer has been favoured in manuscript. 
 Chiefly from these sources the information 
 
 ^ See Note on xlii. 45, 46. 
 
 N N 2 
 
LEVITICUS. XIII. XIV. 
 
 560 
 
 contained in the following notes respecting 
 the nature and symptoms of the disease has 
 been drawn h Not only the explanation of 
 the Levitical law, but the importance which 
 the Leprosy assumes in the history of the hu- 
 man race, and of the Israelites in particular, 
 may justify the space which is here given to 
 the subject. 
 
 II . Much confusion has arisen from the 
 
 ambiguity of the name in popular use. The 
 Hebrew word for the disease to which the 
 Law relates is tzara^ath ) or nega' 
 
 tzardath In the English Bible 
 
 tzara'ath is always rendered Leprosy, negd 
 tzardath^ a plague of Leprosy. F rom its de- 
 rivation, tzardath has nearly the same meaning 
 as negd ^ i.e. a stroke. But tzardath became 
 the specific name of the disease, and is nowhere 
 found in any other sense, except in so far as it 
 is applied to a disease with similar aspect in 
 Lev. xiii. 12. See note. Nega\ on the contrary, 
 is a general name for plague, stroke, or wound. 
 Gen. xii. 17; Dent. xvii. 8; 2 Chron. vi. 28; 
 Ps. xxxviii. II, Ixxxix. 32; Is. liii. 8, &c. 
 From the way in which its visitation was re- 
 garded, negd is, however, frequently applied 
 to it without tzardath^ as stroke is applied 
 to paralysis among ourselves. Lev. xiii. 17, 
 22, 32, &c. 
 
 It is now considered by all the best autho- 
 rities that tzardath does not denote the dis- 
 ease which is more properly called the Leprosy^, 
 but that which is known to physicians as the 
 Elephantiasis. As the right distinction in 
 applying the names was clearly observed by 
 the Greek and Latin medical writers^, and as 
 both the Elephantiasis and the Leprosy must 
 have been familiarly known in Egypt, it is 
 remarkable that the LXX. should have adopted 
 AeVpa as the' rendering of tzardath. To them 
 must be ascribed the fact that Leprosy has be- 
 come the established scriptural name and that 
 by which the disease was universally known 
 in the middle ages. 
 
 It seems worth while to observe that Ele- 
 phantiasis is often popularly used as the name 
 of a disease, properly called Bucnemia^ or, from 
 the place in which it was first known to prevail, 
 •‘the Barbadoes leg.” Its distinguishing mark 
 is an enlargement of the leg, and it is want- 
 ing in the more important features of the dis- 
 eas"* of which it sometimes usurps the name^. 
 
 III. Elephantiasis is now considered by 
 most observers to be quite distinct in its 
 nature from any of those diseases with which 
 it has often been supposed to be connected, 
 such as the Lepra vulgaris. Psoriasis, Sy- 
 
 ^ To these may be added, ‘Notes on the Leper 
 Hospital at Hranafla,’ by Dr Webster, ii) the 
 ‘ Mcdico-Chirurgical Transactions,’ Vol. XLIII. 
 
 ^ The proper Lei)njsy U>epra 7’atg,.ris) is a dis- 
 ease of a different and much more superficial 
 nature. .See on xiii. 12 . 
 
 ^ See § VI. 
 
 •* ‘ Keiiort of the College of Physicians,’ p. viii. 
 
 philis. Yaws, &c,^ Its character seems indeed 
 to be more strongly individualized than that 
 of almost any other malady. Its origin is 
 ascribed to “ an animal poison generated in 
 or received into the blood, accumulated there- 
 in probably by a process analogous to fermen- 
 tation.” (Wilson.) This poison primarily 
 affects either the skin, by depositing in it a 
 peculiar albuminous substance, or the nerves 
 and nervous centres, at last destroying them 
 so as to take away sensation. In this way, two 
 forms of elephantiasis are distinguished, the 
 Tuberculated Elephantiasis and the Anesthetic 
 or N on-tuber culated Elephantiasis^. Some of 
 the most obvious external effects of these 
 forms, in well-marked cases, bear such differ- 
 ent aspects that they might easily be taken 
 to belong to two entirely distinct maladies. 
 But the identity of their origin appears to be 
 clearly proved by several facts. In many cases, 
 the characteristic features of the two forms 
 are combined^; instances occur in which one 
 form changes entirely into the other 8; and in 
 hereditary transmission, the parent is some- 
 times afflicted with one form and the child 
 with the other 
 
 The numbers in brackets prefixed to the 
 particulars described in the two following 
 paragraphs are referred to in the notes on those 
 expressions in Lev. xiii. which the particulars 
 appear to illustrate. 
 
 IV. (i) The Tuberculated Elephantiasis is 
 the more common form. It generally first 
 shews itself by inflamed patches in the skin, 
 on the face, ears or hands, of a dull red or 
 purplish hue, from half an inch to two inches 
 in diameter. (2) These soon change to a 
 brownish or bronze colour, with a metallic 
 or oily lustre, and a clearly-defined edge, and 
 in this state they often remain for several 
 weeks or months. (3) In some cases these ex- 
 ternal symptoms disappear altogether, and 
 after a while again shew themselves. (4) By 
 degrees the discoloured surface becomes hard, 
 and rises here and there into tubercles at first 
 reddish, but afterwards either bronzed or 
 white. The scarf skin often scales off. The 
 hardness and rising result from a thicken- 
 ing of the true skin by the injection of albu- 
 minous matter. (5) After another period, 
 of weeks, or months, or even of years, many 
 of the tubercles subside and leave a kind of 
 cicatrix, thinner than the surrounding skin, 
 which* may remain either bronzed or white. 
 (6) The tubercles which do not subside, or 
 which break out again, may vary from the 
 size of a pea to that of a pigeon’s egg; and 
 after continuing, it may be for years, with no 
 external change, they ulcerate, discharging a 
 whitish matter. The ulcers often eat into the 
 
 " ‘Report,’ pp. xli., Ixviii. 
 
 ‘ Rei)ort,’ p. Ixix. 
 
 7 ‘Report,’ pp. ix., xi., xv., &c. 
 
 ^ ‘ Report,’ p. Ixiv. 
 
 ^ ‘Report,’ p. Ixviii., &c. 
 
LEVITICUS. XIIL XIV. 561 
 
 muscle till they expose the bones, or, occasion- 
 ally, heal over and leave hard white cicatrices, 
 (7) Should there be any hair on the tubercles, 
 it either falls off, or turns white, and the hair 
 of the head and eyebrows mostly disappears!. 
 From the gradual swelling of the features the 
 face assumes a sort of lion-like or satyr-like 
 aspect, which suggested the names which have 
 been sometimes applied to the disease, Leonti- 
 asis and Satyriasis. The change on the surface 
 of the skin has given rise to other names, in 
 more modern times, such as the Black Leprosy, 
 and the Humid Leprosy. “ When the disease 
 is fully formed, the distorted face, and the 
 livid, encrusted and ulcerated tubercles, the 
 deformed, sightless and uncovered eyes, the 
 hoarse, whispering voice, the fcetid breath and 
 cutaneous excretion, the contorted joints, 
 which are often burled in or absolutely dis- 
 located by tubercles, the livid patches on those 
 parts of the body not yet tuberculous, all 
 form a picture which is not exceeded in the 
 horror of its features by any other disease” 
 (Dr A. T. Thomson). (8) The disease for 
 the most part creeps on with irresistible pro- 
 gress until it attacks some vital organ and 
 occasions death. 
 
 V. (i) The A naesthetic Elephantiasis often 
 commences in the forehead (see 2 Chron. 
 xxvi. 19, ao), Vvdth shining white or copper- 
 coloured patches and vesicles, technically call- 
 ed bulla;, which are developed suddenly with- 
 out pain, soon burst, and discharge a milk-like 
 matter. (2) An inflamed ulcerated surface is 
 left, v/hich is very tender, but heals after a time 
 and leaves a smooth, white, insensible cicatrix 
 without hair. The hair in some cases returns, 
 but it is always white and fine. For a period, 
 sometimes of years, fresh crops of bullae arise. 
 
 (3) The disease soon attacks the joints of the 
 fingers and toes, and afterwards those of the 
 lai-ger limbs, which drop off bone by bone. 
 In some cases the bones appear to be absorbed. 
 The ulcers heal with wonderful celerity and 
 completeness. It is said that amputation by 
 Elephantiasis will often “bear comparison with 
 the most finished performance of the surgeon.” 
 
 (4) The limbs which are affected but do not 
 ulcerate become at last so completely devoid 
 of sensation that portions of them may be 
 burned, cut, or nibbled off by mice, without 
 the person being conscious of it. (5) The 
 face never becomes so utterly deformed as in 
 Tuberculated Elephantiasis, but the skin is, 
 for the most part, tightly strained over the 
 features with a mummy- like aspect, the eye- 
 lids droop, tears continually flow, and the 
 lower lip hangs down and exposes the teeth 
 and gums. The taste, sight and smell fail, 
 but the voice is not affected. (6) The eye- 
 brows and lashes, and the other hair, generally 
 fall or becor®e white. (7) The progress of 
 the disease is even much slower than that of 
 
 ^ See on Lev. xiii. 3. 
 
 Tuberculated Elephantiasis, and its fatal termi- 
 nation is not so nearly certain. The average 
 duration of life after the fu'st appearance of the 
 disease in the one is ten years, in the other 
 nearly twenty, or, in India, above thirty years 2. 
 In each of the two forms death is mostly 
 preceded by an attack of Dysentery. See § 1 . 
 (8) Anaesthetic Elephantiasis is sometimes 
 called the Joint evil, and sometimes the Dry 
 Leprosy: but it is still more frequently known 
 as the White Leprosy, and under that name is 
 confounded with what is more properly called 
 the Leprosy, to which it bears, in its early 
 stages, a superficial resemblance. See § IL, 
 and notes on Lev. xiii. 12, 38. 
 
 VI. Both these forms of Elephantiasis were 
 well known to the ancient physicians and 
 were accurately described by them, but they 
 were treated as separate diseases. Aretaeiis 
 and Celsus have well described the Tuber- 
 culated form under the name Elephantiasis. 
 Celsus has described the Anaesthetic form 
 under the name of Vitiligo alba or AciIkt;. Lie 
 has associated it, but not confounded it (as 
 many moderns have done), with the common 
 white Leprosy, which he calls by the name 
 aX 0 oy, the word which the LXX. have right- 
 ly used in Lev. xiii. 39. Herodotus also, 
 with better knowledge than some of his com- 
 m.entators, distinguishes Xeii/cr; from XeVpa 
 (the latter appears to be the same as the dXcjyos 
 of Celsus), both of which were regarded as 
 unclean by the ancient Persians, not distin- 
 guished as they were in the Mosaic law 3 . 
 
 VI I . It has appeared desirable thus far to 
 discriminate the two forms of Elephantiasis in 
 order to explain the references to particular 
 symptoms in this chapter of Leviticus. At 
 this present time, that which prevails by far 
 the most, especially in Egypt and Syria, is the 
 Tuberculated form. But it should be kept 
 in view that the two in a great number of 
 cases work together (see § HI.); and, as it 
 did in the days of Moses, the disease appears 
 occasionally in an am.biguous form on some 
 one part of the body, with but little or no 
 tendency to spread. One variety (Morphofa 
 alba) sometimes affects a single limb with “ a 
 dead pearl-like whiteness.” Mr Wilson likens 
 the thigh of one of his patients to “ a piece of 
 beautiful white marble sculptured” This 
 reminds one of the hand of Moses, “leprous 
 as snow,” Ex. iv. 6, and of the application 
 of the same expression to the leprosy of 
 Miriam, Num. xii. 10, and to that of Gehazi, 
 2 K. V. 27. Other local varieties, to which 
 reference appears to be made in the Law, will 
 be noticed in the notes on Lev. xiii. 29 — 40. 
 In some rare cases, the Tuberculated Ele- 
 
 2 ‘ Report, ’ p. Ixv. ; ‘Abstract of Replies, ’ p- 1 rf- 
 
 3 Aretcieus, p. T74sq., edit. Kiihn ; Celsus, lib. 
 III. p. 25; Festus, s. Vitiligo, with Lindemann’s 
 note, p. 742; Herodot. i. r38. 
 
 * ‘Diseases of the Skin,’ p. 376. 
 
LEVITICUS. XIII. XIV. 
 
 phantiasls becomes acute, the tubercles rapidly 
 rise and become ulcerated, and the disease 
 runs its course in a few weeks h This may 
 perhaps explain Job ii. 7, 8. 
 
 VIII. iMedical skill appears to have been 
 more completely foiled by Elephantiasis than 
 by any other malady. That the Israelites re- 
 garded it as beyond the reach of natural reme- 
 dies has been inferred from the words of the 
 king of Israel, “ Am I God to kill and to 
 make alive, that this man doth send unto me 
 to recover a man of his leprosy ?” 2 K. v. 7. 
 The ancient physicians prescribed treatment 
 for it, but it appears to have been commonly 
 regarded as incurable in the times of Cyril 
 and Augustin 2, Of modern physicians, a 
 great number express themselves with entire 
 hopelessness in regard to Tuberculated Ele- 
 phantiasis; but the Aniesthetic form seems to 
 be in some degree amenable to remedies and 
 regimen. It has however been observed that, 
 from the false shame usually felt by those who 
 are afflicted with it, the disease in either^ form 
 is rarely Seen by the physician until it has 
 passed the stage in which remedies might be 
 applied with hope of success. Change of 
 climate and habit of living, with certain medi- 
 cines, chiefly preparations of iron, iodine and 
 arsenic, seem to have done good in some 
 cases 2, The disease appears at times to stop 
 of itself and to lie dormant for years, and 
 some spontaneous cures are recorded k It is 
 a fact worthy of notice, that the people of Jeru- 
 salem and its neighbourhood do not send pure 
 Anaesthetic cases to the leper houses, because 
 they believe them to be curable (Mr Atkinson). 
 
 IX. It cannot reasonably be doubted that 
 Elephantiasis is hereditary. (Cf. a K. v. 27.) 
 There are families in which it has been handed 
 down for ages. The lepers of New Brunswick 
 afford a remarkable instance. The disease 
 was brought into the settlement by a French 
 emigrant family named Bredau, originally 
 from St Malo. Of the twenty-two inmates 
 of the leper house, every one is related by 
 blood to that unfortunate stock Jt how- 
 ever frequently skips over a generation, and 
 affects only one or two members of a fa nily. 
 The children of leprous parents are in infancy 
 as fair, and seem to be as healthy, as otiaers. 
 The morbid symptoms generally make their 
 first appearance about the age of puberty, 
 and the work of destruction then c -eeps on 
 
 ^ Wilson, p. 3^2. 
 
 2 Cyril, ‘Glaph. in Lev.’ p. 36; August. ‘Serm. 
 ad Pop,’ 78.— Aretceus (p. 34L considered that 
 there was hope of cure if the disease was taken 
 in its early stage, but that when advanced it was 
 incurable. In accordance with the belt results 
 of modern ex])crience, he chiefly recommended 
 as remedies baths and attention to diet, 
 
 • Report,’ pp. liv.— lvi., Ixxi. 
 
 ■* ‘ Report,’ pp. liv. — Ivi., Ixxi., Ixxii. ; Wil- 
 son, pp. 337 > 3 .s 5 - 
 
 * ‘ Report, ‘ Abstract of Replies,’ p. o. 
 
 until the comely child becomes a disfigured 
 and mutilated man. But there are many cases 
 in which the malady first appears in more ad- 
 vanced life, when there seems to be no heredi- 
 tary transmission. Of 213 cases examined in 
 Norway, 189 proved to be hereditary, and 
 24 of spontaneous origin. In Crete, out of 122 
 cases, 76 were hereditary, and 46 spontaneous^ 
 — It is a well-established fact that in almost all 
 places where the disease prevails, there are 
 many more men affected with it than women. 
 
 X. The attachment of Elephantiasis to 
 particular races may be regarded as subordi- 
 nate to its hereditary transm.ission. The pre- 
 valence of the disease appears to be much 
 more dependent on local or special circum- 
 stances than on race, which evidently does 
 not circumscribe the instances of its sponta- 
 neous appearance. The evidence bearing on 
 these points is remarkable. In Syria, Ele- 
 phantiasis still keeps its ground, but it Is said 
 to be unknown among the Jews who live 
 there 7 ; Mr Atkinson, however, saw a single 
 Jew leper at Jerusalem. No leper of Jewish 
 race has been knowm for many years to die 
 in the Presidency of Bombay, where the num- 
 ber of lepers is perhaps as great as in any part 
 of the world. At Aden, where Arabs, Hin- 
 doos and Parsees all suffer from the disease, the ' 
 Jews enjoy the same immunity as the Euro- 
 peans®. Lower Egypt, the old seat of Elephan- 
 tiasis, maintains its unhappy distinction in 
 spite of the change in the races which inhabit 
 it ; but there it prevails more among the Jews 
 than among the Arabs. As was probably the 
 case in ancient times, in and near this same 
 region, the Anaesthetic form more affects the 
 Jew^s, and the Tuberculated form, the Arabs®. 
 In Crete, where there are supposed to be a 
 thousand lepers, it spares no race, but the 
 Greeks have it in the most aggravated degree. 
 It has been observed that in Crete, Cyprus and 
 Scio, the Moslems are less subject to it than 
 the Christians, and their exemption is ascribed 
 to their abstaining from pork, and using fre- 
 quent ablutions'”. In the West Indies, the 
 blacks and coloured races are the most affect- 
 ed, while the Jews appear to suffer in the 
 next degree, and in some parts of Jamaica 
 they suffer more than any The native races 
 of India, and the Chinese, appear at the present 
 time to be more subject to the disease than 
 any other peoples. In the Presidency of 
 Bombay, and the Deccan, there are villages 
 in which the lepers exceed one per cent, of 
 the population 'k There are 900 in the leper 
 asylum at Canton, and 2,500 are supposed to 
 
 ** ‘Report,’ pp. xxxix., xli., Ixvii. ; ‘Abstract 
 of Replies,’ p. 64. 
 
 7 ‘ Report. Abstract,’ 54— 57. Cf. ‘ Report,’ 
 pp. xxix., Ixvi. 
 
 ^ ‘Ab-stract,’ p. 110. ® ‘/abstract,’ p. 53, 
 
 '0 ‘Abstract,’ pp. 55—65. 
 
 " ‘Report,’ p. xxix. ; ‘ Abstract,’ pp. 9 — 15 
 
 '2 ‘ Abstract,’ p. 1 12, &c. 
 
LEVITICUS. XIII. XIV. 
 
 be getting their living in the city as beggars 
 and pedlars^. 
 
 XI, The inquiry into the circumstances 
 which may produce or foster Fdephantiasis is 
 connected with its local distribution. It was 
 in Norway that it was first observed that the 
 disease prevails most on the seacoast, where 
 the people live chielly upon fish. Extensive 
 observations have since been made elsewhere, 
 and it may be considered as well established, 
 that those commuinities who live mainly upon 
 fish, and those whose chief meat is the flesh of 
 ill-fed pigs, are the most subject to Elephan- 
 tiasis. The tendency is aggravated where the 
 fish and pork are generally salted. The Jews 
 of Jamaica, among whom the disease pre- 
 vails, eat more fish than any other part of 
 the population 2. On the importance of these 
 facts, as regards our present purpose, see 
 notes on Lev. xi. 7, 9 — 12 . Oil used as food 
 in excess, or in a rancid state, also appears to 
 encourage the disease 
 
 An impression has prevailed that Elephan- 
 tiasis. prevails more amongst the poor than 
 amongst those who are in comfortable circum- 
 stances. The habits of living which poverty 
 is apt to engender might seem to make this 
 reasonable. But there are some strong testi- 
 monies on the other side respecting the Jews 
 of Jamaica and Constantinople, and respecting 
 other races, in Mauritius, Tobago, and else- 
 where: and it has been remarked that a large 
 proportion of the lepers who are in good cir- 
 cumstances are kept out of sight, so that their 
 number is probably underrated. The evidence 
 from Barbadoes seems to favour the conclu- 
 sion that Tuberculated Elephantiasis prevails 
 equally amongst all classes, but that the Anses- 
 thetic form is more common amongst the poor^. 
 
 XII. But the question whether Elephan- 
 tiasis is contagious or not, is the one of most 
 peculiar interest in connection with the Leviti- 
 cal law. The Committee of the College of 
 Physicians consider that the weight of evi- 
 dence is decidedly on the negative side^. Tlie 
 freedom with which lepers often live with 
 others in the closest domestic relation indi- 
 cates that common opinion practically takes 
 the same view. Several surgeons are said to 
 have wounded themselves in the dissection 
 of leprous bodies, without suffering any 
 characteristic injury s. But many of those 
 who have replied to the Leprosy Committee 
 
 1 ‘ Abstract,’ p. 77. 
 
 See ‘Abstract of Replies,’ from Norway, 
 New Brunswick, China, Japan, India, Mauritius, 
 &c. ‘ Report,’ p. Ixviii, and Dr Webster's ‘Notes 
 on the Granada Hospital.’ 
 
 ^ ‘ Report,’ p. Ixvii. ‘ Abstract of Replies,’ 
 from Smyrna, Crete, the Ionian Islands. 
 
 ‘Abstract,’ pp. 30, 31. ^ ‘ Report,’ p. vii. 
 
 ® ‘Abstract,’ pp. 32. 86, &c. Wilson, p. 356. 
 But see on the other side Mr Wilson’s cases de- 
 scribed in the Appendix, pp. 235, 239; and 
 ‘Notes on the Granada Hospital.’ 
 
 563 
 
 affirm their belief that the disease is con- 
 tagious in a certain stage, when the ulcers 
 are running^. It is evident that, if the dis- 
 ease is contagious, a very rare and critical 
 concurrence of circumstances is required to 
 develope the contagion. But it should not 
 be overlooked that the contagiousness of a dis- 
 ease cannot be disproved by the multitude of 
 escapes, if there are a few well-attested and 
 well-observed facts in its favour. It cannot, 
 at any rate, be doubted that the few English- 
 men who have suffered from Elephantiasis have 
 always, or nearly always, associated with le- 
 prous people, or lived in leprous countries’^. 
 
 The case of Dr Robertson, who while super- 
 intending the leper house in the Seychelles 
 islands became a leper, is a very important 
 one^. — The recent investigations have not 
 tended to confirm the popular opinion which 
 in different ages has assigned the origin of 
 cases of Leprosy to irregularities of life 
 
 We have thus far given an outline of 
 those particulars in the nature of the disease 
 in question, v/hich seem most likely to throw 
 light upon the reasons and the forms of this 
 portion of the Levitical law. Some few fur- 
 ther details, \^'hich seem to be referred to in the 
 text, will be given in the notes. — On the mode 
 in which lepers have been treated in different 
 ages and nations, see Note after chap. xiii. 
 
 We believe that it will be found that modern 
 observations and science not only tend to set 
 forth the Divine wisdom which directed the 
 mind of Moses, but that they also shew the 
 precision of the terms used in the Law. It 
 should however be carefully observed that the 
 particular features of the disease which are 
 here mentioned are those belonging to its earlier 
 stages, at the time when its actual presence is 
 more or less doubtfuLb The object of these 
 directions was to enable the prie.sts to decide 
 upon such cases. That the Israelites were 
 familiar with the horrors of its more miatured 
 development is sufficiently shewn by Num. xii. 
 
 12, and, probably, by Job ii. 7, 
 
 7 ‘ Ab.stract,’ pp. 25, 32, 36, 67, 77, 108. 
 
 ® ‘ Observations,’ by Mr Wilson, in the Ap- 
 pendix to the Report, p. 231. ‘Notes on the 
 Granada Hospital.’ — An excellent observer in 
 Mauritius, in a private letter, states that he has 
 personally known only two Europeans affected 
 wdth the disease. Each of these had married 
 Creole women, apparently free from disease, but 
 they have left leprous children. 
 
 ^ ‘ Abstract,’ p. 90. 
 
 See Theod. ‘ Quoest. in Lev.’ 21; Otho, 
 ‘Rabb. Lex.’ p. 367. ‘Report,’ pp. xli., xiii. 
 
 A recent writer speaks of “the confused 
 and imperfect account of the leprosy given in 
 Leviticus.” A more careful perusal of the text 
 might have shewn him that Moses does not pre- 
 tend to give an account of tlie disease, which 
 must have been familiar enough, in its great fea- 
 tures, to those for whose immediate use he wrote. 
 
 ^2 Origen was most probably right in callingthe 
 disease of Job Elephantiasis. ‘ Cont. Cels.’ p. 305. 
 
564 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIII. 
 
 [v- I— S- 
 
 « Or, 
 
 s^uelling. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 I The laivs and tokens whereby the priest is to 
 he guided m discerning the leprosy. 
 
 and the Lord spake unto A^Io- 
 ±\. ses and Aaron, saying, 
 
 2 When a man shall have in the 
 skin of his fiesh a '' rising, a scab, or 
 bright spot, and it be in the skin of 
 his flesh like the plague of leprosy; 
 then he shall be brought unto Aaron 
 the priest, or unto one of his sons the 
 priests : 
 
 3 And the priest shall look on 
 the plague in the skin of the flesh : 
 and when the hair in the plague is 
 turned white, and the plague in sight 
 
 be deeper than the skin of his flesh, 
 it is a plague of leprosy: and the 
 priest shall look on him, a.nd pro- 
 nounce him unclean. 
 
 .4. If the bright spot be white in 
 the skin of his flesh, and in sight be 
 not deeper than the skin, and the hair 
 thereof be not turned white ; then the 
 priest shall shut up him that hath the 
 plague seven days : 
 
 5 And the priest shall look on 
 him the seventh day: and, behold, 
 if the plague in his sight be at a 
 stay, and the plague spread not in 
 the skin ; then the priest shall shut 
 him up seven days more : 
 
 Chapter XIII. 
 
 The Signs of Leprosy, i — 44. 
 
 1. Both Moses and Aaron are now ad- 
 dressed. See on xii. i. 
 
 The first marks of the Disease. 2 — 8. 
 
 2. the skin of his fiesld] This expression 
 is found nowhere but in this chapter. The 
 word rendered skin (’or) is commonly used 
 for the external skin either of man or of an 
 animal. See Ex. xxxiv. 29 ; Job vii. 5 ; Lev. 
 iv. II, vii. 8, &c. Mr Wilson has inferred 
 from the nature of the case that, in this con- 
 nection, the phrase “ skin of his flesh ” de- 
 notes the cuticle or scarf skin, as distinguished 
 from the cutis or true skin. He observes that 
 one of the most important distinctions be- 
 tween Elephantiasis and other diseases which 
 outwardly resemble it in its early stages, is that 
 it affects the cutis rather than the cuticle. See 
 Prel. Note to this chap., § iii., § iv. 4. We 
 are thus to understand the expression in the 
 next verse, and elsewhere in the chapter, 
 “ deeper than the skin of his flesh,” as, below 
 tlie scarf slrin. 
 
 '^rising — '^scah — ^bright spot] The Hebrew 
 words thus fairly rendered according to their 
 tlerivation, are used only in reference to the 
 L>eprosy. They are repeated in the same order 
 in xiv. 56. They seem to be technical names 
 applied to the common external signs of incipi- 
 ent Elephantiasis: (i) either the Tubercle of 
 the Tuberculated form or the Bulla of the 
 Ansesthctic (Prel. Note, § iv. 4, § v. i), (2) the 
 Cicatrix (§ iv. 5, § v. 2), and (3) the Glossy 
 patch (§ IV. 2. § v. i). The rendering of 
 the LXX., though it is rather loose, appears 
 to countenance this view of the words, which 
 are summed up as, a symptomatic or shining 
 scar— ovXt) (rrjfxaa'ui^ rj Tr]\avyi]s .- — -The refer- 
 ences on the word scab., in the margin of the 
 later editions of our Authorized Version, be- 
 long more properly to verse 18, where the 
 original word is different. See on 2;. 18. 
 
 like the plague of leprosy] like a stroke of 
 Leprosy. T here is no article. 
 
 3 . the hair in the plague is turned ■•white] 
 The sparing growth of very fine whitish hair 
 on leprous spots in the place of the natural 
 hair, appears to have been always regarded as 
 a characteristic symptom (Prel, Note, §iv. 7, 
 § V. 6). Dr Davison, after carefully examining 
 nearly a hundred lepers in Madagascar, says: 
 “ The hairs upon the part become yellow and 
 stunted, and after a time fall off, leaving the 
 hair bulbs empty and enlarged, especially on 
 the face, so as to present one of the fnost dia- 
 gnostic signs of the malady.” (Appendix to 
 ‘Report,’ p. 221.) Wilson speaks of the 
 diseased hair as “so fine as to be hardly 
 perceptible.” Celsus, in reference to the Anaes- 
 thetic Elephantiasis, speaks of it as like pale 
 down (in eaque albi pili sunt, et lanuginis 
 similes). The “yellow thin hair” is men- 
 tioned in nj. 30. The Arabs are said to regard 
 a case of Elephantiasis as curable, if dark hairs 
 are found on the spots. (Forskal, quoted by 
 Keil.) It should however be kept in view that 
 the hair of the head, even when this is not the 
 part of the body visibly diseased, generally 
 falls; and, if it returns, it is always whitish; 
 see on wv. 29 — 37: sometimes the hair is 
 white in patches. Hence a white head was 
 regarded by the ancients as a common sign 
 of the disease. Aischylus, ‘ Choeph.’ 276; 
 Aischines, ‘ Epist.’ I.; Aristotle, ‘Hist. An.’ 
 III. 10, § 5. 
 
 the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of 
 his flesh] the stroke appears to be deeper 
 than the scarf skin. See on -v. 2. This 
 symptom, along with the whitish hair, at once 
 decided the case to be one of Leprosy. 
 
 4 . bright spot... not deeper than the skin] 
 See Prel. Note, § iv. 2, § v. i. 
 
 5 . and the plague spread not] Rather, ad- 
 vance not, so as to shew that the disease is 
 under the cuticle and to assume the defined 
 
V. 6—13.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIII. 
 
 565 
 
 6 And the priest shall look on 
 him again the seventh day : and, be- 
 hold, if the plague be somewhat dark, 
 and the plague spread not in the skin, 
 the priest shall pronounce him clean : 
 it is but a scab : and he shall wash his 
 clothes, and be clean. 
 
 7 But if the scab spread much 
 abroad in the skin, after that he 
 hath been seen of the priest for his 
 cleansing, he shall be seen of the 
 priest again : 
 
 8 And if the priest see that, be- 
 hold, the scab spreadeth in the skin, 
 then the priest shall pronounce him 
 unclean : it is a leprosy. 
 
 9 ^ When the plague of leprosy is 
 
 edge and the glossy surface that are character- 
 istic of leprous spots. See on 'v. % and Prel. 
 Note, § IV. 2 . The old English versions, in- 
 stead of ‘ ‘ spread not, ” have ‘ ‘ grow not, ” and this 
 rendering is more in accordance with the LXX. 
 and Vulgate. The Hebrew verb {pasah) oc- 
 curs nowhere but in this and the following 
 chapter. It is applied only to the progress 
 made by a spot of Leprosy, and there is no 
 reason why its meaning should be restricted 
 to superficial extension. 
 
 6. soyne<what dar/i] Rather, somewhat 
 dim: that is, if the spot is dying away, or 
 wanting either in the gloss or in the clearly 
 defined outline by which leprous spots are 
 distinguished. Prel. Note, § iv. 2. 
 
 spread not] i.e. advance not. 
 
 it is but a scab] If it was a mere common 
 scab, not the result of Leprosy, the man had to 
 wash his clothes in order that he might appear 
 no longer as a leper. 
 
 7 . spread much abroad in the skin] Rather, 
 advance much in the skin. 
 
 seen of the priest for his cleansing] The 
 purport of these words is doubtful. They 
 probably mean “seen by the priest and pro- 
 nounced clean.” Taken in this way, they 
 would refer to the visit of the suspected leper 
 to the priest at the end of the second week. 
 The direction here given would thus bear on 
 a recurrence of the morbid symptoms after 
 the case had been discharged (Prel. Note, § iv. 
 3). So Vulg., Luther, Geneva Fr. and Eng., 
 Rosenmuller, Herxh., Luzzatto, VVogue. 
 We are thus left to draw the inference that 
 if, at the end of the first week, the spot was 
 seen to have advanced, the person was at once 
 declared a leper (cf. ’v. 32). But some have 
 taken the words to mean “ seen by the priest 
 with a view to be pronounced clean ” (de 
 Wette, Knobel, Keil). Our Version has, 
 perhaps rightly, preserved the ambiguity of 
 the original. The Law according to the ex- 
 
 in a man, then he shall be brought 
 unto the priest ; 
 
 10 And the priest shall see him: 
 and, behold, if the rising be white in 
 the skin, and it have turned the hair 
 white, and there be ^ quick raw flesh 
 
 in the rising; einngof 
 
 1 1 It is an old leprosy in the skin feTk. 
 of his flesh, and the priest shall pro- 
 nounce him unclean, and shall not . 
 shut him up: for he is unclean. 
 
 12 And if a leprosy break out a- 
 broad in the skin, and the leprosy 
 cover all the skin of hi/n that hath 
 the plague from his head even to his 
 foot, v/heresoever the priest looketh ; 
 
 13 Then the priest shall consider; 
 
 planation here preferred regards the sentence 
 of the priest as provisional, holding good only 
 till the symptoms may appear to resume their 
 progress. Gf. 2;. 35. 
 
 8. spreadeth] advances. See on 2;. 5. 
 
 Case of confirmed L eprosy . 9 — 1 1 . 
 
 When the disease had become confirmed 
 before the patient was brought to the priest, 
 which might occur either through mistake, 
 indifference, the natural unwillingness to un- 
 dergo examination, or the rapid progress of 
 the stroke (Prel. Note. § vn., § viii.), the 
 man was at once pronounced unclean. 
 
 10 . if the rising be 'white] Rather, if there 
 toe a white rising. The term very pro- 
 bably denotes the white Bulla of Anaesthetic 
 Elephantiasis when it has re-appeared. Prel. 
 Note, § v. I, 2. 
 
 quick raw flesh in the jusing] The margin 
 gives the literal rendering. The symptom here 
 denoted exhibits a more advanced stage of 
 the disease than those that have been previ- 
 ously mentioned. The expression might de- 
 note an ulcer or open sore with fungous granu- 
 lations (or “proud flesh”) appearing in it. 
 If this is not the meaning, it may possibly be 
 referred to that excessive tenderness {hyperes- 
 thesia') which, especially in Anaesthetic Ele- 
 phantiasis, affects the surface before it becomes 
 insensible. Prel. Note, § v. 2, cf. § iv. 6. The 
 interpretation of the LXX. and the Mishna, 
 which some have adopted, that an insulated 
 spot of sound flesh in the midst of a Tubercle 
 is meant, must be a mistake. 
 
 Case of the Common Leprosy. 12 — 17 . 
 
 If a great part of the surface of the body 
 had turned white, with none of the proper 
 symptoms of Elephantiasis, the man was to 
 be pronounced clean. But if, after he had been 
 discharged by the priest, ulceration made its 
 appearance, he was to be regarded as a leper 
 
566 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIIL 
 
 [v. 14—23. 
 
 and, behold, if the leprosy have co- 
 vered all his flesh, he shall pronounce 
 hhn clean that hath the plague : it is 
 all turned white : he is clean. 
 
 14 But when raw flesh appeareth 
 in him, he shall be unclean. 
 
 15 And the priest shall see the 
 raw flesh, and pronounce him to be 
 unclean : for the raw flesh is unclean : 
 it is a leprosy. 
 
 16 Or if the raw flesh turn again, 
 and be changed unto white, he shall 
 come unto the priest \ 
 
 17 And the priest shall see him: 
 and, behold, if the plague be turned 
 into white ; then the priest shall pro- 
 nounce him clean- that hath the plague : 
 he is clean. 
 
 18 ^ The flesh also, in which, even 
 in the skin thereof, was a boil, and is 
 healed. 
 
 unless the ulceration proved to be but tempo- 
 rary. 
 
 12. the leprosy] The Hebrew word t%a- 
 ra'ath appears to be here used with the same 
 sort of breadth as Leprosy^ in modern times, 
 and Vitiligo^ in ancient times. The disease 
 indicated appears to be that now known as 
 Lepra •vulgaris^ the common White Leprosy, 
 or Dry Tetter. Prel. Note. § ii., § vi. Cf. on 
 •v. 39. It first shews itself in reddish pimples, 
 the surface of which becomes white and scaly, 
 spreading in a circular form till they meet 
 each other and cover large patches of the 
 body. It scarcely affects the general health, 
 and for the most part disappears of itself, 
 though it often lasts for years. 
 
 from his head e'ven to his foot^ 'wheresoenser 
 the priest looketh] The first appearance of 
 the Lepra vulgaris may take place in any 
 part of the body, especially however at the 
 larger joints of the limbs; but the spots of 
 Elephantiasis are almost always first seen on 
 those parts which are habitually exposed, the 
 face, ears and hands. 
 
 16 . ra^du flesh] See on 10. The exist- 
 ence of an open sore on the white surface 
 might, it would seem, prove to be either the 
 ulceration of Elephantiasis complicated with 
 the milder disease, as described in i;. 14, or a 
 sore of a common sort that would soon heal. 
 
 Special cases of Leprosy. 18 — 28. 
 
 The first case of this sort is spoken of in 
 •v'v. 18 — 23. The Hebrewwordj/^^-r/jJ;/ (‘2’. 18), 
 rendered ‘“boil,” is of doubtful origin. The 
 most probable Hindering of it here and in 
 most other places is ulcer: so the LXX. and 
 
 19 And in the place of the boil 
 there be a white rising, or a bright 
 spot, white, and somewhat reddish, 
 and it be shewed to the priest ; 
 
 20 And if, when the priest seeth 
 it, behold, it be in sight lower than 
 the skin, and the hair thereof be 
 turned white; the priest shall pro- 
 nounce him unclean : it is a plague 
 of leprosy broken out of the boil. 
 
 21 But if the priest look 'on it, 
 and, behold, there he no white hairs 
 therein, and if it he not lower than 
 the skin, but be somewhat dark ; then 
 the priest shall shut him up seven 
 days : 
 
 22 And if it spread much abroad 
 in the skin, then the priest shall pro- 
 nounce him unclean : it is a plague. 
 
 23 But if the bright spot stay in 
 his place, and spread not, it is a 
 
 Vulg. It is applied (i) to the “boil” of 
 Hezekiah, which might have been an abscess 
 or carbuncle. Is. xxxviii. 21; 2 K. xx. 7; 
 (2) to the “ boils” of Job, Job ii. 7, 8 ; (3) to 
 the “boils breaking forth with blains” (i.e. 
 pustules) of the Egyptians, Ex. ix. 9 ; and 
 (4) to “the botch of Egypt,” Deut. xxviii. 
 27, 35. In these latter instances, but espe- 
 cially in the second and fourth, it would seem 
 highly probable that the word expresses the 
 ulcers of Elephantiasis: so Gesenius and Ftirst 
 As Elephantiasis has certainly been from early 
 times a characteristic disease of Egypt, see 
 Note on xiii. 45, 46, § i., and as its nature is 
 so dreadful, it seems most likely that it should 
 be the first named of the diseases to which 
 the Egyptians were subject in such a list as 
 that given in Deut. xxviii. 27. Admitting this, 
 there is probably reference to the special action 
 of AniEsthetic Elephantiasis, “the Joint evil,” 
 in T’. 35 of the same chapter: “The Lord 
 shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, 
 with a sore botch that cannot be healed.” 
 
 19 — 21 . The passage appears to refer to 
 one of the ordinary modes in which Elephan- 
 tiasis is now known to reappear when tubercles, 
 bullx' or glossy spots, white or reddish, ap- 
 pear in the scar of an ulcer. Prel. Note, § iv. 
 5 , 6, § V. 2. 
 
 20. L^er thaji the skin] Rather, reach- 
 ing below the scarf skin. See on -z;. 2. 
 The same correction should be made in ‘v. 21. 
 As compared with the word deeper., 3, 4, 
 (See., the word lo^joer might justly represent 
 the Hebrew. It would seem, however, that 
 no distinction of meaning is intended. 
 
 boil] Rather, ulcer. Wd-). shechln. 
 
V. 2^ 29-] ' 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIII. 
 
 burning boil; and the priest shall 
 pronounce him clean. 
 
 24 H Or if there be any flesh, in 
 t Hcb. the skin whereof there is ^ a hot burn- 
 
 ing, and the quick Jiesh that burneth 
 have a white bright spot, somewhat 
 reddish, or white ; 
 
 25 Then the priest shall look up- 
 on it : and, behold, if the hair in 
 the bright spot be turned white, and 
 it he in sight deeper than the skin ; it 
 is a leprosy broken out of the burn- 
 ing; wherefore the priest shall pro- 
 nounce him unclean : it is the plague 
 of leprosy. 
 
 26 But if the priest look on it, 
 and, behold, there be no white hair 
 
 in the bright spot, and it be no lower 
 than the other skin, but be somewhat 
 dark; then the priest shall shut him 
 up seven days : 
 
 27 And the priest shall look upon 
 him the seventh day : and if it be 
 spread much abroad in the skin, then 
 the priest shall pronounce him un- 
 clean : it is the plague of leprosy. 
 
 2-8 And if the bright spot stay in 
 his place, and spread not in the skin, 
 but it be somewhat dark; it is a 
 rising of the burning, and the priest 
 shall pronounce him clean : for it is 
 an inflammation of the burning. 
 
 29 ^ If a man or woman have a 
 plague upon the head or the beard ; 
 
 somewhat darJf^ Rather, somewhat dim. 
 
 22. spread much abroad^ Rather, ad- 
 vance much. See on 7. 
 
 plague~\ i.e. the stroke of leprosy. Prel. Note, 
 
 § n. 
 
 23. a hurnmg boir\ Rather, the scar of 
 the ulcer; literall y , the burn of the ulcer. 
 
 The second special case of Leprosy is spoken 
 of in "vu, 24 — 28. The main question here 
 is, what is denoted by “a hot burning”? 
 The Hebrew is literally rendered in the mar- 
 gin. The greater number of commentators, 
 Jewish as well as Christian, take it as a burn, 
 ,in the simple sense of the word. Some sup- 
 pose it to be a Carbuncle. It may perhaps de- 
 note a place previously affected by any sort of 
 inllammation resulting either from disease or 
 injury. Such a spot may be either more liable 
 to leprous development, or liable to be affect- 
 ed by the disease in such a peculiar vray as to 
 claim distinct notice. It should be observed 
 that in each of the two special cases which 
 have been mentioned, only’ a single period of 
 quarantine is appointed, instead of the two 
 periods which were provided when the disease 
 came in its usual course. 
 
 24. The sense of this verse in accordance 
 with the view we have given might be thus 
 expressed : — Or if there be flesh of which the 
 skin has been affected by senjere inflammation., 
 and the sore of the inflammation has become a 
 glossy spot, somewhat reddish or white. 
 
 26. no lower than the other skin\ The 
 word other is here out of place. The Hebrew 
 is the same as in n). 20, and means, not be- 
 neath the scarf skin. 
 
 somewhat darki K-ather, somewhat dim. 
 See on 2; 6. 
 
 27. spread much abroad] Rather, have 
 made much advance. See on 2'. 5. 
 
 28. This verse might perhaps be rendered: 
 
 ■ — -And if the glossy spot continues unchanged 
 and makes no ad’vance in the skin, and is rather 
 indistinct (see on 2;. 6), it is the mark of the 
 inflamyy^ation, and the priest shall pronounce him 
 clean, for it is the (ynere) hurt of inflammation. 
 
 The Leprosy upoji the Head or Chin. 29 — 37. 
 
 The Leprosy which made its appearance 
 amongst the hair of the head or of the beard, 
 was formally distinguished from the Leprosy 
 in other parts of the body (see also ch. xiv. 
 54), and was called jiethek, which our. trans- 
 lators have rendered a scall, or a dry scall. 
 As scall is the name for another disease not 
 allied to the Leprosy, it would have been bet- 
 ter to retain the original word. The chief 
 features of the disease are the same as those of 
 ordinary Elephantiasis, the morbid affection of 
 the entire depth of the skin and the yellow or 
 whitish hairs. It is a true Elephantiasis, and 
 is recognised by modern writers under the 
 name of Morphuta alopeciata, or the F ox mange. 
 It usually appears in one or two circular 
 patches, from which the hair falls off either 
 suddenly or by degrees. The hair sometimes 
 appears again of its natural colour, and the 
 disease is then subdued. See 2;. 37. But if the 
 hair returns, as it often does, while the disease 
 is advancing, it appears whitish and impoverish- 
 ed. A common seat of the nethek in adult 
 men is the chin. It is sometimes permanent 
 for life, but it more frequently pass s away 
 after a period of months or years (Wilson, 
 p. 383). The ancients called this form of 
 Elephantiasis, Lichen. Pliny uses the specific 
 name, Mentagra, i.e. the beard evil, and de- 
 scribes an aggravated variety of it, which he 
 says first appeared in the beard, often spread 
 over the face, and at times over the breast and 
 hands. It was brought into Italy from Asia 
 in the time of Tibeiius. The Lichin men- 
 
lO 
 
 68 
 
 30 Then the priest shall see the 
 plague : and, behold, if it be in sight 
 deeper than the skin ; and there be 
 in it a yellow thin hair; then the 
 priest shall pronounce him unclean : 
 it is a dry scall, even a leprosy upon 
 the head or beard. 
 
 31 And if the priest look on the 
 plague of the scall, and, behold, it 
 be not in sight deeper than the skin, 
 and that there is no black hair in 
 it; then the priest shall shut up him 
 that hath the plague of the scall seven 
 days : 
 
 32 And in the seventh day the 
 priest shall look on the plague : and, 
 behold, if the scall spread not, and 
 there be in it no yellow hair, and 
 the scall be not in sight deeper than 
 the skin; 
 
 33 He shall be shaven, but the 
 scall shall he not shave ; and the 
 priest shall shut up him that hath the 
 scall seven days more : 
 
 34 And in the seventh day the 
 priest shall look on the scall : and. 
 
 [v. 30—40. 
 
 behold, if the scall be not spread in 
 the skin, nor be in sight deeper than 
 the skin ; then the priest shall pro- 
 nounce him clean : and he shall wash 
 his clothes, and be clean. 
 
 35 But if the scall spread much in 
 the skin after his cleansing; 
 
 36 Then the priest shall look on 
 him : and, behold, if the scall be 
 spread in the skin, the priest shall 
 not seek for yellow hair; he is un- 
 clean. 
 
 37 But if the scall be in his sight 
 at a stay, and that there is black 
 hair grown up therein; the scall is 
 healed, he is clean : and the priest 
 shall pronounce him clean. 
 
 38 fl If a man also or a v/oman 
 have in the skin of their flesh bright 
 spots, even white bright spots ; 
 
 39 Then the priest shall look : and, 
 
 behold, if the bright spots in the skin 
 of their flesh be darkish white ; it is a 
 freckled spot that groweth in the 
 skin; he A clean. tHeb. 
 
 40 And the man whose ' hair is 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIII. 
 
 tioned by j^ischylus, in which the hair round 
 the temples turned white, was probably of the 
 same kind, still more aggravated, and was 
 that which in the 'time of iiischines afflicted 
 the people of Delos, .^^isch. ‘ Choeph.’ 276, 
 Aischines, ‘ Ep.’ i., Aretaeus, p. iL, Plin. 
 
 ‘ H. N.’ XXVI. 2. 
 
 29 . a plague^ See Prel. Note, ii. 
 
 30 . if it be hi sight deeper than the s.kin^ 
 if it appears to be deeper than the 
 scarf skin. See on -v. 5. The same correc- 
 tion is required in 'V‘tK 32, 34, 35, 36. 
 
 a yellow thin hair~\ I'he indefinite article 
 should be omitted. See on v. 3. 
 
 31 . there is no black hair in if] More pro- 
 bably, there is no yellow hair in it. 
 In order to make sense with the context, we 
 must either (i) change the copulative con- 
 junction into an adversative one, so as to 
 read, if the spot is not seen to be deeper than 
 the cuticle and yet there is no black hair in 
 it. 'Phis would imply that the presence of 
 dark hair (see on 2,-. 3) would be needful in 
 order to save the person from (juarantine (Dru- 
 sius, several Jewish authorities, De Wette, 
 l ierxheimer); or (2) omit the negative before 
 black. 'Phis would mean that the person 
 should be shut up on account of the suspi- 
 cious aspect of the spot, although it might 
 appear only on the surface and the hair on it 
 
 had not yet changed colour (Vulgate); or (3) 
 Ye2.(X yellow instead of black (Septuagint, Lu- 
 ther, Knobel, Keil). This last gives the 
 best sense, and it is likely that the LXX. and* 
 the old Italic represent the original reading of 
 the Hebrew. 
 
 32 . We must infer that if the diseased 
 spot had advanced at the end of the first week, 
 the person was immediately pronounced un- 
 clean. See on nj. 7. 
 
 37 . be in his sight at. a stay] does not 
 alter in appeafance. 
 
 The Freckled spot. 38, 39. 
 
 39 . freckled spot] The original word, 
 bohak^ is said to be still used by the Arabs for 
 a siq)erficial skin disease, neither dangerous 
 nor contagious. It appears that the Eastern 
 and Southern Arabs call it baras^ while they 
 call Elephantiasis djedani. Palgrave, Vol. n. 
 p. 34. Burton, Vol. ii. p. 182. The LXX. 
 use a\^os in this place. Prel. Note, vi. If 
 IK 12 refers to the Lepra vulgaris, as seems 
 most probable, the Hebrew bohak may denote 
 some kind of Eczema., a skin disease of a some- 
 what similar external character. (Wilson, 
 p. 165.) 
 
 These verses (38, 39) seem to intrude be- 
 tween the Leprosy of the hairy head and that 
 of the bald head. They would seem more in 
 their natural place between 'vu. 17, 18. 
 
V. 41 — 5 °-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIII. 
 
 509 
 
 fallen off his head, he is bald ; yet is 
 he clean. 
 
 41 And he that hath his hair 
 fallen off from the part of his head 
 toward his face, he is forehead bald : 
 yet is he clean. 
 
 42 And if there be in the bald 
 head, or bald forehead, a white red- 
 dish sore ; it is a leprosy sprung up in 
 his bald head, or his bald forehead. 
 
 43 Then the priest shall look up- 
 on it : and, behold, if the rising of 
 the sore he white reddish in his bald 
 head, or in his bald forehead, as the 
 leprosy appeareth in the skin of the 
 flesh ; 
 
 44 He is a leprous man, he is un- 
 clean : the priest shall pronounce him 
 utterly unclean ; his plague is in his 
 head. 
 
 45 And the leper in whom the 
 plague /j, his clothes shall be rent, 
 and his head bare, and he shall put 
 
 a covering upon his upper lip, and 
 shall cry, Unclean, unclean. 
 
 46 All the days wherein the plague 
 shall be in him he shall be defiled ; 
 he is unclean : he shall dwell alone ; 
 
 without the camp shall his habita- ^ Numb. 5 
 
 tion be. 2 Kings 15 
 
 47 ^ The garment also that the 
 plague of leprosy is in, whether it be a 
 woollen garment, or a linen garment ; 
 
 48 Whether it be in the warp, or 
 woof ; of linen, or of woollen ; whe- 
 ther in a skin, or in any ^ thing made t Heb. 
 of skin; 
 
 ,49 And if the plague be greenish 
 or reddish in the garment, or in the 
 skin, either in the warp, or in the 
 woof, or in any ^ thing of skin ; it is t Heb. 
 a plague of leprosy, and shall be shewed ifistrn- 
 unto the priest : 
 
 50 And the priest shall look upon 
 the plague, and shut up it that hath * 
 the plague seven days : 
 
 The Leprosy in the Bald head. 40 — 44. 
 
 Baldness was no mark of unclean disease : 
 but when signs which might be those of 
 Elephantiasis appeared in a bald head, they 
 were to be dealt with as in other cases. Ac- 
 cording to Jewish tradition, there were two 
 periods of quarantine assigned for this form 
 of Leprosy as in that of the hairy head. 
 Mishna, ‘ Negaim,’ x. 10. 
 
 42 . sorel Rather, stroke. The word 
 here and in nj. 43 is nega\ which elsewhere 
 in this and the next chapter is rendered 
 plague. Prel. Note ii. 
 
 43. rising of the sene'] Rather rising of 
 the stroke. See Prel. Note iv. 4. 
 
 The la-jj for the Confirmed Leper. 45, 46. 
 
 45 . The leper was to carry about with 
 him the usual signs of mourning for the dead. 
 Cf. Ezek. xxiv. 1 7 ; Lev. x. 6. Ke was to 
 mourn for himself as one over whom death 
 had already gained the victory. See Note at 
 the end of the chap. 
 
 his head hare] Rather, “his head neg- 
 lected.” See on Lev. x. 6. 
 
 Unclean., unclean] Cf. Lam. iv. 14, 15. 
 
 46 . dwell alone] More properly, dwell 
 apart; that is, separated from the people. 
 
 without the camp] Cf. Num. v. 2 — 4, 
 xii. 14, 15 ; 2 K. vii. 3, xv. 5 ; Lukexvii. 12. 
 According to the Mishna, a leper polluted 
 everything in the house which he entered. 
 A separate space used to be provided for 
 
 lepers in the Synagogues (‘ Kelim,’ i. 4 ; ‘ Ne- 
 gaim,’ XIII. II, 12). 
 
 Leprosy in Clothing and Leather. 
 
 Chapter XIII. 47 — 59. 
 
 47 . The garment] Rather, The clothing, 
 in a general sense of material. The word should 
 be thus rendered throughout this section. The 
 ordinary dress of the Israelites in the wilderness 
 was probably like that of the Egyptians de- 
 scribed by Herodotus (ii. 81), consisting of a 
 linen tunic with a fringe (Num. xv. 38) and 
 a woollen cloak or blanket thrown on in 
 colder weather. Wool and flax were the 
 great materials for clothing also in later times 
 (Hos. ii. 9 ; Prov. xxxi. 13). They could not 
 be spun together. See on xix. 19. 
 
 47, 48 , The meaning of these verses may 
 be thus given : — And the clothing m which there 
 is a stroke of Leprosy, whether the stroke is m 
 clothing of wool or in clothing of linen; or in yarn 
 for warp or in yarn for woof either for linen 
 clothing or for woollen clothing; or in a skin of 
 leather or in any article made of leather . — The 
 warp and the woof here and in nsns. 49, 51, 52, 
 53, 56, cannot mean, as is implied in our ver- 
 sion, the constituent parts of woven cloth. 
 The original words would as well denote 
 prepared for warp and yarn prepared for woof 
 and the connection evidently requires this 
 sense. So De Wette, Knobel, Keil, Wogue. 
 
 ■ 49 , 51 , 53 . either in the warp] This ex- 
 pression in all these verses should be, “ or in the 
 
570 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIII. 
 
 [''• 51 — 59 - 
 
 51 And he shall look on the plague 
 on the seventh day : if the plague be 
 spread in the garment, either in the 
 warp, or in the woof, or in a skin, or 
 in any work that is made of skin ; the 
 plague is a fretting leprosy; it is un- 
 clean. 
 
 52 Fie shall therefore burn that 
 garment, whether warp or v/oof, in 
 woollen or in linen, or any thing of 
 skin, wherein the plague’ is : for it is 
 a fretting leprosy; it shall be burnt in 
 the lire. 
 
 53 And if the priest shall look, and, 
 behold, the plague be not spread in 
 the garment, either in the warp, or in 
 the woof, or in any thing of skin ; 
 
 54 I'hen the priest shall command 
 that they wash the thing wherein the 
 plague is^ and he shall shut it up seven 
 days more : 
 
 55 And the priest shall look on the 
 plague, after that it is washed : and, 
 behold, if the plague have not changed 
 his colour, and the plague be not 
 
 spread ; it is unclean ; thou shalt burn 
 it in the fire ; it is fret whether tHeb. 
 
 it be bare within or without. hef aS in 
 
 56 And if the priest look, and, be- 
 hold, the plague he somewhat 
 
 after the washing of it; then he shalww^/ 
 rend it out of the garment, or out of 
 the skin, or out of the warp, or out of 
 the woof : 
 
 57 And if it appear still in the gar- 
 • ment, either in the warp, or in the 
 woof, or in any thing of skin; it is 2i 
 spreading plague: thou shalt burn that 
 wherein the plague is with fire. 
 
 58 And the garment, either warp, 
 or woof, or whatsoever thing of skin 
 it be^ which thou shalt wash, if the 
 plague be departed from them, then 
 it shall be washed the second time, 
 and shall be clean. • 
 
 59 This is the law of^he plague of 
 leprosy in a garment of woollen or 
 linen, either in the warp, or woof, or 
 any thing of skins, to pronounce it 
 clean, or to pronounce it unclean. 
 
 wai*p.” In the is coordinate with in the 
 
 clothing, &c. See preceding note. 
 
 52. For the same reason, in this verse, 
 “whether warp” should be “or warp.” 
 
 51. a fretting leprosy'l /.<?. a malignant or 
 corroding Leprosy. What was the nature of 
 the Leprosy in clothing, w^hich produced green- 
 ish or reddish spots, cannot be precisely deter- 
 mined. It was most likely destructive mil- 
 dew, perhaps of more than one kind. Knobel 
 and others are inclined to connect it with stains 
 from leprous ulcers in the flesh. But there 
 are no known facts to confirm this. 
 
 56. some^vhat darli] Rather “somewhat 
 faint.” 
 
 57, 58, 59. either, in each of these verses, 
 should be or. See on -vu. 47 , 49 . 
 
 It should be noticed that no religious or 
 symbolical rite is prescribed for Leprosy in 
 clothing. The priest had only to decide 
 whether the process of decay was at work in 
 the article presented to him and to pronounce 
 accordingly. Compare the Leprosy in houses, 
 xiv. 33— 53- 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xiii. 45, 46. 
 
 On the Treatment of Lepers and 
 
 THE GROUNDS OF THE LAWS RESPECT- 
 ING THEM. 
 
 I. The Leprosy in Egypt. II. The ^vay in 
 nejhich Lepers have been regarded. III. 
 Their treatment accorditig to the I.avu. 
 IV. The Leprosy in Europe. V. Segrega- 
 tion of Lepers. V I . Its probable effects. 
 VII. Objects of the I.a^v respecting 
 Leprosy. V 1 1 1 . The Lavj vuas not cruel. 
 
 1 . FpypI regarded in ancient times as 
 the great seat of Idephantiasis. Lucretius 
 says that the disease originated on the banks 
 of the Nile, and Pliny repeats the statement, 
 
 calling Egypt “ genet rix talium vitiorumh” 
 Vvte know that the Israelites in Egypt lived 
 upon nearly the same food as the Egyptians 
 (Num. xi. 5 ; cf. Prel. Note, § xi.). We 
 thus seem to have reason to infer that 
 the disease must have prevailed considerably 
 amongst the Hebrews while they were in 
 E-gypt. I'he legend repeated in a later age, 
 which connects the Leprosy with the departure 
 of the Israelites’*', may not be w'holly with- 
 
 1 Lncret. vi. 1112; Plin. ‘H.N.’ xxvi. 3, 5. 
 
 2 Diod. Sic. Vol. ii. p. 542; Tacitus, ‘Hist.’ 
 v. 3, 4; Justin xxxvi. 2; Joseph. ‘Ant.’ ill. 
 II. § 4; Choc-remon and Manetho, quoted by 
 Josepluis, ‘Cont. Ap.’ i. 26, 32, 34. 
 
LEVITICUS. XIII. 
 
 571 
 
 out an element of truth in that form in 
 which it is given by Manetho. The king of 
 Egypt is said to have driven out from the 
 country a multitude of Egyptian lepers along 
 with the Israelites. If any such expulsion 
 of lepers took place about the time of the 
 Exodus, it seems very likely that a number 
 of them joined the “ mixed multitude,” which 
 travelled into the Wilderness along with the 
 Israelites (Ex. xii. 38). That the people were 
 in danger from Leprosy, and were very familiar 
 with it, cannot be doubted, from the pro- 
 minence which Moses has given to it in the 
 Law. 
 
 11 . The separation of Lepers from the fa- 
 miliar intercourse of social life has been com- 
 mon to nearly all nations and ages. The effect 
 of the malady in disfiguring its victims, with 
 the dread of contagion, whether justly founded 
 or not (see Prel. Note to ch. xiii. § xii.), might 
 sufficiently account for this practice. But at 
 the same time must be noticed the all but 
 universal impression that the Leprosy, above 
 all other diseases, comes upon man as an irre- 
 sistible stroke of superhuman power, either in 
 the way of punishment for personal sin or 
 of an infliction with some definite purpose. 
 This natural suggestion was confirmed and 
 realized upon several occasions in the history 
 of the Israelites. A stroke of Leprosy was 
 the mark of the divine displeasure at the slow 
 faith of Moses, at the contumacy of Miriam, 
 at the dishonesty of Gehazi, and at the im- 
 pious presumption of Uzziah. One of the 
 denunciations against Joab, on account of the 
 death of Abner, was that his children should 
 be lepers^. 
 
 The ancient Persians did not allow their 
 lepers to enter a city nor to have any 
 dealings with other men, and they excluded 
 foreign lepers from their country. According 
 to Herodotus, they regarded the disease as 
 a penalty for some offence committed against 
 the Sun : according to the Zendavesta, it was 
 a scourge sent by Ahriman. They had forms 
 of prayer to be used by the devout when they 
 happened to meet a leper 2. The Greek writers 
 speak of Leprosy as an infliction from Phoebus 'k 
 Aretaeus says that lepers were avoided by all 
 men, even their nearest relations, and that most 
 of them withdrew into solitudes (p. 183). The 
 Arabs will not sleep near a leper, nor eat with 
 him, nor contract marriage with a family in 
 which the Leprosy is known to exist. (Burck- 
 hardt, quoted by Knobel.) In China the disease 
 is commonly spoken of as a retribution for sin, 
 and lepers are excluded from society as objects 
 
 ^ Ex. iv. 6; 2 K. V. 27; 2 Chron. xxvi. iQ, 
 20; 2 S. iii. 29; Deut. xxiv. 8, xxviii. 27, with 
 note on Lev. xiii. 18. 
 
 ^ Herodot. i. 138: Ctesias, ‘Pers.’ 4r, v.dth 
 Biihr's note, p. 181. 
 
 ^ .Tschylus, ‘ Choeph.’ 276 ; Tischines, ‘Ep.’ 
 
 of disgust and aversion: they often commit 
 suicide, and there is a proverb common amongst 
 Chinese lepers, “to die is to become clean 
 intermarriage with leprous families is forbid- 
 den, though it sometimes takes place. In 
 Japan, Madagascar and New Zealand, the 
 disease is looked upon in the same light, and 
 lepers are treated in nearly the same manner k 
 
 III. We are told in the Law that the 
 lepers, during the period of their uncleanness, 
 were to dwell apart, and to have their habita- 
 tion without the camp. Though thus ex- 
 cluded from general intercourse with society, 
 it is not likely that they ceased to be objects of 
 sympathy and kindness, such as they now are 
 in those Christian and Moslem countries in 
 which the Leprosy prevails. That they asso- 
 ciated together in the Holy Land, as they do 
 at present, is evident from 2 K. vii. 3 ; Luke 
 xvii. 12. It has been conjectured that a habi- 
 tation was provided for them outside of Jeru- 
 salem, on the hill Gareb, which is mentioned 
 only in Jer. xxxi. 40. It is mostly identified 
 with Bezetha (Gesenius, Winer), the northern 
 hill, which was brought within the city by the 
 wall built by Agrippa. The name Gareb 
 means, “the scabby hill;” and, assumJng this 
 to denote the hill of the lepers, it is supposed 
 to be appropriately associated with Goath (on 
 rather insecure ground identified with Gol- 
 gotha), “the hill of the dead.” and Tophet, 
 “ the valley ot the dead bodies,” as making up 
 the three polluted spots that were to be purged 
 and included within the limits of the reno- 
 vated Holy City, according to the vision of 
 Jeremiah 
 
 IV. A few facts from the history of the 
 Leprosy in Europe will not be out of place. 
 Some of the varieties of Elephantiasis were 
 known in Greece m ‘the fourth century A.C., 
 and probably in the fifth. But the disease 
 appears not to have made its way into western 
 Europe till the time of Pompey, when it was 
 brought into Italy from Egypt. It is said to 
 have disappeared soon afterwards, but it is 
 likely that it lingered on from this time with- 
 out spreading much ®. A canon of the Council 
 of Cornpiegne, a.d. 759, allows Leprosy to be a 
 ground for divorce (Fleury). During the Cru- 
 sades, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the 
 disease appears to have spread all over Europe. 
 At this lime the public care of lepers was left 
 exclusively to the ecclesiastical authorities 7 . 
 At Constantinople, in the twelfth century, 
 
 ‘ Replies to the Leprosy Committee/ pp. 76, 
 79, 221, 223. 
 
 ^ Ifengstenberg, ‘ Christology,’ Vol. li. p. 45c. 
 
 ® zEschyl. ‘Choeph.’ 271 ; ALschines, ‘Epist.’ 
 I.; Pliny, ‘H. N.’ xxvi. 1—5; Celsus, ill. 25. 
 
 7 After the rise of the Franciscan Order, they 
 made lepers the object of their particular care. 
 St Francis himself expressed his thankfulness 
 that he had overcome his repugnance to come 
 into contact with Leprosy. ‘ Monum. Francisc.’ 
 Appendix, p. 562. 
 
572 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIII. 
 
 lepers were admitted into the churches, and 
 mixed in social life without restraints But in 
 other places they were shut out of the churches, 
 and did not mix in society. At the third 
 Lateran Council, a.d. 1179, decreed, 
 
 that wherever there was a sufficient number 
 of lepers they should have a church, a priest, 
 and a cemetery of their own, and that lepers 
 should be exempted from paying tithe 
 (Fleury). A similar canon was passed at 
 the Synod of Westminster, a.d. i:ioo 2 . In 
 the fifteenth century an ecclesiastical form was 
 used, by which lepers were cut off from 
 general intercourse, and were bound to wear 
 a peculiar dress. On this ground, according 
 to a canon passed at Nougarot, in Armagnac, 
 A.D. 1290, they could not be brought before 
 lay tribunals (Fleury). When a monk was 
 stricken with Leprosy funeral obsequies were 
 performed over him in the convent chapel, and 
 he was taken in a sort of funeral procession 
 to the abode of his relations (Ducange, s. Le- 
 prosi). In England the Leprosy was common 
 from the tenth century to the beginning of 
 the sixteenth -k Leper homes were numerous, 
 but as most of them were found to be empty 
 in the reign of Edward VI. they were destroy- 
 ed, or turned to some other purpose-. The 
 disease lingered longer in Scotland. A thanks- 
 giving was celebrated in Shetland in 1742, on 
 account of the disappearance of the Leprosy in 
 the islands; but a Shetland leper survived in 
 Edinburgh till 1798k On the continent of 
 
 ^ Balsamon, ap. Siiicer, s. K€wp 6 s. 
 
 ^Johnson’s ‘Canons,’ Vol. ii. p. 91, edit. 
 1851. — A small opening which is found in some 
 old churches near the altar has been supposed to 
 have been used to hand out the consecrated ele- 
 ments to leprous communicants, as they knelt 
 outside. But this matter is involved in doubt. 
 See ‘Archaeological Journal,’ Vol. iv. p. 314. 
 
 ^ The gradual disappearance of the disease in 
 England may be curiously traced in our litera- 
 ture. In Lydgate’s ‘Testament and Complaint 
 of Creseide,’ published in Speght’s and other 
 early editions of Chaucer, the most striking fea- 
 tures of Islephantiasis are described in clear and 
 graphic terms, and Creseide has to dwell as “a 
 lazarous ” in a “leper lodge,” and to go about 
 begging with “a cup and clapper.” (SeeNares’ 
 
 ‘ Clossary,’ s. Clapdish.) The writer must have 
 been familiar with what he describes. Shak- 
 speare speaks of the Leprosy, but applies the 
 name to a different disease. Milton does not 
 mention it, even in that terrible vision of the 
 diseases to come upon mankind which Michael 
 sets before Adam. ‘ P. L.’ xi. 470 sq. 
 
 Tlie largest leper house in England is said to 
 have given tlie name to tlie village of Burton- 
 lazars in Leicestershire. I'here Avere six in Lon- 
 don ; of which one, according to Pennant, occu- 
 pied the site of St James’s palace. Dugdale 
 has given a list of eiglity-five in different parts of 
 I'higland ; but his list is far from complete. 
 
 ® .Simp on, ‘Antiquarian Notices of Leprosy,’ 
 quoted by Wilson. 
 
 Europe lepers became less numerous from the 
 fifteenth century, but the disease maintained 
 its ground in the northern maritime parts. In 
 1641 Evelyn saw “divers leprous poor crea- 
 tures dwelling in solitary huts,” between Delf 
 and the Hague, who were supported by 
 charity®. It would seem that in Iceland, and 
 on the coast of Norway, Elephantiasis has 
 rather increased during the present century; 
 and the Anaesthetic form is more frequent 
 there than elsewhere, unless some parts of 
 India may be excepted. The disease appears to 
 be slowly disappearing in the south of Spain 
 
 V. The countries in Avhich the Leprosy is 
 known to have prevailed for the longest period 
 are Egypt and Syria. No provision appears to 
 have been made in Egypt for the segregation of 
 lepers. In Syria, on the contrary, leper houses 
 have existed from time immemorial, and it can 
 hardly be unreasonable to connect this fact 
 with the operation of the Law of Moses 
 continued from age to age, even if we do 
 not rest upon the conjecture regarding the ap- 
 propriation of the hill Gareb (see § in.). There 
 are at present such homes at Jerusalem, 
 Damascus, Nablus and Ramleh. VVe are in- 
 debted to Mr Atkinson for the following par- 
 ticulars relating to the home at Jerusalem.. It 
 consists of a row of huts enclosed by a wall 
 just within the south gate of the city. The 
 lepers are maintained in part by a fund left by 
 a pious Mussulman, but mainly by alms. 
 Parties of four or five take their stand to beg 
 at certain spots outside the city. Their re- 
 ceipts are equally shared. One of their num- 
 ber is appointed as Sheikh by the Pacha of Jeru- 
 salem to transact the business of the commu- 
 nity. They are exempt from taxes. They are 
 bound to reside within their quarter, but they 
 are free to go into the city and to receive visits 
 from their friends. The distinction between 
 Christian and Moslem is wholly disregarded 
 in their intercourse amongst themselves (cf. 
 Luke xvii. 16). In i860 the home contained 
 24 males and 9 females; all the latter were 
 married except one. One of the women was 
 in good health, and appeared to have suffered 
 originally only from the Lepra vulgaris; but 
 having been pronounced a leper, she could not 
 be liberated owing to the want of some such 
 provision as the purification of the Levitical 
 Law. Compare the case of Simon the leper. 
 Matt. xxvi. 6; Mark xiv. 3. 
 
 In modern times, since Elephantiasis has 
 been more carefully observed, the segregation 
 of lepers has become general. In the replies to 
 the Committee of the College of Physicians it 
 
 ® ‘Dia’-y’ Vol. i. p. 18. See also Howell’s 
 ‘Letters,’ Bk. i. § 2, Letter 13. 
 
 7 Dr Webster’s ‘Notes on the Leper Hospital 
 at Granada.’— There is a paper on the ‘ Geogra- 
 phical Distribution of Leprosy at the present 
 time,’ by Dr ‘Gavin Milroy, in the Appendix to 
 the ‘ Report on Leprosy ’ by the College of Phy- 
 sicians, p. 227. 
 
LEVITICUS. XIIL 
 
 573 
 
 is very generally recommended as the best way 
 of checking the advance of the disease. Some 
 striking facts bearing on this point are ad- 
 duced, In Madagascar, the law has been re- 
 laxed within the last few years and the number 
 of lepers has increased. The law has been strin- 
 gently enforced at New Brunswick and the 
 number has diminished. In most cases in 
 which a diminished prevalence of the disease 
 is reported, it is said to be connected with 
 the same cause. Segregation has however been 
 pronounced by the Committee as most pro- 
 bably inoperative in checking the progress of 
 the diseased It must of course be admitted 
 that, from the nature of the malady, the re- 
 sults of any agencies to resist its operation can 
 only be estimated by long and widely-spread 
 observation, 
 
 VI, But without insisting on the probability 
 that the Leprosy is, under certain rare condi- 
 tions, contagious 2, it is obvious that segrega- 
 tion must have a salutary tendency in check- 
 ing intermarriage between lepers and others. 
 The Mosaic Law must have had this effect 
 to the same extent as the modern usage of 
 segregation. We know however that the dis- 
 ease continued to infest the Hebrew race as 
 long as they dwelt in their own land, though 
 probably in a diminishing degree. It is worthy 
 of remark that the Jews at this day are much 
 affected by Leprosy in the West Indies and in 
 Egypt, while they are as free from it as any 
 race in Syria, India and Europe, But what- 
 ever may be the state of existing facts, it is 
 difficult to imagine that the exclusion of lepers 
 from common intercourse, maintained during 
 a very long period, can have failed to help in 
 relieving the race of its terrible burden, 
 
 VII, Michaelis, in accordance with his 
 general views of the Mosaic legislation, regard- 
 ed the laws respecting Leprosy as based entirely 
 upon sanitary considerations and the desira- 
 bleness of keeping unsightly objects out of 
 the way of common concourse : and on this 
 ground he takes the rites enjoined for the healed 
 leper as meant for little more than artificial 
 sanctions to impress the minds of the people. 
 Such a theory is neither consistent with the in- 
 tegrity of the Legislator nor with the dignity of 
 the Law. But some writers seem to have erred 
 in a contrary direction by denouncing a regard 
 to sanitary results as unworthy of “ an am- 
 bassador of God.” (Cf. Note after ch. xi. § vi.) 
 To believe that the Law took cognizance of the 
 instincts which are common to our nature, and 
 that its enactments were such as tended to 
 promote the material benefit of the chosen 
 people, in accordance with the dictates of 
 sound political wisdom, is in nowise incon- 
 sistent with the belief that it also comprised a 
 Spiritual meaning distinguishing it from ordi- 
 nary legislation. The teaching of that which 
 
 ^ ‘Report,’ p. vii. 
 
 ^ See Preliminary Note to ch. xiii., § xil. 
 
 is invisible by means of visible objects cannot 
 be less efficient when it consists in an appeal 
 to real analogies in nature than when the sen- 
 sible objects of illustration are arbitrarily 
 chosen on account of their mere external ap- 
 pearance. The healing of the soul by the for- 
 giveness of sins was revealed by the Son of 
 God through the visible fact of the heal- 
 ing- of the body. See Matt. ix. 2. In like 
 manner, the proper treatment of Leprosy as a 
 disease of the body became a type of the pro- 
 per treatment of sin, not through a mere re- 
 semblance which might recommend itself to 
 the fancy, but through the Law being an in- 
 spired interpretation of the Truths of nature. 
 
 That the Leprosy was entitled to the 
 distinction with which it was treated in 
 the ceremonial Law is indeed most obvious. 
 Disease is the usher of death. Every sort of 
 disease should convey a lesson not only to him 
 that suffers from it, but to him that witnesses it. 
 But it is evident that there could be no arrange- 
 ment to make every case of disease bear its for- 
 mal testimony, which would be feasible or com- 
 patible with the material welfare of the peo d . 
 The malady which was most palpably expres- 
 sive of the nature common to all disease became 
 therefore the fit subject of special ordinances 
 superadded to, or rather grafted upon, the 
 sanitary regulations. The leper is one in whom 
 it may be said “ death lives” during the period 
 of his leprous existence: he has been called 
 “a walking tomb” (sepiilchrum amhulans)^ 
 “a parable of death.” It was the sight first 
 of a decrepit old man, then of a horribly de- 
 formed Leper, and lastly of a putrid corpse, 
 which, according to the legend, confirmed 
 Gotama Buddha in his resolution to retire from 
 a world full of decay and death in order to 
 lead the life of an ascetic. Hardy, ‘ Manual of 
 Buddhism,’ p. 154. The leper was thus the 
 best parable in the world of the sin of which 
 death was the wages ; not the less so because 
 his suffering might have been in no degree due 
 to his own personal deserts. He bore about 
 •with him at once the deadly fruit and the 
 symbol of the sin of his race. Ex. xx. 5. 
 As his body slowly perished, first the skin, 
 then the flesh, then the bone, and fell to pieces 
 while yet the animal life survived, he was a 
 terrible picture of the gradual corruption of 
 the spirit wrought by sin. The best of all 
 types of the healing of the Spirit, was the 
 healing of the Leper. In his formal Cleansing, 
 Consecration, and Atonement by sacrifice (see 
 notes on xiv. 9 — 20), the ministers of the Sanc- 
 tuary bore public witness that he was restored 
 to the blessing of communion with h:s brethren 
 and with Jehovah. Hence when the Son of 
 God proved His divine mission by healing the 
 lepers (Matt. xi. 5) He did not excuse them 
 from going to the priest to “offer for the 
 cleansing these things which Moses command- 
 ed” (Mark i. 44 ; Luke v, 14) “ for a testimony 
 to the people,” Matt. viii. 4. 
 
 O O 
 
574 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIV. 
 
 [v. 1—4. 
 
 How closely the Hebrews associated the 
 Leprosy with Death is expressly shewn by the 
 signs of mourning which the leper had to 
 wear (Lev, xiii. 45), by Miriam being spoken 
 of “as one dead” (Num. xii. 12), and by the 
 words of Josephus, that the Law excludes 
 lepers from civil life, as being “in no wise 
 different from the dead” — veKpdv fxrjbev diacfie- 
 povras^. 
 
 The lower symbolical bearing of the law of 
 Leprosy — that which related to Cleansing, as 
 distinguished from Consecration (see on Lev. 
 xiv. 9) — comes out in strong relief in what 
 relates to that which was termed the Leprosy, 
 in materials for clothing and shelter. The 
 name appears to have been applied to certain 
 processes of decay of which we cannot ascer- 
 tain the precise nature (Lev. xiii, 47 — 59, xiv. 
 33 — 53). The rites ordained for cleansing 
 evidently point to an analogy between that 
 which slowly corrodes dead matter and the 
 action of the poison of Leprosy on the body 
 of man. 
 
 VIII. It has been objected that the treat- 
 ment of lepers according to the Law was an 
 inhuman confusion between sin and misfor- 
 tune. It may seem that the leper had to 
 endure a legal punishment in addition to the 
 stroke of disease 2. It was indeed, in itself, 
 a hard condition that lepers were excluded 
 from the Sanctuary. But the lesson which their 
 disease was intended by Divine wisdom to 
 teach the nation, could not be made com- 
 plete without this. Not that the Leper was 
 merely made use of for the sake of others; 
 the lesson was for himself as well as for them, 
 
 1 ‘Ant.’ III. II, §3. — On the connection be- 
 tween the Leprosy and sin, see especially Theo- 
 doret, ‘ Qiisest. in Lev.’ xvi. ; Hesych. in loc. ; 
 Cyril. Alex. ‘ Glaph.’ in loc. 
 
 2 Tertullian answers Marcion on this point, 
 
 ‘ Adv. Marc.’ iv. 35. 
 
 hard as it may have been for him to apply it. 
 If he accepted it in faith and submission, 
 though the ordinary means of grace were 
 straitened for him, he might still have the 
 spiritual satisfaction that he was fulfilling an 
 ordained purpose of Self-sacrifice in acquiescing 
 from his heart in the full meaning of the 
 Divine Law. This mode of regarding the 
 position of the outcast leper is remarkably 
 shewn in a very ancient and widely-accepted 
 interpretation of Isaiah liii. 4, according to 
 which the prophet foresaw the Messiah es- 
 teemed as a Leper., smitten of God., and afflicted 
 {quasi leprosum et percussion a Deo et humi- 
 liatum. Vulgate). This rendering has the 
 authority of Symmachus, Aquila, St Jerome, 
 Procopius, and many moderns. 
 
 But it may fairly be questioned whether 
 the regulations of the Law lessened in any 
 degree the amount of natural enjoyment 
 of which the Leprosy left its victim capable. 
 When we consider the loathsome outward 
 effects of the disease, the consciousness in 
 the leper that he was a marked and stricken 
 man, and the fact that he was for the most 
 part in no need of those attentions which 
 relieve and solace ordinary invalids, he might 
 have found his burden greater and more 
 galling in the common intercourse of life 
 than in the position marked out for him by 
 the Law. If he was cut off from society 
 which he might else have enjoyed, he was less 
 frequently reminded that he was an object of 
 aversion to his neighbours, and he probably 
 had a much larger share of unqualified sym- 
 pathy^. 
 
 ^ This view of the effect of segregation on the 
 happiness of lepers is strikingly confirmed by 
 Mr Atkinson (MS. notes), Dr Webster (‘Notes 
 on the Hospital at Granada’), and in several of 
 the Replies to the Leprosy Committee. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 I The rites and sacrifices in cleansing of the 
 leper. 33 The signs of leprosy in a house. 
 43 The cleansing of that house. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 This shall be the law of the leper 
 
 in the day of his cleansing: He ‘^shall ‘"Matt. 8. 
 be brought unto the priest : Mark i. 
 
 3 And the priest shall go forth out lukes. 12. 
 of the camp; and the priest shall look, 
 
 and, behold, if the plague of leprosy 
 be healed in the leper; 
 
 4 Then shall the priest command 
 
 Chap. XIV. 
 
 The Purification of the Leper. 1 — 32. 
 
 1. unto Hoses'] The directions for the 
 Purification are addressed to Moses alone, 
 those for the Examination to Moses and 
 Aaron conjointly, xiii. i. 
 
 The Leper was excluded not only from the 
 Sanctuary but from the Camp. The ceremony 
 of restoration which he had to undergo was 
 tliercfore twofold. T'he first part, performed 
 
 outside the camp, entitled him to come within 
 and to mix with his brethren, 3 — 9. The 
 second part, performed in the court of the 
 Tabernack and separated from the first by an 
 inteiwal of seven days, restored him to all 
 the privileges of the Covenant with Jehovah, 
 10 — 3a. 
 
 The Kites performed avithout the Camp. 3 — 7. 
 
 2 , 3 . The priest had to go to the entrance 
 
, LEVITICUS. XIV. 
 
 V. 5-] 
 
 to take for him that is to be cleansed 
 two "birds alive and clean, and cedar 
 wood, and scarlet, and hyssop : 
 
 5 And the priest shall command 
 that one of the birds be killed in an 
 earthen vessel over running water : 
 
 of the camp at a time agreed on to meet and 
 examine the cured Leper. 
 
 4. t'vjo birds'] Our translators have in- 
 serted in the margin, “or sparrov^s,” in ac- 
 cordance with the rendering of the Vulgate. 
 There is no reason to doubt that the Hebrew 
 word t%ippor^ evidently formed from the sound 
 of chirping or twittering, may often denote 
 a sparrow (Ps. Ixxxiv. 3, civ. 17, &c.); but 
 it is for the most part used for a bird in the 
 general sense. Gen. vii. 14, xv. 10; Deut. iv. 
 17, &c. — This ceremony of the two birds 
 has been very generally regarded by Com- 
 mentators as a sacrifice in the proper sense 
 of the word, like the two goats of the Day 
 of Atonement. On the objections to this, 
 see Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 cedar <wood, and scarlet^ and hyssop] These, 
 with the two birds and the spring water, were 
 employed in cleansing the leprous house in 
 precisely the same manner as they were on 
 this occasion. See 'v'v. 49, 51, 52. In burn- 
 ing the Red heifer (Num. xix. 6), they were all 
 three cast into the fire and burnt with the 
 victim instead of being dipped in the blood. 
 Hyssop was used in sprinkling the blood of 
 the Paschal lamb upon the doorposts and 
 lintels of the Israelites in the observance of 
 the Passover in Egypt (Exod. xii. 22), and in 
 sprinkling the water of purification on a tent, 
 a person or a vessel polluted by the touch 
 of a dead body, Num. xix. 18. The scarlet 
 and the hyssop, as well as the water mixed 
 with the blood of victims, are mentioned 
 by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 (ix. 19, 20), as having been used by Moses 
 in sprinkling the Book of the Covenant 
 and the people, though only the blood -is 
 named in Ex. xxiv. 6. From these pas- 
 sages we may infer that the three substances 
 were used as the common materials in rites 
 of purification. How far their natural quali- 
 ties may have recommended them for this 
 purpose, will be seen in the following notes. 
 In their being burned with the Red heifer 
 (Num. xix. 6), their symbolical import was 
 simply expressed by their presence in the fire. 
 But they seem to have been generally employed 
 as instruments in the act of sprinkling. See the 
 next three notes. Their full meaning in its 
 deepest relation is brought out in the expression 
 of the Psalmist, “Purge me with hyssop (the 
 name here represents the whole rite) and I shall 
 be clean,” li. 7. 
 
 cedar ^vood] According to the Mishna, this 
 was a stick of cedar a cubit in length. ‘ Negaim,’ 
 xiv. 6. But the name cedar appears to have 
 been given by the ancients not only to the 
 well-known Cedar of Lebanon, but to a Juni- 
 
 per {Juniper ns oxycedrus')^ and it is almost cer- 
 tainly this which is here meant. It should 
 be distinguished from the juniper with the 
 fragrant wood of which we are familiar as 
 “the pencil cedar” {Juniperus Bermudiand)^ 
 the qualities of which are somewhat similar. 
 We are told by Pliny that the wood was 
 burnt in temples as incense before the time 
 of the Trojan war. Its smoke was probably 
 used as a disinfectant. The resin or turpentine 
 obtained from it (/ceSpta, cedria) was employed 
 to preserve various substances from decay, and 
 in its application to books it made the name 
 cedar into a common proverb for literary im- 
 mortality (Horat. ‘ A.P.’ 332 ; Ovid. ‘ Trist.’ i. 
 
 ‘ EL’ I. 7 ; Martial, III. ‘ Epig.’ il. 7 ; Pers. 
 
 ‘ Sat.’ I. 42). It -^"as applied by the Egyptians 
 to preserve dead bodies from decay. It pre- 
 served clothes from moth. The wood itself 
 of this Juniper is so enduring that it was spoken 
 of as everlasting, and the statues of deities were 
 often made of it. Cf. Is. xl. 20. Medicines were 
 made of the turpentine which were used in Ele- 
 phantiasis and other skin diseases. Herodot. ii. 
 87; Theophrastus, see Schneider’s ‘Index 
 rerum,’ s. v. KeSpoy; Plin. ‘H. N.’ xiii. i, ii, 
 XVI. 21, 76, § I, 79, XXIV. II ; Dioscorides, 
 
 ‘ Mat. Med.’ i. 105 with Kuhn’s note; cf. Is. 
 xl. 19; Suicer, s. v. KeSpo?, § iil. These tes- 
 timonies make sufficiently clear the meaning 
 which was given to the cedar wood in its 
 ceremonial use, and especially in cleansing the 
 leper. 
 
 scarlet] If we may trust to the Mishna this 
 was a “tongue,” or band, of twice-dyed 
 scarlet wool, with which the living bird, the 
 hyssop, and the cedar wood were tied together 
 when they were dipped into the blood and 
 water. ‘Negaim,’ xiv. i, with the notes. The 
 scarlet wool is generally supposed to express 
 the rosy colour v/hich is associated with health 
 and vital energy. (Bahr, Kurtz, Keil, &c.) 
 It is worth notice that scarlet is used by the 
 prophets with a contrary signification. Isa. 
 i. 18 ; Nahum ii. 3. The Mishna says that “a 
 tongue of scarlet” was attached to the horns 
 of the Scapegoat when he was sent into the 
 wilderness. Lev, xvi. 22. 
 
 hyssop] See Ex. xii. 22. It is veiy doubt- 
 ful what plant is meant. The Hebrew name 
 is e%db^ and that used by the LXX. vaaooTros. 
 It is generally admitted that it cannot be the 
 plant now called hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis')^ 
 which appears to have been unknown in 
 ancient Syria and Egypt. It is by no ^means 
 certain to what plant the Greeks gave the 
 name vVo-cotto?. The references to the Hyssop 
 of the Scriptures would seem to require (i) that 
 the plant should be found in Egypt, the desert, 
 and the Holy Land; (2) that it should grow 
 
 0 0 2 
 
 Ol 
 
576 
 
 [v. 6 — II. 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIV.^ 
 
 6 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 
 
 f Heb. 
 ■jtpojt the 
 face of the 
 field. 
 
 running water : 
 
 7 And he shall sprinkle upon him 
 that is to be cleansed from the leprosy 
 seven times, and shall pronounce him 
 clean, and shall let the living bird 
 loose ' into the open field. 
 
 8 And he that is to be cleansed 
 shall wash his clothes, and shave off 
 all his hair, and wash himself in water, 
 that he may be clean : and after that 
 he shall come into the camp, and 
 
 shall tarry abroad out of his tent 
 seven days. 
 
 9 But it shall be on the seventh 
 day, that he shall shave all his hair 
 off* his head and his beard and his eye- 
 brows, even all his hair he shall shave 
 off: and he shall wash his clothes, 
 also he shall wash his flesh in water, 
 and he shall be clean. 
 
 10 And on the eighth day he shall 
 take two he lambs without blemish, 
 and one ewe lamb +of the first year 
 without blemish, and three tenth deals ter of her 
 of fine flour for a meat offering, 
 mingled with oil, and one log of oil.^ 
 
 1 1 And the priest that maketh him 
 
 amongst stones and upon, walls, and that it 
 should be of low growth, so as to furnish 
 a contrast when compared with the_ Cedar of 
 Lebanon (i K. iv. 33); (3) that it should 
 have a stem capable of forming a stick of 
 considerable length (Joh. xix. 2,9); and (4) 
 that it should have such qualities as might fit 
 it for use in the rites of purification.— The 
 Jewish authorities, most of the older critics 
 and some recent ones, are inclined to identify 
 the ezdb of the Old Testament with some spe- 
 cies of marjoram {Origanum jEgyptiacum or 
 O. Syriacmti). Several other well-known plants, 
 most of them possessing aromatic, detergent, 
 or disinfecting properties, such as rosemary, 
 southernwood, thyme, and lavender, have been 
 suggested. But no one of these is capable of 
 producing a sufficiently long stick, to which 
 the sponge could have been attached when it 
 was raised to the lips of our Saviour. Bochait, 
 who identifies the e%db with marjoram of some 
 kind, is in consequence driven to suppose that 
 the Evangelist spoke of a different plant bear- 
 ing the same Greek name. _ On the whole, it 
 must be admitted that no single plant appeals 
 to mt'et all the conditions which Scripture seems 
 to require so well as the Caper plant {Capparis 
 spinosaY the claims of which were advanced 
 by the late Prof. J. Forbes Royle. It grows 
 freely in all the countries bordering on the 
 Mediterranean Sea. One of the lyimes that 
 the Arabs give it is asuf which comes 
 very close to the Hebrew word. It is men- 
 tioned by Dean Stanley as a “ bright green 
 creeper, which climbs out of the fissures ot 
 the rocks.” It commonly grows in the most 
 barren soil, on rocks, ruins, and walls. Its 
 stem will often furnish a stick of considerable 
 length. Its cleansing virtues as a medicine, 
 and its use in the treatment of ulcers and 
 diseases of the skin allied to Leprosy, are no- 
 ticfd by Pliny (‘ H. N.’ xx. 59). Se^ a paper, 
 ‘On the Hyssop of Scripture,’ by 1 
 j. borbes Royle, in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic 
 
 Society,’ Vol. viii.; Stanley, ‘ S. and P.’ p. 21 ; 
 Smith’s ‘ Diet.’ s. v.— The Jews say that the 
 sprig of hyssop used for sprinkling was eight 
 or nine inches in length. Maimon. in ‘ Negaim,’ 
 XIV. 6. It has been conjectured that the 
 scarlet band was used to tie the hyssop upon 
 the cedar, so as to make a sort of brush, such 
 as would be convenient for sprinkling. 
 
 5 . running 'voater~\ Literally, living water, 
 i.e. water fresh from the spring (Gen. xxvi. 
 19), such as was used with the ashes of the 
 Red heifer for the water of purification. Num. 
 xix. 17. 
 
 7. 3en)en timei\ The seal of the Covenant, 
 expressed in the number seven, was renewed 
 in sprinkling him who, during his Leprosy, 
 had lived as an outcast. 
 
 9. He was again reminded of the number 
 of the Covenant by the seventh day of his ex- 
 clusion from domestic life, on which he had to 
 wash and to cut off his hair more thoroughly 
 than he had been previously required to do. 
 
 he shall be clean-] What was strictly the 
 Purification of the leper was completed within 
 the week of his first entrance into the camp, 
 while he was still excluded from the Sanctuary, 
 and from his own abode. That which fol- 
 lowed was a Consecration, by which he was 
 reinstated in his position as one of the 
 “ holy nation” (Ex. xix. 6). Hence the cere- 
 monial bore a strong resemblance to that of 
 the Consecration of Aaron and his sons to the 
 prii sthood (Lev. viii.). The points of distinc- 
 tion will be noticed below. 
 
 The Rites auithin the Court. 10 — 32. 
 
 10 , 11 . On the eighth day, the cleansed 
 leper had to bring to the priest who had re- 
 ceived him into the camp two young rams 
 from one to three years old (not lambs), a 
 ewe lamb in her first year (see xii. 6), three 
 tenth parts of an ephah (something over ten 
 
LEVITICUS. XIV. 
 
 577 
 
 V. 12 ^*20.] 
 
 clean shall present the man that is to 
 be made clean, and those things, before 
 the Lord, at the door of the taber- 
 nacle of the congregation : 
 
 12 And the priest shall take one he 
 lamb, and offer him for a trespass 
 
 *Exod.'29. offering, and the log of oil, and ^wave 
 them for a wave offering before the 
 Lord : 
 
 13 And he shall slay the lamb in 
 the place where he shall kill the sin 
 offering and the burnt offering, in the 
 
 ‘ Chap. 7. holy place: for ^as the sin offering is 
 
 7 - the priest’s, so is the trespass offering : 
 
 it is most holy: 
 
 14 And the priest shall take some 
 of the blood of the trespass offering, 
 and the priest shall put it upon the 
 tip of the right ear of him that is to 
 be cleansed, and upon the thumb of 
 his right hand, and upon the great toe 
 of his right foot : 
 
 15 And the priest shall take some 
 of the log of oil, and pour it into the 
 palm of his own left hand : 
 
 16 And the priest shall dip his right 
 finger in the oil that is in his left 
 hand, and' shall sprinkle of the oil 
 with his finger seven times before the 
 Lord : 
 
 17 And of the rest of the oil that 
 is in his hand shall the priest put upon 
 the tip of the right ear of him that 
 is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb 
 of his right hand, and upon the great 
 toe of his right foot, upon the blood 
 of the trespass offering: 
 
 18 And the remnant of the oil that 
 is in the priest’s hand he shall pour 
 upon the head of him that is to be 
 cleansed : and the priest shall make 
 an atonement for him before the 
 Lord. 
 
 19 And the priest shall offer the 
 sin offering, and make an atonement 
 for him that is to be cleansed from 
 his uncleanness ; and afterward he 
 shall kill the burnt offering: 
 
 20 And the priest shall offer the 
 burnt offering and the meat offering 
 
 pints and a-half) of fine flour mingled with 
 oil, and a log (about half-a-pint, see on xix. 35) 
 of oil. The priest presented both the man 
 and his offerings to Jehovah at the en- 
 trance of the Tent of meeting. See 
 on i. 3. 
 
 12. a nva-ve off'ering] One of the young 
 rams was taken % the priest for a Trespass 
 offering, and, along with the log of oil, was 
 solemnly made over to Jehovah by the cere- 
 mony of waving. This Trespass-offering, 
 with its blood and the oil, must be regarded 
 as the main feature in the ceremony. There 
 appears to be no other case in which an 
 entire victim was waved before Jehovah. 
 Introduct. § ix. The Levites are spoken of 
 as “a wave offering,” Num. viii. ii — 15 (see 
 margin). The man in this case, represented 
 by his Trespass- offering, was dedicated as a 
 Wave-offering in like manner. 
 
 13 . The Trespass-offering was sacrificed 
 in the usual manner. See Note at the end of 
 this chapter. 
 
 it is most holy] See on vi. 25, cf. vii. 7. 
 
 14 . The priest applied the blood of the 
 Trespass-offering to the person of the cleansed 
 Leper, in the same way as the blood of the Ram 
 of Consecration was applied to the priests, and 
 with the same significance. See Lev. viii. 23. 
 It is said that a portion of the blood was 
 
 caught by the priest in the palm of his hand 
 as it ran from the victim. It was no doubt 
 applied vv^ith the finger. ‘ Negaim,’ xiv. 8. 
 
 15 — 17 . Having sprinkled seven drops of 
 the oil in succession towards the entrance of 
 the Tabernacle, the priest touched with the oil 
 the spots on the person of the cleansed Leper, 
 which he had already stained with the blood of 
 the Trespass- offering. The sevenfold sprink- 
 ling of the oil before the Sanctuary, in addition 
 to the waving of it, seems to have been in- 
 tended to consecrate it to represent the spiritual 
 gift (see Note after Lev. ii.) consequent upon 
 the Covenant, the sealing of which had been 
 figured by the sacramental blood of the offer- 
 ing. 
 
 17 . him that is to be cleansed] Rather, of 
 him that has been cleansed. The He- 
 brew would bear either rendering, but the 
 fact spoken of here is a completed one ; see on 
 «i;. 9. The same correction is needed -u. 19. 
 
 18 . pour] More properly, put; literally, 
 gi^e. The quantity left in the hand could 
 hardly have been sufficient to pour. 
 
 19 . the sin offering] i. e. the ewe lamb, 2;. 10. 
 
 him that is to be cleansed] See on 2;. 17. 
 
 19 , 20. The work of the priest connect- 
 ed with the Trespass-offering and the oil 
 brought the cleansed Leper into that position 
 
578 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIV. 
 
 [v. 21—34. 
 
 upon the altar: and the priest shall 
 make an atonement for him, and he 
 shall be clean. 
 
 tHeb. 21 And if he he poor, and ^cannot 
 %achnot much ; then he shall take one 
 
 t Heb. ' lamb for a trespass offering ^ to be 
 fora waved, to make an atonement for 
 him, and one tenth deal of fine flour 
 mingled with oil for a meat offering, 
 and a log of oil ; 
 
 22 And two turtledoves, or two 
 young pigeons, such as he is able to 
 
 ^ get ; and the one shall be a sin offer- 
 ing, and the other a burnt offering. 
 
 23 And he shall bring them on the 
 eighth day for his cleansing unto the 
 priest, unto the door of the tabernacle 
 of the congregation, before the Lord. 
 
 24 And the priest shall take the 
 lamb of the trespass offering, and the 
 log of oil, and the priest shall wave 
 them for a wave offering before the 
 Lord : 
 
 25 And he shall kill the lamb of 
 the trespass offering, and the priest 
 shall take some of the blood of the 
 trespass offering, and put zV upon the 
 tip of the right ear of him that is to 
 be cleansed, and upon the thumb of 
 his right hand, and upon the great toe 
 of his right foot : 
 
 26 And the priest shall pour of the 
 oil into the palm of his own left hand : 
 
 27 And the priest shall sprinkle 
 with his right finger some 'of the oil 
 that is in his left hand seven times 
 before the Lord : 
 
 28 And the priest shall put of the 
 oil that is in his hand upon the tip of 
 the right ear of him that is to be 
 cleansed, and upon the thumb of his 
 right hand, and upon the great toe of 
 his right foot, upon the place of the 
 blood of the trespass offering: 
 
 29 And the rest of the oil that if in 
 the priest’s hand he shall put upon 
 the head of him that is to be cleansed, 
 to make an atonement for him before 
 the Lord. 
 
 30 And he shall offer the one of the 
 turtledoves, or of the young pigeons, 
 such as he can get ; 
 
 31 £z/e^ such as he is able to get, 
 the one for a sin offering, and the 
 other for a burnt offering, with the 
 meat offering: and the priest shall 
 make an atonement for him that is to 
 be cleansed before the Lord. 
 
 32 This is the law of him in whom 
 is the plague of leprosy, whose hand 
 is not able to get that which pertaineth 
 to his cleansinp;. 
 
 33 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 
 
 34 When ye be come into the land 
 of Canaan, which I give to you for a 
 
 in which he could avail himself of the accus- 
 tomed law of sacrifice as one completely re- 
 stored. 'Fhe ewe lamb was now offered in 
 his behalf as a Sin-offering, one of the young 
 rams as a Burnt-offering, and the fine flour 
 mingled with oil as a Meat-offering. From 
 the mode in which the Meat-offering is here 
 mentioned, it seems evident that it constituted 
 a distinct sacrifice. See on ii. i. 
 
 21 — 23. A cleansed Leper who was poor 
 might bring birds for the Sin- and Burnt-offer- 
 ings (cf. on i. 14), and one-tenth of an ephah 
 of fine flour instead of three-tenths; but no 
 alteration was permitted in the Trespass-offer- 
 ing or in the log of oil, which constituted the 
 characteristic part of the ceremony of Con- 
 secration. The directions respecting these in 
 -z'-u. 24 — 29 are repeated from •v'v. 12 — 18. 
 
 It may be observed that the consecrating 
 rites for the priests (ch. viii.), which bore most 
 resemblance to those for the cleansed Leper, 
 di.ffered from them in the following particu- 
 
 lars:— (i) In the order in which they were 
 performed : the blood was put upon the 
 priest after the sacrifice of the Sin- and 
 Burnt-offerings, it Avas put upon the cleans- 
 ed Leper before these sacrifices. (2) In 
 the character of the victim from which the 
 consecrating blood was taken : the Ram of 
 Consecration partook of the nature of a Peace- 
 offering (Lev. viii. 22), the Leper was touched 
 with the blood of a 'I'respass-offering. (3) In 
 the oil for anointing and the mode of using 
 it: the priest was anointed on his garments 
 as well as his person with the holy oil of the 
 Sanctuary (Lev. viii. 12, 30), the cleansed 
 Leper only on specified parts of his person, 
 with common oil supplied by himself. 
 
 The Leprosy in the House. 33—53. 
 
 33. Moses and — Aaron\ This law is ad- 
 dres.sed to them conjointly, that relating to 
 human Leprosy to Moses alone. 
 
 34. When ye be come into the land of Ca- 
 
V. 35—5°-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIV. 
 
 579 
 
 possession, and I put the plague of 
 leprosy in a house of the land of your 
 possession ; 
 
 35 And he that owneth the house 
 shall come and tell the priest, saying. 
 It seemeth to me there is as it were a 
 plague in the house : 
 
 36 Then the priest shall command 
 
 I Or, that they “ empty the house, before 
 prepare, priest go luto it to See the plague, 
 
 that all that is in the house be not 
 made unclean : and afterward the 
 priest shall go in to see the house : 
 
 37 And he shall look on the plague, 
 and, behold, if the plague be in the 
 walls of the house with hollow strakes, 
 greenish or reddish, which in sight 
 are lower than the wall ; 
 
 38 Then the priest shall go out of 
 the house to the door of the house, 
 and shut up the house seven days : 
 
 39 And the priest shall come again 
 the seventh day, and shall look : and, 
 behold, if the plague be spread in the 
 walls of the house ; 
 
 40 Then the priest shall command 
 that they take away the stones in 
 which the plague zV, and they shall 
 cast them into an unclean place with- 
 out the city: 
 
 41 And he shall cause the house 
 to be scraped within round about, and 
 they shall pour out the dust that they 
 scrape off without the city into an 
 unclean place: 
 
 42 And they shall take other stones, 
 and put the?n in the place of those 
 
 stones; and he shall take other mor- 
 ter, and shall plaister the house. 
 
 43 And if the plague come again, 
 and break out in the house, after that 
 he hath taken away the stones, and 
 after he hath scraped the house, and 
 after it is plaistered; 
 
 44 Then the priest shall come and 
 look, and, behold, if the plague be 
 spread in the house, it is a fretting 
 leprosy in the house : it is unclean. 
 
 45 And he shall break down the 
 house, the stones of it, and the 
 timber thereof, and all the morter of 
 the house; and he shall carry them 
 forth out of the city into an unclean 
 place. 
 
 46 Moreover he that goeth into the 
 house all the while that it is shut up 
 shall be unclean until the even. 
 
 47 And he that lieth in the house 
 shall wash his clothes; and he that 
 eateth in the house shall wash his 
 clothes. 
 
 48 And if the priest ^ shall comet^'^^-. 
 in, and look upon it.^ and, behold, ill shall 
 the plague hath not spread in the 
 house, after the house was plaistered : 
 then the priest shall pronounce the 
 house clean, because the plague is 
 healed. 
 
 49 And he shall take to cleanse 
 the house two birds, and cedar wood, 
 and scarlet, and hyssop: 
 
 50 And he shall kill the one of 
 the birds in an earthen vessel over 
 running water: 
 
 naan\ This section is separated from that on 
 Leprosy in clothing (xiii. 47 — 59) with which 
 it would seem to be naturally connected, and 
 is placed last of all the laws concerning Leprosy, 
 probably on account of its being wholly pro- 
 spective. While the Israelites were in the 
 Wilderness, the materials of their dwellings 
 were of nearly the same nature as those of 
 their clothing, and would be liable to the same 
 sort of decay. They were therefore included 
 under the same law. 
 
 I put the plague] Jehovah here speaks as the 
 Lord of all created things, determining their 
 decay and destruction as well as their pro- 
 duction. Cf. Isa. xlv. 6, 7 ; Jonah iv. 7 ; Matt, 
 xxi. ao. 
 
 36 . The removal of the furniture shews 
 
 that the law of the Leprosy in the house was 
 not based on the fear of infection. 
 
 37 . hollo^u strakes., greenish or reddish.,... in 
 sight lo^er than the 'wall] Rather, depress- 
 ed spots of dark green or dark red, 
 appearing beneath (the surface of) the 
 wall. See Note at end of the chapter. 
 
 49 — 53 . This ceremony with the two 
 birds is exactly the same as that performed on 
 behalf of the healed Leper outside the camp or 
 city (yv. 3 — 6). 
 
 49 . cleanse the house] Strictly, purge the 
 house from sin. The same word is used in 
 ‘v. 52; and in -u. 53 it is said, “ and make an 
 atonement for it.” Cf. Exod. xxix. 36, Ezek. 
 xliii. 22, where the Hebrew is the same. Such 
 language must of course be used figuratively 
 
58 o 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIV. 
 
 U 5^—57. 
 
 51 And he shall take the cedar 
 vvood^ and the hyssop, and the scarlet, 
 and the living bird, and dip them in 
 the blood of the slain bird, and in the 
 running water, and sprinkle the house 
 seven times : 
 
 52 And he shall cleanse the house 
 with the blood of the bird, and with 
 the running water, and with the liv- 
 ing bird, and with the cedar wood, 
 and with the hyssop, and with the 
 scarlet : 
 
 53 But he shall let go the living 
 
 bird out of the city into the open 
 fields, and make an atonement for the 
 house : and it shall be clean. 
 
 54 This is the law for all nranner 
 
 of plague of leprosy, and "^scall, ^chap. 13. 
 
 55 And for the leprosy of a gar- 
 ment, and of a house, 
 
 56 And for a rising, and for a 
 scab, and for a bright spot : 
 
 57 To teach ^ when it is unclean, 
 and when it is clean : this is the law 
 
 r , clean, mm 
 
 or leprosv. in the 
 
 flfihc 
 
 when it is applied to things, not to persons, elusion to the laws of Leprosy contained in 
 See Note at the end of the chapter. chaps, xiii., xiv. The technical names of the 
 
 first external symptoms of Leprosy of the per- 
 54 — 57. These verses are a formal con- son are repeated in ’v. from xiii. 2 .. 
 
 NOTES on i^^hap. xiv. 
 
 I. On the two Birds of the healed 
 Leper, 4 — 7. 
 
 These birds were provided by the priest for 
 the man. They were not, like the offerings for 
 the Altar, brought by the man himself (cf. 4 
 with ‘v. 10 ), they were not presented nor 
 brought near the Sanctuary, nor was any por- 
 tion of them offered on the Altar. It has 
 been usual with commentators, Jewish and 
 Christian, ancient and modern, to liken them 
 to the two goats of the Day of Atonement. 
 But it should be kept in view that the resem- 
 blance is only on the surface. It seems hardly 
 to extend beyond the fact that the two crea- 
 tures in each case go to make up a single type. 
 The significance of the two goats is obviously 
 sacrificial, and holds a quite different place in 
 the scope of the ceremony to which it belongs 
 See on xvi. 8. The slain goat was a Sin-of- 
 fering, the slain bird was no sacrifice at all; 
 the Scape-goat typically bore away a burden of 
 sin, the bird let loose figured a man restored 
 to freedom. 
 
 The older Jewisli writers allegorized each 
 particular connected with the two birds in 
 such a way that Maimonides condemns all 
 their explanations as inconsistent with the 
 spirit of the Hebrew Law, and gives up the 
 matter in despair. Abarbanel appears to have 
 come near to the truth in taking the cere- 
 mony as symbolizing, in its immediate bearing, 
 no more than the renewed health of the L.eper. 
 'I'he living bird, according to him, represented 
 the restored vigour and freedom of the vital 
 functions; the c-dar wockI, the flesh redeemed 
 from decay and putrefaction; the scarlet, the 
 purged blood giving the hue of health to the 
 complexion; and the hyssop, deliverance from 
 the fetor which is characteristic of the disease. 
 
 The details of a restoration to health and tive- 
 dom appeiu* to be well expressed in the whole 
 ceremony. Each of the birds represented the 
 Leper. They were to be of a clean kind, be- 
 cause 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 dip- 
 ped in his blood mixed with the spring water 
 that figured the process of 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 be- 
 hind him all the symbols of the death disease 
 and of the remedies associated with it, and is 
 fi'ee to enjoy health and social freedom vvdth 
 his kind. 
 
 The natural image thus presented to the 
 mind easily suggests the way in which 
 St Paul speaks of the better rcsunTction — 
 “Therefore rve are buried with him by bap- 
 tism into death ; that like as Christ w-as raised 
 up from the dead by the glory of the Father, 
 even so we also should walk in newmess of 
 life.” The Fathers, especially Origen, Cyril, 
 Theodoret and Hesychius, have freely followed 
 out this thought. Many modern ^vl■iters have 
 taken the same line. Bochart has enumerated 
 eighteen particulars in which the ceremony 
 appears to supply figures of spiritual truth 
 connected w’ith our redemption. (‘ Oiiera,' 
 Vol. HI. p. 15 1.) If regarded merely as 
 figures of speech and kept wdthin proper 
 bounds, such applications are allow^able. But 
 they tlo not come within the legitimate range 
 of scriptural interpretation. They should not 
 be pj'nnitted to divert our minds from the 
 obvious scope of this particular observance of 
 the Law, the meaning of which was realized 
 
LEVITICUS. XIV. 
 
 in visible fact, and which should not be 
 placed on the same ground as the rites of the 
 Altar, which pointed directly and exclusively to 
 spiritual antitypes. If we fail to observe this 
 distinction, we lose the edifying lesson conveyed 
 by the two parts of the Leper's restoration to 
 his position as one of the chosen people, con- 
 fusing what properly belonged to the outside 
 of the Camp with that which could only be 
 performed within the court of the Sanctuary. 
 
 II. On THE Trespass-offering of the 
 Leper, 12 — 18.- 
 
 The sacrifice of a Trespass-offering formed 
 a point of resemblance between the consecra- 
 tion of the Leper and the reconsecration of the 
 Nazarite who had incurred defilement by con- 
 tact with the dead; but the latter was not 
 touched with the blood of the victim. In his 
 case, as in that of the priests, a Sin-offering 
 and a Burnt-offering were sacrificed before the 
 Consecration. After directing the priest to 
 offer in the defiled Nazarite’s behalf the two 
 birds for Sin- and Burnt-offerings, the words of 
 the Law are; — “for that he sinned by the 
 dead, and shall hallow his head that same day. 
 And he shall consecrate unto the Lord the 
 days of his separation, and shall bring a lamb 
 of the first year for a trespass-offering.” Num. 
 vi. II, 12. 
 
 As regards the sequence of the rites, it is 
 obvious that the starting-point of the Leper 
 was different from that either of the Priest or of 
 the Nazarite. Though the Nazarite had been 
 defiled in respect to his Nazarite vow, he had 
 in no degree lost his position as an Israelite. 
 In his national relation he stood on a par with 
 a son of Aaron before he was consecrated: 
 both were in the full sense members of the 
 priestly people. The Consecration of the priest 
 was to qualify him for the service of the 
 Altar; that of the Nazarite, to distinguish him 
 from his brethren as a devoted person. But 
 the Leper was in a very different position. He 
 had to begin the ceremony, not indeed quite 
 as an alien — for he was a circumcised son of 
 Israel and had been readmitted into the camp 
 by a formal act — but as one cut off from his 
 people on account of personal defilement, with 
 whom the Covenant with Jehovah required to 
 be resealed. Until this was done, until his Con- 
 secration had taken place, he could not bring 
 as an accepted worshipper the offerings which 
 were to testify his sense of sin, his devotion of 
 body, soul and spirit to Jehovah, and his faith 
 in atonement by sacrifice. 
 
 The Peace-offering seems to have been the 
 natural Consecration-sacrifice for the priest. 
 The blood of no other victim could have been 
 so clearly significant of the work of him who 
 was to administer the symbols of reconciliation 
 between Jehovah and His people. But the 
 connection between the Trespass- offering of the 
 Consecrations of the defiled Nazarite and the 
 cleansed Leper is not quite so obvious. 
 
 581 
 
 We have seen that the Trespass-offering 
 appears to have been a forfeit for the violated 
 rights of others, whether of Jehovah as the 
 head of the nation or of a fellow mortal. 
 See on Lev. v. 14 seq. It related more imme- 
 diately to the consequence of sin than to sin 
 itself in the heart of the sinner. Now this 
 perhaps brings us to a point at which we can 
 see the reason of the connection of the Trespass- 
 ofiering with these two Consecrations. The 
 Trespass-offering, though it was not immediate- 
 ly connected with the special personal sin of the 
 Nazarite or the Leper, expressed the share 
 which each bore of the consequence of sin in 
 general ; it bore witness that disease and death 
 and the defilements connected with them (see 
 Note after ch. xv.) are the wages of sin for 
 the whole race. 
 
 The notion of Keil that the Trespass- offer- 
 ing was not sacrificed in its proper significa- 
 tion ; and that of Knobel, that it was a forfeit 
 for the Leper’s non-attendance at the Sanc- 
 tuary, seem to be not worth much. 
 
 III. On the Leprosy in the House. 
 
 33 — 53 - 
 
 Many of the old commentators, and some 
 of later times, have imagined that the house 
 Leprosy (as well as the Leprosy in clothing) 
 was in some way connected w th the human 
 disease. The prewailing Jewish notion seems 
 to have been that it was something peculiar to 
 the Holy Land, and to the time of the Law, 
 divinely purposed as a punishment for an evil 
 tongue. It was regarded as a first warning; 
 if it did not take effect, the Leprosy attacked 
 the garments ; and if the transgressor still per- 
 sisted, he was smitten with the disease in his per- 
 son h The Targum of Palestine, with rather 
 more aptness, makes it a visitation on a house 
 that has been built by means of unjust gains. 
 
 It seems, however, more probable that it 
 was some form of ordinary decay which was 
 familiarly known. Some have considered that 
 the object of the law respecting it was chiefly 
 or wholly practical utility, in order to secure 
 for the Israelites sound and wholesome houses 2. 
 That it may have tended towards this end, by 
 inducing a care in the selection of materials 
 and a habit of keeping the house clean and in 
 good repair, is probable. But the form in 
 which the law is expressed in n)n). 49, 53, 
 appears to intimate that its meaning was pri- 
 marily symbolical. Leprosy in the person, 
 above all other affections of living bodies, 
 represented decay and corruption. Decay in 
 all material substances has a common ground. 
 In everything it is the dissolution, the falling 
 to pieces, of that which is naturally one. But 
 decay in what covers the body and what 
 
 ^ Maimon. ‘ More Nev.’ iii. 47. Abarbanel 
 and others quoted by Patrick. 
 
 2 Michaelis, ‘ L. of M.’ Vol. iii. p. 303. David- 
 son, ‘Introd. to O. T.’ Vol. i. p. 260. 
 
582 LEVITT 
 
 shelters it must bear the nearest relationship 
 to the decay of the body itself. The Leprosy 
 in houses, the Leprosy in clothing, and the 
 tenable disease in the human body, were re- 
 presentative forms of decay which taught the 
 lesson that all created things, in their own 
 nature, are passing away, and are only main- 
 tained for their destined uses during an ap- 
 
 us. XV. [V. I-I4. 
 
 pointed period, by the power of Jehovah. See 
 Note after chap, xiii. § vii. 
 
 Several of the Fathers have applied the 
 Leprosy in the house as an apt figure to illus- 
 trate the histories of the Jewish nation and of 
 the Christian Church. See Theod. ‘Qusest. 
 in Lev.’ xviii. ; Cyril, ‘ Glaph.’ in loc . ; Hieron. 
 in Zeph. i. 13 ; Hesychius in loc. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 I The nncleanness of 7 nen hi their issues. 1 3 
 
 The cleansing of them. 19 The uncleanness 
 
 of women in their issues . 28 Their cleansing. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses 
 ]f\^ and to Aaron, saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, and say unto them. When any 
 
 a Or, man hath a '' running issue out of 
 flesh, because of his issue he Is 
 reins. Ulicleail. 
 
 3 And this shall be his unclean- 
 ness in his issue : whether his flesh 
 run with his issue, or his flesh be 
 stopped from his issue, it is his un- 
 cleanness. 
 
 4 Every bed, whereon he lieth 
 that hath the issue, is unclean : and 
 
 t Heb. every ^ thing, whereon he sitteth, 
 vessel. unclean. 
 
 5 And whosoever toucheth his bed 
 shall wash his clothes, and bathe him- 
 self in water, and be unclean until 
 the even. 
 
 6 And he that sitteth on any thing 
 whereon he sat that hath the issue 
 shall wash his clothes, and bathe him- 
 self in water, and be unclean until 
 the even. 
 
 7 And he that toucheth the flesh of 
 him that hath the issue shall wash his 
 clothes, and bathe himself in water, 
 and be unclean until the even. 
 
 Chapter XV. 
 
 Uncleanxess from Secretions, i — 33. 
 
 This 'chapter would seem to take its place 
 more naturally before the Twelfth, with the 
 subject of which it is immediately connected. 
 Cf. especially xii. % with xv. 19. It stands 
 here between two chapters, with neither of 
 which has it any close connection. 
 
 1. This law is addressed to Moses and 
 Aaron. 
 
 2 . running issue'] See Jos. ‘Ant.’ ill. ii, 
 
 8 And if he that hath the issue 
 spit upon him that is clean ; then he 
 shall wash his clothes, and bathe him- 
 self in water, and be unclean until 
 the even. 
 
 9 And what saddle soever he rideth 
 upon that hath the issue shall be un- 
 clean. 
 
 10 And whosoever toucheth any 
 thing that was under him shall be 
 unclean until the even : and he that 
 beareth any of those things shall wash 
 his clothes, and bathe himself in wa- 
 ter, and be unclean until the even. 
 
 11 And whomsoever he toucheth 
 that hath the issue, and hath not 
 rinsed his hands in water, he shall 
 wash his clothes, and bathe himself 
 in water, and be unclean until the 
 even. 
 
 12 And the ‘’'vessel of earth, that « chap 6 
 he toucheth which hath the issue, 
 
 shall be broken : and every vessel of 
 w^ood shall be rinsed in water. 
 
 13 And when he that hath an issue 
 is cleansed of his issue ; then he shall 
 number to himself seven days for his 
 cleansing, and wash his clothes, and 
 bathe his flesh in running water, and 
 shall be clean. 
 
 14 And on the eighth day he shall 
 take to him two turtledoves, or two 
 young pigeons, and come before the 
 
 § 3 ; Maimon., Note on ‘ Zabim,’ ii. 2, &c., 
 &c. 
 
 13 . The mere cessation of the issue does 
 not make him clean: he must wait seven 
 days, and then bathe and wash his clothes 
 preparatory to his offering sacrifice fw. 13, 
 14). As long as the cause of his uncleanness 
 continued, he communicated a degree of pol- 
 lution to any person or thing with which he 
 might come into contact. — On the distinction 
 between earthen and wooden utensils (no. 12), 
 see on vi. 28, xi. 33, 35. 
 
V. 15— 30-J 
 
 LEVITICUS. XV. 
 
 583 
 
 t Heb. 
 in her 
 separa- 
 t on. 
 
 Lord unto the door of the tabernacle 
 of the congregation, and give them 
 unto the priest : 
 
 15 And the priest shall offer them, 
 the one for a sin offering, and the 
 other for a burnt offering ; and the 
 priest shall make an atonement for 
 him before the Lord for his issue. 
 
 16 And if any man’s seed of co- 
 pulation go out from him, then he 
 shall wash all his flesh in water, and 
 be unclean until the even. 
 
 ly And every garment, and every 
 skin, whereon is the seed of copu- 
 lation, shall be washed with water, 
 and be unclean until the even. 
 
 18 The woman also with whom 
 man shall lie with seed of copula- 
 tion, they shall both bathe themselves 
 in water, and be unclean until the 
 even. 
 
 19 ^ And if a woman have an is- 
 sue, and her issue in her flesh be 
 blood, she shall be ^ put apart seven 
 days : and whosoever toucheth her 
 shall be unclean until the even. 
 
 20 And every thing that she lieth 
 upon in her separation shall be yn- 
 clean : every thing also that she sitteth 
 upon shall be unclean. 
 
 21 And whosoever toucheth her 
 bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe 
 himself in water, and be unclean until 
 the even. 
 
 22 And whosoever toucheth any 
 thing that she sat upon shall wash his 
 clothes, and bathe himself in water, 
 and be unclean until the even. 
 
 23 And if it he on her bed, or on 
 
 any thing whereon she sitteth, when 
 he toucheth it, he shall be unclean 
 until the even. 
 
 24 And if any man lie with her 
 at all, and her flowers be upon him, 
 he shall be unclean seven days ; and 
 all the bed whereon he lieth shall be 
 unclean. 
 
 25 And if a woman have an is- 
 sue of her blood many days out of 
 the time of her separation, or if it 
 run beyond the time of her separa- 
 tion ; all the days of the issue of her 
 uncleanness shall be as the days of 
 her separation : she shall be unclean. 
 
 26 Every bed whereon she lieth 
 all the days of her issue shall be 
 unto her as the bed of her separa- 
 tion : and whatsoever she sitteth upon 
 shall be unclean, as the uncleanness 
 of her separation. 
 
 27 And whosoever toucheth those 
 things shall be unclean, and shall 
 wash his clothes, and bathe himself 
 in water, and be unclean until the 
 even. 
 
 28 But if she be cleansed of her 
 issue, then she shall number to her- 
 self seven days, and after that she 
 shall be clean. 
 
 29 And on the eighth day she shall 
 take unto her two turtles, or two 
 young pigeons, and bring them unto 
 the priest, to the door of the taberna- 
 cle of the congregation. 
 
 30 And the priest shall offer the 
 one for a sin oftering, and the other 
 for a burnt offering; and the priest 
 shall make an atonement for her be- 
 
 16 — 18 . Most of the ancient religions 
 made a similar recognition of impurity and of 
 the need of purification. On the Babylonians, 
 Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, see Herodot. 
 I. 198, II. 64; Strabo, xvi. p, 745; Hesiod. 
 ‘Op. et Dies’ 731; Eurip. ‘Ion’ 150; Pers. 
 ‘Sat.’ II. 15; Tibull. Lib. ii. i. i. On the 
 Hindoos, ‘Menu’ v. 63. On the Parsees, 
 Zendavesta ap. Bahr; ‘Symb.’ ii. p. 466. On 
 the Moslems, Koran, iv, v. See also a remark- 
 able passage in Porph. ‘de Abst.’ iv. 7, 20. 
 
 17 . en)ery garment^ Cf. Jude v. 23. 
 
 19 — 24 . From the commencement of the 
 period uncleanness was to last seven days, 
 20 — 23. 
 
 24 . This must refer to an unexpected oc- 
 currence. Intercourse during the acknow- 
 ledged period was a heavy crime, and was to 
 be punished by “cutting off.” Lev. xviii. 19, 
 XX. 18; Ezek. xviii. 6. It is so regarded in 
 the Hindoo, Parsee, and Moslem Laws. 
 ‘ Menu,’ IV. 40, v. 8 ; ‘ Koran’ 11. ; ‘ Hedaya,’ 
 Vol. IV. p. 103, II. 620; Biihr, Ii. p. 466; cf. 
 Porph. ‘ De Abst.’ ii. 50. 
 
 25 — 30 . If the period was irregular, the 
 uncleanness was in all respects equal to that 
 of him who had an issue (gunj. 2 — 15), each 
 state being one of disease. See Note at the 
 end of the chapter, § ii. 
 
5^4 
 
 LEVITICUS. XV. 
 
 [v. 31—33- 
 
 fore the Lord for the issue of her 
 uncleanness. 
 
 31 Thus shall ye separate the chil- 
 dren of Israel from their uncleanness; 
 that they die not in their uncleanness, 
 when they defile my tabernacle that 
 is among them. 
 
 32 This is the law of him that hath 
 an issue, and of him whose seed goeth 
 from him, and is defiled therewith ; 
 
 33 And of her that is sick of her 
 flowers, and of him that hath an issue, 
 of the man, and of the woman, and of 
 him that lieth with her that is unclean. 
 
 31 — 33 . This solemn admonition is ad- place (niishkan)^ as in Lev, viii. 10, xvii. 4, 
 dressed to Moses and Aaron, see -z;, i, xxvi. ii. The word rendered “tabernacle” 
 
 elsewhere in Leviticus is properly Tent {phel), 
 31 . my tabernacle'] Strictly, my dzuelling- See on Ex. xxvi. i. 
 
 NOTE on Chaps, xii. — xv. 
 
 Ox THE PuraricATioNS of the Law in 
 GENERAL. 
 
 i. Legal pollution was not in any mode 
 or degree connected with the personal sin of 
 the individual by whom it was occasioned 
 or contracted. It originated only in certain 
 physical conditions. The corpse of a saint 
 was as impure as that of the most degraded 
 criminal, and any human corpse communi- 
 cated even a greater degree of impurity by 
 contact or approximation than the body of 
 an animal. The Law made no distinction 
 between the Leprosy which an unoffending 
 child inherited from its parents and that which 
 might have been inflicted as a visitation for 
 crime. 
 
 We have already had occasion to speak of 
 the strong light in which the Law places the 
 difference between Life and Death. Note after 
 chap. xi. It has also been observed that the 
 defilement of the Leprosy arose from the Leper 
 being regarded as already amongst the dead. 
 Note after chap. xiii. §vii. The conclusion 
 follows that two out of the three kinds of 
 pollution obviously hinge upon the idea of the 
 uncleanness of IDeath. A question remains as 
 to the defilement resulting from the secretions. 
 Why should those mentioned in the Law be 
 distinguished from the other secretions of the 
 body ? 
 
 It has been assumed that, as human life 
 ends in corruption, leaving behind an unclean 
 corpse, so it must begin in corruption. The 
 sinfulness of human nature would thus be 
 n-presented by the unclean ness of its two poles, 
 Ibrlh and Death (Biihr). But this, which re- 
 fers immediately to purification after child- 
 l;irth, falls to the ground as an explanation, if 
 we consider that it was not the newborn 
 child who was recognized as unclean, but its 
 mother h I'he defilement of childbirth is thus 
 brought into close relationship with the de- 
 filements mentioned in ch. xv. 
 
 'The inejuiry into the meaning of this sort 
 
 ^ See on xii. 4, 6 — 8. 
 
 of uncleanness must, it would seem, remain 
 involved in a share of that mystery which 
 shrouds the whole of the subject with which 
 it is connected. The best clue we can get 
 towards a solution appears to be that furnished 
 by such passages as Gen, iii. 16, Rom. vii, 24, 
 viii. 21, in connexion with that feeling of shame 
 which is common to all human beings not en- 
 tirely debased, of which we gather the history 
 from Gen. ii. 25, iii. 7, 10, ii. 
 
 ii. All need of purification without doubt 
 took its rise in a sense of the sinfulness of m.an. 
 Legal uncleanness would not else have excluded 
 the person from participation in the service of 
 the Sanctuary, But the connection between sin 
 and uncleanness is not immediate. The con- 
 necting links between them are the disease and 
 death which are the offspring of sin. I'he 
 pains of childbirth and the suffering of death 
 were the two sentences pronounced by God 
 upon mankind after the first sin 2. The case, 
 seems to be strengthened by the fact that the 
 diseased conditions of uncleanness (xv. 2, 25), 
 compared with the healthy ones, are treated as 
 if they had a double ground of pollution ; they 
 alone require sacrificial atonement. The con- 
 clusion then appears to be reasonable that all 
 the rites of purification were intended to re- 
 mind the Israelite that he belonged to a fallen 
 race and that he needed a Purification and 
 Atonement which he could not effect for him- 
 self. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that the same causes 
 of uncleanness have been generally recognized 
 by the ancient nations. Some authorities on 
 this point as to details have been given in the 
 preceding notes. It would seem that the law 
 of purifications, in its three great lines of ap- 
 plication (see note before ch. xii.), coincides 
 with the suggestions of the common instinct, 
 or of the common tradition, of the human 
 race. 
 
 iii. But it is important to observe in the 
 way of contrast with what completeness and 
 
 2 Gen. ii. 17, iii. 16, 19; Rom. v. 12; Heb, 
 ii. 14, 15 ; I Tim. ii. 15. 
 
V. I— 3 -] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVI. 
 
 '* chap. 
 2 . 
 
 logical consistency the Law of Moses treats 
 the subject, and how it raises it above the 
 level of natural feeling to a higher sphere. 
 When the Law in later ages was misrepresent- 
 ed by the rabbinical teachers, its logical dis- 
 tinctions were crumbled away, and attention 
 to minute artificial rules became the badge of 
 the self-righteous Jew. The deep significance 
 of the ceremonial purifications was confounded 
 with the mere forms, not necessarily with the 
 reality, of cleanliness. Hence came in the 
 washing of hands and “of cups and pots, 
 brazen vessels and of tables.” Markvii. a — 8. 
 Just the same kind of confusion is to be 
 traced in all the Gentile systems of purifi- 
 cation. The Hindoos, for example, put into 
 the same category of pollution a corpse, an 
 outcast for deadly sin, and a newborn child 
 with all its relations within a certain degree 
 of consanguinity, which is specially extended 
 beyond the common limits for the Brahmin^. 
 But the rules of the Moslems bear a yet 
 closer outward resemblance to those of the 
 rabbinical Jews denounced by our Saviour 2 . 
 
 ^ ‘ Menu,’ V. 62, 85 ; note on Lev. xii. 8. 
 
 2 See Koran v. ; Lane, ‘ Mod. Egypt.’ ch. iii. 
 
 5^5 
 
 The original character of the Mosaic law of 
 purifications is remarkably shewn in its belong- 
 ing to every member of the nation without 
 distinction, so testifying to his position before 
 Jehovah (cf. Note after chap. xi. § vii.), and by 
 its clearness and practical method. In all cases, 
 a period of uncleanness was defined — in ordi- 
 nary defilements, either one day or seven days 
 ■ — at the end of which a formal washing of the 
 person, and in certain prescribed instances of the 
 clothes also, was to take place. The purifying 
 rite could thus never be hurried so as to impair 
 its solemnity ; the person was to have time to 
 realize the sense of his iincleanness. It could 
 not, like most of the Gentile purifications, be 
 performed immediately when the occasion for 
 it occurred, as if the object were mainly to 
 cleanse the flesh. But above all, it should be 
 observed that every Levitical purification of a 
 graver kind culminated in a Sin-offering and a 
 Burnt-offering sacrificed to Jehovah according 
 to the general law of sacrificial worship. And 
 the atoning act of the priest gave its meaning 
 not merely to the single occasion on which the 
 sacrifices were offered, but to every rite of 
 purification, whether great or small, which 
 was prescribed by the Law. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 I How the high priest must enter into the holy 
 place. 1 1 The sin offering for huiiself. 1 5 
 The sin offering for the people. 20 The 
 scapegoat. 29 The yearly feast of the ex- 
 piations. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses 
 ±\^ after "the death of the two sons 
 of Aaron, when they offered before 
 the Lord, and died; 
 
 2 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 
 Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that 
 he "^come not at all times into the^Exod. 30. 
 holy place within the vail before the Heb. 9. 7. 
 mercy seat, which is upon the ark; 
 that he die not: for I will appear in 
 the cloud upon the mercy seat. 
 
 3 Thus shall Aaron come into the 
 \\o\p place: v/ith a young bullock for 
 a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt 
 offering. 
 
 Chap. XVI. 
 
 The Day of Atonement, i — 34. 
 
 The Day of Atonement, or, as it is in the 
 Hebrew, the Day of Atonements {Ydyn Kippu- 
 rim)., is called by the Rabbins Toma.^ i.e. the 
 Bay, which is the title of the treatise on it in 
 the Mishna. Philo calls it “the Festival of 
 Fasting,” and St Luke (probably) “ the Fast.” 
 See Acts xxvii. 9. The purpose of the ob- 
 servance of the day is expressly stated in the 
 Law: “to make an atonement for the children 
 of Israel for all their sins (and uncleanness) 
 once a year.” See aono. 34 and 16. — Cf. with 
 this chap., xxiii. 26 — 32. 
 
 1. The instructions for observing this day 
 seem naturally to follow the laws of Sacri- 
 fices and Purifications. See on 0)00. 33, 34* 
 The chapter would on this ground appear to 
 hold its proper place. The reference to the 
 
 death of Nadab and Abihu is not therefore to 
 be regarded as a resuming of the historical 
 narrative from ch. x. 20, but as a notice of the 
 occasion on which the instructions were given, 
 well calculated to add point and emphasis to 
 the solemn admonition to the High priest in 
 the second verse. The death of his sons, for 
 drawing nigh to Jehovah in an unauthorized 
 manner, was to serve as a warning to Aaron 
 himself never to transgress in this respect. 
 
 2. the holy place ojuithin the ajail~\ See Ex. 
 xxvi. 33; Heb. ix. 3. 
 
 the cloud~\ Cf. Ex. xvi. 10, xix. 9, xl. 34; 
 Num. ix. 15; I K. viii. 10. See ay. 13. 
 
 the mercy seat] See Note on Ex. xxv. 17. 
 
 3 . Thus] More strictly. With this; that 
 is, with the offerings about to be mentioned. 
 
 holy place] This name here denotes the 
 Sanctuary, the whole sacred enclosure, the 
 
586 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVI. 
 
 [v. 4—7. 
 
 4 He shall put on the holy linen 
 coat, and he shall have the linen 
 breeches upon his flesh, and shall be 
 girded with a linen girdle, and with 
 the linen mitre shall he be attired: 
 these are holy garments ; therefore 
 shall he wash his flesh in water, and 
 
 put them on. 
 
 5 And he shall take of the congre- 
 gation of the children of Israel two 
 
 kids of the goats for a sin offering, 
 and one ram for a burnt offering. 
 
 6 And Aaron shall offer his bullock 
 of the sin offering, which is for him- 
 self, and ‘^make an atonement for^^®^- 
 himself, and for his house. 
 
 7 And he shall take the two goats, 
 and present them before the Lord 
 at the door of the tabernacle of the 
 congregation. 
 
 court of the Tabernacle. The offerings were 
 for Aaron and his sons, supplied by himself. 
 See n). 6. 
 
 4 . In preparing for the ordinary ministra- 
 tions the priest had to wash only his feet and 
 hands; Ex. xxx. 19 — 21, xl. 31. But the 
 High priest when he changed his dress on this 
 day was required to bathe himself. This 
 was done when he resumed his “golden 
 garments” (Ex. xxviii.), as well as on this 
 occasion. See -l’. 24. According to Jewish 
 tradition the High priest himself in his golden 
 garments had, on this day, and for the pre- 
 vious week, to offer the regular daily sacrifices, 
 and to perform the other sacerdotal duties of 
 the Sanctuary, which were usually performed 
 by a common priest. — The dress of white 
 linen, which he now put on, appears to have 
 been like the ordinary dress of the common 
 priests, except in the substitution of a linen 
 mitre for the bonnet (or cap), and of a plain 
 linen girdle for the variegated one. Ex. xxviii. 
 40 — 43, witli notes. I'he mitre still distin- 
 guished him as the fligh priest, and the plain 
 white girdle was in exact keeping with the 
 other parts of the dress. It has been supposed 
 by many that this white dress was worn by 
 the High priest to mark that he reduced him- 
 self on this occasion to the level of a common 
 priest, as an act of humiliation becoming the 
 character of the Day of Atonement. It is 
 alleged that he could have worn these peculiar 
 garments only as a humbled penitent asking 
 for forgiveness when he offered the Sin-offering 
 for himself, n). 6. (Several Jewish authorities, 
 quoted by Drusius, Cyril Alex., a Lapide, 
 Grotius, RosenmUller, Knobel, Kurtz, &c.) 
 But it seems to be justly urged against this: 
 (i) that the dress, though it was like that of 
 the common priests in being white, was still 
 distinguished by the insignia of the High- 
 priesfhood; (2) that these garments are em- 
 phatically called holy 4, 32), in virtue, 
 
 it would seem, of their special significance, 
 not merely in the same sense as the golden 
 garments, which were consecrated by the 
 anointing oil, I'.x. xxviii. 2, xxix. 21; Lev. 
 viii. 30; (3) that even admitting that they 
 were intended to assimilate to the tlress of the 
 common priests, they were not the more sym- 
 
 bolical of humiliation, for this dress was 
 appointed “for glory and beauty” as much 
 as the golden garments of the High priest. 
 See Ex. xxviii., cf. nj. 2 with -v. 40; (4) and, 
 above all, that whiteness never appears to have 
 been connected by the Hebrews with mourn- 
 ing or penitence; on the contrary, all the 
 evidence we have appears to make it signifi- 
 cant of triumphant holiness. See Eccles. ix. 
 8; Ezek. ix. 2, x. 2; Dan. x. 5, xii. 6; Matt, 
 xvii. 2, xxviii. 3 ; Mark ix. 3 ; Luke ix. 29 ; 
 R.ev. iii. 4, iv. 4, vi. ii, xix. 14, &c. &c. 
 Hence it seems most probable that the High 
 priest, in preparing to enter the Holy of holies, 
 attired himself in spotless white as a token of 
 the holiness without which none, in a spiritual 
 sense, can enter the divine presence. SoOrigen, 
 Hesychius, Keil, Wogue. He thus became 
 a more distinct foreshadow of the greater 
 High Priest, who is “ holy, harmless, unde- 
 filed, separate from sinners;” who has once 
 for all “ entered into that within the vail,” 
 Heb. vii. 26, vi. 19, 20. This significance be- 
 longed to the High priest only in his official 
 capacity as mediatory in his own person he 
 had infirmity, and was required “to offer up 
 sacrifice, frst for his own sins, and then 
 for the people’s.” Heb. vii. 27. See on ix. 
 7 — 14. On the same ground it was that, al- 
 though as a mediator he had to enter the Most 
 Holy place, as sinful flesh he needed the cloud 
 of incense as a vail to come between him and 
 the holiness of Jehovah. See 13. 
 
 5. take of the congregation] The two goats 
 for the Sin-offering for the people, and the 
 ram for their Burnt-offering, were to be sup- 
 plied at the public cost, as the Sin-offering and 
 the Burnt-offering for the priests were to be 
 supplied by the High priest. See 1;. 3. 
 
 t^o kids of the goats] This should be, two 
 shaggy he-goats. See on iv. 23. Accord- 
 ing to the Mishna these were to be of the 
 same colour, size, and value (‘ Yoma,’ vi. i). 
 
 6. shall offer] Rather, shall present, 
 as in 'v'v. 7, 10, &c. The word expresses the 
 formal act of placing the victims in front of 
 the entrance of the Tabernacle. Introd. § v. 
 
 for himself^ and for his house] That is, for 
 himself as the High jiriest and all the common 
 priests. Cf. on ix. 7 — 14. 
 
V. 8 — 1 4-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVI. 
 
 587 
 
 8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon 
 the two goats ; one lot for the Lord, 
 
 Other lot for the ^scapegoat. 
 
 9 And Aaron shall bring the goat 
 
 t Heb. upon which the Lord’s lot Tell, and 
 wentiip. ^ offeHllg. 
 
 10 But the goat, on which the lot 
 fell to be the scapegoat, shall be pre- 
 sented alive before the Lord, to make 
 an atonement with him, to let 
 him go for a scapegoat into the wil- 
 derness. 
 
 1 1 And Aaron shall bring the bul- 
 lock of the sin offering, which is for 
 himself, and shall make an atonement 
 
 for himself, and for his house, and 
 shall kill the bullock of the sin offer- 
 ing which is for himself : 
 
 12 And he shall take a censer full 
 of burning coals of fire from off' the 
 altar before the Lord, and his hands 
 full of sweet incense beaten small, and 
 bring it within the vail : 
 
 13 And he shall put the incense 
 
 upon the fire before the Lord, that 
 the cloud of the incense may cover 
 the mercy seat that is upon the testi- 
 mony, that he die not: ‘^Hch.g. 
 
 14 And '^he shall take of the blood & 10. 4- 
 of the bullock, and ^sprinkle it with g 
 
 8. The two goats formed a single Sin-of- 
 fering, 1;. 5. In order duly to bring out the 
 meaning of the sacrifice it was necessary that 
 the act of a living being should be performed 
 after death. See on -v. 22 As this could not 
 possibly be visibly set forth with a single victim, 
 two were employed, as in the case of the birds 
 in the rite for the healed leper. See Note after 
 chap. xiv. The two goats were presented to- 
 gether before Jehovah. Up to this point they 
 were on a par, and to decide which of them 
 should die recourse was had to casting lots. 
 See Note on Ex. xxviii. 30, § v. 3. 
 
 ybr the scapegoat^ Rather, for Azazel. In 
 the uncertainty which exists respecting the 
 meaning of the original word, it would be 
 better to retain it in the text of our Bible. It 
 thus appears in the Geneva French, Junius 
 and Tremellius, and nearly all modern critical 
 translations, Jewish and Christian. The word 
 has no article in Heb., and is probably a pro- 
 per name. See Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 9. offer him for a sin offering~\ Rather, 
 
 “present him for a sin offering.” Cf. nj. 6. 
 The goat was not to be offered on the Altar 
 until after the sacrifice of the High priest’s 
 Sin-offering, ii — 14. It should be ob- 
 
 sei-ved that -v^v. 9, 10 merely speak of the pur- 
 poses for which the two goats were destined. 
 The practical directions respecting them, in 
 which the required details are given, will be 
 found in verses 15, 16, 20 — 22. 
 
 10 . on ^duhich the lot fell to be the scapegoat] 
 Rather, on which'the lot ‘for Azazel’ 
 fell. 
 
 an atonement ^ith him] Different opinions 
 have been held as to the meaning of the original 
 words. It is most probable that they express 
 that the goat “for Azazel” was to be con- 
 sidered as taking his part along with the other 
 goat in the great symbol of atonement. The 
 words of our version thus appear fairly to re- 
 present the Hebrew. 
 
 for a scapegoat into the wilderness] Rather, 
 “to Azazel, into the Wilderness.” 
 
 11 — 25 . It is important, in reference to the 
 meaning of the Day of Atonement, to observe 
 the order of the rites as they are described in 
 these verses, (i) The Sin-offering for the 
 priests (gv. ii). (2) The High priest enters 
 the First time, within the vail, with the 
 incense 12, 13). (3) He enters the Second 
 time with the blood of the priest's Sin-offer- 
 ing (gv. 14). (4) The sacrifice of the goat 
 
 “for Jehovah” (^». 15). (5) The High priest 
 enters the Third time within the vail with 
 the blood of the goat (gv. 15). (6) The 
 
 atonement for the Tent of meeting (note 
 on “u. 16). (7) The atonement for the Altar 
 
 of Burnt-offering in the court (gvn). 18, 19). 
 (8) The goat sent away to Azazel (giw. 
 20 — 22). (9) The High priest bathes him- 
 
 self and resumes his golden garments (gv^s. 
 23, 24). (10) The Burnt-offerings for the 
 
 High priest and the people, with the fat of 
 the two Sin-offerings, offered on the Altar 
 (gv2.\ 24, 25). ( ii ) The accessory sacrifices 
 mentioned Num. xxix. 8 — ii (see on Lev. 
 xxiii. 20), appear now to have been offered. 
 (12) According to Jewish tradition, the High 
 priest again resumed his white dress and entered 
 a Fourth time within the vail to fetch out the 
 censer and the bowl (‘ Yoma,’ viil. 4). 
 
 12. a censer] See on Ex. xxv. 38. Literally, 
 the censer. According to the Mishna, a 
 golden censer was used on this occasion. If 
 the English version is right in Heb. ix. 4, it is 
 what is there called Svixtarffiov. See in loc. 
 and on Ex. xxx. 6. It is here called by the 
 LXX. TO TTVpeiOV. 
 
 the altar before the Lord] i.e. the Altar of 
 Burnt-offering on which the fire was always 
 burning. 
 
 sweet incense] See Exod. xxx. 34 — 36. 
 
 13 . the cloud of the incense] See on Ex. 
 xxx. 7, 8. 
 
 mercy seat that is upon the testimony] See 
 Note on Ex. xxv. 17. 
 
 14 . and he shall take of the blood] The 
 High priest must have come out from the 
 
LEVITICUS. XVL 
 
 [v. 15—20. 
 
 his finger upon the mercy seat east- 
 ward ; and before the mercy seat shall 
 he sprinkle of the blood with his fin- 
 ger seven times. 
 
 15 ^ Then shall he kill the goat 
 of the sin offering, that is for the peo- 
 ple, and bring his blood within the 
 vail, and do with that blood as he did 
 with the blood of the bullock, and 
 sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and 
 before the mercy seat : 
 
 16 And he shall make an atone- 
 ment for the holy place^ because of 
 the uncleanness of the children of 
 Israel, and because of their transgres- 
 sions in all their sins : and so shall he 
 do for the tabernacle of the congrega- 
 
 tHeb. tion, that Temaineth among them in 
 ‘ the midst of their uncleanness. 
 
 17 -^And there shall be no man in /Luke i. 
 the tabernacle of the congregation 
 when he goeth in to make an atone- 
 ment in the holy place^ until he come 
 
 out, and have made an atonement for 
 himself, and for his household, and for 
 all the congregation of Israel. 
 
 18 And he shall go out unto the altar 
 that is before the Lord, and make an 
 atonement for it 5 and shall take of 
 the blood of the bullock, and of the 
 blood of the goat, and put it upon the 
 horns of the altar round about. 
 
 19 And he shall sprinkle of the 
 blood upon it with his finger seven 
 times, and cleanse it, and hallow it 
 from the uncleanness of the children 
 of Israel. 
 
 20 ^ And when he hath made an 
 
 Most Holy place to fetch the blood, leaving 
 the censer smoking within, and then have en- 
 tered again within the vail. According to the 
 most probable interpretation of the verse, it 
 would appear that he sprinkled the blood seven 
 times upon the Mercy seat, on its east side 
 (not “eastward’’), and then seven times upon 
 the floor in front of it (so Knobel, Keil, and 
 others). If the Mercy seat may be regarded as 
 an Altar, the holiest one of the three, on this 
 one occasion in the year atonement was thus 
 made for it, as for the other Altars, with sa- 
 crificial blood (Ewald, Kurtz, &c.). But the 
 Jewish writers in general, and some others, 
 do not think that the Mercy seat itself was 
 touched with the blood, and would render the 
 preposition on)cr against (not “upon”) the 
 Mercy seat. Josephus says that the blood 
 was sprinkled first upon the ceiling and then 
 upon the floor of the Most Holy place (‘ Ant.’ 
 III. 10, § 3). Cf. on iv. 6. 
 
 15 . Having completed the atonement in 
 the Holy of holies on behalf of the priests, the 
 High priest has now to do the same thing on 
 behalf of the people. 
 
 16 . l^y “the holy place'"' appears to be 
 lure meant the place within the vail, the Holy 
 of holies. The first part of the verse thus re- 
 fers to the rites already performed. 
 
 tabernacle of the congregation'\ Tent of 
 meeting. Atonement was now to be made 
 for the d'abernacle as a whole. The sense is 
 very briefly expressed, but there seems to be 
 no room to doubt that the High priest was 
 to sprinkle the blood of each of the victims 
 before the Altar of incense, as he had done 
 before the Mercy seat within the vail. Josephus 
 so understood the matter. ‘ Ant.’ iii. 10. § 3. 
 That the High priest had on this occasion 
 
 also to touch with blood the horns of the 
 Altar of incense appears from Ex. xxx. 10. 
 
 that remaineth among them in the midst of 
 their uncleanness'] A nearly similar expression 
 is used in ‘u. 19 regarding the Brazen altar. 
 The most sacred earthly things which came 
 into contact with the nature of man needed 
 from time to time to be cleansed and sanctified 
 by the blood of the Sin-offerings which had 
 been taken into the presence of Jehovah. See 
 on Ex. xxviii. 38. 
 
 18 . the altar that is before the Lord] Some 
 of the rabbins, and others, have taken this for 
 the Golden altar (Biihr, Knobel, &c.). But 
 the words, “he shall go out,” in connection 
 with ‘UT’. 16, 17, would intimate that he was 
 to go out of the Tabernacle into the Court. 
 That the designation may properly belong to 
 the Brazen altar, is proved by la. See Ex. 
 xxix. II, 12 ; Lev. i. 5. So Josephus, ‘ Ant.’ iii. 
 10. § 3. The order of the ceremony required 
 that atonement should first be made for the 
 Most Holy place with the Mercy seat, then for 
 the Holy place with the Golden altar, and then 
 for the Altar in the court. See ‘rry. 20, 33. The 
 horns of the Brazen altar were touched with 
 the blood, as they were in the ordinary Sin- 
 offerings. Lev. iv. 25, 30, 34. Cf. Ezek. 
 xliii. 19 — 22; Heb, ix. 21, 22. 
 
 of the blood of the bullock^ and of the blood of 
 the goat] The Jewish tradition is that, for this 
 purpose, some of the blood of the two victims 
 was mingled together in a basin. 
 
 19 . upon it] The Hebrew is here exactly 
 represented. The blood may have been sprin- 
 kled either on the top or the side of the Altar. 
 In reference to the sprinkling of the Mercy seat, 
 in 'v. 14, the front, or east side, is distinctly 
 expressed. 
 
V. 21 — 26.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVI. 
 
 589 
 
 end of reconciling ‘the holy place^ and 
 the tabernacle of the congregation, 
 and the altar, he shall bring the live 
 goat : 
 
 21 And Aaron shall lay both his 
 hands upon the head of the live goat, 
 and confess over him all the iniquities 
 of the children of Israel, and all their 
 transgressions in all their sins, putting 
 them upon the head of the goat, and 
 fHeb, shall send him away by the hand of ^a 
 fit into the wilderness: 
 
 opportu- 
 
 «‘iy- 22 And the goat shall bear upon 
 
 him all their iniquities unto a land 
 * Heb. 1 xiot inhabited : and he shall let go 
 the goat in the wilderness. 
 
 23 And Aaron shall come into the 
 
 tabernacle of the congregatfon, and 
 shall put oft' the linen garments, which 
 he put on when he went into the holy 
 place^ and shall leave them there : 
 
 24 And he shall wash his flesh v/ith 
 water in the holy place, and put on 
 his garments, and come forth, and 
 offer his burnt offering, and the burnt 
 offering of the people, and make an 
 atonement for himself, and for the 
 people. 
 
 25 And the fat of the sin offering 
 shall he burn upon the altar. 
 
 26 And he that let go the goat for 
 tftie scapegoat shall wash his clothes, 
 and bathe his flesh in water, and after- 
 ward come into the camp. 
 
 20—22. Kot until the atonement by blood 
 of the holy places on behalf of the priests and 
 : the people had been accomplished, was the 
 
 i High priest to complete the Sin-offering of the 
 
 two goats by sending the living one into the 
 Wilderness. See on 1 1 — zj. 
 
 21 . confess on^er hirn\ According to the 
 Mishna, the form of confession used on this 
 Occasion in later times was: — “O Lord, thy 
 people, the house of Israel, have transgressed, 
 they have rebelled, they have sinned before 
 thee. I beseech thee now absolve their trans- 
 gressions, their rebellion and their sin that they 
 have sinned against thee, as it is written in the 
 law of Moses thy servant, that on this day he 
 shall make atonement for you to cleanse you 
 from all your sins, and ye shall be clean.” 
 ‘ Yoma,’ VI. 2. 
 
 a fit mari\ Literally, a timely man^ or, a man 
 at band. Tradition says that the man was 
 appointed for this work the year before. 
 
 22. shall bear upon him all their iniquities 
 unto a land not inhabited'] Literally, unto a 
 place cut off, or (as in the margin) a place 
 “ of separation.” — The Jewish tradition that 
 the goat was hooted and goaded away and at 
 
 : last thrown down a precipice (‘ Yoma,’ vi. 4 ; 
 
 I ^ Otho, ‘ Rab. Lex.’ p. zzo), must be a corrupt 
 i fable utterly alien to the true idea of the rite. 
 
 It is evident that the one signification of the 
 ! ceremony of this goat was the complete remo- 
 
 ! val of the sins which were confessed over him. 
 
 I See Note on Azazel at the end of the chapter, 
 
 1 §§ III. IV. The atonement for the sins com- 
 
 : mitted had been signified by the blood of the 
 
 [ slain goat: peace had so been made with 
 
 j Jehovah. Still the sins were facts, their con- 
 
 sequences remained. That which Milton has 
 . so naturally put into the mouth of our first 
 
 parent, is the burden, and may be the snare, of 
 ; every believer who feels that be has sinned ; — 
 
 i VOL. 1. 
 
 “ But past who can recal, or done undo ? 
 
 Not God omnipotent, nor fate — ” 
 
 Heathen literature shews emphatically how 
 the thought has haunted the human mind in 
 different ages. See Soph. ‘Trach.’ 742; Arist. 
 
 ‘ Ethic.’ VI. 2; Hor. iii. ‘ Od.’xxix. 45. We 
 know that the mercy of God does nothing by 
 halves. The spiritual restoration of the recon- 
 ciled sinner is perfect before Him. Ps. li. 7, 
 ciii. 12; Isa. i. 18. But it is in accepting this 
 truth that the believer needs special help. 
 Temptation continues to assail his heart, the 
 sense of sin abides with him, and is apt to 
 seem to him in itself to be sin. No symbol 
 could so plainly set forth the completeness of 
 Jehovah’s acceptance of the penitent, as a Sin- 
 offering in which a life was given up for the 
 Altar, and yet a living being survived to carry 
 away all sin and uncleanness. The truth of 
 atonement was involved in every Sin-offering; 
 but it was only in the offering of the two 
 goats in this great annual rite that the expres- 
 sion of it was carried out into complete detail. 
 The declared object of the obseiwance was that 
 the Israelites might be “clean from all their 
 sins before the Lord,” ‘v. 30. Cf. Ps. ciii. 
 10 — 12; Isa. liii. 6, ii, 12; Micah vii. 19; 
 Joh. i. 29; Heb. ix. 28; i Pet. ii. 24. 
 
 26 — 28 . Both he who led away the goat 
 and he who burned the parts of the Sin-offer- 
 ings had to purify themselves. It was pro- 
 bably a rule that those who went out of the 
 camp during a religious solemnity incurred 
 uncleanness. Many however suppose that 
 pollution was communicated by contact with 
 the Scape-goat and with the flesh of the Sin- 
 offering. But there is no hint of this kind 
 in reference to the flesh which was burnt of 
 the Sin-offerings given in ch. iv. ninj. 12, 21. 
 Cf. also vi. 27, and Note on Azazel at the end 
 of this chapter, § iv. 
 
 P P 
 
590 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVI. [v. 27-33. 
 
 ^ chap. 6. 27 ^And the bullock for the sin 
 
 ifeb. 13. offering, and the goat for the sin offer- 
 ing, whose blood was brought in to 
 make atonement in the holy place^ 
 shall one carry forth without the 
 camp; and they shall burn in the fire 
 their skins, and their flesh, and their 
 dung. 
 
 28 And he that burneth them shall 
 wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh 
 in water, and afterward he shall come 
 into the camp. 
 
 29 ^ And this shall be a statute 
 for ever unto you : that in the seventh 
 month, on the tenth day of the month’ 
 ye shall afflict your souls, and do no 
 v/ork at all, whether it be one of your 
 
 own country, or a stranger that so- 
 journeth among you: 
 
 30 P'or on that day shall the priest 
 make an atonement for you, to cleanse 
 you, that ye may be clean from all 
 your sins before the Lord. 
 
 31 It shall be a sabbath of rest unto 
 you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by 
 a statute for ever. 
 
 32 And the priest, whom he shall 
 anoint, and whom he shall Tonsecrate tHeb. 
 to minister in the priest’s office in his'jfilS'^ 
 father’s stead, shall make the atone- 
 ment, and shall put on the linen 
 clothes, even the holy garments: 
 
 33 And he shall make an atone- 
 ment for the holy sanctuary, and he 
 
 2 7 . shall burn in the fire'] That is, consume 
 ■with fire, not burn sacrificially. See on i. 
 9, iv. 12 ; Heb. xhi. ii. 
 
 29 . seventh months on the tenth day] The 
 month Ethanim or Tisri, as being the seventh 
 in the Sacred year, has been called the Sabba- 
 tical month. On the first day was celebrated 
 the Feast of Trumpets, Lev. xxiii. 24, the tenth 
 day was the Day of Atonement, and on the 
 fourteenth day the Feast of Tabernacles com- 
 menced. Fx. xxiii. 16; Note on Lev. xxiii. 24. 
 
 afflict your souls] In chap, xxiii. 27—32, the 
 direction as to the mode in which the people 
 were to obseiwe the Day of Atonement is 
 expanded, and sanctioned by a sentence of 
 cutting off from the nation whoever trans- 
 gressed it. It was to be a day of Holy Convo- 
 cation of the strictest observance (see on xxiii. 
 7), a Sabbath of rest in which no work what- 
 ever Avas to be done from evening to evening, 
 th<at is, from the evening of the 9th to the 
 evening of the loth day. The expression “to 
 afflict the soul,” appears to be the old term for 
 fasting; but its meaning evidently embraces, 
 not only abstinence from food, but that peni- 
 tence and humiliation which give scope and 
 purpose to the outward act of fasting. The 
 specific word for abstinence {t%um) is not 
 found in the Pentateuch, but often occurs in 
 the Prophets and Historical books. The Day 
 of Atonement was the only public fast com- 
 manded by the I.avv of Moses. On fasts 
 obsei-ved in later times, see Zech. viii. 19, &c., 
 and on those of the Pharisaic Jews, which 
 were multiplied to twenty-nine annual, and 
 two weekly fasts, see Reland, ‘ Antiq.’ p. 270. 
 
 a stranger that sojourneth among you] Ra- 
 ther, the foreigner who dwelleth a- 
 mong you. See on Fx. xx. 10. The mean- 
 ing is, one of foreign blood, who dwelt with 
 the Israelites, had abjured false gods, and had 
 become familiarly known to his neighbours. 
 
 The Kenites appear to have been foreigners of 
 this kind (Judg. iv. ii, &c.) ; and, in the 
 next age, the Gibeonites (Josh. ix.). It is not 
 improbable that a considerable portion of the 
 “ mixed multitude” of Ex. xii. 38 (cf. v. 48) 
 might have taken a similar position. As he 
 had the blessing and protection of the Law 
 (Num. XXXV. 15; Josh. xx. 9; Deut. x. 
 
 18; Lev. xix. 10, xxiii. 22, xxiv. 22), the fi> 
 reigner was bound to obey its statutes. 
 
 He had to observe the Sabbath (Ex. xx. 10, 
 xxiii. 12), the Day of Atonement, abstinence 
 from blood (Lev. xvii. 10), and the law of 
 marriage (Lev. xviii. 26). He was subject 
 to the ordained punishments for the wor- 
 ship of Molech (Lev. xx. 2), and for blas- 
 phemy (Lev. xxiv. 16). He could partake in 
 the festivities of Pentecost and the Feast of 
 Tabernacles (Deut. xvi. ii, 14). He could 
 offer Burnt-offerings and Peace-offerings (Lev. 
 xvii. 8, xxii. 18) and Sin-offerings (Num. 
 
 XV. 29). The Law expressly states that he 
 could not take part in the Passover, unless he 
 was circumcised. Ex. xii. 48, Num. ix. 14. 
 We may infer that this condition, expressed 
 exclusively in regard to the great national 
 festival, applied to some other of his religious 
 privileges. 
 
 32 . <whom he shall anoint — nvhom he shall * 
 consecrate] wiio shall be anointed — who 
 shall be consecrated. See on iv. 3 ; on 
 the form of expression, see on Fx. xxxvii. 1—5. 
 
 the holy garments] See on v. 4. 
 
 3 'S, 34 . There is here a summary of what 
 was done on the Day of Atonement. Its pur- 
 pose was to signify Atonement for the whole 
 of the children of Israel, from the fligh priest 
 to the lowest of the people. 
 
 It has been held that the atonement of this 
 day related to all the sins committed by the 
 people for which atonement had not been 
 
V. 34 -] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVI. 
 
 591 
 
 shall make an atonement for the ta- 
 bernacle of the congregation, and for 
 the altar, and he shall make an atone- 
 ment for the priests, and for all the 
 people of the congregation. 
 
 34 And this shall be an everlasting 
 statute unto you, to make an atone- 
 ment for the children of Israel for all 
 their sins ''^once a year. And he did'^'^xod. 
 as the Lord commanded Adoses. Heb. 9. 
 
 duly made at the Altar in the course of the 
 past year (Knobel, Keil, Herxheimer). But 
 it would rather seem that the Day was in- 
 tended as an occasion for expressing more 
 completely than could be done in the ordi- 
 nary sacrifices the Spiritual truth of Atone- 
 ment, with a fuller acknowledgment of the 
 sinfulness and weakness of man and of the 
 corruptible nature of all earthly things, even 
 of those most solemnly consecrated and de- 
 voted to the service of God. It belonged to 
 its observances especially to set forth, by the 
 entrance of the High priest into the Holy 
 of holies, that Atonement could only be ef- 
 fected before the throne of Jehovah Himself 
 (cf. Matt. ix. 6; Mark ii. 7 — 10; Heb. iv. 16, 
 &c.) ; and, by the goat sent into the Wilder- 
 ness, that the sins atoned for were not only for- 
 given, but carried wholly away. See on n), 22. 
 The rites were not in any proper sense sup- 
 plemental, but were a solemn gathering up, as 
 it were, of all other rites of atonement, so as 
 to make them point more expressively to the 
 revelation to come of God’s gracious purpose 
 to man in sending His Son to be delivered for 
 our offences, and to rise again for our justifi- 
 
 cation; to be our great High Priest for ever 
 after the order of Melchisedec, and to enter 
 for us within the vail (Rom. iv. 25 ; Heb. vi. 
 20). The Day of Atonement expanded the 
 meaning of every Sin-offering, in the same 
 way as the services for Good Friday and Ash 
 Wednesday expand the meaning of our Litany 
 days throughout the year, and Easter Day, that 
 of our Sundays. 
 
 34 . And he did as the Lord commanded 
 Moses'\ There is a similar notice of the first 
 obsei-vance of the Passover at the conclusion 
 of the instructions respecting it. Ex. xii. jc. 
 
 The modern Jews are said to observe the 
 Day of Atonement by the slaughter of a fowl. 
 See Buxtorf’s ‘ Synagoga Judaica,’chap. xxvi.; 
 DrMcCaul’s ‘The Old Paths,’ No. 36. — The 
 external form of the ceremony of the goat set 
 free may have been, as many have supposed, 
 pre-Mosaic. But the Law must have given 
 it a new and distinct meaning in making it part 
 of the great Sin-offering of the year. See. 
 Introd. §§ xvi. xvii. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xvi. 8. 
 
 On Azazel. 
 
 I. Origin of the word. II. Is it the name of 
 a Personal being 'I III. Lhe function of 
 the Goat sent away. IV. His typical cha- 
 racter. V. Names of the Ewl one. VI. 
 Other explanations of A%a%el. 
 
 I . The word '‘azd%el (^TXty) occurs no- 
 where in the Old Testament except in this 
 chapter. What is denoted by it, is a ques- 
 tion to which no very certain answer can be 
 given. The best modern scholars consider its 
 most probable derivation to be from a root in 
 use in Arabic, but not in Hebrew, signifying 
 to remonje., or to separate. They are equally 
 agreed as to the word expressing the destina- 
 tion to which the goat was sent, not (as in 
 our Version) the goat itself. The etym.ology 
 suggested by Buxtorf and the earlier critics, 
 according to which the word answered to our 
 own “ scape-goat,” is now almost universally 
 rejected. 
 
 II. The acceptance of Azazel as the name of 
 a personal being placed in opposition to Jeho- 
 vah, seems to be the only mode of justifying the 
 relation in which the two lots stood to each 
 other. Upon this a great majority of critics, 
 ancient as well as modem, are agreed. But 
 
 different views have been held regarding the 
 nature of this personal being. The Syriac 
 version appears to give to Azazel the sense 
 of the mighty God (Deus forth Simas')., which 
 may be supported oy an explanation of the 
 etymology not wholly improbable. This no- 
 tion has been adopted by Le Moyne and in- 
 geniously carried out so as to make Azazel 
 denote God as the God of power in His 
 relation to the Gentiles, as distinguished from 
 Jehovah, revealed as the God of grace to the 
 chosen people^. The greater number of cri- 
 tics are however inclined to take Azazel as 
 the name of an evil spirit to whom the goat 
 was sent. It is considered that the name 
 itself, signifying the entirely separate one, 
 one dwelling in banishment, is in favour of 
 this meaning (Knobel, Hengstenberg, &c.). 
 That the Hebrews were familiar with the 
 notion of evil spirits making their abode in 
 desert places is evident from Is. xiii. 21, xxxiv. 
 14 (cf. on Lev. xvii. 7) ; Matt. xii. 43 ; Luke 
 viii. 27; Rev. xviii. 2. Several Jewish tradi- 
 tions point to the same conclusion. The name 
 Azalzel, easily conaipted from Azazel, is 
 applied to a fallen angel in the book of Enoch, 
 which was most likely written by a Jew about 
 
 ^ Carpzov, ‘App. Grit.’ p. 439. 
 
LEVITICUS. XVI. 
 
 40 A.c. Some of the rabbinists identify Azazel 
 with Sammael, the name given by the Jews to 
 the angel of death, the chief of the devils^. — 
 Origen expressly says that Azazel denoted 
 the devil (‘Cont. Cels.’ lib. vi. p. 305). 
 
 III. Taking then Azazel as the evil one, 
 the important question remains, in what ca- 
 pacity was the goat dismissed to him ? Was 
 he sent as a sacrifice, to bribe, or mollify 
 him? (Spencer, Gesenius, Rosenmuller, &c.) 
 Against this it is justly urged, that the two 
 goats formed together one Sin-ofiering, and as 
 such had been presented to Jehovah : and 
 also that anything like the worship, by sacrifice 
 or otherwise, of an evil spirit was forbidden 
 by the whole spirit of the Law. — Or, is 
 the strange notion to be entertained that the 
 goat was sent out with his symbolical burden 
 of sin, as if to vex the devil, “to deride and 
 to triumph over him ” in his own dominion ? 
 (Witsius, Hengstenberg, Kurtz.) — May not 
 the matter be rather put in this way, in accord- 
 ance with the sense given in the preceding notes ? 
 It is evident that the goat sent away could not 
 stand in the same relation to Azazel as the other 
 did to Jehovah. Having been presented to 
 Jehovah before the lots were cast, each goat 
 stood in a sacrificial relation to Him. The 
 casting of lots was an appeal to the decision 
 of Jehovah (cf. Josh. vii. 16, 17, xiv. % ; 
 Prov. xvi. 33 ; Acts i. 26, &c.) ; it was 
 therefore His act to choose one of the goats 
 for His service in the way of ordinary sa- 
 crifice, the other for His service in carrying 
 off the sins to Azazel. The idea to be set 
 before the Israelites was the absolute anni- 
 hilation, by the atoning sacrifice, of sin as a 
 separation between Jehovah and His people, 
 the complete setting free of their consc'ences. 
 See note on t.-. 22. This was expressed in 
 later times by the Psalmist; “As tar as the 
 east is from the west, so far hath he removed 
 our transgressions from us” (ciii. 12); and 
 by the Prophet: “ He will subdue our iniqui- 
 ties ; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the 
 depths of the sea.” Micah vii. 19. By this 
 expressive outward sign the sins were sent 
 back to the author of sin himself, “the en- 
 tirely separate one,” who was banished from 
 the realm of grace. 
 
 IV. The removal of the sins which had been 
 atoned for could only be effected by means as 
 holy, as much belonging to Jehovah, as those 
 which had been employed in the atonement 
 itself. They were not, as in the case of the 
 Sin-offering, put upon the head of the goat 
 by the offerers, nor by the elders of the people 
 as their representatives (see Lev. iv. 15) ; 
 but by the High priest in his holy white 
 robes lately come from the presence of Je- 
 hovah in the innermost Sanctuary, presenting 
 the signs of his mediatorial character in the 
 
 ^ Buxt. ‘ .Syn. Jucl.’ c. xxvi ; ‘Lex. Talm.’ p. 
 1495. Roscnmiillcr, on Lev. xvi. 8. 
 
 strongest light. The goat itself could not 
 have lost the sacred character with which it 
 had been endued in being presented before 
 Jehovah. It was, as much as the slain goat, 
 a figure of Him wTo bore our griefs and 
 carried our sorrows, on whom the Lord laid 
 the iniquity of us all (Is. liii. 4, 6), that 
 we might become a sanctified Church to be 
 presented unto Himself, not having spot or 
 wrinkle or any such thing (Eph. v. 26, 27). 
 
 The Fathers in general speak of each goat 
 as a figure of our Saviour. (Cyril Alex., 
 Theodoret, Hesychius, Jerome.) But they do 
 not agree with the view Vv^hich has been given 
 as to the destination of the living goat. Re- 
 garding the animal as a type of the risen 
 Saviour, Cyril supposed the place to which he 
 was sent to represent Heaven to which Christ 
 was to ascend: Theodoret, taking the same 
 general view, conceived it to symbolize the 
 impassibility of the di‘vine ?:ature (ro arrade^ r^v 
 OeoTijTos), upon which the sins were cast and 
 lost all their virulence. Cyril, ‘ Glaph.’ p. 374; 
 Theod. ‘ Quaest. in Lev.’ xxii. 
 
 V. We do not see the practical end of such 
 inquiries as have occupied the attention of so 
 many critics regarding the identity or non- 
 identity of Azazel with the serpent of Genesis 
 iii., with Satan, with the Egyptian Typhon, 
 or v/ith some other recognized aspect of the 
 evil spirit 2. Our spiritual enemy has never 
 been made known to us by a proper name. 
 We can only here and there trace the mention 
 of him in the Scriptures until his personality 
 becomes most clearly developed in his struggle 
 with the Son of God ; but even then he has 
 no stedfast name. He is called the serpent 
 (Gen. iii ; Rev. xii. 9), the enemy or fiend, 
 (“ Satan,” Job i. 6 ; Zech. iii. i, 2 ; Rev. xii. 9, 
 XX. 2), the accuser, or slanderer (Matt.iv. 10; 
 Luke X. 18; Rom. xvi. 20; Rev. xii. 9, &c. 
 &c.), the tempter (Matt. iv. 3 ; i Thess. iii. 5), 
 the prince of this world (John xii. 31, xiv. 30, 
 xvi. ii), the prince of the power of the air 
 (Eph. ii. 2), the destroyer (Rev. ix. ii ; cf. 
 Job xxvi. 6 ; Prov. xxvii. 20, where the same 
 Hebrew word abadddn\ is used), and 
 
 the Jews called him by the name of the Phi- 
 listine god, Beelzebub (Matt. x. 25 ; Luke xi. 
 15, &c.). In this place he appears to be 
 called by a name which was no doubt prse- 
 Mosaic (as Gesenius and Ewald have re- 
 marked), with a very apposite meaning. This 
 variety of designation in different ages, and 
 under different circumstances of development, 
 may tend to shew in what a practical v»^ay the 
 idea of one who is a rebel against God and a 
 spiritual enemy to man naturally arises in the 
 human mind. It tends to prove the important 
 fact that the belief in the existence of such a 
 being, through a succession of ages, has not 
 been dependent on the tradition of a name. 
 
 2 Gesen. ‘Thes.’ p. 1012. Ewald, ‘Altcrthlim.’ 
 403. Hengstenberg, ‘ Egypt and the Books of 
 Moses,’ p. 170. Kurtz, ‘S. W.’ 402, &c. 
 
V. 1—4.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVIL 
 
 593 
 
 VI. The other chief explanations of the 
 word 'aza^el may be briefly noticed. 
 
 (1) The word has been taken as a verbml 
 substantive signifying, with its preposition, ybr 
 complete remonjal (Bilhr, Winer, Tholuck, &c.). 
 As a formal explanation of the Hebrew word, 
 this is of very recent authority, but it may 
 have some countenance from the rendering of 
 the Septuagint in two out of the four places in 
 which "'azazel occurs {"v^. lo, 26), and still 
 more from the Old Italic, which reads “ ad 
 dimissionem.” 
 
 (2) It has been understood to signify some 
 mountainous desert place. Saadia, several 
 Jewish writers quoted by Vatablus, Bochart, 
 Carpzov, Reland, Le Clerc, &c. But this 
 notion is opposed to w. 10, 21, in which the 
 desert is distinguished from Azazel in such a 
 way as hardly to admit of one being the ex- 
 planation of the other. 
 
 (3) Azazel has been taken as a designa- 
 tion of the goat itself, by tlie ancient Greek 
 
 versions (but the LXX. is not consistent in 
 this respect in w. 10, 26), the Vulgate, Lu- 
 ther, the English Version, &c. The word used 
 by the Septuagint in n). 8 (dnoTroixTralos) can 
 only be taken in an active sense = the a'verter of^ 
 ills^ a'verruncus^ not as it is by several of the 
 Fathers, as the goat dismissed. Symmachus has, 
 the goat that departs (^dTrepgojjievos)., Theodo- 
 tion, the goat sent anjoay (dcfnepevos), Aquila, 
 the goat set free., strictly “ the scapegoat” (utto- 
 XeA.u/ifi/o?), and the Vulgate, caper emissarlus. 
 Josephus agrees in sense with the Septuagint. 
 But the construction of the Hebrew is cer- 
 tainly not in favour of these renderings, nor 
 of Azazel being in any sense applied to the 
 goat as a proper name. — If on one of the lots 
 the prepositional prefix ^ has the ordinary 
 sense of for or ^0, it is not likely that, on the 
 other, it would mean, appointed to be. The 
 inconsistency which our translators have fallen 
 into in following the Vulgate, may be seen in 
 2;. 10. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 I The blood of all slain beasts must be offered to 
 the Lord at the door of the tabernacle. 7 
 They 7 ?iust not offer to devils. 10 All eating 
 of blood is fo 7 -bidden, 1 5 a 7 id all that dieth 
 alo 7 te, or is tor 7 i. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 Jf\_ ses, saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto Aaron, and unto his 
 sons, and unto all the children of Is- 
 rael, and say unto them ; This is the 
 
 thing which the Lord hath command- 
 ed, saying, 
 
 3 What man soever there he of the 
 house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or 
 lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that 
 killeth it out of the camp, 
 
 4 And bringeth it not unto the 
 door of the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation, to offer an offering unto the 
 Lord before the tabernacle of the 
 
 Chap. XVII. 
 
 The leading topic of this chapter is the 
 blood of animals; what it is, why it should 
 be held sacred, how it should be treated in 
 the processes of daily life. The subject evi- 
 dently has a connection with what goes before, 
 as an explanation of why blood should be an 
 object of chief significance on the Altar, and 
 especially in the rites of the Day of Atone- 
 ment, in which its meaning was brought into 
 its holiest, highest association. — But this 
 chapter in its immediate bearing on the daily 
 life of the Israelites stands as the first of four 
 (xvii. — XX.), which set forth practical duties, 
 directing the Israelites to walk, not in the way 
 of the heathen, but according to the ordi- 
 nances of Jehovah. 
 
 On slaying Animals for Food. 
 
 I — 16. 
 
 1, 2. The Legislator is now commanded to 
 address the whole of the people as well as the 
 priests. The subject-matter of the laws here 
 expressed is one in which the ordinary life of 
 the people was brought into immediate relation 
 to the priests’. 
 
 All animals are to be slaughtered before the 
 Tabernacle. 3 — 7. 
 
 3, 4. Every domesticated animal that was 
 slain for food was a sort of Peace-offering 
 (-IT. 5): the Mishna says that the shoulder, 
 the cheeks, and the paunch of each animal so 
 slaughtered was given to the priests (‘Cholin,’ 
 X. I, see on vii. 32). This law, though it 
 expressed a great principle (see on 1;. 7), 
 was only provisional in its practical bearing. 
 It could only be kept as long as the children 
 of Israel dwelt in their camp in the Wilderness. 
 The restriction was removed before they 
 settled in the Holy Land, wdiere their num- 
 bers. and diffusion over the country would 
 have rendered its strict observance impossible. 
 See Deut. xii. 15, 16, 20 — 24. On the mode 
 of slaughtering see Note at the end of the 
 Chapter. 
 
 3 . lamb'\ Sheep. See on iii. 7. 
 
 4 . Rather “And bringeth it not unto the 
 entrance of the Tent of meeting to offer 
 it as an offering before the Tabernacle 
 (fi.e. the dwellingplace) of Jehovah,” &c. 
 See on Ex. xxvi. i : Lev. i. 3. 
 
594 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVII. 
 
 [v- 5—9- 
 
 Lord; blood shall be imputed unto that 
 man ; he hath shed blood; and that man 
 shall be cut olF from among his people : 
 
 5 To the end that the children of 
 Israel may bring their sacrifices, which 
 they offer in the ope*n field, even that 
 they may bring them unto the Lord, 
 unto the door of the tabernacle of the 
 congregation, unto the priest, and offer 
 them yijr peace offerings unto the Lord. 
 
 6 And the priest shall sprinkle the 
 blood upon the altar of the Lord at 
 the door of the tabernacle of the con- 
 
 gregation, and burn the fat for a "sweet « Exod. 
 savour unto the Lord. di‘ap.4. 
 
 7 And they shall no more offer 
 their sacrifices unto devils, after whom 
 they have gone a whoring. This 
 shall be a statute for ever unto them 
 throughout their generations. 
 
 8 ^ And thou shalt say unto them. 
 Whatsoever man there be of the house 
 of Israel, or of the strangers which 
 sojourn among you, that offereth a 
 burnt offering or sacrifice, 
 
 9 And bringeth it not unto the 
 
 blood shall be imputed unto that man\ i. e. he 
 has incurred guilt in shedding blood in an un- 
 lawful manner. 
 
 cut opf~\ See on Ex. xxxi. 14. 
 
 5 . sacrifices'] The Hebrew is %ebdchim^ 
 
 i. e. slain beasts or beasts for slaughter. See 
 Introd. § iii. St Augustin (‘ Qiiaest. in 
 Lev.’ 56) understood 3 — 6 to refer to 
 
 ceremonial sacrifices. The older versions (with 
 our own) seem to countenance this. But the 
 connection justifies most of the modern in- 
 terpreters in applying the words to animals 
 slaughtered for food. See the heading in our 
 Bible. The whole verse might be rendered: 
 In order that the children of Israel 
 may bring their beasts for slaughter, 
 ■which they (now) slaughter in the 
 open field, even that they may bring 
 them before Jehovah to the entrance 
 of the Tent of meeting unto the 
 priests, and slaughter them as Peace- 
 offerings to Jehovah. 
 
 6. sprinkle] i.e. cast forth. See Introd. 
 § vi. 
 
 buryi] See on i. 9. 
 
 fat] i.e. the suet. See Introd. § viii. 
 
 7 . offer their sacrifices] The words might 
 be rendered, sacrifice their beasts for 
 slaughter. See on ^v. 5. 
 
 u-nto de’vils] The word sd'eer denotes a 
 shaggy goat. See on iv. 23. But it is some- 
 times employed, as here, to denote an object 
 of heathen worship or a demon dwelling in the 
 deserts, z Chron. xi. 15; Is. xiii. 21, xxxiv. 
 14. The worship of the goat, accompanied 
 by the foulest rites, prevailed at Mendes in 
 Lower Egypt. Herodot. ii. 46; Strabo, xvil. 
 p. 802; Ailian, ‘Hist. An.’ vii. 19: other 
 authorities are given by Bochart, ‘ Hicroz.’ 
 lib. II, c. 53. The Israelites may have been 
 led into this snare while they dwelt in Egypt. 
 See Hengstenberg, ‘ Egypt,’ &c. p. 203. Cf. 
 Josh. xxiv. 14, 15 ; Ezek. xxiii. 8, 9, 21. 
 There is however no evidence to shew that 
 the slaughter of animals, in the way here 
 alluded to, formed any part of the goat wor- 
 
 ship of Egypt. On the other hand, the 
 ancient Persians slew victims in honour of 
 their deities in the open fields. Herodot. i. 
 132; Strabo, xv. p. 732. There is a refer- 
 ence in the Koran to the practice of the 
 heathen Arabs of calling on false gods in 
 the act of slaughter. Sura v., with Sale’s 
 note. Cf. Mishna, ‘ Cholin,’ ii. 8. See also 
 Palgrave, ‘Arabia,’ Vol. i. p. 10. The or- 
 dinances of Menu do not approve of any flesh 
 being eaten which has not been offered to a 
 deity. Ch. v. §§ 23, 32, 34, 39> 4i, 5^. These 
 customs seem to bear clear traces of a primeval 
 habit in regard to taking the life of animals 
 for food, which the Israelites at this time were 
 in some form or other tempted to invest with 
 idolatrous associations. It might be better, 
 following the hint furnished by Is. xiii. 21, 
 xxxiv. 14, to render the expression, to tbe 
 evil spirits of tlie desert. Luther has, 
 to feld denjils. 
 
 But this law for the slaughtering of animals 
 was not, as some have suggested {e.g. Hiiver- 
 nick, ‘ Pent.’ p. 299), merely to exclude idola- 
 try from the chosen nation. It had a more 
 positive and permanent purpose. It bore 
 witness to the sanctity of life; it served to 
 remind the people of the solemnity of the 
 grant of the lives of all inferior creatures 
 made to Noah (Gen. ix. 2, 3); it purged and 
 directed towards Jehovah the feelings in re- 
 spect to animal food which seem to be com- 
 mon to man’s nature ; and it connected a habit 
 of thanksgiving with the maintenance of our 
 human life by means of daily food, i Tim. 
 iv. 3 — 5. Having acknowledged that the 
 animal belonged to Jehovah, the devout He- 
 brew received back its flesh as Jehovah’s gift. 
 Cf. Note after Chap. xi. §§ iii. I'V. 
 
 No Sacrifice to be offered except in the Court. 
 
 8, 9. 
 
 The precept is here put into a negative 
 form which has already been expressed posi- 
 tively in regard to each kind of sacrifice in 
 detail. Ch. i. ii. iii., &c. Cf. Deut. xii. 2. 
 
V. 10 — 14-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVIL 
 
 595 
 
 door of the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation, to ofl'er it unto the Lord; 
 even that man shall be cut off from 
 among his people. 
 
 10 And whatsoever man there 
 be of the h-^use of Israel, or of the 
 strangers that sojourn among you, 
 that eateth any manner of blood; I 
 will even set my face against that soul 
 that eateth blood, and will cut him off 
 from among his people. 
 
 11 For the life of the flesh is in 
 the blood : and I have given it to you 
 upon the altar to make an atonement 
 for your souls : for it is the blood that 
 maketh an atortement for the soul. 
 
 12 Therefore I said unto the chil- 
 dren of Israel, No soul of you shall 
 eat blood, neither shall any stranger 
 that sojourneth among you eat blood. 
 
 13 And whatsoever man there he 
 of the children of Israel, or of the 
 strangers that sojourn among you, 
 
 'which hunteth and catcheth any beast t Heb. 
 or fowl that may be eaten ; he shall 
 
 even pour out the blood thereof, and tivnUng. 
 cover it with dust. 
 
 14 f'or it is the life of all flesh ; the 
 blood of it is for the life thereof : there- 
 fore I said unto the children of Israel, 
 
 ^ Ye shall eat the blood of no manner * Gen. 9 . 4 . 
 of flesh : for the life of all flesh is the 
 
 8. the strangers 'njohich sojourn'] the fo- 
 reigners who dwell. See on xvi. 29. 
 
 or sacrifice] That is, a slaughtered offering 
 of any kind, generally a Peace-offering. See 
 Introd. § iii. 
 
 9 . cut ojfi^ &c.] See Ex. xxxi. 14. 
 
 Blood not to be eaten^ and <why. 10 — 14. 
 
 The prohibition to eat blood is repeated in 
 seven places in the Pentateuch, Gen. ix. 4; 
 Lev. iii. 17, vii. 26, 27, xvii. ig — 14, xix. 26; 
 Deut. xii. 16, 23, 24, xv. 23. But in this 
 passage the ground of the law is stated more 
 fully than elsewhere. 
 
 11. This verse should rather be render- 
 ed; — For the soul of the flesh is in the 
 blood; and I have ordained it for you 
 upon the Altar, to make atonement 
 for your souls; for the blood it is 
 which makes atonement by means of 
 the soul. See Note at the end of the 
 chapter. 
 
 the life of the flesh is in the blood] The 
 word here translated life {nephesh) is the same 
 which is twice rendered soul in the latter 
 part of the verse. This is one of the places 
 which the English translators, from Wick- 
 liffe to the most recent, with Luther, de 
 Sacy, Diodati, Luzzatto and others, have en- 
 tangled in difficulty owing to the vague use 
 which they have made of the word soul. The 
 ajicient versions, with Leo Juda, Junius 
 , and T remellius, the Geneva F rench and the 
 recent German versions, consistently follow 
 the original. See Note at the end of the chap. 
 
 I hanje grven it to you upon the altar] These 
 words (as Kurtz has observed) preclude any 
 superstitious notion that there was atoning 
 virtue in the blood itself. It had a natural 
 fitness to express a truth and was therefore 
 the symbol chosen by Divine wisdom for use 
 upon the Altar. 
 
 for it is the blood that maketh an atonement 
 
 for the soul] Our translators have followed 
 the LXX., the Vulgate, the Targums and 
 Luther. A few modern critics take the same 
 course. But the more exact rendering of 
 the Hebrew is that given above. So Biihr, 
 Zunz, Kurtz, Knobel, Keil, Herxheirner, &c. 
 
 12. ' There are two distinct grounds given 
 for the prohibition of blood as food: first, its 
 own nature as the vital fluid; secondly, its 
 consecration in sacrificial worship. We have 
 already noticed that the prohibition of fat 
 (suet) was distinguished from that of blood 
 by its being grounded simply on its consecra- 
 tion to a peculiar use on the Altar and its being 
 limited to the suet of the animals which were 
 oflTered in sacrifice. See on vii. 25. It would 
 seem that it was in virtue of this distinction 
 that the Apostles decided to retain only the 
 restriction regarding blood, confirmed as it is 
 by the primeval prohibition, Gen. ix. 4. — The 
 Mahometans, in like manner, abstain from 
 blood but not from fat. See Note on v. 3. — 
 
 St Augustin, in connection with the saying of 
 our Lord, “ Except ye eat my flesh and drink 
 my blood,” &c., remarks, “quserendum igitur 
 quid significet, quod homo prohibetur in lege 
 sanguinem manducare, eumque Deo fundere 
 jubetur.” ‘ Quasst. in Lev.’ 57. 
 
 13 . beast or fonvf] See on xi. 7. The 
 same rule was laid down for the blood of 
 domesticated animals when at a later period 
 they were no longer required to be slaughtered 
 in the court. Deut. xii. 15, 16, 22 — 24. See 
 Note on n. II at the end of the chapter. 
 
 14 . Rather, For tlie soul of all flesk 
 is its blood witli its soul (j.e. its blood 
 and soul together): therefore spake I to 
 the children of Israel, Ye shall not 
 eat the blood of any flesh, ^or the 
 soul of all flesh is its blood, &c. The 
 two Geneva versions, Zunz, Knobel, Herx- I 
 heimer, &c. See Note on v. 11. 
 
596 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVII. 
 
 [v. 15, 16. 
 
 blood thereof : whosoever eateth it 
 shall be cut oft. 
 
 t Heb. And every soul that eateth ^that 
 
 which died of itself or that which 
 was torn with beasts^ whether it be one 
 of your own country, or a stranger, 
 
 he shall both wash his clothes, and 
 bathe himself in water, and be un- 
 clean until the even: then shall he 
 be clean. 
 
 16 But if hewashr/:'^ not, nor bathe 
 his flesh; then he shall bear his iniquity. 
 
 15 . Cf. Ex, xxii. 31; Lev. xi. 39 (see 
 note), xxii. 8; Deut. xiv. 21. This law ap- 
 pears to be grounded on the fact that the 
 body of an animal killed by a wild beast, or 
 which has died of itself, still retains a great por- 
 tion of its blood. The importance ascribed to 
 this law in later times may be seen i S. xiv, 
 32 — 35; Ezek, iv. 14, xliv. 31, and still more 
 in the Apostolic decision regarding “things 
 strangled,” which are pointedly connected with 
 blood. Acts XV. 20. See Note on nj. 3 at the 
 end of the chapter. 
 
 a stranger] a foreigner, dwelling with the 
 
 Israelites. — In Ex. xxii. 31 we find that such 
 carcases were to be given to the dogs. On the 
 apparent modification of this law in Deut. xiv. 
 21, see note in loc. 
 
 15 , 16 . The sanction of this law is less 
 peremptory than that of the law against the 
 eating of blood. See on 'u. 12. The latter was 
 “cutting off from among his people” (y^v. 10, 
 14); the former, only the penalty of an easy 
 form of purification. See on xi. 39, 40. But 
 if the prescribed rite of purification had been 
 neglected, a Sin-offering was required. See 
 on V. 2, 3. 
 
 NOTES on Chap. xvii. 
 
 I. On the slaughtering of Animals. 
 • -z;. 3. 
 
 The same mode of slaughter appears to have 
 been followed by the Hebrews, the Egyptians, 
 and the Arabs. As regards the mere slaying 
 the animal, there is no trace of any difference 
 in the mode, whether it was intended for ordi- 
 nary food or for a sacrifice. It should be 
 observed that, amongst the Semitic nations 
 above all others, the taking the life of an 
 animal, especially of an animal of a kind which 
 might be offered in sacrifice, has always been 
 regarded as a solemn act, partaking of a some- 
 what religious character. There is a treatise 
 on the subject in the Mishna, entitled ‘ C ho- 
 ling’ and one in the Hedaya-, entitled ‘ Zab- 
 bah,’ which show the importance attached to 
 the matter in Jewish and Arab traditions. 
 The method of slaughter may be clearly ga- 
 thered from these treatises. The three points 
 kept in view were, that the process should be 
 as expeditious as possible, that the least possi- 
 ble suffering should be inflicted on the crea- 
 ture, and that the blood should flow out of 
 the carcase in the most speedy and thorough 
 manner. The animal, if a large one, was 
 thrown down by hobbling. The slayer was 
 provided with a sword or long knife which 
 he drew across the throat, at one stroke cut- 
 ting through the windpipe, the gullet, and the 
 large blood-vessels of the neck. The least 
 tearing of the flesh, owing to a notched or 
 blunt weapon, or to clumsy manipulation, 
 rendered the carcase unclean In some ancient 
 
 ^ See also Philo, ‘cle Victimis,’ c. v and 
 L’fimpereur’s Notes on ‘Middoth,’ c. ill. 
 
 2 Vol. IV. p. 62, sq. 
 
 ^ The present Jews observe precisely the same 
 
 Egyptian pictures this method is shown. In 
 one of those given by Wilkinson, a man is hold- 
 ing up by the horns the head of the dying ox, 
 while an attendant is removing in basins the 
 blood as it runs from the neck-^. There is no 
 reason to doubt that this picture accurately, 
 represents the mode pursued in the court of 
 the Tabernacle. 
 
 The verse of the Koran which speaks on the 
 subjects of this chapter is worth quoting: 
 “That which dieth of itself, and blood, and 
 swine’s flesh, and all that hath been sacrificed 
 under the invocation of any other name than 
 that of God, and the strangled, and the killed 
 by a blow or by a fall or by goring, and that 
 which hath been eaten by beasts of prey (un- 
 less ye make it clean by giving the death 
 stroke yourselves), and that which hath been 
 sacrificed on blocks of stone, are forbidden to 
 you®.” The “blocks of stones” are such as 
 were set up for the purpose by the pagan 
 Ai'abs®. All Moslems appear to reckon 
 flesh as carrion, unless Bismillah (/, e. ‘ in the 
 name of God ’) is pronounced when the throat 
 of the animal is cut, or, in the case of game, 
 when the gun is fired, or the leash of the dog 
 slipped^. The strictness, even of the most 
 
 rules. It would seem that skill in the slaughter- 
 ing of an animal was as little degrading to the 
 ancient Israelite as the skill of a sportsman is 
 amongst ourselves. Dean Stanley makes a 
 striking remark in connection with the Passover 
 of the modern Samaritans which bears on this 
 subject. ‘Jewish Church,’ Vol. ii. p. 412. 
 
 * ‘Popular Account,’ i. p. 175. 
 
 6 Sura v., Rodwell’s translation, p. 631. 
 
 ® Sale’s note; cf. Burton, ‘Arabia,’ Vol. ill. 
 
 P- 30.L 
 
 7 ‘IIedh.ya,’ iv. p. 6^; Lane’s ‘ Modern Egyp- 
 
V. I, 2. 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVIII. 
 
 degraded of them, in this respect is remarkable. 
 Mr Speke, in his African journey, found that 
 his Arab attendants would not eat the flesh 
 of any animal which had been shot, unless they 
 had cut its throat in due form before its death. 
 
 II. On the Life in the Blood, v. ii. 
 
 There are three words relating to the con- 
 stitution of man in the Old Testament, and 
 three corresponding ones in the New Testa- 
 ment, which it seems desirable to notice in 
 their connection with this subject. Olshausen, 
 in his ‘ Opuscula,’ has treated the words at 
 length as far as the New Testament is con- 
 cerned, has satisfactorily vindicated the con- 
 sistency and clearness of the sacred writers, 
 and has traced out the way in which confu- 
 sion respecting them has crept into theological 
 language. It will perhaps be sufficient for our 
 purpose thus to mark the difference between 
 the words in question; (i) chay (Tl), 
 
 •vita^ denoting Life, as opposed to death L 
 (2) 7iephesh anima^ the Soul, 
 
 as distinguished from the body; the individual 
 life either in man or beast, whether united to 
 the body during life ichay')^ or separated from 
 the body after death; observe the expression 
 “living soul,” Gen. ii. 7: (3) ruach {JW\) 
 TTVfvixa^ spiritus, the Spirit, that which is op- 
 posed to the flesh, Rom. viii. 6 ; Gal. v. 1 7 ; 
 I Pet. iii. 18, and is distinguished from the 
 life of the flesh ; the highest element in 
 man, that which, in its true condition, 
 holds communion with God (Rom. viii. 4, 
 5, 6). Some of the passages in the New Tes- 
 tament which, if read in the original, the Vul- 
 gate, Erasmus, Beza, or the Geneva French, 
 illustrate the distinction which now claims 
 our attention are. Matt. vi. 25, x. 28, 39, 
 xvi. 25, 26; Mark viii. 35; Luke xii. 22, 23; 
 I Cor. XV. 44; I Thess. v. 23; Heb. iv. 12: 
 while several of these in our version exemplify 
 the confusion of which we have spoken. 
 
 The words nephesh and like the Eng- 
 
 lish soul^ were, however, occasionally used for 
 person. Gen. xlvi. 18; Lev. ii. i (in Hebrew), 
 iv. 2, V. I, 15 ; Acts vii. 14, xxvii. 37, &c. 
 Compare the use of our word body in the 
 Prayer-Book Ps. liii. i, and in the compounds, 
 nobody^ anybody., &c. Nephesh is even used in 
 some cases where we should rather use dead 
 body, Num. V. 2, vi. ii, ix. 6, 10, &c. 
 
 tians,’ I. 134. Cf. Baker, ‘Nile Tributaries,’ 
 pp. 137, 202; Speke, pp. 66, 230, 513. 
 
 ^ Gen. i. 20, 24, ii. 7; Deut. xxx. 15, 19; 
 Prov. xviii. 21. 
 
 The soul {nephesh') has its abode in the blood 
 as long as life lasts. In -u. 14, the Soul is iden- 
 tified with the Blood, as it is in Genesis ix. 4. 
 Deut. xii. 23 'K That the Blood is rightly thus 
 distinguished from all other constituents of 
 the body is acknowledged by the high- 
 est authorities in physiology. “It is the 
 fountain of life (says Harvey), the first to 
 live, and the last to die, and the primary seat 
 of the animal soul; it lives and is nourished 
 of itself, and by no other part of the human 
 body.” John Hunter inferred that it is the 
 seat of life, because all the parts of the frame are 
 formed and nourished from it. “ And if (says 
 he) it has not life previous to this operation, it 
 must then acquire it in the act of forming ; 
 for we all give our assent to the existence of 
 life in the parts when once formed.” Milne 
 Edwards observes that, “if an animal be 
 bled till it falls into a state of syncope, and 
 the further loss of blood is not prevented, 
 all muscular motion quickly ceases, respira- 
 tion is suspended, the heart pauses from its 
 action, life is no longer manifested by any 
 outward sign, and 'death soon becomes ine- 
 vitable; but if, in this state, the blood of 
 another animal of the same species be injected 
 into the veins of the one to all appearance 
 dead, we see with amazement this inanimate 
 body return to life, gaining accessions of 
 vitality with each new quantity of blood that is 
 introduced, by-and-bye beginning to breathe 
 freely, moving with ease, and finally walking 
 as it was wont to do, and recovering com- 
 pletely.” Art. Blood. ‘ Cyclopsedia of Anatomy 
 and Physiology.’ See also Stevens’ “Obser- 
 vations on the Blood,” p. 119. The more or 
 less distinct traces of the recognition of blood 
 as the vehicle of life to be found in the Greek 
 and Roman writers are , collected — perhaps 
 without sufficient discrimination — by Von 
 Lasaulx (‘ Die Siihnopfer der Griechen und 
 Romer,’ &c.), and by de Maistre (‘ Eclaircisse- 
 ment sur les Sacrifices’). The knowledge of 
 the ancients on the subject may indeed have 
 been based on the mere observation that an 
 animal loses its life when it loses its blood. 
 But it may deepen our sense of the wisdom and 
 significance of the Law of Moses to know 
 that the fact which it sets forth so distinctly 
 and consistently, and in such pregnant con- 
 nection, is so clearly recognized by modern 
 scientific research. 
 
 ^ It should be noted that the LXX. and the 
 Vulg. are consistent in rendering the Plebrew 
 words chay and nephesh in this chap, and else- 
 where. 
 
 K 
 
 ND the Lord spake unto Mc- 
 ses, saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 • I Unlawful marj'iages. 19 Unlawful lusts. 
 
598 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVIII. 
 
 [''■ 3 — 9 - 
 
 and say unto them, I am the Lord 
 your God. 
 
 3 After the doings of the land of 
 Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye 
 not do: and after the doings of the 
 land of Canaan, whither I bring you, 
 shall ye not do ; neither shall ye walk 
 in their ordinances. 
 
 4 Ye shall do my judgments, and 
 keep mine ordinances, to walk there- 
 in : I am the Lord your God. 
 
 5 Ye shall therefore keep my sta- 
 ffEzek.ao. tutes, and my judgments: "^which if a 
 Rom. TO. 5. man do, he shall live in them : I am 
 G.a. 3 - 12. Lord. 
 
 6 ^ None of you shall approach to 
 any that is ^near of kin to him, to un- t Heb. 
 cover nakedness : I am the Lord. 
 
 7 The nakedness of thy father, or-^"^*- 
 the nakedness of thy mother, shalt 
 thou not uncover: she is thy mother; 
 thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 
 
 8 ^The nakedness of thy father’s ^ chap. 20. 
 wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy 
 father’s nakedness. 
 
 9 The nakedness of thy sister, the 
 daughter of thy father, or daughter of 
 thy mother, whether she be born at 
 home, or born abroad, even their na- 
 kedness thou shalt not uncover. 
 
 Chap. XVIII. 
 
 Of Unlawful Marriages and Lusts. 
 1—30. 
 
 2. 1 am the Lord your God] This for- 
 mula, or the shorter one, / am the Lord, 
 occurs also in ■v’v. 4, 5, 6, ai, 30. Cf. xi. 
 44, 45. It is found several times in the 
 chapters that follow. Its frequent repetition 
 in these parts of the Law may be intend- 
 ed to keep the Israelites in mind of their 
 Covenant with Jehovah in connection with the 
 common affairs of life, in which they might be 
 tempted to look at legal restrictions in a mere 
 secular light. It is but sparingly used in the 
 laws that refer to the observances of religion. 
 Cf. note on njv. 24 — 30. 
 
 3. the land of E^ypt — the land of Canaan] 
 See note on 24 — 3 c, 
 
 5. ordtnances. The same Heb. 
 word is thus rendered in 4, 
 
 ^ajhich if a yuan do, he shall ll’ve in them] 
 If a man keeps the ordinances and judgments 
 of the Divine Law, he shall not be “cut off 
 from his people” (cf, v. 29), he shall gain 
 true life, the life which connects him with 
 Jehovah through his obedience. Ezek. xx. 
 
 11, 13, 21; Luke X. 28; Rom. x. j; Gal. hi. 
 
 12. 
 
 Unlawful Marriages. 6 — 18, 
 
 6. near of kin] The Hebrew phrase 
 , means literally, flesh of his body. The term 
 
 strictly taken would express all blood rela- 
 tions (as there is no limitation in the original 
 answering to “near”) and no others; but 
 it was evidently used to denote those only 
 who came within certain limits of consan- 
 guinity, together with those who by affinity 
 were regarded in the same relationship. The 
 rendering of the LXX. is worthy of note — 
 av6f)u>TTOs Tipos TTcivTci oIkCiu (Tapicos aVTOV ov 
 TTpO(T(:\cV(JfT(lL. 
 
 to unco'ver... nakedness] i.e. to have inter- 
 
 course. The immediate object of this law 
 was to forbid incest. 
 
 7 — 18 . See Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 V. Lhe nakedness of thy father, or the naked- 
 ness, &c.] The Hebrew conjunction is copu- 
 lative, not adversative. It might be rendered 
 and, or rather, even; that is, which belongs 
 to both parents as being “one flesh.” Gen, ii. 
 24; cp. 2 ^ 29 . 8, 14. These prohibitions are 
 addressed to men and not to women, as is 
 shewn by the concluding words of the verse 
 having reference only to the mother, 
 
 8. Cf. the case of Reuben, Gen. xxxv. 22, 
 xlix. 3,4; St Paul speaks of intercourse with 
 a stepmother as an abomination “not so 
 much as named among the Gentiles,” i.e. 
 among the Greeks, i Cor. v, i. 
 
 thy fathers nakedness] See on 21. 7. 
 
 9 . thy sister] What was here spoken of 
 was the distinguishing offence of the Egyptians. 
 See Note on 2.’. 30 at the end of the chapter. 
 
 born at home, or born abroad] The alter- 
 native thus expressed has been taken to 
 mean; — (i) legitimate or illegitimate; (2) 
 the illegitimate daughter of the father or the 
 illegitimate daughter of the mother; (3) the 
 daughter of the father by a previous marriage 
 {born at home'), or the daughter of the mother 
 by a previous marriage {born abroad, that is, 
 in another house). But the phrase might be 
 taken in a broader sense so as to embrace all 
 of these alternatives. — According to the third 
 explanation, the connection prohibited would 
 be that with an elder half-sister. Whether the 
 rule regarding a half-sister by the father was 
 observed by the old Hebrews has been ques- 
 tioned from the instance of Abraham, Gen. xx. 
 12, where Michaelis (‘Laws of Moses,’ Art. 
 cx.) and many others take the word sister 
 in its strict sense. But Jewish tradition is 
 probably right in giving a wider meaning to 
 the word sister (like brother Gen. xiii. 8, 
 xiv. 16), and in regarding Sarah as the niece of 
 
V. 10 — 21.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVIIL 
 
 599 
 
 10 The nakedness of thy son’s 
 daughter, or of thy daughter’s daugh- 
 ter, even their nakedness thou shalt 
 not uncover: for theirs is thine own 
 nakedness. 
 
 11 The nakedness of thy father’s 
 wife’s daughter, begotten of thy father, 
 she is thy sister, thou shalt not un- 
 cover her nakedness. 
 
 ^^chap. 20. 12 ^Thou shalt not uncover the 
 
 nakedness of thy father’s sister: she is 
 thy father’s near kinswoman. 
 
 13 Thou shalt not uncover the na- 
 kedness of thy mother’s sister : for she 
 is thy mother’s near kinswoman. 
 
 rfchap. 20. 14 "^Thou shalt not uncover the na- 
 
 kedness of thy father’s brother, thou 
 shalt not approach to his v/ife : she is 
 thine aunt. 
 
 fchap. 20. 15 '"Thou shalt not uncover the na- 
 
 ^2- kedness of thy daughter in law: she 
 is thy son’s wife; thou shalt not un- 
 cover her nakedness. 
 
 ^chap. 20. /Thou shalt not uncover the 
 
 nakedness of thy brother’s wife : it is 
 thy brother’s nakedness. 
 
 17 Thou shalt not uncover the na- 
 kedness of a woman and h'er daugh- 
 ter, neither shalt thou take her son’s 
 daughter, or her daughter’s daughter, 
 to uncover her nakedness; for they 
 are her near kinswomen : it /r wicked- 
 ness. 
 
 18 Neither shalt thou take I'a wife 11 Or, 
 to her sister, to vex her^ to uncover 
 her nakedness, beside the other in her 
 life time, 
 
 19 ^Also thou shalt not approach 20. 
 unto a woman to uncover her naked- 
 ness, as long as she is put apart for 
 
 her uncleanness. 
 
 20 Moreover thou shalt not lie 
 carnally with thy neighbour’s wife, to 
 defile thyself with her. 
 
 21 And thou shalt not let any 
 thy seed ^^p^LSS through the fire to 
 ^Molech, neither shalt thou profane Tailed, 
 the name of thy God : I ain the Lord. 
 
 Abraham. Jos. ‘Ant.’ i. 6. §5. See on Gen. 
 xi. 29, XX. 12. 
 
 11. It is not easy to determine in what 
 way the meaning of this verse is to be dis- 
 tinguished from that of v. 9. But however 
 the details are to be made out, it is obvious 
 that the purpose of w. 9, ii is emphati- 
 cally to forbid connection with sisters and 
 half-sisters in whatever way the relationship 
 may come. 
 
 12. thj father's sister'] The instance of Amram 
 and Jochebed (Exod. vi. 20) seems to shew 
 that marriage with an aunt was not con- 
 sidered wrong by the Israelites when they 
 were in Egypt. 
 
 16 . thy brother's nxsife] That is, if she had 
 children. See Deut. xxv. 5. On the ques- 
 tion regarding the inference drawn from this 
 prohibition that it is unlawful to marry the 
 sister of a deceased wife, see Note on non). 7 — 18 
 at the end of the chapter, § iv. The law here ex- 
 pressed was broken by Antipas in his con- 
 nection with Herodias.' But the argument to 
 prove that St John the Baptist appealed to 
 this law rather than to the seventh Com- 
 mandment (see Beda, ‘ Hist. Ecc.’ Lib. i. c. 
 27), appears to be based on an unsupported 
 assumption that the first husband of Herodias 
 was dead at that time. See Joseph. ‘ Ant.’ 
 xviii. 5. § I. 
 
 17 . It is here forbidden that a man should 
 have connection with both a woman and her 
 
 daughter, or with both a woman and her 
 granddaughter. The former prohibition is 
 repeated in Deut. xxvii. 23. The rule might 
 have had immediate reference to the relation- 
 ship incurred by concubinage or irregular in- 
 tercourse. The Mussulman law, in adopting 
 the rule, applies it expressly in this way, and 
 declares intercourse to be “a principle or 
 cause of a mutual participation of blood be- 
 tween the parties concerned in it.” ‘Hedaya,’ 
 Vol. I. pp. 81, 485. Cf. Amos ii. 7; i Cor. 
 vi. 16. It cannot be doubted that the pro- 
 hibition includes the mother, the daughter 
 and the granddaughter, of either a wife or a 
 concubine. See note on ’v. 6. It should be 
 noticed that incest with a daughter is for- 
 bidden only in this indirect manner, while the 
 other very near relationships are distinctly 
 mentioned. See Note at the end of the 
 chapter. 
 
 18 . to 'vex her] Literally, to bind or pack 
 together. The Jewish commentators illus- 
 trate this by the example of Leah and Rachel. 
 See Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 Unlawful Lusts. 19 — 23. 
 
 19 . her uncleanness] Cf, xx. 18. 
 
 20. thy neighbour's ^ife] Cf. Exod. xx. 
 14; Deut. V. 18, &c. See on xx. 10. 
 
 21. pass through the fire to Molech] Strictly, 
 pass through to Molech. This is the earliest 
 mention of Molech. See on xx. 2 — 5. . 
 
6oo 
 
 LEVITICUS, XVIII. 
 
 [v. 2 2 30. 
 
 k chap. 
 15 - 
 
 22 Thou shalt not lie with man- 
 kind, as v/ith womankind: it is abo- 
 mination. 
 
 20. 23 '^’Neither shalt thou lie with 
 
 any beast to defile thyself therewith : 
 neither shall any woman stand before 
 a beast to lie down thereto : it is con- 
 fusion. 
 
 24 Defile not ye yourselves in any 
 of these things: for in all these the 
 nations are defiled which I cast out 
 before you: 
 
 25 And the land is defiled: there- 
 fore I do visit the iniquity thereof 
 upon it, and the land itself vomiteth 
 out her inhabitants. 
 
 26 Ye shall therefore keep my 
 statutes and my judgments, and shall 
 not commit any of these abominations j 
 
 neither any of your own nation, nor 
 any stranger that sojourneth among 
 you : 
 
 27 (For all these abominations have 
 the men of the land done, which wej'e 
 before you, and the land is defiled;) 
 
 28 That the land spue not you out 
 also, when ye defile it, as it spued out 
 the nations that were before you. 
 
 29 For whosoever shall commit 
 any of these abominations, even the 
 souls that commit the?n shall be cut 
 off from among their people. 
 
 30 Therefore shall ye keep mine 
 ordinance, that ye commit not any one 
 of these abominable customs, which 
 were committed before you, and that 
 ye defile not yourselves therein : I am 
 the Lord your God. 
 
 22. The ancient Persian law sternly con- 
 demned this offence (‘ Vendid.’ viii. 10, ap. 
 Knobel). Also the Hindoo law (‘Menu,’ xi. 
 174, 175), and the Koran, vii. 78 — 80 
 
 23 . The story of Pasiphae may furnish 
 proof that the early Greeks abhorred this 
 offence. The Hindoo law punishes it severely 
 ‘ Menu,’ XI. 17, ‘ Gentoo Laws,’ p. 280. The 
 Moslem law condemns it. ‘ Hedaya,’ ii. p. 
 27. — On the abominations of ancient Egypt, 
 see on xvii. 7. 
 
 it is confusion] See on xix. 19. 
 
 Conclusion. 24 — 30. 
 
 24 — 30 . The land designed and conse- 
 crated for His people by Jehovah (Lev. xxv. 
 23) is here impersonated, and represented as 
 vomiting forth its present inhabitants, in con- 
 sequence of their indulgence in the abomina- 
 tions that have been mentioned. The iniquity 
 of the Canaanites was now full. See Gen. 
 XV. 16; cf. Isaiah xxiv. 1—6. The Israelites 
 in this place, and throughout the chapter, 
 are exhorted t(i a pure and holy life, on the 
 ground that Jehovah, the Holy One, is their 
 
 God and that they are His people. Cf. xix. 
 2. It is upon this high sanction that they 
 are peremptorily forbidden to defile them- 
 selves with the pollutions of the heathen. 
 The only punishment here pronounced upoa 
 individual transgressors is, that they shall 
 “bear their iniquity ’’and be “cut off from 
 among their people.” We must understand 
 this latter phrase as expressing an ipso facto 
 excommunication or outlawry, the divine 
 Law pronouncing on the offender an imme- 
 diate forfeiture of the privileges which be- 
 longed to him as one of the people in Cove- 
 nant with Jehovah. See on Exod. xxxi. 14, 
 and on Lev. xx. 1 7. The same purely spiritual 
 sanction is applied to the string of statutes 
 in the next chapter. But in chapter xx. 
 special external punishments are allotted to 
 the offences which have been previously named. 
 The course which the Law here takes seems 
 to be first to appeal to the conscience of the 
 individual man on the ground of his relation 
 to Jehovah, and then to enact such penalties 
 as the order of the state required, and as re- 
 presented the collective conscience of the 
 nation put into operation. See xx. 26. 
 
 NOTES on Chap, xviii. 
 
 1. On the list of prohibited 
 De(;rees. 'vv. 7 — 18. 
 
 i. The relations mentioned or evidently 
 implied in these verses are: — 
 
 Relations by blood. 
 
 Mother, ns. 7. 
 
 Sister and half-sister, ’v'v. 9, ii. 
 Granddaughter, •v'v. 10, 17. 
 
 Aunt, paternal and maternal, •w. la, 13. 
 Daughter, 't». 17 (see note). 
 
 Relations by affinity through marriage or carnal 
 connection. 
 
 Wife’s or concubine’s mother ] 
 Wife’s or concubine’s daughter [ ‘^•^7 
 Wife’s or concubine’s granddaughter) 
 
 “ A wife to her sister.” See Note on v. 18. 
 
LEVITICUS. XVIII. 
 
 6oi 
 
 Relations by affinity^ through the marriage of 
 near blood relations. 
 
 Stepmother, v. 8. 
 
 Father’s brother’s wife, <1;. 14. 
 
 Son’s wife, 'v. 15.’ 
 
 Brother’s wife, 16. 
 
 ii. The other passages in the Law relating 
 to this subject are; — 
 
 Lev. XX. II, 12, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21. In these 
 verses certain punishments are appointed for 
 particular kinds of unlawful connection. By 
 the inclusive law in -v. 29 of chapter xviii. all 
 who perpetrated incest were to be “ cut off from 
 among their people.” But it is enacted in 
 ch. XX. that when the crime was committed 
 with a mother, stepmother, or daughter-in- 
 law, a sentence of death should be passed upon 
 both the offenders (xx. ii, 12): when with the 
 daughter or the mother, of either a wife or a 
 concubine, they were to be burned (xx. 14, 
 see note) ; when with a sister or half-sister, 
 they were to be “ cut off in the sight of their 
 people” (xx. 17, see note). For incest with 
 an uncle’s wife, or a brother’s wife, no ex- 
 ternal punishment is specified, but they were 
 to bear their sin and to be childless (see on xx. 
 20). The wife of a mother’s brother is here 
 included in the term “ uncle's wife:” in <v. 14 
 of chapter xviii. the father’s brother’s wife only 
 is mentioned. 
 
 Deut. xxii. 30. The rule regarding the 
 mother and stepmother is repeated in its 
 shortest form. 
 
 Deut. XXV. 5 — 10. By this law, commonly 
 known as ‘ ‘ the Levirate law,” when brethren 
 were dwelling together, if one died leaving a 
 widow without children the single brother 
 was required, under a certain penalty, to 
 marry her. Cf. Matt, xxii, 24. 
 
 Deut. xxvii. 20, 22, 23. In the Commina- 
 tion, which was to be proclaimed on taking 
 possession of the Holy Land, curses were 
 comprised on those who committed incest 
 with a mother, a stepmotJrer, a sister, a half- 
 sister, or a mother-in-law. The mother- 
 in-law is here distinctly mentioned for the 
 first time in connection with the law of incest. 
 She is however implied in xviii. 17 and in 
 
 XX. 14. 
 
 iii. It is considered by most critics that 
 neither of these statements, nor the whole of 
 them together, can be intended to present a 
 complete list of the proscribed relationships. 
 The grandmother and the niece (see on 9) 
 are certainly omitted. The daughter and the 
 full sister are not expressly mentioned, though 
 they are necessarily implied in vns. 9, 17. It 
 would seem that, in accordance with the 
 pervading practical character of the Mosaic 
 statutes, such details were given, or repeated, 
 from time to time, as the occasion required, 
 the general principle of the law having been 
 expressed in -u. 6. 
 
 iv. From the order in which the particulars 
 
 are given, and from the use of the expression 
 “near of kin ” in 2;. 6, there would seem to 
 have been a general recognition of the maxim 
 that the relationships of the husband devolved 
 on the wife, and those of the wife upon the 
 husband. This is distinctly put as regards the 
 husband’s relations concerning the stepmother 
 in the expression, “it is thy father’s naked- 
 ness” (2;. 8), and in similar expressions con- 
 cerning the brother’s wife and the uncle’s wife 
 (xviii. 16, XX. 20, 21). But yet there is un- 
 doubtedly in Lev. xxi. 1 — 4 a clear distinc- 
 tion recognized between relations by blood 
 and relations by affinity. And it has been 
 argued that, as the wife lost her family name, 
 acquired the civil rights of her husband’s 
 family, and, if a priest’s daughter, lost the 
 privileges she had as such (see Lev. xxi. 3, 
 xxii. 12), though the husband’s relations might 
 have become the wife’s, the wife’s relations 
 did not, in the full sense, become the hus- 
 band’s. It may be added that the Levirate 
 marriage (Deut. xxv. 5 — 10) very clearly 
 proves that, even in the case of the wife, the 
 relationship with her husband’s kindred was 
 not by any means so stringent as that with her 
 near blood relations, with whom connection 
 could under no circumstances be permitted. 
 
 II. On Marriage with two Sisters. 
 n ). 18. 
 
 i. Meaning of the nuords “ <2 ^ife to her sister^"' 
 ii. Not a prohibition of Polygamy, iii. The 
 Ecclesiastical question. 
 
 i. The rule, as it here stands, would seem 
 to bear no other meaning than that a man is not 
 to form a connection with his wife’s sister, 
 while his wife is alive. It appears to follow 
 that the Law permitted marriage with the 
 sister of a deceased wife. A limitation being 
 expressly laid down in the words, “ beside the 
 other in her lifetime,” it may be inferred that, 
 when the limitation is removed, the prohibition 
 loses its force, and permission is implied. 
 
 The testimony of the Rabbinical Jews in the 
 Targums, the Mishna and their later writings ; 
 that of the Hellenistic Jews in the Septuagint 
 and Philo (‘de Spec. Legg.’ iii. 5) ; that of the 
 early and medieeval Church in the old Italic, 
 the Vulgate, with the other early versions of the 
 Old Testament, and in every reference to the 
 text in the Fathers and Schoolmen, are unani- 
 mous in supporting, or in not in any wise op- 
 posing, the common rendering of the passage. 
 This interpretation appears indeed to have 
 stood its ground unchallenged from the third 
 century before Christ to the middle of the 
 sixteenth century after Christ^. 
 
 But a different version of the words ren- 
 dered “ a wife to her sister ” was given by 
 Junius and Tremellius (a. d. 1575), was 
 
 ^ See ‘ Ancient interpretation of Leviticus 
 xviii. 18,’ by Dr McCaul : ‘Report of the Com- 
 missioners on the Law of Marriage,’ p. 152. 
 
602 
 
 LEVITICUS. XVIII. 
 
 treated with some allowance by Drusius (about 
 A.D. 1600), found its way into the margin 
 of our authorized version and into the margin 
 of the Geneva French, and has been adopted 
 more recently in the ‘ Berlenburger Bibel.’ In 
 our margin, the words “one wife to another” 
 are offered as an alternative for, “a wife to her 
 sister.” The command would thus be turned 
 into a prohibition of polygamy. 
 
 ii. It is quite true that the phrase in ques- 
 tion, and the corresponding one, a man to his 
 brother^ are used idiomatically in Hebrew in 
 cases in which the words are not applied in 
 their primary sense but as Pronouns. But 
 this idiomatic use appears regularly to follow 
 a plural antecedent, and involves necessarily, 
 not the sense merely of oze added on to 
 another single one (which is what would be re- 
 quired here), but a distributive and reciprocal 
 sense, answering to, each one to another. It is 
 so applied to the loops of the curtains of the 
 tabernacle, to the tenons of the boards, in Ex. 
 xxvi. 3, 5, 6, 17), and to the wings of the 
 cherubim in Ezek. i. ii, 23. See Robin- 
 son, quoted by McCaul, p. 59. The sug- 
 gested interpretation in this place in Leviticus 
 is rendered still more improbable by the fact 
 that the words are the same as are used else- 
 where throughout this chapter for nvife and 
 sister. 
 
 If the grammatical argument were less 
 clear, the acceptance of the verse as a pro- 
 hibition of polygamy would be obviously 
 at variance with the laws in Ex. xxi. 7 — ii, 
 and Deut. xxi. 15 — 17, which direct the mode 
 for regulating a family in which there are 
 more than one wife; to say nothing of the 
 cases of Elkanah, David, Joash (2 Chro.xxiv, 3) 
 and others, which are never called in question 
 as breaches of the Law. By these instances, 
 and by the warning for the king, Deut. xvii. 
 17, it would appear that the Law, while it 
 restricted and even discouraged polygamy, 
 certainly permitted it to exist. 
 
 iii. It must be kept in view that our busi- 
 ness here is only to inquire what the Law of 
 Moses actually says. The great practical ques- 
 tions relating to the obligation of Christians and 
 to the alteration which has been proposed in 
 the English law of marriage, have been argued 
 at large, and may be well detennined, upon other 
 grounds. The Ecclesiastical rule which we 
 have to obey rests upon a basis of its own, 
 and the weighty arguments drawn from the 
 conditions of social life may be deemed suffi- 
 cient to support our law as it exists; but with 
 these we have here nothing to do. 
 
 'Fhere is however a question which has been, 
 in the eyes of some, almost identified with 
 the practical inquiry, which affects in an im- 
 portant degre*e the light in which we are to 
 regard this portion of the Mosaic law in 
 whatever way we may interpret Lev. xviii. 18. 
 Are tlie prohibitions contained in this chapter, 
 in all tiicir details, binding upon Christians? 
 
 The affirmative has been strongly insisted on 
 in modern times. Our Reformers were very 
 decided on this points. It has been contended 
 that the Levitical table of prohibitions in all 
 its details is as much a part of the moral law 
 as, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” or 
 any other of the Ten Commandments. 
 
 The Fathers in general, most of the School- 
 men and the mediseval Church, took different 
 ground. They considered that while the great 
 principles of the law of incest must ever be 
 binding upon mankind, the limits to which 
 their application should be carried out were 
 not absolutely fixed, and might have been de- 
 termined by Moses with a view to the parti- 
 cular circumstances and condition of the He- 
 brew nation. The testimony of St Basil, 
 strongly as he was opposed to marriage with 
 the sister of a deceased wife, is remarkable on 
 this head. He declares that the Mosaic law 
 of Prohibited degrees does not bind Christians 
 more than the law of Circumcision; but he 
 considers that the marriages in question are 
 unlawful because man and wife are one, and 
 the sister in law is to be regarded in the same 
 light as the sister by bloods 
 
 Every particular prohibition actually con- 
 tained in the Mosaic Law has however been 
 generally acknowledged in the Church. But 
 the tendency of ecclesiastical authorities, up to 
 the time of the Reformation, was to multiply 
 prohibitions. To give a few examples— St 
 Augustin, in setting forth the reasons of laws 
 against connections with near relations upon 
 natural and social grounds, strongly objects 
 to marriages between cousins^. Marriages 
 between first cousins were forbidden by a law 
 of Theodosius, which was revoked by Arca- 
 dius and Honorius a . d . 405. St Gregory ( a . d . 
 590) forbad all marriages that came within the 
 fourth degree of relationship. The Council of 
 London assembled by Lanfranc a . d . 1075, 
 prohibited anyone from marrying one of his 
 own kindred, or one of the kindred of a de- 
 ceased wife, within the seventh degree, and 
 this law was reenacted in 1102 and 1126. 
 In the Council of Westminster a . d . 1200, a 
 man was forbidden to marry any relation of 
 a deceased wife; and by the same canon,- a 
 godson was forbidden to maiTy the daughter 
 of his godfather. This state of the Ecclesi- 
 astical law, along with the abomination of 
 frequent dispensations which it entailed, pro- 
 bably occasioned a reckless revulsion in some 
 minds of which traces may be seen in the 
 
 ^ See especially ‘ Reformatio Legum,’ p. 47, 
 edit. 1850. 
 
 ^ Ep. cxcvii. ‘ad Diodotum.’ The argument 
 against the obligation of Christians to obey the 
 letter of the I.aw is carried out by Jeremy Tay- 
 lor, ‘Ductor Dub.’ Bk. ii. ch. ii, and by Archdn. 
 Hare, in his Charge for 1849, entitled, ‘The True 
 Remedy for the evils of the Age.’ 
 
 ^ ‘ I)e Civ. Dei,’ xv. 16. The passage is very 
 striking. 
 
LEVITICUS. XVIII. 
 
 603 
 
 controversy regarding the divorce of Henry 
 VI 11. Our Reformers w^ere perhaps on this 
 account driven more formally to entrench 
 themselves behind the authority of the text of 
 Leviticus, although they were obliged to sup- 
 plement it in some particulars in constructing 
 their own table for practical use. 
 
 III. On the Prohibited Degrees among 
 THE Gentile Nations, •v. 30. 
 
 The excellence of the law contained in this 
 chapter of Leviticus is shown in a strong 
 light if contrasted with the abominations and 
 irregularities in the usages of the most culti- 
 vated nations of antiquity. 
 
 The Egyptians and the Persians appear to 
 have indulged in connections with near relations 
 to a greater degree than any other civilized na- 
 tions. In Egypt marriage with a full sister 
 was permitted in very early times h The 
 custom was handed down in the royal family 
 from the Pharaohs to the Ptolemies, and 
 seems to have been continued till the termina- 
 tion of the latter dynasty with Cleopatra and 
 her brother 2 . The prevalence of the custom 
 is shown in the sculptures in both Lower and 
 Upper Egypt The Medes and Persians were 
 in the habit of marrying their mothers from 
 the earliest ages. Eastern tradition ascribes 
 the origin of this to Nimrod, and makes it 
 coeval with the rise of the Magian religion ^ 
 But marriage with a sister appears to have 
 been unknown in Persia till the time of Cam- 
 byses®. Later writers freely ascribe all other 
 kinds of incest to the Persians®; but that with 
 a mother continued to be their distinguishing 
 opprobrium ^ 
 
 The Greeks and Romans, especially the 
 latter, were in very early times much stricter 
 in this branch of morality. The stories of 
 Oedipus and Hippolytus sufficiently show the 
 abhorrence in which connections with mothers 
 and stepmothers were held^ Marriages with 
 sisters were condemned as barbarous and un- 
 holy 9, although Solon permitted marriage 
 with a half-sister by the father, and Lycur- 
 gus that with a half-sister by the mother 1 ®. 
 
 ^ DioJ. Sic. I. 27. 
 
 ^ Dio. Cass. XLII. 44. 
 
 ® Wilkinson, ‘Pop. Account,’ Vol. II. p. 224. 
 
 ^ Selden, ‘de Jure Gent.’ lib. V. cap. n, p. 552. 
 
 ® Herodot. Iii. 31. When Cambyses con- 
 sulted his wise men on his intention to marry his 
 sister, they replied that they could not find a law 
 permitting a man to marry his sister, but they 
 found one to allow a king to do as he liked. 
 
 ® Philo, ‘ de Sp. Legg.’ III. 3 ; Hieron. ‘ adv. 
 Jovin.’ II. 7, &c. 
 
 ^ Catullus, ‘ Carm.’ xc. 
 
 ^ See also Virgil, ‘Tin.’ x. 389. 
 
 ^ Eurip. ‘Androm.’ 174; Aristoph. ‘Ran.’ 850; 
 Plato, ‘de Legg.’ viii. 6. 
 
 Philo, ‘de Sp. Legg.’ III. 4. Cimon availed 
 himself of Solon’s law in marrying Elpinice. 
 
 Marriages between an uncle and niece ap- 
 pear to have been common at Sparta 
 The old Roman custom was to avoid mar- 
 riage with a blood relation, even with a first 
 cousin. From the second century A.c. mar- 
 riages between uncles and nieces, and between 
 cousins, were tolerated ^2. but they were very 
 infrequent, and those between uncles and 
 nieces were disgraceful till after the middle of 
 the first century A.D., when Claudius set the 
 example by marrying Agrippina^®. 
 
 By the Brahmin law the twice-born man 
 was not permitted to marry any woman who 
 came within the sixth degree of relationship, 
 either on the father’s or on the mother’s side, 
 or was known by her family name to belong 
 to the same stock. Incest with a mother was 
 punished by death with frightful torture; that 
 with a sister, aunt, or niece, by severe pe- 
 nance The ancient Arabs are said to have 
 been very lax ^5; but the Moslem law is based 
 upon the Hebrew, and adds to the prohibited 
 degrees, nieces, foster-mothers and foster- 
 sisters^®. 
 
 It seems worthy of remark that in early 
 ages incestuous connections appear to have 
 been avoided for the most part from instinc- 
 tive repugnance ruling the general practice, 
 rather than from positive statutes. The moral 
 of the stories of CEdipus and Hippolytus must 
 have been rooted in the Greek mind before 
 there were positive laws on the subject. When 
 Claudius wished to marry his niece he satis- 
 fied himself that he could carry out his pur- 
 pose without breaking any express law. W hen 
 it was made lawful at Athens and Sparta to 
 marry half-sisters, and at Rome to marry 
 cousins and nieces, the people showed them- 
 selves very backward in availing themselves 
 of the license. It may also be observed in 
 connection with this operation of a common 
 instinct that several of the instances which 
 have been adduced show in a very marked 
 manner the observance in heathen nations to 
 have been stricter in early ages than in later 
 ones. The Persians and Medes seem at first 
 to have made incestuous marriages only with 
 mothers; but from the time of Cambyses they 
 began to throw off all restraint. The Romans 
 began with peculiar strictness, and became lax 
 at a late period and by slow degrees. The 
 histories of the family of Augustus and of 
 the Herods sadly show how entirely the old 
 strictness yielded at last to the opposite ex- 
 treme. 
 
 Herodot. V. 39, 48, cf. VII. 239, vi. 71. 
 
 ^2 Liv. XLII. 34; Cic. ‘pro Cluent.’ v. 
 
 Plut, ‘ Qusest. Rom.’ p. 76, edit. Reiske ; 
 Tacit. ‘ Anna!.’ xii. 5, 6 ; Sueton. ‘ Claud.’ xxvi. 
 
 ‘Menu,’ III. 5, XI. 104, 171,'sq. 
 
 Freytag, ‘ Einleitung, ’ ap. Rodwell, p. 532. 
 
 ^® Koran, Sura iv. 20, sq.; ‘Hedkya,’ Vol. i. 
 p. 76. 
 
6o4 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIX. 
 
 [v. I— 14. 
 
 « ch. II 
 44 - 
 20. 7 
 I Pet. : 
 16. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A 7-cpctition of stnidry laws. 
 
 A n D the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 . ses, saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto all the congregation 
 of the children of Israel, and say unto 
 them, "Ye shall be holy: for I the 
 Lord your God am holy. 
 
 3 ^ Ye shall fear every man his 
 mother, and his father, and keep my 
 .sabbaths : I am the Lord your God. 
 
 4 ^ Turn ye not unto idols, nor 
 make to yourselves molten gods: I 
 am the Lord your God. 
 
 5 ^ And if ye offer a sacrifice of 
 peace offerings unto the Lord, ye 
 shall offer it at your own will. 
 
 6 It shall be eaten the same day ye 
 offer it, and on the morrow: and if 
 ought remain until the third day, it 
 shall be burnt in the fire. 
 
 7 And if it be eaten at all on the 
 third day, it is abominable; it shall 
 not be accepted. 
 
 8 Therefore every one that eateth 
 
 it shall bear his iniquity, because he 
 hath profaned the hallowed thing of 
 the Lord : and that soul shall be cut 
 off from among his people. 
 
 9 ^ And '^when ye reap the har-'^’chap, 23. 
 vest of your land, thou shalt not 
 v/holly reap the corners of thy field, 
 neither shalt thou gather the glean- 
 ings of thy harvest. 
 
 10 And thou shalt not glean thy 
 vineyard, neither shalt thou gather 
 every grape of . thy vineyard ; thou 
 shalt leave them for the poor and 
 stranger: I am the Lord your God. 
 
 11 ^ Ye shall not steal, neither 
 deal falsely, neither lie one to another. 
 
 12 ^ And ye shall not swear by Exod. 20. 
 my name falsely, neither shalt thou Deut. 5.1 1. 
 profane the name of thy God : I am 
 
 the Lord. 12. 
 
 13 qy ^^Xhou shalt not defraud thy^^Eccius. 
 neighbour, neither rob him: the wages 
 
 of him that is hired shall not abide 
 with thee all night until the morning. 
 
 14 ^ Thou shalt not curse the 
 
 Chap. XIX. 
 
 A Repetition of sundry Laws, i — 37. 
 
 2. Te shall he holy: for J the Lord your 
 God am holjh] These words express the key- 
 note to the whole book of Leviticus, being 
 addressed as they are not to the priests, or 
 the rulers, or the saintly few, but to the whole 
 nation. Cf. xi. 45 ; xx. 7, a6 ; Ex. xix. 6 . — 
 There does not appear to be any systematic 
 arrangement in the laws which follow; but 
 it is evident that they were intended as guards 
 to the sanctity of the elect people, enforcing 
 common duties by immediate appeal to the 
 highest authority. Cf. on iwiii. 24 — 30. 
 
 3 . Ex. XX. 8, 12, xxxi. 13, 14. The two 
 laws repeated here are the only ones in the 
 Decalogue which assum.e a positive shape, all 
 the others being introduced by the formula, 
 “Thou shalt not.” — These express two great 
 central points, the first belonging to natural 
 law and the second to positive law, in the 
 maintenance of the well-being of the social 
 body of which Jehovah was the acknowledged 
 king. 
 
 4 . Ex. XX. 4, xxxiv. 14 — 17; see on Lev. 
 xxvi. I. 
 
 5 . ye shall offer it at your 0W071 nvilf Ra- 
 ther, ye shall offer it that you may be 
 accepted. See on i. 3. 
 
 6—8. See on vii. 15 — 18. Of the rules 
 
 relating to holy things this was perhaps one of 
 those most likely to be transgressed by the 
 people, and hence the propriety of its being 
 repeated in this place. 
 
 9 , 10. This law is expressed more fully, 
 Deut. xxiv. 19 — 21. As regards the grain 
 harvest it is repeated in connection with the 
 Feasts of Weeks, Lev. xxiii. 22. It was a 
 charitable provision that related to every sort 
 of grain and fruit. The word rendered “grape” 
 in 0). 10 signifies rather fallen fruit of any 
 kind ; and the word rendered “ vineyard” may 
 also be applied to a fruit garden of any 
 kind. Cf. Deut. xxiii. 24 . — the poor is the poor 
 Israelite — the stranger is properly the fo- 
 reigner, who could possess no land of his 
 own in the land of Israel. See on xvi. 29; 
 cf. -w. 33, 34. Like the law in •voj. 23 — 25 
 (on which see note) this was prospective in 
 its actual operation. 
 
 11, 12. The meaning of the eighth Com- 
 mandment is here expanded into the prohibi- 
 tion of (i) theft, (2) cheating (cf. vi. 2, 3, 4), 
 (3) falsehood. When the act of deception 
 was aggravated by an oath the third Com- 
 mandment was of course broken as well as 
 the eighth. Ex. xx. 7, 15. 
 
 13 , 14 . The aphorism in t;. ii forbids 
 injuries perpetrated by craft; this one, those 
 perpetrated by violence or power, the con- 
 version of might into right. In 2;. 13 “ de- 
 
V. IS— 1 9-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIX. 
 
 fDeut. 27. deaf, ^nor put a stumblingblock before 
 the blind, but shalt fear thy God : I 
 a 7 n the Lord. 
 
 '■E.\od.23. 15 ^ Ye shall do no unrighteous- 
 
 ^eut. I. ness in judgment : thou shalt not 
 ?'i 6 . 19. ’‘■aspect the person of the poor, nor 
 Prov. 24. honour the person of the mighty : but 
 fames 2. 9. ill righteousiiess shalt thou judge thy 
 • neighbour. 
 
 16 ^ Thou shalt not go up and 
 down as a talebearer among thy people : 
 neither shalt thou stand against the 
 blood of thy nei2:hbour : I am the 
 Lord. 
 
 605 
 
 17 ^ ^1 hou shalt not hate thy -ti John 2 
 brother in thine heart: ■^'thou shalt in 
 any wise rebuke thy neighbour, “and 
 not suffer sin upon him. 
 
 18 ^ Thou shalt not avenge, nor 
 bear any grudge against the children 
 of thy people, Tut thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself : I am the Lord. 
 
 19 ^ Ye shall keep my statutes. 
 
 Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender 
 with a diverse kind; thou shalt not 
 sow thy field with mingled seed : nei- 
 ther shall a garment mingled of linen 
 and woollen come upon thee. 
 
 18. 
 
 15- 
 
 Ecclus. 19. 
 
 13- 
 
 II Or, 
 
 that thou 
 bear not 
 sill for 
 him. 
 
 ^ Matt. 5. 
 43 - 
 
 & 22. 39. 
 Rom. 13.9. 
 Gal. 5. 14. 
 James 2. 8. 
 
 fraud” should rather be, oppress. The rule 
 given in the latter clause is expressed at more 
 length Deut. xxiv. 14, 15 ; cf. James v. 4, 
 The meaning of -z,'. 14 appears to be, Thou shalt 
 not utter curses to the deaf because he camiot 
 hear thee., neither shalt thou put a stumbling- 
 block in the q.uaj of the blind because he cannot 
 see thee (cf. Deut. xxvii. 18), but thou shah 
 remember that though the -iveak and poor cannot 
 resist., nor the deaf hear., nor the blind see., God 
 is strong., and sees and hears all that thou doest. 
 Cf. Job xxix. 15. The principle is brought 
 into connection with the law of thf' Jubilee in 
 Lev. XXV. 17, 36, 43 * 
 
 15 , 16 . In the administration of justice 
 there is to be no respect of persons. Judg- 
 ment is not to be warped, either out of pity 
 to the poor or to win favour with the rich : 
 nor is it to be based upon idle tale-bearing 
 (cf. Ex. xxiii. I — 3, 8). The meaning of the 
 latter clause of v. 16 is not quite so clear. 
 The expression, to “stand against the blood 
 of thy neighbour,” has been generally under- 
 stood to mean, to put his life in danger by 
 standing up as his accuser. But most of the 
 recent Jewish versions follow the Talmud in 
 giving another sense to the words, which it 
 appears the Hebrew will bear: Thou shalt 
 not stand by idly qjuhen thy neighbour"' s life is 
 in danger. So Zunz, Luzzatto, Herxheimer, 
 Leeser, A^^ogue. — Whichever interpretation 
 we adopt, from the connection in which the 
 passage stands, it may’ be inferred that the 
 clause prohibits that which might interfere 
 with the course of'justice. 
 
 17 , 18 . The Israelite was not to conceal 
 hatred in his heart towards his brother. When 
 injured he was to admonish the offender at 
 [ once, and not to incur sin by retaining any 
 
 , feeling of unkindness. Cf. Matt, xviii. 15 sq. 
 
 I The words not suffer sin upon him^ should 
 
 rather be, not Pear sin on his account; 
 that is, either by bearing secret ill-will (Ephes. 
 
 I iv. 26), or by encouraging him to sin in 
 
 ! withholding due rebuke. Rom. i. 32. All feel- 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 i 
 
 ing of vengeance or grudge was precluded by 
 the commandment, “ Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself.” Cf. Matt. xxii. 39; 
 Luke X. 27; Rom. xiii. 9; Gal. v. 14; James 
 ii. 8, &c. 
 
 19 . This law is substantially repeated 
 Deut. xxii. 9, 10, ii. The distinctions which 
 God has established in the physical order of 
 the world were thus to be kept in view 
 in accordance with the original law of crea- 
 tion. Gen. i. ii, 12, 21, 24, 25. The ob- 
 servance also of deeply rooted conventional 
 distinctions, in which “ use becomes second 
 nature” {(pvais)-, is similarly connected with 
 moral obligation in Deut. xxii. 5 ; cf. i Cor. 
 xi. 14, 15. 
 
 linen and woollen"] The original word thus 
 rendered {shd' atne%) is a peculiar one. It is 
 found only here and in Deut. xxii. ii, where 
 it is rendered “ of divers sorts,” and the ordi- 
 nary Hebrew words for woollen and linen 
 which there follow it are in this place as- 
 sumed by our translators to be an equivalent 
 term. But sha'atne^ appears to be a Coptic 
 word and to mean spurious or adulterated 
 (Gesenius, Ftirst, Knobel, &c.); LXX. kl^- 
 drjXoi. The mention of mixed woollen and 
 linen in Deuteronomy only furnishes an illus- 
 trative example and is not a rendering of sha'at- 
 nez .. — But there is a difficulty in reconciling 
 this law with the combination of wool and 
 linen used in the dress of the High priest. 
 On Ex. xxviii. 4. Some of the Jews sup- 
 pose that this law was made only for the laity ; 
 others refer to the rabbinical maxim that the 
 Lord could at pleasure dispense with His own 
 law. It may however be conjectured that the 
 rule was not intended to forbid the weaving of 
 different kinds of yarn into one piece where 
 each material could be distinctly seen, but 
 only the spinning into one thread two or more 
 different materials. This may perhaps indi- 
 cate the meaning of sha'atnez as denoting 
 such tissues as linsey woolsey. It should be 
 noticed that the flax is spoken of in Exodus as 
 
6o6 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIX. 
 
 [v. 20—28. 
 
 20 ^ And whosoever lieth carnally 
 with a woman, that is a bondmaid, 
 "pu "betrothed to an husband, and not at 
 ^ all redeemed, nor freedom given her; 
 Reproach- “ she shall be scourged ; they shall not 
 ed by, or, death, because she was not 
 
 for vtan. Jr j 
 
 il Or, they. free. 
 
 shall 21 And he shall bring his tres- 
 ^'courging. pass offering unto the Lord, unto the 
 door of the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation, even a ram for a trespass of- 
 fering. 
 
 22 And the priest shall make an 
 atonement for him with the ram of 
 the trespass offering before the Lord 
 for his sin which he hath done : and 
 the sin which he hath done shall be 
 forgiven him. 
 
 23 ^ And when ye shall come into 
 the land, and shall have planted all 
 
 manner of trees for food, then ye shall 
 count the fruit thereof as uncircum- 
 cised : three years shall it be as un- 
 circumcised unto you : it shall not be 
 eaten of. 
 
 24 But in the fourth year all the 
 fruit thereof shall be ^holy to praise ^ 
 
 the Lord withal. praises to 
 
 25 And in the fifth year shall ye 
 eat of the fruit thereof, that it may 
 yield unto you the increase thereof : 
 
 I am the Lord your God. 
 
 26 ^ Ye shall not eat any thing 
 with the blood : neither shall ye use 
 enchantment, nor observe times. 
 
 27 Ye shall not round the corners '^chap. 21 
 of your heads, neither shalt thou mar 
 
 the corners of thy beard. 
 
 28 Ye shall not ^rnake any cut- -^Deut. 1. 
 tings in your flesh for the dead, nor 
 
 spun by itself, xxvi. i, xxvii. 16, xxxvi. 8, 
 xxxix. 24, &c. 
 
 20. betrothed to an husbandry Rather, ‘Who 
 has been betrothed to a man. The 
 reference appears to be to a bondwoman who 
 has been betrothed to a fellow-servant by her 
 master. Death was the punishment _ for un- 
 faithfulness in a betrothed woman in other 
 cases. Dent. xxii. 23, 24. 
 
 she shall be scourged'\ Literally, there shall 
 be a chastisement . Our version follows the 
 Targums. But a better “ rendering is that 
 of the LXX., Vulg., Syriac and many recent 
 versions, they shall be chastised. The 
 'I'respass-offering was especially due from the 
 man as having not only sinned with the wo- 
 man, but inflicted an injury on the rights of 
 the master. See on v. 14. 
 
 23—25. When a fruit-tree of any kind 
 was planted, its produce was to be deemed 
 imperfect and unfit for presentation to Je- 
 hovah for the first three year^ In the fourth 
 year its fruit was presented in the Sanctuary 
 (see Deut. xxvi. 2), and the tree was thus sanc- 
 tified in a way which bore an analogy to the 
 circumcision of one of the chosen race. Cf. 
 “the vine undressed,” literally, the Nazarite 
 'Vine. Lev. xxv. 5,11. Not until the fifth year 
 was the owner permitted to eat of the fruit. 
 In regard to its spiritual lesson, this law may 
 Ixi compared with the dedication of the first- 
 born of lx.‘asts to Jehovah. Lx. xiii. 12, xxxiv. 
 19. d'hough in practical operation it could 
 be only })rospective, like the law of gleaning 
 in 'v'v. 9, 10, its meaning in a moral point of 
 view was plain, and tended to illustrate the 
 spirit of the whole Law. 
 
 I am the Lord'] See on xviii. 2, xix. 2. 
 
 26 — 28. Certain heathen customs, several 
 of them connected with magic, are here group- 
 ed together. The prohibition to eat anything 
 rwith the blood (strictly, upon the bloody may 
 indeed refer to the eating of meat which had 
 not been properly bled in slaughtering, and 
 would thus take its ground only on the_ gene- 
 ral prohibition of blood. Lev. vii. 26, xvii. 10; 
 Deut. xii. 23; cf. i S. xiv. 32, 33. But it ps 
 not improbable that there may be a special 
 reference to some sort of magical or idolatrous 
 rites. Cf. Ezek. xxxiii. 25. See Spencer, 
 Lib. I. c. VIII. § I. 
 
 obser've times] It is not clear whether the 
 original word refers to the fancied distinction 
 between lucky and unlucky days, to some 
 mode of drawing omens from the clouds, or to 
 the exercise of “ the evil eye.” 
 
 27. round the corners of your heads] It is 
 supposed that this may allude to such a custom 
 as that of the Arabs described by Herodotus. 
 They used to shew honour to their deity Oro- 
 tal by cutting the hair away from the temples 
 in a circular form (ill. 8). Cf. on Jer. ix. 26. 
 
 mar the corners of thy beard] Cf. xxi. 5 ; 
 Jer. xlviii. 37. It has been conjectured that 
 this also relates to a custom which existed 
 amongst the Arabs (see Plin. ‘ H. N.’ vi. 32), 
 but we are not informed that it had any idol- 
 atrous or magical association. As the same, 
 or very similar customs, are mentioned in con- 
 nexion with cuttings in the flesh for the dead 
 in ch. xxi. 5, in Deut. xiv. i, as well as here, it 
 would appear that they may have been signs 
 of mourning. See Herodotus, ii. 36. 
 
 28. cuttings in your fesh for the dead] Cf. 
 xxi. 5; DeutJ xiv. i; Jer. xvi. 6, xlviii. 37, 
 &c. Amongst the excitable races of the East 
 
V. 29—36.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIX. 
 
 f Heb. 
 profane. 
 
 print any marks upon you : I am the 
 
 Lord. 
 
 29 ^ Do not prostitute thy daugh- 
 ter, to cause her to be a whore ; lest 
 the land fall to who-redom, and the 
 land become full of wickedness. 
 
 30 ^ Ye shall keep my sabbaths, 
 and reverence my sanctuary: I am 
 the Lord. 
 
 31^ ^ Regard not them that have 
 familiar spirits, neither seek after 
 wizards, to be defiled by them : I am 
 the Lord your God. 
 
 32 ^1 Thou shalt rise up before the 
 hoary head, and honour the face of 
 
 the old man, and fear thy God : I ain 
 the Lord. 
 
 33 % And "^if a stranger sojourn 
 with thee in your land, ye shall not 
 "vex him. 
 
 34 ’^But the stranger that dwelleth 
 with you shall be unto you as one 
 born among you, and thou shalt love 
 him as thyself ; for ye were strangers 
 in the End of Egypt : I am the Lord 
 your God. 
 
 35 Ve shall do no unrighteous- 
 ness in judgment, in meteyard, in 
 weight, or in measure. 
 
 36 ^Just balances, just Veights, a 
 
 607- 
 
 Exod. 
 22. 21. 
 
 II Or, 
 oppress. 
 ^'Exod. 12. 
 48, 49. 
 
 o Prov. I] 
 
 & 16. I 
 & 20. I 
 t Heb. 
 sto7ies. 
 
 this custom appears to have been very com- 
 mon. Xenoph. ‘Cyrop.’ iii. i. 13, m. 3. 67. 
 Herodot. iv. 71, &c. The Persians, Abys- 
 smians, Bedouins, and manv other nations still 
 practise it. 
 
 print any marks'] This appears to refer to 
 the process of tattooing, in which different 
 devices are formed by perforations in the 
 cuticle, and ink, or some other coloured sub- 
 stance, is rubbed over them so as to leave 
 a permanent mark. It was probably prac- 
 tised in ancient Egypt, as it is now by the 
 lower classes of the modern Egyptians (Lane, 
 ch. I.). This, as well as the other practices 
 here named, appears to have been connected 
 with superstitious notions. SeeMishna, ‘Mak- 
 koth,Tii. 6, with Bartenora’snote; Theodoret, 
 ‘Quasst. in Lev.’ xxviii. But any voluntary 
 dishgurement of the person was in itself an 
 outrage upon God’s workmanship, and might 
 well form the subject of a law. 
 
 29 . This command would seem to refer 
 to common prostitution as well as to that 
 mentioned Deut. xxiii. 17, which is connected 
 with idolatrous rites. 
 
 30 . Cf. ns. 3, xxvi. 2. 
 
 31 . The devotion of faith, which would 
 manifest itself in obedience to the command- 
 ment to keep God’s Sabbaths and to reverence 
 his Sanctuary (ns. 30), is the true preservative 
 against the superstition which is forbidden in 
 t^his verse. The people whose God was Je- 
 hovah were not to indulge those wayward 
 feelings of their human nature which are grati- 
 fied m magical arts and pretensions. Cf. Isa. 
 
 Vlll. 19. 
 
 them that hanse familiar spirits] The word 
 thus rendered is supposed to signify bottles. 
 So the Talitiud, Gesenius, Fiirst. This ap- 
 plication of the word is supposed to have 
 been suggested by the tricks of ventriloquists. 
 Within whose bodies it was fancied that spirits 
 
 T ’-ise the 
 
 word iyya(TTpL}xv 6 oi. See Theod. ‘Quasst. in 
 
 Lev.’ xxrx. The word which here and in 
 some other places appears to denote the per- 
 son practising the art, is in other cases used 
 for the familiar spirit which he pretended to 
 employ in order to consult, or to raise, the 
 spirits of the dead. See i S. xxviii. 7, 8. 
 
 nvTzard] The English word literally answers 
 to the Hebrew, being equivalent to a knonving 
 man., or, a cunning man. See Lev. xx. 6, 27; 
 Deut. xviii. n; cf. Exod. xxii. 18. ’ 
 
 32 . The outward respect due to old age 
 is here immediately connected with the fear 
 of God. Prov. XX. 29 ; i Tim. v. i. The 
 ancient Egyptians, like the Lacedemonians 
 and the old Romans, appear to have been ex- 
 emplary in this respect (Herodot. 11. 80; 
 ‘Aul. Gell.’ II. 15), as were, and are to this 
 day, most of the eastern nations: ‘Menu,’ ii. 
 120, 121, 122; Lane’s ‘Modern Egyptians,’ 
 ch. VIII. XIII. &c. 
 
 33 , 34 . the stranger] the foreigner. See 
 on xvi. 29. In Ex. xxii. 21, xxiii. 9, the Israelite 
 was forbidden on the same ground — that he 
 had himself been a foreigner in Egypt — to op- 
 press the foreigner; but he is now commanded 
 to treat him without reserve like a brother, 
 to love him as himself. See on Ex. xxiii. 23! 
 The word “ Butf supplied at the beginning 
 of 34, is needless and rather obscures the 
 meaning. 
 
 35 , 36 . In all kinds of exchanges, strict 
 justice was to be observed. The Ephah is here 
 taken as the standard of dry measure, and the 
 Hin (see on Ex. xxix. 40) as the standard of 
 liquid measure. Cf. Ezek. xlv. iq— 12. Two 
 very different estimates of the capacities of 
 these measure^ have been formed. From the 
 statements of Josephus, who compares the 
 Hebrew measures with the Greek (‘Ant.’ iii. 
 
 9. § 4, viii. 2. § 9, &c.), the Ephah, or Bath, 
 contained above eight gallons and a half, 
 and the Hin (which was a sixth part of the 
 Ephah), rather less than one gallon and a half. 
 But according to the rabbinists, who make 
 
 (^(^2 
 
6o8 
 
 LEVITICUS. XIX. XX. 
 
 [v. 37- 
 
 - 2 . 
 
 just ephah, and a just hin, shaU ye 
 have: I am the Lord your God, 
 which brought you out of the land of 
 Egypt. 
 
 37 Therefore shall ye observe all 
 my statutes, and all my judgments, 
 and do them ; I am the Lord. 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 I Of him that giveth of his seed to Molech. 4 
 Of him that favour eth such an one. o Uj 
 
 going to wizards. 7 Of sanctficatiojt. 9 
 him that curseth his parents. lo Of adul- 
 tery. II, 14, 17 , 19 Of incest 13 Of 
 sodomy. IS Of beastiality. Of unclean- 
 ness. 22 Obedience is required with holiness. 
 
 •27 Wizards must be put to death. 
 
 and the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 "Again, thou shalt say to the «^chap. 
 children of Israel, Whosoever he be 
 of the children of Israel, or of the 
 
 .the contents of a hen’s egg their standard, the 
 Ephah did not hold quite four gallons and a 
 half, and the Hin not quite six pints. 1 he 
 Log was a twelfth part of the Hin^ The 
 latter estimate is to be preferred on grounds 
 of probability.— For the moral duty here_ en- 
 joined, cf. Dent. XXV. 13— 16; Prov. xi. i, 
 xvi. II, XX. 10; Ezek. xlv. 10; Micah vi. 10, 
 
 II ; Amosviii. 5. 
 
 36 1 am the Lord your God., &c ] A 
 
 full stop should without doubt precede these 
 words. They introduce the form-al conclusion 
 to the whole string of precepts in this chapter, 
 which are all enforced upon the ground ot 
 the election of the nation by Jehovah who 
 had delivered them from the bondage of Egypt. 
 Cf. on v. 2. 
 
 Chap. XX. 
 
 Punishments appointed for certain 
 Cremes, i — 27. 
 
 Respecting the relation in which this chap- 
 ter stands to chapters xviii. and xix. see on xviii. 
 24—30. The crimes which are condemned 
 in those chapters on purely spiritual groiind, 
 the absolute prohibition of Jehovah, have here 
 special punishments allotted to them as of- 
 fences against the well-being of the nation. 
 
 2—5 Molech, literally, the King, called 
 also Moloch, Milcom, and Malcham, whose 
 rites are here so severely condemned, was 
 known in later times as “the abomination of 
 the Ammonites,” when Chemosh was the 
 abomination of the Moabites, and Astarte the 
 abomination of the Sidonians. Solomon de- 
 dicated to each one of these deities a high 
 place (see on xxvi. 30), most probably at the 
 corner of Terusalem which overlooked the 
 valley of Hinnom. See Stanley, ‘Jewish 
 Church,’ II. p. 390. These were destroyea 
 and defiled by Josiah. i K. xi. 5, 7; 2 K. 
 xxiii. 10, 13. Molech was called Adramn^- 
 lech by the Sepharvites. 2 K. xvii. 31. He 
 appears to have been the f re-god of the eastern 
 nations; related to, and sometimes made iden- 
 tical with, Baal, the sun-god. The impious 
 custom with which his name is mainly con- 
 nected was called in full, passing children 
 through the fire to Molech, sometimes elhpti- 
 cally (as in the Hebrew text of Lev. xviii. ai), 
 
 passing them through to Molech; or, omitting 
 the name of the god, passing them througo the 
 lire. In this place the children are spoken of 
 as \iajen to Molech. According to a Jewish 
 tradition of very light authority, the deity 
 was worshipped under the form of a brazen 
 image, having the head of an ox, with the 
 arms extended to receive the babe, who was m 
 some way there subjected to the action of hre. 
 
 A brass image of the god Kronos, said to 
 have been used in this manner by the Cartha- 
 ginians, is described by Diodorus Siculus (xx. 
 14 j which seems to have furnished the rab- 
 binists with the suggestion. But the nature 
 of this rite, and of what others there may 
 have been connected with the name of Molech, 
 is very doubtful. The practices appear to have 
 been essentially connected with magical arts, 
 probably also with unlawful lusts 5, 
 
 6 ; xviii. 20, 21 ; Dent, xviii. 10, ii ; 2 K. xvu. 
 17 xxi. 6; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6; Ezex. xxiii. 
 37), and with some particular form of pro- 
 fane swearing; see t.’. 3, xviii. 21; cf. Zep . 
 
 I c.— It is a question whether the child who 
 was passed through the fire to Molech was 
 destroyed or not; whether he was regarded as 
 a propitiatory sacrifice, or as the object of a 
 rite imagined to be in some way beneficial to 
 him. Maimoiiides and the Jewish autho- 
 rities in general appear to take the latter view. 
 On the other hand, there is express mention 
 of burning children as sacrifices. Ps. cvi. 37, 
 38; Is. Ivii. 5; .Ri-. vii. 3 L xix 5; Ezek. xvi 
 21 xxiii. 39 - The sacrifice of his son by the 
 kinit of Moab (2 K. iii. 27) was probab y 
 performed to the Moabite god Chemosh, 
 whose worship, it may reasonably be sup- 
 posed, was of similar nature to that of Mo- 
 lech But however the question is decided m 
 reference to later times, we may perhaps con- 
 iecture, from the context in which it is here 
 mentioned, that the rite in the time of Moses 
 belonged to the region rather of magic 
 than of definite idolatrous worship, and that 
 it may have been practised as a lustral 
 charm, or fire-baptism, for the "children of 
 incest and adultery. Its connection with the 
 children of Ammon, the child of incest, may 
 be worth noticing in reference to this sug- 
 gestion. It should be recollected that Idolatry 
 and Magic of all kinds are closely connect- 
 
V. 3—1 
 
 LEVITICUS. XX. 
 
 609 
 
 6.1 
 
 strangers that sojourn in Israel, that 
 giveth any of his seed unto Molech; 
 he shall surely be put to death : the 
 people of the land shall stone him 
 with stones. 
 
 3 And I will set my face against 
 that man, and will cut him off from 
 among his people; because he hath 
 given of his seed unto Molech, to de- 
 hle my sanctuary, and to profane my 
 holy name. 
 
 4 And if the people of the land do 
 any ways hide their eyes from the man, 
 when he giveth of his seed unto Mo- 
 lech, and kill him not: 
 
 5 Then I will set my face against 
 that man, and against his family, and 
 will cut him off, and all that go a 
 whoring after him, to commit whore- 
 dom with Molech, from among their 
 people. 
 
 6 ^ And the soul that turneth after 
 such as have familiar spirits, and after 
 wizards, to go a whoring after them, 
 I will even set my face against that 
 soul, and will cut him off from among 
 his people. 
 
 * chap. II. 7 '^Sanctify yourselves therefore, 
 
 1^19. 2. and be ye holy : for I am the Lord 
 your God. 
 
 ‘^Exod.21. 8 shall keep my statutes, 
 
 and do them : I am the Lord which 
 
 20.^ sanctify you. 
 
 4.“^ ■ 9 ^ ^ For every one thatcurseth his 
 
 ed, and are always apt to run into each 
 other, while true Faith is equally opposed to 
 both of them. See on Exod. xxii. 18. Bacon 
 reckons as two' “ declinations from religion,” 
 ‘‘ idolatry^ when we worship false gods, sup- 
 posing them to be true; and witchcrafts 
 when we adore false gods, knowing them 
 to be wicked and false.” ‘ Advancement of 
 Learning,’ Bk. ii. — In connection with this 
 subject the matter collected by Brand, in his 
 accounts of May day and Midsummer day, 
 is of interest, ‘ Popular Antiquities,’ Vol. 1. 
 
 2. strangers that sojourn\ foreigners 
 who dwell. See xvi. 29. 
 
 people of the land] i. e. native Hebrews. See 
 iv. 27. 
 
 sto?ie him with stones] The commonest form 
 of capital punishment. It was probably pre- 
 ferred as being the one in which the execution 
 was the act of the whole congregation. 
 
 3 . defle my sanctuary] i. e. pollute the 
 
 father or his mother shall be surely 
 put to death : he hath cursed his fa- 
 ther or his mother; his blood shall be 
 upon him. 
 
 10 ^ And ^the man that commit- ‘’^Deut. 22. 
 teth adultery with another man’s wife, John 8. 4. 
 even he that committeth adultery with 
 
 his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and 
 the adulteress shall surely be put to 
 death. 
 
 11 ^And the man that lieth with ^ chap. 18. 
 his father’s wife hath uncovered his 
 father’s nakedness : both of them shall 
 surely be put to death; their blood 
 
 shall be upon them. 
 
 12 And if a man lie with his daugh- 
 ter in law, both of them shall surely 
 be put to death : they have wrought 
 confusion; their blood shall be upon 
 them. 
 
 13 -^If a man also lie with man-^chap. 18. 
 kind, as he lieth with a woman, both 
 
 of them have committed an abomina- 
 tion : they shall surely be put to death ; 
 their blood shall be upon them. 
 
 14 And if a man take a wife and 
 her mother, it is wickedness : they 
 shall be burnt with fire, both he and 
 they; that there be no wickedness 
 among you. 
 
 1 5 And if a man lie with a beast, ^ chap. 18. 
 he shall surely be put to death : and 
 
 ye shall slay the beast. 
 
 16 And if a woman approach unto 
 
 people as identified with their Sanctuary. Cf. 
 XV. 31; Num. xix. 13, &c. 
 
 6. Cf. T'. 27 and on xix. 31. 
 
 7 , 8. Cf. xi. 45, xviii. 4, 5, xix. 2, xx. 
 22 — 26, &c. 
 
 9. Ex. xxi. 17; Deut. xxvii. 16; Matt. 
 XV. 4 ; Mark vii. 10. 
 
 10 . xviii. 20; Ex. XX. 14; Deut. xxii. 22. 
 
 11. See Note i. after chap, xviii. 
 
 13 . Cf. xviii. 22; Deut. xxiii. 17. 
 
 14 . burnt with fire] Cf. Gen. xxxviii. 24. 
 It is inferred, on very probable ground, that 
 the burning under the sentence of the Law took 
 place after the death of the criminal by ston- 
 ing, or strangling. Seethe case of Achan, Josh, 
 vii. 25. Cf. Lev. xxi. 9. The Targum of Pales- 
 tine says that the offenders in this case were 
 destroyed by molten lead being poured down 
 their throats. But this is utterly improbable. 
 On the nature of the offence see on xviii. 17. 
 
 15 . 16 . xviii. 28; Deut. xxvii. 21. 
 
6io 
 
 LEVITICUS. XX. XXL 
 
 V. 17 1. 
 
 any beast, and lie down thereto, thou 
 shalt kill the woman, and the beast : 
 they shall surely be put to death; 
 their blood shall be upon them. 
 
 17 And if a man shall take his 
 sister, his father’s daughter, or his 
 mother’s daughter, and see her naked- 
 ness, and she see his nakedness ; it is 
 a wicked thing ; and they shall be cut 
 off in the sight of their people : he 
 hath uncovered his sister’s nakedness ; 
 he shall bear his iniquity, 
 chap. 18. 18 ^^And if a man shall lie with a 
 
 woman having her sickness, and shall 
 t Heb. uncover her nakedness ; he hath ^ dis- 
 Tced."''''' covered her fountain, and she hath 
 uncovered the fountain of her blood : 
 and both of them shall be cut off 
 from among their people. 
 
 19 And thou shalt not uncover the 
 nakedness of thy mother’s sister, nor 
 of thy father’s sister : for he uncover- 
 eth his near kin : they shall bear their 
 iniquity. 
 
 20 And if a man shall lie with his 
 uncle’s wife, he hath uncovered his 
 uncle’s nakedness : they shall bear their 
 sin ; they shall die childless. 
 
 21 And if a man shall take his 
 t Heb. brother’s wife, it is ^ an unclean thing : 
 
 he hath uncovered his brother’s na- 
 kedness ; they shall be childless. 
 
 22 II Ye shall therefore keep all 
 *chap. 18. my "statutes, and all my judgments, 
 
 and do them : that the land, whither 
 -fcchap. 18. I bring you to dwell therein, '^’spue 
 you not out. 
 
 17 . cut off in the sight of their people\ See 
 on Ex. xxxi. 14. But the more full expression 
 here used probably refers to some special form 
 of public excommunication, accompanied, it 
 may be, by expulsion from the camp. 
 
 18 . Cf. xviii. 19. Seexii. 2; xv. 19. 
 
 19 . hear their iniquity] See on Ex. xxviii. 38. 
 
 20. they shall die childless] This may mean 
 either that the offspring should not be regard- 
 ed as lawfully theirs, nor be entitled to any 
 hereditary privileges (St Augustin, Hesychius, 
 Michaelis), or that they should have no bless- 
 ing in their children (see authorities quoted by 
 D nisi us). 
 
 21 . Cf. on xviii. 16. 
 
 23 And ye shall not walk in the 
 manners of the nation, which I cast 
 out before you: for they committed 
 
 all these things, and ^therefore I ab- ^Oeut. 9. 
 horred them. 
 
 24 But I have said unto you. Ye 
 shall inherit their land, and I will 
 give it unto you to possess it, a land 
 that floweth with milk and honey : I 
 am the Lord your God, which have 
 separated you from other people. 
 
 25 """Ye shall therefore put differ- ^ chap. n. 
 ence between clean beasts and un- ^eut. 14. 
 clean, and between unclean fowls 4- 
 
 and clean : and ye shall not make 
 your souls abominable by beast, or 
 by fowl, or by any manner of living 
 thing; that "creepeth on the ground, « Or 
 which I have separated from you as 
 unclean. 
 
 25 And ye shall be holy unto me : 
 
 ""for I the Lord am holy, and have ^ 
 severed you from other people, that & 20. 7. 
 
 u IJ U • ^ iPet. 1. 16. 
 
 ye should be mine. 
 
 27 ^ ""A man also or woman that Deut. 18. 
 hath a familiar spirit, or that is a i Sam. 28. 
 wizard, shall surely be put to death : 
 they shall stone them with stones : 
 their blood shall he upon them. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 I Of the priests' inoiirning. 6 Of their holi- 
 ness. 8 Of their estimation. 7, 13 Of their 
 niaj'riages. 17 The priests that have blem- 
 ishes must not minister in the sanctuary. 
 
 AND the Lord said unto Moses, 
 
 Jf\^ Speak unto the priests the sons 
 
 22 — 26 . The ground is here again stated 
 on which all these laws of holiness should be 
 obeyed. See on xviii. 24 — 30* 
 
 24 . Cf. Ex. hi. 8, 17, xiii. 5, xxxiii. 3, &c. 
 
 25 , 26 . The distinction between clean 
 and unclean for the whole people, and not for 
 any mere section of it, was one great typical 
 mark of “the kingdom of priests, the holy 
 nation.” See Note after chap. xi. § vii. 
 
 25 . any manner of living thing that creeff 
 eth] Rather, any creeping thing; that is, 
 any vermin. See on xi. 20 — 23. The refer- 
 ence in this verse is to dead animals, not to the 
 creatures when alive. See Note after chap. xi. 
 § III. 
 
 27 . Seeonxix. 31. 
 
V. 2 6.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXL 
 
 6i I 
 
 of Aaron, and say unto them, There 
 shall none be defiled for the dead 
 among his people : 
 
 2 But for his kin, that is near unto 
 him, that for his mother, and for 
 his father, and for his son, and for 
 his daughter, and for his brother, 
 being an 3 Aiid for his sister a virgin, that 
 ‘ 7 nmifhis is nigh’ unto him, which hath had 
 ^siiainot husband; for her may he be de- 
 
 defUehim- filed. 
 
 wde%c!^ 4 But "he shall not defile himself. 
 
 a chief man among his people, 
 to profane himself. 
 
 5 They, shall not make baldness 
 upon their head, neither shall they 
 shave off the corner of their beard, 
 nor make any cuttings in their flesh. 
 
 6 They shall be holy unto their 
 God, and not profane the name of 
 their God ; for the offerings of the 
 Lord made by fire, aub/ the bread 
 of their God, they do offer: therefore 
 they shall be holy. 
 
 The Laws of Holiness for the 
 Priests. 
 
 ' xxi. I. xxii. 16. 
 
 Chap. XXI. i — 15. The priests were to 
 • maintain a peculiarly high standard of legal 
 purity in their family relations because it was 
 their office to offer sacrifices to Jehovah, ‘v‘v. 
 6, 8, 15. The common priest was not merely 
 required, like the rest of the people, to purify 
 himself when he had become defiled by con- 
 tact with the dead, but he was to avoid such 
 defilement in all cases except those of the 
 nearest relationship, ‘W. 2,3; the High priest 
 was not to incur it in any case, ‘v. ri. The 
 common priest was not permitted to marry a 
 prostitute, a woman of lost character, nor a 
 divorced woman, ‘v. 7 : the High priest could 
 marry no one but a virgin of Hebrew blood, 
 ‘V 7 J. 13, 14. The priest’s family was to be 
 a model of purity, and imchastity in a priest’s 
 daughter was punished with marked severity, 
 4 (see note), 9. 
 
 2 — 3 . Cf. Ezek. xliv. 25. — /jss kin (Heb. 
 sheer ^ see xviii, 6), that is near unto hini\ The 
 relations here mentioned are those that would 
 make up one household with the priest him- 
 ' self and his wife, in the case of. his being a 
 
 married man, see on -z;. 4. The presence 
 of a corpse defiled the tent, or house, and 
 all those who entered it, Num. xix. 14. On 
 the apparent approach of the death of one 
 I of these ne^- relations, the common priest was 
 
 not obliged to leave the house, but might re- 
 • main and take part in the funeral. The High 
 
 priest, on such an occasion, must have had 
 either to leave the house, or to remove the 
 sick person; see “z;. ii. 
 
 ^ 4 . The meaning of this verse is doubtful. 
 
 Our translation is supported by Onkelos, Leo 
 ; Jiida, Rosenmiiller, Zunz, Luzzatto, Wogue, 
 
 V &c. The sense seems to be that, owing to 
 
 , his position in the nation, he is not to defile 
 
 ~ himself in any cases except those named in 
 
 'vnj. 2, 3 ; these two verses may indeed be 
 read parenthetically, omitting the interpolated 
 |, '■‘■But''' in -v. 4. Some understand that the 
 
 i priest was not to mourn e'ven for a ruler of 
 
 his people (Syriac, Vulgate, &c.). The LXX. 
 appear to have followed a different reading of 
 the text (approved by Fiirst) which would 
 mean, he shall not defile himself for a moment. 
 Some modern critics approve the explanation 
 in the margin of our version ; but that 
 the priests were permitted to mourn for 
 their wives appears from the prohibition to 
 Ezekiel on a special occasion. See Ezek. 
 xxiv. 16. 
 
 5 . These prohibitions were also given to the 
 people at large. See xix. 27, 28 ; Deut. xiv. i. 
 — The testimonies which Knobel and several 
 of the older commentators have collected to 
 show that the priests of the Egyptians, Greeks, 
 Romans and other ancient nations avoided 
 funerals and contact with the dead, afford but 
 an imperfect parallel to these Levitical laws 
 concerning the priests. The sense of the 
 uncleanness of dead bodies was common to 
 those nations and has its origin in human 
 nature. See Note after ch. xv. Wherever this 
 feeling was recognized in a ceremonial usage, 
 the priest, from his office, would naturally be 
 expected to observe the highest standard of 
 purity. But the laws which regulated the 
 priesthood of the chosen people had a deeper 
 basis tkan this. They had to administer a 
 Law of Life. See Notes after ch. xi. § iii, and 
 after ch. xv. § i. St Cyril truly obseives that 
 the Hebrew priests were the instruments of 
 the divine will for averting death, that all 
 their sacrifices were a type of the death of 
 Christ, which swallowed up death in victory, 
 and that it would therefore have been unsuit- 
 able that they should have the same freedom 
 as other people to become mourners. ‘Gla- 
 phyra’ in Lev. p. 430. 
 
 6 . the offerings of the Lord made by fire., 
 and the bread of their Cod'] The word here 
 and in 'v. 8 rendered bread, is the same as is 
 rendered /ooi iii. ii, 16, &c., and meat in 
 xxii. II. The reader of the English Bible 
 should keep in view that bread, meat, and/W, 
 Avere nearly equivalent terms when our trans- 
 lation was made, and represent no distinctions 
 that exist in the Hebrew. Cf. on ii. i. On 
 
2 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXL [v. 7-20. 
 
 7 They shall not take a wife that 
 is a whore, or profane ; neither shall 
 they^take a woman put away from her 
 husband: for he is holy unto his God. 
 
 8 Thou shalt sanctify him there- 
 fore ; for he offereth the bread of thy 
 God : he shall be holy unto thee : for 
 I the Lord, which sanctify you, am 
 holy. 
 
 9 And the daughter of any 
 priest, if she profane herself by play- 
 ing the whore, she profaneth her fa- 
 ther: she shall be burnt with fire. 
 
 10 And h^ that is the high priest 
 among his brethren, upon whose head 
 the anointing oil was poured, and 
 that is consecrated to put on the gar- 
 ments, shall not uncover his head, 
 nor rend his clothes; 
 
 11 Neither shall he go in to any 
 dead body, nor defile himself for his 
 father, or for his mother; 
 
 12 Neither shall he go out of the 
 sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary 
 of his God ; for the crown of the 
 anointing oil of his God is upon him : 
 I aj 7 i the Lord. 
 
 13 And he shall take a wife in her 
 virginity. 
 
 14 A widow, or a divorced woman, 
 or profane, 07 ' an harlot, these shall 
 he not take : but he shall take a vir- 
 gin of his own people to wife. 
 
 15 Neither shall he profane his 
 seed among his people : for I the 
 Lord do sanctify him. 
 
 16 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 17 Speak unto Aaron, saying. Who- 
 soever he be of thy seed in their ge- 
 nerations that hath any blemish, let 
 
 him not approach to offer the " bread Or, food. 
 of his God. 
 
 18 For whatsoever man he be that 
 hath a blemish, he shall not approach : 
 a blind man, or a lame, or he that 
 hath a flat nose, or any thing ^ super- 
 fluous, 
 
 19 Ora man that is brokenfooted, 
 or brokenhanded, 
 
 20 Or crookbackt, or "a dwarf, or 
 that hath a blemish in his eye, or 
 be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his 
 stones broken ; 
 
 the expression “bread of their God,” see on 
 iii. 16. 
 
 7 . profane] The word probably means a 
 vroman who has been seduced, or, according 
 to some Jewish authorities, one of illegitimate 
 birth. — The wife of a common priest might 
 be a widow, or the daughter of a foreigner, 
 if she was not an idolater, and in these 
 respects the in'iests were only under the same 
 restraint as the people. li)eut. vii. 3. A some- 
 what stricter rule for the priests’ marriages 
 was revealed to the prophet in later times, 
 E/.ek. xliv. 22. 
 
 8. Thou shalt sanctify ...he shall be holy unto 
 thee] d'he people of Israel are now addressed. 
 They are commanded to regard the priests, 
 who perform for them the service of the Altar, 
 as holy in respect of their office. 
 
 9 . burnt q.vith f re] See on xx. 14. The 
 offence was forbidden to the laity, but not 
 visited with external punishment. See xix. 29. 
 
 10. upon riuhose head the anointing; oil ^ivas 
 poured] Cf. “the crown of the anointing oil 
 of his f}od is upon him,” t,’. 12. It was the 
 distinguishing mark of the anointing of the 
 High priest, that the holy oil was poured on 
 his head like a crown, viii. 12; cf. iv. 3, x. 7. 
 Sec on iv. 3. 
 
 unco’ver his head] rather, let his hair he 
 dishevelled. See on x. 6. 
 
 11. See on nsns. 2, 3. 
 
 12. go out of the sanctuary] i.e. not for the 
 purpose" to which reference is here made. The 
 words do not mean, as some have imagined, 
 that his abode was confined to the Sanctuary. 
 See on Ex. xxv. 8. 
 
 15 . profane his seed] i.e. by a marriage 
 which was not in keeping with the holiness of 
 his office. 
 
 16 . 24 . One of the family of Aaron who 
 was deformed or disfigured in any '^y, though 
 he v^as not permitted to perform priestly 
 functions, was allowed to share the sacrificial 
 meat and bread and to dwell with his brethren. 
 See vi. 16. He was not treated as an out- 
 cast, but enjoyed his privileges as a son of 
 Aaron, except in regard to active duties. 
 
 17 . in their ge 7 ieratmif\ i.e. in future 
 generations. 
 
 to offer the bread of his God] See on ns. 6. 
 
 20. a d-waif] This is the most probable 
 rendering. The LXX., Onkelos, Vulg., and 
 Saadia, take it for blear-eyed. The etymology 
 of the word would rather express one who is 
 small and wasted, either short, as in the text, 
 
V. 21 6.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXL XXII. 
 
 613 
 
 21 No man that hath a blemish of 
 the seed of Aaron the priest shall 
 come nigh to offer the offerings of 
 the Lord made by fire : he hath a 
 blemish ; he shall not come nigh to 
 offer the bread of his God. 
 
 22 He shall eat the bread of his 
 God, both of the most holy, and of 
 the holy. 
 
 23 Only he shall not go in unto 
 the vail, nor come nigh unto the 
 altar, because he hath a blemish ; that 
 he profane not my sanctuaries : for I 
 the Lord do sanctify them. 
 
 24 And Moses told it unto Aaron, 
 and to his sons, and unto all the chil- 
 dren of Israel. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 I The priests in their iinclea7i7iess 77i7cst abstam 
 fro77i the holy thhigs. 6 Hovo they shall be 
 clea7ised. 10 Who of the priest' s house 77iay eat 
 of the holy thhigs. 17 The sacrifices 77inst 
 be ivithout ble7nish. 26 The age of the saci'i- 
 fice. 29 'The law of eat mg the sacrifice of 
 tha7iksgivmg. 
 
 A nd the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 L saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto Aaron and to his 
 
 sons, that they separate themselves 
 from the holy things of the chil- 
 dren of Israel, and that they pro- 
 fane not my holy name in those 
 things which they hallow unto me : 
 
 I am the Lord. 
 
 3 Say unto them. Whosoever he he 
 of all your seed among your gene- 
 rations, that goeth unto the holy 
 things, which the children of Israel 
 hallow unto the Lord, having his 
 uncleanness upon him, that soul shall 
 be cut off from my presence : I am 
 the Lord. 
 
 4 What man soever of the seed of 
 Aaron is a leper, or hath a ^ run- ^ Heb. 
 ning issue ; he shall not eat of the ^o/thT^ 
 holy things, until he be clean. And chap'!'i5.2. 
 whoso toucheth any thing that is 
 unclean by the dead, or a man whose 
 
 seed goeth from him; 
 
 5 Or whosoever toucheth any creep- 
 ing thing, whereby he* may be made 
 unclean, or a man of whom he may 
 take uncleanness, whatsoever unclean- 
 ness he hath; 
 
 6 The soul which hath touched 
 
 or slender, as in the margin. It is hardly 
 likely that dwarfishness would be overlooked 
 in this enumeration. So the Syriac and most 
 critical authorities. 
 
 scur’vy or scabbed'] These words most pro- 
 bably include all 'affected with any skin disease. 
 
 22. See on ii. 3, vi. 25. 
 
 23. sanctuaries] The places peculiarly holy, 
 including the Most holy place, the Holy place, 
 and the Altar. 
 
 This law is of course to be regarded as one 
 development of the great principle that all which 
 is devoted to the service of God should be as 
 perfect as possible of its kind. Respecting the 
 mode in which the details of the law were 
 expanded by the rabbinists, see Selden, ‘de 
 Succ. in Pont.’ c, v. 
 
 Chap. XXII. 
 
 La<ws of holiness for the Priests^ continued. 
 
 I — 16 . 
 
 1 — 9. No one of the sons of Aaron who 
 was in any way ceremonially unclean was per- 
 mitted to partake of the sacrificial food, or 
 even to touch it. The commonest form of 
 purification is here repeated. 
 
 2. “ Speak unto Aaron and to his sons 
 
 that they so abstain from touching the 
 holy things of the children of Israel which 
 
 they consecrate unto me, that they pro- 
 fime not my holy name.” When they are 
 to abstain is explained in the following verses. 
 
 the holy things] i.e. the sacrificial food of 
 all kinds. See xxi. 22. 
 
 I am the Lord] See on xviii. 2. This law 
 related to the daily life and the ordinary food 
 of the priests (f. 7). The occurrence of the 
 formula here is therefore no exception to 
 the general rule that it is for the most part 
 introduced as a sanction to what relates to 
 common life as distinguished from formal reli- 
 gious observances. 
 
 3. cut off from my presence] i.e. excluded 
 from the Sanctuary.. See xx. 17. 
 
 4. until he be clean] See xv. 13. 
 
 u'nclean by the dead] Num. xix. 22. 
 
 nvhose seed., &c.] xv. 16. 
 
 5 . creeping thing., thereby he may be made 
 unclean] i.e. dead vermin, xi. 29, 31, 43, xx. 
 25. Dead vermin seem to be singled out in 
 this way, because they are so much more 
 liable to be met with accidentally than the 
 dead bodies of other creatures. 
 
 or a man of <vjhom., &c.] xv. 5, 7, 19. 
 
 6. The soul] Rather, the person. See 
 Note II. after chap. xvii. 
 
6i4 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXII. 
 
 [v. 7—18. 
 
 Ezek. 44 
 
 any such shall be unclean until even, 
 and shall not eat of the holy things, 
 unless he wash his flesh with water. 
 
 • 7 And when the sun is down, he 
 shall be clean, and shall afterward 
 eat of the holy things ; because it is 
 his food. 
 
 «Exod.22. 8 "That which dieth of itself, or 
 
 is torn with beasts^ he shall not eat 
 to defile himself therewith: I am the 
 Lord. 
 
 9 They shall therefore keep mine 
 ordinance, lest they bear sin for it, 
 and die therefore, if they profane it : 
 I the Lord do sanctify them. 
 
 10 There shall no stranger eat of 
 the holy thing: a sojourner of the 
 priest, or an hired servant, shall not 
 eat of the holy thing. 
 
 11 But if the priest buy any soul 
 ^ with his money, he shall eat of it, 
 and he that is born in his house : 
 they shall eat of his meat. 
 
 12 If the priest’s daughter also be 
 married unto ^ a stranger, she may 
 not eat of an offering of the holy 
 things. 
 
 13 But if the priest’s daughter be 
 
 t Heb. 
 luith the 
 purchase 
 of his 
 money. 
 
 t Heb. 
 a man a 
 stranger. 
 
 a widow, or divorced, and have no 
 child, and is returned unto her fa- 
 ther’s house, ^ as in her youth, she * chap. 10. 
 shall eat of her father’s meat : but 
 there shall no stranger eat thereof. 
 
 14 ^ And if a man eat of the holy 
 thing unwittingly, then he shall put 
 the fifth part thereof unto it, and 
 shall give it unto the priest v/ith the 
 holy thing. 
 
 15 And they shall not profane the 
 holy things of the children of Israel, 
 which they offer unto the Lord ; 
 
 16 Or "suffer them to bear the n Or, 
 
 . . . 1 ...L .L. tade them- 
 
 iniquity of trespass, when they eat sciveswitk 
 their holy things : for I the Lord 
 do sanctify them. trespass m 
 
 17 ^ And the Lord spake unto eating. 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 18 Speak unto Aaron, and to his 
 sons, and unto all the children of 
 Israel, and say unto them. Whatso- 
 ever he be of the house of Israel, 
 or of the strangers in Israel, that 
 will offer his ^oblation for all his 
 vows, and for all his freewill offer- 
 ings, which they will offer unto the 
 Lord for a burnt offering;^ 
 
 unclean until en^en'] cf. xi. 24, xv. 5. 
 
 8. The law relating to the eating of car- 
 rion is here repeated with special reference to 
 the priests. The pollution in them would be 
 an aggravated one, inasmuch as they would 
 have to forego their sacred functions. Cf. 
 Ezek. iv. 14, xliv. 31. The general prohibi- 
 tion occurs Ex. xxii. 31; Lev. xi. 39, xvii. 15. 
 
 9. lest they bear sin for if\ The priests 
 whom Jehovah sanctified were to observe his 
 commandments, lest they should call down 
 upon themselves a sentence of death. Cf. 
 Ex. xxviii. 35; Lev. viii. 35; Num. xviii. 32. 
 \Vhen the Israelite offended in a similar manner 
 by eating of the Peace-offering with his un- 
 cleanness upon him, he was to be “cut off 
 from amongst his people.” vii. 20. 
 
 10. stranger'] one of another family ; 
 that is, not of the family of Aaron. Heb. %dr. 
 See on Ex. xxix. 33. — The sojourner was a 
 neighbour, or visitor, who might eat of or- 
 dinary food as an invited guest. 
 
 11. d'his shows how completely a pur- 
 chased bondsman was incorporated into the 
 household. See on Ex. xxi. 2, 20, 21. 
 
 12. a stranger] one of another family. 
 
 14 . unnxiittingly] inadvertently. The 
 
 same Hebrew word as is rendered “ through 
 ignorance.” See Note after chap. iv. The value 
 of the holy thing, with the addition of one- 
 fifth, was given to the priest according to the 
 law of the Trespass-offering. See on v. 14. 
 
 15 , 16 . These verses are rather difficult. 
 Their meaning appears to be : — The holy 
 things of the children of Israel nvhich are headed 
 before Jehonsah (see Introd. § ix.) shall not 
 be profaned; and they shall incur a sin of 
 trespass nvho eat of their holy things (so as to 
 profane them]. The words may have been in- 
 tended either as a general admonition referring 
 to the whole passage, 2 — 14, or as having 
 
 special reference to the duty of the priests to 
 prevent the laity from eating the sacrificial food 
 to their injury, as enjoined in ns. 14. 
 
 The choice of Victims for the Altar. 
 
 I7--33- 
 
 18 . It devolved on the priest to see that 
 these rules were observed; but they are here 
 addressed to the people as well as to the 
 priests. 
 
 strangers in Israel] foreigners dwelling 
 in Israel. See on Ex. xx. 10; Lev. xvi. 29. 
 
 for all his 'vo^jjs, and for all his freewill 
 offerings] for any manner of vow, or 
 for any manner of freewill offering. 
 
V. 19—28.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXII. 
 
 19 y'e shall offer at your own will 
 a male without blemish, of the beeves, 
 of the sheep, or of the goats. 
 cDeut. 15. 20 But whatsoever hath a blemish, 
 
 & "17. 1, shall ye not offer : for it shall not 
 
 be acceptable for you. 
 
 21 And whosoever offereth a sa- 
 crifice of’ peace offerings unto the 
 Lord to accomplish his vow, or a 
 freewill offering in beeves or ” sheep, 
 it shall be perfect to be accepted ; 
 there shall be no blemish therein. 
 
 22 Blind, or broken, or maimed^ 
 or having a wen, or scurvy, or scab- 
 bed, ye shall not offer these unto 
 
 • the Lord, nor make an offering by 
 fire of them upon the altar unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 11 Or, kid. 23 Either a bullock or a "lamb that 
 
 chap. 21. hath any thing ^superfluous or lack- 
 ing in his parts, that mayest thou 
 
 offer for a freewill offering ; but for 
 a vow it shall not be 'accepted. 
 
 24 Ye shall not offer unto the Lord 
 that which is bruised, or crushed, or 
 broken, or cut; neither shall ye make 
 any offering thereof in your land. 
 
 25 Neither from a stranger’s hand 
 shall ye offer the bread of your God 
 of any of these; because their cor- 
 ruption is in them, and blemishes be 
 in them: they shall not be accepted 
 for you. 
 
 26 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 27 When a bullock, or a sheep, or 
 a goat, is brought forth, then it shall 
 be seven days under the dam ; and 
 from the eighth day and thenceforth 
 it shall be accepted for an offering 
 made by fire unto the Lord. 
 
 28 And whether it be cow or "ewe, she goat. 
 
 19 . Te shall offer at your own will a male'\ 
 Rather, That it may he accepted for you 
 it shall he a male. See on i. 3. The same 
 Hebrew phrase occurs in ‘v’v. 20, 21, 27, 
 where the sense is correctly given, and in 2;. 
 29, where the same mistake is made as here. 
 
 21 . sheep\ Rather, cattle of the flock, 
 including sheep and goats. Introd. § iv. 
 
 22. brokeri\ i.e. broken-limbed, or lame. 
 Cf. xxi. 19, Deut. XV. 21. Cf. xxi. 20. 
 
 23 . Iambi one of the flock. 
 
 superfluous or lacking~\ That is, with a limb 
 
 too large or too small. Cf. xxi. 18. Accord- 
 ing to several of the ancient versions the latter 
 term means having its ears or tail cropped. — 
 On the Freewill- and Vow-offerings, see vii. 16. 
 
 24 . The reference here is to animals emas- 
 culated by different methods. Cf. Aristot. 
 ‘ H. N.’ IX. 37, § 3; Columella, Lib. vii. ch. 
 II, and Drusius in loc. ; cf. Deut. xxiii. 2. 
 
 neither shall ye make any offering thereof in 
 vour land~\ The words supplied in our ver- 
 sion in italics have the authority of the Syriac 
 version and Saadia, and their sense is approved 
 by Knobel and others. But the literal mean- 
 ing of the passage is, and this shall ye not 
 do in your land. So the LXX., Tar- 
 gums, Vulgate and most modern versions. It 
 appears to have been understood by the Jews 
 as a prohibition of the mutilation of animals. 
 Joseph. ‘ Ant.’ iv. 8 . § 40; Drusius in loc. 
 
 25 . a strariger's hand^ The word here 
 rendered stranger., is not the same as that in 
 ‘V’v. 10, 18: it means literally, the son of the 
 unknown. The question is whether the resi- 
 
 dent foreigner {geer; see on Ex. xx. 10: Lev, 
 xvi. 29, cf. Num. XV. 14) is meant, or one 
 dwelling in another land who desired to show 
 respect to the God of Israel. See i Kings viii. 
 41. Wogue and the rabbinists with good 
 reason take the latter alternative. Tl'he He- 
 brew certainly appears to favour this interpre- 
 tation. So understood, the passage is one of 
 those which indicate the beneficent breadth 
 with which the Law was administered. See 
 on Ex. XX. 10, xxiii. 23 ; Lev. xv. 29, &c. 
 
 27 . No victim was to be offered in sacri- 
 fice until it was a week old. The meaning of 
 this law appears to be that the animal should 
 realize a distinct existence in becoming less 
 dependent on its mother and able to provide 
 for its own wants. Cf. Ex. xxii. 30. The 
 Romans observed a rule of similar purport, 
 that a young pig should not be pure for sacri- 
 fice till the fifth day, a sheep or a goat until 
 the eighth day, nor a calf till the thirtieth day : 
 a great authority among the priests said that 
 no ruminating animal should be offered till it 
 had become bidens. See Plin. ‘ H. N.’ vill. 
 77. Whether the term bidens., which occurs 
 so frequently in reference to the sacrifices of the 
 Romans, denoted an animal in which two 
 teeth had just developed themselves, or one 
 which had teeth in both jaws, has been doubt- 
 ed, but the latter is more probable. Festus, 
 with the note in Lindemann, p. 305 ; Faccio- 
 lati, s. V. Knobel supposes that bidens was 
 equivalent to the Hebrew, son of his year; that 
 is, a lamb less than a year old, but of which its 
 teeth were developed; see on xii. 6. Regard- 
 ing the limitation of the age of victims, see 
 Introd. § iv. 
 
6i6 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXII. XXIII. 
 
 ^ Deut. 
 6 . 
 
 ychap. 
 
 15 - 
 
 i ' diap. 
 
 3 - 
 
 [v. 29 — I. 
 
 22. ye shall not kill it ^and her young 
 both in one day*. 
 
 29 And when ye will olFer a sa- 
 crifice of thanksgiving unto the Lord, 
 offer it at your own will. 
 
 30 On the same day it shall be 
 7- eaten up ; ye shall leave none of it 
 
 until the morrow: I am the Lord. 
 
 31 Therefore shall ye keep my 
 commandments, and do them : I atn 
 the Lord. 
 
 32 Neither shall ye profane my 
 holy name ; but ^ I will be hallowed 
 
 among the children of Israel : I am 
 the Lord which hallow vou, 
 
 33 That brought you out of the 
 land of Egypt, to be your God; I 
 am the Lord. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 I The feasts of the Lord. 3 The sabbath. 4 
 The passover. g The sheaf of firstfriiits. 
 15 The feast of Pentecost. 22 Gleanings to be 
 left for the poor. 23 The feast of trumpets. 
 26 The day of atonement. 33 The feast of 
 tabernacles. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying. 
 
 28 . This law appears to have been in- 
 tended to remind the Israelites of the sacred- 
 ness of the relation between the parent and its 
 offspring. Of the same nature would seem to 
 have been the prohibition to take a bird’s nest 
 containing the mother with its young. Deut. 
 xxii. 6, 7. Some suppose that it was on the 
 same ground that it was forbidden to seethe a 
 kid in its mother’s milk. Cf. on Ex. xxiii. 19. 
 
 e^ve] a female of the flock, either a 
 sheep or a goat, Introd. § iv. 
 
 29 . offer it at your o-wn ^ui^l~\ offer it 
 so that it maj?' he accepted for you. 
 See on v. 19. 
 
 30 . Cf. vii. 15, xix. 6. 
 
 31 — 33 . A solemn conclusion to the whole 
 chapter. Cf. xviii. 29, 30, xix, 37, 
 
 32 . Cf.-u. 9,x. 3, xi. 44, 45, xviii, 21, xix. 12. 
 
 33 . xi, 45, xix. 36, XXV. 38, Num. xv. 41. 
 
 Chap. XXIII. 
 
 THE FESTIVALS. 
 
 The Pentateuch does not contain any one 
 complete account of the Festivals. But each 
 of the longer passages relating to the subject 
 appears to have a method of its own bearing 
 upon some particular object of the Legislator 
 at the time it was published. Those of them 
 which embrace the widest range of informa- 
 tion are this chapter of Leviticus and* Chaps, 
 xxviii. xxix. of Numbers. It may be observed 
 that a part of this chapter, 2)2). 39 — 43, does 
 not fall immediately within the practical scope 
 of the preceding larger portion, nov. 1 — 38, 
 relating to the days of Holy Convocation : 
 in its form as well as in its matter it con- 
 stitutes a distinct section. But the 44th verse 
 serves as a general conclusion to the whole 
 chapter. 
 
 The Days of Holy Convocation and 
 THE Relation of the Annual Feasts 
 
 TO THE Agriculture of the year. 
 
 1—38. 
 
 Preliminary Note. 
 
 I, The specified times for public worship 
 according to the Law were; (i) The daily 
 
 Morning and Evening sacrifices, sometimes 
 called “the continual Burnt-offering.”* (2) 
 The weekly Sabbath. (3) The day of the 
 New Moon. (4) The “set feasts” (Num. 
 xxix. 39) or appointed times of annual ob- 
 servance, of which there were five, the Passover, 
 the day of Pentecost, the feast of Trumpets, the 
 day of Atonement, and the feast of Tabernacles. 
 I Chr. xxiii. 30, 31; 2 Chr. viii. 13, xxxi. 3; 
 Neh. X. 33 ; Isaiah i. 13, 14. For each of 
 these occasions special sacrifices were appoint- 
 ed. The whole of them are therefore men- 
 tioned in the passage of the Law which pre- 
 scribes in detail the festival sacrifices, Num. 
 xxviii. xxix. and in no other single passage. 
 They are severally named, Num. xxviii. 3, 9, 
 II, 16, 26, xxix. I, 7, 12. 
 
 The weekly Sabbaths, and certain days in 
 the appointed times of annual obseiwance, 
 were distinguished as “days of holy convo- 
 cation.” To determine and to classify the 
 days of Holy Convocation, appears to be 
 the main object of this section (see <u. 2). It 
 certainly is not, as some have imagined, to be 
 regarded as “a calendar” of the Hebrew 
 worship. It contains no mention of the New 
 Moons (which were not days of Holy Convo- 
 cation), nor of the Morning and Evening ser- 
 vice spoken of in Num. xxviii. 
 
 The general word rendered “feasts” in our 
 version, -w. 2, 4, 37, &c., is moadim.^ which 
 signifies literally appointed times. The 
 three festivals, (often called the Great Festi- 
 vals), Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, to 
 which the name ebag.^ i. e. a feast or rejoicing., 
 properly belongs {yao. 6, 34, 39, 41), were 
 distinguished by the attendance of the male 
 Israelites at the national Sanctuary. Hence 
 they are enumerated with the formula, “Three 
 times in the year all thy males shall appear 
 before the Lord God,” Exod. xxiii, 17, xxxiv. 
 23; Deut. xvi. 16. In later times they 
 were called by the rabbins “pilgrimage feasts.” 
 It is worthy of note that the Hebrew word is 
 identical with the Arabic haj., the name of 
 the pilgrimage to Mecca, from which comes 
 the well-known word for a pilgrim, haji. 
 
V. 5—5-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXIII. 
 
 617 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, and say unto them, Concerning 
 the feasts of the Lord, which ye 
 shall proclaim to he holy convoca- 
 rtExod. 20. tions, even these are my feasts. 
 
 Seut 5 3 *^^7® shall work be done: 
 
 13-^^ but the seventh day is the sabbath 
 14^ of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall 
 
 do no v/ork therein: it is the sabbath 
 of the Lord in all your dwellings. 
 
 4 ^ These are the feasts of the 
 Lord, even holy convocations, which 
 ye shall proclaim in their seasons. 
 
 5 ^In the fourteenth day of the Exod. 12. 
 first month at even is the Lord’s Numb. 28. 
 passover. 
 
 Besides the order of the days of Holy Con- 
 vocation, we have in this section an account 
 of the peculiar offerings of grain which marked 
 the commencement and the termination of the 
 grain harvest, 'v-v. 9 — 21. Taking account of 
 this particular, along with the suspension of 
 labour commanded on the days of Holy Con- 
 vocation, this section sets forth for practical 
 guidance the relation in which the appointed 
 times of the Lord, weekly as well as annual, 
 stood to the ordinary occupations of the people. 
 
 II. There is no explanation given in the Law 
 of the meaning of the term “ holy convoca- 
 tion.” We can only determine what it denoted 
 by inference. The most probable conclusion 
 is that the days of Holy Convocation were 
 occasions for sabbatical rest for the whole^ 
 people, and that they owed their name to 
 gatherings for religious edification, which, 
 in later times, yvere probably held in every 
 town and village in the Holy Land. These 
 meetings might have been like those held 
 in the Synagogues which were established 
 after the Captivity. See Note on the Sabbath 
 day (Exod. xx.), § I. There were in the 
 course of the year, besides the weekly Sab- 
 baths, seven days of Holy Convocation, the 
 first and last days of the Feast of Unleavened 
 bread, the first day of the Feast of Taber- 
 nacles and the day following the Feast, the 
 day of Pentecost, the Day of Atonement, 
 and the Feast of Trumpets. Ex. xii. 16 ; Num. 
 xxviii. 18, 25> 26, xxix. i, 12, 35. There 
 was a distinction between them as regards 
 strictness of obsei-vance. On the weekly 
 Sabbath and on the Day of Atonement no 
 work of any kind was to be done (‘V‘v. 3, 
 28). But on the days of Holy Convocation 
 in the great festivals and on the Feast of 
 Trumpets, “servile work” only was pro- 
 hibited. See on “i;. 7. ‘ 
 
 It has been very generally supposed that a 
 Holy Convocation was a TTavT]yvpi^, a solemn 
 assembly of the people at the national Sanc- 
 tuary, according to the formula used in re- 
 ference to the three great festivals (Hupfeld, 
 Knobel, Kurtz, Davidson, &c.). But we 
 know that there was no central gathering of 
 the people of this kind either on the weekly 
 Sabbath, on the Day of Atonement, or at 
 the feast of Trumpets. It may be added that 
 the notion is obviously inconsistent with the 
 command in which the general attendances of 
 
 the people at the Sanctuary are limited to 
 three occasions in the year. Ex. xxiii. 17, &c.- 
 
 2. Co}7cerning the feasts^ &c.] The latter 
 part of this verse might rather be render- 
 ed : The appointed times of Jeho- 
 vah which ye shall proclaim as Holy 
 Convocations, these are my appointed 
 times. Cf. •v. 37. 
 
 3 . The Sabbath is in like manner placed 
 
 before the annual appointed times in Ex. 
 xxxiv. 21 — 23; Ex. xxiii. 12, 14; and 
 
 Num. xxtiii. 9 sq. The seventh day had 
 been consecrated as the Sabhath of Jeho- 
 vah, figuring His own rest ; it was the ac- 
 knowledged sign of the Covenant between 
 God and His people. See on Ex. xx. As 
 such it propel ly held its place at the head of 
 the days of Holy Convocation. 
 
 in all your d-xue lungs'] Most of the Jewish 
 writers explain this to mean, either in the Holy 
 Land or out of it. The expression may cer- 
 tainly be taken in its broadest sense. Cf. 
 uj. 14. 
 
 4. This verse might be rendered: These 
 appointed times of the Lord are Holy 
 Convocations v/hich ye shall pro- 
 claim at their appointed season : i.e. 
 as the year comes round. The recurrence 
 of the Sabbatical number in the annual days of 
 Holy Convocation — two at the Passover, two 
 at the feast of Tabernacles, with the day of 
 Pentecost, the feast of Trumpets, and the 
 Day of Atonement — should be noticed. 
 
 5—8. In these verses, the Passover, or 
 Paschal Supper, and the feast of Unleavened 
 Bread, are plainly spoken of as distinct feasts. 
 See Ex. xii. 6, 15, 17 ; Num. xxviii. 16, 17. 
 Joseph. ‘ Ant.’ iii. 10. § 5. The two days of 
 Holy Convocation strictly belonged to the lat- 
 ter. But the two names, in common usage, 
 became convertible. 
 
 5. the fourteenth day of the first month at 
 enjeri] According to the Hebrew mode of 
 reckoning the 15th day of the month began 
 on the evening of the 14th. The paschal 
 lamb was slain betxveen the txvo en^enings (see 
 on Ex. xii. 6), an interval of time in which the 
 two days seem to have been regarded as over- 
 lapping each other. The day of Holy Con- 
 vocation with which the feast of Unleavened 
 bread commenced fy. 7) was the 15th, and 
 
6i8 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXIII. 
 
 [v. 6— II. 
 
 6 And on the fifteenth day of 
 the same month is the feast of un- 
 leavened bread unto the Lord : 
 seven days ye must eat unleavened 
 bread. 
 
 7 In the first day ye shall have 
 an holy convocation : ye shall do no 
 servile work therein. 
 
 8 But ye shall offer an offering 
 made by fire unto the Lord seven 
 days : in the seventh day is an holy 
 convocation : ye shall do no servile 
 work therein. 
 
 9 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 10 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, and say unto them. When ye 
 be come into the land which I give 
 unto you, and shall reap the har- 
 vest thereof, then ye shall bring a 
 
 sheaf of the firstfruits of your bar- li or, 
 vest unto the priest : 
 
 1 1 And he shall wave the sheaf 
 before the Lord, to be accepted for 
 you : on the morrow after the sab- 
 bath the priest shall wave it. 
 
 that with which it terminated was the 21st. 
 Cf. Num. xxviii. 16, 17. 
 
 6. feast] Heb. chag. See prel. Note. 
 
 imlea'vened bread] See on Ex. xii. 15. 
 
 7 . 710 serdde ^joork] Literally, no work of 
 labour, no work that belongs to onels worldly 
 calling, such as labour in agriculture or handi- 
 craft. A licence was permitted for the pre- 
 paration of food, which is fully expressed in 
 Ex. xii. 16. This licence was not granted on 
 the weekly Sabbath, or on the Day of Atone- 
 ment. On them it was not lawful to do 
 work of any sort, not even to kindle a fire. 
 Ex. XX. 10, XXXV. 3 ; Lev. xxiii. 28, 30. For 
 all the details of the Passover, see Notes on 
 Ex. xii. xiii. 
 
 8. ayi offering made by fre] The sacri- 
 fices here meant are the two young bullocks, 
 the ram and the seven sheep, with their Meat- 
 ofierings, and the goat for a Sin-offering, which 
 were offered on each of the seven days of the , 
 feast. Num. xxviii. 19 — 24. See on -v. 20 of 
 this chap. As there is no mention made of 
 these offerings in Exodus, it has been inferred 
 that they formed a departure from the original 
 simplicity of the primitive feast as described in 
 Ex. xxiii., &c. (Hupfeld, Davidson). But it 
 is in accordance with analogy to suppose that 
 sacrifices may have been offered, according to 
 usage, on each day of the feast before specific 
 directions for them were actually written in 
 the Law. 
 
 9 — 22. These verses contain a distinct 
 command regarding the religious services im- 
 mediately connected with the grain harvest, 
 given by anticipation against the time when 
 the people were to possess the Promised Land. 
 
 The First Sheaf of the Harvest. 9 — 14. 
 
 I'liis is the only place in the Law in which 
 the offering of the First Sheaf is mentioned. 
 But in Josh, v, ii there is a reference to the 
 prohibition connected with it which is pre- 
 scribed in 2;. 14. 
 
 10. sheaf] The original word, omer., 
 means either a sheaf (Deut. xxiv. 19; Ruth 
 
 ii. 7, 15, &c.), or a measure, the “tenth deal” 
 of an Ephah, being something more than four 
 fifths of a gallon (Ex. xvi. 16, 18, 36; Lev. 
 xix. 35, 36). Our version is probably right 
 in this place. So LXX., Philo (‘de Sept.’ 
 20), Vulg., Luther, Gesenius, Fiirst, de 
 Wette, &c. The offering which was waved 
 was most likely a small sheaf of barley, the 
 grain which is first ripe. The first fruits of 
 the wheat harvest were offered seven weeks 
 later in the Loaves of Pentecost. See w. 15 — 
 17. The two offerings thus figure the very 
 commiencement and the completion of the 
 grain harvest; cf. Ruth i. 22, ii. 23. But 
 Josephus, the Mishna, wit 4 i the Rabbi- 
 nists and most of the recent Jewish trans- 
 lators, take the offering to have been not a 
 sheaf, but a measure of the freshly ground 
 barley meal. Josephus and the Mishna de- 
 scribe it as a regular Meat-offering with its 
 oil and its frankincense offered in the usual 
 way. Jos. ‘Ant.’ iii. 10, § 5; Mishna, ‘Me- 
 nach.’ X. 2—6; Buxtorf, ‘Lex. Ghald.’ p. 
 1628. If the grain was ground, or mixed 
 with oil and frankincense, and if a handful 
 was offered on the Altar (as Josephus says), 
 it seems unaccountable that nothing of the 
 kind is hinted at in this place, while the Loaves 
 of Pentecost are fully described in v. 17. 
 
 11 . <wave the sheaf] See Introd. § iv. 
 
 to be accepted for you] See on i. 3. 
 
 on the morroojo after the sabbath] It is most 
 probable that these words denote the 1 6th of 
 Abib, the day after the first day of Holy 
 Convocation (see on w. 5 — 8), and that this 
 was called the Sabbath of the Passover., or, 
 the Sabbatb of Unleavened bread. The word 
 Sabbath is similarly applied to the Day of 
 Atonement in v. 32. That the day on which 
 the Sheaf was offered was the i6th of the 
 month, and the “Sabbath” here spoken of 
 was the 15th, 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 tliat the cutting of the Sheaf 
 
V. 12 16.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXIII. 
 
 619 
 
 12 And ye shall offer that day 
 when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb 
 without blemish of the first year for 
 a burnt offering unto the Lord. 
 
 13 And the meat offering there- 
 of shall be two tenth deals of fine 
 flour mingled with oil, an offering 
 made by fire unto the Lord for a 
 sweet savour : and the drink offering 
 thereof shall be of wine, the fourth 
 part of an hin. 
 
 14 And ye shall eat neither bread. 
 
 nor parched corn, nor green ears, 
 until the selfsame day that ye have 
 brought an offering unto your God: 
 it shall be a statute for ever through- 
 out your generations in all your dwell- 
 ings. 
 
 15 ^ And ‘^ye shall count unto you ^Deut. 
 from the morrow after the sabbath, 
 from the day that ye brought the 
 sheaf of the wave offering ; seven 
 sabbaths shall be complete : 
 
 16 Even unto the morrow after 
 
 formed a part of the ceremony ; and, as the 
 formal commencement of the practical work 
 of harvest (cf. Deut. xvi. 9), it was less suit- 
 able for the day of Holy Convocation than 
 for the first of the days of less solemn ob- 
 servance, on which, according to Jewish tra- 
 dition, 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 *1^. 15 ; see 
 note. They therefore held that the day here 
 spoken of was the weekly Sabbath which hap- 
 pened to fall within the week of the Passover, 
 See Mishna, ‘Menach.’ x. 3, with Maimonides’ 
 note; Lightfoot on Luke vi. 6. — It has been 
 imagined in recent times that the commence- 
 ment of the year and the time of the feast 
 were so arranged that the day of the Paschal 
 supper, the 14th of Abib, and the last day 
 of the feast, the 21st, 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’conclusion of the feast (Hitzig, Hupfeld), 
 or on the 15th, 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. — Wogue suggests that the 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. — The subject 
 of this note derives interest from its probable 
 connection with Luke vi. i. See note in loc. 
 
 12 — 13 . These offerings, which expressly 
 belonged to the ceremony of the First sheaf, 
 are not mentioned in Num. xxviii. See on 
 njv. 8 and 20. 
 
 13 . /Tuo tenth deals'] Two omers, or tenth 
 parts of an ephah, about a gallon and three 
 quarters. See on xix. 36. The usual Meat- 
 offering to accompany a sheep was a single 
 omer. Ex. xxix. 40 ; Num. xv. 4, xxviii. 
 19 — 21. A greater liberality in this respect 
 was appropriate in a harvest feast. 
 
 an offering made by fire] Rather, a sacri- 
 fice. The offering was made in the same 
 way as the private Meat-offering of fine flour 
 (Lev. ii. i), a handful being thrown on the 
 Altar and the remainder given to the priests. 
 
 drink offering] This and 'un). 18, 37 are 
 the only places in the book of Leviticus in 
 which Drink-offerings are mentioned. See 
 Gen. XXXV. 14 ; Dxod. xxix. 40; Introd. § x, 
 
 1 4 . bread . . .parched corn . . .green ears] T hese 
 are the three forms in which grain was com- 
 monly eaten. We find from Josh. v. ii, that 
 this direction was observed at Gilgal in 
 the first .celebration of the Passover after 
 the entrance into the Holy Land. On the 
 proper rendering of that verse, see note. The 
 offering before Jehovah of the Sheaf marked 
 the first month of which the old name Abib 
 signified “the month of green ears,” The 
 produce of the land for the year was conse- 
 crated to Jehovah by this act, and it was now 
 given back to His people for their free use. 
 
 The Day of Pentecost 15 — 22. 
 
 The accustomed introductory formula (see 
 'u'v. I, 9) is not repeated for Pentecost owing 
 to the close connection between Pentecost and 
 the offering of the Sheaf. The latter, though 
 it was connected by the time of its observance 
 with the Passover, was more intimately re- 
 lated in its nature to Pentecost. The meanings 
 of the Sheaf and of the Wave loaves were 
 concentrated in the period of the grain harvest. 
 
 15 . the morromj after the sabbath] See on 
 
 •V. II. 
 
 sensen sabbaths] More properly, seven 
 ■weeks. The sense answers to Deut. xvi. 9. The 
 term in its plural form rendered “complete” 
 could hardly be predicated of Sabbath-days in 
 the computation of a series of weeks. The 
 word Sabbath, in the language of the New 
 
620 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXIIL 
 
 [v. 17 20. 
 
 the seventh sabbath shall ye number 
 fifty days ; and ye shall ofier a new 
 meat o&ring unto the LoPvD. 
 
 17 Ye shall bring out of your ha- 
 bitations two wave loaves of two 
 tenth deals : they shall be of fine 
 flour ; they shall be baken with leaven ; 
 they are the firstfruits unto the Lord. 
 
 18 And ye shall offer with the 
 bread seven lambs without blemish 
 of the first year, and one young bul- 
 lock, and two rams : they shall be 
 for a burnt offering unto the Lord, 
 
 with their meat offering, and their 
 drink offerings, even an offering made 
 by fire, of sweet savour unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 19 Then ye shall sacrifice one kid 
 of the goats for a sin offering, and 
 tv/o lambs of the first year for a 
 sacrifice of peace offerings. 
 
 20 And the priest shall wave them 
 with the bread of the firstfruits for 
 a wave offering before the Lord, 
 with the two lambs : they shall be 
 holy to the Lord for the priest. 
 
 Testament as well as the Old, is used, by a 
 simple metonymy, for ^joeek (Lev. xxv. 8 ; 
 Matt, xxviii. i ; Luke xviii. iz, &c.). 
 
 16 . seventh sabbat/j] seventh week. The 
 morrow after the seventh week was of course 
 the fiftieth day after the conclusion of a week 
 of weeks. It may be observed that the day 
 has no proper name given to it in this chapter 
 of Leviticus. It is only spoken of as a day of 
 Holy Convocation for the offering of the two 
 Loaves with their accompanying sacrifices. The 
 word “Pentecost” used in the heading of the 
 chapter is found only in the Apocrypha and the 
 New Testament, Tobit ii. i 7 z ?dacc. xii. 3Z; 
 Acts ii. I, XX. 16 ; i Cor. xvi. 8. The day is 
 called in the Old Testament, “the feast of 
 harvest” (Ex. xxiii. 16), “the feast of 
 weeks,” “ the feast of the first fruits of wheat 
 harvest” (Ex. xxxiv. zz ; Deut. xvi. 10), 
 and “the day of the first fruits” (Num. xxviii. 
 26). It was commonly called by the Jews in 
 later times, ’'atxereth^ a word which will be 
 explained in the note on v. 34. 
 
 17 . out of your habitations tvuo n.vave loaves, 
 &c.] These were loaves of leavened house- 
 hold bread, of wheat flour (Exod. xxxiv. zz), 
 such as were commonly eaten. The word 
 translated “habitations” does not, however, 
 strictly mean houses, but places of abode in a 
 general sense. It seems here to denote the 
 land in which the Israelites were to dwell so 
 as to express that the flour was to be of home 
 growth. But Calvin and a Lapide supposed 
 that each householder had to bring to the 
 Sanctuary two loaves. The Vulgate rather 
 favours this view, rendering the passage, 
 “Ex omnibus habitaculis vestris.” The 
 Hebrew will, however, hardly bear such an 
 interpretation, which is improbable in the 
 nature of things : it is most unlikely that 
 such a mass of leavened bread should have 
 been j)resented to the priests at once. Each 
 loaf was to contain a “tenth deal” (probably 
 four-fifths of a gallon) of fine flour. The two 
 Loaves were to be merely waved before Jeho- 
 vah and then to become the property of the 
 
 priests. Introd. § ix. No bread containing lea- 
 ven could be offered on the Altar, Lev. ii. ii. 
 The object of this offering seems to have 
 been to present to the Lord the best produce 
 of the earth in the actual condition in which 
 it is most useful for the support of human 
 life. It thus represented in the fittest manner 
 the thanksgiving which was proper for the 
 season. The Loaves appear to be distinctively 
 called “ the first fruits for Jekovah.” Com- 
 pare the language used in reference to the First 
 sheaf in v. 10. The references to First fruits 
 in the New Testament, Rom. xi. 16 ; i Cor. 
 XV. zo, Z3 ; James i. 18; Rev. xiv. 4, &c., 
 would seem to be most aptly applied to the 
 Loaves of Pentecost. As these Loaves offered 
 before Jehovah sanctified the harvest of the 
 year, so has “ Christ the first fruits ” sancti- 
 fied the Church, which, in its union with Him 
 as the First fruits, becomes also the Sanctifier 
 of the world. See the services for Whitsun- 
 tide, The references in the margin of the 
 more recent editions of our Bible to v. 1 1 of 
 this chapter, would seem to belong more 
 strictly to the words first fruits for Jeho- 
 vah in this 17th verse. 
 
 18 . seven lambs.., of the first year^ More 
 properly, seven sheep of a year old, not 
 like the lamb in v. iz. Introd. § iv. 
 
 young bullocli] a young hull, it might 
 be from one to three years old. Introd. § iv. 
 
 their meat offering, and their drink offerings']^ 
 Introd. § X. 
 
 19 . one kid of the goats] Properly, a 
 shaggy he-goat. See on iv. 23. 
 
 tvjo lambs of the first year] two sheep 
 of a year old. 
 
 20. The meaning appears to be, “The 
 priest shall wave the two sheep (of the 
 Peace-offering) with the bread of the First 
 fruits (the two Pentecostal loaves) for a wave- 
 offering to Jehovah.” — When living creatures 
 were voaved before Jehovah, it is said that 
 they were led to and fro before the Taber- 
 nacle according to an established form, 
 Introd. § ix. 
 
V. 21 24-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXIII. 
 
 21 And ye shall proclaim on the 
 selfsame day, that it may be an holy 
 convocation unto you : ye shall do 
 no servile work therein : it shall be 
 a statute for ever in all your dwell- 
 ings throughout your generations, 
 rfcnap. 19. 22 ^ And '^when ye reap the har- 
 
 9 - vest of your land, thou shalt not 
 
 make clean riddance of the corners 
 jDeut. 24. of thy field when thou reapest, ^nei- 
 ther shalt thou gather any gleaning 
 
 621 
 
 ■V 
 
 of thy harvest : thou shalt leave them 
 unto the poor, and to the stranger : I 
 a 7 n the Lord your God. 
 
 23 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 24 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, saying. In the seventh month, /Numb, 
 in the first day of the month, shall 
 
 ye have a sabbath, a memorial of 
 blowing of trumpets, an holy convo- 
 cation. 
 
 The victims prescribed in 18, 19 to be 
 offered “vrith the bread,” differ from those 
 which are prescribed for “ the day of the first- 
 fruits” in Num. xxviii. a6, 27. In the latter 
 statement, there are two young bulls and one 
 ram, instead of the one young bull and the 
 two rams here mentioned. The seven young 
 sheep and the one goat are the same in each 
 place. If (with Biihr, Winer, Ewald, Kno- 
 bel) we suppose the statements to relate to the 
 same set of sacrifices, there is ah inexplicable 
 discrepancy. But most of the Jewish autho- 
 rities, and many others, consider that the 
 oflerings in Num. were to be offered - in ad- 
 dition to those here mentioned. (Mishna, 
 
 ‘ Menach.’ iv. 3 ; Josephus, Kurtz, Keil, 
 &c.) This seems to be confirmed by a com- 
 parison of the forms of expression used in 
 n). 18 and in Num. xxviii. 19; and still more 
 by the statement of the offerings to accom- 
 pany the special rites of the Day of Atone- 
 ment, Lev. xvi, II — 25, compared with the 
 offerings of the Day itself, which are distinctly 
 connected with the Daily sacrifice, Num. xxix. 
 II. It would indeed seem that the sacrifices 
 prescribed in Num. xxviii. xxix. were offered 
 as additions to the continual Burnt-offering, 
 while all those mentioned in this chapter ac- 
 companied the rites peculiar to each festival, 
 and formed more strictly essential parts of 
 them. 
 
 21. the selfsame day\ The feast of Weeks 
 was distinguished from the two other great 
 annual feasts by its consisting, according to 
 the Law, of only a single day. But in later 
 times it is said that during the follovvung six 
 days the Israelites used to ‘bring their offer- 
 ings to the Temple, and to give the week 
 something of a festal character in the suspen- 
 sion of mourning for the dead. Mishna, 
 ‘ Moed Katan,’ iii. 6, with the notes. 
 
 22. The repetition of the Law given in 
 xix. 9, 10, and reiterated Deut. xxiv. 19, is 
 appropriately connected, as far as grain is 
 concerned, with the thanksgiving for the com- 
 pleted grain harvest. In like manner, the 
 laws regarding the oppression of the poor 
 gi/en in Lev. xix. and in Lx. xxii. are repeated 
 
 VOL. 1 . 
 
 in connection with the J ubilee in chapter xxv. 
 14—17, 35 , 36, &c. 
 
 poor'\ i.e. the poor Israelite. 
 
 stranger'\ foreigner. See xvi. 29. — Cf. 
 Deut. xvi. 10 — 12. 
 
 1 am the Lord your God] See on xviii. 2. 
 
 The Feast of Trumpets. 23 — 25. 
 
 24 . a sabbath] This feast was one of the 
 days of Holy Convocation of ordinary obser- 
 vance. See on 'w. 7, ii. The word in this 
 verse, and also in nj. 39, is shabbathon.^ net 
 shahhdth,\he'^XQ)^^x Hebrew form of “sabbath.” 
 The same word is used in the phrase skahbdth 
 shabbdthon., which is rightly rendered “sabbath 
 of rest” n). 32, xvi. 31, xxv. 4; Lx. xxxi. 15, 
 XXXV. 2. Shabbathon., by itself, as in this place, 
 should rather be rendered a. sabbatical 
 rest. — In this verse and in Num. xxix. i, 
 the only places in the Old Testament where 
 the festival is named, the word rendered 
 “blowing of trumpets,” means literally shout- 
 ing. There is no mention of trumpets in the 
 Hebrew text of the Law in connection with 
 the day. We know from Num. x. 10, that the 
 silver trumpets of the Sanctuary were blown 
 at all the festivals, including the New moons, 
 and, as a matter of course, on this occasion, 
 which was the chief festival of the New moon. 
 There is however no reason to doubt the 
 tradition that the day was distinguished by a 
 general blowing of trumpets throughout the 
 land, and that the kind of trumpet generally 
 used for the purpose was the shophdr (which 
 it seems mught have been either the horn of an 
 animal or a cornet of metal), such as was 
 used at Sinai (Lx. xix. 16), and on the Day of 
 Jubilee. See on xxv. 9. It must have differ- 
 ed in this respect from the ordinary festival of 
 the New moon when the long straight trumpet 
 of the temple alone was blown. See on Num. 
 X. 2 ; Lx. xxv. 23. In the modern service of 
 the Synagog.ue, Psalm Ixxxi. is used at the 
 feast of Trumpets. It is however doubted by 
 Gesenius and others whether that Psalm does 
 not more properly belong to one of the feasts 
 celebrated at the Full moon, either the Pass- 
 over or the feast of Tabernacles, the word 
 
 R R 
 
1522 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXIII. 
 
 [v. 25—35. 
 
 25 Ye shall do no servile work 
 therein : but ye shall offer an offering 
 made by fire unto the Lord. 
 
 26 4 And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 ^■chap. 16. 27 <^Also on the tenth day of this 
 
 Numb. 29. seventh month there shall be a day 
 7- of atonement : it shall be an holy 
 
 convocation unto you ; and ye shall 
 afflict your souls, and offer a'n offer- 
 ing made by fire unto the Lord. 
 
 28 And ye shall do no work in that 
 same day : for it is a day of atone- 
 ment, to make an atonement for you 
 before the Lord your God. 
 
 29 For whatsoever soul it be that 
 shall not be afflicted in that same 
 day, he shall be cut off from among 
 his people. 
 
 30 And whatsoever soul it be that 
 
 doeth any work in that same day, 
 the same soul will I destroy from 
 among his people. 
 
 31 Ye shall do no manner of 
 work : it shall be a statute for ever 
 throughout your generations in all 
 your dwellings. 
 
 32 It shall be unto you a sabbath of 
 rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: 
 in the ninth day of the month at 
 even, from even unto even, shall ye 
 ^ celebrate your sabbath. 
 
 33 ^ And the Lord spake unto"^^^' 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 34 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, saying, '^^Xhe fifteenth day of Numb, 
 this seventh month shall be the feast john^7. 37. 
 of tabernacles for seven days unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 35 On the first day shall be an 
 
 rendered “new moon” in 'v. 3 being of doubt- 
 ful meaning. See note in loc. 
 
 seventh month'\ The festival was obseiwed 
 on the first day of the Seventh month, called 
 by the Jews in later times Tisri, but in the 
 Old Testament Ethanim, i K.viii.-2. Accord- 
 ing to the uniform voice of tradition it was 
 the first day of the Civil year (see Note at the 
 end of chap.) in use before the Exodus, and 
 was obser\'ed as the festival of the New year. 
 Philo, ‘de Sept.’ 19; Mishna, ‘ Rosh Hash.’ 
 I. I. The general opinion of the Rabbinists 
 has been that it was a commemoration of the 
 creation of the world (see Buxt. ‘ Lex. Talm.’ 
 2667), when “all the sons of God shouted 
 for joy.” Job xxxviii. 7. But Philo, with 
 some others, Jews as well as Christians, re- 
 garded this day, rather than the day of Pen- 
 tecost (see Note at the end of chap.), as the 
 anniversary of the giving of the Law. Philo, 
 ‘de Sept.’ 2Z. Theodoret, ‘Quiest. in Lev.’ 32. 
 
 The Day of Atonement. 26 — 32. 
 
 27 . The tenth of Tisri, that is from the 
 evening of the ninth day of the month to that 
 of the tenth (yv. 32), was ordained to be the 
 great Day of Atonement which was to be, like 
 the Sabbath, a day of Holy Convocation of 
 strictest observance, in which no sort of work 
 was to be done. On the peculiar rites of 
 the Day, see ch. xvi. 
 
 Also] The Hebrew word is not merely 
 copulative, but emphatic. It might rather be 
 rendered, Surely. 
 
 afflict your souls] See on xvi. 29. 
 an offering made by fire] i. e. the whole of 
 the appointed sacrifices. 
 
 31 . in all your dwellings] See on -u. 14; 
 also iii. 17. 
 
 32 . sabbath of rest] See on 2;. 24. 
 
 celebrate] The marginal rendering is more 
 
 correct. 
 
 The Feast of Tabernacles . 33 — 36. 
 
 34 . seven days] Like the Passover, the feast 
 of Tabernacles commenced at the Full moon, 
 on the fifteenth of the month, and lasted for 
 seven days. The first day only was a day of 
 Holy Convocation. But the week of the feast 
 was' followed by an eighth day. forming 
 strictly no part of it {y. 36, Num. xxix. 35; 
 Neh. viii. 18), which was a day of Holy Con- 
 vocation, and appears to have been generally 
 distinguished by the name ^^atzeretld in our 
 version, “ solemn assembly,” v. 36. See Num. 
 xxix. 35 ? 2 Chron. vii. 9; Neh. viii. 18. The 
 same word is applied to the last day of 
 the Passover, Dent. xvi. 8, and to a religious 
 assembly in a general sense, 2 Kings x. 20 ; 
 Is. i. 13 ; Jer. ix. 2 ; Joel i. 14. The Jews 
 in later times so called the day of Pentecost; 
 see on v. 16. There is a difference of opinion 
 as to the meaning of the word. From its 
 derivation it appears strictly to denote a closing 
 festival, and this rendering has the authority 
 of the Septuagint, Buxtorf, Fiirst, Wogue 
 and others. The term in this sense might of 
 course be applied with propriety to the last 
 day of the Passover, as in Dent. xvi. 8, with 
 still more fulness of meaning to the day of 
 Pentecost as the close of the Pentecostal 
 season, but with the most perfect fitness to 
 the day after the week of the feast of Taber- 
 nacles, as the conclusion of the series of yearly 
 festivals. Philo, ‘ de Sept.’ 24 ; Theodoret, 
 
LEVITICUS. XXIII. 
 
 V. 36— 40.] 
 
 holy convocation : ye shall do no 
 servile work therein, 
 
 36 Seven days ye shall offer an of- 
 fering made by fire unto the Lord : 
 on* the eighth day shall be an holy 
 convocation unto you; and ye shall 
 offer an offering made by fire unto 
 
 tHeb. the Lord: it is a Tolemn assem- 
 Uy; and ye shall do no servile work 
 therein. 
 
 37 These are the feasts of the 
 Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be 
 holy convocations, to offer an offer- 
 ing made by lire unto the Lord, a 
 burnt offering, and a meat offering, a 
 sacrifice, and drink offerings, every 
 thing upon his day : 
 
 38 Beside the sabbaths of the 
 
 Lord, and beside your gifts, and 
 beside all your vows, and beside all 
 your freewill offerings, which ye give 
 unto the Lord. 
 
 39 Also in the fifteenth day of the 
 seventh month, when ye have ga- 
 thered in the fruit of the land, ye 
 shall keep a feast unto the Lord 
 seven days: on the first day shall 
 be a sabbath, and on the eighth day 
 shall be a sabbath. 
 
 40 And ye shall take you on the 
 first day the ^ boughs of goodly trees, t Heb 
 branches of palm trees, and the*^"*"'^' 
 boughs of thick trees, and willows 
 
 of the brook; and ye shall rejoice 
 before the Lord your God seven 
 days. 
 
 ‘ Quasst. in Lev.’ 32. We are not told that 
 the "'at'zereth was one of the days of Holy 
 Convocation of strict observance ; servile 
 work only appears to have been prohibited. 
 This seems to furnish an objection to our 
 marginal rendering “ day of restraint,” (which 
 has the support of Rosenmuller and Herx- 
 heimer). The rendering in the text “ solemn 
 assembly,” agrees with Onk., the Vulg., 
 Gesenius and de Wette. In the Law the 
 word appears always to hold its specific 
 meaning. In its general application to solemn 
 assemblies it is only found in the later Scrip- 
 tures. Whether the "'atz.ereth was “that great 
 day of the feast” mentioned John vii. 37, 
 see note in loc. 
 
 36 . • an offering made by Jii'e"] See 8. 
 The succession of sacrifices prescribed in 
 Num. xxix. 12 — 38 (see on ‘v. 20), which 
 forms such a marked feature in the feast of 
 Tabernacles, tends to show the distinctness of 
 the ^atzeretb from the festal week. On each 
 of the eight days, including the ^at%ereth^ a 
 shaggy he-goat was offered for a Sin-offering. 
 But on each of the seven days of the festival 
 itself the Burnt-offering consisted of two 
 rams, fourteen lambs of a year old, with a 
 number of young bulls, beginning with thir- 
 teen on the first day, but diminishing by one 
 on each successive day till, on the seventh, 
 the number was reduced to seven. The whole 
 number of bulls sacrificed during the week 
 thus amounted to seventy. But on the '‘at- 
 zereth the Burnt-offering consisted of only 
 one bull, one ram and seven lambs. The 
 other particulars relating to the feast of 
 Tabernacles will come under our notice in 
 the notes on 'w. 39 sq. 
 
 37 , 38 . The meaning appears to be; these 
 are the yearly appointed times on 'which ye shall 
 
 hold Holy Con'vocations and offer to Jehovah 
 'sacrifices^ in addition to the Sabbath offerings 
 (Num. xxviii. 9, 10) and to all your voluntary 
 offerings. Cf. Num. xxix. 39. 
 
 Further Instruction's regarding the 
 Feast of Tabernacles. 39 — 43. 
 
 39 . Also'\ Rather, Surely. See on v. 27. 
 The mode in which the feast of Tabernacles 
 is here reintroduced, after the mention of it 
 in vy. 34 — 36, may suggest that this passage 
 originally formed a distinct document. The 
 feast is evidently spoken of as if it had not 
 been mentioned before. If we admit this, 
 the connection of the subject-matter seems to 
 be quite clear. The passage serves as a supple- 
 ment to the previous notice of the feast, and 
 shows the place which it held in reference to 
 the yearly cycle. 
 
 when ye have gathered in\ wlien ye gather 
 in. See on Ex. xxiii. 16. 
 
 the fruit of the land^ i.e. the produce, in- 
 cluding the grain, the olives, the vintage and 
 the fruits of all kinds. The time of year so 
 indicated would answer in the Holy Land to 
 the beginning of October. 
 
 a feast] Heb. chag. See Preliminary note. 
 a sabbath] In each place, the Hebrew is 
 shabbdthon^ a sabbatical rest. See on 
 ' v . 24. 
 
 40 . It is doubtful what were “the boughs 
 of goodly trees” and “the boughs of thick 
 trees.” In the first term, the marginal ren- 
 dering fruit is certainly better than boughs. 
 The_word rendered “goodly trees” (Heb. 
 haddr) is so understood, in a generic sense, by 
 the LXX., Vulg., Gesenius, Fiirst, de Wette, 
 Knobel. But Josephus (‘ Ant’ xiii. 13. § 5), 
 the Targums and the Rabbinists in general, 
 treat the word as denoting specifically the 
 
 RR 2 
 
624 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXIII. 
 
 [v. 41—44. 
 
 41 And ye shall keep it a feast 
 unto the Lord seven days in the 
 year. It shall be a statute for ever 
 in your generations: ye shall cele- 
 brate it in the seventh month. 
 
 42 Ye shall dwell in booths seven 
 days ; all that are Israelites born shall 
 dwell in booths: 
 
 43 That your generations may 
 know that I made the children of 
 Israel to dwell in booths, when I 
 brought them out of the land of 
 Egypt: I am the Lord yoyr God.^ 
 
 44 And Moses declared unto the 
 children of Israel the feasts of the 
 Lord. 
 
 Citron, while most of the recent Jewish trans- 
 lators, and Josephus himself in another place, 
 ‘Ant.’ III. 10. § 4, retain the original word. 
 In the second tenm (Heb. ’’aboth) the render- 
 ing “thick trees” Ini'S* the support of the 
 LXX., Vulg., Gesenius, de Wette, Fiirst, 
 Knobel, and is favoured by the etymology of 
 Viboth^ according to which it would signify a 
 kind, or kinds, of trees with thick, or 
 pleached, foliage. The Targums, and those 
 who have followed them, must evidently be 
 wrong in taking it for the myrtle, since the 
 myrtle is distinctly named along with these 
 same “thick trees” in Neh. viii, 15, The 
 modern Jews generally retain the original 
 word without explanation, as they do hadar. 
 There is a well-supported tradition which 
 throws some light on the subject, though it 
 leaves the “thick trees” in uncertainty. It 
 is said that every Israelite at the feast of 
 Tabernacles carried in one hand a bundle of 
 branches (called, in rabbinical Hebrew, luldh)^ 
 and in the other a citron. The lulab would 
 seem to have comprised the boughs of palm- 
 trees, ‘‘thick trees,” and willows here named, 
 while the fruit of the hcidcir must have been 
 the citron. Jos. ‘ Ant.’ ill. 10. § 4, xiii. 13. 
 15; 2 Macc. X. 6, 7; Mishna, ‘ Succah,’ cap. 
 HI. The boughs mentioned by Nehemiah, of 
 the olive, the pine (rather the wild olive), the 
 myrtle, the palm and the "‘aboth^ appear to 
 have been used for covering the huts in which 
 the Israelites lived during the festival. See on 
 'V. 42 ; Neh. viii. 15, 16. 
 
 42 . Te shall Iivell in booths seven days'] 
 
 NOTES on 
 
 I. On the Pentecost, w . 15 — 22. 
 
 The other chief passages in the Law re- 
 lating to the feast of Weeks are Ex. xxiii. 
 16; Num. xxviii. 26 — -31; Deut. xvi. 9 — 12. 
 But here only is the offering of the Pente- 
 costal loaves mentioned, unless it is they which 
 are designated “ the first of the firstfruits,” 
 Ex. xxiii. 19 (see note); and “the firstfruits,” 
 Ex. xxxiv. 26. 
 
 'Phe true connection between the offering of 
 the First Sheaf and the Passover may perhaps 
 be traced in Josh. v. 10 — 12. The Passover 
 was the great natitjnal commemoration of the 
 deliverance from Egypt which was to lead on 
 to the settlement of the Israelites in the Pro- 
 
 The word rendered “booth” (Heb. sukkdh') 
 denotes a shed such as is used for cattle (Gen. 
 xxxiii. 17), a mean dwelling (Is. i. 8; Job 
 xxvii. 18), a bower of branches, as in this 
 place (Job xxxviii. 40 ; Jonah iv. 5), or the 
 huts of soldiers (2 S. xi. ii ; i K. xx. 12, 16). 
 According to Jewish tradition, what were used 
 at the feast of Tabernacles were strictly taber- 
 nacula^ structures of boards, with a covering 
 of boughs. Such stnictures are now erected 
 at this festival by the Jews in some parts cf 
 Europe. Certain conditions for their con- 
 struction are laid down in the Mishna, but 
 their forms might vary considerably. ‘ Suc- 
 cah,’ I. II. ; Stauben, ‘ La Vie Juive en Al- 
 sace,’ p. 170. It should be noticed that the 
 huts were inhabited only during the seven 
 days of the festival, not on the 'atzereih. In 
 later times it appears they were set up in 
 such parts of Jerusalem as afforded conve- 
 nient space for them. Neh. viii. 16. See Note 
 at the end of the Chapter. 
 
 all that are Israelites born] The omission 
 of the foreigners in this command is remark- 
 able. Perhaps the intention was that on this 
 joyous occasion they were to be hospitably 
 entertained as guests. Cf. Deut. xvi. 14. 
 
 43 . that I made the children of Israel to 
 dwell in booths^ when I brought them out of the 
 land of Egypt] See Note at the end of the 
 Chapter. 
 
 44. feasts] appointed times. See on 
 V. 2. This verse is a conclusion to the whole 
 chapter. See Prel. Note. 
 
 Chap, xxiii. 
 
 mised Land as its crowning result. The first 
 offering of the Sheaf seems to be implied in 
 the narration of what occurred at Gilgal, 
 when the people ate of the “ corn of the land 
 on the morrow after the Passover.” See on 
 2;. 14. From this time, the complete festi- 
 val, including the Paschal Lamb, the Un- 
 leavened Bread, and the First Sheaf, was to 
 remind them how they had been set free 
 and preserved in the Wilderness until they 
 could cat of the produce of the Land which 
 Jehovah had given to them. But the con- 
 nection between the First Sheaf and the 
 feast of Weeks, as marking the beginning and 
 the end of the grain harvest, is of a more 
 obvious kind. The two observances sancti- 
 
LEVITICUS. XXIIL 
 
 Red the interval between them, the whole 
 period of harvest, “the Pentecostal season.” 
 Jewish tradition has preserved some curious 
 traces of the general recognition of this by 
 the Hebrew race. Buxtorf, ‘Syn. Jud.’ p. 
 440 ; Stauben, ‘ Vie Juive en Alsace,’ p. 124 ; 
 Mills, ‘The Modern Jews,’ p. 207. Philo 
 calls the otFering of the First Sheaf “ the pre- 
 lude to a greater festival,” i.e. Pentecost. 
 The Rabbinists called the Day of Pentecost 
 ''atzereth (see on nj. 35), as the last day of 
 Holy Convocation of the Pentecostal season. 
 Mishna, ‘ Rosh Hash.’ i. 2 ; ‘ Chag,’ ii. 
 45 Joseph. ‘Ant.’ III. 10, § 6. The two 
 loaves of the Day of Pentecost bore to the 
 people the same message regarding Jehovah 
 as the words of the Psalmist, “ He maketh 
 peace in thy borders. He filleth thee with the 
 finest of the wheat,” Ps. cxlvii. 14. Theo- 
 doret speaks of Pentecost as a memorial of 
 the promise of the possession of the Holy 
 Land. ‘ Quaest. in Lev.’ 32. 
 
 The tradition that the feast of Weeks was 
 intended to commemorate the giving of the 
 Law on Mount Sinai appears first in the 
 Fathers of the fourth century. When it had 
 been inferred from Ex. xix. that the day must 
 have nearly coincided with the fiftieth day 
 after the Exodus, the day on which the gift 
 of the Law marked Israel as an organized 
 nation might have been easily connected with 
 the day on which the gift of the Holy Spirit 
 united the believers in Jesus of Nazareth into 
 a Church. S. Jerom. Ep. ad Fabiolam M. 
 XII. ; S. Aug. ‘ Contr. Faust.’ xxxii. 12. It is, 
 however, most probable that a Jewish tradi- 
 tion to the same effect existed before the fourth 
 century. The general acceptance of the no- 
 tion by the Jews of later ages (Maimon. ‘ More 
 Nev.’iii. 41 ; Buxt.‘Syn. Jud.’ p. 438; Schoett- 
 gen, ‘ Hor. Heb.’ Act. Ii. i) cannot easily be 
 reconciled with the supposition that it origi- 
 nated with the Fathers of the Church. 
 
 We ipay perhaps be allowed to conjecture 
 that it was because the day of Pentecost was 
 regarded as, in a sense, the birth-day of the 
 Church, that St Paul was so careful to keep 
 it after his conversion. Acts xx. 16; i Cor. 
 xvi. 8. The entire Pentecostal season, the 
 period between Easter and Whitsuntide, be- 
 came in an early age the ordinary time for the 
 baptism of converts (Hessey, ‘Bampton Lec- 
 tures,’ p. 88), as the harvest season of the 
 Church, answering to the haiwest season of 
 the Land according to the old Law. 
 
 II. On the Civil Year. -u. 24- 
 
 There is no direct reference to the months 
 in the Old Testament which, by itself, would 
 lead us to suppose that the Israelites used 
 any other year than that beginning with the 
 month Abib (Ex. xiii. 4, cf. xii. 2; Deut. xvi. 
 i), which, after the Captivity, was called 
 Nisan (Neh. ii. i ; Est. iii. 7). Hence- the 
 existence of a Civil year, as distinct from the 
 
 Sacred year, has been sometimes treated as a 
 modern fiction. Smith’s ‘ Diet.’ i. p. 3 79. But 
 the form of expression in Ex. xii. 2, the com- 
 mencement of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years 
 in the month Ethanim, or Tisri, the tradi- 
 tions of both the rabbinical and Alexandrian 
 Jews, and the fact that the New moon festival 
 of Tisri is the only one — not excepting that 
 of Nisan — which is distinguished by peculiar 
 observance, seem to bear sufficient testimony 
 to a more ancient computation of time than 
 that instituted by Moses in connection with 
 the Passover. Another argument is furnished 
 by Ex. xxiii. 16. See note. 
 
 Keeping in view the enumeration of the 
 holy days in this chapter of Leviticus (ynj. 
 4—27), and that in the law of festival sacri- 
 fices in Numbers (xxviii. xxix.), we may 
 perceive a simple arrangement which appears 
 to connect the yearly observances at once 
 with the order of the natural year and with 
 the Sabbatical idea. It was the Hebrew cus- 
 tom to speak of the year as divided into two 
 seasons. Summer and Winter (Gen. viii. 22; 
 Ps. Ixxiv. 17; Zech. xiv. 8), and to designate 
 the produce of the earth in general as the 
 fruits of Summer (Jer. viii. 20, xl. ro — 12; 
 Mic. vii. i). The only months specified in 
 this enumeration of the festivals are the first 
 of the sacred year, Abib, “the month of 
 green ears,” the commencement of Summer, 
 and the seventh, Ethanim, “the month of 
 flowing streams” (Gesenius), the first month 
 of Winter. Under these months the set 
 times are arranged in two groups. In the 
 Summer half-year we find the Passover linked 
 on by the offering of the First sheaf followed 
 by the Week of weeks to the feast of per- 
 fected First fruits at Pentecost; in the half- 
 year of Winter, grouped within a single 
 month, are the feast of Trumpets, the Day 
 of Atonement, and the feast of Tabernacles, 
 with the ’’atzereth^ or “concluding festival” 
 of the year. See on 2;. 34. Thus each season 
 was consecrated by its appropriate observ- 
 ances. That the Seventh month should have 
 come to be regarded by the Jews with pecu- 
 liar respect as “the Sabbatical month,” appears 
 to be natural from the place which it holds as 
 the seventh in the Sacred year, from its lunar 
 cycle commencing with an extraordinary New 
 moon festival, and from its comprising such a 
 large proportion of holy days, especially the 
 Day of Atonement, to say nothing of the 
 ancient dignity which probably belonged to it 
 as the First month in the patriarchal year. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that both the Spring 
 feast in Abib and the Autumn feast in Etha- 
 nim appropriately commenced at the F ullmoon 
 in their respective months. 
 
 HI. On the Meaning of the Feast 
 OF Tabernacles, 'v. 43. 
 
 Objection is made to the statement in 2;. 
 43 on the ground that the kind of habitation 
 
626 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXIII. 
 
 used by the Israelites in the wilderness is 
 never called in the history sukkah^ a booth 
 (see on xxiii. 42), but always ohel^ that is, a 
 tent of skins or cloth. See Ex. xvi. 16, xxxiii. 8, 
 
 10 ; Lev. xiv. 8 ; Num. xi. 10, xvi. 26, xix. 
 18; Deut. V. 30, xi. 6, &c., &c. This cir- 
 cumstance seems to show that the primary 
 object of the booths could not have been to 
 remind the Israelites of the tents in which 
 their fathers had encamped in the Wilderness. 
 It is indeed alleged that some of the dwellers 
 in the Wilderness at this day shelter them- 
 selves in huts or bowers, and that the Is- 
 raelites may have done so in some part of 
 their wanderings. But neither this, nor the 
 fact that siikkah is sometimes used for the hut 
 or tent of a soldier in an encampment (2 S. xi. 
 
 11 ; I K. XX. 12, 16), can bring the title of 
 the feast into direct agreement with the course 
 'of the historical narrative. The people were 
 accustomed to hear of their fathers dwelling 
 in tents, not in booths, and all the Hebrew 
 words used in reference to moving the camp in 
 the Wilderness strictly belong to tents (Hup- 
 feld). It is not therefore likely that the Law- 
 giver would call the festival “the festival of 
 Booths ” if it had been first instituted to keep 
 the Israelites in mind of the camp in the Wil- 
 derness. — Once indeed, in later times, the term 
 dbel is connected with the feast of Tabernacles 
 (Hos. xii. 9). 
 
 The original idea of the festival plainly 
 appears to be expressed in the name applied 
 to it in Exodus, “the feast of Ingathering,” 
 the celebration of harvest-home, when the 
 fruits of the earth were gathered in. See on 
 Ex. xxiii. 16 ; cf. xxxiv. 22. As the feast of In- 
 gathering the festival may have been observed 
 in the land of Goshen, and it may there have 
 been the custom for the parties keeping holi- 
 day to meet in bowers set up for the occasion, 
 such as were used in the Summer and Autumn 
 festivals of other nations. (See Ovid ‘ Fast.’ 
 III. 523 ; Tibullus, I. ‘ Eleg.’ i. 24 ; ‘ Festus’ 
 s. umbra;?) The practice is familiar in the 
 East, and it is one which might naturally 
 arise anywhere. But the feast of Tabernacles 
 was solemnly recognized by the Law as one 
 of the three great festivals at which every 
 male Israelite was to present himself before 
 Jehovah at the Sanctuary. Ex. xxiii. 16, 
 xxxiv. 22, 23. It was in its nature a joyous 
 occasion, the most joyous of all the feasts, the 
 one which was named par excellence^ “ the 
 feast.” See Deut. xvi. 13— 15 ; i K. viii. 2, 65 ; 
 Ezek. xlv, 25 ; Zech. xiv. 16. In the wandering 
 life in the Wilderness its proper significance 
 as the feast of Ingathering must have been 
 rather in })rosj)ect and retrospect than in the 
 actual present ; but its jubilant character may 
 have been kept up. Now the in which 
 
 the Israelite kejit the feast, and the dbel which 
 was his ordinary abode in the wilderness, had 
 this in common— they were temporary places 
 of sojourn, they belonged to camp-life. The 
 
 seven days of abode in the booths of the festi- 
 val was thus a fair symbol of the forty years 
 of abode in tents in the Wilderness. The 
 feast might well become the appointed memo- 
 rial of this period of their history for the ages 
 to come, and Hosea, in the passage to which 
 reference has been made, might easily use the 
 word tent^ immediately suggesting the his- 
 torical connection, rather than bootb^ the one 
 strictly belonging to the feast. — In like manner 
 the feast of Weeks was endowed with a mean- 
 ing certainly not immediately connected with 
 its original institution, being recognized as a 
 memorial of the bondage of Egypt. See Deut. 
 xvi. II, 12. This may possibly have had 
 reference to the hard toil of harvest which 
 was past, and now rewarded with the bless- 
 ing of a store of provision. There is a still 
 nearer parallel in the case of the -weekly Sab- 
 bath being appointed to remind the people 
 of their deliverance from Egypt. See Note 
 on the Sabbath-day, § v.. Ex. xx. — A kindred 
 connection between the year of Release with 
 the Exodus is indicated, Deut. xv. 15. 
 
 The substance of the lesson of the feast of 
 Tabernacles as expressed in this verse may 
 however have had a deeper ground than any 
 mere material resemblance existing between the 
 sukkab and the dbel. No time in the year 
 could be so suitable for the Israelites to be 
 reminded of the wonderful providence which 
 had fed and sheltered them in the Wilderness, 
 where they had no land to call their own , and 
 where there was neither harvest nor gathering 
 into barns nor vintage, as the season in which 
 they offered thanksgiving to Jehovah for the 
 fruits of the ground and consecrated the crops 
 newly stored in. In this way the transition 
 from nomadic to agricultural life, which took 
 place when the people settled in the Holy Land, 
 must have tended to fulfil the meaning of the 
 feast of Tabernacles. From that time the 
 festival called to mind their long and weary 
 wanderings in contrast with the plenty and 
 comfort of settled possession. The parallel 
 between this change in the condition of the 
 people and the transferring of the centre of 
 national worship from the Tabernacle to the 
 Temple, may have been the reason of the con- 
 nection of the Dedication of the first and 
 second Temples, and of the Encienia of the 
 Maccabees, with the feast of Tabernacles. 
 See I K. viii. 2, 65 ; Jos. ‘ Ant.’ viii. 4. § 5 ; 
 Neh. viii. 13 — 18; 2 Macc. x. 5 — 8. 
 
 The popular character of the festival, and 
 its connection with the Dedication of the 
 Temple of Solomon, were probably what in- 
 duced Jeroboam to set up an imitation of it 
 in the inauguration of the false worship at 
 Bethel, i K. xii. 32, 33. 
 
 On the reading of portions of the Law 
 during the feast of Tabernacles in the Sab- 
 batical year, see Deut. xxxi. 10 — 13 ; and on the 
 references to the festival in the New Testa- 
 ment, see John vii. 37, viii. 12. 
 
V. I— 7-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXIV. 
 
 627 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 I The oil for th 4 lamps. 5 The sheiubread. 
 
 1 o Shcloviitlis sofi blasphemeth. \ 3 The law 
 of blasphe}ny . Of nmrder. Of datnage. 
 1 3 The blasphemer is stoned. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 Command the children of Israel, 
 that they bring unto thee pure oil 
 
 tHeb. olive beaten for the light, 'to cause 
 ^ascTnd. lamps to burn continually. 
 
 3 Without the vail of the testi- 
 mony, in the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation, shall Aaron order it from 
 the evening unto the morning be- 
 fore the Lord contmually : it shall 
 
 Chap. XXIV. 
 
 The Oil for the Lamps— The 
 
 SlIEWBREAD. 
 
 1—9. 
 
 As setting forth a part of the duty of the 
 laity in the maintenance of public worship, 
 this section may have a connection with the 
 preceding chapter. The oil for the lamps of 
 the Tabernacle and the meal for the Sbew- 
 bread were to be offerings from the Congrega- 
 tion, like the meal for the Pentecostal Loaves, 
 xxiii. 17. The instructions regarding the oil 
 Qvv. 2, 3) are almost a verbal repetition of 
 Ex. xxvii. 20, 21, except that “ Aaron and his 
 sons” are mentioned in Exodus, and in this 
 place (*1;. 3) only Aaron. It appears that the 
 responsibility of keeping up the lights rested 
 on the High-priest, but the actual service 
 might be performed, on ordinary occasions, 
 by the common priests. Cf. on xvi. 4. 
 
 2. to cause the lamps to burn'\ See on i. 9. 
 
 4 . the pure candlestick See Ex. xxv. 31 — 
 39, xxxi. 8. 
 
 5 — 9. The Shewbread is mentioned Ex. 
 xxv. 30, XXXV. 13, xxxix. 36; 2 Chron. xiii. 
 II, &c. It is not in this place designated by 
 its peculiar name. The purpose of the pas- 
 sage is to give instructions for its preparation 
 and treatment. Our translators have followed 
 Luther in their use of the name Shewbread. 
 Wickliffe, following the LXX. and Vulg., 
 has “Bread of the Proposition;” that is, the 
 Bread mohich is set forth. The Hebrew name 
 might fairly be rendered Bread of tlie 
 presence. 
 
 5 . t^o tenth deals shall be in one cake'\ 
 Each cake or loaf was to contain two tenths 
 of an ephah, about six pounds and a quarter 
 (see on Ex. xxix. 40; Lev. xix. 36) of fine 
 flour. The material was the same, both in 
 quality and in quantity, with that of each one 
 of the Wave-loaves of Pentecost (xxiii. 17), 
 
 he a statute for ever in your gene- 
 rations. 
 
 4 He shall order the lamps upon 
 
 "the pure candlestick before the Lord ^Exod. 31. 
 continually. 
 
 5 ^ And thou shalt take fine flour, 
 
 and bake twelve ^ cakes thereof: two Exod. 25. 
 tenth deals shall be in one cake. 
 
 6 And thou shalt set them in two 
 rov^, six on a row, upon the pure 
 table before the Lord. 
 
 7 And thou shalt put pure frank- 
 incense upon each row, that it may 
 be on the bread for a memorial, even 
 an offering made by fire unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 The word rendered cake is the same as occurs 
 ii. 4, vii. 12, viii. 26, &c., and appears to be 
 regularly applied to loaves of unleavened 
 bread.* Some imagine the Shewbread to have 
 been leavened, like the Pentecostal loaves 
 (Knobel, &c.). But Jewish tradition (see 
 Joseph. ‘Ant.’ ill. 6. § 6 — 10, § 7; Mishna, 
 “ Menach.’V. i) and most authorities of all ages 
 take the opposite view. Since the bread was 
 brought into the Holy place (which was not 
 the case with the Pentecostal bread) it almost 
 certainly came under the general law of the 
 Meat-offerings, which excluded the use of 
 leaven (ii. ii). In the service cf the Temple 
 the preparation and arrangement of the cakes 
 were committed to the Levites (i Chron. ix. 
 32, xxiii. 29; 2 Chron. xiii. ii.). 
 
 6. t^o 7'0'uv, six in a row] Rather, two 
 piles, six in a pile. The Hebrev/ word 
 might denote either row or pile. But the 
 measure of the Table, two cubits long by one 
 broad, in connection with the bulk of the 
 loaves, and the testimony of Josephus who 
 must have known the usage in the second 
 Temple (‘Ant.’ ill. 6, § 6), favour the notion 
 that the bread stood in two piles. — On the 
 Table, see Ex. xxv. 23 — 30. 
 
 7 . pure frankincense~\ The LXX. adds 
 salt., which probably represents the true read- 
 ing and accords with the Law that no Meat- 
 offering was to be offered without salt (ii. 13). 
 
 for a memorial'\ Our version here gives 
 what appears to be the true sense of the 
 Hebrew, in opposition to the most ancient 
 versions and some modern authorities, which 
 apply the words for a memorial to the Shew- 
 bread itself, not to the frankincense. The 
 frankincense as a memorial, or azkdrdh (like 
 the handful of the Meat-ofering, ii. 2), was 
 most likely cast upon the Altar-fire as “an 
 offering made by fire unto the Lord,” when 
 the bread was removed from, the Table on the 
 Sabbath-day (pv. 8; i S. xxi. 6; cf. Mishna, 
 
628 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXIV. 
 
 [v. 8 — 12. 
 
 8 Every sabbath he shall set it in 
 order before the Lord continually, 
 being taken from the children of Is- 
 rael by an everlasting covenant. 
 
 9 And it shall be Aaron’s and his 
 
 fExod. 29. gQj^s’; ^and they shall eat it in the 
 chap. 8 . 31. holy place : for it is most holy unto 
 Matt. 12. offerings of the Lord 
 
 made by fire by a perpetual statutl. 
 
 10 ^ And the son of an Israelitish 
 woman, whose father was an Egyp- 
 tian, went out among the children 
 
 of Israel : and this son^of the Israel- 
 itish vjoman and a man of Israel 
 strove together in the camp; 
 
 1 1 And the Israelitish woman’s son 
 
 blasphemed the name of the Lord^ 
 and cursed. And they. brought him 
 unto Moses: (and his mother’s name 
 was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, 1^34. 
 of the tribe of Dan :) toexfwid 
 
 12 And they “^put him in ward, '"‘TJdh’i 
 t that the mind of the Lord might to the 
 
 month of 
 
 be shewed them. the lord. 
 
 ‘Menach.’ xi. 7). The frankincense was puk 
 into small gold cups, one of which was placed 
 upon each pile of bread. (See on Ex. xxv. 
 
 23—30-) 
 
 8. being taken from the children of Israel'] 
 Each cake represented the offering of a Tribe. 
 
 9. See on ii. 3. It could have been only 
 by a stretch of the Law that Ahimelech gave 
 a portion of the Shewbread to David and his 
 men, on the ground that they were free from 
 ceremonial defilement, i Sam. xxi. 4 — 6; 
 Matt. xii. 4. 
 
 Nothing is said in Scripture that throws 
 any direct light upon the specific meaning of 
 the Shewbread. But there seems no reason- 
 able doubt that it was a true Meat-offering, 
 with its frankincense, its Drink-oftering (see 
 on Ex. xxv. 29), and its salt (see on -u. 7). The 
 peculiar form in which it was offered, espe- 
 cially in its being brougdit into the Tabernacle 
 and in its consisting of Twelve loaves, distin- 
 guish it as an offering made on behalf of the 
 nation. See on Ex. xxv. 30. — Biihr has in- 
 geniously carried out the theory that the loaves 
 were intended for a symbolical manifestation 
 of the Holy One in His Sanctuary as the 
 Bread of Life, as the supporter both of the 
 spiritual and the bodily life of His faithful 
 people. John vi. 47 — 51; Matt. iv. 4; Deut. 
 viii. 3; see ‘ Symbolik,’ I. p. 425. But suf- 
 ficient objection to this view seems to be fur- 
 nished by the facts that the loaves were taken 
 “ from the children of Israel,” not in any way 
 presented to them ; and, that the symbolism 
 on which it is based would be better ex- 
 pressed by One loaf than by Twelve loaves. 
 See I Cor. x. 17.— Spencer and other critics 
 of his school have actually supposed that 
 the setting forth of the Shewbread Table was 
 a symbolical meal offered to Jehovah, like the 
 Lectistermum of the Romans, in which food 
 used to be placed' before the statues of the gods. 
 
 The Blasphemer — The Law of Blas- 
 
 IMIEMY AND OTHER PENAL LAWS ENACT- 
 ED. 10 — 23. 
 
 This section appears to stand by itself. The 
 place it holds may have been determined by 
 
 the mere time of the incident related in it. 
 The Legislator had, it seems, just completed a 
 topic : the incident, with the law suggested by 
 it, was probably recorded at once and suffered 
 to keep its place, as not severing any import- 
 ant connection. 
 
 The blasphemer was the son of a Hebrew 
 woman of the tribe of Dan by an Egyptian 
 father. He had come out of Egypt with the 
 children of Israel, and must have been under 
 the ordinary conditions of a resident foreigner. 
 See xvi. 29. He happened to have a quarrel 
 with an Israelite, and in the course of alter- 
 cation he used some blasphemous expression. 
 See on ai. 16. It was revealed to Moses that 
 blasphemy was to be punished by stoning, and 
 that this and all penal laws were to be car- 
 ried out not only against Israelites, but against 
 resident foreigners (y. 22). The laws against 
 murder and violence appear to be here intro- 
 duced in the vray of illustration. The pur- 
 pose of 17—22 would thus be to ratify 
 with the utmost distinctness the maxim of the 
 Law which rendered foreigners amenable to 
 all penalties and restrictions. Cf. Ex. xii. 
 49; Num. ix. 14, XV. 15, 16: notes on Ex. 
 XX.' 10; Lev. xvi. 29.— The rabbinists have 
 filled out this narrative of the son of Shelo- 
 mith in a curious manner. They say that the 
 father of the young man was the Egyptian 
 slain by Moses (Ex. ii. ii), that he was the 
 taskmaster under whom the husband of She- 
 lomith worked, and that Moses found him 
 smiting the man whom he had injured and 
 put to shame. It is added that the ciuarrel 
 in which the young man was engaged arose 
 out of a claim set up by him to have his 
 abode in the camp of the Danites [see Num. 
 ii. 2], not being content to remain in the 
 quarters appropriated to foreigners (Targum 
 of Palestine and authorities quoted by Selden, 
 
 ‘ de Syned.’ li. c. i. § 2). 
 
 11. blasphemed the name of the Lord., and 
 cursed] See on v. 16. 
 
 12 . Selden {u. s.) supposes that the offender 
 had already been pronounced guilty by the 
 rulers [see Ex. xviii. 21, 22], and that the case 
 
V. 13 — 23 -] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXIV. 
 
 629 
 
 13 And the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 ses, saying, 
 
 14 Bring forth him that hath curs- 
 ed without the camp ; and let all that 
 
 fDeut. 13. heard him ^lay their hands upon his 
 head, and let all the congregation 
 stone him. 
 
 15 And thou shalt speak unto the 
 children of Israel, saying, Whoso- 
 ever curseth his God shall bear his 
 sin. 
 
 16 And he that blasphemeth the 
 name of the Lord, he shall surely 
 be put to death, and all the congre- 
 gation shall certainly stone him : as 
 well the stranger, as he that is born 
 in the land, when he blasphemeth 
 the name of the Lord^ shall be put 
 to death. 
 
 17 ^ -^Wnd he that Tilleth any ^'Exod. 21. 
 man shall surely be put to death. Deut. 19. 
 
 18 And he that killeth a beast shall 
 
 make it p-ood ; ^ beast for beast. smiteth 
 
 A T LI • L the life oj 
 
 19 And ir a man cause a blemish « 
 in his neighbour; as -^he hath done, 
 
 so shall it be done to him; i-^xod 21 
 
 20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, 24. 
 tooth for tooth : as he hath caused 
 
 a blemish in a man, so shall it be s- 
 done to him again. 
 
 21 And he that killeth a beast, he 
 shall restore it: and he that killeth 
 a man, he shall be put to death. . 
 
 22 Ye shall have ^'one mxanner of-^'Exod. 
 law, as well for the stranger, as for 
 
 one of your own country : for I am 
 the Lord your God. 
 
 23 ^ And Moses spake to the chil- 
 
 was referred to Moses in order that the punish- 
 ment might be awarded by the divine decree. 
 No law had as yet been enacted against blas- 
 phemy except by implication. See Ex. xxi. 
 17, xxii. 28. 
 
 14 . lay their hands upon his headl] The 
 simplest view seems to be that the witnesses, 
 by this act, were to protest against the impiety 
 of the criminal, symbolically laying the guilt 
 upon his head. The two elders in the story 
 of Susanna are said to do the same, not after 
 condemnation, but in bringing their charge 
 against the accused before the people, v. 34. 
 Cf. the washing of hands, Deut. xxi. 6 ; 
 Matt, xxvii. 24. The act has been, certainly 
 with no good reason, connected with the sa- 
 crificial imposition of hands, and understood 
 to be a solemn dedication of the offender to 
 death by his accusers. Kurtz, ‘S. W.’ § 47; 
 cf. on xxvii. 28. 
 
 let all the congregation stone hini\ See on 
 XX. 2. 
 
 16 . he that blasphemeth the name of the 
 Lord] It should be observed that the words 
 “ of THE Lord,” are here translated from the 
 original, not, aS in <z;. ii, and in the latter part 
 of this verse, inserted by the translators. The 
 verb, according to all the best critical authori- 
 ties, denotes to resile: but Jewish interpreters 
 in general, with the countenance of the LXX. 
 and the Targums, understand it to mean no 
 more than to utter distinctly. Hence the rab- 
 binists based on this verse the notion that it 
 is not lawful to speak the name which appears 
 in some places in our version as Jehovah, 
 but is, for the most part, rendered “the 
 Lord.” On the mode in which the Jews 
 have evaded the use of the name, see Bux- 
 
 torf, ‘ Lex. Talmud.’ p. 2432. Its true pro- 
 nunciation is irretrievably lost, owing to its 
 vowel points having been shifted. Most is per- 
 haps to be said in favour of the uncouth form 
 Jahve. See Martineau’s preface to Ewald’s 
 ‘ History,’ p. xviii. When the name is re- 
 ferred to in rabbinical writings, it generally 
 stands as simply “the name,” or “the name 
 of four letters” {tetragrammaton^.^ “ the great 
 and terrible name,” &c. It is remarkable that 
 this habit has practically kept its hold upon 
 most modern versions of the Bible, Christian 
 as well as Jewish. The Septuagint render 
 the name by d Kfpto?, the Vulgate, by Domi- 
 nus., and nearly all English translators, by 
 “the Lord,” distinguished by capital letters. 
 Luther, the Italian translators, and some of 
 the French, use words with the same mean- 
 ing. Others of the French versions, and the 
 modern Jewish versions in general, have “the 
 Eternal,” or some equivalent word. Jehovah 
 is retained by Junius and Tremellius, Schott, 
 de Wette, &c. 
 
 stranger] i.e foreigner. See on xvi. 29. 
 
 17 . Cf. ne. 21. See Ex. xxi. 12; Num. 
 XXXV. 30, 31; Deut. xix. ii, 12. 
 
 18 . Cf. v. 21. See Ex. xxi. 33, 34. The 
 law expressed in this verse is more broadly 
 given than in Exodus. 
 
 19 . 20. See on Ex. xxi. 22 — 25. 
 
 cause a blemish] i. e. inflict a bodily injury. 
 
 21 . An emphatic repetition of none. 17, 18. 
 
 22. one manner of lanxo] The Hebrew 
 word rendered “law” is mishpat.^ i.q. judicial 
 lanu. 
 
 stranger] foreigner. 
 
 1 am the Lord] See on xviii. 2. 
 
630 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXV. 
 
 [v. 1—9. 
 
 dren of Israel, that they should bring 
 forth him that had cursed out of the 
 camp, and stone him with stones. 
 And the children of Israel did as the 
 Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 I The sabbath of the seventh year. 8 The jii- 
 bile in the fiftieth year. 14 Of oppression. 
 18 A blessing of obedience. 23 The redemp- 
 tion of land. 29 Of houses. 35 Coryipassion 
 of the poor. 39 The visage of bondmen. 47 
 The redemption of servants. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses 
 Jf\, in mount Sinai, saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, and say unto them, When ye 
 come into the land which I give you, 
 
 tHeb. then shall the land ^keep "a sabbath 
 rEMd.23. tmto the Lord. 
 
 3 Six years thou shalt sow thy 
 field, and six years thou shalt prune 
 thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit 
 thereof \ 
 
 4 But in the seventh year shall be 
 a sabbath of rest unto the land, a 
 
 sabbath for the Lord : thou shalt 
 neither sow thy held, nor prune thy 
 vineyard. 
 
 5 That which groweth of its own 
 accord of thy harvest thou shalt not 
 reap, neither gather the grapes ^ofiHeb. 
 thy vine undressed : for it is a year 
 
 of rest unto the land. 
 
 6 And the sabbath of the land shall 
 be meat for you; for thee, and for 
 thy servant, and for thy maid, and 
 for thy hired servant, and for thy 
 stranger that sojourneth with thee, 
 
 7 And for thy cattle, and for the 
 beast that are in thy land, shall all 
 the increase thereof be meat. 
 
 8 ^ And thou shalt number seven 
 sabbaths of years unto thee, seven 
 times seven years; and the space of 
 the seven sabbaths of years shall be 
 unto thee forty and nine years. 
 
 9 Then shalt thou cause the trum- 
 pet ^of the jubile to sound on the^Heb 
 tenth day of the seventh month, in sound. 
 
 Chapter XXV. 
 
 The Sabbatical Year and the Year 
 CF Jubilee, i — 55. 
 
 Preliminary Note. 
 
 The Sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee 
 belong to that great Sabbatical system which 
 runs through the religious observances of the 
 Law. They were solemnly connected with 
 the sacred Covenant. But it is important to 
 observe that they were distinguished by no 
 religious ceremonies, they were accompanied 
 by no act of religious worship. There were 
 no sacrifices, nor Holy Convocations, belong- 
 ing to them. In their distinctive aspect they 
 may be said to rest upon moral rather than 
 upon formally religious ground. It is not 
 therefore without reason that they are here 
 set apaij from the set times which fell strictly 
 within the sphere of religious observances. 
 
 The Sabbatical year, i — 7. 
 
 2. keep a sabbath unto the Lord'] See on 
 Ex. xxiii. II. 
 
 3 . 'Vineyard] Rather, fruit-garden. The 
 Hebrew word is a general one for a plantation 
 of fruit-trees. See on Lev. ix. 10. 
 
 4 . a sabbath of rest] Heb. shabbath shab- 
 bdton. See on xxiii. 3. 
 
 neither sovj thy field] The express prohibi- 
 tion of sowing and reaping, and of pruning 
 and gathering, affords a presumption in favour 
 of the Sabbatical year beginning, like the year 
 
 of Jubilee (gv. 9), in the first month of the 
 Civil year, the seventh of the Sacred year, 
 when the land was cleared of the crops of the 
 preceding year. See on Ex. xxiii. 16, and Note 
 ‘ On the Civil year’ after chap, xxiii. 
 
 5 . thy ‘Vine undressed] That is, unpruned ; 
 literally, thy Nazarite 'vine., the figure being 
 taken from the unshorn locks of the Nazarite. 
 Num. vi. 5; cf. Tibullus, i. ‘ El.’.vii. 34. 
 
 6. the sabbath of the land shall be meat for 
 you] That is, the produce of the untilled 
 land (its “increase” ‘v. 7) shall be food for 
 the whole of you in common, rich and poor 
 without distinction. Ex. xxfii. ii. 
 
 the stranger that sojourneth with thee] the 
 foreigner who dwelleth with thee. 
 
 7. the beast] the living creature. 
 
 The year of Jubilee. 8 — 5 5 . 
 
 8 — 13 . The Land was to be divided by 
 lot among tlie families of the Israelites when 
 the possession of it was obtained. Num. xxv. 
 52 — 56, xxxiii. 54, &c. At the end of every 
 seventh sabbatical cycle of years, in the year 
 of Jubilee, each field or estate that might have 
 been alienated was to be restored to the family 
 to which it had been originally allotted. 
 
 8 . se'ven sabbaths of years] seven weeks 
 of years. 
 
 9. cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound] 
 Rather, cause the sound of the cornet 
 to go through (the land). The word 
 
V. 10, II.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXV. 
 
 the day of atonement shall ye make 
 the trumpet sound throughout all 
 your land. 
 
 10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth 
 year, and proclaim liberty through- 
 out all the land unto all the in- 
 
 habitants thereof: it shall be a jubile 
 unto you; and ye shall return every 
 man unto his possession, and ye shall 
 return every man unto his family. 
 
 II A jubile shall that fiftieth year 
 be unto you : ye shall not sow, nei- 
 
 Jubllee does not occur in this verse in the 
 Hebrew. The trumpet is the sbophar, i.e. the 
 cornet, buccina^ either the horn of some ani- 
 mal or a tube of metal shaped like one. The 
 Mishna says that the horn of the chamois or 
 wild goat was used on this occasion. ‘ Rosh 
 Hash.’ III. 5. See on xxiii. 24; cf. Num. x. 2. 
 Keil has well remarked that as the sound of 
 the cornet (see on 10) was the signal of 
 the descent of Jehovah when He came down 
 upon Sinai to take Israel into Covenant with 
 Himself (Ex. xix. 13, 16, 19, xx. 18), so the 
 same sound announced, at the close of the 
 great Day of Atonement, the year which re- 
 stored each Israelite to the freedom and the 
 blessings of the Covenant. — The word shophar 
 is rendered “shawm” in the Prayer-Book 
 version of Ps. xcviii. 7. 
 
 the tenth day of the se-venth month ^ in the day 
 of atonement] It seems most likely that the 
 blast of the cornets took place in the evening, 
 after the Evening sacrifice, when the solemn 
 rites of Atonement were concluded. The 
 contrast between the humbling quiet of the 
 day and the sudden outpouring of the sound 
 which proclaimed the year of freedom, must 
 have been very impressive. Nothing, hovs^- 
 ever, could be more appropriate than that 
 freedom should be declared just after the 
 great national act of humiliation and recon- 
 cilement with Jehovah. It has been con- 
 jectured that the cornets were blown in every 
 priest’s city, or wherever a priest might be 
 living (Bahr), but according to tradition they 
 were blown by any of the people “through- 
 out all the land.” 
 
 10. the fiftieth year]. If this means the 
 fiftieth year, beginning to reckon from the 
 first year after the preceding Jubilee, since 
 the forty-ninth year must have been a Sab- 
 batical year, two fallow years must have 
 come together (see ii). This seems 
 unlikely. But it is probable that the Jubilee 
 coincided with each seventh Sabbatical year. 
 It might, in this case, have been called the 
 fiftieth, reckoning it as the last of a series of 
 which the first was the preceding Jubilee. 
 A tendency may be traced in many languages 
 in reference to periods of time to include the 
 starting point as the first unit in the sei'ies. 
 It may be seen in the mode in which such 
 words and phrases are used as Trez/raerT^piy, 
 TpL€Tr]pts, quinquennalia, nundinee^ huitaine^ 
 quin'zaine^ or quinzejours^ quindici giornl^ acht 
 Tage, the octave of a festival (cf. Luke ix. 28; 
 
 Joh. XX. 26), &c., &c. AVith this agree 
 some early Jewish traditions, and the opinions, 
 of Scaliger, Usher, Petavius, Rosenmilller 
 and others. Cf. notes on vv. ii, 18 — 22. — 
 It must, however, be admitted that the ques- 
 tion is a difficult one, and the greater number 
 of Jewish authorities, as well as of the more 
 recent critics, are in favour of the fiftieth year, 
 taking the expression in the sense with which 
 we are more familiar. 
 
 it shall be a jubile unto you] Except in the^ 
 English Bible the word is commonly spelt 
 jubilee. Like the jubil^eus of the Vulgate, it 
 was intended to represent the Hebrew, jdbeel. 
 The form found in Cranmer’s Bible, “jubelye,” 
 must have been derived from jubiheus. But 
 our translators, with the Genevan, probably 
 meant “jubile,” to come more closely to the 
 Hebrew, and to be pronounced as a dissylla- 
 ble, as if spelt jubil . — The word jdbeel was 
 taken by several early authorities (Josephus, 
 S. Jerome, Theodoret, with some support 
 from the Septuagint) to mean liberty., or, 
 the act of setting free. But the word first 
 occurs Ex. xix. 13, where it certainly cannot 
 have any such meaning, and where it is render- 
 ed in our version, “trumpet,” marg. “cornet.” 
 It most probably denotes the sound of the 
 cornet, not the cornet itself. Cf. Josh. vi. 5. 
 Various opinions have been formed regarding 
 its derivation. Some of the Rabbinists imagined 
 it to be identical with a word said to exist in 
 old Arabic, signifying a ram, or a ram’s horn. 
 It has been regarded as an onomatoptsetic 
 word, like the Latin jubil are., to shout for 
 help, and jubilum., an outcry (Gesenius). It 
 is worth while to observe that our word, jubi^ 
 lant., though derived from the Latin verb, 
 rather takes its meaning from the Hebrew 
 substantive. But a very probable conjecture, 
 approved by the best authorities, connects 
 jobeel with the root jdbal., to flow abundantly, 
 which by a familiar metaphor might be applied 
 to sound. The word has been discussed at 
 length by Bochart (‘ Hieroz.’ i. c. 43), Carpzov 
 (‘ App. Crit.’ p. 447), Gesenius (‘Thes.’ p. 
 561), and Kranold (‘ De Jubil.’ p. ii). 
 
 11. See on v. 10. Hupfeld and othem 
 have so estimated the improbability of one 
 fallow year succeeding another that they have 
 been disposed to reject this verse as spurious. 
 They imagine that tillage did not cease in the 
 Jubilee. But the difficulty disappears if we 
 suppose. the Jubilee to have coincided with the 
 seventh Sabbatical year. Cf. on vv. 18 — 22. 
 
632 LEVITICUS. XXV. [v. 12-26. 
 
 ther reap that which groweth of itself 
 in it, nor gather the grapes in it of 
 thy vine undressed. 
 
 12 For it is the jubile; it shall be 
 holy unto you : ye shall eat the in- 
 crease thereof out of the held. 
 
 13 In the year of this jubile ye 
 shall return every man unto his pos- 
 
 , session. 
 
 14 And if thou sell ought unto 
 thy neighbour, or buyest ought of 
 thy neighbour’s hand, ye shall not 
 oppress one another : 
 
 1 5 According to the number of 
 years after the jubile thou shalt buy 
 of thy neighbour, and according unto 
 the number of years of the fruits he 
 shall sell unto thee : 
 
 16 According to the multitude of 
 years thou shalt increase the price 
 thereof, and according to the few- 
 ness of years thou shalt diminish the 
 price of it: for according to the num- 
 ber of the years of the fruits doth he 
 sell unto thee. 
 
 17 Ye shall not therefore oppress 
 one another; but thou shalt fear thy 
 God : for I ajn the Lord your God. 
 
 18 Wherefore ye shall do my 
 statutes, and keep my judgments. 
 
 .and do them; and ye shall dwell in 
 the land in safety. 
 
 19 And the land shall yield her 
 fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and 
 dwell therein in safety. 
 
 20 And if ye shall say. What shall 
 we eat the seventh year? behold, we 
 shall not sow, nor gather in our in- 
 crease : 
 
 2 1 Then I will command my bless- 
 ing upon you in the sixth year, and 
 it shall bring forth fruit for three 
 years. 
 
 22 And ye shall sow the eighth 
 year, and eat yet of old fruit until the 
 ninth year; until her fruits come in 
 ye shall eat of the old store. 
 
 23 ^ The land shall not be sold 
 
 II for ever : for the land is mine ; for n T’ 
 
 , . .. to be quite 
 
 ye are strangers and sojourners with cutoff. 
 
 Heb. 
 
 ' for cutting 
 
 24 And in all the land of your pos- 
 session ye shall grant a redemption 
 for the land. 
 
 25 If thy brother be waxen 
 poor, and hath sold away some of 
 his possession, and if any of his kin 
 come to redeem it, then shall he re- 
 deem that which his brother sold. 
 
 26 And if the man have none to 
 
 ’Vint undressed] See on -z;. 5 . 
 
 14 — 17. The principle on which the law 
 of Jubilee, as it regards the land, was based, 
 is expressed in ’V’v. 23 , 24 . The land be- 
 longed to Jehovah, and it was He who allot- 
 ted it amongst the families of Israel for their 
 use. No estate could therefore be alienated 
 in perpetuity, by any human authority, from 
 the family to whose lot it might fall. But 
 the usufruct, or lease, of a portion might be 
 sold at any time for a period extending to the 
 next Jubilee. 
 
 14. ,sell ought] That is, any piece of 
 ground. 
 
 oppress one another] Rather, overreach 
 one another. 
 
 15, 16. the number of years of the fruits] 
 i. e. according to the number of harvests. Tlie 
 average value of a yearly crop- might of course 
 be estimated, and the Sabbatical years were 
 to be deducted from the series. 
 
 17. oppress one another] See on 'v. 14 . 
 
 18 — 22. It has been conjectured that 
 these verses are out of their proper place, that 
 they relate to the Sabbatical year, not to the 
 
 year of Jubilee, and that they should be read 
 immediately after the seventh verse (Ewald, 
 Hupfeld, Knobel, Davidson). But if the 
 Jubilee coincided with the seventh Sabbati- 
 cal year, the conjecture is needless. See on 
 
 ’V’V. IC, TI. 
 
 18, 19. in safety] That is, secure from 
 famine, xxvi. 5 . 
 
 23, 24. See on 14 — 17 . 
 
 23. sold for e’ver] '■'■for cutting off 
 
 or, to be quite cut offf in modern phrase, sold 
 in .perpetuity. 
 
 strangers] foreigners, who had become 
 residents. See on Ex. xx. 12 ; Lev. xvi. 29 . 
 
 24. grant a redemption for the land] i. e. 
 grant power to recover the land to the origi- 
 nal holder who had parted with it. 
 
 25. If thy brother be ^Maxen poor] It would 
 seem that the Israelites were expected never 
 to part with their land except under the pres- 
 sure of poverty. The answer of Naboth to 
 Ahab expressed the feelings which must have 
 been thus fostered, “The Lord forbid it me 
 that I should give the inheritance of my 
 fathers to thee.” i K. xxi. 3 . 
 
V- 27—35-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXV. 
 
 633 
 
 t Heb. redeem it, and ^himself be able to 
 
 his hand j 
 
 hath at- redeem n; 
 
 ^undZ^t}- ^7 count the years 
 
 ficiency. of the Sale thereof, and restore the 
 overplus unto the man to whom he 
 sold it; that he may return unto his 
 possession. 
 
 28 But if he be not able to restore 
 zV to him, then that which is sold 
 shall remain in the hand of him 
 that hath bought it until the year 
 of jubile: and in the jubile it shall 
 go out, and he shall return unto his 
 possession. 
 
 29 And if a man sell a dwelling 
 house in a walled city, then he may 
 redeem it within a whole year after 
 it is sold: within a full year may 
 he redeem it. 
 
 30 And if it be not redeemed v/ith- 
 in the space of a full year, then th3 
 house that is in the walled city shall 
 be established for ever to him that 
 bought it throughout his generations: 
 it shall not go out in the jubile. 
 
 31 But the houses of the villages 
 
 which have no wall round about 
 them shall be counted as the fields 
 of the country: ^they. may be re- 
 deemed, and they shall go out in the 
 jubile. rmioit. 
 
 32 Notwithstanding the cities of 
 the Levites, and the houses of the 
 cities of their possession, may the 
 Levites redeem at any time. 
 
 33 And if "a man purchase of the 
 
 T ^ one of the 
 
 Levites, then the house that yN2.'s, Levites re- 
 sold, and the city of his possession, them, 
 shall go out in the year ^jubile: 
 for the houses of the cities of the 
 Levites are their possession among 
 the children of Israel. 
 
 34 But the held of the suburbs of 
 their cities may not be sold ; for it is 
 their perpetual possession. 
 
 35 ^ And if thy brother be waxen 
 poor, and ^fallen in decay with thee; ^Heb. 
 
 , , 11 + 1- ^ 1 • tns hand 
 
 then thou shalt ^relieve him: yea^/aiieth. 
 though he he a stranger, or a sojourn- \^eugth- 
 er; that he may live with thee. 
 
 28. in the jubile it shall go out\ i. e. it 
 shall be set free in the Jubilee. 
 
 30. not go out'] The reason of this law 
 may have been that most of the houses in 
 cities were occupied by artificers and traders 
 whose wealth did not consist in lands, many 
 of whom were foreigners who could not hold 
 land in the country (Bahr). 
 
 32 — 34. The purchaser of a Levite’s 
 house was in fact only in the condition of a 
 tenant at will, while the fields attached to the 
 Levitical cities could never be alienated, even 
 for a time. 
 
 32. Notwithstanding the cities Rather, 
 And concerning the cities of the Le- 
 vites, the houses, &c. See Num. xxxv. 2 ; 
 Josh. xxi. 2 sq. 
 
 33. if a man purchase of the Levites] 
 More properly, If one of the Levites re- 
 deems a house in the city, &c. See next 
 note. The meaning appears to be, if a Levite 
 (in accordance with the law in v. 25 ) redeems 
 a house which has been sold to a person of a 
 different tribe by another Levite, it is to revert 
 in the Jubilee to the latter Levite as its original 
 possessor. (So Rosenmiiller, De Wette, Kra- 
 nold, Herxheimer, &c.) The verse thus se- 
 cures the original tenure to each individual 
 Levite. — Our version follows the Targums, 
 Saadia, and several other Jewish authorities. 
 
 and has some support from the LXX. and 
 the Syriac. — The Vulgate inserts a negative, 
 “ Si redemptas (sc. aedes) non fuerint.” This 
 of course involves a different reading of the 
 Hebrew text : it is preferred by Ewald and 
 Knobel. 
 
 the house... and the city of his possession] 
 These words seem to be a hendiadys for the 
 house in the city of his possession. 
 So LXX., Kranold, de Wette, &c. 
 
 Regarding the application of the law of 
 Jubilee to lands dedicated to the service of 
 the Sanctuary, see xxvii. 16 — 25. 
 
 The law of Servitude. 35 — 55 . 
 
 In connection with the bearing of the Jubilee 
 on personal freedom, the general law regard- 
 ing servants is here set forth. The principle 
 which was to limit and modify the servitude 
 of Hebrew servants is expressed and repeated 
 vv. 38, 42, 55- 
 
 35 . This verse might rather be rendered. 
 And if thy brother (an Israelite) becomes 
 poor and falls into decay with thee, 
 thou shalt assist him and let him live 
 with thee like a resident foreigner. So 
 the LXX, the Targums, the Vulgate, Saadia, 
 Luther, Knobel, Luzzatto, &c. Though he 
 had parted with his land he was not to be 
 reprded as an outcast, but was to be treated 
 with the same respect and consideration as a 
 resident foreigner who, like him, could pos- 
 
634 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXV. 
 
 V. 36—48.] 
 
 f> Exod. 
 22. 25. 
 Deut. 23. 
 19. 
 
 Prov. 28. 
 8. 
 
 Ezek. 18. 
 
 8 . 
 
 & 22. 12, 
 
 c Exod. 21. 
 
 2. 
 
 Deut. 15. 
 
 Jer. 34. 14. 
 T Heb. 
 serz>e thy- 
 self with 
 him with 
 the service, 
 &^c. 
 
 tHeb. 
 with the 
 sale of a 
 bondman. 
 
 36 ^Take thou no usury of him, 
 or increase: but fear thy God; that 
 thy brother may live with thee. 
 
 37 Thou shalt not give him thy 
 money upon usury, nor lend him thy 
 victuals for increase. 
 
 38 I am the Lord your God, 
 which brought you forth out of the 
 land of Egypt, to give you the land 
 of Canaan, and to be your God. 
 
 39 ^ And ^if thy brother that 
 dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and 
 be sold unto thee; thou shalt not 
 ^ compel him to serve as a bondservant : 
 
 40 But as an hired servant, and as 
 a sojourner, he shall be with thee, 
 and shall serve thee unto the year of 
 jubile ; 
 
 41 And then shall he depart from 
 thee, both he and his children with 
 him, and shall return unto his own 
 family, and unto the possession of his 
 fathers shall he return. 
 
 42 For they are my servants, 
 which I brought forth out of the land 
 of Egypt: they shall not be sold ^as 
 bondmen. 
 
 . 43 ‘^Thou shalt not rule over him ‘^Ephes.6. 
 with rigour ; but shalt fear thy God. Coi. 4. i. 
 
 44 Both thy bondmen, and thy 
 bondmaids, which thou shalt have, 
 shall be of the heathen that are round 
 about you ; of them shall ye buy 
 bondmen and bondmaids. 
 
 45 Moreover of the children of the 
 strangers that do sojourn among you, 
 of them shall ye buy, and of their fa- 
 milies that are with you, which they 
 begat in your land : and they shall be 
 your possession. 
 
 46 And ye shall take them as an 
 inheritance for your children after 
 you, to inherit them for a possession ; 
 
 ^ they shall be your bondmen for ever : ^ 
 but over your brethren the children serve 
 of Israel, ye shall not rule one over^^JF/iS 
 another v/ith rigour. 
 
 4.7 ^ And if a sojourner or stranger 
 ^wax rich by thee, and thy brother t Heb. 
 that dwelleth by him v/ax poor, and ^obtaiff 
 sell himself unto the stranger or so- 
 journer by thee, or to the stock of 
 the stranger’s family : 
 
 48 After that he is sold he may be 
 
 sess no land, but could accumulate property 
 and live in comfort as a free man. See on 
 fix. XX. 10; Lev. xvi. 29. In -on). 39, 40 the 
 same rule is addressed to masters in reference 
 to Hebrews who had become their bond- 
 servants. Cf. xix. 10, xxiii. 22, xxiv. 22; 
 Neh. V. I — 13. 
 
 37. lend him thy nnctuah for increase'] i.e. 
 supply him with food for thy own profit. 
 
 39, 40 . The law had already provided 
 that no Israelite who had become bound to 
 serve another could be forced to continue 
 more tlian six years in servitude. Ex. xxi. 2. 
 But in the year of Jubilee every Hebrew ser- 
 vant could claim liberty for himself and his 
 family, without respect to his period of ser- 
 vice, at the same time that he recovered his 
 share in the land {ns. 41). See on Ex. xxi. 5, 6. 
 The law appears harmoniously to supplement 
 the earlier one in Exodus. It was another 
 check applied periodically to the tyranny of 
 the rich. Cf. Jer. xxxiv. 8 — 17. Ewald 
 gratuitously considers that the earlier law had 
 become obsolete before the law of Jubilee was 
 promulgated. ‘Altert.’ p. 421. 
 
 43 . fear thy God] Jehovah was the Lord 
 and .Master of H is people. T o treat a Hebrew 
 as a slave was therefore to interfere with the 
 rights of Jehovah. Cf. Rom. xiv. 4. 
 
 44 — 46 . Property in foreign slaves, who 
 might be handed down from father to son, 
 is here distinctly permitted. It was a pa- 
 triarchal custom. See Gen. xvii. 12. Such 
 slaves might be captives taken in war (Num. 
 xxxi. 6sq.; Deut. xx. 14), those consigned to 
 slavery for their crimes, or those purchased of 
 foreign slave-dealers. The price of a slave is 
 supposed to have varied from thirty to fifty 
 shekels. See Ex. xxi. 32; Lev. xxvii. 3, 4; 
 Zech. xi. 12, 13; Matt. xxvi. 15. It was the 
 object of Moses, not at once to do away with 
 slavery, but to discourage and to mitigate it. 
 Kidnapping was punished with death (Ex. 
 xxi. 16). The slave was encouraged to be- 
 come a proselyte (Ex. xii. 44). He might be 
 set free (Ex. xxi. 26, 27). Special ntles were 
 laid down for the security of his life and 
 limbs (Ex. xxi. 20, 21, 26, 27). The Law 
 would not suffer it to be forgotten that the 
 slave is a man, and protected him in every 
 way that was possible at the time against the 
 injustice or cruelty of his master. See notes 
 on Ex. xxi. 
 
 46 . your bondmen for enser] i.e. they were 
 not necessarily to be released in the Sabbatical 
 year nor the Jubilee. 
 
 47 — 54 . a sojourner or stranger] Rather, 
 a foreigner who has settled among 
 
V. 49—55-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXV. 
 
 635 
 
 redeemed again ; one of his brethren 
 may redeem him: 
 
 49 Either his uncle, or his uncle’s 
 son, may redeem him, or any that is 
 nigh of kin unto him of his family 
 may redeem him ; or if he be able, he 
 may redeem himself. 
 
 50 And he shall reckon with him 
 that bought him from the year that 
 he was sold to him unto the year of 
 jubile : and the price of his sale shall 
 be according unto the number of 
 years, according to the time of an 
 hired servant shall it be with him. 
 
 51 If there he yet many years be- 
 hind^ according unto them he shall give 
 again the price of his redemption out 
 of the money that he was bought for. 
 
 52 And if there remain but few 
 years unto the year of jubile, then he 
 shall count with him, and according 
 unto his years shall he give him again 
 the price of his redemption. 
 
 53 And as a yearly hired servant 
 shall he be with him : and the other 
 shall not rule with rigour over him 
 in thy sight. 
 
 54 And if he be not redeemed " in n Or, 
 these years^ then he shall go out in mean^ 
 the year of jubile, both he, and his 
 children Vv^ith him. 
 
 55 For unto me the children of 
 Israel are servants ; they are my ser- 
 vants whom I brought forth out of 
 the land of Egypt: I am the Lord 
 your God. 
 
 you. Ex. XX. 10; Lev. xvi. 29. So Knobel, 54 . in these years'^ More properly, by 
 Wogue, &c. The extreme period of servitude one of these means, 
 in this case was probably six years, as when 
 
 the master was a Hebrew (Ex. xxi. 2). 55 . Cf. w. 38, 42. 
 
 NOTES on Chap. xxv. 
 
 I. On the Sabbatical Year. 
 
 •vn). I — 7. 
 
 In Exodus, the Sabbatical year is called 
 “the seventh year” (xxiii. 10), and in Deu- 
 teronomy, “the year of release” (xxxi. 10, cf. 
 XV. i). In this passage and in Exodus it is 
 represented merely as a period of rest for the 
 land, during which the ownership of the soil 
 was practically in abeyance and the chance 
 produce (which in the climate of the Holy 
 Land must have been very considerable) was 
 at the service of all comers. There was to be 
 neither sowing nor reaping, neither planting, 
 pruning, nor gathering. What Day and 
 Night are to man and beast, that Summer and 
 Winter are to the soil ; and hence as man had 
 his Sabbath every seventh day, so the land 
 was to lifive its Sabbath every seventh year. 
 See on Ex. xxiii. ii. But we are informed in 
 Deuteronomy xv. that all debtors were to be 
 released from their obligation. Whether 
 their debts were wholly cancelled, or the 
 claims upon them were only suspended during 
 the year, see notes in loc. 
 
 The rest is here spoken of simply as a rest 
 of the land. It must have debarred a great 
 part of the people from their accustomed oc- 
 cupations. But there appears to be no suffi- 
 cient reason to suppose, as some have done, 
 that the rest, or the recreation, of the people 
 formed any essential part of the design of the 
 Legislator. One effect of the institution may 
 
 indeed have been to keep alive and encourage 
 occupations which were not purely agricultu- 
 ral, such as trade, various kinds of handicraft, 
 the chase and the care of cattle. It is also (as 
 Carpzov and Ewald have conjectured) not 
 improbable that schools, and instruction of all 
 kinds both for young and old, were carried on 
 during the year with more than ordinary 
 energy and system. The reading of the Law 
 at the feast of Tabernacles in every Sabbatical 
 year may have been connected with this. 
 See Deut. xxxi. 10 — 13. 
 
 But the great material advantage of the in- 
 stitution must have been the increased fertility 
 of the soil from its lying fallow one year out 
 of seven, at a time when neither the rotation 
 of crops nor the art of manuring were under- 
 stood. It must also have kept up a salutary 
 habit of economy in the storing of corn. Cf. 
 Gen. xli. 48 — 56. Its great Spiritual lesson 
 was that there was no such thing as absolute 
 ownership in the land vested in any man, that 
 the soil was the property of Jehovah, that it 
 was to be held in trust for Him, and not to be 
 abused by overworking, but to be made the 
 most of for the good of every creature which 
 dwelt upon it Theodoret, ‘Qu£est.’35. The 
 land was Jehovah’s (y. 23), and the declared 
 purpose of the law is explained in the words 
 that it should “ rest and lie still, that the poor 
 of the people may eat, and what they leave 
 the beasts of the field shall eat.” Ex. xxiii. 
 II. The weekly Sabbath bore witness to the 
 
LEVITICUS. XXV. 
 
 equality of the people in regard to the Covenant 
 with Jehovah, of which the whole Sabbatical 
 institution was the symbol (see Note on the 
 Sabbath-day, Ex. xx. § vi.) : the restored dis- 
 tribution of the Land in the year of Jubilee 
 testified that every Israelite had originally an 
 equal claim to the possession of the Land of 
 Promise (see the following Note) : but the 
 Sabbatical rest of the soil bore even a broader 
 meaning ; it declared that every dweller in 
 the land, the hired servant, the foreigner, the 
 cattle, even the wild animals, had an ac- 
 knowledged claim of their own on its pro- 
 duce. The different Sabbatical observances of 
 the L.aw thus concur in pointing to that state 
 of things which would have followed the first 
 Sabbath of Creation, had not sin and its con- 
 sequences brought disorder amongst the crea- 
 tures of God. Gen. i. 31. 
 
 It would appear from % Chr. xxxvi. 20, 
 21, that the Sabbatical year was neglected 
 during seventy sabbatical cycles, 490 years, 
 which must have included the period of the 
 Monarchy. Cf. Lev. xxvi. 34, 35, 43, where 
 the obligation to maintain the institution is 
 made the subject of solemn admonition. 
 But after the Captivity, there are found 
 several historical notices which imply its ob- 
 servance. The Jews were exempted from 
 tribute in the Sabbatical year by Alexander 
 the Great (Jos. ‘ Ant.’ xi. 8. § 6), and by 
 Julius Caesar (Jos. ‘ Ant.’ xiv. 10. § 6). The 
 inhabitants of Bethsura could not stand out 
 when besieged by Antiochus Epiphanes, be- 
 cause they had no store of provisions owing 
 to the Sabbatical year (i Macc. vi. 49), and 
 the inhabitants of Jerusalem suffered from 
 the like cause when they were besieged by 
 Herod (Jos. ‘ Ant.’ xiv. 16. § 2, xv. i. § 2). 
 
 The originality of the Sabbatical year, as 
 well as of the year of Jubilee, is very striking. 
 There seems to be nothing like either of them 
 to be fairly traced in any ancient legislation. 
 See the following Note. 
 
 11. On the Jubilee. 
 
 'V'V. 8 — 33. 
 
 Josephus (‘Ant.’ xni. 2. § 3) says that 
 debts were remitted in the Jubilee as they 
 were in the year of Release. Deut, xv. 2. 
 But there is no hint of this in the Law. Some 
 of the Rabbinists expressly deny it. 
 
 There is no direct historical statement of 
 the observance of the Jubilee on any one 
 occasion, either in the Old Testament or else- 
 where. The only mention of it in the Law, 
 except in this chapter and in xxvii. 16 — 25, is 
 in the narrative regarding the daughters of 
 Zclophehad, Num. xxxvi, 4. See note. There 
 appears to be reference to its operation in 
 Ruth iv. 3 sq. But in the deficiency of 
 more direct testimony, some critics have 
 doubted (Michaelis, Winer), and others have 
 denied (Kranold, Hupfcld;, that it was ever 
 
 actually observed. The Rabbinists however, 
 and Josephus (‘Ant.’ iii. 12. § 3), affirm that 
 it was observed up to the Captivity, and some 
 of them say that it was restored after the 
 return. The statement of Diodorus Siculus 
 that the Jews could not sell their estates 
 (Tom, 11. p. 544), has been quoted to prove 
 that it was maintained in operation in his 
 time. Ewald and others have urged that no- 
 thing is proved by the absence of any distinct 
 statement regarding its obsei*vance, and that 
 the allusions to it in the Prophets are suffi- 
 ciently clear and numerous to show that the 
 people were practically familiar with its opera- 
 tion. See Isa. Ixi. i, 2 ; cf. v. 7 — I'o; Ezek. xlvi. 
 17; Jer. xi. 23, xxiii. 12, xlviii, 44. In these 
 passages in Jeremiah it is assumed, on what 
 seems to be probable ground, that the “year of 
 visitation” means the law of the Jubilee en- 
 forced in the restoration of ill-gotten gains to 
 those from whom they had been taken. In 
 Jer, xxxii. 6 — 12, Ewald traces the restored 
 working of the law which had taken place in 
 the reign of Josiah. ‘ Alterthumer,’ p. 424. If 
 there is any reference to the Jubilee in Neh. 
 V. I — 13 (especially compare -u-u. 3, 4 with 
 •V. ii), the institution must have been recog- 
 nized and partially reestablished immediately 
 after the return from the Captivity, 
 
 There appears to be no trace of anything 
 like the restoration of family estates in the 
 J ubilce in the customs of other ancient nations. 
 Strabo’s statement regarding the Dalmatians 
 (to which some have referred) is merely that 
 they redistributed their lands every eighth 
 year (lib. vii, p. 315). Regarding the state- 
 ment of Plutarch, that Lycurgus made an 
 equal division of the land amongst the Spar- 
 tans, Mr Grote seems to prove clearly that 
 it was a mistake. ‘Llistory of Greece,’ Vol. 
 II. p. 530. Taking it as a whole, the Jubi- 
 lee as instituted by Moses appears to be with- 
 out parallel in the history of the world. 
 
 Looking at the law of the Jubilee from a 
 simply practical point of view, its operation 
 must have tended to remedy those evils which 
 are always growing up in the ordinary con- 
 ditions of human society. It prevented the 
 permanent accumulation of land in the hands 
 of a few, and periodically raised those whom 
 fault or misfortune had sunk into poverty to 
 a position of competency. It must also have 
 tended to keep alive family feeling,«^nd helped 
 to preserve the family genealogies. It has 
 been conjectured that the public tables of 
 genealogy were corrected in each Jubilee year, 
 in order to meet the dying out of some 
 families and the multiplication of others 
 (Michaelis, Ewald). 
 
 But in its more special character, as a law 
 given by Jehovah to His peculiar people, it 
 was a standing lesson to those who would 
 rightly regard it, on the terms upon which 
 the enjoyment of the Land of Promise had 
 been conferred upon them. All the land 
 
LEVITICUS. XXVI. 
 
 V. r— 5-] 
 
 belonged to Jehovah* as its supreme Lord, 
 every Israelite as His vassal belonged to Him. 
 The voice of the Jubilee horns, twice in every 
 century, must have proclaimed the equitable 
 and beneficent social order appointed for the 
 people, as the silver trumpets of the Sanctuary 
 Lad ten days before (if we may trust the tra- 
 dition; see on xxiii. 24), called to mind the 
 perfect physical order of the world on the 
 eve of the first Sabbath, when “God saw 
 everything that he had made, and behold it 
 
 was very good.” ’ They who saw that all 
 physical and social order must be the reflec- 
 tion of spiritual realities, who waited for “the 
 consolation of Israel,” were so led to look for 
 that acceptable year of Jehovah which was to 
 bring comfort to all that mourned, in which 
 the slavery of sin was to be abolished and the 
 true liberty of God's children was to be pro- 
 claimed. Luke ii. 25; Isa. Ixi. 2; Luke iv. 
 19; Actsiii. 21; Rom. viii. 19 — 23; i Pet. i. 
 3, 4. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 I Of idolatry. 2 ReUgloitsness. 3 A blessing 
 to them that keep the commandments. 14 A 
 « I''xod. 20. curse to those that break them. 40 God pro- 
 
 4 - iniseth to remember them that repent. 
 
 Deut. 5 - 8. 
 
 & t6. 22. ^ 7 E shall make you "no idols nor 
 
 Psal. 97. 7- w • • 1 
 
 II Or, X graven image, neither rear you 
 
 up a “standing image, neither shall 
 jisnred yg II image of stone in 
 
 sfove. J f J O • r 
 
 Heb. your land, to bow down unto it: for 
 
 ‘pkZre^'^ I am the Lord your God. 
 
 2 *i[ “^Ye shall keep my sabbaths, chap. 19. 
 and reverence my sanctuary : I am 
 the Lord. 
 
 * 3 ye walk in my statutes, ^ 28. 
 
 and keep my commandments, and do 
 them ; 
 
 4 Then I will give you rain in 
 due season, and the land shall yield 
 her increase, and the trees of the field 
 shall yield their fruit. 
 
 5 And your threshing shall reach 
 
 Chapter XXVI. 
 
 This chapter appears to contain a formal 
 conclusion of the Book of Leviticus, the 
 twenty- seventh chapter being a distinct Ap- 
 pendix. 
 
 Command to maintain the Public 
 Worship of Jehovah. 
 
 According to the Jewish arrangement, in 
 both the Hebrew text and the Targums, these 
 two verses form part of the preceding chapter. 
 Their connection either with chap. xxv. or 
 with chap. xxvi. is not very close. They 
 might form a section by themselves. 
 
 1. ido/sl Literally, things of nought, xix. 
 4 ; Heb. elcelim. There appears to have been 
 a play on the similarity in sound of this word 
 to Elohim. Cf. i Cor. viii. 4. 
 
 gra/ven image'\ See on Exod. xx. 4. 
 
 standing image~\ Either an upright statue, or 
 a pillar, such as an obelisk or a Celtic menhir. 
 'I'he same word denotes simply a memorial 
 stone. Gen. xxviii. 18, xxxv. 14 ; Ex. xxiv. 4. 
 But here and elsewhere it expresses a stone set 
 up for an idolatrous purpose. Ex. xxiii. 24, 
 xxxiv. 13 ; Deut. vii. 5, xvi. 22; 2 K. iii. 2, 
 &c. 
 
 image of stone\ The phrase is not found 
 elsewhere.- — Other names for objects of false 
 worship occur in ao. 30. 
 
 2. Repeated from xix. 30. The public 
 worship of Jehovah required, first, the exclu- 
 sion of all visible symbols of deity as well as 
 of all idolatrous objects, and next, the keeping 
 holy of the times and the place appointed by 
 the Law for His formal service. The word 
 
 VoL. 1 . 
 
 Sabbaths must here include the whole of the 
 set times. See xxiii. 3. Note on the Sab- 
 bath-day, § VI. Ex. XX. This and the previous 
 verse include the substance of the first four 
 commandments of the Decalogue. 
 
 Promises and Threatenings. 3 — 45. 
 
 As “ the Book of the Covenant” (Ex. xx. 
 22 — xxiii. 33) concludes with promises and 
 warnings (Ex. xxiii. 20 — 33), so does this 
 collection of laws contained in the Book of 
 Leviticus. But the former passage relates to 
 the conquest of the Land of Promise, this 
 one to the subsequent history of the nation. 
 The longer similar passage in Deuteronomy 
 (xxvii. — XXX.) is marked by broader and 
 deeper promises and denunciations having 
 immediate reference not only to outward 
 consequences, but to the spiritual death in- 
 curred by transgressing the Divine will. 
 
 Promises for Obedience. 3 — 13, 
 
 4 . rain in due seaso 7 i] The periodical rains,, 
 on which the fertility of the Holy Land so much 
 depends, are here spoken of. There are two 
 wet seasons, called in Scripture the former 
 and the latter rain. Deut. xi. 14; Jer. v. 24; 
 Joel ii. 23; Hos. vi. 3; Jam. v. 7. The for- 
 mer or Autumn rain commences after the au- 
 tumnal equinox and falls in heavy showers in 
 November and December. Then generally 
 follows a period with occasional light showers,, 
 and in March the latter or Spring rain comes 
 on, which is precarious in quantity and dura- 
 tion, and rarely lasts more than two days.. 
 Job xxix. 23 ; Prov. xvi. 15 ; Robinson, ‘Phy- 
 
 S S 
 
T 
 
 EVITICUS. XXVI. 
 
 [v. 6 — 1 6. 
 
 638 
 
 unto the vintage, and the vintage 
 shall reach unto the sowing time : and 
 ye shall eat your bread to the full, 
 rtjobii. and ^dv/ell in your land safely. 
 
 . 6 And I v/ili give peace in the 
 
 ^ Job II. land, and ^ye shall lie down, and none 
 I’lieb. shall make jou afraid: and I will Aid 
 ccaff/'’ evil beasts out of the land, neither 
 shall the sword go through your land. 
 
 7 And ye shall chase your ene- 
 mies, and they shall fall before you 
 by the sv.mrd. 
 
 /■Josh. 23. 8 And-^hve of you shall chase an 
 
 hundred, and an hundred of you shajj 
 put ten thousand to flight : and your 
 enemies shall fall before you by the 
 sword. 
 
 9 For I will have respect unto 
 you, and make you fruitful, and mul- 
 tiply you, and establish my covenant 
 with you. 
 
 10 And ye shall eat old store, and 
 bring forth the old because of the 
 new. 
 
 11 And I will set my tabernacle i'Ezek. 37. 
 among you : and my soul shall not 
 abhor you. 
 
 12 ^'And I will walk among you, 2 Cor. 6. 
 and will be your God, and ye shall 
 
 be my people. 
 
 13 I am the Lord your God, 
 which brought you forth out of the 
 land of Egypt, that ye should not be 
 their bondmen; and I have broken 
 the bands of your yoke, and made 
 you go upright. 
 
 14 ^But if ye will not hearken 2 Deut. 28. 
 
 unto me, and will not do all these Lim 2 
 commandments ; 17.^^ ^ ^ 
 
 15 And if ye shall despise my sta- 
 tutes, or if your soul abhor my judg- 
 ments, so that ye will not do all my 
 commandments, but that ye break my 
 covenant : 
 
 16 I also v/ill do this unto you; I 
 will even appoint ^ over you terror, 
 consumption, and the burning ague, 
 that shall consume the eyes, and 
 
 sical Gcog. of the H. L.’ p. 263 ; Tristrain, 
 
 ‘ Kat. Hist.’ p. 30 sq. 
 
 5 . Cf. XXV. 21, 22; Amos ix. 13. 
 jqfd/j'] That is, in security from famine, 
 
 XXV. 19; Joel ii. 19, 26. 
 
 6. Cf. Job xi. 18, 19 ; Ps. cxlvii. 14 ; Ezek. 
 xxxiv. 25 — 28. 
 
 lie douvri] i.e. repose in comfort. 
 t-^'il beasts'] i. e. beasts of prey and destruc- 
 tive vermin. Cf. Isa. xxxv. 9 ; Ezek. v. 17, 
 xiv. 15. 
 
 s-ioord] Ezek. xiv. 17, xxi. 3, 4. 
 
 8. /I've of you shall chase] A prover- 
 bial mode of expression h)r superiority in war- 
 like prowess. Deut. xxxii. 30; Josh, xxiii. 10; 
 Isa. XXX. 17. 
 
 9. establish my co'venant] All material bless- 
 ings were to be regarded in the light of seals 
 of the “everlasting covenant.” Gen. xvii. 
 4 — 8 . 
 
 10. bring forth the old because of the nczv] 
 Rather, clear avza3'' the old before the 
 new; that is, in order to make room for 
 the latter. Cf. xxv. 22. 
 
 11 . 7 ny tabernacle] A more suitable ren- 
 dering here would be my abode. Heb. 
 mishkdn. See on Ex. xxvi. i. 
 
 12. 13. Ch. xxv. 38; Ex. vi.6 — 8, xxix. 45, 
 
 46. 
 
 13 . yoke] Jer. ii. 20; Ezek. xxxiv. 27. 
 
 The Fh'e TVamings for Disobedience. 14 — 32. 
 
 16 , 17 . The ministers of chastisement 
 which Jehovah threatens to appoint over his 
 people if they break the covenant are (i) 
 Disease, (2) Famine, (3) Defeat. 
 
 16 . terror] Literally, trembling. The 
 same Hebrew word is rendered trouble., Ps. 
 Ixxviii. 33; Isa. Ixv. 23. It can hardly be 
 here, as Knobel and Keil take it, a general 
 word for the objects of terror, specified in the 
 words that follow it. It seems rather to de- 
 note that terrible affliction, an anxious tempe- 
 rament, the mental state ever at war with 
 Faith and Hope. This might well be placed at 
 the head of the visitations on a backslider who 
 had broken the Covenant with his God. “ The 
 wicked flee when no man pursueth : but the 
 righteous are bold as a lion.” Prov. xxviii. 1 ; 
 cf. ‘7^. 17 ; Job xxiv. 17 ; Ps. xxiii. 4. 
 
 consumption, and the burning ague] The 
 Hebrew words here used occur nowhere else 
 except Deut. xxviii. 22. The first comes from 
 a root signifying to ^vaste a^vay; the latter, 
 from one signifying to kindle a fire. Con- 
 sumption is common in Egypt and some parts 
 of Asia Minar, but it is more rare in Syria. 
 Fevers of different kinds are the commonest 
 of all diseases in Syria and all the neighbouring 
 countries. I'he terms are probably to be 
 taken in a general sense for any wasting dis- 
 ease and any inflammatory disease. Fever 
 (as in Deut. xxviii. 22) would be better than 
 burning ague, being less specific. The oppo- 
 
V. 17—2 7-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXVI. 
 
 639 
 
 cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall 
 sow your seed in vain, for your ene- 
 mies shall eat it. 
 
 17 And I will set my face against 
 you, and ye shall be slain before 
 your enemies : they that hate you 
 
 -ftProv. 28. shall reign over you \ and “^ye shall flee 
 when none pursueth you. 
 
 18 And if ye will not yet for all 
 this hearken unto me, then I will 
 punish you seven times more for your 
 
 ’ sins. 
 
 19 And I will break the pride of 
 your power; and I will make your 
 heaven as iron, and your earth as 
 brass : 
 
 20 And your strength shall be 
 spent in vain : for your land shall not 
 vield her increase, neither shall the 
 trees of the land yield their fruits. 
 
 nor,' 21 f And if ye walk "contrary 
 
 vlntlrfs' unto me, and will not hearken unto 
 with me, j brino; scven times more 
 
 24- plagues upon you according to your 
 sins. 
 
 22 I will also send wild beasts 
 
 site promise to the threat contained in this 
 verse is given Ex. xv. 26, xxiii. 25. 
 
 consume the eyes'\ See i Sam. ii. 33; Jobxi. 
 
 2C. 
 
 cause sorrow of heart] Literally, cause the 
 soul to pine’' away. 
 
 your enemies shall eat it] Cf. Dent, xxviii. 
 33, 51 ; Job xxxi. 8; Jer. v. 17, &c. 
 
 17 . they that hate you., &c.] Gf. Ps. cvi. 41. 
 ye shall flee when none pursueth you] This 
 I may be connected with “the terror” in t;. 16 ; 
 
 [ see note: cf. Prov. xxviii. i. 
 
 I 18 — 43 . Four further stages of severity 
 
 L are mentioned in succession in these verses 
 
 P which were to be reserved. Cf. nsnj. 18, 21, 
 
 24, 28. . 
 
 i| 18 . for all this] i.e. for all the afflictions 
 
 H ' in ‘V‘v. 16, 17. 
 
 I strven times] The sabbatical number is here 
 proverbially used to remind the people of the 
 Covenant. Cf. Gen. iv. 15, 24; Ps. Ixxix. 
 12; Prov. xxiv. 16; Luke xvii. 4. 
 
 19 , 20. The second warning is utter 
 *. sterility of the soil. Cf. Ezek. xxxiii. 28, 
 
 ■; xxxvi. 34, 35. 
 
 21, 22. The third warning is the 
 multiplication of destructive animals, &c. Cf. 
 I Ezek. V. 17, xiv. 15; Judg. v. 6, 7; Isa. 
 
 xxxiii. 8. 
 
 among you, which shall rob you of 
 your children, and destroy your cat- 
 tle, and make you few in number; 
 and your high ways shall be desolate. 
 
 23 And if ye will not be reformed 
 by me by these things, but will walk 
 contrary unto me; 
 
 24 ^Then will I also walk con- -^2 Sam. 
 trary unto you, and will punish you psai/is 
 yet seven times for your sins. 
 
 25 And I will bring a sword upon 
 you, that shall avenge the quarrel 
 of my covenant : and when ye are ga- 
 thered together within your cities, I 
 will send the pestilence among you ; 
 and ye shall be delivered into the 
 hand of the enemy. 
 
 26 And when I have broken the 
 staff* of your bread, ten women shall 
 bake your bread in one oven, and 
 they shall deliver you your bread again 
 by weight : and ye shall eat, and not 
 be satisfied. 
 
 27 And if ye will not for all this 
 hearken unto me, but walk contrary 
 unto me; 
 
 22. which shall rob you of your children] 
 Literally, make you childless. 
 
 23 — 26. The fourth warning. Je- 
 hovah now places Himself as it were in a 
 hostile position towards His rebellious people. 
 He will avenge the outraged cause of His 
 Covenant, by the sword, pestilence, famine 
 and captivity. 
 
 26 . And when I hanse broken., &c.] Our 
 translators should not have inserted the copu- 
 lative here, and the preceding verse should 
 terminate only with a semicolon, so as to be 
 more closely connected with this one. — “To 
 break the staff of bread,” was a proverbial 
 expression for cutting off the supply of bread, 
 the staff of life. Ps. cv. 16 ; Ezek. iv. 16, v. 16, 
 xiv. 13, cf. Isa. iii. i. The supply was to be 
 so reduced that one oven would suffice for 
 baking the bread made by ten women* for ten 
 families, and when made it was to be dealt 
 out in sparing rations by weight. See 2 K. 
 vi. 25; Isa. iii. i; Jer. xiv. 18; Lam. iv. 9; 
 Ezek. iv. 16, v. 12; Hos. iv. 10; Mic. vi. 
 14. 
 
 27 — 33 . The fifth warning. If 
 they should still persist in their sinful course 
 they should be so reduced by famine that they 
 should eat the flesh of their children, "v. 29. 
 See 2 K. vi. 28, 29; Jer. xix. 8, 9; Lam. ii. 
 
 S S 2 
 
640 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXVI. 
 
 [v. 28—38. 
 
 28 Then I will walk contrary unto 
 you also in fury; and I, even I, will 
 chastise you seven times for your sins. 
 «Deut. 29 ^"And ye shall eat the flesh of 
 your sons, and the flesh of your 
 daughters shall ye eat. 
 
 30 And I will destroy your high 
 «2Chron. places, and ’’^cut down your images, 
 
 and cast your carcases upon the car- 
 cases of your idols, and my soul shall 
 abhor you. 
 
 31 And I will make your cities 
 waste, and bring your sanctuaries un- 
 to desolation, and I will not smell the 
 savour of your sweet odours. 
 
 32 And I will bring the land into 
 desolation : and your enemies which 
 dwell therein shall be astonished at 
 it. 
 
 33 And I will scatter you among 
 the heathen, and will draw out a 
 sword after you : and your land shall 
 be desolate, and your cities waste. 
 
 34 Then shall the land enjoy her 
 sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, 
 and ye be in your enemies’ land ; even 
 then shall the land rest, and enjoy her 
 sabbaths. 
 
 35 As long as it lieth desolate it 
 shall rest; because it did not rest in 
 your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. 
 
 36 And upon them that are left 
 a/ive of you I will send a faintness 
 into their hearts in the lands of their 
 enemies; and the sound of a ^shaken ti-ieb. 
 leaf shall chase them ; and they shall 
 flee, as fleeing from a sword ; and they 
 shall fall when none pursueth. 
 
 37 And they shall fall one upon 
 another, as it were before a sword, 
 when none pursueth : and ye shall 
 have no power to stand before your 
 eiieraies. 
 
 38 And ye shall perish among the 
 heathen, and the land of your ene- 
 mies shall eat you up. 
 
 20, iv. 10; Ezek. v. 10; Joseph. ‘B, J.’ v. 10. 
 §3; cf. Deut. xxviii. 53: — the abominations 
 of idolatry were to be destroyed in the land, 
 and the carcases of their worshippers should 
 be cast upon them, v. 30; see 2 K. xxiii. 16; 
 Ezek. vi. 4 : — their cities should be laid waste, 
 the Sanctuary itself with its sacred contents 
 should be destroyed and the savour of their 
 sacrifices would be rejected, i’. 31; see 
 2 K. XXV. 9 ; Ps. Ixxiv. 6, 7 : — the land should 
 be brought to such entire desolation, that 
 their enemies themselves should be astonished 
 at it, wondering at the great effect of their 
 own hostile efforts, and the people themselves 
 should be scattered among the heathen, w. 
 32, 33; see Ps. xliv. ii; Jer. ix. 16 sq. ; 
 kzek. V. I — 17; cf. Deut. iv. 27; xxviii. 37, 
 64. 
 
 27 . for all this~\ See v. 18. 
 
 30 . high places'] See Note at the end of 
 the chapter. 
 
 your images] The original word (chamma~ 
 nini) is derived from one of the names of the 
 sun, and in the margin of our Bible it is ren- 
 dered sun images^ 2 Chro. xiv. 5 ; Isa. xvii. 8 ; 
 Ezek. vi. 4, &c. It was rightly thus taken 
 by the older commentators to denote monu- 
 ments of. some kind dedicated to the sun. 
 Gesenius (‘Thes.’ p. 489) seems to prove satis- 
 factorily from Phoenician inscriptions that the 
 word was commonly applied to images of 
 Baal and Astarte, the god of the sun and the 
 goddess of the moon. This exactly explains 
 2 Chro. xxxiv. 4 sq. 
 
 idols] Heb. word (^gilluUni) literally means 
 things which could be rolled about, such as a 
 block of wood or a lump of dirt. It was no 
 doubt a name given in derision. Cf. Isa. xl. 
 20, xliv. 19; 2 K. i. 2. The word idol, like 
 image, is used by our translators to render 
 several different Hebrew words with distinct 
 meanings. See 2;. i ; Deut. xxix. 17 ; i K. xv. 
 12; 2 Chro. XV. 8; Zech. x. 2, &c.^ 
 
 31. sanctuaries] The holy places in the 
 Tabernacle and the Temple. Ps. Ixviii. 35. 
 Cf. Ps. Ixxiv. 7. 
 
 I qvill not smell the sa-vour^ &c.] See i. 9. 
 Cf. Isa. i. 13. 
 
 Results of the Visitations upon the Land and 
 the People. 33 — 38. 
 
 33 — 38. One immediate consequence of 
 the scattering of the people among the heathen 
 would be that the land would be left to rest, 
 and so far would expiate the long-continued 
 breach of the Sabbatical law, to which the 
 Legislator looked forward, -w. 34, 35. See 
 on XXV. 6. Cf. 2 Chro. xxxvi. 21. — A con- 
 nection may possibly here be traced with -v. 2 
 of this chapter. 
 
 35. More literally; All the days of 
 its desolation shall it rest that time 
 which it rested not in your Sabbaths 
 while ye dwelt upon it. That is, the 
 periods of rest of which the land had been 
 deprived would be made up to it. 
 
 38. the land of your enemies shall eat you 
 up] Num. -xiii. 32 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 13. 
 
V. 39—46.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXVL 
 
 641 
 
 39 And they that are left of you 
 shall pine away in their iniquity in 
 your enemies’ lands ; and also in the 
 iniquities of their fathers shall they 
 pine away w'ith them. 
 
 40 If they shall confess their ini- 
 quity, and the iniquity of their" fa- 
 thers, with their trespass which they 
 trespassed against me, and that also 
 they have walked contrary unto me ; 
 
 41 And that I also have v/alked 
 contrary unto them, and have brought 
 them into the land of their enemies ; 
 if then their uncircumcised hearts be 
 humbled, and they then accept of the 
 punishment of their iniquity : 
 
 42 Then will I remember my cove- 
 nant with Jacob, and also my cove- 
 nant with Isaac, and also my covenant 
 with Abraham will I remember; and 
 I will remember the land. 
 
 43 The land also shall be left of 
 them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths. 
 
 while she lieth desolate v/ithout them : 
 and they shall accept of the punish- 
 ment of their iniquity: because, even 
 because they despised my judgments, 
 and because their soul abhorred my 
 statutes. 
 
 44 And yet for all that, when they 
 be in the land of their enemies, will 
 
 not cast them away, neither will I Rom. i 
 abhor them, to destroy them utterly, 
 and to break my covenant with them : 
 for I am the Lord their God. 
 
 45 But I will for their sakes re- 
 member the covenant of their ances- 
 tors, whom I brought forth out of the 
 land of Egypt in the sight of the 
 heathen, that I might be their God : 
 
 I am the Lord. 
 
 46 These are the statutes and 
 judgments and laws, which the Lord 
 made between him and the children 
 of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand 
 of Moses. 
 
 The Co'venant may still be restored. 
 
 39— 45 - 
 
 39. iniquity'] The Hebrew word is ren- 
 dered “iniquity*’ here, in n). 40, v. i, 17, xvi. 
 22, &c. ; “punishment of iniquity,” in 'v’v. 
 41, 43; and “punishment” in Gen. \y. 13, 
 &c. The meaning here is, in the punish- 
 ment of their iniquity, and, in the next 
 clause, in the punishment of the ini- 
 quity of their fathers. In the next verse 
 the same Heb. word is properly represented 
 by “ iniquity.” Our translators have in several 
 places put one of the English words in the 
 text and the other in the margin. Gen. iv. 13, 
 xix. 15; 2 K. vii. 9; Ps. Ixix. 27, &c. ^ The 
 primary meaning of the Hebrew word is ini- 
 quity, but the language of Scripture does not 
 make that trenchant division between sin and 
 punishment which we are accustomed to do. 
 Sin is its own punishment, having in itself, 
 from its very commencement, the germ of 
 death. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth 
 forth death.” Jam. i. 15 ; Rom. ii. 5, v. 12. 
 See on 'v. 41. 
 
 iniquities of their fathers] See on Ex. xx. 5. 
 
 40 . trespass] The Hebrew word {nia^al, 
 see on v. 15) signifies an injury inflicted on 
 the rights of a person, as distinguished from 
 a sin or iniquity regarded as an outrage of 
 the Divine law. Every wrong act is of course 
 both a sin and a trespass against God. In 
 this place Jehovah takes the breadi of the 
 Covenant as a personal trespass. 
 
 41 . uncircumcised hearts] The outward 
 sign of the Covenant might be preserved, but 
 the answering grace in the heart would be 
 wanting. Acts vii. 51; Rom. ii. 28, 29; Jer. 
 vi. 10, ix. 26; cf. Col. ii. ii. 
 
 accept of the punisbme^it of their iniquity] 
 Literally, enjoy their iniquity. The figure is a 
 bold one, but not difficult ^f explanation, if 
 we keep in view the full sense of the Hebrew 
 word for iniquity. See on 2'. 39. The word 
 here and in nj. 43 rendered “accept” in this 
 phrase, is the same as is rendered “enjoy” in 
 the expression, “the land shall enjoy her 
 sabbaths.” The antithesis in -v. 43 is this: ‘ , 
 The land shall enjoy her sabbaths — and they shall 
 enjoy the punishment of their iniquity. The mean- 
 ing is, that the land being desolate shall have 
 the blessing of rest, and they having repented 
 shall have the blessing of chastisement. So 
 the LXX and Syriac. The feelings of a de- 
 vout captive Israelite are beautifully express- 
 ed in Tobit xiii. i— 18. 
 
 44, 45 . Cf. Jer. xxx. ic — 24. 
 
 46 . These words are generally taken as 
 concluding the Book of Leviticus. See pre- 
 liminary note. It has, however, been doubt- 
 ed whether this verse does not, in a stricter 
 sense, answer to xxv. i, so as to indicate that 
 chapters xxv. and xxvi. form a section by 
 themselves. Some suppose that this may add 
 point to the fact that the neglect of the Sab- 
 batical year is the most prominent subject of 
 admonition in this chapter, while the rules for 
 its observance are a chief topic in ch. xxv. 
 
642 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXVI. 
 
 NOTFS on Chap. xxvi. 
 
 I. ' Ox THE High Places. 
 
 ‘V. 30. 
 
 The name “High places” exactly repre- 
 sents the Hebrew word (nVDi? bamoth') ac- 
 cording to its etymology, and agrees with the 
 Vulgate and the Targums. But the LXX. 
 and the old Italic here and elsewhere in the 
 Pentateuch have o-r^Aai and tituli (monu- 
 ments). In the Historical Books, however, the 
 LXX. use ra v\J/r)\d or rd and in the 
 
 Prophets, j3o)iJ,ol. The other ancient ver- 
 sions generally have words answering to altars, 
 or fanes. There is no doubt that the word 
 here denotes elevated spots dedicated to false 
 worship (see Deut. xii. 2), and especially, it 
 would seem, to that of Baal (Num. xxii. 41; 
 Josh. xiii. 17). Such spots were however 
 employed and approved for the worship of 
 Jehovah, not only before the building of the 
 Temple, but afterwards. Judg. vi. 25, 26, 
 xiii. 16 — Z3 ; i S. vii. 10, xvi. 5 ; i K. iii. 2, 
 xviii. 30; 2 K. xii. 3; i Chro. xxi. 26, &c. 
 There seems to have been a widely spread 
 tendency in early times to select hills as 
 places for public devotion. Xen. ‘ Memorab,’ 
 III. 8. § 10; cf. Herodot. I. 131. The spots 
 which have the oldest religious association in 
 most regions are on elevated ground. The 
 Acropolis and the Capitol are examples. 
 Most druidical monuments are similarly situ- 
 ated. 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. It must be evident that 
 the High places which were denounced in 
 the Law were tiose which had idolatrous or 
 superstitious associations. 
 
 We may see how superstitious notions may 
 be connected by those who profess a higher 
 faith with spots once devoted to idolatry in 
 such peoples as the Bretons in reference to 
 their dolmens and menhirs. It is likely that 
 the Israelites were in like manner led astray 
 in reference to the places which had been de- 
 dicated by the old inhabitants of the Holy 
 Land to heathen worship. See on xx. 2, and 
 Note on the Groves, Ex. xxxiv. 13. 
 
 I'he High places in the Holy Land may thus 
 have been divided into those dedicated to the 
 worship of Jehovah, and those which had been 
 dedicated to idols. It was of course contrary 
 to the letter of the Law that sacrihee should 
 be ohered at any place except the national 
 Sanctuary, whether it was the Tabernacle at 
 Shiloh or the Temple at Jerusalem, But the 
 restraint took effect only by degrees. The 
 public worshij) of Jehovah was still permitted 
 at the High places even by Kings who desired 
 to serve Him. 2 K. xiv. 4, xv. 35; 2 Chro. 
 XV. 17. &c. 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 super- 
 stition. See on xix. 31, xx. 2—5. The others 
 might have been innocently used for prayer 
 and religious teaching as the Synagogues were 
 in a later age. But the temptation appeal’s to 
 have been too great for tlie temper of the peo- 
 ple. They offered sacrifice and burnt incense 
 on them; and hence thorough refoi*mers of 
 the national religion, such as Hezekiah and 
 Josiah, removed the High places altogether. 
 2 K. xviii. 4, xxiii. 5. 
 
 11. Ox THE Mosaic Origix of Chap. 
 XXVI. 
 
 i. Objections on the score of Style j ii. and of Sub- 
 ject matter, iii. Conjectural dates, iv. In 
 '^vhat sense a Prophecy, v. Distinguishing 
 character of the Mosaic Legislation. 
 
 i. The late origin of this twenty-sixth chapter 
 has been strongly urged, on the grounds of 
 both its style and its subject-matter. That the 
 style differs from that of the great part of the 
 Book of Leviticus is obvious. But, without 
 going into details, it may be asked whether its 
 mode of expression, in its main features, does 
 not resemble that Prophetic style which ap- 
 pears to have been common to all ages of He- 
 brew literature: and whether the two styles 
 in Leviticus are more dissimilar than the dif- 
 ferent styles of many a writer, in various 
 languages, who has had to write under dif- 
 ferent impulses and with different objects. 
 
 ii. As regards the argument from the sub- 
 ject-matter, it is mainly based upon ‘w. 34, 
 35, 4\3, in which it is declared that the land 
 shall enjoy her Sabbaths, while the people are 
 scattered among the heathen. It is assumed 
 that Moses could not have foreseen that the 
 Sabbatical year would be neglected, and that 
 the passages in question could have been 
 written only by one who had actually wit- 
 nessed the shortcomings of the Israelites in 
 this particular. It is urged that this is, of 
 itself, sufficient to give to the entire paragraph 
 (Lev. xxvi. 3 — 45) the stamp of a period 
 much later than the Mosaic. 
 
 iii. A late writer considers that a clue is 
 furnished to the date of the composition by a 
 comparison of v. 30 with 2 K. xxiii. 14, 16. 
 In the former Ave read, “And I will cast your 
 carcases upon the carcases of your idols;” and 
 in^the latter it is said that Josiah “brake in 
 pieces the images, and cut down the groves, 
 and filled their places with the bones of men,” 
 and also that “ he took the bones out of the 
 sepulchres and burned them upon the altar, 
 and polluted it,” 'Phis “novel mode of pollu- 
 tion” is suppossd to have originated from 
 reading the book found in the Temple by 
 Hilkiah, 2 K. xxii. 8, which must have been 
 the Pentateuch, d'he critic is therefore wil- 
 ling to admit that the chapter in question must 
 
V. I, 2.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXVIL 
 
 643 
 
 have been written before the reign of Josiah: 
 while from arguments derived mainly from 
 the style, he would ascribe it to a writer who 
 is supposed to have lived about A.c. 880. 
 
 But if the argument which has been stated 
 is worth anything, it surely proves that the 
 passage in Leviticus must have been written 
 before the reign of Jeroboam (a.c. 976 — 955), 
 when the man of God uttered the prediction 
 that the altar in Bethel should be polluted 
 in the very manner fulfilled by Josiah, i K. 
 xiii. 2. 
 
 Ewald is inclined to place its date consi- 
 derably lower, towards the end of the eighth 
 or the beginning of the seventh century, but 
 still long before the Captivity. (‘ Geschichte,’ 
 I. p. 156.) 
 
 All the reasoning advanced to prove the 
 late date of the composition of this chapter 
 assumes that the writer knew as matter of 
 fact that the law of the Sabbatical year h^ 
 been neglected, and that he put forth his ad- 
 monition to the people in the guise of old 
 threatenings and promises by the Legislator. 
 
 Now if we take the references to the neglect 
 of the Sabbatical year as necessarily based 
 upon existing fact, it must be fair that we 
 should take in the same way the references 
 to the scattering among the heathen njn). 32, 
 41, 44. It is not easy to see how any solid 
 foundation can be obtained for the main argu- 
 ment for the lateness of the composition, unless 
 we bring it down below the reign of Josiah to 
 the period of the Captivity, A.c. 606. Neither 
 of the dates which have been conjectured ap- 
 pears to be late enough to be in harmony with 
 the theory upon which they are chiefly based. 
 
 iv. But the chapter is not to be taken as 
 a foretelling, either real or pretended, of special 
 facts. It is indeed an inspired Prophecy, in 
 the true sense of the word, an utterance of the 
 Spirit regarding the present and the future. 
 But there seems to be no one point which 
 renders it necessary for us to suppose that dis- 
 tinct occurrences of actual fact, either present 
 or to come, were in the mind of the writer. 
 The succession of visitations spoken of 18 
 — 43 is (as Keil has observed) not to be re- 
 garded in a historical fight, as setting forth 
 occurrences in their ordU of time. Its object 
 is rather to furnish illustrations of the idea of 
 the Divine judgments unfolding themselves in a 
 way naturally answering to the progressive de- 
 velopment of sin. We know from the history 
 that the disobedience of the nation did not go 
 on without intermission. Periods of recovery 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL 
 
 1 He that maketh a sing-ular vena must be the 
 Lord's. 2 The estimation of the person. 9 
 Of a beast given by vow. 14 Of a house. 
 16 Of a field., and the rede 7 nption thereof. 
 28 N'o devoted thing may be redee/?ied. 32 
 The tithe may not be changed. 
 
 intervened, so that renewed blessings alternated 
 from time to time with fulfilled threatenings. 
 But the Covenant was outraged more and more 
 flagrantly, as each sinful period took its turn, 
 until at last ungodliness gained the upper 
 hand, and the full measure of punishment was 
 poured out upon the reprobate race. 
 
 V. Moses knew the human heart, and he was 
 acquainted with the temper and disposition of 
 his own people. Like our Saviour Himself in 
 delivering the Sermon on the mount, the Le- 
 gislator knew that his words would be but 
 imperfectly obeyed. He could not have been 
 blind in this matter. Insight will always beget 
 foresight. He knew that such a law as that of 
 the Sabbatical year would run counter to the 
 selfishness and avarice of the people. He ex- 
 pected the result which later writers had to re- 
 cord in history. He was not so ignorant of the 
 position which the nation would hold, after 
 his own work was done, in reference to the 
 natural features of the Promised Land and in 
 relation to the great neighbouring states, as to 
 fail to foresee, in such outline as is here given, 
 the manner in which their disobedience and 
 degradation would be punished. Gf. on Ex. 
 xxiii. II, 20, 31. 
 
 The highest laws are not to be regarded as 
 useless because they are certain to be generally 
 neglected. The Hebrew Law in regard to 
 sacrifices, attendances at the Temple and the 
 Holy Convocations, was perhaps, even in ordi- 
 nary times, as much neglected as the rules of 
 the Christian Church are in our day. The 
 proportion of Israelites who failed to maintain 
 a strict observance of religious rites may have 
 been as small as the proportion of baptized 
 Christians who partake of the Holy Commu- 
 nion. The obligation in each case has the 
 same sanction ; the heart of man was not more 
 amenable to it then than it is now. But the 
 Law was not foiled of its purpose. It was 
 intended to represent human duty in its rela- 
 tion to divine holiness, to show forth and 
 reprove human weakness, not to stoop to it 
 (Rom. vii. 10 — 14). Its requirements were 
 not lowered to the probabilities of man’s con- 
 duct. It was not, like the legislation of ordi- 
 nary states, intended primarily to meet the 
 exigencies of existing facts and to keep of- 
 fenders in order. Its purpose was to help and 
 instruct the best of the people, not merely to 
 chastise the worst. Other legislators have 
 taken their starting points from human facts: 
 Moses took his from the character and pur- 
 pose of God. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 ]f\ saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, 
 and say unto them. When a man shall 
 make a singular vow, the persons shall 
 be for the Lord by thy estimation. 
 
644 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXVIl. 
 
 [v. 3—10. 
 
 3 And thy estimation shall be of 
 the male from twenty years old even 
 unto sixty years old, even thy estima- 
 tion shall be hfty shekels of silver, 
 after the shekel of the sanctuary. 
 
 4 And if it be a female, then thy 
 estimation shall be thirty shekels. 
 
 5 And if it be from five years old 
 even unto twenty years old, then thy 
 estimation shall be of the male twenty 
 shekels, and for the female ten shekels. 
 
 6 And if it be from a month old 
 even unto five years old, then thy 
 estimation shall be of the male five 
 shekels of silver, and for the female 
 thy estimation shall be three shekels 
 of silver. 
 
 7 And if it be from sixty years old 
 and above; if it be a male, then thy 
 estimation shall be fifteen shekels, and 
 for the female ten shekels. 
 
 8 But if he be poorer than thy es- 
 timation, then he shall present him- 
 self before the priest, and the priest 
 shall value him ; according to his 
 ability that vowed shall the priest 
 value him. 
 
 9 And if it be a beast, whereof men 
 bring an offering unto the Lord, all 
 that any ?nan giveth of such unto the 
 Lord shall be holy. 
 
 10 He shall not alter it, nor change 
 it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a 
 ^ood : and if he shall at all change 
 
 Chap. XXVII. 
 
 Of the Commutation of Vows and 
 Dues, 
 
 The position which this chapter holds after 
 the formal conclusion, xxvi. 46, suggests that 
 it is of a supplementary character. There 
 seems however no reason to doubt its Mosaic 
 origin. 
 
 The nature of a Vow is set forth Deut. xxiii. 
 21, 22: it was an obligation to Jehovah vo- 
 luntarily incurred, Cf. Num. xxx. 2; Ps. xv. 
 4; Prov. XX. 25; Eccles. v. 4, 5. A broken 
 Vow required a Sin-offering, Lev. v. 4 — 6. 
 — The law for Vows made by women is given 
 Num. xxx. 2 — 16. 
 
 The Commutation of Fows. 
 
 2—25. 
 
 Things of any kind which a man, under 
 the impulse of religious feeling, either in the 
 way of thankfulness for blessings received, or 
 of supplication for something desired, had 
 vowed to dedicate to the service of the Sanc- 
 tuary, in the ordinary way, might be redeemed 
 according to a fixed mode of valuation. 
 
 2 — 3. The meaning of the latter part of 
 the second verse and the beginning of the 
 third appears to be. When a man makes 
 a special vow which concerns thy 
 valuation of persons to Jehovah, if 
 thy estimation shall be of the male. 
 See. The expression “ thy estimation ” is ad- 
 dressed cither to Moses or to the priest (-i;. 12) : 
 it denoted a legal valuation. See next note, 
 
 2 8. The vow of a Person was perhaps 
 
 most frecjuently made in cases of illness or 
 dangcr. A man might dedicate himself, his 
 wife, his child, or his bondservant, on condi- 
 tion of recovery or deliverance. This might 
 have been an old custom; but the Law or- 
 dained that he who had taken such a vow 
 
 should pay a sum of money to the Sanctuary, 
 determined according to the age and sex of 
 the person. That the redemption of the 
 person in money was what the Law reck- 
 oned on in the kind of vow here spoken 
 of, appears from the form of the expression 
 Qv. 2), and from the reduction of the ran- 
 som-money permitted to meet the circum- 
 stances of a poor man (2,’. 8). If the actual 
 service of the individual had been contemplat- 
 ed, the poor man who had been dedicated 
 would simply have had to do his work for the 
 Sanctuary. — It would hence seem that there 
 can be no reference here to such vows as 
 Hannah’s regarding her offspring (i S, i. ii), 
 or as that which Absalom pretended to have 
 taken (2 S. xv. 8). It would, moreover, be 
 contrary to the spirit of these, as well as of 
 the Nazarite vow described Num, vi., that the 
 option of commuting them should be allowed. 
 
 3 — 7. The relative values of the persons 
 appear to be regulated according to an esti- 
 mate of the probable value of their future 
 work : — 
 
 Male. Female. 
 
 From a month to five years 5 3 shekels. 
 
 From five years to twenty 20 10 ,, 
 
 From forty years to sixty 50 30 ,, 
 
 Sixty years and more 15 10 ,, 
 
 Regarding the shekel of the sanctuary, see 
 Ex, xxxviii. 24. 
 
 8. if he be poorer than thy estimation'] too 
 poor (to pay) thy valuation. Cf. v. 
 7, II. 
 
 9 — 13 . A clean animal which had been 
 vowed was “holy” (2>. 10), and could only 
 be sacrificed. It could neither be redeemed 
 nor changed. But an unclean animal, such 
 as a camel or an ass, was either sold for the 
 value which the priest set on it, or could be 
 
V. II — 22.] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXVII. 
 
 645 
 
 beast for beast, then it and the ex- 
 change thereof shall be holy. 
 
 1 1 And if it he any unclean beast, 
 of which they do not offer a sacri- 
 fice unto the Lor.d, then he shall pre- 
 sent the beast before the priest: 
 
 12 And the priest shall value it, 
 whether it be good or bad : ^ as thou 
 
 to thy eta- valuest it, who art the priest, so shall 
 
 inatiofi, 1 
 
 priest, &^c. It De. 
 
 I 
 
 SOr. 
 
 ihe land of 
 an homer, 
 d'-’c. 
 
 13 But if he will at all redeem it, 
 
 then he shall add a fifth part thereof 
 unto thy estimation. a 
 
 14 And when a man shall saiTC- 
 tify his house to he holy unto the 
 Lord, then the priest shall estimate 
 it, whether it be good or bad : as 
 the priest shall estimate it, so shall 
 it stand. 
 
 15 And if he that sanctified it will 
 redeem his house, then he shall add 
 the fifth part of the money of thy 
 estimation unto it, and it shall be 
 his. 
 
 16 And if a man shall sanctify unto 
 the Lord some part of a field of his 
 possession, then thy estimatioij shall 
 be according to the seed thereof : " an 
 
 homer of barley seed shall he valued 
 at fifty shekels of silver. 
 
 17 If he sanctify his field from the 
 year of jubile, according to thy esti- 
 mation it shall stand. 
 
 18 But if he sanctify his field after 
 the jubile, then the priest shall reckon 
 unto him the money according to the 
 years that remain, even unto the year 
 of the jubile, and it shall be abated 
 from thy estimation. 
 
 19 And if he that sanctified the 
 field will in any wise redeem it, then 
 he shall add the fifth part of the money 
 of thy estimation unto it, and it shall 
 be assured to him. 
 
 20 And if he will not redeem the 
 field, or if he have sold the field to 
 another man, it shall not be redeemed 
 any more. 
 
 21 But the field, when it goeth 
 out in the jubile, shall be holy unto 
 the Lord, as a field devoted \ the pos- 
 session thereof shall be the priest’s. 
 
 22 And if a man sanctify unto the 
 Lord a field which he hath bought, 
 v/hich is not of the fields of his pos- 
 session; 
 
 redeemed for its value with one-fifth added, 
 Cf. V. 16, vi. 5. — The apostrophe to the priest 
 in -z;. 12 is worthy of note. 
 
 14 , 15 . The law respecting the vow of a 
 house was the same as that of an unclean 
 animal. It is most likely that this relates to 
 houses in the country (xxv. 31), which were 
 under the same general law as the land itself, 
 with a right of redemption for the inheritor 
 till the next Jubilee. See on 'vn). 17 — 19. 
 For houses in walled towns the right of re- 
 demption lasted for only one year, xxv. 29. 
 
 14 . sanctify\ t. e. vow to devote. 
 
 16 . some part of a f.elcl of his possessiori] 
 Rather, a part of the land of his inhe- 
 ritance. 
 
 the seed thereof^ i. e. the quantity of seed 
 required to sow it properly. This was the 
 mode in which the value of a certain area was 
 to be estimated. 
 
 a homer'] The Homer was ten Ephahs 
 (Ezek. xlv. ii); it must therefore have been 
 something above bushels. See Lev, xix. 36. 
 
 17 — 19 . If the possession was surrendered 
 from one Jubilee to the next, for a field 
 which required a homer of barley to sow it, 
 fifty shekels (probably y^6. 9.1. 2d. ; see on Ex. 
 
 xxxviii. 24), with the addition of one-fifth, 
 made up the price of redemption. 
 
 20, 21. If the field was not redeemed be- 
 fore the next Jubilee, it lapsed to the priests in 
 perpetuity. On the word “ devoted” {cheremf 
 see on 2). 28. — The meaning of the words, 
 “ or if he have sold the field to another man,” 
 is not clear. They may refer to a case in which 
 a man might have fraudulently sold his in- 
 terest in a field and appropriated the price 
 after having vowed it to the Sanctuary (Kno- 
 bel) ; or to one in which a man retained the 
 use of the field, fulfilled his vow by paying 
 as a yearly rent a due proportion of the re- 
 demption money (see on 22 — 24), and then 
 parted with his interest to another for the sake 
 of acquiring some ready money (Keil). 
 
 22 — 24 . If a man vowed the worth of 
 his interest in a field which he had purchased, 
 the transaction was a simple one. He had to 
 pay down at once (“in that day,” ^v. 23) the 
 calculated value to the next Jubilee. In this 
 case, the field reverted at the Jubilee to the 
 original owner, who, it is likely, had the same 
 right of redeeming it from the priests during 
 the interval, as he had previously had of I'e- 
 deeming it from the man to whom he had 
 sold it, in accordance with xxv. 23 — 28. The 
 
646 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXVIL 
 
 [v. 23 -31. 
 
 23 Then the priest shall reckon 
 unto him the worth of thy estima- 
 tion, even unto the year of the jubile: 
 and he shall give thine estimation in 
 that day, as a holy thing unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 24 In the year of the jubile the 
 field shall return unto him of whom 
 it was bought, even to him to whom 
 the possession of the land did belong. 
 
 25 And all thy estimations shall be 
 accordins: to the shekel of the sane- 
 
 « Exod.30. tuary : "twenty gerahs shall be the 
 Numb. 3. shekel. 
 
 Kzek. 45. 26 ^ Only the Tirstling of the 
 
 ?Heb beasts, which should be the Lord’s 
 firstborn, firstling, no man shall sanctify it ; 
 whether it be ox, or sheep : it is the 
 Lord’s. 
 
 27 And if it be of an unclean beast, 
 then he shall redeem it according to 
 
 thine estimation, and shall add a fifth 
 part of it thereto : or if it be not re- 
 deemed, then it shall be sold accord- 
 ing to thy estimation. 
 
 28 ^Notwithstanding no devoted ^Josh. 
 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. 
 
 29 None devoted, which shall be 
 devoted of men, shall be redeemed; 
 
 ^t shall surely be put to death. 
 
 30 And all the tithe of the land, 
 whether of the seed of the land, or of 
 the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s : 
 it is holy unto the Lord. 
 
 31 And if a man will at all redeem 
 ought of his tithes, he shall add there- 
 to the fifth part thereof. 
 
 regulation for the payment of the exact sum 
 to be made in this case in ready money is 
 supposed to furnish ground for inference that, 
 in redeeming an inherited held, the money was 
 paid to the priests year by year, and hence 
 the fairness of the addition of one-hfth to 
 the total sum as interest (i’. 19). 
 
 25. On the Shekel and the Gerah, see Ex. 
 XXX. 13, xxxviii. 24. 
 
 The Redeeming of Firstlings. 26, 27. 
 
 The firstborn of oxen and sheep already 
 belonged to Jehovah (Ex. xiii. 2, xxii. 30), 
 and could not therefore be made the objects 
 of vows. But the firstling of an unclean 
 animal, such as an ass or a camel, could be re- 
 deemed according to the ordinary rate (‘z-'u. 
 II, 13), or sold for its value. Cf. Num. 
 xviii. 15, 18. It might seem that the earlier 
 law in Exodus (xiii. 13, xxxiv. 20), which 
 retpiired that the firstborn of an ass was to 
 be either redeemed with a sheep or put to 
 death, is here modified for the advantage of 
 the Sanctuary. A change of circumstances 
 may have rendered this alteration expedient. 
 'J'he priesthood and the regular service of the 
 d'abernacle were now established and needed 
 support. There was nothing in the change 
 at variance with the spirit of the older law. 
 
 26. sheep'] one of the flock. Introd. 
 
 § iv. 
 
 27. shall redeem it] Rather, shall de- 
 liver it. The Hebrew word is different 
 from that in the second jiart of the verse, 
 and appears to have a less special meaning. 
 See t". 29. 
 
 Of things Devoted under a Ban. 28, 29. 
 
 28, 29. But nothing of his possessions 
 that a man might devote to Jehovah under 
 a ban (see next note), whether it was a human 
 creature, or beast, or land, could be either 
 redeeiffed or sold. Whatever was devoted 
 under ban was to be regarded as entirely con- 
 secrated to Jehovah. Any live creature so 
 devoted was to be put to death, 
 
 28. The word rendered “ devoted thing ” 
 is cherem, as in v. 21. The primary meaning 
 is something cut off, or shut up. Its specific 
 meaning in the Law is, that which is cut off 
 from common use and given up in some sense 
 to Jehovah, without the right of recal or 
 commutation. It is applied to a field wholly 
 appropriated to the Sanctuary in -u. 21, and to 
 whatever was doomed to destruction, i S. 
 XV. 21; I K. XX. 42. The phrase, “most 
 holy unto the Lord,” is here predicated of 
 whatever is devoted under a ban, but it more 
 commonly and strictly belongs to the holiest 
 class of offerings for the Altar and the Sanc- 
 tuary, See on ii. 3. Our translators have ofUn 
 rendered the word by “cursed,” or “a curse,” 
 which in some places may convey the right 
 sense, but it should be remembered that the 
 terms are not identical in their compass of 
 meaning. Dent. vii. 26; Josh, vi. 17, 18, 
 vii. i; Isa. xxxiv. 5, xliii. 28, &c. Cf. Gal. 
 iii. 13. 
 
 of man and beast] See Note at the end of 
 this chapter. 
 
 29. redeemed] Rather, delivered. See 
 on V. 27. 
 
V. 32—34-] 
 
 LEVITICUS. XXVII. 
 
 647 
 
 32 And concerning the tithe of the 
 herd, or of the flock, even of whatso- 
 ever passeth under the rod, the tenth 
 shall be hol^ unto the Lord. 
 
 33 He shall not search whether 
 it be good or bad, neither shall he 
 change it : and if he change it at all, 
 
 then both it and the chano;e thereof 
 shall be holy ; it shall not be re- 
 deemed. 
 
 34 These are the commandments, 
 which the Lord commanded Moses 
 for the children of Israel in mount 
 Sinai. 
 
 T^he Commutation of Tithes. 30, 33. 
 
 30 , 31 . Cf. 13, 27. 
 
 32 , 33 . The tenth of sheep and oxen, 
 like the frstling, ns. 26, was neither to be re- 
 deemed nor changed, according to the same 
 rale as was laid down for the clean animal 
 that had been vowed, u. 10. 
 
 32 . nvhatsoe'ver passeth under the rod'\ 
 According to rabbinical tradition, the animals 
 
 to be tithed were enclosed in a pen, and a 
 they went out one by one at the opening, 
 every tenth animal was touched with a rod 
 dipped in vermilion. Cf. Jer. xxxiii. 13 ; 
 Ezek. XX. 37. 
 
 For a more full explanation of what relates 
 to tithes, see on Gen. xiv. 20, xxviii. 22 ; 
 Num. xviii. 20 — 32 ; Deut. xiv. 22, 28. 
 
 34 . The Conclusion. Cf. xxvi. 46. 
 
 NOTE on Chap, xxvii. 28. 
 
 Ox THE Devoted Thing. 
 
 i. This passage has often been alleged in 
 proof that the Law of Moses permitted human 
 sacrifices. It has been applied in this way to 
 the case of Jephthah and his daughter. (See 
 on Judg. xi. 30.) But such an inference is 
 at once precluded by the exact limitation of 
 the beasts which were to be offered in sacrifice. 
 The right rendering of Lev. i, 2 is, “ If any 
 man of you bring an offering to Jehovah from 
 the beasts, from the Herd or from the Flock 
 shall ye bring your offering.” There is more- 
 over a clear recognition of man as one of the 
 creatures which were not to be offered in sa- 
 crifice in Ex. xiii. 13, xxxiv. 20; Num. xviii. 
 iJ:. 
 
 ii. The word cherem (D'ln) has been explain- 
 ed in the note under the text. There is no good 
 reason to doubt that its application to man is 
 made exclusively in reference to one rightly 
 doomed to death and, in that sense alone, 
 given up to Jehovah. The feeling of the sa- 
 credness of Life has its seat in the depth of the 
 human' heart. This feeling may work blindly, 
 and exhibit itself in diverse ways. But in an 
 enlightened mind it becomes a clear con- 
 viction that all Life belongs to God, and is 
 claimed by Him, Every animal sacrifice is an 
 expression of this truth. The Law of Moses 
 recognizes it in a marked manner in the regula- 
 tion for the slaughter of animals for food. Lev. 
 xvii. When human life is in question, the 
 impression is beyond comparison stronger and 
 more distinct. To destroy a life is in fact to 
 give it back to God. The putting to death 
 either of a criminal or an enemy, if it is any- 
 thing more than an indulgence of vengeance, 
 is to be regarded in this light. The man who, 
 in a right spirit, either carries out a sentence 
 
 of just doom on an offender, or who, with a 
 single eye to duty, slays an enemy in battle, 
 must regard himself as God’s servant render- 
 ing up a life to the claim of the Divine justice. 
 Rom. xiii. 4. It was in this way that Israel 
 was required to destroy the Canaanites at 
 Hormah (Num. xxi. 2, 3 ; cf. Deut. xiii. 12 
 — 18), and that Samuel hewed Agag in pieces 
 before the Lord (i S. xv. 33). In all such 
 instances a moral obligation rests upon him 
 whose office it is to take the life. He has to 
 look upon the object of his stroke as under a 
 ban to the Lord. Cf, Deut. xx. 4; Gal. iii. 
 13. This is the only ground on which the 
 destruction of human life is to be justified. 
 When this ground is clearly ascertained, the 
 duty of him who is called to act refers to the 
 forfeit of the individual life. There can there- 
 fore be neither redemption nor commutation. 
 
 iii. It is evident that the righteousness of this 
 law is not involved in the sin of rash or foolish 
 vows, such as Saul’s (i S. xiv. 24) or Jeph- 
 thah’s (Judg. xi. 30). A man through wilful- 
 ness or blindness may be betrayed into a di- 
 lemma in which he has to choose between 
 breaking his vow, or breaking the Divine law 
 in some other way. Such a difficulty is radi- 
 cally the same in all ages and circumstances, 
 and has to be met under the same sort of 
 moral conditions, of whatever kind the oath 
 may be. 
 
 iv. It seems hardly needful to add that sacri- 
 fice, as it is represented both in the Law and 
 in the usage of the Patriarchs, is something 
 very different from consecration under a ban, 
 though a thing to be sacrificed might come un- 
 der the designation of cherem in its wider sense. 
 See on xxvii, 28. The sacrifice was always the 
 offering up of the innocent life of a creature 
 chosen and approved without spot or blemish. 
 
LEVITICUS. XXVII. 
 
 648 
 
 The offering was made, not by any constraint 
 involved in the nature of things, but as a free 
 act of worship. In either case, indeed, a life 
 was given up to God. But the mode, the pur- 
 pose, and the meaning were as distinct as pos- 
 sible. In heathen systems the two ideas were 
 often confounded. Criminals or captives were 
 the most frequent human victims offered on 
 the altar. Rut the teaching of the Old Tes- 
 tament on this head is perfectly clear. There 
 was no trace of this confusion even in the mind 
 
 of Abraham, when he was preparing to make 
 his great sacrifice. He had been led on to offer 
 Isaac to the Lord as his best and most perfect 
 possession. But the voice from heaven saved 
 him from carrying out his purpose at the cost 
 of other principles of righteousness on which 
 he needed to be instructed. See Introd. § xii. 
 
 The subject of this note is elaborately treat- 
 ed by Selden, ‘de Jure Gent.’ Lib. iv. cap. 
 vi. — xi. See also Waterland, ‘Scripture Vin- 
 dicated,’ Works, Vol. IV. p. 226 sq. 
 
NUMBERS 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § I 649 
 
 Contoits^ § a . , , . . ib. 
 
 § I. Title. 
 
 T he title commonly given to this 
 Book (LXX. ’AptO/xoL, Vulg. Niimeri) 
 is evidently suggested by the two number- 
 ings of the people recorded in it in chap- 
 ters i. and xxvi. The Jews sometimes de- 
 signate it after their ordinary mode by its 
 first word Vayedabber, or more frequently 
 by its first distinctive word Bemidba)'. 
 
 ' § 2. Conietits. 
 
 The book narrates the history of the 
 Israelites during their sojourn in the wil- 
 derness from the completion of the law- 
 giving at Sinai, Lev. xxvii. 34, to their 
 mustering in the Plains of Moab for 
 actual entry into the Land of Promise. 
 Its contents may be divided into four 
 parts: — 
 
 (i) Preparations for the break up 
 of the encampment at Sinai, and for 
 marching on Canaan; i. i — x. 10. 
 
 (2) The march from Sinai to the 
 borders of Canaan, and repulse by the 
 Canaanites; x. ii — xiv. 45. 
 
 (3) A notice of various occurrences 
 and enactments belonging to the thirty- 
 eight years of penal wandering in the 
 desert; xv. i — xix. 22. 
 
 (4) The history of the last year 
 spent in the wilderness, the fortieth after 
 the Exodus; xx. i — xxxvi. 13. 
 
 The incidents are generally given in 
 their chronological order, except in the 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chronology, § 3 . . . _ . .649 
 
 Authorship and Date of Composition, § 4 650 
 
 third part. The five chapters comprised 
 in this part deal with a long period, from 
 which only isolated episodes are given; 
 and of these the dates can only be con- 
 jectured; see introductory notes to xv. 
 and xvi., and note on xx. i. In this and 
 other parts of the book several ordi- 
 nances are added to the Sinaitic code, 
 and these are apparently introduced in 
 their historical connexion with the cir- 
 cumstances which gave occasion for 
 them. 
 
 § 3. Chronohgy. 
 
 (1) The narrative commences with 
 “ the first day of the second month of 
 the second year after they were come 
 out of Egypt,” i. i; and the death of 
 Aaron at the first encampment during the 
 final march on Canaan (xx. 22) took 
 place in the first day of the fifth month 
 of the fortieth year (xxxiii. 38). 
 
 (2) Between these two dates there- 
 fore intervene no less than thirty-eight 
 years and three months (cf Deut. ii. 14), 
 the long and dreary period of tarrying 
 in the wilderness till the disobedient 
 generation had wasted away. Cf xiv. 
 27 — 35. On the history of these years, 
 see notes on xx. i ; *and on xxxiii. 1 9. 
 
 (3) The solemn rehearsal of the Law 
 contained in Deuteronomy was com- 
 menced by Moses after the overthrow of 
 Sihon and Og, in the beginning of the 
 
650 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 eleventh month of the fortieth year 
 (Deut. i. 3, 4)- 
 
 (4) We have consequently from the 
 death of Aaron to the opening of Deut. 
 a space of exactly six months, in which 
 all the events narrated in the fourth 
 part of the Book of Numbers, from xx. i 
 to the end, would seem to have occurred, 
 with the probable exception of the de- 
 feat of the king of Arad mentioned 
 below. 
 
 (5) Those events are many and re- 
 markable. After the tedious years of 
 suspense were once passed the history 
 of the chosen j^eople hurries on, not 
 without a sort of dramatic propriety, to 
 a crisis. Crowded as this space is, it 
 yet has room enough for the incidents 
 which are here assigned to it. 
 
 (6) The first month of the six was 
 passed at the foot of mount Hor in 
 mourning for Aaron (xx. 29). But it is 
 likely that during this month a part of 
 the host was engaged in revenging upon 
 the king of Arad the molestation in- 
 flicted by him on the Israelites during 
 their journey from Kadesh to Mount 
 Blor; see introductory note to xx. and 
 on xxi. I. 
 
 (7) Next ensued the journey “from 
 hlount Hor by the way of the Red Sea 
 to compass the land of Edom,” xxi. 4; 
 and this being about 220 miles to the 
 brook Zered (cf. on xxi. 12) would be 
 accomplished within four weeks. 
 
 (8j The appearance of the host in 
 the plains of Moab brought them into 
 the neighbourhood of Sihon, king of 
 the Amorites. The policy pursued by 
 him of resisting the progress of Israel 
 with all his forces (xxi. 23) caused his 
 overthrow to be speedy and total; as 
 was also for like reasons that of Og king 
 of Bashan. The two battles at Jahaz 
 and Edrei probably took place both 
 within a fortnight; i.e. towards the mid- 
 dle of the third of the six months in 
 question. 
 
 (9) The issue of the conflict with 
 the Amorite kings determined Balak to 
 send for Balaam (xxii. 2). The distance 
 from Moab to the nearest point of the 
 Eu])hratcs is about 350 miles, and 
 Bethor (cf on xxii. 5) may have been 
 yet more distant. Ihit as Balak was 
 urgent in the matter (cf xxii. 16), and 
 
 could of course command all facilities 
 for travelling, two months would amply 
 suffice for his ambassadors to go and 
 return twice over; and for the delivery 
 by Balaam of his prophecies (xxii — xxiv). 
 No doubt during these weeks the Israel- 
 ites were engaged in completing and 
 consolidating their conquest of Gilead 
 and Bashan. 
 
 (10) We have thus a margin of at 
 least six weeks left, during which oc- 
 curred the seduction of Israel by the 
 wiles of the Midianites, and the conse- 
 quent plague (xxv.); the second num- 
 bering of the people in the plains of 
 Moab (xrxvi.); and the war upon the 
 Midianites (xxxi.). 
 
 (ri) It is accordingly in full con- 
 sistency that the death of Moses is 
 spoken of xxxi. 2, in connexion with the 
 Midianitish war, and as following close 
 upon it ; and that Balaam after quitting 
 Balak had not yet returned home when 
 that war occurred, and was taken cap- 
 tive amongst the Midianites; see on 
 xxxi. 8. 
 
 (12) There is no weight in the alle- 
 gation that Moses in Deut. iii. 4 — 14 
 speaks of the conquest of Gilead and 
 Bashan as long past. See notes on that 
 place. 
 
 § 4. Authorship and Date of Compo-^ 
 sition. 
 
 These two points are of course close- 
 ly connected; and a determination of 
 the former brings the question about 
 the latter within narrow limits. 
 
 In common with the preceding books 
 and Deuteronomy, Numbers has usually 
 and from the most ancient times been 
 regarded as in substance at least the 
 work of Moses. The grounds for still 
 maintaining this opinion as regards the 
 Pentateuch generally have been stated 
 and discussed in the Introduction to 
 this volume. It remains only to inquire 
 here whether the Book of Numbers, 
 particularly considered, contributes any 
 items to the argument on the one side 
 or the other, and what value is to be 
 attached to them. 
 
 (i) The catalogue of the stations 
 or encampments during the journeyings 
 from Egypt to the plains of Moab (xxxiii.) 
 is specially assigned to Moses in the 
 
THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 
 
 text, Moses wrote it by the command- 
 ment of the Lord,” v. 2. The great an- 
 tiquity of this catalogue is universally ad- 
 mitted Bleek, e.g. (‘ Einleitung,’ pp. 225, 
 227) esteems it “perhaps the earliest 
 record relating to the journey of the 
 Israelites through the wilderness;” and 
 as “ a list which may very well have 
 been written down 'by an actor in the 
 events.” But to admit thus much of 
 one important chapter, so minute in 
 details, and so intimately connected with 
 the general story, establishes a strong 
 probability that other portions of the 
 book are of the same age and author- 
 ship. 
 
 (2) The intermixture in this book 
 of narrative and legislative matter is one 
 of its characteristic features. The enact- 
 ments too follow in most cases hard 
 upon acts or emergencies which evi- 
 dently led up to them. See* ^.g. intro- 
 ductory notes to V. ix. xix. xxx. and 
 xxxvi. ; and notes on xv. 22, 24, 32. 
 The legislation of Sinai was completed 
 in Leviticus, but the prolonged exclu- 
 sion of the people from their future 
 homes involved some regulations not 
 originally provided (e. g. those respecting 
 purification “ when a man dieth in a tent” 
 xix. 14); and further experience sug- 
 gested some others of a supplementary or 
 explanatory character (e.g. those of xv. 4 
 sqq.; xxx. i — 16; and xxxvi. i — 13, on 
 which see notes). These are almost al- 
 ways in this book recorded in a living 
 connexion ^yith incidents from which it is 
 wholly impossible to sever them, from 
 which they draw their occasion and their 
 meaning. Evidently the alternations of 
 historical and legislative portions reflect 
 the order of actual transaction. This 
 feature is exactly one which belongs to 
 the work of a contemporary annalist. 
 
 (3) The argument stated in the In- 
 trod. to the Pentateuch, p. 15, that the 
 author had an intimate acquaintance 
 with Egypt, maybe strikingly illustrated 
 from Numbers. The purifications of the 
 priests (viii. 7 sqq.), the trial of jea- 
 lousy (v. II — 35), the ordinance of the 
 red heifer (xix. i — 10), are all adapta- 
 tions from Egyptian rites; the language 
 of the people in xi. 5, 6 bespeaks a per- 
 sonal relish of Egyptian dainties; the 
 antiquarian note about Hebron, xiii. 22, 
 
 651 
 
 indicates a knowledge of Egyptian his- 
 tory. References to the exodus from 
 Egypt and the circumstances of it are 
 frequent ; d’. iii. 13, xiv. 19, xv. 4i,&:c. 
 
 (4) The statements of this book 
 abound in evidences (cf. Introd. to 
 Pent., p. 17), that the writer and those 
 with whom he lived were still in the 
 desert. One direct illustration (in xix. 
 14) has been referred to above. The regu- 
 lations for encamping and marching (ii., 
 ix. 16 sqq., x. i — 28), and especially the 
 solemn invocation of Moses contained 
 in X. 35, 36, on the occasion of the re- 
 moving and resting of the Ark, should be 
 also noted. The directions respecting the 
 transport of the Tabernacle in iii. and iv. 
 belong to the nomadic life of the desert, 
 and were consequently but of a tempo- 
 rary obligation. It is thus that an ap- 
 parent inconsistency as to the age and 
 service of the Levites between viii. 24 — 
 26 and iv. 3, 23 is to be explained; 
 see the note on the former passage. 
 
 It is obvious also that proximity to the 
 Tabernacle is tacitly assumed through- 
 out such laws as those of vi. and xix., 
 as it is in many of those given in Leviti- 
 cus. This proximity existed only whilst 
 the people w'ere in the wilderness. The 
 presence of the Ark in the Tabernacle 
 too is presupposed throughout the book ; 
 but the Ark, after its capture by the 
 Philistines in the days of Eli (i S-. iv.), 
 never again had a place within the Ta- 
 bernacle. It is obviously to be inferred 
 that Numbers w'as written before that 
 capture. 
 
 (5) There are topographical state- 
 ments in the book wFich cannot have 
 been wTitten after the days of Moses. 
 Such is the notice xxi. 13, that “ Arnon 
 is the border of Moab, between Moab 
 and the Amorites.” The Amorites had 
 clearly not been dispossessed by the two 
 tribes and a half (xxxii.) when this remark • 
 w^as made. So too the settlements of 
 those tribes in the Amorite territory 
 w^ere not in fact adjusted in all respects 
 as originally designed by Moses and 
 described in xxxii. 34 sqq. See note 
 there, and cf. on Joshua xiii. 15 sqq. 
 
 A later narrator would surely not gratui- 
 tously vary in such details from the facts 
 before him. In the delineation (xxxiv.) 
 of the boundaries of the Promised Land 
 
INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 652 
 
 far more territory is assigned to the 
 Israelites than they ever permanently 
 occupied, and less than they occasionally 
 ruled over. A historian of later times 
 would hardly ascribe to his people with- 
 out explanation or qualification districts 
 which in fact they did not possess; a 
 romancer of such times, drawing an 
 imaginary frontier, would certainly not 
 have left out of it the renowned city of 
 Damascus, especially after carrying his 
 border-line almost round this district (see 
 on xxxiv. 7 sqq.), and in view of the fact 
 that the city and its territory were in the 
 dominions of David and Solomon and 
 afterwards of Jeroboam II. 
 
 (6) The various communications pur- 
 porting to be from God to Moses are so 
 worded and often of such a nature (cf. 
 e. g. xiv. II — 26), that unless we go the 
 length of denying their historical cha- 
 racter altogether, we must admit them 
 to have been recorded by the very per- 
 son who received them. They are also 
 so interwoven with the historical and 
 legislative elements of the book that the 
 whole composition must in reason be 
 accepted or rejected together. 
 
 (7) No other person than Moses 
 has been or can be named with any- 
 thing like probability, or even plausi- 
 bility, as the author. Various conjec- 
 tures have indeed been hazarded by 
 rationalist critics, but all of them are 
 devoid of evidence, and some of them 
 particularly unlikely, such is e.g. the 
 suggestion that Samuel wrote this book, 
 which includes amongst its most striking 
 features the rebellion of Korah. Now 
 Samuel was descended from Korah (see 
 on xxvi. ii), and it is incredible, espe- 
 cially v/hen we remember how keenly 
 the Jew appropriates the acts of his 
 ancestors, that Samuel, if we could sup- 
 ])ose him to invent a story at all, would 
 devise one which represents his own fore- 
 fathers and their kinsmen as flagrant 
 rebels against God and against the great 
 national hero, God’s prophet, and as mi- 
 raculously destroyed for their sin. 
 
 d'hus the notes of time, the tenor of 
 the contents, no less than the direct 
 assertions of the text itself, converge 
 upon the conclusion that Moses is pro- 
 perly s{)okcn of as the writer of the 
 Took of Numbers. 
 
 It may however be quite consistently 
 allowed that Moses availed himself in 
 sorhe cases of pre-existing materials, 
 whether documentary or traditional, and 
 combined in his narrative the results 
 of information obtained from others (cf. 
 Introd. to Genesis, p. 21); and this fact 
 is a sufficient explanation of the use in 
 certain passages of words or groups of 
 words, and grammatical forms, which are 
 not found or found but rarely, in other 
 parts of the book. Nor is there any 
 reason to believe that Moses wrote at 
 one time the whole of what he may have 
 himself contributed to this book. On the 
 contrary it seems in parts to be composed 
 out of memoranda, originally made at 
 intervals ranging over thirty-eight years. 
 If then the style and diction are found 
 to vary in different parts of the book, 
 this by no means disproves the unity of 
 its authorship. The same writer may 
 write very differently at different dates. 
 The phenomena of this kind in Numbers 
 are not however of great importance, 
 and have been in principle sufficiently 
 discussed in the Introd. to the Penta- 
 teuch. It is manifest indeed that we 
 have in xxi. 14, 17, 27 an incorporation 
 of matter not of the writer’s own pro- 
 duction; and the long and deeply inter- 
 esting episode of Balaam (xxii — xxiv) is 
 a yet more important example. Whether 
 that prophet spoke in Hebrew or Ara- 
 maic cannot be determined. Some critics 
 have detected an Aramaic cast in parts 
 of his “parables;” but there is at any 
 rate no improbability in the supposition 
 that a man of his attainments could 
 speak any or all of the dialects, and these 
 were only dialects of the same great 
 tongue, then current between tlie penin- 
 sula of Sinai and the Euphrates ; and 
 Hebrew would certainly be understood 
 by the Moabites, to whom he directly 
 addressed himself. The Moabite stone 
 of course belongs to a date from five to 
 six centuries later than that of Numbers, 
 but it proves, if proof were needed, that 
 the vernacular tongue of Moab was sub- 
 stantially the same with that of Israel nine 
 hundred years before the Christian era, 
 as it doubtless had been from the most 
 ancient times. On the mode in which 
 his prophecies probably became known 
 to Moses, see on xxiv. 25, and xxxi. 8. 
 
THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 
 
 653 
 
 It is likely indeed that this book, as 
 others, underwent after it left the hands 
 of its composer a revision, or per- 
 haps more than one revision, in which 
 here and there later elements were in- 
 troduced. These indeed cannot have 
 been of any great bulk, and some pas- 
 sages have been quoted as instances 
 which may well be otherwise explained. 
 On the parenthetic verse xii. 3 (e.g.) 
 a Lapide observes: “ videntur haec post 
 Mosen ab aliquo alio scriptore hagiogra- 
 pho, qui haec ejus diaria digessit, esse 
 addita et intexta;” but see note on the 
 verse. 
 
 The indications of interpolation in xiii. 
 xiv. and xvi. are of another kind, and 
 more convincing. It seems apparent that 
 xiv. 39 connects itself not with v. 38 but 
 with 27 . 25 of that chapter; and we notice 
 in certain groups of verses included in 
 the chapters xiii. and xiv. that Caleb 
 only is named as labouring to still the 
 people, i.e. in xiii. 3osqq., xiv. ii — 25; 
 whilst in other groups Joshua is com- 
 bined with him, i.e. in xiv. 6 — 10, 26 — 39. 
 In the former, too, Caleb is mentioned 
 without the addition of his father’s name; 
 in the latter we have always “ Caleb 
 the son of Jephunneh,” as well as 
 Joshua the son of Nun.” These facts, 
 as well as the repetitions and want of 
 consecutiveness apparent in the chapters 
 as they stand, render it likely that a later 
 and independent, but not inconsistent 
 account, has been interwoven with the 
 earlier one. The passages introducing 
 the name of Joshua would seem to be 
 the inserted ones, and they were added 
 perhaps for the purpose of putting on 
 express record what would seem to have 
 been tacitly assumed in the original nar- 
 rative, namely, that Joshua, Moses’ cho- 
 sen attendant and successor, was not 
 one of the murmurers. Chapter xxxii. 
 presents some similar characteristics to 
 xiii. and xiv. The vv. 31, 32 in it repeat 
 vv. 25 — 27, and vv. 9 — 15 may be com- 
 pared with xiv. 6 — 10, and v. 30. But 
 the alleged traces of interpolation here 
 are not demonstrative. 
 
 On the tokens of supplementary in- 
 sertion in xvi., see note at end of that 
 chapter. 
 
 The objections which have been 
 based upon particular passages, and urged 
 VoL. I. 
 
 against ascribing the book to Moses, are 
 insignificant both in number and weight. 
 Some of them will be found sufficiently 
 dealt with in the notes on the passages 
 themselves; see e.g. notes on xii. 3, xv. 
 32. Great stress has been laid upon 
 the citation, in xxi. 14, of “ the book of 
 the wars of the Lord.” Critics have pro- 
 nounced it incredible that such a work 
 should be extant in the days of Moses, 
 and have alleged further that the chapter 
 quotes it as belonging to bygone times. 
 But in the months which closed Moses’ 
 life, when great events succeeded each 
 other rapidly, and scenes and circum- 
 stances were ever changing, the songs 
 commemorative of Israel’s triumphs 
 would soon become historical. More- 
 over “ the book of the wars of the Lord” 
 would probably commence with His no- 
 ble works done in Egypt for the fathers 
 of those who vanquished Sihon and Og. 
 
 Again, it has been urged that the 
 occurrence of the word prophet and 
 its cognate verb in this book {e.g. xi. 
 29, xii. 6) is a sign of a later date than 
 that of Moses, because we are told 
 in I S. ix. 9, “ He that is now called a 
 Prophet was beforetime called a Seer.” 
 It is hence inferred that Numbers must, 
 have been written at a period later than 
 that indicated by the “now” of the 
 Book of Samuel, since the term “pro- 
 phet” is evidently familiar to the writer. 
 But this argument is based upon a mis- 
 apprehension of the passage in i Sam. 
 It is not asserted there that the word 
 “ prophet” {nabhi) was unknown in ear- 
 lier times, but simply that the personage 
 consulted by the people in their emer- 
 gencies was, after the days of Samuel, 
 known as “ the prophet,” whereas for- 
 merly he was called “ the seer” {roe/i). 
 The sense of the passage comes out more 
 clearly in the LXX., rov 7 rpo(pT]Tr]v Iko.- 
 Act o Aaos ejiTTpocrOev, d /^Acttcov. The 
 LXJjl. apparently read haiain for ha-yom; 
 and probably this is the true reading 
 (see note in i Sam. 1 . c.). The reason 
 why the term “prophet” was disused in 
 the days of the later Judges may be 
 inferred from what is said i S. iii. i : 
 
 “ the word of the Lord was precious in 
 those days.” In other words there was 
 no “prophet” properly so called; no 
 one who spoke under direct inspiration 
 
 T T 
 
654 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 
 
 and supernatural impulse;, nor appa- 
 rently had there been any such since 
 Deborah, i.e. for about a century and a 
 half. Hence the people naturally ceased 
 to speak of “ the prophet,” and called 
 those to whom they resorted for advice 
 by the nam.e of “ seer,” which does not 
 imply any miraculous gift, but simply su- 
 perior penetration and intelligence. (See 
 the analysis of the use and meaning 
 of the words nabhi^ roeh^ and of chozeh^ 
 which also is important in this con- 
 nexion, by Professor R. Payne Smith, 
 
 ‘ Bampton Lectures’ for 1869, pp. 46 
 sqq.). With Samuel the prophetical order 
 was restored, and perpetuated through 
 “ the Schools of the Prophets.” And 
 the members of this higher and more 
 gifted order often, probably generally, 
 discharged in addition to their proper 
 functions those also which previously had 
 devolved upon “ the seer.” Hence the 
 latter, both in name and person, ceased 
 to occupy the prominent position he had 
 long enjoyed, and was accordingly less 
 frequently mentioned. In fact, after the 
 days of Samuel, the word “seer” (roeh) 
 occurs only twice, viz. in 2 S. xv. 27; 
 2 Chron. xvi. 7, 10. The term “pro- 
 phet,” on the contrary, became common 
 and colloquial. But it was not now first 
 coined. It only regained the currency 
 which it had had in the days of Moses 
 (cf Ex. vii. i), and even in earlier times 
 (cf Gen. XX. 7). The fact then that the 
 word “prophet” is found in Numbers 
 cannot prove that the book was written 
 after the times of the Judges. Clericus on 
 Gen. XX. 7 has summed up the facts as 
 regards this word very neatly: “Htecvox 
 ternporibus Mosis usitata erat, Judicum 
 tempore desiit, inde iterum renata est.” 
 
 APe conclude then with confidence 
 that nothing has been as yet alleged 
 which disturbs the generally accepted 
 views respecting the authorship of this 
 book. It is in substance the wqrk of 
 Moses; and whilst many portions of it 
 
 were probably committed to writing for 
 years before the v/hole was completed, 
 yet the concluding chapters were not 
 written until towards the close of the 
 fortieth year after the exodus. 
 
 The Book of Numbers was allotted 
 in the early arrangements for this Com- 
 mentary to the Rev. J. F. Thrupp, M.A. 
 Vicar of Barrington, and late Fellow of 
 Trinity College, Cambridge. Mr Thrupp 
 was one of the first to send to the edi- 
 tor the results of his labours, but died in 
 1867, before his work could be revised 
 and adjusted with that of his colleagues. 
 His papers on this book were most con- 
 siderately placed by his representatives 
 at the disposal of the editor, and were 
 by him intrusted to the Rev. T. E. 
 Espin to be prepared for the press. As 
 the work proceeded it was found neces- 
 sary to change and remodel the notes 
 as left by Mr Thrupp far more than 
 was originally proposed, and ultimately 
 to re-write the most of them. The 
 scale eventually adopted for the foot- 
 notes was much smaller than that on 
 which Mr Thrupp had worked ; and 
 the conclusions finally reached were 
 upon several controverted points {e.g. 
 the site of Kadesh, see note at end of 
 chapter xiii.) different from those which 
 had recommended themselves to Mr 
 Thrupp five or six years ago. The Rev. 
 T. E. Espin must therefore with the edi- 
 tor be regarded as responsible for the 
 notes on Numbers contained in this 
 volume, though in writing them he has 
 had throughout important aid from Mr 
 Thrupp’s copious and learned annota- 
 tions. The chief portions which now 
 remain as Mr Thrupp penned them are 
 portions of the foot-notes to chapters 
 xxii. — XXV., and many of the geographi- 
 cal and topographical remarks and il- 
 lustrations, especially those in chapter 
 xxxiv. 
 
THE FOURTH BOOK OF MOSES, 
 
 CALLED 
 
 NUMBER S. 
 
 Exod. 
 30. 12, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I God comviandeth Moses to number the people. 
 5 The princes of the tribes. 17 Tlie number 
 of every tribe. 47 The Levites are exempted 
 for the seinjice of the Lord. 
 
 A nd the Lord spake unto Moses 
 ^ in the wilderness of Sinai, in the 
 tabernacle of the congregation, on the 
 first day of the second month, in the 
 second year after they were come out 
 of the land of Egypt, saying’, 
 
 2 "Take ye the sum of all the con- 
 gregation^ of the children of Israel, 
 after their families, by the house of 
 their fathers, with the number of their 
 names, every male by their polls ; 
 
 3 From twenty years old and up- 
 ward, all that are able to go forth to 
 war in Israel : thou and Aaron shall 
 number them by their armies. 
 
 4 And with you there shall be a 
 man of every tribe; every one head 
 of the house of his fathers. 
 
 5 ^ And these are the names of the 
 men that shall stand with you : of the 
 
 tribe of Reuben; Elizur the son of 
 Shedeur. 
 
 6 Of Simeon; Shelumiel the son 
 of Zurishaddai. 
 
 7 Of Judah; Nahshon the son of 
 Amminadab. 
 
 8 Ofissachar; Nethaneel the son 
 of Zuar. 
 
 9 Of Zebulun; Eliab the son of 
 Helon. 
 
 10 Of the children of Joseph: of 
 Ephraim; Elishama the son of Am- 
 mihud : of Manasseh ; Gamaliel the 
 son of Pedahzur. 
 
 11 Of Benjamin; Abidan the son 
 of Gideoni. 
 
 12 Of Dan; Ahiezer the son of 
 Ammishaddai. 
 
 I 3 ^ 0 f Ash-er; Pao;iel the son of 
 Ocr^. 
 
 14 Of Gad; Eliasaph the son of 
 Deuel. 
 
 15 OfNaphtali; Ahira the son of 
 Enan. 
 
 Chap. I. 1 — 4 . A month had passed 
 away since the setting up of the tabernacle 
 (Ex. xl. a, 17); and the Sinaitic legislation 
 was now corsplete (cf. Lev. xxvii, 34). 
 
 The labour involved in taking the census 
 had already 'been partially anticipated. An 
 order had been issued some months before, 
 that, whenever the sum of the Israelites was 
 taken, every person numbered should offer an 
 atonement-money of half-a-shekel, to be ap- 
 plied for the service of the tabernacle (Ex. 
 XXX. II sqq.). Before the construction of the 
 tabernacle was complete, such a poll-offer- 
 ing had been actually received (Ex. xxxviii. 
 25 — 28). The accordance of numerical re- 
 sults shows that the present census was based, 
 not upon any fresh registration of individuals, 
 but upon that which necessarily accompanied 
 the previous collection of the offerings. From 
 the round numbers in which the results are 
 given, we may infer that the offerings had been 
 tendered by the people in groups, and these 
 probably determined by kindred. If certifi- 
 
 cates of registration were furnished to such 
 groups, the new census might be easily carried 
 out by means of these documents, and got 
 through, as seems suggested by -u. 18, in a sin- 
 gle day. But while, for the purpose of the 
 poll-offering, it ^sufficed to note merely the 
 number of persons, it was now required to en- 
 rol them “ after their families, by the house of 
 their fathers.” The former registration too 
 had been superintended by the Levites (see Ex. 
 xxxviii. 2 1 and note) ; but now (yv. 4) an as- 
 sessor is to be named for each tribe to act in 
 the business with Moses and Aaron ; for the 
 purpose now in view was not religious only. 
 The census now taken would serve as a basis 
 for various civil and military arrangements. 
 
 5 — 16 . The selection of the Princes of 
 the Tribes appears from -u. 4 to have been 
 made under divine direction ; but probably, as 
 v. 16 seems to suggest, they were for the most 
 pa't the same persons as those chosen a few 
 months previously at the counsel of Jethro, 
 Ex. xviii. 21 — 26. Of those here named Nah- 
 
 T T 2 
 
656 
 
 NUMBERS. I. 
 
 [v. 1 6 — 30. 
 
 16 These were the renowned of 
 the congregation, princes of the tribes 
 of their fathers, heads of thousands in 
 Israel. 
 
 17 ^ And Moses and Aaron took 
 these men which are expressed by 
 their names: 
 
 18 And they assembled all the con- 
 gregation together on the first day of 
 the second month, and they declared 
 their pedigrees after their families, by 
 the house of their fathers, according 
 to the number of the names, from 
 twenty years old and upward, by their 
 polls. 
 
 19 As the Lord commanded Mo- 
 ses, so he numbered them in the 
 wilderness of Sinai. 
 
 20 And the children of Reuben, 
 Israel’s eldest son, by their genera- 
 tions, after their families, by the house 
 of their fathers, according to the num- 
 ber of the names, by their polls, every 
 male from twenty years old and up- 
 ward, all that were able to go forth to 
 war ; 
 
 21 ITose that were numbered of 
 them, even of the tribe of R#iben, 
 were forty and six thousand and five 
 hundred. 
 
 22 ^ Of the children of Simeon, by 
 their generations, after their families, 
 by the house of their fathers, those 
 that were numbered of them, accord- 
 ing to the number of the names, by 
 their polls, every male from twenty 
 years old and upward, all that were 
 able to go forth to warj 
 
 23 Those that were numbered of 
 them, even of the tribe of Simeon, 
 were fifty and nine thousand and 
 three hundred. 
 
 24 Of the children of Gad, by 
 their generations, after their families, 
 by the house of their fathers, accord- 
 ing to the number of the names, from 
 twenty years old and upward, all that 
 were able to go forth to war; 
 
 25 Those that were numbered of 
 them, even of the tribe of Gad, were 
 forty and five thousand six hundred 
 and fifty. 
 
 26 ^ Of the children of Judah, by 
 their generations, after their families, 
 by the house of their fathers, accord- 
 ing to the number of the names, from 
 twenty years old and upward, all that 
 were able to go forth to war; 
 
 27 Those that were numbered of 
 them, even of the tribe of Judah, were 
 threescore and fourteen thousand and 
 six hundred. 
 
 28 ^ Of the children of Issachar, 
 by their generations, after their fami- 
 lies, by the house of their fathers, ac- 
 cording to the number of the names, 
 from twenty years old and upward, 
 all that were able to go forth to war; 
 
 29 Those that v/ere numbered of 
 them, even of the tribe of Issachar, 
 were fifty and four thousand and four 
 hundred. 
 
 30 ^ Of the children of Zebulun, 
 by their generations, after their fami- 
 lies, by the house of their fathers, ac- 
 cording to the number of the names. 
 
 shon, prince of Judah, was brother-in-law of 
 Aaron (Ex. vi. 23^, and ancestor of King Da- 
 vid. Elishama, prince of Ephraim, was g-rand- 
 father of Joshua (i Chron. vii. 26, 27). The 
 peers of men like these, though nothing has 
 been in fact presened to us respecting them, 
 were no doubt intitled, amongst their fellows, 
 to the epithet “renowned,” ‘v. 16. 
 
 17 19. See on 'w. i — 4 . 
 
 20 — 46. In eleven tribes the number 
 enrolled consists of complete hundreds, d'his 
 is in all likelihood to be explained by the 
 fact that the census was taken principally for 
 military purposes (cf. n^'v. 3, 20). Hence the 
 enrolment would naturally be arranged by 
 hundreds, fifties, 6cc. (cf. 2 K. i. 9, ii, 13). 
 
 Supernumerary units would in such a calcula- 
 tion be left to balance the losses from physical 
 iinhtness for sei-vice, and from casualties of va- 
 rious kinds ; and the general result would thus 
 fairly exhibit the available military strength of 
 the nation. It is not a little remarkable how- 
 ever that here the tribe of Gad, t. 25, ar d 
 (xxvi. 7) at the later census, the tribe of Reuben, 
 yield odd decades over their hundreds. Can 
 this be accounted for by the pastoral, and con- 
 sequently nomadic, habits of these tribes? This 
 cause might render it difficult to bring all their 
 members together at once for a census. Judah 
 already takes precedence of his brethren in point 
 of numbers (cf. Gen. xlix. 8); and Ephraim 
 of Manasseh (cf. Gen. xlviii. 19, 20). 
 
NUMBERS. I. 
 
 657 
 
 V. 31—48.] 
 
 from twenty years old and upward, all 
 that were able to go forth to war ; 
 
 31 Those that were numbered of 
 them, even of the tribe of Zebulun, 
 were fifty and seven thousand and four 
 hundred. 
 
 32 ^ Of the children of Joseph, 
 namely^ of the children of Ephraim, 
 by their generations, after their fami- 
 lies, by the house of their fathers, ac- 
 cording to the number of the names, 
 from twenty years old and upward, all 
 that were able to go forth to war ; 
 
 33 Those that were numbered of 
 them, even of the tribe of Ephraim, 
 were forty thousand and five hundred. 
 
 34 ^ Of the children of Manasseh, 
 by their generations, after their fami- 
 lies, by the house of their fathers, ac- 
 cording to the number of the names, 
 from twenty years old and upward, all 
 that were able to go forth to war ; 
 
 35 Those that were -numbered of 
 them, even of the tribe of Manasseh, 
 were thirty and two thousand and two 
 hundred. 
 
 36 ^ Of the children of Benjamin, 
 by their generations, after their fami- 
 lies, by the house of their fathers, ac- 
 cording to the number of the names, 
 from twenty years old and upward, all 
 that were able to go forth to war; 
 
 37 Those that were numbered of 
 them, even of the tribe of Benjamin, 
 were thirty and five thousand and four 
 hundred. 
 
 38 ^ Of the children of Dan, by 
 their generations, after their families, 
 by the house of their fathers, accord- 
 ing to the number of the names, from 
 twenty years old and upward, all that 
 were able to go forth to war ; 
 
 39 Those that were numbered of 
 
 them, even of the tribe of Dan, were 
 threescore and two thousand and seven 
 hundred. 
 
 40 ^ Of the children of Asher, by 
 their generations, after their families, 
 by the house of their fathers, accord- 
 ing to the number of the names, from 
 twenty years old and upward, all that 
 were able to go forth to war; 
 
 41 Those that were numbered of 
 them, even of the tribe of Asher, were 
 forty and one thousand and live hun- 
 dred. 
 
 42 ^ Of the children of Naphtali, 
 throughout their generations, after 
 their families, by the house of their 
 fathers, according to the number of 
 the names, from twenty years old 
 and upward, all that were able to go 
 forth to war ; 
 
 43 Those that were numbered of 
 them, even of the tribe of Naphtali, 
 were fifty and three thousand and four 
 hundred. 
 
 44 These are those that were num- 
 bered, which Moses and Aaron num- 
 bered, and the princes of Israel, being 
 twelve men : each one was for the 
 house of his fathers. 
 
 45 So were all those that were num- 
 bered of the children of Israel, by the 
 house of their fathers, from twenty 
 years old and upward, all that were 
 able to go forth to war in Israel ; 
 
 46 Even all they that were num- 
 bered were six hundred thousand and 
 three thousand and five hundred and 
 fifty. 
 
 47 f[ But the Levites after the tribe 
 of their fathers were not numbered 
 amono; them. 
 
 48 Eor the Lord had spoken unto 
 Moses, saying. 
 
 47 — 54. The Levites were appointed to the 
 charge of the Tabernacle, and were therefore 
 not entered on the general fnuster rolls. Hence 
 when a census of this tribe takes place, iii. 15, 
 xxvi. 62, all the males are counted from a 
 month old and upward, and not, as in the 
 other tribes, those only who were of age for 
 service in the field. 
 
 48. had spoken~\ Render spake, for the 
 formal appointment is only now made. The Le- 
 
 vites had indeed already acted as assistants to the 
 Priests (cf. Ex. xxxviii. 21), being the tribes- 
 men of Moses and Aaron. Their zeal against 
 the worshippers of the golden calf (Ex. xxxii. 
 26 — 29; Deut. xxxiii. 8 sqq.) gave them a 
 distinct position, and led to their receiving as 
 their reward the dignity to which they are now 
 first expressly named, though reference to their 
 future office appears previously in Lev. xxv. 
 32 sqq. 
 
658 
 
 NUMBERS. I. II. 
 
 [v. 49 — 8 . 
 
 49 Only thou shalt not number 
 the tribe of Levi, neither take the 
 sum of them among the children of 
 Israel : 
 
 50 But thou shalt appoint the Le- 
 vites over the tabernacle of testimony, 
 and over all the vessels thereof, and 
 over all things that belong to it : they 
 shall bear the tabernacle, and all the 
 vessels thereof; and they shall minis- 
 ter unto it, and shall encamp round 
 about the tabernacle. 
 
 51 And when the tabernacle set- 
 teth forward, the Levites shall take it 
 down : and when the tabernacle is to 
 be pitched, the Levites shall set it up : 
 and the strano-er that cometh nigh 
 
 to to 
 
 shall be put to death. 
 
 52 And the children of Israel shall 
 pitch their tents, every man by his 
 own camp, and every man by his own 
 standard, throughout their hosts. 
 
 53 But the Levites shall pitch 
 round about the tabernacle of testi- 
 mony, that there be no wrath upon 
 the congregation of the children of 
 Israel : and the Levites shall keep 
 the charge of the tabernacle of tes- 
 timony. 
 
 54 And the children of Israel did 
 according to all that the Lord com- 
 manded Moses, so did they. 
 
 CHAPTER 11 . 
 
 The order of the tribes in their tents. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses 
 and unto Aaron, saying, 
 
 2 Every man of the children of 
 Israel shall pitch by his own stand- 
 ard, with the ensign of their father’s 
 house: Tar off about the tabernacle t Heb. 
 of the congregation shall they pitch, "’against. 
 
 3 And on the east side toward the 
 rising of the sun shall they of the 
 standard of the camp of Judah pitch 
 throughout their armies: and Nah- 
 shon the son of Amminadab shall be 
 captain of the children of Judah. . 
 
 4 And his host, and those that were 
 numbered of them, were threescore 
 and fourteen thousand and six hun- 
 dred. 
 
 5 And those that do pitch next 
 unto him shall be the tribe of Issa- 
 char: .and Nethaneel the son of Zuar 
 shall be captain of the children of Is- 
 sachar. 
 
 6 And his host, and those that 
 were numbered thereof, were fifty and 
 four thousand and four hundred. 
 
 7 Then the tribe of Zebulun: and 
 Eliab the son of Helon shall be cap- 
 tain of the children of Zebulun. 
 
 8 And his host, and those that were 
 
 Chap. II. 1 — 34. Order of the tribes in 
 their tents, and on the march. 
 
 2. by his o^n standard.^ <^vith the ensign 
 of their fathers house'] The “standard” {cie- 
 gel) marked the division, or camp (cf. njv. 9, 
 16, 24, 31); the “ensign” {oth) the family. 
 There would thus be four “standards” only, 
 one for each “camp” of three tribes. We 
 have no certain information what was the 
 structure and what the devices of the “stand- 
 ards.” The word is derived from a root 
 signifying “to glitter,” or “lighten afar” 
 (Rosenm., Fiirst, &c.) ; and probably points 
 to a solid figure or emblem mounted on a 
 p(jle, such as the Egyptians used (see Wilkin- 
 son, ‘Ancient Egyptians,’ I. 294 sqq.). Tra- 
 dition appropriates the four cherubic forms 
 (E'/ek. i. 26, X. i; Rev. iv. 4 sqq.), the lion, 
 man, ox, and eagle, to the camps of Judah, 
 Reuben, Ephraim, and Dan respectively; and 
 this, as to the first, has a certain support from 
 Gen. xlix. 9 (cf. Rev. v. 5), and as to the 
 third, from ii)eut. xxxiii. 17. 
 
 far off] Rather as the word may be and 
 often is rendered elsewhere, over against; 
 i.e. facing the tabernacle on every side. The 
 distance was perhaps 2coo cubits; cf. Josh, 
 iii. 4. 
 
 3 — 9. on the east side] The post of ho- 
 nour, in front of the curtain of the Taberna- 
 cle, and corresponding to the position occupied 
 by Moses, Aaron, and the Priests in the Levites’ 
 camp, is assigned to Judah, with Issachar and 
 Zebulun, also descendants of Leah. Judah, 
 as the strongest tribe in point of numbers, is 
 appointed also to lead the van on the march. 
 
 3. Nahshon the son of Amminadab shall 
 be captain of the children of Judah] Cf. 
 I Chron. xxvii, 16 — 22, where the “princes” 
 or “rulers” of the Twelve Tribes at a far 
 later date are again named. Each tribe had 
 thus an organization complete for certain 
 purposes in itself. Accordingly we sometimes 
 read of wars waged by separate tribes or 
 groups of tribes; e.g. Josh. xvii. 15 sqq.; 
 Judg. iv. 10. 
 
V. 9 — 26.] 
 
 NUMBERS. II. 
 
 659 
 
 numbered thereof, were fifty and seven 
 thousand and four hundred. 
 
 9 All that were numbered in the 
 camp of Judah were an hundred thou- 
 sand and fourscore thousand and six 
 thousand and four hundred, through- 
 out their armies. These shall first 
 set forth. 
 
 10 ^ On the south side shall be the 
 standard of the camp of Reuben ac- 
 cording to their armies : and the cap- 
 tain of the children of Reuben shall be 
 Elizur the son of Shedeur. 
 
 1 1 And his host, and those that 
 were numbered thereof, were forty and 
 six thousand and five hundred. 
 
 12 And those which pitch by him 
 shall be the tribe of Simeon : and the 
 captain of the children of Simeon shall 
 be Shelumiel the son of Zurishaddai. 
 
 13 And his host, and those that 
 were numbered of them, were fifty and 
 nine thousand and three hundred. 
 
 14 Then the tribe of Gad: and the 
 captain of the sons of Gad shall be Eli- 
 asaph the son of Reuel. 
 
 15 And his host, and those that 
 were numbered of. them, were forty 
 and five thousand and six hundred 
 and fifty. 
 
 16 All that were numbered in the 
 camp of Reuben were an hundred 
 thousand and fifty and one thousand 
 and four hundred and fifty, through- 
 out their armies. And they shall set 
 forth in the second rank. 
 
 17 ^ Then the tabernjicle of the 
 congregation shall set forward with 
 
 the camp of the Levites in the midst 
 of the camp : as they encamp, so shall 
 they set forward, every man in his 
 place by their standards. 
 
 18 ^ On the west side shall be the 
 standard of the camp of Ephraim ac- 
 cording to their armies : and the cap- 
 tain of the sons of Ephraim shall be 
 Elishama the son of Ammihud. 
 
 19 And his host, and those that 
 were numbered of them, were forty 
 thousand and five hundred. 
 
 20 And by him shall be the tribe 
 of Manasseh : and the captain of the 
 children of Manasseh shall be Gama- 
 liel the son of Pedahzur. 
 
 21 And his host, and those that 
 were numbered of them, were thirty 
 and two thousand and two hundred. 
 
 22 Then the tribe of Benjamin : 
 and the captain of the sons of Ben- 
 jamin shall be Abidan the son of Gi- 
 deoni. 
 
 23 And his host, and those that 
 were numbered of them, were thirty 
 and five thousand and four hundred. 
 
 24 All that were numbered of the 
 camp of Ephraim were an hundred 
 thousand and eight thousand and an 
 hundred, throughout their armies. 
 And they shall go forward in the 
 third rank. 
 
 25 ^ The standard of the camp of 
 Dan shall be on the north side by 
 their armies : and the captain of the 
 children of Dan shall be Ahiezer the 
 son of Ammishaddai. 
 
 26 And his host, and those that 
 
 10—16. Next in order, and south of 
 the Tabernacle, comes the tribe that bore the 
 name of Reuben, Leah’s eldest son ; and asso- 
 ciated therewith Simeon, the second of the de- 
 scendants of Leah, and Gad, the eldest of the 
 descendants of Leah’s handmaid Zilpah. 
 
 14. Reuel] Doubtless an error of trans- 
 cription for the Deuel of i. 14 , which in fact 
 is read here in several MSS. and Versions. 
 
 17. See on hi. 14 — 39 , x. 17. 
 
 18 — 24. The third camp, which had 
 its place westward of the Tabernacle, con- 
 sists of the tribe of Ephraim, with the kindred 
 tribes of Manasseh and Benjamin, all descend- 
 ed from Rachel. These three tribes all obtain- 
 ed adjoining allotments when Canaan was di- 
 
 vided, and are accordingly spoken of as asso- 
 ciated, Ps. Ixxx. 2 , “Before Ephraim, Benja- 
 min, and Manasseh, stir up thy strength.” 
 
 25 — 31. The fourth division, which en- 
 camped north of the Tabernacle, is named 
 after Dan, the eldest of Jacob’s children by 
 the handmaids. This powerful tribe, the se- 
 cond of all in number, brought up the rear on 
 the march. With it are joined the remaining 
 tribes, Asher and Naphtali, sprung from the 
 handmaids Zilpah and Bilhah. 
 
 The following plan shows the entire arrange- 
 ment of the camp as gathered from this and 
 the next chapter. Some place the four leading 
 tribes in the centre each of its own side ; but 
 the scheme here given seems more probable 
 
66o 
 
 NUMBERS. II. 
 
 [v. 27—34. 
 
 were numbered of them, were three- 
 score and two thousand and seven 
 hundred. 
 
 27 And those that encamp by him 
 shall be the tribe of Asher: and the 
 captain of the children of Asher shall 
 be Pagiel the son of Ocran. 
 
 28 And his host, and those that 
 were numbered of them, were forty 
 and one thousand and fiv^e hundred. 
 
 29 ^ Then the tribe of Naphtali: 
 and the captain of the children of 
 Naphtali shall be Ahira the son of 
 Enan. 
 
 30 And his host, and those that 
 were numbered of them, zvere fifty 
 and three thousand and four hundred. 
 
 31 All they that were numbered 
 in the camp of Dan were an hundred 
 
 thousand and fifty and seven thousand 
 and six hundred. They shall go hind- 
 most with their standards. 
 
 32 f These are those which were 
 numbered of the children of Israel 
 by the house of their fathers : all those 
 that were numbered of the camps 
 throughout their hosts were six hun- 
 dred thousand and three thousand and 
 five hundred and fifty. 
 
 33 But the Levites were not num- 
 bered among the children of Israel j 
 as the Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 34 And the children of Israel did 
 according to all that the Lord com- 
 manded Moses: so they pitched by 
 their standards, and so they set for- 
 ward, every one after their families, 
 according to the house of their fathers. 
 
 from the order in which the tribes were to set 
 out on the march. 
 
 32 — 34 . Such was the ideal form of 
 the encampment in the wilderness ; a form re- 
 produced in the square court with which the 
 Temple v/as eventually surrounded, and in the 
 vision of the heavenly city as seen by Ezek. 
 xlviii. 20; and by St John, Rev. xxi. 16; cf. 
 Rev. XX. 9. Thus the camp of God’s earthly 
 people was divinely ordered so as to set forth 
 the completeness of His Church ; and to illus- 
 trate by its whole arrangement, which was 
 determined by the Tabernacle in the centre, 
 both the dependance of all on God, and the 
 access which all enjoyed to God. 
 
 It is to be obsei-ved however that the collo- 
 cation of the tribes is only prescribed in gene- 
 ral terms. The actual foiTn of the encamp- 
 ment would no doubt, whilst obsei*ving this 
 arrangement generally, vary in different places 
 according to local exigencies. At Sinai itself, 
 e.g. the granite cliffs which hemmed in the 
 host on every side would render it impossible 
 for the tents to be pitched on any symmetiical 
 plan; whilst in the Plains of Moab, where 
 a long halt was made, the camp might on 
 the other hand lie “four-square,” or nearly 
 so; for the line of encampment from Beth- 
 Jesimoth to Abel Shittim (cf. xxii. i, and 
 note) would extend nearly five miles. 
 
 The area of the camp might be about three 
 square miles. Polybius ( vi. 2 7), describing the 
 camps of the Roman armies, tells us that a space 
 of about one-sixth of a square mile sufficed foi 
 twenty thousand men, and allowed ample room 
 for streets, officers’ quarters, accommodation 
 for horses, &c., with a vacant space of two 
 hundred feet behind the rampart all round. 
 It must be remembered that the two million 
 Israelites were living together in families, and 
 therefore would not occupy so much ground 
 as a like number of warriors. 
 
V. I— 13 -] 
 
 NUMBERS. III. 
 
 66 1 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1 The sons of Aaro 7 t. 5 The Levites are given 
 to the priests for the sci'vice of the tabernacle, 
 II instead of the firstborji. 14 The Lmites 
 are nnmbered by their families. 21 The 
 families, number, and charge of the Gershoji- 
 ites, 27 oftheKohathiies, of the Merarites. 
 
 58 The place and change of Moses and Aa- 
 ron. 40 The firstborn arc freed by the Levites. 
 44. The overplus are redeemed. 
 
 T hese also are the generations 
 of Aaron and Moses in the day 
 that the Lord spake with Moses in 
 mount Sinai. 
 
 2 And these are the names of the 
 « Fxod. sons of Aaron ; Nadab the "firstborn, 
 and Abihu, P^leazar, and Ithamar. 
 
 3 These are the names of the sons 
 of Aaron, the priests which were 
 tHeb. anointed, Hvhom he consecrated to 
 )ut;idiic minister in the priest’s ofiice. 
 
 ■^Lev 10 ^ ^And Nadab and Abihu died be- 
 
 1. fore the Lord, when they offered 
 chap. 26. before the Lord, in the 
 
 i^chron. wildemess of Sinai, and they had no 
 children: and Eleazar and Ithamar 
 ministered in the priest’s office in the 
 sight of Aaron their father. 
 
 5 ^1 And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 6 Bring the tribe of Levi near, and 
 present them before Aaron the priest, 
 that they may minister unto him. 
 
 7 And they shall keep his charge, 
 and the charge of the whole congre- 
 gation before the tabernacle of the 
 congregation, to do the service of the 
 tabernacle. 
 
 8 And they shall keep all the in- 
 struments of the tabernacle of the 
 congregation, and the charge of the 
 children of Israel, to do the service of 
 the tabernacle. 
 
 9 And thou shalt give the Levites 
 unto Aaron and to his sons : they are 
 wholly given unto him out of the 
 children of Israel. 
 
 10 And thou shalt appoint Aaron 
 and his sons, and they shall wait on 
 their priest’s office : and the stranger 
 that cometh nigh shall be put to 
 death. 
 
 1 1 And the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 ses, saying, 
 
 12 And I, behold, I have taken 
 the Levites from among the children 
 of Israel instead of all the firstborn 
 that openeth the matrix among the 
 children of Israel : therefore the Le- 
 vites shall be mine ; 
 
 13 Because*^ all the firstborn are 
 mine ; ybr on the day that I smote Lev. 27. 
 all the firstborn in the land of Egypt ?hap. s. is. 
 I hallowed unto me all the firstborn 
 
 Chap. III. 1 . These also are the generations 
 of Aaron and Hoses'] The term “generations” 
 is strictly a technical word (cf. note on Gen. 
 ii, 4; and Gen. v. i, vi. 9, &c.; Ruth iv. 18). 
 It does not point to birth and origin so much 
 as to downward history and development. 
 Hence the “generations” of a person are com- 
 monly introduced, as in the text, at a crisis, 
 when either a signal and accomplished fulfil- 
 ment of the Divine counsels is to be indicated ; 
 or a stage has been reached which establishes a 
 basis for a fulfilment to be nai:rated at large in 
 the sequel. Hence it is that the “ generations” 
 now given, though entitled those of Aaron and 
 Moses (Aaron standing first as the elder bro- 
 ther), turn out really to be those of Aaron 
 only. The personal dignity of Moses, though 
 it gave him rank as at the head of his tribe, 
 was not hereditary. He had, and desired to 
 have (Ex. xxxii. 10; Num. xiv. 12), no suc- 
 cessor in his office but the distant Prophet like 
 unto himself (Deut. xviii. 18). Aaron how- 
 ever was, as this chapter shows, the ancestor 
 of a regular succession of Priests. 
 
 3 . 'whom he consecrated] i.e. whom Moses 
 consecrated, or literally as marg., whose “hand 
 he filled,” by conferring their office upon 
 them: Lev. viii. i sqq. 
 
 5 — 13 . Actual dedication of the Levites 
 for the functions already assigned, i. 47 — 50 ; 
 and that in lieu of the firstborn (yv’v.ii — 13); 
 who, although originally designated accord- 
 ing to patriarchal precedent for the more espe- 
 cial sei-vice of God, and having perhaps (cf. 
 Ex. XX iv. 5 and note) even actually officiated 
 therein, could from the first be redeemed 
 by an equivalent (cf. Ex. xiii. 2, 12, 13). 
 
 The concluding words of o). 13 are better 
 thus expressed: Mine shall they be, mine, 
 the Lord’s. So also at 212;. 41, 45. 
 
 7 . keep his charge, and the charge of the 
 whole congregation] i. e. so assist him that the 
 obligations incumbent on him and on the con- 
 gregation may be fulfilled. 
 
 12 , 13 . On the subject of the firstborn 
 see notes on 002). 40 — 43 and on 2121. 44 — 51. 
 
662 
 
 NUMBERS. III. 
 
 [v. 14—34- 
 
 in Israel, both man and beast : mine 
 shall they be : I am the Lord. 
 
 14 fl And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, 
 saying, 
 
 15 Number the children of Levi 
 after the house of their fathers, by 
 their families : every male from a 
 month old and upward shalt thou 
 number them. 
 
 16 And Moses numbered them ac- 
 cording to the Word of the Lord, as 
 he was commanded. 
 
 Gen. 46. jy ^And these were the sons of 
 Exod.6. Levi by their names; Gershon, and 
 diap. 26. Kohath, and Merari. 
 iChron. 6. these avc the names of 
 
 ^Heb Gershon by their fami- 
 
 month. lies; Libni, and Shimei. 
 
 19- And the sons of Kohath by 
 their families; Amram, and Izehar, 
 Hebron, and Uzziel. 
 
 20 And the sons of Merari by their 
 families; Mahli, and Mushi. These 
 are the families of the Levites accord- 
 ing to the house of their fathers. 
 
 21 Of Gershon was the family of 
 the Libnites, and the family of the 
 Shimites : these are the families of the 
 Gershonites. 
 
 22 Those that were numbered of 
 them, according to the number of all 
 the males, from a month old and up- 
 ward, even those that were numbered 
 of them were seven thousand and live 
 hundred. 
 
 23 The families of the Gershon- 
 ites shall pitch behind the tabernacle 
 westward. 
 
 24 And the chief of the house of 
 the father of the Gershonites shall he 
 Lliasaph the son of Lael. 
 
 25 And the charge of the sons of 
 Gershon in the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation shall be the tabernacle, and 
 
 the tent, the covering thereof, and 
 the hanging for the door of the taber- 
 nacle of the congregation, 
 
 26 And the hangings of the court, 
 and the curtain for the door of the 
 court, which is by the tabernacle, and 
 by the altar round about, and the cords 
 of it for all the service thereof. 
 
 27 ^ And of Kohath was the fa- 
 mily of the Amramites, and the family 
 of the Izeharites, and the family of the 
 Hebronites, and the family of the Uz- 
 zielites ; these are the families of the 
 Kohathites. 
 
 28 In the number of all the males, 
 from a month old and upward, were 
 eight thousand and six hundred, keep- 
 ing the charge of the sanctuary. 
 
 29 The families of the sons of Ko- 
 hath shall pitch on the side of the 
 tabernacle southward. 
 
 30 And the chief of the house of 
 the father of the families of the Ko- 
 hathites shall be Elizaphan the son of 
 Uzziel. 
 
 31 And their charge shall be the 
 ark, and the table, and the candle- 
 stick, and the altars, and the vessels 
 of the sanctuary wherewith they mi- 
 nister, and the hanging, and all the 
 service thereof. 
 
 32 And Eleazar the son of Aaron 
 the priest shall be chief over the chief 
 of the Levites, and have the oversight 
 of them that keep the charge of the 
 sanctuary. 
 
 33 ^ Of Merari was the family of 
 the Mahlites, and the family of the 
 Mushites : these are the families of 
 Merari. 
 
 34 And those that were numbered 
 of them, according to the number of 
 all the males, from a month old and 
 upward, were six thousand and two 
 hundred. 
 
 14 — 39. Enumeration of the Levites 
 after their three families, and allotment to each 
 family of its special station and duty. Of 
 these, the Kohathites {'w. — 3 2 ), the kinsmen 
 
 of Moses and Aaron, and the most numerous, 
 have the most impc.rtant charge confided to 
 them, that of the Ark, the Altars, and the 
 more especially sacred furniture generally. 
 
 26. the cords of /7] i.e. of the Taber- 
 nacle, not of the hangings of the Court; for 
 these, with their cords and other fittings, be- 
 longed to the charge of the Merarites. So too 
 the expression the ser'vice thereof refers to the 
 Tabernacle, of which more particularly the 
 Gershonites have the care. 
 
V. 35— 43-J 
 
 NUMBERS. III. 
 
 663 
 
 I Heb. 
 the office 
 oj the 
 chars;e 
 
 35 And the chief of the house of 
 the father of the families of Merari 
 Z(/as Zuriel the son of Abihail: these 
 shall pitch on the side of the taber- 
 nacle northward. 
 
 36 And ^ under the custody and 
 charge of the sons of Merari shall be 
 the boards of the tabernacle, and the 
 bars thereof, and the pillars thereof, 
 and the sockets thereof, and all the 
 vessels thereof, and all that serveth 
 thereto, 
 
 37 And the pillars of the court 
 round about, and their sockets, and 
 their pins, and their cords. 
 
 38 But those that encamp before 
 the tabernacle toward the east, even 
 before the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation eastward, shall be Aloses, and 
 Aaron and his sons, keeping the 
 charge of the sanctuary for the charge 
 of the children of Israel ; and the 
 stranger that cometh nigh shall be 
 put to death. 
 
 39 All that were numbered of the 
 Levites, which Moses and Aaron num- 
 
 bered at the commandment of the 
 Lord, throughout their families, all 
 the males from a month old and up- 
 ward,' were twenty and two thou- 
 sand. 
 
 40 H And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Number all the firstborn of the 
 males of the children of Israel from a 
 month old and upward, and take the 
 number of their names. 
 
 41 And thou shalt take the Le- 
 vites for me (I am the Lord) in- 
 stead of all the firstborn among the 
 children of Israel; and the cattle of 
 the Levites instead of all the firstlings 
 among the cattle of the children of 
 Israel. 
 
 42 And Adoses numbered, as the 
 Lord commanded him, all the first- 
 born among the children of Israel. 
 
 43 And all the firstborn males by 
 the number of names, from a month 
 old and upward, of those that were 
 numbered of them, were twenty and 
 two thousand two hundred and three- 
 score and thirteen. 
 
 39 . tvjenty and t^o thousand?^ The 
 aggregate of the three families makes the total 
 zz,3oo: thus 
 
 Gershonites . . . 7500: nj. 22. 
 
 Kohathites ... 8600: nj. 28. 
 
 Merari tes 6200: ’v. 34. 
 
 22300 
 
 It is apparent however that the number 22,000 
 is the basis on which the commutation with 
 the First-born of the Twelve Tribes is in fact 
 made to depend {yn). 43 — 46). The actual 
 total of the male Levites (22,300) seems there- 
 fore to be tacitly corrected by the subtraction 
 of 300 from it. The Talmud, followed by 
 the Jewish Commentators generally, and by 
 Havern., Bp. Wordsw., &c. regards these 300 
 as representing those who, being first-born 
 themselves in the Tribe of Levi, could not be 
 available to redeem the first-born in other tribes. 
 They will be of course the first-bom of Levi 
 within the year which had elapsed since the 
 command was issued; see on ‘yu. 40 — 43- 
 Cf. n}. 13, and Ex. xiii, i, 2. The fact that 
 the deduction is made without remark is per- 
 haps explained by the observation of Baum- 
 garten (in loc.), that the purport of the pas- 
 sage is to point out the relation between the 
 tribe of Levi and the other tribes, and not to 
 give prominence to restrictions or qualifica- 
 
 tions in the redemptive virtue assigned to the 
 Levites. It is enough for the writer in this 
 context to note that 22,000 is the numerical 
 factor furnished by the tribe for the reckoning. 
 Modern commentators generally (Mich., 
 Knob., Kurtz, Keil, &c.) have assumed an 
 error in the Hebrew text. And to insert a 
 single letter (reading in -u. 28 for 
 
 would exhibit the number of the Kohathites 
 as 8300, instead of 8600, and remove the dif- 
 ficulty. Other slight alterations of a similar 
 kind have been suggested ; but there is no war- 
 rant in ancient MSS., or Versions, for any 
 emendation of the text in this place. 
 
 It is noteworthy that the tribe of Levi is 
 shown by this census to have been by far the 
 smallest of any of the thirteen of the other 
 tribes. The least numerous, Manasseh, contain- 
 ed 32,200 fighting men; whilst all^he males of 
 the Levites, from a month old and upwards, 
 did not reach that total within ten thousand. 
 No doubt, however, many of those reckoned 
 amongst the other tribes were servants or de- 
 pendants, and not pure Israelites; whilst none 
 but actual descendants of Levi would be dedi- 
 cated to the service of the Tabernacle. 
 
 40 — 43 . Numbering of the first-born 
 males throughout the Twelve Tribes in order to 
 effect the exchange commanded, 21. 12. 
 
 The result (y. 43) shows a total of 22,273. 
 
664 
 
 NUMBERS. III. IV. 
 
 [v. 44—51 
 
 44 ^ And the Lord spake unt® 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 45 Take the Levites instead of all 
 the Hrstborn among the children of 
 Israel, and the cattle of the Levites 
 instead of their cattle; and the Le- 
 vites shall be mine: I am the Lord. 
 
 46 And for those that are to be re- 
 deemed of the two hundred and three- 
 score and thirteen of the firstborn of 
 the children of Israel, which are more 
 than the Levites ; 
 
 47 Thou shalt even take five she- 
 kels apiece by the poll, after the she- 
 kel of the sanctuary shalt thou take 
 
 <’Exod. 30. them: (^the shekel is twenty gerahs:) 
 Liv. 27. 48 And thou shalt give the money, 
 
 Sap. 18. wherewith the odd number of them 
 , is to be redeemed, unto Aaron and 
 12. to his sons. 
 
 49 And Moses took the redemp- 
 
 tion money of them that were over 
 and above them that were redeemed 
 by the Levites : 
 
 50 Of the firstborn of the children 
 of IsraM took he the money ; a thou- 
 sand three hundred and threescore and 
 five shekels^ after the shekel of the 
 sanctuary : 
 
 51 And Moses gave the money of 
 them that were redeemed unto Aaron 
 and to his sons, according to the word 
 of the Lord, as the Lord command- 
 ed Moses. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I The a^e and thne of the Levites' service. 4 
 The carriage of the ICohathitcs, when the 
 priests have taken down the tabernacle. 16 
 The charge of Eleazar. 1 7 The office of the 
 priests. 2 i The carriage of the Gershonites. 
 29 The carriage of the A/erarites. 34 The 
 nnijtber of the ILohathites, of the Ga'shon- 
 ites, 42 and of the Aleraritcs. 
 
 This when compared with the number of male 
 adults (603, 550, cf. ii. 32) is disproportion- 
 ately small, the usual proportion of first-born 
 sons to a total male population being about 
 one in four. The explanation is that the law 
 of Ex. xiii. I, 2, prescribed a dedication of 
 those only who should be first-bom thencefor- 
 rward. (So Vitringa, Scott, Keil, Bp. Wordsw., 
 Pierxheimer, See.') This seems implied in the 
 very language used, “Sanctify unto Me the 
 first-born, whatsoever openeth (not hath open- 
 ed) the womb,” Ex. xiii. 2, ii, 12: by the 
 ground which God is pleased to assign (iii. 13, 
 viii. 17) for making this claim: by the fact 
 that the special duties of the first-born had 
 reference to a ritual which, at the time of the 
 Exodus, had yet to be revealed: and by the 
 inclusion in the command of the first-born of 
 cattle, which obviously must mean those there- 
 after first-bom, for we cannot imagine that an 
 inquisition amongst the flocks and herds was 
 made at the exodus to discover for immediate 
 sacrifice the first-born already in existence. 
 
 Hence the real difficulty is to explain how 
 the first-born sons, amongst two millions of 
 persons in a single year, could have been so 
 many as is stated in the text ; and it must be 
 admitted, notwithstanding the well-known and 
 often very remarkable fluctuations in statistics 
 of this sort, that some unusual causes must 
 have been concerned. Such, not to mention 
 the Divine Blessing, may be found in the sud- 
 den development of national energies which 
 would immediately ensue on the exodus. Be- 
 fore that event, the miserable estate of the 
 ^)eople during their bondage, and especially 
 the inhuman order for the destruction of their 
 
 first-bom, would check very seriously the 
 ratio of marriages and births; and this ratio 
 would naturally, when the check was removed, 
 exhibit a sudden and striking increase. Com- 
 mentators adduce some auxiliary arguments: 
 e.g. Keil, from statistics argues, that amongst 
 the Jews the proportion of male births is usu- 
 ally very large. In truth, however, we have 
 no sufficient data for entering into statistical 
 discussions upon the subject; and it is obvious 
 that inferences drawn from the statistics of or- 
 dinary and settled communities are not alto- 
 gether relevant to a case so peculiar in many 
 ways as that laid before us in the Penta- 
 teuch. 
 
 44 — 51 . The excess in the number of 
 first-born males found amongst the twelve 
 tribes is redeemed by money at a rate which 
 henceforth became the fixed one (xviii. 16; 
 Lev. xxvii. 6) for such redemption. 
 
 This redemption money would perhaps be 
 exacted from the parents of the youngest chil- 
 dren of the 22,273, Ibey being in the case 
 most nearly approaching that of those who 
 would pay the tax for the redemption of the 
 first-born in future. The cattle of the Levites 
 was doubtless taken in the gross as an equiva- 
 lent for the first-born cattle of the other tribes, 
 which of course, no less than the first-bom of 
 men, belonged to the Lord ; and in future would 
 have to be redeemed (xviii. 15 ; Deut. xv. 19). 
 
 Chap. IV. Particulars of the service of 
 the Levites according to their three families, 
 n^-v. I — 33 ; and numbering of the men between 
 30 and 50 years of age of each family seve- 
 rally {yw. 34—49). 
 
V. I— IS-] 
 
 NUMBERS. IV. 
 
 665 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses 
 X \ and unto Aaron, saying, 
 
 2 Take the sum of the sons of Ko- 
 hath from among the sons of Levi, 
 after their families, by the house of 
 their fathers, 
 
 3 From thirty years old and upward 
 even until fifty years old, all that 
 enter into the host, to do the work in 
 the tabernacle of the congregation. 
 
 4 This shall be the service of the 
 sons of Kohath in the tabernacle of 
 the congregation, about the most holy 
 things : 
 
 5 ^ And when the camp setteth 
 forward, Aaron shall come, and his 
 sons, and they shall take down the 
 covering vail, and cover the ark of 
 testimony with it : 
 
 6 And shall put thereon the cover- 
 ing of badgers’ skins, and shall spread 
 over it a cloth wholly of blue, and 
 shall put in the staves thereof. 
 
 7 And upon the ^ table of shew- 
 bread they shall spread a cloth of 
 blue, and put thereon the dishes, and 
 the spoons, and the bowls, and covers 
 to " cover withal : and the continual 
 bread shall be thereon : 
 
 8 And they shall spread upon them 
 a cloth of scarlet, and cover the same 
 with a covering of badgers’ skins, and 
 shall put in the staves thereof. 
 
 9 And they shall take a cloth of 
 ^Exod. 25. blue, and cover the ‘^candlestick of 
 
 the light, and his lamps, and his tongs, 
 ^Exod. 25. snulFdishes, and all the oil 
 
 " Exod. 25. 
 
 30- 
 
 SOr, 
 
 pottr out 
 wiihal. 
 
 vessels thereof, wherewith they mi- 
 nister unto it : 
 
 10 And they shall put it and all 
 the vessels thereof within a covering 
 of badgers’ skins, and shall put it upon 
 a bar. 
 
 1 1 And upon the golden altar they 
 shall spread a cloth of blue, and cover 
 it with a covering of badgers’ skins, 
 and shall put to the staves thereof : 
 
 12 And they shall take all the in- 
 struments of ministry, wherewith they 
 minister in the sanctuary, and put 
 them in a cloth of blue, and cover 
 them with a covering of badgers’ skins, 
 and shall put them on a bar: 
 
 13 And they shall take away the 
 ashes from the altar, and spread a pur- 
 ple cloth thereon : 
 
 14 And they shall put upon it all 
 the vessels thereof, wherewith they 
 minister about it, even the censers, 
 the fleshhooks, and the shovels, and 
 the " basons, all the vessels of the altar ; 
 and they shall spread upon it a cover- 
 ing of badgers’ skins, and put to the 
 staves of it. 
 
 15 And when Aaron and his sons 
 have made an end of covering the 
 sanctuary, and all the vessels of the 
 sanctuary, as the camp is to set for- 
 ward ; after that, the sons of Kohath 
 shall come to bear it: but they shall 
 not touch any holy thing, lest they 
 die. These things are the burden of 
 the sons of Kohath in the tabernacle 
 of the congregation. 
 
 1 — 20 . Service of the Kohathites, who take 
 precedence because they take charge of “the 
 most holy things.” 
 
 4 . about the most holy things^ Omit the 
 word “about,” which is unnecessarily sup- 
 plied. The sense is, “this is the charge of the 
 sons of Kohath, the most holy things;” i.e. 
 the Ark of the Covenant, the Table of Shew- 
 bread, the Candlestick, and the Golden Altar, 
 as appears from the verses following, together 
 with the furniture pertaining thereto. Parti- 
 cular directions are laid down as to the prepara- 
 tion of these for being transported when the camp 
 set forward, and strict injunction given that 
 none but the Priests were to take part in that 
 duty. After the Priests had covered the most 
 holy things and made them ready according to 
 the rules here prescribed, then only were the 
 
 Kohathites to lift their burden (-u. 15). It 
 appears, from a comparison of njns. 16, 28, and 
 33, that the ministry of the Kohathites was 
 superintended by Eleazar, the elder of the two 
 surviving sons of Aaron; as was that of the 
 two other families by Ithamar. 
 
 6. <wholly of blue.'] Cf. on Ex. xxv. 4. 
 The third and external covering of the Ark 
 only was to be of this colour. The Table of 
 shew-bread had (yv. 8) an outer wrapping of 
 scarlet; the Altar (yv. 13) one of purple. 
 
 put in the starves] Rather probably “put the 
 staves thereof in order.” These were never 
 taken out of the golden rings by which the 
 Ark was to be borne (see Ex. xxv. 14, 15), but 
 would need adjustment after the process de- 
 scribed in 'vn), 5 and 6, which would be likely 
 to disturb them. 
 
666 
 
 NUMBERS. IV. [v. 16-32. 
 
 16 ^ And to the office of Eleazar 
 the son of Aaron the priest pertaineth 
 
 ^Exod. 30. the oil for the light, and the ^ sweet 
 34 - incense, and the daily meat offering, 
 
 <^Exod. 30 and the ^anointing oil, and the over- 
 sight of all the tabernacle, and of all 
 that therein /V, in the sanctuary, and 
 in the vessels thereof. 
 
 17 H And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 
 
 18 Cut ye not off the tribe of the 
 families of the Kohathites from among 
 the Levites : 
 
 19 But thus do unto them, that 
 they may live, and not die, when 
 they approach unto the most holy 
 things ; Aaron and his sons shall go 
 in, and appoint them every one to his 
 service and to his burden: 
 
 20 But they shall not go in to see 
 when the holy things are covered, 
 lest they die. 
 
 21 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 22 Take also the sum of the sons 
 ot Gershon, throughout the houses 
 of their fathers, by their families; 
 
 23 From thirty years old and up- 
 ward until fifty years old shalt thou 
 
 titeb. number them; all that enter in ^to 
 1^'nraie perform the service, to do the work 
 U'.xrjaie. tabemacle of the congregation. 
 
 24 ff'his IS the service of the fami- 
 lies of the Gershonites, to serve, and 
 for "burdens: 
 
 25 And they shall bear the cur- 
 tains of the tabernacle, and the taber- 
 nacle of the congregation, his cover- 
 ing, and the covering of the badgers’ 
 skins that is above upon it, and the 
 
 B Or, 
 carriage. 
 
 hanging for the door of the tabernacle 
 of the congregation, 
 
 26 And the hangings of the court, 
 and the hanging for the door of the 
 gate of the court, which is by the 
 tabernacle and by the altar round 
 about, and their cords, and all the in- 
 struments of their service, and all 
 that is made for them: so shall they 
 serve. 
 
 27 At the ^appointment of Aaron tHeb. 
 and his sons shall be all the service of 
 
 the sons of the Gershonites, in all 
 their burdens, and in all their service: 
 and ye shall appoint unto them in 
 charge all their burdens. 
 
 28 This is the service of the fami- 
 lies of the sons of Gershon in the 
 tabernacle of the congregation : and 
 their charge shall be under the hand 
 of Ithamar the son of Aaron the 
 priest. 
 
 29 ^ As for the sons of Merari,* 
 thou shalt number them after their fa- 
 milies, by the house of their fathers; 
 
 30 From thirty years old and up- 
 ward even unto fifty years old shalt 
 thou number them, every one that 
 entereth into the ^service, to do theiiieb. 
 work of the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation. 
 
 31 And this is the charge of their 
 burden, according to all their service 
 in the tabernacle of the congregation ; 
 
 -^the boards of the tabernacle, and the^Exod. 
 bars thereof, and the pillars thereof, 
 
 and sockets thereof, 
 
 32 And the pillars of the court 
 round about, and their sockets, and 
 their pins, and their cords, with all 
 
 20. to see <iuhen the holy things are 
 co‘vered~\ Render: to seethe holy things 
 for an instant. The expression means 
 literally “as a gulp,” i.e. for the instant it 
 takes to swallow. Cf. Job vii. 19. 
 
 21 — 28 . To the Gershonites is consigned 
 the transport of all the hangings, curtains, 
 and coverings of the tabernacle. They are 
 superintend(‘d by Ithamar, Aaron’s younger 
 son, who had already had the oversight of the 
 Tabemacle in its construction (Kx. xxxviii. 
 21). 'I'hus readily do the permanent offices 
 of the leaders of the Israelite community spring 
 
 out of the duties which, under the emergencies 
 of the first year of the Exodus, they had been 
 led, from time to time, to undertake. 
 
 23 . enter in to perform the sernjice'\ 
 Lit. as marg. “ to war the warfare,” or, as the 
 same phrase in part is rendered, -v. 3, “enter 
 into the host to seiwe.” The language is mili- 
 tary. The service of God is a sacred warfare 
 (viii. 24, 25)- 
 
 29 — 33 . The Merarites are also placed 
 under the orders of Ithamar; and to them 
 the transport of the pillars, boards, and more 
 solid parts of the tabernacle is consigned. 
 
V. 33—48.] 
 
 NUMBERS. IV. 
 
 667 
 
 their instruments, and with all their 
 service : and by name ye shall reckon 
 the instruments of the charge of their 
 burden. 
 
 33 This is the service of the fami- 
 lies of the sons of Merari, according 
 to all their service, in the tabernacle 
 of the congregation, under the hand 
 of Ithamar the son of Aaron the 
 priest. 
 
 34 ^ And Moses and Aaron and 
 the chief of the congregation num- 
 bered the sons of the Kohathites after 
 their families, and after the house of 
 their fathers, 
 
 35 From thirty years old and up- 
 ward even unto fifty years old, every 
 one that entereth into the service, for 
 the work in the tabernacle of the 
 congregation : 
 
 36 And those that were numbered 
 of them by their families were two 
 thousand seven hundred and fifty. 
 
 37 These were they that were 
 numbered of the families of the Ko- 
 hathites, all that might do service in 
 the tabernacle of the congregation, 
 which Moses and Aaron did number 
 according to the commandment of 
 the Lord by the hand of Moses. 
 
 38 And those that were numbered 
 of the sons of Gershon, throughout 
 their families, and by the house of 
 their fathers, 
 
 39 From thirty years old and up- 
 ward even unto fifty years old, every 
 one that entereth into the service, for 
 the work in the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation, 
 
 40 Even those that were number- 
 
 ed of them, throughout their families, 
 by the house of their fathers, were 
 two thousand and six hundred and 
 thirty. 
 
 41 These are they that were num- 
 bered of the families of the sons of 
 Gershon, of all that might do service 
 in the tabernacle of the congregation, 
 whom Moses and Aaron did number 
 according to the commandment of 
 the Lord. 
 
 42 ^ And those that were num- 
 bered of the families of the sons of 
 Merari, throughout their families, by 
 the house of their fathers, 
 
 43 From thirty years old and up- 
 ward even unto fifty years old, every 
 one that entereth into the service, for 
 the work in the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation, 
 
 44 Even those that were number- 
 ed of them after their families, were 
 three thousand and two hundred. 
 
 45 These be those that were num- 
 bered of the families of the sons of 
 Merari, whom Moses and Aaron num- 
 bered according to the word of the 
 Lord by the hand of Moses. 
 
 46 All those that were numbered 
 of the Levites, whom Moses and 
 Aaron and the chief of Israel num- 
 bered, after their families, and after 
 the house of their fathers, 
 
 47 From thirty years old and up- 
 ward even unto fifty years old, every 
 one that came to do the service of the 
 ministry, and the service of the bur- 
 den in the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation, 
 
 48 Even those that were number- 
 
 32 . by name ye shall reckon the Instru- 
 ments']^ This direction, which occurs only in 
 reference to the charge of the Merarites, im- 
 ports apparently that “ the instruments” were' 
 to be assigned, no doubt, by Ithamar and his 
 immediate assistants, to their bearers singly, 
 and nominatim. These “instruments” com- 
 prised the heavier parts of the Tabernacle; and 
 the order seems intended to prevent individual 
 Merarites choosing their own burden, and so 
 throwing more than the -proper share on 
 others. 
 
 34 — 49 . Numbering of the Levites after 
 their families according to the command of 
 
 ‘U'u. I — 3. This numbering exhibits of males 
 between 30 and 50 years of age: 
 
 Family of Kohath 2750 
 
 Family of Gershon ... 2630 
 
 Family of Merari 3200 
 
 8580 
 
 This number corresponds well with the total 
 of 22,000, which the whole tribe reaches, hi. 
 39: but the number of Merarites available for 
 the sacred service bears an unusually large 
 proportion to the total number of males of 
 that family, which is (iii. 34) 6200. 
 
668 
 
 NUMBERS. IV. V. [v. 49-11- 
 
 eel of them, were eight thousand and 
 five hundred and fourscore. 
 
 49 According to the command- 
 ment of the Lord they were num- 
 bered by the hand of Moses, every 
 one according to his service, and ac- 
 cording to his burden : thus were 
 they numbered of him, as the Lord 
 commanded Moses. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I The imcleaii are removed out of the camp. 
 
 5 Restitution is to be made in trespasses. 1 1 
 
 The trial of jealousy. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 Command the children of Israel, 
 that they put out of the camp every 
 
 Lev. 13. « leper, and every one that hath an 
 Lev. 15. issue, and whosoever is defiled by 
 Lev. 21. “^dead: 
 
 3 Both male and female shall ye 
 put out, without the camp shall ye 
 put them; that they defile not their 
 camps, in the midst whereof I dwell. 
 
 4 And the children of Israel did 
 so, and put them out without the 
 camp : as the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 ses, so did the children of Israel. 
 
 5 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 6 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, "^When a man or woman shall^Lev.e. 
 commit any sin that men commit, to 
 
 do a trespass against the Lord, and 
 that person be guilty; 
 
 7 Then they shall confess their sin 
 which they have done: and he shall 
 recompense his trespass ^with the ^ Lev. 6. 
 principal thereof, and add unto it the 
 
 fifth part thereof, and give it unto 
 him against whom he hath trespassed. 
 
 8 But if the man have no kinsman 
 to recompense the trespass unto, let 
 the trespass be recompensed unto the 
 Lord, even to the priest; beside the 
 ram of the atonement, whereby an 
 atonement shall be made for him. 
 
 9 And every " offering of all the n Or, 
 holy things of the children of Israel, 
 v/hich they bring unto the priest, 
 shall be his. 
 
 10 And every man’s hallowed 
 things shall be his : whatsoever any 
 
 man giveth the priest, it shall be -^h is. Lev. lo., 
 
 11 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying. 
 
 Chap. V. Now that the nation was regu- 
 larly organized, the sacred tribe dedicated, and 
 the sanctuary with the tokens of God's more 
 immediate Presence provided with its proper 
 place and attendants in the camp, it remained to 
 attest and to vindicate, by modes in harmony 
 with the spirit of the theocratical law, the 
 sanctity of the people of God. This accord- 
 ingly is the general purpose of the directions 
 given in this and the next chapter. Thus the 
 congregation of Israel was made to typify 
 the Church of God, within which, in its per- 
 fection, nothing that offends can be allowed to 
 remain (cf. St Matt. viii. az; Rev. xxi. 27). 
 
 1 — 4 . Removal of unclean persons out of 
 the camp. The precepts respecting ceremo- 
 nial delilements had been already laid down. 
 Lev. xiii. and xv., excepting that arising- from 
 contact with a corpse, which occurs in Num. 
 xix. (cf. however Lev. xi. 24, and xxi. i). 
 They are now first fully carried out; and 
 hardly could have been so earlier, during the 
 hurry and confusion which must have attended 
 the march out of Lgypt, and the encampments 
 which next followed. 
 
 5 — 10. Law of restitution. In case of 
 wrong against another recompense is pre- 
 scribed, and the rule is based on the principle 
 
 that such wrong doing is also “a trespass 
 against the Lord,” and so an infringement of 
 the sanctity of the congregation : cf. Lev. v. 5 
 sqq., vi. 5 sqq., to which passages this appears 
 supplementary. 
 
 6. commit any sin that men commit^ 
 Lit. “commit one of all the transgressions of 
 man.” The A. V. however probably gives 
 the sense correctly, though some (Luth., 
 Patrick, Rosenm., See.) render “sins against 
 men.” 
 
 7 . recompe 7 ise his trespass~\ make resti- 
 tution to the person whom he has injured. 
 
 8. thereby an atonejnent shall he made 
 for hin{\ Lit. “which shall clear him of guilt 
 as to it,” i.e. as to the trespass. 
 
 10. And enoery man's hallo'wed things 
 shall be Ids'] i.e. the priest’s. The heave offer- 
 ings (-i;. 9) and dedicatory offerings {e.g. first- 
 fruits) were to be the perquisite of the offi- 
 ciating priests. 
 
 11— 31 . The trial of jealousy. Along 
 with other ordinances intended at once to in- 
 dicate and to secure the sanctity of God’s peo- 
 ple, is now given an ordeal which should 
 remove the very suspicion of adultery from 
 amongst them. As this crime is peculiarly 
 defiling, and destructive of the very founda- 
 
V. 12—23.] 
 
 NUMBERS. V. 
 
 669 
 
 12 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, and say unto them, If any man’s 
 wife go aside, and commit a trespass 
 against him, 
 
 13 And a man lie with her car- 
 nally, and it be hid from, the eyes of 
 her husband, and be kept close, and 
 she be defiled, and there be no witness 
 against her, neither she be taken with 
 the manner', 
 
 14 And the spirit of jealousy come 
 upon him, and he be jealous of his 
 wife, and she be defiled; or if the 
 spirit of jealousy come upon him, and 
 he be jealous of his wife, and she be 
 not dehled : 
 
 15 Then shall the man bring his 
 wife unto the priest, and he shall 
 bring her offering for her, the tenth 
 part of an ephah of barley meal ; he 
 shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frank- 
 incense thereon ; for it is an offering 
 of jealousy, an offering of memorial, 
 bringing iniquity to remembrance. 
 
 16 And the priest shall bring her 
 near, and set her before the Lord ; 
 
 17 And the priest shall take holy 
 water in an earthen vessel j and of 
 the dust that is in the floor of the 
 tabernacle the priest shall take, and 
 put it into the water : 
 
 18 And the priest shall set the v/o- 
 
 man before the Lord, and uncover 
 the woman’s head, and put the offer- 
 ing of memorial in her hands, which 
 is the jealousy offering: and the priest 
 shall have in his hand the bitter water 
 that causeth the curse: 
 
 19 And the priest shall charge her 
 by an oath, and say unto the woman. 
 
 If no man have lain with thee, and if 
 thou hast not gone aside to unclean- 
 ness '^‘^with another instead of thynor, 
 husband, be thou free from this bitter 
 water that causeth the curse : i 
 
 20 But if thou hast gone aside f^tneb. ‘ ’ 
 another instead of thy husband, and xilmsbau,?' 
 thou be defiled, and some man have 
 
 lain with thee beside thine husband: 
 
 21 Then the priest shall charge 
 the woman with an oath of cursing, 
 and the priest shall say unto the v/o- 
 man. The Lord make thee a curse 
 and an oath among thy people, when 
 the Lord doth make thy thigh to 
 
 ^ rot, and thy belly to swell ; yi// 
 
 22 And this water that causeth 
 the curse shall go into thy bowels, to 
 make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh 
 to rot: And the woman shall say, 
 
 Amen, amen. 
 
 23 And the priest shall write these 
 curses in a book, and he shall blot 
 them out with the bitter water ; 
 
 tions of social order, the whole subject is dealt 
 with at a length proportionate to its import- 
 ance. The process prescribed has been lately 
 strikingly illustrated from the Egyptian ‘ Ro- 
 mance of Setnau,’ translated by Brugsch, which 
 though itself comparatively modern (of the third 
 century B.C.), yet refers to the time of Rame- 
 ses the Great, and may therefore well serve to 
 illustrate the manners and customs of the Mo- 
 saic times. “In the story, Ptahneferka takes 
 a leaf of papyrus, and on it copies out every 
 word of a certain magical formula. He then 
 dissolves the writing in water, drinks the de- 
 coction, and knows in consequence all that it 
 contained.” See Smith, ‘Pent.’ i. 297, 298; 
 ‘ Revue Archeol.’ Sept. 1867, pp. 161 sqq. 
 This then, like several other ordinances, was 
 adopted by Moses from existing and probably 
 very ancient and widely spread institutions. 
 
 15 . The details given here are signifi- 
 cant. The offering was to be of the fruits of 
 the earth, but of the cheapest and coarsest 
 kind, barley (cf. 2 K. vii. i, 16, 18) re- 
 presenting the abased condition of the suspected 
 VOL. I. 
 
 woman. It was, like the sin-offering (Lev. v. 
 ii), to be made without oil and frankincense, 
 the symbols of grace and acceptableness. The 
 woman herself stood whilst making her offer- 
 ing with head uncovered, in token of her 
 shame. 
 
 17 . holy rjuater] No doubt from the 
 laver which stood near the altar. Ex. xxx. 18 
 sqq. 
 
 the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle'] 
 To set forth the fact that the water was in- 
 dued with extraordinary power by Him that 
 dwelt in the Tabernacle. Dust is an emblem 
 of a state of condemnation (Gen. hi. 14; Mi- 
 cah vii. 17). 
 
 19 . gone aside to uncleanness <u)ith an- 
 other instead of thy husband] Render, been 
 faithless to, literally “gone astray from” 
 tliy husband by uncleanness; cf. Hos. 
 iv. 12. 
 
 23 . blot them out <voith the bitter nvater] 
 Rather, wash them into the bitter 
 water; in order to transfer the curses into 
 
 U U 
 
NUMBERS. V. VI. 
 
 [V. 24—1. 
 
 24 And he shall cause the woman 
 to drink the bitter water that causeth 
 the curse : and the water that causeth 
 the curse shall enter into her, and be- 
 come bitter. 
 
 25 Then the priest shall take the 
 jealousy offering out of the woman’s 
 hand, and shall wave the offering before 
 the Lord, and offer it upon the altar: 
 
 26 And the priest shall take an 
 handful of the offering, even the me- 
 morial thereof, and burn it upon the 
 altar, and afterward shall cause the 
 woman to drink the water. 
 
 27 And when he hath made her to 
 drink the water, then it shall come to 
 pass, that^ if she be dehled, and have 
 done trespass against her husband, 
 that the v/ater that causeth the curse 
 shall enter into her, and become bitter, 
 and her belly shall swell, and her 
 
 the water. The action was in this case purely 
 symbolical, but travellers speak of the natives 
 of Africa as still habitually seeking to obtain 
 the full force of a written charm by drinking 
 the water into which they have washed it. 
 
 24. shall cause the q^voman to drink'] 
 Thus was symbolized both her full acceptance 
 of the hypothetical curse (cf. Ezek. iii. i — 3 ; 
 Jer. XV. 16; Rev. x. 9), and its actual opera- 
 tion upon her if she should be guilty (cf. Ps. 
 cix. 18). The direction in this verse is antici- 
 patory; for the woman's offering was taken 
 from her, and offered, before the water was 
 actually given her to drink, 'v'v. 25, 26. 
 
 26. the memorial thereof] The part 
 of the offering burnt, as in Lev. ii. 2, &c. 
 The Hebrew for it is not that which is trans- 
 lated “memorial” in 2;. 15. 
 
 27. it shall come to pass] The solem- 
 nity of the oath, and the awe-inspiring ritual 
 which accompanied it, might of themselves 
 suffice to deter a woman from taking it, unless 
 she were supported by the consciousness of 
 innocence. But the ingredients of the drink 
 given to her were not in themselves noxious; 
 and could only produce the effects here de- 
 scribed by a special interposition of God, 
 such as is promised so continually as the ulti- 
 mate sanction of all the precepts of Moses. 
 We do not read of any instance in which this 
 ordeal was resorted to : a fact which may l>e 
 explained either (with the Jews) as a proof of 
 its efficacy, since the guilty could not be 
 brought to face its terrors at all, and avoided 
 them by confession ; or more probably by the 
 license of divorce tolerated by the law of Mo- 
 ses. Since a husband could put away his wife 
 
 thigh shall rot: and the woman shall 
 be a curse among her people. 
 
 28 And if the woman be not de- 
 filed, but be clean ; then she shall be 
 free, and shall conceive seed. 
 
 29 This is the law of jealousies, 
 v/hen a wife goeth aside to another in- 
 stead of her husband, and is defiled ; 
 
 30 Or when the spirit of jealousy 
 cometh upon him, and he be jealous 
 over his wife, and shall set the wo- 
 man before the Lord, and the priest 
 shall execute upon her all this law. 
 
 31 Then shall the man be guiltless 
 from iniquity, and this woman shall 
 bear her iniquity. 
 
 CFIAPTER VI. 
 
 I The lazu of the Nazar ites. 22 The form of 
 blessing the people. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 f\, saying. 
 
 at pleasure, a jealous man would naturally 
 prefer to take this course with a suspected wife 
 rather than to call public attention to his own 
 shame by having recourse to the trial of jea- 
 lousy. The Talmud* states that the -trial lapsed 
 into disuse forty years before the destruction 
 of Jerusalem; and that because the crime of 
 adultery was so common amongst men that 
 God would no longer inflict the curses here 
 named upon women (cf. Hos. iv. 14). 
 
 The trial by Red Water, which bears a ge- 
 neral resemblance to that here prescribed by 
 Moses, is still in use amongst the tribes of 
 Western Africa. (See Kitto’s ‘ EncycL’ ed. 
 Alexander, Art. Adultery, and reff. to travel- 
 lers therein.) There is no evidence to show 
 whether this usage sprang from imitation 
 of the law of Moses, or whether Moses him- 
 self, in this as in other things, engrafted his 
 ordinance upon a previously existing custom. 
 There is no doubt however that the managers 
 of the ordeal in Africa prepare the Red Water 
 so as to secure the result which they may de- 
 sire from the experiment. 
 
 Chap. VI. 1 — 21. Law of the Naza- 
 rite. The previous chapter has provided for 
 the exclusion from the pale of God's people of 
 certain forms of guilt and defilement. The 
 present one offers an opening to that zeal for 
 God which, not content with observing what 
 is obligatory, seeks for higher and stricter 
 modes of self-dedication. Thus the law of the 
 Nazarite is appropriately added to other enact- 
 ments which concern the sanctity of the holy 
 nation. That sanctity found its highest ex- 
 pression in the Nazarite vow, which was the 
 voluntary adoption for a time of obligations 
 
NUMBERS. VI. 
 
 671 
 
 V. 2—9.] 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, 
 and say unto them, When either man 
 
 II Or, or woman shall " separate themselves to 
 themselves VOW a VOW of a Nazai'ite, to separate 
 Nazarites. fhemselves unto the Lord : 
 
 3 He shall separate himself from 
 wine and strong drink, and shall drink 
 no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of 
 strong drink, neither shall he drink 
 any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist 
 grapes, or dried. 
 
 nor, ^ All the days of his "separation 
 
 gj^2.11 he eat nothing that is made of 
 i/ze ^vine tree, from the kernels even 
 «judg I” husk. 
 
 5. ' 5 All the days of the vow of his 
 
 1 Sam. I. there shall no "rasor come 
 
 upon his head : until the days be ful- 
 filled, in the which he separateth him~ 
 self unto the Lord, he shall be holy, 
 and shall let the locks of the hair of 
 his head grow. 
 
 6 All the days that he separateth 
 himself unto the Lord he shall come 
 at no dead body. 
 
 7 He shall not make himself un- 
 
 clean for his father, or for his mother, 
 for his brother, or for his sister, when 
 they die: because the ^consecration . 
 
 U- J • U- U J separation. 
 
 nis Lrod IS upon his head. 
 
 8 All the days of his separation he 
 is holy unto the Lord. 
 
 9 And if any man die very sud- 
 denly by him, and he hath defiled the 
 
 resembling, and indeed in some particulars ex- 
 ceeding, those under which the Priests were 
 placed. It is obvious, from the manner in 
 which the subject is introduced in no. 2, that 
 the present enactments do not institute a new 
 kind of observance, but only regulate one al- 
 ready familiar to the Israelites. The illustra- 
 tions of the subject which have been adduced 
 from Egyptian and other heathen customs (cf. 
 Bilmar, in ‘Stud, und Kritik.’ 1864) must 
 however be admitted to be vague and partial. 
 
 2. separate t hems closes to osoov a oso-iv 
 of a Nazarite., to separate themsel-ues~\ Rather 
 probably, “shall solemnly vow a vow,” as 
 LXX., ixeyaXcos ev^rjTai ev-fjv. Two different 
 Hebrew words are in the A. V. rendered by 
 “separate;” and the former of them, as in 
 Judg. xiii. 19, is probably meant only to 
 qualify the word next following. 
 
 a Na%arite'\ This term signifies “sepa- 
 rated,” i.e. as the words following show, “ un- 
 to God” (cf. Judg. xiii. 5). It is used in a 
 general sense, Gen. xlix. 26; Lev. xxv. 5, ii; 
 Deut. xxxiii. 16; Lam. iv. 7; but became, as 
 it is used in A. V., a technical term at an early 
 date; cf. Judg. xiii, 5, 7, xvi. 17. It should in 
 strictness be written Nazirite, The accepted 
 spelling has no doubt pi'evailed amongst Chris- 
 tians from its being supposed that this vow is 
 referred to in St Matt. ii. 23. 
 
 3 . liquor of grapes'] i.e. a drink made 
 of grape-skins macerated in vVater. 
 
 4. from the kernels eosen to the husk] 
 A sour drink was made from, the stones of 
 unripe grapes; and cakes v/ere also made of 
 the husks. These latter appear from Hos. iii. 
 I (see note there) to have been regarded as a 
 delicacy. These regulations forbid the Naza- 
 rite using wine or any other product into 
 
 ■ which the vine or its fruit enters. The Priests 
 were also forbidden to taste wine whilst en- 
 
 gaged in the sacred functions (Lev. x. 9 — ii). 
 This interdict figures that separation from the 
 general society of men to which the Nazarite 
 for the time was consecrated. The Flamen 
 Dialis amongst the Romans was forbidden to 
 touch a vine, or even to walk under one. 
 
 5 . The second rule prohibits the Naza- 
 rite from cutting his hair during the period of 
 his vow. The hair is to be regarded as the 
 symbol of the vital power at its full natural 
 development. Generally amongst the Jews 
 the abundance of the hair was considered to 
 betoken physical strength and perfection (cf. 
 2 S. xiv. 25, 26), and baldness was regarded 
 as a grave blemish, which exposed a man to 
 ridicule, and even disqualified him for ad- 
 mission to priestly functions (cf. Lev. xxi. 20 
 note, xiii. 40 sqq.; 2 K. ii. 23; Is. iii. 24). 
 Thus the free 'growth of the hair on the head 
 of the Nazarite represented the dedication of 
 the man with all his strength and powers to 
 the service of God. 
 
 6 — 8. The third rule of the Nazarite in- 
 terdicted him from contracting any ceremo- 
 nial defilement even under circumstances which 
 excused such defilement in others: cf. especi- 
 ally Lev. xxi. I — 3, where the discharge of the 
 last duties to deceased kinsmen is permitted to 
 the ordinary priests under specified conditions, 
 though forbidden hereto Nazarites as it was to 
 the High Priest, Lev. xxi. 10, ii. On the un- 
 cleanness caused by contact with a corpse, cf. 
 xix. II sqq.; Lev. v. 2; xi. 24 sqq. It is of 
 course assumed that all other ceremonial defile- 
 ments were to be shunned by the Nazarites: cf 
 the directions given to Samson’s mother, Judg 
 xiii. 4 sqq. 
 
 7 . the consecration of his God] i.e. the 
 unshorn locks: cf. Lev. xxv. 5, ii, where the 
 vine, left during the Sabbatical year untouched 
 by the hand of man, either for pruning or 
 for vintage, is called simply a “ Nazarite.” 
 
 U U 2 
 
672 
 
 NUMBERS. VI. 
 
 [v. 10 — 17. 
 
 
 t Heb. 
 fall. 
 
 head of his consecr ation ; then he 
 shalh shave his head in the day of his 
 cleansing, on the seventh day shall he 
 shave it. 
 
 10 And on the eighth day he shall 
 bring two turtles, or two young 
 pigeons, to the priest, to the door of 
 the tabernacle of the congregation : 
 
 11 And the priest shall offer the 
 one for a sin offering, and the other 
 for a burnt offering, and make an 
 atonement for him, for that he sin- 
 ned by the dead, and shall hallow his 
 head that same day. 
 
 12 And he shall consecrate unto 
 the Lord the days of his separation, 
 and shall bring a lamb of the first 
 year for a trespass offering: but the 
 days that were before shall ^be lost, 
 because his separation was defiled. 
 
 13 ^ And this is the law of the 
 Nazarite, v/hen the davs of his sepa- 
 
 ration are fulfilled : he shall be brought 
 unto the door of the tabernacle of the 
 congregation : 
 
 14. And he shall offer his offering 
 unto the Lord, one he lamb of the 
 first year without blemish for a burnt 
 offering, and one ewe lamb of the 
 first year without blemish for a sin 
 offering, and one ram without blemish 
 for peace offerings, • 
 
 15 And a basket of unleavened 
 bread, cakes of fine flour mingled 
 with oil, and wafers of unleavened 
 bread anointed with oil, and their 
 meat offering, and their drink offer- 
 ings. 
 
 16 And the priest shall bring them 
 before the Lord, and shall offer his 
 sin offering, and his burnt offering: 
 
 17 And he shall offer the ram for 
 a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the 
 Lord, with the basket of unleavened 
 
 9 — 12. Prescriptions to meet the case of 
 involuntary defilement contracted by a Naza- 
 rite. In case of a sudden death taking place 
 “by him” {i.e. in his presence), the Nazarite 
 had to undergo the ordinary process of purifi- 
 cation commanded for others (cf. xix. ii, 12, 
 and Lev. v. 6 sqq.), and also besides to offer a 
 trespass offering as “ having sinned in the holy 
 things of the Lord” (cf. Lev. v. 15 sqq.) ; and 
 that of a kind peculiar to this case. Moreover 
 his hair was to be shaved, and the days of his 
 dedication to be recommenced, those that had 
 been obsen'ed previously to his defilement 
 being regarded as lost. 
 
 13 — 21 . Ceremonies on the completion of 
 the Nazarite vow. 
 
 13 . ^vhen the days of his separation are 
 fulfilled'] I'he tenor of these words seems to 
 imply that perpetual Nazariteship was un- 
 known in the days of Moses. On the other 
 hand, however, Moses does not expressly re- 
 quire that limits should be assigned to the 
 vow; and the examples of- Samson, Samuel, 
 and John the Baptist, show that it was in 
 later times undertaken for life, and that pa- 
 rents could even devote their future children 
 to it (1 S. i. Ti). The Jewish doctors recog- 
 nize two classes of perpetual Nazarites, the 
 “Samson Nazarites” who were not bound by 
 the rules laid down in 'w. 9 — ii, and the “or- 
 dinary perpetual Nazarites,” who were allowed 
 to poll their hair when too heavy. The ex- 
 emption of the Samson Nazarite is inferred 
 from Judg. xv. 16, where Samson wields the 
 jawbone of the dead ass, yet is not recorded 
 to have brought any sacrifice afterwards. 
 
 These dispensations have no countenance from 
 the chapter before us. Another rule imposed 
 by the administrators of the law, that no Na- 
 zarite vow should be taken for less than thirty 
 days, is reasonable. To permit the vow to be 
 taken for very short -periods would diminish 
 its solemnity and estimation. 
 
 14 . his offering] i.e. the offering of which 
 particulars follow immediately. From the 
 rationale of these sacrifices (cf. Lev. viii., ix.) 
 it would seem that the sin-offering (cf. Lev, 
 iv. 32 sqq.), though named second, was in 
 practice offered first, being intended to ex- 
 piate involuntary sins committed during the 
 period of separation. The burnt-offering 
 (Lev. i. 10 sqq.) denoted the self-surrender on 
 which alone all acceptableness in the Nazarite 
 before God must rest ; the peace-offerings 
 (Lev. iii. 12 sqq.) expressed thankfulness to 
 God by whose grace the vow had been ful- 
 filled. 
 
 15 . their meat offering., and their drink 
 offerings] i.e. the ordinary meat and drink- 
 offerings which were subsidiary to the other 
 offerings required in 2^. 14 (cf. Ex. xxix. 40, 
 41; Num. xxviii.^9 sqq.; Lev. ii. 4, vii. 12 
 sqq.); and additional to the basket of unlea- 
 vened bread, the cakes and the wafers specially 
 prescribed in the beginning of this verse to be 
 brought by the Nazarite. The offerings re- 
 quired on the completion of the Nazarite vow 
 thus involved considerable expense, and it was 
 regarded as a pious work to provide the poor 
 with the means of making them (cf. Acts xxi. 
 23 sqq.; Joseph. ‘ Antiq.’ xix. 6. i ; i Macc. 
 
 iii. 49)- 
 
NUMBERS. VI. 
 
 673 
 
 V. 18—23.] 
 
 bread; the priest shall offer also his 
 meat offering, and his drink offering, 
 f Acts 21. 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. 
 
 19 And the priest shall take the 
 sodden shoulder of the ram, and one 
 unleavened cake out of the basket, 
 and one unleavened wafer, and shall 
 put them upon the hands of the Na- 
 zarite, after the hair ^his separation 
 is shaven : 
 
 20 And the priest shall wave them 
 for a wave offering before the Lord : 
 
 this is holy for the priest, with the 29- 
 wave breast and heave shoulder : and 
 after that the Nazarite may drink 
 wine. 
 
 21 This is the law of the Nazarite 
 who hath vowed, and of his offering 
 unto the Lord for his separation, be- 
 side that that his hand shall get: ac- ’ 
 cording to the vow which he vowed, 
 so he must do after the law of his 
 separation. 
 
 22 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 23 Speak unto Aaron and unto his 
 
 18 . sha’ve the head'\ As the Na>^rite had 
 during hiS vow worn his hair unshorn in 
 honour of God, so when the time was com- 
 plete it was natural that the hair, the symbol 
 of his vow, should be cut olf, and offered to 
 God at the sanctuary. The burning of the 
 hair “in the fire under the sacrifice of the 
 peace offering,” represented the eucharistic 
 communion with God obtained by those who 
 realized the ideal which the Nazarite set forth. 
 The Nazarite vow is only one of many illus- 
 trations of the religious significance associated 
 with the hair in ancient times and in very di- 
 verse 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; where the “vow” can hardly 
 be that of a Nazarite, though that mentioned. 
 Acts xxi. 23 sqq. (see notes on these places), 
 no doubt was so. The many and various 
 observances connected with the hair may be 
 traced back to the estimation attached to a 
 profuse growth* of it. Peleus (‘II.’ 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. Other like observances 
 may be noticed, Afsch. ‘ Choeph.’ 7 ; Eurip. 
 
 ‘ Bacchse,’ 494. Similar customs were known 
 to the Romans; cf. Suet. ‘Nero,’ 12; Martial, 
 IX. 17, 3; Seneca, ‘Here. Fur.’ 855; Lucan, 
 ‘Pharsal.’ v. 6, 3. Examples are found of 
 vows symbolized by particular modes of crop- 
 ping 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, ‘II.’ xix. 
 254; Virgil, ‘^Tn.’ vi. 245. Very apposite 
 to the text 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. 1 1 7, “ 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. ii. 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.” Further 
 illustrations are given by Winer, ‘ Realw.’ Art. 
 ‘ Nasiriier.’ 
 
 20. the priest shall ^wa’ve them] i.e. by 
 placing his hands under those of the Nazarite; 
 cf. on Lev. vii. 28 sqq. 
 
 21. beside that that his hand shall get] 
 Lit. “his hand grasps.” The Nazarite, in 
 addition to the offerings prescribed above, was 
 to present free-will offerings according to his 
 means. 
 
 22 — 27 . The priestly blessing: cf. Ecclus. 
 xxxvi. 17. The blessing gives as it were the 
 crown and seal to the whole sacred order, 
 by which Israel was now fully organized, as 
 the people of God, for the march to the Holy 
 Land. It is appointed as a solemn form 
 to be used by the priests exclusively, and 
 in this function their office as it were culmi- 
 nates (cf. Lev. ix. 22). The duties thus far 
 assigned to them and their assistants have had 
 reference to the purity, order, and sanctity of 
 the nation. This whole set of regulations is 
 most suitably and emphatically closed by the 
 solemn w'ords of benediction, in which God 
 vouchsafes to survey as it were (cf. Gen. i 
 31) the whole theocratic system created by 
 Himself for man’s benefit, and pronounces it very 
 good. Accordingly a formula is provided by 
 God Himself, through which from time to time, 
 
674 
 
 NUMBERS. VI. VII. 
 
 [v. 24—1. 
 
 sons, saying, On this wise ye shall 
 bless the children of Israel, saying 
 unto them, 
 
 24 The Lord bless thee, and keep 
 thee : 
 
 25 The Lord make his face shine 
 upon thee, and be gracious unto thee : 
 
 26 The Lord lift up his counte- 
 nance upon thee, and give thee peace. 
 
 27 And they shall put my name 
 upon the children of Israel ; and I 
 will bless them. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1 The offering of the princes at the dedication of 
 the tabe 7 'nacle. 10 Their several offerings at 
 the dedicatio 7 t of the altar. 89 God speakcth 
 to Moses fro 77 t the 77 iercy seat. 
 
 A nd i't came to pass on the day 
 ^ that Moses had fully "set up 
 the tabernacle, and had anointed it, 
 and sanctified it, and all the instru- 
 ments thereof, both the altar and all 
 the vessels thereof, and had anointed 
 them, and sanctified them; 
 
 Exod. 40, 
 18. 
 
 as His people by obedience place themselves in 
 true and right relationship to Him, the autho- 
 rized mediators may pronounce and commu- 
 nicate His special blessing to them. The Jew- 
 ish tradition therefore that this blessing was 
 given at the close of the daily sacrifice is at 
 least in accordance with its character and 
 tenor. It will be observed that the text does 
 not appoint the occasion on which it is to be 
 used. 
 
 The structure of the blessing is remarkable. 
 It is rhythmical; consists of three distinct 
 parts, in each of which the Most Holy Name 
 stands as nominative; it contains altogether 
 twelve words, excluding the Sacred Name it- 
 self; and mounts by gradual stages to that 
 Peace which forms the last and most consum- 
 mate gift which God can give His people. 
 
 From a Christian point of view, and com- 
 paring the counterpart Benediction of 2 Cor. 
 xiii. 14 (cf. Is. vi. 3; Matt, xxviii. 19), it is 
 impossible not to see shadowed forth the Doc- 
 trine of the Holy Trinity. And the three se- 
 veral sets of terms correspond fittingly to the 
 office of the Persons in their gracious work 
 in the redemption of man. 
 
 24. The Lord bless thee., a7id keep thee~\ 
 The second clause here, as in the other three 
 verses, defines more closely the general tenor 
 of the preceding one. The singular number, 
 which is obsen-ed throughout, indicates that 
 the blessing is conferred on Israel collecti-vely . 
 
 25. 777ake his face shine'] This is an 
 enhancement of the preceding benediction. 
 “ The face of God” imports not merely God's 
 good will in general, but His active and spe- 
 cial regard. With the “ face” or “ eye of the 
 Lord” accordingly is connected alike the ju- 
 dicial visitation of the wicked (cf. Ps. xxxiv. 
 17), and His mercies to the righteous (Ps. 
 iv. 6). 
 
 26. lift up his countenance upon thee'] i.e. 
 specially direct His thought and care towards 
 thee: cf. 2 K. ix. 32, and similar phrases 
 Gen. xliii. 29, xliv. 21. Through such loving 
 providence alone could the peace of God in 
 which the blessing closes be given. 
 
 27. put TTiy naTne upon the childi'en of 
 Israel] i. e. pronounce my Sacred Name over 
 them in blessing them. Maimonides states 
 that the Sacred Name has never been used even 
 in the solemn benediction of the sanctuary 
 since th^ death of Simon the Just. 
 
 and I <will bless theTn] i.e. the children of 
 Israel, not, as some, the Priests. The words 
 import that God will give effect to the bene- 
 diction pronounced by the Priests. 
 
 Chap. VII. This and the two next chap- 
 ters narrate the closing events which happened 
 during the stay at Sinai. 
 
 The present chapter describes the presenta- 
 tion of gifts by the Princes of the Tribes at 
 the dedication of the Tabernacle. 
 
 1. on the day that] i.e. “at the time that,” 
 cf. Gen. ii. 4. The presentation of the gifts 
 in fact occupied twelve days, as the sequel 
 shows. The “Prmces” were apparently first 
 elevated to official dignity in connexion with 
 the numbering of the people (cf. i. i — 16). 
 Their offering of gifts then was made after 
 that census, and of course before the breaking 
 up of the encampment at Sinai, i.e. between 
 the first and the twentieth days of the second 
 month in the second year: cf. i. i. The anoint- 
 ing of the Tabernacle here referred to had no 
 doubt taken place in the course of the first 
 month. Ex. xl. 17, Lev. viii. 10 sqq., and had 
 occupied eight days of that month. Lev. viii. 33. 
 The enactments set forth in the Chapters from 
 Lev. X. to Numb. vi. inclusive, were doubtless 
 promulgated at various times between the con- 
 secration of the Tabemacle and the departure 
 from Sinai, but are for convenience set out con- 
 nectedly. The contents of the present chapter 
 are accordingly placed after them; and all the 
 more properly, since part of the gifts consisted 
 of the wagons and oxen by which the Ta- 
 bernacle and its furniture could be conveyed 
 in the ensuing marches. The order pursued 
 throughout is justly noted as one which would 
 naturally suggest itself to a narrator who was 
 contemporary with the events. 
 
V. 2 20.] 
 
 NUMBERS. VII. 
 
 675 
 
 2 That the princes of Israel, heads 
 of the house of their fathers, who 
 
 tHeb. were the princes of the tribes, ^and 
 
 vjko stood. A j 
 
 were over them that were numbered, 
 offered : 
 
 3 And they brought their offering 
 before the Lord, six covered wagons, 
 and twelve oxen ; a wagon for two of 
 the princes, and for each one an ox: 
 and they brought them before the ta- 
 bernacle. 
 
 4 And the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 ses, saying, 
 
 5 Take It of them, that they may 
 be to do the service of the tabernacle 
 of the cono-regation : and thou shalt 
 give them unto the Levites, to every 
 man according to his service. 
 
 6 And Moses took the wagons and 
 the oxen, and gave them unto the 
 Levites. 
 
 7 Two wagons and four oxen he 
 gave unto the sons of Gershon, ac- 
 cording to their service : 
 
 8 And four wagons and eight oxen 
 he gave unto the sons of Merari, ac- 
 cording unto their service, under the 
 hand of Ithamar the son of Aaron the 
 priest. 
 
 9 But unto the sons of Kohath 
 he gave none: because the service of 
 the sanctuary belonging unto them 
 was that they should bear u^ on their 
 shoulders. 
 
 10 ^ And the princes offered for 
 dedicating of the altar in the day that 
 it was anointed, even the princes of- 
 fered their offering before the altar. 
 
 11 And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, They shall offer their offering, 
 each prince on his day, for the dedi- 
 cating of the altar. 
 
 12 ^ And he that offered his offer- 
 ing the first day was Nahshon the son 
 of Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah : 
 
 13 And his offering was one silver 
 charger, the weight thereof was an 
 hundred and thirtv shekels., one silver 
 
 j ' 
 
 bowl of seventy shekels, after the she- 
 kel of the sanctuary; both of them 
 were full of fine flour mingled with 
 oil for a ^ meat offering: ^Lev. 2. u 
 
 14 One spoon of ten shekels of ^ 
 gold, full of incense : 
 
 1 5 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a burnt 
 offering: 
 
 16 One kid of the goats for a ^sin Lev. 4. 
 offering: 
 
 17 And for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 goats, five lambs of the first, year : 
 this was the offering of Nahshon the 
 son of Amminadab. 
 
 18 ^ On the second day Nethaneel 
 the son of Zuar, prince of Issachar, 
 did offer: 
 
 19 He offered for his offering one 
 silver charger, the weight v/hereof 
 %vas an hundred and thirty shekels., 
 one silver bov/1 of seventy shekels, 
 after the shekel of the sanctuary; 
 both of them full of fine flour min- 
 gled with oil for a meat offering : 
 
 20 One spoon of gold of ten she- 
 kels., full of incense : 
 
 3 . conoered ^agons\ The qualifying word 
 of this phrase is rendered “litter,” Is. Ixvi. 
 20; and some (Gesen., De Wette, &c.) prefer 
 to render “litter wagons: ” /.£■. litters which 
 were not on wheels, but borne by two oxen, 
 one in front and one behind. Such convey- 
 ances vjould probably be more convenient 
 than wheeled wagons in the rough country 
 to be traversed. 
 
 7 — 9 . To the Gershonites, who had to 
 transport the hangings and coverings of the 
 tabernacle, two wagons are assigned: to the 
 Merarites, who had the charge of the solid 
 parts of the tabernacle, four wagons. The 
 furniture and vessels the Kohathites were to 
 carry on their own shoulders. Compare iii. 
 25i 26, 31, 36, 37. 
 
 12 — 83 . The several princes mxake their 
 offerings in the order assigned to the tribes, 
 ch. ii. It was doubtless the tribes them- 
 selves which presented these gifts through their 
 chiefs. The twelve offerings are strictly alike, 
 and had no doubt been arranged and pre- 
 pared previously. They were offered how- 
 ever on twelve separate days, and the narrative 
 describing each severally at length with un- 
 altered language, reflects somewhat of the 
 stately solemnity which marked the repetition 
 of the same ceremonial day by day. Of 
 course the sacrifices brought by each prince 
 were offered on the day on which they were 
 presented; the chargers, bowls, and spoons 
 being preserved for the future use of the Sane 
 tuary. 
 
676 
 
 NUMBERS. VIL 
 
 [v. 21—49. 
 
 21 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a burnt 
 offering : 
 
 22 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 offering : 
 
 23 And for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 goats, five lambs of the first year: 
 this was the offering of Nethaneel the 
 son of Zuar. 
 
 24 SI On the third day Eliab the 
 son of Helon, prince of the children 
 of Zebulun, did offer: 
 
 25 His offering was one silver 
 charger, the weight whereof was an 
 hundred and thirty shekels^ one silver 
 bowl of seventy shekels, after the she- 
 kel of the sanctuary; both of them 
 full of fine flour mingled with oil for 
 a meat offering: 
 
 26 One golden spoon of ten she- 
 kels,^ full of incense : 
 
 27 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a 
 burnt offering : 
 
 28 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 oftering : 
 
 O 
 
 29 And for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 goats, five lambs of the first year: 
 this was the offering of Eliab the son 
 of Helon. 
 
 30 SI On the fourth day Elizur the 
 son of Shedeur, prince of the chil- 
 dren of Reuben, did offer: 
 
 31 His oftering was one silver 
 charger of the weight of an hundred 
 and thirty shekels^ one silver bowl of 
 seventy shekels, after the shekel of the 
 sanctuary; both of them full of fine 
 flourmingled with oil for a meat offering: 
 
 32 One golden spoon of ten she- 
 kels^ full of incense : 
 
 33 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a burnt 
 ofl'ering : 
 
 O 
 
 34 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 oflering : 
 
 O 
 
 35 And for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 goats, five lambs of the first year: 
 this was the oflering of Elizur the 
 son of Shedeur. 
 
 36 SI On the fifth day Shelumiel 
 the son of Zurishaddai, prince of the 
 children of Simeon, did offer: 
 
 37 His offering was one silver 
 charger, the -weight whereof was an 
 hundred and thirty shekels^ one silver 
 bowl of seventy shekels, after the she- 
 kel of the sanctuary; both of them 
 full of fine flour mingled with oil for 
 a meat oflering: 
 
 38 One golden spoon of ten she- 
 kels^ full of incense : 
 
 39 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a burnt 
 oflering : 
 
 40 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 offering : 
 
 41 And for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 goats, five lambs of the first year: 
 this zvas the oflering of Shelumiel the 
 son of Zurishaddai. 
 
 42 SI On the sixth day Eliasaph 
 the son of Deuel, prince of the chil- 
 dren of Gad, offered: 
 
 43 His oflering was one silver 
 charger of the weight of an hundred 
 and thirty shekels^ a silver bowl of 
 seventy shekels, after the shekel of the 
 sanctuary; both of them full of fine 
 flour mingled wi th oil for a meat offerings 
 
 44 One golden spoon of ten she- 
 kels^ full of incense : 
 
 45 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a burnt 
 offering : 
 
 46 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 offering : 
 
 47 /ind for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 goats, five Iambs of the first year: 
 this was the offering of Eliasaph the 
 son of Deuel. 
 
 48 SI On the seventh day Elishama 
 the son of Ammihud, prince of the 
 children of Ephraim, offered: * 
 
 49 His oflering was one silver 
 charger, the weight whereof was an 
 hundred and thirty shekels^ one silver 
 bowl of seventy shekels, after the she- 
 kel of the sanctuary; both of them 
 full of fine flour mingled with oil for 
 a meat offering: 
 
V. 50— 79-] 
 
 NUMBERS. VII. 
 
 677 
 
 50 One golden spoon of ten she- 
 kels^ full of incense : 
 
 51 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a burnt 
 offering: 
 
 52 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 offering : 
 
 53 And for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 goats, five lambs of the first year: 
 this was the offering of Elishama the 
 son of Ammihud. 
 
 54 ^ On the eighth day offered 
 Gamaliel the son of Pedahzur, prince 
 of the children of Manasseh : 
 
 55 Elis offering was one silver 
 charger of the weight of an hundred 
 and thirty shekels^ one silver bowl of 
 seventy shekels, after the shekel of 
 the sanctuary; both of them full of 
 fine flour mingled with oil for a meat 
 offering : 
 
 56 One golden spoon of ten she- 
 kels^ full of incense : 
 
 57 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a burnt 
 offering : 
 
 58 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 offering: 
 
 59 And for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 goats, five lambs of the first year: 
 this was the offering of Gamaliel the 
 son of Pedahzur. 
 
 60 On the ninth day Abidan 
 the son of Gideoni, prince of the chil- 
 dren of Benjamin, offered: 
 
 61 His offering was one silver 
 charger, the weight whereof was an 
 hundred and thirty shekels^ one silver 
 bowl of seventy shekels, after the she- 
 kel of the sanctuary; both of them 
 full of fine flour mingled with oil for 
 a meat offering : 
 
 62 One golden spoon of ten she- 
 kels^ full of incense : 
 
 63 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a burnt 
 offering : 
 
 64 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 offering : 
 
 65 And for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 
 goats, five lambs of the first year: 
 this was the offering of Abidan the 
 son of Gideoni. 
 
 66 *11 On the tenth day Ahiezer 
 the son of Ammishaddai, prince of 
 the children of Dan, offered: 
 
 67 His offering was one silver 
 charger, the weight whereof was an 
 hundred and thirty shekels^ one silver 
 bowl of seventy shekels, after the she- 
 kel of the sanctuary; both of them 
 full of fine flour mingled with oil for 
 a meat offering : 
 
 68 One golden spoon of ten she-- 
 kels^ full of incense : 
 
 69 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a burnt 
 offering : 
 
 70 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 offering : 
 
 71 And for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 goats, five lambs of the first year: 
 this was the offering of Ahiezer the 
 son of Ammishaddai. 
 
 72 ^ On the eleventh day Pagiel 
 the son of Ocran, prince of the chil- 
 dren of Asher, offered: 
 
 73 His offering %vas one silver 
 charger, the weight whereof was an 
 hundred and thirty shekels^ one silver 
 bowl of seventy shekels, after the she- 
 kel of the sanctuary; both of them 
 full of fine flour mingled with oil for 
 a meat offering: 
 
 74 One golden spoon of ten she- 
 kels^ full of incense : 
 
 75 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a burnt 
 offering : 
 
 76 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 offering : 
 
 77 And for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 goats, five lambs of the first year: 
 this was the offering of Pagiel the son 
 of Ocran. 
 
 78 ^ On the twelfth day Ahira 
 the son of Enan, prince of the chil- 
 dren of Naphtali, offered: 
 
 79 His offering was one silver 
 charger, the weight whereof was an 
 hundred and thirty shekels^ one silver 
 
678 
 
 NUMBERS. VII. VIII. 
 
 [v. 80 2. 
 
 bowl of seventy shekels, after the she- 
 kel of the sanctuary ; both of them full 
 of fine flour mingled with oil for a 
 meat offering: 
 
 80 One golden spoon of ten she- 
 kels^ full of incense : 
 
 81 One young bullock, one ram, 
 one lamb of the first year, for a burnt 
 offering : 
 
 82 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 offering : 
 
 83 And for a sacrifice of peace of- 
 ferings, two oxen, five rams, five he 
 goats, five lambs of the first year: 
 this was the offering of Ahira the son 
 of Enan. 
 
 84 This was the dedication of the 
 altar, in the day when it was anoint- 
 ed, by the princes of Israel: twelve 
 chargers of silver, twelve silver bowls, 
 twelve spoons of gold: 
 
 85 Each charger of silver weighing 
 an hundred and thirty shekels^ each 
 bowl seventy: all the silver vessels 
 weighed two thousand and four hun- 
 dred shekels^ after the shekel of the 
 sanctuary : 
 
 86 The golden spoons were twelve, 
 full of incense, weighing ten shekels 
 apiece, after the shekel of the sanc- 
 
 tuary : all the gold of the spoons was 
 an hundred and twenty shekels. 
 
 87 All the oxen for the burnt of- 
 fering were twelve bullocks, the rams 
 twelve, the lambs of the first year 
 twelve, with their meat offering : and 
 the kids of the goats for sin offering 
 twelve. 
 
 88 And all the oxen for the sacri- 
 fice of the peace offerings were twenty 
 and four bullocks, the rams sixty, the 
 he goats sixty, the lambs of the first 
 year sixty. This was the dedication 
 of the altar, after that it was anointed. 
 
 89 And when Moses was gone into 
 the tabernacle of the congregation to 
 speak with Tim, then he heard the "That is, 
 voice of one speaking unto him from 
 
 off the mercy seat that was upon the 
 ark of testimony, from between the 
 two cherubims: and he spake unto 
 him. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I How the lamps are to be lighted. 5 The con- 
 secration of the Levites. 23 The age and time 
 
 of their service. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto Aaron, and say unto « Exod. 
 him, When thou "lightest the lamps, &4i%5. 
 
 84 — 88 . If a silver shekel be taken, 
 roughly, as weighing 2*5 of a shilling, and a 
 golden shekel 1-15 of a sovereign, the intrinsic 
 worth, by weight, of each silver charger will 
 be 325J., of each bowl i75.f., of each golden 
 spoon 230J. Consequently the aggregate worth, 
 by weight, of the whole of the offerings will 
 be ^438. But the real worth of such a sum, 
 when measured by the prices of clothing and 
 food at that time, must have been vastly 
 greater. It must not be forgotten too that the 
 Tabernacle itself had been recently constructed 
 at a vast cost. 
 
 89 . tabernacle of the congregatioi{\ Rather 
 of meeting, cf. Ex. xxix. 42 and note. 
 
 m)ith him'] i.e. as marg. with God, not (as 
 some) with himself. 'I'he name of God is 
 implied in the phrase “tabernacle of meeting.” 
 
 he heard the •voice of one speaking] Rather he 
 heard the voice speaking, or convers- 
 ing. 'I'he proper force of the Hebrew par- 
 ticiple (Hithpael, as in 2 S. xiv. 13 ; Ezek. ii. 2, 
 xliii. 6) would be given if we render, “he 
 heard the voice making itself as speaking.” 
 The effect was as though Moses was audibly 
 
 addressed by another person: how this effect 
 was produced we are not told. 
 
 Thus was the promise of Ex. xxv. 20 — 22 
 (on which see notes) fulfilled ; and that as an 
 immediate response on the part of God to the 
 cheerful readiness with which the tribes had 
 made their offerings, and supplied everything 
 needful for the Holy Place and its seiwice (cf. 
 Lev. ix. 23, 24, and notes). All being now 
 complete as God had appointed, and the camp 
 purified from defilements, God meets Moses 
 the mediator of the people, not as before on 
 the peak of Sinai far away, but in their very 
 midst, in the dwelling-place which He hence- 
 forth vouchsafed to tenant. 
 
 Chap. VIII. 1 — 4 . These verses en- 
 join the actual lighting of the lamps on the 
 Golden Candlestick. This was now to be 
 done to set forth symbolically the peculiar 
 presence which God had now (cf. vii. 89) ac- 
 tually established amongst His people. The 
 workmanship, arrangements, and ritual of the 
 Candlestick and its Lamps have been already 
 discussed. Ex. xxv. 31 sqq., xxvii. 20 sqq., 
 xxxvii. 1 7 sqq., xl. 24, 25 ; v/here see notes. 
 
V. 3—12.] 
 
 NUMBERS. VIII. 
 
 679 
 
 the seven lamps shall give light over 
 against the candlestick. 
 
 3 And Aaron did so; he lighted 
 the lamps thereof over against the 
 candlestick, as the Lord command- 
 ed Moses. 
 
 6Exod. 25. ^ "^And this work of the candlestick 
 
 zvas of beaten gold, unto the shaft 
 thereof, unto the flowers thereof, was 
 <:Exod.2s. ^beaten work: according unto the 
 pattern which the Lord had shewed 
 Moses, so he made the candlestick. 
 
 5 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 6 Take the Levites from among 
 the children of Israel, and cleanse 
 them. 
 
 fHeb 7 shdlt thou do unto 
 
 let than them, to cleanse them: Sprinkle wa- 
 VasoAo ter of purifying upon them, and Met 
 p^sover, shave all their flesh, and let 
 
 them wash their clothes, and so make 
 themselves clean. 
 
 8 Then let them take a young 
 bullock with his meat offering, even 
 fine flour mingled with oil, and an- 
 other young bullock shalt thou take 
 for a sin offering. 
 
 9 And thou shalt bring the Le- 
 vites before the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation : and thou shalt gather the 
 whole assembly of the children of Is- 
 rael together : 
 
 10 And thou shalt bring the Le- 
 vites before the Lord : and the chil- 
 dren of Israel shall put their hands 
 upon the Levites: 
 
 1 1 And Aaron shall ^ offer the Le- 
 vites before the Lord for an ^ offering 
 
 of the children of Israel, that Mheyj«^-^ 
 may execute the service of the Lord, they may 
 
 12 And the Levites shall lay their 
 
 2. over against the candlestick^ Cf. Ex. 
 XXV. 3 7 and note. 
 
 5 — 22 . Ordination of the Levites to the 
 duties already prescribed for them in chaps, 
 iii., iv. This could only take place after the 
 formal exchange of the Levites for the first- 
 born fiii. 44 — 51); and probably stands here 
 in its proper chronological order. 
 
 The “consecration” of the Priests is re- 
 corded Lev. viii. The distinction between that 
 ceremony and the less solemn “purification” 
 (cf. V. 21) of the Levites is marked. The Le- 
 vites are simply • sprinkled with water, have 
 to wash their clothes, and to shave their flesh 
 (2;. 7); and then are offered (vv. 10, ii) to 
 God on behalf of the people. There is no 
 “washing” with water, anointing, or sprin- 
 kling with the blood of a consecrating sacrifice 
 (Lev. viii. 6, 22, 30). These rites of purifi- 
 cation are similar to those incumbent on the 
 priests of Egypt: see Tntrod. to Pentateuch,’ 
 p. ij. 
 
 7 . voater of purifying~\ Lit. “sin water:” 
 i.e. water to cleanse from sin. This water 
 was no doubt that taken from the laver or 
 the sanctuary, which was used by the Priests 
 for purification before they went into the 
 tabernacle to minister (cf. v. 17; Ex. xxx. 18 
 sqq.). The water used for cleansing the leper 
 (Lev. xiv. 5) was prepared in a peculiar man- 
 ner for that single purpose; as was also the 
 water of separation, ch. xix.; neither could 
 be available for such a purpose as the inaugu- 
 ration of the Levites. 
 
 The “sprinkling” of so large a body of 
 men could have been only general. The tokens 
 
 of individual purification were, however, to 
 be exhibited by each of them through the 
 shaving of the body and washing the clothes ; 
 on which ceremonies and their import see 
 Lev. xiv. 8 and notes. 
 
 8. The two bullocks were “ to make 
 an atonement for the Levites,” and therefore 
 are presented in their name. These offerings 
 are similar to those prescribed Lev. viii. 14 sqq. 
 at the consecration of the priests, except that 
 the burnt-offering was on that occasion a ram. 
 The larger victim corresponds to the larger 
 number of the Levites. 
 
 10 . the children of Israel^ i.e. through 
 the heads of their tribes, who here, as else- 
 where (cf. vii. 2), no doubt acted for their 
 tribesmen. This act, the distinguishing feature 
 of the ceremony, represented the transfer to 
 the Levites of the sacred duties originally in- 
 cumbent on the whole people. 
 
 11 . Offer... offering']^ Lit. here and in w. 
 13? 15) “wave,” and “wave-offering,” as 
 marg. How this Vv^as to be done is not deter- 
 mined. ^ Most likely Aaron pointed to the 
 Levites*, and then waved his hands as in or- 
 dinary cases of making this offering. The 
 multitude of the Levites seems to preclude 
 the other modes suggested ; e.g. causing them 
 to march backwards and forwards before the 
 Altar, or taking them round it. The cere- 
 mony of waving ind’eated (cf. Lev. vii. 30 
 and note) that the offering was dedicated to 
 God, and, again, by grant from Him with- 
 drawn for the use of the priests. It was 
 therefore aptly used at the inauguration of the 
 Levites. 
 
68o 
 
 NUMBERS. VIII. 
 
 [v. 13—24. 
 
 cliap. 
 
 45 - 
 
 f Kxod. 
 
 t2. 
 
 cnap. 3. 
 Luke 2. 
 
 tHcb. 
 
 given. 
 
 hands upon the heads of the bullocks : 
 and thou shalt offer the one for a sin 
 offering, and the other for a burnt of- 
 fering, unto the Lord, to make an 
 atonement for the Levites. 
 
 13 And thou shalt set the Levites 
 before Aaron, and before his sons, 
 and offer them for an offering unto 
 the Lord. 
 
 14 Thus shalt thou separate the 
 Levites from among the children of 
 
 3- Israel : and the Levites shall be ^mine. 
 
 15 And after that shall the Levites 
 go in to do the service of the taber- 
 nacle of the cono-reration : and thou 
 
 00 
 
 shalt cleanse them, and offer them for 
 an offering. 
 
 16 For they are wholly given unto 
 me from among the children of Is- 
 rael; instead of such as open every 
 womb, even instead of the firstborn 
 of all the children of Israel, have I 
 taken them unto me. 
 
 13. 17 ^For all the firstborn of the chil- 
 
 13. dren of Israel are mine, both man and 
 23* beast : on the day that I smote every 
 firstborn in the land of Egypt I sanc- 
 tified them for myself. 
 
 18 And I have taken the Levites 
 for all the firstborn of the children of 
 Israel. 
 
 19 And I have given the Levites 
 as U gift to Aaron and to his sons 
 
 13. And thou shalt set] The copula might 
 perhaps be better rendered “thus” in this 
 place than in the beginning of the next verse. 
 The ‘w. 13 — 15 reiterate the commands of 
 'v'v. 6 sepp, and point to the rite as directly 
 preparatory to the Levites going in “ to do 
 the service of the tabernacle.” 
 
 16. the firstborn of all the children of Is- 
 rael] Hebr. more emphatically, “the first- 
 born of every one of, &c.” 
 
 19. make an atonement for the children 
 of Israel] i.e. by performing those services 
 which were due from the children of Israel; 
 the omission of which by the children of Israel 
 would but for the interposition of the Levites 
 Live called down wrath from God. 
 
 That there he no plague] Cf. i. 53 . 7'he in- 
 stitution of the Levites was an extension of 
 that metliatorial system which the people 
 themselves, terrified at the direct manifesta- 
 tions to them of the Divine Presence, desired, 
 Deut. V. ij. The office of Moses, of the 
 
 from among the children of Israel, to 
 do the service of the children of Israel 
 in the tabernacle of the congregation, 
 and to make an atonement for the 
 children of Israel : that there be no 
 plague among the children of Israel, 
 when the children of Israel come nigh 
 unto the sanctuary. 
 
 20 And Moses, and Aaron, and all 
 the congregation of the children of 
 Israel, did to the Levites according 
 unto all that the Lord commanded 
 Moses concerning the Levites, so did 
 the children of Israel unto them. 
 
 21 And the Levites were purified, 
 and they washed their clothes; and 
 Aaron offered them as an offering be- 
 fore the LoPv.d; and Aaron made an 
 atonement for them to cleanse them. 
 
 22 And after that went the Le- 
 vites in to do their service in the ta- 
 bernacle of the congregation before 
 Aaron, and before his sons: as the 
 Lord had commanded Moses con- 
 cerning the Levites, so did they unto 
 them. 
 
 23 And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 24 This is it that belongeth unto 
 the Levites : from twenty and five 
 years old and upward they shall go E ^ ^ ^ 
 
 To wait upon the service of the taber- tovdnhe 
 nacle of the congregation : 
 
 Priests, and, finally, of the Levites, was to 
 interpose after rules and limits laid down by 
 God Himself between Him and the people. 
 The substitution of the Levites for the first- 
 born is suggested to us here as an act of 
 mercy on the part of God ; for the firstborn, 
 had they had to discharge their duties in per- 
 s>on, would assuredly have fallen into omissions 
 or transgressions of the prescribed order, such 
 as would have drawn down those judicial 
 visitations by which God taught Israel the 
 reverence due to Him. Even the Priests and 
 Levites themselves were not always sufficiently 
 heedful and reverent. Cf. Lev. x. i sqq.; 
 Num. xvii.; a Sam. vi. 6 sqq. 
 
 21 . <ivere purified] Rather, purified 
 themselves; i.e. by shaving their flesh and 
 washing their clothes, as directed in nj. 7 . 
 
 23 — 26. Period of the Levites’ service. 
 
 24. t'euenty and fi've years old and upward] 
 But in iv. 3 , 23 , 30 , the limit is fixed at thirty 
 years instead of twenty-five. The directions 
 
V. 25— 5-] 
 
 NUMBERS. VIII. IX. 
 
 68i 
 
 ,t Heb. 
 retiott 
 from the 
 warfare of 
 the ser- 
 vice. 
 
 25 And from the age of fifty years 
 they shall ^ cease waiting upon the 
 service thereof^ and shall serve no 
 more : 
 
 26 But shall minister with their 
 brethren in the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation, to keep the charge, and 
 shall do no service. Thus shalt thou 
 do unto the Levites touching their 
 char2:e. 
 
 O 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I The passover is commanded agam. 6 A 
 second passover alloived for them that were 
 tincleaii or absent. 15 The clond gtiideth the 
 removings and encampings of the Israelites. 
 
 K 
 
 ND the Lord spake unto Moses 
 in the wilderness of Sinai, in the 
 
 there given however are temporary, and refer 
 to the transport of the Tabernacle during the 
 journey ings in the wilderness ; those of this place 
 are permanent, and determine the ordinary and 
 regular obligations of the Levites with respect 
 to the service. The pulling down, erection, and 
 . conveyance of the Tabernacle and its furniture 
 
 ; would require the services of able-bodied and 
 
 ! ■ . careful men in their prime ; and the number 
 of Levites between 30 and 50 might well 
 suffice for those duties. After the people 
 j were settled in Canaan, and the Levites dis- 
 . persed over the whole land in their cities, the 
 
 I somewhat larger number which the law now - 
 before us would afford was necessary. This 
 number indeed proved to be insufficient, even 
 fi though the Tribe had considerably increased 
 
 fi (i Chron. xxiii. 3), when David reorganized 
 
 ! and developed the whole ritual of the law; 
 
 I . and accordingly amongst his last acts he ex- 
 
 tended the period of the Levites’ service by 
 causing it to commence at 26 years of age 
 j _(i Chron. xxiii. 24—28). And this David 
 
 i is expressly stated to have done because the 
 
 S : ^ Levites had no longer to carry the Tabernacle 
 
 P and the vessels (i Chr. xxiii. 26); and, con- 
 
 j i sequently, younger men might now undertake 
 
 » the office. This rule continued in force from 
 
 N the time of David downwards (cf. 2 Chron. 
 
 xxxi. 17 ; Ezra hi. 8). 
 
 : to nvait upon the sera)lce'\ Cf. iv. 23 and 
 
 note). 
 
 'i Chap. IX. 1 — 5. Passover at Sinai. 
 
 I This, as being kept in the first month, was 
 
 ij prior in time to the numbering of ch. i. i sqq., 
 
 and to the other events narrated in this book. 
 
 ' It is, however, recorded here as introductory 
 to the ordinance of 0000. 6 — 14 in this chapter 
 respecting the supplementary Passover, the 
 j: observance of which was one of the last oc- 
 
 currences during the halt at Sinai. 
 
 first month of the second year after 
 they were come out of the land of 
 Egypt, saying, 
 
 2 Let the children of Israel also 
 keep "the passover at his appointed " Exo^* 
 
 season. Lev. 23. 5. 
 
 3 In the fourteenth day of this 
 month, ^at even, ye shall keep it in Eeut. 16. 
 his appointed season : according to all t Heb. 
 the rites of it, and according to all the ^thTuZ 
 ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it. evenings. 
 
 4 And Moses spake unto the chil- 
 dren of Israel, that they should keep 
 the passover. 
 
 5 And they kept the passover on 
 the fourteenth day of the first month 
 at even in the wilderness of Sinai: 
 
 From the terms of the institution of the 
 Passover (Ex. xii. 25, xiii. 5 — 10), it would 
 appear that the next celebration of it was 
 designed to be after the settlement in Canaan. 
 As, however, the anniversary of the Feast 
 occurred before the wilderness was traversed, 
 a special command of God is given to meet 
 the case; and had it not been for the sub- 
 sequent rebellion of the people they would 
 have been “ brought into the land of the 
 Canaanites” before this festival came round 
 a third time. 
 
 5 . As to the manner in which this ex- 
 ceptional Passover was observed we are only 
 informed generally in oj. 3 that the Israelites 
 conformed to “all the rites and ceremonies” 
 of it. Probably, in some details, the present 
 Passover differed both from the one kept at 
 the Exodus itself and from, all subsequent 
 ones. The direction of Ex. xii. 17 (“they 
 shall take of the blood and strike it on the 
 two side posts, &c.”) could obviously not be 
 carried out in the letter whilst the people were 
 dwelling in tents; and indeed may, together 
 with the whole command to kill the Paschal 
 victim at home, be regarded as superseded by 
 Lev. xvii. 3 — 6, enforced as regards the Pass- 
 over in particular by Dent. xvi. 5 sqq. 
 
 But if the blood of the Paschal victims was 
 sprinkled by the Priests upon the altar, it may 
 be asked how Aaron, Eleazar, and Ithamar, 
 the only Priests at this time, could discharge 
 this duty within the time prescribed, ‘ ‘ between 
 the two evenings:” cf. Ex. xii. 6. The num- 
 ber of victims must of course have been 
 great; but it has been much overstated by 
 those who estimate it to have reached many 
 scores of thousands. To eat a morsel of 
 the Paschal victim satisfied the commemora- 
 tive purposes of the Festival, as the Jewish 
 authorities remark ; and calculations as to the 
 
682 
 
 NUMBERS. IX. [v.6-15. 
 
 according to all that the Lord com- 
 manded Moses, so did the children of 
 Israel. 
 
 6 ^ And there were certain men, 
 who were defiled by the dead body of 
 a man, that they could not keep the 
 passover on that day : and they came 
 before Moses and before Aaron on 
 that day : 
 
 7 And those men said unto him. 
 We are defiled by the dead body of a 
 man : wherefore are we kept back, 
 that we may not offer an offering of 
 the Lord in his appointed season 
 among the children of Israel? 
 
 8 And Moses said unto them. 
 Stand still, and I will hear what the 
 Lord will command concerning you. 
 
 9 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 10 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, saying, If any man of you or of 
 your posterity shall be unclean by 
 reason of a dead body, or be in a 
 journey afar off, yet he shall keep the 
 passover unto the Lord. 
 
 11 The fourteenth day of the se- 
 cond month at even they shall keep 
 
 it, and eat it with unleavened bread 
 and bitter herbs. 
 
 12 They shall leave none of it un- 
 to the morning, ^nor break any bone *Exod. 12. 
 of it : according to all the ordinances John 19. 
 of the passover they shall keep it. 36. 
 
 13 But the man that is clean, and 
 is not in a journey, and forbeareth 
 to keep the passover, even the same 
 soul shall be cut off from among his 
 people : because he brought not the 
 offering of the Lord in his appointed 
 season, that man shall bear his sin. 
 
 14 And if a stranger shall sojourn 
 among you, and will keep the pass- 
 over unto the Lord ; according to the 
 ordinance of the passover, and accord- 
 ing to the manner thereof, so shall he 
 
 do: ^ye shall have one ordinance, '"Exod. 12. 
 both for the stranger, and for him 
 that was born in the land. 
 
 15 ^ And ^on the day that the 40 - 
 tabernacle was reared up the cloud 
 covered the tabernacle, namely^ the 
 
 tent of the testimony: and at even 
 there was upon the tabernacle as it 
 were the appearance of fire, until the 
 morning. 
 
 number of lambs required to supply the two 
 million of Israelites with a meal are therefore 
 irrelevant. Neither was it necessary that all 
 the victims should be lambs: cf. Ex. xii. 5. 
 The Priests were no doubt assisted at this 
 tim.e, as afterwards (cf. ^ Chron. xxx. 16, 
 XXXV. ii) by the Levites. In such points of 
 detail the administrators of the law of Moses 
 would here, as elsewhere, have, from the 
 nature of the case, power to order what 
 might be requisite to carry the law into effect. 
 Josephus, ‘Bell. Jud.’ vi. 9. 3, speaks of the 
 blood of 256,000 victims having been in his 
 days sprinkled on the altar within three hours. 
 
 6. certain men'\ Probably (cf. Blunt’s 
 ‘Script. Coincidences,’ pp. 62 — 65) Mishael 
 and Elizaphan, who burled their cousins, 
 Nadab and Abihu, within a week of this 
 Piissover (Lev. x. 4, 5). None would be 
 more likely to make this inquiry of Moses 
 than his kinsmen, who had defiled themselves 
 by his express direction. 
 
 11 . The fourteenth day of the second 
 montfj] d'he later Jews speak of this as the 
 Little Passover. Coming, as it did, a month 
 after the proper Passover, it afford'd ample 
 time for a man to purify himself from legal 
 
 defilement, as also to return from any but 
 a very distant j'ourney. It was in conformity 
 with the spirit of this ordinance that Heze- 
 kiah, at the opening of his reign, celebrated 
 the Great Passover in the second month, being 
 unable to complete the sanctification of the 
 temple and priesthood against the regular 
 season of the feast (2 Chron. xxix., xxx.). 
 
 12. according to all the ordinances'] i.e. 
 those relating to 'the passover-lamb, not those 
 concerning the feast; for the Little Passover 
 lasted, according to the Jews, only one day; 
 nor was it held to be needful that at it leaven 
 should be put away out of the houses. 
 
 15 — 20 . The signals given by God for 
 marching and for halting. 
 
 15 . on the day that the tabernacle fwas 
 reared up] Cf. Ex. xl. 34, which is evidently 
 referred to in this verse. The phenomenon 
 first appeared at the Exodus itself. Ex. xiii. 21, 
 22 ; it is now again more particularly described 
 in connexion with the journeyings which are 
 to be narrated in the sequel of the book. 
 
 the tabernacle^ namdy^ the tent of the testi- 
 mony] On these words see note at end of 
 chapter. 
 
V. i6 — 23.] 
 
 NUMBERS. IX. 
 
 683 
 
 ■ 16 So it was alway: the cloud 
 
 covered it by day^ and the appearance 
 of fire by night. 
 
 17 And when the cloud was taken 
 up from the tabernacle, then after 
 that the children of Israel journeyed : 
 and in the place where the cloud 
 abode, there the children of Israel 
 pitched their tents. 
 
 18 At the commandment of the 
 Lord the children of Israel journey- 
 ed, and at the commandment of the 
 
 ^ I Cor. 10. Lord they pitched: ^as long as the 
 cloud abode upon the tabernacle they 
 rested in their tents. 
 
 tHeb. • And when the cloud ^tarried 
 prolonged, upon the tabemacle many days, 
 then the children of Israel kept the 
 charge of the Lord, and journeyed 
 not. 
 
 20 And so it was, when the cloud 
 was a few days upon the tabernacle; 
 according to the commandment of 
 
 the Lord they abode in their tents, 
 and according to the commandment 
 of the Lord they journeyed. 
 
 21 And so it was, when the cloud 
 
 ^ abode from even unto the morning, ^ Heb. 
 and that the cloud was taken up in 
 the morning, then they journeyed : 
 whether it was by day or by night 
 that the cloud was taken up, they 
 journeyed. 
 
 22 Or whether it were two days, or 
 a month, or a year, that the cloud 
 tarried upon the tabernacle, remain- 
 ing thereon, the children of Israel 
 •^abode in their tents, and journeyed y-Exod. 40. 
 not : but when it was taken up, they 37 - 
 journeyed. 
 
 23 At the commandment of the 
 Lord they rested in the tents, and at 
 the commandment of the Lord they 
 journeyed : they kept the charge of 
 the Lord, at the commandment of 
 the Lord by the hand of Moses. 
 
 20. so it <zvas, 'when.^ &c.] Rather, 
 
 And there wa.s also when, &c. (cf. for 
 the Hebrew, Neh. v. 2, 3, 4). As the preceding 
 verse had contemplated a time when the cloud 
 tarried many days, so there were also occa- 
 sions on which it tarried but few days. 
 
 21 . And so it nvas., ^hen., &c.] Rather, 
 And there was also when the cloud 
 abode from even unto morning, and 
 
 the cloud was taken up in the morn- 
 ing, and they journeyed: see on nj. 20. 
 
 22. a year'\ The Hebrew expression is 
 “days,” which idiomatically denotes a year 
 in Lev. xxv. 29. But in the present passage 
 the ancient translators, whom some follow, 
 understood it to mean simply “a longer time.” 
 It probably is equivalent to “a full period,” 
 though not necessarily the period of a year. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. ix. 15. 
 
 1. In 2;. 15 the words “ namely the tent of 
 
 the testimony” are obviously added to the 
 word “tabernacle” (pilJ'D), in order to de- 
 scribe the phenomenon more accurately. The 
 passage would literally run “the cloud covered 
 the tabernacle towards the tent of the testi- 
 mony” (myn ; i.e. the cloud did not 
 
 cover the whole structure, court and all, but 
 only the portion of it in which the Ark was 
 placed, including perhaps the holy place as well 
 as the holy of holies. 
 
 2. As the ark was termed “the Ark of 
 Testimony” (cf. Ex. xxv. 16, 21, 22) because 
 the testimony (i.e. the decalogue) was placed 
 in it, so in like manner the inclosure which 
 contained the Ark itself was termed the “tent 
 of the testimony” or “witness:” as in the 
 passage before us, and in xvii. 4, 8, xviii. 2. 
 
 3. The same portion of the structure seems 
 properly to be indicated by the phrase PHN 
 nyilD, “tent of the congregation,” or more pro- 
 perly “of meeting;” cf. note at the end of 
 Ex. xl. 
 
 4. The phrase “tabemacle of testimony” 
 (myn pSI’tD), seems (cf. i. 50, x. ii) to im- 
 port generally the whole stmcture. 
 
 5. The A. V. generally translates pK^JD 
 
 and by “tabemacle” and “tent” re- 
 
 spectively; but in Num. xvi. 42, 43 (in the 
 Hebrew Bible, xvii. 7, 8) the latter word is 
 represented by “tabemacle,” as it is also in 
 the repeated translation of nyiD by 
 “ tabernacle of the congregation,” in Num. iii. 
 Respecting the structure and arrangements 
 of the Tabernacle full information is given 
 in the notes on Ex. xxvi. and xl. 
 
NUMBERS. X. [v. i-io. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 I The use of the silver h-timpets. 1 1 The Is- 
 raelites remove from Sinai to Paran. 14 The 
 order of their 7narch. 29 Hobab is intreated 
 by Moses 7iot to leave thc77i. 33 The blessing of 
 Moses at the re77iovi7ig a7id 7'esti7ig of the a7'k. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 Make thee two trumpets of sil- 
 ver; of a whole piece shalt thou make 
 them : that thou mayest use them for 
 the calling of the assembly, and for 
 the journeying of the camps. 
 
 3 And when they shall blow with 
 them, all the assembly shall assemble 
 themselves to thee at the door of the 
 tabernacle of the congregation. 
 
 ^ And if they blow but with one 
 tru?npet^ then the princes, which are 
 heads of the thousands of Israel, shall 
 gather themselves unto thee. 
 
 5 When ye blov/ an alarm, then 
 the camps that lie on the east parts 
 shall go forward. 
 
 6 When ye blow an alarm the se- 
 cond time, then the camps that lie on 
 the south side shall take their jour- 
 
 ney: they shall blow an alarm for 
 their journeys. 
 
 7 But v/hen the congregation is to 
 be gathered together, ye shall blov/, 
 but ye shall not sound an alarm. 
 
 8 And the sons of Aaron, the 
 priests, shall blow with the trumpets ; 
 and they shall be to you for an ordi- 
 nance for ever throughout your gene- 
 rations. 
 
 9 And if ye go to war in your land 
 against the enemy that oppresseth 
 you, then ye shall blow an alarm with 
 the trumpets ; and ye shall be re- 
 membered before the Lord your 
 God, and ye shall be saved from your 
 enemies. 
 
 10 Also in the day of your glad- 
 ness, and in your solemn days, and in 
 the beginnings of your months, ye 
 shall blow with the trumpets over 
 your burnt offerings, and over the 
 sacrifices of your peace offerings ; that 
 they may be to you for a memorial 
 before your God : I atn the Lord 
 your God. 
 
 Chap. X. 1 — 10. The Silver Trumpets. 
 These, as employed in signalling the move- 
 ments of the Camp, are here mentioned among 
 other preliminaries for the impending journeys. 
 Occasion is taken to describe the various uses 
 of the Trumpets. It is not necessary to sup- 
 pose that the Trumpets were now first ap- 
 pointed by God. Indeed, reference is made to 
 them Lev. xxv. 9. 
 
 2. The trumpet (kbatsotserah') was a 
 straight instrument, differing in this respect 
 from the curved horn or cornet (keren^ sho~ 
 pba)') ; yet the latter is frequently rendered 
 “trumpet” in the English Version, when the 
 two instruments are not mentioned together. 
 The Jewish trumpet is described (Joseph. 
 ‘ Ant.’ III. 12. 6) as “ a little less than a cubit 
 in length; the tube narrow, a little thicker 
 than a flute, and just wide enough to per- 
 mit the performer to blow it; while it termi- 
 nated, like other trumpets, in the form of a 
 bell.'’ Such instruments are represented, 
 among the other spoils of the temple, on the 
 Arch of Titus. See on Ex. xxv. 23. From 
 h.gyptian monuments it appears that the 
 Jewish trumpet was copied from that used 
 in the armies of the Pharaohs, &c. (see 
 Wilkinson’s ‘Manners and Customs of the 
 Ancient - Egyptians,’ ii. pp. 260 sqq.). The 
 shape of the cornet bespeaks its pastoral 
 origin. At first it was a simple ram’s horn 
 
 (Josh. vi. 4); and the metal instrument of 
 later times preserved the original shape. 
 
 5 . blozu a7i alarm~\ i.e. a long conti- 
 nuous peal. Cf. 2;. ye shall blo-iu^ but not 
 sou7id an alar7n: i.e. blow in short, sharp 
 notes not in a continuous peal. 
 
 6. tbe second time'] The LXX. introduces 
 here a third and a fourth alarm as signals 
 for the west and north camps. No express 
 mention of these is found in the Hebrew text, 
 but we may infer that they were actually used. 
 
 8. tbe sons of Aaron'] As the trumpets 
 were emblematic of the voice of God the 
 Priests only were to use them. At this tim.e 
 there were only two “sons of Aaron;” but 
 in later times, when the number of priests 
 v/as greater, more trumpets were used; we 
 read of seven in the reign of David, i Chron. 
 XV. 24 ; of a hundred and twenty in that of 
 Solomon, 2 Chron. v. 12. 
 
 9. For examples of the employment 
 of trumpets in war cf. xxxi. 6; Josh, vi.; 
 2 Chron. xiii. 12, 14, xx. 28. By this em- 
 ployment was signified the dependence of 
 God’s people on His aid. 
 
 10. in tbe day of your gladness] Cf. 
 xxix. i; Lev. xxiii. 24; 2 Chron. xxix. 27; 
 Ezra iii. 10; Neh. xii. 35, 41; Ps. Ixxxi. 3. 
 
 I am tbe Lord your God] Rather, even 
 before me, tbe Lord your God. The 
 words do not form a separate period as in A.V. 
 
V. II— 15-] 
 
 NUMBERS. X. 
 
 685 
 
 11 II And it came to pass on the 
 twentieth day of the second month, 
 in the second year, that the cloud was 
 taken up from off the tabernacle of 
 the testimony. 
 
 12 And the children of Israel took 
 their journeys out of the wilderness of 
 Sinai \ and the cloud rested in the 
 wilderness of Paran. 
 
 13 And they first took their journey 
 according to the commandment of the 
 Lord by the hand of Moses. 
 
 14 ^ ^In the first place went the ^chap. 2. 
 standard of the camp of the children 
 
 of Judah according to their armies: 
 and over his host was ‘^Nahshon the '''chap. i. 
 son of Amminadab. 
 
 15 And over the host of the tribe 
 
 11 . At this point commences the second 
 great division of the book, extending to the 
 close of chapter xiv. Cf. Introd. § 2. The 
 remaining verses of the present chapter nar- 
 rate the actual break up of the camp at Sinai 
 and the order of the march. 
 
 12 . took their journey 3 \ Lit. “journeyed 
 after their journeys,” cf. Lx. xvii. i. 
 
 the qvilderness of Parari] This tract com- 
 prised about one-third of the entire extent of 
 the peninsula, which lies between Egypt and 
 Canaan, and is the eastern half of the great 
 limestone plateau, which constitutes the centre 
 of that peninsula- It was bounded on the 
 north by the Canaanitish frontier; on the 
 west by the Brook or River of Egypt, which 
 parted it from the other half of the plateau, 
 the Wilderness of Shur; on the south by 
 the great sand -belt, which sweeps across 
 the peninsula in a northwardly-concave line, 
 from gulf to gulf, and forms a broad demar- 
 cation between it and the cliffs of Sinai; and 
 on the east by the northern portion of the 
 Elanitic gulf, and by the great valley of the 
 Arabah, which divides it from the m.ountains 
 of Edom. The Wilderness of Zin (to be 
 carefully distinguished from that of Sin), 
 fonning the immediate boundary of Canaan 
 (xxxiv. 3), was its north-eastern extremity; 
 and it is thus that Kadesh is indifferently 
 spoken of as in the Wilderness of Zin, or in 
 that of Paran (xiii. 26, xx. i, &c.). In- 
 deed, in I Sam. xxv. i, even parts of the 
 south of Canaan seem to be included under 
 the name of Paran. But this name has now 
 disappeared from the tract in question, which, 
 in common with the rest of the plateau of 
 which it forms a part, is known under the 
 general name of et-Tih, “the Wandering;” 
 a name also specially applied to the range of 
 hills that mark its southern edge. It must 
 not be confounded with a district which 
 could never have been included within it, the 
 well-known and beautiful W^ady Feiran, de- 
 riving its name from the early Christian city 
 on which, through some unexplained cause, 
 the name Pharan was bestowed. But a 
 genuine trace of it may perhaps be found in 
 the Phara, marked in the Roman tables of the 
 fourth century as a station on the road be- 
 tween the heads of the two gulfs, 120 Roman 
 miles from the western and 50 from the 
 VoL. I. 
 
 eastern extremity (compare Ritter, i. pp. 69 
 and 428 sqq. Clark’s Transl.). 
 
 The Wilderness of Paran is, on the whole, 
 to European eyes, a blanched and dreary 
 waste; intersected by watercourses, almost 
 always dry except in the rainy season, and 
 crossed by low ranges of horizontal hills 
 which relieve but little the general monotony 
 of its appearance. It does not exhibit the 
 savage and frightful desolation of the Arabah ; 
 but neither, on the other hand, is it enlivened 
 by the fertile valleys to be found amid the 
 granite mountains of Sinai. Its soil is mostly 
 strewn with pebbles, through which a slight 
 coating of vegetation struggles; yet here and 
 there level plains may be found in it of rich 
 red earth fit for culture, or valleys abounding 
 in shrubs and trees, and offering coverts for 
 hares. It has been remarked that vegetation 
 is readily produced wherever the winter rains 
 do not at once run to waste (see Burckhardt, 
 pp. 148 sqq.; Rogers, ‘ Mosaic Records,’ Art. 
 130). But this vegetation has probably been 
 long on the decrease, and is still decreasing, 
 principally from the reckless destruction of 
 trees for charcoal, and the aspect of the wil- 
 derness has been proportionately deteriorated 
 thereby: see Introd. to Exodus, pp. 245, 246. 
 
 Towards this wilderness the Israelites now 
 advanced on their march from Sinai to Ca- 
 naan, unaware as yet that on its wastes the 
 next eight and thirty years of their existence 
 would be spent. They did not actually enter 
 it till they had crossed the sand-belt : it is 
 therefore mentioned here by anticipation. Their 
 earliest halting-places, Kibroth-hattaavah and 
 Hazerolh, were not within its limits (xi. 35, 
 xii.i6). For the direction of their march see 
 on xi. 35. 
 
 13 . A)id they first took their journey^ &c.] 
 Rather, And they journeyed (or, set forth) 
 in the order of precedence accord- 
 ing to (j.e. established by) the command- 
 ment of the Lord, See. The meaning of 
 the Hebrew word for “first” is determined 
 by its use in the following verse, where it 
 applies to the camp of Judah going before 
 tiie rest. This order of precedence is described 
 in ns-v. 14 — 28. 
 
 14 . according to their armies'] Cf. i, 3. 
 There were three tribal hosts in each camp ; 
 and each tribe had of course its subdivisions. 
 
 X X 
 
686 
 
 NUMBERS. X. 
 
 [v. 1 6 — 30. 
 
 of the children of Issachar was Ne- 
 thaneel the son of Zuar. 
 
 16 And over the host of the tribe 
 of the children of Zebulun was Eliab 
 the son of Helon. 
 
 17 And the tabernacle was taken 
 down; and the sons of Gershon and 
 the sons of Merari set forward, bear- 
 ing the tabernacle. 
 
 18^ And the standard of the camp 
 of Reuben set forward according to 
 their armies: and over his host was 
 Elizur the son of Shedeur. 
 
 19 And over the host of the tribe 
 of the children of Simeon was Shelu- 
 miei the son of Zurishaddai. 
 
 20 And over the host of the tribe 
 of the children of Gad was Eliasaph 
 the son of Deuel. 
 
 21 And the Kohathites set forward, 
 fchrip. 4. bearing the ^sanctuary: and 
 
 ^Thatis, set up the tabernacle against they 
 aieGer- came. 
 
 snofiites A 1 1 
 
 audjhe 22 ^ And the standard of the camp 
 'itls?''' of the children of Ephraim set for- 
 Seever. 17. accordiiig to thcir armies: and 
 
 over his host was Elishama the son of 
 Ammihud. 
 
 23 And over the host of the tribe 
 
 of the children of Manasseh was Ga- 
 maliel the son of Pedahzur. 
 
 24 And over the host of the tribe 
 of the children of Benjamin was Abi- 
 dan the son of Gideoni. 
 
 25 ^ And the standard of the camp 
 of the children of Dan set forward, 
 which was the rereward of all the 
 camps throughout their hosts : and 
 over his host zvas Ahiezer the son of 
 Ammishaddai. 
 
 26 And over the host of the tribe 
 of the children of Asher was Pagiel 
 the son of Ocran. 
 
 27 And over the host of the tribe 
 of the children of Naphtali was Ahira 
 the son of Enan. 
 
 28 ^Thus were the journeyings of f Heb. 
 the children of Israel accordins; to 
 their armies, when they set forward. 
 
 29 ^ And Moses said unto Hobab, 
 the son of Raguel the Midianite, 
 Moses’ father in law. We are jour- 
 neying unto the place of which the 
 Lord said, I will give it you : come 
 thou with us, and we will do thee 
 good: for the Lord hath spoken good 
 concerning Israel. 
 
 30 And he said unto him, I will 
 
 17 . The command had been, in general 
 teiTns, that the Levites, with the tabernacle, 
 should occupy the central place in the line 
 of march, after the camps of Judah and 
 Reuben, ii. 17. But convenience now neces- 
 sitated, if not a modification of this order, at 
 least a more precise determination of the 
 method of executing ic. The appointed place 
 of the tabernacle, m the midst of the host, 
 was represented during the march by the ark, 
 the holy vessels. See. carried by the Kohatii- 
 ites ; the actual structure of the tabernacle 
 was borne in advance by the Gershonites and 
 Merarites, immiediately behind the camp of 
 J udah ; so as to be set up ready against the 
 arrival of the sacred utensils borne by the 
 Kohathites. See -v. 21, and cf. chs. ii., iv. 
 
 21. the sanctuary., &c.] i.e. the holy fur- 
 niture which remained when the tabernacle 
 was taken down. 
 
 29 . Hobah., the son of Raguel the Mi- 
 dianite., Moses' father in la^'\ The form 
 Raguel, for Reuel (Exod. ii. 18), has need- 
 lessly Ixvn perpetuated in the A. V. from 
 the Latin ; the names are one in Hebrew 
 (so, Gaza and Az/ah, Ai and Hai, &c.). 
 Reuel was probably not identical with Jethro: 
 
 see on Ex. ii. 18. It seems evident too that 
 Hobab was in fact the brother-in-law, not 
 the father-in-law, of Moses, and the He- 
 brew word translated in A.V. “fether-in- 
 law,” signifies simply any relation by mar- 
 riage, as does the Greek yo/n.Spoy : see on Ex. 
 ii. 18. Hobab is described as the “son of 
 Reuel;” and the desire of xMoses to obtain 
 his services as guide through the wilderness 
 indicates that he \vas younger than Moses’ 
 father-in-law could now have been. It is 
 stated in Exod. xviii. 27 that Jethro quitted 
 the Israelites, before they reached Sinai, to 
 return to his own land ; whilst it appears 
 from the passage now before us compared 
 with Judges i. 16, iv. ii, that Hobab even- 
 tually accompanied them, and obtained a 
 settlement with them in the land of Canaan 
 (so Joseph., Bertheau, Keil, &c.). Hobab 
 and Jethro may have been brethren and sons 
 of Reuel. The other solution that Jethro and 
 Hobab were the same person, Jethro (“excel- 
 lency”) being his official title, though adopted 
 by many authorities ancient and modern, seems 
 less probable. More improbable still is the 
 suggestion that Reuel, Jethro, and Hobab are 
 all three appellations of one individual. 
 
V- 31—35'] 
 
 NUMBERS. X. 
 
 687 
 
 not go; but I will 'depart to mine 
 own land, and to my kindred. 
 
 31 And he said, Leave us not, I pray 
 thee ; forasmuch as thou knowest how 
 we are to encamp in the wilderness, and 
 thou mayest be to us instead of eyes. 
 
 32 And it shall be, if thou go with 
 us, yea, it shall be, that what good- 
 ness the Lord shall do unto us, the 
 same will we do unto thee. 
 
 33 ^ And they departed from the 
 mount of the Lord three days’ jour- 
 ney : and the ark of the covenant of 
 the Lord went before them in the 
 three days’ journey, to search out a 
 resting place for them. 
 
 34 And the cloud of the Lord was 
 upon them by day, when they went 
 out of the camp. 
 
 35 And it came to pass, when the 
 
 The Mahometan legends neither expressly 
 identify nor yet distinguish between Jethro, 
 Reuel, and Hobab. The Shu’eib of whom 
 they speak, corresponds on the whole rather 
 to the early host and father-in-law than to 
 the subsequent companion of Moses; though 
 his name has locally connected itself with a 
 watercourse running westward into the Jor- 
 dan opposite Jericho, as well as with one of 
 the ravines at Sinai, and with a cave on the 
 eastern shores of the eastern branch of the Red 
 Sea. But even were these legends more defi- 
 nite, they could hardly carry weight in regard 
 to the question before us. 
 
 31 . thou mayest be to us instead of eyes^ 
 i. e. mayest discern what is needful for us : a 
 proverbial expression still in use in the East. 
 The narrative gives no more exact descrip- 
 tion of the services expected from Hobab. 
 The divine guidance of the Pillar of the cloud 
 would not render superfluous the human con- 
 ductor who could indicate the spots where 
 water, fuel, and pasture might be found, the 
 dangers from hurricanes, and the localities 
 infested by robbers. Probably indeed the Pil- 
 lar prescribed only the general direction of the 
 journey. Nor would it be according to the 
 general analogy of God’s dealings had He 
 miraculously rendered His people independent 
 of such aids from human experience and sa- 
 gacity as were within their reach. 
 
 33 . three days' journey'^ Probably a techni- 
 cal expression for such a distance as could 
 not be traversed in a single day, and there- 
 fore not without intervals of encampment 
 and due provision: cf. Gen. xxx. 36; Exod. 
 iii. 18, V. 3, viii. 27, xv. 22. The technical 
 use of the phrase “Sabbath-day's journey” 
 for another average distance, Acts i. 12, is 
 similar. Even were the expression strictly in- 
 terpreted it would remain to be noted that 
 three days of Jewish reckoning are not neces- 
 sarily more than one whole day and two 
 fragments of days. The end of this stage, 
 where the tabernacle was first re-erected, and 
 the square encampment formed, was appa- 
 rently Kibroth-hattaavah : see xi. 24, 34, 
 xxxiii. 16. 
 
 the ark of the consenant of the Lord nvent 
 
 before thern\ From ns. 21 and ii. 17 it 
 would appear that the usual place of the Ark 
 during the march was in the midst of the 
 host. It was evidently an exceptional case 
 when, in Josh. iii. the Ark preceded the peo- 
 ple into the bed of the Jordan. Nevertheless 
 some, especially among the Jewish commen- 
 tators, attending only to the position of the 
 Ark at the commencement of that miraculous 
 passage, deem that the first march from 
 Smai was also similarly exceptional, it being 
 for the occasion carried before the host. 
 Others, as Keil, view the present verse as 
 furnishing the key to the true interpretation 
 of the earlier notices : they hold that the Ark, 
 as distinguished from the sanctuary, went 
 always in advance. They insist on the inti- 
 mate connexion between the Ark as God’s 
 throne and the chnid of His presence, which 
 latter we know to have preceded the host on 
 its long line of march. Cf. Exod. xiii. 21, 
 xiv. 19. But the better view is that of Bp. 
 Patrick, that the words “went before t'nem” 
 do not here imply local precedence. The 
 phrase, or its equivalent, is used of a leader 
 going out in command of his troops, xxvii. 1 7 ; 
 Deut. xxxi. 3; I Sam. xviii. 16; 2 Chron. i. 
 10 ; who of course would not necessarily go 
 before them in a local sense. Thus the Ark 
 may well be said to have gone at the head 
 of the Israelites, when it was borne solemnly 
 in their midst as the outward embodiment of 
 the Presence whose sovereign word was their 
 law. That the divine cloud remained with 
 the Ark as they journeyed is not asserted, and 
 the tenor of the next verse seems against it ; 
 as also is the fact that, when the tabernacle 
 was reared, the cloud rested over, not within, 
 the tabernacle. 
 
 a resting place~\ Lit. “rest.” It is com- 
 monly understood of each successive encamp- 
 ment ; or, in particular, of the first encamp- 
 ment. Yet the term would hardly be here 
 employed, did it not carry with it a higher 
 meaning, pointing to the promised rest of 
 Canaan, for which the Israelites were now 
 in full march, and from the speedy enjoy- 
 ment of which no sentence of exclusion as 
 yet debarred them. Cf. Deut. i. 33; Ps. xxxii. 
 8 ; Ezek. xx. 6. 
 
 X X 2 
 
 
 t 
 
688 
 
 NUMBERS. X. XL [v- 36-6. 
 
 ark set forward, that Moses said, 
 ‘^Psai. 68. ^Rise up, Lord, and let thine ene- 
 mies be scattered ; and let them that 
 hate thee flee before thee. 
 
 36 And when it rested, he said, 
 \iich.ten Return, O Lord, unto the +many 
 thousands of Israel. 
 
 SiDtds. 
 
 CHAPTER XL . 
 
 I The burning at Taberah quenched by Moses' 
 prayer. 4 The people lust for flesh, and 
 loathe manna. 10 Moses complaineth of his 
 charge. 16 God divideth his burden unto 
 seventy elders. 3 1 
 Q at Kibroth-hattaavah. 
 
 Zlre Tom- AND wheu the people " com plained, 
 pininers. ' Lt displeased the Lord: and 
 c-.il the Lord heard it; “and his anger 
 was kindled; and the fire of the Lord 
 Psai. 78. bm-nt among them, and consumed 
 
 them that were in the uttermost parts 
 of the camp. 
 
 2 And the people cried unto Mo- 
 ses ; and when Moses prayed unto 
 the Lord, the fire ^was quenched. 
 
 3 And he called the name of the 
 
 place "Taberah: because the fire of^ThaU^^ 
 the Lord burnt among them. 
 
 4 ^ And the ^mixt multitude that 
 
 was among them Tell a lusting: and 
 the children of Israel Tlso wept again, [fj. 
 and said, ^ Who shall give us flesh to eat? , 
 
 5 We remember the fish, which | 
 
 we did eat in Egypt freely ; the cu- 6.' j 
 
 cumbers, and the melons, and the I 
 
 leeks, and the onions, and the garlic : i 
 
 6 But now our soul is dried away : 
 there is nothing at all, beside this 
 manna, before our eyes. 
 
 35 36 . Each forward movement and 
 
 each rest of the Ark was made to bear a 
 sacramental character. The one betokened 
 the going forth of God against his enemies ; 
 the other, His gathering of His own people to 
 himself; the one was the pledge of victory, 
 the other the earnest of repose. The verb m 
 16 is best taken transitively (with Maurer, 
 Gesen. &c.) : “Restore” {i.e. to the land 
 which their fathers sojourned in), “ O Lord, 
 the ten thousande of the thousands of Israel. 
 (Cf. Psalm Ixxxv. 4, where the verb m the 
 Hebrew is the same.) 
 
 Cii\P XI. This and the following three 
 chapters recount the successive rebellions of 
 the Israelites after their departure from Sinai; 
 culminating in that by which they brought 
 upon themselves the sentence of personal ex- 
 clusion from the land of promise. Incidental 
 the narrative furnishes some details or the 
 northward march. 
 
 1 — 3. Burning at Taberah. 
 
 1 . And <Lvhen the people complained, it dis- 
 pleased the Lord] Render, And the people 
 were as those that complain of evil 
 in the ears of the Lord: i.e. they mur- 
 mured against the privations of the march. 
 
 the fire of the Lord] Probably lightning: 
 cf. Ps. Ixxviii. ^l. The cases xvi. 35 and Lev. 
 x. 2 scfm to be different. 
 
 in the uttermost parts] Rather, in the 
 end. The fire did not reach far into the 
 camp. It was quickly quenched at the inter- 
 cession of Moses. 
 
 3. Taberah] {i.e. “burning”): not the 
 name of a station, and accordingly not found 
 in the list given in xxxiii., but only of the 
 spot where the fire broke out. This incident 
 might seem (cf. ^v. 34) to have occurred at 
 
 the station called, from another still more ter- 
 rible event which shortly followed, Kibroth- 
 hattaavah (so Keil and Del., Clark, ‘ Bible 
 Atlas,’ p. 24); see on Deut. ix. 22. 
 
 4 35. Occurrences at Kibroth-hatta- 
 
 avcih. 
 
 4. the mlxt multitude] ("Hebrew, hasaph- 
 suph, a word which occurs here only). The 
 word resembles our “riff-raff,” and denotes 
 a mob of people scraped together. It refers 
 here to the multitude of strangers of Lx. 
 xii. 38, who had followed the Israelites from 
 Egypt. 
 
 cwept agam-\ i.e. as they had done before. 
 Cf. Ex. xvi. 2 sqq. 
 
 5. We remember the fish, &c.] The na- 
 tural dainties of Egypt are set forth m this 
 passage with the fullness and iHish which 
 bespeak personal experience. Fish, prlic, 
 onions, melons (especially water-melons), and 
 cucumbers, abound in modem Egypt, and are 
 used as staple articles of food. The hrst three 
 were not less common in ancient Egypt (see 
 Herod. II. 125, and especially Hengstenberg, 
 
 ‘ Egypt and the Books of Moses, ch. vii.). 
 
 leeks] The Hebrew word {kats'tr) is the 
 ordinary teim for grass (cf. Ps.civ. 14, cxlvn. 
 8 &c.); .and Hengstenberg 1. c. strongly ad- 
 vocates the same rendering in this place. He 
 identifies the kdtslr with a kind of clover 
 freely eaten in Egypt at the present day 1 he 
 LXX. however, the writers of which must 
 have been well accpiainted with the diet cus- 
 tomary in the country in question, renders 
 “leeks” {TTpcicra); and this is followed y 
 most authorities ancient and modern. LeeRs 
 were unquestionably much eaten in Egypt. 
 Cf. Plin. ‘ Nat. Hist.’ xix. 33. 
 
V. 7— 17-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XI. 
 
 689 
 
 -/Exod.i6. 7 And ^the manna was as corian- 
 / Heb! seed, and the ^ colour thereof as 
 
 colour of bdellium. 
 
 8 the people went about, and 
 gathered / 7 , and ground ft in mills, or 
 beat ft in a mortar, and baked ft in 
 pans, and made cakes of it : and the 
 taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil. 
 
 9 And when the dew fell upon the 
 camp in the night, the manna fell 
 upon it. 
 
 10 ^ Then Moses heard the people 
 weep throughout their families, every 
 man in the door of his tent ; and the 
 anger of the Lord was kindled great- 
 ly ; Moses also was displeased. 
 
 11 And Moses said unto the Lord, 
 Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy ser- 
 vant ? and wherefore have I not found 
 favour in thy sight, that thou layest 
 the burden of all this people upon 
 me ? 
 
 12 Have I conceived all this peo- 
 ple ? have I begotten them, that thou 
 shouldest say unto me. Carry them in 
 
 9nions\ The staple food of the labourers at 
 the pyramids: Herod, ii. 125. These vege- 
 tables, which grew large in size and mild in 
 flavour, were in various forms one of the most 
 common dishes of the Egyptians. 
 
 garlic] Cf. Herod. 1 . c. 
 
 6. there is nothing at all^ beside this 
 manna^ before our eyes] Heb. “ Nought at all 
 have we except that our eyes are unto this 
 manna;” i. e. “ Nought else have we to expect 
 beside this manna.” Cf. on the phrase, “to 
 have the eyes towards,” Ps. xxv. 15. 
 
 7 — 9 . On the manna see on Ex. xvi.; 
 on bdellium Gen. ii. 12. The description of 
 the manna seems inserted in order to illus- 
 trate the unreasonableness of the people in 
 disliking it. 
 
 10 . throughout their families] The. weep- 
 ing was general; every family wept : cf. Zech. 
 xii. 12. 
 
 e'very man in the door of his tent] The 
 weeping was public and unconcealed. 
 
 11 — 15 . The complaint and remonstrance 
 of Moses may be compared with Gen. xviii. 
 23 sqq., and more appositely with i K. xix. 
 4 sqq.; Jonah iv. i — 3. The meekness of 
 Moses (cf. xii, 3) sank under vexation into 
 despair. The language shows us how im- 
 perfect and prone to degeneracy are the graces 
 of the best saints on earth, as the forbearing 
 answer of God manifests His readiness to 
 
 thy bosom, as a nursing father bear- 
 eth the sucking child, unto the land 
 which thou swarest unto their fathers .i* 
 
 13 Whence should I have flesh to 
 give unto all this people ? for they 
 weep unto me, saying. Give us flesh, 
 that we may eat. 
 
 14 I am not able to bear all this 
 people alone, because ft fs too heavy 
 for me. 
 
 15 And if thou deal thus with me, 
 kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I 
 have found favour in thy sight; and 
 let me not see my wretchedness. 
 
 16 ^ And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Gather unto me seventy men of 
 the elders of Israel, whom thou know- 
 est to be the elders of the people, and 
 offleers over them ; and bring them 
 unto the tabernacle of the congrega- 
 tion, that they may stand there with 
 thee. 
 
 17 And I will come down and 
 talk with thee there : and I will take 
 of the spirit which fs upon thee, and 
 
 heed and answer the sincere pouring out of 
 the heart to Him, even though its utterances 
 be passionate and unmeasured. For certainly 
 Moses could not justly say that God had laid 
 “the burden of all this people” upon him. 
 Moses had ample direction and help from God. 
 Such a trait as that exhibited in this passage 
 would not have been attributed to Moses by 
 tradition. 
 
 16 . seventy men of the elders of Israel] 
 Seventy elders had also gone up with Moses 
 to the Lord in the mofint. Ex. xxiv. i, 9. On 
 the . historical and symbolical significance of 
 this number see note there. Seventy is accord- 
 ingly the number of colleagues assigned to 
 Moses to share his burden with him ; and to 
 enable them for their office the spirit of the 
 Lord was poured upon them. This appoint- 
 ment is totally distinct from that of the Cap- 
 tains or Rulers, Exod. xviii. 21 sq. and Deut. 
 i. 9 sqq. (see note). To it, however, the Jews 
 trace the origin of the Sanhedrim, and rightly, 
 if we regard the Mosaic college as the proto- 
 type on which the Sanhedrim was modelled 
 after the end of the monarchy. Subsequent 
 notices (xvi. 25; Josh. vii. 6, viii. 10, 33, ix. 
 II, xxiii. 2, xxiv. i, 31) of “the Elders” 
 (not of all-Xh& elders, as in Ex. iv. 29, xii. 21, 
 xviii. 12) make no mention of the number 
 seventy; yet so connect the Elders with the 
 government of Israel as to point to the fact 
 that the appointment now made was no': a 
 
690 
 
 NUMBERS. XL [v. 18-28. 
 
 will put It upon them ; and they shall 
 bear the burden of the people with 
 thee, that thou bear it not thyself 
 alone. 
 
 18 And say thou unto the people, 
 Sanctify yourselves against to mor- 
 row, and ye shall eat flesh : for ye 
 have wept in the ears of the Lord, 
 saying. Who shall give us flesh to eat ? 
 for it was well with us in Egypt: 
 therefore the Lord will give you flesh, 
 and ye shall eat. 
 
 19 Ye shall not eat one day, nor 
 two days, nor five days, neither ten 
 days, nor twenty days ; 
 
 tHeb. 20 But a ^ whole month, until 
 it come out at your nostrils, and it be 
 loathsome unto you : because that ye 
 have despised the Lord which is 
 among you, and have wept before 
 him, saying. Why came we forth out 
 of Egypt? 
 
 21 And Moses said. The people, 
 among whom I am^ are six hundred 
 thousand footmen ; and thou hast 
 said, I will give them flesh, that they 
 may eat a whole month. 
 
 22 Shall the flocks and the herds 
 be slain for them, to suffice them ? 
 or shall all the fish of the sea be ga- 
 
 thered together for them, to suffice 
 them ? 
 
 23 And the Lord said -unto Moses, 
 
 the Lord’s hand waxed short .U isai. sex 
 thou shalt see now whether my word & 5^. 
 shall come to pass unto thee or not. 
 
 24 ^ And Moses went out, and 
 told the people the words of the Lord, 
 and gathered the seventy men of the 
 elders of the people, and set them 
 round about the tabernacle. 
 
 25 And the Lord came down in a 
 cloud, and spake unto him, and took 
 of the spirit that zvas upon him, and 
 gave it unto the seventy elders: and 
 it came to pass, that^ when the spirit 
 rested upon them, they prophesied, 
 and did not cease. 
 
 26 But there remained two of the 
 men in the camp, the name of the 
 one zvas Eldad, and the name of the 
 other Medad: and the spirit rested 
 upon them; and they were of them 
 that were written, but went not out 
 unto the tabernacle : and they pro- 
 phesied in the camp. 
 
 27 And there ran a young man, 
 and told Moses, and said, Eldad and 
 Medad do prophesy in the camp. 
 
 28 And Joshua the son of Nun, 
 
 merely temporary one. The Council of the 
 Elders however would seem to have soon 
 fallen into desuetude. We find no traces of 
 it in the days of the Judges and the Kings; 
 nor is it easy to see how such an institution 
 would have worked aldhg with the forms and 
 modes of monarchical government prevalent 
 in the ancient East. Cf. note on Dent. xvii. 8. 
 
 elders of the people^ and officers onyer them~\ 
 In English idiom, “ elders and officers of the 
 jjeople.” Both elders and officers appear in 
 Egypt, Ex. iii. 16, v. 6 sqq. The former had 
 headed the nation in its efforts after freedom; 
 the latter were the subordinate, though un- 
 willing, agents of Egyptian tyranny. The 
 two classes no doubt were rvorking together; 
 and from those who belonged to either, per- 
 haps from those who were both elders and 
 officers, the council of seventy was to be 
 selected. 
 
 17. / ^cvill take of the spirit <vjhich is 
 
 upon thee~\ Render rather separate from the 
 spirit d:c.; i.e. they shall have their portion 
 in the same divine gift whicli thou hast. 
 
 25. they prophesicd'\ i.e. under the ex- 
 traordinary impulse of the Holy Ghost they 
 
 uttered forth the praises of God, or declared 
 His Will. Cf. I Sam. xix. a a sqq. The 
 Hebrew word here used {hithnabhc) imports 
 etymologically “they were caused to pour 
 forth.” 
 
 and did not cease'] Render, and added not 
 (on the Hebrew word cf. Dent. v. 22)' i.e. 
 they prophesied at this time only and not 
 afterwards. The sign was granted on the 
 occasion of their appointment to accredit them 
 in their office; it was not continued, because 
 their proper function was to be that of govern- 
 ment not prophesying. 
 
 26. of them that nvere <iuritten~\ i. e. en- 
 rolled amongst the Seventy. The expression 
 points to a regular appointment duly recorded 
 and permanent. 
 
 nvent nut out unto the tabernacle] The reason 
 of this can only be conjectured. It was not 
 ceremonial uncleanness, since that (cf. v. 2) 
 would have excluded them from the camp 
 altogether. 
 
 27. a young man] Heb. “ the young man ;” 
 i.e. the attendants collectively; cf. on Ex. iv. 
 20. 
 
 * 
 
V. 29—35-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XL 
 
 691 
 
 the servant of Moses, one of his young 
 men, answered and said, My lord 
 Moses, forbid them. 
 
 29 And Moses said unto him, En- 
 viest thou for my sake ? would God 
 that all the Lord’s people were pro- 
 phets, and that the Lor.d would put 
 his spirit upon them ! 
 
 30 And Moses gat him into the 
 camp, he and the elders of Israel. 
 
 /Exod.t6. 31 ^ And there went forth a-^wind 
 Rai. 78, from the Lord, and brought quails 
 from the sea, and let them fall by the 
 tHeb. camp, ^as it were a day’s journey on 
 this side, and as it v/ere a day’s jour- 
 aitay, qj-j Other side, round about 
 
 the camp, and as it were two cubits 
 high upon the face of the earth. 
 
 32 And the people stood up all that 
 
 29. Eri'viest thou for my sakef\ (Cf. St 
 Mark ix. 38 sqq.). The other members of 
 the Seventy had been with Moses (cf. 16, 
 24, 25) when the gift of prophecy was be- 
 stowed on them. They received “ of the spirit 
 that was upon him,-’ and exercised their office 
 visibly through and for him. Eldad and Me- 
 dad prophesying in the camp seemed to Joshua 
 to be acting independently, and so establishing 
 a separate centre of authority. 
 
 31. a <iuind'] That is, as Ps. Ixxviii. 26 
 intimates, though in a poetical form of expres- 
 sion, the south-east wind, which blew from 
 the neighbouring Elanitic gulf of the Red Sea. 
 
 quails'] Cf. Ex. xvi. 13, 
 
 let than fall by the camp] Rather “ threw 
 them upon or over the camp.” The meaning 
 is that the quails were borne by the wind upon 
 the encampment and into its neighbourhood. 
 LXX. coi’rectly eVe/SaXei/ eVi TTjv TTapefxjSo- 
 'ki]v. Cf. Ps. Ixxviii. 27, 28. 
 
 round about] i.e. “on both sides of:” cf. 
 Ex. vii. 24. 
 
 t'wo cubits high upon the face of the earth] 
 Omit the word “high” supplied by the A. V., 
 and render about two cubits above 
 tlie face of the ground: i.e. the quails, 
 wearied with their long flight, flew about 
 breast high, and were easily secured by the 
 people. So Vulg. “volabant in acre duobus 
 cubitibus altitudine super terram.” The quail 
 habitually flies with the wind, and low : “Aura 
 vehi volunt, propter pondus corporum. Co- 
 tumix terrestris potius quam sublimis.” Plin. 
 ‘N. H.’ X. 23. 
 
 32. ten homers] On the homer, the 
 largest measure of capacity used by the fle- 
 brews, cf. Lev. xxvii. 16. The quantity of 
 the quails indicated by the statements of the 
 text is prodigious, and must be recognised as 
 
 day, and all that night, and all the 
 next day, and they gathered the quails ; 
 he that gathered least gathered ten 
 homers ; and they spread them all 
 abroad for themselves round about the 
 camp. 
 
 33 And while the ^flesh was yet-^Psai. 73. 
 between their teeth, ere it was chew- 
 
 ed, the wrath of the Lord was kin- 
 dled against the people, and the Lord 
 smote the people with a very great 
 plague. 
 
 34 And he called the name of that 
 
 place " Kibroth-hattaavah : because « That is, 
 there they buried the people that gr.ives 
 lusted. ‘ • 
 
 35 And the people journeyed from 
 Kibroth-hattaavah unto Hazeroth E 
 and 'abode at Hazeroth. 
 
 miraculous. But large flocks of birds, so 
 numerous as to darken the sky, have been 
 seen by modern travellers in the same district 
 (Stanley, ‘Sinai and Pal.’ p. 82). The people 
 had met with quails before in the desert : cf. 
 Ex. xvi. 13, note and reff. 
 
 they spread them all abroad for themsel-ves] 
 In order to salt and dry them (cf. Herod. 
 II. .77). 
 
 33. ere it ^vas chewed] Better, ere it 
 was consumed, as all the ancient transla- 
 tors understood it. Such a supply of food 
 would last many days. Indeed God had told 
 them that they should eat flesh “a whole 
 month,” until it came out at their nostrils, 
 and was loathsome unto them (yv. 20). 
 
 smote the people] A ncient naturalists assert 
 that the quail feeds and fattens on herbs which 
 are poisonous to man, and regarded the bird 
 as unwholesome for food. Cf. Lucr. iv. 642: 
 “ Prseterea nobis veratrum est acre venenum. 
 
 At capris adipes et coturnicibus auget :” 
 and Plin. x. 23. Eurther illustrations ai'e 
 given, Bochart, ii. 657. But Dr G. M. 
 Humphry, Professor of Anatomy in the Uni- 
 versity of Cambriilge, reports in a letter 
 communicated to the writer (Dec. 21, 1870), 
 that “in instances in which the contents of 
 the quail’s stomach have been examined after 
 death only common grass and other seeds 
 have been found.” Lie adds however that the 
 free partaking of quails, or indeed of any 
 other bird, “for a whole month,” nj. 20, by 
 a people lusting for flesh, would be likely to 
 be attended with injurious consequences, 
 especially under the circumstances in which 
 the Israelites then were. Thus the plague 
 with which God smote the people is to be 
 regarded, as are m.iracles in many other cases, 
 as a Divine interference enhancing a pre-exist- 
 
692 
 
 NUMBERS. XII. 
 
 [v. 1—3. - 
 
 I Or, 
 Cushite. 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 I God rehuketh the sedition of Miriam and 
 Aaron. 10 Miriam's leprosy is healed at the 
 prayer of Moses. 14 God commandeth her to 
 be shut ont of the host. 
 
 A n D Miriam and Aaron spake 
 against Moses because of the 
 " Ethiopian woman whom he had mar- 
 
 ried: for he had ^’married an Ethio-t^®^- 
 
 * takeii. 
 
 plan woman. 
 
 2 And they said, Hath the Lord 
 indeed spoken only by Moses? hath 
 he not spoken also by us? And the 
 Lord heard it. 
 
 3 (Now the man Moses was ^very 45. 
 
 ing cause. The surfeit in which the people 
 indulged, as described in t-. 32, of itself dis- 
 posed them to sickness. God's wrath, visiting 
 the gluttonous through their gluttony, aggra- 
 vated natural consequences into a supernatural 
 visitation. 
 
 35. journeyed from Kibrotb-hattaavah'\ 
 They had probably, for the sake of the quails, 
 continued at Kibroth-hattaavah longer than 
 they otherwise would have done. Their lust, 
 and God’s indulgence of it, had been their 
 hindrance. After a month’s delay the punish- 
 ment which had o\’ertaken them would make 
 them remove the more readily from the En- 
 campment of Death; and, accordingly, the 
 divine signal of the lifting of the cloud was 
 given for their forward march. 
 
 Hazerotlo] This place has been identified by 
 Burckhardt and others with “ Ain el Had- 
 herah,” a fountain some forty miles N.E. of 
 Sinai. This, however, lies too much to the 
 east of the proper route of the Israelites,* and 
 is approached by a route from Sinai, which 
 offers no fitting site for Kibroth-hattaavah. 
 With more probability Laborde locates Haze- 
 roth at “ El Ain,” a place famous, as its name 
 imports, for its spring; situated some fifteen 
 miles northward of Ain el Hadherah; and in 
 the -route which the host must apparently have 
 adopted; i.e. that by the Wady esZulakeh(cf. 
 Stanley, ‘Sinai,’ p. 84; Clark's ‘ Bible Atlas,’ 
 p. 24). Mr Clark, however, regards El Ain 
 as identical with Kibroth-hattaavah, removing 
 f lazeroth many miles still further on the march 
 northwards, to Bir-eth-Themed. These are 
 mere conjectures, and, in the instances before 
 us, are the more precarious, as the name 
 Ilazeroth (=“ inclosures ”) is of the sort that 
 almost always serves more places than one, 
 and is as suitable to a» district as to a particu- 
 lar spot. It is probable, from its mention 
 along with other places on the sea-shore, that 
 the “ Ilazeroth” of Deut. i. i is not the same 
 as the one now before us. El Ain, from its 
 natural advantages, must certainly have formed 
 one of the halting-places in the earlier -stages 
 of the march from Sinai, whether it be identified 
 with Kibroth-hattaavah or Hazeroth. It is here 
 that several valleys converge around springs, 
 which, from tluir copiousness, render this the 
 great oasis of the eastern side of the whole 
 peninsula. On the route of the Israelites from 
 Ilazeroth see notes on xii. 16 and xx.viii. 18. 
 
 Chap. XII. 1 — 15. Rebellion of Miriam 
 and Aaron against Moses. Miriam, as a pro- 
 phetess (cf. Ex'. XV. 20, 21) no less than as the 
 sister of Moses and Aaron, took the first 
 rank amongst the women of Israel; and Aaron 
 may be regarded as the ecclesiastical head 
 of the whole nation. But instead of being 
 grateful for the.se high dignities they presumed 
 upon them, just as the Levites afterwards did 
 on theirs (cf. xvi. 9), and went on to challenge 
 the special vocation of Moses and the exclusive 
 authority which God had assigned to him. 
 This envious feeling had probably rankled in 
 their minds for some time, but was now pro- 
 voked to open outbreak by the recent (see 
 next note) marriage of Moses, the circum- 
 stances of which touched the female suscepti- 
 bilities of Miriam. She probably considered 
 herself as supplanted, and that too by - a 
 foreigner. It is evident that she was the in- 
 stigator, from the fact that her name stands 
 conspicuously first (-z.^. i), and that the punish- 
 ment (pv. 10) fell on her alone. Aaron was 
 misled this time by the urgency of his sister, 
 as once before (Ex. xxxii.) by that of the 
 people. 
 
 1. tbe Ethiopian (Heb. “ Cushite”) «ico- 
 man <u)hom he had marriecT\ This can hardly be 
 Zipporah, who was not an Ethiopian but a 
 Midianite (cf. Ex. ii. 21). And even if we 
 regard the term Cushite as one which Miriam 
 applied to the wife of Moses in contempt, 
 because of her dark colour, it is highly im- 
 probable that Miriam could now have brought 
 up in reproach a marriage which Moses had 
 contracted half a century at least previously, 
 and before his special call by God. It is far 
 more likely that Zipporah was dead, and that 
 Miriam in consequence expected to have 
 greater influence than ever with Moses. Her 
 disappointment at his second marriage would 
 consequently be very great. 
 
 On Cush, always, when translated at all, 
 rendered by A.'V. “ Ethiopia” (e.^. Ps. Ixviii. 
 31; Is. xliii. 3), cf. Gen.ii. 13, x. 6, and notes. 
 
 The marriage of Moses with a woman 
 descended from Ham was not prohibited, so 
 long as she was not of the stock of Canaan ; 
 cf. Ex. xxxiv. 1 1 — 16 ; but it would at any time 
 liave been offensive to that intense nationality 
 winch characterized the Jews. The Christian 
 Fathers note in the successive marriage of 
 IMoses with a Midianite and an Ethiopian a 
 foreshadowing of the future extension to the 
 
V. 4 — 12 .] 
 
 NUMBERS. XII. 
 
 693 
 
 meek, above all the men which were 
 upon the face of the earth.) 
 
 4 And the Lord spake suddenly 
 unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and 
 unto Miriam, Come out ye three unto 
 the tabernacle of the congregation. 
 And they three came out. 
 
 5 And the Lord came down in 
 the pillar of the cloud, and stood in 
 the door of the tabernacle, and called 
 Aaron and Miriam: and they both 
 came forth. 
 
 6 And he said. Hear now my words : 
 If there be a prophet among you, / 
 the Lord will make myself known 
 unto him in a vision, and will speak 
 unto him in a dream. 
 
 7 My servant Moses is not so, 
 fHeb. 3. “^who is faithful in all mine house. 
 
 33. 8 With him will I speak ^mouth 
 
 to mouth, even apparently, and not 
 
 in dark speeches ; and the similitude 
 of the Lord shall he behold : where- 
 fore then were ye not afraid to speak 
 against my servant Moses ? 
 
 9 And the anger of the Lord was 
 kindled against them ; and he de- 
 parted. 
 
 10 And the cloud departed from 
 off the tabernacle; and, behold, Mi- 
 riam heca?ne leprous, white as snow: 
 and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, 
 behold, she was leprous. 
 
 11 And Aaron said unto Moses, 
 Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not 
 the sin upon us, wherein we have 
 done foolishly, and v/herein we have 
 sinned. 
 
 12 Let her not be as one dead, of 
 whom the flesh is half consumed 
 when he cometh out of his mother’s 
 womb. 
 
 Gentiles of God's covenant and its promises 
 (cf. Ps. x!v. 9 sqq.; Cant. i. 4 sqq.); and in 
 the murmuring of Miriam and Aaron a type 
 of the discontent of the Jews because of such 
 extension: cf. St Luke xv. 29. 30. 
 
 2 . Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by 
 Moses f] i.e. Is it merely, after all, by Moses 
 that the Lord hath spoken? 
 
 3 . the man Moses qvas ^ery mee}i\ These 
 words have been, with no little insensibility to 
 the finer traits of the passage, often regarded 
 as words which Moses himself could not 
 have penned; and accordingly have been 
 cited sometimes as indicating an interpola- 
 tion, sometimes as proof that the book is 
 not Mosaic. When we regard them as ut- 
 tered by ’Moses not proprio motu^^’' but 
 under the direction of the Holy Spirit which 
 was upon him (cf. xi. 17), they exhibit a cer- 
 tain “objectivity,” which is a witness at once to 
 their genuineness and also to their inspiration. 
 There is about these words, as also about the 
 passages in which Moses no less unequivocally 
 records his own faults (cf. xx. 12 sqq.; Ex. 
 iv. 24 sqq.; Deut. i. 37), the simplicity of one 
 who bare witness of himself, but not to him- 
 self (cf. St Matt. xi. 28, 29). The words are 
 inserted to explain how it was that Moses took 
 no steps to vindioate himself, and why con- 
 sequently the Lord so promptly intervened. 
 Proposals to substitute “miserable” (Palfrey) 
 or “afflicted” (Dr "W. Smith) in the text 
 instead of “meek” are needless, and if the 
 original word will bear such rendering it cer- 
 tainly does not solicit it. The Hebrew word 
 occurs frequently in the Psalms, is usually 
 rendered by “meek” or “humble,” and is 
 
 frequently applied by the writers to themselves 
 and their associates. Cf. Ps. x. 17; xxii. 27. 
 
 4 , 5 . suddenly^ In wrath, 9. 
 
 7 . faithful in all mine house'\ i.e. ap- 
 proved by me as my vicegerent in the general 
 administration and government of my people, 
 “My whole house,” as distinguished from 
 any particular department of it: cf. on the 
 expression “house” as denoting God’s cove- 
 nant people, Hebr. iii. 6, “whose house are 
 we;” and cf. the whole passage Hebr. iii. i — 6. 
 
 8. mouth to moutlS] i.e. without the in- 
 tervention of any third person or thing : cf. 
 Ex. xxxiii. II, Deut. xxxiy. 10. 
 
 eaien apparently'\ Lit. and as an ap- 
 pearance: an apposition to elucidate the 
 words preceding. Moses received the word 
 of God direct from Him and plainly, not 
 through the medium of dream, vision, parable, 
 dark saying, or such like; cf. Ex. xxxiii. ii, 
 Deut. xxxiv. 10. 
 
 the similitude of the Lord shall he behold~\ 
 “No man hath seen God at any time,” St 
 John i. 18: cf. I Tim. vi. 16, and especially 
 Ex. xxxiii, 20 sqq. It was not therefore the 
 Beatific Vision, the unveiled essence of the 
 Deity, which Moses saw on the one hand. 
 Nor was it, on the other hand, apnere emblema- 
 tic representation, as in Ezek. i. 26 sqq., Dan. 
 vii. 9, or an Angel sent as a messenger. It was 
 the Deity Himself manifesting Himself so as 
 to be cognizable to mortal eye. The special 
 footing on which Moses stood as regards God 
 (cf. Deut. xviii. 18, 19, and note), the “ Gra- 
 dus Mosaicus” of theologians, is here laid 
 down in detail, because it at once demonstrates 
 that the supremacy of Moses rested on the 
 
694 
 
 NUMBERS. XII. XIII. [v. 13-6. 
 
 13 And Moses cried unto the Lord, 
 saying, Heal her now, O God, I be- 
 seech thee. 
 
 14 ^ And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, If her father had but spit in her 
 face, should she not be ashamed seven 
 
 13. days ? let her be ^shut out from the 
 camp seven days, and after that let 
 her be received in again. 
 
 15 And Miriam was shut out from 
 the camp seven days : and the people 
 journeyed not till Miriam was brought 
 in again. 
 
 16 And afterward the people re- 
 moved from Hazeroth, and pitched in 
 the wilderness of Paran. 
 
 CFIAPTER XIIL 
 
 I The names of the men who were sent to search 
 the land. 17 Their instructions. 21 Their 
 acts. 26 Their relation. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 l\ saying, 
 
 2 Send thou men, that they may 
 search the land of Canaan, which I 
 give unto the children of Israel: of 
 every tribe of their fathers shall ye 
 send a man, every one a ruler among 
 them. 
 
 3 And Moses by the command- 
 ment of the Lord sent them from 
 the wilderness of Paran : all those 
 men were heads of the children of 
 Israel.. 
 
 4 And these were their names : of 
 the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the 
 son of Zaccur. 
 
 5 Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat 
 the son of Hori. 
 
 6 Of'the tribe of Judah, Caleb the 
 son of Jephunneh. 
 
 distinct appointment of God, and also that 
 Miriam in contravening that supremacy had 
 incurred the penalty proper to sins against the 
 theocracy (cf. Trench, ‘ On the Miracles,’ pp. 
 212—216). 
 
 12 . as one dead~\ “ Leprosy was no- 
 thing 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.” Trench, 
 ‘Miracles,’ p. 213. Cf. notes on Lev. xiii. 
 
 13 . Heal her no^.^ 0 God., I beseech thee~\ 
 A slight and probable alteration of the Hebrew 
 punctuation («/ for el') affords the rendering, 
 “Oh not so; heal her now, I beseech thee;” 
 so Knobel and others. 
 
 14 . If her father'] i.e. if her earthly parent 
 had treated her with contumely (cf. Deut.xxv, 
 9) she would feel for a time humiliated, how 
 much more when God has visited her thus? 
 
 se-ven days] Cf. Lev. xiii. 4, 5. 
 
 16 . the ojoilderness of Paran] See onx. 12. 
 
 Chap. XIIL — The fourth and crowning 
 rebellion of the Israelites on their first north- 
 ward march took place in the summer of the 
 second year from the Exodus (cf. Introd. § 3. 
 and note on w. 20 of this chap.), on the re- 
 turn of the sp'ies from The account 
 
 of it occupies two entire chapters. 
 
 1. Hnd the Lord spake] The mission of 
 the spies wns firsi suggested by the Israelites 
 themselves, Deut. i. 22 and note. 
 
 2 . ewery one a ruler] So in w. 3, “ all 
 those men were heads, &:c.;” that is, heads of 
 houses or families; for a comparison of the 
 
 list with that of i. 5 sqq. shews that they were 
 not the princes of the tribes, though the 
 words rendered “prince” and “ruler” are, in 
 Hebrew, the same. 
 
 3 . from the avilderness of Paran] More 
 particularly from Kadesh in the wilderness of 
 Paran: cf. 2;. 26 and xxxii. 8. 
 
 4 — 15 . Cf. i. 5 — 15. The tribe of Zebu- 
 lun (y. 10) is out of its natural place, which 
 is next after Lssachar, and last of those de- 
 scended from Leah ; as also is that of Benja- 
 min (yv. 9), inserted between Ephraim and 
 Manasseh. There can be little doubt that the 
 original order has been disturbed by errors of 
 transcription. It may be conjectured too in 
 n). 7 that the name of the father of I gal has 
 dropped out of the text, and that the words 
 following I gal belong to the next verse. They 
 probably served to introduce the name of the 
 spy from the tribe of Ephraim, and should 
 run thus, “Of the sons of Joseph, of the 
 tribe of Ephraim, &c.:” cf. v. ii. 
 
 The tribe of Levi being already set apart 
 for the service of theTabernale did not furnish 
 a representative on this occasion. 
 
 Of the names here given those of Joshua 
 and Caleb alone are otherwise known to us. 
 
 6. Caleb] Called, xxxii. 12, and twice 
 in Josh, xiv., “the Kenezite.” Kenaz, cf. 
 Gen. xxxvi. 1 1, 15, was the name of one of the 
 “ dukes of Edom.” In the genealogy of the 
 family of Caleb given i Chron. ii. we find 
 also other Edomitish names: e.g. Shobal ; cf. 
 
 I Chron. ii. 50, 52 with Gen. xxxvi. 20, 23. 
 It has on these grounds been conjectured that 
 the family of Caleb was of Edomite extrac- 
 tion, and was incorporated into the tribe of 
 Judah. It must be remembered however that 
 
V. 7 20.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XIII. 
 
 695 
 
 7 Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal the 
 son of Joseph. 
 
 8 Of the tribe of Ephraim, Oshea 
 the son of Nun. 
 
 9 Of the tribe of Benjamin, Palti 
 the son of Raphu. 
 
 10 Of the tribe of Zebulun, Gad- 
 diel the son of Sodi. 
 
 11 Of the tribe of Joseph, namely^ 
 of the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the 
 son of Susi. 
 
 12 Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel 
 the son of Gemalli. 
 
 13 Of the tribe of Asher, Sethur 
 the son of Michael. 
 
 14 Of the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi 
 the son of Vophsi. 
 
 15 Of the tribe of Gad, Geuel the 
 son of Machi. 
 
 16 These are the names of the 
 men which Moses sent to spy out the 
 
 land. And Moses called Oshea the 
 son of Nun Jehoshua. 
 
 17^ And Moses sent them to spy 
 out the land of Canaan, and said unto 
 them. Get you up this way south- 
 ward, and go up into the mountain: 
 
 18 And see the land, what it is; 
 and the people that dwelleth therein, 
 whether they be strong or weak, few 
 or many; 
 
 19 And what the land is that they 
 dwell ill, whether it be good or bad ; 
 and what cities they be that they dwell 
 in, whether in tents, or in strong 
 holds ; 
 
 20 And what the land A, whether 
 it be fat or lean, whether there be 
 wood therein, or not. And be ye of 
 good courage, and bring of the fruit 
 of the land. Now the time was the 
 time of the firstripe grapes. 
 
 Israel and Edom were of kindred origin, and 
 that therefore the use of similar names by the 
 two peoples is not surprising. 
 
 16 . And Moses called Oshea Jehoshuci\ 
 
 It is most probably, though not necessarily to 
 be inferred from the text, that Moses did this 
 first at this time. The earlier employment of 
 the name (Ex. xvii. 9, xxiv. 13, &c.) by which 
 Oshea became henceforth known is natural in 
 one who wrote after “Joshua” had passed 
 into current use. The original name however 
 is still used Deut. xxxii. 44. 
 
 Oshea, Hoshea, or Hosea, the name also 
 of the last king of Israel and the first minor 
 prophet, means “deliverance” or “salvation.” 
 To this Moses added a syllable containing the 
 sacred name, Jehovah or Jah : thus intimating 
 that salvation was from God, and by the hand 
 of him who bore the title of “ God’s salva- 
 tion.” Jehoshua was contracted in later He- 
 brew (cf. Neh. viii. 17) into Jeshua: the Vulg. 
 writes Josua or Josue ; LXX. 'irjaovs- On the 
 name see Bp. Pearson on the Creed, Art. 2. 
 
 17 . south-zuard^ Rather “by the negeb, 
 or south-country” (from ndgans “ to be dry”) ; 
 a well-defined tract of territory forming the 
 southernmost and least fertile portion of the 
 land of Canaan and of the subsequent in- 
 heritance of Judah. It extended northward 
 from Kadesh to within a few miles of He- 
 bron, and from the Dead Sea westward to the 
 Mediterranean (cf. especially Josh. xv. 21 — • 
 32). The characteristic features of this region, 
 long unrecognized, have been elucidated in a 
 recent monograph by Rev. Edward Wilton, 
 “The Negeb, or ‘South Country’ of Scrip- 
 ture,” London, 1863 ; and see also Mr Clark’s 
 
 ‘Bible Atlas,’ pp. ii, 12, where the several 
 physical divisions of the Holy Land, remark- 
 able in themselves, are characterized and shown 
 to be constantly apparent in the Old Test. The 
 Negeb is frequently mentioned in Scripture; 
 and it is also three times enumerated, by its 
 Hebrew name, with the Egyptian article pre- 
 fixed, in the list of places conquered by Shi- 
 shak hieroglyphically engraven on the walls of 
 Karnak (see Brugsch, ‘ Geographische' In- 
 schriften,’ il. p. 69). 
 
 into the mountain^ The hill-country of 
 southern and central Canaan, mostly within 
 the borders of Judah and Ephraim. It com- 
 mences a few miles south of Hebron, and 
 extending northward to the plain of Jezreel, 
 runs out eventually north-westward into the 
 sea in the headland of Carmel. 
 
 19 . in tents'] i.e. in open unwalled villages. 
 
 20 . And be ye of good courage^ and 
 brings &c.] Rather, perhaps, And take 
 boldly, &;c. 
 
 the time... of the firstripe grapes] The first 
 grapes ripen in Palestine in July and August : 
 the vintage is gathered in September and Oc- 
 tober. This indication of date tallies with 
 what we should have inferred from the pre- 
 vious narrative. For the Israelitish host had 
 quitted Sinai on the 20th day of the second 
 month (x. ii), or about the middle of May : 
 since then they had spent a month at Kibroth- 
 hattaavah and a week at Hazeroth, and had 
 accomplished, in all, from 150 to 200 miles of 
 march : it therefore must have been at least 
 the beginning of July, and may have been a 
 month later, when the spies were despatched 
 into the land of promise. 
 
696 
 
 NUMBERS. XIII. 
 
 [v. 2 1 — 24. 
 
 21 ^ So they went up, and search- 
 ed the land from the wilderness of 
 Zin unto Rehob, as men come to 
 Hamath. 
 
 22 And they ascended by the south, 
 and came unto Hebron ; where Ahi- 
 man, Sheshai, and Talmai, the chil- 
 dren of Anak, were. (Now Hebron 
 was built seven years before Zoan in 
 Egypt.) 
 
 23 “^And they came unto the " brook i. 
 of Eshcol, and cut down from thence n 6r, 
 
 a branch with one cluster of grapes, 
 and they bare it between two upon a 
 staff ; and they brought of the pome- 
 granates, and of the figs. 
 
 24 The place was called the ” brook 
 
 ” Eshcol, because of the cluster of 11 xhaHs, 
 grapes which the children of Israel ^/grapes. 
 cut down from thence. 
 
 21. the cjollderness of Zhi] The north- 
 eastern portion of the wilderness of Paran, 
 The spring of Kadesh lay within it ; and 
 from Kadesh on the west it probably stretched 
 away to the Arabah on the east (see on x. 12, 
 xxxiv. 3 sqq.) 
 
 unto Rehob'] Probably the Beth-rehob of 
 Judg. xviii. 28, near Dan-Laish ; and appa- 
 rently to the north of it, since it gave its name 
 to a Syrian kingdom (2 S. viii. 3), and must 
 thus have lain without the territory occupied 
 by the Israelites It may perhaps be identified 
 with the village Khurbeh or Khureibeh, be- 
 tween Banlas and Hasbeiya. 
 
 as men come to Hamath] By the “ entrance 
 of Hamath,” the assigned boundary of the in- 
 heritance of Israel (cf. on xxxiv. 8), is to be 
 understood the southern approach to Hamath, 
 from the plain of Coele-Syria, lying between 
 those two ranges of Lebanon called Libanus 
 and Antilibanus. A low screen of hills con- 
 nects the northernmost points of these two 
 ranges; and through this screen the Orontes 
 bursts from the upper Ccelesyrian hollow 
 into the open plain of Hamath. (Stanley, 
 ‘S. and P.’ p. 399.) Its approximate place 
 in the map is in latitude 34*^20'; and it lies 
 south-west of Riblah, which was itself within 
 the Hamath territory (2 K. xxiii. 33, &c.). 
 A different view of the entrance of Hamath is 
 taken by Robinson (‘ B. R.’ iii. 551, and 
 568, 569) and Porter (‘ Damascus,’ pp. 332 
 sqq. &c.). They understand it of the western 
 approach to Hamath, from the Mediter- 
 ranean, and make it the interval which sepa- 
 rates the northern end of Lebanon from the 
 mountains of the Nusairiyeh. But this is less 
 probable; and even Robinson virtually admits 
 that in the present passage the southern ap- 
 proach to Hamath must be intended. 
 
 22. bjr the south] By the south-country, 
 cf. 'v. 17. 
 
 Ahiman^ Sheshai^ cind Talmah the children of 
 Anak] 'I'he jirogenitor of the Anakim was 
 Arba “the father of Anak” (Josh. xv. 13), 
 from whom the city of Hebron took its name 
 of Kirjath-Arba. The name Anak denotes 
 “long necked;” and though here the name of 
 a race may originally have been that of a 
 chieftain, yet Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai 
 
 were probably not individual warriors, but 
 names of three tribes of the Anakim. Hence 
 we find them still in existence half a century 
 later, when Caleb, who now brought tidings 
 of them, became their eventual destroyer 
 (Josh. XV. 14). 
 
 No^v Hebron rajas built seven years before 
 Tjoan in Egypt] Knobel is probably right in 
 explaining the somewhat abrupt introduction 
 of this parenthesis by the supposition that 
 these two cities had a common founder, and 
 were built, or perhaps, at least in the case of 
 Zoan (Tanis, see on Ex. v. i) rebuilt, by the 
 Llyksos, to which nations, once the conquerors 
 of Egypt, the Anakim perhaps belonged. The 
 Hyksos fortified and garrisoned Zoan as a 
 defence of their Eastern frontier. 
 
 23. the brook of Eshcol] This is gene- 
 rally identified with the rich valley immedi- 
 ately to the north of Hebron ; described by 
 Robinson as producing the largest and best 
 grapes in all Palestine, besides pomegranates, 
 figs, apricots, quinces, and othxer fruits, in 
 abundance. A fountain in it, lying within a 
 mile of the city, is said by Van de Velde to 
 be still known as Ain Eskaly. The valley 
 was, in all likelihood, originally named after 
 one of the three chiefs who were confederate 
 with Abraham (Gen. xiv. 24) ; but, as often 
 came to pass, the Israelites, wittingly or un- 
 wittingly, took up in a new and significant 
 sense the name which they found ; and to 
 them the valley thus became the Valley of the 
 Cluster. 
 
 they bare it betvueen t^uo upon a staff ] Reland 
 (‘ Palest.’ 351, apud Rosenm. Scholia in loc.) 
 narrates, on the authority of an eyewitness, that 
 bunches of grapes are found in Palestine of 
 ten pounds weight ; Schul/ius had seen them 
 two pounds heavier than this : Ignatius of 
 Rheinfelden speaks of clusters an ell long : 
 Tobler, of individual grapes as large as plums. 
 Kitto (‘Phys. Hist, of Palestine,’ p. 330) 
 states that a bunch of grapes of enormous 
 size waS produced at Welbeck from a Syrian 
 vine, and sent as a present in 1819 from the 
 Duke of Portland to the Marquis of Rock- 
 ingham. It weighed nineteen pounds, and 
 was conveyed to its destination, more than 
 twenty miles distant, on a staff' by four 
 labourers, two of whom bore it in rotation. 
 
V. 25—33-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XIII. 
 
 697 
 
 25 And they returned from search- 
 ing of the land after forty days. 
 
 26 ^ And they went and came to 
 Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the 
 congregation of the children of Israel, 
 unto the wilderness of Paran, to Ka- 
 desh; and brought back word unto 
 them, and unto all the congregation, 
 and shewed them the fruit of the land. 
 
 27 And they told him, and said, 
 W e came unto the land whither thou 
 sentest us, and surely it floweth with 
 
 fExod.33. ^ milk and honey j and this is the fruit 
 of it. 
 
 28 Nevertheless the people be strong 
 that dwell in the land, and the cities 
 are walled, and very great : and more- 
 over we saw the children of Anak 
 there. 
 
 29 The Amalekites dwell in the 
 land of the south: and the Hittites, 
 and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, 
 dwell in the mountains : and the Ca- 
 
 naanites dwell by the sea, and by the 
 coast of Jordan. 
 
 30 And Caleb stilled the people 
 before Moses, and said, Let us go up 
 at once, and possess it; for we are 
 well able to overcome it. 
 
 31 But the men that went up with 
 him said, We be not able to go up 
 against the people ; for they are strong- 
 er than we. 
 
 32 And they brought up an evil 
 
 report of the land which they had 
 searched unto the children of Israel, 
 saying. The land, through which we 
 have gone to search it, is a land that 
 eateth up the inhabitants thereof ; and 
 all the people that we saw in it are 
 Lnen of a great stature. ^ Heb.^ 
 
 33 And there we saw the giants, statiires, 
 the sons of Anak, which coine of the 
 giants : and we were in our own sight 
 
 aS grasshoppers, and so we were in 
 their sight. 
 
 25. after forty days\ They had no 
 doubt in this time explored the whole land. 
 It was however with the southern part that 
 the Israelites expected to have to deal immedi- 
 ately : and accordingly it is that which is par- 
 ticularly referred to in the following verses, 
 Hebron and its vicinity above all. 
 
 26. to Kadesh'] See Note at the end of 
 chapter. 
 
 28. the cities are ailed] The annals 
 of the patriarchal times do not suggest such 
 a condition of things in Canaan as is here 
 described. No doubt the repeated invasions of 
 the Egyptians (see Essay on Egyptian His- 
 tory, § 25) had compelled the Canaanites to 
 entrench themselves in those fortifications which 
 afterwards, as the book of Joshua shows, 
 were the element of their greatest strength.. 
 
 29. The Amalekites] See on xiv. 25. 
 
 the Canaanites] i.e. those of the Pheni- 
 cian race : the word is here used in its narrow 
 sense: cf. Gen. x. 15 — 18. 
 
 32. a land that eateth up^ &c.] i.e, it 
 is a land which from its position is exposed to 
 incessant attacks from one quarter and an- 
 other, and so its occupants must be always 
 armed and watchful (cf. Lev. xxvi. 38, which 
 however does not furnish a strict parallel). In 
 fact the early annals of Canaan, though very 
 fragmentary, afford evidences of various and 
 extensive invasions, wars of extermination, 
 &c.: cf. xxi. 27, 28; Deut. ii. 20, &c. 
 
 On the combination of two originally inde- 
 pendent but consistent supplementary narra- 
 tives in this chapter, cf. Introd. § 4- 7* 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xiii. 26. 
 
 unto the nvilderness of Paran., to Kadesh] 
 (i) Kadesh is in the foot-notes identified with 
 Ain-el-Weibeh, which lies in the Arabah, 
 about ten miles north of the place in which 
 Mount Hor abuts on that valley. Here the 
 Wady el Ghuweir opens into the low grounds, 
 and affords an access, by far the best, indeed 
 the only one practicable for an army, through 
 the mountain country of Edom, to the north- 
 west: cf. on XX. 14 and 17. It was this 
 doubtless which the ambassadors of Moses, 
 sent from Kadesh to the king of Edom, de- 
 scribed XX. 17 as “the king’s highway.” At 
 
 Ain-el-Weibeh are three fountains issuing 
 from the chalky rock. Probably in ancient 
 times the water supply here, as elsewhere 
 throughout the Sinaitic Peninsula, was more 
 copious than at present, and the place ac- 
 cordingly of greater importance. Yet even 
 now Ain-el-Weibeh is the most frequented 
 v/atering-place in the Arabah. See Robinson, 
 ‘ B. R.’ II. 173 — 176. Robinson’s identifica- 
 tion of Ain-el-Weibeh as the ancient Kadesh 
 has been generally accepted by English geo- 
 graphers as the most probable, e.g. by Mr 
 Clark in his ‘Bible Atlas,’ pp. 24 — 26, by 
 
NUMBERS. XIII. 
 
 698 
 
 Wordsworth, Porter, &:c. ; and by some also 
 amongst the Germans. 
 
 (2) Yet so difficult has it been found to 
 group satisfactorily all the passages in which 
 mention is made of Kadesh round this or any 
 other one spot, that some commentators and 
 geographers (after Reland) have assumed that 
 two distinct places must be supposed to bear 
 the name in the Bible: and they observe that 
 we have mention of Kadesh and of Kadesh 
 Barnea; of Kadesh in the wilderness ofParan, 
 and of Kadesh in that of Zin; and also of 
 Meribah Kadesh. 
 
 And no doubt the appellation, which is 
 equivalent to Holy Place, or Sanctuary, is 
 one which was in fact borne by several locali- 
 ties ; see below, § 8. But it seems clear, 
 nevertheless, that one and the same locality 
 throughout is intended in the Old Testament 
 by these three names. For the encampment 
 from which the spies were dispatched and to 
 which they returned is called Kadesh in xiii. 
 26, but Kadesh Barnea in xxxii. 8, as it is 
 also in Deut. ix. 2,3, Josh. xiv. 6, 7. (On 
 the term “Barnea” see note on xxxii. 8.) .It 
 is further clear, on comparing Ezek. xlvii. i^, 
 xlviii. 28 with Num. xxxiv. 4, Josh. xv. *3 
 and Deut. xxxii, 51, that Meribah Kadesh is 
 the same as Kadesh Barnea. Kadesh appears 
 to have been the name of a city, xx. 16 ; is 
 doubtless the Kedesh mentioned Josh. xv. 23 
 as one of the “ uttermost cities of Judah to- 
 ward the coast of Edom southward ; ” was on 
 the south border of Judah, xxxiv, 4 ; and 
 was evidently a leading landmark in the 
 boundary line. The name of the city was 
 extended, as was often the case, to the district 
 around it, hence “the wilderness of Cades,” 
 Ps. xxix. 8: cf. Deut, xxxii. 51. That Ka- 
 desh is sometimes assigned to the wilderness 
 of Paran (e.g. xii. 16, xiii. 3 compared with 
 xiii. 26), and sometimes to that of Zin (xiii. 
 21, XX. I, xxxiii. 36), is explained by the fact 
 that the name of Zin was given to the north- 
 ernmost portion of the great desert cf Paran 
 in which Kadesh lay: see on x. 12, xiii. 21. 
 
 (3) It is further apparent on comparing 
 Num. xii. 16 with xxxiii. 18, and then refer- 
 ring to xiii, 3, 21, and 26, that the same en- 
 campment wliich is described in chap, xiii, as 
 at Kadesh is in the catalogue of stations in 
 xxxiii. named Rithmah. 
 
 (4) I'he ancient name of Kadesh seems, 
 Gen. xiv. 7 (where see note), to have been 
 En-mishpat, “ well of judgment.” This may 
 perhaps point to the place as being not only a 
 religious centre, but one also where litigation 
 was wont to be determined. And the priestly 
 and judicial functions were and 'are often 
 combined in the East. Rithmah is however 
 probably descriptive of a district, and is de- 
 rived (see note on xxxiii. 18) from tlie broom 
 which abounded thereabouts. Possibly the 
 name Rithmah was more particularly asso- 
 ciated with the encampment in this portion of 
 
 the desert which took place during the first 
 march towards Canaan, Num. xxxiii. 18, and 
 was given in order to distinguish it from a 
 second encampment, also near Kadesh, and 
 therefore in the same district, though not 
 necessarily on the same spot, which occurred 
 in the fortieth year, Num. xxxiii, 38. 
 
 (5) The criteria for determining the situa- 
 tion of Kadesh are the following : 
 
 (a) It is described by Moses in the em- 
 bassy sent to the king of Edom as “a city in 
 the uttermost of thy border,” Num. xx. 16. 
 But at that time the territory of Edom con- 
 sisted only of Mount Seir, Deut. ii. 4, and 
 Mount Hor was the western limit of it towards 
 the Arabah, Num. xx. 22, 23, xxxiii. 37. 
 
 (I?) In Deut. i. 2 the distance from Horeb 
 to Kadesh is described as eleven days’ journey 
 “by the way of Mount Seir;” and in n). 19 
 of the same chapter the same journey to Ka- 
 desh is described as made “ through all that 
 great and terrible wilderness by the way of 
 the mountain of the Amorites.” By the 
 “ mountain of the Amorites” is to be under- 
 stood most probably (cf. Judg. i. 36) the 
 white calcareous ridge near 2000 feet high in 
 places which skirts the Arabah on the west, 
 and is by it separated from Mount Seir. 
 
 (c) It would further seem from xx. 22 
 and xxxiii. 37, that Kadesh was only one 
 march distant from Mount Hor. 
 
 (d) And Kadesh was north of Mount 
 Hor; for the host marched from the former 
 to the latter as the first stage in their tedious 
 journey, when denied a passage through the 
 defiles of Mount Seir, they turned away and 
 went southwards to compass the land of 
 Edom: cf. Num. xx. 21, 22; Deut. ii. 8. 
 
 (e) Kadesh was situated on low ground, 
 at least on ground low as compared with that 
 in its neighbourhood. For the spies are re- 
 peatedly and consistently spoken of as “ going 
 up” to search the land (cf, xiii. 21, 22): and 
 the land itself is described as “ the mountain,” 
 xiii. 17: cf. xiv. 40, 42, 44, 45. 
 
 These conditions are all of them satisfied if 
 we assume that Kadesh is the modern Ain-el- 
 Weibeh: and then the route by which the 
 host made their first rash and disastrous in- 
 vasion of Canaan (xiv. 40 sqq.) would be that 
 through the steep pass of es Safah or es Sufah : 
 see on xiv. 45, and xxxiv. 3 — 5. 
 
 (6) The objections urged against this view 
 are, that A in-el- Weibeh is at present a spot of 
 no great importance, and that there is near it 
 no remarkable cliff' such as seems implied in 
 the narrative of Moses’ disobedience, xx. 7 sqq. 
 The former objection has been already an- 
 swered in the first paragraph of this note : the 
 latter seems of little weight, since the high 
 cliffs at the mouth of the Wady el Ghuweir 
 are certainly in the neighbourhood of Ain-el- 
 W'eibeh, and were in front of the host when 
 it was proposing to march eastward through 
 Mount Seir. WT may add, that the word 
 
V 
 
 NUMBERS. XIII. 
 
 seJa used of the cliff at Kadesh, on which 
 stress has been laid (cf. Stanley ‘ S. and P.’ 
 p. 95), is employed Judg. vi. 20 to describe 
 the rock on which Gideon laid his offering, 
 which can hardly have been a cliff. 
 
 (7) Other travellers have suggested Ain 
 Hash, some twelve miles north of Ain-el- 
 Weibeh ; others Ain esh Shehabeh, fifteen 
 miles to the south-west ; little is known of 
 these places ; the latter seems too far away to 
 the south to have been in the frontier of 
 Judah; the former, though but little known, 
 satisfies the leading conditions of the texts in 
 which Kadesh is mentioned, as well as does 
 Ain-el-Weibeh. 
 
 (8) Thus much can hardly be said for the 
 claim of el-Ain, more than 70 miles away to 
 the westward, though advocated by Messrs. 
 Rowlands and Williams (‘ Holy City,’ 1, 463 
 sqq.), by Mr Wilton (‘ Negeb,’ pp. 79, 80) ; 
 by many German geographers and commenta- 
 tors, Ritter, Tuch, Kurtz, &c. ; and in par- 
 ticular by the original writer of the notes on 
 Numbers for this Commentary, Mr Thrupp. 
 The principal argument in favour of this 
 site is that it is said to be called Kudes or 
 Kadeis or Gadis, and that there is in its neigh- 
 bourhood a plain bearing the name Abu Rete- 
 met, which recalls the Rithmah of xxxiii. 18. 
 But the root from which Kadesh is derived 
 appears to have, and to have had from ancient 
 times, a wide range as a topographical term. 
 We have, e.g. El Kuds, the Arabic name of 
 Jerusalem; Kedesh of Naphtali, Josh. xix. 37, 
 the modern Kedes (cf. Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ 
 III. 366 sqq.); Kadisha, “the sacred stream,” 
 the name of a Phoenician river, Stanley, ‘ S. 
 and P.’ p. 269, Porter, ‘ Damascus,’ pp. 301 
 sqq.; Kaditha, a village in the same dis- 
 trict, Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ ii. 444; Kadessa or 
 Cadessah, given as another name of Madurah 
 by Bertou and others (cf. Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ 
 II. 179 note); Cadish in Syria, frequently 
 named in early Egyptian annals, and identified 
 by Brugsch with Emesa, the modern Hums. 
 Others have found traces of the same name 
 in Elusa, now El Khalaseh: and lastly the 
 map engraved by Kiepert for the last edi- 
 tion of Robinson’s ‘B. R.’ gives, after 
 Abeken, a Jebel el Kudeis in the western 
 part of the desert. Robinson indeed denies 
 (see foot-notes in i. 189, and ii. 194) that El 
 Ain has the name of Kudes or Kadeis at all, 
 and thinks that Rowlands mistook for Kudes 
 the name Kudeirat, which is given to El Ain 
 after a tribe of Arabs that water there. But 
 even if Rowlands be right as to the name, its 
 occurrence at El Ain would prove nothing, 
 since it occurs elsewhere repeatedly, and pro- 
 bably in ancient times was given to many 
 places which do not now bear it. 
 
 (9) Again, Rithmah, like Abu Retemet, 
 “Broom Plain,” no doubt derived its name 
 from the broom-plant, retem. But names 
 suggested by peculiarities of vegetation are of 
 
 699 
 
 constant occurrence in the nomenclature of 
 the Peninsula of Sinai ; and the broom is the 
 largest and most conspicuous shrub of the 
 Desert, growing thickly in the watercourses 
 in many parts. It probably gave a name to 
 many localities ; and Robinson in fact, ‘ B. R.’ 
 
 I. 84, visited a Wady Retameh abounding in 
 the retem, on his journey between Suez and 
 Sinai, about a day’s march from the latter. 
 
 Altogether then the resemblance of the 
 names Kudos and Retemet to the Kadesh and 
 Rithmah of the Pentateuch, and even the oc- 
 currence of both of them in the same locality, 
 are far from conclusive of the question. 
 
 (10) And it is obvious that El Ain satis- 
 fies none of the criteria stated above (§ 5) 
 for determining the site of the ancient Kadesh. 
 
 It is described (Num. xx. 16) as “a city in 
 the uttermost of the border” of Edom. So 
 too Mount Hor is said to be “ in the edge of 
 the land of Edom,” Num. xxxiii. 37 ; and the 
 Hebrew term in the two passages is the same. 
 Yet El Ain lies far away to the west, more 
 than seventy miles in a direct line from Mount 
 Hor, and sixty from the nearest spur of Mount 
 Seir. El Ain then could not by any stretch 
 of language be said to be “in the border” 
 or “ edge” of the land of Edom. The terri- 
 tory of Edom did not in the days of Moses 
 extend beyond the Arabah to the west (Stan- 
 ley, ‘ S. and P.’ p. 94, note; Clark’s ‘Bible 
 Atlas,’ p. 26). 
 
 Moreover, if Kadesh be identified with El 
 Ain, it cannot be explained how Moses came 
 to journey thither by the “way of Mount 
 Seir,” see above, § 5 A “The way of Shur” 
 was his proper course, as the map demon- 
 strates. And even had he unaccountably 
 chosen the very circuitous course by Mount 
 Seir, why, when he was at Mount Seir, 
 close to the defiles through which he de- 
 sired to obtain a passage, and near to the 
 chief city and head-quarters of the king of 
 Edom, should he journey away far to the 
 west before sending the embassy mentioned 
 in Num. xx. 14 — 17; and since'he had to 
 come back again to Mount Hor, inflict thus 
 on the host a gratuitous march and counter- 
 march of near 150 miles? 
 
 It has been remarked above, § 5 that 
 Kadesh was situated on ground distinctly 
 lower than that which lay in front of the 
 host when it first reached the border of Ca- 
 naan. But El Ain is on high ground; from 
 it the spies must have gone do^n rather than 
 up towards Hebron. 
 
 (11) Lastly, the territory allotted to Judah 
 (see Josh. xv. 21 — 47) seems to have included 
 the whole of the Negeb, or South Country. 
 But a boundary-line drawn through El Ain 
 towards “the river of Egypt” would cross the 
 middle of the Negeb, and so cut off a portion 
 of the promised inheritance. The true Ka- 
 desh, then, which was unquestionably a bor- 
 der city (cf. Num. xxxiv. 5 — 5), must have 
 
700 
 
 NU'MBERS. XIV. 
 
 [v. I, 2. 
 
 been situated more to the south than El Ain 
 is, had it lain in this part of the Desert at all. 
 
 (12) Others (e.g. Stanley, ‘ S. and P.’ 
 pp. 94 sqq.) have identified Kadesh with 
 Petra; and the Syriac and Chaldee Version 
 uniformly replace Kadesh in the Scripture 
 narrative by Rekem, the Aramaic name of 
 Petra. TheTargums render Kadesh Barnea 
 by Rekem -Giah, /. e. “ Rekem of the Ravine.” 
 The word Petra itself recalls the cliff (sela) 
 which Moses smote, Num. xx. 8 — ii ; draw- 
 ing from it the second miraculous supply of 
 Avater ; and the fact that the word used of the 
 rock at Kadesh is sela^ and not, as in the nar- 
 rative of former like miracles, Ex. xvii. 6, 
 the more ordinary word tsur is, no doubt, 
 noteworthy. There appears, too, 2 K. 
 xiv. 7, to have been a city in Edom called 
 Selah, which pcssibly was Petra. And Je- 
 rome (‘Onom.’ s.v.) connects Kadesh with 
 Petra : “ Cades Barnea in deserto qine con- 
 jungitur civitate Petrae in Arabia.” And 
 lastly, the gorge in which Petra is bears the 
 name of Wady Musa, as having been cleft by 
 Moses’ rod. 
 
 (13) Such coincidences are striking; but 
 Petra lies too far southwards to have been in 
 the frontier of Judah; it is not a city “in 
 the uttermost of the border” of Edom, but is 
 rather in the heart of Edom, far in the defiles 
 through which the Israelites vainly sought a 
 passage : and moreover it is in the very skirts 
 of Mount Hor, whereas Num. xxxiii. 37 
 speaks of an encampment at Kadesh, and then 
 of a separate and distinct one at Mount Hor. 
 
 (14) Whilst therefore it must remain as 
 yet doubtful what precise spot is the Kadesh 
 of Scripture, yet it seems clear on the whole 
 that traces of this famous sanctuary must be 
 looked for in the neighbourhood suggested by 
 Robinson, that of Ain-el-Weibeh. 
 
 (15) If the arguments contained in § 3 
 of this note be correct, it will be apparent 
 that two separate encampments of the host 
 are named after Kadesh. I'he first, the Rith- 
 mah of the catalogue in Num. xxxiii. 18, 19, 
 took place in the middle of the summer, in the 
 second year after the exodus, see on xiii. 20 ; 
 the latter in the first month of the fortieth 
 year, see on xx. i. On the former occasion 
 the people abode in Kadesh for some, per- 
 haps many months. For it was here that 
 they expected for forty days the return of the 
 spies, xiii. 25; and here Moses and theTaber- 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 I The people imirvinr at the navs. 6 Joshua 
 and Caleb labour to still them, ii God tlu'eat- 
 cneth them. 1 3 Moses persuadeth God, and 
 obtaineth pardon. 26 The 7nurmurers a 7 'e 
 deprived of entering into the land. 36 The 
 men luho raised the evil report die by a plague. 
 40 The people that -would invade the land 
 against the -wUl of God are smitten. 
 
 nacle remained, xiv. 44 : whilst the people, 
 though sentenced by God to wander in the 
 desert, attempted notwithstanding to occupy 
 the land of rest. And after their repulse by 
 the Canaanites, they spent, as it seems, Deut. 
 i. 45, 46, “many days,” the usual Hebrew 
 idiom for any long period, in vain endeavours 
 to obtain remission of their sentence. Eventu- 
 ally this prolonged encampment at Kadesh 
 was broken up; and the people “compassed 
 Mount Seir many days,” Deut. ii. i; i.e. 
 roamed in the wilderness of Paran until the 
 generation of murmurers was wasted away. 
 To this long and dreary period must be as- 
 signed the seventeen stations enumerated 
 Num. xxxiii. 19 — 36 ; on which see note on 
 “i;. 19 of that chapter. Finally, the host was 
 re-assembled at Kadesh early in the fortieth 
 year (cf. xx. i and note), and was evidently 
 again encamped here for a period of from 
 three to four months: cf. xx. i with xx. 22 — 
 28, and xxxiii. 38. Here it was that Miriam 
 died and was buried, ibid.: here that the 
 people mustered in full strength for the final 
 march on Canaan, soon exhausted the natural 
 supplies of water, xx. 2 sqq., and were given 
 to drink from the rock smitten by the rod of 
 Moses: here that sentence was pronounced on 
 Moses and Aaron for their sin, xx. 12, 13 ; and 
 from hence that the messengers were dispatch- 
 ed to the king of Edom, xx. 14 sqq. After the 
 return of the messengers the people turned 
 away from Edom, quitted Kadesh for the 
 last time, and after a halt at Mount Hor oc- 
 casioned by the death of Aaron, proceeded 
 by the marches set forth xxxiii. 4 1 — 49 round 
 the borders of Edom to the Plains of Moab. 
 
 (16) It is possible that the memorable 
 events which happened at Kadesh during the 
 years covered by the book of Numbers first 
 made the spot famous, and that the name of 
 Kadesh was bestowed upon it because of the 
 long continuance thereof the Tabernacle with 
 its priests and services. 
 
 After the settlement in Canaan the energies 
 and interests of the nation found channels far 
 away from the sterile and remote district of 
 the northern Arabah. Kadesh seems gradu- 
 ally to have lapsed into obscurity, and to have 
 become, what it probably was originally, no- 
 thing more than a watering place for the 
 nomadic tribes of the Desert. The latest allu- 
 sion to it by name in the Jewish annals is in 
 Judith i. 9. Josephus does not mention it at all. 
 
 AND all the congregation lifted 
 up their voice, and cried; and 
 the people wept that night. 
 
 2 And all the children of Israel 
 murmured against Moses and against 
 Aaron : and the whole congregation 
 said unto them, Would God that we 
 
V. 3-14] NUMBERS. XIV. 
 
 701 
 
 had died in the land of Egypt ! or 
 would God we had died in this wil- 
 derness ! 
 
 3 And wherefore hath the Lord 
 brought us unto this land, to fall by 
 the sword, that our wives and our 
 children should be a prey? were it 
 not better for us to return into 
 Egypt ? 
 
 4 And they said one to another. 
 Let us make a captain, and let us re- 
 turn into Egypt. 
 
 5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on 
 their faces before all the assembly of 
 the congregation of the children of 
 Israel. 
 
 6 ^ And Joshua the son of Nun, 
 and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, 
 which were of them that searched the 
 land, rent their clothes : 
 
 7 And they spake unto all the com- 
 pany of the children of Israel, saying, 
 The land, which we passed through 
 to search it, is an exceeding good 
 land. 
 
 8 If the Lord delight in us, then 
 he will bring us into this land, and 
 give it us ; a land which floweth with 
 milk and honey. 
 
 9 Only rebel not ye against the 
 
 Lord, neither fear ye the people of 
 the land ; for they are bread for us : 
 their Mefence is departed from them, 
 and the Lord is with us : fear them 
 not. 
 
 10 But all the congregation bade 
 stone them with stones. And the 
 glory of the Lord appeared in the 
 tabernacle of the congregation before 
 all the children of Israel. 
 
 1 1 ^ And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, How long will this people pro- 
 voke me? and how long will it be 
 ere they believe me, for all the sign6 
 which I have shewed among them ? 
 
 12 I will smite them with the pes- 
 tilence, and disinherit them, and will 
 make of thee a greater nation and 
 mightier than they. 
 
 13 And "Moses said unto the • 3 -- 
 Lord, Then the Egyptians shall 
 
 hear A, (for thou broughtest up this 
 people in thy might from among 
 them B 
 
 14 And they will tell it to the in- 
 habitants of this land : for they have 
 heard that thou Lord art among this 
 people, that thou Lord art seen face ^ Exod. 13. 
 to face, and that ‘^thy cloud standeth 
 
 over them, and that thou goest be- 
 
 ChaP. XIV. 5. Then Moses and Aaron 
 fell on their face s'\ Already Caleb had en- 
 deavoured to still the people before Moses 
 (xiii. 30) ; already Moses himself (Deut. i. 
 29 sqq.) had endeavoured to recall the people 
 to obedience. After the failure of these elforts 
 Moses and Aaron cast themselves down in 
 solemn prayer before God (cf. xvi. 2a) ; and 
 the appearance of the glory of the Lord in 
 the tabernacle of the congregation {y. 10) 
 was the immediate answer. 
 
 9 . their defence^ Lit. “their shadow,” 
 i. e. their shelter as from the scorching sun : 
 an Oriental figure. Gf. Is. xxx. 2, 3, xxxii. 2. 
 
 12 . and disinherit them~\ By the pro- 
 posed extinction of Israel the blessings of the 
 covenant would revert to their original donor. 
 
 13 — 17 . The syntax of these verses is 
 singularly broken. Moses describes himself 
 (Ex. iv. 10, see note) as “not a man of 
 words,” and as “slow of speech, and of a 
 slow tongue.” These defects would be 
 apt to embarrass him doubly in an exigency 
 like the present. And, just as does St Paul 
 when deeply moved, Moses presses his argu- 
 •VOL. 1 . 
 
 ments one on the other without pausing to 
 ascertain the grammatical finish of his ex- 
 pressions. He speaks here as if in momentary 
 apprehension of an outbreak of God’s wrath, 
 unless he could perhaps arrest it by crowding 
 in every topic of deprecation and intercession 
 that he could summon on the instant. His 
 appeal, preserving its native ruggedness, may 
 be paraphrased thus: “And if then the 
 Egyptians shall hear how, after bringing up 
 this people by Thy might from amongst them, 
 — and if they shall tell the inhabitants of the 
 land what they have heard, how that Thou, 
 Lord, wast among this people. Thou who art 
 seen, O Lord, face to face of them, and whose 
 cloud resteth over them, and who goest be- 
 fore them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a 
 pillar of fire by night ; — and if then Thou 
 shalt kill this people as one man, and so the 
 nations which have heard the fame of Thee 
 shalt tell and say. Because the Lord was not 
 able to bring this people into the land which 
 He sware unto them, therefore He hath slain 
 them in the wilderness: — Now therefore, I 
 beseech Thee, let the power of my Lord be 
 great, &c.” 
 
 Y Y 
 
702 
 
 NUMBERS. XIV. 
 
 [v. 15—24. 
 
 fore them, by day time in a pillar of a 
 cloud, and in a pillar of fire by 
 night. 
 
 15 ^ Now X thou shalt kill all this 
 people as one man, then the nations 
 which have heard the fame of thee 
 will speak, saying, 
 
 f Deut. 9. j 5 Because the Lord was not ^ able 
 
 to bring this people into the land 
 which he sware unto them, there- 
 fore he hath slain them in the wil- 
 derness. 
 
 17 And now, I beseech thee, let the 
 power of my Lord be great, according 
 as thou hast spoken, saying, 
 
 -^Exod. 34. 18 The Lord is ^longsuftering, and 
 
 Psai. 103. of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and 
 transgression, and by no means clear- 
 ^Exod.20. ing the guilty^ ^visiting the iniquity of 
 ^ 34. 7. the fathers upon the children unto the 
 third and fourth generation. 
 
 19 Pardon, I beseech thee, the ini- 
 quity of this people according unto 
 
 the greatness of thy mercy, and as 
 thou hast forgiven this people, from 
 Egypt even ''until now. “9?. 
 
 20 And the Lord said, I have par- 
 doned according to thy word : 
 
 21 But as truly as I live, ail the 
 earth shall be filled with the glory of 
 the Lord. 
 
 22 Because all those men which 
 have seen my glory, and my miracles, 
 which I did in Egypt and in the wil- 
 derness, and have tempted me now 
 these ten times, and have not heark- 
 ened to my voice ; 
 
 22 Turelv they shall not see the ^ Heb, 
 land winch 1 sware unto their Fathers, the latid. 
 neither shall any of them that pro- 
 voked me see it : 
 
 24 But my servant Caleb, be- Josh. i 
 cause he had another spirit with him, 
 and hath followed me fully, him will 
 I bring into the land whereinto he 
 went ; and his seed shall possess it. 
 
 IS. Cf. Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7. 
 
 20. I ha've pardoned^ God consents to 
 presei*ve the nation; but sentences the rebels 
 to personal exclusion from Canaan. 
 
 21 — 23 . Render; But as truly as I 
 live, and as all the earth shall he 
 filled with the glory of the Lord; 
 {y.%2) all those men, &c.; (t^. 23) shall 
 not see, &c. The Hebrew particle (chT), 
 erroneously rendered “ because” in A. V., 
 introduces (as often in such forms) the sub- 
 stance of the oath to which the preceding 
 verse gave the introduction. The particle in 
 beginning of t?. 23 signifies merely “not.” 
 Cf. Deut. xxxii. 40 and note. 
 
 22. these ten times'] Ten is the number 
 which imports completeness. Cf. Gen. xxxi. 7. 
 The sense is that the measure of their provo- 
 cations was now full ; the day of grace was at 
 last over. I'he Rabbins however take the 
 words literally, and enumerate ten several 
 occasions on which the people had tempted 
 God since the Exodus. 
 
 24 . my sernsant Caleb] Caleb only is 
 mentioned here as also in xiii. 30 sqq. Both 
 passages probably form part of the matter in- 
 troduced at a later period into the narrative of 
 Moses, ;lnd either by Joshua or under his 
 superintendence. Hence the name of Joshua 
 is omitted, and his faithfulness together with its 
 reward are taken for granted. In 'vnj. 30, 38, 
 both names are mentioned together ; and these 
 
 verses in all likelihood belong to the same 
 original composij:ion with 6 — 10. See 
 
 Introd. § 7. I 
 
 It is notev/orthy also that no express men- 
 tion is made of Moses and Aaron as exempt 
 from the sentence : though their inclusion in it 
 only took place long subsequently (cf. xx. 12). 
 
 But such exemption is perhaps implied in the 
 fact that God speaks to them (t;. 26) vdiilst 
 giving judgment upon the “ evil congregation.” 
 Eleazar too, who had already entered on the 
 duties of the priesthood (iv. 16, &c.), and 
 therefore was doubtless more than _ twenty 
 years old, survived to assist Joshua in allot- 
 ting Canaan to the victorious tribes. Josh, 
 xiv. I. But as the tribe of Levi had no repre- 
 sentative amongst the twelve spies (cf. xiii. 
 
 4 — 15), it was not included with the “all 
 that were numbered” of <v. 39 (cf. i. 46, 47 )? 
 so its exception from the judgment seems self- 
 evident. 
 
 The exceptions then were on the whole 
 neither few nor inconsiderable ; and the fact that 
 only one of them is named, v. 30, whilst yet 
 the language is emphatically general, should 
 serve as a warning against the common as- 
 sumption that the words of Scripture can have 
 no limitations except such as are actually ex- 
 pressed. 
 
 Ps. xc., which is entitled “a Prayer of 
 Moses,” has been most appropriately regarded 
 as a kind of dirge upon those sentenced thus 
 awfully by God to waste away in the wilder- 
 ness. 
 
NUMBERS. XIV. 
 
 703 
 
 V. 25—35.] 
 
 25 (Now the Amalekites and the 
 Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) To 
 morrow turn you, and get you into 
 the wilderness by the way of the Red 
 sea. 
 
 26 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 
 
 27 How long shall I bear with this 
 evil congregation, which murmur 
 against me? I have heard the mur- 
 muringsof the children of Israel, which 
 they murmur against me. 
 
 chap. 26. 28 Say unto them, truly as I 
 
 4^32. 10. saith the Lord, as ye have spoken 
 
 ; in mine ears, so wi.ll I do to you : 
 
 29 Your carcases shall fall in this 
 -'‘Dent. I. wilderness; and ^^all that were num- 
 bered of you, according to your whole 
 number, from twenty years old and 
 upward, which have murmured against 
 me, 
 
 ■i Heb. 30 Doubtless ye shall not come in- 
 %ykatd. the land, concerning which I Tware 
 
 to make you dwell therein, save Ca- 
 leb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua 
 the son of Nun. 
 
 31 But your little ones, which ye 
 said should be a prey, them will I 
 bring in, and they shall know the 
 land which ye have despised. 
 
 32 But as for you, your carcases, 
 they shall fall in this wilderness. 
 
 33 And your children shall " wan- ii 
 der in the wilderness forty years, and 
 bear your whoredoms, until your car- 
 cases be wasted in the wilderness. 
 
 34 After the number of the days 
 
 in which ye searched the land, even 
 "forty days, each day for a year, shall * ^s- 
 
 ye bear your iniquities, even forty Ezek. 4. 6 
 years, and ye shall know my “ breach " Or, 
 
 of promise. 
 
 35 I the Lord have said, I will 
 surely do it unto all this evil congre- 
 gation, that are gathered together 
 against me: in this wilderness they 
 
 25 . No^jo the Amalekites and the Canaanites 
 d-welt in the 'valley] These words are best un- 
 derstood as the continuation of the answer of 
 God to Moses: And now the Amalek- 
 ites and the Canaanites are dwell- 
 ing (or abiding) in the valley: where- 
 fore turn you, &c.” (that so be not 
 smitten before them) . Some difficulty has been 
 occasioned by the fact that in 'v'v. 43 — 45 these 
 tribes are represented rather as dwelling on the 
 hill. The Syriac version alters the passage before 
 us accordingly ; but such procedure is unne- 
 cessary. What was in one respect a valley, or 
 rather, as the Hebrew term emek implies, a 
 broad sweep betvreen hills, might in another 
 respect be itself a hill, as lying on the top of the 
 mountain-plateau. Such was precisely the case 
 with the elevated plain on which the conflict 
 of the disobedient Israelites with the Ama- 
 lekites and Canaanites eventually ensued (see 
 on 'u. 45). This was perhaps the very plain 
 which had long been known as one of the 
 seats of the Amalekites, the “country (or 
 field) of the Amalekites,” by which, centuries 
 back, the invader had pursued his march from 
 Kadesh to the Amorite city of Hazezon-tamar 
 (Gen. xiv. 7); the “field” (i S. xxvii. 5, 
 Heb.) in which lay the city of Ziklag, if that 
 be, as is probable (see Wilton, ‘The Negeb,’ 
 pp. 206 — 209) identical with the modern Kas- 
 luj. The text speaks of this district as tenanted, 
 generally, by the Amalekites and Canaanites. 
 The former term points to the nomad bands that 
 roved through its open pastures : the latter, 
 here taken in its wider sense, to the Amorites 
 
 of the neighbouring cities (comp. 'v. 45 with 
 Deut. i. 44), who probably lived in league 
 with the Amalekites. 
 
 To morrow] Not necessarily the next day, 
 but an idiom for “hereafter,” “hencefor- 
 ward:” Ex. xiii. 14, Josh. iv. 6, See. 
 
 by the <u)ay of the Red sea] That is, appa- 
 rently, of the eastern or Elanitic gulf. Re- 
 specting the course of the subsequent wander- 
 ings see xxxiii. 20 — 36, and notes. 
 
 30 . save Caleb... and Joshua] Cf. xxxii. 
 II, 12. 
 
 32 . But as for you., your carcases., &C.] 
 Rather, But your carcases, even yours, 
 shall fall, &c. 
 
 33 . your ^whoredoms] Their several re- 
 bellions had been so many acts of faithless 
 departure from the Lord who had taken them 
 unto himself. And as the children of the 
 unchaste have generally to bear in their earthly 
 carers much of the disgrace and the misery 
 which forms the natural penalty of their 
 parents’ transgression ; so here the children of 
 the Israelites, although suffered to hope for an 
 eventual entry into Canaan, were yet to endure, 
 through many long years’ wandering, the ap- 
 propriate punishment of their fathers’ wilful- 
 ness. 
 
 34 . my breach of promise] In Hebrew 
 this is one word, found elsewhere only in Job 
 XXX. 10 (where A. V. renders “occasions”): 
 and here best rendered perhaps, “my with- 
 drawal,” “my turning away.” 
 
 i 
 
 Y Y 2 
 
704 
 
 NUMBERS. XIV. XV. 
 
 [v. 36—2. 
 
 i' I Cor. 
 10. 
 
 Heb. 3. 
 Jude 5- 
 
 ^ Deub 
 
 41. 
 
 shall be consumed, and there they 
 shall die. 
 
 36 And the men, which Moses 
 sent to search the land, who return- 
 ed, and made all the congregation to 
 murmur against him, by bringing up 
 a slander upon the land, 
 
 37 Even those men that did bring 
 up the evil report upon the land, 
 
 10. '^died by the plague before the Lord. 
 
 38 But Joshua the son of Nun, 
 and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, 
 which were of the men that went to 
 search the land, lived still. 
 
 39 And Moses told these sayings 
 unto all the children of Israel: and 
 the people mourned greatly. 
 
 40 ^ And they rose up early in the 
 morning, and gat them up into the 
 
 I. top of the mountain, saying, Lo, ^we 
 he here., and will go up unto the 
 place which the Lord hath promised : 
 for we have sinned. 
 
 41 And Moses said. Wherefore 
 now do ye transgress the command- 
 ment of the Lord ? but it shall not 
 prosper. 
 
 42 Go not up, for the Lord is not 
 among you; that ye be not smitten 
 before your enemies. 
 
 43 Lor the Amalekites and the Ca- 
 naanites are there before you, and ye 
 shall fall by the sword: because ye 
 are turned away from the Lord, 
 therefore the Lord will not be with 
 you. 
 
 44 But they presumed to go up 
 
 unto the hill top : nevertheless the 
 ark of the covenant of the Lord, and 
 Moses, departed not out of the camp, ^ 
 
 45 Then the Amalekites ^'Tame 44. 
 down, and the Canaanites which dwelt 
 in that hill, and smote them, and dis- 
 comfited them, even unto Hormah. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 I The law of the meat offering and the drink 
 offering, 13, 29 The stranger is wider the 
 same lazv. 1 7 The law of the first of the 
 dough for an heave offering. 22 The sacri- 
 fice for sin of ignorance. 30 The punish- 
 ment of presumption. 32 He that violated 
 the sabbath is stoned. 37 The lazo of fringes. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, _ 
 
 2 ^ Speak unto the children of Is- 
 
 « Lev. 23. 
 10. 
 
 44 . they presumed to go up~\ Rather per- 
 haps “they despised” (fi.e. the warning of 
 Moses j'ust given), “so as to go up, &c.” 
 Cf. Dent. i. 41 — 43? ‘'^^d note. 
 
 45 . unto Hormah~\ Lit. “the Hormah:” 
 i.e. “the banning,” or “ban-place.” This 
 name, of which we find the history in xxi. 3, 
 is here used by anticipation. The mention of 
 it in Josh. xii. 14 as the seat of a Canaanitish 
 king marks it as a city of importance. Its 
 site is disputed. Its earlier nam.e, Zephath, 
 Judg. i. 17, has been compared with that of 
 the ascent es-Safah on the south-eastern fron- 
 tier of Canaan (Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ ii. p. 198, 
 foot-note: see on xxxiv. 3 sqq.): and it was 
 probably by this steep pass (Nakb es Safah, 
 see on xxxiv. 3 — 5) that the Israelites quitted 
 the Arabah for the higher ground. See note 
 at end of ch. xiii., and Robinson, ii. 180 — 182, 
 and 194. Rowlands identifies Zephath with 
 Sebata, which lies further to the west, about 25 
 miles norih of Ain Kadeis. Sebata was visited 
 by Rev. C. H. Palmer late in the year 1869. 
 Its ruins are very extensive, including three 
 churches and a tower. 'I'here is an Arab 
 saying “ Creater ruins than kd-Aujeh and 
 El-Abdeh there are none, save only Sebata, 
 which is grander than cither.” Near this city, 
 and protecting it fnnn a very commanding 
 position, is a ruined fortress called Kl-Mesh- 
 
 rifeh, furnished with escarpments, bastions, 
 and stropg towers, which Mr Palmer sup- 
 poses to have been the site of the “ Watch- 
 tower” in question. (See Quarterly Statement 
 of Palestine Exploration Fund, No. VI. March 
 31 to June 30, 1870, pp. 315, 316.) Yet it 
 must be observed that the name Sebata or 
 Esbata has not, in Arabic (cf. Seetzen, ill. 
 p. 44), the resemblance to Zephath which 
 the English orthography suggests. And in 
 fact later notices of the city (i S. xxx. 30, 
 
 I Chron. iv. 30) seem to shew that, of its 
 two names, Hormah was that which sur- 
 vived. Perhaps its real site was some miles 
 east of Sebata at the ruins called Rakhmah 
 (or Rukhama), a name which in Hebrew 
 letters is an anagram of Hormah. If so, we 
 can, notwithstanding our imperfect know- 
 ledge of the surrounding region, trace the 
 pro'gress of the Israelite invaders. The direc- 
 tion of their line of march would be N. N. W., 
 from the Arabah. Continuing onward past 
 Rakhmah or Hormah, it would lead them 
 into the extensive plain now known as es-Serr 
 or es-Slr, the Seir of Dcut. i. 44 - A fur- 
 ther progress of 20 miles along this plain 
 would have brought them to the royal city of 
 Arad (see xxi. i. Josh. xii. 14), still bearing 
 its ancient designation though in ruins. But . 
 their enemies, warned of their approach, waited 
 
V. 3— 14-] 
 
 705 
 
 NUMBERS. XV. 
 
 rael, and say unto them, When ye 
 be come into the land of your habi- 
 tations, which I give unto you, 
 
 3 And will make an offering by lire 
 unto the Lord, a burnt offering, or 
 'Lev. 22. a sacrihce ^in ^performing a vow, or 
 Heb. in a freewill offering, or in your so- 
 ■eparat- fcasts, to make a ^sweet savour 
 
 Exod. 29. unto the Lord, of the herd, or of the 
 dock: 
 
 'Lev. 2. 1. ^ Then shall he that offereth his 
 
 offering unto the Lord bring a meat 
 offering of a tenth deal of dour min- 
 gled with the fourth part of an hin of 
 oil. 
 
 5 And the fourth part of an hin of 
 wine for a drink offering shalt thou 
 prepare with the burnt offering or 
 sacrifice, for one lamb. 
 
 6 Or for a ram, thou shalt prepare 
 /hr a meat offering two tenth deals of 
 dour mingled with the third part of 
 an hin of oil. 
 
 7 And for a drink offering thou 
 shalt offer the third part of an hin of 
 
 wine, for a sweet savour unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 8 And when thou preparest a bul- 
 lock for^ a burnt offering, or for a 
 sacrifice in performing a vow, or peace 
 offerings unto the Lord : 
 
 9 Then shall he bring with a bul- 
 lock a meat offering of three tenth 
 deals of dour mingled with half an 
 hin of oil. 
 
 10 And thou shalt bring for a 
 drink offering half an hin of Wmo^for 
 an offering made by fire, of a sweet 
 savour unto the Lord. 
 
 1 1 Thus shall it be done for one 
 bullock, or for one ram, or for a 
 lamb, or a kid. 
 
 12 According to the number that 
 ye shall prepare, so shall ye do to 
 every one according to their number, 
 
 13 All that are born of the country 
 shall do these things after this manner, 
 in offering an offering made by fire, 
 of a sweet savour unto the Lord. 
 
 14 And if a stranger sojourn with 
 
 for them probably under the command of the 
 king of Arad on the plain, and there defeated 
 them. From the statement that they were 
 diiven back only to Hormah it would seem 
 that the country between that and Kadesh 
 remained in their possession. 
 
 Chap. XV. The contents of the next five 
 chapters must apparently be referred to the 
 long period of wandering to which (xiv. 33) the 
 ^ople were condemned. See Introd. § 3. 
 Chapter xx. introduces us at once to the 
 transactions belonging to the second encamp- 
 ment at Kadesh in the fortieth year after the 
 Exodus. 
 
 The chapter now before us lays down cer- 
 tain ordinances. These will be seen, as we 
 proceed, to be connected with the circum- 
 stances of the time in which, as their posi- 
 tion indicates, they were promulgated. 
 
 — 21. Ordinances respecting the meat-, 
 drink-, and heave-offerings. 
 
 2. When ye be come into the land of your 
 habitations'] After the account of the rebellion 
 and of the discomfiture at Kadesh, the main 
 interest of the history descends on the Israel- 
 ites of the younger generation. To them is 
 conveyed in these words the hope that the 
 nation should yet enter into the land of pro- 
 mise. The ordinances that follow are more 
 likely to have been addressed to adults than to 
 children ; and we may therefore assume that at 
 
 the date of their delivery the new generation 
 was growing up, and the period of wander- 
 ing drawing towards its close. During that 
 period the meat-offerings and drink-offerings 
 piescribed by law had been probably inter- 
 mitted by reason of the scanty supply of corn 
 and wine in the wilderness. The command 
 therefore to provide such offerings was a 
 pledge to Israel that it should possess the 
 land which was to furnish the wherewithal 
 for them. 
 
 4—12. The meat-offering is treated of 
 Lev. II. ^ No mention is there made of any 
 drink-offering ; yet from scattered notices (Ex. 
 xxix, 40, Lev. xxiii. 14) it appears to have 
 been an ordinary accessory to the former. 
 N^w however it is prescribed that a meat- 
 offeiing and a drink-offering of definite mea- 
 sure shall accompany every sacrifice. This 
 measure is apparently the same as had been 
 customary already. The lambs of the mornirw 
 and evening sacrifice had been each accompanied 
 from the first by one tenth deal of flour 
 a quarter of a hin of oil, and the like of wine 
 (Ex. xxix. 40) ; and these measures are now 
 prescribed for every lamb, though double that 
 quantity of flour was (Lev. xxiii. 13) pre- 
 scribed as an adjunct to the ware-sheaf 
 Larger measures are prescribed for a ram, 
 and still larger for a bullock. If m.ore than 
 one animal be sacrificed, the proper measures 
 must be used with each. 
 
 f 
 
NUMBERS. XV. 
 
 [v. 15—25- 
 
 706 
 
 you, or whosoever be among you in 
 your generations, and will offer an 
 offering made by fire, of a sweet sa- 
 vour unto the Lord; as ye do, so he 
 shall do. 
 
 <rExod. 12. ^ One ordinance shall be both 
 
 chap. 9. for you of the congregation, and also 
 for the stranger that sojourneth with 
 you^ an ordinance for ever in your 
 generations: as ye are^ so shall the 
 stranger be before the Lord. 
 
 16 One law and one manner shall 
 be for you, and for the stranger that 
 
 . sojourneth with you. 
 
 17 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 18 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, and say unto them. When ye, 
 come into the land whither I bring 
 you, 
 
 19 Then it shall be, that, when ye 
 eat of the bread of the land, ye shall 
 offer up an heave offering unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 20 Ye shall offer up a cake of the 
 first of your dough for an heave offer- 
 
 15 . as ye are, so shall the stranger be, 
 &:c.] The meaning is, “as with you, so 
 shall it be with the stranger, &c.” 
 
 IS. When ye come into the lanf Cf. on 
 <v. 'i. The general principle under which the 
 ordinance of this and the three verses follow- 
 ing comes is laid down Ex. xxii. 29, xxiii. 19, 
 It nad already been exemplified in the olfering 
 of the “ firstfruits, green ears of corn,” Lev. 
 ii. 14; that of “the sheaf of firstfruits,” 
 Lev. xxiii. 9 sqq. ; and that of the “two wave 
 loaves,” ibid. ns. 17. It is now enjoined in 
 addition that a similar offering be made of the 
 first dough of the year. These offerings 
 having been waved or heaved before the Lord 
 (xviii. 24) became the perquisite of the priests. 
 Cf. Neh. X. 37 ; Ezek. xliv. 30. 
 
 20 , 21 . (louglj] Or perhaps, “coarse 
 meal.” The Hebrew word occurs elsewhere 
 only at Neh. x. 37, Ezek. xliv. 30, where the 
 reference is to this ordinance. 
 
 as ye do the heanse offering of the threshing- 
 fioorl Of this, unless it be the same vvith 
 the dried green ears of Lev. ii. 14, nothing is 
 said elsewhere. 
 
 22 31 . Ordinances respecting sins of 
 
 ignor.mc-' and sins of presumption. 
 
 22. ^'Ind if ye hanse erredi\ The heavy 
 punishments which had already overtaken the 
 people might naturally give rise to apprehen- 
 sions for the future, especially in view of the 
 
 ing: as ye do the heave offering of the 
 threshingfloor, so shall ye heave it. 
 
 21 Of the first of your dough ye 
 shall give unto the Lord an heave 
 offering in your generations. 
 
 22 ^ And if ye have erred, and 
 not observed all these commandments, 
 which the Lord hath spoken unto 
 Moses, 
 
 23 Even all that the Lord hath 
 commanded you by the hand -of 
 Moses, from the day that the Lord 
 commanded Moses.^ and henceforward 
 among your generations ; 
 
 24 Then it shall be, if ought be 
 committed by ignorance ^without the ^ 
 knowledge of the congregation, thafj/^r 
 all the congregation shall offer one 
 young bullock for a burnt offering, 
 
 for a sweet savour unto the Lord, 
 with his meat offering, and his drink 
 offering, according to the ” manner, >' <>, 
 
 O' . , - ^ f . ordmance 
 
 and one kid or the goats tor a sin 
 offering. 
 
 25 And the priest shall make an 
 atonement for all the congregation of 
 
 fact that on the approaching entrance into 
 Canaan the complete observance of the Law 
 in all its details would become imperative on 
 them. To meet such apprehensions a distinc- 
 tion is emphatically drawn between sins of 
 ignorance and those of presumption : and the 
 people are reminded that for the fonner an 
 atonement is provided. Cf. Lev. iy. 13 sqq. 
 The passage deals separately with imperfec- 
 tions of obedience which would be regarded 
 as attaching to the whole nation (nsnK 22 — 26), 
 such as e.g. dereliction of a sacred duty on 
 the part of a ruler ; and those of individuals 
 (yvn). 27 — 30). 
 
 24 . nvithout the knonvledge of the congre- 
 gation'] lit. as marg. '■from the eyes of the 
 congregation.” The words point to an error 
 of omission which escaped notice at the time : 
 i.e. to an oversight. 
 
 one young bullock] The reference here is 
 to sins of omission; cf. ns. 22, “if ye have , 
 erred, and not obsei-ved all these command- 
 ments.” In Lev. 1 . c. the reference is to sins 
 of commission. Accordingly thei'e is some 
 difference in the ritual. There the bullock 
 was treated as a sin-offering, here as a burnt- 
 offering. With the burnt-offering however is 
 to be joined the kid of sin-offering (cf. Lev. 
 iv. 23) as an atonement for the sin of him or 
 them who had occasioned the lapse on the 
 part of the people at large. 
 
V. 26 — 3^-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XV. 
 
 707 
 
 the children of Israel, and it shall be 
 forgiven them; for it is ignorance; 
 and they shall bring their offering, a 
 sacrifice made by fire unto the Lord, 
 and their sin offering before the Lord, 
 for their ignorance: 
 
 26 And it shall be forgiven all the 
 congregation of the children of Is- 
 rael, and the stranger that sojourneth 
 among them ; seeing ail the people 
 were in ignorance. 
 
 /Lev. 4. 27 ^ And -^if any soul sin through 
 
 ignorance, then he shall bring a she 
 goat of the first year for a sin offering. 
 
 28 And the priest shall make an 
 atonement for the soul that sinneth 
 ignorantly, when he sinneth by igno- 
 rance before the Lord, to make an 
 atonement for him; and it shall be 
 forgiven him. 
 
 29 Ye shall have one law for him 
 
 1 Heb. that ^ sinneth through ignorance, both 
 doetk. bom among the chil- 
 
 dren of Israel, and for the stranger 
 that sojourneth among them. 
 
 30 But the soul that doeth ought 
 
 i Heb. 'presumptuously, whether he be born 
 Idghtiaud land, or a stranger, the same 
 
 reproacheth the Lord ; and that soul 
 shall be cut off from among his people. 
 
 31 Because he hath despised the 
 
 word of the Lord, and hath broken 
 his commandment, that soul shall ut- 
 terly be cut off ; his iniquity shall be 
 upon him. 
 
 32 And while the children of 
 Israel were in the wilderness, they 
 found a man that gathered sticks up- 
 on the sabbath day. 
 
 33 And they that found him ga- 
 thering sticks brought him unto Mo- 
 ses and Aaron, and unto all the con- 
 gregation. 
 
 34 And they put him ^in ward, Lev. 24. 
 because it was not declared what 
 should be done to him. 
 
 35 And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, The man shall be surely put to 
 death : all the congregation shall stone 
 him with stones without the camp. 
 
 36 And all the congregation brought 
 him without the camp, and stoned 
 him with stones, and he died ; as the 
 Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 37 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 38 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, and bid ^them that they make -^■'Deut. 22. 
 them fringes in the borders of their Matt. 23. 
 garments throughout their genera- 
 tions, and that they put upon the 
 fringe of the borders a ribband of blue: 
 
 30. presumptuously]^ The original (cf. 
 margin, and Ex. xiv. 8) imports something 
 done wilfully and openly ; in case of a sin 
 against God it implies that the act is com- 
 mitted ostentatiously and in bravado : cf. the 
 French “haut la main.” 
 
 reproacheth the Lord] Rather revileth or 
 blasphemeth the Lord; cf. Ezek. xx. 27. 
 
 32. A?id 'while the children of Israel were 
 in the wilderness] Moses mentions here, as 
 is his wont (cf. Lev. xxiv. 10 — 16), the first 
 open transgression and its punishm.ent in 
 order to exemplify the laws which he is laying 
 down. The offence of Sabbath-breaking was 
 one for which there could be no excuse. This 
 law at least might be observed even in the 
 wilderness. The notice of time while the 
 children of Israel were hi the wilderness is 
 thus no token that the narrative was written 
 when the people were no longer there. On 
 the contrary it is properly introduced here to 
 contrast the ordinance of the Sabbath, given 
 some time ago. Ex. xxxi. 14, and daringly 
 violated in the case before us, with the series 
 of ordinances first given in this very chapter. 
 
 The latter were not obligatory until after the 
 settlement in Canaan: the former was obli- 
 gatory already. Transgression of it was 
 therefore a presumptuous sin, and was pun- 
 ished accordingly. • 
 
 34. it was not declared what should be done 
 to him] Death had indeed been assigned as 
 the penalty (Ex. xxxi. 14, xxxv. 2); but it 
 had not been determined how that death was 
 to be inflicted. On the Hebrew word trans- 
 lated here “declare,” cf. Lev. xxiv. 12, Neh. 
 viii. 8. 
 
 37 — 41. Ordinance of the fringes. 
 
 38. that they put upon the fringe of the 
 borders a ribband of blue] Render that they 
 add to the fringes of the borders (or 
 corners) a thread of blue : cf. Deut.xxii. 
 
 12, where the word translated “fringes” is a 
 different one but vrith the same general sense. 
 These fringes are considered by Wilkinson 
 to be of Egyptian origin (‘Anc. Egypt,’ ii. 
 
 321, 322). The ordinary outer Jewish gar- 
 ment was a quadrangular piece of cloth like 
 a modern plaid, to the corners of which, in 
 
NUMBERS. XV. XVL 
 
 [v. 39 — 3 ’ 
 
 708 
 
 39 And it shall be unto you for a 
 fringe, that ye may look upon it, and 
 remember all the commandments of 
 the Lord, and do them ; and that ye 
 seek not after your own heart and 
 your own eyes, after which ye use 
 to go a whoring : 
 
 40 That ye may remember, and 
 do all my commandments, and be 
 holy unto your God. 
 
 41 I am the Lord your God, 
 which brought you out of the land of 
 Egypt, to be your God: I afji the 
 Lord your God. 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 I T/ie rebellion of Korah, DatJian, and Abh'am. 
 •23 Moses separateth the people from the rebels' 
 tents. 31 The earth swalloweth up Korah, 
 
 conformity with this command, a tassel was 
 attached. Each tassel had a conspicuous 
 thread of deep blue, this colour being doubt- 
 less symbolical of the heavenly origin of the 
 commandments of which it was to serve as 
 a memento. Tradition determined that the 
 other threads should be white, — this colour 
 being an emblem of purity (cf. Is. i. 18). The 
 arrangement of the threads and knots, to 
 which the Jews attached the greatest import- 
 ance, was so adjusted as to set forth sym- 
 bolically the 613 precepts of which the Law 
 was believed to consist. In our Lord’s time 
 the Pharisees enlarged their fringes (Matt, 
 xxiii. 5) in order to obtain reputation for their 
 piety. In later times however the Jews have 
 worn the fringed garment {taFitb) of a smaller 
 size and as an under dress. Its use is how- 
 ever still retained, especially at morning prayer 
 in the Synagogue. 
 
 39 . that ye seek nof\ Rather, that ye 
 nvander not. 
 
 41 . May be connected with the preceding, 
 and thus rendered : Unto me the Lord your God, 
 ojjhich brought you out of the land of Egypt, to 
 be your God: even unto me, the Lord your God. 
 
 Chap. XVL Rebellion of Korah and his 
 company. Tins narrative is regarded even by 
 Ewald, Knobel, &c. as possessing the charac- 
 teristics attributed by them to the oldest docu- 
 ments, It has also, as will be noted in the 
 course of it, remarkable internal tokens of 
 historical truth. See these latter more fully 
 developed by Blunt, ‘ redesigned Coin.’ pp. 15 
 — 79. 'Lire date of the transaction contained in 
 it cannot be determined, but-z;-!'. 13,14 probably 
 point to a period not much later than that 
 of the i-ebellion at Kadesh. At any rate this 
 chapter does not necessarily rank chronologi- 
 cally after the one preceding. 
 
 and afire consnmeth others. 36 The ce 7 ^sers 
 areresei'ved to holy itse. 41 Fourteen thousand 
 and seven himdred are slam by a plague for 
 muri 7 iuring against Moses and Aaron. 46 
 Aaroji by incense stayeth the plague. 
 
 N OW ^Korah, the son of Izhar, '^chap. 27. 
 
 the son of Kohath, the son of iiccius. 45. 
 Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, thej^hen. 
 sons of Eliab, and On, the, son of 
 Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men: 
 
 2 And they rose up before Moses, 
 with certain of the children of Israel, 
 two hundred and fifty princes of the 
 assembly, '^famous in the congrega- chap. 26. 
 tion, men of renown ; 
 
 3 And they gathered themselves 
 together against Moses and against 
 Aaron, and said unto them, take\Yieo. 
 too much upon you, seeing all the 
 
 1. Korah, the son of l%.har'\ “Son” here 
 is equivalent to descendant, as often in the 
 Bible. Amram and Izhar were brothers, cf. 
 Ex. vi. 18, and thus Korah was connected 
 by distant cousinship with Moses and Aaron. 
 Though being a Kohathite, he was of that 
 division of the Levites which had the most 
 honourable charge, yet as Eiizaphan, who had 
 been made “ chief of the families of the 
 Kohathites” (iii. 30), belonged to the youngest 
 branch descended from Uzziel (cf. iii. 27), 
 Korah probably regarded himself as injured; 
 and therefore took the lead in this rebellion 
 which bears always his name in particular : 
 cf. w. 5, 6, xxvi. 9 ; Jude ii. 
 
 Dathan and Ahiram...On^ Of these. On 
 is not again mentioned. lie probably with- 
 drew from the conspiracy. These three were 
 Reubenites; and were probably discontented 
 because the birthright had been taken away 
 from their ancestor (cf. Gen. xlix. 3 and note), 
 and with it the primacy of their own tribe 
 amongst the tribes of Israel. The Reubenites 
 encamped near to the Kohathites (cf. ii. 25 
 and note), and “thus the two families were 
 conveniently situated for taking counsel to- 
 gether” (cf. Blunt, p. 76). One pretext of 
 the insurrection probably was to assert the 
 rights of primogeniture, — on the part of the 
 Reubenites against Moses, on the part of 
 Korah against the appointment of Uzziel. 
 
 took men'] The original has simply “took;” 
 what they took is not said. See note at end of 
 chapter. 
 
 2. tvoo hundred and fifty princes of the 
 assembly] These appear to have belonged 
 to the other tribes, as is implied in the state- 
 ment (xxvii. 3) that Zelophehad the Manassite 
 was “ not in the company of Korah.” 
 
V. 4 — 1 ^>-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XVI. 
 
 709 
 
 congregation are holy, every one of 
 them, and the Lord is among them : 
 wherefore then lift ye up yourselves 
 above the congregation of the Lord ? 
 
 4 And when Moses heard /V, he 
 fell upon his face : 
 
 5 And he spake unto Korah and 
 unto -all his company, saying. Even 
 to morrow the Lord will shew who 
 are his, and who is holy; and v/ill 
 cause him to come near unto him: 
 even him whom he hath chosen will 
 he cause to come near unto him. 
 
 6 This do; Take you censers, Ko- 
 rah, and all his company; 
 
 7 And put lire therein, and put 
 incense in them before the Lord to 
 morrow: and it shall be that the man 
 whom the Lord doth choose, he shall 
 he holy: ye take too much upon you, 
 ye sons of Levi. 
 
 8 And Moses said unto Korah, 
 Hear, I pray you, ye sons of Levi : 
 
 9 Seemeth it but a small thing unto 
 you, that the God of Israel hath se- 
 parated you from the congregation of 
 Israel, to bring you near to himself 
 to do the service of the tabernacle of 
 the Lord, and to stand before the 
 congregation to minister unto them ? 
 
 10 And he hath brought thcQ near 
 
 to him^ and all thy brethren the sons 
 of Levi with thee : and seek ye the 
 priesthood also ? 
 
 11 For which cause both thou and 
 all thy company are gathered together 
 against the Lord : and what is Aaron, 
 that ye murmur against him? 
 
 12 ^ And Moses sent to call Da- 
 than and Abiram, the sons of Eliab : 
 which said, We will not come up: 
 
 13 Is it a small, thing that thou 
 hast brought us up out of a land that 
 rloweth with milk and honey, to kill 
 us in the wilderness, except thou 
 make thyself altogether a prince over 
 us ? 
 
 14 Moreover thou hast not brought 
 us into a land that floweth with milk 
 and honey, or given us inheritance of 
 fields and vineyards: wilt thou ^put^Heb. 
 out the eyes of these men? we will 
 
 not come up. 
 
 15 And Moses was very wroth, 
 
 and said unto the Lord, ^Respect not ‘^Oea 4.4. 
 thou their offering: I have not taken 
 one ass from them, neither have I 
 hurt one of them. 
 
 16 And Moses said unto Korah, 
 
 Be thou and all thy company before 
 the Lord, thou, and they, and Aaron, 
 to morrov/ : 
 
 3. all the congregation are holy\ Cf. 
 Ex, xix. 6. The real attack of Korah was 
 doubtless upon the authority of the family of 
 Aaron over the Levites, Cf. nj. 10. His 
 object was not to abolish the distinction be- 
 tween the Levites and the people, but to win 
 priestly dignity for himself and his kinsmen. 
 But this ultimate design is masked for the 
 present in order to win support from the 
 Reubenitesby putting forward claims to spiri- 
 tual equality on behalf of every Israelite. 
 
 8. ye sons of Le‘vi\ Moses addresses Korah, 
 but speaks in the plural, both as includ- 
 ing the Levites of Korah’s faction and also in 
 order to intimate that he was aware of the 
 real motives of the Levite conspirators (cf. 
 note on no. 3). 
 
 9 . Seemeth it but a small thing unto you^ 
 &c.] The “seemeth” is not in the original. 
 Render thus: Is it too little for you, i.e. 
 “ is it less than your dignity demands ? ” 
 
 11, The words of Moses in his wrath are 
 broken. Literally the verse runs: “Where- 
 
 fore against the Lord (not against Aaron) 
 thou and all thy company who are gathered 
 together, and Aaron, what is he, that ye mur- 
 mur against him?” Cf. the parallel reproof of 
 Ananias by St Peter, Acts v. 3, 4. The 
 Aaronic priesthood was of divine appoint- 
 ment; and thus in rejecting it, the conspira- 
 tors were really rebelling against God. 
 
 13 . Is it a small thing that thou hast 
 brought us up out of a land that fio^eth nvith 
 milk and honey f\ With perverse contempt for 
 the promises Dathan and Abiram designate 
 Egypt by the terms appropriated elsewhere to 
 the land of Canaan. But in fact an exchange 
 of taunts was being carried on between the 
 parties; the “ye take too much upon you” 
 of Moses in ns. 7, is his reproof of the like 
 words used by the conspirators in ‘t;. 3, and 
 their “is it a small thing” in the verse before 
 us is but the echo of his words in -z;. 9. 
 
 14 . nvilt thou put out the eyes of these 
 menf\ i.e. “blind them to the fact that you 
 keep none ot your promises;” equivalent to 
 “throw dust in their eyes.” 
 
710 
 
 NUMBERS. XVI. 
 
 [v. 17—33- 
 
 17 And take every man his censer, 
 and put incense in them, and bring 
 ye before the Lord every man his 
 censer, two hundred and fifty censers ; 
 thou also, and Aaron, each of you his 
 censer. 
 
 18 And they took every man his 
 censer, and put fire in them, and laid 
 incense thereon, and stood in the door 
 of the tabernacle of the congregation 
 with Moses and Aaron. 
 
 19 And Korah gathered all the 
 congregation against them unto the 
 door of the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation : and the glory of the Lord 
 appeared unto all the congregation. 
 
 20 And the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 ses and unto Aaron, saying, 
 
 21 Separate yourselves from among 
 this congregation, that I may con- 
 sume them in a moment. 
 
 22 And they fell upon their faces, 
 and said, O God, the God of the 
 spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, 
 and wilt thou be wroth v/ith all the 
 congregation ? 
 
 23 ®!i And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 24 Speak unto the congregation, 
 saying. Get you up from about the 
 tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and 
 Abiram. 
 
 25 And Moses rose up and went 
 unto Dathan and Abiram; and the 
 elders of Israel followed him. 
 
 26 And he spake unto the congre- 
 gation, saying. Depart, I pray you, 
 from the tents of these wicked men. 
 
 and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye 
 be consumed in all their sins. 
 
 27 So they gat up from the taber- 
 nacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abi- 
 ram, on every side ; and Dathan 
 and Abiram came out, and stood 
 in the door of their tents, and their 
 wives, and their sons, and their little 
 children. 
 
 28 And Moses said, Hereby ye 
 shall know that the Lord hath sent 
 me to do all these works ; for I have 
 not done them of mine own mind. 
 
 29 If these men die Ahe common’^ Heb. 
 death of all men, or if they be visited ^7nandicih. 
 after the visitation of all men; then 
 
 the Lord hath not sent me. 
 
 30 But if the Lord ^ make 
 
 new thing, and the earth open her creature. 
 mouth, and swallow -them up, with 
 all that appertain unto them, and 
 they go down quick into the pit; 
 then ye shall understand that these 
 men have provoked the Lord. 
 
 31 "^And it came to pass, as 
 had made an end of speaking all 
 these words, that the ground clave 
 asunder that was under them : 
 
 32 And the earth opened her 
 mouth, and swallowed them up, and 
 their .houses, and all the men that 
 appertained unto Korah, and all their 
 goods. 
 
 33 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 
 congregation. 
 
 24. from about the tabernacle cf Korah.^ 
 Dathan^ and biram'] Render, Dwelling of 
 Korah, &c. The tent of Korah, as a Kohath- 
 ite, stood on the south side of the tabernacle 
 of the Lord: and those of Dathan and Abiram, 
 as Reubenites, in the outer line of encampment 
 on the same side: cf. on n. i. Yet though the 
 tents of these three were thus contiguous the 
 narrative, whilst not going into detail, suggests 
 to us that they did not share the same fate. 
 Korah and his company who dared to intrude 
 themselves on the priestly ohice were destroyed 
 by fire from the Lord at the door of the 
 tabernacle of the Lord, 7'. 35; the Reubenites, 
 who had reviled Most's for the failure of the 
 promises about the pleasant land, were sud- 
 denly engulfed whilst standing at their own 
 
 tent-doors in the barren wilderness {nyv. 31 
 — 33). The A.V. then is inaccvirate in the 
 heading of this chapter, where it states, “31, 
 The earth swalloweth up Korah, and a fire 
 consumeth others.” Cf. xxvi. 10, ii, and 
 note. This real and obviously imdes'gned co- 
 incidence between the statement made in those 
 verses and that of these is kappil-y drawn out 
 by Blunt, pp. 78, 79. 
 
 27. stood in the door of their tents] Ap- 
 parently in contumacious defiance. 
 
 32. all the 771 :n that appei'tained unto 
 Korah] Lit. “all unto Korah;” i.e. not his 
 sons, for we read xxvi. ii, “the children of 
 Korah died not,” but all belonging to him 
 who had associabd themselves with him in 
 this rebellion. 
 
V. 34—48.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XVL 
 
 711 
 
 34 And all Israel that were round 
 about them fled at the cry of them : 
 for they said, Lest the earth swallow 
 us up also. 
 
 35 And there came out a Are 
 from the Lord, and consumed the 
 two hundred and fifty men that 
 offered incense. 
 
 36 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 37 Speak unto Eleazar the son of 
 Aaron the priest, that he take up 
 the censers out of the burning, and 
 scatter thou the fire yonder; for they 
 are hallowed. 
 
 38 The censers of these sinners 
 against their own souls, let them 
 make them broad plates for a co- 
 vering of the altar: for they offered 
 them before the Lord, therefore they 
 are hallowed : and they shall be a 
 sign unto the children of Israel. 
 
 39 And Eleazar the priest took 
 the brasen censers, wherewith they 
 that were burnt had offered ; and 
 they were made broad plates for a 
 coverino; of the altar: 
 
 40 To be a memorial unto the chil- 
 dren of Israel, that no stranger, 
 which is not of the seed of Aaron, 
 come near to offer incense before 
 the Lord ; that he be not as Korah, 
 and as his company : as the Lord 
 said to him by the hand of Moses. 
 
 41 ^ But on the morrow all the 
 congregation of the children of Israel 
 
 murmured against Moses and against 
 Aaron, saying. Ye have killed the 
 people of the Lord. 
 
 42 And it came to pass, when the 
 congregation was gathered against 
 Moses and against Aaron, that they 
 looked toward the tabernacle of the 
 congregation: and, behold, the cloud 
 covered it, and the glory of the Lord 
 appeared. 
 
 43 And Moses and Aaron came 
 before the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation. 
 
 44 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 45 Get you up from among this 
 congregation, that I may consume 
 them as in a moment. And they 
 fell upon their faces. 
 
 46 And Moses said unto Aaron, 
 Take a censer, and put fire therein 
 from off the altar, and put on in- 
 cense, and go quickly unto the con- 
 gregation, and make an atonement 
 for them: for there is wrath gone 
 out from the Lord ; the plague is 
 begun. 
 
 47 And Aaron took as Moses com- 
 manded, and ran into the midst of 
 the congregation ; and, behold, the 
 plague was begun among the peo- 
 ple : and he put on incense, and 
 made an atonement for the people. 
 
 48 And he stood between the dead 
 and the living; and the plague was 
 
 35. there came out a fire from the Lord\ 
 i.e. As appears from the similar case Lev. x. 
 I — 7 , the fire came out from the sanctuary or 
 the altar, 
 
 37. Elea‘x:,ar'\ Not Aaron himself, be- 
 cause as high-priest, and as one of those that 
 offered incense {y. 17 ), it was not meet that 
 he should be defiled by going among the dead. 
 
 scatter thou the fiire yonder~\ That is, “afar 
 off.” As the censers were not to be used again 
 for censers, so the coals on them were to be 
 used no miore for kindling the incense to be 
 offered before the Lord. Yet neither of them 
 could fittingly be employed for common pur- 
 poses. I'he censers therefore were beaten into 
 plates for the altar; the coals scattered at a 
 distance. 
 
 38. these sinners against their own souls'] 
 That is, “ against their own lives.” By their 
 
 sin they had brought destruction upon them- 
 selves. 
 
 45. they fell upon their faces] In inter 
 cession for the people; cf. -u. 22 , xiv. 5 . 
 
 46. a censer] Rather the censer, i.e. 
 that of the High-priest which was used by 
 him on the Great Day of Atonement : cf. Lev. 
 xvi. 12 ; Heb. ix. 4 , It appears from Lev. 
 X. I, that each priest had also his own censer, 
 no doubt for the daily incense offering ; Ex. 
 XXX. I — 8. Korah and his company had pro- 
 bably provided themselves with censers in emu- 
 lation of the priests: cf. <v. 6 , Ezek. viii. ii, 
 
 and go] Or perhaps, “And carry it,” 
 
 make an atonement for them] The effectual 
 intercession of Aaron in behalf of the people 
 was the best answer to the reproaches of those 
 that disparaged his dignity. 
 
712 
 
 NUMBERS. XVI. XVII. 
 
 [v. 49 — 5 - 
 
 49 Now they that died in the 
 plague were fourteen thousand and 
 seven hundred, beside them that died 
 about the matter of Korah. 
 
 48 . He stood between the dead and the 
 Having ; and the plague was stayed^ A striking 
 proof of the efficacy of that very Aaronic 
 priesthood which the rebels had presumed to 
 reject. The incense offering which had brought 
 down destruction when presented by un- 
 authorized hands, now in the hand of the true 
 
 50 And Aaron returned unto Mo- 
 ses unto the door of the tabernacle 
 of the congregation : and the plague 
 was stayed. 
 
 priest is the medium of instant salvation to 
 the whole people. Aaron by his acceptable 
 ministration and his personal self-devotion 
 foreshadows emphatically in this transaction 
 the perfect mediation and sacrifice of Him- 
 self made by Christ. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xvi. i. 
 
 The Jerusalem Targiim supplies 
 (counsel) as the accusative after np'*!. If this 
 be accepted, and the verb referred, as from 
 its being first in the sentence and in the sin- 
 gular number, seems necessary, to Korah, 
 then imi may be “with Dathan” (cf. 
 
 •v. 18). The translation will then run: “And 
 Korah . . . took counsel apart with Dathan 
 and Abiram, &c.” Various other renderings, 
 less satisfactory, have been offered. L.XX. gives 
 which certainly does not answer to 
 our present text. Accordingly emendations 
 have been proposed, and for np'! have been 
 suggested *?np'’'l, “l^’p''), Dp'’ 1 ; of which the 
 last corresponds in a general Avay to the ren- 
 dering of Onkelos “ he .separated him- 
 
 self”), and to that of the Syriac Version. 
 The Arab, is equivalent to “he drew near.” 
 The ancient translators with these exceptions 
 seem to have had our present text before them ; 
 and to have followed it, though with different 
 interpretations. The Vulgate omits the word 
 
 altogether. Probably however the difficulty of 
 construction arises from an after insertion of 
 the^ mention of Dathan and Abiram, and of 
 their insurrection against Moses, into the 
 original narrative of the sedition of Korah. 
 This narrative would run naturally as follows ; 
 
 '1^-p nnp“p -i.T^'-p mp np'i 
 Dwn 
 
 “Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of 
 Kohath, the son of Levi, took of the children 
 of Israel two hundred and fifty, &c.” In it, 
 moreover, Korah and his company would be 
 naturally represented as gathering themselves 
 together against Aaron as well as against 
 Moses, n>. 3. But in the expansion of this 
 narrative with a view of making it comprise 
 the account of the proceedings of Dathan and 
 Abiram, it became important to mark that the 
 outcry of the latter was directed against Moses 
 alone; hence the introduction of the opening 
 words of “z;. 2. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 I Aaron's rod among all the rods of the tribes 
 only foitrisheth. 10 It is left for a, monu- 
 ment against the rebels. 
 
 K 
 
 ND the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 ses, saying, 
 
 2 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, and take cf every one of them 
 a rod according to the house of their 
 fathers, of all their princes according 
 to the house of their fathers twelve 
 
 rods : write thou every man’s name 
 upon his rod. 
 
 3 And thou shalt write Aaron’s 
 name upon the rod of Levi : for one 
 rod shall be for the head of the house 
 of their fathers. 
 
 4 And thou shalt lay them up in 
 the tabernacle of the congregation 
 before the testimony, "where I will "Exod. 25. 
 meet with you. 
 
 5 And it shall come to pass, that 
 
 (liiAi*. XVII. Further vindication (yv. 
 I — ii) of the priestly authority of Aaron. 
 
 2 . Cf. Kzek. xxxvii. 16, sqq. 
 
 3 . thou shall write Aaron's name upon 
 the rod of Leoji^ 'Fhc Le'. ites had taken part 
 in the late outbreak. It was therefore neces- 
 
 sary to vindicate the supremacy of the house 
 of Aaron over them ; and accordingly his 
 name was written on the rod of Levi, although 
 being the son of Kohath, the second son of 
 Levi (Ex. vi. 16, sqq.), he would not be the 
 natural head of the tribe. 
 
 4. before the testimony~\ See on v. 10. 
 
V. 6—1.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XVII. XVIII. 
 
 713 
 
 the man’s rod, whom I shall choose, 
 shall blossom: and I will make to 
 cease from me the murmurings of 
 the children of Israel, whereby they 
 murmur against you. 
 
 6 ^ And Moses spake unto the 
 children of Israel, and every one of 
 
 princes gave him U rod apiece, 
 one prince, for cach priiice one, according to 
 Vieprh^e. their fathers’ houses, even twelve 
 rods : and the rod of Aaron was 
 among their rods. 
 
 7 And Moses laid up the rods be- 
 fore the Lord in the tabernacle of 
 witness. 
 
 8 And it came to pass, that on 
 the morrow Moses went into the 
 tabernacle of witness; and, behold, 
 the rod of Aaron for the house of 
 Levi was budded, and brought forth 
 buds, and bloomed blossoms, and 
 yielded almonds. 
 
 9 And Moses brought out all the 
 rods from before the Lor.d unto all 
 
 the children of Israel : and they 
 looked, and* took every man his rod. 
 
 10 *fl And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Bring ^Aaron’s rod again before Heb. 9. 
 the testimony, to be kept for a token 
 against the ' rebels ; and thou shalt t Heb. 
 quite take away their murmurings ‘^relfuimu 
 from me, that they die not. 
 
 1 1 And Moses did so: as the Lord 
 commanded him, so did he. 
 
 12 And the children of Israel spake 
 unto Moses, saying. Behold, we die, 
 we perish, we all perish. 
 
 13 Whosoever cometh any thing 
 near unto the tabernacle of the Lord 
 shall die : shall we be consumed with 
 dying ? 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 I The charge of the priests and Levites. 9 The 
 
 priests' poiiion. ai The Levites' portion. 25 
 
 The heave offermg to the priests out of the 
 
 Levites' portion. 
 
 AND the Lord said unto Aaron, 
 
 Thou and thy sons and thy 
 
 6. eaoen tavelaoe rods^ Possibly the two 
 tribes of the children of J oseph were reckoned 
 together, as in Deut. xxvii. 12. But as these 
 two tribes had separate princes, and it was 
 with the names of the princes that the rods 
 were marked {y. 2), it is more probable that 
 the whole number of rods was twelve ex- 
 clusively of Aaron’s, as the Vulgate expressly 
 renders (“fuerunt virgje duodecim absque 
 virga Aaron ”). 
 
 8. yielded almonds'] Or rather “ripened 
 almonds,” i.e. “brought forth ripe almonds.” 
 Probably different portions of the rod shewed 
 the several stages of the process of fruc- 
 tification through which those parts which 
 had advanced the furthest had passed. The 
 name almond in Hebrew denotes the “waking- 
 tree,” the “waking-fruit;” and is applied to 
 this tree, because it blossoms early in the 
 season. It serves here, as in Jer. i. ii, 12, to 
 set forth the speed and certainty with which, 
 at God’s will. His purposes are accomplished. 
 So again the blossoming and bearing of Aaron’s 
 ’ rod, naturally impotent when severed from the 
 parent tree, may signify the profitableness 
 because of God’s appointment and blessing of 
 the various means of grace (the priesthood, 
 the sacraments), which of themselves and apart 
 from Him could have no such efficacy. The 
 incidents of this marvel are then by no means 
 arbitrary. It is instructive to compare Is. iv. 
 a, xi. I, liii. 2 ; Jer. xxxiii. 6 ; Zech. vi. 12. 
 
 10 . the testimony] i.e. The Two Tables 
 
 of the Law; cf. Ex. xxv. 16. No doubt the 
 rod lay in front of the Tables within the Ark. 
 It appears, i Kings viii. 9, that in the days of 
 Solomon there was nothing in the ark save 
 the two Tables. Aaron’s rod then was pro- 
 bably lost when the Ark was taken by the 
 Philistines. 
 
 12 , 13 . A new section should begin with 
 these verses. They are connected retrospec- 
 tively with chap, xvi, ; and form the imme- 
 diate introduction to ch. xviii. The people 
 were terror-stricken by the fate of the com- 
 pany of Korah at the door of the taber- 
 nacle ; followed up by the plague in which so 
 many thousands of their numbers had perished. 
 Presumption passes by reaction into despair. 
 Was there any approach for them to the 
 tabernacle of the Lord? Was there any 
 escape from death, except by keeping aloof 
 from his presence ? The answers are supplied 
 by the ordinances that follow ; ordinances 
 which testified that the God of judgment 
 was still a God of grace and of love. 
 
 Chap. XVIII. The priesthood of Aaron 
 having been thus confirmed, the functions of 
 his family and of the Levites are now finally 
 and completely regulated; and definite pro- 
 vision made for their maintenance. The direc- 
 tions given in a)<v. i — 24, as more immediately 
 pertaining to the office of the priests, are 
 addressed by God directly to Aaron. 
 
 1. the iniquity of the sanctuary] i. e. 
 Guilt of the offerxes which an erring people 
 
714 
 
 NUMBERS. XVIII. 
 
 [v. 2 II. 
 
 ^ chap. 
 45- 
 
 father’s house with thee shall bear 
 the iniquity of the sanctuary : and 
 thou and thy sons with thee shall 
 bear the iniquity of your priesthood. 
 
 2 And thy brethren also of the 
 tribe of Levi, the tribe of thy father, 
 bring thou with thee, that they may 
 be joined unto thee, and minister 
 unto thee : but thou and thy sons 
 with thee shall minister before the 
 tabernacle of witness. 
 
 3 And they shall keep thy charge, 
 and the charge of all the tabernacle: 
 only they shall not come nigh the 
 vessels of the sanctuary and the 
 altar, that neither they, nor ye also, 
 die. 
 
 4 And they shall be joined unto 
 thee, and keep the charge of the 
 tabernacle of the congregation, for 
 all the service of the tabernacle : and 
 a stranger shall not come nigh unto 
 you. 
 
 5 And ye shall keep the charge 
 of the sanctuary, and the charge of 
 the altar : that there be no wrath any 
 more upon the children of Israel. 
 
 6 And I, behold, I have "taken 
 your brethren the Levites from a- 
 mong the children of Israel : to you 
 they are given as a gift for the Lord, 
 
 to do the service of the tabernacle of 
 the congregation. 
 
 7 Therefore thou and thy sons 
 with thee shall keep your priest’s 
 office for every thing of the altar, 
 and within the vail ; and ye shall 
 serve : I have given your priest’s 
 office unto you as a ’service of gift: 
 and the stranger that cometh nigh 
 shall be put to death. 
 
 8 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Aaron, Behold, I also have given 
 thee the charge of mine heave of- 
 ferings of all the hallowed things of 
 the children of Israel; unto thee 
 have I given them by reason of the 
 anointing, and to thy sons, by an 
 ordinance for ever. 
 
 9 This shall be thine of the most 
 holy things, reserved from the fire : 
 every oblation of theirs, every meat 
 offering of theirs, and every sin offer- 
 ing of theirs, and every trespass 
 offering of theirs, which they shall 
 render unto me, shall be most holy 
 for thee and for thy sons. 
 
 10 In the most holy place shalt 
 thou eat it ; every male shall eat it : 
 it shall be holy unto thee. 
 
 1 1 And this is thine ; the heave 
 offering of their gift, with all the 
 
 would be continually committing against 
 the majesty of God, when brought into con- 
 tact, through the ordinances, with the mani- 
 festations of His presence. Cf. Ex. xxviii. 
 38; also viii. 19, and note. 
 
 the iniquity of your priest hoo;l~\ As the 
 priests themselves \vere but men, they could 
 no more than others abide it, if God were 
 extreme to mark what was done amiss. An 
 atonement was consequently ordained for 
 them (Lev. xvi.); and they were strengthened 
 to bear the iniquity of their own unintentional 
 offences, by being entrusted with the cere- 
 monial means of taking it away. The word 
 “bear” has, in the Old Testament, this double 
 sense of “enduring” and “removing;” but in 
 the person of Christ, who atoned by His own 
 endurance, the two are in effect one. 
 
 2. that they may be joined'^ An allusion 
 to the name I.evi, which signifies “ being 
 joined.” d'he old name is, in fact, taken up 
 with a new meaning; the Levites became, by 
 virtue of their office, a Levi indeed ; cf. Eph. 
 ii. 13, sqq. 
 
 unto thee'\ The priests ministered to the 
 Lord : the Levites to the priests. 
 
 4. a stranger'] i. e. every one not a Levite. 
 So, v. %\i denotes every one who was not a 
 priest : cf. iii. 10, xvi. 40. 
 
 6, 7.] Inasmuch as the Lord proceeds 
 after this to speak of the portion assigned to 
 the priests for their maintenance. He takes 
 occasion here, beforehand, to instruct them 
 that the office which they fill, and the help 
 which they enjoy, are gifts from Him, and are 
 to be viewed as such. 
 
 8. by reason of the anointing] Recent, 
 commentators render “for a portion.” See 
 on Lev. vii. 35. 
 
 10. In the most holy place] Rather, 
 “among the most holy things;” as in iv. 4: 
 i.e. “As the most holy of things shalt thou 
 eat it.” Accordingly only the males of the 
 priestly families could eat of the things here spe- 
 cified. On the contrary, of the heave and wave 
 offerings describixl in the next verse, both males 
 and females of these families might partake. 
 
V. 12 21. 
 
 NUMBERS. XVIII. 
 
 wave offerings of the children of Is- 
 /'Lcv. lo. rael: I have given them unto '^thee, 
 and to thy sons and to thy daughters 
 with thee, by a statute for ever : 
 every one that is clean in thy house 
 shall eat of it. 
 
 < Hcb. 12 All the ^best of the oil, and 
 
 all the best of the wine, and of the 
 wheat, the flrstfruits of them which 
 they shall offer unto the Lord, them 
 have I given thee. 
 
 13 And whatsoever is first ripe in 
 the land, which they shall bring unto 
 the Lord, shall be thine; every one 
 that is clean in thine house shall 
 eat of it. 
 
 f Lev. 27, ‘^Everything devoted in Israel 
 
 shall be thine. 
 
 «fExod. 13. 13 Everything that openeth ^the 
 
 & 22. 29. matrix in all flesh, which they bring 
 unto the Lord, whether it he of men 
 chap. 3.13. Qj- beasts, shall be thine: neverthe- 
 less the firstborn of man shaft thou 
 surely redeem, and the firstling of 
 unclean beasts shaft thou redeem. 
 
 16 And those that are to be re- 
 deemed from a month old shaft thou 
 ^Exod. 30. according to thine estima- 
 
 Lev^27.2s. tion, for the money of five shekels, 
 47. ^ after the shekel of the sanctuary, 
 Ezek. 45 - ^v^hich ts twenty gerahs. 
 
 715 
 
 17 But the firstling of a cow, or 
 the firstling of a sheep, or the first- 
 lino; of a o-oat, thou shaft not re- 
 deem ; they are holy : thou shaft 
 sprinkle their blood upon the altar, 
 and shaft burn their fat for an offe.r- 
 ing made by fire, for a sweet savour 
 unto the Lord. 
 
 18 And the flesh of them shall be 
 thine, as the Avave breast and as the^Exod. 29. 
 right shoulder are thine. 
 
 19 All the heave offerings of the 
 holy things, which the children of 
 Israel offer unto the Lord, have I 
 given thee, and thy sons and thy 
 daughters with thee, by a statute 
 for ever: it is a covenant of salt 
 for ever before the Lord unto thee 
 and to thy seed with thee. 
 
 20 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Aaron, Thou shalt have no inhe- 
 ritance in their land, neither shalt 
 thou have any part among them : 
 
 ^I am thy part and thine inheritance ir Deut. 10. 
 among the children of Israel. | ^ 
 
 21 And, behold, I have given the 13. 
 children of Levi all the tenth in Ez’ek. ^.^. 
 Israel for an inheritance, for their 
 service which they serve, even the 
 service of the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation. 
 
 15 . surely redeem... redeenP^ A stronger 
 expression is intentionally used in reference to 
 the redemption of the firstborn of man than in 
 reference to that of unclean beasts. For the 
 rule as to the fonner admitted of no excep- 
 tion : the owner of the latter, if unwilling to 
 redeem, might destroy the beasts (Ex. xiii. 13, 
 xxxiv. 20). Usually of course he would re- 
 deem them, but in the case of a diseased or 
 maimed animal he might well be excused from 
 making a payment for that which, if redeem- 
 ed, would be worthless. As to the mode of 
 redemption of unclean beasts, it had been ori- 
 ginally enjoined that the firstling of an ass 
 should be redeemed with a lamb. But the 
 owner of the beast might not be always able to 
 provide a lamb, especially in the wilderness, 
 and the liability was accordingly commuted 
 (Lev. xxvii. 27). Into' all the details of this 
 the present ordinances do not enter. Their 
 object is not so much to prescribe accurately 
 to the people what should be paid, as to assign 
 to the priests their various revenues. 
 
 16 . according to thine estimatio?{\ Cf. Lev. 
 V. 15, xxvii. 2T, and notes. 
 
 18 . as the ^ave breast and as the right 
 shoulder are thine~\ This reference to the earlier 
 legislation of Ex. xxix. 26 — 28 (eventually 
 modified by Deut. xviii. 3) seems to indicate 
 that the ordinance in question belongs to a 
 comparatively early period of the years of 
 wandering. 
 
 19 . a covenant of salt] Cf. 2 Chron. xiii. 5. 
 Covenants were ordinarily cemented in the 
 East by the rites of hospitality ; of which 
 salt was the obvious token, entering as it does 
 into every article of diet. It indicates perpe- 
 tuity : cf. Lev. ii. 13, and note. 
 
 20. I am thy part and thine inheritance] 
 Cf. Deut. X. 9. 
 
 21 . all the tenth in Israel] Cf. Lev. xxvii. 
 .30 — 33- "The dedication of the tithe had how- 
 ever been handed down from patriarchal times. 
 See Deut. Introd. § iv. Abraham paid tithes 
 to Melchizedek: Jacob had promised the tithe 
 of all wherewith God blessed him if he should 
 return in peace to his father’s house. But 
 now first the Lord’s tithes are assigned to the 
 Levites for their support. The payment of tithes 
 
7i6 
 
 NUMBERS. XVIIL 
 
 [v. 2 2 32. 
 
 t Ileb. 
 io die. 
 
 22 Neither must the children of 
 Israel henceforth come nigh the ta- 
 bernacle of the congregation, lest they 
 bear sin, Und die. 
 
 23 But the Levites shall do the 
 service of the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation, and they shall bear their 
 iniquity: it shall be a statute for ever 
 throughout your generations, that a- 
 mong the children of Israel they have 
 no inheritance. 
 
 24. But th.e tithes of the children 
 of Israel, which they offer as an 
 heave offering unto the Lord, I have 
 given to the Levites to inherit : there- 
 fore I have said unto them. Among 
 the children of Israel they shall have 
 no inhcidtance. 
 
 25 And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, sayixUg, 
 
 26 Thus speak unto the Levites, 
 and say unto them, When ye take 
 of the children of Israel the tithes 
 which I have given you from them 
 for your inheritance, then ye shall 
 offer up an heave offering of it for 
 the Lord, even a tenth part of the 
 tithe. 
 
 27 And this your heave offering 
 
 shall be reckoned unto you, as though 
 it were the corn of the threshing- 
 floor, and as the fulness of the wine- 
 press. 
 
 28 Thus ye also shall offer an 
 heave offering unto the Lord of all 
 your tithes; which ye receive of the 
 children of Israel; and ye shall give 
 thereof the Lord’s heave offering to 
 Aaron the priest. 
 
 29 Out of all your gifts ye shall 
 offer every heave offering of the 
 Lord, of ail the Test thereof, even 'Heb. 
 the hallowed part thereof out of it. 
 
 30 Therefore thou shalt say unto 
 them. When ye have heaved the 
 best thereof from it, then it shall be 
 counted unto the Levites as the^ 
 increase of the threshingdoor, and as 
 the increase of the winepress. 
 
 31 And ye shall eat it in every 
 place, ye .and your households : for 
 it is your reward for your service in 
 the tabernacle of the congregation. 
 
 32 And ye shall bear no sin by 
 reason of it, when ye have heaved 
 from it the best of it: neither shall 
 ye pollute the holy things of the 
 children of Israel, lest ye die. 
 
 to them is recognized in Neh, x. 37, xii. 44 ; 
 Tobit i. 7. Whether the Levites received the 
 tithes of live stock as well as of produce seems 
 doubtful. In no passage is there distinct men- 
 tion of the former being theirs ; and as a large 
 number of animals must have been required 
 for the public sacrifices, it is probable that the 
 tithes of live stock were used for this purpose. 
 
 22. lest they bear sln.^ and die~\ Heb. 
 “ To bear sin, and die;” which would be the 
 consequence of their approach. 
 
 23 . bear their iniquity'] The words are 
 ambiguous. They probably refer to the ini- 
 (piity of the people ; who would, had tliey ap- 
 proached the tabernacle have fallen, from their 
 proneness to transgress, into overt acts of 
 offence. Against such a result they were, 
 through the ministrations of the Levites, mer- 
 cifully protected. Cf. n). i, and Lev. xix. 17. 
 
 24 . as a 7 i heanje offering] Here only 
 are tlie tithes described as a heave-offering ; 
 though in 'v. 26 the priestly tithes are also to 
 be dedicated to their purpose by the ceremony 
 of heaving them to the Lord. It is possible 
 that all that is m.eant is that the tithes, being 
 solemnly set apart for sacred purposes, be- 
 
 cam.e virtually a heave-offering, like the gifts 
 for the Tabernacle. Ex. xxv. 2. There is no 
 reason to think that the tithes were in fact 
 heaved or waved before the Lord, though they 
 were appropriated just as were those offerings 
 that were heaved or waved. 
 
 25 — 32 . Command as to the tithe of 
 the Levitical tithe. This command, as enjoin- 
 ing perquisites of Aaron and his family, is ad- 
 dressed to Moses as the head of the whole 
 nation, not to Aaron, who would be directly 
 interested in it. 
 
 27 . shall be reckoned unto yoii\ Or, by 
 you, as the same phrase means also at the 
 close of Ex. xii. 16. The Levites were, of 
 their tithes, to pay tithe to the priests, just as 
 other Israelites paid tithe to the Levites. 
 
 29 . Out of all your gifts] The spirit of 
 this law would extend to all the revenues of 
 the Levites, and we may thus assume that of 
 the increase of their cattle, as well as of their 
 tithes, a tithe was paid by them for the Lord’s 
 service. 
 
 32 . neither shall ye pollute, &c.] Rather, 
 and by not polluting the holy things 
 of the children of Israel, ye shall not 
 
V. I— 3-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XIX. 
 
 717 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 i The ivatc}' of separation made of the ashes of 
 a red heifer. 1 1 The law for the zcse of it in 
 purification of the tindea n. 
 
 A nd the Lord spake unto Moses 
 ^ and unto Aaron, saying, 
 
 2 This is the ordinance of the law 
 which the Lord hath commanded, 
 
 die. The words are words of comfort and 
 assurance ; and form a fitting conclusion to 
 the legislation of the chapter. 
 
 Chap. XIX. Ordinances respecting purifi- 
 cation from the uncleanness of death. 
 
 The association of death with sin (Gen. ii. 
 17) sufficiently explains the ideas on which 
 these ordinances are based. The principle that 
 death and all pertaining to it, as being the 
 manifestation and result of sin, are defiling, 
 and so lead to interruption of the living re- 
 lationship between God and His people, is 
 not now introduced for the first time, nor is 
 it at all peculiar to the Mosaic law. It was, 
 on the contrary, traditional amongst the Is- 
 raelites from the earliest times, is assumed in 
 various enactments made already (cf. v. 2, 
 ix. 6, sqq.; Lev. x. i, 7, xL 8, ii, 24, xxi, 
 I, sqq.), and is traceable in various forms 
 amongst many nations of antiquity; e.g. the 
 Egyptian priests were obliged to shun graves, 
 funerals and funeral feasts (Porph. ‘ de Abst."* 
 n. 5 c): the Persian Zendavesta has rules of 
 remarkable strictness and particularity on the 
 subject (cf. Biihr, ‘Symbol.’ II. 466, 467, reffi); 
 and these were even exceeded by the rules pre- 
 vailing amongst the Indians, both ancient and 
 modern (cf. Knobel, note in loc.') : like ideas 
 are found amongst the Romans (cf. Plutarch, 
 ‘Sulla,’ 35; Virgil, ‘H^in.’ vi. 228, sqq.; and 
 Festus, ‘ apud Kn.’ in loc. ; and Bilhr, ii. 471), 
 and Greeks (cf. Eurip. ‘ Alcest.’ 97, sqq., 
 
 ‘ Helen.’ 1450, sqq., ‘ Iph. Taur.’ 380, sqq.; 
 Thucyd. in. 104). 
 
 The tapu^ or uncleanness, regarded amongst 
 the Maofies of New Zealand as attaching to 
 the man who has handled the dead, is such that 
 not only can he not enter any house, or come 
 in contact with any person or thing, without 
 defiling it, but he may not even put forth his 
 hands to the food which he himself eats (see 
 ‘ Old New Zealand,’ by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 
 122 sqq.). 
 
 The rites of purifying prescribed amongst 
 these various nations trace points of similarity 
 to those laid down in this chapter ; and indeed 
 sprinklings and washings would naturally 
 form a part in them all (cf. ch. viii. 7). Moses 
 then adopted, here as elsewhere, existing and 
 ancient customs, with significant additions, as 
 helps in the spiritual education of his people. 
 
 The ordinance was probably given at this 
 time because the plague which happened (xvi. 
 
 VoL. I. 
 
 saying, Speak unto the children of 
 Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer 
 without spot, wherein is no blemish, 
 and upon which never came yoke : 
 
 3 And ye shall give her unto Ele- 
 azar the priest, that he may bring 
 her "’’forth without the camp, and'^Heb. 1 
 one shall slay her before his face : 
 
 46 — 50) about the matter of Korah had 
 spread the defilement ^ of death so widely 
 through the camp as to seem to require some 
 special measures of purification, more particu- 
 larly as the deaths through it were in an extra- 
 ordinary m.anner the penalty of sin. Occasion 
 is accordingly taken to introduce a new or- 
 dinance on the whole subject, which might 
 serve to re-assure the affrighted people at the 
 time, supply a ready means of relief from this 
 sort of uncleanness for the future, and by the 
 typical character of its new elements provide 
 a vehicle for important instruction as to a 
 more real Atonement afterward to be revealed. 
 That the ordinance of the red heifer in fact 
 produced a deep impression appears from its 
 introduction with characteristic variations into 
 the Koran, the second Sura of which is en- 
 titled ‘ ‘ the Heifer.” 
 
 1. unto Moses and unto Aaro 7 i\ Unto 
 Aaron as well as unto Moses, because the 
 ordinance was intended not merely for future 
 observance, but also for immediate necessities. 
 
 2. a red heifer~\ “Red, in order to 
 shadow forth man’s earthly body, even as the 
 name Adam bears allusion to the red earth of 
 which man’s body was fashioned” (Theodo- 
 ret, ‘ Qu. in Num.’ 35). Others less appositely 
 regard the colour as an emblem of life: others 
 again of sin (cf. Is. i. 18). The female sex of 
 the victim perhaps denoted that the offering 
 was only of secondary import ; it was an of- 
 fering not for actual sin, but only for cere- 
 monial defilement. 
 
 'without spot., wherein is no blemish'\ As 
 with sin-offerings generally, Lev. iv. 3. 
 
 upon which nea}er came yoke^ So here and 
 in Dent. xxi. 3, i S. vi. 7, in the case of female 
 victims. In that of male victims this condition 
 was not imposed : it can therefore hardly bear a 
 typical meaning. Female cattle were not com- 
 monly employed in ploughing, and were per- 
 haps therefore deemed to be marred if so used. 
 
 3 . unto Elea%ar'\ Cf. xvi. 37. The work 
 would necessarily require a priest ; yet as it 
 rendered him unclean for the day, the high- 
 priest was relieved of it. 
 
 without the camp'\ The defilement was 
 viewed as transferred to the victim that was 
 to be offered for its removal. Under these 
 circumstances the victim, like the defiled per- 
 sons themselves, would be removed outside the 
 camp. So too those that had to do with the 
 
 z z 
 
7i8 
 
 NUMBERS. XIX. [v. 4-12. 
 
 4 And Eleazar the priest shall take 
 of her blood with his finger, and 
 
 ^Heb. 9. ^sprinkle of her blood directly before 
 the tabernacle of the congregation 
 seven times: 
 
 5 And one shall burn the heifer in 
 ^ Exod. 29. his sight; ^her skin, and her flesh, 
 Ltv. 4. II, and her blood, with her dung, shall 
 
 he burn: 
 
 6 And the priest shall take cedar 
 wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and 
 cast it into the midst of the burning 
 of the heifer. 
 
 7 Then the priest shall wash his 
 clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh 
 in water, and afterward he shall come 
 into the camp, and the priest shall be 
 unclean until the even. 
 
 8 And he that burneth her shall 
 wash his clothes in water, and bathe 
 
 his flesh in water, and shall be un- 
 clean until the even. 
 
 9 And a man that is clean shall 
 gather up the ashes of the heifer, 
 and lay them up without the camp 
 in a clean place, and it shall be kept 
 for the congregation of the children 
 of Israel for a water of separation: 
 it is a purification for sin. 
 
 10 And he that gathereth the ashes 
 of the heifer shall wash his clothes, 
 and be unclean until the even: and 
 it shall be unto the children of 
 Israel, and unto the stranger that 
 sojourneth among them, for a statute 
 for ever. 
 
 1 1 'll He that toucheth the dead 
 body of any 'man shall be unclean 
 seven days. 
 
 12 He shall purify himself with 
 
 heifer were unclean until evening, just as if 
 they had touched a defiled man 22). The 
 Jewish traditionary practice, subsequently to 
 the building of the temple at Jerusalem, was 
 to slay the heifer on the Mount of Olives, 
 eastward from the temple across the valley of 
 the Kidron. Here the priest was able, through 
 the open eastern gate of the temple- court, to 
 behold the sanctuary in the direction of which 
 he was to sprinkle the heifer’s blood (y. 4). 
 The particular pollution to be remedied by 
 this ordinance was the indirect one resulting 
 from contact with tokens and manifestations 
 of sin, not the direct and personal one arising 
 from actual commission of sin. So tao the 
 sinless Antitype had to bear the reproach of 
 associating with sinners (St Lukev, 30, xv. 2). 
 And as the red heifer was expelled from the 
 precincts of the camp,’ so was the Saviour 
 cut off in no small measure during His Life 
 from the fellowship of the chief representa- 
 tives of the Theocracy, and put to death out- 
 side Jerusalem between two thieves. Cf. Heb. 
 xiii. II, 12. 
 
 5. her skty and her flesh, &c.] The 
 defilement, being external, extended to the 
 whole body of the animal : hence the propriety 
 of burning the victim entire and everything 
 connected with it. 
 
 6. cedar nvood, and hyssop, arid scarlet\ 
 As incase of leprosy; Lev. xiv. 4, 6, 49- 
 All thrt'e were associated with purification. 
 Cedar-wood, when burnt, gave forth an odour 
 regarded as counteractive to corruption and 
 death. Hence it was burnt at funerals, and 
 the resin of it was used in embalming. Plin. 
 ‘Nat. Hist.’ XVI. 21, 76, and xxiv. ii; 
 Herod, ii. 87. Hyssop was a well-known 
 
 detergent. The scarlet dye (which stands in 
 Lev. xiv. between the other two, and which 
 thus seems to have an emblematical meaning 
 not radically different from theirs) was em- 
 ployed in medicine for strengthening the heart. 
 It may also be viewed as pointing by its 
 colour 'to the healing blood of Christ. 
 
 9. nvater of separatiori] In viii. 7, the 
 water of purification from sin is in the He- 
 brew, “ water of sin.” So that which was 
 to remedy a state of legal separation is here 
 called “ water of separation.” 
 
 10 . he that gathereth the ashes'] The 
 ashes were to be gathered by one who had 
 taken no previous part in the work to be per- 
 formed, and so was still clean. _ But the 
 execution of his task rendered him equally 
 unclean with the others. For the defilement 
 of the people, previously transferred to the 
 heifer, was regarded as concentrated in the 
 ashes. The sprinkling of the ash-water upon 
 any unclean person was the Individual appli- 
 cation of that purification which had already 
 been provided, or rather effected, for all. 
 
 The provision for purification 
 from defilement is supplemented by a defi- 
 nite determination of various degrees of un- 
 cleanness. One practical effect of thus attach- 
 ing defilement to a dead body, to all that 
 touched it, &c., would be to insure early 
 burial, and to correct a practice not uncom- 
 mon in the Isast, of leaving the dead to be 
 devoured by the wild beasts. That these or- 
 dinances were promulgated in the wilderness 
 appears from the references to “the tent” in 
 • V . 14. It may be asked, therefore, how would 
 these directions be construed when the people 
 came to dwell in settled and more spacious 
 
V. 13— 1-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XIX. XX.. 
 
 719 
 
 it on the third day, and on the se- 
 venth day he shall be clean : but if 
 he purify not himself the third day, 
 then the seventh day he shall not 
 be clean. 
 
 13 Whosoever toucheth the dead 
 body of any man that is dead, and 
 purifieth not himself, defileth the 
 tabernacle of the Lord ; and that 
 soul shall be cut off fr^m Israel : 
 
 ' because the water of separation was 
 not sprinkled upon him, he shall be 
 unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon 
 him. 
 
 14 This is the law, when a man 
 dieth in a tent: all that come into 
 the tent, and all that is in the tent, 
 shall be unclean .seven days. 
 
 15 And every open vessel, which 
 hath no covering bound upon it, is 
 unclean. 
 
 16 And whosoever toucheth one 
 that is slain with a sword in the 
 open fields, or a dead body, or a 
 bone of a man, or a grave, shall be 
 unclean seven days. 
 
 1 7 And for an unclean person they 
 shall take of the ^ ashes of the 
 burnt heifer of purification for sin, 
 
 IwJ'wrt Tunning water shall be put 
 ten shall thereto in a vessel: 
 given. ^ clean person shall take 
 
 hyssop, and dip it in the water, and 
 sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon 
 all the vessels, and upon the persons 
 that were there, and upon him that 
 
 touched a bone, or one slain, or one 
 dead, or a grave : 
 
 19 And the clean person shall 
 sprinkle upon the unclean on the 
 third day, and on the seventh day: 
 and on the seventh day he shall pu- 
 rify himself, and wash his clothes, 
 and bathe himself in water, and shall 
 be clean at even. 
 
 20 But the man that shall be un- 
 clean, and shall not purify himself, 
 that soul shall be cut off from among 
 the congregation, because he hath 
 defiled the sanctuary of the Lord : 
 the water of separation hath not been 
 sprinkled upon him ; he is unclean. 
 
 21 And it shall be a perpetual 
 statute unto them, that he that 
 sprinkleth the water of separation 
 shall wash his clothes; and he that 
 toucheth the water of separation shall 
 be unclean until even. 
 
 22 And whatsoever the unclean 
 person toucheth shall be unclean ; and 
 the soul that toucheth it shall be un- 
 clean until even. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 I The children of Israel come to Zin, where 
 Miriam dieth. 2 They murmur for want of 
 water. 7 Moses smiting the rock bi'ingcth 
 foi'th water at Meribah. 14 Moses at Kadesk 
 desireth passage through Edom, which is de- 
 nied him. 22 At mount Hor Aaron resigneth 
 his place to Eleazar, and dieth. 
 
 T hen came the children of Is- 
 rael, even the whole congrega- 
 
 abodes ? Michaelis hazards- an opinion that 
 the defilement would only reach to that apart- 
 ment of the house in which the death had 
 occurred. The LXX., with whom modern 
 Jewish usage coincides, replacing the word 
 “tent” by “house” (oIklo), imply that what 
 was law for the one was law also for the other. 
 
 Chap. XX. This and the next chapter 
 narrate the journey of the people from Ka- 
 desh round Mount Seir to the heights of Pis- 
 •gah, near the Jordan, and the various inci- 
 dents connected with that journey. A list of 
 the several marches is given xxxiii. 37 — 41. 
 They formed the third and last stage of the 
 progress of Israel from Sinai to Canaan, and 
 took place in the fortieth year of the Exodus. 
 
 The incidents are apparently not narrated 
 in a strictly chronological order, for the at- 
 
 tack of king Arad (xxi. i) no doubt took 
 place during the march from Kadesh to Mount 
 Hor (xxxiii. 37 — 40), and before the host 
 had by turning away southwards (xx. ai, 
 xxi. 4) relieved the king from his apprehen- 
 sions. Indeed the leading purpose of ch. xx. 
 seems to be to narrate the loss by the people 
 of their original leaders before their entrance 
 into the land of promise. On the chronology 
 of this period see Introd. § 3. 
 
 1 . even the qvbole congregation'] The 
 A.V. rightly marks the expression as em- 
 phatic by inserting the word “even.” The 
 words occur before in xiii. 26, and xiv. i, at 
 the commencement of the tedious period of 
 penal wandering. Their use again now serves 
 to mark its close, and points to a re-assem- 
 bling of the people for the purpose of at last 
 
 Z Z 2 
 
NUMBERS. XX. [v. i. 
 
 tion, into the desert of Zin in the in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, 
 first month : and the people abode and was buried there. 
 
 resuming the advance to the promised land. 
 The long 3 8 years w^hich intervene are almost 
 a blank (see lutrod. § 2) ; they can hardly be 
 said to form a portion of the history of God’s 
 people at all, for the covenant though not 
 cancelled was in abeyance. A veil is accord- 
 ingly thrown by Moses over this dreary inter- 
 val, during which the rebellious generation 
 was wasting away. But the words before us 
 seem to hint, what is in itself natural and 
 likely, that the “congregation” was during 
 these years broken up. No doubt round the 
 Tabernacle there continued an organized camp 
 consisting of the Levites and others, which 
 was moved from time to time up and down 
 the country. But there was no longer any 
 reason for the coherence of the whole people 
 in mass, and we may accordingly believe that 
 they were scattered over the face of the Vv^ilder- 
 ness of Paran, and led a nomadic life as best 
 suited the pasturage of the cattle. It is thus 
 that the modern Bedouins maintain very large 
 flocks and herds in these same deserts. “On 
 one occasion,” says Mr J. L. Porter (cited in 
 ‘ Mosaic Records” by Mr B. B. Rogers, p. 67, 
 note, 2nd Edit. 1865), “I rode for two suc- 
 cessive days through the flocks of a section of 
 the Anazeh tribe, and the encampment of the 
 chief was then at a noted fountain, thirty 
 miles distant, at right angles to my course ; 
 yet the country was swaiTning with men and 
 women, boys and girls, looking after the 
 cattle.” He adds with special reference to 
 the Israelites, “The camp would be a mere 
 nucleus. Yet as being the head-quarters 
 of the nation, containing the I'abcrnacle, the 
 priests, and the chiefs, and forming the rally- 
 ing point for the warriors, it was the only place 
 with which the sacred historian is concerned.” 
 Thus the encampments named xxxiii. 18 — 36 
 would be various spots at which in the course 
 of tht^se years the 'I'abernacle was for a time 
 pitched ; and possibly in u. 22, “ Kehelathah” 
 (“assembling”), and ‘v. 25, “Makheloth” 
 (“assemblies”), may be names bestowed be- 
 cause of some extraordinary though temporary 
 gatherings of the Israelites there. 
 
 We can hardly doubt that daring tfte year’s 
 sojourn at Sinai there would be a dispersion 
 of the people for the purpose of foraging; and 
 it is obvious how ])ertinent are the above con- 
 siderations, based as they are upon the sugges- 
 tions of the text and the known habits of 
 oriental nations, to the difliculties which have 
 been raised as to the means of subsistence for 
 the multitudes of Israel in the wilderness. 
 
 Although it is no part of the plan of Scrip- 
 ture to give details on this subject, yet one or 
 two incidental notices throw light upon it. It 
 is evident e.g. from Deut. ii. 26 — 29, that the 
 Israelites had traflic in provisions with sur- 
 
 rounding tribes; indeed the regular highway 
 of the caravans from the East to Egypt, and 
 •vice ^!erja, lay across the Desert of the 
 Wandering; and from Ps. Ixxiv. 14 it appears 
 to have been the belief of a later generation 
 that fish were occasionally at least to be had, 
 no doubt from the gulf of Akabah, on which 
 was the encampment, xxxiii. 35, and where it 
 may have been for years. (Cf. Hengstenb. on 
 Ps. Ixxiv. ; Rogers, ‘ Mosaic Rec.’ p. 134.) 
 Nothing too is better ascertained than the fact 
 that the resources of the whole district were in 
 ancient times vastly greater than they now are. 
 The traces of a population, fertility, and wealth, 
 that have long passed away, are found by 
 every traveller; cf. Burckhardt, pp. 469, 495, 
 &c. ; Stanley, ‘Sinai,’ pp. 24, sqq., and several 
 authorities there quoted ; Ewald, ‘ Hist, of 
 Israel,’ Vol. 1. p. 620 and note (English transl. 
 by Martineau); and see further in Introd. to 
 Exodus, pp. 245, 246. The language used in 
 Deut. i. 19, viii. 15, &c., respecting the hard- 
 ships of the journey through the wilderness, 
 belongs more particularly to the latest marches 
 in the fortieth year through the Arabah (see on 
 xxi. 4), rather than to the whole period of the 
 wanderings; and is such as would naturally 
 suggest itself to one who entered after toil- 
 some wayfaring upon the fertile pastures of 
 Gilead and Bashan. 
 
 The Israelites also had doubtless these 
 natural resources supplemented where needful 
 by miraculous aid. We can hardly think that 
 the manna, or the occasional bestowal of 
 quails, or of water, which are actually recorded 
 were the only facts of the kind that took 
 place. Rather are those facts mentioned as 
 examples, selected because of some special in- 
 struction wrapped up in the particular in- 
 stances. The whole guidance of Israel through 
 the wilderness is constantly referred to God’s 
 special and immediately superintending care: 
 Deut. viii. 4, sqq., xxix. 5; Neh. ix. 21; Is. 
 Ixiii. II — 14; Amos ii. 10, &c. It is pro- 
 bable indeed, and seems remarkably suggested 
 by the language of many later references, that 
 the miraculous supply of water for the people 
 and their cattle was, as in this ch., 'v%\ 8, ii, 
 and earlier at Rephidim on the march to Sinai 
 (Ex. xvii. I sqq.), so elsewhere, one of God’s 
 frequent mercies to them; cf. Judges v. 4 sqq.; 
 Ps. Ixviii. 7 sqq. Compare also the glowing 
 language of Isaiah, evidently foretelling God’s 
 future graciousness to His people in terms* 
 borrowed from the past in chs. xxxv. i, sqq., 
 xli. 17, sqq., xliii. 16, sqq., xlix. 9 — 10, and 
 Hos. ii. 14, sqq. This whole subject is well 
 handled by Mr Rogers, ‘Mos. Records,’ pp. 
 142, sqq., wlio illustrates also from various 
 travellers “the magical effect” of a supply of 
 water in any part of the peninsula. It must 
 
numbers. XX. 
 
 2 And there was no water for the 
 congregation: and they gathered them- 
 selves together against Moses and 
 against Aaron. 
 
 3 And the people chode with Mo-*- 
 ses, and spake, saying, Would God 
 
 a^chap. II. that we had died "when our brethren 
 died before the Lord ! 
 
 *Exod.i 7 . 4 And ^why have ye brought up 
 the congregation of the Lord into 
 this wilderness, that we and our cat- 
 tle should die there ? 
 
 5 And wherefore have ye made us 
 to come up out of Egypt, to bring 
 us in unto this evil place? it is no 
 place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, 
 or of pomegranates \ neither is there 
 any water to drink. 
 
 6 And Moses and Aaron went from 
 the presence of the assembly unto 
 the door of the tabernacle of the 
 
 congregation, and they fell upon their 
 faces: and the glory of the Lord 
 appeared unto them. 
 
 7 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 8 Take the rod, and gather thou 
 the assembly together, thou, and 
 Aaron thy brother, and speak ye 
 unto the rock before their eyes ; and 
 It shall give forth his water, and 
 thou shalt bring forth to them water 
 out of the rock : so thou shalt give the 
 congregation and their beasts drink. 
 
 9 And Moses took the rod from 
 before the Lord, as he commanded 
 him. 
 
 TO And Moses and Aaron gather- 
 ed the congregation together before 
 the rock, and he said unto them. 
 Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch 
 you water out of this rock ? 
 
 be added too that the Israelites, from their so- 
 journ in Egypt, were familiar with artificial 
 irrigation, and well able to husband and turn 
 to account all available supplies of water 
 whether ordinary or extraordinary. ’ 
 
 Yet tliough God’s extraordinary bounty 
 was thus still vouchsafed to them, it is pro- 
 bable that this period was, amongst the perish- 
 ii^S^ geneiation at all events, one of great reli- 
 gious declension, or even apostasy. To it must 
 no doubt be referred such passages as Ezek. 
 XX. 15 sqq.; Amos v. 25 sqq. ; Hosea ix. 10, 
 into the desert of Zin-] Cf. x. la, xxxiv. 3, 
 sqq. and notes. The place of encampment 
 was no doubt adjacent to the spring of Kadesh. 
 On the former occasion they probably en- 
 camped on the more level ground of the wil- 
 derness of Paran to the west ; but now, for some 
 reason unknown to us, on the hills of the wild- 
 einess of Zin to the east. Hence perhaps the 
 difference of the terms used in reference to these 
 two encampments at Kadesh (cf. xii. 16, xiii. 
 26; also xxxiii. 36, with /A 18, and note). 
 
 the first month~\ Of the fortieth year of 
 the Exodus; see Introduction, § 3. 
 
 and the people abode in Kadesb~\ These 
 words are, perhaps, through some private 
 theory of the history of the wanderings, ig- 
 nored by Josephus and by the later Targums. 
 Put being represented in the older versions, 
 they are doubtless genuine. 
 
 Miriam died there ^ and <vjas buried there\ 
 Eusebius mentions that in his day her sepul- 
 chre was still shewn, apparently either at 
 Petra or not far from it (‘Onom.’ apud 
 Hieron. s.v. Cades-barne). No sepulchre is 
 
 now shewn as Miriam’s either at Petra or else- 
 where; and Josephus (‘Ant.’ iv. 4. § 6) places 
 her sepulchre on a mountain named Zin? 
 
 2—6. Complaints of the people for want 
 of water. The spring of Kadesh (cf. on xiii 
 26), near which they were probably encamped 
 was no doubt wholly insufficient for the wants 
 of so great a concentrated multitude. The 
 language of the murmurers is noteworthy. 
 It has the air of a traditional remonstrance 
 handed down from the last generation. Cf 
 xiv. 2, sqq.; Ex. xvii. 3. 
 
 6. they fell upon their faces'] Cf. xiv. 5, &c. 
 
 8. _ Take the rod]_ Not the budding rod 
 of xvii. 5 , but that with which the miracles in 
 Egypt had been wrought (Ex. vii. 8, sqq., to 
 sqq viii. 5, sqq., &c.), and which had been 
 used on a similar occasion at Rephidim, Ex. 
 XVII. 5, sqq. This rod, as the memorial of so 
 many Divine incerpositions, was naturally laid 
 up m the Tabernacle, and is accordingly n, g- 
 described ,^now as taken by Moses “’from 
 before the Lord.” 
 
 the rock] Heh. sela, cliff; a different word 
 trom zur, by which the “rock” in Horeb is 
 designated. 
 
 10. ye rebels] See note at end of chapter. 
 must ^ve fetch, &c.J The later Targumists, 
 recent comm, render, “Can w^e 
 fetch &c. ; and view the words as words of 
 doubt. But other passages of Scripture fcf 
 xxvii. 14; Deut. xxxii. 51, 5:,; Pg. cvi. 33) 
 do not bear out the view that it was in doubt 
 U V succouring power that the “un- 
 
 belief (-U. 12) of Moses and Aaron con- 
 
 721 
 
722 
 
 t Ps. 106. 
 
 32. &C. 
 il That is, 
 Strife. 
 
 NUMBERS. XX. [v, 11-17. 
 
 1 1 And Moses lifted up his hand, 
 and with his rod he smote the rock 
 twice: and the water came out abun- 
 dantly, and the congregation drank, 
 and their beasts also. 
 
 12 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses and Aaron, Because ye be- 
 lieved me not, to sanctify me in 
 the eyes of the chiluren of Israel, 
 therefore ye shall not bring this con- 
 gregation into the land which I have 
 
 given them. ^ t • 
 
 13 ^This is the water of "Meri- 
 bah ; because the children of Israel 
 strove with the Lord, and he was 
 sanctified in them. 
 
 14 ^ And Moses sent messen- 
 gers from Kadesh unto the king of 
 
 sisted; nor is it likely that they who had 
 wrought the miracle at Rephidim would be 
 staggered when bidden to do a like thing 
 again. The A. V. has therefore rightly re- 
 tained the older interpretation. 
 
 Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, 
 
 Thou knbwest all the travel that hath 
 t befallen us; /S... 
 
 15 How our fathers went down 
 into Egvpt, and we have dwdt in 
 Egypt a long time; and the il^gyp- 
 tians vexed us, and our fathers : 
 
 16 And when we cried unto the 
 Lord, he heard our voice, and sent 
 an angel, and hath brought us forth 
 out of Egypt: and, behold, we are 
 in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost 
 of thy border: 
 
 17 Let us pass, I pray thee, 
 through thy country: we will not 
 pass through the fields, or through 
 the vineyards, neither will we drink 
 of the water of the wells: we will 
 
 and he <was sanctified in tkeni] An allusion 
 doubtless to the name ‘‘Kadesh” (holy), 
 which though not now bestowed, acquired 
 a new significance from the fact that^ God 
 here indicated His own sanctity, punishing 
 Moses and Aaron who had trespassed against 
 
 11. he smote the rock t<zvice'\ The com- 
 mand, -u. 8, was “Speak ye unto the rock.” The 
 act of smiting, and especially with two strokes, 
 indicates violent irritation on the part of 
 Moses; as does also his unseemly mode of 
 addressing the people; “Hear now, ye rebels.'’ 
 The form too of the question, ‘-must &c.,’ 
 directs the people not, as ought to have been 
 the case, to God as their deliverer, but to 
 Moses and Aaron personally. In fact the 
 faithful servant of God, worn out by the 
 reiterated perversities of the people, at last 
 breaks down ; and in the actual discharge of 
 his duty as God’s representative before Israel, 
 acts unworthily of the great function enti listed 
 to him. Thus Moses did not “sanctify God 
 in the eyes of the children of Israel.” Aaion 
 might have checked the intemperate words 
 and acts of Moses, and did not. Hence God 
 punishes both by withdrawing them fiom 
 their work for Him, and handing over its 
 accomplishm.ent to another. 
 
 13 . the nvater of Merihah'] i.e. “Strife.” 
 The place is called “xMeribah in Kadesh,]’ 
 xxvii. 14, and “ .Meribah-Kadesh,” Dent, xxxii. 
 5T, to distinguish it from the “Meribah” of 
 Ex. xvii. 2, sipp 'Ehe fact of this addition to 
 the common name, and the diverse circum- 
 stances of the two cases, shew that we have 
 not here another version of the same occur- 
 rence; nor in forty years is it surprising that 
 scarcity of water should be repeatedly recorded 
 in the annals of the wanderings through the 
 wilderness. Indeed the same want is men- 
 tioned again in the very next ch., -u. 5. 
 
 it. 
 
 14 . Cf. Judg. xi. 16, 17. It appears 
 from comparing xx. i with xxxiii. ^8, that 
 the ho.st must have remained in Kadesh some 
 three or four months. No doubt time was 
 required for re-organization. It may be also | 
 that they proposed, as 38 years previously,' to | 
 invade Canaan from this quarter, but were | 
 prevented by obstacles of which they had for 
 a time reason to hope for the removal. The . 
 passage of Egyptian troops through the west | 
 and south of Canaan might be such an obstacle. | 
 Eventually however they were, for reasons 
 which we can but conjecture, moved round to 
 the eastern frontier, through the territory of 
 Moab. In order to gain the banks of Jordan 
 by the shortest route they had to march nearly 
 due east from Kadesh, and pass through the 
 heart of the Edomitish mountains. These are 
 lofty and precipitous, traversed by two or 
 three narrow defiles, of which one (the Wady 
 Ghuweir) only is practicable for an army. 
 Hence the necessity of the request 2;. 17. ; 
 
 Thus saith] Cf. Deut. ii. 4, and reff. j 
 
 thy brother] An appeal to the Edomites to j 
 remember and renew the old kindnesses of | 
 Jacob and Esau, Gen. xxxiii. 1—17* 
 
 It appears from Judg. xi. 17 that a similar 
 request was addressed to the Moabites. 
 
 16 . an angel] Cf. Ex. xiv. 19. The 
 term is to be understood as importing gene- 
 rally the supernatural guidance under which 
 Israel was. 
 
 a city in the uttermost of thy border] On ' 
 Kadesh see note at end of ch. xiii. ; 
 
 I 
 
 j 
 
V. 18—29.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XX: 
 
 723 
 
 go by the king’s high way, we will 
 not turn to the right hand nor to 
 the left, until we have passed thy 
 borders. 
 
 18 And Edom said unto him. Thou 
 shalt not pass by me, lest I come out 
 against thee with the sword. 
 
 19 And the children of Israel said 
 unto him. We will go by the high 
 way ; and if I and my cattle drink 
 of thy water, then I will pay for it : 
 I will only, without doing any thing 
 else^ go through on my feet. 
 
 20 And he said. Thou shalt not 
 go through. And Edom came out 
 against 'him wdth much people, and 
 with a strong hand. 
 
 21 Thus Edom refused to give 
 Israel passage through his border: 
 wherefore Israel turned away from 
 him. 
 
 22 ^ And the children of Israel, 
 even the whole congregation, jour- 
 
 ^chap.33. 2ieyed from ‘'^Kadesh, and came unto 
 mount Hor. 
 
 23 And the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 ses and Aaron in mount Hor, by the 
 coast of the land of Edom, saying. 
 
 24 Aaron shall be gathered unto 
 his people: for he shall not enter 
 into the land which I have given 
 unto the children of Israel, because 
 
 ye rebelled against my ^ word at the ^ Heb. 
 water of Meribah. fnotcth. 
 
 25 “^Take Aaron and Eleazar his ^^hap. 33. 
 son, and bring them up unto mount Deut. 32. 
 Hor : 
 
 26 And strip Aaron of his gar- 
 
 ments, and put them upon Eleazar 
 his son : and Aaron shall be ga- 
 thered his people^ and shall die 
 
 there. 
 
 27 And Moses did as the Lord 
 commanded : and they went up into 
 mount Hor in the sight of ail the 
 congregation. 
 
 28 And Moses stripped Aaron of 
 his garments, and put them upon 
 Eleazar his son; and Aaron died Deut. 10. 
 there in the top of the mount: and & 32. 50. 
 Moses and Eleazar came down from 
 
 the mount. 
 
 29 And when all the congrega- 
 tion saw that Aaron was dead, they 
 mourned for Aaron thirty days, even 
 all the house of Israel. 
 
 17. by the king's high <^vay\ Heb. “by 
 the king’s way.” In 19 the word used 
 (mesillaJj) denotes a causeway or raised road, 
 adapted for military purposes. To such the 
 name “imperial road” (glerh es- sultan') is in 
 the East still often given. Moses doubtless 
 sought a passage by the Wady Ghuweir, 
 leading eastward through the heart of the 
 mountains of Edom to the table-land above ; 
 see on 14, This valley has still excellent 
 pasture and many springs. 
 
 20. And Edom came out against him'\ 
 The Israelites, without awaiting at Kadesh 
 the return of their ainba,ssadors, commenced 
 their eastward march. At the tidings of their 
 approach the EMomites mustered their forces 
 to oppose them ; and on crossing the Arabah 
 they found their ascent through the mountains 
 barred. The notice of this is inserted here 
 to complete the narrative; but in order of 
 time it comes after the march of -u. 22. 
 
 22. mount Hor] On the name see Note at 
 end of chapter. The topographical remark 
 in 'u. 23, that this mountain is “by the coast” 
 (/. e. border) “of the land of Edom” (xxxiii. 
 37), the authority of Josephus (‘Ant.’ iv. 4. 
 7), and constant tradition identify Mount Hor 
 as the modern Jebel Harun, situated on the 
 
 eastern side of the Arabah, and close to Petra. 
 This striking mountain, rising on a dark red 
 bare rock, to a height of near 5000 feet above 
 the Mediterranean, is remarkable far and near 
 for its two summits, on one of which is still 
 shown a small square building, crowned with 
 a dome, called the Tomb of Aaron (Stanley, 
 ‘S. and P.’ p. 86, Ritter, I. 448, Eng. Transl.). 
 The host w^as doubtless encamped in the 
 Arabah below (at a place called Moseroth or 
 Mosera, xxxiii. 30; Deut. x. 6), whilst Aaron 
 and his companions ascended the mountain 
 “in the sight of the congregation” (ru. 27). 
 Though Hor unquestionably lay withih the 
 territory of Edom, yet there could be no un- 
 friendly trespass in the mere ascent of its 
 barren heights by the three leaders of the host, 
 especially whilst a friendly reply to their 
 peaceful message (“u. 14), was expected. 
 
 26. of his garments] The priestly gar- 
 ments, wherewith he had invested him, Lev. 
 viii. 7 — 9. 
 
 put the 7 n upon Eleazar] By way of solemn 
 transference of Aaron’s office to him, cf. 
 I Kings xix. 19. 
 
 27. in the sight of all the congregation] 
 The congregation could not however witness 
 
NUMBERS. XXI. 
 
 [V.I. 
 
 the actual transaction on the mountain-top. 
 Thus in his death as in his life (ch. xvii.) 
 is Aaron's dignity guarded by God. The 
 transference of his office to his son, at the 
 command of God and by the hand of Moses, 
 sets forth in act the will of God for the con- 
 tinuance of the High Priesthood, notwith- 
 
 standing the mortality of its successive in- 
 heritors (Hebr. vii. 23); and also its subordi- 
 nation to him who came invested with direct 
 authority from God. 
 
 29 . Aaron <voas dead'\ Cf. xxxiii, 37 — 39 ; 
 Deut. X. 6. 
 
 NOTES on Chap. -xx. to, 22. 
 
 10. Heb. □'"IfOn. This is probably the word 
 used by our Lord in the Sermon on the 
 Mount, St Matt. v. 20, and rendered rather 
 -^fter the sound than the sense by the Greek 
 ixcape. For the verb HID seems to bra word 
 designed, like murmur, and the German “mur- 
 ren,” to echo its own sense; and to mean in 
 in the first place “to complain fretfully;” 
 hence “to be refractory,” “to rebel,” as in 
 -v. 24 of this chapter. The words Marah and 
 Meribah are cognate. 
 
 22. Hor has been immiemorially treated as a 
 proper name, yet it is probably only an archaic 
 form of “in, the common Hebrew term for 
 “mountain” (Gesen., Fiirst. sub. v,). Hence 
 it is applied, xxxiv. 7, to a summit of Mount 
 
 Lebanon, where the L>XX. renders ad 'verhum^ 
 TO opos TO opos. It affords too the only ex- 
 ample in the Bible in which the proper name 
 comes first ; for “ Hor, the mountain,” would 
 exhibit the order of the words in the original. 
 It is probable that the proper import of the 
 expression “inn nn is simiply “summit of the 
 mountain;” as is noted by Jerome (‘ Ep. ad 
 Fabiolam’) in remarking upon this passage of 
 Numbers: “Legi potest, Ascendit Aaron sa- 
 cerdos in montis montem.” So Jarchi in loc. 
 “ Mons fuit super montem, veluti pomum par- 
 vum super pomum magnum.” Mount Hor 
 in fact ‘ ‘ rises like a huge castellated building 
 from a lower base” (Stanley, ‘S. and P.’ p. 86). 
 The mountain intended xxxiv. 7 was probably 
 one of similar outline. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 I Israel with some loss destroy the Canaanites 
 at Hor mail. 4 The people nnirtmiriiig are 
 plagued 701 th fiery serpents. 7 'They repent- 
 ing are healed by a brasen serpent. 10 Sundry 
 journeys of the Isi'aelites. 2 1 Sihon is over- 
 come, 33 and Og. 
 
 AND when "king Arad the Ca- 
 iiaanite, which dwelt in the 
 south, heard tell that Israel came 
 by the way of the spies ; then he 
 fought against Israel, and took some 
 of them prisoners. 
 
 Chap. XXL 1. king Arad the Canaanitc~\ 
 Rather, “the Canaanite, the king of 
 Arad.” See on xiv. 45. Arad stood on a small 
 hill, now called Tel-Arad (Rob. ii. loi, 201), 
 20 miles south of Hebron. (Euseb. ‘Chiom.’ 
 s. V. 'Apap,a). Human habitations have now 
 disappeared from the spot ; but a ruined 
 reservoir remains, and fragments of pottery are 
 still ^ound there. 
 
 in the soutJj\ See on xiii. 17, 22. 
 
 by the avay of the spies'] i. e. Through the 
 desert of Zin, the route which the spies sent 
 out by Mo.ses 38 years before bad adopted; cf. 
 xiii. 21. On the expression, which is not free 
 from difficulty, see note at end of chapter. 
 
 he fought against Israel] This, as has been 
 already observed (cf. xx. i, and note), can 
 hardly have taken place after the death of 
 Aaron. ''Fhe king of Arad cannot be supposed 
 to have waited until the host had marched more 
 than sixty miles away from his borders to 
 iNIount Hor, and was in full march further 
 away, before attacking them ; nor can the 
 
 Israelites, on the other hand, have laid aside 
 their journey towards Canaan, retraced their 
 steps into the wilderness of Zin, and returaed 
 to Kadesh in order to invade Arad, which lay 
 north of that place. The attack of the king 
 was most probably made just when the camp 
 broke up from Kadesh, and the ultimate 
 direction of the march was not as yet pro- 
 nounced. The words, “when the king . . . 
 heard tell that Israel came by the way of the 
 spies,” seem to hint that the king of Arad 
 apprehended that the invasion of Canaan would 
 be attempted from the same quarter as before, 
 xiv. 40 — 45, and determined to take the offen- 
 sive, and try to drive back his enemies ere 
 they reached his teriitory. The insult was no 
 doubt avenged as soon as the host was ready 
 for action. The order of the narrative in these 
 chapters, as occasionally elsewhere in this book 
 (cf. on ix. I, &;c.), is not that of time, but of 
 subject-matter; and the war against Arad is 
 introduced here as the first of the series of 
 victories gained under Moses, which the his- 
 torian now takes in hand to narrate. 
 
 t 
 
V. 2—7.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXI. 
 
 725 
 
 2 And Israel vowed a vow unto 
 the Lord, and said, If thou wilt 
 indeed deliver this people into my 
 hand, then I will utterly destroy their 
 cities. 
 
 3 And the Lord hearkened to the 
 voice of Israel, and delivered up. 
 the Canaanites ; and they utterly 
 destroyed them and their cities: and 
 
 II That is, he called the name of the place " Hor- 
 
 Utterde- 1 
 si ruction, mail. 
 
 4 And they journeyed from 
 mount Hor by the way of the Red 
 sea, to compass the land of Edom: 
 
 and the soul of the people was much 
 •I discouraged because of the way. n Or, 
 
 5 And the people spake against 
 God, and against Moses, Where- 
 fore have ye brought us up out of 
 Egypt to die in the wilderness ? for 
 there is no bread, neither is there 
 
 any water; and ‘^our soul loatheth ^ chap, n, 
 this light bread. 
 
 6 And “^the Lord sent fiery ser- 
 pents among the people, and they ^ Cor. lo. 
 bit the people; and much people of^* 
 
 Israel died. 
 
 7 ^ Therefore the people came 
 
 3 . he called the name of the place'] Render^ 
 the name of the place was called. The 
 transitive verb here is, by a common Hebrew 
 idiom, equivalent to an impersonal one. 
 
 Hormah] i.e. “Ban.” On the site of this 
 place see.xiv. 45, and note. In Judges i. 17, 
 we read that the men of Judah and Simeon 
 “slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, 
 and utterly destroyed it and further, that “the 
 name of the city was called Hormah.” But 
 it does not follow that the name “Hormah” 
 was first bestowed in consequence of the de- 
 struction of the place in the time of the J udges, 
 and that in Numbers its occurrence is a sign 
 of a post-Mosaic date of composition. The 
 text of Num. xxi. 3 informs us that this 
 aggression of the king of Arad was repelled, 
 and avenged by the capture and sack of his 
 cities; and that the Israelites “banned” them 
 (cf. Lev. xxvii. a 8, 29). But it was not the 
 plan of the Israelites in the time of Moses to 
 remain in this district. They therefore marched 
 away south-eastward; and no doubt for the 
 time the Canaanites resumed possession, and 
 restored the ancient name (Zephath). But 
 Joshua again conquered the king of this dis- 
 trict, and finally in the time of the early 
 Judges the ban of Moses and his contem- 
 poraries was fully executed. We have there- 
 fore in the passage before us the history of 
 the actual origin of the name “Hormah.” 
 
 4 . And they journeyed] Their direct 
 route to Moab through the valleys of Edom 
 being closed against them (xx. 20, 21), they 
 were now compelled to seek a circuitous 
 one by marching round the mountain fast- 
 nesses. Their course lay down the Arabah ; 
 between the limestone cliffs of the Tih on the 
 west, and the granite range of Mount Seir on 
 the east, until, a few hours north of Akaba 
 (Ezion-Geber) the Wady Ithm opened to 
 them a gap in the hostile mountains, allowed 
 them to turn to their left, and to march north- 
 wards towards Moab (Dent. ii. 3). Cf. Ritter, 
 ‘S. and P.’ Vol. I. p. 75 (Clark’s Transl.). 
 
 They were thus for some days (see on xxii. i) 
 in the Arabah, a mountain plain of loose 
 sand, gravel, and detritus of granite, which 
 though sprinkled with low shrubs, especially 
 near the mouths of the wadys and the courses 
 of the winter-torrents, furnishes extremely 
 little either of food or water, and is moreover 
 often troubled by sand-stoims from the shore 
 of the gulf (see Ritter, i. 53 sqq. Eng. Transl.). 
 Elence “the soul of the people was much dis- 
 couraged because of the way.” 
 
 5 . this light bread] i. e. this vile, con- 
 temptible bread. The Hebrew word is derived 
 from a root signifying “to be light,” and so 
 “to be mean,” “despised,” &c. Cf. the 
 Horatian “ et spondere levi pro paupere,” 
 ‘ A. P.’ 423 
 
 6. fiery serpents] The epithet (Dent, 
 
 viii. 15, Is. xiv. 29, xxx. 6) denotes the in- 
 flammatory effect of their bite. So in Greek 
 writers we read of the (Nicander, 
 
 ‘Theriaca,’ 334), a poisonous snake whose 
 bite caused intense thirst; of the nprjo-Tijp and 
 the Kavaojv (^Elian, ‘Nat. An.’ vi. 51), names 
 which point in like manner to fever, swelling, 
 and inflammation. The peninsula of Sinai, 
 and not least, the Arabah, abounds in venom- 
 ous reptiles of various kinds, which may 
 well be described in such ternis. V. Schu- 
 bert travelling in this district remarks: “In 
 the afternoon they brought us a very mottled 
 snake of large size, marked with fiery red 
 spots and wavy stripes, which belonged to the 
 most poisonous species, as the formation of 
 its teeth clearly showed. According to the 
 Bedouins, these snakes, which they greatly 
 dreaded, were very common in that neigh- 
 bourhood,” II. 406: see also Burckhardt, p. 
 499. Alexander in crossing Gedrosia lost 
 many men through the serpents which sprang 
 upon those passing by from the sand and 
 brushwood (Strabo xv. 723). Strabo also 
 remarks the dangers of mis kind to which 
 travellers in the Peninsula of Sinai were ex- 
 posed (xvi. 759). 
 
726 
 
 NUMBERS. XXL 
 
 [v. 8—13. 
 
 to Moses, and said, We have sinned, 
 for we have spoken against the Lord, 
 and against thee ; pray unto the 
 Lord, that he take away the ser- 
 pents from us. And Moses prayed 
 for the people. 
 
 8 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 Make thee a fiery serpent, and set 
 it upon a pole : and it shall come to 
 pass, that every one that is bitten, 
 2 Kings when he looketh upon it, shall live. 
 johJs. 14. 9 And ^Moses made a serpent of 
 
 brass, and put it upon a pole, and 
 it came to pass, that if a serpent had 
 bitten any man, when he beheld the 
 serpent of brass, he lived. 
 
 10 ^ And the children of Israel set 
 forward, and ^pitched in Oboth. 43.^^^' 
 
 1 1 And they journeyed from O- 
 both, and pitched at " Ije-abarim, in ii^r, 
 the wilderness which is before Moab, Abarim. 
 toward the sunrising. 
 
 12 H From thence they removed, 
 and pitched in the valley of Zared. 
 
 8. Make thee a fiery serpent] i.e. a ser- 
 pent resembling in appearance the reptiles 
 which attacked the people. The resemblance 
 was of the essence of the symbolism (cf. 
 
 1 Sam. vi. 5). As the brazen serpent repre- 
 sented the instrument of their chastisement, so 
 the looking unto it at God’s v/ord denoted 
 acknowledgment of their sin, longing for deli- 
 verance from its penalty, and faith in the means 
 appointed by God for healing. The typical im- 
 port of this incident, indicated by the Saviour 
 Himself (St John iii. 14, 15), has been very co- 
 piously treated of by the Christian Fathers and 
 commentators. In the serpent of brass, harm- 
 less itself, but made in the image of the creature 
 that is accursed above others (Gen. iii. 14), 
 they rightly see a figure of Him who though 
 “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from_ sin- 
 ners” (Heb. vii. a6), was yet “made sin” 
 (2 Cor. V. 21), and “made a curse” (Gal. iii. 
 13) for us. And the eye of faith fixed on Him 
 beholds, as in his day and degree did the 
 stricken Israelite in the wilderness, the mani- 
 festation at once of the deserts of sin, of its 
 punishment imminent and deprecated, and of 
 the method of its remission devised by God 
 Himself. 
 
 The explanations of certain commentators 
 that the brazen serpent was set forth by Moses 
 as an emblem of healing by the medical art; 
 as a form of amulet to be copied and worn; 
 as a reminiscence of Egyptian serpent-worship, 
 &c., are obviously unworthy and beside the 
 mark, and are rebuked by Wisd. xvi. 7. Cf. 
 
 2 Kings xviii. 4. 
 
 10 , 11 . Ohotb] At the opening in the hills 
 now known as Wady-el-lthm, the route of 
 the Israelites took a sharp turn, and ran thence- 
 forward in a north-easterly direction. After 
 a march of about fifty miles they would reach 
 the line of the present pilgrim route between 
 Mekka and Damascus; and along this, or 
 nearly so, their march must for some distance 
 have lain. The earlier stations in this part of 
 their journey were Zalmonah and Punon 
 (xxxiii. 41, 42). Oboth was north of Punon, 
 east of the northern part of Edom, and is 
 
 pretty certainly the same as the present pil- 
 grim halting-place el-Ahsa. The name denotes 
 “holes dug in the ground for water,” being 
 the plural of the term oh or obah^ which 
 appears in Arabic ZiS.'weiheh. The term hasy^ 
 of which ahsa is the plural, has the same 
 meaning; and thus the modern station cor- 
 responds to the ancient both in name and 
 place. The brook Wady-el- Ahsa, which, 
 rising near the spot, runs north-westwards into 
 the southern bay of the Dead Sea, is the 
 boundary between the modern provinces of 
 jebefi and Kerak, as it probably was in ancient 
 times between Edom and Moab. On advanc- 
 ing further north, therefore, the Israelites 
 would find themselves in the “wilderness” or 
 pasture-land to the east of Moab. Here they 
 encamped, on the border of Moab, at lim, a 
 name which signifies “ruinous heaps” (xxxiii. 
 4<?); called here more fully, Ije-abarim, or lim 
 of Abarim, to distinguish it from another 
 lim in south-western Canaan (Josh. xv. 29). 
 The name Abarim, usually rendered “further 
 regions,” but perhaps better rendered “coast 
 regions,” is more particularly applied to the 
 hills immediately facing Jericho (xxvii. 12, 
 xxxiii. 47,48; Deut. xxxii. 49), and denotes 
 generally, as we may gather from Jer. xxii. 20 
 (where it is erroneously rendered “passages”), 
 the whole upland country on the east of the 
 Jordan. The Greek equivalent of the name 
 is Perea, familiar to us through the writings of 
 Josephus. The Syriac Version, by a peculiar 
 punctuation of the word represented in A. V. 
 by “ Abarim,” gives to it the sense “ He- 
 brews.” The same name would thus stand 
 “ Ije of the Hebrews; ” as if the people had 
 left their names with this place of their en- 
 campment. 
 
 12 . the 'valley of Zared] Rather the brook 
 or watercourse of Zared; more properly 
 written Zered. It is to be identified with 
 the present Wady Ain Franjy, the main 
 upper branch of Wady Kerak. This was the 
 first westward-flowing brook that crossed the 
 line of march. As such, it marked an era in 
 their progress; and the summons to them to 
 
I Or, 
 Vaheb n, 
 Stiphak. 
 
 V. 14-17-] NUMBERS. XXI. ^ 727 
 
 13 From thence they removed, 
 and pitched on the other side of 
 Arnon, which is in the wilderness 
 that cometh out of the coasts of the 
 Amorites: for Arnon is the border 
 of Moab, between Moab and the 
 Amorites. 
 
 14 Wherefore it is said in the 
 book of the wars of the Lord, 
 “ What he did in the Red sea, and 
 in the brooks of Arnon, 
 
 leaneih. 
 
 15 And at the stream of the brooks 
 that goeth down to the dwelling of 
 Ar, and ^ lieth upon the border of t Heb. 
 Moab. 
 
 16 And from thence they went to 
 Beer: that is the well whereof the 
 Lord spake unto Moses, Gather the 
 people together, and I will give them 
 water. 
 
 17 ^ Then Israel sang this song, Ascmd. 
 ^Spring up, O wellj ** sing ye unto it 
 
 I Heb. 
 
 Or, 
 
 answer. 
 
 cross it is still preserved to us in Deut. ii. 13. 
 The word Zered signifies ‘ ‘ osier ; ” and, remark- 
 ably enough, the name Wady Safsaf, Willow 
 Brook, still clings to the tributary which 
 unites with Wady Ain Franjy below Kerak. 
 Possibly one of these is identical with the 
 “brook of the willows,” of Isaiah xv. 7. 
 
 13 . on the other side of Arnon\ The 
 Arnon, now the Wady Mojeb, is an im- 
 petuous torrent; the most important of all 
 the streams which run into the Dead Sea from 
 the east. The Israelites probably crossed the 
 principal branch of the stream, now known 
 as Sell Saideh. For their course lay through 
 the “wilderness” or pasture-ground, and east 
 of a range of hills which here runs in the 
 form of the quadrant from south-west to 
 north-east. 
 
 Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab 
 and the Amorites'] i.e. between the territory 
 which remained to the Moabites, and that 
 which the Amorites had wrested from them, 
 nj. On the former the Israelites did not 
 set foot (Deut. ii. 9) : the latter, as will here- 
 after appear, they triumphantly traversed. It 
 seems here implied that the Moabitish territory 
 no longer extended to the north of the Arnon 
 or of that branch of it which the Israelites 
 crossed. They could therefore without scruple 
 follow the most direct course towards Dibon 
 (xxxiii. 45) ; marching north-westward along 
 the northern bank of Arnon, and taking advan- 
 tage of the break which it makes in the neigh- 
 bouring hills, to pass through them to the 
 territory on the west. See on this 'u. Introd. 
 
 § 4. 
 
 14 . the book of the (wars of the Lord] 
 Of this book nothing is known except what 
 may be gathered from the passage before us. 
 It was apparently a collection of sacred odes 
 commemorative of that triumphant progress 
 of God’s people which this chapter records. 
 From it is taken the ensuing fragment of 
 ancient poetry relating to the passage of the 
 Arnon, and probably also the Song of the 
 Well, and the Ode on the Conquest of the 
 Kingdom of Sihon 17, 18, 27 — 30). The 
 allusion to this book cannot supply any valid 
 
 argument against the Mosaic authorship of 
 Numbers; see Introd. § 4. 
 
 What he did in the Red sea, &c.] The 
 words which follow to the end of the next 
 verse are a reference rather than a quotation. 
 Contemporaries who had “the Book of the 
 Wars of the Lord” at hand, could of course 
 supply the context. In the absence of such 
 help we can only conjecture the sense of the 
 words before us ; which are a mere fragment 
 of a strophe, probably even grammatically 
 incomplete, without either verb or nominative. 
 The A. V. follows the ancient Jewish divi- 
 sion and interpretation of the clauses. The 
 Marg. however, suggests a better sense; and, 
 supplying some such verb as “conquered,” 
 the words would run “He” (i.e. the Lord) 
 “conquered Vaheb in Suphah, the brooks, &c.” 
 See Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 15 . to the drivelling of Ar] Ar(cf. 27. 28, Is. 
 XV. I, and Note at end of the chapter) was on the 
 bank of the Arnon, lower down the stream than 
 where the Israelites crossed. And near the spot 
 where the upper Arnon (Seil Saideh) receives 
 the tributary Nahaliel (77. 19), there rises, 
 in the midst of the meadow-land between the 
 two torrents, a hill covered with what are 
 doubtless the ruins of the ancient city. I'he 
 place was first visited by Burckhardt. A 
 neighbouring aqueduct testifies to its former 
 importance. The peculiarity of the site points 
 to it as the “city that is in the midst of the 
 river,” Josh. xiii. 9, 16; cf. Deut. ii. 36, and 
 note. It had been, perhaps, heretofore the 
 chief city of the Moabites; it now marked the 
 limit of their territory ; and it was hither ac- 
 cordingly that the king of Moab went to 
 welcome Balaam (xxii. 36, and note). It was 
 respected by the Israelites (Deut. ii. 9, 29), as 
 being still a frontier city of Moab, although 
 it lay on the northern bank of what was else- 
 where the boundary stream; but it had not 
 escaped the ravages of the Amorites in the 
 recent war (77. 28). 
 
 16 . Beer] That is, “Well.” Probably 
 the one afterward known as Beer-elim, the 
 “well of heroes,” Is. xv. 8. 
 
 17 , 18 . This song, recognized by all 
 authorities as dating from the earliest times, 
 
28 
 
 NUMBERS. XXL 
 
 [v. 1 8 — 20. 
 
 18 The princes digged the well, 
 the nobles of the people digged it, 
 by the direction of the lawgiver, with 
 their staves. And from the wilderness 
 they went to Mattanah : 
 
 19 And from Mattanah to Na- 
 
 and from Nahaliel to Ba- 
 
 haliel 
 moth ; 
 
 20 And from Bamoth in the 
 ley, that is in the Tountry of Moab, 
 to the top of 'Tisgah, which looketh ^ 
 toward “ Jeshimon. demess. 
 
 1 t Heb. 
 
 val-_;?^/^. 
 
 and suggested apparently by the fact that God 
 in this place gave the people water not from 
 the rock, but by commanding Moses to cause 
 a well to be dug, bespeaks of itself the glad 
 zeal, the joyful faith, and the hearty co-opera- 
 tion amongst all ranks, which at the time 
 possessed the people. In after time it may 
 well have been the water-drawing song of the 
 maidens of Israel. 
 
 18 . by the direction of the lawginier~\ Render 
 with the lawgiver’s sceptre; i.e. un- 
 der the direction and with the authority of 
 Moses ; cf. on the Hebrew word Gen. xlix. 
 10, and note. 
 
 And from the 'Wilderness they went to Matta- 
 nah'] The “wilderness” comprised all the 
 district east of the hills mentioned in the note 
 on 1;. 13: Mattanah was the first station on 
 the west. It has not been identified with 
 certainty. Eusebius makes it the Maschana of 
 his day, which lay on the Arnon, la miles 
 from some known town, perhaps Dibon. 
 
 19 . Nahaliel] i.e. “brook of God.” The 
 name is still approximately preserved in that 
 of. Wady Enkheileh, which unites with Seil 
 Saideh to form Wady Mojeb (see on ns. 15). 
 The Israelites must have crossed the stream 
 not much above Ar. 
 
 Bamoth] Otherwise Bamoth-baal, “the 
 high places of Baal,” xxii. 41: mentioned in 
 connexion with Dibon in Josh. xiii. 17, and 
 Is. XV. 2. Mesha in recording his triumphs 
 on the Moabite stone speaks of himself as 
 having “rebuilt” Beth-Bamoth. It had no 
 doubt been destroyed in the struggles which 
 would seem to have been constant between 
 the Moabites and the tribes of Reuben and 
 Gad. The halt here described as made at 
 Bamoth is identical with that connected, xxxiii. 
 45, with Dibon-gad, for it appears from Josh., 
 xiii. 17 that Dibon and Bamoth-Baal were 
 neighbouring towns. The words of the next 
 verse describe the encampment as at “ Ba- 
 moth in tlie valley” or “in the ravine.” Im- 
 mediately north of Dibon, and within two miles 
 of it, in the centre of the valley of Wady 
 Waleh, a northern tributary of the Arnon, 
 rises a detached knoll, of no great height, upon 
 the right bank of the rivulet. On its summit 
 are the remains of a very larger quadrangular 
 platform, constructed of rude stones laid to- 
 gether without cement. It was visited by Irby 
 and Mangles; and to tliern the tliought first 
 suggested itself tliat this might be one of the 
 
 altars of the high places. The spot is still in 
 some measure consecrated, and paltry votive 
 offerings hang around a tomb on its summit. 
 Should it be objected that from this site 
 Balaam could hardly have gazed on the Israel- 
 ites in their encampment opposite Jericho 
 (xxii. 41), the answer is that “Bamoth in the 
 ravine” did not necessarily constitute the whole 
 of the “Bamoth” round Dibon: there may 
 have been other high places to the west, where 
 stand the ruins Keraum Abu el-Hossein, or on 
 part of Jebel Attarus. 
 
 20 . in the country of Moah] Rather, in 
 the field of Moah: the upland pastures, 
 or, as travellers have described them, flat 
 downs, which are intersected by the ravine of 
 Wady Waleh. These, as also “the plains of 
 Moab” (xxii. i), had now passed to the 
 Amorites, and it was from the latter that 
 Israel wrested them. 
 
 From Dibon the Israelites proceeded to 
 Almon-diblathaim, or rather “ Almon-toward- 
 Diblathaim;” cf. xxxiii. 46. The neighbouring 
 town, by means of which this place was distin- 
 guished from Almon on the west of the 
 Jordan (Josh. xxi. 18), was probably the 
 Beth-diblathaim of Jer. xlviii. 22, where Me- 
 sha, according to the Moabite inscription, 
 built a temple ; but the sites of both are un- 
 known. 
 
 to the top of Pisgahy which looketh toward 
 Jeshimon] (Or, “the waste.”) In xxxiii. 47, 
 this encampment is described as “ in the 
 mountains of Abarim before Nebo.” Pisgah. 
 was a ridge of the Abarim mountains, west- 
 ward from Heshbon; Nebo, a town on or 
 near that ridge (xxxii. 3, 38), and apparently 
 lying on its western slope, inasmuch as the 
 Israelite encampment on the height was “be- 
 fore,” i.e. to the east of, Nebo. A ruined 
 village of the name Neba has been mentioned 
 by travellers as still existing in those parts 
 (cf. Robinson, ‘B. R.’ 1.570, note), and from 
 the latest account seems to be on the most 
 elevated of the crests, due west of Baal-meon 
 (xxxii. 38), and three miles south-west of 
 Heshbon (Tristram, ‘ Land of Israel,’ p. 535). 
 From the summit of Pisgah the Israelites 
 gained their first view of the wastes of the 
 Dead Sea and of the valley of the Jordan. It 
 was hither, moreover, that Moses subsequently 
 again ascended, to view, before his death, the 
 land of promise. The interest attaching to 
 the spot, and the need of a convenient name 
 
V. 21 27-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXL 
 
 /Deut. 
 
 27. 
 
 Judg. i: 
 19. 
 
 ^ Deut. 
 7- 
 
 h Josh. : 
 2. 
 
 Ps. 135- : 
 Amos 2. 
 
 21 ^ And -^Israel sent messengers 
 c. unto Sihon king of the Amorites, 
 
 saying, 
 
 22 Let me pass through thy land : 
 we will not turn into the fields, or 
 into the vineyards ; we will not drink 
 of the waters of the well : but we will 
 go along by the king’s high way, un- 
 til we be past thy borders. 
 
 20. 23 ^And Sihon would not suffer 
 
 Israel to pass through his border: but 
 Sihon gathered all his people toge- 
 ther, and went out against Israel into 
 the wilderness : and he came to Jahaz, 
 
 ’ and fought against Israel. 
 
 24 And Israel smote him with the 
 
 edge of the sword, and possessed his 
 land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even 
 unto the children of Ajnmon : for the 
 border of the children of Ammon was 
 strong. 
 
 25 And Israel took all these cities: 
 and Israel dwelt in all the cities of 
 the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in 
 all the tillages thereof. 
 
 26 For Heshbon was the city of 
 Sihon the king of the Amorites, who 
 had fought against the former king 
 of Moab, and taken all his land out 
 of his hand, even unto Arnon. 
 
 27 Wherefore they that speak in 
 proverbs say. Come into Heshbon, 
 
 for it, has led Christians often to designate it 
 as “Nebo,” rather than as “the mountain of, 
 or near to, Nebo;” but the latter is the correct 
 appellation (Deut. xxxii. 49, xxxiv. i); and 
 in Scripture, even to the latest times, “Nebo,” 
 alone, denoted only the town (Is. xv. 2 ; Jer. 
 xlviii. I, 22). And indeed the uniform, peak- 
 less character of the ridge of ’Pisgah renders 
 it unlikely that its different portions would be 
 distinguished otherwise than by the names of 
 adjacent villages. 
 
 21 — 24. Having chronicled without inter- 
 ruption the progress of the Israelites through 
 the Amoritish territory, Moses now goes 
 back to relate the story of the conflict by 
 M^hich their way had been opened. The town 
 which gave its name to the battlefield, and 
 which grateful memories converted in after 
 times into a Levitical city, lay, according to 
 Eusebius, between Dibon and Medeba; to the 
 east of the route followed by the non-combat- 
 ants ; and in a country as yet unexplored by 
 modern travel. 
 
 24. unto Jabbokl Now Wady Zerka: 
 cf. Gen. xxxii. 22. In its early course it runs 
 eastward under Rabbah of the Children of 
 Ammon, always in ancient days one of the 
 strongest fortresses of the East. Hence it 
 curves northward and westward to within a 
 few miles of Gerasa. Thence it flows west- 
 ward, and reaches the Jordan, 45 miles north 
 of the Arnon. It was between Rabbah and 
 Gerasa that it formed the Ammonite boundary. 
 The territory westward from it, through 
 which the direct route between those two 
 places lies, and which had probably been 
 wre.sted from the Ammonites by the Amorites 
 (see Josh. xiii. 25; Judg. xi. 13), is, though 
 now one vast pasture, covered with the ruined 
 sites of former cities, and must once have 
 been thickly peopled. The eastern territory, 
 to which in the days of Mo.ses the Ammonites 
 
 were restricted, and through which the Mekka 
 pilgrim-road now passes, remains as yet almost 
 unvisited by Europeans. 
 
 for the border of the children of Ammon ^ivas 
 strong] These words are intended to explain 
 what had prevented Sihon from carrying his 
 conquests further: he had paused, no doubt, 
 before the fortress of Rabbah. The Israelites 
 had a different reason for respecting the 
 Ammonitish territory. (Cf. Deut. ii. 19 sqq.) 
 
 25. Heshbon] Now Heshban, a ruined 
 city, due east of the point where the Jordan 
 enters the Dead Sea; conspicuous from all 
 parts of the high plateau on which it stands, 
 but concealed, like the rest of the plateau, 
 from the valley beneath. 
 
 26. all his land] Evidently that to the 
 north of the Arnon alone is intended: — an 
 example of the limitation with which the 
 biblical statements must be sometimes under- 
 stood ; and which may be legitimately assumed 
 in many cases where no direct proof of it can 
 be furnished. 
 
 27. Wherefore] The word of the histo- 
 rian introducing the song which follows. 
 
 they that speak in prowrbs] The original 
 has for these words only one, a participle from 
 a verb which signifies “to place side by side,” 
 and so “to draw comparisons.” The word 
 {hammd' shleyni) is in fact almost equivalent 
 to “the poets;” for mashal and its derivatives 
 serve as general terms, not restricted to any 
 one poetic style amongst the Hebrews. The 
 word supplies the title of the Book of Pro- 
 verbs itself ; and is used of the parable proper 
 as in Ezek. xvii. 2 ; of the prophecies of Balaam, 
 xxiii. 7 — 10, xxiv. 3 — 9, &c.,; of a taunting 
 song of triumph over fallen Babylon in Is. xiv. 
 4 sqq., an instance very similar to the one 
 before us. The Hebrew Poetry is essentially 
 sententious and gnomuc in character, and its 
 
730 
 
 NUMBERS. XXL 
 
 [v. 27—33. 
 
 let the city of Sihon be built and 
 prepared : 
 
 28 For there is a fire gone out 
 of Heshbon, a flame from the city 
 of Sihon: it hath consumed Ar of 
 Moab, the lords of the high places 
 of Arnon. 
 
 29 Woe to thee, Moab ! thou art 
 I King.s undone, O people of ^’Chemosh: he 
 I- 7, 33. hath given his sons that escaped, and 
 
 his daughters, into captivity unto Si- 
 hon king of the Amorites. 
 
 30 We have shot at them; Hesh- 
 bon is perished even unto Dibon, 
 and we have laid them waste even unto 
 Nophah, which reacheth unto Medeba. 
 
 31 ^ Thus Israel dwelt in the land 
 of the Amorites. 
 
 32 And Moses sent to spy out 
 Jaazer, and they took the villages 
 thereof, and drove out the Amorites 
 that were there. 
 
 33 ^ '^’And they turned and went-i-Deut. 
 up by the way of Bashan : and Og & 2^. 7. 
 
 style is based on antithesis, in words, or sense. 
 The verb in question then expresses the genius 
 of that poetry very accurately. 
 
 29 . ChetnosIS] The national god of the 
 Moabites (cf. Jer. xlviii. 7, 13, 46), who are 
 called after him “ the people of Chemosh.” 
 I'he name probably means “ Vanquisher,” 
 or ‘‘ Master;” see Note at end of the chapter. 
 Tlie worship of (Ihemosh was introduced 
 into Israel by Solomon, i K. xi. 7 ; 2 K. 
 xxiii. 13. It was no doubt to Chemosh that 
 Mesha, king of Moab, offered up his .son as a 
 burnt-offering: 2 K. iii. 26, 27, where see 
 notes. 
 
 30 . V/e ha've shot at them'] O thers ‘ ‘ vre have 
 burned them:” see Note at end of the chapter. 
 
 IVb'icb reacheth unto] Rather witli fire 
 unto Medeba. 
 
 The Ode itself may be exhibited thus: 
 
 Come ye to Heshbon, 
 
 Built and established be the city of Sihon : 
 
 For a fire is gone forth from Heshbon, 
 
 A flame from the city of Sihon, 
 
 It hath consumed Ar of Moab, 
 
 And the lords of the Bamoth of Arnon. 
 Woe to thw, Moab! Thou art undone, O 
 people of Chemosh! 
 
 His sons he hath rendered fugitives, and yielded 
 his daughters into captivity 
 To the king of the Amorites, Sihon ! 
 
 But we have shot at them — perished is Hesh- 
 bon — unto Dibon: 
 
 We have wasted unto Nophah, with fire unto 
 Medeba. 
 
 In the first six lines (yv. 27, 28) the poet 
 imagines for the Amorites a song of exulta- 
 tion for their victories over Moab, and for the 
 conseciuent glories of Heshbon, tlieir own 
 capital. In the next three lines (y. 29) he 
 himself joins in this strain ; which now becomes 
 one of half-real, half-ironical compassion for 
 the .Moabites, whom their idol Chemosh was 
 unable to save. But in the last two lines 
 {'V. 30) a startling change takes place; and 
 the new and decisive triumph of the poet’s 
 own countrymen is abruptly introduced; and 
 
 the boastings of the Amorites fade utterly 
 away. The structure of these two lines is of 
 a thoroughly Hebrew cast, the words being 
 put, for the sake of symmetry, into an order 
 by which the syntax is disgui.sed : they would 
 otherwise run thus, ‘ ‘ We have shot at them 
 unto Dibon; we have wasted with fire unto 
 Nophah and unto Medeba: Heshbon {t.e. the 
 pride of Heshbon, as capital of the Amorites) 
 is perished.” Of all these towns Heshbon 
 was the northernmost, and therefore, to the 
 advancing Israelites, the last to be reached. 
 For Dibon, see on xxxii. 34. Medeba, now 
 Madeba, was 4 miles south-east of Heshbon. 
 It appears from i Chron. xix. 7, 15, to have 
 been a fortified place in the reign of David. 
 And the Moabite inscription informs us that 
 Medeba was seized and held by Omri and 
 his successors, no doubt as a fortress through 
 which the obedience of the surrounding dis- 
 trict might be insured. Nophah is unknown, 
 unless it be Arneibah, 10 miles east south-east 
 of Medeba. 
 
 32 . Jaazer] To be identified probably with 
 the ruins Sir or es-Sir, 10 miles north-east of 
 Heshbon. They consist of a castle and a 
 large walled pool (Seetzen, ii. p. 318); the 
 latter being probably the “sea” of Jer. xlviii. 
 32. The city gave its name to the territory 
 around if. (xxxii. i ; cf. Josh. xiii. 23 ; 2 S. xxiv. 
 5). The occupation of it by the Israelites 
 virtually completed their conquest of the 
 A morite kingdom ; and prepared the way for 
 the pastoral settlem.ents in it which they not 
 long after established (xxxii. 35). 
 
 33. u 4 nd they turned and nvent up by the 
 (Way of Bashan] In these apparently unim- 
 portant words is contained the record of the 
 Israelitish occupation of Gilead north of the 
 Jabbok; a territory which, though peopled, 
 like southern Gilead, by the Amorites (Deut. 
 iii. 9; Josh. ii. 10, &c.), formed part of the 
 domain of Og king of Bashan, who was 
 himself of a different race (Deut. iii. 2; Josh, 
 xii. 5, xiii. ii). The occupation was effected 
 by the Machirites of Manasseh (xxxii. 39). 
 
V. 34, 35-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXI. 
 
 731 
 
 ^ Ps. 135. 
 
 II. 
 
 the king of Bashan went out against 
 them, he, and all his people, to the 
 battle at Edrei. 
 
 34 And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Fear him not: for I have deli- 
 vered him into thy hand, and all his 
 people, and his landj and ^thou shalt 
 
 do to him as thou didst unto Sihon 
 king of the Amorites, which dwelt at 
 Heshbon. 
 
 35 So they smote hini, and his 
 sons, and all his people, until there 
 was none left him alive : and they 
 possessed his land. 
 
 AVe are not told whether they were led thither 
 by express warrant of God, or whether their 
 advance upon Bashan was provoked by Og 
 and his people. 
 
 at Edret] Now Edhra’ah, vulgarly Der’a; 
 situate on a branch of the Jarmuk. This 
 river is not mentioned in Scripture, but formed 
 the boundary between Gilead and Bashan. 
 The identification of Edrei rests on the frontier 
 position of the site, on the modern name, and 
 on the testimony of Eusebius; but it is only 
 recently that the explorations of Wetzstein 
 (‘ Reisebericht,’ pp. 47, 8) have disclosed the 
 fact that the original city was subterranean, 
 
 and that its streets may still be seen running 
 in all directions beneath the present inhabited 
 town, which is built on the ground above. 
 Some with less probability, especially since the 
 discoveries just mentioned, would seek Edrei 
 10 miles further north, .in the extensive and 
 commanding ruins bearing the name of Edhr’a, 
 like the other (see Porter, ‘Damascus,’ pp. 
 a/I sqq., and ‘Diet, of Bible,’ s. v. Edrei). 
 The battle of Edrei was followed by the con- 
 quest of all Og’s dominions, Deut. iii. 4. Tlie 
 carrying off of one remarkable trophy to Rab- 
 bah (Deut. iii. ii) suggests that the Ammon- 
 ites may have iaken part with the Israelites 
 in this war. 
 
 NOTES on Chap. xxi. i, 14, 15, 29, 30. 
 
 1. by the way of the spies\ This rendering 
 is supported by Vulg. and most Jewish and 
 modern authorities; the noun D''”inX being 
 regarded as identical with the □'in of xiv. 6 
 with a prosthetic N. This explanation, though 
 conjectural, is on the whole the most probable.* 
 The LXX. (followed by Saad., Gesen., Dathe, 
 Maurer, &c.) make the word in question a 
 proper name, 6buv "Adapelfi] but no traces of 
 such a name have ever been discovered else- 
 where. Aramaic etymology suggests “by the 
 way of the places;” Arabic, “by way of the 
 tracks” or “monuments.” 
 
 14 . The rendering adopted by our version 
 after Jarchi, Vulg. and most Jewish authorities, ' 
 assumes (i) that DDI is here written for 
 and is a verb signifying “dedit,” “fecit;” and 
 (2) that nSID is a form of ^l^D, and this itself 
 an elliptical expression for fl1D“Db the sea of 
 weed, the Red Sea. On the latter part of the 
 second assumption see on Deut. i. i. 
 
 Both assumptions are now generally regarded 
 as untenable. 
 
 Whilst the full import of v/ords so entirely 
 fragmentary must remain uncertain, it is al- 
 lowed by nearly all modern commentators 
 that must be a proper name marked in the 
 usual way by as in the accusative case, 
 and co-ordinate with “the brooks of Amon ” 
 which follow. The LXX. would seem to 
 have had a slightly different reading, DHT for 
 nni, for it, taking the v/ord as a proper name, 
 translates Za)o/3. 
 
 The verb must be supplied in some such 
 way as is suggested in the foot-note. 
 
 n DID is in all likelihood a proper name also, 
 and denotes the district, perhaps an alluvial 
 one remarkable for its reeds and v/ater-flags, 
 in which Vaheb was situated (cf. on Deut. 
 i. i). 
 
 Some, however (Gesen., Keil, AVordsw., 
 &c.), regard it as a common noun from the 
 verb FlID “to destroy,” and translate “in a 
 storm,” or “whirlwind,” in which sense the 
 word occurs Job xxi. 18, and with the same 
 prep. 2 in Nah. i. 3. The sense would thus 
 be: “In a storm the Lord conquered Vaheb, 
 and the brooks, &c.” 
 
 Another modern len dering, altering the 
 accepted punctuation, but respecting ordinary- 
 grammatical laws, gives the sense thus: 
 
 “Vaheb in Suphah did He conquer, and the 
 brooks ; 
 
 Amon and the outpouring of the brooks, 
 
 That goeth down, &c.” 
 
 15 . Many modem scholars, after the 
 example of Reland, have regarded Ar as 
 the same with Rabbath-Moab or Areopolis, 
 the ruins of which, still bearing the name 
 Rabbah, lie 10 miles south of the Arnon. 
 The distinction between Ar and Rabbah was 
 in recent times first brought out by Hengsten- 
 berg (‘Geschichte Bileams.’ p. 234 sqq.) ; but 
 he fell into the error which Ritter, who other- 
 wise followed him, avoided, of supposing 
 Areopolis to be the classical name of the 
 former rather than of the latter city. Jerome, 
 it is true, in his commentary on Is. xv., asserts 
 the identity of Ar with Areopolis; but has 
 probably no better ground for so doing than 
 
NUMBERS. XXL 
 
 7,32 
 
 the fact that the two words are the same in 
 their first syllable. Eusebius, in his article on 
 Ar in the ‘ Onomasticon,’ drops no hint of the 
 identity in question, though he speaks freely 
 of Areopolis elsewhere in that work (s. vv. 
 Arnon, Agallim, Arina, Moab). On the con- 
 trary, he distinctly implies that Areopolis was 
 the same with Rabbath-Moab (s. v. Moab). 
 This Rabbah of Moab is itself not mentioned 
 in the Bible; it was perhaps a city of late 
 growth. 
 
 29 . The derivation and significance of the 
 name Chemosh are uncertain. The 
 
 most probable conjecture is that adopted by 
 Gesen., who refers it to the root “to 
 
 vanquish,” “to subdue;” the labial letters 
 D and 2 being, as they often are, interchanged. 
 This derivation is to some extent supported 
 by the joint mention of Chemosh wfith Mo- 
 lech and with Milcom, i Kings xi. 5 — 8, 
 2 Kings xxiii. 13. These names, as also the 
 Malcham of Zeph. i. 5, are evidently only 
 dialectical varieties of one title ; and they have 
 a similar sense to the other* title of Baal, 
 and to that of Chemosh according to the 
 probable explanation suggested above; i.e. 
 “ Lord,” “ King,” “ Master,” &c. From 2 Kings 
 xvii. 16, 17, and xxi. 5, 6, it would seem that 
 Molech and Baal w^ere worshipped with the 
 same rites ; and regarded as in effect the same 
 deity. 
 
 Other less probable derivations are, that of 
 Furat, ‘ Lex.,’ who derives Chemosh from 
 
 “to burn,” or “glow,” the Arabic and 
 
 regards him as the “Fire-God;” that of 
 Hyde, repeated by Rosenm. and Winer from 
 
 “culex,” which w^ould identify Che- 
 mosh wfith the “Baal-zebub” of 2 Kings i. 2: 
 cf. Zevs (iTTOfxvLos, Pausan. v. 14. 2 ; and that 
 of Clericus from “celer fuit,” 
 
 which w^ould represent Chemosh as the “Sun- 
 god.” 
 
 Attempts have been made to identify Che- 
 mosh with various deities of other nations: 
 e.g. wdth Saturn, the planet of ill-omen, a 
 hypothesis based on the Jewish tradition that 
 Chemosh w’as w'orshippcd under the image of 
 a black star; and with Ares or Mars, because 
 he is represented on coins of Areopolis (the 
 ancient Rabbath) as an armed warrior (Eck- 
 hel, ‘Doct. Num, Vet.’ iii. 394). Jerome 
 on Isa. XV. i, derives the name Areopolis 
 itself from "Apeoy noXis, a derivation however 
 which is certainly erroneous; see last note. 
 
 Recent inquiries have how'cver more and 
 more suggested the opinion that the different 
 names assigned to the heathen deities of an- 
 cient Oriental Mythology are in origin and 
 principle nothing more than the recognition 
 separately of the attributes belonging to the 
 one supreme God. d'hese in the progress of 
 corruption and superstition were attached one 
 
 by one to idols of various names ; and became 
 localized usually upon special occasions and 
 circumstances and wdth various rites in differ- 
 ent places. Thus the diverse names Chemosh, 
 Ashtoreth, Baal, Molech, &c. would seem to 
 point to one central, original, comprehensive 
 conception of which these several cults repre- 
 sent portions and depravations. Of this idea 
 the Moabite stone has furnished a new and 
 very striking illustration. It makes mention, 
 in connection with the capture of Nebo, of 
 a god called “ Ashtar-Chemosh.” This title 
 at once connects the Moabite religion with 
 the Phoenician, in wfiiich Ashtar, the mascu- 
 line form of Astarte or Ashtoreth, represents 
 one side (i. e. the male) of the creative and re- 
 productive powder wKich is conceived to be 
 one of the leading attributes of God. 
 
 It wmuld thus seem probable that Chemosh, 
 in one at least of the manifestations in which 
 the Moabites venerated him, was connected 
 with the androgynous deities of Phoenicia. 
 Amongst them we have not only Ashtar, the 
 masculine form of Astarte and identified with 
 Baal ; but Astarte herself is spoken of as 
 “the King,” “the Sun God,” “the Face of 
 Baal,” &c.; see Schlottm.ann, “Die Inschrift 
 Eshmunazar’s,” p. 143: and ‘Die Siegesaule 
 Mesa’s,’ p. 28 sqq. (cf. the “Venus Victrix” 
 and “Venus Amathusia,” “eadem mas et 
 foemina,” of classical art and literature). 
 It is probably because Baal was frequently 
 worshipped as an androgynous deity, and not 
 by way of contempt (as has been commonly 
 supposed), that the name has the feminine 
 ‘article several times in LXX.: e.g. Hos. ii. 8 ; 
 Zeph. i. 4 ; Tobit i. 5 ; cf. Rom. xi. 4. 
 
 Accordingly the worship of Chemosh as- 
 sumed various forms in different places, and 
 was accompanied by a ritual appropriate to 
 the special attribute to be praised or propiti- 
 ated. As the god of War and Victory he 
 exacted human sacrifices: cf. 2 Kings iii. 26, 
 27 ; and Mesha on the Moabite stone de- 
 clares himself, after taking Ataroth, if that 
 be (as seems probable) the proper name which 
 has to be replaced in line xi. of the Inscription, 
 to have killed all the warriors for the well- 
 pleasing of Chemosh and Moab, and to have 
 taken out of the city all the spoil and dedi- 
 cated it also to Chemosh : cf. the precisely 
 similar treatment of Jericho by Joshua, Josh, 
 vi. 17, 18; and see Dr Ginsburg, “The 
 Moabite Stone,” p, 34. .As the lord of pro- 
 ductiveness he is probably identical with Baal- 
 peor, as Jerome ‘in Jovin,’ i. 12, long ago 
 surmised (*liyD “aperire”). It was the 
 licentious rites connected with the Moabite 
 worship in its last-named development which 
 led to the transgression of Israel mentioned in 
 Num. XXV. I — 3; jesh. xxii. 17; and gave 
 occasion to such protective enactments as that 
 of Deut. xxii. 5, where see note. He was 
 probably also worshipped as “the Sun God;” 
 and it is likely that the remark of Eusebius, 
 
V- I— 3 -] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXII. 
 
 733 
 
 ‘ Onom.’ s. V. ’'Apim, is to be thus explained ; 
 for he states that the god of the peojjle of 
 Areopolis (/. d*. Ar Moab) was Ariel; a 
 word which in Ezek. xliii. 15, at least (if not 
 elsewhere) appears according to Gesen., Furst, 
 xc. to signify “the fire,” or “hearth of 
 God.” 
 
 30 . the first word in this verse, has 
 
 been very variously rendered; its punctuation 
 is anomalous ; and the ancient authorities (e.g. 
 LXX., Vulg., Onkelos, the Arabic and Syriac 
 Versions) generally regarded it as a noun, 
 and are followed by Clericus and Rosenm. ; 
 though they difier amongst themselves as to its 
 meaning. Modern commentators and gram- 
 marians are agreed that the word is a verb, the 
 first person pi. Imp. Kal of H")' with the suffix 
 of third person pi., the termination □ being 
 written as in Ex. xxix. 30, for D.. 
 
 Of the sense assigned to the verb in this place 
 by the A. V., “to shoot,” examples will be 
 
 found in Gesen. The same sense is adopted 
 by Maurer, Schroder, Dathe, See. Others 
 (Keil, Wordsw., &c.) prefer the secondary 
 sense of the verb, “to throw down,” of which 
 an example occurs Ex. xv. 4. Ewald how- 
 ever (‘Ausf, Lehrbuch der Heb. Sprache,’ p. 
 424 note), and Furst (‘ Lex.’ s.v. m'), connect 
 the word with n“lX, and translated “ to burn.” 
 This sense has support from the Arabic, and 
 suits well with the sequel of the verse, 
 
 The word first pers. pi, Hiph, Imperf. 
 from has also the suffix of the third person 
 pi. in an irregular form; cf. Ewald, ‘Ausf. 
 Lehr, der Hebr. Spr.’ p. 628. 
 
 In the conclusion of the verse the reading 
 yields no satisfactory sense, and the "1 is 
 marked by the Masoretes with a circle over it 
 as suspicious. Commentators generally, both 
 ancient and modern, have adopted the reading 
 which the LXX., the Samaritan Text and 
 version have evidently followed. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 I Balak's first message for Balaam is refused. 
 15 His second message obtaincth him. An 
 angel would have slain him., if his ass had 
 not saved him. 36 Balak e7itertaineth Jwn. 
 
 A nd the children of Israel set for- 
 ^ ward, and pitched in the plains 
 
 Chap. XXII. With this chapter begins 
 the fourth and last division of the Book (see 
 Introd. § 2), comprising fourteen chapters. 
 In them are narrated the events which befell 
 Israel whilst encamped in the plains of Moab, 
 and certain instructions and arrangements are 
 laid down by Moses with reference to their 
 actual entry upon the promised inheritance, 
 from which they were now separated only by 
 the Jordan. 
 
 The first three chapters of this division record 
 the appearance and prophecies of Balaam : see 
 note at end of the chapter. 
 
 1. the plains'] Heb. arahoth; the w^ord 
 is the plural of that which is used to denote 
 the whole depressed tract along the Jordan 
 and the Dead Sea, and onward, wffiei-e it Ts 
 still called the Arabah (cf. on xxi. 4), to the 
 Elanitic gulf. Near the mouth of the Jordan 
 this tract is about eleven miles across, a breadth 
 of from four to five miles being on the eastern 
 bank. The space occupied by the Israelitish 
 camp consisted, in the main, of a large and 
 luxuriant oasis upon this bank, slightly raised 
 above the barren flat, sultry because sheltered 
 by the Persean hills which bear up the fertile 
 plateau above, and watered by the brooks 
 which, descending from those hills, run west- 
 ward across the plain into the Jordan (see Tris- 
 tram, ‘Land of Israel,’ pp. 528 sqq.). It 
 commenced on the south at Beth-jeshimoth, 
 “house of the wastes,” close to the Dead Sea: 
 VoL. I. 
 
 of Moab on this side Jordan by Je- 
 richo. 
 
 2 ^ And Balak the son of Zippor 
 saw all that Israel had done to the 
 Amorites. 
 
 3 And Moab was sore afraid of 
 
 thence it covered the sites of the future cities 
 Beth-ram (in A. V. “Beth-aram”), now' er- 
 Rameh (Josh. xiii. 27), and Beth-haran, now 
 Beit-haran, (xxxii. 36): and terminated north- 
 wards at Abel-shittim, the “acacia-meadow.” 
 This place is no longer to be distinguished by 
 its peculiar vegetation, for acacias are now^ 
 common to the whole district around, but is 
 doubtless to be sought along the brook' that 
 flows past the ruins of Keferein. These reach 
 upwards from the plain to a small rocky slope 
 above, and probably represent the ancient city 
 of Abila, to which the meadow eventually 
 gave its name (Jos. ‘Ant.’ iv. 8. i, v. i. i). 
 Immediately north of the camp was Nimrah 
 or Beth-nimrah, now Nimrun (xxxii. 3, 36),. 
 J osephus mentions four of these cities together ; 
 viz. Bethennabris (Beth-nimrah,. Abila (Abel), 
 Julias, i.e. Betharamphtha (Beth-ram, in\ 
 Aramaic Beth-rametha), and Besemoth (Beth- 
 jeshimoth). ‘B. J.’ IV. 7. 
 
 of Moab] See on xxi. 20. 
 
 'on th'is s'lde Jordan by Jericho] Rather, a-- 
 cross the Jordan of Jericho, i.e. that part 
 of Jordan which skirted the territory of Jeri- 
 cho. This foi*m of expression indicates the site 
 of the camp in its relation to the well-known 
 city of Jericho. On the phrase “ on this side 
 Jordan ” see on Deut. i. i. 
 
 2 . Balak the son of Z'lppor] The way in 
 wffiich he is mentioned in oj. 4, and the ex- 
 
 3 A 
 
734 
 
 NUMBERS. XXII. 
 
 [v. 4 — 13 - 
 
 the people, because they were many : 
 and Moab was distressed because of 
 the children of Israel. 
 
 4 And Moab said unto the elders 
 of Midian, Now shall this company 
 lick up all that are round about us, 
 as the ox licketh up the grass of the 
 field. And Balak the son of Zip- 
 por was king of the Moabites at that 
 time. 
 
 « Josh. 24, 5 ^He sent messengers therefore 
 
 y- unto Balaam the son of Beor to 
 
 Pethor, which is by the river of the 
 land of the children of his people, to 
 call him, saying. Behold, there is a 
 people come out from Egypt r behold, 
 t Heb. they cover the ^ face of the earth, and 
 they abide over against me : 
 
 6 Come now therefore, I pray 
 thee, curse me this people ; for they 
 are too mighty for me : peradventure 
 I shall prevail, that we may smite 
 them, and that I may drive them out 
 of the land ; for I v/ot that he whom 
 thou blessest is blessed, and he whom 
 thou cursest is cursed. 
 
 7 And the elders of Moab and 
 
 the elders of Midian departed with 
 the rewards of divination in their 
 hand; and they came unto Balaam, 
 and spake unto him the words of 
 Balak. 
 
 8 And he said unto them. Lodge 
 here this night, and I will bring you 
 word again, as the Lord shall speak 
 unto me: and the princes of Moab 
 abode with Balaam. 
 
 9 And God came unto Balaam, 
 and said. What men are these with 
 thee 
 
 10 And Balaam said unto God, 
 Balak the son of Zippor, king of 
 Moab, hath sent unto me, sayings 
 
 11 Behold, there is a people come 
 
 out of Egypt, which covereth the 
 face of the earth: come now, curse 
 me them; peradventure G. shall be 
 able to overcome them, and drive 
 them out. ^ 
 
 12 And God said unto Balaam, 
 Thou shalt not go with them; thou 
 shalt not curse the people : for they 
 are blessed. 
 
 13 And Balaam rose up in the 
 
 pression in xxi. 26 (“former king of Moab”)? 
 suggest that Balak was not the hereditary 
 king, and that a change of dynasty had taken 
 place. The later Targums make Balak a 
 Midianite ; and not improbably. His father’s 
 name, Zippor, “Bird,” reminds us of those 
 of other Midianites, e.g. Oreb, “ Crow,” Zeeb, 
 “ Wolf.” Possibly the Midianitish chieftains 
 had taken advantage of the weakness of the 
 Moabites after the Amoritish victories to 
 establish themselves as princes in the land, as 
 the Hyksos had done in Egypt; possibly they 
 had been imposed upon the Moabites by 
 Sihon ; cf. Josh. xiii. 21. 
 
 3. <was distressed because of^ Lit. “shrank 
 from before them,” in terror. 
 
 5 . Balaam the son of Beor] See Note at end 
 of the chapter. 
 
 Pethor^ <ivhicb is by the rrver of the land of 
 the children of his people] Rather, whicli was 
 on the river (i.c. the Euphrates, so called 
 here and elsewhere by pre-eminence), in his 
 native land. For “his people” some ancient 
 authorities read “Ammon,” but wrongly: the 
 Ammon it ish territory did not stretch to the 
 Euphrates. On Pethor, see Note at end of 
 the chapter. 
 
 7. Re<vjards of divinatiori] Heb. “divi- 
 
 nations,” rightly interpreted in 2 Pet. ii. 15, by 
 “the wages of unrighteousness.” So in 2 Sam. 
 iv. 10, the Hebrew word for “good tidings” 
 denotes the reward of such tidings. 
 
 8. this night] It was either in dream or 
 in nightly vision that Balaam expected his 
 communications. His eventual compliance 
 with Balak’s request suggests an unfavourable 
 interpretation of his conduct on this occasion. 
 He must surely have known that God’s 
 blessing was on the people with whose marvel- 
 lous march forth from Egypt he was ac- 
 quainted, and from whom he had himself 
 probably learned much. And his reply to the 
 messengers next morning (yv. 13), betrays the 
 desire to venture to the utmost of that which 
 God would not forbid rather than to carry 
 out God’s will in hearty sincerity. 
 
 12. Phou shalt not go woith them ; thou 
 shalt not curse the people] The meaning is 
 substantially : “Thou shalt not go with them 
 to curse the people.” In Hebrew, two clauses 
 of which, the one is logically subordinate to 
 tlie other, often appear as coordinate. So in 
 the Second Commandment, “Thou shalt not 
 make . . . thou shalt not bow down to them 
 i.e. “Thou shalt not make ... in order to bow 
 down to them.” 
 
V. 14—23-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXII. 
 
 735 
 
 morning, and said unto the princes 
 of Balak, Get you into your land : 
 for the Lord refuseth to give me 
 leave to go with you. 
 
 14 And the princes of Moab rose 
 up, and they went unto Balak, and 
 said, Balaam refuseth to come with us. 
 
 15 ^ And Balak sent yet again 
 princes, more, and more honourable 
 than they. 
 
 16 And they came to Balaam, and 
 said ‘to him. Thus saith Balak the son 
 
 Heb. of Zippor, ^Let nothing, I pray thee, 
 IhJIiieiied hinder thee from coming unto me : 
 from,&=c. jy JTqj- J promote thee unto 
 very great honour, and I will do 
 whatsoever thou sayest unto me : 
 come therefore, I pray thee, curse 
 me this people. 
 
 18 And Balaam answered and said 
 >chap. 24. unto the servants of Balak, ^If Balak 
 would give me his house full of silver 
 and gold, I cannot go beyond the 
 word of the Lord my God, to do 
 less or more. 
 
 19 Now therefore, I pray you, 
 tarry ye also here this night, that I 
 may know what the Lord will say 
 unto me more. 
 
 20 And God came unto Balaam 
 at night, and said unto him. If the 
 men come to call thee, rise up, and 
 go with them ; but yet the word 
 which I shall say unto thee, that 
 shalt thou do. 
 
 21 And Balaam rose up in the 
 morning, and saddled his ass, and 
 went with the princes of Moab. 
 
 22 ^ And God’s anger was kindled 
 because he went: and the angel of 
 the Lord stood in the way for an 
 adversary against him. Now he was 
 riding upon his ass, and his two ser- 
 vants were with him. 
 
 23 And “^the ass saw the angel of^^Pet 
 the Lord standing in the way, and jude n 
 his sword drawn in his hand : and 
 
 the ass turned aside out of the way, 
 and went into the field : and Balaam 
 smote the ass, to turn her into the way. 
 
 15. ^nd Balak sent yet again, &c,] Balak, 
 like the ancient heathen world generally, 
 not only believed in the efficacy of the curses 
 and incantations of the soothsayers, but re- 
 garded their services as strictly venal. So the 
 favours of the gods themselves were likewise 
 considered as purchasable (cf. Plin. ‘Nat. 
 flist.’ XXVIII. 4 ). Hence Balak, when his first 
 offer was declined, infers at once that he had not 
 bid high enough, and sends “princes more and 
 more honourable,” with richer presents than 
 before. And the terms of Balaam’s answer as 
 reported to the king (“Balaam refuseth to 
 come”) would seem to invite the construction 
 actually put on them by Balak. 
 
 19. ye also] i.e. as the other envoys be- 
 fore you. The spirit in which Balaam acted 
 displays itself now more clearly. There was 
 no ground for expecting different directions 
 from God on the matter than those already 
 given. 
 
 20. rise up, and go nvitb them] God’s 
 first command to Balaam, -i;. 12 , verbally 
 two-fold (“thou shalt not go with them;” 
 “thou shalt not curse, &c.”), was one and 
 simple in^ effect. He was bidden absolutely 
 to reject the request of the princes of Moab. 
 Had Balaam possessed a sincere spirit of 
 obedience, he would have found in these 
 first instructions a final decision upon the 
 
 matter. His hypocritical importunity with God 
 v^^hen the fresh messengers came from Balak 
 demonstrate his aversion to God’s declared 
 will. Thenceforward he was no longer on 
 probation for the dignity of being God’s loyal 
 ambassador, but was degraded to the meaner 
 function of an unwilling instrument. Accord- 
 ingly he is provided with new instructions. 
 Origen obseiwes that had Balaam been worthy 
 God would have put His word in his heart ; 
 but as that heart was occupied by the lust of 
 gain, the word was put in the prophet’s mouth 
 only. The spirit of God’s dealings with 
 Balaam is rightly exhibited in this remark, 
 though the sense of the Scripture phrase, “ to 
 put a word in the mouth” is hardly so (cf. 
 Deut. xviii. 18). On the character of Balaam, 
 see Bp. Butler’s well-known Sermon, and that 
 ofDr J. H. Newman, ‘Parochial Sermons,’ 
 Vol. IV. 
 
 22. the angel of the Lord stood in the 
 (zvay for an adversary against him] i. e. The 
 angel that led the Israelites through the wil- 
 derness (Ex. xiv. 19, &c.), and subsequently 
 appeared as the Captain of the Lord’s host 
 to Joshua (Josh. v. 13). In desiring to curse 
 Israel, Balaam was fighting against Israel's 
 Leader. The presence of the angel in his 
 path was designed to open his eyes, blinded by 
 sin, to the real character of his course of 
 conduct. 
 
 3 A 2 
 
736 
 
 NUMBERS. XXII. [v. 24-32. 
 
 24 But the angel of the Lord 
 stood in a path of the vineyards, a 
 wall on this side, and a wall on 
 that side. 
 
 25 And when the ass saw the an- 
 gel of the Lord, she thrust herself 
 unto the wall, and crushed Balaam’s 
 foot against the wall ; and he smote 
 her again. 
 
 26 And the angel of the Lord 
 went further, and stood in a narrow 
 place, where was no way to turn 
 either to the right hand or to the 
 left. 
 
 27 And when the ass saw the angel 
 of the Lord, she fell down under 
 Balaam : and Balaam’s anger was 
 kindled, and he smote the ass with a 
 stafF. 
 
 28 And the Lord opened the 
 mcuth of the ass, and she said unto 
 Balaam, What have I done unto thee, 
 
 that thou hast smitten me these three 
 times ? 
 
 29 And Balaam *said unto the ass. 
 Because thou hast mocked me: I 
 would there were a sword in mine 
 hand, for now would I kill thee. 
 
 30 And the ass said unto Balaam, 
 
 Jm not I thine ass, ^ upon which thou w 
 hast ridden " ever since / was thine ridden 
 unto this day r was i ever wont to ii or, 
 do so unto thee ? And he said. Nay. 
 
 3 1 Then the Lord opened the.eyes 
 of Balaam, and he saw the angel of 
 the Lord standing in the way, and 
 his sword drawn in his hand : and he 
 bowed down his head, and “ fell flat 
 
 on his face. himself. 
 
 32 And the angel of the Lord said 
 unto him. Wherefore hast thou smitten 
 thine ass these three times? behold, 
 
 I went out ^to withstand thee, be- to be ah 
 
 7 • 1 r adverse. 
 
 cause thy way is perverse berore me : it, 
 
 24. tn a path of the vineyards] i.e. in a 
 path shut in by vineyard-walls on each side. 
 The progress from the road through the open 
 field (fv. 23) to that walled in, and thence to 
 the strait place, where there was no room to 
 turn (f). 26), shews that Balaam was approach- 
 ing a city, no doubt that which was the goal 
 of his journey. 
 
 28. And the Lord opened the mouth of 
 the The account of this occurrence can 
 hardly have come from any one else than 
 Balaam himself, and may perhaps have been 
 given by him to the Israelites after his capture 
 in the war against Midian. Cf. on xxxi. 8. 
 I'hat which is here recorded was apparently 
 perceived by him alone amongst human wit- 
 nesses. For though his two servants were 
 with him (-u. 22), and the envoys of Balak 
 also ('u. 35), yet the marvel does not appear to 
 have attracted their attention. The cries of 
 the ass would seem then to have been signifi- 
 cant to Balaam’s mind only (so St Greg. Nyss. 
 
 ‘ de Vita Mosis,’ sub fneni). 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 
 himself 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 medmm of his 
 own art; and to a seer pretc’ndiiig to super- 
 human wisdom no more humiliating rebuke 
 can be imagined than to teach him by the 
 mouth of his own ass. These, the special 
 
 significances of the transaction, would be 
 missed entirely if we were to suppose (as 
 Maimonides apud Grotius in loc., Bauer, 
 Thoiuck, and especially Hengstenberg, ‘ Ges- 
 chichte Bileams,’ pp. 48 sqq.) that the whole 
 passed in a vision, Balaam being by the power 
 of God cast into an ecstatic state. And the 
 words “the Lord opened, &c.” clearly indicate 
 that it was on the ass not on the prophet 
 that the Divine Hand was more immediately 
 laid. O n the other hand, the opinion that the 
 ass actually uttered with the mouth articulate 
 words of human speech (though still defended 
 by Baumgarten, Von Gerlach, Wordsw. &c.) ; 
 or even that the utterance of the ^ss was so 
 formed in the air as to fall with the accents of 
 man’s voice on Balaam’s ears (a Lapide in loc.), 
 seems irreconcileable with Balaam’s behaviour. 
 Balaam was indeed labouring under derange- 
 ment, induced 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 -vno. 29, 30, 
 to hold a dialogue with her, and show no 
 signs of dismay and astonishment. 
 
 31. and be sa-du the angel of the Lord'] 
 The angel was outwardly visible, as in Ex. 
 xiv. 19, and was thus now seen by Balaam, as 
 before by the ass; yet was visible with such 
 limitation that he was not beheld by any 
 others. Beyond this we know not the manner 
 or conditions of his appearance. 
 
 32. is per'verse] Rather, is headlong. 
 
V. 33 — 41 -] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXII. 
 
 737 
 
 33 And the ass saw me, and turned 
 from me these three times : unless she 
 had turned from me, surely now also 
 I had slain thee, and saved her alive. 
 
 34 And Balaam said unto the angel 
 of the Lord, I have sinned ; for I 
 knew not that thou stoodest in the 
 way against me : now therefore, if it 
 
 tueb. Misplease thee, I will get me back 
 
 : he roil in / ^ ° 
 
 ! thme eyes, again. 
 
 35 And the angel of the Lord said 
 unto Balaam, Go with the men : but 
 only the word that I shall speak un- 
 to thee, that thou shalt speak. So 
 Balaam went with the princes ofBalak. 
 
 36 ^ And when Balak heard that 
 Balaam was come, he went out to 
 meet him unto a city of Moab, which 
 is in the border of Arnon, which is in 
 the utmost coast. 
 
 37 And Balak said unto Balaam, 
 Did I not earnestly send unto thee to 
 call thee ? wherefore earnest thou not 
 unto me ? am I not able indeed to 
 promote thee to honour 
 
 38 And Balaam said unto Balak, 
 Lo, I am come unto thee : have I 
 now any power at all to say any 
 thing the word that God putteth 
 in my mouth, that shall I speak. 
 
 39 And Balaam went with Balak, 
 and they came unto " Kirjath-huzoth. 
 
 40 And Balak offered oxen and 
 sheep, and sent to Balaam, and to the 
 princes that were with him. 
 
 41 And it came to pass on the 
 morrow, that Balak took Balaam, and 
 brought him up into the high places 
 of Baal, that thence he might see the 
 utmost part of the people. 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 The Hebrew word is a rare one, occurring 
 only once again, in a verbal form, Jobxvi. ii, 
 but its sense seems clear from that of the 
 cognate Arabic word. Cf. St Peter’s words, 
 2 St Pet. ii. 16, “ the madness of the prophet.” 
 
 35. Go (with the men\ A command, not 
 a permission merely. Cf. on n). 20. Balaam, 
 no longer a faithful servant of God, was 
 henceforth overruled in all his acts so that 
 he might subserve the Divine purpose as an 
 instrument. 
 
 36 . a city of Moab\ Or, Ir-Moab; pro- 
 bably the same with Ar-Moab, see on xxi. 15. 
 As Balaam in his journey would avoid the 
 districts occupied by the Israelites, he must 
 have approached this city from the east, by 
 the course of the Nahaliel ; and in the name 
 Balu’a, still borne by one of the upper branches 
 of this stream, there is perhaps a reminiscence 
 of the name of the prophet. 
 
 39 . Kiejath-huzotlS] i.e. “city of streets.” 
 From the context, apparently within Balak’s 
 dominions, and therefore south of the Arnon. 
 Hardly however far south, for from it, on the 
 morrow, the company proceeded to Bamoth- 
 baal, which lay north of the Arnon. It was 
 probably a place of importance, and possibly 
 that of Balak’s residence. As such it is per- 
 haps mentioned in an endorsement on an 
 Egyptian papyrus now in the British Museum 
 
 (Anastasi iii.), dating, as would seem, from 
 the reign of Merneptah. That endorsement, 
 according to the translation of it given in 
 Heath’s ‘Exodus Papyri,’ p. 89, is to the 
 effect that on a certain day of a certain year 
 “there set out a mission to Baal (or Bal)'‘*son 
 of Zippor of Huzoth, which he appointed to 
 Hor.” The papyrus is mutilated at the name 
 Bal, which may have answered more fully to 
 Balak than now appears. Brugsch confirms the 
 above rendering as regards the personal names, 
 but takes the city not for Huzoth, but for Gaza 
 (‘Geogr. Inschr.’ il. p. 32). However this 
 may be, all the conditions implied as to the 
 site of Kirjath-huzoth in the Scriptural notice 
 of it are satisfied by the ruins of Shlhan, 4 
 miles west by south of the site assigned to Ar 
 or Ir. They stand on a slight but insulated 
 eminence, and form a conspicuous object to 
 all the country round (see Irby and Mangles, 
 p. 141, who wrongly write the name “ Sheikh 
 Harn;” also Burckhardt, p. 375, and De 
 Saulcy). And this is probably the site in- 
 tended in the later Targums, which speak of 
 Kirjath-huzoth as “the great city which is 
 the city of Sihon, which is Birosha.” 
 
 41 . the high places of Baar\ i. e. Bamoth- 
 baal: see on xxi. 19, 20. 
 
 that thence he might see'\ Rather, and 
 thence he saw. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xxii. 5. 
 
 Balaam the son of Beor'] The character of but has been very variously estimated. It 
 I this extraordinary man has to be inferred seems however probable that he was from 
 
 almost exclusively from the ensuing narrative, the first a worshipper m some sort of the true 
 
 ■ 
 
NUMBERS. XXII. 
 
 738 
 
 God ; and doubtless had learned some elements 
 of pure and true religion in his home in the 
 far east, the cradle of the ancestors of Israel, 
 ‘‘whence Abraham had emigrated, and where 
 Nahor and that branch of Terah’s family re- 
 mained,” Blunt, ‘Undes. Coin.’p. 85; and where 
 we know, from various notices, that remains 
 of patriarchal tradition long lingered. Such 
 superior knowledge doubtless conduced to 
 Balaam’s reputation as a prophet, whilst it 
 was not clear and coherent enough to deter 
 him from employing as a trade the arts of the 
 heathen sorcerer. The recent dealings of God 
 with Israel, which had produced a profound 
 sensation amongst all neighbouring peoples 
 (Ex. XV. 14, xviii. i sqq. ; Josh. ii. 9 sqq.) 
 could not be unknown to Balaam ; and indeed 
 the intercourse between Mesopotamia and 
 Egypt, as indeed amongst the peoples of the 
 East generally (cf. Blunt, § 23), was consider- 
 able and continuous in those times. He had, 
 we may be sure, inquired into the past history, 
 and present hopes of this remarkable nation ; and 
 we find him accordingly using language which 
 reflects that of the Jewish records (cf. xxiii. 12, 
 and Gen. xiii. 16, xxiv. 9, and Gen. xlix. 9), 
 and implies a knowledge of the promises made 
 to their forefathers. Above all we find him 
 employing on occasion the most Holy Name. 
 He noted and believed in the signs and won- 
 ders which ushered in the new dispensation ; 
 and, by profession a diviner, he coveted a share 
 in those marvellous powers which he saw 
 associated with it. But, like Simon Magus, 
 he sought spiritual gifts for worldly purposes. 
 Though prophesying, doubtless even before 
 the ambassadors of Balak came to him, in 
 the name of the true God, yet prophecy 
 was still to him as before a mere business, 
 not a religion. The summons of Balak proved 
 to be a crisis in his career. It gave oppor- 
 tunity for immediate contact with God’s 
 people, for closer intercourse with God Him- 
 self, and thus for attaining that fulness of 
 prophetic gifts and dignity, to which he would 
 seem to have aspired. But nearness to God, 
 and keen prophetic illumination, could not of 
 themselves reclaim the worldly heart nor con- 
 vert the stubborn will. He yet loved the 
 wages of unrighteousness (cf. Soph. ‘Antig.’ 
 1055, TO ^avTLKov yap irav (piXdpyvpov yeVof), 
 and strove for sake of them to break away 
 from the line of conduct distinctly prescribed 
 to him by God. When his perversity was at 
 length overborne by irresistible influence from 
 on high, and the gold and honours of Balak 
 seemed to be finally lost, he became reckless 
 and desperate; and, as if in defiance, counselled 
 tlie evil stratagem by which he hoped to com- 
 pass indirect ly that ruin of God’s people which 
 he had been withheld from working otherwise. 
 He thus, like Judas and Ahithophel, set in 
 motion a train of events which involved his 
 own destruction. This explanation of Balaam’s 
 character, which was first brought out clearly 
 
 by Hengstenberg (‘Geschichte Bileams’), and 
 has been adopted by Kurtz, ‘Hist, of Old 
 Covenant,’ III. 389 sqq., Keil, Reinke (‘Bei- 
 trage,’ iv. 179 — 287), &c. is more consistent 
 with the various facts apparent in the narrative 
 than is either of the other contradictory vif^ws 
 which have been offered. On the one hand 
 Philo, Josephus, and most of the Jewish 
 authorities, with Origen, St Ambrose, St 
 Augustine, Lyranus, a Lapide, &c., regard 
 Balaam as “prophetam non Dei sed diaboli,” 
 who was compelled by God against his will 
 to bless when he would fain both then and 
 always have cursed. This view was the one 
 generally accepted by the earlier Christian 
 Fathers, who in their antagonism to the heathen 
 world would naturally find great difficulty in 
 recognising that combination of genuine en- 
 lightenment from God with Gentile witchcraft 
 which seems nevertheless apparent in Balaam, 
 and gives to his character that inconsistency 
 and complexity which so strangely mark it. 
 And the combination was indeed one which 
 could not last. The two elements of it were 
 essentially incompatible, and Balaam had in 
 the event to make his choice between them. 
 But the chapters before us exhibit him at the 
 critical juncture when he stood partly on the 
 domain of Gentile magic, and partly upon 
 that of true revealed religion and prophecy ; 
 and deliberately proposed to m.aintain his 
 ground upon both. Balaam knew and con- 
 fessed the Lord (Jehovah) when the ambas- 
 sadors of Balak first came to him (xxii. 8), 
 and was not backward in professing obedience 
 before the king himself. He describes himself 
 as one who “heard the words of God,” “had 
 the knowledge of the Most High,” “ saw .the 
 vision of the Almighty.” Obviously then he 
 was not a mere heathen wizard. 
 
 The other and opposite view maintain^'d by 
 Tertullian and Jerome, followed by Rupertus 
 Duitius, Deyling, Buddeus, &c., is that Balaam 
 was a holy man and a true prophet who fell 
 through avarice and ambition. Yet when 
 summoned by Balak he resorts, as of course, 
 to the heathen art of augury (xxiii. 3, 5, xxiv. 
 i), and is styled (Josh. xiii. 22) “the sooth- 
 sayer” (bakkosem), a word never used in the 
 Bible in other than an unfavourable sense. 
 “Soothsaying” is expressly forbidden (Deut. 
 xviii. 10), is characterised always as a deadly 
 sin (i Sam. xv. 23; 2 Kings xvii. 17; Ezek. 
 xiii. 23), and as the mark of a false prophet 
 (Ezek. xiii. 9 ; Jer. xiv. 14, &c.). Accordingly 
 the “kosem” is distinguished from the true 
 prophet. Is. iii. 2. This view then, which 
 possibly originated from a Jewish conjecture, 
 that Balaam is identical with the Elihu of the 
 book of Job, may unhesitatingly be dismissed. 
 
 The name Balaam (LXX. BaXan/i; Joseph. 
 BnXapos more correctly Bileam, after the 
 Hebrew pointing), is derived from iala, “to 
 devour,” with a formative syllable attached; 
 and signifies “destroyer,” or “glutton.” Less 
 
V. I— 3-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXIII. 
 
 probable is the derivation “ bala-am,” “ de- 
 stroyer of the people.” 
 
 In Gen. xxxvi. 32, v^e read of “Bela son of 
 Beor,” the first king of Edom. The name 
 “Beor” ("lyi “to burn up”) is identical with 
 that of the father, or possibly ancestor, of the 
 prophet; and “Balaam” is in the original 
 identical with “Bela” except in having the 
 afformative. The coincidence seems too re- 
 markable to be quite accidental, as Knobel, 
 Ewald, and others have hastily pronounced it. 
 Does it point to a dynasty from Balaam’s 
 native country, on the banks of the great river, 
 reigning in patriarchal times over tribes on 
 the south-east of Canaan ? 
 
 The name Beor is written Bosor (Boo-op), 
 2 Pet. ii. 15, and this implies an original 
 an Aramaic equivalent for the Hebrew 
 the Aramaic V often taking the place of the He- 
 brew V. The form possibly became familiar to 
 St Peter during his residence at Babylon, and 
 suggests the probability that Arnmaic tradi- 
 tions were still current respecting Balaam at 
 the Christian era, and on the banks of the 
 Euphrates. Philo, writing at a slightly earlier 
 date in Egypt, describes Balaam as an adept in 
 every branch of soothsaying, who attained wide 
 renown by his successful predictions of natural 
 phenomena, such as drought, inundations, 
 pestilence, &c. ‘De Vita Mosis,’ i. Other 
 widely spread traditions identify him with 
 Lokman, whose fables are a familiar portion 
 of Arabic literature, the iEsop of the East, 
 and by some regarded as identical with ^sop 
 himself. Lokman (cf. Koran, xxxi.), whose 
 name, like Balaam’s, means “devourer,” is 
 described in Arabic writers as the son of 
 Ba’iira, i.e. Beor. The Hebrew book of 
 Henoch states that Balaam was called in 
 Arabic Loknin, possibly a misreading for 
 Lokman. See' especially on these names, the 
 Introduction to Derenbourg’s Edition of 
 
 Lokman’s Fables, §11. ‘ De la personne de 
 
 Loqman’ (Asher, Berlin and London, 1850). 
 
 The names Balaam, Beor, Lokman are such 
 as would be given by popular dread to wizards 
 whose curses were regarded as destructive; a 
 dread which it would be the interest of the 
 magicians themselves to encourage. ‘ ‘ Balaam 
 the son of Beor ” was probably of a family in 
 which the mantic art was hereditary. 
 
 The exact situation of Pethor is uncertain. 
 Balaam came “from the mountains of the east” 
 (xxiii. 7), i.e. from Aram, or (Deut. xxiii. 4) 
 from Mesopotamia; and Pethor therefore can- 
 not be placed very far down the river. It was 
 probably, as its name (derived apparently 
 from “ins, patbar, signifying “to open” or 
 “reveal,” and used of the interpretation of 
 dreams, Gen. xli. 8) indicates, a head-quarters 
 of the oriental Magi (respecting whom, see on 
 Dan. ii. 2, St Matt. ii. i), who were wont 
 to congregate in particular spots (Strabo, 
 XVI. i). Pethor (LXX. ^adovpa) is identified 
 by Knobel with ^adova-ac (‘Zosim.’ iii, 14), 
 a place some considerable distance south of 
 Circesium; and with the Bedavva of Ptolemy, 
 V. 18. 6. Both these names Knobel conjec- 
 tures to be corruptions of Pethor, and identi- 
 fies the place with Jnab, a name in the 
 Arabic of similar signification with Pethor in 
 Hebrew. Anah (“Anatha,” ‘Ammian. Mar- 
 cell.’ xxiv. I. 6), is described in Ritter, ‘Erdk.’ 
 xi. 716 sqq., and appears to have been situated 
 partly on one side of the river, partly on the 
 other, and partly on an island in the river, in 
 a fertile and well-protected vale, which has 
 certainly for ages been the seat of a very 
 ancient heathen cultus. No better centre could 
 be found for influencing alike the Arabian 
 tribes on the east, and the Aramaic tribes on 
 the west bank of the great river. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 I, 13, Balak' s sacrifice. 7, Balaatn's 
 
 parcible. 
 
 AND Balaam said unto Balak, 
 £\. Build me here seven altars, and 
 prepare me here seven oxen and seven 
 rams. 
 
 2 And Balak did as Balaam had 
 spoken ; and Balak and Balaam of- 
 fered on every altar a bullock and a 
 ram. 
 
 3 And Balaam said unto Balak, 
 Stand by thy burnt offering, and I will 
 go : peradventure the Lord will come 
 
 Chap. XXIII. 1. Build me here senjen 
 altars., &c.] It may be inferred from this that 
 Balaam, after the general custom of the hea- 
 then, had been wont to preface his divinations 
 by sacrifice. Diodorus notes (il. 29), that 
 it was by sacrifice and incantation that the 
 Chaldeans sought to avert calamity and to pro- 
 duce prosperity. In the number of the altars 
 
 regard was probably had to the number of 
 the then known planets. Yet Balaam evi- 
 dently intended his sacrifice as an offering to 
 the true God. 
 
 3 . nvill come to meet me'] Balaam appa- 
 rently expected to mark some phenomenon in 
 the sky or in nature below, which he would be 
 
740 
 
 NUMBERS. XXIIL 
 
 [v. 4 — lo. 
 
 to meet me : and whatsoever he shew- 
 
 ‘ Or, eth me I v/ill tell thee. And " he 
 
 he went 1 • 1 1 
 
 solitary. Went to ail high place. 
 
 4 And God met Balaam : and he 
 said unto him, I have prepared seven 
 altars, and I have ofFered upon every 
 altar a bullock and a ram. 
 
 5 And the Lord put a word in 
 Balaam’s mouth, and said. Return 
 unto Balak, and thus thou shalt speak. 
 
 6 And he returned unto him, and, 
 lo, he stood by his burnt sacrifice, he, 
 and all the princes of Moab. 
 
 7 And he took up his parable, and 
 said, Balak the king of Moab hath 
 
 brought me from Aram, out of the 
 mountains of the east, sayings Come, 
 curse me Jacob, and come, defy 
 Israel. 
 
 8 How shall I curse, whom God 
 hath not cursed ? or how shall I defy, 
 whom the Lord hath not defied ? 
 
 9 For from the top of the rocks I 
 see him, and from the hills I behold 
 him : lo, the people shall dwell alone, 
 and shall not be reckoned among the 
 nations. 
 
 10 Who can count the dust 
 
 Jacob, and the number of the fourth my soul, 
 part of Israel? Let 4 ne die the 
 
 able, according to the rules of his art, to inter- 
 pret as a portent. It was for such “auguries” 
 (not as A. V. “enchantments”) that he now 
 departed to watch ; cf. xxiv. i. 
 
 an high place] Heb. s hep hi., “a bare place 
 on the hill,” or “a scar;” as opposed to the 
 bamah.^ the high place, with its grove of trees. 
 
 4 . God met Balaam] God (in the original 
 “ Elohim,” though the context both before and 
 after has “Jehovah;” cf. Introduction to Ge- 
 nesis pp. 24, 25) served His own purposes 
 through the arts of Balaam, and manifested his 
 will through the agencies employed to seek it, 
 dealing thus with Balaam in an exceptional 
 manner. For to God’s own people auguries 
 were forbidden (Lev. xix. 26). 
 
 I ha-ve prepared se-ven altars] The sacrifices 
 ofFered are alleged by Balaam as a ground for 
 looking that God on His part would do what 
 was expected and desired by the donor. The 
 spirit of these words is thoroughly that of a 
 heathen worshipper expecting in all his devo- 
 tions his “ quid pro quo:” cf. on xxii. 15. 
 
 Balaam’s first “Parable” may be exhibited, 
 somewhat more accurately than it is given in 
 the A. V., thus : — 
 
 •* From Aram hath Balak brought me. 
 
 The king of Moab from the mountains of 
 the east. 
 
 Saying, Come, curse me Jacob, 
 
 And come, menace Israel. 
 
 How shall I curse whom God hath not 
 cursed ? 
 
 Or how shall I menace whom God hath not 
 menaced ? 
 
 For from the top of the rocks I see him. 
 And from the hills I behold him : 
 
 Lo, it is a people that dwelleth alone, 
 
 And that is not reckoned among the nations. 
 Wlio can count the dust of Jacob,' 
 
 And the number of tiie offspring of Israel r 
 Let me die the deatli of the righteous, 
 
 And be my last estate like his ! ” 
 
 7. Aram] This term, wTich signifies simply 
 “highland,” denotes the whole elevated re- 
 gion, from the north-eastern frontier of Pales- 
 tine to the Euphrates and the Tigris. The 
 country between these streams was specially 
 designated “ Aram-naharaim,” or “Aram of 
 the tv^o rivf'rs;” the Greeks called it Mesopo- 
 tamia ; and here, according to Deut. xxiii. 4, 
 was Balaam’s home. Cf. on xxii. 5. 
 
 9 . For fro77i the top of the rocks, &c.] 
 The “for” indicates the constraint under 
 which Balaam felt himself. He had been met 
 by God in his own way ; from the cliff he 
 had watched for the expected augury ; and by 
 the light of this he here interprets, according 
 to the rules of his art, the destiny of Israel. 
 His first parables are, however, not strictly 
 predictions ; nor is it till he abandons his 
 auguries (xxiv. i), and has the future revealed 
 to him in inward vision from God (ib. 4), 
 that he rises into the foreteller of that which 
 should yet come to pass. 
 
 dnvell alone] i. e. apart from others, undis- 
 turbed by their tumults, and therefore in safety 
 and just security. Cf. the same idea in the 
 blessing of MosL, Deut. xxxiii. 28, “Israel 
 then shall dwell in safety alone ; ” also in Jer. 
 xlix. 31, Micah vii. 14, and perhaps also in 
 Ps. iv. 8. This tranquillity was realized by 
 the Israelites so long as they clave to God as 
 their shelter and protection. But the inward 
 “dwelling alone” was the indispensable condi- 
 tion of the outward “dwelling alone,” and so 
 soon as the influence of the heathen world 
 affected Israel internally, the external power 
 of heathenism prevailed also (Hengstenberg). 
 Balaam himself, when he eventually counselled 
 the attempt to tempt the people into sin, acted 
 upon the knowledge that God’s blessing and 
 Israel's prosperity depended essentially on 
 faithfulness to God. 
 
 10 . the fourth part of Israel] /. e. even 
 each one of the four camps into which the 
 
NUMBERS. XXIII. 
 
 741 
 
 V. II 2 1.] 
 
 death of the righteous, and let my 
 last end be like his ! 
 
 1 1 And Balak said unto Balaam, 
 What hast thou done unto me? I 
 took thee to curse mine enemies, 
 and, behold, thou hast blessed thein 
 altogether. 
 
 12 And he answered and said. 
 Must I not take heed to speak that 
 which the Lord hath put in my 
 mouth ? 
 
 13 And Balak said unto him. 
 Come, I pray thee, with me unto 
 another place, from whence thou 
 mayest see them : thou shalt see but 
 the utmost part of them, and shalt 
 not see them all ; and curse me them 
 from thence. 
 
 14 f And he brought him into the 
 , field of Zophim, to the top of "Pis- 
 
 gah, and built seven altars, and offer- 
 ed a bullock and a ram on every 
 altar. 
 
 15 And he said unto Balak, Stand 
 
 here by thy burnt offering, while I 
 meet the Lord yonder. 
 
 16 And the Lord met Balaam, 
 
 and ^put a word in his mouth, and chap- 2 
 said. Go again unto Balak, and say 
 thus. 
 
 17 And v/hen he came to him, be- 
 hold, he stood by his burnt offering, 
 and the princes of Moab with him. 
 
 And Balak said unto him. What hath 
 the Lord spoken ? 
 
 18 And he took up his parable, 
 and said, Rise up, Balak, and hear; 
 hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor : 
 
 19 God is not a man, that he 
 should lie; neither the son of man, 
 that he should repent: hath he said, 
 and shall he not do it? or hath he 
 spoken, and shall he not make it 
 good ? 
 
 20 Behold, I have received com- 
 mandmcnt to bless : and he hath bless- 
 ed ; and I cannot reverse it. 
 
 21 He hath not beheld iniquity in 
 
 host of Israel was divided (see ch. ii.), seemed 
 to swarm with innumerable multitudes. Pos- 
 sibly Balaam could only see one camp. On the 
 rendering see note at end of the chapter. Balaam 
 bears testimony in this verse to the fulfilment 
 of the promises Gen. xiii. 16, xxviii. 14, and 
 that in terms borrowed from the promises 
 themselves. 
 
 the righteous'] i.e. not Israel, whose “death” 
 could not suitably be spoken of, but “the 
 righteous” ancestors of Israel, who “died in 
 faith, not having received the promises, but 
 having seen them afar off,” Heb. xi. 13. With 
 their histories Balaam was doubtless familiar 
 (see last note), particularly with that of 
 Abraham, “the righteous man” whom God 
 had “ raised up from the east and called to his 
 foot” (Is. xli. 2). 
 
 let 7ny last end be like his] Render rather 
 “ last estate,” for the reference is not so much 
 to the act of death, as to all that followed 
 upon it — to the future, in which the name 
 and influence of the deceased person would be 
 perpetuated. The change from the plural to 
 the singular number, as in this verse, is fre- 
 quent in Hebrew poetry. 
 
 11—13. The cliff fi-om vrhich Balaam had 
 watched for the augury (yv. 3) had proba- 
 bly commanded a wider view than the spot 
 on which the altars had been built (gu. i, cf. 
 xxii. 41). Balak therefore seems to hope that 
 the prophet’s words, “ Who can 'count the 
 
 dust of Jacob,” reflected the impression con- 
 veyed by the scene before him at the moment 
 of the augury; and so that the sight of a 
 mere few straggling Israelites in the utmost 
 part of the camp might induce a different 
 estimate of their resources and prospects. 
 
 14. the Jield of Zophim] Or “ of watchers.” 
 It lay upon the top of Pisgah, north of the 
 former station, and nearer to the Israelitish 
 camp ; the greater part of which was, however 
 probably concealed from it by an intervening 
 spur of the hill. Beyond the camp Balaam’s 
 eye would pass on to the bed of the Jordan. 
 It was perhaps a lion cccning up in his strength 
 from the swelling of that stream (cf. Jer. xlix. 
 19) that furnished him with the augury he 
 awaited, and so dictated the final similitude of 
 his next parable. 
 
 20. I ha’ve I'ecehaed commandment to bless] 
 Literally, “ I have received to bless.” The 
 reason of his blessing lay in the augury which 
 he acknowledged, and in the divine overruling 
 impulse v.Lich he could not resist, not in any 
 “commandment” in words. 
 
 21 — 23. These verses may be better ren- 
 dered as follows: — • 
 
 “ No. iniquity can one descry in Jacob, 
 
 And no distress can one see in Isivael : 
 
 The Lord his God is with him, 
 
 And the shout of a king is in his midst. 
 
 God brought them forth out of Egypt : his 
 strength is like that of a wild bull. 
 
742 
 
 NUMBERS. XXIII. 
 
 [v. 2 2 — 27. 
 
 Jacob, neither hath he seen perverse- 
 ness in Israel: 'the Lord his God is 
 with him, and the shout of a king is 
 among them. 
 
 chap. 24. 22 “^God brought them out of 
 
 Egypt ; he hath as it were the 
 strength of an unicorn. 
 
 23 Surely thei'e is no enchantment 
 sor, /«. “against Jacob, neither is there any 
 
 divination ao;ainst Israel : accordino- 
 to this time it shall be said of Ja- 
 cob and of Israel, What hath God 
 wrought ! 
 
 24 Behold, the people shall rise up 
 as a great lion, and lift up himself as 
 
 a young lion : he shall not lie down 
 until he eat of the prey, and drink 
 the blood of the slain. 
 
 25 ^ And Balak said unto Balaam, 
 Neither curse them at all, nor bless 
 them at all. 
 
 26 But Balaam answered and said 
 unto Balak, Told not I thee, saying. 
 All that the Lord speaketh, that I 
 must do? 
 
 27 And Balak said unto Balaam, 
 Come, I pray thee, I will bring thee 
 unto another place ; peradventure it 
 will please God that thou mayest 
 curse me them from thence. 
 
 Verily there is no augury against Jacob, 
 
 And no soothsayer’s token against Israel : 
 
 In due time shall it be told to Jacob and 
 Israel what God doeth! 
 
 21. The words which the A . V. here renders 
 “iniquity” and “perverseness” are found 
 together again Ps. x. 7, xc. 10, and elsewhere; 
 and import wickedness together with that tri- 
 bulation which is its proper result. 
 
 the shout\ The word is used, Lev. xxiii. 24, 
 to describe the sound of the silver trumpets. 
 The “shout of a king” will then refer to the 
 jubilant sounds by which the presence of the 
 Lord as their king amongst them was cele- 
 brated by Israel. 
 
 22. Cod'] The name of God with which 
 this verse begins, and which recurs at the close 
 of 'V. 23, is not the ordinai'y Elobim^ but El^ 
 which implies more particularly His might. 
 
 an unicor 7 i] Render rather, a wild bull, and 
 see Note at end of the chapter. 
 
 23 . enchantment ... di^inatio 7 {\ More 
 strictly “augury” and “ soothsayer’s token ” 
 ( uVi/KT/xof and /Lxavrei'a, LXX.): on the former 
 word cf. 'v. 3 ; the latter {Jieseni) imports any 
 kind of omen that was superstitiously ob- 
 served. “Soothsayer” (kosem) is the term 
 applied to Balaam, Josh. xiii. 22. 
 
 The verse intimates that the seer was at last, 
 through the overruling of his own auguries, 
 compelled to own what, had he not been 
 blinded by avarice and ambition, he would 
 have discerned before — that there was an in- 
 disjmtable interference of God on Israel’s be- 
 half, against which all arts and efibrts of man 
 must prove vain. 'I'he margin gives “ in” for 
 “ against” after I.XX., Targums, &c. The 
 original will bear either rendering ; and the 
 sense suggested by margin (i.e. that the sooth- 
 sayer’s art was not practised in Israel) would 
 doubtless be strictly true (cf. Lev. xix. 26), 
 
 though perhaps hardly so apt from the mouth 
 of Balaam, just after his vain attempt to em- 
 ploy soothsaying against Israel, as that of our 
 present text. 
 
 according to this time it shall be said of 
 Jacob'] Rather in due time it shall be told 
 to Jacob, &c. The sense that God will, 
 through His own divinely appointed means 
 {e.g. the Urim and Thummim), reveal to 
 Israel, as occasion may require. His will and 
 purposes. 
 
 24 . as a great lion] See on •u. 14. 
 
 28 . the top of Peor] Its position, north- 
 ward from Pisgah, along the Abarim heights, 
 is approximately determined by the extant 
 notices of Beth-peor. This village adjoined 
 the “ravine” (Heb. gai)^ which is (Deut. hi. 
 29, iv. 46) connected with the Israelite encamp- 
 ment, and (Deut. xxxiv. 6) with the burial- 
 place of Moses. The place retained its name, 
 and is described by Eusebius as six miles from 
 Livias {i.e. Bethram, see on xxii. i), on the 
 ascent towards Heshbon. The ravine of Beth- 
 peor was consequently that which runs down 
 from near Heshbon eastward past Beth-ram ; 
 especially, perhaps, its northern tributary 
 branch. This is a rough and narrow dell, 
 watered at its bottom by an abundant spring 
 that gushes from beneath the enclosing rocks, 
 and is overshadowed by the gnarled and twisted 
 boughs of some of the largest terebinths that 
 the Holy Land contains (Tristram, ‘Land of 
 Israel,’ p. 542). A hermit’s cave — perhaps 
 originally sepulchral — may be seen in one side 
 of the ravine : at its upper extremity are the 
 ruins of a town which most travellers designate 
 as Na’ur; Eli Smith, as Ta’ur. The Arabic 
 form of Peor would be Fa’ur; and the other 
 names may possibly be but corruptions of this. 
 
 Jeshimon] Or the waste, in the great 
 valley below, where stood Beth-jesimoth, “ the 
 house of* the wastes.” See on xxii. i. 
 
V. 28 — 4-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXIV. 
 
 743 
 
 28 And Balak brought Balaam 
 unto the top of Peor, that looketh 
 toward Jeshimon. 
 
 29 And Balaam said unto Balak, 
 Build me here seven altars, and pre- 
 
 pare me here seven bullocks and 
 seven rams. 
 
 30 And Balak did as Balaam had 
 said, and offered a bullock and a ram 
 on every altar. 
 
 NOTES on Chap, xxiii. 10, 22. 
 
 10 . T/je fourth part ofhrael'\ The word 
 is perhaps rather to be rendered “progeny,” as 
 Rashi, Saad., Samar., Vulg., See. The LXX. 
 has dj]iJ.ovs, which probably represents a read- 
 ing n^"). The A.V. has the support of On- 
 kelos and the Palestine Targum. The sense 
 thus given, though adopted by Keil, Bp. 
 Wordsworth, and other modern commen- 
 tators, savours somewhat of that proneness to 
 excessive minuteness which marks Jewish 
 exegesis; and the former rendering suits better 
 the poetical character of the passage. 
 
 22. The term “unicorn” was adopted by 
 our translators from LXX., which renders the 
 Hebrew by fxouoKepcos- It is obvious how- 
 ever from Deut. xxxiii. 17, where see note, 
 that the animal in question was two horned, for 
 Moses compares the house of Joseph for its 
 warlike strength to a and the twin tribes 
 
 of Ephraim and Manasseh are represented by 
 the two mighty horns of the beast. The DN"1 
 must not be confounded with the “wild ox ” 
 of Deut. xiv. 5, or the “wild bull” of Is. li. 
 20, where see notes. The latter is the oryx, a 
 species of antelope. The animal named by 
 Balaam in the text as an apt symbol of the 
 strength of Israel is now extinct, and is the 
 Bos primigenius of naturalists, the Auerochs of 
 old Germans, the Unis of Caesar, who gives 
 a foiTnidable account of its size, strength, 
 speed, and ferocity, ‘ De Bello Galileo,’ iv. 
 29. Accordingly it is employed to figure forth 
 the unsparing fierceness of enemies, Ps. xxii. 
 21 ; Is. xxxiv. 7; its tall horns represent exal- 
 tation and established prosperity; it is also 
 spoken of Job xxxix. 9 — 12 as intractable and 
 untameable. See an excellent article, Tristram, 
 
 ‘ Natural History of the Bible,’ pp. 146 — 150. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 I Balaam, leaving divinations, prophesieth the 
 happiness of Israel. 10 Balak in anger dis- 
 misseth him* 15 He prophesieth of the Star 
 offacob, and the destruction of some nations. 
 
 K 
 
 ND when Balaam saw that it 
 pleased the Lord to bless Is- 
 “ chap. 23. went not, as at other " times, 
 
 fjUeb. t seek for enchantments, but he set 
 meeting t^/his face toward the wilderness. 
 
 2 And Balaam lifted up his eyes, 
 
 and he saw Israel abiding in his tents 
 according to their tribes ; and the 
 spirit of God came upon him. 
 
 3 ‘^And he took up his parable, chap. 23, 
 and said, Balaam the son of Beor ^ ' 
 hath said, and the man ^ whose eyes ^ Heb. 
 
 , . . , •' 'ioho had 
 
 are open hath said : /ds eyes 
 
 4 He hath said, which heard the nt^^opS. 
 words of God, which saw the vision 
 
 of the Almighty, falling intt? a trance^ 
 but having his eyes open : 
 
 Chap. XXIV. 1. tonvard the <wilderness~\ 
 i. e. to the plains of Moab, where Israel was 
 encamped. The verse indicates that Balaam, 
 in despair of being permitted to attain his own 
 and Balak’s purpose through his art, no longer 
 looked for auguries; but simply “lifted up 
 his eyes,” i.e. gazed over the camp of Israel 
 that stretched before him, and allowed the 
 spectacle to work its own influence upon him. 
 
 3. qjuhose eyes are open\ i. e. opened in 
 inward vision, to discern things that were 
 hidden from ordinary beholders. 
 
 4 . falling into a trance, but ha-ving his 
 eyes open'] On the “eyes open,” see note at 
 end of the chapter. 
 
 The “falling” of which Balaam speaks 
 
 i 
 
 was (as Vulg. implies: “qui cadit, et sic 
 aperiuntur oculi”) the condition under which 
 the inward opening of his eyes took place. 
 Balaam had (cf. xxii. 8, 19) sought in time 
 past to learn the will of God through in- 
 ward visions as well as by “auguries.” The 
 “ falling” is not that of one awestruck by the 
 surpassing glory revealed to him, as was that of 
 Daniel (viii. 17), and St John (Rev. i. 17). 
 Rather does it indicate the force of the Divine 
 inspiration overpowering the seer, as Saul 
 (i Sam. xix. 24) was overpowered, and stripped 
 off his clothes before Samuel, and “ fell ” or 
 “ 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 vio- 
 lent illapses. In Balaam and in Saul the word 
 
744 
 
 NUMBERS. XXIV. 
 
 [v- 5-13- 
 
 5 How goodly are thy tents, O Ja- 
 cob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel ! 
 
 6 As the valleys are they spread 
 forth, as gardens by the river’s side, 
 as the trees of lign aloes which the 
 Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees 
 beside the waters. 
 
 7 He shall pour the water out of 
 his buckets, and his seed shall be in 
 many waters, and his king shall be 
 higher than Agag, and his kingdom 
 shall be exalted. 
 
 <■ chap. 23. 8 God brought him forth out of 
 
 Egypt ; he hath as it were the 
 strength of an unicorn : he shall eat 
 up the nations his enemies, and shall 
 break their bones, and pierce the 7 n 
 through with his arrows. 
 
 ^ Gen. 49. ^ couched, he lay down as a 
 
 lion, and as a great lion : who shall 
 stir him up.? Blessed is he that bless- 
 eth thee, and cursed is he that curseth 
 thee. 
 
 10 fl And Balak’s anger was kin- 
 dled against Balaam, and he smote 
 his hands together : and Balak said 
 unto Balaam, I called thee to curse 
 mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast 
 altogether blessed them these three 
 times. 
 
 1 1 Therefore now flee thou to thy 
 place : I thought to promote thee 
 unto great honour ; but, lo, the Lord 
 hath kept thee back from honour. 
 
 12 And Balaam said unto Balak, 
 Spake I not also to thy messengers 
 which thou sentest unto me, saying, 
 
 13 If Balak would give me his 
 
 of God could only prevail by first subduing 
 the alien will, and overpowering the bodily 
 energies which the will ordinarily directs. 
 
 6 . as the I'alleys] or brooks; with re- 
 ference possibly to the four parallel brooks, 
 running westward into the Jordan, over which 
 the camp of Israel stretched, and by which 
 the dispositions of its various parts must have 
 been to some extent determined (see on 
 xxii. i). 
 
 as gardens by the ringer s side'] Balaam’s 
 language here rellects rather the famous arti- 
 ficial gardens along the banks of his own 
 river, the Euphrates, than the landscape ac- 
 tually before him. 
 
 as the trees of lign aloes <^vhich the Lord 
 hath pla7ited] I'he latter words contain an ap- 
 parent reference to Paradise (cf. Gen. ii. 8). 
 'I'he aloe, imported from China and the far 
 distant east, furnished to the ancients one of 
 the most fragrant and precious of spices; cf. 
 Ps. xlv. 8, “All thy garments smell of myrrh, 
 aloes, and cassia;” Prov. vii. 17. 
 
 as cedar trees besides the cjjaters] i.e. as the 
 noblest of trees branching forth in the fairest 
 of situations : an image of majestic beauty, as 
 that of the last verse was of rare fecundity. 
 
 7 . He shall pour the n.vater] Rather lie 
 skall stream with water. 
 
 out of his buckets] Lit. “from his two buck- 
 ets.” iialaiim’s native soil was ordinarily irri- 
 gated by water fetched from the neighbouring 
 Euphrates, and carried in buckets suspended 
 from the two ends of a pole. Winter in the 
 East is the first essential of all fertility. Thus 
 the metaplior would import that Israel should 
 have his own exuberant and unfailing channels 
 of blessing and plenty. But the prep, may 
 
 in this phrase, as in the latter half of the verse, 
 be the sign of comparison; and the passage 
 would thus signify: “ He shall flow with wa- 
 ter more plentifully than his buckets:” i.e. Is- 
 rael himself, abundantly fertilized, shall abound 
 to others even beyond what himself has re- 
 ceived. The words would thus be predictive 
 of the future benefits which, through the means 
 of Israel, were to accrue to the rest of the 
 world. 
 
 m inany <rMaters] i.e. enjoy the benefit of 
 various and copious waters. Cf. Jer. x. 13. 
 
 Hgag] The name, apparently hereditary (cf, 
 I S. XV.) to the ch.eftains of Amalek, means 
 “ high” (cf. the English “ Hugh”) or, as Ara- 
 bic analogy suggests, “ fiery.” It was proba- 
 bly of the royal race of the A gags that Ha- 
 man, “the Agagite,” (Esth. iii. i), the bitter 
 enemy of the jews in later times, was descend- 
 ed. The words point to the Amalekite king- 
 dom as highly prosperous and powerful at the 
 time (cf. u). 20) ; but as to be far excelled by 
 the future glories of Israel. The Amalekites 
 never in fact recovered their crushing defeat by 
 Saul, I S. XV. 2 sqq., though they appear again 
 as foes to Israel in the reign of David, i S. 
 xxvii. and xxx. The remnant of them was de- 
 stroyed in the reign of Hezekiah, i Chron. iv. 
 43 - 
 
 8. The earlier part of this verse is repeated 
 from xxiii'. 22; but is followed up, as in ns, 7, 
 by words of prediction which are wanting in 
 the earlier parable. 
 
 his enemies] Literally, and here more ap- 
 propriately, “those that beset him round.” 
 
 break their bones] Rather (as LXX. and 
 older interpreters) “suck their bones;” i.e. 
 empty tht'm of their marrow. 
 
 11. flee thou] Rather, haste thou; cf. 
 
V. 14 — 18.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXIV. 
 
 745 
 
 house full of silver and gold, I cannot 
 go beyond the ’ commandment of the 
 Lord, to do either good or bad of 
 mine own mind ; but what the Lord 
 saith, that will I speak ? 
 
 14 And now, behold, I go unto 
 my people : come therefore^ and I will 
 advertise thee what this people shall 
 do to thy people in the latter days. 
 
 15 ^ And he took up his parable, 
 and said, Balaam the son of Beor 
 hath said, and the man whose eyes 
 are open hath said: 
 
 16 He hath said, which heard the 
 wo^ds of God, and knew the know- 
 ledge of the most High, which saw 
 the vision of the Almighty, falling 
 into a trance^ but having his eyes open : 
 
 17 I shall see him, but not now: 
 I shall behold him, but not nio-h : 
 there shall come a Star out of Jacob, 
 and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, 
 and shall "smite the corners of Moab, 
 and destroy all the children of Sheth. 
 
 18 And Edom shall be a posses- 
 sion, Seir also shall be a possession 
 
 for the word Gen. xxvii. 43; Cant. viii. 14. 
 No threat is implied. 
 
 14 . 1 ’Will ad'vertise thee~\ Literally, ac- 
 
 cording to the Hebrew, “I will advise thee.” 
 It has been surmised, especially amongst the 
 Jewish interpreters, that the reference is to 
 “the counsel of Balaam” alluded to xxxi. 16. 
 The V ulg. actually alters the text to this sense, 
 “ dabo consilium quid populus tuus populo 
 huic faciat.” Some have supposed that the 
 particulars of this advice have dropped out of 
 the succeeding context, or been purposely with- 
 held as communicated to Balak in secret. The 
 A.V. is however most probably right; the 
 word “advise” is here equivalent to “ad- 
 vertise,” and refers to the ensuing pro- 
 phecy. 
 
 16 . and knew the knowledge of the most 
 High^ With the addition of these words, which 
 point to the greater importance and the more 
 distinctly predictive character of what follows, 
 the introduction to this last parable is the same 
 as that to the preceding one. 
 
 17 . I shall see him^ but not now, &c.] Bet- 
 ter, I see him, though he he not now: I 
 behold him, though he be not nigh. The 
 tenses are as in xxiii. 9. Balaam there spoke of 
 what he saw in fact with the bodily eye; here 
 he describes what is actually before him in in- 
 ward vision. 
 
 him~\ i. e. the prince, represented in the suc- 
 ceeding words by the star and sceptre. On 
 these the prophetic gaze of Balaam is fixed, 
 not on the people encamped on the plain be- 
 neath him. The use of the pronoun to stand 
 for a person not yet named is common in Ori- 
 ental, especially Arabic, poetry. 
 
 a Star] The star has amongst all nations 
 served as a symbol of regal power and splen- 
 dour: cf. Virgil, ‘Eel.’ ix. 47, Ecce Dionsei 
 processit CjEsaris astrum; Hor. ‘ Od.’ I. xii. 
 47, Micat inter omnes Julium sidus. The 
 birth and future glory of great monarchs were 
 believed by the ancients to be heralded by the 
 
 appearance of stars or comets: e.g. those of 
 Mithr dates in Justin, ‘Hist.’ xxxvii. 2; of 
 Alexander the Great; Curtius, ix. 6, 8; cf. 
 Suet. ‘ Jul. Coes.’ Lxxxviii. and the line of Ai- 
 schylus, ‘ Agam.’ 6, Xafinpovs dvvdaras, epTrpf- 
 TTovras aldepi. The same idea recurs in Scrip- 
 ture, Is. xiv. 12; Dan. viii. 10; Rev. i. 16, 20, 
 ii. I, ix. I. How current it was amongst the 
 Jews, and accepted too as a well understood 
 emblem of the Messiah in particular, is strik- 
 ingly illustrated by the fact that the well- 
 known pretender in the reign of Hadrian 
 adopted the name of Bar-cochab, i. e. son of a 
 star. 
 
 the corners of Moab] Literally, ‘ ‘ the two 
 sides of Moab,” i.e. the length and breadth of 
 the land: cf. Jer. xlviii. 45. 
 
 destroy all the children of Sheth] Rather, 
 “overthrow the sons of tumult,” i.e. the war- 
 riors of Moab, whose valour and fierceness is 
 frequently referred to elsewhere (cf. Ex. xv. 15 ; 
 Is. XV. 4, xvi. 6, &c.). The word sheth is 
 connected with the word shaon used in the pa- 
 rallel passage, Jer. xlviii. 45; and the phrase 
 Une shaon is there rightly translated “tumul- 
 tuous ones,” or more literally in marg., “chil- 
 dren of noise.” (So Gesen., Keil, P'urst, Mau- 
 rer, Reinke, &c.) The A.V. has followed 
 the LXX., Vulg., and the ancient Versions 
 generally in taking the word sheth here as a 
 proper name ; and so too one or two mo- 
 dern scholars, e.g. Winzer, who conjectures 
 that it is the name of a Moabitish king. Jew- 
 ish authorities (Onk., Rashi, &c.) refer the 
 word to Seth the son of Adam, and regard the 
 phrase “sons of Sheth” as equivalent to “all 
 mankind.” Thus the passage would import 
 that “he,” i.e. the ruler that should arise out 
 of Israel, “should rule all mankind.” The 
 verb however will not bear the sense “rule;” 
 and on the whole the passage of Jeremiah, so 
 manifestly borrowed from this, seems decisive 
 as to its import. 
 
 18 . ■S't’/r] The older name of the mountain- 
 
 land, south of Moab, and east of the Arabah, 
 which the Ldomites inhabited, Gen. xxxvi. 8 ; 
 
746 
 
 NUMBERS. XXIV. 
 
 [v. 19. 
 
 for his enemies; and Israel shall do 19 Out of Jacob shall come he 
 valiantly. . that shall have dominion, and shall 
 
 Deut. ii. I, &c. The southern portion of it is 
 still called esh-Sherah, perhaps a corruption of 
 the older name. 
 
 19 . ha^ve dominion^ i.e. acquire, exercise, 
 and keep dominion. 
 
 destroy him that remaineth of the city] i. e. 
 shall destroy those of every city that had pre- 
 viously escaped. The phrase is peculiar to 
 this place. It tersely describes a conqueror 
 who first defeats his enemies in battle, and then 
 hunts out the fugitives till he has cut off all 
 of every place. (Cf. i K. xi. 16.) 
 
 With this verse ends the first “parable” of 
 Balaam’s last prophetical utterance. It fulfils 
 the Prophet’s promise in •u. 14 to foretell to 
 Balak what should befall his people at the 
 hands of Israel; and adds also, *1;. 18, that 
 Edom should share the fate of Moab. There 
 can be no doubt that the victories of David 
 were a partial accomplishment of these predic- 
 tions, and the terms in wTich they are men- 
 tioned (cf. 2 S. viii. 2, 13, 14, reading in 13 
 “Edomites” instead of “Syrians,” see note; 
 I K. xi. 15, 16; Ps. lx. 8) seem to carry on 
 their face a reference to the passage before us. 
 
 It is however no less clear that these victo- 
 ries do not exhaust the import of Balaam’s 
 predictions. For he emphatically promises to 
 Israel a complete and permanent conquest of 
 Moab and Edom; and no such conquest was 
 achieved by David or any of his successors. 
 Indeed in the days of the Judges, Eglon 
 king of Moab conquered Jericho, and held 
 the southern tribes of Israel in subjection (see 
 Judg. iii. 12 sqq., and notes); Ehud delivered 
 his own land from the Moabites ; but we do 
 not read of his conquering them in theirs, 
 flence Saul again found the Moabites in hos- 
 tility I S. xiv. 47 ; David effected for a time a 
 complete subjugation of Moab; but the yoke 
 would seem to have been thrown off again at 
 the disruption. The Moabite stone informs 
 us that they were again subdued by Omri, 
 and oppressed by him and his successors for 
 40 years. It records also the success of the 
 revolt of Mesha, alluded to 2 K. i. i and iii. 
 4, 5. Henceforth the Moabites, though de- 
 feated by Joram (2 K. iii. 21 sqq.), suc- 
 ceeded in maintaining their independence, and 
 in the reign of Joash appear (2 K. xiii. 20) 
 even to have waged ofiensive war against Israel. 
 They were eventually conquered by John Hyr- 
 canus, R.c. 129, and merged in the Jewish 
 state. So too the lulomites revolted under So- 
 lomon (i K. xi. i4.sq(i.); and under Joram 
 again, and more successfully (2 K. viii. 2c); 
 and though def-ated by Ama/iah (2 K. xiv. 
 7) and by U//,iah (2 K. xiv. 22), were never 
 again compleh-ly subjugated. Indcvd in the 
 
 reign of Ahaz (2 Chr. xxviii. 17) they invaded 
 Judah. 
 
 Accordingly we find in the prophets the 
 strain of Balaam taken up, often with a manifest 
 re-echo of his very words, and the threats of 
 destruction against Moab and ’Edom, together 
 with the promises of dominion to Jacob over 
 them repeated, centuries of course after the 
 time of David: cf. as to Moab Is. xv., xvi. i — 5, 
 XXV. 10 sqq.; Amos ii. i ; Zeph. ii. 8 sqq.; and 
 as to Edom, Is. xxxiv. 5 sqq., Ixiii. i — 6; Jer. 
 xlix. 7sqq, ; Lam. iv. 21, 22; Ezek. xxv. 12 
 sqq.; Amos ix. ii, 12; Obad. 17 sqq. Both 
 are included together in Is. xi. 14, a pro- 
 phecy of similar import as to these two peoples 
 with that of Balaam in the text. 
 
 It is further apparent that Edom and Moab 
 are named by Balaam, as they are also by the 
 prophets (cf. e.g. Is. xi. 14), not for their own 
 sake merely, but as representatives of the 
 heathen nations (goyeem^ cf. xxiv. 8) who 
 were hostile to the Theocracy. As Jacob then 
 figures as a constant type of the kingdom of 
 Messiah in the prophets, so too do Edom and 
 Moab of the enemies of that kingdom ; and in 
 the threatened ruin of Edom and Moab is in- 
 dicated the eventual destruction of all that re- 
 sist the kingdom of God in its power. 
 
 The adoption of the name of Bar-cochab by 
 the leader of the last rebellion of the Jews in 
 the reign of Hadrian (cf. on 2;. 17) is an unde- 
 niable proof that Balaam’s magnificent pro- 
 mises were regarded by the Jews themselves at 
 that time as yet awaiting fulrilment, though the 
 people of Moab had then long vanished from 
 the theatre of history. It was on the faith of 
 his people in their glorious future, as sketched 
 out by Balaam, that the pretender traded ; and 
 their disappointment, when their hopes were 
 belied by his defeat, was marked by their alter- 
 ing his surname to Bar-coziba, i.e. “ Son of 
 Falsehood.” 
 
 I'he Star and Sceptre of the prophecy too, 
 like the “Sceptre” and “Lawgiver” of Gen. 
 xlix. 10, point naturally rather to a line of 
 princes than to an individual; or rather are 
 emblems of the kingdom of Israel generally. 
 Thus the victories of David and his successors, 
 generation after generation over Edom and 
 Moab, are unquestionably recurring and pro- 
 gressive accomplishments of what Balaam fore- 
 told; but after all of them the prophecy yet 
 reaches fonvard to some further and culmi- 
 nating accomplishment; and that too in “the 
 latter days,” 'v. 14, the ordinary prophetic de- 
 signation for the time of the Messiah (cf. Dan. 
 X. 14). 
 
 To a Christian the connection between the 
 star and sceptre of Balaam and the star of the 
 king of the Jews, which the wise men saw, 
 
V. 20, 21.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXIV. 
 
 747 
 
 destroy him that remaineth of the 
 city. 
 
 20 ^ And when he looked on 
 Amalek, he took up his parable, and 
 
 said, Amalek was "the first of the na- 
 tions; but his latter end ^ shall be that thenations 
 he perish for ever. nl^rred 
 
 2 1 And he looked on the Kenites, 
 
 Exod. 17. 8. II Or, shall be eve 7 i to destruction. 
 
 St Matt. ii. a, is self-evident. As they vs’-ere 
 “wise men from the east,” so was Balaam also 
 a “wise man from the east” (cf. xxiii. 7); 
 and the tradition that they were, if not de- 
 scendants, yet fellow-countrymen, of Balaam, 
 and occupied in pursuits kindred to his, is 
 probable enough. 
 
 Nor is it any valid objection to urge that 
 Balaam could not possibly have shared in the 
 hopes of such a kingdom of God, dominant 
 over all heathen and adverse peoples, as is seen 
 here to be implied in what he said. The 
 faithful and holy prophets of God themselves 
 did not always comprehend the full bearings 
 of the predictions which the Spirit of God de- 
 livered through them (cf. i St Pet. i. ii). In 
 Balaam, whose mind and will were alien from 
 the tenor of that which his lips spake, this was 
 doubtless far more decidedly the case. The 
 ti*ue and final scope of his words must be 
 sought, not in the sense he would himself pro- 
 bably have assigned to them, but in that which 
 was beyond question permanently associated 
 with them by God’s people from that time 
 forward. 
 
 20. ^he7i he looked~\ i.e. in spirit, as he 
 saw the star, 7;. 17. 
 
 Amalek'] Cf. Gen. xxxvi. l^ and note. 
 
 <iuas] Rather is. The copula supplied 
 should be in the present tense. 
 
 the first of the nations] i.e. pre-eminent 
 amongst the neighbouring nations : cf. the same 
 expression Amos vi. i. Hence the force of 
 the words, n). 7, “ higher than Agag,” i.e. than 
 the king of this powerful nation. This rank, 
 due to the warlike prowess of the tribe, Ba- 
 laam contrasts with its approaching downfall 
 and extinction. The Amalekites attacked Is- 
 rael soon after their passage through the Red 
 Sea, Ex. xvii. 8, and defeated their first at- 
 tempt at an invasion of Canaan, Num. xiv. 45. 
 The sense given by the margin, “ first amongst 
 the nations that warred against Israel,” though 
 supported by the Targums and some modern 
 Commentators {e-g. Herxheimer, Keil), is 
 forced, and fails to bring out the antithes.s on 
 which Balaam lays stress. That preferred by 
 Rosenm., Ewald, Maurer, &c., “ first = most 
 ancient of the nations,” is contradicted by the 
 genealogies of Genesis xxxvi. 12, according to 
 which the Amalekites are a branch of the 
 Edomites. 
 
 21. the Kenites] First mentioned, Gen. xv. 
 19, as one of the tribes whose territory was 
 promised to Abraham. In Judg. i. 16, where 
 
 we read of them as moving with the children 
 of Judah, to establish themselves in the pas- 
 tures south of Arad, Moses’ father-in-law is 
 spoken of as a Kenite; cf. Judg. iv. ii. It 
 appears then, since Moses’ father-in-law was a 
 prince or priest of Midian (Exod. ii. 17 sqq.), 
 that the Kenites must have been of Midianitish 
 extraction, and so descended from Abraham 
 through Keturah, Gen. xxv. 2. 
 
 But it seems unlikely that the Kenites of 
 Gen. XV. 19, who were to be dispossessed by 
 the descendants of Abraham, are identical with 
 those of whom Balaam speaks, and who were, 
 because of good offices rendered at the time of 
 the Exodus, always regarded as kinsmen and 
 friends by Israel (cf. i S. xv. 6, xxvii. 10). 
 It is probable rather that the Kenites of Gen. 
 XV. 19 were a Canaanitish people, who derived 
 their name from the city Kain, which fell 
 eventually within the borders of the tribe of 
 Judah (Josh. xv. 27); and that the descend- 
 ants of Hobab, who appear in Judg. i. 16 as 
 making war in this very district, possessed 
 themselves of this city, and with it of the 
 name Kenite also. This they would seem to 
 have already done when Balaam uttered his 
 prediction; and in the next verse it is, as the 
 margin correctly indicates, not of the Kenite, 
 but of Kain the city, that he speaks. Nor is 
 it surprising to find them in possession of their 
 new abode in the promised land, while the 
 Israelites were yet in their tents. It may well 
 be that this roving band of Midianites had 
 already entered Canaan, perhaps along the 
 shores of the Dead Sea, and by routes imprac- 
 ticable for the huge host of Israel, and had, 
 as a kind of advanced guard, made beginning 
 of the conquest of the country. 
 
 From I Chr. ii. 54, -55, we learn that the 
 Rechabites were a branch of the Kenites ; and 
 the name Salmaltes, always given to the Ke- 
 nites in the Targums, connects them with Sal- 
 ma, the son of Caleb, there mentioned. Jer. 
 XXXV. shews how tenaciously, for many cen- 
 turies, they held fast the nomadic habits of 
 their race. 
 
 Strong is thy d-zueUing place., and thou putt est 
 thy nest in a rock] Render, Strong (or firm) 
 be thy dwelling-place, and put thou 
 thy nest in the rock (or cliff). In the 
 Hebrew there is h play on the words ken., 
 “nest,” and Kain., the name of the Kenites’ 
 abode. This nest in the cliff might be the 
 city of Hazazon-tamar or Engedi, if that be 
 (as is likely) the “city of palm-trees,” from 
 which they went subsequently up, Judg. i. 16. 
 But there is another site, about ten miles south 
 
748 
 
 NUMBERS. XXIV. • 
 
 [v. 2 2 . 
 
 and took up his parable, and said, 
 Strong is thy dwellingplace, and thou 
 puttest thy nest in a rock. 
 
 ^ the Kenite shalpHeb. 
 
 Kai7i, 
 
 22 Nevertheless 
 
 be wasted, “ until Asshur shall carry 
 tliee away captive. 
 
 crQ Ass/mr carry thee away captive ? 
 
 of Engedi, to which Balaam’s words would be 
 more appropriate, on the summit of the cliff 
 rising perpendicularly from the level of the 
 western shore of the Dead Sea, where was 
 afterwards built the city of Masada, the scene 
 of the closing tragedy of the Jewish-Roman 
 war. It is not likely that such a natural for- 
 tress would ever have been unoccupied, or 
 even excluded from a place in the list of the 
 cities of Judah, Nor is there any site in the 
 Holy Land which a rude but warlike people 
 might more fittingly designate as either Ken, 
 the Nest, or Kain, the Possession. 
 
 22 . Nevertheless the Kenite shall he veasted^ 
 &c.] Render, For Kain shall surely not 
 he destroyed (lit. “be for destruction”) 
 until Asshur, &c. : cf. note at end of chapter. 
 The words are not, as they appear in A. V., a 
 prediction of evil to the Kenites, but a pro- 
 mise, on the contrary, of safety to be long 
 continued to them. The assurance of Moses 
 to Hobab, “what goodness the Lord shall do 
 unto us, the same will we do unto thee” (cf. 
 X. 32), is in substance endorsed by Balaam. 
 Another and later pledge of Divine favour 
 was granted to those who helped to conduct 
 Israel to his inheritance; see Jer. xxxv. 19; 
 and, in fact, they shared the fortune of God’s 
 chosen people until the Captivity. 
 
 23 . <^vhen God doeth th}s~\ The eventual 
 carrying away of the allies of Israel by As- 
 syria presented itself to Balaam as the ruin of 
 all peace and safety upon earth. His thoughts 
 were fixed on the fates of those whom he 
 knew; and If even the Kenites might not be 
 spared in the end, who then might? One pre- 
 diction was however yet wanting, and is next 
 given, viz. that the conquerors of the Kenites 
 should fare no better than the Kenites them- 
 selves. 
 
 24 . Chittini] i.e. Cyprus, the nearest of 
 the western islands, the only one visible from 
 Palestine, and so the representative to Balaam 
 and to Israel of all those unknown western re- 
 gions across the Mediterranean Sea, from which 
 were at length to come the conquerors of the 
 mighty empires of the East. Cf. Is, xxiii. i, 
 12; Jer. ii. 10, The Vulgate rendering is re- 
 markable, “Venient in trieribus de Italia.” In 
 Dan. xi. 30 however Chittim appears to be 
 equivalent to Italy; the Targums render it so 
 several times. 
 
 Eber^ i.e. not as Vulg. and LXX., “the 
 Hebrews,” but generally the descendants of 
 Shem. Of these Asshur was one (cf. Gen. x. 
 
 2T, 22), and is here specified by name, since 
 the Assyrians attained, in the empires of Baby- 
 lon and Nineveh, to an extraordinary grandeur, 
 and were destined to a most signal and irre- 
 trievable fall. 
 
 he also\ i.e. the conqueror of Asshur and 
 Eber who should come across the sea. The 
 pronoun cannot refer to Asshur (as Knobel), 
 from which word it is in syntax disconnected ; 
 nor yet to Eber, whose fate has been already 
 announced along with that of Asshur. To the 
 downfall of Asshur and of Eber there is ob- 
 viously added that of another, and, in earthly 
 might; greater empire; but as the historical 
 events which unroll themselves before the Pro- 
 phet’s spirit become more distant in time, they 
 become also less determinate in outline.- It is 
 not revealed whence the blow should come 
 that should overthrow in its turn the power 
 that prevailed over the great monarchies of the 
 East. 
 
 It is evident that the prophecy now before 
 us extends its view far beyond the latest date 
 that has ever been assigned for the composition 
 of the Pentateuch, and even for the closing 
 of the volume of the Old Testament. The 
 “ships of Chittim” were naturally referred, 
 in the days of the Maccabees, to the Mace- 
 donian invasion of Asia (cf. i Macc. i. i, 
 and viii, 5); nor is it easy to see how any 
 event of less magnitude can adequately inter- 
 pret the broad prediction of affliction to As- 
 shur and Eber. The bearing of this part of 
 the prophecy is perhaps adequately represented 
 in the well-known “ ut valesceret Occidens,” 
 i.e. from the West should come a power 
 before which the conquerors of the East should 
 be subdued. But beyond this we have a clear 
 intimation that the MTstem Empire itself, 
 which was at its zenith long after the last of 
 the Old Testament writers had lived and 
 died, should “perish for ever.” It is not 
 surprising that those who reject all actual 
 prediction of future events should have pro- 
 j)osed, though without a shadow of proof, to 
 regard w. 23, 24 as a later addition to the 
 prophecy of Balaam, 
 
 25 . returned to his onvn place'] Not to his 
 own land, for he remained amongst the Mi- 
 dianites to plot by new means against the peo- 
 ple of God, and to perish in his sin (xxxi. 8, 
 16 (where see notes); Rev. ii. 14). The 
 phrase, which is of frequent recurrenfe (cf. e.g. 
 Gen. xviii. 33, xxxi. 55; i S. xxvi, 25; 2 S. 
 xix. 39), is idiomatic, meaning merely that 
 Balaam went away whither he would. 
 
NUMBERS. XXIV. XXV. 
 
 749 
 
 V. 23—2.] 
 
 23 And he took up his parable, 
 and said, Alas, who shall live when 
 God doeth this ! 
 
 24 And ships shall come from the 
 coast of Chittim, and shall afflict 
 
 Asshur, and shall afflict Eber, and he 
 also shall perish for ever. 
 
 25 And Balaam rose up, and went 
 and returned to his place : and Balak 
 also went his way. 
 
 NOTES on Chap. xxiv. 3, and 22. 
 
 3 . The man nvhose eyes ^juere open'] Literally 
 “the man opened of eye.” The expression is 
 further explained in the next verse “falling 
 into a trance, but having his eyes open,” where 
 the word for “open” is, however, a different 
 and common one. 
 
 The margin gives a different rendering to 
 the word rendered in the text by “open,” 
 and, referring the phrase to Balaam’s past 
 blindness as to God’s purpose, renders “who 
 had his eyes shut.” Others, adopting the 
 same sense, “shut,” refer the term, and so far 
 more correctly, to the prophet’s present state. 
 Balaam would thus be described as having the 
 outward and bodily vision closed against all 
 external things, whilst the inner sense was, on 
 the contrary, ecstatically active. 
 
 The word is very rare. The only other 
 example of it in the Bible is in the parallel 
 phrase, nj. 15. Hence the doubt about its 
 signification. Gesen. (‘ Thes.' s. v.) prefers, 
 though not very decidedly, the sense “closed.” 
 So Vulg. (“obturatus”), De Wette, Hupfeld, 
 Keil, Hengst., &c. The other rendering, 
 “unclosed,” is however preferable; and is 
 adopted by Jewish authorities generally; by 
 LXX. opav)^ Saad., Maurer, Fiirst, 
 
 Wogue, Knobel, &c. The passage of the 
 Mishna, ‘Abod. Sar.’ chap. v. (Surenhusius, 
 ‘ Mishna.’ IV. pp. 385 sqq.) seems decisive. 
 There and DHD are repeatedly used to- 
 
 gether to express the unstopping and closing 
 again of a wine-jar. 
 
 22 . Nenjertheless the Kenite shall he nvasted^ 
 until Asshur shall carry thee away captive] 
 Marg. “how long shall it be ere Asshur carry 
 thee away captive ? ” 
 
 Th'e rendering of the passage depends upon 
 
 the sense assigned to the particles ' 3 , 
 translated “nevertheless” in A.V., and nO'i'y 
 translated by “until.” 
 
 To the former two particles in combination 
 the sense of “only” is assigned in this verse 
 by Ewald, ‘Ausf. Lehr.’ p. 847, as in Gen. 
 xl. 14, and in several other passages; and the 
 sense would thus be “only is the Kenite for 
 destruction then when, &c.” 
 
 But it is probable that we ought in this 
 case to dissociate the particles, as is in effect 
 done in the Targums of Jerusalem and Pales- 
 tine, and by Rashi, and give to each its own 
 proper force. The '3 will thus be equivalent 
 to “for,” and the have, as in xiv. 23, and 
 often, the strong negative sense which it bears 
 in oaths; cf. Ewald, ‘Ausf. Lehr.’ p. 846. 
 So substantially Keil. 
 
 Of the other two particles HtD is ordinarily 
 and in classical Hebrew interrogative ; and the 
 phrase nfD"“iy would mean, as in margin, “how 
 long?” But such a sense, though retained here 
 by some commentators, does not suit the con- 
 struction; and the particle HO on which the 
 question turns is employed by Balaam, xxiii. % 
 and xxiii. 23, in a non-inten*ogative sense. In 
 his mouth this use must be regarded as an 
 Aramaism ; and an Aramaism is a token of 
 the Hebrew in which it occurs being of a very 
 early or a very late date (cf. on Gen. xlix. 10). 
 Examples of similar uses of HD in Chaldee 
 will be found Dan. ii. 22, 28, iv. 32. Thus 
 the phrase will mean in effect, as it 
 
 is correctly rendered by A. V. “until.” So 
 as regards these latter two particles Keil ; and 
 as to the general effect of the passage Knobel. 
 
 Render therefore “for Kain shall surely not 
 be for destruction until Asshur, &c.” 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 1 Js7'ael at Shittim commit whoredom and idola- 
 try. 6 Phinehas killcth Zitnri and Cozbi. 
 10 God thcrefo7'e giveth him an everlasting 
 priesthood. 16 The Midianites are to be 
 vexed. 
 
 Shittim, and 33* 
 
 ’ 49 - 
 
 commit 
 
 to 
 
 AND Israel abode in ^ 
 
 £\_ the people began 
 whoredom with the daughters of 
 Moab. 
 
 2 And they called the people unto 
 
 Chap. XXV. 1. Shittim] An abbreviation 
 for Abel-shittim; see on xxii. i. 
 
 the people began to commit^ &c.] The re- 
 cords of the neighbouring cities of the plain, 
 and the circumstances of the origin of Moab, 
 Gen. xix. 30 sqq., suggest that the people 
 VoL. I. 
 
 amongst whom Israel was now thrown were 
 more than ordinarily licentious. 
 
 2. And they called] i.e. “the daughters 
 of Moab called:” the verb, and the ensuing 
 “their,” being in Hebrew feminine. 
 
 3B 
 
[v. 3—10. 
 
 NUMBERS. XXV. 
 
 the sacrifices of their gods: and the 
 people did eat, and bowed down to 
 their gods. 
 
 3 And Israel joined himself unto 
 Baal-peor: and the anger of the 
 Lord was kindled against Israel. 
 
 4 And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 *Deut. 4. ^Take all the heads of the people. 
 Josh. 22. and hang them up before the Lord 
 " 7 - against the sun, that the fierce anger 
 
 of the Lord may be turned away 
 from Israel. 
 
 5 And Moses said unto the judges 
 of Israel, Slay ye every one his men 
 that were joined unto Baal-peor. 
 
 6 ^ And, behold, one of the chil- 
 dren of Israel came and brought unto 
 his brethren a Midianitish woman in 
 the sighi of Moses, and in the sight 
 
 of all the congregation of the children 
 of Israel, who were weeping before 
 the door of the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation. 
 
 7 And ^when Phinehas, the son of'^Ps. los. 
 Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, fkac. 2. 
 saw A, he rose up from among the 54 - 
 congregation, and took a javelin in 
 
 his hand; 
 
 8 And he went after the man of 
 Israel into the tent, and thrust both 
 of them through, the man of Israel, 
 and the woman through her belly. 
 
 So the plague was stayed from the 
 children of Israel. 
 
 9 And those that died in the^iCor. la 
 plague were twenty and four thousand. 
 
 10 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying. 
 
 3. joined himself^ t.e. by taking part in 
 the sacrificial meals as described in the last 
 verse, Cf. Exod. xxxiv. 15; i Cor. x. 18. 
 The phrase is repeated, 5; Ps. cvi. 28. The 
 LXX. and Vulg. render “was initiated;” and 
 correctly as to the effect of the acts described. 
 The worship of Baal was attended with the 
 grossest impurity, indeed partly consisted in 
 it. Cf. Hos. iv. 14, ix. 10; also the worship 
 of Mylitta, Herod, i. 187. 
 
 Baal-peor'] i. e. the Baal worshipped at Peor, 
 the place mentioned xxiii, 28. Hence the god 
 him.self is styled “Peor” in t8, xxxi. 16; 
 Josh. xxii. 17; and the ypot “Beth-peor,” 
 “ house of Peor,” Deut. iii. 29, iv. 46. Baal- 
 peor is probably to be identified with Che- 
 mosh; see notes on xxi. 29, and xxxii. 37, 38. 
 
 4 . Take all the heads of the people] i.e. as- 
 semble the chiefs of the people to thee. Cf. 
 “ took men,” xvi. i. 
 
 hang them] i.e. those who had joined them- 
 selves to Peor.. It appears from the command 
 given by Moses in the next verse that the 
 offenders were to be first slain by the hands of 
 “the judges of Israel,” and afterwards hung 
 up “against the sun” (i.e. publicly, openly; 
 cf. 2 Sam. xii. 12) as an aggravation of their 
 punishment. I'his would be done by impaling 
 the body or fastening it to a cross. Cf. Deut. 
 xxi, 23, note, and 2 Sam. xxi. 
 
 5. Slay ye e'very one his meii] The judges 
 were each to kill the offenders belonging to his 
 own jurisdiction. 
 
 6. a Midianitish ivomari] Lit. “the Mi- 
 dianitish woman,” the particular one by whom 
 he had been enticed. From -u. 15 it appears 
 that she was the daughter of Zur, who was a 
 “head over a people, and of a chief house in 
 
 Midian,” and is mentioned xxxi. 8 as one of 
 the five kings of Midian that afterwards pe- 
 rished by the hands of the Israelites. Her high 
 rank proves that Zimri had not fallen in with 
 her by mere chance, but had been deliberately 
 singled out by the Midianites as one whom 
 they must at any price lead astray. The 
 example of Zimri is doubtless recorded as one 
 of the most memorable and characteristic in 
 itself, as well as because it gave the impulse to 
 the act of Phinehas, •u-u. 7, 8. 
 
 nveeping before the door of the tabernacle] 
 The plague (n). 9) had doubtless already 
 broken out among the people. The more god- 
 fearing had already assembled at the door of 
 the Tabernacle of God (cf. Joel ii. 15 — 17) to 
 intercede for mercy, when Zimri committed 
 the fresh and public outrage just described. 
 
 8. into the tent] Heb. hakkuhhah: the 
 word with the article attached to it has passed 
 through the Arabic and Spanish into our lan- 
 guage as “ alcove.” It denotes anything 
 arched: here, the inner recess in the tent, fa- 
 shioned archwise (cf. the Latin “ fomex,” Juv. 
 III. 156), and appropriated as the sleeping- 
 chamber and women’s apartment. 
 
 the plague was stayed] No plague had as 
 yet been mentioned; but it appears from the, 
 next verse, and from God’s words in w ii, 
 that a divinely sent pestilence was raging until 
 the wrath of God was appeased by the act of 
 Phinehas. The term “plague” may however 
 be understood to include the slaughter wrought 
 upon the offenders by “ the judges,” m. 5. (Cf. 
 for such sense of the Flebrew word, i Sam. 
 iv. 17 ; 2 Sam. xvii. 9.) 
 
 9. twenty and four thousand] St Paul 
 (i Cor. X. 8) says “three and twenty thou- 
 
V II— IS-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXV. 
 
 751 
 
 ^Ps. 106. II ^Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, 
 the son of Aaron the priest, hath 
 turned my wrath away from the chil- 
 dren of Israel, while he was zealous 
 for my sake among them, that I con- 
 sumed not the children of Israel in 
 my jealousy. 
 
 /Ecdus. 12 Wherefore say, ^Behold, I give 
 fMac. 2. unto him my covenant of peace : 
 
 13 And he shall have it, and his 
 seed after him, even the covenant of 
 an everlasting priesthood; because he 
 
 sand,” following probably the Jewish tradition 
 which deducted one thousand as the number 
 slain by the hands of their brethren. 
 
 11 . hath turned my ^rath away'\ So v. 
 13 he is said to have ‘ ‘ made an atonement for 
 the children of Israel.” The signal example 
 thus made by Phinehas of a leading offender 
 was accepted by God as an expiation (lit. in 
 *1;. 13 “covering;” see on the typical signifi- 
 cance Lev. i. 4), and the exterminating wrath 
 which had gone forth against the whole 
 people was arrested. Cf. the' case of Achan, 
 Josh. vii. and Ps. cvi. 30, “ Then stood up 
 Phinehas, and executed judgment, and so the 
 plague was stayed.” 
 
 The act of Phinehas must be regarded as 
 exceptional. It was an extraordinary deed of 
 vengeance, justified by the singular atrocity 
 of the crime which provoked it. The later 
 Jews rightly appreciated its character, though, 
 whilst guarding the application of a danger- 
 ous precedent by minute conditions, they lost 
 the spirit of it, when they founded on it 
 and on the similar act of Samuel (i Sam. xv. 
 33) the “jus zelotyparum ;” i.e. the right 
 accorded to every Jew to punish summarily 
 any gross and flagrant breach of Divine law 
 committed in his presence. Cf. the act of 
 Mattathias (i Macc. ii. 24 sqq.) in slaying a 
 man about to sacrifice publicly on an idola- 
 trous altar, and the praise bestowed upon it 
 v. 26, “Thus dealt he zealously for the law 
 of God, like as Phinees did unto Zambri the 
 son of Salom.” The stoning of St Stephen 
 (Acts vii.) has been quoted as an application 
 of- the “jus zelotyparum.” Our Lord’s ex- 
 pulsion of the traffickers from the Temple is 
 another, characterized however by abstinence 
 from all violence beyond what was necessary to 
 vindicate the law. 
 
 The act of Phinehas was not done under 
 the commission of Moses given -v. 5. Phinehas 
 was not one of the “chiefs” or “judges;” 
 and had he been so, could only have been 
 warranted in slaying offenders of his own 
 tribe of Levi. Nor is there any evidence, un- 
 less it be found in the approval of the deed 
 afterwards, that he was bidden by extraordi- 
 
 was zealous for his God, and made an 
 atonement for the children of Israel. 
 
 14 Now the name of the Israelite 
 that was slain, even that was slain 
 with the Midianitish woman, was 
 Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a 
 
 ^ chief house among the Simeonites. t Heb. 
 
 15 And the name of the Midian-ySr?^"* 
 itish woman that was slain^w^j Coz- 
 
 bi, the daughter of Zur; he was head 
 over a people, and of a chief house in 
 Midian. 
 
 nary command of God to do it. It was its 
 own justification. Its merit consisted in the 
 evidence it gave that his heart was right before 
 God. He was, to quote the text of -v. ii 
 ad liter am, “ zealous with God’s zeal,” and 
 abhorred the presumptuous wickedness of 
 Zimri, as God abhorred it. He therefore 
 risked his own life by dealing according to 
 their deserts with two influential and defiant 
 evil doers; and his act, done in the face of 
 Moses and the people, and for them, was ac- 
 cepted by God as a national atonement. How 
 thoroughly the nation adopted the deed is 
 manifest by the conspicuous position from 
 henceforth assigned to Phinehas (cf. xxxi. 6 ; 
 Josh. xxii. 13 sqq.), and by the fame which 
 attached to him and it ever afterwards. On 
 the public and civil aspects of the subject see 
 Bp Sanderson’s Sermon on Ps. cvi. 30, ‘ Works,’ 
 Oxford Ed., II. 240 sqq.; on the more personal 
 and private, Bp Andrewes’ Sermon on the 
 same text, Andrewes’ Sermons, ‘ Lib. of 
 Anglo-Gath. Theol.’ v. 223. 
 
 12. my covenant of peace'\ Equivalent to 
 “ the covenant of my peace.” God establishes 
 with Phinehas in particular that covenant 
 which He had made generally with all his 
 people ; and among its blessings peace is spe- 
 cially mentioned, because of the peace between 
 God and the congregation which Phinehas had 
 brought about. The assurance of peace with 
 God is appropriately bestowed on the man 
 who had regained this peace for others. As an 
 additional gift there is assigned to him and his 
 seed for ever the office of peace-making, the 
 legitimate function of the priesthood (cf. Eph. 
 ii. 14); and the covenant was thus to him a 
 covenant not only of peace but of life (cf. 
 Mai. ii. 5). It is not the high-priesthood that 
 is here exclusively intended: to this Phinehas 
 had not as yet succeeded, for his father Eleazar 
 was still alive. Yet after he had become high- 
 priest, the office, with a short interruption 
 from the days of Eli to those of David, when 
 for unknown reasons it was filled by the de- 
 scendants of his uncle Ithamar, was perpetuated 
 in the line of Phinehas ; nor indeed is it known 
 to have departed from that line again until the 
 
 3 B 2 
 
2 
 
 NUMBERS. XXV. XXVI. [v. 16-5. 
 
 16 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 • 31- 17 ^ Vex the Midianites, and smite 
 
 them : 
 
 18 For they vex you with their 
 wiles, wherewith they have beguiled 
 you in the matter of Peor, and in the 
 matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a 
 prince of^Midian, their sister, which 
 was slain in the day of the plague for 
 Peor’s sake. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 I The su}?i of all Israel is taken in the plains of 
 A/oab. 5 2 The law of dividing a??iong them 
 the inheritance of the land. 57 The families 
 and number of the Levites. 63 None were 
 left of them which were numbered at Sinai^ 
 but Caleb and Joshua, 
 
 K 
 
 N D it came to pass after the 
 plague, that the Lord spake 
 
 unto Moses and unto Eleazar the son 
 of Aaron the priest, saying, 
 
 2 Take the sum of all the congre- 
 gation of the children of Israel, "^from 
 twenty years old and upward, through- 
 out their fathers’ house, all that are 
 able to go. to war in Israel. 
 
 3 And Moses and Eleazar the 
 priest spake with them in the plains 
 of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, 
 saying, 
 
 4 Take the sum of the people., from 
 twenty years old and upv/ard; as the 
 Lord “^commanded Moses and the 
 children of Israel, which went forth 
 out of the land of Egypt. 
 
 5 ^ ^Reuben, the eldest son of Is- 
 rael : the children of Reuben ; Hanoch, 
 of whom cometh the family of the Ha- 
 
 chap. 
 
 3 - 
 
 chap. 
 
 ^Gen. 46. 
 
 Exod. 6. 
 
 14. 
 
 Chron. 5. 
 
 typical priesthood of the sons of Aaron was 
 merged in the actual priesthood of the Saviour 
 of mankind. 
 
 17 . Vex the AUdianites~\ On the relations 
 between the Midianites and the Moabites, cf. 
 xxii. 2 and note. As the Israelites are to “vex 
 the Midianites” alone, it may be inferred that 
 though the licentious rites of the Moabites had 
 furnished the occasion, yet it was the Midian- 
 ites in particular that had been the active 
 agents in corrupting the people. Cf. on v. i ; 
 and, for the execution of this command, 
 ch. xxxi. 
 
 Chap. XXVI. Census in the Plains of Aloah. 
 
 This mustering of the Tribes was imme- 
 diately preparatory to the war against Midian, 
 and to the invasion of Canaan which shortly 
 followed. With a view also to an equitable 
 allotment of the land to be conquered (cf. 
 nj. 54) the numbers of the several tribes are 
 taken according to their families. 
 
 1. after the plague'] These words serve to 
 show approximately the date at which the 
 census was taken, and intimate the reason for 
 the great decrease in numbers which was found 
 to have taken place in certain tribes. Cf. Deut. 
 iv. 3 and on oj. 5 of this chapter. 
 
 3 , 4 . There is an ellipsis in the beginning 
 of oj. 4, which is probably rightly supplied 
 by the ICnglish Version from as. 2. The 
 LXX. takes the last clause of -u. 4 as a kind 
 of title to the catalogue which follows in this 
 sense; And the children of Israel which went 
 forth from the land of Egypt were those 
 whose names follow. 
 
 5 sqq. The tribes are mentioned in the 
 same order as in the earlier census, ch. i., ex- 
 
 cept that Manasseh here precedes Ephraim; 
 probably as being now the larger tribe. The 
 following table shows the numbers of the 
 
 tribes at each census 
 
 At .Sinai. 
 
 In the Plains 
 of Moab. 
 
 Reuben 
 
 .46,500 
 
 4.3,730 
 
 Simeon 
 
 •59^300 
 
 22,200 
 
 Gad 
 
 •45,650 
 
 40,500 
 
 Judah 
 
 .74,600 
 
 76,500 
 
 Issachar 
 
 .54,400 
 
 64,300 
 
 Zebulun 
 
 .57,400 
 
 60,500 
 
 Ephraim 
 
 .40,500 
 
 32,500 
 
 Manasseh ... 
 
 .32,200 
 
 52,700 
 
 Benjamin ... 
 
 •35,400 
 
 45,600 
 
 Dan 
 
 .62,700 
 
 64,400 
 
 Asher 
 
 .41,500 
 
 53,400 
 
 Naphtali 
 
 •53,400 
 
 45,400 
 
 Seven of the tribes, of which are the three 
 belonging to the camp of J udah, shew an in- 
 crease of numbers ; and five, among whom are 
 the three belonging to the camp of Reuben, 
 shew a decrease. The greatest increase of any 
 one tribe is in Manasseh: see on xxxii. 42. 
 The most remarkable decrease is in Simeon, 
 which now shews less than half its former 
 strength. To this tribe Zimri, the chief of- 
 fender in the recent transgression, belonged 
 (xxv. 14). Probably his tribesmen generally 
 had followed his example, and had accordingly 
 suffered most severely in the plague. See 
 further on as. 12. In the parting blessing of 
 Moses, uttered at no great inteival from this 
 date, the tribe of Simeon alone is omitted. 
 Respecting the round numbers which the cen- 
 sus shews, see on Deut. xxxiii. On the odd 
 thirty in the tribe of Reuben see i. 20 sqq. 
 and the note. 
 
 Each tribe is, in the ensuing catalogue, re- 
 presented as subdivided into certain chief fami- 
 
V. 6— IS-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXVI. 
 
 753 
 
 nochites: of Pallu, the family of the 
 Palluites : 
 
 6 Of Hezron, the family of the 
 Hezronites: of Carmi, the family of 
 the Carmites. 
 
 7 These ar^ the families of the 
 Reubenites: and they that were 
 numbered of them were forty and 
 three thousand and seven hundred 
 and thirty. 
 
 8 And the sons of Pallu ; Eliab. 
 
 9 And the sons of Eliab j Nemuel, 
 and Dathan, and Abiram. This /s 
 that Dathan and Abiram, which were 
 famous in the congregation, who 
 
 ^chap i6. ^strove against Moses and against 
 Aaron in the company of Korah, 
 
 . when they strove against the Lord : 
 
 10 And the earth opened her 
 mouth, and swallowed them up to- 
 
 gether with Korah, when that com- 
 pany died, what time the fire devour- 
 ed two hundred and fifty men: and 
 they became a sign. 
 
 11 Notwithstanding the children 
 of Korah died not. 
 
 12 ^ The sons of Simeon after 
 their families : of Nemuel, the family 
 of the Nemuelites: of Jamin, the 
 family of the Jaminites: of Jachin, 
 the family of the Jachinites: 
 
 13 Of Zerah, the family of the 
 Zarhites : of Shaul, the family of the 
 Shaulites. 
 
 14 These are the families of the 
 Simeonites, twenty and two thousand 
 and two hundred, 
 
 15 ^ The children of Gad after 
 their families: of Zephon, the family 
 of the Zephonites: of Haggi, the fa- 
 
 lies. The families of all the tribes, excluding 
 the Levites, number fifty-seven. The ancestral 
 heads after whom these families are named 
 correspond nearly with the grandchildren and 
 great-grandchildren of Jacob, enumerated in 
 Gen. xlvi. Both lists consist mainly of grand- 
 children of Jacob, both contain also the sam.e 
 two grandchildren of Judah, and the same 
 two grandchildren of Asher. It appears then 
 that the document in Genesis must be regarded 
 as a list, not of those who went down in their 
 own persons with Jacob into Egypt, but of 
 those whose names were transmitted to their 
 posterity of the date of the Exodus as the 
 heads of Israelitish houses, and who may thus 
 be reckoned the early ancestors of the people. 
 It is not necessary to regard each house as 
 consisting of actual lineal descendants only ; or 
 yet as comprising always all the descendants 
 of the ancestor whose name it bears. In some 
 cases, probably, families attached themselves to 
 more powerful households to which they were 
 akin, and became merged in them, and so lost 
 all separate name and place. It is likely, e.g. 
 that Dan had many children, and many 
 branches of descendants, notwithstanding that 
 they were all comprised, by estimation, in the 
 family of the one son known to us. In other 
 cases, where new families sprang up and took 
 their name from leaders of a younger genera- 
 tion, the family named after the older ancestor 
 would consist only of such remnant of his 
 descendants as had not become incorporated in 
 the younger families; e.g. in the tribe of 
 Ephraim the Shuthalhites appear to have ab- 
 sorbed the Eranites, although the latter were 
 actually descended, through Eran, from Shu- 
 thelah. A variety of circumstances would 
 
 naturally tend to bring into prominence some 
 branches of the same parent stock, and to 
 throw others into the background. 
 
 10 . together ^ith Korah'] i.e. they were 
 engulphed at the same time that Korah perish- 
 ed; for Korah himself appears to have died 
 amongst the two hundred and fifty incense 
 offerers at the door of the Tabernacle, not 
 with Dathan and Abiram (cf. on xvi. 3 a 
 and 35). 
 
 11. the children of Korah died not] Cf. 
 'v. 58. Samuel the prophet was of this family 
 according to i Chr. vi. 22 sqq.; and Heman, 
 “the king’s seer,” i Chr. xxv. 5, the first of 
 the three Levites to whom David intrusted the 
 managem.ent of the vocal and instrumental 
 music of the Temple services, i Chr. vi. 33. 
 Several of the Psalms appear from the titles 
 to have been composed for the sons of Korah : 
 cf. titles of Ps. xlii., xliv., xlv., &c. 
 
 12. Nemuel] So i Chron. iv. 24. In Gen. 
 xlvi. 10, Ex. vi. 15, Jemuel. The variation, 
 like other similar ones which follow, seems 
 due merely to error of transcription. 
 
 Jamin] So in Gen. xlvi. 10, Ex. vi. 15. In 
 I Chron. iv. 24, Jarib. 
 
 The earlier list enumerates Ohad among 
 the sons of Simeon. As this name does not 
 appear either here or in Chronicles, it is pro- 
 bable that his family had become extinct. They 
 may have been carried off" in the recent plague : 
 possibly were “the chief house among the 
 Simeonites,” of which Zimri had been prince. 
 
 ] 3 . Zerah] So in Chronicles; but in Gen. 
 list Zohar, with a different initial letter. 
 
 15 — 18 . Zephon; Ozni ; Arod.] In Gen. 
 xlvi. 16, Ziphion; Ezbon; Arodi. 
 
754 
 
 NUMBERS. XXVI. 
 
 [v. 16—34. 
 
 mily of the Haggites : of Shuni, the 
 family of the Shunites : 
 
 16 Of Ozni, the family of the 
 Oznites : of Eri, the family of the 
 Erites : 
 
 17 Of Arod, the family of the 
 Arodites : of Areli, the family of the 
 Arelites. 
 
 18 These are the families of the 
 children of Gad according to those 
 that were numbered of them, forty 
 thousand and five hundred. 
 
 ^ Gen. 38. 19 ^ ^The sons of Judah zaere Er 
 
 & 4.6. 12. and Onan : and Er and Onan died in 
 the land of Canaan. 
 
 20 And the sons of Judah after 
 their families were; of Shelah, the fa- 
 mily of the Shelanites : of Pharez, the 
 family of the Pharzites : of Zerah, the 
 family of the Zarhites. 
 
 21 And the sons of Pharez were; 
 of Hezron, the family of the Hez- 
 ronites : of Hamul, the family of the 
 Hamulites. 
 
 22 These are the families of Ju- 
 dah according to those that were 
 numbered of them, threescore and 
 sixteen thousand and five hundred. 
 
 23 ^ Of the sons of Issachar after 
 their families: (^Tola, the family of 
 the Tolaites: of Pua, the family of 
 the Punites: 
 
 24 Of Jashub, the family of the 
 Jashubites : of Shimron, the family of 
 the Shimronites. 
 
 25 These are the families of Issa- 
 char accordino; to those that were 
 
 numbered of them, threescore and four 
 thousand and three hundred. 
 
 26 ^ (y the sons of Zebulun after 
 their families : of Sered, the family of 
 the Sardites: of Elon, the family of 
 the Elonites : of Jahleel, the family 
 of the Jahleelites. 
 
 27 These are the families of the 
 Zebulunites according to those that 
 were numbered of them, threescore 
 thousand and five hundred. 
 
 28 ^ The sons of Joseph after 
 their families were Manasseh and 
 Ephraim. 
 
 29 Of the sons of Manasseh: of 
 -^Machir, the family of the Machir--^J°®^- ^7. 
 ites : and Machir begat Gilead : of Gi- 
 lead come the family of the Gileadites. 
 
 30 These are the sons of Gilead : 
 of Jeezer, the family of the Jee- 
 zerites : of Helek, the family of the 
 Helekites : 
 
 31 And of Asriel, the family of 
 the Asrielites : and of Shechem, the 
 family of the Shechemites : 
 
 32 And of Shemida, the family of 
 the Shemidaites : and of Hepher, the 
 family of the Hepherites. 
 
 33 ^ And ^Zelophehad the son of i" chap. 27. 
 Hepher had no sons, but daughters: 
 
 and the names of the daughters of 
 Zelophehad were Mahlah, and Noah, 
 
 Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. 
 
 34 These are the families of Ma- 
 nasseh, and those that were number- 
 ed of them, fifty and two thousand 
 and seven hundred. 
 
 23 — 25 . Pud\ Heb. Puvah, as in Gen. 
 xlvi. 13. Slightly otherwise in i Chron. vii. 
 I. Jashub: so in Chronicles; but in Genesis 
 Job. Shimron: so in Genesis; in Chronicles 
 Shimrom. 
 
 29 . Gilead] He was the grandfather of 
 Zelophehad (xxvii. i), and belonged there- 
 fore to a generation which had now quite passed 
 away. Amid some confusion, occasioned by 
 the manner in which the records were copied, 
 the genealogy of i Chron. vii. 14 sqq. reveals 
 to us the fact that cither the mother or grand- 
 mother of Gilead was an Aramite. For this 
 reason doubtless he was named after the terri- 
 tory which formed the frontier between Aram 
 and Canaan, the territory wherein Laban the 
 
 Aramite and Jacob the inheritor of the pro- 
 mises had finally parted. (Gen. xxxi. 25, 47.) 
 These associations probably suggested the 
 special allotment in the district of Gilead to 
 the Machirites (xxxii. 40), as being the dis- 
 trict from which their ancestress had sprung, 
 and which had given its name to the head of 
 their families. It was, however, only a small 
 part of the territory usually known as Gilead 
 that was occupied by any of the Manassite 
 families: their inheritance in that direction 
 was, in the main, the land of Bashan. For 
 the further use of Gilead as a personal name, 
 see Judg. xi. i, 2. Gen. xliv. gives no record 
 of the names of the children of Manasseh and 
 Ephraim. 
 
V. 35— 54-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXVI. 
 
 755 
 
 35 ^ These are the sons of Eph- after their families: of Jimna, tJie 
 raim after their families: of Shuthe- family of the Jimnitcs: of Jesui, the 
 lah, the family of the Shuthalhites : of family of the Jesuites: of Beriah, the 
 Becher, the family of the Bachrites: family of the Beriites. 
 
 ofTahan, the family of the Tahanites. 45 Of the sons of Beriah : of He- 
 
 36 And these are the sons of her, the family of the Heberites: 
 
 Shuthelah: of E ran, the family of the of Malchiel, the family of the Mal- 
 Eranites. chielites. 
 
 37 These are the families of the 46 And the name of the daughter 
 sons of Ephraim according to those of Asher was Sarah. 
 
 that were numbered of them, thirty 47 These are the families of the 
 and two thousand and five hundred, sons of Asher according to those that 
 These are the sons of Joseph after were numbered of them; who were 
 their families. fifty and three thousand and four 
 
 38 ^ The sons of Benjamin after hundred. • 
 
 their families: of Bela, the family of 48 ^ Of the sons of Naphtali after 
 the Belaites: of Ashbel, the family of their families: of Jahzeel, the family 
 the Ashbelites : of Ahiram, the family of the Jahzeelites : of Guni, the fa- 
 of the Ahiramites: mily of the Gunites : 
 
 39 Of Shupham, the family of the 49 Of Jezer, the family of the Je- 
 
 Shuphamites : of Hupham, the family zerites : of Shillem, the family of the 
 of the Fluphamites. Shillemites. 
 
 40 And the sons of Bela were Ard 50 These are the families of Naph- 
 
 and Naaman: of Ard^ the family of tali according to their families: and 
 the Ardites: and of Naaman, the they that were numbered of them 
 family of the Naamites. were forty and five thousand and four 
 
 41 These are the sons of Benjamin hundred. 
 
 ’after their families: and they that 51 These were the numbered of 
 were numbered of them were forty the children of Israel, six hundred 
 and five thousand and six hundred. thousand and a thousand seven hun- 
 
 42 ^ These are the sons of Dan dred and thirty. 
 
 after their families: of Shuham, the 52 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 family of the Shuhamites. These Moses, saying, 
 
 are the families of Dan after their 53 Unto these the land shall be di- 
 families. vided for an inheritance according to ^ chap. 33. 
 
 43 All the families of the Shuham- the number of names. f lieb. 
 
 ites, according to those that were 54 To many thou shalt ^ give the 
 numbered of them, were threescore more inheritance, and to few thou 
 
 and four thousand and four hundred. shalt ^give the less inheritance: to dhninish 
 
 44 ^ Of the children of Asher every one shall his inheritance be 
 
 38 — 41 . The list of Benjamite families does 
 not accord with the list in Genesis. See note 
 on Gen. xlvi. 21; and on i Chron. vii. 6 — 12. 
 The names Shupham and Hupham appear in 
 Gen. xlvi. 21 as Muppim and Huppim; in 
 I Chron. vii. 12 as Shuppim and Huppim, in 
 I Chron. viii. 5 as Shephuphan and Huram. 
 
 42 . Shuhani] Elsewhere Hushim (Gen. 
 xlvi. 23; I Chron. vii. 12). 
 
 44 — 47 . The names of the Asherites 
 correspond to those of Gen. xlvi. 17, except 
 that the Ishuah of that list is wanting. The 
 
 name is possibly due to an error of a tran- 
 scriber, whose eye, after he had copied three 
 letters of the following name Isui, reverted to 
 the final letter of the preceding Jimnah. Sarah 
 (2;. 46) is merely another form of the name 
 Serah of Gen. Lc. 
 
 51 . The total number of the male adult 
 Israelites, exclusive of the Levites, is 601, 730; 
 shewing a decrease of 1820 from the number 
 at Sinai. Yet the present census would have 
 exhibited an increase had it not been for the 
 recent plague. 
 
756 
 
 NUMBERS. XXVI. [v. 55-65- 
 
 given according to those that were 
 numbered of him. 
 
 55 Notwithstanding the land shall 
 < chap. 33- be ^'divided by lot: according to the 
 josh. II. names of the tribes of their fathers 
 &‘i4. 2. they shall inherit. 
 
 56 According to the lot shall the 
 possession thereof be divided between 
 many and few. 
 
 -^Exod. 6. 57 ^ -^And these are they that 
 
 16, 17, 18, numbered of the Levites after 
 
 their families : of Gershon, the family 
 of the Gershonites : of Kohath, the 
 family of the Kohathites : of Merari, 
 the family of the Merarites. 
 
 58 These are the families of the 
 Levites : the family of the Libnites, 
 the family of the Hebronites, the 
 family of the Mahlites, the family of 
 the Mushites, the family of the Ko- 
 rathites. And Kohath begat Amram. 
 
 59 And the name of Amram’s wife 
 ^Exod. 2. '^Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, 
 & 6. 20. whom her mother bare to Levi in 
 
 Egypt : and she bare unto Amram 
 Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their 
 sister. 
 
 60 And unto Aaron was born 
 
 Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and 
 
 Ithamar. 
 
 61 And ^Nadab and Abihu died, ^ 
 when they offered strange fire before 3. 4. 
 
 , T ^ ° I Chron. 
 
 the Lord. 24. 2. 
 
 62 And those that were numbered 
 of them were twenty and three thou- 
 sand, all males from a month old and 
 upward : for they were not numbered 
 among the children of Israel, because 
 there v/as no inheritance given them 
 among the children of Israel. 
 
 63 f These are they that were 
 numbered by Moses and Eleazar the 
 priest, who numbered the children of 
 Israel in the plains of Moab by Jor- 
 dan near Jericho. 
 
 64 But among these there was not 
 a man of them whom Moses and 
 Aaron the priest numbered, when 
 they numbered the children of Israel 
 in the wilderness of Sinai. 
 
 65 For the Lord had said of them. 
 
 They shall surely die in the wild- 'g^hap. 14. 
 erness. And there was not left a i Cor. 10. 
 man of them, save Caleb the son of 
 Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of ^ 
 
 Nun. 
 
 56 . According to the lot^ &c.] The 
 general situation, though not the extent of the 
 various tribal territories, was to be determined 
 by lot. The land therefore could not be 
 mapped out into territories till after the lots 
 had been drawn. This method was doubtless 
 adopted not only in order to preclude jealou- 
 sies and disputes, but also that the several 
 tribes might regard the territories as deter- 
 mined for them by God Himself; cf. Prov. 
 xvi. 33. 
 
 58 . Of these Levite families, the Lib- 
 nites belonged to the branch of Gershon, the 
 Hebronites and Korathites or more correctly 
 Korahites (Heb. “the Korhite family,” i.e. 
 the family of Korah), to that of Kohath, and the 
 Mahlites and Mushites to that of Merari: see 
 iii. ai, 27, 33, xvi. i. Of the other families 
 named in ch. iii. the Shimites would seem to 
 be now extinct, or to have been incorporated 
 with the Inbnites; and the Uzzielites, if they 
 still survived, in like manner with another of 
 the Kohathite families. The I zeharites of iii. 
 
 2 7 were probably now all known as Korathites, 
 Korah being the son of Izhar; and of the 
 Amramites, who consisted of Moses and Aaron 
 and their descendants, with Miriam, we have 
 an account in the ensuing verses. 
 
 59. nvhom her mother hare'] Literally 
 “whom she bare;” the subject is wanting and 
 the verb is in the feminine gender. The text 
 is probably imperfect here. See Note at end 
 of the chapter. 
 
 62 . The total number of male Levites, 
 23,000, shews an increase of 1000 on the 
 number at Sinai (iii. 39). It is doubtless to 
 be taken as a round number; and, as before, 
 includes the male children from a month old 
 and upward, as well as the male adults. 
 
 64 . there ^vas not a man] Indeed it 
 appears from Deut. ii. 14 — 15 that the genera- 
 ration numbered at the former census had 
 perished before the host crossed the brook 
 Zered. Eleazar is here accounted as one of the 
 enumeration ; see 'v. 63, and cf. xiv. 24 and note. 
 
V. I, 2.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXVII. 
 
 757 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xxvi. 59. 
 
 The mode of filling up the ellipse adopted 
 by the A. V., though supported by most 
 authorities ancient and modern, is merely con- 
 jectural. It is too quite without parallel; for 
 in I Kings i. 6 quoted by Ewald, ‘ Ausf. Lehr.’ 
 § 294, and Keil, as a similar case, the missing 
 name can easily be supplied from the preceding 
 verse. It seems most likely that several words 
 have fallen out of the text in this place. On 
 comparing the Levite families here named with 
 iii. 18 — 20, Ex. vi. 17 sqq., those of Shimei 
 and Uzziel are omitted; and the latter family 
 at any rate was neither extinct nor obscure: 
 cf. Ex. vi. 22, Lev. x. 4. Moreover Jochebed 
 the mother of Moses could not be strictly the 
 
 daughter of Levi, for three centuries must have 
 intervened between the death of Levi and the 
 birth of Moses, see on Ex. ii. i. Amram and 
 Jochebed were then descendants of Levi, pro- 
 bably seven or eight generations removed. 
 Michaelis, Geddes, and Boothroyd take the 
 Hebrew pronoun as a proper name, 
 
 “whom Atha bare:” Knobel, after Vulg., Jar- 
 chi, Onk., Arab. &c., proposes to alter the 
 pointing, and to take the verb as a passive 
 “who was bom.” In the face of the strong 
 probability that the text is very imperfect, and 
 in the absence of means for restoring it, con- 
 jectures as to what the proper sense may be 
 are wholly useless. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 I The daughters of Zelophehad sue for an in- 
 kei'itance. 6 The law of inherdtances. 12 
 Moses, behig told of his death, sueth for a 
 successor. 18 Joshua is appointed to succeed 
 him. 
 
 T hen came* the daughters of 
 "Zelophehad, the son of He- 
 joi,h 17. 3. pher, the son of Gilead, the son of 
 Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the 
 
 families of Manasseh the son of Jo- 
 seph : and these are the names of his 
 daughters; Mahlah, Noah, and Hog- 
 lah, and Milcah, and Tirzah. 
 
 2 And they stood before Moses, 
 and before Eleazar the priest,, and 
 before the princes and all the congre- 
 gation, by the door of the tabernacle 
 of the congregation, saying. 
 
 I 
 
 'i 
 
 \ . 
 
 Chap. XXVII. The command given xxvi. 
 52 sqq. to divide the land among the people 
 “according to the number of the tribes of their 
 fathers,” suggests the petition of the daughters 
 of Zelophehad now brought before Moses 
 (ww. I — 6); and the decision in this case leads 
 to a general enactment respecting the right of 
 inheritance when a man died and left only 
 daughters behind him. This law is after- 
 wards supplemented by certain restrictions as 
 to the marriage of such heiresses (xxxvi). It 
 is obvious that these successive enactments 
 grew out of emergencies which presented them- 
 selves when the questions connected with the 
 taking possession of Canaan came actually to be 
 encountered, and hold thus their natural place 
 and order in the closing chapters of Numbers. 
 The preparations for taking possession of the 
 land . being thus completed, the approaching 
 death of Moses, who was not to enter it (xx. 
 12), is announced (w-v. 12 — 14), and his suc- 
 cessor solemnly appointed (yw. 15 — 23). 
 
 1 . the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of 
 Hep her, the son of Gilead] Cf. on xxvi. 29. 
 
 It does not appear that women in Israel 
 had, up to the present time, enjoyed any dis- 
 tinct right of inheritance. Yet a father, whe- 
 ther sons had been born to him or not, had 
 the power, either before or at his death, to 
 cause part of his estate to pass to a daughter ; 
 in which case her husband married into her 
 
 family rather than she into his, and the chil- 
 dren were regarded as of the family from which 
 the estate had come. Thus Machir, ancestor 
 of Zelophehad, although he had a son Gilead, 
 left also, as is probable, an inheritance to his 
 daughter, the wife of Hezron of the tribe of 
 Judah, by reason of which their descendants, 
 among whom was Jair, were reckoned as be- 
 longing to the tribe of Manasseh (i Chron. ii. 
 21 sqq., Num. xxxii. 41). Thus Sheshan 
 also, who had no sons, married his daughter 
 to his Egyptian servant Jarha, and so had by 
 them a long line of posterity (i Chron. ii. 
 34 sqq.). Other eastern nations had like cus- 
 toms. The daughters of Laban complain of 
 having no “portion or inheritance in their 
 father’s house” (Gen. xxxi. 14), intimating 
 apparently that Laban might have given them 
 such had he so pleased, and thus bound their 
 husband by ties that would have prevented 
 him leaving his father-in-law. So of the 
 daughters of Job it is specially noted that 
 “their father gave them inheritance among 
 their brethren” (Job xlii. 15). 
 
 2 . by the door of the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation] The place of solemn assembly of 
 the elders; for when in xi. 16, 26, they are 
 said to go out to the tabernacle, it is the 
 entrance of the tabernacle that is meant (com- 
 pare xii. 4 and 5). It was however hardly to 
 the seventy elders that the daughters of Zelo- 
 
758 NUMBERS. XXVII. [v. s-U- 
 
 ^ chap. 14. 
 
 35. 
 
 & 26. 64, 
 
 65. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 dwiinish- 
 
 cd. 
 
 3 Our father ^died in the wilder- 
 ness, and he was not in the cornpany 
 of them that gathered themselves to- 
 gether against the Lord in the com- 
 pany of Korah ; but died in his own 
 sin, and had no sons. 
 
 4 Why should the name of our 
 father be Mone away from among 
 his family, because he hath no son? 
 Give unto us therefore a possession 
 among the brethren of our father. 
 
 5 And Moses brought their cause 
 before the Lord. 
 
 6 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 7 The daughters of Zelophehad 
 speak right : thou shalt surely give 
 them a possession of an inheritance 
 among their father’s brethren ; and 
 thou shalt cause the inheritance of 
 their father to pass unto them. 
 
 8 And thou shalt speak unto the 
 children of Israel, saying. If a man 
 die, and have no son, then ye shall 
 cause his inheritance to pass unto his 
 daughter. 
 
 9 And if he have no daughter, 
 then ye shall give his inheritance 
 unto his brethren. 
 
 10 And if he have no brethren. 
 
 then ye shall give his inheritance 
 unto his father’s brethren. 
 
 1 1 And if his father have no bre- 
 thren, then ye shall give his inhe- 
 ritance unto his kinsman that is next 
 to him of his family, and he shall 
 possess it : and it shall be unto the 
 children of Israel a statute of judg- 
 ment, as the Lord commanded Mo- 
 ses. 
 
 12 ^ And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, ^Get thee up into this mount Deut. 32. 
 Abarim, and see the land which I have 
 
 given unto the children of Israel. 
 
 13 And v/hen thou hast seen it, 
 thou also shalt be gathered unto thy 
 people, as ^ Aaron thy brother was chap. 20. 
 gathered. 
 
 14 For ye ^rebelled against my 'chap. 20. 
 commandment in the desert of Zin, 
 
 in the strife of the congregation, to 
 sanctify me at the water before their 
 eyes: that is the water of Meribah-^^xod. 17. 
 in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin. 
 
 15 ^ And Moses spake unto the 
 Lord, saying, 
 
 16 Let the Lord, the God of the 
 spirits of all flesh, set a man over the 
 congregation, 
 
 17 Which may go out before 
 
 phehad made suit ; but rather to the princes, 
 the heads of tribes and of families, who were 
 making the census under the superintendence 
 of Moses and Eleazar. 
 
 3. but died in his own sin~\ i.e. perished 
 under the general sentence of exclusion from 
 the land of promise passed on all the older 
 generation, but limited to that generation alone. 
 It had been declared at the period ot that sen- 
 tence (xiv. 31) that “their little ones should 
 enter in, to know the land which their fathers 
 had despised;” and by virtue of this declara- 
 tion the daughters of Zelophehad claim that 
 their fatlrer’s sin should not be visited upon 
 them, I'here would have been less ground 
 for the claim had Zelophehad shared in any of 
 the other special rebellions; for it was the 
 general rule of God’s govemment in such cases 
 that the children should bear the consequences 
 of their fathers’ iniquity. 
 
 4, d've unto kj] As representing our 
 father; that so he, through us his representa- 
 tives, may enjoy a like inheritance with his 
 brethren. 
 
 12 . mount Abarim'] The host had crossed 
 
 these heights already on its march (xxi. ao 
 and note) ; and it was from them too that Ba- 
 laam had made his second attempt to curse 
 the people (xxiii. 14). 
 
 Moses’ charge to Joshua, Deut. xpi. 23, 
 must have been subsequent to the appointment 
 of Joshua recorded in this chapter. It is pro- 
 bable then that the commands now given to 
 Moses stand in their proper chronological 
 place here. Moses’ ascent of the mount and 
 his death there are recorded, Deut. xxxii. 48 
 sqq., xxxiv. 1—4. The closing scenes of his 
 life, the war against Midian, aind the rehearsal 
 of the law in Deut., which occupy the rest 
 of the Pentateuch, appear thus to be narrated 
 in the order in which they occurred. 
 
 14 . that is the water of Meribah^ &c.] 
 These words look like a gloss; and popibly 
 found their w^ay into the text though originally 
 written in the margin. 
 
 16 . the God of the spirits of all flesh] 
 An acknowledgment that man, who is but 
 flesh (cf. Gen. vi. 3), is of himself helpless; 
 and “lives and moves and has his being” in 
 God (cf. Acts xvii. 28): hence suitably em- 
 
V. i8-2.] numbers. XXVII. XXVIII. 
 
 759 
 
 them, and which may go in before 
 them, and which may lead them out, 
 and which may bring them in ; that 
 the congregation of the Lord be not 
 as sheep which have no shepherd. 
 
 1 8 ^ And the Lord said unto 
 Moses, Take thee Joshua the son of 
 Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, 
 and lay thine hand upon him ; 
 
 19 And set him before Eleazar the 
 priest, and before all the congrega- 
 tion ; and give him a charge in their 
 sight. 
 
 20 And thou shalt put so7ne of 
 thine honour upon him, that all the 
 cono;reo;ation of the children of Israel 
 may be obedient. 
 
 21 And he shall stand before 
 Eleazar the priest, who shall ask 
 
 F-.xod.28. counsel for him Rafter the judgment 
 of Urim before the Lord: at his 
 word shall they go out, and at his 
 
 word they shall come in, both he, 
 and all the children of Israel with 
 him, even all the congregation. 
 
 22 And Moses did as the Lord 
 commanded him : and he took Jo- 
 shua, and set him before Eleazar the 
 priest, and before all the congregation : 
 
 23 And he laid his hands upon 
 him, and gave him a charge, as the 
 Lord commanded by the hand of 
 Moses. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 I Offerhigs ai'e io be observed. 3 The continual 
 burnt offering. 9 The offering on the sabbath, 
 
 1 1 on the nezu moons, 16 at the pass oyer, 26 
 in the day of first/ ruits. 
 
 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 iX saying, 
 
 2 Command the children of Israel, 
 and say unto them. My offering, and 
 my bread for my sacrifices made by t Heb. 
 fire, for ^ a sweet savour unto me, 
 
 ployed here to introducb an entreaty that God 
 would not leave the congregation without a 
 guide and leader, and in xvi. a 2 as preface to 
 an intercession that the whole people should 
 not suffer for the sin of a few. 
 
 18 . in <whom is the spirit'] (Cf. Gen. 
 xli. 38.) Joshua was endowed by God with 
 the requisite spiritual qualifications for the 
 office. Moses however was to lay his hands 
 upon him, both in order to confer formal and 
 public appointment, and also, as it would 
 seem from Deut. xxxiv. 9 (“Joshua was 
 full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had 
 laid his hands upon him”), to confirm and 
 strengthen the spiritual gifts already bestowed. 
 The previous reception of the inner grace did 
 not dispense with that of the outward sign; 
 cf. the case of Cornelius, Acts x. 44 — 48; 
 and St Paul’s baptism after his miraculous 
 conversion, Acts ix. 18. 
 
 20. of thine honour] i.e. of thy dignity 
 and authority. Joshua was constituted forth- 
 with vice-leader under Moses, by way of in- 
 troduction to his becoming chief after Moses’ 
 death. The transference of this honour to 
 Joshua is not parallel to the communication 
 of the spirit which rested upon Moses to the 
 seventy elders in xi. 17, 25; for though Moses, 
 in elevating Joshua to his new office, did not 
 part with any of his own spiritual gifts, he yet 
 necessarily shared henceforward with another 
 that power which hitherto he had exercised 
 alone. 
 
 21 . And he shall stand before Eleazar 
 the priest, &c.] Joshua was thus to be inferior 
 
 to what Moses had been. For Moses had 
 enjoyed the privilege of unrestricted direct in- 
 tercourse with God: the other, like all future 
 rulers of Israel, was to ask counsel mediately, 
 through the high-priest, and those means of 
 enquiring of God wherewith the high-priest 
 was entrusted. Such counsel Joshua seems 
 to have omitted to seek when he concluded his 
 hasty treaty with the Gibeonites. Joshua ix. 
 3 sqq. 
 
 judgment of Urim] See on Exod. xxviii. 30. 
 
 Chap. XXVIII. Ordinance of the daily 
 offering {yao. i — 8) ; and of the Sabbath (gvnj. 
 9 — 10), monthly {ynj. ii — 15), and festal of- 
 ferings fvnj. 16 — 31). The daily offering had 
 been already commanded (Ex. xxix. 38), and 
 no doubt additional offerings had become cus- 
 tomary on festivals. But no such elaborate 
 system as is here prescribed was or could pos- 
 sibly have been observed in the wilderness: cf. 
 Deut. xii. 8, 9. The regulations of this and 
 the next chapter therefore point to the imme- 
 diate prospect of that settlement in Canaan 
 which alone could enable the Israelites to obey 
 them. Cf. the ordinances in ch. xv. 
 
 2 . My offering, and my bread, &c.] Or, 
 my offering, even my bread, &c. The 
 word for offering is here korban (cf. St Mark 
 vii. ii), a term in itself of quite general im- 
 port, but often especially applied, as apparently 
 in this instance, to the meat-offeping which ac- 
 companied the sacrifices. This meat-offering 
 connected itself, from its very nature, with the 
 life of the Israelites in Canaan, not with their 
 life in the wilderness; and it was annexed to 
 
760 NUMBERS. XXVIII. [v. 3 - 12 - 
 
 shall ye observe to offer unto me in 
 their due season. 
 
 3 And thou shalt say unto them, 
 "g^xod.29. <»"rhis is the offering made by fire 
 
 which ye shall offer unto the Lord; 
 two lambs of the first year without 
 ^ continual 
 
 burnt offering. 
 
 4 The one lamb shalt thou offer 
 in the •morning, and the other lamb 
 shalt thou offer ^ at even ; 
 
 two ^ And a tenth part of an ephah 
 ^ L'ev.T‘i. of flour for a ^ meat offering, mingled 
 ^ Exod. 29. the fourth part of an ‘^hin of 
 
 beaten oil. 
 
 6 It is a continual burnt offering, 
 which was ordained in mount Sinai 
 for a sweet savour, a sacrifice made 
 by fire unto the Lord. 
 
 7 And the drink offering thereof 
 shall be the fourth part of an hin 
 for the one lamb: in the holy place 
 shalt thou cause the strong wine to 
 
 the animal sacrifices as a token that the people 
 must dedicate to God their property and the 
 fruits of their labour as well as their own per- 
 sons. See on xv. and Lev. xxi. 6. 
 
 3 — 8. The daily offering, as already 
 
 enjoined at Sinai, Ex. xxix. 38 — 42. It is 
 peculiar to the present passage that the liquor 
 of the drink-offering is described in 'v. 7 as 
 “strong wine;” Heb. shechar^ a term usually 
 employed to describe strong drink other than 
 wine {e.g. Lev. x. 9). The Targum here 
 understands it of old wine. But the explana- 
 tion probably is that the Israelites in the wil- 
 derness had, m their lack of wine, substituted 
 shechar made from barley for it. Of barley 
 they had doubtless been able to grow suffi- 
 cient for their needs. They had thus ob- 
 served the spirit, though not the letter of the 
 ordinance, and their practice hitherto would 
 naturally betray itself in the language now em- 
 ployed by Moses. There are but few injunc- 
 tions in the Pentateuch respecting drink-ofi'er- 
 ings. They are named in Lev. only in chap, 
 xxiii. ; and seem generally to be assumed rather 
 than specified. From the present passage we 
 gather that they were to be offered by being 
 poured “in the holy place,” not, as some 
 render, “with a holy vessel.” It has been 
 inferred, from Josephus, ‘Antiq.’ III. 10, and 
 Ecclus. 1 . 15, that they were poured round 
 the foot of the altar. Others (Kurtz ‘Sacri- 
 ficial Worship of the Old Testament,’ pp. 301 
 — 303, Clark’s Transl.) maintain that the drink- 
 offering was pourcxl on the altar, and so upon 
 
 be poured unto the Lord for a drink 
 offering. 
 
 8 And the other lamb shalt thou 
 offer at even: as the meat offering 
 of the morning, and as the drink 
 offering thereof, thou shalt offer zV, 
 a sacrifice made by fire, of a sweet 
 savour unto the Lord. 
 
 9 ^ And on the sabbath day two 
 lambs of the first year without spot, 
 and two tenth deals of flour for a 
 meat offering, mingled with oil, and 
 the drink offering thereof : 
 
 10 Ulus is the burnt offering of 
 every sabbath, beside the continual 
 burnt offering, and his drink offering. 
 
 11 *[I And in the beginnings of 
 your months ye shall offer a burnt 
 offering unto the Lord; two young 
 bullocks, and one ram, seven lambs 
 of the first year without spot; 
 
 12 And three tenth deals of flour 
 for a meat offering, mingled with 
 
 the flesh of the sacrifice by which the altar was 
 covered. In favour of this view Ex. xxx. 9 is 
 referred to, which by forbidding effusion on 
 the altar of incense seems to recognize it on 
 the altar of sacrifice. 
 
 9 — 10 . The Sabbath-offering, not pre- 
 viously enjoined, consisted of two lambs, 
 properly accompanied, in addition to the re- 
 gular daily offering. 
 
 11 — 15 . The new-moon offering also is here 
 commanded for the first time. The observance 
 of the new moon had been enjoined at Sinai 
 when the directions were given for making the 
 silver trumpets, x. 10. That they were ob- 
 served by the Israelites in later times appears 
 from various notices, e.g. i Sam. xx. 5 ; a 
 Kings iv. 23; i Chr. xxiii. 31; Col. ii. 16. 
 The offering consisted of two bullocks, a ram, 
 and seven lambs, accompanied as prescribed 
 in XV. I — 12. There was added a goat as a 
 sin-offering; and this, though mentioned last, 
 would seem in fiict to have been offered first, 
 since in all actually recorded cases the sin- 
 offering invariably preceded the burnt-offering 
 (Ex. xxix; Lev. v, viii, ix, xiv, xvi). A 
 more definite interpretation was put by this 
 ordinance upon that of xv. 22 — 26. The sin- 
 offering, which had been there contemplated in 
 cases where a sin had been committed igno- 
 rantly without the knowledge of the congre- 
 gation, was henceforth not to be offered merely 
 at discretion, as circumstances might seem to 
 require, but to be regularly repeated, not less 
 frequently than once a month. 
 
V. 13—28.] 
 
 76 i 
 
 NUMBERS. XXVIII. 
 
 oil, for one bullock; and two tenth 20 And their meat offering shall 
 deals of flour for a meat offering, be of flour mingled with oil : three 
 mingled with oil, for one ram ; tenth deals shall ye offer for a bullock, 
 
 13 And a several tenth deal of and two tenth deals for a ram ; 
 
 flour mingled with oil for a meat 
 offering unto one lamb; for a burnt 
 offering of a sweet savour, a sacrifice 
 made by fire unto the Lord. 
 
 14 And their drink offerings shall 
 be half an hin of wine unto a bul- 
 lock, and the third part of an hin 
 unto a ram, and a fourth part of an 
 hin unto a lamb: this is the burnt 
 offering of every month throughout 
 the months of the year. 
 
 15 And one kid of the goats for a 
 sin offering unto the Lord shall be 
 offered, beside the continual burnt 
 offering, and his drink offering. 
 
 rfEsod.i2. 16 ^And in the fourteenth day of 
 
 Lev. 23 . 5 . the first month is the passover of the 
 Lord. 
 
 17 And in the fifteenth day of this 
 month is the feast: seven days shall 
 unleavened bread be eaten. 
 
 "Lev. 23. 18 In the ^ first day shall be an 
 
 holy convocation ; ye shall do no 
 manner of servile work therein: 
 
 19 But ye shall offer a sacrifice 
 made by fire for a burnt offering 
 unto the Lord ; two young bullocks, 
 and one ram, and seven lambs of the 
 first year: they shall be unto you 
 without blemish; 
 
 16 — 25 . The Passover offering was the 
 same as that of the new moon, and was re- 
 peated on each of the seven days of the festival, 
 thus marking the importance and the solemnity 
 of the occasion. The details of the offering 
 had not been previously prescribed; but the 
 command for an holy convocation on the first 
 and last days of the festival appears in Lev. 
 xxiii. 7, 8. 
 
 26 — 31 . The festival offering at the season 
 of firstfruits was to be offered on one day 
 only ; and was the same with that of the new 
 moon and passover. It nearly though not 
 entirely accords with the sacrificial offering 
 prescribed Lev. xxiii. 18 sqq., as an accom- 
 paniment to the offering of the loaves of first- 
 fruits. There and here’ the sin-offering is 
 the same, and the seven lambs of the burnt- 
 offering also. But instead of the two bullocks 
 and one ram of Numbers, two rams and one 
 bullock, with the further addition of two lambs 
 
 21 A several tenth deal shalt thou 
 offer for every lamb, throughout the 
 seven lambs : 
 
 22 And one goat for a sin offering, 
 to make an atonement for you. 
 
 23 Ye shall offer these beside the 
 burnt offering in the morning, which 
 is for a continual burnt offering. 
 
 24 After this manner ye shall offer 
 daily, throughout the seven days, the 
 meat of the sacrifice made by fire, 
 of a sweet savour unto the Lord : 
 it shall be offered beside the conti- 
 nual burnt offering, and his drink 
 offering. 
 
 25 And on the seventh day ye 
 shall have an holy convocation; ye 
 shall do no servile work. 
 
 26 ^ Also in the day of the first- 
 fruits, when ye bring a new meat 
 offering unto the Lord, after your 
 weeks be out^ ye shall have an holy 
 convocation; ye shall do no servife 
 work : 
 
 27 But ye shall offer the burnt 
 offering for a sweet savour unto the 
 Lord ; two young bullocks, one ram, 
 seven lambs of the first year; 
 
 28 And their meat offering of flour 
 mingled with oil, three tenth deals 
 
 for a peace-offering, are specified m Leviticus. 
 The discrepancy in the number of bullocks 
 and rams is due perhaps to a corruption of 
 the text ; and the peace-offering, as being merely 
 an ordinary concomitant of tile wave-loaves, 
 might be on this very account omitted from 
 the passage before us, which prescribes only 
 the general offerings of the festival, and not 
 the special ones connected with any particular 
 ceremony observed at it. It is unlikely that 
 two extensive sets of sacrifices, nearly identical 
 in their details, should have been offered on 
 the same day, and yet that the command en- 
 joining each should make no reference to the 
 other. The distinction between the two is 
 indeed recognised by Josephus (‘Ant.’ iii. 
 10. 6), who, however, in computing the 
 ‘Aggregate of the animals specified in the two 
 passages errs as to the number of rams. But 
 his statement probably represents only his own 
 opinion: and even the practice of the Jews 
 
762 
 
 NUMBERS. XXVIII. XXIX. [v. 29-12. 
 
 unto one bullock, two tenth deals unto 
 one ram, 
 
 29 A several tenth deal unto one 
 lamb, throughout the seven lambs ; 
 
 30 And one kid of the goats, to 
 make an atonement for you. 
 
 31 Ye shall offer them beside the 
 continual burnt offering, and his meat 
 offering, (they shall be unto you with- 
 out blemish) and their drink offerings. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 1 The offering at the feast of trumpets, 7 at the 
 day of afflicting their souls, 1 3 and on the 
 eight days of the feast of tabernacles. ^ 
 
 AND in the seventh month, on the 
 ±\_ first day of the month, ye shall 
 have an holy convocation; ye shall 
 »Lev. 2v do no servile work: ""it is a day of 
 ^4- ' blowing the trumpets unto you. 
 
 2 And ye shall offer a burnt offer- 
 ing for a sweet savour unto the 
 Lord ; one young bullock, one ram, 
 and seven lambs of the first year 
 without blemish : 
 
 3 And their meat offering shall be 
 ^ flour mingled with oil, three tenth 
 deals for a bullock, and two tenth 
 deals for a ram, 
 
 4 And one tenth deal for one lamb, 
 throughout the seven lambs: 
 
 5 And one kid of the goats for a 
 sin offering, to make an atonement 
 for you : 
 
 after the captivity would not be decisive as to 
 the true meaning of the Mosaic law. 
 
 Chap. XXIX. 1—6. Ordinance of the 
 Feast of Trumpets. This was to be observed 
 on the opening day of that month within 
 which the Great Oay of the Atonement and 
 the Feast of Tabernacles fell (cf. Lev. xxiii. 
 23 sqq.). The offering consisted of one bul- 
 lock, one rain, and seven lambs, with a goat 
 for a sin-offering, in addition to the usual new- 
 moon offering (cf. xxviii. 11), and to the regu- 
 lar daily offering. The special offering for 
 the day anticipated that of the Great Day of 
 Atonement. 
 
 7 — 11 . The offering on the Great Day of 
 Atonement was the same with that just speci- 
 fied. The sin-offering included in this offering 
 was independent of the sin-offerings which 
 formed the great ceremonies of the day, as 
 descrilx'd in Lev. xvi. It differed from the 
 offering made on the days of the Passover, 
 and on the day of first-fruits, inasmuch as 
 
 6 Beside the burnt offering of the 
 month, and his meat offering, and 
 the daily burnt offering, and his meat 
 offering, and their drink offerings, ac- 
 cording unto their manner, for a sweet 
 savour, a sacrifice made by fire unto 
 the Lord. 
 
 7 And ^ ye shall have on the b Lev. 16. 
 tenth day of this seventh month an 27. 
 holy convocation ; and ye shall afflict 
 
 your souls : ye shall not do any work 
 therein : 
 
 8 But ye shall offer a burnt offer- 
 ing unto the Lord for a sweet savour ; 
 one young bullock, one ram, and seven 
 lambs of the first year; they shall be 
 unto vou without blemish : 
 
 9 And their meat offering shall 
 be of flour mingled with oil, three 
 tenth deals to a bullock, and two 
 tenth deals to one ram, 
 
 10 A several tenth deal for one 
 lamb, throughout the seven lambs : 
 
 1 1 One kid of the goats for a sin 
 offering; beside the sin offering of 
 atonement, and the continual burnt 
 offering, and the meat offering of it, 
 and their drink offerings. 
 
 12 ^ And on the fifteenth day of 
 the seventh month ye shall have an 
 holy convocation ; ye shall do no ser- 
 vile work, and ye shall keep a feast 
 unto the Lord seven days : 
 
 it included only one bullock instead of t\yo. 
 The reason of this distinction is not certain. 
 Possibly since the bullock was preeminently 
 the animal of agriculture, the offering of bul- 
 locks on God’s altar was most in keeping at 
 those feasts dedicated more especially to an 
 acknowledgment of the blessings bestowed in 
 the realm of nature. Such was, peculiarly, the 
 aim of the Feast of Tabernacles, when the 
 offering of a very large number of bullocks 
 was commanded; cf. 'v. 13. The day of 
 Atonement had a very different signification ; 
 and on it one bullock only was offered for the 
 people; though another was enjoined as a sin- 
 offering for the priest (cf. Lev. xvi. ii sqq.). 
 
 12 34 . Feast of Tabernacles: cf. Lev. 
 
 xxiii. 33 The offerings required at this 
 
 feast were the largest of all. They amounted to 
 fourteen rams, ninety-eight lambs, and no less 
 than seventy bullocks; being twice as many 
 lambs and four times as many bullocks as en- 
 joined for the Passover. The Feast of Taber- 
 
V- 13— 32-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXIX. 
 
 763 
 
 13 And ye shall offer a burnt of- 
 fering, a sacrifice made by fire, of a 
 sweet savour unto the Lord; thir- 
 teen young bullocks, two rams, and 
 fourteen lambs of the first year; they 
 shall be without blemish : 
 
 14 And their meat offering . 
 
 he of flour mingled with oil, three 
 tenth deals unto every bullock of the 
 thirteen bullocks, two tenth deals to 
 each ram of the two rams, 
 
 15 And a several tenth deal to each 
 lamb of the fourteen lambs : 
 
 16 And one kid of the goats for 
 a sin offering; beside the continual 
 burnt offering, his meat offering, and 
 his drink offering. 
 
 17 ^ And on the second day ye 
 shall offer twelve young bullocks, two 
 rams, fourteen lambs of the first year 
 without spot : 
 
 18 And their meat offering and 
 their drink offerings for the bullocks, 
 for the rams, and for the lambs, shall 
 be according to their number, after 
 the manner : 
 
 19 And one kid of the goats for 
 a sin offering; beside the continual 
 burnt offering, and the meat offering 
 thereof, and their drink offerings. 
 
 20 ^ And on the third day eleven 
 bullocks, two rams, fourteen lambs of 
 the first year without blemish ; 
 
 21 And their meat offering and 
 their drink offerings for the bullocks, 
 for the rams, and for the lambs, shall 
 he according to their number, after 
 the manner : 
 
 22 And one goat for a sin offer- 
 ing; beside the continual burnt offer- 
 
 ing, and his meat offering, and his 
 drink offering. 
 
 23 H And on the fourth day ten 
 bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs 
 of the first year without blemish : 
 
 24 Their meat offering and their 
 drink offerings for the bullocks, for 
 the rams, and for the lambs, shall be 
 according to their number, after the 
 manner : 
 
 25 And one kid of the goats for a 
 sin offering; beside the continual burnt 
 offering, his meat offering, and his 
 drink offering. 
 
 26 ^ And on the fifth day nine bul- 
 locks, two rams, and fourteen lambs 
 of the first year without spot : 
 
 27 And their meat offering and 
 their drink offerings for the bullocks, 
 for the rams, and for the lambs, shall 
 be according to their number, after 
 the manner : 
 
 28 And one goat for a sin offer- 
 ing ; beside the continual burnt offer- 
 ing, and his meat offering, and his 
 drink offering. 
 
 29 ^ And on the sixth day eight 
 bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs 
 of the first year without blemish : 
 
 30 And their meat offering and 
 their drink offerings for the bullocks, 
 for the rams, and for the lambs, shall 
 be according to their number, after 
 the manner : 
 
 31 And one goat for a sin offer- 
 ing ; beside the continual burnt offer- 
 ing, his meat offering, and his drink 
 offering. 
 
 32 And on the seventh day se- 
 ven bullocks, two rams, and four- 
 
 nacles was especially one of thankfulness to 
 God for the gift of the fruits of the earth, and 
 the quantity and the nature of the offerings (see 
 on 'vn). 7 — ii) were determined accordingly. 
 
 32 . on the seventh day seven bullocks'^ By 
 this coincidence, as also by the total amount 
 (seventy) of the bullocks sacrificed during the 
 feast, stress is laid on the number seven, the 
 holy symbolical covenant number, by way of 
 intimation that the mercies of the harvest ac- 
 crued by virtue of God’s covenant. It would 
 seem that the number of bullocks sacrificed on 
 the preceding days of the feast (thirteen on 
 
 the first day, v. 13, twelve the second day, 
 V. 17, &c.) is adjusted simply to obtain the 
 coincidence before us on the seventh day. Bahr 
 however (‘Symb.’ ii. p. 616) sees in the 
 gradually decreasing number a reference to 
 the moon, which was full on the first day of 
 the feast, and of course was waning during 
 the after days; Knobel regards the same 
 arrangement as marking the transition to the 
 non-festal months of the year which followed 
 this feast : whilst Bishop Wordsworth conjec- 
 tures that the gradual evanescence of the law 
 till the time of its absorption in the Gospel is 
 here presignified in the law itself. 
 
764 
 
 NUMBERS. XXIX. XXX. 
 
 Iv. 33—2. 
 
 teen lambs of the first year without 
 blemish : 
 
 33 And their meat offering and 
 their drink ofterings for the bullocks, 
 for the rams, and for the lambs, shall 
 be according to their number, after 
 the manner : 
 
 34 And one goat for a sin offer- 
 ing ; beside the continual burnt of- 
 fering, his meat offering, and his 
 drink offering. 
 
 35 ^1 On the eighth day ye shall 
 Le^. 23. have a solemn assembly : ye shall do 
 
 no servile work therein: 
 
 36 But ye shall offer a burnt of- 
 fering, a sacrifice made by fire, of 
 a sweet savour unto the Lord : one 
 bullock, one ram, seven lambs of the 
 first year without blemish ; 
 
 37 Their meat oftering and their 
 drink offerings for the bullock, for 
 the ram, and for the lambs, shall be 
 according to their number, after the 
 manner : 
 
 38 And one goat for a sin offer- 
 
 35 — 38 . The feast of tabernacles was 
 closed by an eighth day solemnity : see on Lev. 
 xxiii. 36. The offerings prescribed for it were 
 the same with those appointed for the F east of 
 Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. The 
 solemnities of the month thus terminated, as 
 a whole, with the same sicrifices with which, 
 three weeks before, they had been introduced ; 
 and the Day of Atonement, even though suc- 
 ceeded by the rejoicings of the Feast of Taber- 
 nacles, thus left its impress on the whole month. 
 Cf. on 'vn:. I — 6. 
 
 39 . for your burnt offerings'^ It is gram- 
 matically uncertain whether these and the suc- 
 ceeding words are to be connected with ‘ ‘ vows 
 and free-will offerings,” or with the offerings 
 “in the set feasts,” or with both. But since in 
 this and the last chapter no peace-offerings are 
 required at the set feasts, it would seem that 
 the reference is to the free-will offerings only. 
 
 Chap. XXX. 1 — 16. The regulations here 
 laid down respectingthe validity and obligation 
 of vows appropriately follow those given in the 
 preceding context respecting sacrifices, since 
 a large proportion of vows would always relate 
 to the presentation of such offering. Rules 
 had already been given (Lev. xxvii,) for the 
 estimation of things vowed to God. It is pro- 
 bable that thisfresli legislation dealing specially 
 with vows made by persons in a state of tute- 
 lage, was occasioned by some case of practical 
 
 ing ; beside the continual burnt offer- 
 ing, and his meat offering, and his 
 drink offering. 
 
 39 These things ye shall " do unto b Or, ofer.^ 
 the Lord in your set feasts, beside 
 
 your vows, and your freewill offer- 
 ings, for your burnt offerings, and 
 for your meat offerings, and tor your 
 drink offerings, and for your peace 
 ofterings. 
 
 40 And Moses told the children 
 of Israel according to all that the 
 Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 I Votvs are not to be broken. 3 The exception 
 
 of a maid's voiv. 6 Of a wife's. 9 Of a I 
 
 widoxv’s, or her that is divorced. 
 
 AND Moses spake unto the heads 
 of the tribes concerning the chil- 
 dren of Israel, saying. This is the 
 thing which the Lord hath com- 
 manded. 
 
 2 If a man vow a vow unto the 
 Lord, or swear an oath to bind 
 his soul with a bond ; he shall not 
 
 difficulty that had recently arisen; and it is 
 addressed by Moses to “the heads of the 
 tribes” -v. I, who would in their judicial 
 capacity have to determine questions on these 
 subjects; and would also represent the class 
 specially interested in obtaining relief, where 
 they might think fit to claim it, from vows 
 made by persons in their families who had no 
 independent means. Four examples are taken : 
 (i) that of a maid in her father’s house, noao. 
 3 — 5 ; (a) that of a woman betrothed though 
 not yet married, aso). 6 — 9 ; (3) that of a widow 
 or divorced woman, as. 9 ; (4) that of a wife 
 in her husband’s house {yv. 10 — 14). Other 
 instances {e. g. that of a vow made by a widow) 
 are not mentioned, but would obviously be 
 determined by the principles laid down in those 
 here given. 
 
 There is no provision in the chapter for 
 annulling vows made by boys and young men ; 
 from which it has' been inferred that the vows 
 of males were in all cases and circumstances 
 binding. 
 
 2. asonv a asovo unto the Lord., or S'voear an 
 oath to bind his soul <vuith a bond~\ The “vow” 
 (Heb. neder) was positive; the “bond” (Heb. 
 issar') negative or restrictive. By a vow a 
 man engaged to dedicate something to God, 
 or to accomplish some work for Him : by a 
 bond he debarred himself from some privilege 
 or enjoyment. A vow involved an obligation 
 to do : a bond, an obligation to forbear doing. 
 
! 
 
 V. 3-12.] NUMBERS. XXX. 
 
 765 
 
 »Heb. ^ break his word, he shall do accord- 
 (>rc/hue, proceedeth out of his 
 
 mouth: 
 
 3 If a woman also vow a vow un- 
 to the Lord, and bind herself by a 
 bond, being in her father’s house in 
 her youth; 
 
 4 And her father hear her vow, 
 and her bond wherewith she hath 
 bound her soul, and her father shall 
 hold his peace at her : then all her 
 vows shall stand, and every bond 
 wherewith she hath bound her soul 
 shall stand. 
 
 5 But if her father disallow her 
 in the day that he heareth ; not any 
 of her vows, or of her bonds where- 
 with she hath bound her soul, shall 
 stand : and the Lord shall forgive 
 her, because her father disallowed her. 
 
 6 And if she had at all an hus- 
 ,iieb. band, when ^ she vowed, or uttered 
 'Zxfufon ought out of her lips, wherev/ith she 
 
 bound her soul ; 
 
 7 And her husband heard /V, and 
 
 held his peace at her in the day 
 that he heard it : then her vows 
 shall stand, and her bonds wherewith 
 she bound her soul^shall stand. 
 
 8 'But if her husband disallowed 
 her on the day that he heard it; 
 then he shall make her vow which 
 she vowed, and that which she ut- 
 tered with her lips, wherewith she 
 bound her soul, of none effect : and 
 the Lord shall forgive her. 
 
 9 But every vow of a widow, and 
 of her that is divorced, wherewith 
 they have bound their souls, shall 
 stand against her. 
 
 10 And if she vowed in her hus- 
 band’s house, or bound her soul by 
 a bond with an oath ; 
 
 1 1 And her husband heard 7V, and 
 held his peace at her, and disallowed 
 her not ; then all her vows shall 
 stand, and every bond wherewith she 
 bound her soul shall stand. 
 
 12 But if her husband hath ut- 
 terly made them void on the day he 
 
 •The Nazarlte vow however is called in vi. 2 
 neder^ because though including certain absti- 
 nences it contained also the positive element ; 
 for the Nazarite was bound to let his hair 
 grow. 
 
 3 . being in her father'’ s house 'in her youth'] 
 Modern Jewish authorities teach that the con- 
 trol here given to the parent ceased when the 
 girl attained the age of twelve years. There is 
 however no trace of such limitation. It was 
 not ordinarily till her betrothal or marriage, 
 that the female passed (some suppose by 
 purchase) from the power of her father to 
 that of her husband (compare Michaelis, 
 
 ‘ Laws of Moses,’ Art. 83). 
 
 ^ 4 . hear her ‘now] It would almost neces- 
 
 sarily be brought to his knowledge when the 
 f time for the performance of it arrived, if not 
 ! , sooner. 
 
 i ■ * 
 
 ;■ 5 . the Lord shall forg'rve her] i.e. shall 
 
 [ ; remit the obligation. Cf. the use of the same 
 
 y verb in 2 K. v. 18. 
 
 : ■ 6. ylnd 'if she had at all an husband^ ^hen 
 
 she -vonved^ &c.] Rather, And if she shall 
 f at all be an husband’s, and her vows 
 ", shall be upon her, or a rash utterance 
 of her lips, wherewith she hath bound 
 her soul. The “at all” intimates that the 
 case of a girl betrothed but not yet actually 
 married is here especially contemplated. Among 
 the Jews the ceremonv of betrothal was hardly 
 ; VoL. I. 
 
 less important than that of marriage, which, 
 in the case of a virgin, it usually preceded by 
 ten months or a year. After betrothal, a 
 woman continued to reside, till the period of 
 her marriage arrived, in her father’s house ; but 
 her property was from that time forward vested 
 in her husband, and she was so far regarded 
 as personally his, that an act of faithlessness 
 to him was, like adultery, punishable with 
 death (Deut. xxii. 23, 24). Hence his right 
 to control her vows even before he actually 
 took her home as his wife. The vows might 
 have been made either previously or sub- 
 sequently to betrothal ; but in either case her 
 future husband, under whose control she 
 passed with these vows upon her, might disallow 
 them. It would seem that even the father’s 
 express sanction of his unbetrothed daughter’s 
 vow did not affect the husband’s power, after 
 her betrothal, of disallowing it. To have given 
 the father a power to ratify it absolutely might 
 have either involved a wrong to a future hus- 
 band, or else have interfered with the girl’s 
 prospects of marriage. 
 
 uttered ought out of her lips] Lit. “ the ^ 
 rash utterance of her lips.” The word here 
 used is 'not found elsewhere, and imports an 
 utterance made without reflection. The allu- 
 sion to such 'rash vows indicates perhaps that 
 they were not uncommon; perhaps it was a 
 case of this kind which led to legislation on 
 the whole subject. 
 
 3 c 
 
NUMBERS. XXX. XXXI. 
 
 [v. 13—3. 
 
 heard them ; then whatsoever proceed- 
 ed out of her lips concerning her 
 vows, or concerning the bond of her 
 soul, shall not stand : her husband 
 hath made them void ; and the Lord 
 shall forgive her. 
 
 13 Every vow, and every binding 
 oath to afflict the soul, her husband 
 may establish it, or her husband may 
 make it void. 
 
 14. But if her husband altogether 
 hold his peace at her from day to 
 day ; then he establisheth all her 
 vows, or all her bonds, which are 
 upon her : he confirmeth them, be- 
 cause he held his peace at her in the 
 dav that he heard them. 
 
 '15 But if he shall any ways make 
 them void after that he hath heard 
 them-, then he shall bear her iniquity. 
 
 16 I'hese are the statutes, which 
 
 Chap. XXXI. The command of xxv. 17 
 is now ordered to be executed, and a war of 
 vengeance against Midian is undertaken. This 
 war and the transactions connected with it are 
 narrated in this chapter ; and would seem to 
 have occurred immediately before those closing 
 addresses of Moses to the people which foiTU 
 the book of Deuteronomy. See Introd. § III. 
 10, II. The result of this war completed 
 and secured the conquest of the promised land 
 east of Jordan. 
 
 2 . the Midianitei\ The Moabites are not 
 included. It would thus seem that it vras the 
 Midianites, and they only, who deliberately set 
 themselves to work the corruption of Israel. 
 
 3 . Avenge the Lord of Midian] The very 
 words in which the command is given show 
 that the war against the Midianites was no 
 ordinary one. It was indeed less a war than 
 the execution of a divine sentence against 
 a most guilty people. The Midianites had 
 corrupted, and, so far as in them lay, ruined 
 God’s people, body and soul ; and had done 
 this knowing, as after the overruling by God 
 of Balaam’s attempts to curse Israel they must 
 have known, that in doing it they were openly 
 rebelling against God. From God then a no 
 less open retribution overtakes them. The 
 employment in this work of so small a number 
 of Israelites as 12,000 (-u. 4) against the whole 
 numerous nation of Midian; the selection of an 
 equal number from each tribe irrespective of 
 its warlike strength; the appointment of Phi- 
 neas, famous for his zeal against the very sin 
 to which the Midianites had tempted Israel, 
 to take the lead in the war with “the holy 
 
 the Lord commanded Moses, be- 
 tween a man and his wife, between 
 the father and his daughter, being yet 
 in her youth in her father’s house. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 I The Alidianites are spoiled, and Balaam 
 slain. 13 Afoses is wroth with the officers, 
 for saving the wot 7 ien alive. 19 How the 
 soldiers, with their captives and spoil, are to 
 be purified. 25 The proportion whereby the 
 prey is to be divided. 48 The vohmtaiy obla- 
 tibfi tmto the treasury of the Lord. 
 
 A nd the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 
 . saying, 
 
 2 "Avenge the children of IsraeD chap. 25. 
 of the Midianites : afterward shalt 
 thou ‘^be gathered unto thy people. * chap. 27. 
 
 3 And Moses spake unto the peo- 
 pie, saying. Arm some of yourselves 
 unto the war, and let them go against 
 the Midianites, and avenge the Lord 
 of Midian. 
 
 instruments and trumpets” (v. 6); and the ex- 
 traordinary preservation (v. 49) of all those 
 engaged; are tokens that on this occasion, no 
 less than when the cities of the plain were 
 destroyed by fire from heaven, the hand of 
 God directed the stroke. It is but analogous 
 to His general dealings to scourge the Midian- 
 ites through the instrumentality of their own 
 victims. 
 
 Doubtless there were many amongst the 
 Midianites who were personally guiltless as 
 regards Israel. But the rulers deliberately 
 adopted the counsel of Balaam against Israel, 
 and their behests had been but too readily 
 obeyed by their subjects. The sin therefore 
 was national, and the retribution could be no 
 less so. And such a judgment must neces- 
 sarily fall on the whole people indiscriminately. 
 It is also in this particular case obvious that 
 to spare the male children would have pre- 
 pared for Israel in a few years a nation, of 
 implacable foes. 
 
 No doubt a general license to slay at pleasure 
 could hardly have been given without demoral- 
 izing those employ^!. But the commission of 
 the Israelites in the text must not be so con- 
 ceived. They had no discretion to kill or to 
 spare. They were bidden to exterminate with- 
 out mercy, and brought back to their task 
 (•v. 14) when they shewed signs of flinching 
 from it. The discharge of a painful duty like 
 this would no more necessarily tend to make 
 the Israelites cruel than a military execution 
 does our own soldiers. It was however a pre- 
 paration for other duties of the like kind which 
 awaited them ; a proof by experiment that they 
 had no alternative in such matters except to 
 
V. 4— 14-] NUMBERS. XXXI. 
 
 767 
 
 iHeb. 4 *Of every tribe a thousand, 
 ^and of a throughout all the tribes of Israel, 
 SSw shall ye send to the war. 
 fa tribe. 5 So there were delivered out of 
 the thousands of Israel, a thousand 
 of every tribe, twelve thousand armed 
 for war. 
 
 6 And Moses sent them to the 
 war, a thousand of every tribe, them 
 and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the 
 priest, to the war, with the holy in- 
 struments, and the trumpets to blow 
 in his hand. 
 
 7 And they warred against the 
 Midianites, as the Lord commanded 
 Moses ; and they slew all the males. 
 
 8 And they slew the kings of Mi- 
 dian, beside the r6st of them that 
 
 Tosh. 13. were slain; namely^ ^Evi, and Re- 
 kem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, 
 five kings of Midian : Balaam also 
 the son of Beor they slew with the 
 sword. 
 
 9 And the children of Israel took 
 all the women of Midian captives. 
 
 fultil the commands of God; an awful but 
 doubtless salutary manifestation, as was after- 
 wards the slaughter of the Canaanites, to which 
 that of Midian is in all essential respects similar 
 (cf. on Josh. X. Note at end of chapter), of 
 God's wrath against sin ; and a type of the 
 future extermination of sin and sinners from 
 His kingdom. See on the whole subject Heng- 
 stenberg, ‘Authentic,’ ii. 471 sqq.; Reinke, 
 
 ‘ Beitrage,’ i. 351; Graves, ‘On Pentateuch,’ 
 Partin. Lecture i.; Macdonald, ‘On the Pen- 
 tateuch,’ II. 60 sqq. 
 
 5 . 'were deli^eref] Or, “were told off.” 
 The Hebrew word is used in -z;. 16 in a some- 
 what different sense, but is not found elsewhere. 
 Cf. on u. 16. 
 
 6. Phinehas] He was marked out as the 
 fitting director of the expedition by his conduct 
 (cf. ch. XXV.) in the matter of Zimri and Cozbi. 
 
 'With the holy^ instruments., and the trumpets] 
 Or rather, “with the holy instruments, to wit, 
 the trumpets,” for the trumpets themselves 
 seem to be the instruments intended. 
 
 8. And they slew ...that were slain] Our 
 translators have not exhibited the distinction 
 between the two Hebrew words here em.ployed. 
 Render thus: And the kings of Midian 
 they put to death, heside those that 
 fell in the battle; namely, &c. From 
 which it would seem that beside these five, put ’ 
 to death after the battle, there -were other Mi- 
 dianitish kings who perished fighting ; and also 
 
 and their little ones, and took the 
 spoil of all their cattle, and all their 
 flocks, and all their goods. 
 
 10 And they burnt all their cities 
 wherein they dwelt, and all their 
 goodly castles, with fire. 
 
 11 And they took all the. spoil, 
 and all the prey, both of men and of 
 beasts. 
 
 12 And they brought the captives, 
 and the prey, and the spoil, unto 
 Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and 
 unto the congregation of the children 
 of Israel, unto the camp at the plains 
 of Moab, which are by Jordan ttear 
 Jericho. 
 
 13 ^ And Moses, and Eleazar the 
 priest, and all the princes of the con- 
 gregation, went forth to meet them 
 without the camp. 
 
 14 And Moses was wroth with the 
 officers of the host, with the cap- 
 tains over thousands, and captains 
 over hundreds, which came from the t Heb. 
 
 ^ battle. <’/ 
 
 that Balaam did not fall in battle, but was 
 judicially executed. From Josh. xiii. 21 it 
 appears that the five chieftains here mentioned 
 were vassals of Sihon the Amorite. Cf. on 
 xxii. 2. The name of one of them, Rekem, 
 was bestowyd by the Jews of later times 
 upon the city of Petra; the coincidence is 
 however in all likelihood accidental. On 
 Balaam cf. on xxiv. 25. 
 
 10. their goodly castles] Render rather, 
 both here and in Gen. xxv. 16, hamlets. 
 The LXX. renders eVavXety, “pastoral en- 
 closures.” The word is derived from a word 
 (/or) signifying “a row” or “ range” (cf. Ezek. 
 xlvi. 23); and probably indicates those col- 
 lections of rude dwellings, made of stones piled 
 one on another and covered with tent-cloths, 
 which are used by the Arabs to this day; and 
 which are frequently mentioned as douars 
 in narratives of the French campaigns in 
 Algeria. These dwellings would be formed 
 usually m a circle. Cf. the word “Hazeroth ” 
 and note on xi. 35. ’ 
 
 11. all the spoil., and all the prey] The 
 latter word refers to the captives and live- 
 stock : the former to the ornaments and other 
 effects. In i Sam. xv. 19 however the Amalekite 
 live-stock is included under the general term 
 of “spoil.” 
 
 12. by Jordan near 'Jericho] Literally 
 “ by the Jericho Jordan.” Cf. on xxii. i. 
 
 3C2 
 
768 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXI. 
 
 [v. 15—32. 
 
 1 5 And Moses said unto them, Have 
 ye saved all the women alive? 
 chap. 25. 16 Behold, these caused the chil- 
 
 <^’2 Pet. 2. dren of Israel, through the ^counsel 
 of Balaam, to commit trespass against 
 the Lord in the' matter of Peor, and 
 there was a plague among the congre- 
 gation of the Lord. 
 
 yjudg. 21. 17 Now therefore -^kill every male 
 
 among the little ones, and kill every 
 woman that hath known man by lying 
 tHeb. with ^ him. 
 
 a male. wom.en children, 
 
 that have not known a man by lying 
 with him, keep alive for yourselves. 
 
 19 And do ye abide without the 
 camp seven days: whosoever hath kill- 
 
 ^chap. 19. ed any person, and ^whosoever hath 
 n, &c. touched any slain, purify both your- 
 selves and your captives on the third 
 day, and on the seventh day. 
 
 20 And purify all your raiment, 
 t Heb. and all ^ that is made of skins, and all 
 viefit, or, work of goats’ hair^ and all things 
 
 made of wood. 
 
 21 ^ And Eleazar the priest said 
 unto the men of war which went to 
 the battle. This is the ordinance of 
 the law which the Lord commanded 
 Moses ; 
 
 22 Only the gold, and the silver, 
 the brass, the iron, the tin, and the 
 lead, 
 
 23 Every thing that may abide the 
 fire, ye shall make it go through the 
 fire, and it shall be clean : neverthe- 
 less it shall be purified with the water 
 of separation : and all that abideth not 
 the fire ye shall make go through the 
 water. 
 
 24 And ye shall wash your clothes 
 on the seventh day, and ye shall be 
 clean, and afterward ye shall come 
 into the camp. 
 
 25 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 26 Take the sum of the prey 
 ^'that was taken, both of man and 
 beast, thou, and Eleazar the priest, UvUy. 
 and the chief fathers of the congre- 
 gation : 
 
 27 And divide the prey into two 
 parts ; between them that took the 
 war upon them, who went out to 
 battle, and between all the congre- 
 gation : 
 
 28 And levy a tribute unto the 
 Lord of the men 'of war which went 
 out to battle : one soul of five hun- 
 dred, both of the persons, and of the 
 beeves, and of the asses, and of the 
 sheep : 
 
 29 Take it of their half, and give 
 it unto Eleazar the priest, for an 
 heave oftering of the Lord. 
 
 30 And of the children of Israel’s 
 half, thou shalt take one portion of 
 fifty, of the persons, of the beeves, of 
 
 the asses, and of the “flocks, of 2 \\iOT,gaat 
 manner of beasts, and give them unto 
 the Levites, which keep the charge of 
 the tabernacle of the Lord. 
 
 31 And Moses and Eleazar the 
 priest did as the Lord commanded 
 Moses. 
 
 32 And the booty, being the rest 
 of the prey which the men of war 
 had caught, was six hundred thou- 
 sand and seventy thousand and five 
 thousand sheep. 
 
 16. caused... to commit trespass'\ On this 
 verse see Note at end of the chapter. 
 
 19. and your capti'ves'\ Their captivity 
 rendered them to some extent a constituent 
 part of the Israelitish people. Like the warriors 
 therefore they needed purification. 
 
 on the third day., and on the seventh day~\ 
 According to the law set forth in xix. 12. 
 
 22. brass'] Render copper ; Cf. on Gen. 
 V. 22. 'I'he verse is curious as illustrating 
 the variety of metals in use at this early date 
 for domestic purposes. All these metals were 
 common in I'-gypt centuries before the date 
 of the Exodus. 
 
 29. an heave-rjfertng] Render simply an. 
 offering, and cf. on xviii. 24. The verb 
 from which the word here rendered “heave- 
 offering” is derived, is rightly translated “levy” 
 in V. 28. 
 
 32. Render rather, “And the prey” (i.e. 
 the live prey, the word being the same as in 
 ii) “in addition to the plunder which the 
 men of war seized, &c.” The “plunder” of 
 this verse is that named “spoil” in -u. ii, and 
 described more particularly in v. 50. 
 
 The numbers of sheep, beeves, as.ses, and 
 persons taken are given in this and following 
 verses in round thousands. Hence the Lord’s 
 
V. 33—52-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXI. 
 
 769 
 
 33 And threescore and twelve thou- 
 sand beeves, 
 
 34 And threescore and one thou- 
 sand asses, 
 
 35 And thirty and two thousand 
 persons in all, of women that had not 
 known man by lying with him. 
 
 36 And the half, which was the 
 portion of them that went out to 
 war, was in number three hundred 
 thousand and seven and thirty thou- 
 sand and five hundred sheep: 
 
 37 And the Lord’s tribute of the 
 sheep was six hundred and threescore 
 and fifteen. 
 
 38 And the beeves were thirty and 
 six thousand ; of which the Lord’s 
 tribute was threescore and twelve. 
 
 39 And the asses were thirty thou- 
 sand and five hundred ; of which the 
 Lord’s tribute was threescore and one. 
 
 40 And the persons were sixteen 
 thousand ; of which the Lord’s tri- 
 bute was thirty and two persons. 
 
 41 And Moses gave the tribute, 
 which was the Lord’s heave offering, 
 unto Eleazar the priest, as the Lord 
 commanded Moses. 
 
 42 And of the children of Israel’s 
 half, which Moses divided from the 
 men that warred, 
 
 43 (Now the half that pertained 
 unto the congregation was three hun- 
 dred thousand and thirty thousand and 
 seven thousand and five hundred sheep. 
 
 44 And thirty and six thousand 
 beeves, 
 
 45 And thirty thousand asses and 
 five hundred, 
 
 46 And sixteen thousand persons;) 
 
 47 Even of the children of Israel’s 
 half, Moses took one portion of fifty, 
 both of man and of beast, and gave 
 them unto the Levites, which kept 
 the charge of the tabernacle of the 
 Lord ; as the Lord commanded Mo- 
 ses. 
 
 48 ^ And the officers v/hich were 
 over thousands of the host, the cap- 
 tains of thousands, and captains of 
 hundreds, came near unto Moses : 
 
 49 And they said unto Moses, Thy 
 servants have taken the sum of the 
 men of war which are under our 
 
 ^ charge, and there lacketh not one t Heb. 
 man of us. 
 
 50 We have therefore brought an 
 oblation for the Lord, what every 
 man hath ^gotten, of jewels of gold, t Heb. 
 chains, and bracelets, rings, earrings, 
 
 and tablets, to make an atonement 
 for our souls before the Lord. 
 
 51 And Moses and Eleazar the 
 priest took the gold of them, even all 
 wrought jewels. 
 
 52 And all the gold of the ^ offer- ^Heb. 
 ing that they offered up to the Lord, offering. 
 of the captains of thousands, and of the 
 captains of hundreds, was sixteen thou- 
 sand seven hundred and fifty shekels. 
 
 tribute {y’v. 29, 37, 38, &c.), being the five- the work, and hence the free-will oblation of 
 hundredth part of the half, comes out also in 50. 
 
 round numbers. Probably indeed this tribute, 50. chains^ i.e. “armlets,” as in 2 Sam. 
 set apart at the time, formed the basis of the i. 10. • , 
 
 subsequent record; and upon it the warriors’ rings'] Specially, “finger-rings,” or “seal- 
 share, and the general totals, were calculated rings;” cf. Ex. xxxv. 22. 
 by multiplication. The enormous amount tablets] Worn suspended from the neck ; 
 both of live stock and of personal ornament see ibid. 
 
 was characteristic of the Midianites. When to make an atonement for our souls before 
 they invaded Israel in the days of the Judges, the Lord] Gf. Ex. xxx. ii — 16. The atone- 
 their wealth was still of the same kind (Judg. ment was not for any special offence com- 
 vi. 5, viii. 24 sqq.). The Bedouins, notwith- mitted (which would have called for a sacri- 
 standing their wild nomadic life, retain their fice of blood-shedding), but rather like the 
 ancestral love of finery to this present day. half-shekel given at the census in Ex. /. c., was 
 
 an acknowledgment of having received un- 
 49. there lacketh not one man of us] There deseiwed mercies. These, if unacknowledged, 
 is no mention of any resistance on the part of would have entailed guilt on the soul, 
 the Midianites. Probably they were routed by 52. sixteen thousand seven hundred and 
 a sudden attack. The Israelites saw in this ffty shekels] In value about 20,000/. See on 
 a proof that the Lord had been with them in vii. 84 sqq. 
 
770 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXI. XXXII. 
 
 [v. S3— 9- 
 
 53 ( For the men of war had taken of thousands and of hundreds, and 
 
 spoil, every man for himself.) brought it into the tabernacle of the 
 
 54 And Moses and Eleazar the congregation, for a memorial for the 
 priest took the gold of the captains children of Israel before the Lord. 
 
 53. This verse seems to imply that the plunder. Of course besides the gold there 
 soldiers, as distinct from the officers (cf. •v. would be much spoil of less precious materials ; 
 49), did not make any offering from their see 'vnj. 20, 22. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xxxi. 16. 
 
 The word here ("iDD) is the one to which 
 attention was drawn at -r. 5. It means literally 
 “to deliver,” or “give;” and so to commu- 
 nicate or teach. Arab, eduxit, prodire 
 
 fecit, incitavit, Freytag. Here the passage 
 more closely rendered would run: “became 
 to the children of Israel for a cause” (or 
 “incitement,” Dr Lee, ‘Lex.’ sub v.) “of 
 treachery to the Lord.” 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 I The Reiibenitcs and Gadites sue for their in- 
 heritance on that side Jordan. 6 Moses re- 
 proveth thejn. 16 They offer him conditions 
 to his content. 33 Moses assigneth them the 
 land. 39 They conquer it. 
 
 N ' OW the children of Reuben 
 and the children of Gad had a 
 very great multitude of cattle : and 
 when they saw the land of Jazer, and 
 the land of Gilead, that, behold, the 
 place was a place for cattle ; 
 
 2 The children of Gad and the 
 children of Reuben came and spake 
 unto Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, 
 and unto the princes of the congre- 
 gation, saying, 
 
 3 Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, 
 and Nimrah, and Heshbon, and Elea- 
 leh, and Shebam, and Nebo, and Beon, 
 4 Even the country which the 
 Lord smote before the congregation 
 
 of Israel, is a land for cattle, and thy 
 servants have cattle : 
 
 5 Wherefore, said they, if we 
 have found grace in thy sight, let this 
 land be given unto thy servants for 
 a possession, and bring us not over 
 Jordan. 
 
 6 ^ And Moses said unto the chil- 
 dren of Gad and to the children of 
 Reuben, Shall your brethren go to 
 war, and shall ye sit here ? 
 
 7 And wherefore ^ discourage ye 
 the heart of the children of Israel 
 from going over into the land which 
 the Lord hath given them ? 
 
 8 Thus did your fathers, when I 
 sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see 
 the land. 
 
 9 For ‘^when they went up unto^c^^p- 
 the valley of Eshcol, and saw the 
 land, they discouraged the heart of 
 
 Chap. XXXI I. The record of the last 
 war to the east of the Jordan is followed by 
 the assignment of the lands already conquered 
 to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and to cer- 
 tain families of the tribe of Manasseh. 
 
 1. the land of Jazer'] Cf. on xxi. 32. This 
 district, although included in the land of Gilead, 
 seems to have had especial attractions for the 
 Israelitish settlers; and hence possibly the pre- 
 vious and special notice of its occupation after 
 the victory of Jahaz. It was moreover the first 
 district in Gilead which the Israelites invaded. 
 
 a place for cattle'] All travellers in Gilead, 
 the modern Helka, bear witness to its richness 
 as compared with the country to the west of 
 the Jordan. Its general character is that 
 of an upland pasture, undulating and thickly 
 
 timbered. In the last respect its northern 
 portions excel its southern ; but for fertility of 
 soil the southern province is preferred by the 
 Arabs, in whose lips it has passed into a pro- 
 verb: “Thou canst not find a country like 
 the Belka.” Cf. Tristram, ‘.Land of Israel,’ 
 p. 541 sqq. 
 
 3 . Respecting the places here mentioned 
 see on -w. 34 — 38. Shebam is the same with 
 Shibmah: Beon with Baal-meon. 
 
 8. your fathers] The generation of the 
 Exodus was now substantially extinct. Cf. 
 xxvi. 64, 65. 
 
 Kadesh-barnea] On the site of Kadesh, 
 see Note at end of ch. xiii. : on Barnea, see 
 Note at end of this chapter. 
 
V. 10 28.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXII. 
 
 771 
 
 the children of Israel, that they should 
 not go into the land which the Lord 
 had given them. 
 
 10 And the Lord’s anger was .kin- 
 dled the same time, and he sware, 
 saying, 
 
 1 1 Surely none of the men that 
 f-chap. 14. came up out of Egypt, '^from twenty 
 28, 29. years old and upward, shall see the 
 
 land which I sware unto Abraham, 
 unto Isaac, and unto Jacob; because 
 i Heb. they have not ^ wholly followed me : 
 ^afuAi. 12 Save Caleb the son of Jephun- 
 neh the Kenezite, and Joshua the 
 son of Nun: for they have wholly 
 followed the Lord. 
 
 13 And the Lord’s anger was kin- 
 dled against Israel, and he made them 
 wander in the wilderness forty years, 
 until all the generation, that had done 
 evil in the sight of the Lord, was 
 consumed. 
 
 14 And, behold, ye are risen up 
 in your fathers’ stead, an increase of 
 sinful men, to augment yet the fierce 
 anger of the Lord toward Israel. 
 
 15 For if ye turn away from after 
 him, he will yet again leave them in 
 'the wilderness ; and ye shall destroy 
 all this people. 
 
 16 ^ And they came near unto 
 him, and said. We will build sheep- 
 folds here for our cattle, and cities for 
 our little ones ; 
 
 17 But we ourselves will go ready 
 armed before the children of Israel, 
 until we have brought them unto 
 their place: and our little ones shall 
 dwell in the fenced cities because of 
 the inhabitants of the land. 
 
 18 We will not return unto our 
 houses, until the children of Israel 
 
 have inherited every man his inhe- 
 ritance. 
 
 19 For we will not inherit with 
 them on yonder side Jordan, or for- 
 ward ; because our inheritance is fallen 
 to us on this side Jordan eastward. 
 
 20 H And Moses said unto them, ^ Josh. i. 
 If ye will do this thing, if ye will go 
 armed before the Lord to war, 
 
 21 And will go all of you armed 
 over Jordan before the Lord, until 
 he hath driven out his enemies from 
 before him, 
 
 22 And the land be subdued be- 
 fore the Lord : then afterward ye 
 shall return, and be guiltless before 
 the Lord, and before Israel ; and 
 this land shall be your possession be- 
 fore the Lord. 
 
 23 But if ye will not do so, be- 
 hold, ye have sinned against the 
 Lord : and be sure your sin will find 
 you out. 
 
 24 Build you cities for your little 
 ones, and folds for your sheep ; and 
 do that v/hich hath proceeded out of 
 your mouth. 
 
 25 And the children of Gad and 
 the children of Reuben spake unto 
 Moses, saying. Thy servants will do 
 as my lord commandeth. 
 
 26 Our little ones, our wives, our 
 flocks, and all our cattle, shall be 
 there in the cities of Gilead : 
 
 27 ^But thy servants will pass over, Josh. 4. 
 every man armed for war, before the 
 Lord to battle, as my lord saith. 
 
 28 So concerning them Moses com- 
 manded Eleazar the priest, and Jo- 
 shua the son of Nun, and the chief 
 fathers of the tribes of the children of 
 Israel : 
 
 12. the Kenezite] Cf. i Chron. iv. 13 
 sqq. ; and ch. xiii. 6 and note. 
 
 19. on yonder side 'Jordan... on this side 
 Jordan] The expressions in the Hebrew 
 differ but slightly (me-eber lay-yarden — me-eber 
 hay-yarden]. And in nu 32 the latter is actually 
 used of the district west of Jordan, though 
 here applied to that east of it. The terms are 
 therefore used with some laxity (cf. on Deut. 
 i. i), and are here accordingly defined by the 
 addition of “forward” and “eastward” re- 
 spectively. 
 
 23. be sure your sin nvill Jind you out] Lit. 
 “know ye of your sin that it will find you 
 out.” Moses implies that their sin would 
 eventually bring its own punishment along 
 with it. 
 
 27. before the Lord] i.e. immediately in 
 front of the sacred tokens of the Lord’s pre- 
 sence; cf. X. 18 — 21. 
 
 28. Moses commanded] Moses gives the 
 necessary instructions to those intrusted with 
 the duty of making the partition (cf. xxxiv. 
 17 sqq.). It was only when the nine and a 
 
772 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIL 
 
 [v. 29—36. 
 
 29 And Moses said unto them, If 
 the children of Gad and the children 
 of Reuben will pass with you over 
 Jordan, every man armed to battle, 
 before the Lord, and the land shall 
 be subdued before you ; then ye shall 
 o;ive them the land of Gilead for a 
 possession : 
 
 30 But if they will not pass over 
 with you armed, they shall have pos- 
 sessions among you in the land of 
 Canaan. 
 
 31 And the children of Gad and 
 the children of Reuben answered, 
 saying, As the Lord hath said unto 
 thy servants, so will we <^o. 
 
 32 We will pass over armed before 
 the Lord into the land of Canaan, 
 
 that the possession of our inheritance 
 on this side Jordan may be ours. 
 
 33 And ^Moses gave unto them, ^ Deut. 3. 
 even to the children of Gad, and to jih. 13 8. 
 the children of Reuben, and unto half 
 
 the tribe of Manasseh the son of Jo- 
 seph, the kingdom of Sihon king of 
 the Amorites, and the kingdom of 
 Og king of Bashan, the land, with 
 the cities thereof in the coasts, even 
 the cities of the country round about. 
 
 34 ^ And the children of Gad 
 built Dibon, and Ataroth, and Aroer, 
 
 35 And Atroth, Shophan, and Jaa- 
 zer, and Jg^behah, 
 
 36 And Beth-nimrah, and Beth- 
 haran, fenced cities : and folds for 
 sheep. 
 
 half tribes received their inheritance in western 
 Canaan, that the two tribes and a half, having 
 fulfilled the conditions, required of them, for- 
 mally entered into possession of Gilead and 
 Bashan, t.’. 32; cf. Deut. iii. 12 — 20. Then 
 too, no doubt, the boundaries of their respec- 
 tive allotments were determined. 
 
 33 . half the tribe of Manasseh~\ This half 
 tribe, consisting, as appears from 'uv. 39 sqq., 
 of ihe families of Machir, is here mentioned 
 for the first time. It would seem that Moses, 
 when assigning to the pastoral tribes the in- 
 heritance which they desired, took opportunity 
 at the same time to appropriate to these 
 Manassites specially the district they had 
 already subdued. Thus the whole of the 
 conquered country was provisionally dis- 
 posed of, and the forwardness and valour 
 <)f the Machirites rewarded. It seems clear 
 from v. 39 and Josh. xvii. i, that the claims 
 of the Alachirites arose simply out of their 
 exploits. 
 
 34 — 36 . Settlements formed forthwith by 
 the Gadites. The cities here named fall into 
 three groups. 
 
 34 . The leading city of the first group is 
 Diboii, cf. xxi. 30; called, from the possession 
 which the Gadites now took of it, Dibon-gad, 
 xxxiii. 45, 46. It lay four miles north of the 
 Arnon; and its extensive ruins still bear the 
 name Dhiban. It was here that the Moabite 
 stone was discovered by the Rev. T. Klein, 
 in 1868. According to a very probable re- 
 storation of two letters missing at the end of 
 the first line of the inscription on the stone, 
 Chemoshgad t = “he whose good fortune is 
 Chemosh,” cf. Baal-gad, Josh. xi. 17), the 
 father of Mesha, was a I)ibonite. Dibon is 
 reckoned as a Reulx'uite town. Josh, xiii. 9 ; 
 whilst in Isa. xv. 2 and Jer. xlviii. 18, 22, it is 
 
 spoken of as Moabite. Occupied on the first 
 acquisition of the territory by the Gadites, and 
 assigned by Joshua to the Reubenites, it was 
 eventually recaptured by the Moabites, in whose 
 hands it remained, Ataroth^ i.e. “crowns,” 
 now the ruin Attarus, on the hill to which it 
 gives its name, was seven miles north-west of 
 Dibon, Aroer ^ now Arair, also in ruins, lay 
 between Dibon and the Amon, on the brink 
 of the precipitous ravine through which that 
 torrent flows. It must not be confounded 
 with the Aroer which fell permanently to the 
 Gadites, in front of Rabbath- Ammon, Josh, 
 xiii. 25. 
 
 35 . Atroth^ Sbophan\ Write Atroth- 
 Shophan, z.c. Atroth, or Ataroth of Shophan, 
 or “of the burrow.” The addition is made 
 to distinguish this Ataroth from the one 
 named in the verse preceding, from which it 
 was probably not far distant. The four cities 
 now named may be styled the Dibon settle- 
 ment. 
 
 Jaazer'] Or Jazer. See on i;. i. This city 
 with the neighbouring Joghehah^ now Jebeiha, 
 a ruined place seven miles to the north-east, 
 formed the second group. 
 
 36 . The third Gadite settlement lay in 
 the valley of the Jordan, to the west of the 
 preceding, with which it may possibly have 
 been connected. It comprised the cities of 
 Beth-nimrah^ otherwise Nimrah, and Beth- 
 haran: see, for both, on xxii. i. The latter 
 cf these lay within the ground covered by the 
 Israclitish camp, and therefore can hardly 
 have been occupied by the Gadites till the 
 host crossed the Jordan. 
 
 The Jaazer and Jordan settlements were 
 eventually confirmed to the Gadites as part of 
 their inheritance, which from them stretched 
 away northwards. But their Dibon settle- 
 
V. 37— 4I-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXII. 
 
 773 
 
 37 And the children of Reuben built 
 Heshbon, and Elealeh,and Kirjathaim, 
 
 38 And Nebo, and Baal-meon, 
 (their names beino; chano-ed.) and 
 
 ly names bhibiiiah : aiid ^ gave other names un- 
 to the cities which they builded. 
 
 /cln 39 children of -^Machir the 
 
 23 . son of Manasseh went to Gilead, and 
 
 took it, and dispossessed the Amorite 
 which was in it. 
 
 40 And Moses gave Gilead unto 
 Machir the son of Manasseh; and he 
 dwelt therein. 
 
 41 And ^Jair the son of Manasseh ^Deut. 3.. 
 went and took the small towns there- 
 of, and called them Havoth-jair. 
 
 ment, v/hich was cut off from the others, ‘must 
 have passed into the possession of Reuben:’ 
 see Josh, xiii, 16, 17. 
 
 37 , 38 . The Reubenites established them- 
 selves more compactly than the Gadites. 
 Their central city was the old • Amoritish 
 capital, Heshbon: see on xxi. 25. They occu- 
 pied also Elealeh^ now el-’Al, a mile to the 
 north-east ; Nebo^ probably three miles to the 
 south-west (see on xxi. 20) ; and Baal-meon^ 
 now apparently Myun (seeBurckhardt, p. 365), 
 nearly two miles to t^e south. The names of 
 the last two cities they endeavoured to change, 
 probably on account of their idolatrous cha- 
 racter. Of Nebo, Jerome (on Isa. xv. 2) says : 
 “ In Nebo erat Chamos idolum consecratum, 
 quod alio nomine Baal-phegor appellatur.” 
 It was retaken by Mesha, circ. 895 b.c., as 
 the Moabite stone records ; and hence we find 
 it spoken of by Isaiah, xv. 2, and by Jeremiah, 
 xlviii. I, as a Moabite town: cf. on xxi. 29. 
 Beon {y. 3), or Beth-meon (Jer. xlviii. 23), 
 may be the name by which Baal-meon was 
 replaced. The cities, however, still bore in the 
 days of the prophets their old designations; 
 cf. Is. XV. 2, Ezek. xxv. 9. Baal-meon indeed 
 would seem to have fallen into the hands of 
 the Moabites before the days of Mesha, who 
 speaks of himself as having there built a 
 . temple, no doubt to Chemosh, and as having 
 fortified the town. He would seem to have 
 made it the stronghold from which as a 
 basis he operated in his later conquests. See 
 Schlottmann, ‘Die Siege. Mesas,’ pp. 16, 17. 
 Of the remaining two cities of the Reubenite 
 settlement, Kirjathaim^ which is mentioned 
 between Elealeh and Nebo, has been sought 
 three miles south of Heshbon, in the ruins 
 known as et-Teim. The ancient name, which 
 signifies “the double city,” may perhaps by a 
 false etymology have been written Kir-iathaim, 
 have lost its initial syllable in course of time, 
 and been corrupted into its modern form. 
 According to Eusebius Kiriathaim is to be 
 found in the site now called Kureiyat, on the 
 mountain, close to Ataroth; but this would 
 have lain within the southern Gadite settle- 
 ment, and would not have been occupied as 
 yet by the Reubenites. Lastly, Shibmah, more 
 properly Sibmah, famous at a later period for 
 its vines, cf. Isa. xvi. 8, still leaves the trace of 
 its^ame in the ruins es-Sameh, four miles east 
 
 of Heshbon. Thus all these Reubenite cities 
 clustered round Heshbon; and, allowing a fair 
 space round each, the extent of the Reubenite 
 settlement would be about one-tenth, of the 
 extent of their eventual inheritance. They 
 probably at the partition retained all these 
 cities with the exception of Heshbon itself, 
 which, passing to the Levites, was thenceforth 
 reckoned as within the tribe of Gad. 
 
 It is obvious that neither the Reubenites 
 nor the Gadites were the founders of the 
 cities of which they thus took possession, and 
 which the text describes them as “building.” 
 They probably fortified them, for the first 
 time or afresh, so as to render them places of 
 safety for their families during the campaigns 
 on the other side of the Jordan; and provided 
 them with all conveniences for their flocks 
 and herds. 
 
 39 . the children of Machir'] Machir, the 
 son of Manasseh, was long since dead: even 
 his sons had been brought up upon Joseph’s 
 knees (Gen. 1 . 23). But the renown ac- 
 quired by his descendants raised his family 
 almost to the dignity of a tribe; and the 
 Machirites are in the next verse styled Machir, 
 just as the children of Judah, or of Ephraim 
 are often spoken of as Judah or Ephraim. 
 So in Judg. V. 14 Machir is coupled with 
 Ephraim and Zebulun. 
 
 nvent] i.e. “had -gone:” the statement is 
 preparatory to the ensuing record of the grant 
 to them of the land they had won. 
 
 Gilead] More strictly part of north Gilead; 
 which, though inhabited by the Amorites, had 
 belonged to the kingdom of Og. Respecting 
 this use of the name Gilead for the territory 
 of the Machirites, see on xxvi. 29. 
 
 41 . fair] On his pedigree cf. on xxvii. i. 
 He was, through his father’s mother, a de- 
 scendant' of Machir, though not of Gilead; 
 but while reckoned, on her account, a Manassite, 
 he traced up his ancestry in the male line to 
 the more illustrious family of Judah. His 
 own exploits — he was the conqueror of Argob, 
 Deut. iii. 14 — gave new lustre to his name; 
 and the fame of the family is attested by the 
 history of Jair the Israelitish judge, doubtless 
 a descendant ; perhaps also by the mention of 
 Jairus, St Luke viii. 41, the ruler of the syna- 
 gogue at the neighbouring city of Capernaum. 
 
774 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIL [v. 42. 
 
 42 And Nobah went and took and called it Nobah, after his own 
 Kenath, and the villages thereof, name. 
 
 Ha’voth-jair'] That is, the villages, or rather 
 groups of tents, or “kraals,” of Jair. The 
 term probably springs from an Arabic root, 
 signifying “to collect;” and suggests that the 
 “towns” in question had peculiar charac- 
 teristics. The original “havoth-jair” were 
 twenty-three in number, i Chron. ii. 22: in 
 the days of the younger Jair, to whom they 
 probably descended by inheritance, they either 
 had increased to thirty, or were reckoned at 
 that round number, Judg. x. 4. The western 
 Israelites had however but an imperfect know- 
 ledge of this district, which was moreover 
 crowded with towns. The Arabs reckon 
 more than 1000 now deserted towns in the 
 Hauran alone. (See Buckingham and Seetzen, 
 in Knobel, in loc.) Hence the appellation 
 Havoth-jair was sometimes extended to more 
 distant portions of the Machirite domain; to 
 Argob with its threescore fortified cities, the 
 very reverse, in their structure, of “havoth;” 
 and to Kenath, of which, 42, not Jair but 
 Nobah was the conqueror (see Deut. iii. 14; 
 Josh. xiii. 30; I Chron. ii. 23). This in- 
 accuracy as to a remote district may be 
 illustrated by our use of the name Connaught, 
 originally the territory of the sept of the 
 McNaughts, but now denoting the whole 
 western province of Ireland. 
 
 42. Nobah'] Scripture mentions him no 
 more, but he is the hero of various extra- 
 vagant legends in the Samaritan Book of 
 Joshua; which may possibly in part have 
 sprung out of authentic local traditions. 
 
 Kenath] Now Kenawat, an important site 
 near the southern extremity of the tract el- 
 Lejah, and on the western slopes of the 
 mountains of the Hauran. Its ruins, chiefly 
 however of the Roman era, attest its former 
 grandeur; and extend for about a mile along 
 the precipitous bank of a deep and wild ravine. 
 I'he country round is richly wooded. The 
 city is apparently called Nobah after its con- 
 queror in Judg. viii. 11 ; but this name, as in 
 other cases, fell ere long into disuse, and the 
 old name has held its ground to this day. 
 
 The notices, both Scriptural and traditional, 
 of the conquest of north-eastern Gilead and 
 
 Bashan by the Machirites, plainly intimate 
 that it was effected by a few chiefs of 
 great military prowess, who overran rapidly 
 a far larger district than they could colonize. 
 The tribe of Manasseh was the least nume- 
 rous of all at Sinai, and only stood sixth 
 in the census recently held (chap, xxvi.) ; 
 yet it eventually received on the west of 
 Jordan a territory as large on the average as 
 fell to the other tribes, beside the district here 
 allotted to the Machirites. The father of Jair, 
 however, Segub, was of the tribe of Judah 
 (i Chron. ii. 21, 22, cf. ch. xxvii. i, and 
 note); and it is likely that the Manassite 
 leaders induced many of the more adventurous 
 of this, and some possibly of other tribes, to 
 join them in their enterprise against Bashan. 
 The remarkable notice in Josh. xix. 34 (see 
 note) points to a settlement of the children of 
 J udah as then existing in the very district in 
 question; and thus too the fact, recorded 
 Josh. xix. 9, that the main body of the tribe 
 of Judah proved insufficient to occupy the 
 inheritance assigned to them, may be ac- 
 counted for. 
 
 It appears from Josh. xiii. 13 (see note) 
 that the Machirites did not exterminate the 
 whole population of this district. Probably 
 they destroyed (cf. xxi. 35) only the domi- 
 nant heathen tribe through which Og held 
 sway, and merely put to tribute the sub- 
 ject race or races, as Og had done before. 
 The conquest of the district east of Jordan 
 seems never to have been so effectually accom- 
 plished as that on the other side. It was 
 indeed no part of the inheritance originally pro- 
 mised (cf. xxxiv. I — 15), and was first swept 
 away by the storm of heathen invasion (i Chr. • 
 
 V. 2^- 
 
 During the troublous times of the Judges 
 the eastern Manassites rendered good ser- 
 vice to the nation; cf. Judg. v. 14. Gideon, 
 and probably Jephthah, were of this tribe, 
 and reflect in a later generation the warlike 
 and adventurous spirit which Jair and Nobah 
 exhibited in the days of Moses. On the con- 
 trary, the apathy of the pastoral tribes of 
 Reuben and Gad is more than once censured 
 (Judg. V. 15—17, viii. 4—9)- 
 
 NOTE on Chap, xxxii. 8 . 
 
 Kadesh Barnea. The meaning of the term 
 Barnea is uncertain. In xxxiv. 4 the LXX. 
 renders KriS/jy rov Bapvi^, which suggests the 
 notion that Barnea was regarded as a man’s 
 name. Elsewhere however the LXX. gives 
 Kddrjs Bapvrj. EUrst proposes, yir'l3= “Son 
 
 of Wandering:” i.e. Bedouin. But the word 
 "121 in the sense of “Son” does not occur in 
 the Pentateuch. Others prefer to take "121 as 
 from "1"13, and render it “country” or 
 “land,” as it is probably to be rendered in 
 Job xxxix. 4. I'he other half of the '^ord 
 
V. I— 15-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIII. 
 
 775 
 
 (VIJ) is derived from a word signifying to 
 “move to and fro,” or “to be shaken.” 
 Possibly the name carries the tradition of some 
 great natural convulsion which happened in 
 the district. Have we an allusion to Barnea, 
 
 understood according to the last derivation, 
 in Ps. xxix. 8: “The Lord shaketh the 
 wilderness of Cades”? The Hebrew word 
 however there used is not 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 I Txoo and forty joxirxicys of the Israelites. 50 
 The Canaanites are to be destroyed. 
 
 T hese are the journeys of the 
 children of Israel, which went 
 forth out of the land of Egypt with 
 their armies under the hand of Moses 
 and Aaron. 
 
 2 And Moses wrote their goings 
 out according to their journeys by 
 the commandment of the Lord : and 
 these are their journeys according to 
 their goings out. 
 
 <iFxod. 12. 3 And they ^departed from Ra- 
 
 meses in the first month, on the fif- 
 teenth day of the first month ; on the 
 morrow after the passover the chil- 
 dren of Israel went out with an high 
 hand in the sight of all the Egyp- 
 tians. 
 
 4 For the Egyptians buried all 
 l^eir firstborn, which the Lord had 
 smitten among them : upon their gods 
 also the Lord executed judgments. 
 
 5 And the children of Israel re- 
 moved from Rameses, and pitched in 
 Succoth. 
 
 ^Exod.13. 6 And they departed from ‘^Suc- 
 
 coth, and pitched in Etham, which is 
 in the edge of the wilderness. 
 
 7 And they removed from Etham, 
 
 and turned again unto Pi-hahiroth, 
 which is before Baal-zephon: and 
 they pitched before Migdol. 
 
 8 And they departed from before 
 Pi-hahiroth, and ^passed through the Exod. xs. 
 midst of the sea into the wilderness, 
 
 and went three days’ journey in the 
 wilderness of Etham, and pitched in 
 Marah. 
 
 9 And they removed from Marah, 
 
 and ^came unto Elim: and in ElimT^^®^- 
 were twelve fountains of water, and 
 threescore and ten palm trees; and 
 they pitched there. 
 
 10 And they removed from Elim, 
 and encamped by the Red sea. 
 
 11 And they removed from the 
 Red sea, and encamped in the ^wil- 
 derness of Sin. 
 
 12 And they took their journey 
 out of the wilderness of Sin, and en- 
 camped in Dophkah. 
 
 13 And they departed from Doph- 
 kah, and encamped in Alush. 
 
 14 And they removed from Alush, 
 
 and encamped at -^Rephidim, where y-Exod. xv. 
 was no water for the people to 
 drink. 
 
 15 And they departed from Rephi- 
 
 dim, and pitched in the ^wilderness .rExod. 19, 
 of Sinai. 
 
 Chap. XXXIII. 1 — 49 . The history of 
 the Wandering in the Desert is closed by a 
 list of the places occupied by the Israelite 
 encampment from the exodus to the arrival at 
 the Jordan. This list was written out by 
 Moses at God’s command (‘v. 2), doubtless 
 as a memorial of God’s providential care for 
 His people throughout this long and trying 
 period. On it see Introd. § 4. 
 
 3 . Rameses] See on Ex. i. ii and xii. 37. 
 
 4. buried] Rather, were burying. 
 
 5 . Succoth] See on Ex. xii. 37. 
 
 6. Etham] Cf. on Ex. xiv. 2. 
 
 8. Pi-hahiroth] Hebr. “Hahiroth;” but 
 perhaps only by an error of transcription. 
 The omitted “pi” is however only a com- 
 mon Egyptian prefix. See on Ex. xiv. 2. 
 
 qjoilderness of Etham] i. e. that part of the 
 great wilderness of Shur which adjoined 
 Etham: cf. on Ex. xv. 22 and ch.x. 12. The list 
 of stations up to that at Sinai agrees with the 
 narrative of Exodus except that we have here 
 mentioned {y. 10) an encampment by the Red 
 Sea, and two others, Dophkah and Alush 
 (yn). 12 — 14), which are there omitted. On 
 these places, and on the route followed by the 
 ■Israelites from the Red Sea to Sinai, see on 
 Ex. XV. Note at end of chapter. 
 
776 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIII. 
 
 [v. Iff— 30. 
 
 16 And they removed from the 
 
 * chap. II. desert of Sinai, and pitched ^at “Ki- 
 rrhatis, broth-hattaavah. 
 
 17 And they departed from Ki- 
 
 * chap. II. broth-hattaavah, and * encamped at 
 
 Hazeroth. 
 
 18 And they departed from Haze- 
 roth, and pitched in Rithmah. 
 
 19 And they departed from Rith- 
 mah, and pitched at Rimmon-parez. 
 
 20 And they departed from Rim- 
 mon-parez, and pitched in Libnah. 
 
 21 And they removed from Lib- 
 nah, and pitched at Rissah. 
 
 22 And they journeyed from Ris- 
 sah, and pitched in Kehelathah. 
 
 23 And they went from Kehela- 
 thah, and pitched in mount Shapher. 
 
 24 And they removed from mount 
 Shapher, and encamped in Haradah. 
 
 25 And they removed from Hara- 
 dah, and pitched in Makheloth. 
 
 26 And they removed from Mak- 
 heloth, and encamped at Tahath. 
 
 27 And they departed from Ta- 
 hath, and pitched at Tarah. 
 
 28 And they removed from Tarah, 
 and pitched in Mithcah. 
 
 29 And they went from Mithcah, 
 and pitched in Hashmonah. 
 
 30 And they departed from Hash- 
 monah, and '^encamped at Moseroth. 
 
 16, 17. See on xi. 35. 
 
 18. Rithmab] The name of this station is 
 derived from retetn^ the broom-plant, the “ju- 
 niper” of the A.V.; see on xiii. 26. This 
 must be the same encampment as that which 
 is said, xiii. 26, to have been at Kadesh. 
 
 19. Rimmon-parez] Or rather Rimmon- 
 perez, i.e. “ Rimmon (i.e. the Pomegranate) 
 of the Breach.” The ievmperez is used either 
 of hostile irruption (Ps. cxliv. 14) or (cf. 
 Perez-uzzah, 2 Sam. vi. 8) of the outbreak of 
 God’s wrath (Job xvi. 14). Possibly the en- 
 campment of Rimmon-perez witnessed some 
 signal manife-station of Divine anger. It may 
 have been here that the sedition of Korah 
 occurred. 
 
 From this verse to 'u. 36 the stations named 
 are those visited during the years of penal 
 wandering. The determination of their posi- 
 tions is difficult, because during this period 
 there was no definite line of march pursued. 
 Some identifications are rendered probable by 
 modern research, which may hereafter suggest 
 others. All indications thus far seem to show 
 that the Israelites during this period did not 
 overstep the boundaries of the Wilderness of 
 Paran (as defined x. 12), except to pass along 
 the adjoining valley of the Arabah. Over the 
 ridges of Paran then it is probable that for 
 many years the people spread, while the taber- 
 nacle and organized camp moved about from 
 place to place amongst them (cf. on xx. i). 
 
 20. Libnah] Probably the Laban of Dent, 
 i. I (where see note), and situated on or near 
 either the Elanitic gulf or the Arabah. The name 
 is perhaps preser\ed, though in a corrupted 
 form, in el-iieyaneh, the designation of a part 
 of the mountain-plateau and adjacent valley, 
 on the west of the Arabah, north of Ezion- 
 geber. The Hebrew name signifies “white- 
 ness:” the modem Arabic, “ the distinct.” It 
 
 is by some connected with the white poplar 
 tree, which possibly grew abundantly in the 
 neighbourhood. If so derived, this and the 
 two preceding names of stations have been 
 all suggested by some natural feature of vege- 
 tation. See Stanley, ‘S. and P.’ p. 521. 
 
 21. Rissah] This may perhaps be identi- 
 fied with the Rasa of the Roman tables; 
 which, being about 30 miles from Elath on 
 the road to Jerusalem, must have lain on the 
 plateau of the wilderness, near to the hill now 
 known as Ras-el-Ka’a, “ Head of the plain,” 
 north-west of Ezion-geber, and west or south- 
 west of el-Beyaneh. 
 
 22. Kehelathah] i.e. “assembling.” The 
 name was evidently given to the station by the 
 Israelites themselves; and is not likely to have 
 been locally preserved. See on xx. i. 
 
 23. moimt Shapher] Probably either the 
 hill now known as Jebel-esh-Shureif, about 
 40 miles north-west of Ras-el-Ka’a (see on 
 ver. 2 t) ; or else that known as Jebel-Sherafeh, 
 a rocky promontory on the western shore of 
 the Elanitic gulf, near the southern limit of 
 the Tih. The former is, from its position, 
 the more likely (see von Schubert, ii. p. 372). 
 
 24. Haradah] Prqbably W ady-el-Kha- 
 raizeh, about 15 miles south-east of Jebel- 
 esh-Shureif. 
 
 25. Makheloth] “Assemblies” or “con- 
 gregations:” a kindred name to Kehelathah, 
 •v. 22. 
 
 28. Mithcah] The name (=“ sweetness :” 
 
 cf. with “bitterness”) probably points 
 
 to the excellence of the water at this station. 
 
 29. Hashmonah] Probably the Heshmon 
 of Josh. XV. 27, one of “the uttermost cities 
 of the' tribe of the children of Judah toward 
 the coast of Edom southward;” and which 
 therefore, like another of the same cities, 
 
V. 31—34 ]* 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIII. 
 
 31 And they departed from Mose- 
 roth, and pitched in Bene-jaakan. 
 
 32 And they removed from Bene- 
 jaakan, and encamped at Hor-ha- 
 gidgad. 
 
 33 And they went from Hor-hagid- 
 gad, and pitched in Jotbathah* 
 
 34 And they removed from Jot- 
 bathah, and encamped at Ebro- 
 nah. 
 
 Kedesh, may well have lain without the natu- 
 ral frontier of the Holy Land, in the extreme 
 north of the wilderness. Such is the actual 
 situation of the fountain Ain Hash, in the 
 north-west of the Arabah ; where there is said 
 to be a natural pool filled with sweet living 
 water, surrounded by much verdure, and with 
 traces of ruins (Robinson, ‘ Bib. Res.’ ii. 119; 
 Wilton, ‘Negeb,’ pp. izi sqq.). 
 
 30 . Moseroth'] For this plural form of 
 the name we have, Deut. x. 6, the simple 
 Moserah (A. V. Mosera). It would seem 
 from that passage that the station lay in the 
 neighbourhood of the mountain on which 
 Aaron died; cf. on xx. 22. It was perhaps 
 opposite to it, on the western side of the 
 Arabah, under the mountain-bluff, now known 
 as el-Makrah. Some have thought indeed that 
 the name is perpetuated in that of the hill 
 Maderah, much further north, an isolated 
 mount of singular shape, forming the point 
 of separation between Wady-el- Fikreh and 
 the lower portion of Wady-el- Marrah (see on 
 xxxiv. 3 sqq.). This hill is about a mile in 
 circumference, steep, and perfectly bare. It 
 consists in part of a brittle mixture of chalk 
 and sandstone, in part of Strata of earth, which 
 might, by reason of their colour and forma- 
 tion, be easily taken for ashes baked together.. 
 At its foot lie an astonishing quantity of large* 
 lens-shaped stones, such as are also found near 
 the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. Arab 
 tradition relates that a city once stood on this 
 spot, and that for the sins of its inhabitants it 
 was destroyed by the fall of these stones from 
 heaven (Seetzen, iii. pp. 14 sqq.); or, accord- 
 ing to another account, that the earth en- 
 gulphed the inhabitants alive, and that the hill 
 subsequently rose up as a monument of God’s 
 displeasure. It is remarkable enough that the 
 name Moserah itself signifies chastisement. 
 Yet the resemblance of the n'ames Maderah 
 and Moserah is not strong enough to warrant 
 our setting aside the tradition which fixes the 
 scene of Aaron’s death further south; and the 
 principal interest of the Arab stories relating 
 to the place lies in the reminiscences which 
 they may contain of the destruction of Sodom 
 and of the fate of Dathan and Abiram. 
 
 31 . Bene-jaakari] i.e. “the children of 
 Jaakan ;” in Deut. x. 6 “ Beeroth (/. e. the nvelh') 
 of the children of Jaakan.” It is there stated 
 that “the children of Israel took their journey 
 from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to 
 Mosera;” whilst here Mosera, or Moseroth, 
 
 is placed first. There is nothing improbable 
 in the supposition that the Israelites during 
 their long wanderings visited these places twice, 
 though Moses in this succinct list of stations 
 nafnes each of them only once. The order 
 here given (Moseroth, Bene-jaakan) is per- 
 haps that followed in the first march toward 
 Canaan ; whilst the reverse order of Deut. 
 x. 6 (Bene-jaakan, Mosera) may have been 
 adopted in the fortieth year when the march 
 was differently directed. The verse in Deut. 
 is however evidently a fragment, and probably 
 a gloss; and its authority consequently un- 
 certain. 
 
 Bene-jaakan] like many places in the east, 
 derives its name from a tribe once settled in it. 
 Jaakan, or Akan, was a Horite, of the race 
 of the old inhabitants of Mount Seir, Gen. 
 xxxvi, 27, I Chron. i. 42; and the wells of 
 his tribe may have been those to which they 
 repaired after their expulsion by the Edomites 
 from their earlier homes. They may be iden- 
 tical with the wells of sweet water ijow known 
 as el-Mayein, which, lying up high among 
 the hills, more than 60 miles due west of 
 Mount Hor, would be likely to be visited by 
 the Israelites either immediately before or after 
 their encampment at Moserah. Schwarz con- 
 jectures that the name Jaakan may itself be 
 perpetuated, in a corrupted form, in en-Nakah, 
 “ the she-camel,” the designation now be- 
 stowed upon the important mountain to which 
 the wells el-Mayein are contiguous. 
 
 3*2. Hor-hagidgad] If the initial Hebrew 
 letter be Kbeth (as in Tex. Recep., Syr., and 
 later Targum) the name will denote “the 
 Cavern of Gidgad;” if He (as some few MSS., 
 Samaritan text, earlier Targ., LXX., Vulg. 
 read) it will denote “the Summit of Gidgad” 
 (see on XX. 22). In Deut. x. 7 we read simply 
 Gudgodah or Gudgod. The corresponding 
 Arabic term jedjad signifies a hard and level 
 tract, and would be strictly applicable to the 
 summit of one of the mountain-ranges in 
 the wilderness. Some, misled by the English 
 orthography of the Arabic, have thought to 
 find this station in Wady Ghadhaghidh, “the 
 Valley of Diminutions,” about forty-five miles 
 north-north-west of the head of the Elanitic 
 gulf; but there is no real correspondence in 
 the letters of this name to those of Gidgad. 
 
 33 . Jotbathah] i. e. “ Goodness in Deut. 
 x^. 7, “ Jotbath (Hebr. Jotbathah')^ a land of 
 rivers of waters.” This place is perhaps to 
 be identified with Wady Tabah, six miles 
 
778 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIII. 
 
 35 And they departed from Ebro- 
 nah, and encamped at Ezion-gaber. 
 
 36 And they removed from Ezion- 
 / chap. 20. gaber, and pitched in the ^wilderness 
 
 of Zin, which is Kadesh. 
 w chap. 20. And they removed from Ka- 
 
 desh, and pitched in mount Hor, in 
 the edge of the land of Edom. 
 
 « chap. 20. 38 And "Aaron the priest went up 
 
 Deut. 32. into mount Hor at the conimand- 
 ment of the Lord, and died there, 
 in the fortieth year after the chil- 
 dren of Israel were come out of the 
 
 h 35—42. 
 
 land of Egypt, in the first day of the 
 fifth month. 
 
 39 And Aaron was an hundred 
 and twenty and three years old when 
 he died in mount Hor. 
 
 40 And ‘’king Arad the Canaanite, <’chap. 
 which dwelt in the south in the land 
 
 of Canaan, heard of the coming of 
 the children of Israel. 
 
 41 And they departed from mount 
 •^Hor, and pitched in Zalmonah. /chap. 
 
 42 And they departed from Zal- 
 monah, and pitched in Punon. 
 
 south-west of the head of the Elanitic gulf; 
 where is a broad plain running down to the 
 sea, containing many palm-trees and tama- 
 risks, and well supplied with water (see 
 Burckhardt, p. 507; also Laborde, and Ro- 
 binson, ‘ B. R.’ I. 160, who writes the name 
 Taba’). 
 
 34 . Ehronab'] i. e. “passage.” This station 
 apparently lay on the shore of* the Elanitic 
 gulf, at a point where the ebb of the tide left 
 a ford across. Hence the later Targum renders 
 the word “ fords.” 
 
 35 . Ezion-gaber] More properly Ezion- 
 geber, i.e. “giant’s backbone.” The earlier 
 half of this name is preserved to us, though the 
 English orthography conceals the correspond- 
 ence of the Hebrew and Arabic forms, in that 
 of Wady Ghadhyan, a valley running east- 
 ward into the Arabah some miles north of the 
 present head of the Elanitic gulf. A salt 
 marsh which here overspreads a portion of the 
 Arabah may be taken as indicating the limit 
 to which the sea anciently* reached; and we 
 may thus infer the existence here in former 
 times of an extensive tidal haven, at the head 
 of which the city of Ezion-geber stood. The 
 mouth of the haven was guarded, on the 
 eastern side, by the no less well-known city of 
 Elath: on the western side, directly opposite 
 to Elath, was probably the site of Ebronah 
 (t’. 35). I'he name occurs on an Egyptian 
 papyrus of the 19th Dynasty — as that of a 
 fortress of some importance under Raineses II. 
 See Chabas, “ Voyage d’un Egyptien,” p. 284. 
 He says, “ Aszium. C’est ainsi que les Arabes 
 nomment de nos jours un petit groupe de 
 huttes ombragces par des palmiers, situees a 
 I’extremitc septentrionale du Bahr Agabah.” 
 It was at E/ion-geber that from the time 
 of Solomon onward th.e Jewish navy was 
 constructed (i Kings ix. 26, xxii. 49). Its 
 importance naturally decreased as the haven 
 was destroyed by that gradual retirement 
 of the water, of which other examples have 
 be*en observed by travellers along the shores 
 
 of the Red Sea. The site of the city _was 
 unknown to Josephus, who, with disre- 
 gard of all probability, transferred it more 
 than four hundred miles further south, to the 
 Egyptian port of Berenice (‘ Ant.’ Vlll. 6. 4). 
 Yet at the end of the fourth century of our 
 era we still find it mentioned, under the name 
 “ Ad Dianam,” evidently a Latin corruption 
 of the Arabic Ghadhyan, as a station on the 
 Roman road between Aila (Elath) and Rasa 
 (see on -u. 21), sixteen Roman miles from 
 each; and as marking the point at which the 
 branch road ran off, by the east of Mount 
 Seir, to Petra. Later mention is made of 
 Ezion by two Arabian geographers, Makrizy 
 and Muhammed Ibn Ahmed (Ritter, xiv. 
 pp. 52 — 4); but as they give the name in its 
 Jewish rather than in its Arabic form, it is 
 likely that their acquaintance with it was purely 
 historical. 
 
 37 — 40 . See on xx. 22 — xxi. 3; and re- 
 specting the chronology, Introd. § 3. The 
 notice that Aaron was a hundred and twenty- 
 three years old at his death in the fortieth 
 year of the Exodus accords with the notice of 
 Ex. vii. 7, that he was eighty-three years old 
 when he stood before Pharaoh. 
 
 41 . Zalmonah] No doubt a station on the 
 march from Kadesh round the land of Edom. 
 The name has by some been derived from 
 zelem^ “image;” and this has been assigned 
 as the place where the brazen serpent was set 
 up. Von Raumer thinks it the same with 
 Ma’an, otherwise Alam Ma’an, east of Petra, 
 one of the largest villages on the Mekka pil- 
 grim-route, well supplied with water and sur- 
 rounded by gardens and vineyards ; where the 
 Israelites might, like the pilgrims of the present 
 day, have conveniently trafficked with the in- 
 habitants for provisions. 
 
 42 . Punon] By Eusebius and Jerome, in 
 the ‘ Onomasticon,’ identified with the Pinon 
 of Gen. xxxvi. 41, which they regard as the 
 name of a ducal city rather than of a person ; 
 
V. 43 — S6.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIII. 
 
 779 
 
 43 And they departed from Pu- 
 non, and pitched in Oboth. 
 
 44 And they departed from Oboth, 
 .r aritl pitched in “Ije-abarim, in the 
 
 border of Moab. 
 
 45 And they departed from lim, 
 and pitched in Dibon-gad. 
 
 46 And they removed from Dibon- 
 gad, and encamped in Almon-dibla- 
 thaim. 
 
 47 And they removed from Al- 
 mon-diblathaim, and pitched in the 
 mountains of Abarim, before Nebo. 
 
 48 And they departed from the 
 mountains of Abarim, and pitched in 
 the plains of Moab by Jordan near 
 Jericho. 
 
 49 And they pitched by Jor- 
 dan, from Beth-jesimoth even unto 
 
 ^Tke plains ” ^ Abel-shittim in the plains of 
 of Shit- Moab. 
 
 /chap. 25. 50 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 
 Moses in the plains of Moab by Jor- 
 dan near Jericho, saying, 
 
 51 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 
 ^Deut. 7. say unto them, ^When ye 
 
 Josh. II. are passed over Jordan into the land 
 
 of Canaan ; 
 
 52 Then ye shall drive out all the 
 
 inhabitants of the land from before 
 you, and destroy all their pictures, 
 and destroy all their molten images, 
 and quite pluck down all their high 
 places : 
 
 53 And ye shall dispossess the in- 
 habitants of land, and dwell there- 
 in : for I have given you the land to 
 possess it. 
 
 54 And -^ye shall divide the land 
 by lot for an inheritance among your 
 families : and to the more ye shall 
 ^ give the more inheritance, and to 
 
 the fewer ye shall ^ give the less in- HJUniJrit- 
 heritance : every man’s inheritance Vn%. 
 shall be in the place where his lot 
 falleth ; according to the tribes of auce. 
 your fathers ye shall inherit. 
 
 55 But if ye will not drive out 
 the inhabitants of the land from be- 
 fore you ; then it shall come to pass, 
 that those which ye let remain of 
 them shall be ^pricks in your eyes, ^ Josh. 23. 
 and thorns in your sides, and shall judg. 2. 3. 
 vex you in the land wherein ye 
 dwell. 
 
 56 Moreover it shall come to pass, 
 that I shall do unto you, as I thought 
 to do unto them. 
 
 and further with the Phieno of their own day, 
 a place notorious as the penal abode of con- 
 victs who were sent thither to labour in the 
 neighbouring copper-mines. This identification 
 is corroborated by the form in LXX. 
 
 The place lay between Petra and Zoar, pro- 
 bably near the Roman road which connected 
 those places. As this road, which is still 
 visible (see Irby and Mangles, p. 115), ran 
 considerably to the right of what would have 
 been the direct line of march, it may be that 
 Phamo lay east of, rather than within, the 
 territory of Edom. It is there that we should 
 naturally seek for Punon ; and if the pilgrim- 
 station el-Ahsa represent the ancient Oboth 
 (see on kxi. 10), the site of Punon may co- 
 incide with that of Kala’at Aneizeh, inter- 
 mediate to el-Ahsa and Ma’an. Seetzen, when 
 at Maderah, learnt the existence of a ruined 
 castle Fen an (iii. p. 17), which Arabic form 
 of name would correspond to the Hebrew 
 Punon; but the locality of this castle is not 
 as yet ascertained. 
 
 43 — 47 . See on xxi. 10 — zo. 
 
 46 . Dibon-gad] This halt was apparently 
 
 the same as that which in xxi. 19 bears the 
 name of Bamoth : see note there. 
 
 48 , 49 . See on xxii. i. 
 
 50 — xxxvi. 13 . This last portion of the 
 book concludes the record of the long wander- 
 ing of the people by certain directions respect- 
 ing that conquest and allotment of the Promised 
 Land, with which the wandering terminated. 
 These regulations are divided into two sections 
 by the re-insertion at xxxv. i of the introduc- 
 tory formula with which xxxiii. 50 opens. Of 
 these portions the former contains commands 
 concerning, (i) the extermination of the Ca- 
 naanitish nations, xxxiii. 50 — 56: (2) the 
 boundaries of the Promised Land, xxxiv. 
 
 I — 15 ; (3) the names of the men who should 
 allot the land, xxxiv. 16 — 29. 
 
 50 — 56 . The expulsion of the Canaanites 
 and the destruction of their monuments of 
 idolatry had been already enjoined. Ex. xxiii. , 
 24, 33, xxxiv. 13; and 2;. 34 is substantially a 
 repetition from xxvi. 53 — 55. But the solemn 
 warning of 'w. 53, 56 is new. A call for it 
 had been furnished by their past transgressions 
 
780 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIV. 
 
 [v- 1—5- 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 I The borders of the land. 16 The names of 
 the men which shall divide the land. 
 
 AN D the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, 
 
 2 Command the children of Israel, 
 and say unto them. When ye come 
 into the land of Canaan; (this ts the 
 land that shall fall unto you for an 
 inheritance, the land of Canaan 
 with the coasts thereof;) 
 
 Josh. 15. 2 Then ^your south quarter shall 
 
 be from the wilderness of Zin along 
 
 by the coast of Edom, and your south 
 border shall be the outmost coast of 
 the salt sea eastward: 
 
 4 And your border shall turn from 
 the south to the ascent of Akrabbim, 
 and pass on to Zin: and the going 
 forth thereof shall be from the south 
 to Kadesh-barnea, and shall go on to 
 Hazar-addar, and pass on to Azmon : - 
 
 5 And the border shall fetch a 
 compass from Azmon unto the river 
 of Egypt, and the goings out of it 
 shall be at the sea. 
 
 in the matter of Baal-peor, by their imperfect 
 fulfilment, at the first, of Moses’ orders in the 
 Midianitish war; and perhaps by the indul- 
 gence of the Machirites to those whom they 
 conquered in Bashan (cf. on xxxii. 42). 
 
 Chap. XXXIV. The next section, (w, 
 I — 15, see on xxxiii. 50) treats of the bound- 
 aries of the land of inheritance ; which will be 
 seen greatly to exceed those of the territory 
 actually conquered. On the limits of the 
 Holy Land, see further on Gen. xv. 18 — 21; 
 Ex. xxiii. 31; Dent. xi. 24. 
 
 2. the land of Canaan'] The name Canaan 
 is here restricted to the territory west of the 
 J ordan. 
 
 3 — 5 . Render: Then your south quarter 
 shall extend from the wilderness of 
 Zin which resteth upon the side of 
 Edom. And your south border shall 
 start from the extremity of the salt 
 sea on the east; and your border 
 shall turn on the south to Maaleh- 
 akrabbim, and shall pass on toward 
 Zin, and the extent of its reach on 
 the south shall be to Kadesh-barnea; 
 and it shall reach- forth thence to 
 Hazar-addar, and shall pass on to 
 Azmon, and from Azmon the border 
 shall turn to the river of Egypt, and 
 its reach shall be to the sea. 
 
 The first few words set forth in general 
 terms the southern boundary, which is more 
 exactly described in the following sentence. 
 The details of its course are more fully given, 
 Josh. XV. I — 4; for the southern confines 
 of Judah there described were in effect the 
 southernmost portion of Canaan. These ac- 
 counts will be best illustrated by a description, 
 .based upon the explorations of modem tra- 
 vellers, of the nature of the boundary. 
 
 It commenced at the Dead Sea. Of the 
 broad and desolate valley by which the de- 
 pressed bed of that sea, shut in by cliffs on 
 
 both sides, is protracted toward the south, the 
 first few miles, comprised under the general 
 name of the Ghor, present little else than a tract 
 of marshy jungle. A deep narrow glen, de- 
 scending from the south-west, enters this tract 
 at its south-west corner ; it is called W ady-el- 
 Fikreh, bearing, perhaps, in its name the only 
 remaining vestige of the ancient city of Epi- 
 cierus. The course of this valley forms the 
 natural division between the land of promise 
 and the desert. On its left side, as one ascends 
 it, the hills are, though utterly barren, com- 
 paratively low ; but on the right it is flanked 
 all the way by a steep mountain-wall varying 
 from about 700 to 1000 feet in height, to the 
 north of which rise ranges of much greater 
 elevation. The route from Petra to Hebron 
 mounts this precipice at a point about fourteen 
 miles from the mouth of Wady el-Fikreh, by 
 a long winding track, appropriately designated 
 the “Pass of the Bare Rock,” Nakb es-Safah; 
 and attesting by its difficulty how formidable 
 was the rampart which the land of Canaan 
 here presented to an invader. About three 
 miles further up the valley, on its left bank, 
 stands the isolated hill of Maderah (see on 
 xxxiii. 30), rising, citadel-like, in the form of 
 a truncated cone, to a height of about 500 
 feet. Here the head of the watercourse of 
 Wady el-Fikreh is reached. But the valley 
 itself is continued in the same south-western 
 direction, under the name of Wady el-Marrah; 
 the watercourse of which, passing south of 
 the hill of Maderah, runs eastward, not like 
 Wady el-Fikreh into the Ghor, but into the 
 higher level of the Arabah. The upper part 
 of Wady el-Marrah is, however, grander and 
 more striking than Wady el-Fikreh. Not only 
 do the hills of Canaan rise as precipitously 
 and in greater elevation on the right, jutting 
 forth in huge irregular promontories or bas- 
 tions of naked rock; but on the other side, 
 the hills of the wilderness (which in this part 
 are known as Jebel el-Marrah) become more 
 lofty, and present in their terrific ruggedness 
 an aspect which English travellers describe as 
 
V. 6 — 8.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIV. 
 
 6 And as for the western border, 
 ye shall even have the great sea for 
 a border: this shall be your west 
 border. 
 
 7 And this shall be your north 
 border: from the great sea ye shall 
 point out for you mount Hor: 
 
 8 From mount Hor ye shall point 
 
 that of a confused chaos of matter once in a 
 boiling state and whilst so suddenly solidified. 
 To the F'rench traveller Callier the great depth 
 of the valley appeared extraordinary in a dis- 
 trict where the watercourses are often so 
 shallow as to be scarcely recognizable. The 
 direction of this valley continues nearly straight 
 for about ten miles above Maderah, up to a 
 wild ascent on the Canaanitish side called 
 Nakb Kareb. In this we may recognize, by 
 the resemblance of name, the ancient Maaleh- 
 akrabbim or “Scorpion Pass,” The literal 
 Arabic rendering of Akrabbim, “scorpions,” 
 would be Akarib ; and to this the modern 
 name of the ascent comes very near. Here the 
 Wady el-Marrah turns southward, and pro- 
 bably loses itself among the hills, which remain 
 as yet unexplored, ITose hills must have 
 belonged to “the wilderness of Zin;” and Ka- 
 desh-barnea (see note at end of Chapter xiii,), 
 which is “in the wilderness of Zin,” will be, as 
 the text implies, the southernmost point of the 
 southern boundary. That wilderness however 
 was probably of wide extent, and comprised 
 the whole rugged mountain region south of 
 Wady el-Marrah and Wady el-Fikreh, as far 
 east as the Arabah, If this be so, it was 
 separated by the Arabah only from the moun- 
 tains of Edom ; and might thus be fairly de- 
 scribed in the text as resting upon the side or 
 flank of the latter territory. It is possible that it 
 may have derived its name from an Edomitish 
 city. On the declivity of a commanding hill, 
 within the ancient territory of Edom, there yet 
 stands an important village bearing the name 
 Dhana, which, in its Arabic orthography, 
 corresponds etymologically to Zin, Burckhardt 
 wrongly regarded Dhana as the Thana or 
 Thoana of Ptolemy; which should however 
 rather be identified with the modern eth- 
 Thawaneh (cf. Robinson, ‘ B, R,’ ii, i68). 
 There seems no just reason why a neigh- 
 bouring part of the wilderness across the 
 Arabah might not be named from this in 
 the same way that a part of the wilderness 
 east of the Red Sea was named from the 
 Egyptian city of Etham (see on xxxiii, 8), 
 And if the wilderness of Zin, although not 
 strictly belonging to Edom, were yet thus 
 regarded as connected with it, the fact would 
 help to account for the way in which the 
 southern cities of Judah are described as 
 lying “toward the coast of Edom ”\ Josh, 
 
 XV, 2l), • 
 
 Erom Kadesh, if we regard it as identical 
 with the present Ain el-Weibeh, westward to 
 the River, or Brook of Egvpt, now Wady el- 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Arish (see on x, 12), is a distance of about 
 seventy miles. In this intei*val the book of 
 Numbers names two points of the boundary- 
 line: Hazar-addar and Azmon, The book of 
 Joshua for Hazar-addar substitutes Hezron 
 and Addar (A, V, Adar)^ the former being 
 perhaps the general name of a district of Ha- 
 zers^ or nomad hamlets (see on Dent, ii, 23), 
 of which Addar was one : and, before carry- 
 ing the line to Azmon, speaks of its turning 
 to “ the Karkaa ” (see on Josh, xv, 3), That 
 so many points are named in so short a line 
 is due perhaps to the familiarity which the 
 Israelites had acquired with the district during 
 the period of their encampment at Kadesh, It 
 is probable, though from geographical rather 
 than etymological considerations, that Hazar- 
 addar is to be sought at Ain el-Kudeirat, on 
 the northern side of the ridge which here forms 
 the natural demarcation between Canaan and 
 the desert. The fountain is still the source 
 of fertility to the neighbouring fields. Azmon 
 is identified in the later Jewish Targum with 
 Kesam, the modern Kasaimeh, a group of 
 springs situate in the north of one of the gaps 
 in the ridge, and a short distance west of Ain 
 el-Kudeirat. 
 
 The junction of the boundary line with 
 “the River of Egypt,” will fall near the spot 
 now called el-Kasaby. Here that important 
 M^atercourse, coming down from the south, 
 bends suddenly to the west, and forms a deep 
 and narrow gorge between the last-mentioned 
 ridge on the north, and the mountain Helal 
 on the south. Its ultimate direction, after 
 emerging from this gorge, is north-west; and 
 it enters “the great sea” at the point where 
 was eventually built the frontier city of Rhino- 
 corura, now el Arish. 
 
 6. for a border] Literally, “ with its 
 border;” i.e. “with the border which it 
 makes.” 
 
 7 — 9. The northern border. On the 
 “mount Hor,” cf. on xx. 22. Here the name 
 denotes the whole western crest of Mount 
 Lebanon, eighty miles in length, commencing 
 east of Zidon, and terminating with the point 
 immediately above the entrance of Hamath 
 (cf. on xiii. 21). To the southern end of 
 this range a frontier-line would have to be 
 drawn from the Mediterranean Sea; and som.e 
 illustration of the description in the text may 
 be gained from the circumstance that the 
 great river between Tyre and Zidon, along 
 whose westward bend such a line might be 
 drawn, still bears a name, Kasimiyeh, i. t. 
 
 3 ^ 
 
782 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIV. 
 
 [v. 9 — 12. 
 
 out your border unto the entrance of 
 Hamath ; and the goings forth of the 
 border shall be to Zedad ; 
 
 9 And the border shall go on to 
 Ziphron, and the goings out of it 
 shall be at Hazar-enan : this shall be 
 your north border. 
 
 10 And ye shall point out your 
 east border from Hazar-enan to She- 
 pham : 
 
 “ boundary-stream.” It is possible indeed 
 (see Josh. xix. 28, &c.) that the border was 
 intended to comprise Zidon as well as Tyre; 
 but this is not clear ; and neither of them was 
 in fact ever acquired by Israel. The more 
 northern portion of the Phenician plain was 
 not within the limits, though the entire district 
 of Coele-Syria, between the western and eastern 
 ranges of Lebanon, was so. Yet this district 
 did not fall into possession of the Israelites till 
 the days of David and Solomon ; and even 
 then they ruled over it rather than occupied it. 
 The extreme point in the northern border of the 
 land, as laid down by Moses, was the city of Ze- 
 dad, now a large village, still bearing its ancient 
 name (Sadad), about thirty miles east of the 
 entrance of Hamath. Hence the border turned 
 back south-westward to Ziphron, now Zifran. 
 This place, not to be confounded with ez 
 Za'feraneh, near Hamath, has not been as yet 
 visited by modern travellers, but is reported to 
 lie about forty miles north-east of Damascus, 
 near the road to Palmyra, and to contain exten- 
 sive ruins. It is probable that from Ziphron 
 to flazar-enan, “the fountain village,” the 
 course of the border would be still south- 
 westward or westward ; and there is no place 
 with which Hazar-enan may be better con- 
 jecturally identified than with Ayun ed-Dara, 
 a fountain situate in the very heart of the 
 great central chain of Antilibanus; the lofti- 
 est peaks of which rise up in stern grandeur 
 around on every side (Porter, ‘Damascus,’ 
 pp. 332 sqq. Its position in Van de Velde’s 
 map is lat. 33° 49', long. 36" 12', and ruins 
 are marked at the spot). The eastern portion 
 of the northern border thus formed a great 
 north-eastward loop, so as to include all the 
 declivities, both western and eastern, of the 
 northern part of the Antilibanus range; return- 
 ing however to the crest of that range at 
 Hazar-enan, and thus excluding the plain of 
 Damascus together with the valleys which de- 
 scend toward it. 
 
 10 12. 7 'he eastern border, as here de- 
 
 scrib('d, must be understood to commence at 
 that point from which the boundary line pur- 
 sued an uninterruptedly southward course; 
 and its general direction may be determined 
 
 11 And the coast shall go down 
 from Shepham to Riblah, on the east 
 side of Ain; and the border shall de- 
 scend, and shall reach unto the ^ side 
 of the sea of Chinnereth eastward : 
 
 12 And the border shall go down 
 to Jordan, and the goings out of it 
 shall be at the salt sea : this shall be 
 your land with the coasts thereof 
 round about. 
 
 from the physical features of the country, not- 
 withstanding some uncertainty as to details. 
 It ran at first along the mountain crest. She- 
 pham, the first point after Hazar-enan, is un- 
 known. Of the next, all that is certain is that 
 it could not have been Riblah in the land of 
 Hamath, which lay outside the northern border 
 described in the preceding verses. But probably 
 the true name in this passage is not Riblah at 
 all. The Hebrew letters of the word, dis- 
 engaged from the Jewish vowel-marks, are 
 liRBLii; and if the final h be “Hi? locale” 
 (our English “ward”), the name may then 
 be read Har-bel (LXX. ’Ap/S^Xa), i.e. “the 
 Mountain of Bel;” the Har-baal-hermon of 
 Judg. iii. 3. Bel, for Baal, is merely an Ara- 
 maism (cf. Is. xlvi. i), and was probably the 
 form employed by the Aramaic population 
 that dwelt in those districts. No more strik- 
 ing landmark could be set forth than the sum- 
 mit of Hermon, the southernmost and by far 
 the loftiest peak of the whole Antilibanus 
 range, rising to a height of ten thousand feet, 
 and overtopping every other mountain in the 
 Holy Land ; yet not so inaccessible but that it 
 was crowned by heathen zeal with a sanctuary / 
 of Baal, of which the ruins, consisting of foun- 
 dations of walls and of heaps of hewn stones, 
 still remain. Should however the phrase “go 
 down from Shepham” be deemed inconsistent 
 with the greater elevation of Hermon, the land- 
 mark before us may still be identified with one 
 of those numerous sanctuaries with which both 
 ancient testimony and modern exploration shew 
 the sides as well as the summit of the moun- 
 tain to have been covered. In any case it is 
 unlikely that the landmark named Judg. iii. 3 
 would be omitted here. This is here described 
 as “on the east side of Ain,” literally “the 
 Ain,” i.e. fountain. This Ain is understood 
 by Jerome and the later Targums of the 
 fountain of the Jordan; and it is in the plain 
 at the south-western foot of Hermon that the 
 two most celebrated sources of that river, those 
 of Daphne and of Paneas, are situate, while 
 from the western slopes of the same mountain 
 there issue the streams by which its remaining 
 and longest branch is fed. * 
 
 7 Te border next descended to the “sea of 
 Chinnereth,” better known by its later name 
 
V. 13 — 1 8.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIV. 
 
 783 
 
 13 And Moses commanded the 
 children of Israel, saying, This is the 
 land which ye shall inherit by lot, 
 which the Lord commanded to give 
 unto the nine tribes, and to the half 
 tribe : 
 
 chap. 32. ‘^For the tribe of the children 
 
 fsh. 14.2, of Reuben according to the house of 
 their fathers, and the tribe of the chil- 
 dren of Gad according to the house 
 of their fathers, have received their 
 inheritance ; and half the tribe of Ma- 
 nasseh have received their inheritance : 
 
 15 The two tribes and the half 
 tribe have received their inheritance 
 on this side Jordan near Jericho east- 
 ward, toward the sunrising. 
 
 16 And the Lord spake unto Mo- 
 ses, saying, 
 
 17 These are the names of the 
 men which shall divide the land unto 
 
 you: ‘^Eleazar the priest, and Joshua^ Josh. iq. 
 the son of Nun. 
 
 18 And ye shall take one prince of 
 every tribe, to divide the land by in- 
 heritance. 
 
 of Gennesaret, which is suppossd to be only 
 a corruption of Chinnereth. It is not de- 
 scribed as following the line of the Jordan; 
 and the intention was probably that it should 
 run parallel to it, along the line of hill about 
 ten miles further east, bending so as to strike 
 the lake on its north-east side or shoulder. It 
 may be that the Manassite leaders had already 
 overrun some of the ground which it would 
 thus comprise (see on xxxii. 42); but that the 
 inheritance of Naphtali was not bounded by 
 the Jordan on the east may be inferred from the 
 sites of some of the Naphtalite cities, as Razor 
 and Migdal-el (Josh. xix. 36, 38), as well as 
 from the assertion of Josephus (‘Ant.’ v. 22). 
 On the other hand, from the Lake of Gennesa- 
 ret to the Dead Sea, the Jordan would have 
 formed the natural frontier, had not the terri- 
 tory of Gilead been already assigned to the 
 pastoral tribes. 
 
 10 . point out your border']^ Lit. “measure 
 off,” or “mark out.” 
 
 12. <vjith the coasts thereof round about\ 
 i. e. as defined by its coasts, or borders, round 
 about. 
 
 14 , 15 . hause received their inherit ance'\ Cf. 
 on xxxii. 28, 33. The territory on the east 
 of the Jordan had been assigned, as a whole, 
 to Reuben, Gad, and Machir, though not yet 
 partitioned among them. 
 
 on this side fordan near Jericho'] Literally, 
 “on this side of the Jericho Jordan,” as at 
 xxii. I, xxvi. 3, 63, xxxiii. 48, 50. The ex- 
 pression here is remarkable, because applied 
 not, as elsewhere, to a limited space, but to 
 the whole territory of the two-and-a-half tribes. 
 Yet it is appropriate enough, for it was by the 
 passage of the Jordan at Jericho that all the 
 remaining inheritance would have to be reached. 
 It is too, geographically, more accurate than 
 would have been the simple phrase ‘ ‘ on this 
 side of the Jordan,” for (cf. on w. 10 — 12) 
 the Jordan did not divide the western and 
 eastern tribes throughout the whole of its 
 
 course. It may be here observed that the 
 effect of the conquest on the east of the J ordan 
 would, had the whole of the promised terri- 
 tory fallen into I sraelitish ' possession, have 
 been not only to add greatly to the extent of 
 the Israelitish domain, but also to environ on 
 three sides the territory of Damascus. His- 
 torically this was never brought to pass till 
 Damascus itself became tributary to Israel, 
 and probably the settlement of so many of the 
 Israelites in Gilead and Bashan was not with- 
 out its influence in inducing the rest to view 
 the southern expanse of Canaan as sufficient 
 for their needs, and so to leave Hermon, Goele- 
 Syria, and Zedad, unconquered. 
 
 16 — 29 . Appointment of princes from the 
 Ten Tribes to divide the land just described. 
 The positions of the several inheritances were 
 to be determined by lot; but their dimensions 
 were proportioned to the wants of the tribes to 
 which they fell. Thus the limits of each were 
 to be marked out after the lot had determined 
 to which tribe it belonged, and for the due and 
 fair adjustment of the limits the presence of a 
 representative from each tribe was requisite. 
 Of the representatives now selected through 
 Moses beforehand, who were all princes, i.e. 
 heads of chief families, in their respective tribes 
 (see on xiii. 2), Caleb alone, of the tribe of 
 Judah, is otherwise known to us (see on xiii. 
 4*sqq.). The order in which the tribes are 
 named is peculiar to this passage. If they be 
 taken in pairs, Judah and Simeon, Benjamin 
 and Dan, Manasseh and Ephraim, Zebulun 
 and Issachar, Asher and Naphtali, the order 
 of the pairs agrees with the order in which the 
 allotments in the Holy Land, taken also in 
 couples, followed each other in the map from 
 south to north. Moreover, these pairs are 
 formed of two tribes otherwise mutually con- 
 nected, except only that which consists of 
 Benjamin and Dan; and even these two had 
 been next each other in the order of march, 
 and probably were still contiguous in their 
 encampments (see on ch. ii.). 
 
 3 D 2 
 
784 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXIV. XXXY. 
 
 [v. 19 — 6. 
 
 19 And the names of the men are 
 these: Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb 
 the son of Jephunneh. 
 
 20 And of the tribe of the children 
 of Simeon, Shemuel the son of Am- 
 mihud. 
 
 21 Of the tribe of Benjamin, Eli- 
 dad the son of Chislon. 
 
 22 And the prince of the tribe of 
 the children of Dan, Bukki the son 
 of Jogli. 
 
 23 The prince of the children of 
 Joseph, for the tribe of the chil- 
 dren of Manasseh, Hanniel the son 
 of Ephod. 
 
 24 And the prince of the tribe of 
 the children of Ephraim, Kemuel the 
 son of Shiphtan. 
 
 25 And the prince of the tribe of 
 the children of Zebulun, Elizaphan 
 the son of Parnach. 
 
 26 And the prince of the tribe of 
 the children of Issachar, Paltiel the 
 son of Azzan. 
 
 27 And the prince of the tribe of 
 the children of Asher, Ahihud the 
 son of Shelomi. 
 
 28 And the prince of the tribe of 
 the children of Naphtali, Pedahel the 
 son of Ammihud. 
 
 29 These are they whom the Lord 
 commanded to divide the inheritance 
 unto the children of Israel in the land 
 of Canaan. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 I Eight a7id forty cities for the Levites with their 
 suburbs, aiid measure thereof 6 Six of them 
 are to be cities of refuge, g The laros of 
 murder. 3 1 No satisfaction for ffitn'der. 
 
 A nd the Lord spake unto Moses 
 in the plains of Moab by Jordan 
 near Jericho, saying, 
 
 2 Command the children of Is- "" 
 rael, that they give unto the Levites 
 of the inheritance of their possession 
 cities to dwell in ; and ye shall give 
 also unto the Levites suburbs for the 
 cities round about them. 
 
 3 And the cities shall they have to 
 dwell in ; and the suburbs of them 
 shall be for their cattle, and for their 
 goods, and for all their beasts. 
 
 4 And the suburbs of the cities, 
 which ye shall give unto the Levites, 
 shall reach from the wall of the city 
 and outward a thousand cubits round 
 about. 
 
 5 And ye shall measure from with- 
 out the city on the east side two 
 thousand cubits, and on the south 
 side two thousand cubits, and on the 
 west side two thousand cubits, and 
 on the north side two thousand cu- 
 bits ; and the city shall be in the 
 midst : this shall be to them the 
 suburbs of the cities. 
 
 6 And among the cities which ye 
 shall give unto the Levites there shall 
 
 Chap. XXXV. 1 — xxxvi. 13. These chap- 
 ters constitute the second division of those 
 final regulations v^hich complete the book : cf. 
 on xxxiii. 50. They contain (i) the appoint- 
 ment of cities for the residence of the Levites, 
 ‘i"p. I— -8; (2) the nomination of Cities of 
 Refuge, t’t;. 9 — 34; (3) enactments, supple- 
 mentary to those of xxviii. 6 sqcp, and relating 
 to the marriage of heiresses, xxxvi. i — 13. 
 
 2. suburbs'] Render rather (with Gesen., 
 Knob., Keil, &c.) “pasture-grounds.” 
 
 3. for thciiy cattle, and for their goods, 
 and for all their beasts] More strictly, “ for 
 their large cattle, for their sheep and goats, 
 and for all their beasts whatsoever they be.” 
 
 5 . from rNithout the city] Render, with- 
 out the city. T'he demarcation here intended 
 would run parallel to the wall of the city, 
 outside which it was made. The object was 
 
 apparently to secure that the preceding provision 
 should be fairly and fully carried out. The 
 “suburb” would thus extend for a distance 
 of a thousand cubits, or nearly one-third of a 
 mile from the M^all. There might be danger, 
 especially with the in-egular forms which the 
 sites of cities might assume, and with the phy- 
 sical obstacles presented by the surrounding 
 ground, that neighbouring proprietors would 
 deem the suburb sufficient if it measured a 
 thousand cubits in some directions, not in 
 others ; in which case it might be occasionally 
 restricted to a very small area. To guard 
 against this, it was ordained that the suburb 
 should, alike on north, south, east, and west, 
 present, at a distance of a thousand cubits 
 from the wall, a fi'ont not less than two 
 thousand cubits in length; and, by joining 
 the extremities of these measured fronts ac- 
 cording to the nature of the ground, a suffi- 
 cient space for the Levites would be secured. 
 
 Joeh. 
 
V. 7— 13-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXV. 
 
 785 
 
 ^Deut. 4. ^six cities for refuge, which ye 
 Josh. 20. 2. shall appoint for the manslayer, that 
 t Heb.^‘ he may flee thither : and ^to them ye 
 'yf^shair’^ shall add forty and two cities. 
 give. j So all the cities which ye shall 
 
 give to the Levites shall be forty and 
 eight cities : them shall ye give with 
 their suburbs. 
 
 8 And the cities which ye shall 
 give shall be of the possession of the 
 children of Israel : from them that 
 have many ye shall give many ; but 
 from them that have few ye shall give 
 few : every one shall give of his cities 
 iHeb. unto the Levites according to his in- 
 ^£'riiT' heritance which ^ he inheriteth. 
 
 9 H And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying, 
 
 10 Speak unto the children of Is- 
 rael, and say unto them, <^When 
 
 be come over Jordan into the land Josh. 20. 2. 
 of Canaan ; 
 
 1 1 Then ye shall appoint you cities 
 to be cities of refuge for you ; that 
 the slayer may flee thither, which 
 killeth any person ^ at unawares. 
 
 12 And they shall be unto you 
 cities for refuge from the avenger ; 
 that the manslayer die not, until he 
 stand before the congregation in judg- 
 ment. 
 
 13 And of these cities which ye 
 
 6. among the cities'] The construction here 
 is confused and irregular. See Note at end of 
 the chapter. 
 
 The general sense however is plain; viz. 
 that the Levitical cities shall be forty-eight 
 altogether, of which six shall be Cities of 
 Refuge, for the purposes described in -v'v. 
 9 — 34. The passage might be rendered thus : 
 “As to the cities which ye shall give to the 
 Levites, ye shall give six cities, &c.” 
 
 The Levitical cities were in an especial man- 
 ner the Lord’s, and therefore the places of 
 refuge, where the manslayer might remain un- 
 der the protection of a special institution devised 
 by Divine mercy, were appropriately selected 
 from amongst them. No doubt also the Priests 
 and Levites would be fittest persons to admi- 
 nister the law in the doubtful cases which 
 would be sure to occur: cf. on t'. 24. 
 
 8. from them that hanse many ye shall ginse 
 many^ &c.] Nine cities were eventually given 
 to the Levites from the large joint inheritance 
 of Judah and Simeon; three were taken from 
 the territory of Naphtali, and the other tribes 
 gave each four apiece. 
 
 10 . When ye be come onser Jordan] The 
 three cities on the east of the Jordan were 
 afterwards set apart by Moses himself, Deut. 
 iv. 41 — 43. See on Deut. xix. 8 sqq. 
 
 12. the avenger] Heb. goeh a term of 
 which the original import is uncertain. The 
 very obscurity of its etymology testifies to the 
 antiquity of the office which it denotes. That 
 office rested on the principle of Gen. ix. 6, 
 “whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall 
 his blood be shed.” In an unsettled state of 
 society the execution of justice was necessarily 
 left in private hands. The lowest stage of 
 national development is where every one as- 
 sumes the right of avenging alleged misdeeds at 
 his discretion; and it was therefore already 
 
 an upward step when prevailing custom re- 
 stricted this right to certain persons, who, 
 although wielding no public authority, were 
 yet invested, ipso facto., for the time being, 
 with a public character. It was in such a 
 spirit that the unwritten code of the east con- 
 ceded to the nearest kinsman of a murdered 
 man the right of avenging the blood that had 
 been shed. He was permitted to kill the 
 murderer, without notice, openly or secretly, 
 wheresoever he might find him. Such rude 
 justice necessarily involved grave evils. It gave 
 no opportunity to the person charged with 
 crime of establishing his innocence; it recog- 
 nized no distinction between murder, man- 
 slaughter, and accidental homicide; it per- 
 petuated family blood-feuds, the avenger of 
 blood being liable to be treated in his turn as 
 a murderer by the kinsman of the man whom 
 he had slain. These grievances could not be 
 removed as long as there was no central 
 government strong enough to vindicate the 
 law ; but they might be mitigated ; and to do 
 this was the object of the institution in the 
 text : an institution already promised in gene- 
 ral terms by God, Ex. xxi. 13. 
 
 Among the Arab tribes, who are under the 
 control of no central authority, the practice 
 of blood-revenge subsists in full force to the 
 present day. The law of the Koran limits the 
 right of demanding satisfaction to cases in 
 which a man has been unjustly smitten, and 
 forbids the kinsman of the deceased to avenge 
 his blood on any other than the actual mur- 
 derer. But these restrictions are generally dis- 
 regarded in practice by the Arabs. 
 
 12. the congregation] i.e. local court,. con- 
 sisting of the elders of the city (Josh. xx. 4). 
 Two terms {kdhal and eydah) are rendered 
 “congregation” in the A. V. The former 
 word denotes properly the general assembly of 
 the people ; the latter, which is here employed, 
 
[v. 14—25. 
 
 786 NUMBERS. XXXV. 
 
 f^Exod. 21. 
 14. 
 
 t Ileb. 
 with a 
 sto/ie 0/ 
 the hand. 
 
 shall give six cities shall ye have for 
 refuge. 
 
 14 Ye shall give three cities on 
 this side Jordan, and three cities shall 
 ye give in the land of Canaan, which 
 shall be cities of refuge. 
 
 15 These six cities shall be a re- 
 fuge, both for the children of Israel, 
 and for the stranger, and for the so- 
 journer among them : that every one 
 that killeth any person unawares may 
 flee thither. 
 
 16 "^And if he smite him with an 
 instrument of iron, so that he die, he 
 is a murderer : the murderer shall 
 surely be put to death. 
 
 17 And if he smite him ^with 
 throwing a stone, wherewith he may 
 die, and he die, he is a murderer : 
 the murderer shall surely be put to 
 death. 
 
 18 Or if he smite him with an 
 hand weapon of wood, wherewith he 
 may die, and he die, he is a mur- 
 derer : the murderer shall surely be 
 put to death. 
 
 19 The revenger of blood himself 
 
 shall slay the murderer : when he 
 meeteth him, he shall slay him. 
 
 20 ^But if he thrust him of hatred, -fDeut. 19. 
 or hurl at him by laying of wait, that , 
 
 he die ; 
 
 21 Or in enmity smite him with 
 his hand, that he die : he that smote 
 him shall surely be put to death ; for 
 he is a murderer : the revenger of 
 blood shall slay the murderer, when 
 he meeteth him. 
 
 22 But if he thrust him suddenly 
 •'^without enmity, or have cast upon-^Exod. 21. 
 him any thing without laying of wait, 
 
 23 Or with any stone, wherewith 
 a man may die, seeing him not, and 
 cast it upon him, that he die, and 
 was not his enemy, neither sought 
 his harm : 
 
 24 Then the congregation shall 
 judge between the slayer and the re- 
 blood according to these 
 
 25 And the congregation shall de- 
 liver the slayer out of the hand of 
 the revenger of blood, and the con- 
 gregation shall restore him to the city 
 
 venger or 
 judgments 
 
 means simply any appointed gathering; and 
 so, though occasionally used for the general 
 assembly, is used with propriety here of a select 
 representative body. 
 
 16 . instrument of iron~\ i.e. a tool; iron 
 was not at this date used for arms. Cf. note 
 on Deut. iii. ii, 
 
 19 . 'when he meeteth him~\ Provided, of 
 course, it were without a city of refuge. 
 
 20. But\ Rather, now. This and the fol- 
 
 lowing verses limit the application of 'w. 16— 
 19 to cases in which a man has slain with 
 malice aforethought. It had, e.g. been laid 
 down in <1;, 1 7 that to hurl a stone at another 
 and cause his death thereby was murder; yet 
 'V. 23 declares this not to be murder if he 
 who hurled the stone sought not thereby his 
 neighbour’s harm. The sense. of 16 — 25 
 
 might then be exhibited thus: “whereas it is 
 laid down that to take another man’s life by 
 any means soever is murder, and exposes the 
 murderer to the penalty of retaliation; now 
 therefore be it known that, if the deed be done 
 in enmity, it is in truth very murder, and the 
 murderer shall be slain ; but if it be not done 
 in enmity, then the congregation shall interpose 
 to stay the avenger s hand.” 
 
 24 . shall judge between'] i. e. shall autho- 
 ritatively intervene so as to protect the slayer 
 from the avenger. It is the case of the innocent 
 slayer that is here contemplated. The expres- 
 sion “to judge” often denotes not the mere 
 hearing of the cause but the actual redress of 
 the wrong sustained {e.g. Ps. x. 18). It is 
 evident that in a doubtful case there would 
 necessarily have to be a judicial decision as to 
 the guilt or innocence of the person who claimed 
 the' right of asylum; as is indeed implied in 
 ‘V. 12. 
 
 25 . and he shall abide in if\ Thus the 
 homicide was safe only within the walls of his 
 city of refuge. He became therefore a virtual 
 exile from his home; was debarred from the 
 tillage of his paternal fields, and lost th/e 
 revenues which would have accrued from 
 such tillage. The city which afforded him 
 shelter was in some measure a place of con- 
 finement to him. The provisions here made 
 serve to mark the gravity of the act of man- 
 slaughter, even when not premeditated; and 
 the inconveniences attending on them fell, as is 
 right and fair, upon him who committed the 
 deed. 
 
 unto the death of the high priest] The aton- 
 ing death of the Saviour cast its shadow before 
 
V. 26—34-] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXV. 
 
 787 
 
 of his refuge, whither he was fled : 
 and he shall abide in it unto the death 
 of the high priest, which was anoint- 
 ed with the holy oil. 
 
 26 But if the slayer shall at any 
 time come without the border of the 
 city of his refuge, whither he was fled ; 
 
 27 And the revenger of blood find 
 him without the borders of the city 
 of his refuge, and the revenger of 
 
 f Heb. blood kill the slayer ; ^ he shall not 
 shaftf be guilty of blood : 
 iohhn. 28 Because he should have re- 
 mained in the city of his refuge until 
 the death of the high priest: but after 
 the death of the high priest the slayer 
 shall return into the land of his pos- 
 session. 
 
 29 So these things shall be for a 
 statute of judgment unto you through- 
 out your generations in all your dweil- 
 ings. 
 
 30 Whoso killeth any person, the 
 
 murderer shall be put to death by the 
 ^ mouth of witnesses : but one witness -^-Deut. 17. 
 shall not testify against any person to & 19. 15. 
 cause him to die. 
 
 31 Moreover ye shall take no sa- 2 Cor. 13. 
 tisfaction for the life of a murderer, Heb. 10. 
 which is ^guilty of death : but he f 
 shall be surely put to death. 
 
 32 And ye shall take no satisfac- 
 tion for him that is fled to the city of 
 his refuge, that he should come again 
 to dwell in the land, until the death 
 of the priest. 
 
 33 So ye shall not pollute the land 
 wherein ye are : for blood it deflleth 
 the land : and ^ the land cannot be 
 cleansed of the blood that is shed be no cxpi- 
 therein, but by the blood of him that %TL{d. 
 shed it. 
 
 34 Defile not therefore the land 
 which ye shall inhabit, wherein I 
 dwell : for I the Lord dwell among 
 the children of Israel. 
 
 on the statute-book of the Law and on the an- 
 nals of Jewish history. The High-Priest, as the 
 head and representative of the whole chosen 
 family of sacerdotal mediators, as exclusively 
 entrusted with some of the chief priestly func- 
 tions, as alone privileged to make yearly atone- 
 ment within the Holy of Holies, and to gain, 
 from the mysterious Urim and Thummim, 
 special revelations of the will of God, was, 
 preeminently, a type of Christ. And thus the 
 death of each successive high-priest presignified 
 that death of Christ by which the captives 
 were to be freed, and the remembrance of 
 transgressions made to cease. Whether at 
 each high-priest’s death all existing blood-feuds 
 were to terminate, even in those cases in which 
 no shelter had been sought in a city of refuge, 
 is not stated. No doubt, however, the merciful 
 provisions of this law would ameliorate gene- 
 ral practice in many particulars which the 
 letter of its ordinance did not reach. 
 
 30. by the mouth of <witne3ses\ i. e. two 
 witnesses, at the least (cf. Deut. xvii. 6 , &c.). 
 The provisions of this and the following verses 
 protect the enactments of this chapter from 
 abuse. The Cities of Refuge were not intended 
 to exempt a criminal from deserved punish- 
 ment, as did the asylums of the Greeks and 
 Romans, and the sanctuaries of mediaeval 
 Europe. 
 
 31. no satisfaction'] Rather ransom, as 
 in Ex. xxi. 30 , where see note. In the Koran 
 the acceptance of ransom is expressly sanction- 
 ed; nay, blood-revenge seems to be contem- 
 
 plated only as a last resource, after the demand 
 for pecuniary compensation has been refused. 
 The Arabs vary in their practice in reference 
 to this matter. Some will waive the right of 
 retaliation on receipt of a fine, others account 
 the acceptance of such blood-money as dis- 
 honourable (see Niebuhr, ‘Travels’ i. pp. 
 28 — 31 ). The permission to make compensa- 
 tion for murders undoubtedly mitigates, in 
 practice, the system of private retaliation ; 
 but it does so by sacrificing the principle 
 which is the basis of that retaliation itself. 
 Resting ultimately upon the law of God, that, 
 “whosoever sheddeth man’s blood, by man 
 shall his blood be shed,” it bids men rest. con- 
 tent with a convenient evasion of that law, 
 and converts the authority given to men to 
 act as God’s ministers, in taking life for life, 
 into a warrant for enabling the kinsmen of 
 a murdered man to make gain out of his 
 murder. 
 
 32. for him that is fled to the city of his 
 refuge] A fine for an accidental homicide is 
 forbidden; for though not so derogatory to 
 the primeval law as a fine for murder, it would 
 equally cause the kinsman to profit by that 
 which he ought to deplore, and would defeat' 
 the higher object of the various provisions of 
 the law of refuge, especially in their typical 
 bearing. 
 
 34. for I the Lord d'well^ &c.] An em- 
 phatic protest against all enactment or relaxa- 
 tion of laws by men for their own private con- 
 venience. 
 
788 
 
 ,v. I — 9. 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXVI. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xxxv. 6. 
 
 The A. V. is probably wrong in taking the with which he proceeds; and then in 'v. 8 
 particle as a preposition. It appears to resumes once more with “cities” instead of 
 be only the sign of the accusative. The writer completing the construction of -v. 6. The 
 intending to add a verb governing “cities,” three verses are really one sentence, 
 omits to do so amongst the various clauses 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 I The incotivenlence of the inheritance of daugh- 
 ters 5 is remedied by marrying in their oian 
 tribes, 7 lest the hiheritance should be removed 
 from the tribe. 10 The daughters of Zelofhe- 
 had marry their father's brothers' sons. 
 
 A nd the chief fathers of the fa- 
 ^ milies of the children of Gilead, 
 the son of Machir, the son of Ma- 
 nasseh, of the families of the sons of 
 Joseph, came near, and spake before 
 •Moses, and before the princes, the 
 chief fathers of the children of Israel : 
 chap. 27. 2 And they said, ^The Lord com- 
 
 josh. 17. 3. manded my lord to give the land for 
 an inheritance by lot to the children 
 of Israel : and my lord was command- 
 ed by the Lord to giv^e the inherit- 
 ance of Zelophehad our brother unto 
 his daughters. 
 
 3 And if they be married to any of 
 the sons of the other tribes of the 
 children of Israel, then shall their 
 » inheritance be taken from the inhe- 
 ritance of our fathers, and shall be 
 •put to the inheritance of the tribe 
 f iieb. whereunto they are received : so 
 //ley shall it be taken from the lot of our 
 shall be. inheritance. 
 
 4 And when the jubile of the chil- 
 dren of Israel shall be, then shall 
 
 Chap. XXXVI. 1 — 13. Provisions for 
 preventing any portion of the inheritance of 
 one tribe passing to another through the mar- 
 riage of an heiress. The necessity for regulating 
 this arose out of the ordinance of xxviii. 6 — ii, 
 which permitted the daughters of an Israelite 
 dying without male issue to inherit their father’s 
 property. And as it was on the suit of the 
 daughters of Zelophehad that that earlier ordi- 
 nance had been promulgated, so now it was 
 on the suit of the chiefs of the Machirites, of 
 whom Zelophehad had been one, that a sup- 
 plemental enactment is made, directing that 
 heiresses should marry within their own tribe. 
 'I'he Machirites doubtless foresaw the loss 
 which, but for the provisions of the text, would 
 be likely to fall on their tribal inheritance. 
 
 their inheritance be put unto the in- 
 heritance of the tribe whereunto they 
 are received : so shall their inherit- 
 ance be taken away from the inherit- 
 ance of the tribe of our fathers. 
 
 5 And Moses commanded the chil- 
 dren of Israel according to the word 
 of the Lord, saying. The tribe of the 
 sons of Joseph hath said well. 
 
 6 This is the thing which the 
 Lord doth command concerning the 
 daughters of Zelophehad, saying. Let 
 them ^ marry to whom they think 
 
 best ; “^only to the family of the tribe ^Xob. 1.9. 
 of their father shall they marry. 
 
 7 So shall not the inheritance of 
 the children of Israel remove from 
 tribe to tribe : for every one of the 
 children of Israel shall Teep himself 
 to the inheritance of the tribe of his the, 
 hithers. 
 
 8 And every daughter, that pos- 
 sesseth an inheritance in any tribe of 
 the children of Israel, shall be wife 
 unto one of the family of the tribe of 
 her father, that the children of Israel 
 may enjoy every man the inheritance 
 of his fathers. 
 
 9 Neither shall the inheritance re- 
 move from one tribe to another tribe ; 
 but every one of the tribes of the 
 
 4. be taken a^vay'^ i.e. be permanently 
 taken away. I’he jubilee year, by not restoring 
 the estate to the tribe to which it originally 
 belonged, would in effect confirm the alienation. 
 There were, moreover, cases in which it would 
 not merely confirm it, but even cause it. A 
 tribe might have purchased an heiress’ estate, 
 in order to prevent the loss of it at her mar- 
 riage ; the jubilee would annihilate the title of 
 the purchaser, without annihilating the transfer 
 of the rights of the vendor to her husband; 
 and to him the estate would thus eventually 
 pass. The Machirites in effect represent that 
 the jubilee, as the law at present stood, would 
 certainly not avail to benefit them in the case 
 in question, but rather might positively injure 
 them. 
 
V. 10—13.] 
 
 NUMBERS. XXXVI. 
 
 789 
 
 children of Israel shall keep himself 
 to his own inheritance. 
 
 10 Even as the Lord commanded 
 Moses, so did the daughters of Ze- 
 lophehad : 
 
 cchap. 27. II “^For Adahlah, Tirzah, and 
 Floglah, and Milcah, and Noah, the 
 t Heb. daughters of Zelophehad, were mar- 
 that were ried unto their father’s brothers’ sons : 
 /[imiiies. 12 And they were married Mnto 
 
 the families of the sons of Manas- 
 seh the son of Joseph, and their in- 
 heritance remained in the tribe of the 
 family of their father. 
 
 13 These are the commandments 
 and the judgments, which the Lord 
 commanded by the hand of Moses 
 unto the children of Israel in the 
 plains of Moab by Jordan near Je- 
 richo. 
 
 11. unto their father's brothers' sons'] Or so restricted; in Jer. xxxii. 12 it seems to 
 more generally, “unto the sons of their kins- mean an uncle’s son, a cousin-german, 
 men.” Though the Hebrew term ordinarily 13. the commandments and the judgments] 
 denotes a father’s brother, yet it is not always Cf. Deut. vi. i. 
 
 I 
 
DEUTERONOMY 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Title 790 
 
 II. Contents and Chronology .... ib. 
 
 III. Style and Characteristics . . .791 
 
 I. ordinary name of the book is 
 
 derived, through the LXX. (Aev- 
 TcpovoixLov) and Vulgate (^Deuteronomium)^ 
 from the one sometimes, employed by 
 the Jews, mishneh hattorah^ “repetition of 
 the law.” This name was probably sug- 
 gested by the text xvii. 18, in which the 
 expression mishneh hattorah hazzoth^ ren- 
 dered in A. V. “a copy of this law,” was 
 anciently construed as referring to Deu- 
 teronomy only. This is probably not 
 the right sense of the phrase, (see note 
 in loc.)^ but the title borrowed from it 
 indicates correctly enough the character 
 and contents of the book. From another 
 point of view some of the Rabbinical 
 wi iters have styled Deuteronomy sepher 
 idcakhoth, “the Book of Reproofs,” see 
 on i. I ; whilst others denoted this as 
 they did the other books of Scripture by 
 the first two Hebrew words occurring in 
 it, elleh hadcrbhdrim. 
 
 II. The contents of Deuteronomy 
 consist (i) of three addresses to the peo- 
 ple delivered by Moses in the eleventh 
 month of the fortieth year after the Ex- 
 odus (chapters i. — xxx.); and (2) of cer- 
 tain final acts and words of Moses, viz. 
 the solemn appointment of his successor 
 (xxxi.), his Song (xxxii.), and Blessing 
 (xxxiii.), which together with the account 
 of his death (xxxiv.) form an appropriate 
 conclusion to the book and to the whole 
 Pentateuch. 
 
 The bulk of Deuteronomy thus consists 
 
 IV. Relation to preceding books and to 
 
 the rest of Scripture . . . .791 
 
 V . Authorship and Date of Composition 792 
 
 of the three addresses, the first contained 
 in i. 6 — iv. 40; the second in v. i — xxvi. 
 19; the third in xxvii. i — xxix. 29. Of 
 these the first (i. 6 — iv. 40) is introduc- 
 tory and preparatory. In it Moses re- 
 minds the people of the protecting guid- 
 ance under which they had passed from 
 the bondage of Egypt to the border of 
 the Promised Land where they then 
 stood, and of their own repeated acts of 
 ingratitude and rebellion against God, 
 which had been punished by their long 
 wandering in the desert. He conjures 
 them to take warning from the past, and 
 to resolve henceforth on a strict obedi- 
 ence, that so they might not lose the 
 blessings which were now just within 
 their reach. The second, and by far the 
 longest speech (v. i — xxvi. 19) carries 
 the exhortation into details. It contains 
 a practical exposition of the whole law 
 in its incidence on the people, and 
 dwells earnestly, as the several precepts 
 are reviewed, on the sanctions of reward 
 and punishment annexed to them by 
 God. This portion commences with a 
 rehearsal of the Ten Commandments 
 (v. 6 — 2 t), the basis and essence of the 
 whole Mosaic system, and proceeds to 
 develope and apply more particularly 
 the principles of the First Table (v. 22 — 
 xi. 32). Next follows, in what may be 
 described as the second half of the 
 speech (xii. i — xxvi. 32), a declaration 
 and enforcement of various particular 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 791 
 
 statutes and regulations. These, though 
 handled with that freedom of arrange- 
 ment which suits the purposes of the 
 orator, yet group themselves on the 
 whole into (i) laws concerning religion 
 (xii. I — xvi. 17); (2) laws concerning 
 the administration of justice, the powers 
 and privileges of public officers, &c. (xvi. 
 18 — xxi. 23); and (3) laws relating to 
 private and social rights and duties 
 (xxii. I — xxvi. 19). The third speech 
 (xxvii. — XXX.) relates to the solemn re- 
 newal of the covenant which is directed 
 in it, and recites severally and emphati- 
 cally the Blessings and the Cursings 
 which will follow respectively upon ob- 
 servance and breach of the law. 
 
 The second and much the shorter part 
 of the book, containing the thirty-first and 
 three following chapters, was probably 
 added to the rest by Joshua, or some 
 other duly authorized prophet or leader 
 of the people, after the death of Moses. 
 Its characteristics are discussed in the 
 notes on those chapters. The three ad- 
 dresses which constitute seven-eighths of 
 the contents of Deuteronomy present 
 some marked features requiring general 
 notice here. 
 
 These addresses reflect very clearly 
 the circumstances which attended their 
 delivery. They were spoken within the 
 space of a very few days. It was on the 
 tenth day of the first month of the forty- 
 first year after the exodus that the people 
 passed over the Jordan, and commenced 
 the conquest of Canaan under Joshua 
 (Josh.iv. 19). Thirty days had been pre- 
 viously spent in the mourning after the 
 death of Moses (Deut. xxxiv. 8). On the 
 other hand, the commencement of the 
 first of the three addresses is expressly 
 fixed by Deut. i. 3 for the first day of the 
 eleventh month in the fortieth year. It 
 is thus evident that the delivery of these 
 speeches, and likewise the utterance of 
 the Song and Blessing, and the trans- 
 action of the closing events of Moses’ life, 
 must all be placed chronologically in the 
 first ten days of that eleventh month. 
 
 III. Accordingly the speeches exhibit 
 an unity of style and character which is 
 strikingly consistent with such circum- 
 stances. They are pervaded by the 
 same vein of thought, the same tone and 
 tenor of feeling, the same peculiarities of 
 
 conception and expression. They ex- 
 hibit matter which is neither document- 
 ary nor traditional, but conveyed in the 
 speaker’s own words. 
 
 Their aim is strictly hortatory; their 
 style earnest, heart-stirring, impressive, 
 in passages sublime, but throughout rhe- 
 torical; they keep constantly in view the 
 •circumstances then present and the crisis 
 to which the fortunes of Israel had at 
 last been brought. Moses had before 
 him not the men to whom by God’s com- 
 mand he delivered the law at Sinai, but 
 the generation following which had grown 
 up in the wilderness. Large portions of 
 the law necessarily stood in abeyance 
 during the years of wandering; and of 
 his present hearers many must have been 
 strangers to various prescribed observ- 
 ances and ordinances, and those not un- 
 important ones (see on Josh. v. 2 sqq., 
 and notes and reff.). Now however on 
 their entry into settled homes in Canaan 
 a thorough discharge of the various obli- 
 gations laid on them by the covenant 
 would become imperative; and it is to 
 this state of things that Moses addresses 
 himself. He speaks to hearers neither 
 wholly ignorant of the law, nor yet fully 
 versed in it. Much is assumed and 
 taken for granted in his speeches; again, 
 on other matters he goes into detail, 
 knowing that instruction in them was 
 needed. Sometimes too opportunity is 
 taken of promulgating regulations which 
 are supplementary or auxiliary to those 
 of the preceding books; some few modi- 
 fications suggested by longer experience 
 or altered circumstances are now made; 
 and the whole Mosaic system is com- 
 pleted by the addition of several enact- 
 ments in chapters xii. — xxvi. of a social, 
 civil, and political nature. These would 
 have been wholly superfluous during the 
 nomadic life of the desert ; but now when 
 the permanent organization of Israel as 
 a nation was to be accomplished, they 
 could not be longer deferred. Accord- 
 ingly the legislator, at the command of 
 God, completes his great work by sup- 
 plying them. Thus he provides civil in- 
 stitutions for his people accredited by 
 the same Divine sanctions as had been 
 vouchsafed to their religious rites. 
 
 IV. It is then not quite accurate to 
 speak of Deuteronomy as merely a reca- 
 
792 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 pitulation of things commanded and done 
 in the preceding books ; nor yet as pro- 
 perly a compendium and summary of the 
 law. Large and important sections of the 
 Mosaic code are unnoticed in the book. 
 Still less is it a manual compiled for the 
 instruction of those wholly ignorant of 
 the law. The phrase used in i. 5 (see 
 note on i. 3 — 5) exactly indicates both 
 the task which Moses undertook in the 
 closing month of his life, and the rela- 
 tion of this book to the preceding ones. 
 Having long ago propounded his formal 
 legislative decrees, he now undertakes 
 to explain and elucidate them; he de- 
 velops their spirit and aim; he endea- 
 vours to impress on those for whom they 
 were designed the advantages of observ- 
 ing, and the evils of neglecting them. 
 It is thus quite in keeping that the va- 
 rious commandments are given in Deu- 
 teronomy as injunctions of Moses, and 
 not, as before, directly in the name of 
 God. Deuteronomy is an authoritative 
 and inspired commentary on the Law; 
 serving in some respects also as a sup- 
 l)lement and codicil to it^ 
 
 The preceding books displayed Moses 
 principally in the capacity of legislator 
 or annalist. Deuteronomy sets him be- 
 fore us in that of a prophet. And he not 
 only warns and teaches with an authority 
 and energy which the sublimest pages of 
 the Four Greater Prophets cannot surpass, 
 but he delivers some of the most notable 
 and incontrovertible predictions to be 
 found in the Old Testament. The pro- 
 phecy in xviii. 18 (see note) respecting 
 the prophet like unto himself had no 
 doubt its partial verifications in succes- 
 sive ages, but its terms are satisfied in 
 none of them. The prospect opened by 
 it advances continually until it finds its 
 rest in the Messiah, who stands alone as 
 the only complete counterpart of Moses, 
 and the greater than he. Chapter xxviii. 
 furnishes another and no less manifest 
 example. The punishments there de- 
 
 ^ Tlie Synopsis Sacrce Scripturcc ascribed to 
 St Atlianasius descriljes very clearly the relation 
 of I )euteronorny to the preceding books : eV ailrw 
 'Mwvffrj'! diVTfpoL Kai hiecrdcprfcre irdvra ir po(iprip.iva, 
 ev T€ Trj'Vi^oQip, Kal tu AevLTiKU, Kal To7s'Api6ixoiS, 
 vop-ipd T€ Kal oiKai(vp.aTa Kal irpoaTaypiaTa’ Kal 
 VTrop.Lp.ur}(TKtTai iraXiv top \a6v 'iva (pvXd^r] avrd. 
 Athanasii Opera, Vol. ii. p. 71. Paris Edit. 
 1627. 
 
 nounced are so minutely and pointedly 
 specified, and were on record, whatever 
 opinion be adopted about the age and 
 authorship of Deuteronomy, so many 
 centuries before the destruction of the 
 Jewish Commonwealth by the Romans 
 which so strikingly realized them, that 
 the argument derived from such predic- 
 tion and fulfilment cannot be gainsayed 
 or evaded. It is true that the whole 
 prophecy is conditional. The people 
 had blessings as well as cursings set be- 
 fore them, and might choose whichever 
 they would (xxx. 19). But there is 
 throughout ch. xxviii., as in other pas- 
 sages {e.g. xxix.) where this alternative 
 is set forth, a far greater stress and ful- 
 ness apparent in the penal clauses; and 
 thus there is contained in the very pro- 
 phecy Itself on its first delivery a clear 
 foretokening of the future result. Indeed 
 Moses, in xxxi. 29 sqq. expressly says 
 that the people would after his death so 
 act as to bring these judgments upon 
 themselves. And his Song in xxxii. 
 indicates vividly a long series of trans- 
 gressions and consequent retributions, 
 ending in the rejection of Israel by God. 
 Beyond this however lies a distant epoch 
 when mercy should eventually triumph 
 over justice, and embrace the Gentile no 
 less than the Jew within the blessings of 
 the Covenant (xxxii. 43, see note). Thus 
 does Moses, in the very act of completing 
 his own institutions, foretell the eventual 
 termination of them, and their absorp- 
 tion into a wider range of dispensations. 
 Thus did the great legislator both him- 
 self gain some glimpses of the vast future 
 which lay behind the enactments he was 
 commissioned to deliver, and put on 
 record also both promises and threats 
 which could not but excite amongst his 
 people expectations and speculations as 
 to the form which the events thus fore- 
 shadowed by him would take. Deute- 
 ronomy is then, as St Jerome (Ep. ad 
 Paulinum, Opera, Vol. iii. p. 3, Edit. 
 Paris, 1546) describes it, ‘‘Secunda lex 
 et evangelicas legis praeparatio. Nonne 
 sic habet ea quae priora sunt ut tamen 
 nova sunt omnia de veteribus?” 
 
 V. As regards authorship it is generally 
 allowed that Deuteronomy must, in sub- 
 stance, have come from one hand. The 
 Song and the Blessing have indeed been 
 
THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 793 
 
 regarded by some as independent poems 
 which the writer found and incorporated 
 into his work. But on the whole the 
 processes applied by many writers so 
 freely to the rest of the Pentateuch, the 
 processes of disintegration and partition 
 of contents amongst a number of sup- 
 posed writers of different dates, have 
 been admitted to be not applicable to 
 Deuteronomy. The book in fact pre- 
 sents, the last four chapters excepted, 
 an undeniable unity in style and treat- 
 ment ; it is cast, so to speak, in one 
 mould ; its literary characteristics are 
 such that we cannot believe the compo- 
 sition of it to have been spread over any 
 long period of time. 
 
 These facts are in full accord with the 
 traditional view which ascribes the book 
 to Moses. This vie*\v however many 
 modern critics and commentators un- 
 hesitatingly reject. These writers are 
 too generally agreed that the author 
 of Deuteronomy, whoever he was, did 
 not write any large portions of the pre- 
 ceding books, though some think that 
 he was the one who reduced them to 
 their present shape, and completed his 
 work by adding to it this original com- 
 position. It is indeed asserted to be 
 “ one of the most certain results of mo- 
 dern criticism” (Colenso, ‘Pent.’ Vol. iii. 
 
 § 863), that Deuteronomy was written in 
 the later period of the Jewish moimrchy; 
 and consequently long after the main 
 part of the Pentateuch, to which it forms 
 a kind of appendix or peroration. 
 
 Yet several scholars who have adopted 
 this self-same method of investigation, 
 and who have a high reputation for learn- 
 ing and acuteness, have maintained, on 
 the contrary, that Deuteronomy is more 
 ancient than any other part of the Penta- 
 teuch. They observe that the legislative 
 element in Deuteronomy is exhibited in 
 a simpler and more subjective form than 
 in the preceding books, and hold that 
 the matter-of-fact and systematic pre- 
 scriptions of Exodus and Leviticus were 
 evolved at a later date out of the prophe- 
 tic discourses of Deuteronomy. Views 
 of this sort have been maintained by Van 
 Bohlen, Vater, Vatke, George, P.euss, and 
 by Dr S. Davidson in Horne’s ‘Introduc- 
 tion,’ Vol. II. (1856), though he has sub- 
 sequently abandoned that view in his 
 
 Introd. to the Old Test. (1862). It is true 
 that other authorities of the same school 
 have treated this decision with scanty 
 respect ; but how little warrant there is, on 
 the principles of the so-called “ higher 
 criticism at least, for this summary” judg- 
 ment, is apparent by the fact that Kue- 
 nen, whose work on the Pentateuch is 
 one of the most recent and by no means 
 the least learned, whilst not yet adopting 
 outright the opinion of Van Bohlen, &c., 
 confesses that “gradually the conviction 
 has settled on his mind that there is 
 more truth in the views of these last than 
 is recognized by the defenders of the 
 former view.” (Kuenen on the ‘ Pen- 
 tateuch,’ translated by Colenso, pp. 192, 
 193.) More recently still Kalisch in his 
 commentary on Leviticus, Part I. pub- 
 lished in 1867, whilst allowing that “the 
 author of Deuteronomy had before him 
 full outlines of the narrative and legisla- 
 tion of the three middle books” of the 
 Pentateuch, is nevertheless decidedly of 
 opinion that “the elaborate system” of 
 sacrifices, &c. laid down in Leviticus was 
 developed on the basis afforded by 
 Deuteronomy ; and of course rejects on 
 the whole the views of those “ who claim 
 a higher antiquity” for those middle 
 books, pp. 44 sqq. 
 
 In truth no more convincing proof 
 could be afforded that the method of 
 criticism in question is untrustworthy 
 than the results of its application to 
 Deuteronomy. The older scholars, Ge- 
 senius, de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, &c. un- 
 hesitatingly affirmed that Deuteronomy 
 was written long after the rest of the 
 Pentateuch was extant in its present 
 shape. The newer school sees no less 
 certainly in Deuteronomy the primaeval 
 quarry out of which the writers concern- 
 ed in the production of the preceding 
 books drew their materials. 
 
 Out of this conflict of opinions one 
 inference may safely be drawn. The 
 allegation so positively made that the 
 very style of Deuteronomy betrays its 
 late origin is arbitrary and baseless. No 
 doubt the book is written in a very dif- 
 ferent manner from the preceding ones ; 
 yet the parallelisms between it and them 
 both in ideas and expressions are nei- 
 ther few nor insignificant (cf. for instance 
 Deut. xxviii. with Lev. xxvi. throughout), 
 
794 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 as any one who will turn to the refer- 
 ences in the margin and notes for a few 
 consecutive chapters will easily ascer- 
 tain. And the fact that the book con- 
 sists mainly of three speeches addressed 
 by Moses to the people in immediate 
 view of his own death and their entrance 
 into Canaan sufficiently explains its lite- 
 rary characteristics. Naturally the mat- 
 ter thus orally set forth is given in more 
 sustained, flowing, and rhetorical lan- 
 guage than would be employed when 
 laws were to be promulgated, passing 
 events chronicled, or ancient transactions, 
 already perhaps enshrined in tradition 
 or document, incorporated into a con- 
 nected historical work. It is to be 
 observed also that all the classes of ar- 
 chaisms, whether in vocabulary or gram- 
 matical forms, which have been pointed 
 out as characteristic of the Hebrew of 
 the Pentateuch (see Introd. to Pent. pp. 
 
 1 8, 19) are found in Deuteronomy, and 
 some of them frequently. 
 
 The writings of Jeremiah often strik- 
 ingly recall passages of Deuteronomy. 
 The prophet repeatedly employs words 
 and phrases which are characteristic of 
 Deuteronomy. Numerous illustrations 
 and examples are given by Colenso on 
 ‘Pent.’ § 556 ; and there is also at times 
 (the reffi given in margin and notes to 
 i)eut. xxviii. and xxxii. will supply illus- 
 trations) a remarkable similarity of gene- 
 ral style and treatment. These resem- 
 blances are neither few nor insignificant. 
 It is needless in this place to demon- 
 strate their existence and importance, 
 which are now admitted on all hands. 
 The question to be considered here is, 
 how are they to be accounted for ? 
 
 Those who regard Deuteronomy as 
 the work of Moses can explain them at 
 once. The priest of Anathoth would 
 have made the Law his study from his 
 childhood, and his modes of thought and 
 expression would naturally be greatly 
 influenced by that law, and more so than 
 those of the non-priestly prophets. Of 
 all i)arts of the Pentateuch Deuteronomy 
 would in the calamitous days of Jere- 
 miah come home to the prophet’s mind 
 with most frequency and force. The 
 sins which Deuteronomy specially de- 
 nounces were in Jeremiah’s days most 
 rife and gross in Israel; the retributive 
 
 judgments denounced as a consequence 
 in the same book were lighting on the 
 people before his eyes; topics of com- 
 fort there were none except those splendid 
 though distant promises which in spite of 
 its predominating tone of warning and 
 threatening break so wonderfully through 
 the prophecies of Deuteronomy (see 
 above, § IV.). What wonder then that 
 Jeremiah’s utterances should so often 
 sound like an echo of Deuteronomy; 
 that his denunciations, as did those of his 
 contemporary Huldah (cf 2 Kings xxii. 
 16 sqq. with Deut. xxix. 2 sqq.), should 
 fall into the strains of this book ; or that 
 his topics of consolation should recall 
 the reassuring words with which {e.g. in 
 XXX.) the severity of God’s judgment is 
 tempered even in the'law ? 
 
 It would be a yet stronger reason why 
 this of all the then existing sacred writ- 
 ings should have exerted a special in- 
 fluence on Jeremiah if the book dis- 
 covered in his days in the Temple by 
 the High Priest Hilkiah, and brought 
 again to the knowledge of the king and 
 people after having been banished from 
 public sight and use for nearly sixty 
 years during the two preceding reigns, 
 were ascertained to be the book of I)eu- 
 teronoiny only*. But if we hold the other 
 view, that “the book of the law” found 
 by Plilkiah in the house of the Lord 
 (2 Kings xxii. 8) was the original copy 
 of the Pentateuch deposited by order of 
 Moses in the ark (cf Deut. xxxi. 9. 26), 
 as the peculiar expression used about it 
 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14 (where see note), cer- 
 tainly seems to suggest, yet even so the 
 narrative of 2 Kings xxii. xxiii. makes it 
 apparent that it was Deuteronomy above 
 ail portions of the law which pricked the 
 consciences of king and people. For 
 Deut. xxviii, and xxix. seem plainly to be 
 referred to in 2 Kings xxii. 13, 16, 17, 
 xxiii. 2, 3, &c. ; and the special measures 
 
 ^ St Chrysostom clearly regarded “the book 
 of the law” found by Hilkiah as identical with 
 Deuteronomy; for, speaking of the destruction 
 of many sacred books at the Captivity, he pro- 
 ceeds : Kat rL nepi Trjs aixiJ-oikwcrias ; Kai 
 
 yap Trpo rijs at’xAtctAwcrtas iroWa r](pdi/LcrTO 
 tQv 'lovdaiiiiP eis iaxdTrjp dcre^eiau e^OKaXdvToiv. 
 Kat 6rj\ov (K Tov t^Xovs rijs Terdprrjs t<3p Bacrt- 
 XeitSp’ TO yap Aevrepovop-Lov p,6Xii ttov euprjTaL iv 
 Koirpta KaTaKexoJ(rp.4pop. (Chrysost. Op. X. 54, 
 ed. iiened.). 
 
THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 795 
 
 of reform actually adopted by Josiah are 
 those enjoined by Deuteronomy, and 
 more fully and emphatically there than 
 anywhere else (cf. 2 Kings xxiii. 5 — 25, 
 with Deut. xii. 2, 3; xvi. xviii., &c.). It 
 is probable too that Jeremiah and Hil- 
 kiah were related*; and it is at any rate 
 certain that they were friends and fellow- 
 labourers in the restoration of religion 
 eftected under Josiah; and thus the pro- 
 phet would be one of the very first to 
 be informed of Hilkiah’s discovery as he 
 would naturally be one of the most in- 
 tensely moved by it^ The coincidences 
 then between Deuteronomy and the pro- 
 phecies of Jeremiah are only what might 
 be expected from the known circum- 
 stances of Jewish history. Their exist- 
 ence, so far from furnishing any kind of 
 argument against the Mosaic origin of 
 the Pentateuch, rather suggests confirm- 
 ation of the traditional view. All the 
 circumstances considered it would have 
 been pi'o tanto a reason for misgivings 
 about the authenticity of Deuteronomy 
 if a great prophet of the times and in the 
 circumstances of Jeremiah had not mani- 
 fested much of the spirit and power of 
 Deuteronomy. 
 
 Further, whilst the language of Jere- 
 miah unquestionably indicates an ac- 
 quaintance with the book of Deuterono- 
 my, it is yet apparent, if linguistic consi- 
 derations are to decide, that the author 
 of Deuteronomy and of the prophecies 
 
 ^ Jeremiah speaks of himself as “the son of 
 Ililkiah.” But this was hardly Hilkiah the High- 
 priest ; for had he been so, he would have been so 
 styled: and the priests of Anathoth were (i Kings 
 ii. 26) of the house of Abiathar, which had been 
 deposed from, the high-priesthood by Solomon. 
 The name Hilkiah too was common. But when 
 we note (cf. Jer. xxxii. 7, with 2 Kings xxii. 14) 
 that Shallum the uncle of Jeremiah was ap- 
 parently the husband of Huldah the prophetess, 
 and that Ahikam, Jeremiah’s protector (Jer. 
 xxvi. 24) was with Huldah one of Ililkiah’s 
 coadjutors in the work of reform (2 Chron. 
 xxxiv. 20), it seems likely that there was some 
 affinity between the prophet and.the High-priest. 
 
 2 It has not been deemed necessary to discuss 
 the coarse hypothesis of Von Bohlen, although it 
 was not long ago revived in this country, that 
 Hilkiah wrote the book of Deuteronomy himself, 
 and then pretended to have discovered it as an 
 autograph of Moses in the Temple. This view 
 has been latterly discarded as untenable even by 
 the most advanced adherents of “modern criti- 
 cism:” see e.g. Davidson, ‘Introd. to O. T.’ 
 PP- 385, 3S6. 
 
 which pass under the name of Jeremiah 
 were neither identical nor contemporary. 
 The resemblances between the two books 
 are on the surface, easy to notice, and 
 at first sight are very striking. A more 
 minute scrutiny of the language of the 
 writings under comparison will make it 
 manifest that whilst there is in various 
 passages of the later document a distinct 
 imitation or repetition of the earlier*, yet 
 that the two are in date, associations, 
 idioms, and vocabulary as distinct as any 
 two other writers in the Old Testament. 
 After the complete and exhaustive dis- 
 cussion of this subject by Koenig (‘Altes- 
 tamentl. Studien,’ Part ii.) which has never 
 been and cannot be answered, lengthened 
 argument on this point is needless h The 
 
 ^ This is in fact one of the characteristics of 
 Jeremiah, who frequently reproduces both the 
 thoughts and words of older prophets. 
 
 ^ Phrases and words of constant use in Jere- 
 miah are absent from Deut. altogether : e. g. 
 
 and 'inX which are found above 
 a hundred times iu Jeremiah. Had these phrases 
 been familiar to the writer of Deut. he could 
 hardly have altogether omitted to use them. 
 The like may be said of the phrase “The word 
 of the Lord came to me,” which with slight 
 variations is frequent in Jeremiah; also of the ex- 
 pressions “Lord of hosts” {Sabaoth), “house of 
 Jacob,” and “house of Israel. ” The expressions 
 “virgin of Israel,” “ the virgin daughter of my 
 people,” &c., are again and again used by the 
 prophet figuratively for the whole nation, and are 
 not so used in Deut.; on the contrary the first of 
 them occurs in Deut. xxii. 19, in its primary 
 sense. The favourite combination of the prophet 
 “ to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, 
 and to thi'ow down, and to plant, &c.” (cf. Jer. 
 i. 10 with marginal references) is not found in 
 Deut., suitable as it is to the themes handled in 
 that book ; and the like remark is true of the 
 other combination “the sword, the famine, and 
 the pestilence,” found repeatedly in Jer. Cf. xiv. 
 18, xviii. 21, xxi. 7, 9. &c. 
 
 On the contrary in Deut. the writer constantly 
 speaks of and to the people as “ Israel” simply, 
 which Jeremiah never does : the phrase he so 
 constantly uses of observing the law, “hear and 
 do” (cf. e.g. Deut. v. 27) is strange to Jeremiah; 
 the Deuteronomistic phrase “to cleave to the 
 Lord” (cf. e.g. Deut. x. 20) is not found in Jer. 
 though it would often have^^suited his purpose 
 well. The phrases nUT' and its cognates 
 (see Deut. i. 45, vi. 25, &c.), and the expressions 
 “to be afraid of the face of,” and others con- 
 nected with such verbs as to “fear” and “to 
 make to fear” (see Deut. i. 17, xviii. 22, &c.) 
 do not occur in Jer., but with like ideas other 
 words are used. The passages in Deut. which 
 refer to the exodus and the wonderworks which 
 accompanied it are so many and conspicuous as 
 to be a distinct trait of the book. The later 
 prophet handles the same subject once in a 
 
INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 796 
 
 priest of Anathoth reproduced in many 
 particulars the warnings and the teach- 
 ings of Moses; and under circumstances 
 different in some respects but remarkably 
 similar in others, had a like prophetical 
 burden from God laid upon him to deli- 
 ver to the people. The view of the J ews 
 that J eremiah was “ the prophet like 
 unto Moses” of Deuteronomy xviii. 15 
 (cf. St John i. 20 sqq.), is rather short of 
 the truth than wide of it. 
 
 Various texts from the book have been 
 adduced as proofs that it was not com- 
 posed by the author of the books pre- 
 ceding it. These contain deviations from 
 the earlier narrative, additions to it, or 
 assumed inconsistencies with it; and have 
 been alleged both from the legislative 
 and from the historical contents of the 
 book. No doubt some of these are im- 
 portant, and require careful considera- 
 
 similar strain, but then with very dififerent 
 phraseology: cf. Deut. iv. 34, xi. 2 , 3, xvii. 19, 
 xxvi. 8, &c. with Jer. xxxii. 20, 2\. The phrases 
 characteristic of Deut. respecting the unity of 
 tlie Sanctuary are only found in one or two 
 passages of the prophet vdiere he is evidently 
 alluding to Deut. (cf. Deut. xii. 5, 14, 18, &c., 
 xiv. ■23, 24, 25, XV. 20, &c., Avith Jer. vii. 7, 12). 
 
 Similar results appear from comparing the 
 two books in respect of grammatical peculiari- 
 ties, such as inflections, syntax, &c. ; e.g. the 
 pronoun of the 3rd person is in Deut. almost 
 always DH, in Jer. nDH : in Deut. Ave have re- 
 peatedly in Jer. always DyU ; 
 
 in Jer. the dative Avith the prep. ^ stands several 
 times instead of the accusative Avith in 
 
 Deut. never: in Jer. the use of the infinitive 
 absolute folloAved by the finite verb Avith the 
 conj. 1 is very frequent and characteristic: in 
 Deut. it is very rare; and the same infinitive, 
 Avliich is commonly used by Jer. in other peculiar 
 turns of expression {e.g. vii. 13, 25, xi. 7, xii. 
 17, &c.) is not found at all so used in Deut. 
 
 The Aramaisms in Jer. are very numerous and 
 of very various kinds ; Aramaic Avords, Aramaic 
 meanings of Avonls, Aramaic inflexions, termina- 
 tions, constructions, &c. These, as all Avriters on 
 Jeremiah Avho discuss the original text admit, 
 indicate that the IlebrcAV of his day Avas no 
 longer pure and sound. Such peculiarities are 
 altogether Avanting in Deut. Avith the exception 
 of the Aramaisms alleged in xxxii and xxxiii. 
 'I'hese are liowever not many in number, nor are 
 tliey all unquestionable ; they are too to be ex- 
 plained on quite a different principle from that 
 Avliich ajiplies to the many and manifest Ara- 
 maisms of Jeremiah. 
 
 Jt Avill be understood that the above are only 
 a few selected by way of example from the 
 copious lists of Koenig, Avho has examined 
 and compared the language of the Iaao liooks 
 thoroughly, chapter by chapter, almost verse by 
 verse. 
 
 tion and explanation; but upon the whole 
 list one or two general remarks must be 
 made. 
 
 Be it noted in the first place that there 
 is nothing in ^^Deuteronomy which posi- 
 tively contradicts anything in the earlier 
 books. This is now generally admitted 
 (e.g. by Von Lengerke and Davidson); 
 and it is an important admission, for it 
 can be demonstrated that the author of 
 Deuteronomy had the preceding books 
 before him with their contents as we 
 now have them, and knew them welT. 
 How then is it credible that the Deu- 
 teronomist “ was a late writer who com- 
 posed his work centuries after the rest 
 of the Pentateuch was written, and passed 
 it off as a Mosaic document ?” For such a 
 forger would certainly have anxiously re- 
 moved all such seeming discrepancies as 
 those in question ; and when combining 
 his new work with the old would have 
 brought the two into a self-evident har- 
 mony, either by making the necessary 
 modifications in his own materials, or by 
 erasures from the pre-existing ones. The 
 very occurrence then of the phenomena 
 in question, arising on a comparison of 
 Deuteronomy with Exodus, Leviticus, 
 and Numbers, striking as those pheno- 
 mena are, and just because they are 
 striking, is a pyima facie token of authen- 
 ticity. No one but the original legislator 
 and historian would deal with his sub- 
 ject in this free and independent spirit. 
 
 Again, many of the supposed contra- 
 dictions vanish or admit of easy explana- 
 tion if we bear in mind the circumstances 
 under which the speeches contained in 
 
 ^ There are repeated references expressed or 
 implied to laAvs already given : cf. Deut. xviii. 2 
 with Num. xviii. 20: Deut. xxiv. Avith Lev. xiii. 
 and xiv.: Deut. xiv. 3—20 Avith Lev. xi.: Deut. 
 xvi. Avith Ex. xxxiv. 22, Lev. xxiii. 15, 16, 34, 
 30 : Deut. xxii. 9 — ti Avith Lev. xix. 19, &c. 
 The language in Avhich the same transactions are 
 described is often borroAved from the earlier 
 books or evidently modelled after them ; cf. 
 Deut. ix. 12 Avith Ex. xxxii. 7, 8: Deut. vii. 20 
 Avith Ex. xxiii. 28 : Deut. vii. 22 Avith Ex. xxiii. 
 29, 30. In fact, as Davidson (Introd. to O. T. 
 I. 389) alloAvs, “almost e\’ery chapter presents 
 some indication, hoAvever slight, that Avritten 
 documents” {i.e. the four preceding books) 
 “Avere employed by him.” A very numerous 
 and absolutely convincing list of references in 
 Deut. to the ])receding books and citations from 
 them is given by Koenig, ‘ Alt. Studien.’ II. 
 126 — 146. 
 
THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 797 
 
 this book were delivered. The legislation 
 about Tithes is a most important instance. 
 Lev. xxvii. 30 — 34 prescribes that a tenth 
 of all the produce of animals and of the • 
 land should be. the Lord’s; and Num. 
 xviii. 20 sqq. appropriates this tenth for 
 the support of the Levites; who again 
 are to give a tenth of their tenth for the 
 maintenance of the priests, Num. xviii. 
 26 sqq. But in Deut. xii. 6, .17, the tithes, 
 evidently from v. 17 the vegetable ones, 
 are alluded to as one of the sources from 
 which the sacrificial meals at the sanc- 
 tuary are to be supplied : in xiv. 22 
 sqq. strict levying of this tithe is en- 
 joined, and commutation of it provided 
 for where the sanctuary was far away, 
 with a view to the money being applied 
 to the same sacrificial feasts : in xiv. 
 28, 29 directions are given for hold- 
 ing in every third year a feast off this 
 tithe at home instead of at the Sanctu- 
 ary ; and finally in xxvi. 1 2 sqq. a so- 
 lemn form of declaration and prayer is 
 prescribed which is to be rehearsed be- 
 fore the Lord in each third year when 
 the cycle of tithe obligations would be 
 completed. These regulations of Deu- 
 teronomy (see the foot-notes on the pas- 
 sages) undoubtedly are altogether differ- 
 ent from those of the preceding books 
 upon the subject, but they are neither 
 inconsistent with them, nor do they su- 
 persede them. They refer one and all 
 not to the general and first tithe of all 
 produce both animal and vegetable, but to 
 the second and additional tithe taken on 
 the increase of the field only. This lat- 
 ter was not for the maintenance of the 
 priests and Levites, but for the celebra- 
 tion of the sacred feasts, in each first 
 and second year at the Sanctuary, in the 
 third year at home. The priests and 
 Levites were indeed to be invited to 
 partake, as in each third year were the 
 stranger, the fatherless, and the widow ; 
 but the purpose of these meals (cf. the 
 agapse of the New Test.), which are not 
 instituted by Deuteronomy, but only re- 
 gulated, was not to furnish a maintenance 
 for the priests and Levites, but to pro- 
 mote charity and brotherly feeling, and 
 to gather the religious life and associa- 
 tions of the people round the Sanctuary 
 (see on xi. 5). There appears to be no 
 express mention in Deuteronomy of the 
 VoL. I. 
 
 first tithe, out of which the priests and 
 Levites were to be supported. This 
 as of familiar and established, we might 
 say primoeval, obligation (cf. Gen. xiv. 
 20, xxviii. 22) is taken for granted on all 
 hands. Yet the reason for which the 
 first tithe was appointed by God to the 
 Levites is mentioned x. 9, xviii. i, 2 ; 
 and no doubt that Levitical tithe was 
 understood to be meant by the repeated 
 declaration respecting Levi, that “ the 
 Lord is his inheritance:” for the tithe 
 is emphatically “the Lord’s:” cf. Lev. 
 xxvii. 30 sqq.; Num. xviii. 20, 21; Mai. 
 iii. 8h 
 
 Connected with this subject is that of 
 the relative position of the priests and 
 Levites as exhibited in the other books 
 and in Deuteronomy. In the three mid- 
 dle books of the Pentateuch the priests 
 are, it is said, carefully distinguished from 
 the Levites ; the duties of the latter are 
 subordinate, such as erecting and taking 
 down the Tabernacle, carrying it and its 
 furniture, &c. ; in short the Levites are 
 to minister to the priests (Num. iii. 5 sqq., 
 and iv.) as the priests to God (Ex. xxviii. 1, 
 xxix. I, etc.). But in Deuteronomy no 
 such distinction between the two orders 
 is observed. On the contrary, language 
 applied in the earlier books to the 
 priests only is used of the Levites, and 
 functions limited before to the former 
 are now assigned to the latter also : cf. 
 Deut. X. 8, 9, where the duty of blessing 
 the people is assigned to the tribe of 
 Levi, with Num. vi. 23 — 27, where the 
 same duty seems limited to the priests 
 
 ^ Some commentators insist that one and the 
 same tithe must be meant throughout Lev., 
 Num., and Deut. (so Knobel, Ewald, David- 
 son, Colenso, &c.); and infer from the discre- 
 pancies which arise on this assumption between 
 the last book and the former a difference of 
 authorship, date, &c. But how could the Deu- 
 teromist expect his work to be received as Mo- 
 saic whilst allowing such a glaring inconsis- 
 tency to remain between his own precepts and 
 those of the earlier legislation? Nor is it possi- 
 ble to regard Deut. as providing a substitute for 
 an earlier tithe system which had fallen into 
 abeyance. To meet the wants of the Levites mere- 
 ly by occasional feasts to which they were to be 
 invited, would be to mock their poverty rather 
 than to relieve it. Moreover, the second and 
 third tithe (which was but another application of 
 the second tithe in each third year) were as a 
 matter of fact paid by the later Jews in addition 
 to the first tithe; see on xxvi. 12. 
 
 3E 
 
INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 798 
 
 alone : and Dent, xviii. 7, where “ min- 
 istering in the name of the Lord” is 
 attributed to the Levite, with Ex. xxviii. 
 xxix. where this office is referred to as a 
 priestly one. It is noted too that in the 
 earlier books the priests are spoken of 
 as the “ sons of Aaron,” never “the sons 
 of Levi in Deuteronomy, on the con- 
 trary, we do not read of “sons of Aaron,” 
 but always of “ sons of Levi,” or “ Le- 
 vites,” or “priests the Levites.” Finally, 
 Deuteronomy when noticing (xi. 6) the 
 rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, 
 significantly omits the name of the Levite 
 Korah, though he was evidently the ring- 
 leader. From all this the inference is con- 
 fidently drawn that the marked distinction 
 which obtained in early times between 
 the priests, the sons of Aaron, and the 
 other Levites, had by the date of “the 
 Deuteronomist” disappeared ; and that 
 in his eyes Korah committed no sin in 
 “ seeking the priesthood.” It is further 
 inferred, that this important elevation of 
 the status of the Levite, which is nowhere 
 commented upon in the historical books 
 but simply appears from the language of 
 Deuteronomy as an accomplished fact, 
 can only have taken place gradually and 
 in a long series of years ; and that con- 
 sequently Deuteronomy was written very 
 much later than the date which belongs 
 to Exodus and the two following books'. 
 “ It is,” it has been said, “impossible to 
 believe that any writer should have so 
 suddenly changed his form of expression 
 in such a case as this, in the very short 
 interval of a few days or weeks at most, 
 between the last act recorded in the 
 book of Numbers and the first in Deu- 
 teronomy.” 
 
 In reply it is to be noted, in the first 
 place, that the description of the priests 
 as the “ sons of Aaron” does not occur 
 in the latter part of Numbers at all, but 
 only in the first fourteen chapters. Now 
 Num. i. — xiv^ belong to the second year 
 of the Exodus ; Deuteronomy to the 
 fortieth. Consequently there is, accord- 
 
 ^ It is worth while to note that the alleged 
 identification of priests and Levites in Deut. is 
 brought forward i)y George as a proof that Deut. 
 is nuich older than the middle books of the 
 Pentateuch ; the division of the sacred caste into 
 priests and Levites, which is recognized in Exo- 
 dus and Numbers, being assumed to be a later 
 development: cf. liiihr, ‘Symb.’ ii. p. 7. ' 
 
 ing to the narrative of these bvo books 
 themselves, not a very short interval, but 
 a space of more than thirty-eight years 
 in which this change of phraseology 
 might have obtained currency. 
 
 But in truth the change in question is 
 readily explained without supposing that 
 the priests Avere at all less generally 
 styled “sons of Aaron” at the time of 
 the conquest of Canaan tlian they were 
 at that of the exodus. Moses in Deutero- 
 nomy is not prescribing the several func- 
 tions and privileges of the various orders 
 of clergy, as he has to do in the preced- 
 ing books. He is addressing the people, 
 and when he has occasion to mention 
 the clergy it is only in a general way, in 
 reference broadly to their relation and 
 duties towards the body of the nation. 
 Hence he (as does also the writer of the 
 Book of Joshua, cf. Josh. iii. 3, viii. 33) 
 very naturally disregards for the time the 
 difference of orders amongst the clergy, 
 which was not to his purpose, apd as- 
 cribes priestly and Levitical functions 
 indifferently to the tribe of Levi, — to 
 which as the priests were of course 
 Levites these functions really belonged. 
 So too in xi. 7 (where see note) no men- 
 tion is made of Korah because it was to 
 the rebellions of the people against God, 
 and not to that of the Levites against 
 the priesthood, that Moses wished his • 
 hearers to attend (see notes on xi. 7, and 
 Num. xvi. i). The discrepancies there- 
 fore between Deuteronomy and the ear- 
 lier books are in this particular superficial 
 only. They are at once explained by the 
 familiar consideration that he who speaks 
 to a large and mixed audience will take 
 care, if he knows his business, to shun 
 irrelevant details and distinctions. It 
 is however incidentally made apparent 
 that the difference between the priests 
 and Levites was quite understood by 
 the writer of Deuteronomy; see e.g. on 
 xviii. I. 
 
 Other particular objections are dis- 
 cussed in the notes upon the several 
 passages which have suggested them ; 
 e.g. that based on the prescription of 
 Num. xviii. 17 respecting the firstlings 
 when compared with^Deut. xv. 19 sqq., 
 is dealt with in the latter passage; that on 
 the supposed abstraction in Deuteronomy 
 of certain perquisites allowed to the Le- 
 
THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 799 
 
 vites by the earlier legislation in the note 
 on xviii. 3 ; that on the supposed allusion 
 to Solomon’s temple in xi. 5 ; that on 
 the enactments respecting a king and a 
 prophetical order in the notes at the end 
 of chapters xvii. and xviii. No doubt 
 several of the enactments in Deuteronomy 
 are not found in the preceding books. 
 But these additions do not betray another 
 and a later hand than that which gave 
 the original code. They are one and all 
 such as are supplementary or explana- 
 tory of earlier laws, and might well be 
 suggested by a short experience of the 
 working of those laws ; or such as would 
 have been premature or impracticable 
 during the wandering in the wilderness, 
 but became necessary when the people 
 was about to settle down in Canaan : cf. 
 note at the beginning of ch. xii. on xii. 
 7. The occurrence of such enactments 
 in Deuteronomy, and there first, is in 
 thorough harmony with the time and 
 circumstances set forth in the book it- 
 self as belonging to its composition. 
 
 In like manner the alleged historical 
 inconsistencies between this book and 
 the earlier narrative are apparent only 
 and not real (see e.g. on i. 9 — 15, i. 22, 23, 
 ix. I, &c.); and the total omission of large 
 portions of the Sinaitic legislation is 
 easily intelligible when we bear in mind 
 the purpose which the orator in Deute- 
 ronomy had in view. It is particularly 
 to be noted that the laws passed over in 
 this book are more especially those per- 
 taining to the offices of the priests and 
 Levites. And these are precisely the 
 topics which it would be needless for 
 one addressing the general assembly of 
 the people to expound or insist upon. 
 
 It is indeed possible that some or per- 
 haps all of the archteological and topo- 
 graphical remarks which are interwoven 
 in several places (see e.g. ii. 10 — 12, 
 and 20 — 23, hi. 9) are insertions made 
 by a later reviser, perhaps a much later 
 reviser, after the book was complete : 
 see the notes on those passages. But 
 on the other hand it is quite in the man- 
 ner of very ancient writers to interrupt 
 the thread of their narrative by paren- 
 theses of this character, and to introduce 
 them as abruptly as Moses does. The 
 pages of Herodotus furnish many illus- 
 trations of this (see the remarks in Raw- 
 
 linson’s ‘Herod.’ i. 29, 125, and notes). 
 It must be remembered that foot-notes 
 are an invention of modern times. An 
 ancient historian embodied incidental re- 
 marks, references, and illustrations in 
 his text ; nor would one who at a subse- 
 quent period undertook to re-edit an 
 ancient work regard himself as taking 
 any unwarrantable liberty if he added 
 here and there any incidental notice or 
 short explanation in a parenthetic form 
 which might be useful to his own con- 
 temporaries. And it seems hardly likely 
 that Moses would himself digress into 
 such topics in the course of an address 
 to the people, though there would be no 
 improbability in believing that he did 
 so when writing a history. Hence it is 
 on the whole not unlikely that the pas- 
 sages in question were, as Prideaux long 
 ago maintained, see ‘ Connexion,’ (Part i. 
 Book V. §§ 3 and 4), glosses added by 
 Ezra, who would certainly regard him- 
 self as fully authorized thus to interpo- 
 late. But the question as to the Mosaic 
 authorship of the book is not affected 
 by any conclusion which may be formed 
 about such isolated passages. 
 
 On the whole then the assertions of 
 some modern critics as to the spurious- 
 ness of Deuteronomy, though very posi- 
 tive, appear when sifted to rest upon 
 most insufficient arguments. The alleged 
 anachronisms, discrepancies, and diffi- 
 culties admit for the most part of easy 
 and complete explanation ; and no se- 
 rious attempt has ever been made by 
 these critics to meet the overwhelming 
 presumption drawn from the unanimous 
 and ‘Unwavering testimony of the ancient 
 Jewish church and nation that Moses is 
 the author of this book. The whole of 
 this part of the argument, though enough 
 of itself to outweigh many difficulties 
 even, were they insoluble, is almost al- 
 ways passed over by the critics sub 
 silentio. 
 
 It must be added too that Deuteronomy 
 has in a singular manner the attestation 
 of the Apostles and of. our Lord. St Paul 
 in Romans x. and xv. argues from it at 
 some length, and expressly quotes it as 
 written by Moses ; St Peter and St Stephen 
 (Acts iii. 22, vii. 37) refer to the pro- 
 mise of “a Prophet like unto” Moses, 
 and regard it as given, as it professes to 
 
 3 E 2 
 
8oo INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 be, by Moses himself ; our Lord, wielding 
 “the sword of the Spirit which is the 
 word of God” against the open assaults 
 of Satan, thrice resorts to Deuteronomy 
 for the texts with which He repels the 
 tempter, St Matt. iv. 4 — 10. It is in 
 vain to urge in reply that the inspiration 
 of the Apostles, and even the indwelling 
 of the Spirit “without measure” in the 
 Saviour, would not necessarily preserve 
 them from mistakes on such subjects as 
 the authorship of ancient writings, or to 
 fortify such assertions by remarking that 
 our Lord as the Son of Man was Him- 
 self ignorant of some things. Even 
 were we warranted in inferring from St 
 Luke ii. 52, St Mark xiii. 32, that some 
 things were not known to the Lord as 
 the Son of Man, because His human facul- 
 ties must have been finite, yet the answer 
 
 overlooks the important distinction be- 
 tween ignorance and error. To be con- 
 scious that much truth lies beyond the 
 range of the intelligence is compatible 
 with the perfection of the creature, which 
 of course must be finite perfection (cf. 
 Butler, ‘Anal.’ Part i. ch. v., Vol. i. pp. 
 95 sqq. Oxford Ed. of Butler’s Works) : 
 but to be deceived by the fraud of others 
 and to fall into error, is not so. To as- 
 sert then that He who is “the Truth” 
 believed Deuteronomy to be the work of 
 Moses and quoted it expressly as such, 
 though it was in fact a forgery introduced 
 into the world seven or eight centuries 
 after the exodus, is in effect, even though 
 not in intention, to impeach the per- 
 fection and sinlessness of His nature, 
 and seems thus to gainsay the first prin- 
 ciples of Christianity. 
 
THE FIFTH BOOK OF MOSES, . 
 
 CALLED 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 I Moses* speech m the end of the fortieth year^ 
 briefly rehearsing the story 6 of Cod' s pj'onise, 
 13 of giving them officers, 19 of sending the 
 spies to search the laitd, 34 of God's anger for 
 their incredulity, 4 1 and disobedience. 
 
 T hese be the words which Mo- 
 ses spake unto all Israel on this 
 side Jordan in the wilderness, in the 
 plain over against " the Red sea., be- zufk. 
 tween Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, 
 and Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 
 
 Chap. I. 1, 2. — ^These are prefixed as 
 
 a connecting link between the contents of the 
 preceding books and that of Deut. now to 
 follow. 
 
 1. These be the ^ords~\ The clause is 
 retrospective, as the geographical data which 
 follow indicate, and serves to connect Deut. 
 with the preceding book. The Hebrew 
 pronoun {elleh, these'), when used without the 
 copulative and, generally refers exclusively to 
 what follows (see on Gen. ii. 4)* But here 
 it serves, as in Lev. xxvi. 46, and perhaps 
 Deut. xxix. I, where see note, to point a clause 
 conclusive of the preceding and introductory 
 to the succeeding context. The sense of the 
 passage might be given thus: “The discourses 
 of Moses to the people up to the eleventh month 
 of the fortieth year” (cf. 3) “have now 
 been recorded.” The general term “words” 
 is used in order to include the various kinds 
 of communications made by Moses to the 
 people, laws, speeches, commands, &c. The 
 proper names which follow seem to belong to 
 places where “words” of remarkable import- 
 ance were spoken. They are by the Jewish 
 commentators referred to the spots which 
 witnessed the more special sins of the people, 
 and the mention of them here is construed as 
 a pregnant rebuke. The Book of Deut. is 
 known amongst the Jews as “the book of 
 reproofs;” cf. Introd. § I. 
 
 on this side fordan\ Render rather be- 
 yond Jordan, as the same Hebrew phrase 
 is translated iii. 20 and 25 : and as the LXX. 
 and the versions generally have it. A. V. has 
 “on this side Jordan” also in Num. xxii. i 
 (where see note); Deut. i. 5, iii. 8, &c.: but 
 one rendering ought to be followed through- 
 out. The phrase (b'eber hay-yarden) means 
 literally “at the side or passage of Jordan.” 
 It was a standing designation for the district 
 east of Jordan, and in times when Greek be- 
 
 came commonly spoken in the country was 
 exactly represented by the proper name Peraea. 
 It was used quite irrespectively of the actual 
 position of the speaker or writer (just as “ sea- 
 wards” or “from the sea” was used for “west,” 
 cf. Ex. X. 19) ; had probably been settled by the 
 usage of the Ganaanites in very early times ; and 
 passed from them to the patriarchs and the 
 Jews generally. Yet alongside of this conven- 
 tional sense the natural one is still found ; and 
 the phrase is used of both sides of the river : 
 in Gen. 1 . 10, ii; Josh. ix. i, &c., of Cisjor- 
 danic territory : in Num. xxii. i, xxxii. 32, of 
 Transjordanic; and even in the same chapter 
 is used first of one and then of the other: see 
 Deut. iii. 8, 20, 25. The immediate context 
 will usually determine the sense of the phrase, 
 which is thus in itself ambiguous ; but often 
 some qualifying addition is made to determine 
 it (cf. e.g. iv. 41; Josh. xxii. 7). In Num. 
 xxxii. 19, the Transjordanic tribes use a phrase 
 nearly identical with the one before us first of 
 their own territory and then of that of their 
 brethren ; but add terms to explain their mean- 
 ing. It is evident, from a mere inspection of 
 the passages in which the phrase is used, that 
 no inferences at all can be drawn from it as 
 to whether the writer of Deut. dwelt on the 
 one side of Jordan or the other. 
 
 in the <sjoilderness, in the plain~\ These terms 
 assign broadly the localities referred to in the 
 preceding books. The former term (midbdr) 
 denotes the desert of Arabia generally; the 
 latter (ardbdb) the sterile tract which stretches 
 along the lower Jordan to the-Dead Sea, and 
 is continued thence to the Gulf of Akaba. 
 In this 'v. and ii. 8 (“the way of the plain”) 
 it is the southern portion of this depressed 
 tract which is meant. 
 
 o’ver against the Red Sea~\ Render: over 
 against Suph. Here the A. V. (cf. on 
 Num. xxi. 14) supplies “Sea.” But though 
 
DEUTERONOMY. I. [v. 2-5. 
 
 2 {TJ?ere are eleven days’ journey 
 from Horeb by the way of mount 
 Seir unto Kadesh-barnea.) 
 
 3 And it came to pass in the for- 
 tieth year, in the eleventh month, on 
 the first day of the month, that Moses 
 spake unto the children of Israel, ac- 
 cording unto all that the Lord had 
 
 given him in commandment unto 
 them; 
 
 4 ^ After he had slain Sihon the “ 
 king of the Amorites, which dwelt 
 in Heshbon, and Og the king of 
 Bashan, which dwelt at Astaroth in 
 Edrei : 
 
 5 On this side Jordan, in the land 
 
 the Red Sea (Hebr. yarn supld) is often called 
 simply “the Sea,” yet “Suph” without “Sea” 
 must be a proper name, especially as the full ex- 
 pression “yam suph” occurs 'v. 40. “Suph” 
 is most probably the pass es Sufah near Ain- 
 el-Weibeh described by Robinson (‘ Bib. Re- 
 searches,’ II. 1 81 sqq. : see also on Num. xiii. 
 26; § 5 of Note at end of chapter), or some 
 place in the neighbourhood. Thus, the Maa- 
 leh-acrabbim of Josh. xv. 3 is the shortest (cf. 
 on Num. xxxiv. 4), and anciently was the 
 most frequented path from the Arabah, the 
 plain mentioned in the last note, through 
 the mountains to Hebron. It commands an 
 extensive view, and the district beneath it, 
 which may have been signalized by some deeds 
 or words of Moses, is probably meant by the 
 expression “over against Suph.” 
 
 bet'ween Par an and Tophel'\ Of these 
 places Tophel is by general consent identified 
 as the Tufileh of Robinson (‘Bib. Res.’ ii. 
 570), the Tafyle of Burckhardt (p. 402 sqq.). 
 Saadia writes “Tufal.” It is still a consider- 
 able place, — some little distance S. E. of the 
 Dead Sea. “ Numerous springs and rivulets 
 (ninety-nine, according to the Arabs,) the 
 waters of which unite below, render the 
 vicinity of the town very agreeable. It is 
 surrounded by large plantations of fruit- 
 trees : apples, apricots, figs, pomegranates, 
 and olive- and beech-trees of a large species are 
 cultivated in great numbers” (Burckhardt, 
 1. c.). It is naturally, therefore, selected as 
 a landmark. Paran being assigned here as 
 the western limit of a district is probably the 
 Mount Paran of xxxiii. 2; or a city of the 
 same name mentioned by Euseb., Jer. and 
 several modern geographers, near the moun- 
 tain. The name is familiar in the phrase 
 “wilderness of Paran;” cf. Gen. xiv. 6, xxi. 
 21 ; Num. x. 12 and note. 
 
 and Lahati] With this and the two fol- 
 lowing names we must understand the pre- 
 position “ in and regard them as adding three 
 more to those already mentioned as memorable. 
 Laban is generally identified with Libnah 
 (Num. xxxiii. 20, see Note): the latter being 
 the same word in the fern, forni. 
 
 HazerotlS] i.e. “inclosures” (cf. .on ii. 23), 
 probably not identical with the place of the 
 
 same name mentioned Num. xi. 35; where 
 see note. 
 
 Dizahab~\ i.e. region of gold; LXX. Kara- 
 Xpyo-ea. The name suggests the idea of gold- 
 mines; and Jerome (‘De Situ et Nom. Loc. 
 Heb.’ s.v. Gata ta chrysea) says “suntmontes 
 auri fertiles in deserto.” Cf. Ewald, ‘History 
 of Israel,’ p. 466 (translated by Martineau), 
 and foot-note. Nothing can be ascertained of 
 the place except that it was one of the earlier 
 stations after the people left Sinai. Knobel 
 identifies it with Kibroth-hattaavah. It can 
 hardly be the modern Dahab, which is out of 
 the way on the Gulf of Akaba. 
 
 2 . There are eleven days'' journey . . . unto Ka- 
 desh'] Kadesh (see on Num. xiii. 26) is named 
 as the southern point of the Promised Land. 
 In this <1;., as in the first, the mind of the 
 reader seems directed to the past history. 
 It was but eleven days’ journey from the 
 Mountain of the Covenant to the Promised 
 Land; yet in the fortieth year the chosen 
 people were still in the wilderness. 
 
 Hoi'eb'] On this name and its relation to 
 Sinai, see on Ex. iii. i. 
 
 3 — 5. The time and place at which the 
 following exhortations were addressed to 
 the people, are now defined ; cf. iv. 44 — 49. 
 In 2;. 5 too the nature of Moses’ address 
 is indicated. He “began,” or better perhaps 
 “undertook,” to “declare this law:” i.e. 
 explain and elucidate it. Such is the force 
 of the Hebrew verb (beer')., a word implying 
 the pre-existence of the matter on which the 
 process is employed, and so the substantial 
 identity of the Deuteronomic legislation with 
 that of the previous books. 
 
 4 . AstarotlS] On this place cf. Gen. xiv. 
 5, and note. 
 
 in Edrei] These words should, to render 
 the sense clear, come next after “ slain.” The 
 battle in which Sihon and Og were defeated 
 took place at Edrei. 
 
 5. in the land of Moab] Cf. xxix. i. More 
 accurately in Num. xxxiii. 48, “in the plains 
 of Moab by Jordan near Jericho.” This 
 district had formerly been occupied by the 
 Moabites, and retained its name from them : 
 but had been conquered by the Amorites. 
 Cf. Num. xxi. 26. 
 
tHeb. 
 all his 
 neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 give9t. 
 
 V. 6-II.] DEUTERONOMY. I. 803 
 
 of Moab, began Moses to declare this 
 law, saying, 
 
 6 The Lord our God spake unto 
 us in Horeb, saying. Ye have dwelt 
 long enough in this mount : 
 
 C) 
 
 7 Turn you, and take your jour- 
 ney, and go to the mount of the 
 Amorites, and unto ^all the places 
 nigh thereunto, in the plain, in the 
 hills, and in the vale, and in the 
 south, and by the sea side, to the land 
 of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, 
 unto the great river, the river Eu- 
 phrates. 
 
 8 Behold, I have ^set the land be- 
 
 fore you : go in and possess the land 
 which the Lord sware unto your fa- 
 thers, ‘^Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, *^Gen. 15. 
 to give unto them and to their seed & '17. 7, s. 
 after them. 
 
 9 ^ And I spake unto you at that 
 time, saying, I am not able to bear 
 you myself alone : 
 
 10 The Lord your God hath mul- 
 tiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day 
 as the stars of heaven for multitude. 
 
 11 (The Lord God of your fa- 
 thers make you a thousand times so 
 many more as ye are., and bless you, 
 as he hath promised you ! ) 
 
 declare] Render explain : and see onno-v. 
 3 — 5 above. LXX. : Vulg. ex- 
 
 planare, 
 
 6. The first and introductory address of 
 Moses to the people is here commenced. It 
 extends to iv. 40, and is divided from the 
 second discourse by the ‘vno. iv. 41 — 49, 
 which are obviously of a different character 
 from those which precede and follow them. 
 Addressing the people on the very threshold 
 of the Promised Land, Moses summiarily re- 
 calls to them the manifold proofs they had 
 experienced of the care and the faithfulness 
 of God towards them, and the manifold in- 
 stances of their own perverseness and rebel- 
 lion. These their sins had shut them out 
 during a whole generation from the inherit- 
 ance covenanted to be given to their fathers. 
 The warning is thus most effectively pointed, 
 — that they should not by new transgressions 
 debar themselves from those blessings which 
 even now lay before their eyes; and the way 
 is appropriately prepared for that recapitu- 
 lation and re-inforcement of the laAv of the 
 covenant, which it is the main purpose of 
 Deuteronomy to convey. 
 
 7 . to the mount of the Amorites] i. e. to 
 the mountain district occupied by the Amor- 
 ites, reaching into the Negeb, and part of the 
 territory assigned to the tribe of Judah. The 
 Amorites, as the leading people of Canaan, 
 here stand for the nations of that country ge- 
 nerally (see nj. 44); and “ the mountain of the 
 Amorites and the places nigh thereunto,” (or 
 more literally, “all its neighbours”), denote 
 the whole district, which is more particularly 
 specified in the concluding part of the verse. 
 
 9 — 15 . This appointment of the “cap- 
 tains” (cf. Ex. xviii. 21 sqq.) must not be 
 confounded with that of the Elders in Numb, 
 xi. i6sqq. The former would number 78,600; 
 the latter were seventy only. The time and 
 
 place, and indeed the transactions themselves, 
 were quite different. The only common 
 point between the two lies in the complaint 
 of Moses, -v. 12, which bears some verbal 
 resemblance to Numb. xi. 14 and 17. But, 
 as in both cases, the grievance Moses had 
 was of the same kind, there is no reason 
 why he should not express it in the like 
 terms. It is, in fact, a characteristic of the 
 speech of early times, and one exemplified in 
 every ancient record, to employ the same or 
 similar combinations of words for like occa- 
 sions, instead of inventing new combinations 
 for each. Such similarities afford no proof 
 whatever of the writers having other like 
 passages in view. Very ancient languages 
 had not that variety and flexibility of expres- 
 sion which belong to the modern languages 
 of \V estern Europe. 
 
 It has been observed, that in Exodus the 
 appointment of the captains is described as 
 made before the giving of the Law at Sinai; 
 here it seems to be placed immediately be- 
 fore the people departed from Horeb, i.e. a 
 year later. But it is obvious that Moses is 
 only touching on certain parts of the whole 
 history, and with a special purpose. God had 
 given them a promise, and willed them to 
 enter on the enjoyment of it. Moses too 
 had done his part, and had provided for the 
 good government and organization of their 
 greatly increased multitudes. All was ready 
 for the full accomplishment of the promises 
 before the camp broke up from Horeb. The 
 order of statement is here rather suggested 
 by the purposes of the speaker than by the 
 facts. But it is nevertheless quite correct in 
 the main point, wh'ich is that this important 
 arrangement for the good government of the 
 people took place before they quitted Horeb 
 to march direct to the Promised Land. This 
 fact sets more clearly before us the perverse- 
 ness and ingratitude of the people, to which 
 the orator next passes; and shows, what he 
 
DEUTERONOMY. I. 
 
 [V. 12 24. 
 
 S04 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 Give. 
 
 t Heb. 
 gave. 
 
 12 How can I myself alone bear 
 your cumbrance, and your burden, 
 and your strife ? 
 
 13 ^Take you wise men, and un- 
 derstanding, and known among your 
 tribes, and I will make them rulers 
 over you. 
 
 14 And ye answered me, and said. 
 The thing which thou hast spoken is 
 good for us to do. 
 
 15 So I took the chief of your 
 tribes, wise men, and known, and 
 ^ made them heads over you, captains 
 over thousands, and captains over 
 hundreds, and captains over fifties, 
 and captains over tens, and officers 
 among your tribes. 
 
 16 And I charged your judges at 
 that time, saying, Hear the causes 
 betv/een your brethren, and ‘^judge 
 righteously between every man and 
 his brother, and the stranger that is 
 with him. 
 
 17 "^Ye shall not Yespect persons 
 in judgment; hut ye shall hear the 
 
 l^Sam. 16. small as well as the great ; ye shall 
 not be afraid of the face of man ; for 
 the judgment is God’s: and the cause 
 that is too hard for you, bring it unto 
 me, and I will hear it. 
 
 cjobn 7. 
 24. 
 
 ^ Lev. 19. 
 15 - 
 
 chap. 16. 
 
 19 
 
 Prov. 24. 
 23. 
 
 t Heb. 
 acknow- 
 ledge 
 faces. 
 
 18 And I commanded you at that 
 time all the things which ye should 
 do. 
 
 19 ^ And when we departed from 
 Horeb, we went through all that 
 great and terrible wilderness, which 
 ye saw by the way of the mountain 
 of the Amorites, as the Lord our 
 God commanded us ; and we came to 
 Kadesh-barnea. 
 
 20 And I said unto you, Ye are 
 come unto the mountain of the Amor- 
 ites, which the Lord our God doth 
 give unto us. 
 
 21 Behold, the Lord thy God 
 hath set the land before thee: go up 
 and possess zV, as the Lord God of 
 thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear 
 not, neither be discouraged. 
 
 22 And ye came near unto me 
 every one of you, and said, We will 
 send men before us, and they shall 
 search us out the land, and bring us 
 word again by what way we must go 
 •up, and into what cities we shall 
 come. 
 
 23 And the saying pleased me 
 well: and took twelve men of you, 
 one of a tribe : 
 
 24 AndAhey turned and went up 
 
 e Numb. 
 13 - . 3 - 
 
 yNumb. 
 13. 24. 
 
 was anxious to impress, that the fault of the 
 40 years’ delay rested only with themselves. 
 
 Similar reasons explain the omission of 
 Jethro’s counsel, which led to the nomination 
 of the captains. It was beside the present 
 purpose to enter into such particulars. 
 
 19 . that great and terrible <wilderness\ Cf. 
 viii. 15. This language is by no means applica- 
 ble to the whole peninsula of Sinai, even in its 
 present deteriorated state: see on Num. xx. i. 
 It is however quite such as men would em- 
 ploy after having passed with toil and suffer- 
 ing through the worst part of it, the southern 
 half of the Arabah: see on Num. xxi. 4; and 
 more especially when they had but recently 
 rested from their marches in the plain of 
 Shittim, the largest and richest oasis in the 
 whole district: see on Num. xxii. i, and cf. 
 Tristram, ‘Land of Israel,' pp. 528, 529. 
 
 22, 23 . Cf. Numb. xiii. i,*2. There is no 
 real discrepancy between these passages. The 
 plan of sending the spies originated with the 
 people; and, as in itself a reasonable one, it 
 approved itself to Moses; was submitted to 
 God, and sanctioned by Him; and carried 
 
 out under special Divine direction. The ora- 
 tor’s purpose in this chapter is to bring before 
 the people emphatically their own responsi- 
 bilities and behaviour. It is therefore impor- 
 tant to remind them, that the sending of the 
 spies, which led immediately to their mur- 
 muring and rebellion, was their own sugges- 
 tion. 
 
 It is frivolous to object that the genera- 
 tion .which had sinned thus was dead; and 
 that Moses was addressing men who had had 
 no concern in the events to which he is refer- 
 ring. That this fact was present to the 
 speaker's mind is clear from nj-v. 34, 35 ; 
 nay, it was the very aim he had in view, to 
 warn the present generation not to follow their 
 fathers in their perversity, and so' defraud 
 themselves of the promised blessing, as their 
 fathers had done. It is but natural that Moses, 
 who had been the leader of the congregation 
 all along, should, when addressing it collec- 
 tively, treat it as the same which he had 
 brought forth from Egypt, and had now, for 
 the second time, conducted to the threshold 
 of the Promised Land. 
 
 The following nc-v. to the end of the 
 
V. 25 — 38 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. I. 
 
 805 
 
 t Heb. 
 melted. 
 
 S Numb. 
 13. 28. 
 
 into the mountain, and came unto 
 the valley of Eshcol, and searched it 
 out. 
 
 25 And they took of the fruit of 
 the land in their hands, and brought 
 it down unto us, and brought us word 
 again, and said. It is a good land 
 which the Lord our God doth give 
 us. 
 
 26 Notwithstanding ye would not 
 go up, but rebelled against the com- 
 mandment of the Lord your God : 
 
 27 And ye murmured in your 
 tents, and said. Because the Lord 
 hated us, he hath brought us forth 
 out of the land of Egypt, to deliver 
 us into the hand of the Amorites, to 
 destroy us. 
 
 28 Whither shall we go up? our 
 brethren have Miscouraged our heart, 
 saying. The people is greater and 
 taller than we; the cities are great 
 and walled up to heaven; and more- 
 over we have seen the sons of the 
 ^ Anakims there. 
 
 29 Then I said unto you. Dread 
 not, neither be afraid of them. 
 
 ^30 The Lord your God which 
 goeth before you, he shall fight for 
 you, according to all that he did for 
 you in Egypt before your eyes ; 
 
 31 And in the wilderness, where 
 thou hast seen how that the Lord 
 thy God bare thee, as a man doth 
 bear his son, in all the way that ye 
 went, until ye came into this place. 
 
 32 Yet in this thing ye did not be- 
 lieve the Lord your God, 
 
 33 ^Who went in the way before '^'Exod. 
 you, to search you out a place to 
 pitch your tents /;?, in fire by night, 
 
 to shew you by what way ye should 
 go, and in a cloud by day. 
 
 34 And the Lord heard the voice 
 of your words, and was v/roth, and 
 sware, saying, 
 
 35 ^'Surely there shall not one of 'Numb, 
 these men of this evil generation see 
 
 that good land, which I sware to give 
 unto your fathers, 
 
 36 Save Caleb the son of Jephun- 
 neh ; he shall see it, and to him will 
 I give the land that he hath trodden 
 upon, and to his children, because he 
 hath ^wholly followed the Lord. 
 
 37 Also the Lord was angry v/ithTgo 
 
 me for your sakes, saying, '^Thou also 2 '^umb. 
 shalt not go in thither. & 27^14. 
 
 38 But Joshua the son of Nun, 
 which standeth before thee, he shall & 4- 21. 
 go in thither: encourage him: for he 
 shall cause Israel to inherit it. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 ftiljilled 
 
 chapter give a condensed statement, the fuller 
 account being in Numb. xiii. and xiv., of the 
 occurrences which led to the banishment of 
 the people for 40 years into the wilderness. 
 The facts are treated with freedom, as by 
 one familiar with them, addressing those no 
 less so, yet in consistency with the more strictly 
 historical record of Numbers. 
 
 37, 38 . The sentence on Moses was not 
 passed on occasion of the rebellion of the 
 people at Kadesh, but at Meribah, some thirty- 
 seven years later. This, as having happened not 
 many months previously, was well known to 
 those whom he was addressing. The general 
 tenor of the discourse has led to its being 
 parenthetically mentioned here. The faithful- 
 ness of God, the trespasses of the people, these 
 are the key-notes throughout. In stating the 
 sentence of God on the rebellious generation, 
 the preacher naturally names the only ex- 
 ceptions to it. The name of Joshua leads on 
 at once to his appointment to the leadership 
 of the people, now just about to take effect. 
 
 And so Moses naturally alludes to the cause 
 why he himself is to be set aside. The fact 
 that, in the midst of judgment, a future leader 
 was provided to put them in possession of the 
 promises, illustrates the faithfulness of God; 
 and the description of Moses’ sentence, as “for 
 your sakes,” no less illustrates the perversity of 
 the people, to which alone the ultimate blame 
 of all these calamities rolls back. See further on 
 iii. 26. Ps. cvi. 32, 33, is strikingly parallel 
 with the passage before us: “They angered 
 God also at the waters of strife, so that it 
 went ill with Moses for their sakes: because 
 they provoked his spirit, so that he spake un- 
 advisedly with his lips.” Moses also was culp- 
 able in the matter, and his fault is set forth 
 ^unshrinkingly; cf. xxxii. 51. There is then 
 no suppression of anything out of reverence 
 for God’s extraordinary messenger, nor any 
 real inconsistency between this passage and 
 Num. XX. 10 sqq., much less any proof that 
 we have here another independent and wholly 
 different narrative of the transactions at Me- 
 ribah. Moses simply dwells on the side of 
 
8o6 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. I.‘ 
 
 [v. 39—46. 
 
 39 Moreover your little ones, which 
 ye said should be a prey, and your 
 children, which in that day had no 
 knowledge between good and evil, 
 they shall go in thither, and unto 
 them will 1 give it, and they shall 
 possess it. 
 
 40 But as for you, turn you, and 
 take your journey into the wilderness 
 by the way of the Red sea. 
 
 41 Then ye answered and said un- 
 
 Xumb. to me, "'We have sinned against the 
 ' Lord, we will go up and hght, ac- 
 
 cording to all that the Lord our God 
 commanded us. And when ye had 
 girded on every man his weapons of 
 war, ye were ready to go up into the 
 
 hill. 
 
 42 And the Lord said unto me. 
 
 Say unto them. Go not up, neither 
 fight ; for I am not among you ; lest 
 ye be smitten before your enemies. 
 
 43 So I spake unto you ; and ye 
 would not hear, but rebelled against' ^ 
 the commandment of the Lord, and 
 
 ^ went presumptuously up into the hill, 
 
 44 And the Amorites, which dwelt 
 
 . ' ^ ^ tnojts, atu 
 
 in that mountain, came out against i»ent nj> 
 you, and chased you, as bees do, and 
 destroyed you in Seir, even unto 
 Hormah. 
 
 45 And ye returned and wept be- 
 fore the Lord ; but the Lord would 
 not hearken to your voice, nor give 
 ear unto you. 
 
 46 So ye abode in Kadesh many 
 days, according unto the days that ye 
 abode there. 
 
 the facts which was to his purpose ; he aims 
 at pricking the conscience of the people. 
 
 41 . ye <were ready to go up into the hill~\ 
 Rather, perhaps, “ye made light of going 
 up ; ” i. e. ‘ ‘ ye were ready to attempt it as a 
 trifling undertaking.” On the Hebrew verb 
 here used, see note at the end of the chap- 
 ter. F. 43, “ye went presumptuously,” or 
 better, “ were presumptuous and went,” as 
 margin, shows the issue of this spirit in action : 
 Cf. Numb. xiv. 44, where however the Hebrew 
 words are different. 
 
 44 . the Amorites\ In Numb. xiv. 45, it is 
 “ the Amalekites and the Canaanites,” who are 
 said to have discomfited them. The Amor- 
 
 ites, as the most powerful nation of Canaan, 
 lend their name here, as in other passages, to 
 the Canaanitish tribes generally. Cf. e.g. 'v^v. 
 7 and 19 of this chapter. The more lengthy 
 and precise narrative of Numbers gives details 
 here, as elsewhere, which are disregarded as 
 unimportant to his purpose by the speaker in 
 Deut. 
 
 as bees do'] The same comparison will be 
 found, Iliad xvi. 259 sqq. 
 
 in Seir] Cf. Numb. xiv. 45 and note. 
 
 46 . ye abode in Kadesh many days] On 
 this long stay cf. Introd. to Numbers, § 3, and 
 note on Num. xx. i. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. i. 41. 
 
 The Hebrew word rendered in A. V. “ye 
 were ready”. is the Hiphil of ITl. It is 
 OTTO^ Xeyojjievou, and about its precise sense 
 there has always been much difference of 
 opinion. Gesenius says (‘ Lex.’ s. v.) “ in hoc 
 verbo interpretando in alia omnia abibant 
 veteres interpretes.” 
 
 Modern commentators have for the most 
 part connected the Hebrew word with the 
 Arabic “ lenis, facilis fuit,” which in 
 
 the fourth conjugation has the sense “ de- 
 spexit, vilipendit.” This would give the 
 rendering suggested in the note, “ye made 
 light of going up ; ” which is adopted by 
 Dathe, Gesen., Knob., F first, Keil, vSchultz, 
 &c. It cannot however be regarded as more 
 than a probable rendering. None of the 
 ancient versions or comm, adopt it; and it 
 is remarkable that Saadia translates pn by 
 
 jj\j , in conj. 3, kf. “ prtevenit,” “ festinavit;” 
 
 whereas a familiar word, solicited by 
 
 the very letters of the Hebrew verb, would 
 have been an obvious equivalent, if it were an 
 equivalent at all. 
 
 The LXX. renders the word by avvaOpot- 
 O-Oeires : (crvvadpoLaSevTes dpe^aivere els to 
 opos). This sense, and possibly that of the 
 Vulg., “instruct! armis,” would seem to have 
 been derived, by a very forced inference cer- 
 tainly, from the root jin, in the sense of 
 “ abundance,” “ facilitates,” 
 
 The A. V. follows Jarchi, Abenezra, Va- 
 tablus, &c., and assumes that the verb pn 
 is cognate with jrt, “ecce;” and signifies 
 strictly “ecce nos, parati sumus ascendere,” 
 &c. Cf. the German “bejahen;” the Arabic 
 
 . This view has been again recently put 
 forward by Wogue; but seems somewhat 
 farfetched. 
 
V. 1—9.] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. II. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I The story is continued, that they were not to 
 meddle with the Edomites, 9 nor with the 
 Aloabites, 17 nor with the Ammonites, 24 but 
 Sihon the A moriie was subdued by them. 
 
 T hen we turned, and took our 
 journey into the wilderness by 
 the way of the Red sea, as the Lord 
 spake unto me : and we compassed 
 mount Seir many days. 
 
 2 And the Lord spake unto me, 
 saying, 
 
 3 Ye have compassed this moun- 
 tain long enough : turn you north- 
 ward. 
 
 4 And command thou the people, 
 saying. Ye are to pass through the 
 coast of your brethren the children 
 of Esau, which dwell in Seir ; and 
 they shall be afraid of you : take ye 
 good heed unto yourselves therefore : 
 
 5 Meddle not with them ; for I will 
 
 807 
 
 not give you of their land, ^ no, not ^ 
 
 SO much as a foot breadth ; " because trending 
 I have given mount Seir unto Esau of uL foot 
 for a possession. 
 
 6 Ye shall buy meat of them for 
 money, that ye may eat; and ye shall 
 also buy water of them for money, 
 that ye may drink. 
 
 7 Eor the Lord thy God hath 
 blessed thee in all the works of thy 
 hand : he knoweth thy walking through 
 this great wilderness : these forty years 
 the Lord thy God hath been with 
 thee ; thou hast lacked nothing. 
 
 8 And when we passed by from 
 our brethren the children of Esau, 
 which dwelt in Seir, through the way 
 of the plain from Elath, and from 
 Ezion-gaber, we turned and passed by 
 the way of the wilderness of Moab. 
 
 9 And the Lord said unto me, hostility 
 ■■ Distress not the Moabites, neither ffab* 
 
 Chap. II. 1 — 3. The people were at 
 Kadesh in the second year of the Exodus 
 (Num. xiii. 26, where see Note at the end of 
 the chapter), and are again spoken of as being 
 there at the close of the thirty-eight years’ 
 wandering, and in the fortieth of the Exodus 
 (Num. XX. i). V. 1 seems to refer in general 
 terms to the long years of wandering, the 
 details of which were not to Moses’ present 
 purpose. The command of 'w. 2 and 3 re- 
 lates to their journey from Kadesh to Mount 
 Elor (Num. xx. 22; xxxiii. 37), and directs 
 their march round the south extremity of 
 Mount Seir, so as to “compass the land of 
 Edom” (Judges xi. 18 ; Num. xxi. 4), and so 
 northwards towards the Arnon, i.e. “by the 
 way of the wilderness of Moab,” a). 8. This 
 circuitous path was followed because of the 
 refusal of the Edomites to allow the people 
 to pass through their territory. 
 
 4. From Num. xx. 18 — 20, it appears that 
 the Edomites made formidable preparations to 
 resist the passage of the Israelites through 
 the midst of their land; they did not, however, 
 and probably dared not, resist the passage of 
 the host along their eastern frontier, which is, 
 as compared with that towards the Arabah, 
 open and defenceless. 
 
 5. I haaoe given mount Seir to Esati] Though 
 the descendants of Esau were conquered by 
 David (2 Sam. viii. 14), and “all they of 
 Edom became David’s servants,” yet they 
 were not dispossessed of their land, and in 
 the reign of Jehoshaphat they regained their 
 independence (2 Kings viii. 20 — 22). 
 
 6. The Edomites, though they refused to 
 
 allow passage through their land, did not de- 
 cline to sell the people necessary provisions 
 (v. 29) ; and indeed would, as we may infer 
 from V. 4, be afraid to irritate them by 
 doing so. 
 
 buy nvater] Literally “ dig water;” i.e. pur- 
 chase permission to dig for water. 
 
 8. And nvhen voe passed by'] These words 
 imply the failure of the attempt made to pass 
 directly through the territory of Edom; cf. 
 Num. XX. 20, 21. 
 
 from Elath, and from Ezion-gaber] For 
 Ezion-geber, see Num. xxxiii. 35. Elath 
 is mentioned again in connexion with it, 
 I Kings iy^. 26; “Solomon made a navy of 
 ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, 
 on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of 
 Edom.” From this it would appear that 
 Elath was the better known place of the two. 
 Elath, in Greek AlXdo and AtAai/77, is at the 
 northern extremity of the eastern arm of the 
 Red Sea, and gives to that arm the name of 
 the Elanitic Gulf. The town has now a small 
 castle with a garrison under the viceroy of 
 Egypt ; and, like the gulf, bears the name of 
 Akaba. Its sole importance lies at present in 
 its being on the route of the annual caravan 
 of pilgrims from Cairo to Mecca. The word 
 Elath or Eloth means “trees;” and is still 
 justified by the grove of palm-trees at Akaba. 
 (Cf. Stanley, ‘ Sinai and Palestine,’ p. 84.) 
 
 9 . The Moabites and the Ammonites (-t;. 
 19) being descended from Lot, the nephew of 
 Abraham (Gen. xix. 30 — 38), were, like the 
 Edomites, kinsmen of the Israelites. 
 
8o8 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. II. 
 
 [v. lO — 21. 
 
 contend with them in battle : for I 
 will not give thee of their land for 
 a possession ; because I have given 
 Ar unto the children of Lot for a 
 possession. 
 
 10 The Emims dwelt therein in 
 times past, a people great, and many, 
 and tall, as the Anakims ; 
 
 1 1 Which also were accounted 
 giants, as the Anakims ; but the Mo- 
 abites call them Emims. 
 
 />Gen. 36. 12 ^The Horims also dwelt in 
 
 Seir beforetime; but the children of 
 + Heb. Esau ^ succeeded them, when they 
 had destroyed them from before them, 
 11 Or, ^ind dwelt in . their “ stead ; as Israel 
 
 room.-^ did unto the land of his possession, 
 
 which the Lord gave unto them. 
 
 13 Now rise up, said /, and get 
 cNumb. you over the I' brook Zered. And 
 11 Or, ' we went over the brook Zered. 
 valley: space in which we 
 
 came from Kadesh-barnea, until we 
 were come over the brook Zered, 
 was thirty and eight years ; until all 
 the generation of the men of war 
 
 were wasted out from among the host, 
 as the Lord sware unto them. 
 
 15 For indeed the hand of the 
 Lord was against them, to destroy 
 them from among the host, until they 
 were consumed. 
 
 16 So it came to pass, when ^11 
 the men of war were consumed and 
 dead from among the people, 
 
 17 That the Lord spake unto me, 
 saying, 
 
 18 Thou art to pass over through 
 Ar, the coast of Moab, this day : 
 
 19 And when thou comest nigh 
 over against the children of Ammon, 
 distress them not, nor meddle with 
 them : for I will not give thee of 
 the land of the children of Ammon 
 any possession ; because I have given 
 it unto the children of Lot for a pos- 
 session. 
 
 20 (That also was accounted a 
 land of giants : giants dwelt therein 
 in old time ; and the Ammonites call 
 them Zamzummims ; 
 
 21 A people great, and many, and 
 
 10 — 12. For the Emims and the Horims 
 see Gen. xiv. 5 and 6: for the Anakims, 
 Niim. xiii. 
 
 The archaeological notices in these verses, 
 which obviously break the sense of the con- 
 text (see next note), have every appearance 
 of being a gloss. See the Note at the end of 
 the chapter. 
 
 13 . No^iv rise up^ said I, and get you over 
 the brook Zered.'] The words, “said I,” in- 
 troduced by our translators at the last re- 
 vision, and not found in the Hebrew, should 
 be dropped. The words “ rise up, and get 
 you over the brook Zered” connect them- 
 selves with V. 9, and form the conclusion 
 of what God said to Moses. The interme- 
 diate w, must be regarded, if allowed to 
 stand in the text, as parenthetic. Moses 
 resumes the narrative in his own words in 
 what immediately follows: “And we went 
 over the brook Zered.” 
 
 14 . Before they passed the Zered, “the 
 generation of the men of war,” which came 
 out of h'-gyPb hatl passed away. Thus was 
 fulfilled the sentence of Num. xiv. 23, that 
 itone of these men should see the land which 
 God sware unto their fathers. From the high 
 ground, on the other side of the Zered, if we 
 identify it with the Wady Kerek (see Num. 
 xxi. 12), a distant view of the Promised Land 
 might have been obtained; and according to 
 
 Seetzen, even Jerusalem can be seen in clear 
 weather. 
 
 16 — 19 . From the brook Zered the people 
 passed on “by the way of the wilderness of 
 Moab,” i.e. leaving the country occupied by 
 Moab on their left, until they came to the 
 Arnon, which formed at that time the north- 
 ern boundary of Moab, and separated Moab 
 from the Amorites and the Ammonites. At 
 the Arnon they would, in their line of march, 
 come upon the territories of Sihon, and con- 
 sequently “nigh over against” {y. 19) those 
 of the Ammonites, who dwelt to the East of 
 Sihon's kingdom. The mention of the Am- 
 monites leads to the insertion (yv. 20 — 23) of 
 some particulars respecting the ancient inha- 
 bitants of these districts, and their extermina- 
 tion. 
 
 20 — 23 . These like w. 10 — 12 (see 
 note), are in all likelihood an addition made 
 by a later reviser. See the Note at the end 
 of the chapter. 
 
 20. Zjamzummims] A giant race usually 
 identified, from the similarity of name, with 
 the Zuzims of Gen. xiv. 5. It would give 
 probability to this conjecture if we could 
 be sure that the ‘Ham’ of that verse is the 
 name of the chief city of the Zuzims (see note 
 in loc.); since ‘Ham’ might then be, as 
 Tuch, Clark (‘ Bible Atlas,’ p. 8), and others 
 
V. 22—31.] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. II. 
 
 809 
 
 t Heb. 
 begin, 
 possess. 
 
 tall, as the Anakims j but the Lord 
 destroyed them before them ; and they 
 succeeded them, and dwelt in their 
 stead : 
 
 22 As he did to the children of 
 Esau, which dwelt in Seir, when he 
 destroyed the Horims from before 
 them ; and they succeeded them, and 
 dwelt in their stead even unto this 
 day : 
 
 23 And the Avims which dwelt 
 in Hazerim, even unto Azzah, the 
 Caphtorims, which came forth out of 
 Caphtor, destroyed them, and dwelt 
 in their stead.) 
 
 24 11 Rise ye up, take your jour- 
 ndy, and pass over the river Arnon : 
 behold, I have given into thine hand 
 Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, 
 and his land : ^ begin to possess zV, 
 and contend with him in battle. 
 
 25 This day will I begin to put 
 the dread of thee and the fear of thee 
 upon the nations that are under the 
 whole heaven, who shall hear report 
 of thee, and shall tremble, and be in 
 anguish because of thee. 
 
 26 H And I sent messengers out 
 of the wilderness of Kedemoth unto 
 Sihon king of Heshbon with words of 
 peace, saying, 
 
 27 ^Let me pass through thy land: ‘^Numb. 
 I will go along by the high way, I 
 
 will neither turrt unto the right hand 
 nor to the left. 
 
 28 Thou shalt sell me meat for 
 money, that I may eat ; and give 
 me water for money, that I may 
 drink : 
 my feet 
 
 29 (As the children of Esau which 
 dwell in Seir, and the Moabites which 
 dwell in Ar, did unto me;) until I 
 shall pass over Jordan into the land 
 which the Lord our God giveth us. 
 
 30 But Sihon king of Heshbon 
 would not let us pass by him : for the 
 Lord thy God hardened his spirit, 
 and made his heart obstinate, that he 
 might deliver him into thy hand, as 
 appeareth this day. 
 
 31 And the Lord said unto me. 
 Behold, I have begun to give Sihon 
 and his land before thee : begin to 
 
 only I will pass through on 
 
 suppose, the root of the name given to the chief 
 city of the Ammonites, Rabbath- Ammon. 
 
 23. the A^tms <which dvjelt in Haze~ 
 rim, even unto Azzah'\ Read Gaza, of which 
 Azzah is the Hebrew form. “Hazerim” is 
 not strictly a proper name, but means “vil- 
 lages,” or “ enclosures,” probably such as are 
 still common in the East. A piece of ground 
 is surrounded with a rude fence, in the midst 
 of which the tents may be pitched, and the 
 cattle tethered at night in safety from ma- 
 rauders. The 'Avims are no doubt identical 
 with the Avites of Joshua xiii. 3, and possibly 
 connected with the Ava of 1 Kings xvii. 24. 
 We have perhaps another trace of them in 
 Avim, the name of a Benjamite town. Josh, 
 xviii. 23. As their district appears to have 
 been included in the promise (Josh, xiii.) it 
 seems probable that they belonged to the ori- 
 ginal Canaanitish population ; and as the words 
 “from the south,” with which Josh. xiii. 4 
 begins, belong apparently to the preceding 
 verse, it would appear that the Avites dwelt 
 in the extreme southern district of the land. 
 Their name is added as a sort of appendage 
 in this passage of Joshua to those of the five 
 powerful cities which formed the confederacy 
 of the Philistines. The Avims were doubtless 
 a scattered remnant of a conquered people 
 living in their “hazerim” in the neighbour- 
 
 hood of Gerar. The word, which means 
 “ruins,” seems itself expressive of their fallen 
 estate. 
 
 It has been inferred, from the mention of 
 the Avites in Joshua /. r., that their conquest 
 by the Caphtorims cannot have taken place 
 till the days of the Judges at the earliest, and 
 that the passage before us is consequently of 
 later date than Moses. The passage has in- 
 deed the appearance of a note which has im- 
 properly found its way into the text : see on w. 
 10 — 12. But it is unlikely that the Caphto- 
 rims, whenever their invasion may have been, 
 extirpated the Avites utterly; and the charac- 
 ter of the notice in Joshua xiii. 3, 4 suggests 
 that the Avites were even then dependent on 
 the Philistines {i.e. the Caphtorims), and con- 
 sequently that the conquest had taken place 
 long before. 
 
 LXX. identifies the Avims and the Hivites, 
 rendering both Evaioi. The names are how- 
 ever radically different in Hebrew. 
 
 the Caphtorims] See note on Gen. x. 14. 
 
 26. Kedemoth] This town was after- 
 wards assigned to the Reubenites (Josh. xiii. 
 18): it was (i Chron. vi. 79) one of thecities 
 out of that tribe given to the Levites. Its 
 name signifies “easternmost parts.” 
 
 29. Cf. xxiii. 3, 4, and note. 
 
8io 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. II. E- 32-37. 
 
 possess, that thou mayest inherit his 
 land. 
 
 ^Numb. 22 ^Then Sihon came out against 
 us, he and all his people, to light at 
 Jahaz. 
 
 33 And the Lord our God de- 
 livered him before us ; and we smote 
 him, and his sons, and all his people. 
 
 34 And we took all his cities at 
 tHeb. that time, and utterly destroyed ^the 
 
 men, and the women, and the little 
 ones, of every city, we left none to 
 liiiic ones, remain : 
 
 35 Only the cattle we took for a 
 
 prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of 
 the cities which we took. 
 
 36 From Aroer, which is by the 
 brink of the river of Arnon, and 
 from the city that is by the river, 
 even unto Gilead, there was ngt one 
 city too strong for us : the Lord our 
 God delivered all unto us : 
 
 37 Only unto the land of the chil- 
 dren of Ammon thou earnest not, nor 
 unto any place of the river Jabbok, 
 nor unto the cities in the mountains, 
 nor unto whatsoever the Lord our 
 God forbad us. 
 
 34. utterly destroyed the men., and the 
 <rjoomen, and the little ones, ofe'very city~\ Ren- 
 der, laid under ban every inhabited 
 city, both -women and children. See 
 Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 36 . Aroer, <^johich is hy the brink of the river 
 of Arnon~\ Aroer stood on the north bank of 
 the river, and was assigned (Josh. xiii. 9, 16) 
 to the tribe of Reuben, of which it formed the 
 most southerly city. Burckhardt in 1852 
 found the ruins, which still bear the name 
 Ara'yr, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the 
 river. ‘Travels,’ pp. 372 — 374. Mesha in 
 the 26th line of the Moabite stone records 
 that “he built Aroer and made the road over 
 the Arnon.” No doubt the city was restored 
 and probably re-fortified by ^^esha after his 
 successes over king Ahaziah. If the latter 
 words of the line above quoted are correctly 
 interpreted by Nbldeke, Ginsburg, &c., as 
 importing that Mesha bridged over the valley 
 of the Anion at this place, the work was a 
 
 gigantic one. The width across is grefet (it 
 is described by Burckhardt as “about two 
 hours”); the valley is deep, and the descent to 
 it abrupt. In Roman times it was spanned by 
 a viaduct the ruins of which still remain, and 
 which was probably built on the lines of the 
 original structure of Mesha. It must not be 
 confounded with “Aroer, which is before 
 Rabbah” (Josh. xiii. 25). This latter place 
 was “built,” i.e. rebuilt, by the Gadites 
 (Num. xxxii. 34); belonged to that tribe; 
 and was consequently far to the north of the 
 Arnon. A third Aroer in the tribe of Judah 
 is mentioned i Sam. xxx. 28. 
 
 and from the city that is by the rlver~\ 
 Literally, “in the river.” The situation is 
 m.ore distinctly described Joshua xiii. 9, 16, 
 as “/« the midst oi the river.” The words 
 are not a further description of Aroer, which 
 was on the brink of the valley, not in the 
 midst of it. They point to Ar Moab, named 
 in V. 18, which is “the dwelling of Ar” of 
 Num. xxi. 15 ; where see note and reff. 
 
 NOTES on Chap. ir. 10 — 12, 20 — 23, and 34. . 
 
 The two groups of ethnological notices 
 contained in these passages have been long 
 ago suspected to be insertions from a later 
 hand: so Kennicott, Geddes, Boothroyd; and 
 see Rosenm. in loc. The reasons for this 
 opinion are certainly weighty. 
 
 (i) The removal of both from the narra- 
 tive not only does not injure it, but greatly 
 add to its directness and effectiveness. It is 
 impossible not to see that 2;. 13 closely be- 
 longs to V. 9, and when the two are read 
 consecutively it is difficult to escape the con- 
 viction that that was their original relation. 
 The A. V. indeed unwarrantably attributes 
 the order given in v. 13 to Moses by inter- 
 polating the words “said I.” But v. 13 
 clearly gives the close of the Divine behest 
 begun in v. 9. Similarly the w. 20 — 23 in- 
 
 terrupt, not quite so harshly but as manifestly, 
 a similar direction of God to Moses com- 
 menced in w. 17 sqq., and of which w. 24, 
 25 are the conclusion. They are properly 
 marked in A. V. as parenthetic: but it is 
 certainly little after the manner of Moses to 
 break in upon the communications of God to 
 him with parentheses; and it seems somewhat 
 unsuitable to regard these fragments of ancient 
 history as portions of what God revealed. 
 
 (2) The words “as Israel did unto the 
 land of his possession,” taken in their natural 
 sense, refer to the conquest of Canaan as a 
 past transaction. The explanations offered, 
 e.g. that the passage is prophetical, that it 
 refers to the territories of Sihon and Og only, 
 &c., are not satisfactory. 
 
 (3) The observation that the w. in qiies- 
 
DEUTERONOMY. III. 
 
 8ii 
 
 V. 1—4] 
 
 tion are germane to the purpose of the narra- 
 tive is true, but does not of itself prove that 
 they formed originally integral portions of it. 
 Fv. 10 — I a are obviously introduced in ex- 
 planation of the statement that “ Ar was 
 given to the children of Lot.” God destroyed 
 from before the children of Lot mighty na- 
 tions, as He did the nations of Canaan before 
 the Israelites, Therefore the Israelites were 
 not to disturb the Moabites, who had the 
 same title to Ar as Israel to Canaan. Like 
 reasons are adduced, ‘vv. ao — 23, for not 
 molesting the Ammonites, But the reasons 
 are antiquarian details which could hardly be 
 necessary for Moses and his contemporaries, 
 but are exactly such as a later and learned 
 historian would desire to put on record by 
 way of confirming and illustrating the general 
 assertion of ‘v'v. 9 and 19, that God had 
 “given their land to the children of Lot,” 
 
 (4) It is evident however that the two 
 sets of if introduced long after the days 
 of Moses, were not intended to be passed off 
 as part of the original text. No attempt was 
 made to interweave them closely into the 
 context, or to accommodate the phraseology 
 of them to the circumstances of the fortieth 
 year after the exodus. They contain exactly 
 such matter as a modern editor might have 
 given in explanatory foot-notes: but which 
 a Jewish reviser, if duly authorized, would 
 feel warranted in writing along with his text. 
 Substantially then we may regard them as 
 glosses, perhaps contributed by Ezra, 
 
 34 , The A.V. renders here, “utterly de- 
 stroyed the men, and the women, and the little 
 ones of every city,” The interpretation of the 
 passage turns upon (i) the proper sense of 
 the word QflD ; (2) the true syntax. In 
 neither particular can the decision arrived at 
 by our translators be now maintained. 
 
 For (i) DriD is obviously connected with 
 n'lfO, and does not mean adult males as dis- 
 tinct from other human beings, but “mor- 
 tals,” “ men,” generally. Indeed in the 
 
 present text the adult males seem excluded by 
 the nature of the case, for they had perished 
 in battle, 'v. 33, and the special aim of the 
 verse is to record how fhe Israelites completed 
 the work of slaughter by afterwards destroy- 
 ing the non-combatants. The word occurs 
 again in a strictly parallel passage, iii, 6, The 
 A, V. has rendered the word correctly in 
 Job xxiv, 12 (“Men groan from out of the 
 city”), though there too (as here) it should 
 be taken as dependent upon “I'y, and the 
 passage rendered ‘ ‘ from the city of men (/. e. 
 the inhabited city) they raise a cry,” In 
 Judg, XX, 48 the word occurs with a different 
 punctuation in a context similar in tenor to 
 Dent, ii, 34, iii. 6, and describing the utter 
 destruction of the Benjamites, But there can 
 be no doubt that the pointing of DFID there 
 ought to be the same as it is here, and in- 
 deed (cf. Rosenm,, Gesen.) the Peshito, many 
 ancient editions, and some MSS. so exhibit 
 it. The LXX. has one and the same rendering 
 for the word in the three passages: i.e. i^rjs. 
 In the passage before us the LXX. renders 
 €^(o\odf)€vcraixev Tracrav ttoXiv e^fjs Ka\ ras 
 yvvaiKas Kal ra reKua, and reads apparently 
 Dhp in all three cases, regarding it as a 
 substantive =“ integritas ” (connected with 
 DDJl, see Furst, s. v. DFID). The occurrence 
 of the word four times in construction with 
 "I'y is noteworthy. The phrase seems to have 
 been a common one, and the sense, “ city of 
 mortals,” Le.' “inhabited city,” is apposite 
 and etymologically satisfactory, (So after 
 some discussion Gesen, eventually renders, 
 
 . ‘Thes,’ s, V, DFlD: and Wogue,) 
 
 But (2) the A, V, in Deut, ii, 34, iii, 6, 
 has disregarded the true syntax. The three 
 nouns DADj flLDn are certainly not 
 
 coordinate. The omission of the article with 
 the first of them, and its insertion before the 
 other two, shows this, as does also the ac- 
 centuation, The sense therefore clearly is, 
 “we destroyed every inhabited city, both 
 women and little ones ; ” the latter clause 
 being added by way of fuller explanation. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I T/ie sto7y of the conquest of Og king of Bashan. 
 II The bigness of his bed. 12 The distribu- 
 tion of those lands to the two tribes and half 
 23 Moses' prayer to enter into the land. 26 
 lie is permitted to see it. 
 
 T hen we turned, and went up 
 the way to Bashan : and ^ Og 
 chap.^g.*^’ the king of Bashan came out against 
 7- us, he and all his people, to battle at 
 
 Edrei. 
 
 2 And the Lord said unto me. 
 Fear him not : for I will deliver him, 
 
 and all his people, and his land, into 
 thy hand ; and thou shaft do unto 
 him as thou didst unto ^ Sihon king * Numb, 
 of the Amorites, which dwelt at Hesh- 
 bon. 
 
 3 So the Lord our God delivered 
 
 into our hands Og also, the king of ^ Numb. 
 Bashan, and all his people : and we 
 smote him until none was left to him 
 remainino;. 
 
 4 And we took all his cities at 
 that time, there was not a city which 
 we took not from them, threescore 
 
 
8i2 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. III. 
 
 [v- 5—7- 
 
 cities, all the region of Argob, the 
 kingdom of Og in Bashan. 
 
 5 All these cities were fenced with 
 high walls, gates, and bars ; beside 
 unwalled towns a great many. 
 
 6 And we utterly destroyed them, 
 as we did unto Sihon king of Hesh- 
 bon, utterly destroying the men, wo- 
 men, and children, of every city. 
 
 7 But all the cattle, and the spoil 
 
 Chap. III. 4. threescore c-ities~\ Cf. 
 
 12 — 15. No doubt these are identical with the 
 “ Bashan-havoth-jair,” i.e. cities of Jair in 
 Bashan, of ‘u. 14 : and with “the towns of Jair” 
 in Bashan of the same number in Josh. xiii. 30 ; 
 I K. iv. 13 ; and i Chr. xi. 23. See on Num. 
 xxxii. 41. 
 
 all the region of Argolf The Hebrew word 
 here rendered “ region,” means literally rope 
 or cable; and though undoubtedly used else- 
 where in a general topographical sense for 
 portion or district {e^g. Josh. xvii. 5), has a 
 special propriety in reference to Argob, with 
 which it is connected wherever that term is 
 used, i.e. in this ‘u., and in 'w. 13 and 14, 
 and I K. iv. 13. The name Argob means 
 (according to Gesen.) stone-heap., and is para- 
 phrased by the Targums, Trachonitis., or “the 
 rough country ; ” both titles, like the modern 
 Lejah., designating, with the wonted vigour 
 of Hebrew topographical terms, the more 
 striking features of the district. The Argob 
 is described as an island of black basaltic 
 rock, oval in form, measuring sixty miles by 
 twenty, rising abruptly to the height of from 
 twenty to thirty feet from the surrounding 
 plains of Bashan. Its borders are compared 
 to a rugged shore-line ; hence its description 
 in the text as “ the girdle of the stony 
 country,” would seem peculiarly appropriate. 
 
 “The physical features of the Lejali,” says 
 Porter (‘Travels,’ ii. pp. 241, 242), “present 
 the most singular phenomena I have ever 
 witnessed. It is wholly composed of black 
 basalt rock, which appears to have in past 
 ages issued from innumerable pores in the 
 earth in a liquid state, and to have flowed out 
 on every side until the plain was almost 
 covered. Before cooling, its surface was agi- 
 tated by some fearful tempest or other such 
 agency; and it was afterwards shattered and 
 rent by internal convulsions and vibrations. 
 'I'he cup-like cavities from which the liquid 
 mass was projected are still seen ; and like- 
 wise the wavy surface a thick liquid generally 
 assumes which cools while flowing. There 
 are in many places deep fissures and yawning 
 gulfs, with rugged broken edges, while in 
 other places are jagged heaps of rock that 
 seem not to have been sufficiently heated to 
 flow, but were forced upward by a mighty 
 agency, and rent and shattered to their centre. 
 The rock is filled with little pits and pro- 
 tuberances like air-bubbles: it is as hard as 
 flint, and emits a sharp metallic sound when 
 struck.” Yet “this forbidding region is 
 thickly studded with deserted cities and vil- 
 
 lages,” and many of them, from theextraordi- 
 dinary solidity of their structure, are still 
 standing almost uninjured. See a paper by 
 Mr C. G. Graham “On the Ancient Bashan 
 and the cities of Og,” in ‘ Cambridge Essays 
 for 1858.’ The rocky labyrinth of the Argob 
 in fact offers natural fastnesses which are 
 almost impregnable, and which compensated, 
 by the security they offered, for the many in- 
 conveniences of the site. 
 
 5. All these cities auere fenced <with high 
 'Walls., gates., and bars~\ Lit. “double gates and 
 a bar.” The stone doors of Bashan, whether 
 as ancient as the days of Og or not, have 
 excited the amazement of every traveller who 
 has visited the country. “ The streets are per- 
 fect,” says Mr Graham, ‘ Cambridge Essays 
 for 1858,’ p. 160, “the walls perfect, and, what 
 seems most astonishing, the stone doors are 
 still hanging on their hinges, so little im- 
 pression has been made during these many 
 centuries on the hard and durable stone of 
 which they were built.” The doors are de- 
 scribed by Mr Porter (‘Travels,’ 11. 22, 23), 
 as “formed of slabs of stone, opening , on 
 pivots which are projecting parts of the stone 
 itself, and working in sockets in the lintel and 
 threshold.” He mentions one, in a house, 
 “ so large that camels could go in and out 
 with ease.” The height of the doors in general 
 points to a race of great stature. Mr Graham 
 remarks (/. r.), “ We could not help being 
 impressed with the belief that had we never 
 known anything of the early portion of Scrip- 
 ture history before visiting this country, we 
 should have been forced to the conclusion 
 that its original inhabitants, the people who 
 had constructed these cities, were not only a 
 powerful and mighty nation, but individuals of 
 greater strength than ourselves.” Mr Graham 
 remarks “on the crowding together of the 
 towns” as “ one of the first peculiarities” 
 which he remarked in visiting the district. 
 A recent traveller, Mr D. W. Freshfield 
 (‘Travels in the Central Caucasus,’ &c. 
 London, 1869), has indeed called in question 
 the correctness of the conclusions arrived at 
 by Mr Porter and xMr Graham respecting the 
 age and origin of these cities. But his ex- 
 amination of them seems to have been but 
 hurried, and he himself admits the great 
 antiejuity of some of the buildings. Many 
 of them, especially in the larger towns, which 
 were those visited by Mr Freshfield, have evi- 
 dently been altered in comparatively modern 
 times, and others erected beside and amongst 
 them. These facts sufficiently explain the 
 
V. 8 — II.] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. III. 
 
 813 
 
 of the cities, we took for a prey to 
 ourselves. 
 
 8 And we took at that time out 
 of the hand of the two kings of the 
 Amorites the land that was on this 
 side Jordan, from the river of Arnon 
 unto mount Hermon ; 
 
 9 {Which Hermon the Sidonians 
 
 call Sirion ; and the Amorites call 
 it Shenir;) 
 
 10 All the cities of the plain, and 
 all Gilead, and all Bashan, unto Sal- 
 chah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom 
 of Og in Bashan. 
 
 11 For only Og king of Bashan 
 remained of the remnant of giants ; 
 
 occurrence amongst the remains of Greek in- 
 scriptions and Saracenic ornaments, as has 
 been pointed out by Mr Porter in the Preface 
 to his second edition of ‘ Five Years in 
 Damascus’ (London, 1870); in which (under 
 date March, 1870) he makes some strictures 
 on Mr Freshfield’s remarks. 
 
 The -w. before us then, far from reflecting, 
 as some have fancied, the tone of one speaking 
 as of events in a far distant past, represent the 
 lively impressions made by the spectacle of a 
 memorable victory won in a very remarkable 
 territory. Before they approached Edrei the 
 Israelites had traversed either a lim.estone dis- 
 trict where the abodes of men were often 
 artificial caves, or a rich pasture land such as 
 the plains destitute of rock and stones, which 
 stretch to the foot of the Argob. All at 
 once they came on the marvellous barrier of 
 rocks amidst which Edrei and the other of 
 the sixty cities were perched; built of black 
 stone as hard as iron, defended by the Re- 
 phaim, and ruled over by the giant-king Og. 
 Had Og remained within his fortifications it 
 was humanly speaking impossible for the 
 Israelites to have vanquished him. Such was 
 the dread he Inspired, that God {y. 2) gave 
 special encouragement to Moses, “Fear him 
 not.” It would seem (Joshua xxiv. 12) that 
 the hornet was sent into these impregnable 
 cities by God, and so Og and his people 
 were driven forth into the open field (2^ i), 
 where they were overthrown by Moses and 
 the Israelites in a pitched battle opposite Edrei. 
 This signal victory and its circumstances 
 evidently impressed the people deeply at this 
 time, and its memory, as the Psalms attest, 
 lingered for ages after in the national mind. 
 
 9 . Which Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion ; 
 and the Amorites call it Shenir'] Hermon is 
 the southern and culminating point of the 
 range of Lebanon. “It is both physically 
 and politically a grand central point in the 
 geography of Syria and Palestine. From it 
 are derived all the most noted rivers — the 
 Jordan, whose fountains are fed by its eternal 
 snows; the Abana and Pharpar, ‘rivers of 
 Damascus;’ the O routes, which swept past the 
 walls of the classic and Christian Antioch; 
 and the Leontes. All the great ancient king- 
 doms of the country also converged at Her- 
 mon — Bashan, Damascus, Syria, Israel. It 
 was also the religious centre of primseval 
 VoL. I. 
 
 Syria. Its Baal sanctuaries not only existed 
 but gave it a name before the Exodus.” (Porter 
 in Kitto’s ‘ Encycl.’ sub voce Hermon.) Hence 
 the careful specification of the various names 
 by which the mountain was known. The 
 Sidonian name of it might easily have become 
 known to Moses through the constant traffic 
 which had gone on from the most ancient 
 times between Sidon and Egypt. Syria was 
 repeatedly traversed in all directions by the 
 Egyptian armies from the accession of the 1 8th 
 dynasty downiwards. The transcription of 
 Semitic words in the papyri of the 19th 
 dynasty is remarkably complete. Dean Stanley 
 observes, ‘Sinai and Palestine,’ pp. 403, 404,. 
 “ The several names in the text, as also that 
 of Sion, iv. 48, and not less the miodern. 
 appellations of it, are all descriptive. Rising 
 with its grey snow-capped cone to a height of 
 about 9500 feet it is visible from most parts, 
 of the promised land, and even from the 
 depths of the Jordan valley and the shores of 
 the Dead Sea. Hence it was Sion ‘ the up- 
 raised ; ’ or ‘ Hermon ’ ‘ the lofty peak ; ’ or 
 ‘ Shenir’ and ‘ Sirion,’ the glittering ‘ breast- 
 plate’ of ice; or above all, ‘Lebanon’ the 
 ‘Mont Blanc’ of Palestine; the ‘White 
 Mountain’ of ancient times; the mountain of 
 the ‘Old White-headed Man’ (Jebel es 
 Sheykh), or ‘the mountain of ice’ (Jebel eth 
 Tilj), in modern times.” 
 
 10. Salchald] Cf. Josh. xii. 5; i Chr. v. 
 II, where it is named as belonging to the tribe 
 of Gad. The modern Salchah of Burck- 
 hardt; Sarchad of Robinson; Sulkhad of 
 Porter, who visited it in 1853, describes 
 it, ‘ Five ^ears in Damascus,’ 2nd edit. pp. 248 
 sqq., lies seven hours’ journey to the south- 
 east of Bostra or Bozrah of Moa.b. As the 
 eastern border city of the kingdom of Bashan 
 it was no doubt strongly fortified. Mr Graham 
 describes it in ‘ Cambridge Essays for 1858,’ 
 p. 156: “Above the town, and built upon 
 a hill, one of the last otf-shoots from the 
 mountains of Bashan, is a strong castle, which 
 occupies one of the most commanding posi- 
 tions imaginable. It is just on the very edge 
 of the Desert, and a foe from whichever 
 direction he might come could be seen almost 
 a day’s journey off.” 
 
 Edrei] Cf. on Num. xxi. 33. 
 
 11 . of the remnant of giants] OrP.ephaim: 
 see on -Gen. xiv. 5 and xv. 20. 
 
 3 F 
 
8i4 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. III. 
 
 [v. 12—14. 
 
 « Numb. 
 32. 3.3- 
 Josh. 13. 
 d:c. 
 
 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. 
 
 12 And this land, which we pos- 
 sessed at that time, from Aroer, which 
 is by the river Arnon, and half mount 
 Gilead, and ^the cities thereof, gave 
 8, I unto the Reubenites and to the 
 Gadites. 
 
 13 And the rest of Gilead, and 
 all Bashan, being the kingdom of Og, 
 gave I unto the half tribe of Ma- 
 nasseh ; all the region of Argob, with 
 all Bashan, which was called the land 
 of giants. 
 
 14 Jair the son of Manasseh took 
 all the country of Argob unto the 
 coasts of Geshuri and Maachathi; 
 and called them after his own 
 name, Bashan-^ havoth-jair, unto this ‘'Numb. 
 
 1 32. 4 ^- 
 
 a bedstead of iron] The “iron” was pro- 
 bably the black basalt (“ eisenstein ”) of the 
 country, which not only contains a large pro- 
 portion, about 20 per cent., of iron, but was 
 actually called iron, and is still so regarded 
 by the Arabians. So too Pliny, ‘ Nat. Hist.’ 
 xxxvi. II : “Invenit Egyptus in Ethiopia 
 quern vocant basalten ferrei coloris atque du- 
 ritios. Unde et nomen ei dedit.” Iron was 
 indeed both known and used, principally for 
 tools (see e.g. xix. 5 and note), at the date in 
 question by the Semitic people of Palestine 
 and the adjoining countries ; see Wilkinson, 
 
 ‘ A. E.’ II. pp. 154 sqq., Rougemont, ‘ L’ Age 
 du Bronze,’ p. 189 ; but bronze was the 
 ordinary metal of which weapons, articles of 
 furniture, &c. were made. 
 
 The word translated “bedstead” (eres) is 
 derived from a root signifying “to unite” or 
 “ bind together,” and so “ to arch” or “cover 
 with a vault.” Its cognate forms in Arabic 
 and Syriac have parallel significations. The 
 word may then certainly mean “bier,” and 
 perhaps does so in this passage. (So Knob., 
 Winer, Von Lengerke, &c.) Modern tra- 
 vellers have discovered in the territories of 
 Og sarcophagi as well as many other articles 
 made of tJie black basalt of the country. 
 
 is it not in Rabbath of the children of Am- 
 mon?] Probably after the defeat and death of 
 Og at Edrei the remnant of his army fled 
 into the territory of the friendly Ammonites, 
 and carried^ with them the corpse of the giant 
 king. It is not necessary to suppose from 
 nj. 3 (cf. Num. xxi. 35) that there were abso- 
 lutely no survivors at all of Og’s people. 
 Rabbah was not captured by the Israelites 
 till the time of David, 2 Sam. xii. 29 ; but it 
 is not likely that this remarkable relic would 
 remain at Rabbah unknown to them. There 
 is no necessity to suppose, with Ewald, that 
 the Ammonites were allies of Israel against 
 Og; nor, with Schultz, that they took the 
 opportunity of making an inroad on Og’s 
 territory on the flank whilst he was engaged 
 with Israel in front. 
 
 after the cubit of a man.] i.e. after the 
 
 usual and ordinary cubit. Cf. Is. viii. i, 
 “ take thee a roll, and write in it with a man’s 
 pen,” Rev. xxi. 17, “a hundred and forty and 
 four cubits, according to the measure of a 
 man i. e. counted as men are wont to 
 count. The words are added to the number 
 of cubits in order to exclude the idea that a 
 smaller cubit than usual was intended. The 
 bedstead or sarcophagus would thus be from 
 thirteen to fourteen feet long; but was of 
 course considerably larger than the body of 
 the man for whom it was designed. 
 
 14. of Geshuri and Maachathi] Render, 
 of the Geshurite and Maachathite; 
 and see Josh. xii. 5 and xiii. ii. 
 
 The Geshurites here mentioned are not to 
 be confounded with those mentioned in Jo- 
 shua xiii. 2, who, as appears from that place, 
 and more clearly from i Sam. xvii. 8, were 
 neighbours of the Philistines. The Geshur- 
 ites here in question are frequently named in 
 connection with Bashan, and their territory, 
 if not included within Bashan, evidently ad- 
 joined it. Though (i Chron. ii. 23) Jair the 
 son of Manasseh “took Geshur,” yet (Josh, 
 xiii. 13) the Geshurites were not expelled, but 
 dwelt among the Israelites. Probably they 
 occupied some corner of the impregnable 
 district of Argob, with which they are here 
 connected. Hence we read (2 Sam. xv. 8) of 
 “ Geshur in Aram” or “in the high ground,” 
 rendered in A. V. Syria. The Geshurites main- 
 tained themselves, probably as a tributary 
 principality, even in the times of the kings. 
 David married Maachah “the daughter of 
 Talmai king of Geshur” (2 Sam. iii. 3), and 
 was by her the father of Absalom. 
 
 Maachathi] The mention of this people 
 both here and in Joshua xii. and xiii. /. c. 
 with the Geshurites points to a connection 
 between the peoples ; and this, since the name 
 Maachah was borne by the daughter of Talmai 
 king of Geshur, may have been more than a 
 local one. Like Geshur, Maachah is con- 
 nected with Aram (i Chron. xix. 6, 7); and 
 had a king in later times who allied himself 
 with the Ammonites against David. The 
 
V. 15—22.] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. III. 
 
 815 
 
 15 And I gave Gilead unto Ma- 
 ch ir. 
 
 16 And unto the Reubenites and 
 unto the Gadites I gave from Gilead 
 even unto the river Arnon half the 
 valley, and the border even unto the 
 river Jabbok, zvhich is the border of 
 the children of Ammon ; 
 
 17 The plain also, and Jordan, and 
 the coast thereof^ from Chinnereth 
 even unto the sea of the plain, even 
 
 " c>r, the salt sea, “ under Ashdoth-pis^ah 
 
 mider ike ’ o 
 
 springs of eastward. 
 
 18 ^ And I commanded you at 
 
 lull. time,, saying. The Lord your 
 
 God hath given you this land to pos- 
 /Numb. gggg jj. . /yg shall pass over armed 
 
 32. 20, J ^ 
 
 before your brethren the children of 
 t Heb Israel, all that are ^ meet for the war. 
 ^o-jjer. ig But your wivcs, and your little 
 
 ones, and your cattle, (/br I know 
 that ye have much cattle,) shall abide 
 in your cities which 1 have given you 
 
 20 Until the Lord have given 
 rest unto your brethren, as well as 
 unto you, and anti/ they also pos- 
 sess the land which the Lord your 
 God hath given them beyond Jordan : 
 and then shall ye ^ return every man ^ Josh. 22. 
 unto his possession, which I have given 
 
 you. 
 
 21 And commanded Joshua 
 
 at that time, saying. Thine eyes have ' 
 seen all that the Lord your God hath 
 done unto these two kings : so shall 
 the Lord do unto all the kingdoms 
 whither thou passest. 
 
 22 Ye shall not fear them: for 
 the Lord your God he shall fight for 
 you. 
 
 eiact position of Maachah like that of Ge- 
 sl'.ur cannot be ascertained ; but was no 
 doubt amongst the fastnesses which lay be- 
 tween Bashan and the kingdom of Damas- 
 cus, and on the skirts of mount Hermon. 
 
 unto this day\ This expression, frequent 
 in Genesis, is not found in Exodus and 
 the two following books. It may be a 
 gloss inserted here by an after hand, but 
 it does not as used in the Bible necessarily 
 imply that the time spoken of as elapsed is 
 long. It amounts to no more than our “ un- 
 til now.” In Josh. xxii. 3 it denotes the few 
 m.onths during which the two tribes and a 
 half had assisted their brethren in the con- 
 quest of the land westward of Jordan: and 
 in Josh, xxiii. 9, refers to the period that had 
 passed from the beginning of the victories of 
 the Israelites to the close of Joshua’s life. It 
 may then be used in the text to denote the 
 duration to the time then present of what 
 had been already some months accomplished. 
 Moses dwells, -vn]. 13, 14, on the complete- 
 ness of that part of the conquest which had 
 been achieved ; and winds up his accumulation 
 of particulars, “all Bashan,” “all Argob,” 
 &c., with the statement that Jair had so 
 thoroughly made himself master of the cities 
 of the district as that they were now currently 
 known by his name. 
 
 16 . from Gilead e'ven unto the ri'ver Arnon 
 half the noalley ^ and the border even unto the 
 river Jabbok] TThe words “and the border,” 
 i.e. “and its border,” belong, as in Num. 
 xxxiv. 6, to the preceding context. The sense 
 is that the Reubenites and Gadites were to 
 possess the district from the Jabbok on the 
 
 north to the Arnon on the south, including 
 the middle part of the valley of the Arnon, 
 and the territory (“coast” or “border”) 
 thereto pertaining. I'hus these tribes who had 
 “much cattle,” v. 19, were provided with 
 free access to the Avater, and with the valuable 
 though narrow strip of green pasture along 
 the side of the brook. The gorge of Arnon, 
 about eighty miles in length, is for the most 
 part about two m.iles wide. So in the next 
 V. the words “and the coast,” lit. “the 
 boundary,” are added similarly to the Jordan, 
 and mean that the valley and bank on their 
 own side of the stream were included in the 
 portion of the two tribes. 
 
 the border of the children of Ammon] The 
 Jabbok in its earlier course divided the two 
 tribes from the Ammonites, in its later from 
 Bashan. 
 
 17 . under Ashdoth-pisgah] It is doubt- 
 ful whether these words form a proper name 
 or not. The Avord {ashdoth) is translated 
 “springs” iv. 49, and Josh. x. 40 and xii. 8, 
 though in Josh. xii. 3 it is again treated as 
 a proper name. It is derived from a root 
 signifying “to pour forth,” and signifies “the 
 pourings forth” of the torrents, i.e. the ravines 
 down which the torrents find their way to 
 the loAv grounds. Thus the words may signify 
 “ under the slopes of Pisgah towards the east,” 
 and are added to define somewhat more ac- 
 curately the portion of the -Arabah allotted to 
 the two tribes. 
 
 On “Pisgah” or '■'■the Pisgah,” for the 
 word is always used with the article, and may 
 (as marg.) be rendered “the hill:” see Num. 
 xxi. 20. 
 
 3 F 2 
 
8i6 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. III. IV. 
 
 [v. 23—1. 
 
 * Numb. 
 20. 12. 
 chap. I. 
 37 - 
 
 nor, 
 the hill. 
 
 23 And I besought the Lord at 
 that time, saying, 
 
 24. O Lord God, thou hast begun 
 to shew thy servant thy greatness, 
 and thy mighty hand : for what God 
 is there in heaven or in earth, that can 
 do according to thy works, and ac- 
 cording to thy might ? 
 
 25 1 pray thee, let me go over, 
 and see the good land that is beyond 
 Jordan, that goodly mountain, and 
 Lebanon. 
 
 26 But the Lord ^’was wroth with 
 me for your sakes, and would not 
 hear me : and the Lord said unto 
 me. Let it suffice thee ; speak no 
 more unto me of this matter. 
 
 27 Get thee up into the top of 
 " Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes west- 
 
 ward, and northward, and southward, 
 and eastward, and behold it v/ith thine 
 eyes : for thou shalt not go over this 
 Jordan. 
 
 28 But charge Joshua, and encou- 
 rage him, and strengthen him : for he 
 shall go over before this people, and 
 he shall cause them to inherit the land 
 which thou shalt see. 
 
 29 So we abode in the valley over 
 against Beth-peor. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 \ An exhortation to obedience. 41 Moses ap- 
 pointeth the three cities of refuge on that side 
 Jordan. 
 
 N ' OW therefore hearken, O Is- 
 rael, unto the statutes and un- 
 to the judgments, which I teach you, 
 for to do themj that ye may live, and 
 
 25 . that goodly mountain'] i.e. that moun- 
 tainous district. The flat districts of the East 
 are generally scorched, destitute of water, 
 and therefore sterile: the hilly ones, on the 
 contrary, are of more ternpered climate, and 
 fertilized by the streams from the high 
 grounds. It was, more especially perhaps to 
 the mind of one who had wandered so long 
 in the desert, part of the attractions of the 
 promised land that it was a mountain coun- 
 try. Cf. xi. II, “but the land whither ye 
 go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys, 
 and drinketh water of the rain of heaven.” 
 
 The whole of this prayer of Moses is very 
 characteristic. The longing to witness further 
 manifestations of God’s goodness and glory, 
 and the reluctance to leave unfinished an un- 
 dertaking which he had been permitted to 
 commence, are striking traits in his charac- 
 ter: cf. Ex. xxxii. 3Z sq., xxxiii. 12, 18 sq. ; 
 Num. xiv. 12 sq. 
 
 26 . the Lord ^joas ^vroth njoith me for 
 your sakes] Here, as in i. 37 and iv. 21, the sin 
 of the people is stated to be the ground on 
 which Moses’ prayer is denied. In Num. xxvii. 
 14 and in Deut. xxxii. 51 the transgression 
 of Moses and Aaron themselves is assigned 
 as the cause of their punishment. Tlie rea- 
 son why one side of the transaction is put 
 forward in this place, and the other else- 
 where, is evident. Here Moses is addressing 
 the people, and mentions the punishment of 
 their leatlers as a most impressive warning to 
 them. And that the first and principal fault 
 was with the people is clear. Cf. Num. xx. 
 
 I — 13; and on ch. i. 37, 38. In ch. xxxii. and 
 Num. xxvii., God is addressing Moses, and 
 visits on him, as is fitting, not the sin of the 
 people but his own. 
 
 29 . So a.ve abode in the ‘valley over against 
 Beth-peor] Beth-peor, i.e. the house of Peor, 
 no doubt derived its name from a temple ojf 
 the Moabite god Peor which was there situ- 
 ated. It was no doubt near to Mount Peor 
 (Num. xxiii. 28), and also to the valley of 
 the Jordan. A notice in Eusebius places it 
 in the Wady Heshban, which has yet to 
 be explored by modern travellers. In this 
 valley the people must have been encamped 
 some time. Here it w^as, apparently, that the 
 transactions recorded in Num. xxviii — xxxiv. 
 took place ; here too the several discourses of 
 Moses, preserved to us in this book, were 
 delivered ; and somewhere in it (xxxiv. 6) he 
 was buried. 
 
 The V. before us marks a break in the 
 discourse, as does the similar verse at the end 
 of ch. ii. Moses hitherto had made mention 
 of the great acts of God on behalf of his 
 people, and reminded them of their own ill 
 return for His mercies. The next chapter, 
 though still belonging to the introductory 
 portion of the book, passes on to different 
 topics. 
 
 Chap. IV. After thus briefly revievring 
 the past, Moses proceeds in the present chap- 
 ter to matter of a directly didactic and 
 hortatory kind. His topics arise clearly and 
 forcibly out of the historical incidents he had 
 been rehearsing. God had done great things 
 for the people in the way both of mercies and 
 chastisements. Their duty thenceforward, and 
 their interest also, were plain — to abide firmly 
 by the covenant into which they had entered 
 with Him. “Now therefore hearken, O Israel, 
 unto the statutes, &c.” v. i sqq. This gene- 
 ral entreaty is pointed by special mention and 
 enforcement of the fundamental principles of 
 
V. 2 12.] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. IV. 
 
 817 
 
 go in and possess the land which 
 the Lord God of your fathers giveth 
 you. 
 
 « chap. 12. 2 "^Ye shali not add unto the 
 
 Josh I 7. word which I command you, nei- 
 Prov. 30. ther shall ye diminish ought from it, 
 Rev. 22. that ye may keep the commandments 
 of the Lord your God which I com- 
 mand you. 
 
 3 Your eyes have seen what the 
 
 because of ^ Baal-peor : for 
 all the men that followed Baal-peor, 
 the LoPvD thy God hath destroyed 
 them from among you. 
 
 4 But ye that did cleave unto the 
 Lord your God are alive every one 
 of you this day. 
 
 5 Behold, I have taught you sta- 
 tutes and judgments, even as the 
 Lord my God commanded me, that 
 ye should do so in the land whither 
 ye go to possess it. 
 
 6 Keep therefore and do them; 
 for this is your wisdom and your 
 understanding in the sight of the 
 nations, which shall hear ail these 
 statutes, and say. Surely this great 
 nation is a wise and understanding 
 people. 
 
 7 For what nation is there so great, 
 
 who hath God so nigh unto them, as 
 the Lord our God is in all things that 
 we call upon him for? 
 
 8 And what nation is there so great, 
 that hath statutes and judgments so 
 righteous as all this law, which I set 
 before you this day 
 
 9 Only take heed to thyself, and' 
 keep thy soul diligently, lest thou 
 forget the things which thine eyes 
 have seen, and lest they depart from 
 thy heart all the days of thy life : 
 but teach them thy sons, and thy 
 sons’ sons ; 
 
 10 Specially the day that thou 
 stoodest before the Lord thy God 
 in Horeb, when the Lord said unto 
 me. Gather me the people together, 
 and I will make them hear my words, 
 that they may learn to fear me all 
 the days that they shall live upon the 
 earth, and that they may teach their 
 children. 
 
 1 1 And ye came near and stood 
 under the mountain ; and the “^moun- 
 tain burned v/ith hre unto the ^ midst t Heb. 
 of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and 
 thick darkness. 
 
 12 And the Lord spake unto 
 you out of the midst of the fire : ve 
 
 the whole covenant (gvnj. 9 — 40), the spiritual 
 nature of the Deity, His exclusive right to 
 their allegiance, His abhorrence of idolatry 
 in every form, His choice of them for His 
 elect people. These same teachings are much 
 more copiously and elaborately insisted on in 
 Moses’ third and last address ch. xxvii — xxx. 
 (Cf. Introd. § li.); and appear in this one in 
 the form of prelude and introduction to the 
 fuller treatment which awaits them hereafter. 
 Yet they follow so naturally on the history 
 just narrated, that the orator could not, so to 
 say, pass from it, even for a 'time, without 
 pausing to urge them, through a few weighty 
 sentences, in their more obvious bearings. 
 
 10, 11. Render, at the time that thou 
 stoodest, &c. (ii) then ye came near, 
 &c. The word “specially” is needlessly 
 introduced in the A. V., and the Hebrew 
 word rendered “the day” is merely an ad- 
 verbial accusative; equivalent to “at what 
 time;” and introduces a new sentence which is 
 continued in the 'l’t.'. ii — 13. Moses, exhort- 
 ing to heedful observance of the law, strives 
 to renew the impressions of that tremendous 
 
 scene which attended its promulgation at 
 Sinai. 
 
 12 sqq. The following ‘vv. are designed 
 to proscribe idolatry in all its manifestations. 
 The corrupt worship of the ancient Oriental 
 nations may probably be traced back in its 
 ultimate analysis to two roots or principles, 
 the deification of ancestors or national leaders, 
 and veneration of the powers of nature. The 
 former is perhaps to be recognized in the 
 idolatry of Terah (Josh. xxiv. 2); of Laban 
 (Gen. xxxi. 19, 30, 32); and of Jacob's house- 
 hold (Gen. XXXV. 2). From this ancestral 
 corruption of the true religion, Abraham, 
 “ the father of the faithful,” was probably 
 called away. To guard against it, as is com- 
 monly supposed, the sepulchre of Moses was 
 kept secret from the people: (ch. xxxiv. 6; 
 but see note in loc.'). Not unconnected with 
 this tendency to hero-worship was perhaps 
 the idolatry practised in reference to Gideon’s 
 ephod (Judg. viii. 27); the worship of the 
 brazen serpent in later times (2 Kings xviii. 4); 
 and the teraphim of Micah (Judg. xvii. 4, 5). 
 The other kind of idolatry, nature-worship. 
 
8i8 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. IV. 
 
 [v. 13— 21. 
 
 tHeb. 
 saz’e a 
 voice. 
 
 heard the voice of the vv^ords, but 
 saw no similitude j • ^ only ye heard a 
 voice. 
 
 13 And he declared unto you his 
 covenant, which he commanded you 
 to perform, even ten commandments ; 
 and he wrote them upon two tables 
 of stone. 
 
 14 ^ And the Lord commanded 
 me at that time to teach you sta- 
 tutes and judgments, that ye might 
 do them in the land whither ye go 
 over to possess it. 
 
 15 Take ye therefore good heed 
 unto yourselves ; for ye saw no man- 
 ner of similitude on the day that the 
 Lord spake unto you in Horeb out 
 of the midst of the fire : 
 
 16 Lest ye corrupt yourselves.^ and 
 make you a graven image, the simi- 
 litude of any figure, the likeness of 
 male or female, 
 
 17 The likeness of any beast that 
 
 Is on the earth, the likeness of any 
 winged fowl that fiieth in the air, 
 
 18 The likeness of any thing that 
 creepeth on the ground, the likeness 
 of any fish that is in the waters be- 
 neath the earth : 
 
 19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes 
 unto heaven, and when thou seest 
 the sun, and the moon, and the stars, 
 even all the host of heaven, shouldest 
 be driven to worship them, and serve 
 them, which the Lord thy God hath 
 " divided unto all nations under the 
 whole heaven. 
 
 20 But the Lord hath taken you, 
 and brought you forth out of the iron 
 furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto 
 him a people of inheritance, as ye are 
 this day. 
 
 21 Furthermore the Lord was 
 angry with me for your sakes, and 
 sware that I should not go over Jor- 
 
 ROr, 
 
 imparted. 
 
 dan, and that I should not 
 
 go 
 
 in 
 
 was widely spread through the East, and 
 forms in various aspects and degrees an ele- 
 ment in the religious sentiment of Arabians, 
 Phoenicians, Persians, Chaldees, and Egyp- 
 tians. Hero-worship exhibited itself in the 
 practice of setting up images of human form 
 as household gods (Penates), or as local 
 and civic divinities: a practice forbidden by 
 'V. 16. Nat lire- worship in its baser shapes 
 is seen in the Egyptian idolatry of animals 
 and animal figures, condemned in 17, 18: 
 whilst its less ignoble flights, the worship of 
 the sun, moon, and stars, are forbidden in 
 -u. 19. The latter was practised by the an- 
 cient Persians (Herod, i. 131), and by other 
 oriental nations who rejected anthropomorphic 
 idolatry. It was formally introduced and 
 made popular in Israel only, as it seems, in 
 the times of the later kings; but it cannot 
 have been unknown to Moses and the Jews 
 of his times, since it was undoubtedly prac- 
 tised by many of the tribes with whom they 
 had come in contact. The great legislator 
 then may be regarded as taking in the pas- 
 sage before us a complete and comprehensive 
 survey of the various forms of idolatrous 
 and corrupt worship practised by the sur- 
 rounding oriental nations, and as particu- 
 larly and successively forbidding them every 
 one. 'Phe chosen people of God are not to 
 regard with superstitious reverence one of 
 their own race, male or female: nor to fall 
 into the low nature-worship of which they 
 had seen so much in Egypt, and to which 
 
 they had once since, in the sin of the golden 
 calf, shown a bias; nor yet to be beguiled by 
 the more subtle cosmic religionism of some of 
 the Syrian tribes with which on their march 
 they had made acquaintance. These did not 
 indeed make gods for themselves; but they 
 “ worshipped and served the creature more 
 than the Creator,” addressed themselves to 
 inferior objects, not to Him Himself, and so 
 were idolaters still. God is not to be wor- 
 shipped under any visible image and form, 
 whether made by man for the purpose, or 
 created by Himself for man’s service. God 
 had been manifested to them through no me- 
 dia of shape and figure : through no such 
 media was He therefore to be sought. 
 
 19 . <ivhich the Lord thy God hath di- 
 vided unto all nations'] i.e. “whose light Gpd 
 has distributed to the nations for their use 
 and benefit, ;ind which therefore being crea- 
 tures ministering to man's convenience must 
 not be worshipped as man’s lords.” So Targg., 
 Jarchi, Saad., Jerome, Bp. Wordsworth, &c. 
 Others regard this passage as importing that 
 God had allotted the heavenly bodies to the 
 heathen for worship, and that His own people 
 therefore must not worship them. This sense , 
 though current as long ago as the time of 
 Justin Martyr (‘D. cum Tryph.’ § 55 and 
 1 2 1, and Clemens Alex. ‘Strom.’ vi. 14), and 
 preferred by many modern critics (Knobel, 
 Keil), is by no means apposite. 
 
 21 . Cf. iii. 26, and note. 
 
V. 2 2 3^'] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. IV. 
 
 chap. 9, 
 3 - 
 
 Hebr. 12. 
 29. 
 
 819 
 
 unto that good land, which the Lord 
 thy God giveth thee for an inherit- 
 ance : 
 
 22 But I must die in this land, 
 I must not go over Jordan : but ye 
 shall go over, and possess that good 
 land. 
 
 23 Take heed unto yourselves, 
 lest ye forget the covenant of the 
 Lord your God, which he made 
 with you, and make you a. graven 
 image, or the likeness of any things 
 which the Lord thy God hath for- 
 bidden thee. 
 
 24 For the ^Lord thy God Is a 
 consuming fire, even a jealous God. 
 
 25 ^ When thou shalt beget chil- 
 dren, and children’s children, and ye 
 shall have remained long in the land, 
 and shall corrupt yourselves^ and make 
 a graven image, or the likeness of any 
 things and shall do evil in the sight of 
 the Lord thy God, to provoke him 
 to anger ; 
 
 26 I call heaven and earth to wit- 
 ness against you this day, that ye 
 shall soon utterly perish from off the 
 land v/hereunto ye go over Jordan to 
 possess it ; ye shall not prolong your 
 days upon it, but shall utterly be de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 27 And the Lord shall scatter you 
 among the nations, and ye shall be 
 left few in number among the hea- 
 then, whither the Lord shall lead you. 
 
 28 And there ye shall serve gods, 
 the work of men’s hands, wood and 
 stone, which neither see, nor hear, 
 nor eat, nor smell. 
 
 29 But if from thence thou shalt 
 seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt 
 
 find him^ if' thou seek him with all 
 thy heart and with all thy soul. 
 
 30 When thou art in tribulation, 
 and all these thinp-s ^ are come upon 
 thee, even in the latter days, if thou foimd 
 turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt 
 
 be obedient unto his voice ; 
 
 31 (For the Lord thy God is a 
 merciful God ;) he will not forsake 
 thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget 
 the covenant of thy fathers which he 
 sware unto them. 
 
 32 For ask now of the days that 
 are past, which were before thee, 
 since the day that God created man 
 upon the earth, and ask from the one 
 side of heaven unto the other, whe- 
 ther there hath been any such thing 
 as this great thing /j, or hath been 
 heard like it ? 
 
 33 Did ever people hear the voice 
 of God speaking out of the midst of 
 the fire, as thou hast heard, and live ? 
 
 34 Or hath God assayed to go and 
 take him a nation from the midst of 
 another nation, by temptations, by 
 signs, and by wonders, and by war, 
 and by a mighty hand, and by a 
 stretched out arm, and by great ter- ^ 
 rors, according to all that the Lord 
 your God did for you in Egypt before 
 your eyes ? 
 
 35 Unto thee it was shewed, that 
 thou mightest know that the Lord he 
 is God ; there is none else beside him. 
 
 36 Out of heaven he made thee 
 to hear his voice, that he might in- 
 struct thee : and upon earth he shew- 
 ed thee his great fire ; and thou 
 heardest his words out of the midst 
 of the fire. 
 
 25 - 28 . The warnings against idolatry are 
 enforced by distinct prediction of*the terrible 
 punishments which would ensue on commis- 
 sion of it. Cf. with these verses Lev. xxvi. 
 33 — 40, and chap, xxviii. 64 sqq. 
 
 29 — 40 . Unwilling, as it might seem, to 
 close his discourse with words of terror, 
 Moses makes a last appeal to them in these 
 'vu. in a different strain. He calls on them to 
 cleave steadfastly to God because God had 
 given them evidences of His Deity and His 
 power such as had been vouchsafed to no 
 
 others ; and had worked and would still work 
 no less singular deliverances for them, having 
 chosen them out to be His own people. 
 
 34 . by temptations] Cf. vii. 18, 19, and 
 xxix. a, 3. From a comparison of these pas- 
 sages it appears that we must refer the word 
 “temptations” (as does Gesen.), not to the 
 tribulations and persecutions undergone by 
 the Israelites, but to the plagues miraculously 
 inflicted on the Egyptians. By these plagues 
 the might of God and the obstinacy of Pha- 
 raoh were at once tested and manifested. 
 
820 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. IV. 
 
 [v. 37—45- 
 
 37 And because he loved thy fa- 
 thers, therefore he chose their seed 
 after them, and brought thee out in 
 his sight with his mighty power out 
 of Egypt ; 
 
 38 To drive out nations from be- 
 fore thee greater and mightier than 
 thou art^ to bring thee in, to give 
 thee their land for an inheritance, as 
 it is this day. 
 
 39 Know therefore this day, and 
 consider it in thine heart, that the 
 Lord he is God in heaven above, and 
 upon the earth beneath : there is none 
 else. 
 
 40 Thou shalt keep therefore his 
 statutes, and his commandments, 
 which I command thee this day, that 
 it may go well with thee, and with 
 thy children after thee, and that thou 
 
 mayest prolong thy days upon the 
 earth, which the Lord thy God giv- 
 eth thee, for ever. 
 
 41 ^ Then Moses severed three 
 cities on this side Jordan toward the 
 sunrising ; 
 
 42 That the slayer might flee thi- 
 ther, which should kill his neighbour 
 unawares, and hated him not in times 
 past ; and that fleeing unto one of 
 these cities he might live ; 
 
 43 Nainely^ ^ Bezer in the wilder- ^ Josh, 
 ness, in the plain country, of the 
 Reubenites ; and Ramoth in Gilead, 
 
 of the Gadites ; and Golan in Bashan, 
 of the Manas^ites. 
 
 44 And this is the law which 
 Moses set before the children of Is- 
 rael : 
 
 45 These are the testimonies, and 
 
 37 . he chose their seed after theni\ Lit. 
 “ his seed after himP Though Moses begins 
 the n). by setting forth the love of God to 
 the “ fathers” of the nation as the foundation 
 of His election of their posterity (cf. ix. 5 
 and X. 15), yet he proceeds in the singular 
 number to speak of “ his seed after him.^"' The 
 assumption of corruption in the text is quite 
 ♦ arbitrary. Speaking of the love of God to 
 their fathers in general, Moses has more especi- 
 ally in mind that one of them who was called 
 “the Friend of God” (St James ii. 23); and 
 instinctively, so to say, constructs the sen- 
 tence accordingly. 
 
 brought thee out in his sight] Lit. “by 
 His face.” i.e. by the might of His personal 
 presence: cf. Exod. xxxiii. 14, where God 
 promises to Moses “My presence (lit. ‘my 
 face ’) shall go with thee.” 
 
 41 — 43 . Many of the older commentators 
 {e.g. Calmet, Houbigant, &c.), unable to see 
 any propriety or relevancy in these as at 
 present placed, have regarded them as an in- 
 terpolation. There is however no reason to 
 depart from the view suggested alike by their 
 contents and context. The nj'v. preceding are 
 clearly the conclusion, as those succeeding are 
 the exordium, of a distinct and complete dis- 
 course. 'J'hese 'w.^ then, are inserted between 
 the two simply for the reason to which they 
 themselves call attention {‘•'‘Then Moses severed 
 three cities.” &c.); i.e. the fact narrated took 
 place historically after .Moses spoke the one 
 discourse and before he delivered the other. 
 In thus severing the three cities of refuge 
 Moses carried out a previous command of 
 God, Num. XXXV. 14; and so followed up his 
 
 exhortations to obedience by setting a punc- 
 tual example of it, as far as opportunity was 
 given him. 
 
 43 . Be%er in the ^uilderness.1 in the plain 
 country] On the “wilderness,” see chap. i. i. 
 “In the plain country,” lit. “in the land of 
 the Mishor.’’"' The word means a level tract 
 of land; but when used, as here and in iii. 10, 
 Josh. xiii. 9, &c. with the article, seems to be 
 a proper name, as it is treated by the LXX. 
 
 It denotes the smooth downs of Moab, which 
 reach from the Jordan eastward of Jericho 
 far into the desert of Arabia, and which 
 form a striking contrast alike to the rugged 
 country west of the river, and to the higher 
 and remarkable districts belonging to Bashan 
 northwards. 
 
 Bezer is, with little certainty, identified 
 with Bostra, or (i Macc. v. 36) Bosor. 
 
 Ramoth in Gilead] Identical with Ramoth 
 Mizpeh, Josh. xiii. 26; where see note. 
 
 Golan] Described by Jerome after Euse- 
 bius as “villa priegrandis ; ” it subsequently 
 gave the name of Gaulonitis to a district of 
 some extent east of the sea of Galilee and 
 north of tl* Hieromax ; but the exact site of 
 the city is uncertain. 
 
 44 — 49. These 'w. would be more pro- 
 perly assigned to the next chapter. They 
 are intended to serve, not as a conclusion to 
 the first introductory and preparatory dis- 
 course which has been recorded (Rosen- 
 mUller), but as the announcement and in- 
 troduction of the one now to be commenced. 
 
 F. 44 gives a kind of general title to the 
 whole of the weighty address, including in 
 fact the central part and substance of the ^ 
 
V. 46 — 3 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. IV. V. 
 
 821 
 
 y Numb. 
 21. 24. 
 chap. I. . 
 
 Numb. 
 21 - 33 - 
 chap. 3. : 
 
 the statutes, and the judgments, which 
 Moses spake unto the children of 
 Israel, after they came forth out of 
 Egypt, 
 
 46 On this side Jordan, in the 
 valley over against Beth-peor, in the 
 land of Sihon king of the Amorites, 
 who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses 
 and the children of Israel smote, 
 after they were come forth out of 
 Egypt : 
 
 47 And they possessed his land, 
 and the land ^ of Og king of Bashan, 
 two kings of the Amorites, v/hich 
 7irr^ On this side Jordan toward the 
 sunrising ; 
 
 48 From Aroer, which is by the • 
 bank of the river Arnon, even unto 
 mount Sion, which is Hermon, 
 
 49 And all the plain on this side 
 
 Jordan eastward, even unto the sea 
 
 of the plain, under the springs of chap. 3. 
 
 Pisgah. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I T//e covenant in Ifo7'eb. 6 The tc7i co77i- 
 I7ia7id/7ie7its. I'l At the people's 7'equest Moses 
 receiveth the law f7'077i God. 
 
 ND Moses called all Israel, and 
 said unto them. Hear, O Israel, 
 the statutes and judgments which I 
 speak in your ears this day, that ye 
 may learn them, and Teep, and do 
 them. 
 
 2 ^The Lord our God made a 
 covenant with us in Horeb. 
 
 3 The Lord made not this cove- 
 nant with our fathers, but with us, 
 even us, who are all of us here alive 
 this day. 
 
 t Heb. 
 keep to do 
 them. 
 
 ^ Exod. 19. 
 
 5. 
 
 book, which now follows in twenty-two 
 chapters ; cf. Introd. § ii. These chapters 
 may be divided into two groups, the former 
 consisting of ch. v. — xi., the latter of ch. 
 xii. — xxvi. inclusive. The former division com- 
 mences with a repetition of the Ten Words, 
 which appropriately occupy here, not less 
 than at their first announcement in Exodus, 
 the forefront of the whole legislative system 
 as its leading and essential principles. Amongst 
 these Ten W ords the first two might, under 
 the circumstances, be justly regarded as “first 
 and great commandments;” and Moses ac- 
 cordingly makes application of them in some 
 detail to his audience, mingling warnings and 
 exhortations, through six chapters (vi. — xi.). 
 The second division (xii. — xxvi.) recounts the 
 principal laws and regulations which the 
 people were to observe in the land of their 
 inheritance. In -v. 45 this “ law ” (tborah') is 
 summarily described as consisting of “testi- 
 monies, statutes, and judgments i.e. com- 
 mandments considered first as manifestations 
 or attestations {eydoth') of the will of God ; 
 next as duties of moral obligation {khuklni).^ 
 and, thirdly, as precepts securing the mutual 
 rights of men (mis bp at 1771). See on these last 
 two words Levit. xviii. 4, 5. This statement 
 of the contents of the succeeding portion of 
 the book is accompanied by a notice of time 
 and place : “ after they came forth out of 
 Egypt,” lit., and more accurately, their 
 coming forth :” i. e. whilst they were yet on 
 their march from the house of bondage to the 
 Promised Land; but “in the land of Sihon,” 
 *1;. 46 ; and so when they had already received 
 the first fruits of those . promises, the full 
 fruition of which was to be consequent on 
 
 their fulfilmeflt of that covenant now' again 
 about to be rehearsed to them in its leading 
 features. 
 
 48 . Tnount Sion., ojobicb is HerTnon'] See 
 note on iii. 9. The name Zion (cf. Ps. xlviii. 
 2) connected with Jerusalem is quite different- 
 ly spelt in the original from the Sion of the text. 
 
 • 
 
 Chap. V. Moses now proceeds vrith the 
 Deuteronomy or Second Law itself: i.e. with 
 that recapitulation of the Sinaitic code in all 
 its more important features which was sug- 
 gested at once by the fact that the generation 
 to which it was originally given was now 
 dead ; by the change which was about to be 
 accomplished in the circumstances of Israel 
 through their actual entrance and settlement 
 in the land of promise; and by the approach- 
 ing decease of the great lawgiver who had 
 been the mediator of the covenant, and whose 
 authority had hitherto been available for its 
 explanation and enforcement. 
 
 1. And Moses called all Israel, a 7 id saiT\ 
 This more emphatic introductory formula in- 
 stead of the simpler and ordinary “And Mo- 
 ses said,” points to the publicity and import- 
 ance of the discourse which follows. 
 
 3 . Tbe Lord made not this coojenant ^euitb 
 our fathers, but ^witb us, even us, vuho are all 
 of us here alive tins day\ The “fathers” 
 here intended are, as in iv. 37, the patriarchs, 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. With them 
 God did indeed make a covenant, but not the 
 particular covenant now in question. The 
 responsibilities of this later covenant, made at 
 Sinai by the nation as a nation, attached in 
 their day and generation to those whom Moses 
 was addressing. 
 
822 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. V. 
 
 [v. 4 — 14 . 
 
 4 The Lord talked with you face 
 to face in the mount out of the midst 
 of the fire, 
 
 5 (I stood between the Lord and 
 vou at that time^ to shew you the 
 word of the Lord : for ye were afraid 
 by reason of the fire, and went not up 
 into the mount;) saying, 
 
 ^Exod. 20. 6 ^ am the Lord thy God, 
 
 Le^.'^T I. which brought thee out of the land 
 Rsai. 81. qP Egypt, from the house of ^ bondage, 
 t Heb. n 'Lhou shalt have none other gods 
 
 servants , , /• ° 
 
 before me= 
 
 8 Thou shalt not make thee any 
 graven image, or any likeness of any 
 thing that is in heaven above, or that 
 is in the earth beneath, or that is in • 
 the v/aters beneath the earth : 
 
 9 Thou shalt not bow down thy- 
 self unto them, nor serve them : for 
 
 I the Lord thy God am a jealous 
 God, ^visiting the iniquity of the fa-^Exod. 34. 
 thers upon the children unto the third 
 and fourth generation of them that 
 hate me, 
 
 10 "^And shewing mercy unto thou- 32- 
 sands of them that love me and keep 
 
 my commandments. 
 
 11 Thou shalt not take the name 
 of the Lord thy God in vain : for the 
 Lord will not hold him guiltless that 
 taketh his name in vain. 
 
 12 Keep the sabbath day to sanc- 
 tify it, as the Lord thy God hath 
 commanded thee. 
 
 13 Six days thou shalt labour, and 
 do all thy work : 
 
 14 But the seventh day is the 
 
 ^ sabbath of the Lord thy God : in ^ Gen. 2. 
 it thou shalt not do any work, thou, Heb. 4.4. 
 
 4 & 5 . The participle “saying” at the 
 end of n.\ 5 depends on the verb “tallced” 
 in 'v. 4. The intermediate part of t.’. 5 is 
 therefore parenthetic, as marked in the A. V. 
 It appears from 'v^j. 22 — 25 and from iv. ii, 
 12, that the Ten Words were uttered “with 
 a great voice” to the assembly from the 
 awful summit of ^he Mount itself ; whilst 
 the other precepts were communicated to the 
 people through the agency of Moses. It 
 appears from Exod. xix. 9, 17, 20, 24, that 
 whilst the people remained in the lower parts 
 of the mountain, Moses was from the first 
 called apart to God on the top of it. No 
 doubt whilst the great voice sounded forth 
 the “Ten Words,” he still remained there, 
 either to convey more certainly and exactly 
 what was uttered to the people standing far 
 oft' in consternation, or, as is suggested by 
 Exod. XX. 9, to authenticate his mission. 
 Even then, as regards the Decalogue, the 
 statement of -u. 5 has its application. Moses 
 “stood between the Lord and them” whilst 
 it was delivered; and perhaps it was (Exod. 
 xix. 19) addressed directly to Moses, though 
 in accents audible to the assembly beneath. 
 'Thus was the Law, including even the “Ten 
 AVords” “in the hand of a mediator” (Gal. 
 iii. 19). The diversity and the separation of 
 the jxirties to the Covenant, indicated all 
 along by the intervention of Moses, became 
 still more conspicuous after that the Lord, at‘ 
 the recpiest of the terrified people {y. 27), 
 ceased to speak so that they could hear Him 
 for themselves. 
 
 6 — 21. Repetition of the Ten Command- 
 ments. On the variations between the Com- 
 mandments as given here and in Exod. xx., 
 
 also on the different modes of dividing the 
 Commandments, and distributing them be- 
 tween the Two Tables, and other questions 
 connected with the Decalogue, see Exod. xx. 
 and notes at the end of that chapter. 
 
 Moses here adopts the Ten Words as a 
 ground from which he may proceed to re- 
 prove, warn, and exhort; and repeats them, 
 as is natural, where literal accuracy is not to 
 the purpose, with a measure of freedom and 
 adaptation. Our Lord (St Mark x. 19) and 
 St Paul (Eph. vi. 2, 3) deal similarly with the 
 same subject; as indeed preachers in all ages 
 have done. It is important, however, to note, 
 that in the course of thus freely quoting the 
 law, Moses thrice refers his hearers, to the 
 statutes of God themselves, nju. 12, 15, 16, “as 
 the Lord thy God hath commanded thee;” 
 i.e. commanded from Sinai. It is thus appa- 
 rent that speaker and hearers recognized a 
 statutory and authoritative form of the laws 
 in question, which, because it was familiar to 
 both parties, needed not to be reproduced 
 with verbal fidelity. 
 
 12 — 15 . In stating the purposes of the 
 Sabbath ordinance Moses introduces a few 
 words, originally applied in the same con- 
 nexion, from Exod. xxiii. 12 : and the exhorta- 
 tion to observe the Sabbath and allow their 
 time of rest to servants is pointed by remind- 
 ing the people that they too were formerly 
 servants themselves. The bondage in Egypt 
 and the deliverance from it are not assigned 
 as grounds for the institution of the Sabbath, 
 which is of far older date (see on Gen. ii. 3), 
 but rather as suggesting motives for the reli- 
 gious observance of that institution. The 
 exodus was an entrance into rest from the 
 
V. T 5 — 24 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. Y. 
 
 823 
 
 nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor 
 thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, 
 nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any 
 of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that 
 is within thy gates ; that thy man- 
 servant and thy maidservant may rest 
 as well as thou. 
 
 15 And remember that thou wast 
 a servant in the land of Egypt, and 
 that the Lord thy God brought thee 
 out thence through a mighty hand 
 and by a stretched out arm : therefore 
 the Lord thy God commanded thee 
 to keep the sabbath day. 
 
 16 ^ Honour thy father and thy 
 mother, as the Lord thy God hath 
 commanded thee ; that thy days may 
 be prolonged, and that it may go well 
 with thee, in the land which the Lord 
 thy God giveth thee. 
 
 '"Matt. 5. 17 -^Thou shalt not kill. 
 
 ? Luke 18. -^Neither shalt thou commit 
 
 20- adultery. 
 
 /^Rom. 13. ^'Neither shalt thou steal. 
 
 20 Neither shalt thou bear false 
 witness against thy neighbour. 
 
 21 ^’Neither shalt thou desire thy'^o"^-7- 
 neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou 
 covet thy neighbour’s house, his field, 
 
 or his manservant, or his maidservant, 
 his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is 
 •thy neighbour’s. 
 
 22 ^ These v/ords the Lord 
 spake unto all your assembly in the 
 mount out of the midst of the fire, 
 of the cloud, and of the thick dark- 
 ness, with a great voice : and he 
 added no more. And he wrote them 
 in two tables of stone, and delivered 
 them unto me. 
 
 23 And it came to pass, when ye 
 heard the voice out of the midst of 
 the darkness, (for the mountain did 
 burn with fire,) that ye came near 
 unto me, even all the heads of your 
 tribes, and, your elders ; 
 
 24 And ye said. Behold, the Lord 
 our God hath shewed us his glory 
 
 toils of the house of bondage, and is thought 
 even to have occurred on the Sabbath-day. 
 Hence arose special and national obligations 
 with respect to the Sabbath, on which it is 
 exactly within the .scope of Moses’ purpose 
 in Deuteronomy to insist. 
 
 16 . The blessing of general well-being is 
 here annexed to the keeping of the fifth Com- 
 mandment, as well as that of long life, which 
 alone is found in the parallel passage of Exodus. 
 The insertion, however, is no real addition to 
 the promise, -but only an amplification of its 
 expression, intended to serve the homiletic 
 purposes of the speaker. Long life would 
 present itself to the Jewish mind as one ele- 
 ment of well-being, and a very important one. 
 Here too Moses refers his hearers back to the 
 command of God in Exodus. 
 
 21. The tenth Commandment, as here 
 given, varies in three particulars from that in 
 Exodus. 
 
 (i) In Exod. the bouse is mentioned first, 
 the •zuife second: in Deut. the reverse. 
 
 (a) In Deut. a dilferent word is used in 
 reference to wife, (“thou shalt not desire, '' 
 thakmod, “thy neighbour’s wife”); and in re- 
 ference to the other objects, (“ neither shalt 
 thou covet,” hitba-v-veh, “thy neighbour’s 
 house, &c.”) 
 
 (3) In Deut. the “ field” is added to the 
 list of objects specifically forbidden to be de- 
 sired. 
 
 The first two variations are explained by 
 the general character of the passage before us. 
 The express mention of the “ field” amongst 
 the forbidden objects seems very natural in 
 one who was speaking with the partition of 
 Canaan amongst his hearers directly in view. 
 The LXX. has brought about an uniformity 
 as regards the second variation by altering 
 the text of Exodus after that of Deuteronomy ; 
 the Samaritan Pentateuch by altering Deute- 
 ronomy after Exodus. 
 
 22. be added no morei] Lit. “ He did not 
 add : ” i. e. He spoke no more with the great 
 voice directly to the people, but addressed all 
 other communications to them through Mo- 
 ses. The expression (Joydsapb: cf. Num. xi. 
 25) points to the occurrence as one that was 
 not repeated. This unique and sublim.e phe- 
 nomenon, followed up by the inscription of 
 the Ten Words on the Two Tables by the 
 finger of God, marks not only the holiness of 
 God’s Law in general, but the special emi- 
 nence and permanent obligation of the Ten 
 Words themselves as compared with the rest 
 of the Mosaic enactments. The giving of the 
 Two Tables did not take place until Moses 
 had been on the Mount forty days and forty 
 nights, as appears from the fuller account of 
 ix. 9 — 12. 
 
 23 — 33 . These contain a much fuller 
 narrative of the events described in Exod. 
 xx. t8 — 21. The reply of God to the request 
 
[v- 25—3. 
 
 824 DEUTERONOMY. V. VI. 
 
 /tExod.19. 2.nd his greatness, and '^’we have 
 heard his voice out of the midst of 
 the fire : we have seen this day that 
 God doth talk with man, and he 
 
 ^ chap. 4. ^liveth. 
 
 25 Now therefore why should we 
 die ? for this great fire will consume 
 
 : if we ^ hear the voice of the 
 /u’nr. Lord our God any more, then we 
 shall die. 
 
 26 For who is there of all flesh, 
 that hath heard the voice of the living 
 God speaking out of the midst of the 
 fire, as we have^ and lived ? 
 
 27 Go thou near, and hear all that 
 the Lord our God shall say : and 
 speak thou unto us all that the Lord 
 
 Exod. our God shall speak unto thee *, and 
 we will hear zV, and do it. 
 
 28 And the Lord heard the voice 
 of your words, when ye spake unto 
 me; and the Lord said unto me, I 
 have heard the voice of the words 
 of this people, which they have spoken 
 unto thee : they have well said all 
 that they have spoken. 
 
 29 O that there were such an 
 heart in them, that they would fear 
 me, and keep all my commandments 
 always, that it might be well with 
 them, and with their children for 
 ever ! 
 
 30 Go say to them. Get you into 
 your tents again. 
 
 ' 31 But as for thee, stand thou here 
 by me, and I v/ill speak unto thee 
 
 all the commandments, and the sta- 
 tutes, and the judgments, which thou 
 shalt teach them, that they may do 
 the 7 n in the land which I give them 
 to possess it. 
 
 32 Ye shall observe to do there- 
 fore as the Lord your God hath 
 commanded you : ye shall not turn 
 aside to the right hand or to the left. 
 
 33 Ye shall walk in all the ways 
 which the Lord your God hath com- 
 manded you, .that ye may live, and 
 that it may he well with you, and that 
 ye may prolong your days in the land 
 which ye shall possess. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I The end of the law is obedience. ^ An ex- 
 hoj'tation thei'eto. 
 
 N ’ OW these are the command- 
 ments, the statutes, and the 
 judgments, which the Lord your 
 God commanded to teach you, that 
 ye might do them in the land whi- 
 ther ye ^ go to possess it : 
 
 2 That thou mightest fear the 
 Lord thy God, to keep all his sta- 
 tutes 'and his commandments, which 
 I command thee, thou, and thy son, 
 and thy son’s son, all the days of thy 
 life ; and that thy days may be pro- 
 longed. 
 
 3 ^ Hear therefore, O Israel, and 
 observe to do it; that it may be 
 well with thee, and that ye may in- 
 crease mightily, as the Lord God 
 
 t Heb. 
 p:iss over. 
 
 of the people {yw. 28 — 31) is omitted alto- 
 gether in the historical summary of Exodus. 
 Here it is important to the speaker's purpose 
 to call attention to the fact that it was on 
 their own entreaty that he had taken on him 
 to be the channel of communication between 
 God and them. God approved (-f. 28) the 
 request of the people, because it showed a 
 feeling of their own imworthiness to enter 
 into direct communion with God. The ter- 
 rors of Sinai had done their work. They had 
 awakened tlie consciousness of sin. 
 
 Chap. VI. Moses having rehearsed the 
 Decalogue, and reminded the people of the 
 awful circum,stances by which its Divine origin 
 and authority were accredited, proceeds next 
 to set forth more particularly and to enforce 
 those cardinal and essential doctrines of it, 
 
 the nature and attributes of God, and the 
 fitting mode of honouring and worshipping 
 Him. Two objects are indicated (yw. 2, 3) 
 as sought by the lawgiver in thus expound- 
 ing anew these im.portant duties. He aims 
 at awakening a holy fear of God in the heart 
 of his people, a fear which shall manifest it- 
 self in steadfast fulfilment of the CovenaM; 
 and he seeks no less the temporal prosperity 
 of Israel, which is shown as a certain result 
 upon such fidelity. Thus the glory of God 
 and the welfare of man are seen to be the 
 grand ends he has in view. 
 
 1. the- commandments'] Lit. “command- 
 ment,” for the noun is singular. It is thus 
 equivalent to the “ thorah” of iv. 44, and is 
 explained in the context as consisting of 
 “statutes and judgments.” 
 
V. 4 — 9 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. VI. 
 
 of thy fathers hath promised thee, in 
 the land that floweth wdth milk and 
 honey. 
 
 4 Hear, O Israel : The Lord our 
 God is one Lord : 
 
 fi^chap. lo. 5 And ^thou shalt love the Lord 
 M att. 22. thy God with all thine heart, and 
 Mark i-’ witli all thy soul, and with all thy 
 3 ^- might. 
 
 ^7! ^ 6 And ^ these words, which I com- 
 
 ^^chap. II. |3g thine 
 
 heart : 
 
 825 
 
 7 And thou shalt Heach them dili- 
 gently unto thy children, and shalt sharpen. 
 talk of them when thou sittest in 
 thine house, and when thou walkest 
 
 by the way, and when thou liest down, 
 and when thou risest up. 
 
 8 And thou shalt bind them for a 
 sign upon thine hand, and they shall 
 be as frontlets between thine eyes. 
 
 9 And thou shalt v/rite them upon 
 the posts of thy house, and on thy 
 gates. 
 
 3. hi the land^ There is no prep, in the 
 Hebrew. It seems better to regard the words 
 “ the land, &c.” simply as an explanatory 
 clause. According as the Lord the God 
 of thy fathers promised thee a land 
 flowing with milk and honey. 
 
 4 . Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one 
 Lord\ These words form the beginning of 
 what is termed the Shama (“ Hear”) in the 
 Jewish Services, and belong to the daily 
 Morning and Evening office. They may in- 
 deed be termed the Creed of the Jews. Their 
 expression is in the original singularly terse 
 and forcible. “ Jehovah our Elohim, Jeho- 
 vah one.” Their very brevity opens them to 
 different constructions; e.g. “ the Lord is our 
 God, the Lord alone:” “the Lord our God, 
 namely, the Lord, is one:” “the Lord, the 
 Lord only, is our God.” The rendering of 
 A. V. is on all grounds the best. 
 
 This weighty text contains for more than 
 a mere declaration of the unity of God as 
 against polytheism; or of the sole authority 
 of the revelation He had made to Israel as 
 against other pretended manifestations of His 
 will and attributes. It asserts that the Lord 
 God of Israel is absolutely God, and none 
 other. He, and He alone, is Jehovah the 
 absolute, uncaused God ; He who had by His 
 election of them made Himself known to 
 Israel. 
 
 The last letter of the first and last words of 
 this verse are majusciila in the original, i.e. 
 written larger than the ordinary size: being 
 the ninth and tenth which are so written in 
 the Hebrew of the Scriptures. These two 
 majuscula form together a word signifying 
 “ witness.” It is uncertain how this differ- 
 ence in writing originated. It may be in- 
 tentional, but of late date. It is construed 
 by the Jewish commentators as highly signifi- 
 cant. In this place it is held to import that 
 the utterance of this verse is to be account- 
 ed a witness for the faith ; or that God is a 
 witness of the sincerity and earnestness of 
 him who utters it. 
 
 5 . As there is but one God, and that God 
 
 Israel’s God, so Israel must love God unre- 
 servedly and entirely. The specification “with 
 all thine heart, and wfith all thy soul, and with 
 all thy might,” is intended to include every 
 faculty that can possibly come in question. 
 The “ heart” is mentioned as the seat of the 
 understanding; the “soul” as the centre of 
 will and personality; the “might” as repre- 
 senting the outgoings and energies of all the 
 vital powers. 
 
 The command of the text cannot be sur- 
 passed in comprehensiveness by any wffi.ich 
 God can give or man receive. The New 
 'I'estarnent itself can require no more than 
 this total self-surrender of man’s being to 
 his Maker. It is then a very imperfect con- 
 ception of the scope of the text, and not 
 less so of the nature of the service required 
 from God’s people of old, to limit it to out- 
 ward and ceremonial obedience (as Olsh. on 
 St Matt. xxii. 37). The Gospel differs from 
 the law not so much in replacing an external 
 and carnal service of God by an inward and 
 spiritual one, as in supplying new motives 
 and peculiar assistances for the attainment of 
 that Divine love which was from the first and 
 all along enjoined as “the first and great 
 commandment.” 
 
 8 and 9 . Here as elsewhere Moses turns to 
 account usages widely spread in his times, and 
 still common in the East. The ancient Egyp- 
 tians commonly wore amulets of various 
 kinds; some, “consisting of words written 
 on folds of papyrus tightly rolled up and 
 sown in linen,” have been found at Thebes 
 (Wilkinson, ‘A.E.’ 111.364); and the modern 
 Egyptians still continue the practice (Lane, 
 ‘Mod. Egypt,’ I. 338). The “pillows,” 
 spoken of Ezek. xiii. 18 as “sown to arm- 
 holes” were probably amulets of an idola- 
 trous character. The wearing of amulets 
 engraved with a sacred symbol or motto, and 
 the inscribing of texts of the Koran on build- 
 ings, have been noticed by many modern 
 travellers. By adopting and regulating this 
 custom Moses provides at once a check on 
 superstition and a means of keeping the 
 
826 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. VI. 
 
 [v. lO 20. 
 
 10 And it shall be, v/hen the 
 LoR-D thy God shall have brought 
 thee into the land which he sware 
 unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to 
 Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great 
 and goodly cities, which thou build- 
 edst not, 
 
 11 And houses full of all good 
 things^ which thou filledst not, and 
 wells digged, which thou diggedst not, 
 vineyards and olive trees, v/hich thou 
 
 fchap. 8. plantedst not ; ‘^when thou shalt have 
 9 . lo. eaten and be full ; 
 
 12 The 7 i beware lest thou forget 
 the Lord, which brought thee forth 
 out of the land of Egypt, from the 
 
 tiieb. house of Tondage. 
 ov‘/ser-^’ 13 Thou shalt ^fear the Lord thy 
 ■^chlp. 10. God, and serve him, and shalt swear 
 name. 
 
 14 Ye shall not go after other gods, 
 of the gods of the people which are 
 round about you ; 
 
 15 (For the Lord thy. God is a 
 jealous God among you) lest the 
 anger of the Lord thy God be kin- 
 dled against thee, and destroy thee 
 from off the face of the earth. 
 
 16 ^ ^ Ye shall not tempt the ^ Matt. 4. 
 Lord your God, 7 as ye tempted him/^xoCi. n. 
 in Massah. 
 
 17 Ye shall diligently keep the 
 commandments of the Lord your 
 God, and his testimonies, and his 
 statutes, which he hath commanded 
 thee. 
 
 18 And thou shalt do that which 
 is right and good in the sight of the 
 Lord ; that it may be well with thee, 
 and that thou mayest go in and pos- 
 sess the good land which the Lord 
 sware unto thy fathers, 
 
 19 To cast out ail thine enemies 
 from before thee, as the Lord hath 
 spoken. 
 
 20 Jnd when thy son asketh thee 
 
 divine law in memory. On the “ frontlets” 
 {totaphotli)^ the “phylacteries” of the New 
 Test. (St Matt, xxiii. 5), see on Exod. xiii. 
 16. On I’. 9 and xi. 20 is based the Jewish 
 usage of the Mez.uzah. This word denotes 
 properly a door-post, as it is rendered here 
 and Ex. xii. 7, 22, 23, xxi. 6, &c. Amongst 
 the Jews however it is the name given to the 
 square piece of parchment, inscribed with 
 E)eut. vi. 4 — 9 and xi. 13 — 21, which is rolled 
 up in a small cylinder of wood or metal, and 
 affixed to the right-hand post of every door 
 in a Jewish house. The pious Jew touches 
 the Mezuzah on each occasion of passing, or 
 kisses his finger, and says in Hebrew Ps. cxxi. 
 8, “ The Lord shall preserve thy going out,” 
 &c. See Ginsburg in Alexander’s Edit, of 
 Kitto's Encyc. article Mezu%ah. 
 
 10 — 25 . Having stated thus emphatically 
 their primary duty towards God, Moses goes 
 on to add warnings and cautions. The per- 
 tinence and the necessity of these are derived 
 from the existing circumstances of the case. 
 The Israelites were on the point of quitting 
 a nomad life, in which they had lived in a 
 great degree aloof from other nations, for a 
 fixed and settled abode in the midst of them; 
 were exchanging a condition of comparative 
 poverty, in which they possessed nothing ex- 
 cept what they carried, for “ great and goodly 
 cities, houses full of all good things,” &c. 
 I'here was then before them a double danger; 
 that namely of a God-forgetting worldliness, 
 and that of a false tolerance of the idolatries 
 
 practised by those about to become their 
 neighbours. The former error Moses strives 
 to guard against in the njv. before us; the 
 latter in vii. i — ii. 
 
 13 . and serve him^ and shalt svjear by 
 his namely The LXX. here has “ Him 
 only shall thou serve, and to Him shalt thou 
 cleave, and by His Name shalt thou swear.” 
 The addition of fx 6 va, clearly implied in the 
 Hebrew, was probably mxade simply in order 
 to bring out the sense more forcibly. In this 
 particular the LXX. is follovv'ed by St Matt, 
 iv. 10. The clause “to Him shalt thou 
 cleave” is borrowed from the parallel passage 
 X. 20, which the LXX. gives word for word 
 the same as the verse before us. 
 
 The command “to swear by His Narne” 
 is not inconsistent with the Lord’s injunction 
 St Matt. V. 34, “Swear not at all.” Moses 
 refers to legal swearing, our Lord to swear- 
 ing in common conversation. It is not the 
 purpose of Moses to encourage the practice 
 of taking oaths, but to forbid that when 
 taken they should be taken in any other 
 name than that of Israel’s God. The oath 
 involves an invocation of Deity, and so a 
 solemn recognition of Him whose name is 
 made use of in it. Hence it comes peculiarly 
 wdthin the scope of the commandment Moses 
 is enforcing. 
 
 20 — 25 . These vv. describe more par- 
 ticularly the command already given, v. 7, 
 “ thou shalt teach these words, &c.” 
 
V. 21 — 6.] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. VI. VII. 
 
 ' Heb. ^ in time to come, saying, What mean 
 tomorrow. testimoiiies, and the statutes, and 
 the judgments, which the Lord our 
 God hath commanded you ? 
 
 21 Then thou shalt say unto thy 
 son. We were Pharaoh’s bondmen 
 in Egypt ; and the Lord brought us 
 out of Egypt with a mighty hand : 
 
 22 And the Lord shewed signs 
 and wonders, great and Uore, upon 
 
 • Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all 
 his household, before our eyes : 
 
 23 And he brought us out from 
 thence, that he might bring us in, to 
 give us the land which he sware unto 
 our fathers. 
 
 24 And the Lord commanded us 
 to do all these statutes, to fear the 
 Lord our God, for our good always, 
 that he might preserve us alive, as zV 
 is at this day. 
 
 25 And it shall be our righteous- 
 ness, if we observe to do all these 
 commandments before the Lord our 
 God, as he hath commanded us. 
 
 CHAPTER VIE 
 
 I All commiinio 7 i with the nations is forbidden., 
 4 for fear of idolatry, 6 for the holiness of the 
 people, 9 for the nature of God in his tneiry 
 and justice, 1 7 for the assuredness of victoiy 
 %uhich God will give over them. 
 
 HEN the ^Lord thy God " 31- 
 
 shall bring thee into the land ‘ 
 whither thou gocst to possess it, and 
 hath cast out many nations before 
 thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, 
 and the Amorites, and the Canaan- 
 ites, and the Perizzites, and the Hiv- 
 ites, and the Jebusites, seven nations 
 greater and mightier than thou ; 
 
 2 And when the Lord thy God 
 
 shall deliver them before thee ; thou 
 shalt smite them, and utterly destroy 
 them; ‘^thou shalt make no cove- ^ 23. 
 
 nant with them, nor shew mercy ^^4. 12. 
 unto them ; 
 
 3 Neither shalt thou make mar- 
 riages with them ; thy daughter thou 
 shalt not give unto his son, nor his 
 daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. 
 
 4 For they will turn away thy Son 
 from following me, that they may 
 serve other gods : so will the anger of 
 the Lord be kindled against you, and 
 destroy thee suddenly. 
 
 5 But thus shall ye deal with 
 
 them ; ye shall destroy their altars, 
 and break down their ^ images, and 
 cut down their groves, and burn their or, 
 graven images with hre. ^chap. 14. 
 
 6 “^For thou art an holy people & 26. 19. 
 
 25 . it shall be our righteousness~\ Lit. 
 “righteousness shall be to us;” i.e. God will 
 esteem us righteous and deal with us accord- 
 ingly. The LXX. renders “there shall be 
 mercy (IXerjiioavurj) to us:” and similarly the 
 Vulgate, “God shall be merciful to us:” as 
 if to guard against the tenet of “justification 
 by works.” The word translated “righte- 
 ousness” is the same as in the famous passage 
 Gen. XV. 6; rendered in the New Testament 
 by diKaioavurj ; but often in the LXX. as 
 here by i\er]iioG-vvr}. It is often found in a 
 context where it probably means liberality, 
 beneficence, &c. (see Gesenius’ Thesaurus, s. v.) ; 
 but there is no need in this no. to depart from 
 the ordinary and proper signification. Moses 
 from the very beginning has made the whole 
 “righteousness of the law” to depend so en- 
 tirely on a right state of the heart, in one 
 word, on faith, that there can be no real in- 
 consistency between the no. before us taken 
 thus strictly and properly, and the principle 
 of “justification by faith only.” 
 
 Chap. VII. i — ii. See on vi. 10. Moses 
 proceeds to forewaim Israel against a false 
 
 toleration of idolatry. Commerce with the 
 idolatrous nations amongst which they were 
 about to live might easily render them danger- 
 ously familiar with superstitions and abomi- 
 nations, against which it was a primary pur- 
 pose of the whole legislation to raise up a 
 witness and a protest. Hence the stringency 
 of the command given -vo). a — 5, and repeated 
 0)00. 23 — 26, to excommunicate the idolatrous 
 nations and all belonging to them, and to 
 exterminate their degraded worship with all 
 its appliances. The renewal of the promises 
 in 0)0). 1 2 sqq. is but set forth as supplying a 
 motive for the more zealous and effectual 
 execution of these duties; and thus the de- 
 struction of idolatry and idolaters within 
 the sacred precincts of the chosen people ap- 
 pears as the leading topic of this part of 
 Moses’ discourse. The words and phrases 
 employed will be found parallel to various 
 passages of the preceding books given in the 
 margin. 
 
 5 . cut doovn their gr Gooes'] Render their 
 idols of wood: the reference is to the 
 wooden trunk used as a representation of 
 Ashtaroth; see on 2;. 13 and xvi. 21. 
 
828 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. VII. 
 
 rfExod. 19. ynto the Lord thy God : "^the Lord 
 I Pet. 2. 9. thy God hath chosen thee to be a 
 special people unto himself, above all 
 people that are upon the face of the 
 earth. 
 
 7 The Lord did not set his love 
 upon you, nor choose you, because 
 ye were more in number than any 
 people ; for ye were the fewest of all 
 people : 
 
 8 But because the Lord loved 
 you, and because he would keep the 
 oath which he had sworn unto your 
 fathers, hath the Lord brought you 
 out with a mighty hand, and re- 
 deemed you out of the house of bond- 
 men, from the hand of Pharaoh king 
 of Egypt. 
 
 9 Know therefore that the Lord 
 thy God, he is God, the faithful 
 God, w'hich keepeth covenant and 
 mercy with them that love him and 
 keep his commandments to a thou- 
 sand generations ; 
 
 10 And repayeth them that hate 
 him to their fiice, to destroy them : 
 he will not be slack to him that 
 
 ['"• 7—15- 
 
 hateth him, he will repay him to his 
 face. 
 
 1 1 Thou shalt therefore keep the 
 commandments, and the statutes, and 
 the judgments, which I command 
 thee this day, to do them. 
 
 12 ^ Wherefore it shall come to 
 pass, AT ye hearken to these judg-^Heb. 
 ments, and keep, and do them, that 
 
 the Lord thy God shall keep unto 
 thee the covenant and the mercy 
 which he sware unto thy fathers : 
 
 1 3 And he will love thee, and bless 
 thee, and multiply thee : he will also 
 bless the fruit of thy womb, and the 
 fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy 
 wine, and thine oil, the increase of 
 thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, 
 in the land which he sware unto thy 
 fathers to give thee. 
 
 14 Thou shalt be blessed above all 
 people : ^ there shall not be male or 
 female barren among you, or among 
 your cattle. 
 
 15 And the Lord will take away 
 
 from thee all sickness, and will putyExod. 9. 
 none of the evil diseases of Egypt, 4L5. 26 
 
 7 . the fe^ecest of all people Moses is 
 here referring to the ground or motive from 
 which the election of Israel was originally 
 made. Though it might have seemed suit- 
 able that the God of the universe should 
 choose to Himself the mightiest nation of any, 
 yet God had not so acted. He chose to Him- 
 self Israel, when as yet but a single family, 
 or rather a single person, Abraham; though 
 there were already numerous nations and 
 powerful kingdoms in the earth. It is then 
 no inconsistency in Moses to describe Israel 
 as rivalling the stars of heaven for multitude 
 (i. 10, X. 22); since such increase had taken 
 ]dace because of the very blessing of God 
 liere spoken of. 
 
 9 , 10 . repayeth them that hate him to their 
 face^ i.e. punishes hlis enemies in their own 
 proper persons, much as in Ex. xxxiii. 14. 
 'Ehe phrase “to their faces'’ has been variously 
 understood; “openly, manifestly” (Grotius, 
 Michaelis); “instantly,” “statim” (Vulgate, 
 I'ater, &c.). Dathe connects it closely with 
 the following “to destroy them,” and renders 
 “c|ui vero rependatsui osoribus preesentissima 
 pernicie:” the word “faces” being taken as 
 ecjuivalent to a reciprocal pronoun, “to their 
 own very selves.” Better perhaps Rosenm. 
 “ whilst still alive.” 
 
 13 . flocks of thy sheep~\ (^Ashterdth tsone- 
 cha). Render rather the ewes of thy 
 sheep. So Gesen. femella; gregem propa- 
 gantes. The phrase is found again xxviii. 4, 
 18, 51 ; but is peculiar to Deut. The former 
 of the Hebrew words composing it is the 
 plural form of Ashtoreth the well-known 
 name of the “ godde.ss of the Sidonians” 
 (i K. xi. 5). This goddess, called by the 
 classical writers Astarte, and identified with 
 Venus, represented the fruitfulness of nature; 
 cf. xvi. 21 and note. The name Ashtaroth 
 is found on early Egyptian monuments: see 
 Brugsch, ‘Recueil,’ i. pi. 3. 
 
 15 . e’vil diseases of Egypt ^ <which thou kno-jo- 
 estl] There seems to be here not so much a 
 reference to the plagues inflicted miraculously 
 by God on Egypt (cf. Ex. xv. 26), as to the 
 terrible diseases with which above other 
 countries Egypt was infested. Pliny (Nat. 
 Hist. XXVI. i) calls it “ the mother of worst 
 diseases,” "Wagner (‘ Naturgesch. des Men- 
 schen,’ 11. 270, quoted by Schultz, on this place), 
 “a focus of contagious sicknesses.” Cf. xxviii. 
 27, 35. It is not without significance that 
 Egypt, which represents in Scripture the world 
 as contrasted with the Church, should thus 
 above other lands lie under the power of dis- 
 ease and death. 
 
V. t6 2 .] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. VII. VIII. 
 
 which thou knowest, upon thee ; but 
 will lay them upon all them that hate 
 thee. 
 
 1 6 And thou shalt consume all the 
 people which the Lord thy God shall 
 deliver thee ; thine eye shall have no 
 pity upon them : neither shalt thou 
 serve their gods ; for that will be a 
 
 ^Exod.23. g snare unto thee. 
 
 17 If thou shalt say in thine heart, 
 These nations a^^e more than I ; how 
 can I dispossess them ? 
 
 18 Thou shalt not be afraid of 
 them : but shalt well remember what 
 the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh, 
 and unto all Egypt ; 
 
 19 The great temptations which 
 thine eyes saw, and the signs, and 
 the wonders, and the mighty hand, 
 and the stretched out arm, whereby 
 the Lord thy God brought thee out : 
 so shall the Lord thy God do unto 
 all the people of whom thou art a.Aaid. 
 
 *Exod. 23. 20 '^'Moreover the Lord thy God 
 
 Josh. 24. will send the hornet among them, un- 
 til they that are left, and hide them- 
 selves from thee, be destroyed. 
 
 21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at 
 them : for the Lord thy God is a- 
 mong you, a mighty God and terrible. 
 
 22 And the Lord thy God will 
 
 ^ those nations before thee by 
 
 ^ j little : thou mayest not con- 
 
 sume them at once, lest the beasts of 
 the held increase upon thee. 
 
 23 But the Lord thy God shall 
 
 829 
 
 deliver them Tnto thee, and shall de- 
 
 • 1 1 • before thy 
 
 stroy them with a mighty destruction, 
 until they be destroyed. 
 
 24 And he shall deliver their kings 
 into thine hand, and thou shalt de- 
 stroy their name from under heaven : 
 there shall no man be able to stand 
 before thee, until thou have destroyed 
 them. 
 
 25 The graven images of their 
 gods shall ye burn with fire: thou * 
 
 shalt not desire the silver or goldJk^7^-7- 
 that is on them, nor take tt unto 2’Mac. 12. 
 thee, lest thou be snared therein : for 
 it is an abomination to the Lord 
 thy God. 
 
 26 Neither shalt thou brino- an 
 
 O 
 
 abomination into thine house, lest 
 thou be a cursed thing like it : but 
 thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou 
 shalt utterly abhor it; ^for it is a ^ chap. 13 
 cursed thing. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A 71 exJiOliatioii to obedience in regiD'd of God\<7 
 dealing zoith tJie7n. 
 
 ALL the commandments which I 
 ±\_ command thee this day shall ye 
 observe to do, that ye may live, and 
 multiply, and go in and possess the 
 land which the Lord sv/are unto your 
 fathers. 
 
 2 And thou shalt remember all the 
 way which the Lord thy God led 
 thee these forty years in the wilder- 
 
 17- 
 
 ness, to humble thee. 
 
 thee, to know what was 
 
 a?id to prove 
 in thine 
 
 22. Cf. Ex. xxxiii. 29, 30. 
 
 25 . thou shalt not desire the silaoer or 
 gold that is on theni] The silver and gold with 
 which the statues of the gods were overlaid. 
 St Paul is probably alluding to this command 
 Rom. ii. 22, (“Thou that abhorrest idols, dost 
 thou commit sacrilege?”), and his accusation 
 of the Jew thus shows that the prohibition 
 of the text was a very necessary one. 
 
 lest thou be snarecT] As by the rich ephod 
 1 *^ made by Gideon: cf. Judg. viii. 27. 
 
 , Chap. VIII. To the cautions of the last 
 
 chapter, directed against the risk of a lapse 
 into idolatry through association with it, an- 
 other no less pertinent and necessary caution 
 is now to be added. The long wandering in 
 VoL. I. 
 
 the wilderness had been designed, amongst 
 other purposes, to teach God’s people humi- 
 lity and a self-distrusting reliance on Him for 
 the supply of their necessities. For this end 
 had Israel long been kept where the ordinary 
 means of providing for their bodily life and 
 safety were insufficient, and where their own 
 exertions could have availed but little (yv. 
 3 — 6, 15, 16): and had been preserved by the 
 special providence of God. But this extra- 
 ordinary dispensation was now to end. They 
 were about to take possession of a fertile land 
 where their daily wants would be satisfied 
 from the bounty of nature in the usual way 
 (yu. 7 — 10). But as the former discipline 
 was needed, -so now when it was about to be 
 removed, a warning against forgetting its 
 teachings is seasonable. God as really pro- 
 
 3 G 
 
830 
 
 « Matt. 4. 
 Luke 4. 4 
 
 ^ Neh. 9. 
 
 21. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. VIII. 
 
 heart, whether thou wouldest keep 
 his commandments, or no. 
 
 3 And he humbled thee, and suf- 
 fered thee to hunger, and fed thee 
 with manna, which thou knewest 
 not, neither did thy fathers know ; 
 that he might make thee know that 
 man doth " not live by bread only, 
 but by every ivor<^ that proceedeth 
 out of the mouth of the Lord doth 
 man live. 
 
 4. ^Thy raiment waxed not old 
 
 [v- 3—7- 
 
 upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, 
 these forty years. 
 
 5 Thou shalt also consider in thine 
 heart, that, as a man chasteneth his 
 son, SC) the Lord thy God chasteneth 
 thee. 
 
 6 Therefore thou shalt keep the 
 commandments of the Lord thy God, 
 to v/alk in his ways, and to fear him. 
 
 7 For the Lord thy God bring- 
 eth thee into a good land, a land 
 of brooks of water, of fountains and 
 
 vided for them the wealth and abundance of 
 Canaan as He had done the manna of the 
 desert (w. 17, 18). 
 
 3 . but by eujery <^dJord that proceedeth out of 
 the mouth of the Lord\ Lit. “every outgoing 
 of the mouth of the Lord.” Cf. xxix. 5,6. 
 The term “ word” is inserted by A. V. after 
 the LXX., which is followed by St Matt, and 
 St Luke. On the means of subsistence avail- 
 able to the people during the wandering, see on 
 Num. XX. I. “ Bread” in this verse stands for 
 the ordinary means of earthly sustenance in 
 general. Those means in the case of Israel 
 were withheld, and new ones by God’s al- 
 mighty word and will substituted. Thus was 
 the lesson taught, that it is not nature which 
 nourishes man, but God the Creator by and 
 through nature; and generally that God is not 
 tied to the particular channels through which 
 He is ordinarily pleased to work. 
 
 4 . Thy raimejit coaxed not old upon thee^ 
 neither did thy foot s^vell^ these forty years Cf. 
 xxix. 5, “Your clothes are not waxen old 
 upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon 
 thy foot.” These words in a passage like the 
 present, where the speaker is not so much nar- 
 rating historically as alluding for hortatory 
 purposes to God's care of them in the desert, 
 may signify no more than that “ God so am- 
 ply provided for them all the necessaries of 
 life, that they were never obliged to wear tat- 
 tered garments, nor were their feet injured 
 for lack of shoes or sandals.” 
 
 (Jf course they had clothes, it would seem 
 in abundance (cf. Exod. xii. 34, 35), at the be- 
 ginning of the forty years ; and equally of 
 course some sources of supply during them. 
 They had abundance cf sheep and oxen, and 
 so must have had much material for clothing 
 always at command ; and no doubt also car- 
 ried on a traffic in these, as in other commo- 
 dities, with the Moabites and the nomadic 
 tribes of the desert. Such ordinary supplies 
 must not be shut out of consideration, as 
 regards the raiment of the chosCn people, as 
 they cannot in the similar question regarding 
 their victual: cf. on Num. xx. i. It may 
 
 have been that these natural sources were on 
 occasions supplemented by extraordinary pro- 
 vidences of God, as was undoubtedly the 
 case with their food. So substantially Cal- 
 met, Kurtz, Keil, Wogue, &c. The Jew- 
 ish commentators, in bondage as elsewhere 
 to the letter, construe the u). as meaning that 
 the raiment of the Israelites did not wear out 
 in their wanderings, and as implying even 
 that the clothes of the children grew with 
 their growth. So too Justin Mar. ‘Dial, 
 cum Tryph.’ § 13 1 sub fin. The lesson of 
 •V. 3, which it is the object of Moses to im- 
 press, comes but sufficiently without such 
 suppositions. 
 
 s^eir\ On this word see Note at end of 
 chapter. 
 
 7 — 9 . On the ancient fertility of Canaan 
 see on Ex. iii. 8. In these •vu. is implied 
 a contrast, which in the parallel passage xi. 
 10, II, is expressed, between Palestine and 
 Egypt. The latter depends entirely on its 
 single river; without the Nile, and the ut- 
 most use of the waters of the Nile, Egypt 
 would bo a desert. But Palestine is well dis- 
 tinguished not merely as “a land of wheat 
 and barley, and vines and fig-trees and pome- 
 granates, of oil-olive and honey,” but em- 
 phatically as “a good land, a land of brooks 
 of water, of fountains and depths that spring 
 out of plains and mountains;” “not as 
 the land of Egypt, where thou sowedst thy 
 seed, and wateredst it vdth thy foot, as a 
 garden of herbs,” but a land of “ mountains 
 and plains which drinketh water of the rain 
 of heaven.” This mountainous character, 
 this abundance of water both from natural 
 springs and from the clouds of heaven, in 
 contradistinction to the one uniform supply 
 of the great river, this abundance of “milk” 
 from its “cattle on a thousand hills,” of 
 “honey” from its forests and its thymy 
 shrubs, was absolutely peculiar to Palestine 
 amongst the civilized nations of the East. — 
 Eeeble as its brooks might be, though, doubt- 
 less, they were then far more frequently and 
 fully filled than now, yet still it was the 
 
V. 8—15.] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. VIII. 
 
 831 
 
 depths that spring out of valleys and 
 hills ; 
 
 8 A land of wheat, and barley, and 
 vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates ; 
 a land ^ of oil olive, and honey ; 
 reeofoii. g A land wherciti thou shalt eat 
 bread without scarceness, thou shalt 
 not lack 2Lny, thing in it; a land whose 
 stones are iron, and out of whose hills 
 thou mayest dig brass. 
 
 chap. 6. 10 ^When thou hast eaten and 
 
 art full, then thou shalt bless the 
 Lord thy God for the good land 
 which he hath given thee. 
 
 II Beware that thou forget not 
 the Lord thy God, in not keeping 
 his commandments, and his judg- 
 
 ments, and his statutes, v^hich I com- 
 mand thee this day ; 
 
 12 Lest when thou hast eaten jind 
 art full, and hast built goodly houses, 
 and dwelt therein ; 
 
 13 And when thy herds and thy 
 flocks multiply, and thy silver and 
 thy gold is multiplied, and all that 
 thou hast is multiplied ; 
 
 14 Then thine heart be lifted up, 
 and thou forget the Lord thy God, 
 which brought thee forth out of the 
 land of Egypt, from the house of 
 bondage ; 
 
 15 Who led thee through that 
 great and terrible wilderness, wherein 
 were fiery serpents, and scorpions. 
 
 only country where an Eastern could have 
 written as does the Psalmist : “ He sendeth 
 the springs into the valleys, which run among 
 the mountains,” Those springs too, however 
 short-lived, are remarkable for their copious- 
 ness and beauty. 
 
 The physical characteristics and advantages 
 of a country like Palestine must have been 
 quite strange to Israel at the time Moses was 
 speaking : cf. note on iii. 25. It is signifi- 
 cant that Deut. should abound more than 
 the earlier books in praises of the fertility and 
 excellence of the promised land. “ Such a 
 topic at an earlier period would have in- 
 creased the murmurings and impatience of 
 the people at being detained in the wilderness : 
 whereas now it encouraged them to encoun- 
 ter with more cheerfulness the opposition 
 they must must meet with from the inhabit- 
 ants of Canaan.” (Dean Graves on the Pen- 
 tateuch, pp. 45? 46.) 
 
 8. vines i] The abundance of wine in 
 Syria and Palestine is dwelt upon in the 
 Egyptian records of the campaigns of Thot- 
 mosis III. In Egypt itself but little wine is 
 produced. The country has not the slopes 
 suitable for vineyards, and the overflow of 
 the Nile occurs about the season when grapes 
 would ripen. The Mareotic wine would seem 
 however to have been prized (Hor. ‘ Od.’ I. 
 XXXVII. 14), and came to perfection in 
 Egypt apparently for one principal reason 
 which forbad the successful cultivation of 
 grapes in general, viz. the fatness of the soil. 
 
 “Sunt Thasias vites, sunt et Mareotides albee 
 
 Pinguibus hoe terris habiles, levioribus illae.” 
 
 Virg. ‘ Georg.’ ii. 92, 93. 
 
 The production of wine has in later times 
 gradually ceased in Palestine, cf. Ritter, 
 “ Pal.” IV. 185 (Clark’s Transl.), except in 
 
 some parts of the south where there is a con- 
 siderable Jewish and Christian population, 
 e.g. near Bethlehem : cf. Stanley, “ S. and E.” 
 p. 164, and Hebron, Robinson “Bibl. Res.” 
 It. 80, 81. 
 
 9 . a land nvbose stones are iron^ and ont 
 of vuhose hills thou mayest dig hrass~\ For 
 brass read copper: cf. on Gen. iv. 22. AVe 
 have a highly poetical description of mining 
 operations Job xxviii. i — ii. Mining docs 
 not seem to have been extensively carried on 
 by the Jews, though it certainly was so by 
 the Canaanitish peoples displaced by them; 
 see Rougemont, ‘ L’Age du Bronze,’ pp. 188 
 sqq. Traces of iron and copper works have 
 been discovered by modern travellers on Leba- 
 non (Volney, ‘Travels,’ il. 438); and many 
 parts of the country, e.g. the district of Argob 
 (see notes on iii. 4), contain iron-stone in 
 abundance. The brass, iron, &c. used for 
 Solomon’s temple were probably either the 
 spoils of war (2 Sam. viii. 8, &c.), or im- 
 ported. 
 
 ]. 5 . PVho led thee through that great and 
 terrible <wilderness., wherein were fiery serpents^ 
 and scorpions., and drought., vohere there was 
 no voater'\ The insertions made by our 
 translations seem to carry the construction 
 needlessly away from that of the original. 
 The words rendered “ fiery serpents ” and 
 “ scorpions,” singular nouns in the Hebrew, 
 stand grammatically in apposition with “wil- 
 derness.” The word rendered drought (tsim- 
 mdon') means “a dry place or land;” and 
 should be closely connected with the clause 
 following. That clause literally rendered 
 would run, “a dry land to which there were 
 no waters.” The passuge might be more ac- 
 curately rendered thus: “who brought thee 
 through that great and terrible wilderness, the 
 
 3G 2 
 
DEUTERONOMY. VIII. IX. [v. 16-2. 
 
 832 
 
 and drought, where there was no 
 Numb, water ; ^who brought thee forth water 
 “■ out. of the rock of flint ; 
 
 16 Who fed thee in the wilderness 
 ^Exod. 16. with ^ manna, which thy fathers knew 
 
 not, that he might humble thee, and 
 that he might prove thee, to do thee 
 good at thy latter end ; 
 
 17 And thou say in thine heart. 
 My power and the might of mine 
 hand hath gotten me this wealth. 
 
 18 But thou shalt remember the 
 Lord thy God ; for it is he that 
 giveth thee *power to get wealth, that 
 
 he may establish his covenant which 
 he sware unto thy fathers, as. zV is 
 this day. 
 
 19 And it shall be, if thou do at 
 all forget the Lord thy God, and 
 walk after other gods, and serve them, 
 and worship them, I testify against 
 you this day that ye .shall surely 
 perish. 
 
 20 As the nations which the Lord 
 destroyeth before your face, so shall 
 ye perish ; because ye would not be 
 obedient unto the voice of the Lord 
 your God. 
 
 fiery serpent, and the scorpion, and the dry 
 land where are no waters.” On the fiery 
 serpents see on Num. xxi. 6. 
 
 16 . to ilo thee good at thy latter end'\ This 
 is presented as the result of God’s dealings. 
 The people had been suffered to hunger (yv. 3) 
 and fed with manna in order that God might 
 prove them. But this trial was not laid on 
 them arbitrarily, but as a moral discipline 
 qualifying for the blessings which God de- 
 signed ultimately to bestow. The “hum- 
 bling” and “proving” are exhibited as God’s 
 immediate purpose; — the “doing good” to 
 
 Israel as the eventual issue. The expression 
 “at thy latter end” conveys somewhat more 
 than “ at length,” “ in future.” The set- 
 tlement of Israel in Canaan was the end and 
 climax of the Mosaic dispensation, to which 
 the sojourn in Egypt, the wandering in the 
 desert, and the arrangements of the law, 
 all led up. “ Thy latter end ” is then the 
 later, and for the purpose in hand, final 
 epoch in the national life to which all that 
 had gone before was preparatory and in- 
 troductory. The wilderness was to the Jew- 
 ish Church analogous to the Cross, Canaan 
 to the Crown. 
 
 NOTE on V. 4. 
 
 The Hebrew word rcndered “swell” in 
 A. V. only occurs again in Neh. ix. 21, where 
 it is quoted from the present passage. This 
 rendering proposed by Jarchi, is followed by 
 Gesen., Fiirst, Keil and the majority of au- 
 thorities. The Hebrew verb seems certainly 
 connected with the noun p3k2, dough ; and 
 used Ex. xii. 34, 39, and elsewhere; and 
 probably through the idea of the swelling 
 
 which accompanies fermentation. The LXX. 
 renders the word before as eTvXddrjaav., i.e. 
 “ became callous,” in this place ; though in the 
 parallel passage of Neh. it has bi^ppav-qaav. 
 Vulg. “ pes tuus non est subtritus.” Onk 
 Saad. and other Versions render “unshod,” 
 “ naked:” all these senses except the first ap- 
 pear to be conjectures as to the sense of the 
 word drawn from the context. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Moses dissiiadeth them from the opinion of their 
 own righteousness, by rehearsing their several 
 rebellions. 
 
 EAR, O Israel : Thou art to 
 pass over Jordan this day, to 
 
 go in to possess nations greater and 
 mightier than thyself, cities great and 
 fenced up to heaven, 
 
 2 A people great and tall, the chil- 
 dren of the Anakims, whom thou 
 knowest, and of whom thou hast heard 
 
 Ch.\p. IX. 1 29 . Moses has been warn- 
 
 ing his hearers against that form of pride 
 which claims victory as the fruit of human 
 might only. He now goes on naturally to 
 caution them against another and subtler 
 aspect of the same sin, that namely which 
 
 sees in success only the reward of one’s own 
 righteousness. The real causes are therefore 
 set forth of God's dealings as to the Promised 
 Land, (i) the wickedness of the Canaanitish 
 nations, and (2) free grace towards Israel. 
 The lesson is exactly that of Eph. ii. 8, “By 
 
V. 3 — 8 .] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. IX. 
 
 * Nur.'.l 
 13. 28. 
 
 b chap. 
 24. 
 
 Hcb. i; 
 29. 
 
 say^ Who can stand before the chil- 
 dren of Anak ! 
 
 3 Understand therefore this day, 
 that the Lord thy God is he which 
 goeth over before thee \ as 2. ^ co/i- 
 
 '• SLiming fire he shall destroy them, 
 and he shall bring them down before 
 thy face : so shalt thou drive them 
 out, and destroy them quickly, as the 
 Lord hath said unto thee. 
 
 4 Speak not thou in thine heart, 
 after that the Lord thy God hath 
 cast them out from before thee, say- 
 ing, For my righteousness the Lord 
 hath brought me in to possess this 
 land : but fpr the wickedness of these 
 nations the Lord doth drive them out 
 from before thee. 
 
 5 Not for thy righteousness, or for 
 the uprightness of thine heart, dost 
 
 thou go to possess their land : but 
 for the wickedness of these nations 
 the Lord thy God doth drive them 
 out from before thee, and that he 
 may perform the word which the 
 Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
 
 6 Understand therefore, that the 
 Lord thy God giveth thee not this 
 good land to possess it for thy right- 
 eousness ; for thou art a stiffnecked 
 people. 
 
 7 Remember, and forget not, 
 how thou provokedst the Lord thy 
 God to wrath in the wilderness ; from 
 the day that thou didst depart out of 
 the land of Egypt, until ye came unto 
 this place, ye have been rebellious 
 against the Lord 
 
 8 Also in Horeb ye provoked the 
 
 grace are ye saved through faith; and that 
 not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God : not 
 of works, lest any man should boast.” 
 
 Moses points his admonition by reminding 
 them of their repeated rebellions in past times, 
 7, 8; 22, 23, &c.; and dwells especially 
 on their apostasy at Horeb (yvaj. 8 — ^21). This 
 was so flagrant that it was only his own 
 earnest intercessions which averted the de- 
 struction of the people, and won at length 
 from God a renewal of the forfeited pledges 
 of the Covenant 25 — 29; x. i — ii). 
 
 In referring to these circumstances Moses 
 here, as elsewhere, has regard not so much to 
 the order of time as to that of subject. (Cf. 
 note on i. 9 — 15.) He inserts e.g. mention 
 of the provocations at Taberah, Massah, Ki- 
 broth-hattaavah and Kadesh-barnea (gw. 22, 
 23), in the very midst of the narrative respect- 
 ing the idolatry at Horeb and his own con- 
 duct in reference thereto. The like reasons, 
 convenience and fitness to his argument, suffi- 
 ciently explain the variations observable when 
 the statements of this chapter are minutely 
 compared with those of Exod. xxxii. — xxxiv. 
 There is no real discrepancy, much less con- 
 tradiction. Sometimes the more particular 
 history of Exodus is condensed; as in ‘w. 26 
 — 29, where the substance of Moses’ inter- 
 cessions on two occasions (Ex.^xxxii. ii — 13, 
 xxxiv. 9) is summed up in one statement: at 
 other times circumstances not in Exodus are 
 set forth here, because they are such as en- 
 hance the impressiveness of the admonitions 
 Moses was uttering; e.g. the fact is put for- 
 ward that Moses fasted for t^ao periods of 
 forty days (gw. 9 and i-S), one such fast only 
 being expressly named in Exodus; as is also 
 
 his special intercession for Aaron (2;. 20). In 
 these variations we have nothing more or 
 other than such treatment of facts as is usual 
 and warrantable enough between parties per- 
 sonally acquainted with the matters in ques- 
 tion ; a treatment which implies and assumes 
 a knowledge of the facts in both speaker and 
 hearer, and which therefore, there being no 
 fear of misleading, can dispense with minute 
 specifications of time, place, and circumstance. 
 
 3 . Understand therefore'\ Render And 
 thou Shalt know. The verb is not to be 
 taken as an imperative, but as simply con- 
 tinuing the announcement of i, “Thou 
 art to pass over Jordan &c. ; and thou shalt 
 know &c.” 
 
 so shalt thou drive them out., and destroy 
 them quickly'] This is not inconsistent with 
 vii. 22, “thou mayest not consume them 
 at once,” though the word here rendered 
 “quickly” is the same as that there trans- 
 lated “at once.” In the former passage the 
 Israelites are warned not to expect that God 
 would bring about an instant annihilation of 
 the Canaanites : the word there employed 
 (“ consume,” has clearly this force, and 
 
 the reason why no such annihilation was to 
 take place is .assigned there, “lest the beasts of 
 the field increase upon thee.” Here Moses 
 urges the people to trust in God’s covenanted 
 aid; since He would then make no delay in 
 so destroying the nations attacked by them 
 as to put them into enjoyment of the pro- 
 mises, and in doing so as fast as was for the 
 well-being of Israel itself. 
 
 8. Also in Horeb ye provoked the Lord] 
 Rather ‘■'■even in Horeb:” the conjunction here 
 
834 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. .IX. 
 
 [v. 9 — 21. 
 
 Lord to wrath, so that the Lord 
 was angry with you to have destroyed 
 you. 
 
 9 When I was gone up into the 
 mount to receive the tables of stone, 
 the tables of the covenant which 
 «Exod. 24. the Lord made with you, then 
 &34. 28. abode in the mount forty days and 
 forty nights, I neither did eat bread 
 nor drink water : 
 
 ^E.xod.31. 10 '^And the Lord delivered unto 
 
 me two tables of stone written with 
 the finger of God ; and on them was 
 written according to ail the words, 
 which the Lord spake with you in 
 the mount out of the midst of the 
 lire in the day of the assembly. 
 
 1 1 And it came to pass at the end 
 of forty days and forty nights, that 
 the Lord gave me the two tables 
 of stone, even the tables of the cove- 
 nant. 
 
 12 And the Lord said unto me, 
 'Exod. 32. ^ Arise, get thee down quickly from 
 
 hence ; for thy people which thou 
 hast brought forth out of Egypt have 
 corrupted themselves; they are quickly 
 turned aside out of the way which I 
 commanded them ; they have made 
 them a molten image. 
 
 13 Furthermore the Lord spake 
 unto me, saying, I have seen this 
 people, and, behold, it is a stiffiiecked 
 people : 
 
 14 Let me alone, that I may de- 
 stroy them, and blot out their name 
 from under heaven : and I will make 
 
 of thee a nation mightier and greater 
 than they. 
 
 15 So I turned and came down 
 from the mount, and the. mount 
 burned with fire : and the two tables 
 of the covenant were in my two 
 hands. 
 
 16 And I looked, and, behold, ye 
 had sinned against the Lord your 
 God, and had made you a molten 
 calf : ye had turned aside quickly out 
 of the way which the Lord had com- 
 manded you. 
 
 17 And I took the two tables, and 
 cast them out of my two hands, and 
 brake them before your eyes. 
 
 18 And I fell down* before the 
 Lord, as at the first, forty days and 
 forty nights : I did neither eat bread, 
 nor drink water, because of all your 
 sins which ye sinned, in doing wick- 
 edly in the sight of the Lord, to pro- 
 voke him to anger. 
 
 19 For I was afraid of the anger 
 and hot displeasure, wherewith the 
 Lord was wroth against you to de- 
 stroy you. But the Lord hearkened 
 unto m.e at that time also. 
 
 20 And the Lord was very angry, 
 with Aaron to have destroyed him : 
 and I prayed for Aaron also the same 
 time. 
 
 21 And I took your sin, the calf 
 which ye had made, and burnt it 
 with fire, and stamped it, and ground 
 it very small, even until it was as 
 small as dust: and I cast the dust 
 
 (as often) introduces a special example of a 
 general statement. The time and circum- 
 stances made the apostasy at Horeb particu- 
 larly inexcusable. 
 
 18 . 7 fell donxm before the Lord^ as at the 
 
 first'] iMoses interceded for the people before 
 he came down from the mountain the first 
 time: Kx. xxxii. ii — 13. This intercession is 
 only briefly alluded to in this t,’. Afterwards 
 he spent another forty days on the mountain 
 in fasting and prayer to obtain a complete res- 
 titution of the covenant: Ex. xxxiv. 28. It 
 is this second forty days, and the intercession 
 of Moses made therein (cf. Ex. xxxiv. 9), that 
 is more particularly brought forward here and 
 in w. 25 — 29. Tliere is no inconsistency 
 
 between the two accounts. 
 
 20 . And the Lord <was 'very angry msith 
 Aaron to have destroyed him] Israel could 
 not boast even that its heads and representa- 
 tives continued faithful. Aaron had been 
 already designated for the high-priestly func- 
 tions; but he fell away with the rest of the 
 people. It was due then solely to the grace 
 of God and the intercession of Moses that 
 Aaron himself and his promised priesthood 
 with him were not cut off; just as at a later 
 time, when Aaron had actually to die for a 
 new sin Israel owed it still to the same 
 causes that Eleazar was substituted and the 
 high priesthood perpetuated (x. 6, Num. xx. 
 25 sqq. and note). 
 
V. 2 2 - 4 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. IX. X. 
 
 835 
 
 thereof into the brook that descended 
 out of the mount. 
 
 /Numb. 22 And at-^Taberah, and at ^Mas- 
 ”Exod.’i7. sah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, ye 
 J/Numb. provoked the Lord to wrath. 
 
 34- 23 Likewise when the Lord sent 
 
 you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go 
 up and possess the land which I have 
 given you ; then ye rebelled against 
 the commandment of the Lord your 
 God, and ye believed him not, nor 
 hearkened to his voice. 
 
 24 Ye have been rebellious against 
 the Lord from the day that I knew 
 you. 
 
 25 Thus I fell down before the 
 Lord forty days and forty nights, 
 as I fell down at the first; because 
 the Lord had said he would destroy 
 you. 
 
 26 I prayed therefore unto the 
 Lord, and said, O Lord God, destroy 
 not thy people and thine inheritance, 
 which thou hast redeemed through 
 thy greatness, which thou hast brought 
 forth out of Egypt with a mighty 
 hand. 
 
 27 Remember thy servants, Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob ; look not 
 unto the stubbornness of this peo- 
 ple, nor to their wickedness, nor to 
 their sin : 
 
 28 Lest the land whence thou 
 broughtest us out say, ^Because the^Numb. 
 Lord was not able to bring them 
 
 into the land which he promised 
 them, and because he hated them, 
 he hath brought them out to slay 
 them in the wilderness. 
 
 29 Yet they are thy people and 
 thine inheritance, which thou brought- 
 est out by thy mighty power and by 
 thy stretched out arm. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 I God's mercy in restoring the two tables, 6 in 
 contimiing the priesthood, 8 in separating the 
 tribe of Levi, 10 in hearkening unto Moses' 
 suit for the people. 12 An exhortation unto 
 obedience. 
 
 AT that time the Lord said unto 
 
 me, "Hew thee two tables of«Exod.34. 
 stone like unto the first, and come 
 up unto me into the mount, and 
 make thee an ark of wood. 
 
 2 And I will write on the tables 
 the words that were in the first tables 
 which thou brakest, and thou shalt 
 put them in the ark. 
 
 3 And I made an ark of shittim 
 wood, and hewed two tables of stone 
 like unto the first, and went up into 
 the mount, having the two tables in 
 mine hand. 
 
 4 And he wrote on the tables, ac- 
 
 2 2 . Taber ah . . . Kihroth-hattaauah~\ T he 
 “burning” which gave to the place the name 
 of Taberah, occurred on the outer edge of 
 the camp; Num. xi. i, see note. It happened 
 however whilst the people were encamped at 
 the station afterwards termed Kibroth-hatta- 
 avah, from another judgment inflicted there 
 for another rebellion. Taberah was then the 
 name of a spot in or near the station of Ki- 
 broth-hattaavah, and accordingly is not named 
 in the list of encampments given Num. xxxiii. 
 16. The separate mention of the two is how- 
 ever here appropriate; for each place and each 
 name was a memorial of an act of rebellion. 
 The instances in this and the next no. are not 
 given in order of occurrence. The speaker 
 for his own purposes advances from the 
 slighter to the more heinous proofs of guilt. 
 The transpositions by which som.e editors 
 have attempted to reduce these statements 
 into conformity with chronology are, when 
 the nature of the language before us is con- 
 sidered, alike needless and unauthorized. 
 
 Chap. X. 1 — 11. These nono. are closely 
 connected with the preceding chapter, and 
 state very briefly the results of that inter- 
 cession of Moses recorded ix, 25 — 29. They 
 present not only the grant of the second 
 tables of the Covenant (nono. i — 5) but the in- 
 stitution and regulation of the priestly (gv. 6) 
 and Levitical (nono. 8,9) services, and even the 
 permission to march onward and take pos- 
 session of the promised land (no. ii), as all 
 consequent upon Moses’ intervention. Thus 
 effectively does Moses close his admonition 
 against spiritual pride by reminding the people 
 how all their blessings and privileges, forfeited 
 by apostasy as soon as bestowed, were only 
 now their own by a new and most unmerited 
 act of grace on the part of God, won from 
 Him by the self-sacrificing mediation of 
 Moses himself (no. 10). 
 
 1 — 5. come up unto me into the mount, and 
 make thee an ark of nvood, &c.] The order for 
 making the ark and tabernacle was evidently 
 
836 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. X. 
 
 [v, 5—10. . 
 
 cording to the first writing, the ten 
 
 + Heb. ^commandments, which the Lord 
 
 'words. , ' , - 
 
 spake unto you in the mount out or 
 the midst of the fire in the day of 
 the assem.bly : and the Lord gave 
 them unto me. 
 
 5 And I turned myself and came 
 down from the mount, and put the 
 tables in the ark which I had made ; 
 and there they be, as the Lord com- 
 manded me. 
 
 6 ^ And the children of Israel 
 took their journey from Beeroth of 
 
 *Niimb. the children of Jaakan to ^Mosera: 
 
 ^Nunib. ^ there Aaron died, and there he was 
 ■ buried ; and Eleazar his son minis- 
 tered in the priest’s office in his 
 stead. 
 
 7 From thence they journeyed 
 unto Gudgodah \ and from Gudgo- 
 dah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of 
 waters. 
 
 8 ^ At that time the Lord sepa- 
 rated the tribe of Levi, to bear the 
 ark of the covenant of the Lord, 
 to stand before the Lord to minister 
 unto him, and to bless in his name, 
 unto this day. 
 
 9 ‘^Wherefore Levi hath no part ^g^umb. 
 nor inheritance , with his brethren; 
 
 the Lord is his inheritance, accord- 
 ing as the Lord thy God promised 
 him. 
 
 10 And I stayed in the mount, 
 according to the first time, ^orty 
 days and forty nights ; and the Lord 
 
 given before the apostasy of the people (Ex. xxv. 
 sqq.) ; and the tables were not put in the ark 
 until the completion and dedication of the ta- 
 bernacle (Exod. xL). Buthere aselsewhere (cf. 
 on ix. i) Moses connects transactions closely 
 related to each other and to his purpose with- 
 out regard to the order of occurrence. 
 
 6. Beeroth of the children of Jaakan'] This 
 placeis identical with the Bene-jaakan of Num 
 xxxiii. 31, where see note. 
 
 Mosera] The Moseroth of Num. xxxiii. 31, 
 where see note. 
 
 there Aaron died] i.e. whilst the people 
 were encamped at Mosera or Moseroth. In 
 xxxii. 50 as well as in Num. xx. 25 sqq. 
 Mount Hor is assigned as the place of Aaron’s 
 death. It is plain then that Moscrah was in 
 the neighbourhood of Mount Hor; and this 
 is confirmed by other notices of the locality. 
 See note on Numbers l.c. Aaron did not 
 die in the camp, neither, from the nature of 
 the case, could the camp be pitched actually 
 on Mount Hor. It was of course located on 
 the slopes or at the foot of the mount ; more 
 precisely at Moserah. Thence Moses, Aaron, 
 and Eleazar “went up into Mount Hor in 
 the sight of the congregation,” and “Aaron 
 died there in the top of the mount” (Num. 
 XX. 27 — 28). 
 
 Eleazar his son ministered in... his stead] 
 The appointment of Eleazar to minister in 
 place of Aaron, as in w. i — 3 the restitution 
 of the Decalogue, and in 'v'v. 8, 9 the esta- 
 blishment of the ministry of the Levites, is 
 referred to in ])roof of the completeness and 
 fullness of the reconciliation effected between 
 God and the people by Moses. Though 
 Aaron was sentenced to die in the wilderness 
 for his sin at Meribah, yet God provided for 
 
 the ’perpetuation of the high-priesthood, so 
 that the people should not suffer. Cf. ix. 20 
 and note. 
 
 7 . Jothath., a land of rivers of vjaters] 
 Parenthetical mention ismiadeof the two jour- 
 neys which next followed Aaron’s death; and 
 with the same theme apparently in view. God 
 showed that His care and love of His people 
 were not diminished because of the sin and 
 consequent death of the first solemnly ap- 
 pointed and official mediator, Aaron. God 
 led them from the spot where they had wit- 
 nessed Aaron’s departure to a land of rest and 
 reireshment. It is possible however that these 
 two vv. may be, as may some other notices 
 of a like character, a gloss: cf. note on ii. 
 10 — 12, and 20 — 23. The words “at that 
 time” in 8 certainly connect themselves with 
 V. 5 and not with v. 7. Jotbath is the Jot- 
 bathah of Num. xxxiii. 33, where see note. 
 
 8. At that time] i.e. that of the encamp- 
 ment at Sinai, as the words also import in v. i. 
 Throughout the passage the time of the im- 
 portant events at Sinai is kept in view, and is 
 reverted to as each incident is brought for- 
 ward by Moses, alluded to sufficiently for his 
 purpose, and dismissed. 
 
 As the priests were of the tribe of Levi, 
 their special duties, as well as those belonging 
 to the other Levites, may generally be assigned 
 to that tribe in contradistinction to the other 
 eleven. It was properly the priest’s office to 
 bless (Num. vi. 22 sqq.), and to minister before 
 the Lord (ch. xviii. 5), whilst the non-priestly 
 family of Kohath (Num. iv. 15) had the duty 
 of bearing the ark. But Moses is evidently 
 here speaking, of the election by God of the 
 tribe of Levi at large, priests and others also, 
 for His own service. On the passages in 
 
V. II — 16 .] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. X. 
 
 837 
 
 hearkened unto me at that time 
 also, a 7 id the Lord would not de- 
 stroy thee. 
 
 1 1 And the Lord said unto me, 
 tHeb. Arise, ^ take thy journey before the 
 
 inland pos- 
 sess the land, which 1 sware unto 
 their fathers to give unto them. 
 
 12 ^ And now, Israel, what doth 
 the Lord thy God require of thee, 
 but to fear the Lord thy God, to 
 walk in all his ways, and to love him, 
 and to serve the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart and with all thy 
 soul, 
 
 13 To keep the commandments of 
 the Lord, and his statutes, which 
 I command thee this day for thy 
 good 
 
 14 Behold, the heaven and the 
 heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy 
 God, ^ the earth also^ with all that 
 therein is. 
 
 15 Only the Lord had a delight 
 in thy fathers to love them, and he 
 chose their seed after them, even you 
 above all people, as it is this day. 
 
 16 Circumcise therefore the fore- 
 skin of your heart, and be no more 
 stiffnecked. 
 
 Deut. relating to the priests and Levites, see 
 Introd. § V. and Note at end of chap, xviii. 
 
 12 sqq. After these emphatic warnings 
 against self-righteousness the principal topic 
 is resumed from ch. vi., and this division of 
 the discourse is drawn to a conclusion in the 
 next two chapters by a series of direct and 
 positive exhortations to a careful fulfilment of 
 the duties prescribed in the first two of the 
 Ten W^ords. Pride having been shown to 
 be utterly out of place in those who had so 
 often provoked God, and who owed their all 
 to God’s forgiveness and Moses’ intreaties, it 
 remains for Israel to make such return as is 
 possible for God’s undeserved mercies, by 
 loving and fearing Him and diligently keeping 
 his commandments. Both for love and fear 
 of Him abundant cause is drawn from His 
 past dealings wfith Israel : from His condescen- 
 sion to their fathers {ynj. 14, 15), and to them- 
 selves in their distress {yv. 18, 19); and from 
 His great acts for them and against their ene- 
 mies {y. 22 : xi. I sqq.). Finally Moses reminds 
 them of the consequences which await their 
 conduct ; prosperity and success if they be 
 faithful, misfortune and sorrow if otherwise 
 (xi. 13 — 25). The alternative is solemnly 
 and distinctly set before them, and the choice 
 committed to themselves (xi. 26 sqq.). 
 
 12 . And no^w, Israel &c.] i.e. “Since all 
 that thou hast is thus shown to be of mere 
 grace, without desert of thine own.” 
 
 nxjhat doth the Lord thy God require.^ &c.] 
 A noteworthy demand. God has in the Mo- 
 saic law positively commanded many things. 
 These however relate to external observances, 
 v/hich if need be can be enforced. But love 
 and veneration cannot be enforced, even by 
 God himself. They must be spontaneous. 
 Hence, even under the law of ordinances 
 where so much was peremptorily laid down, 
 and omnipotence was ready to compel obe- 
 dience, those sentiments, which are the spirit 
 
 and life of the whole, have to be, as they here 
 are, invited and solicited. 
 
 14 . heaven of heavens'] Cf. i K. viii. 27; 
 Ps. cxlviii, 4. The phrase is an exhaustive one 
 like sscula sasculorum, al^ves tSu aloiuov ; 
 and imports all which can be included under 
 the name of heaven. Cf. St Paul’s record 
 that he had been “caught up to the third 
 heaven,” 2 Cor. xii. 2. The declaration that 
 “heaven and the heaven of heavens is the 
 Lord’s” warns Israel that this authority is 
 not local and circumscribed ; that He was 
 not in any way bound to make election of 
 Israel, but did so (v. 15) of His own free 
 grace. 
 
 16 . Circumcise therefore the foreskin of 
 your hearty and be no more stiffneckedd] On 
 circumcision see Gen. xvii,. Note at end 
 of chapter. This v. points to the spiritual 
 import of circumcision. Circumcision must 
 not be regarded as a rite adopted principally 
 for sanitary reasons, and incorporated into 
 the ritual of Moses by way of securing its 
 regular observance. Nor is it enough to re- 
 gard circumcision as representing merely the 
 purity of heart and life required of those who 
 would dedicate themselves to God. Circum.- 
 cisicn was rather designed to set forth the 
 truth which lies at the very basis of revealed 
 religion, and which requires to be recognized 
 as a preliminary to the saving reception of 
 revealed truth, that man is by nature “very 
 far gone from original righteousness, ” and in 
 a state of enmity to God. The peremptory 
 requirement of circumcision as the sacrament 
 of admission to the privileges of the chosen 
 people denoted that this opposition must be 
 taken away ere man could enter into covenant 
 with God ; and the peculiar nature of the 
 rite itself indicated the origin and cause of 
 that opposition, and marked that element of 
 our nature w'hich is the most guilty and fallen. 
 It was through the flesh that man first sinned; 
 
DEUTERONOMY. X. XL 
 
 [v. 17—2, 
 
 838 
 
 17 For the Lord your God is 
 God of gods, and Lord of lords, a 
 great God, a mighty, and a terrible, 
 /2Chron. which -^regardeth not persons, nor 
 jJb^34. 19. taketh reward : 
 
 Acts 10. jg pjg execute the judgment 
 
 Rom. 2. qP the fatherless and widow, and lov- 
 Gai. 2. 6 . eth the stranger, in giving him food 
 Cot’3^'25- raiment. 
 
 i^Pet. I. Love ye therefore the stranger: 
 
 for ye were strangers in the land of 
 Egypt. 
 
 chap. 6. 20 ^Thou shalt fear the Lord thy 
 
 Matt. 4. God ; him shalt thou serve, and to 
 Luke 4. 8 . him shalt thou cleave, and swear by 
 chap. 13. his name. 
 
 ' 21 He is thy praise, and he is thy 
 
 God, that hath done for thee these 
 great and terrible things, which thine 
 eyes have seen. 
 
 22 Thy fathers went dov/n into 
 Egypt ^ with threescore and ten per-*Gen. 46. 
 sons ; and now the Lord thy God eLl i. 5. 
 hath made thee ^ as the stars of hea- ^ ^5- 
 
 ven for multitude. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 I A7i exhortation to obedience, 1 by their ozvn 
 experience of God's great works, 8 by promise 
 of God's great blessings, 1 6 and by threaten- 
 ings. i8 A careful study is required in 
 God's words. 26 The blessing and curse is 
 set before them. 
 
 T herefore thou shait love 
 
 the Lord thy God, and keep 
 his charge, and his statutes, and his 
 judgments, and his commandm-ents, 
 alway. 
 
 2 And know ye this day : for 1 
 speak not with your children which 
 have not known, and which have not 
 seen the chastisement of the Lord 
 
 as it is also in the flesh, its functions, lusts, 
 &c., that man’s rebellion against God chiefly 
 manifests itself still. It was fitting therefore 
 that the symbol which should denote the 
 removal of this estrangement from God 
 should be wrought in the body. Moses then 
 fitly follows up the command “to circumcise 
 the heart” with the warning “to be no more 
 stiffnecked.” His meaning is that they should 
 lay aside that obduracy and perverseness 
 towards God for which he had been reproving 
 them, which had led them into so many 
 transgressions of the covenant and revolts from 
 God, and which was especially the very con- 
 trary of that love and fear of God required by 
 the first two of the Ten Commandments. Si- 
 milarly, XXX. 6, circumcision of the heart is 
 spoken of as a necessary condition of loving 
 God; and on the other hand the epithet “un- 
 circumcised” is applied to the heart, lips, &c. 
 Lev. xxvi. 41 ; Jer. iv. 4 ; Ezek. xliv. 9 ; Acts vii. 
 jT, &c., to denote the native incapacity of the 
 members of the body for God’s service. The 
 language associated with circumcision in the 
 Bible distinguishes the use made of this rite in 
 the Jewish religion from that found amongst 
 certain heathen nations. Circumcision was 
 practised by those nations, and as a religious 
 rite; but not by any, the Egyptians probably 
 excepted, at all in the Jewish sense and mean- 
 ing. 1 1 is found e.g. amongst the Phoenicians ; 
 but as one of a class of usages, human sacrifices 
 being another example, which were designed 
 to aj>pease a deity representing the powers 
 of death and destruction, and supposed there- 
 fore to delight in human privation and suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 The grounds on which Circumcision was 
 
 imposed as essential by the Law are the same 
 as those on which Baptism is required in the 
 Gospel. The latter in the New Testament is 
 strictly analogous to the former under the 
 Old; cf. Col. ii. ii, 12. 
 
 17 , 18 . For the Lord your God is God of 
 gods^ and Lord of lords, &c.] The demand for 
 a surrender on the part of Israel of that re- 
 fractoriness towards God to which they were 
 prone, is followed up by an admonition re- 
 specting His majesty and omnipotence. As 
 He sums up in Himself all power and might, 
 He will not {y. 17) accept sacrifices or gifts 
 (cf. Ps. li. 16) to win His favour, nor will He 
 tolerate resistance, either against Himself or 
 (y. 18) against those whom He takes into His 
 protection. 
 
 18 . The uncircumcised heart is ever proud, 
 hard, selfish. The call to put it away is 
 naturally coupled therefore with an admoni- 
 tion that though “ God be high, yet hath He 
 respect unto the lowly,” and with an injunc- 
 tion to “ love the stranger, as God had loved 
 them when strangers in Egypt.” Thus would 
 it be shown that they had circumcised their 
 hearts indeed (cf. i St John iii. 10, 17, and 
 iv. 20). 
 
 Chap. XL 1 . keep his charge'] Cf. Levit. 
 viii. 35- 
 
 2 . And know ye this day: for 1 speak not 
 with your children which hanoe not known, and 
 which have not seen the chastisement of the 
 Lord your God, his greatness, &c.] Render: 
 And own ye this day (for I have not to 
 do with your children which have not 
 known and which have not seen) the 
 
V. 3 — 10 .] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XL 
 
 your God, his greatness, his mighty 
 hand, and his stretched out arm, 
 
 3 And his miracles, and his acts*, 
 which he did in the midst of Egypt 
 unto Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and 
 unto all his land ; 
 
 4 And what he did unto the army 
 of Egypt, unto their horses, and to 
 their chariots ; how he made the 
 water of the Red sea to overflow 
 them as they pursued after you, and 
 how the Lord hath destroyed them 
 unto this day ; 
 
 5 And what he did unto you in 
 the wilderness, until ye came into 
 this place ; 
 
 « Numb. 6 And what he did unto Da- 
 & than and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, 
 
 Ps. io6. 17. Qjp Reuben : how the earth 
 
 opened her mouth, and swallowed 
 them up, and their households, and 
 
 their tents, and ail the substance n Or, 
 that ^ was in their possession, in t\\Q 
 midst of all Israel : 
 
 7 But your eyes have seen all the 
 great acts of the Lord which he did. was at 
 
 8 Therefore shall ye keep all the 
 commandments which I command you 
 this day, that ye may be strong, and 
 go in and possess the land, whither ye 
 go to possess it ; 
 
 9 And that ye may prolong your 
 days in the land, which the Lord 
 sware unto your fathers to give unto 
 them and to their seed, a land that 
 floweth with milk and honey. 
 
 10 ^ For the land, whither thou 
 goest in to possess it, is not as the 
 land of Egypt, from whence ye came 
 out, v/here thou sowedst thy seed, 
 and wateredst it with thy foot, as a 
 garden of herbs : 
 
 chastisement of the Lord, his great- 
 ness, &c. The word “chastisement” is 
 evidently the accusative governed by the verb 
 at the beginning of the 7.;., rendered “know” 
 in A. V. The colon placed after “day ” should 
 therefore be removed, and the words between 
 the verb and its accusative placed in paren- 
 thesis as above. The ellipse in the parenthetic 
 words, supplied in the A. V. by the insertion 
 of “I speak,” is better filled up as above, un- 
 derstanding a common Hebrew phrase {had- 
 ddbbdr hahoo) : so Schultz, Keil, and Del., Bp. 
 Wordsworth, &c. With the words “which 
 have not known and which have not seen,” 
 it is easy from the context to supply a clause 
 equivalent to “what ye have known and 
 seen.” 
 
 The “chastisement” consisted in the many 
 mighty acts, both of punishment and mercy, 
 through which God had guided them from 
 Egypt to the borders of the Promised Land. 
 This loving discipline Moses calls on them to 
 recognize and lay to heart: and in this and 
 the following four he specifies some lead- 
 ing instances of its exercise. 
 
 6. And <ivbat be did unto Dathan and Abi- 
 ram., the sons of Eliab., the sons of Reuben~\ It 
 has been noted that Korah and the Levites 
 who took part with him are not mentioned 
 here, though in Num. xvi. “ Korah and his 
 company” took a leading part in the rebellion. 
 It may be added that the nam.e of “On, the 
 son of Peleth” (cf. Num. xvi. i) is omitted 
 also. But in a mere allusion such as that 
 before us, and made too in the presence of 
 eyewitnesses of the facts, it was superfluous 
 to give all the names of the leaders in “the 
 
 gainsaying,” The omission of Korah andtl e 
 Levites seems intelligible enough when we 
 remember that Moses was addressing and 
 admonishing, not the Levites, but the con- 
 gregation at large. The rebellion of Korah 
 evidently included an attack on both the 
 ecclesiastical and civil arrangements of Moses; 
 see note on Num. xvi. The former were 
 assailed by Korah and certain of the Levites, 
 the latter by Dathan, Abiram, and On, with 
 250 other “princes of the assembly” (Num. 
 xvi. a). This latter was the only portion of 
 the sedition which it was relevant to Moses’ 
 present purpose to name; and he therefore 
 naturally omits the former. 
 
 all the substance that ^vas in their possessioii] 
 Render, every living thing which fol- 
 lowed them. Literally, “every living thing 
 at their feet.” The expression does not mean 
 their goods, which would be included in their 
 “households and tents,” but their followers, 
 described Num. xvi. 32 as “all the men that 
 appertained to Korah.” 
 
 10. Another motive for fidelity is added, 
 viz. the entire dependence of the Promised 
 Land upon God for its fertility. It was “a 
 land flowing with milk and honey ; ” yet this 
 its richness was not, as was that of Egypt, the 
 reward of human skill and labour, but was, 
 on the contrary, the gift of God simply and 
 entirely; the effect of “the former and the 
 latter rains” sent by Him. The spiritual 
 significance of these and many other such 
 peculiarities of the Promised Land must not 
 be overlooked. 
 
 Egypt and Canaan are distinguished in this 
 and the following verses, by certain of their 
 
840 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XL 
 
 [v. II — 19. 
 
 + Heb. 
 secketh. 
 
 .II But the land, whither ye go 
 to possess it, is a land of hills and 
 valleys, and drinketh water of the 
 rain of heaven : 
 
 12 A land which the Lord thy 
 God ^ careth for : the eyes of the 
 Lord thy God are always upon it, 
 from the beginning of the year even 
 unto the end of the year. 
 
 13 ^ And it shall come to pass, if 
 ye shall hearken diligently unto my 
 commandments which I command you 
 this day, to love the Lord your God, 
 and to serve him with all your heart 
 and with all your soul, 
 
 14 That I will give yon the rain 
 of your land in his due season, the 
 first rain and the latter rain, that thou 
 mayest gather in thy corn, and thy 
 wine, and thine oil. 
 
 most remarkable physical traits. Canaan as 
 a mountainous country (cf. on iii. 25) was 
 well watered, but by the rains of heaven, on 
 wJiich it absolutely depended for its crops. 
 Without the autumn rain to quicken the 
 newly sown seed, and the spring rain to give 
 the grain bulk and substance, the harvest of 
 Palestine would totally fail. Nor, from the 
 configuration of the country, could artificial 
 irrigation do anything to remedy this de- 
 pendence. Hence it was a land on which, so 
 long as God's people were faithful and con- 
 sequently prosperous, “the eyes of God” 
 would always be: i.e. He would supply at 
 each successive season (cf 14, 15) the 
 needful conditions of productiveness. But 
 Egypt, fit emblem here as elsewhere of the 
 world of nature in distinction from the world 
 of grace, though of course deriving its all 
 ultimately from the Giver of all good things, 
 yet directly and immediately owed its riches 
 and plenty to human ingenuity and capital. 
 It enjoyed no rain worth speaking of, but 
 drew its water supply from the annual over- 
 fiowing of the Nile. This only lasts about a 
 hundred days; but is rendered available for 
 agricultural purposes throughout the year by 
 an elaborate and costly system of tanks, canals, 
 forcing machines, &c. To these mechanical 
 appliances allusion is made in this verse: 
 “Egypt where thou sowedst thy seed, and 
 wateredst it with thy foot.” The inhabitants 
 of Egypt j)robably watered “with the foot” 
 in two ways, vi/. by means of tread-wheels 
 working sets of pumps, and by means of arti- 
 ficial channels connected with reservoirs, and 
 opened, turned, or closed by the feet. Both 
 methods are still in use in Egypt and other 
 similar districts of country. On the former 
 
 1 5 And I will ^ send grass in thy t Heb. 
 fields for thy cattle, that thou mayeSf^^^^' 
 eat and be full. 
 
 16 Take heed to yourselves, that 
 your heart be not deceived, and ye 
 turn aside, and serve other gods, and 
 worship them ; 
 
 17 And then the Lord’s wrath be 
 kindled against you, and he shut up 
 the heaven, that there be no rain, 
 and that the land yield not her fruit ; 
 and lest ye perish quickly from off 
 the good land which the Lord giveth 
 you. 
 
 18 ^ Therefore shall ye lay up 
 these my words in your heart and 
 in your soul, and '^bind them for a ^ chap. 6. 
 sign upon your hand, that they may 
 
 be as frontlets between your eyes. chap. 4. 
 
 19 And ye shall teach them your & 'e. 7. 
 
 see Hengstenberg, ‘Auth.’ i. 435. Of the 
 latter Bp. Daniel Wilson {e.gl) speaks, writ- 
 ing from Mayaveram on a visitation tour ; he 
 journeyed (1835) through “rice-fields, wav- 
 ing with their green mass of blade-grass, 
 every field soaked and floated. Literally they 
 ‘sow amidst many waters,’ ‘cast their bread 
 (corn) upon them,’ ‘water them with their 
 foot,’ which removes the petty embankmeut 
 when tliey let in the stream ; whilst ‘ the send- 
 ing out thither the feet of the ox and the ass ’ 
 is perpetually seen.” Bp. Wilson’s ‘Journal, 
 Letters,’ p. 35. Cf. Virgil, ‘Georgic,’ i. 106 
 sqq. : 
 
 satis fluvium inducit rivosque sequentes, 
 
 Et quum exustus ager morientibus aestuat 
 
 herbis, 
 
 Ecce supercilio clivosi tramitis undam 
 Elicit ; ilia cadens raucum per Isevia murmur 
 Saxa ciet, &c. 
 
 14 . the first rain and the latter raiti] The 
 Hebrew nouns are here rendered in sense 
 rather than in letter. The fonner, derived 
 from a verb signifying to cast forth or to 
 sprinkle^ is the proper term for the autumn 
 rain, falling about the time of sowing, and 
 which may be named “the former,” as occur- 
 ing in the early part of the Hebrew civil year, 
 viz. in October and November. The other 
 word (pnalkosh')^ derived from a verb signify- 
 ing “to be late,” or “to gather in the late 
 fruits,” is applied to the spring rain, which 
 falls in March and April, because it fits the 
 earth for the ingathering of harvest. Be- 
 tween these two wet periods, and except them, 
 there was little or no rain in Canaan. Rain 
 in harvest time (cf. i Sam. xii. 17, 18) was so 
 rare as to be regarded as portentous. 
 
V. 20 3*^-] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XL 
 
 841 
 
 children, speaking of them when thou 
 sittest in thine house, and when thou 
 walkest by the way, when thou liest 
 dov/n, and when thou risest up. 
 
 20 And thou shalt write them up- 
 on the door posts of thine house, and 
 upon thy gates : 
 
 21 That your days may be mul- 
 tiplied, and the days of your children, 
 in the land which the Lord sware 
 unto your fathers to give them, as the 
 days of heaven upon the earth. 
 
 22 ^ For if ye shall diligently keep 
 all these commandments which I com- 
 mand you, to do them, to love the 
 Lord your God, to walk in all his 
 ways, and to cleave unto him ; 
 
 23 Then will the Lord drive out 
 all these nations from before you, and 
 ye shall possess greater nations and 
 mightier than yourselves. 
 
 ‘^josh. I. 24 ^’Every place whereon the soles 
 of your feet shall tread shall be yours : 
 from the wilderness and Lebanon, 
 from the river, the river Euphrates, 
 even unto the uttermost sea shall 
 your coast be. 
 
 25 There shall no man be able to 
 
 stand before you : for the Lord your 
 God shall lay the fear of you and 
 the dread of you upon all the land 
 that ye shall tread upon, as he hath 
 said unto you. 
 
 26 ^1 Behold, I set before you this 
 day a blessing and a curse ; 
 
 27 blessing, if ye obey the com- ^chap. 28. 
 mandments of the Lord your God, 
 which I command you this day : 
 
 28 And a -^curse, if ye will not ■/'chap. 28. 
 obey the commandments of the Lord 
 
 your God, but turn aside out of the 
 way which I command you this day, 
 to go after other gods, which ye have 
 not known. 
 
 29 And it shall come to .pass, when 
 the Lord thy God hath brought thee 
 in unto the land whither thou goest 
 
 to possess it, that thou shalt put ^ the ^chap. 27. 
 blessing upon mount Gerizim, and josh. 8. 33. 
 the curse upon mount Ebal, 
 
 30 Are they not on the other side 
 Jordan, by the way where the sun 
 goeth down, in the land of the Ca- 
 naanites, which dwell in the cham- 
 paign over against Gilgal, beside the 
 plains of Moreh ? 
 
 21. as the days of hea<ven upon the earth~\ 
 These words are grammatically connected 
 with the verb “multiplied” in the beginning 
 of the aK The sense is; “Keep the cove- 
 nant faithfully, and so your own and your 
 children’s days be multiplied as long as the 
 heaven covers the earth.” The promise of 
 Canaan to Israel then was d. perpetual promise, 
 but also a conditional one. 
 
 24 . Every place qju hereon the soles of your 
 feet shall tread shall be yours'] This promise is 
 restricted by the words following to certain 
 limits: viz. the desert of Arabia on the south; 
 Lebanon on the north; the Mediterranean on 
 the west ; the Euphrates on the east (cf. Gen. 
 XV. 18; Josh. i. 3, 4). Before the word Le- 
 banon must apparently be understood the 
 preposition “from.” 
 
 29 . thou shalt put the blessing upon mount 
 Gerisedm] Lit. thou shsXt give^ i.e, give utter- 
 ance to it. 
 
 The word Gerizim is probably derived 
 from a root (^gdraz)^ to shear or cut off. It 
 can however hardly (as Rosenm. and others) 
 have been bestowed on the mountain because 
 it grew large crops, and so found much em- 
 ployment for the sickle. Mount Gerizim 
 was and is as barren as Ebal (see Robinson, 
 
 II. 276 sqq.): and was probably selected as 
 the hill of benediction because it was the 
 southernmost of the two, the south being 
 the region, according to Hebrew ideas, of 
 light, and so of life and blessing. On the 
 ceremony of the solemn benediction and com- 
 mination, see xxvii. 14 sqq. 
 
 30 . Are they not on the other side Jordan^ 
 by the ^vay vohere the sun goeth dovun^ in the 
 land of the Canaanites^ vuhich dvjell in the 
 champaign over against Gilgal^ beside the plains 
 of Moreh ?] The situation of the mountains 
 is here described more accurately. The words 
 “by the way where the sun goeth down,” 
 should run, bijyond. the road of the west ; 
 i.e. on the further side of the main track 
 which ran' from Syria and Damascus to 
 Jerusalem and Egypt through the centre of 
 Palestine. This is called “the way of the 
 west” in contrast to the other main route 
 from Damascus to the south which passed 
 through the district east of Jordan. The por- 
 tion of this western road which lies between 
 Jerusalem and Nablous is described in Ritter, 
 
 ‘ Palestine,’ iv. 293 sqq. (Clark’s Transl.). 
 Robinson on his way from Acre to Jerusa- 
 lem passed over the same portion, and de- 
 scribes the road as skirting Ebal and Gerizim. 
 
842 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XL XII. 
 
 [v. 31— I, 
 
 chap. 5. 
 32 
 
 31 For ye shall pass over Jordan 
 to go in to possess the land which the 
 Lord your God giveth you, and ye 
 shall possess it, and dwell therein. 
 
 32 And ye shall observe do all 
 the statutes and judgments which I 
 set before you this day. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 I ]\Iommients of idolatiy are to be destroyed. 
 5 The place of God^s sci-vice is to be kept. 
 
 15, 23 Blood is forbidden. 17, '-o, 26 Holy 
 things must be eaten in the holy place. 19 
 The Levite is not to be forsaken. 29 Idolatry 
 is not to be inquired after. 
 
 T hese are the statutes and judg- 
 ments, which ye shall observe 
 to do in the land, which the Lord 
 God of thy fathers giveth thee to pos- 
 sess it, all the days that ye live uport 
 the earth. 
 
 Traces of the ancient road, which is still a 
 much frequented track, were noticed in many 
 places by Robinson ; see “ Bibl. Res.” ill. 127 
 sqq. The further specifications of the verse 
 apply only indirectly to Ebal and Gerizim. 
 
 Gilgal” and “ the plains (rather, the oaks, 
 cf. on Gen. xii. 6) of Moreh,” are added to 
 define more particularly the section of Ca- 
 naanites intended. The fact that the whole 
 district in question is clearly placed by these 
 local notes beyond the main central road of 
 Palestine, ought to have precluded the charges 
 of anachronism brought forward on the as- 
 sumption that the Gilgal here named is Gilgal 
 by Jericho, which only received its name in 
 the time of Joshua (Josh. v. 9). 
 
 The purpose of ^Ioses is to mark the situa- 
 tion of two mountains which were to be the 
 scene of a very remarkable function of his 
 ritual. He describes them first as beyond 
 Jordan, on the banks of which Israel then 
 was*; next, as beyond the well-known high 
 road through the country; next, as in the 
 land occupied by certain Canaanites “over 
 against Gilgal, and beside the oaks of Moreh.” 
 I'hese latter were apparently familiar to the 
 people from the history of Abraham (cf. 
 Gen. xii. 6), and were in the neighbourhood 
 of Sichem : obviously therefore the Gilgal by 
 Jericho is out of the question in the case be- 
 fore us. Whether Deuteronomy was or was 
 not written after the time of Joshua, the 
 writer of this verse did not and could not in- 
 tend to refer to a place on the edge of the 
 Jordan, such as the Gilgal of. Joshua v. 9, but 
 to one in the neighbourhood of Moreh and 
 Sichem, some thirty-five miles distant at least. 
 
 l^earing these things in mind it seems im- 
 possible to doubt that the Gilgal of this 
 verse is to be found in the Jiljulieh of Robin- 
 .son (‘Bibl. Researches,’ iii. pp. 138, 139), a 
 large village about twelve miles south of Geri- 
 zim. J iljulieh is on the brow of a lofty range of 
 hills, and would be very appropriately assign- 
 ed as a landmark. It is called “ Gilgoul” by 
 Ritter, ‘ Pah’ iv. 268 (Clark’s Transh). It 
 may also have been the Gilgal from which 
 IClijah and Idisha “went down” to Bethel 
 (2 K. ii. I, 2); and which is repeatedly named 
 in the history of those prophets. The Gilgal 
 mentioned Josh. xii. 23 as a capital of certain 
 
 nations, seems to have been a third place bear- 
 ing this descriptive and so not uncommon 
 name. See note there. 
 
 Chap. XII. Having thus rehearsed the 
 Decalogue and enforced its leading principles, 
 Moses now passes on to apply those prin- 
 ciples to the ecclesiastical, civil, and social 
 life of the people. Fourteen chapters are thus 
 occupied. In proceeding through them many 
 particulars will be noticed which are peculiar 
 to the law as given in Deut. ; and even in 
 laws repeated from the earlier books various 
 new circumstances and details are introduced. 
 This is but natural. The Sinaitic legislation 
 was nearly forty years old, and had been 
 given under conditions of time place, and 
 circumstance now distant from, the present 
 ones. The promised land was in sight, the law- 
 giver hjmself was about to be withdrawn, and 
 his institutions were at length about to be put 
 into full effect. Moses in ripeness of wisdom 
 and experience now completes his office by 
 enlarging, explaining, modifying, and supple- 
 menting, under Divine guidance and sanction, 
 the code which under the like authority he had 
 in earlier days promulgated. Yet the Sinaitic 
 system, so far from being set aside or in any 
 way abrogated, is on the contrary throughout 
 presupposed and assumed. Its existence and 
 authority are taken as the starting-point of 
 what is here prescribed, and an accurate 
 acquaintance with it on the part of the people 
 is taken for granted. It is too much to say 
 that the details of chaps, xii. — xxvi. can be 
 at all satisfactorily grouped in order round 
 the precepts of the Decalogue ; but the allu- 
 sions to it are so frequent that we can readily 
 see how here, as in other parts, the book of 
 Deuteronomy is a kind of commentary upon 
 the Decalogue, and an application of it. Yet 
 the particulars into which Moses enters, with 
 the daily life and w'alk of his own people in 
 their future Iiome before his mind, are such 
 that the prescriptions in these chapters are 
 for the most part purely national; they be- 
 long to the ceremonial and civil rather than 
 to the moral elements of his system. 
 
 Moses fitly begins with regulations pertain- 
 ing to the worship of the Israelites during 
 their settled life in Canaan. 
 
« chap. 7 
 5 - 
 
 tOr, 
 
 inherit. 
 
 b Jud-. 
 
 t Heb. 
 
 I reak 
 down. 
 
 V. 2-5.] DEUTERONOMY. ^II. 843 
 
 2 Ye shall utterly destroy all the 
 places, wherein the nations which ye 
 shall ''possess served their gods, upon 
 the high mountains, and upon the hills, 
 and under every green tree : 
 
 3 And '^ye shall ^overthrow their 
 altars, and break their pillars, and 
 burn their groves with fire ; and ye 
 shall hew down the graven images of 
 
 their gods, and destroy the names of 
 them out of that place. 
 
 4 Ye shall not do so unto the Lord 
 your God. 
 
 5 But unto the place which the 
 Lord your God shall “^choose out of Kin. s. 
 all your tribes to put his name there, zChron. 7. 
 
 unto his habitation shall ye seek, 
 and thither thou shalt come : 
 
 1 — 7 . On the command to destroy the 
 places and monuments of idolatrous worship, 
 see on vii. 5. 
 
 3. thetr gron)es~\ Render tlieir idols of 
 ■wood : and see on xvi. 21. 
 
 4. Te shall not do so unto the Lord your 
 God~\ i.e. “The idolaters set up their altars 
 and images on any high hill, and under every 
 green tree at their pleasure, but shall not do 
 so; the Lord Himiself shall determine the 
 spot for your worship, and there only shall 
 ye seek Him,” The religion of the Canaanites 
 was human; its modes of worship were of 
 man’s devising. It fixed its holy places on 
 the hills in the vain thought of being nearer 
 heaven, or in deep groves where the silence and 
 gloom might overawe the worshipper. But 
 such superstitious appliances were not worthy 
 of the true religion. God had in it revealed 
 Himself to men, and manifested amongst 
 them His immediate presence and power. It 
 followed of course that the machinery of 
 idolatry must thenceforward be swept away ; 
 and that God thus come down amongst men, 
 would Himself assign the sanctuary and the 
 ritual of His own service. 
 
 5. But unto the place <iuhich the Lord your 
 God shall choose out of all your tribes to put 
 his name there., eneen unto his habitation shall 
 ye seek., and thither thou shalt come~\ The 
 A. V. here follows the syntax and punctua- 
 tion of the ordinary Hebrew text. Others 
 regard the word rendered “unto his habita- 
 tion” as a verb infinitive, and connect it with 
 the preceding; “to put his name there, that 
 he might dwell there:” Vulg. “ ut ponat no- 
 men SLium ibi et habitet in eo ;” cf. 2;. 1 1 . “To 
 put his name there ;” i. e. to manifest to men 
 His Divine Presence. The Targumists rightly 
 refer to the Shechinah. The expression “ put 
 His Name,” comprehends however all the 
 various modes in which God vouchsafed to 
 reveal Himself and His attributes to men. God 
 is present everywhere by His power ; but is 
 present “per prassentiam gratice” only where 
 He has covenanted to be so ; as He is “ per 
 preesentiam glorice ” to the Angels and Saints 
 in Heaven. 
 
 The purpose of the command of the text 
 is to secure the unity, and through unity the 
 purity of the worship of God. That there 
 
 should be one national centre for the religion 
 of the people was obviously essential to the 
 great ends of the whole dispensation. Had 
 fanciful varieties of worship such as Poly- 
 theism delighted in been tolerated, the Israelites 
 would soon have lapsed into idolatry, and the 
 deposit of the true faith and knowledge of 
 God would have been, humanly speaking, 
 hopelessly lost. There are not wanting in 
 their history examples which demonstrate their 
 proneness to this corruption as soon as the 
 precepts of the text were relaxed or neglected : 
 e.g. that of Gideon, Judg. viii. ; of Micah, 
 Judg. xviii. ; of Jeroboam, i K. xiii. Hence 
 the emphasis and reiteration with which in 
 this chapter, and elsewhere in Dent., “will- 
 worship ” is forbidden, and the outward reli- 
 gious life of the people gathered strictly round 
 the authorized sanctuary. 
 
 The prescription before us is not altogether 
 new. Its principle is clearly laid down Ex. 
 XX. 24, simultaneously with the very first pro- 
 mulgation of the Law at Sinai. Its practice 
 was secured during the journeyings through 
 the wilderness by the enactment Levit. xvii. 
 I — 7, which forbad the offering of sacrifices 
 elsewhere than “at the door of the tabernacle 
 of the congregation.” But the detection and 
 suppression of unlawful worship was com- 
 paratively easy whilst the whole nation was 
 organized in one camp. Now that the two 
 tribes and a half were established beyond 
 Jordan, and the rest were soon to be scattered 
 in their settled homes over the whole face of 
 the promised land, the opportunities and the 
 temptations for setting up idol shrines, and 
 for devising private rites, would be much 
 greater. As a natural and necessary con- 
 sequence, the command before us is repeated 
 with more point and stringency, and is 
 guarded on every side from infringement. 
 
 The words “the place which the Lord 
 shall choose to put his name there ” suggest 
 Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple to our 
 minds. But though spoken as they were by 
 a Prophet, and interpreted as they are by the 
 Psalms {e.g. Ps. Ixxviii. 67 — 69), they have 
 a proper application to the Temple, yet 
 they must not be referred exclusively to it. 
 Jarchi names Shiloh as the spot indicated; 
 and Jeremiah (vii. 12), speaking in the name 
 of the Lord, calls Shiloh “my place, where I 
 
844 
 
 V. 6, 7 -] 
 
 Dli^UTERONOMY. XII. 
 
 6 And thither ye shall bring your 
 burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, 
 and your tithes, and heave offerings 
 of your hand, and your vows, and 
 your freewill offerings, and the first- 
 lings of your herds and of your flocks : 
 
 7 And there ye shall eat before 
 the Lord your God, and ye shall 
 rejoice in all that ye put your hand 
 unto, ye and your households, where- 
 in the Lord thy God hath blessed 
 thee. 
 
 set my name at the first.” The text in truth 
 does not import that God would always from 
 the first choose one and the same locality “to 
 put His Name there,” but that there would 
 always be a locality so chosen by Him ; and 
 that ’thither the people must bring their sacri- 
 fices, and not offer them at their pleasure or 
 convenience elsewhere. 
 
 Neither does the text forbid the offering of 
 sacrifices to God at other places than the one 
 chosen by Him “to put His Name there” on 
 proper occasions and by proper authority. 
 Moses himself, ch. xxvii. 5, 6, enjoins the 
 erection of a stone altar on Mount Ebal for 
 burnt offei'ings to be offered on the day of 
 commination : and we read of sacrifices offer- 
 ed at various places by Judges, Prophets, 
 Kings, and others, and accepted by God. 
 Gideon, e.g. offered a burnt offering at 
 Jehovah Shalom in Ophrah (Judg. vi. 24 
 sqc].); Manoah did the like at the suggestion 
 of the angel who appeared to him, no doubt 
 near his own home (Judg. xiii. 16 sqq.); 
 Solomon in Gibeon, where “the Lord appeared 
 to him” (i Kings iii. 4, 5); Elijah on Mount 
 Carmel, and that after the erection of the 
 temple (i Kings xviii. 31 sqq.), (See. Yet 
 these v'ere no transgressions of the command 
 of the text, much less can we infer from them 
 that the worshippers knew nothing of such 
 a command. Clearly the several places in 
 question were Jor the particular purpose and 
 occasion as really “chosen by God to put His 
 Name there,” as were Shiloh or Jerusalem 
 for ordinary purposes and occasions. In 
 short, the text prohibits sacrifices at any other 
 locality than that which God should appoint 
 for the purpose. It is no contravention of it 
 that He should not only choose a site for the 
 national sanctuary, and for the regular worship 
 of His people, but should also specially direct 
 on extraordinary emergencies sacrifices to be 
 brought to Him elsewhere. 
 
 6. thither shall ye hrhig your burnt offer- 
 ings^ and your sacrijices'] The various kinds of 
 sacrificial gifts are here specified, in order to 
 enforce the order that each and every one of 
 them is to be offered at the Sanctuary, and 
 nowhere else. Some have objected that this 
 command cannot possibly have been ever 
 carried out, at all events until in later days 
 the territory which owned obedience to it 
 was narrowed to the little kingdom of Judah. 
 No doubt the necessity for making some kinds 
 of ofierings (e.g. the trespass-offerings) must 
 
 under the statutes of Levit. v. and vi. have 
 arisen very frequently. Can it have been im- 
 perative on every one who contracted cere- 
 monial uncleanness to rid himself of it on (#xh 
 occasion by journeying, perhaps from distant 
 Dan, or the further side of Jordan, to Shiloh 
 or Jerusalem to offer the prescribed sacrifices? 
 Let it be noted that the dimensions of the 
 difficulty have been sometimes over-estimated. 
 Even Dan, the furthest point of the land, was 
 less than 100 miles from Jerusalem. This 
 fact shows that the rule requiring all the 
 males to go up to the Capital at the three 
 great feasts was by no means impracticable 
 because of distance, even when the twelve 
 tribes were united in one kingdom, especially 
 as these feasts all occurred in the summer 
 months, when travelling is easy. But in these 
 and in other precepts Moses doubtless takes 
 much for granted. He is here, as elsewhere, 
 regulating and defining more precisely institu- 
 tions which had long been in existence, as to 
 m.any details of which custom, as in our own 
 law both of Church and State, superseded the 
 necessity of specific enactment. No doubt 
 the people well understood what Maimonides 
 expressly tells us in reference to the matter, 
 namely, that where immediate paym.ent could 
 not be made, the debt to God was to be 
 reserved until the next great feast, and then 
 duly discharged. Nor need we doubt that 
 the commutation of the tithes allowed, xiv. 
 24, 25, was extended, as indeed would follow 
 from the nature of the case and from the 
 parallel directions about the redemption of 
 things not presented to God in kind {e.g. 
 Num. xviii. 15), to any or all of the offerings 
 here enumerated, as occasion might require. 
 The thing specially to be observed was that 
 no kind of sacrifice was to be offered except 
 at the sacred spot fixed by God for its ac- 
 ceptance. The reserving of an offering until 
 it could be made at this spot was in some 
 cases necessary if this command was to be 
 kept : and where necessary was no doubt 
 lawful. 
 
 7. ^nd there ye shall eat., (&c.] To the in- 
 junction that the sacrifices and other offerings 
 to God were to be made only at the Sanctuary 
 is here added another, that the feasts which 
 accompanied certain offerings were to be also 
 held in the same place. This command is 
 here given for the first time in a peremptory 
 form, ^^'hilst the people formed but one 
 camp the sacrificial meal would naturally take 
 
V. 8—15.] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XII. 
 
 845 
 
 8 Ye shall not do after all the 
 things that we do here this day, every 
 man whatsoever is right in his own 
 eyes. 
 
 9 For ye are not as yet come to 
 the rest and to the inheritance, which 
 the Lord your God giveth you. 
 
 10 But when ye go over Jordan, 
 and dwell in the land which the Lord 
 your God giveth you to inherit, and 
 when he giveth you rest from all your 
 enemies round about, so that ye dwell 
 in safety ; 
 
 1 1 Then there shall be a place 
 which the Lord your God shall 
 choose to cause his name to dwell 
 there ; thither shall ye bring all that 
 I command you ; your burnt offerings, 
 and your sacrifices, your tithes, and 
 the heave offering of your hand, and 
 
 place at the spot where the victim was slain 
 and offered, as was the custom amongst all 
 other nations. But when the people lived in 
 dwellings far asunder from one another and 
 from the Sanctuary, there was need to enjoin 
 precisely the same thing as to the sacrificial 
 meals which was ruled as to the sacrifices 
 themselves. 
 
 It is not here specified which of the eight 
 kinds of offerings enumerated furnished the 
 wherewithal for a feast to the offerers, and 
 which not. This, as so much in various parts 
 of the book, is presumed to be known. The 
 burnt-offerings e.g. were wholly consumed on 
 the altar ; and the sin-offerings too were in 
 certain cases wholly burnt, though not on 
 the altar only (Lev. iv. 21). These sacri- 
 fices therefore left nothing for the worshippers 
 to partake of. Comparing 'vv. 17, 18, we 
 learn that the presentation of the tithes and 
 the firstlings was also associated with a feast. 
 This however is not instituted by Moses 
 here, nor indeed anywhere else. It makes 
 its appearance incidentally as a custom. All 
 that is said of it is that it shall take place, 
 like other such feasts, at the Sanctuary. The 
 firstlings (Num. xviii. 15 — 18) are assigned to 
 the priests, the tithes to the Levites (Num. 
 xviii. 21 sqc].). On the participation of the 
 people in the feasts made upon the firstlings 
 and tithes, see xv. 19 — 23 sqq., and on Lev. 
 8 sqq. Moses points out that heretofore 
 they had not observed the prescribed order in 
 their worship, because during their migratory 
 life in the wilderness it had been impossible to 
 do so. During their wanderings there were 
 doubtless times when the tabernacle was not 
 set up for days together, and when the daily 
 sacrifice (Num. xxviii. i), together with many 
 VoL. I. 
 
 all ^ your choice vows which ye vow t Hei). 
 
 1 r ^ th<; choice 
 
 unto the Lord ; of your 
 
 12 And ye shall rejoice before the 
 Lord your God, ye, and your sons, 
 and your daughters, and your men- 
 servants, and your maidservants, and 
 the Levite that is within your gates ; 
 forasmuch as "^he hath no part nor chap. 10 . 
 inheritance with you. 
 
 13 Take heed to thyself that thou 
 offer not thy burnt offerings in every 
 place that thou seest : 
 
 14 But in the place which the 
 Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, 
 there thou shalt offer thy burnt offer- 
 ings, and there thou shalt do all that 
 I command thee. 
 
 15 Notwithstanding thou-mayest 
 kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, 
 whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, ac- 
 
 other ordinances, were necessarily omiLted. 
 It is not too much to say, in face of the fact 
 (Josh. V. 5 sqq.) that circumcision itself had 
 been for many years neglected, that the whole 
 system was imperfectly acted upon up to the 
 death of Moses, and important parts of it left 
 altogether in abeyance. This consideration 
 must be carefully borne in mind throughout 
 Deut. It illustrates the necessity for a repeti- 
 tion of very much of the Sinaitic legislation, 
 and suggests the reason why some parts are 
 so urgently reiterated and impressed, whilst 
 others are left unnoticed. The speaker has 
 in view throughout the state of religion and 
 its observances amongst his hearers. He 
 warns them in the ‘vtj. before us that as 
 they were now about to quit their unsettled 
 mode of life, God’s purpose of choosing for 
 Himself a place to set His Name there would 
 be executed, and the whole of the sacred 
 ritual would consequently become obligatory. 
 The rest and safety of Canaan is significantly 
 laid down, w. 10, ii, as the indispensable 
 condition and basis for an entire fulfilment of 
 the law : the perfection of righteousness coin- 
 ciding thus with the cessation of wanderings, 
 dangers, and toils. 
 
 12. hath no part tior inheritance '^vlth you] 
 Cf. V. 19 and xiv. 27, xvi. ii, 14. On the al- 
 lusions in Deut. to the condition of the Levites 
 see Introduction, § v. 
 
 15 . In Levit. xvii. 3 — 6, the people had 
 been forbidden under any circumstances to 
 slay any animal except “at the door of the 
 tabernacle of the congregation.” This pro- 
 hibition was designed (2;. 7) to cut off all pre- 
 texts and opportunities for those private and 
 idolatrous rites to which the people \vere 
 
 . 3 ^ 
 
846 
 
 chap. 15. 
 23- 
 
 /"chap. 14, 
 27- 
 
 Ecclus. 7. 
 
 31- 
 
 t Heb. 
 all thy 
 days. 
 
 S Gen. 28. 
 14- 
 
 chap. ig. 8, 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XII. [v. 16-29. 
 
 cording to the blessing of the Lord 
 thy God which he hath given thee : 
 the unclean and the clean may eat 
 thereof, as of the roebuck, and as of 
 the hart. 
 
 16 ^ Only ye shall not eat the 
 blood ; ye shall pour it upon the earth 
 as water. 
 
 1 7 Thou mayest not eat within 
 thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of 
 thy wine, or of thy oil, or the first- 
 lings of thy herds or of thy flock, nor 
 any of thy vows which thou vowest, 
 nor thy freewill offerings, or heave 
 offering of thine hand : 
 
 18 But thou must eat them before 
 the Lord thy God in the place which 
 the Lord thy God shall choose, thou, 
 and thy son, and thy daughter, and 
 thy manservant, and thy maidservant, 
 and the Levite that is within thy 
 gates : and thou shalt rejoice before 
 the Lord thy God in all that thou 
 puttest thine hands unto. 
 
 19 -/^Take heed to thyself that thou 
 forsake not the Levite ^as long as 
 thou livest upon the earth. 
 
 20 ^ When the Lord thy God 
 shall enlarge thy border, ^as he hath 
 promised thee, and thou shalt say, I 
 will eat flesh, because thy soul long- 
 eth to eat flesh ; thou mayest eat 
 flesh, whatsoever thy soul lusteth 
 after. 
 
 21 If the place which the Lord 
 thy God hath chosen to put his name 
 there be too far from thee, then thou 
 shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock, 
 which the Lord hath, given thee, as 
 I have commanded thee, and thou 
 
 be strong. 
 
 shalt eat in thy gates whatsoever thy 
 soul lusteth after. 
 
 22 Even as the roebuck and the 
 hart is eaten, so thou shalt eat them : 
 the unclean and the clean shall eat of 
 them alike. 
 
 23 Only Te sure that thou eat not 
 the blood : for the blood is the life ; 
 and thou mayest not eat the life with 
 the flesh. 
 
 24 Thou shalt not eat itj thou 
 shalt pour it upon the earth as water. 
 
 25 Thou shalt not eat it; that it 
 may go well with thee, and with thy 
 children after thee, when thou shalt 
 do that which is right in the sight of 
 the Lord. 
 
 26 Only thy holy things which 
 thou hast, and thy vows, thou shalt 
 take, and go unto the place which the 
 Lord shall choose: 
 
 27 And thou shalt offer thy burnt 
 offerings, the flesh and the blood, 
 upon the altar of the Lord thy God : 
 and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be 
 poured out upon the altar of the 
 Lord thy God, and thou shalt eat 
 the flesh. 
 
 28 Observe and hear all these 
 words which I command thee, that it 
 may go well with thee, and with thy 
 children after thee for ever, when 
 thou doest that which is good and 
 right in the sight of the Lord thy 
 God. 
 
 29 ^1 When the Lord thy God 
 
 shall cut off the nations from before 
 thee, whither thou goest to possess ^ 
 them, and thou Nucceedest them, and inheritest, 
 dwellest in their land; ^L'/thetTi!' 
 
 prone, as well as to gather their sacrificial 
 worship round one centre. In the chapter 
 before us the latter essential object is insisted 
 on even more emphatically. A reason for 
 this increased emphasis may be seen in the 
 fact that the prohibition against slaying animals 
 for food elsewhere than at the Sanctuary had 
 necessarily now to be relaxed. It could not 
 be maintainetl when the people were dispensed 
 in their homes from Dan to Beersheba. Whilst 
 then a stringent injunction is laid down that 
 the old rule must be adhered to as regards 
 anitnals slain in sacrifice, yet permission is 
 given to slaughter at home what was necessary 
 
 for the table. Such meat not having been de- 
 dicated to God could be partaken of by 
 “ clean and unclean,” and at home. The cere- 
 monial distinctions did not apply in such cases, 
 any more than to “the roebuck” (or gazelle) 
 “ and hart,” animals allowed for food but not 
 for sacrifice. 
 
 21. If the place... be too far from tbee\ Rather, 
 Because^ or si nee the place will be too far 
 from thee.” The allowance given in 'w. 15 , 
 1 6 is repeated, and the reason of it assigned. 
 
 27. the blood... shall be poured out upon the 
 altar'] Cf. on Lev. i. 5 . 
 
v.30-2.] DEUTERONOMY. XII. XIII. 
 
 30 Take heed to thyself that thou 
 
 tHeb. be not snared Ty following them, 
 afterthem. destroyed from be- 
 
 fore thee; and that thou inquire not 
 after their gods, saying. How did 
 these nations serve their gods? even 
 so will I do likewise. 
 
 31 Thou shalt not do so unto the 
 tHeb. Lord thy God; for every Ubomina- 
 ]^ml/The. tion to the Lord, which he hateth, 
 
 have they done unto their gods ; for 
 even their sons and their daughters they 
 have burnt in the hre to their gods. 
 
 32 What thing soever I command 
 
 847 
 
 you, observe to do it: ^'thou shalt not chap. 4. 
 add thereto, nor diminish from it. josh. i. 
 
 Prov. 30. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 6 
 
 ^ 22 * 
 
 I Enticers to idolatry^ 6 how near soever unto i8. 
 thee^ 9 arc to be stoned to death. 12 Idola- 
 trous cities are not to be spared. 
 
 I F* there arise among you a pro- 
 phet, or a dreamer of dreams, and 
 giveth thee a sign or a wonder, 
 
 2 And the sign or the wonder 
 come to pass, whereof he spake unto 
 thee, saying. Let us go after other 
 gods, which thou hast not known, 
 and let us serve them ; 
 
 30 . Take heed to thyself that thou be not 
 snared by fol having them., after that they be 
 destroyed from before thee~\ This caution is 
 based upon the notion generally entertained in 
 the ancient heathen world, that each country 
 had its own tutelary deities whom it would be 
 perilous to neglect (^eo't eVix«ptoi) ; cf. i K. 
 XX. 23; 2 K. xvii. 26. Hence even in con- 
 quered districts the worship of the local deities 
 was wont to be scrupulously maintained. But 
 Israel was to shun such superstitions. 
 
 Chap. XIII. The admonition of the 
 closing verse of the last chapter, to observe 
 the whole of God’s commands without addi- 
 tion or subtraction, introduces a new series 
 cf warnings intended to serve as a further 
 safeguard against violation of these duties. 
 The true modes and forms of worship have 
 been laid down ; the next step is to legislate 
 against the authors and abettors of false ones. 
 Such tempters are not to be spared, even 
 though (yvas. i — 5) their teaching be con- 
 firmed by miracles: or (yvn).^ — 12) they be 
 nearly allied by kindred or friendship : or 
 (‘I’T’. 12 — 19) be supported in their apostasy 
 by a whole city. 
 
 1. a prophet., or a dreamer of dreams'] Cf. 
 Num. xii. 6. The “ prophet” received his re- 
 velations by vision or direct oral communi- 
 cation ; “ the dreamer of dreams” through the 
 medium of a dream. Balaam “fell into a 
 trance, yet had his eyes open,” Num. xxiv. 16 : 
 St Paul was “caught up to the third heaven, 
 and heard unspeakable words,” 2 Cor. xii. 2 
 sqq. Nathan received the word of the Lord 
 in the night (2 Sam. vii. 4). All these in 
 various ways had the will of God made 
 known to them as “ prophets.” Such revela- 
 tions are different in kind from the less 
 direct ones made by dreams ; as e.g. to King 
 Solomon, i Kings iii. 5 ; to Joseph, St Matt, 
 ii. 13. On the occurrence of the word “ pro- 
 phet” (ndbhT) in the Pentateuch, erroneously 
 regarded by some as a mark of late origin, see 
 Introd. to Numbers, § 4. 
 
 2. And the sign or the 'ivonder come to 
 pass] The people are warned not to listen 
 to the seducer even should he show signs 
 and wonders to authenticate his doctrine. 
 The Lord had said “Thou shalt have none 
 other Gods but Me.” A prophet is here sup- 
 posed who invites the people “to go after 
 other Gods.” To such a one no credit is 
 under any circumstances to be given. The 
 standing rule of faith and practice had been 
 laid down once for all. That the people were 
 to hold fast. The prophet who propounded 
 another rule could only be an impostor. 
 
 We need not then suppose that Moses is 
 putting an impossible case by way of enforcing 
 his words, as St Paul does Gal. i. 6 ; nor yet 
 that the prophet in question is one who 
 was originally a true prophet, and obtained 
 authority by his miracles as such, but was 
 afterwards drawn away into apostasy. 
 
 In ch. xviii. 18 sqq. Israel is led to expect 
 that God will hereafter send prophets to speak 
 in His name : and the accomplishment of 
 their predictions is laid down as a proof (yva). 
 21, 22) of their authority. But the context 
 renders it clear that the case supposed is not 
 the one before us in this chapter. Here a 
 prophet is spoken of who teaches in plain 
 contradiction to the received and accredited 
 standards of truth by advocating a distinct 
 apostasy : there the prophet is assumed to 
 recognize those standards, and to be primd 
 facie within the limits of the religious system 
 authorized by God as to doctrine and mission. 
 
 The Jews applied 0)00. 2 — 5 to Christ and His 
 followers, as though their teaching aimed at 
 bringing about a revolt from the law of Moses. 
 But the Gospel is not only no contradic- 
 tion or abolition of the law, but is its comple- 
 ment and fulfilment, and was always presented 
 in that light by Christ and His Apostles. 
 The Jews ought then, instead of endeavouring 
 to stone Christ and His disciples as men who 
 sought to draw them away to apostasy (cf. St 
 John viii. 58, 59), rather to have given heed 
 to the comm.and of ch. xviii., and “hearkened 
 
 3H 2 
 
DEUTERONOMY. XIII. 
 
 U 3—13. 
 
 348 
 
 « chap. 10. 
 20. 
 
 T Heb. 
 sJ>oke?i 
 revolt 
 against 
 the Lord. 
 
 3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the 
 words of that prophet, or that dream- 
 er of dreams : for the LoPvD your God 
 proveth you, to know whether ye love 
 the Lord your God with all your 
 heart and with all your soul. 
 
 4 Ye shall walk after the Lord 
 your God, and fear him, and keep his 
 commandments, and obey his voice, 
 and ye shall serve him, and "cleave 
 unto him. 
 
 5 And that prophet, or that dream- 
 er of dreams, shall be put to death; 
 because he hach Epoken to turn you 
 away from the Lord your God, 
 which brought you out of the land of 
 Egypt, and redeemed you out of the 
 house of bondage, to thrust thee out 
 of the way which the Lord thy God 
 commanded thee to walk in. So shalt 
 thou put the evil away from the midst 
 of thee. 
 
 6 ^ If thy brother, the son of thy 
 mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, 
 or the wife of thy bosom, or thy 
 friend, which is as thine own soul, 
 entice thee secretly, saying. Let us go 
 and serve ether gods, which thou hast 
 not known, thou, nor thy fathers ; 
 
 7 Namely^ of the gods of the peo- 
 ple which are round about you, nigh 
 unto thee, or far off from thee, from 
 the one end of the earth even unto the 
 other end of the earth ; 
 
 8 Thou shalt not consent unto 
 him, nor hearken unto him; neither 
 shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt 
 thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal 
 him : 
 
 9 But ^thou shalt surely kill him;**^^^^- 
 thine hand shall be first upon him to 
 
 put him to death, and afterwards the 
 hand of all the people. 
 
 10 And thou shalt stone him with 
 
 stones, that he die; because he hath 
 sought to thrust thee away from the 
 Lord thy God, which brought thee 
 out of the land of Egypt, from the ^ ^ ^ 
 house of ^ bondage. bondmeit. 
 
 11 And ‘^all Israel shall hear, and 
 fear, and shall do no more any such 
 wickedness as this is among you. 
 
 12 ^ If thou shalt hear say in one 
 of thy cities, which the Lord thy 
 God hath given thee to dwell there, 
 saying, 
 
 12 Certain men, "the children of"^'"’,, 
 
 p nmighty 
 
 Delia!, are gone out rrom among you, me?!. 
 
 to the words spoken” in the name of the God 
 of Israel, because they were supported by the 
 accomplishment of those signs and wonders 
 which the preachers took in hand. 
 
 3. the Lord your God pron^eth yoii\ Cf. viii. 
 2 ; Gen. xxii. i. 
 
 5. that prophet., or that dreamer of dreams., 
 shall be put to deatlS] Cf. ‘V’v. 9, 10. The con- 
 text and parallel passages (cf. ch. xvii..7; 
 Lev. XX. 2) indicate that there was to be 
 a regular judicial procedure, and that the 
 manner of the execution was to be by stoning. 
 In this the community was to take its part in 
 order to show its horror at the crime, and to 
 clear itself of complicity therein. 
 
 The text has been commonly brought 
 forward by Roman Catholic commentators 
 to justify the capital punishment of heretics 
 in the Church : and by others {e.g. Calvin in 
 loc.) as proving that such punishment must 
 be indicted l)y the magistrate. But such ap- 
 plication of it overlooks not only the differ- 
 ent “manner of spirit” of which the Gospel 
 is (St Imke ix. 55); but also the fact that 
 such obligation attached to the Jewish magis- 
 trate simply and solely because he had to 
 administer the law of a theocracy. God was 
 
 pleased to place Himself for the time in a rela- 
 tion to Israel analogous to that of an earthly 
 sovereign to an earthly people. Consequently 
 His worship and the laws of that polity, 
 whilst not ceasing to be duties of religion, 
 were also matters of civil law. To bring 
 in the worship of another God was therefore 
 not merely to lead away God's people into 
 error, it was to seduce them from their 
 loyalty to their rightful prince and ruler. It 
 was in a word high treason, and to be pun- 
 ished accordingly. So too the concealment 
 of attempts to bring in apostasy was “ mis- 
 prision of treason.” But with the cessation of 
 the theocracy heresy ceased to be ipso facto 
 punishable as a crime against the state. 
 
 6. Michaelis observes that the omissions 
 in this enumeration seem to imply that no 
 one was bound to impeach father, mother, or 
 husband. 
 
 12, 13. If thou shalt hear say in one of thy 
 cities., eivhich the Lord thy God hath given thee 
 to d-well there., saying.. Certain ynen., the children 
 of Belial., are gone out from among you\, i.e. 
 “ when one city hears concerning another;” or 
 more strictly “when ye in one city hear, &c.” 
 In this duty, essential as it was to the very exist- 
 
849 
 
 V. 14-2-] DEUTERONOMY. XIII. XIV. 
 
 and have withdrawn the inhabitants 
 of their city, saying, Let us go and 
 serve other gods, which ye have not 
 known ; 
 
 14 Then shalt thou inquire, and 
 make search, and ask diligently; and, 
 behold, if it be truth, and the thing 
 certain, that such abomination is 
 wrought among you ; 
 
 15 Thou shalt surely smite the in- 
 habitants of that city with the edge of 
 the sword, destroying it utterly, -and 
 all that is therein, and the cattle 
 thereof, with the edge of the sword. 
 
 16 And thou shalt gather all the 
 spoil of it into the midst of the street 
 thereof, and shalt burn with hre the 
 
 city, and all the spoil thereof every 
 whit, for the Lord thy God: and it 
 shall be an heap for ever; it shall not 
 be built again. 
 
 1 7 And there shall cleave nought 
 of the II cursed thing to thine hand: 
 that the Lord may turn from the 
 fierceness of his anger, and shew thee 
 mercy, and have compassion upon 
 thee, and multiply thee, as he hath 
 sworn unto thy fathers ; 
 
 18 When thou shalt hearken to 
 the voice of the Lord thy God, to 
 keep all his commandments which I 
 command thee this day, to do that 
 which is right in the eyes of the Lord 
 thy God. 
 
 ence of the Mosaic cominonwealth, city was 
 to keep jealous watch over city, as man over 
 man. The clause “ which the Lord thy God 
 hath given thee to dwell in” significantly re- 
 minds them that the real ownership of their 
 dwellings rested in the Lord (cf. Lev.xxv. 23), 
 and that they, the mere tenants, must not 
 allow His property to become a centre of 
 rebellion against His just authority. 
 
 13 . children of Belial] In xv. 9 the 
 word Belial is rendered in our translation by 
 the adj. “wicked;” as it is also in Nahum 
 i. II. In Ps. xviii. 4 , “floods of ungodly 
 men,” is literally “floods of Beliid.” In’ the 
 thirteen other places in which the word oc- 
 curs, all being in the historical books, it is 
 
 treated consi.stently in the A. V. as a proper 
 name. The LXX. and most ancient versions 
 render it by avofxos, irapavo^os, and their 
 cognates. St Paul, 2 Cor. vi. 15, uses the 
 ■\vord Belial (Greek BeXtap) as equivalent 
 to Satan. Beliar is no doubt equivalent to 
 Belial ; and probably this use of the word as 
 a proper name originated with the Apostle. 
 The word means ^vortblessness^ quod nullius 
 fnigis est^ nequitia. The expression “sons of 
 worthlessness” is simular to many others in He- 
 brew: e.g. “sons of strength,” “years,” &c. 
 
 16 . enjery qvbit^ for the Lord thy God], 
 Render: “a.s a whole offering to the 
 Lord thy God:” see the Note at end of the 
 chapter. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xiii. 16. 
 
 E‘very <whit] The Hebrew word here is 
 derived from a verb “to make 
 
 circular,” or “complete.” The word is pro- 
 perly an adj. signifying “ perfect” or “ entire; ” 
 and may no doubt be used adverbially as it is 
 in Is. ii. 18. The A.V. in thus taking it. has 
 the support of the Versions generally; but the 
 words following “for the Lord thy God” do 
 not fit aptly to this sense, and indeed should 
 rather run “ unto the Lord thy God.” This 
 addition, which evidently must be closely con- 
 nected with certainly suggests the other 
 
 sense of the word, found also in xxxiii. 10, 
 “whole offering,” ’oXofcaiirco/Aa. The word 
 is applied to offerings whether of corn or 
 the flesh of animals provided they were wholly 
 burnt; cf. Lev. vi. 22, 23 ; Deut. xxxiii. 10. As 
 a synonym for the more common Plby, it is 
 sometimes used in apposition to or further ex- 
 planation of nby, e.g. I S. vii. 9; Ps. li. 19. 
 The rendering suggested in the foot-note is 
 that of the Mishna, and other Jewish autho- 
 rities* cf. Gesen., Furst, Keil, Knobel, &c. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1 God's child7'e7t are not to disdgure themselves 
 in inonrning. 3 What may., a7id luhat may 
 not he eate7i, 4 of beasts, 9 of fishes, ii of 
 fowls. 21 That which dieth of itself i7iay 7iot 
 he eate7i. 22 Tithes of divme se7'znce. 23 
 Tithes a7id fi7'stli7igs of 7'ejoici7ig before the 
 Lo7'd. 28 The third year's tithe of al//is a7id 
 charity. 
 
 Y e are the children of the Lord 
 
 your God: "ye shall not cut Lev. 19. 
 yourselves, nor make any baldness 
 between your eyes for the dead. 
 
 2 “^For thou art an holy people un- ^chap. 7. 
 to the Lord thy God, and. the Lord & 26. 18. 
 hath chosen thee to be a peculiar peo- 
 
850 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XIV. 
 
 [v. 3—6. 
 
 ^ Lev. I 
 2, &c. 
 
 pie unto himself, above all the na- 
 tions that are upon the earth. 
 
 3 ^ Thou shalt not eat any abo- 
 minable thing. 
 
 4 “^These are the beasts which ye 
 shall eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat, 
 
 5 The hart, and the roebuck, and 
 the fallow deer, and the wild goat, 
 and the “ pygarg, and the wild ox, 
 and the chamois. 
 
 6 And every beast that parteth the 
 hoof, and cleaveth the cleft into two 
 
 Chap. XIV. Not only was open idolatry 
 to be sternly suppressed (ch. xiii.), but the 
 whole life and walk of the people were to be 
 regulated with continual regard to that 
 character which God designed to impress 
 upon them. The words “ye are the children 
 of the Lord your God” which introduce 
 this chapter, suggest the principle which 
 underlies its precepts. It was unbeseeming 
 their dignity and privileges to disfigure them- 
 selves in mourning {yu. i, 2), as the heathen 
 which have no hope; or to defile themselves by 
 eating “any abominable thing” (y‘v. 3 — 22) ; 
 on the contrary they were to honour God 
 and act worthily of their special relation- 
 ship to Him by holy meals at the sanctuary ; 
 meals associated with charity to the needy 
 (-r-T-. 23—29). 
 
 1, 2. tnake any baldness between your eyes^ 
 i. e. by shaving the forepart of the head and 
 the eyebrows. The practices here named 
 were common amongst the heathen, and seem 
 to be forbidden, not only because such wild 
 excesses of grief would be inconsistent in 
 those who as children of a heavenly Father 
 had prospects beyond this world, but also be- 
 cause these usages themselves arose out of 
 idolatrous notions. The mourners inflicted 
 wounds and privations on themselves, as the 
 priests of Baal (i K. xviii. 28) cut them- 
 selves with knives, by way of propitiating 
 deities to whom human suffering and woe 
 were regarded as acceptable. 
 
 The Roman law of the Ten Tables had 
 restrictions (borrowed from Solon ; see Cicero, 
 ‘De Leg.’ ii. 25) very similar to those of the 
 text and its parallel passages. 
 
 3 — 21 . Moses follows up the general in- 
 junction against eating “any abominable 
 thing ” by specifying particularly what crea- 
 tures may and what may not be used as food. 
 The restrictions laid down are substantially 
 repeated from tlie parallel passages of Levit. 
 (where see notes), but not without notewor- 
 thy variation. Three classes of creatures are 
 here referred to, quadrupeds (yv'v. 4 — 9), fishes 
 ('i-'t'. 9 and 10), and fowls {‘vv. ii — 21); a 
 fourth class, reptiles, is omitted, though care- 
 fully dealt with in Levit. xi. 29, 30, where eight 
 species of it are forbidden : on the other hand, 
 the locust and certain other insects are enume- 
 rated as clean Levit. xi. 22, but are not named 
 in this chapter. Both omissions are probably 
 to be explained by the time and circumstances 
 of the speaker. The reptiles of the promised 
 
 land, into which the people were about to 
 enter, were not such as they would be likely 
 to think of eating ; whilst the locust and the 
 other insects, allowed as food in the earlier 
 book, and probably of occasional importance 
 as such in the wilderness, could be but of 
 small account to those who had their fields 
 and vineyards in Canaan. The example of 
 John the Baptist (St Matt. iii. 4) shows us 
 of itself that the omission of locusts from the 
 list of clean animals in this place was not 
 supposed to exclude them. So too in 2;. 19 
 “every creeping thing that flieth” is simply 
 forbidden; and the qualification of Levit. 
 xi. 20, that such of this class as “have legs 
 above their feet to leap ” may nevertheless be 
 eaten, is omitted. On the border of the pro- 
 mised land, and in a repetition of laws which 
 he desired particularly to impress, this per- 
 mission is passed over as of no moment. 
 Here too the kinds of clean quadrupeds are 
 specified by name as well as in general cha- 
 racteristics, obviously because the diet of the 
 people would for the future mainly be drawn 
 from this class. In Levit. xi. 3 sqq., whilst 
 they had yet many years of life in the desert 
 before them, it was enough to lay down the 
 law as re^rds quadrupeds in general terms. 
 
 4 . the ox, the sheep, and the goat\ These 
 are probably named first as being the animals 
 used for sacrifice. In the next 2;. follow 
 the wild animals which might lawfully be 
 eaten, though not sacrificed. 
 
 5 . The hart'] i.e. the ordinary kind of 
 deer; other and less common species come 
 after. 
 
 fallow deer] Rather perhaps antelope. The 
 word is derived from a root signifying “to 
 be red.” 
 
 the pygarg] Hebr. dishon, a species of 
 antelope or gazelle. 
 
 civild ox] Hebr. tho, translated Is. li. 20 
 “ wild bull ; ” to be carefully distinguished 
 from the reem: cf. Num. xxiii. 22 and note. 
 The “tho” is also a kind of antelope. The 
 etymology of the name points to its swiftness 
 in running. The LXX. render oryx. Both 
 the pygarg and the oryx are named Herod. 
 IV. 192. 
 
 chamois] Hebr. zamer- LXX. the came- 
 lopard, i.e. the giraffe. The giraffe how- 
 ever is not a native of Palestine. It is there- 
 fore more likely to be another species of 
 antelope. Its name is derived from a root 
 signifying “ to leap.” 
 
V. 7 22.] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XIV. 
 
 851 
 
 cla\vs, and cheweth the cud among 
 the beasts, that ye shall eat. 
 
 7 Nevertheless these ye shall not 
 eat of them that chew the cud, or 
 
 ' of them that divide the cloven hoof ; 
 
 as the camel, and the hare, and the 
 coney: for they chew the cud, but 
 divide not the hoof; therefore they 
 are unclean unto you. 
 
 8 And the swine, because it di- 
 videth the hoof, yet cheweth not the 
 cud, it IS unclean unto you : ye shall' 
 not eat of their flesh, nor touch their 
 dead carcase. 
 
 ‘^Lev, II. 9 ^ ^These ye shall eat of all that 
 (ire in the waters : all that have fins 
 and scales shall ye eat : 
 
 10 And whatsoever hath not fins 
 and scales ye may not eat ; it is un- 
 clean unto you. 
 
 1 1 ^ Of all clean birds ye shall eat. , 
 
 12 But these are they of which ye 
 shall not eat : the eagle, and the ossi- 
 frage, and the ospray, 
 
 13 And the glede, and the kite, 
 and the vulture after his kind. 
 
 14 And every raven after his kind, 
 
 15 And the owl, and the night 
 hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk 
 after his kind, 
 
 16 The little owl, and the great 
 owl, and the swan, 
 
 17 And the pelican, and the gier 
 eagle, and the cormorant, 
 
 18 And the stork, and the heron 
 after her kind, and the lapwing, and 
 
 the ^ bat. ^ Lev. n. 
 
 19 And every creeping thing that 
 flieth is unclean unto you : they shall 
 not be eaten. 
 
 20 But of all clean fowls ye may eat. 
 
 21 ^ Ye shall not eat of any thing 
 that dieth of itself : thou shalt give 
 it unto the stranger that is in thy 
 gates, that he may eat it ; or thou 
 mayest sell it unto an alien : for thou 
 art an holy people unto the Lord thy 
 
 God. -^^Thou shalt not seethe a kid-^Exod. 23. 
 in his mother’s milk. & 34. 26. 
 
 22 Thou shalt truly tithe all the 
 increase of thy seed, that the field 
 bringeth forth year by year. 
 
 7 . the hare'\ See on Levit. xi. 6. 
 
 12. The birds here named are the same 
 as those in Lev. xi. 13 sqq. (where see note), 
 except that in 13 “the glede” faah) is 
 added. The “vulture” {dayyah') of 1;. 13 
 is no doubt the same as the (dadh') of Lev. 
 xi. 14. 
 
 21 . Te shall not eat of anything that dieth 
 of itself: thou shalt give it to the stranger^ 
 &;c.] The prohibition is repeated from Levit. 
 xxii. 8 : the directions as to the disposal of the 
 carcase are peculiar to Deut. Their motive is 
 clear. To have forbidden the people either to 
 eat themselves that which had died, or to allow 
 any others to do so, would have involved loss 
 of property, and consequent temptation to an 
 infraction of the command. The permissions 
 now for the first time granted would have 
 been useless in the wilderness. During the 
 forty years’ wandering there could be but little 
 opportunity of selling such carcases ; whilst 
 non-Israelites living in the camp would in 
 such a matter be bound by the same rules as 
 the Israelites (Levit. xvii. 15, and xxiv. 22). 
 “The stranger that is in thy gates” will 
 be the uncircumciscd proselyte, or in the 
 language of later Judaism “the proselyte of 
 the gate.” Such a one would stand midway 
 between the “proselyte of righteousness,” 
 who was circumcised and a “ debtor to do 
 the whole law,” and “ the alien,” who had no 
 
 concern whatever in the national religion. 
 It would seem, on comparing this v. with 
 Levit. xvii. 15, that greater stringency is here 
 given to the requirement of abstinence from 
 that which had died of itself. In the earlier 
 book the eating of such flesh involved merely 
 uncleanness until the evening ; here it is abso- 
 lutely interdicted. Probably on this, as on 
 so many other points, allowance was made for 
 the circumstances of the people. Flesh meat 
 was no doubt often scarce in the desert. It 
 would therefore have been a hardship to for- 
 bid entirely the use of that which had not 
 been killed. Now however when the plenty 
 of the promised land was before them, the 
 modified toleration of this unholy food is 
 withdrawn. 
 
 22 . Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase 
 of thy seed'\ These words recall in general 
 terms the command of the earlier legislation 
 respecting tithes (cf. Lev. xxvii. 30, Num. xviii. 
 27) but refer more particularly to the second or 
 festival tithe, which was an exclusively vegetable 
 one: see Introd. §5. So Keil, Schultz, Lange, 
 &c., and the Jewish authorities generally. 
 One computation of the increase of the field 
 would of course seiwe for both the Levitical 
 tithe of Lev, xxvii., so far as it consisted of 
 that increase, and for the other titl:e to be 
 applied to the feasts at the sanctuary, or in 
 each third year at home, as directed in this 
 
852 DEUTERONOMY. XIV. XV. [v. 23-1. 
 
 23 And thou shalt eat before the 
 Lord thy God, in the place which 
 he shall choose to place his name 
 there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy 
 wine, and of thine oil, and the first- 
 lings of thy herds and of thy flocks ; 
 that thou mayest learn to fear the 
 Lord thy God always. 
 
 24 And if the way be too long for 
 thee, so that thou art not able to 
 carry it ; or if the place be too far 
 from thee, which the Lord thy God 
 shall choose to set his name there, 
 when the Lord thy God hath blessed 
 thee : 
 
 25 Then shalt thou turn it into 
 money, and bind up the money in 
 thine hand, and shalt go unto the 
 place which the Lord thy God shall 
 choose : 
 
 26 And thou shalt bestow that 
 money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth 
 after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for 
 wine, or for strong drink, or for what- 
 
 tHeb. soever thy soul Mesireth : and thou 
 shalt eat there before the Lord thy 
 
 God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, 
 and thine household, 
 
 27 And ^ the Levite that is within “• 
 thy gates ; thou shalt not forsake him ; 
 
 for he hath no part nor inheritance 
 with thee. 
 
 28 ^ At the end of three years 
 thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of 
 thine increase the sam.e year, and shalt 
 lay it up within thy gates : 
 
 29 And the Levite, (because he 
 hath no part nor inheritance with 
 thee,) and the stranger, and the fa- 
 therless, and the widow, which are 
 within thy gates, shall come, and 
 shall eat and be satisfied ; that the 
 Lord thy God may bless thee in all the 
 work of thine hand which thou doest. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 I The seveiith yea}- a year of release for the poor. 
 
 7 It vuist he no let of lending or giving. 1 2 
 An IIcbrri.v servant^ 16 except he luill not 
 depart., must in the seventh year go forth free 
 and luell furnished. 19 All firstling males 
 of the cattle are to be sanctified tinto the Lord. 
 
 A T the end of " every seven years Lev. 25. 
 r\^ thou shalt make a release. 
 
 passage : cf. on w. 28, 29. One tenth would 
 belong to the Levites, the second tenth would 
 remain at the disposal of the landowner for 
 the purposes so earnestly commended to him 
 in Deut. xii. 6, 7, 17 — 20 (see notes), and in 
 this passage. These purposes are minutely 
 classitied and regulated in the Mishna. Thus 
 altogether one-fifth part of the annual produce 
 would be claimed for religious hospitable and 
 charitable employments ; and this, considering 
 the various charges met out of it, would not be 
 an unreasonably burdensome impost. See on 
 Gen. xli. 34, xlvii. 26, and Winer, ‘ Realwort,’ 
 (Article, Lebent).^ and Saalschiitz, ‘ Mos. 
 Recht,’ I. 354 sq(}., who however regard the 
 festival tithe as levied upon the nine portions 
 that remained after the Levitical tithe had 
 been subtracted, and not as a full tenth of all 
 the produce. The tithes are only named here 
 in passing, as are also the firstlings, in order 
 to introduce certain directions respecting the 
 sacred meals Y’hich were celebrated out of 
 them. 'I'lie firstlings come on for more special 
 treatment in xv. 19 sqq. 
 
 28, 29. Cf. on xxvi. 12. It is only 
 necessary to observe here that the tithe thus 
 directed in the third year to be dispensed in 
 charity at home, though called by the Jewish 
 authorities “the third tithe,” was not paid in 
 addition to that in other years bestowed on 
 the saci'ed meals, but was substituted for it. 
 
 This is plainly implied in the text. The three 
 years Avould count from the Sabbatical year, 
 and Moses accordingly goes on to legislate in 
 reference to that important year in the begin- 
 ning of the next chapter. In the Sabbatical 
 year there would of course be neither pay- 
 ment of tithe nor celebration of the feasts at 
 the Sanctuary. In the third and sixth years 
 of the septennial cycle the feasts would be 
 superseded by the private hospitality enjoined 
 in the verses before, us. 
 
 28. all the tithe^ LXX. 7tav to (Tri^cKa- 
 top: Vulg. “aliam decimam,” i.e. the second 
 tithe : see above. 
 
 Chap. XV. The regulations for the relief 
 of the necessitous by means of the triennial 
 tithe are followed up in this chapter by 
 others of a similar tendency. Fv. 1 — ii pre- 
 scribe a Year of Release ; w. 12 — 18 the 
 mamimission of Hebrew slaves; w. 19 — 23 
 the appropriation of the firstlings of cattle, 
 which had already (xii. 6; xiv. 23) been 
 designated as offerings to be made by the 
 people for sacred and charitable purposes. 
 
 1 — 11. The Year of Release is no doubt 
 identical with the Sabbatical Year of the 
 earlier legislation; on which see Exod. xxiii. 
 10 scjq., and I.evit. xxv. 2 sqq.; the word 
 “release” of this passage being indeed funda- 
 mentally the same word as is used in refer- 
 
V. 2— 7.J 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XV. 
 
 2 And this is the manner of the 
 fHcb. release: Every ^creditor that lend- 
 ^tiuhnd^ eth ought unto his neighbour shall 
 
 release it; he shall not exact it of 
 his neighbour, or of his brotl-^er ; be- 
 cause it is called the Lord’s release. 
 
 3 Of a foreigner thou mayest ex- 
 act it again : but that which is thine 
 with thy brother thine hand shall 
 release ; 
 
 II Or, ^ II Save when there shall be no 
 
 iLt %7re poor amoiig you ; for the Lord shall 
 greatly bless thee in the land which 
 the Lord thy God giveth thee for an 
 inheritance to possess it : 
 
 5 Only if thou carefully hearken 
 unto the voice of the Lord thy God, 
 to observe to do all these command- 
 ments which I command thee this 
 day. 
 
 6 For the Lord thy God blesseth 
 thee, as he promised thee : and ^ thou 
 shalt lend unto many nations, but 
 thou shalt not borrow ; and thou shalt 
 reign over many nations, but they 
 shall not reign over thee. 
 
 7 ^ If there be among you a poor 
 man of one of thy brethren within 
 any of thy gates in thy land which 
 the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou 
 
 lives near, but an Israelite as opposed to a 
 foreigner. 
 
 because it is called the Lord's release'] Ren- 
 der because proclamation has been 
 made of the Lord’s release. The verb 
 is impersonal, and implies (cf. xxxi. lo) that 
 “the solemnity of the year of release” has 
 been publicly announced. 
 
 3. 0/ a foreigner thou mayest exact it] 
 The foreigner would not be bound by the 
 restriction of the Sabbatical year, and there- 
 fore would have no claim to its special remis- 
 sions and privileges. He could earn his usual 
 income in the seventh as in other years, and 
 therefore is not exonerated from liability to 
 discharge a debt any more in the one than the 
 others. 
 
 4. Sa've nvhen there shall be no poor among 
 you; for the Lord shall greatly bless thee] 
 Rather perhaps “ no poor with thee,” i. e. 
 concerned in the transaction. See Note at end 
 of chapter. There is no inconsistency between 
 this and v. 1 1, in which it is affirmed that “ the 
 poor shall never cease out of the land.” The 
 meaning seems simply to be “Thou must 
 release the debt for the year, except when 
 there be no poor person concerned, a con- 
 tingency which may happen, for the Lord 
 shall greatly bless thee.” Thus it was lawful 
 to call in a loan (one contracted e.g. for such 
 purposes as the purchase of land, carrying 
 on commerce &c.) when the borrower could 
 refund it without impoverishment. The 
 reasonableness of the limitation of the release 
 is obvious. If no lender could recover his 
 money during the year of release the un- 
 scrupulous debtor might have enriched him- 
 self at the expense of his, perhaps less wealthy, 
 neighbour. The general object of these prL 
 cepts, as also of the year of Jubilee and the 
 laws respecting inheritance, is to prevent the 
 total ruin of a needy man, and his dis- 
 appearance from the families of Israel by the 
 sale of his patrimony. 
 
 ence to the land Exod. xxiii. ii. The com- 
 mand of the older legislation is here amplified. 
 Not only is the land to have its “release” or 
 “ rest ” for the year, but the debt also. The 
 obvious reference of this passage to that of 
 Exod. seems to render it most probable (as 
 Rosenm., Biihr, ‘ Symb.’ ii. 570; Saalschutz, 
 Keil, Knobel, Schultz, &c., maintain), in 
 spite of a consensus of Jewish authorities to 
 the contrary, that the release in question 
 must have been for the year, not total and 
 final. As the land was during this year to 
 keep sabbath, so the debt was to stand over ; 
 but neither of the one nor the other would 
 the usufruct be lost in perpetuity to the 
 owner. It seems further clear that the release 
 had reference only to loans (see especially 'v. 2 ) ; 
 and to loans lent because of poverty (cf. 2)2;. 
 4, 7). Apparently therefore that a debt con- 
 tracted e.g. by purchase of goods, would not 
 come under this law. It would seem, however, 
 notwithstanding these qualifications, and the 
 fact that the release did not extend at all to 
 foreigners, that the law was found too strin- 
 gent for the avarice of the people; for it was 
 one of those which the Rabbis “ made of 
 none effect by their traditions.” A gloss 
 attributed to Hillel permitted the judges to 
 authorize a creditor to enforce his claim even 
 during the year of release. (See Smith’s 
 ‘ Diet, of the Bible,’ iii. 1074.) This fact, 
 as well as the references in the later books to 
 the year of release and the laws associated 
 with it, shows that the ordinances of Moses 
 now before us were sufficiently well under- 
 stood, though too much disregarded in the 
 later days of thejewish commonwealth. (Cf. 
 Is. Ixi. I, 2 ; Jer. xxxiv. 8 — 17.) 
 
 2. mamier of the release] Cf. the similar 
 phrase xix. 4 ; i K. ix. 15. 
 
 he shall not exact it of his neighbour.^ or 
 of his brother] Lit. “he shall not urge or 
 press his neighbour and his brother.” The 
 latter words are added to explain who is 
 meant by the neighbour: i.e. not one who 
 
8S4 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XV. 
 
 [v. 8— 1 8. 
 
 shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut 
 thine hand from thy poor brother : 
 fMatt. 5. 8 ‘^But thou shalt open thine hand 
 
 Luke 6. 34. wide unto him, and shalt surely lend 
 him sufficient for his need, in that 
 which he wanteth. 
 
 9 Beware that there be not a 
 t Heb. ^ thought in thy ^ v/icked heart, say- 
 Tiik. irig? The seventh year, the year of 
 Belial. release, is at hand ; and thine eye be 
 
 evil against thy poor brother, and thou 
 givest him nought ; and he cry unto 
 the Lord against thee, and it be sin 
 unto thee. 
 
 10 Thou shalt surely give him, and 
 thine heart shall not be grieved when 
 thou givest unto him : because that 
 for this thing the Lord thy God 
 shall bless thee in all thy works, and 
 in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. 
 
 11 For the poor shall never cease 
 out of the land : therefore I command 
 thee, saying. Thou shalt open thine 
 hand wide unto thy brother, to thy 
 poor, and to thy needy, in thy land. 
 
 «'Exod.2i. 12 ^ if thy brother, an Fle- 
 
 brew man, or an Hebrew woman, be 
 sold unto thee, and serve thee six 
 years ; then in the seventh year thou 
 shalt let him go free from thee. 
 
 13 And when thou sendest him out 
 free from thee, thou shalt not let him 
 go away empty : 
 
 14 Thou shalt furnish him libe- 
 rally out of thy flock, and out of thy 
 floor, *and out of thy winepress : of 
 that wherewith the Lord thy God 
 hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto 
 him. 
 
 15 And thou shalt remember that 
 thou wast a bondman in the land of 
 Egypt, and the Lord thy God re- 
 deemed thee ; therefore I command 
 thee this thing to day. 
 
 16 And it shall be, if he say unto 
 thee, I will not go away from thee ; 
 because he loveth thee and thine house, 
 because he is well with thee ; 
 
 17^ Then thou shalt take an aul, ^ 
 and thrust it through his ear unto the 
 door, and he shall be thy servant for 
 ever. And also unto thy maidservant 
 thou shalt do likewise. 
 
 18 It shall not seem hard unto 
 thee, when thou sendest him av/ay 
 free from thee ; for he hath been 
 worth a double hired servant to thee.^ 
 in serving thee six years : and the 
 Lord thy God shall bless thee in all 
 that thou doest. 
 
 9. Be-zvare that there be not a thought in 
 thy zvicked heart] Render, tliattherebenot 
 a wicked word in thy heart. The word 
 beliah worthlessness, (cf. xiii. 13, and note) is 
 used emphatically in place of an adjective, 
 and is in apposition grammatically to “word,” 
 not, as suggested by A. V,, to “ heart,” The 
 original is very forcible, “ that there be not 
 in thy heart a word which is worthless, 
 ness.” 
 
 14. Thou shalt furnish him liberally] The 
 verb in the Hebrew is remarkable. It means 
 “thou shalt lay on his neck,” “adorn his 
 neck with thy gifts.” The LXX. and Vulg. 
 express the end and purpose of the command ; 
 ((jibbwv e(j)o^ia(reis, “ dabis viaticum.” 
 
 12 — 18. Regulations of a similarly bene- 
 ficent tenor with those respecting debtors are 
 now laid down respecting Hebrew servants, 
 'f'he commands here are repeated from Exod. 
 xxi. 2 — 6, with amplifications characteristic 
 of Dent. In the earlier code mention is 
 made only of the manservant, here of the 
 maidscrvL iR also (t;. 12) : there the command 
 is simply to manumit after six years of ser- 
 vice; now it is further required Qvv. 13, sqcp) 
 
 that liberal provision should be made for 
 launching the freedman on an independent 
 course of life. The release of the servant is 
 connected with the Sabbatical principle though 
 not with the Sabbatical year. That release 
 was to take place after six years of bondage 
 in all cases. The injunction is introduced 
 here only because it is, like that of the Sab- 
 batical year, one of those designed for the 
 benefit of the poor. It is noteworthy also 
 that the prospect of a gift of this sort, the 
 amount of which was left at the master’s 
 discretion, would be likely to encourage 
 diligence and faithfulness during the years of 
 servitude. 
 
 17. thou shalt take an aul] Thus bored ears 
 were made a badge of slavery, and so became 
 ignominious. This would discourage the 
 wearing of ear-rings, which are often in the 
 East regarded as amulets. 
 
 18. he hath been zvorth a double hired ser~ 
 'vant to thee^ in ser-ving thee six years] Render, 
 rather perhaps, “double the hire of a hireling 
 has he earned thee by serving thee six years : ” 
 i.e. such a servant has earned twice as much as 
 a common hired labourer would have done in 
 
V. 19— 23-J 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XV. 
 
 855 
 
 ^Exod.34. 19 -^All the firstling males that 
 
 come of thy herd and of thy flock 
 thou shalt sanctify unto the Lord 
 thy God : thou shalt do no work with 
 the firstling of thy bullock, nor shear 
 the firstling of thy sheep. 
 
 20 Thou shalt eat it before the 
 r Lev. 22. Lord thy God year by year in the 
 'hap 17 pEce which the Lord shall choose, 
 t; j thou and thy household, 
 xcus. j 5. ^ And if there be any blemish 
 
 therein, as if it he lame, or blind, 
 or have any ill blemish, thou shalt 
 not sacrifice it -unto the Lord thy 
 God. 
 
 22 Thou shalt eat it within thy 
 gates : the unclean and the clean per- 
 son shall eat it alike, as the roebuck, 
 and as the hart. 
 
 23 Only thou shalt not eat the 
 blood thereof ; thou shalt pour it upon 
 the ground as water. 
 
 the same time. So substantially Saad., Rashi, 
 Rosenm., Wogue, &c. The clause is how- 
 ever somewhat obscure and difficult. Literal- 
 ly it runs, “ double the hire of a hireling hath 
 he served thee during six years.” Schultz, 
 Knob., Keil, &c., understand this to mean 
 “he has done so much that if you had had 
 to keep a day labourer in place of him, the 
 cost to you would have been twice as great.” 
 
 19 — 23 . The command to dedicate the 
 firstborn to God, as a memorial of the destruc- 
 tion of the firstborn of the Egyptians, is one 
 of the very earliest regulations of the Mosaic 
 ritual (Ex. xiii. ii sqq.). The directions of 
 the preceding legislation (see Num. xviii. 15 
 sqq.) are here assumed, with the injunction 
 added, that the animals thus set apart to God 
 (“u, 19) were not to be used by their owners 
 for their earthly purposes. It is further 
 allowed that firstborn animals which had a 
 blemish should be regarded as exceptions, and 
 instead of being given to God might be used 
 as food ("vv. 21, 22). The application of the 
 firstborn of cattle is here directed as in xii. 6, 
 17 and xiv. 23: they are to be consumed in 
 the sacred feasts at the Sanctuary. 
 
 It has been pointed out that the flesh of the 
 firstlings is given (Num. xviii. 18) to the 
 priest, whilst in the passage before us, as in 
 xii. 6, 17, and xiv. 23, the same flesh is as- 
 signed as the wherewithal for the sacred feasts 
 which the offerer and his household were to 
 celebrate at the Sanctuary. The inconsistency 
 is apparent only. Num. xviii. 18, in assigning 
 the priest’s portion, prescribes as regards the 
 firstborn, “the flesh of them shall be thine, as 
 the wave breast and the right shoulder are 
 thine i. e. shall be thine on the like terms 
 and conditions as the wave breast and right 
 shoulder are so. This can scarcely mean, as 
 some (Kalisch, Hengstenberg) have thought, 
 that only those portions of the firstlings were 
 to go to the priests, the rest remaining the 
 property of the offerer for a sacrificial meal ; 
 
 it rather directs that the flesh of the firstlings 
 was to be disposed of by the priests in the 
 same manner as the wave breast and heave 
 shoulder. The appropriation of these, the 
 priests’ portions, is seen from Levit. vii. 15, 16. 
 They were to be employed in a sacrificial 
 feast which had to be held on the day of the 
 making of the offering, or on the next day, 
 and of course at the Sanctuary. In the case 
 of the firstlings the priests would have the 
 whole of the victim to consume thus at once, 
 and at certain seasons no doubt many victims 
 at once. Under these circumstances the 
 priest would naturally invite the offerers to 
 partake in the feast for which such abundant 
 provision was made ; and indeed would feel it 
 a duty to do so. The presentation of the 
 firstlings is spoken of Ex, xiii. 15 as a sacrifice; 
 and a sacrificial meal on the flesh of the 
 victim, in which the offerer and those as- 
 sociated with him partook, was an established 
 part of the system and ritual of sacrifice. In 
 the case of the firstborn, where all the flesh 
 was the perquisite of the priests, the offerer 
 could only have his share in such meal on the 
 invitation of the priests ; an invitation which 
 we may be sure would never be withheld, and 
 which is regarded in the text accordingly as a 
 matter of course if not of right. We must 
 remember that the expectation of sharing in 
 the feast on the firstlings would tend to en- 
 courage their being regularly brought in by 
 the people ; and that under no circumstances 
 would the priests be allowed to sell any por- 
 tion of them. Any flesh of such offerings 
 remaining till the third day had to be burnt 
 (Lev. vii. 17). It is to be noted too that 
 Moses in the text is addressing the whole 
 people — priests, Levites, and laity. The gene- 
 ral direction then that the firstlings should be 
 brought to the Sanctuary and there consumed 
 in a sacred meal seems on the whole sufficient- 
 ly accordant with the earlier legislation on the 
 same offerings. Cf. Keil on Deut. xii. 6 and 
 7, from whom this note is principally taken. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xv. 4. 
 
 San^e <when there shall he no poor~\ The Gerhard, several Commentators quoted in 
 sense suggested in the foot-note is adopted by Poole’s Synopsis, Rosenm. (“ nisi fortasse 
 
DEUTERONOMY. XVL 
 
 V. I, 2 . 
 
 856 
 
 pauperes non sint ”), Maurer, Michaelis, 
 Dathe, &c. ; and seems on the whole the pre- 
 ferable one. The particles '3 DDl-? are thus 
 taken much in the same sense as in Amos ix. 
 8, “except that,” “saving that.” The “save 
 when” of the A. V. brings out the force of 
 the clause more clearly than “save that;” but 
 the meaning is substantially the same. Knobel 
 insists that the clause gives an absolute pro- 
 mise that there should be no poverty in Israel. 
 But no writer would set forth such a promise 
 and then six verses afterwards flatly contra- 
 dict himself; cf. -u. ii. Others regard the 
 words as giving a conditional promise, which 
 was not accomplished because ’of Israel’s dis- 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 I The feast of the passo^ser, 9 of laeeks, 13 of' 
 tabernacles. 16 Every male must offer, as he 
 is able, at these tlwce feasts. 18 Of judges and 
 justice. 21 Groves and images are for- 
 bidden. 
 
 « Exod. 12. /“RESERVE the ^ month of Abib, 
 2, &c. and keep the passover unto the 
 
 obedience. But the statement in -v. that 
 “ the poor should never cease out of the 
 land,” is not announced as a penalty for sin. 
 The rendering of margin is supported by 
 the Syr., Bp. Wordsworth and others. But 
 no passage has been alleged in which '3 
 has this telic force ; on the contrary these par- 
 ticles, as the root of determines, always 
 have a limiting force;^ cf. Num. xiii. 28 ; Judg. 
 iv. 9. Several modern Comm. (Keil, Schultz, 
 Lange, &c.) take the clause as an imperative, 
 “ only let there not be &c. so taken however 
 its connexion with what follows is awkward 
 and obscure. 
 
 Lord thy God : for ^in the month of 
 Abib the Lord thy God brought thee 
 forth out of Egypt by night. 
 
 2 Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the 
 passover unto the Lord thy God, of 
 the flock and the herd, in the ^ place ^ chap, 
 which the Lord shall choose to place 
 his name there. 
 
 Chap. XVI, Moses continues in this 
 chapter the review of the religious ordinances 
 to be observed by the people in Canaan. 
 Prominent amongst these were the three great 
 festivals, of Passover, Pentecost, and Taber- 
 nacles. The regulations respecting them given 
 in the earlier books (Ex. xii., Lev. xxiii,, 
 Num. xxviii. and xxix.) are assumed, and the 
 feasts themselves touched upon only so far as 
 present circumstances required. The treat- 
 ment throughout presupposes the hearers to 
 be well informed as to the ordinances in 
 question, and only needing to have their at- 
 tention drawn to certain particulars as to 
 which reiteration might seem advisable, or 
 changes called for. The cardinal point on 
 which the whole of the prescriptions here 
 before us turn is evidently the same as has 
 been so often insisted on in the previous 
 chapters, viz. the concentration of the religious 
 services of the people round one common 
 Sanctuary. The prohibition against observing 
 these great feasts, the three annual epochs in 
 the sacred year of the Jew, at home and in 
 private, is reiterated in a variety of words no 
 less than six times in the first sixteen verses of 
 this chapter (2, 6, 7, ii, 15, 16). Hence it 
 is easy to see why nothing is here said of the 
 other holy days. No doubt the Great Day of 
 Atonement (Lev. xxiii. 26 scjq.), and the Feast 
 of d'rumj)ets (Lev. xxiii. 23 sqq,), are as posi- 
 tively enjoined by Moses as are the three 
 Festivals mentioned in the present chapter : 
 but it was no jiart of the observances of either 
 of those days that all the males should “ap- 
 pear before the Lord,” I'hose days might be 
 
 regularly observed by the faithful without the 
 necessity of their going to the central Sanc- 
 tuary for the purpose ; and so could furnish 
 no occasion for enforcing that peculiar and 
 leading topic of Deuteronomy, the observance 
 of a national and visible unity in faith and 
 worship. 
 
 1—8. The Feast of Passover (Ex. xii. 
 I — 27; Num. ix. I— 14; Lev. xxiii. 1—8). 
 A re-enforcement of this ordinance Avas the 
 more necessary because its observance had 
 clearly been intermitted for thirty-nine years 
 (see on Josh, v, 10). One passover only had 
 been kept in the wilderness, that recorded in 
 Num. ix.. where see notes. Various Jewish 
 authorities obspved that the passover was not 
 designed to be' kept regularly until after the 
 settlement in Canaan (see Exod. xii. 25, xiii. 
 5). The same remark may be made of the 
 Feast of Pentecost (see Lev. xxiii. 10). 
 
 2. sacrifice the passo--uer~\ i. e. offer the 
 sacrifices proper to the feast of the passover, 
 which lasted seven days. The word passover 
 here is used in a general sense for the passover 
 offerings, as in St John xviii. 28, “that they 
 might eat the passover,” i.e. the passover offer- 
 ings. The passover itself in the strictest sense 
 was a lamb or a kid (Exod. xii. 5) ; but the 
 slaying of this on the fourteenth day of the 
 month at even was but the inauguration of a 
 large number of sacrifices appointed for the 
 days following (Num. xxviii. 1 7 — 24 ; 2 Chron. 
 XXXV. 7). 'Phese sacrifices, strictly the pass- 
 over oflerings (Jjappesachim), were often by 
 the Jews spoken of, together with the paschal 
 
V. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XVI. 
 
 857 
 
 Exod. 12. 3 "^Thou shalt eat no leavened 
 
 '■ bread with it ; seven days shalt thou 
 eat unleavened bread therewith, even 
 the bread of affliction ; for thou earnest 
 forth out of the land of Egypt in 
 haste : that thou mayest remember 
 the day when thou earnest forth out 
 of the land of Egypt all the days of 
 thy life. 
 
 Exod. 34. 4 ^ And there shall be no leavened 
 
 ’■ bread seen with thee in all thy coast 
 seven days ; neither shall there any, 
 thing of the flesh, which thou sacri- 
 ficedst the first day at even, remain 
 all nio-ht until the mornino;. 
 
 Dr, kill. 5 Thou mayest not ” sacrifice the 
 passover within any of thy gates, which 
 the Lord thy God giveth thee ; 
 
 6 But at the place which the Lord 
 thy God shall choose to place his 
 
 name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the 
 passover at even, at the going down 
 of the sun, at the season that thou 
 earnest forth out of Egypt. 
 
 7 And thou shalt roast and eat it 
 in the place which the Lord thy God 
 shall choose : and thou shalt turn in 
 the morning, and go unto thy tents. 
 
 8 Six days thou shalt eat unlea- 
 vened bread : and on the seventh 
 day shall be a Tolemn assembly totHeb. 
 the L0R.D thy God : thou shalt do no 
 work therein. 
 
 9 ^ -^Seven weeks shalt thou num--^Lev. 23. 
 ber unto thee : begin to number the 
 seven weeks from such time as thou 
 beginnest to put the sickle to the corn. 
 
 10 And thou shalt keep the feast 
 of weeks unto the Lord thy God 
 
 with " a tribute of a freewill offering sufficiency. 
 
 lamb that inaugurated them, as simply the 
 Pascha or Passover. It is clear that the word 
 passover is thus used in the passage before us 
 from Avhat follows immediately in the next 
 •z;., “thou shalt eat no leavened bread 
 with it : seven days shalt thou eat unleavened 
 bread therewith i. e. with the passover. 
 Now the passover in the narrowest sense, 
 i. e. the lamb or kid, had to be consumed on 
 the first evening, 'v. 4. That therefore with 
 which they were to eat unleavened bread 
 seven days is the passover in the wider sense, 
 the paschal offerings which continued to be 
 offered throughout the week. Hence the 
 direction to “sacrifice the passover of the 
 flock and the herd,” i.e. of small cattle and 
 oxen, is no variation of the ordinance of 
 Exod. xii. 5. The rite of the paschal lamb is 
 presupposed throughout, and the command of 
 the present passage is to bring the other 
 paschal offerings “ of the flock and of the 
 herd” to the place which the Lord should 
 choose. In the latter part of 4 and the 
 following ‘z;*!'. Moses passes, as the context 
 again shows, into the narrower sense of the 
 word passover. 
 
 7 . thou shalt roast\ Lit. Thou shalt 
 cook it. The word (bashal) means gene- 
 rally to prepare food by cooking. Ordinarily 
 it is applied to boiling: but it may be used, 
 as here and in 2 Chron. xxxv. 13, of roasting 
 also. The previous rules about the passover 
 being assumed, no Jew would think of 
 cooking it in any other way than by fire. 
 
 thou shalt turn in the rnornmg,^ and go unto 
 thy tents'] i. e. after the Paschal Supper in the 
 courts or neighbourhood of the Sanctuary 
 was over, they might disperse to their several 
 
 lodgings. These would of course be within a 
 short distance of the Sanctuary, because the 
 other paschal offerings were yet to be offered 
 day by day for seven days, and the people 
 would remain to share them ; and especially 
 to take part in the holy convocation on the 
 first and seventh of the days. The expression 
 “unto thy tents,” means simply “to thy 
 dwellings,” as in i K. viii. 66. -The use 
 of “tents” as a synonym for “dwellings” 
 (cf. Is. xvi. 5) is a trace of the original 
 nomadic life of the people. 
 
 9 — 13 . Feast of Weeks; and -z-'-z;. 13 — 17, 
 Feast of Tabernacles. As regards these holy 
 seasons nothing is here added to the rules 
 given in Levit. and Num. except the clauses 
 so often recurring in Deut. and so character- 
 istic of it, which restrict the public celebration 
 of the festivals to the Sanctuary, and enjoin 
 that the enjoyments of them* should be ex- 
 tended to the Levites, widows, orphans, &c. 
 It is obviously for the sake of urging these 
 tvro last-mentioned points that any allusion 
 is here made at all to the two feasts. 
 
 9 . begin to number the nveeks from such 
 time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the 
 corn] Lit. “upon the beginning of the sickle 
 to the corn ; ” i. e. from the beginning of corn 
 harvest. This could not be (Lev. xxiii. 
 14, 15) until the presentation of the first- 
 fruits of the new harvest before God on “the 
 morrow after the sabbath” in the Passover 
 week, i.e. the sixteenth of Nisan; and accord- 
 ingly the fifty days were counted from this 
 “beginning of the sickle to the corn,” or law- 
 ful commencement of harvest, on the second 
 of the seven days of unleavened bread. 
 
858 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XVI. 
 
 [V. II 22. 
 
 of thine hand, which thou shalt give 
 unto the Lord thy God^ according as 
 the Lord thy God hath blessed thee : 
 
 1 1 And thou shalt rejoice before 
 the Lord thy God, thou, and thy 
 son, and thy daughter, and thy man- 
 servant, and thy maidservant, and the 
 Levite that is within thy gates, and 
 the stranger, and the fatherless, and 
 the widow, that are among you, in 
 the place which the Lord thy God 
 hath chosen to place his name there. 
 
 12 And thou shalt remember that 
 thou wast a bondman in Egypt : and 
 thou shalt observe and do these sta- 
 tutes. 
 
 13 ^ Thou shalt observe the feast 
 of tabernacles seven days, after that 
 
 t Heb. thou hast gathered in thy ^ corn and 
 
 Jhorand j 
 
 tuy wine- . 
 
 frcss. And thou shalt rejoice in thy 
 
 feast, thou, and thy son, and thy 
 daughter, and thy manservant, and 
 thy maidservant, and the Levite, the 
 stranger, and the fatherless, and the 
 v/idow, that are within thy gates. 
 
 15 Seven days shalt thou keep a 
 solemn feast unto the Lord thy God 
 in the place which the Lor.d shall 
 choose : because the Lord thy God 
 shall bless thee in all thine increase, 
 and in all the works of thine hands, 
 therefore thou shalt surely rejoice. 
 
 16 ^ ^ Three times in a year shall 
 all thy males appear before the Lord 
 thy God in the place which he shall 
 choose j in the feast of unleavened 
 bread, and in the feast of weeks, and 
 in the feast of tabernacles : and ^ they 
 shall not appear before the Lord 
 empty : 
 
 1 7 Every man shall give ^ as he is 
 able, according to the blessing of the 
 Lord thy God which he hath given 
 thee. 
 
 18 ^ Judges and officers shalt thou 
 make thee in all thy gates, which the 
 Lord thy God giveth thee, through- 
 out thy tribes : and they shall judge 
 the people with just judgment. 
 
 19 Thou shalt not wrest judg- 
 ment ; thou shalt not respect persons, 
 * neither take a gift : for a gift doth 
 blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert 
 the words of the righteous. 
 
 20 ^ That which is altogether just 
 shalt thou follow, that thou mayest 
 live, and inherit the land which the 
 L0R.D thy God giveth thee. 
 
 21 ^ Thou shalt not plant thee a 
 grove of any trees near unto the altar 
 of the Lord thy God, v/hich thou 
 shalt make thee. 
 
 22 Neither shalt thou set thee up 
 any " image 
 God hateth. 
 
 Exod. 23, 
 14. 
 
 & 34- 23- 
 
 ^ Ecclus. 
 35- 4- 
 
 t Heb. _ 
 accoi'ding 
 to the giyt 
 of his 
 hand. 
 
 ’ Exod. 23, 
 
 OOr, 
 ■matters. 
 t Heb. 
 Justice, 
 justice. 
 
 h Lev. 26. 
 
 which the Lord thy 11 or, 
 
 statue, or, 
 jillar. 
 
 18 — 22. These 'v'v. are closely con- 
 nected in subject with the following chapter; 
 and form with that and the four next 
 chapters a proper lesson in the Synagogue 
 service-book. They introduce certain direc- 
 tions for the administration of justice and the 
 carrying on of the civil government of the 
 people in Canaan. See on Judg. iii. 7 . During 
 the lifetime of Moses, he himself, specially in- 
 spired and guided by God, was sufficient, with 
 the aid of the subordinate judges appointed at 
 a very early period of the people’s indepen- 
 dence (cf. Ex. xviii. 13 sqq.), for the duties in 
 ciuestion ; and the more so because the nation 
 had thus far lived in encampment together, 
 and so within a small compass. But now when 
 Moses was to be withdrawn, and the people 
 would soon be scattered up and down the 
 land of Canaan, regular and permanent pro- 
 vision must be made for civil and social order 
 and good government. To such provision 
 Moses now addresses himself; and with a 
 
 statesmanlike foresight, not only arranges for 
 immediate exigencies, but leaves room within 
 his plan for ideas and wants which as yet lay 
 in the far distant future. 
 
 21 . 7hou shalt not plant thee a groove of 
 any trees'^ Render, Tliou shalt not plant 
 for thee any tree as an idol: literally 
 “as an Asherah,” i.e. an image of Astarte or 
 Ashtaroth, the Phoenician goddess: cf. on 
 vii. 13. The word is rendered “groves” by 
 A. V. also in vii. 5, xii. 3 ; Ex. xxxiv. 13 ; 
 Judg. vi. 25. This rendering is adopted after 
 LXX., Saad., and many ancient authorities, 
 but cannot be maintained, for the word is 
 connected with various verbs {e-S' “ make,” 
 I K. xiv. 15; “to set up” or “erect,” 2 K. 
 xvii. 10; % Chron. xxxiii. 19; “to build,” 
 I K xiv. 23) which are quite inapplicable to 
 a grove. The wooden idol in question was 
 the stem of a tree, stripped of its boughs, 
 set upright in the ground, and rudely carved 
 with emblems. 
 
V. 1 — 9 .] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XVII. 
 
 859 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 I The things sacrificed mnst be sound. 2 Idola- 
 ters must be slain. 8 Hard controversies are 
 to be dete 7 ’mined by the priests and judges, r 2 
 The contetniier of that determination must die. 
 14 The election, 16 and duty of a king. 
 
 T hou shalt not sacrifice unto the 
 Lord thy God any bullock, or 
 Ox, goat, "sheep, wherein is blemish, or any 
 evilfavouredness : for that is an abo- 
 mination unto the Lord thy God. 
 
 2 *[I If there be found among you, 
 within any of thy gates which the 
 Lord thy God giveth thee, man or 
 woman, that hath wrought wicked- 
 ness in the sight of the Lord thy 
 God, in transgressing his covenant, 
 
 3 And hath gone and served other 
 gods, and worshipped them, either the 
 sun, or moon, or any of the host of 
 heaven, which 1 have not commanded ; 
 
 4 And it be told thee, and thou 
 hast heard of it., and inquired dili- 
 gently, and, behold, it he true, and 
 the thing certain, that such abomi- 
 nation is wrought in Israel : 
 
 5 Then shalt thou bring forth that 
 man or that woman, which have com- 
 mitted that wicked thing, unto thy 
 gates, even that man or that woman, 
 and shalt stone them with stones, till 
 they die. 
 
 6 "At the mouth of two witnesses, " Numb, 
 or three witnesses, shall he that IS chap. ig. 
 worthy of death be put to death ; but is. 
 at the mouth of one witness he shall \\ „ 
 
 John 8. 17. 
 
 not be put to death. 2 Cor. 13. 
 
 7 The hands of the witnesses shall Heb. 10. 
 be first upon him to put him to death, 
 
 and afterward the hands of all the peo- 
 ple. So thou shalt put the evil away 
 from among you. 
 
 8 ^ If there arise a matter too 
 hard for thee in j'udgment, between ? 
 blood and blood, between plea and 
 plea, and between stroke and stroke, 
 being matters of controversy within 
 thy gates : then shalt thou arise, and 
 get thee up into the place which the 
 Lord thy God shall choose*; 
 
 9 And thou shalt come unto the 
 
 Chap. XVII. 1. This nj. belongs in 
 subject to the last chapter. It prohibits once 
 more (cf. xv. 21) that form of insult to God 
 which consists in offering to Him a blemished 
 sacrifice. 
 
 any e’vil-faajouredness~\ Render any evil 
 thing. The reference is to the faults or 
 maims enumerated Lev. xxii. 22 — 24- 
 
 2 — 7 . The detection and punishment of 
 idolatry, as leading duties of the magistrate, 
 are again enjoined (cf. xiii sqq.) with special 
 reference to the legal forms to be adopted, 
 'vv. 5 — 7. The sentence is to be carried into 
 effect at “the gates” (cf. on Gen. xix. i) of 
 the town in which the crime is committed ; 
 because, as “all the people” were to take a 
 part, an open space would be requisite for 
 the execution. Note the typical and pro- 
 phetical aspect of the injunction; cf. Acts vii. 
 58 ; Hebr. xiii. 12. It is quite in keeping with 
 the time and circumstances of Deut. that we 
 should find here the expression “ unto the 
 gates” instead of the “without the camp” of 
 the earlier books; cf. Lev. xxiv. 14; Num. 
 XV. 35. On the requirement of two wit- 
 nesses see reff. in margin. The accuser how- 
 ever might himself be one of the two. The 
 obligation laid on the witnesses (yv. 7) on 
 whose testimony sentence of death should be 
 passed, to take the lead in the execution of 
 it, is calculated to ensure their sincerity and 
 truthfulness, and to deter from false witness. 
 
 8 — 13 . The transition is obvious from the 
 enactments respecting a leading class of capital 
 crimes to those respecting obscure or com- 
 plicated cases. These ‘v^. do not, strictly 
 speaking, provide for a court of appeal. No 
 provision for appeals in the proper sense is 
 found in the laws of Moses. The cases in 
 question are, like those to be brought before 
 Moses in person according to the suggestion 
 of Jethro (Ex. xviii. 23 — 27), such as the in- 
 ferior judges did not feel able to decide satis- 
 factorily, and which accordingly they remitted 
 to their superiors. 
 
 The Supreme Court is referred to in very 
 general terms as sitting at the Sanctuary, n). 8, 
 and as consisting of “the priests the Levites, 
 and the judge that shall be in those days,” 2;. 9. 
 “The judge” would no doubt usually be a lay- 
 man, and thus the court would contain both 
 an ecclesiastical and a civil element. In like 
 manner Moses and Aaron (Num. xv. 33), 
 and after Aaron’s death Moses and Eleazar 
 (Num. xxvii. 2), seem to have acted as judges 
 in chief whilst the people were still in the 
 wilderness. Jehoshaphat, when (2 Chron. 
 xix. 4 — ii) “he brought the people back 
 unto the Lord God of their fathers,” organized 
 his judicial system very closely upon the lines 
 here laid down. He “ set judges in the land 
 throughout all the fenced cities of Judah,” 
 i.e. local courts, as is enjoined Deut. xvi. t 8, 
 and appointed the chief priest and “Zebadiah 
 
86o 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XVII. 
 
 [v. lo — 1 6. 
 
 t Heb. 
 7!Ot to 
 hearkc7i. 
 
 priests the Levites, and unto the judge 
 that shall be in those days, and in- 
 quire \ and they shall shew thee the 
 sentence of judgment : 
 
 10 And thou shalt do according to 
 the sentence, which they of that place 
 which the Lord shall choose shall 
 shew thee ; and thou shalt observe to 
 do according to all that they inform 
 thee : 
 
 1 1 According to the sentence of 
 the law which they shall teach thee, 
 and according to the judgment which 
 they shall tell thee, thou shalt do : 
 thou shalt not decline from the sen- 
 tence which they shall shew thee, to 
 the right hand, nor to the left. 
 
 12 And the man that will do pre- 
 sumptuously, ^ and will not hearken 
 unto the priest that standeth to mi- 
 nister there before the Lord thy God, 
 
 or unto the judge, even that man shall 
 die : and thou shalt put away the evil 
 from Israel. 
 
 13 And all the people shall hear, 
 and fear, and do no more presump- 
 tuously. 
 
 14. ^ When thou art come unto 
 the land which the Lord thy God 
 giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and 
 shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I 
 will set a king over me, like as all the 
 nations that are about me ; 
 
 15 Thou shalt in any wise set him 
 king over thee, whom the Lord thy 
 God shall choose : one from among 
 thy brethren shalt thou set king over 
 thee : thou mayest not set a stranger 
 over thee, which is not thy brother. 
 
 16 But he shall not multiply horses 
 to himself, nor cause the people to 
 return to Egypt, to the end that he 
 
 the son of Ishmael, the ruler of the house of 
 J udah ” to be a central and supreme court at 
 Jerusalem, On the judicial institutions of 
 the Jews in general, see Note at end of 
 chapter. 
 
 9 . the priests the Lensites'\ This expres- 
 sion, as also the similar one “the priests the 
 sons of Levi,” is equivalent to “the Levitical 
 priests,” and is found in Dent, and Josh. (cf. 
 n). 18, xviii. I, xxi. 5; Josh. iii. 3, &c.), in- 
 stead of “the sons of Aaron” of Exodus 
 and the two following books. See on it, 
 Introd. § V. 
 
 14 — 20 . The provisions for a supreme 
 court of justice carry the writer on to the 
 consideration of a contingency which nearly 
 concerns this part of his polity, that of his 
 people wishing to set a king over them. The 
 king, if appointed, would of course gather 
 round himself the functions of judicature and 
 administration which are treated of in this 
 part of the book ; and his election, duties and 
 responsibilities are thus naturally and appo- 
 sitely spoken of here. On the inferences drawn 
 from these verses as to the date of Dent, see 
 Note at end of chapter. It is only neces- 
 sary to observe here that the choice of a king 
 is not, like that of judges and officers, xvi. 
 18, enjoined, but simply permitted. The rea- 
 son of this is obvious. Provision for the due 
 administration of justice is essential : that 
 justice should be dispensed through monarch- 
 ical forms is not so; and is accordingly only 
 recogiii/ed as an arrangement which might 
 pi'obably result on the settlement and conso- 
 lidation of the people in Canaan. 
 
 14 . No encouragement is given to the 
 desire, natural in an Oriental people, for 
 monarchical government ; but neither is such 
 desire blamed, as appears from the fact that 
 conditions are immediately laid down upon 
 which it may be satisfied. 
 
 I <ivill set a king o'ver me~\ Cf. i S. viii. 
 5 , 19- 
 
 15 . The king, like the judges and officers 
 (cf. xvi. 18), is to be chosen by the people; 
 but their choice is to be in accordance with 
 the will of God, and to be made from 
 amongst “their brethren.” Cf. i S. ix. 15, 
 X. 24, xvi. 12; I K. xix. 16. Neither the 
 manner of the election, nor the channel through 
 which the Divine will would be manifested, 
 are specified. The former point, in this as in 
 other such cases, is taken as sufficiently pro- 
 vided for by the usual customs of the people ; 
 the latter is appropriately left indeterminate, 
 God would make His choice evident, and 
 this was all that needed to be intimated. In 
 fact a prophet was usually commissioned, as 
 in the examples above cited; though in the 
 case of Solomon the decision of the Lord was 
 directly communicated to David also. Cf. 
 I Chron. xxii. 10. 
 
 fhoii mayest not set a stranger O'ver thee~\ 
 The Jews extended this prohibition to all 
 offices whatsoever; cf. Jer. xxx. 21; and na- 
 turally attached the greatest importance to it: 
 whence the significance of the question pro- 
 posed to our Lord, “Is it lawful to give 
 tribute to Caesar?” St Matt. xx. 17. A Gen- 
 tile head for the Jewish people, which it was 
 a main aim of the law to keep pecufiar and 
 distinct from others, was an anomaly. 
 
V. 17 — 19 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XVII. 
 
 86 1 
 
 should multiply horses : forasmuch as 
 the Lord hath said unto you, Yc 
 shall henceforth return no more that 
 way. 
 
 17 Neither shall he multiply wives 
 to himself, that his heart turn not 
 away : neither shall he greatly mul- 
 tiply to himself silver and gold. 
 
 18 And it shall be, when he sit- 
 tcth upon the throne of his kingdom, 
 that he shall v/rite him a copy of this 
 law in a book out of that which is 
 before the priests the Levites : 
 
 19 And it shall be v/ith him, and 
 he shall read therein all the days of 
 his life : that he may learn to fear 
 
 16 . ke shall not multiply korses to himself^ 
 nor cause the people to return to Egypt^ to the 
 end that he should multiply horses'^ The horse 
 was not anciently used in the East for purposes 
 of agriculture or travelling, but ordinarily for 
 war only. He appears constantly in Scrip- 
 ture as the symbol and embodiment of fleshly 
 strength and the might of the creature ; cf. 
 Ps. XX. 7, xxxiii. 16, 17, cxlvii. 10; Job 
 xxxix. 19 sqq., and is sometimes significantly 
 spoken of simply as “ the strong one,” cf. Jer. 
 viii. 16. The spirit of the prohibition there- 
 fore is that the king of Israel must not, like 
 other earthly potentates, put his trust in costly 
 and formidable preparations for war, but in 
 God who “ saves not by horses nor by horse- 
 men,” EIos. i. 7. 
 
 Canaan being a mountainous country was 
 not suited for the breeding and training of 
 horses. Egypt was the principal source 
 whence the nations of western Asia drew 
 their supplies of this animal : cf. i K. x. 
 a8, 29; and horses and chariots figure con- 
 stantly as most important elements in the 
 armies of the Pharaohs; cf. Ex. xiv. 5 sqq.; 
 2 K. vii. 6. The Assyrians likewise excelled 
 in this arm (cf. 2 K. xviii. 23 ; Habak. i. 8 ; 
 Nah. iii. 3), and it was the natural resource 
 of the later kings of Judah, them.selves weak 
 in cavalry, to seek to balance the superiority 
 of the Assyrians in this respect by alliances 
 with the Egyptians. This policy of worldly 
 wisdom is often and emphatically condemned 
 by the prophets; cf. Is. xxx. i, xxxvi. 9; 
 Ezek. xvii. 15 ; and in the very spirit of the 
 text. Egypt everywhere in Scripture stands 
 as the antithesis to the theocratic covenant 
 and kingdom on earth. “To cause the people 
 to return to Egypt” would be to reverse that 
 great apd beneficent wonderwork of God 
 which inaugurated the Mosaic covenant, the 
 deliverance from the bondage of Egypt ; and 
 to bring that about of set purpose which God 
 threatens (xxviii. 68) as the sorest punishment 
 for Israel’s sin. The multiplication of horses 
 could not take place, as experience in Solo- 
 mon’s reign showed, without constant traffic 
 with Egypt and consequent intercourse with 
 the Egyptians ; and this it was important for 
 the purposes of the Mosaic law to prevent 
 (cf. Ex. xiii. 17 ; Jer. xlii. 14 sqq.; Hos. xi. 5). 
 
 17 . Neither shall he multiply <wi‘ves to 
 himself] Cf. Ex. xxxiv. 16:. where, however, 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 (as in Deut. vii. 3, 4) the warning is rather 
 against intermarriage with idolatrous nations 
 which might by their example seduce the 
 chosen people from the faith, than as here, 
 against excessive multiplication of wives. The 
 latter sin would lead to sensuality, and so to 
 an apostasy no less fatal in effect than down- 
 right idolatry. This rule, like the others, 
 abridges to the ruler of Israel liberties usually 
 enjoyed without stint by the kings of the East. 
 It does not forbid polygamy, but inordinate 
 polygamy. The Targum of Jonathan inter- 
 prets it as limiting the king to eighteen wives. 
 The restriction, however lax to Christian no- 
 tions, was in the days of Moses unprecedented ; 
 and demanded a higher standard in the king 
 of Israel than was looked for amongst his 
 equals in other nations. 
 
 neither shall he greatly multiply to himself 
 siNer and gold] In this third, as in the other 
 two prohibitions, excess is forbidden. Vast 
 accumulation of treasure could hardly be 
 effected without oppression ; nor when ef- 
 fected fail to produce pride and a “trust in 
 uncertain riches,” i Tim. vi. 17. 
 
 18 . he shall ^rite him a copy of this la^] 
 This prescription is every way a remarkable 
 one. Philo and other Jewish commentate rs_ 
 understand it as binding the kijig to tran- 
 scribe the law with his own hand. The spirit 
 of the rule however seemis only to require 
 that the king should have a copy written for 
 him (so Saad., Keil, Knobel, &c.). It is in 
 striking consistency with the dignity which 
 everywhere throughout the Mosaic legislation 
 surrounds the chosen people of God, that 
 even if they will be “like as all the nations 
 about,” and be governed by a king, care should 
 nevertheless be taken that he shall be no Ori- 
 ental despot. He is to be of no royal caste, 
 but one from among thy brethren ; he is to 
 bear himself as a kind of “ primus inter pares,” 
 his heart not being lifted up abon^e bis brethren^ 
 'V. 20 ; he is, like his subjects, to be bound 
 by the fundamental laws and institutions of 
 the nation, and obliged, as they were, to 
 do his duty in his station of life with constant 
 reference thereto. The spirit of the text is 
 that of St Matt, xxiii. 9. It is noteworthy 
 too that none of the kings of Israel appears 
 in character cf a legislator. 
 
 a copy of this la^] The A. V. reproduces 
 exactly the sense of the Hebrew, and the ex- 
 
 3 
 
862 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XVII. 
 
 the Lord his God, to keep all the 
 words of this lav/ and these statutes, 
 to do them : 
 
 20 That his heart be not lifted up 
 above his brethren, and that he turn 
 
 prcssion is generally and correctly explained as 
 importing the whole Pentateuch, or at any 
 rate the legal portion of the Pentateuch. A 
 knowledge of Exodus and the two following 
 books would indeed be even more essential to 
 the king than that of Deuteronomy, which is 
 to so great an extent a hortatory comment on 
 them and supplement to them. The LXX. 
 
 [v. 20. 
 
 not aside from the commandment, to 
 the right hand, or to the left : to the 
 end that he may prolong his days in 
 his kingdom, he, and his children, in 
 the midst of Israel. 
 
 renders “ro ^evrepovonLov rouro”', and the 
 Vulg. “ Deuteronomium legis hujus.” The 
 Talmud understands /wo copies, making 7nijb- 
 neh equivalent to “duplum.” 
 
 in a book out of that 'which is before the 
 priests the Lewtes^ Cf. xxxi. 9 sqq. and 24 
 sqq. and notes. 
 
 NOTES on Chap. xvii. 8 — 13, and 14 — 17. 
 
 We have no means of determining ques- 
 tions of detail connected with the judicial 
 institutions of the ancient Jews. The words 
 of this passage and of xix. 17, 18 intimate that 
 the chief priest and the judge had each assessors 
 or assistants ; and the last-cited one seems to 
 assign the inquiry into fact specially to the 
 judges. “The priests the Levites” would 
 naturally be regarded as more particularly 
 entrusted with the duty of interpreting and 
 expounding the law of God. 
 
 Yet distinctions of a legal character, such 
 as that between questions of law* and ques- 
 tions of fact, would not be drawn with nicety 
 in the days of Moses. Some such distinctions, 
 e.g. that between ecclesiastical, civil, and 
 criminal causes, would be to some extent in- 
 applicable under a theocracy. 
 
 Three sorts of functionaries appear in the 
 iPentateuch as taking part in the administra- 
 tion of justice: (i) “the Elders;'” (2) “the 
 Judges” (□'.DS'J'*, once Ex. xxi. 22 ; 
 
 , 5 ) “the Officers” (DniO'd'). 
 
 For the basis of the whole system we must 
 go back to the patriarchal institution of “the 
 Elders.” Cf on Num. xi. 16. In this as in 
 other parts of his legislation Moses, strictly 
 speaking, originates little, but regulates and 
 develops what v/as in its germs already pre- 
 sent in the social system and habits of his 
 people. “The Elders” of Israel are men- 
 tioned before the Exodus, Ex. iii. 18; and 
 appear also amongst the Egyptians, Gen. 1 . 7, 
 as they do indeed amongst Oriental nations 
 commonly, from the dawn of history to the 
 present time. They are in the Pentateuch 
 identical with “the heads of the people” and 
 “chief of the tribes,” who so often come for- 
 ward either by themselves or their deputies, 
 in the course of the wandering, as represen- 
 tatives of the nation at large. 
 
 It is clear tliat on the lirst emancipation of 
 the people from F.gypt, Moses united in his 
 own person the judicial as well as the other 
 principal theocratical functions. As the organi- 
 zation of the nation proceeded, Moses on the 
 
 counsel of Jethro appointed a large number 
 of inferior judges, who accordingly are dis- 
 tinguished' from “the Elders,” though perhaps 
 chosen from amongst them : (cf Exod. xviii. 
 21 sqq.; and ch. i.. 13, 15, 16, and xxi. 2). 
 The college of Elders however seems to have 
 retained the adjudication of certain cases (cf 
 xxi. 19, xxii. 15, XXV. 8), probably cases of 
 a domestic nature. The Elders of Jezreel 
 (i K. xxi.) play a conspicuous part in the 
 judicial murder of Naboth ; but we can hardly 
 infer from such a transaction, especially in 
 Ahab’s kingdom, that they ordinarily and 
 regularly exercised powers of this sort. 
 
 “The Officers” too (Shoterim) are found 
 as well as “the Elders” before the Exodus: 
 Ex. V. 10, where see note. Subsequently 
 they are m.entioned with “ the Elders” (Num. 
 xi. 16), and with “the Judges” (ch. xvi. 18); 
 from which last place it appears that they 
 were in some way concerned in the adminis- 
 tration of justice. In Josh. viii. 33 and xxiv. 
 I “the Elders, Officers, and Judges” are enu- 
 merated severally. 
 
 The Rabbinists find in the text the Greater 
 and Lesser Sanhedrim. No doubt the Lesser 
 Sanhedrim corresponded in functions with 
 the local court provided in xvi. 18, as did the 
 Greater with the supreme court of xvii. 8 
 (cf St Matt. V. 22); but the Sanhedrim in 
 the strict and proper sense was only in- 
 stituted after the return from the exile. The 
 Talmud, differing herein from Josephus, 
 speaks of the Lesser Sanhedrim as containing 
 twenty-three members. 
 
 It would seem likely, fi'om the wording of 
 xvi. 18 (cf i. 13 and Josh. iv. i), that the 
 various officers concerned in the administra- 
 tion of justice were, to some extent at least, 
 chosen by popular election. Of the mode 
 however in which this was done as well as of 
 many other particulars, such as the qualifica- 
 tions required in those to be elected, we have 
 no information. The directions given on the 
 whole subject in chapters xvi. and xvii. are of 
 the most general^ kind. The language is in 
 
DEUTERONOMY. XVII. 
 
 863 
 
 truth more that of one alluding to customs 
 and institutions already existing and well 
 known, than of one founding new ones by 
 legislation. But it is quite arbitrary to assert 
 (Riehm, Kuenen) that the writer cannot but 
 have had before him the judicial reforms of 
 Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xix.). A far more 
 apposite explanation is furnished by those 
 (as Keil) who remind us that Moses had 
 before him no disorganized mob, but a na- 
 tion already in possession of civil and religi- 
 ous institutions ; institutions indeed such as 
 have for ages sufficed of themselves for the 
 purposes of many an Oriental community. It 
 was enough therefore for Moses to lay down 
 broadly the general principles to be kept in 
 view and the larger outlines to be followed in 
 working these out, leaving details to be evolved 
 as circumstances and the natural development 
 of the nation might suggest. Here as else- 
 where the Mosaic Code is designed for a free 
 and independent people, and leaves scope for 
 that national energy which will not fail to 
 provide itself with organization according to 
 emergencies. The New Testament treats the 
 Christian Church in a strictly analogous man- 
 ner on the like classes of subjects, such as dis- 
 cipline, government, &c. Ends are set forth ; 
 means left largely to the discretion of the 
 rulers of the Church in different ages and 
 countries. The continuity of the Church has 
 been unbroken from the days of the Apostles 
 to the present; yet there are many debateable 
 questions as to what were ecclesiastical usages 
 and arrangements in Apostolic days. How 
 much more must this be expected as to the 
 far more ancient institutions of the Jewish 
 theocracy, which have been too swept away 
 entirely once and again by overwhelming 
 national calamity, and have now been for 
 eighteen hundred years extinct ! 
 
 ’ V ' v . 14 — 17. 
 
 This passage is one of the most important 
 amongst those brought forward by certain 
 critics as proofs that Deuteronomy was not 
 written until the time of the later kings. I'he 
 positions assumed by these critics (e.g. Vater, 
 De Wette, Von Bohlen, Ewald, Riehm, 
 Colenso, &c., and even Winer, ‘Real Wort- 
 erb.’ s. V. Koenig') may be thus stated : 
 
 (1) It is inconceivable that Moses, who 
 died more than three centuries before regal 
 government was introduced in the person of 
 Saul, can have made mention of a king as 
 these do ; especially as the principles 
 and tenor of his legislation are decidedly not 
 monarchical. 
 
 (2) In the narrative of the appointment of 
 Saul, I S. viii — xii., there is no reference 
 whatever to these provisions of Deuteronomy. 
 Yet had these been then extant either Samuel 
 must have quoted them when speaking of 
 “the manner of the king,” chap. viii. and xii., 
 
 or the people have alleged them in vindication 
 or excuse of their desire to have a king. But, 
 on the contrary, Samuel charges it on the 
 people as a great wickedness that they had 
 asked a king ; and the people themselves ad- 
 mit their guilt in the matter, i S. xii. 17 — 19. 
 
 (3) The prohibitions against accumulation 
 of horses, wives, and treasure, are evidently 
 suggested by the history of Solomon; cf. 
 I k. X. 26 — 29 and xi. i — 4. 
 
 (4) The reference to the traffic in horses 
 with Egypt points to the times of the later 
 kings of Judah; cf. Is. ii. 7, xxxvi. 9 ; Jer. ii. 
 18, 36, xlii. 15 — 19, &c. 
 
 On these grounds it is argued that the 
 passage was certainly penned long after the 
 date of Moses, and indeed subsequently to 
 the reign of Solomon, and most probably in 
 the age of Jeremiah. 
 
 But it may be answered: 
 
 (1) Even if we exclude from the question 
 Moses’ supernatural gifts, he may very pro- 
 bably have contemplated such a contingency 
 as Israel wishing at some time or other for a 
 king, and especially have thought it likely, as 
 the text presents it, when the people had 
 settled themselves in the promised land. When 
 we consider that the experience of Moses, 
 wide as it no doubt was, would probably fail 
 to afford a single instance of any settled com- 
 munity governed otherwise than by a mon- 
 arch, we might fairly argue that it is more 
 surprising that he should have founded any 
 other polity and expected that polity to en- 
 dure, as he does, than to find him entertaining 
 the supposition that Israel might wish to be 
 governed as all other nations were. 
 
 If the institutions of Moses are non-monar- 
 chical, yet neither have they any greater affinity 
 for other special forms of civil government. 
 The main purposes of his lav/ are religious and 
 theocratical ; and these are carefully secured 
 by enactment. But they could be attained 
 as well under kings as under prophets like 
 Moses, generals like Joshua, or judges like 
 Samuel; and accordingly no definite polity 
 was by Divine authority imposed on the 
 Jews in perpetuity. 
 
 Neither is the passage before us the only 
 one of the Pentateuch in which allusion seems 
 made to kings of Israel. Cf. Gen. xvii. 16, 
 xxxvi. 31, xlix. 10; Ex. xxii. 28; Num. xxiv. 
 17; Dent, xxviii. 36. It is not too much to 
 say that the presage of royalty to come per- 
 vades every part of the early annals of the 
 people. 
 
 (2) In reply to the second position, it is 
 to be remembered that a direct and formal 
 quotation of an earlier book Jn a later is not 
 at all in the manner of the Old Testament 
 writers. Yet the request of the people (i S. 
 viii. 5), “Make us a king to judge us like all 
 the nations,” is preferred in terms very like 
 those employed Deut. xvii. 14. Is the resem- 
 blance accidental? It is hard to think so 
 
 31 2 
 
DEUTERONOMY. XVII. 
 
 864 
 
 when we find Samuel, in presenting Saul to 
 the people as “him whom the Lord hath 
 chosen,” i S. x. 24, employing again the 
 words cf this verse of Deut. ; and in his ex- 
 hortation, I S. xii. 14, reproducing the tone, 
 phraseology, and rhetorical accumulation of 
 clauses which are characteristic features of 
 Dent. (cf. Deut. i. 26, 43, ix. 7, 23, &c.). 
 It is therefore too much to gay that no allu- 
 sion to the passage of Deut. before us can be 
 found in i S. viii. — xii. 
 
 (3) Neither is it correct to assume that 
 Samuel condemned the demand for a king as 
 in itself a sin. As in so many other parts 
 of Scripture, so in the language ascribed to 
 God I S. X. 18, 19, and to Samuel i S. xii. 
 17, misconception arises from insulating parti- 
 cular verses, and construing them irrespec- 
 tively of the context. When we duly note 
 that God, I S. viii. y, enjoined Samuel “to 
 hearken to the voice of the people in all that they 
 say,” it is not possible to regard the demand 
 in question as one which the sacred w-riter 
 thought absolutely wicked. In truth it is 
 plain, upon a survey of the whole transaction, 
 that it was not the mere desire of a king 
 which is blamed, but the time and circum- 
 stances under which that desire was mani- 
 fested. It might e.£-. have been innocent to 
 have brought forward a scheme for a regal 
 government at the death of the divinely ap- 
 pointed judge, and in the absence of any 
 directions from God respecting a successor. 
 But the people desired to set aside Samuel, 
 a man who had the special approval of the 
 Divine head of the theocracy, and upon a pre- 
 text “ Behold thou art old,” (i S. viii. 5), which 
 can hardly have been sincere, seeing that 
 Samuel lived to take a leading part in public 
 affairs for some thirty-five years afterwards; 
 and in distrust of God’s will and power to in- 
 terpose for their succour (i S. xii. 12) against 
 the attack of Nahash, king sf the Ammonites. 
 The allegation against the sons of Samuel 
 (i S. viii. 3 sqq.) was valid ground for re- 
 monstrance, but not for setting aside one 
 whom the people themselves did not dare to 
 deny to have been as uncorrupt as he was 
 able and diligent in his* duties (i S. xii. 
 
 I — 5). It is in short evident that the demand 
 for a king arose partly out of that culpable 
 jn'oneness towards imitation of heathen na- 
 tions which so often led the people into error; 
 j)artly out of a peevish impatience at certain 
 abuses of a remediable and temporary cha- 
 racter; and partly out of a want of faith in 
 time of trial. For these reasons the demand 
 for a king was sinful at the time it was made, 
 and became doubly so when persisted in 
 against the remonstrances of God’s prophet 
 (i S. viii. 10 scp).) ; and though God bade 
 Samuel to “hearken unto the voice of the 
 people,’’ yet (IIos. xiii. ii) “ He gave them a 
 king in His anger.” d'here is therefore, on 
 the whole, no real repugnance between the 
 
 narrative in i S. viii. — xii. and the passage o' 
 Deut. before us. 
 
 (4) The similarity between our passage of 
 Deut. and i K. x. 26 — 29, xi. i — 5 cannot 
 be gainsayed. The only open (literary) ques- 
 tion is whether the writer of Deut. had the 
 passage of Kings before him, or the writer of 
 Kings that of Deut. The broad reasons on 
 which we decide for the latter alternative are 
 set out in the Introduction. Here we may 
 note that it is clear that the writer of i K. 
 had in view not only Deut. xvii. but also 
 Deut. vii. 3, 4, and Ex. xxxiv. 16. 
 
 Nothing can be plainer than that the inten- 
 tion of the author of i K. in x. 26 sqq. is to 
 trace the backsliding of Solomon to his dis- 
 regard amidst his prosperity of the wholesome 
 restraints imposed by the Divine law. This 
 intention comes out explicitly in xi. 2 ; but 
 it is no less perceptible, though implied, in 
 the preceding context ; and there is nothing 
 in that context which the writer can have 
 had in view except our passage of Deut. 
 
 (5) The allegation that the restrictions 
 laid on the supposed king by Deut. reflect the 
 ideas of a later age, is simply arbitrary. The 
 excesses forbidden to the king of Israel were 
 those in which eastern potentates were wont 
 to indulge; nor, supposing Moses to have 
 thought of a king at all, is anything more in 
 keeping with the general spirit of his legisla- 
 lation than that he should have sought to 
 guard against some of the more obvious and 
 ordinary abuses of Oriental despotism. 
 
 (6) The caution against “causing the 
 people to return to Egypt” (Deut. xvii. 16), 
 is thoroughly consistent with the character and 
 circumstances of Moses. Again and again 
 do we read of the people longing for the land 
 they had left behind (cf. Ex. xvi. 3 ; Num. xi. 
 5); and they once actually proposed to “make 
 a captain and return to Egypt” (Num. xiv. 4^, 
 But after the glorious reigns of David, Solo- 
 mon, and others, the building of the Temple, 
 and the long annals of Israel as an independent 
 nation, it would have been preposterous to 
 mention such a thing as replanting the Jews 
 in Egypt. 
 
 (7) Equally absurd would it have been 
 in the days of the later kings to forbid the 
 choice of an alien as king. No one would 
 have thought of such an appointm.ent whilst 
 the seed royal was prolific in several branches. 
 
 (8) The rules laid down in Deut. xvii. 
 respecting the kingdom do not therefore bear 
 the marks of a date long after that of Moses, 
 but rather the contrary. It is a striking illus- 
 tration of the peremptory spirit in which 
 arguments on this subject are manufactured, 
 that we find Riehm coupling this passage 
 with Deut. xxviii. 68, and finding in the two 
 evidence of a treaty by which Manasseh fur- 
 nished infantry to the Egyptian king Psam- 
 metichus in return for horses. According to 
 Diodorus (i. 66), and Herod, (i. 152), Psam- 
 
V. I— - 4 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XVIII. 
 
 “ Numb. 
 1 8. 20. 
 chap. lo. 
 
 ^ I Cor. c 
 13 - 
 
 metichus hired soldiers from Arabia and Asia 
 Minor; but there is not a single historical 
 trace of the supposed treaty in any writer 
 sacred or secular; and no mention of Judea 
 at all in the historians referred to. 
 
 (9) AVe may add that it is quite unin- 
 telligible how and why a later writer, desiring 
 to pass under the name of Moses, could have 
 penned a passage exhibiting the peculiarities 
 of the one under consideration. He could 
 not have designed it as an example of the pro- 
 phetical powers of the great lawgiver of 
 Israel, for it is so vaguely and generally con- 
 
 865 
 
 ceived as to look rather like a surmise than a 
 prediction. Nor could he. have intended to 
 insert by it a kind of sanction of royalty in 
 the Mosaic legislation; for it contains rather 
 a toleration of that mode of government than 
 an approval of it. Neither would he have 
 thought of subjecting his imaginary king to 
 rules which must have sounded, in part at 
 least, little less than absurd to his own con- 
 temporaries, and which are in themselves such 
 as no one in his (supposed) time and circum- 
 stances can naturally be thought to have 
 invented. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 I The Lord is the priests'" and Levites"" inheri- 
 tance. 3 The priest's due. 6 The Lev’ite's 
 portion. 9 The abominations of the nations 
 are to be avoided. 15 Christ the Prophet is 
 to be heard. 20 The presumpticous p 7 -ophet is 
 to die. 
 
 T he priests the Levites, and all 
 the tribe of Levi, "shall have no 
 part nor inheritance with Israel : they 
 , ^ shall eat the offerings of the Lord 
 made by fire, and his inheritance. 
 
 2 Therefore shall thev have no in- 
 
 J 
 
 heritance among their brethren : the 
 Lord is their inheritance, as he hath 
 said unto them. 
 
 3 ^ And this shall be the priest’s 
 due from the people, from them that 
 offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or 
 sheep ; and they shall give unto the 
 priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, 
 and the maw. 
 
 4 The firstfruit also of thy corn, of 
 
 Chap. XVIII. Whilst speaking of the 
 guides and rulers of the people the legislator 
 could not wholly omit the priests, the Levites, 
 and the prophets, though his description of 
 the ecclesiastical life of the nation had led 
 him already to treat copiously of their office 
 and duties. Accordingly he now summarily 
 repeats, with some supplementary additions, 
 from his former enactments what were to be 
 their privileges and position after the settle- 
 ment in Canaan; beginning with the priests 
 {pv. 3 — 5), and Levites {yno. 6 — 8), the or- 
 dinary ministers of religion and expositors of 
 the law of God ; and proceeding, in contrast 
 with the false- pretences of the heathen seers 
 9 — 14), to promise that the true God 
 would not fail in extraordinary emergencies 
 to afford the needful instruction as to His 
 will and way. Accordingly the prophets are 
 (yu. 15 — 22) formally accredited as instru- 
 ments through which the divine Head of the 
 Theocracy would from time to time exercise 
 His superintendence and control. 
 
 1 . The priests the Le'v'ites.^ and all the tribe 
 of Leno'i] The word and, inserted by our 
 translators, weakens the force of the ori- 
 ginal. The absence of conjunctions in the 
 Hebrew, and its climax from the particular 
 to the general, are emphatic ; the effect might 
 be given thus: “there shall not be to the 
 priests, the Levites, yea the whole tribe of 
 Levi, any inheritance, &c.” This is thus 
 forcibly laid down by way of basis for the 
 
 enlargement made in the subsequent verses of 
 the emoluments of the priests and Levites ; 
 and serves to suggest the need, probably al- 
 ready ascertained, of some addition to their 
 allowance. 
 
 and his inher'itance'\ i.e. God's inheritance, 
 that which in making a grant to His people 
 of the Promised Land with its earthly bless- 
 ings He had reserved for Himself ; more 
 particularly the sacrifices, or as they are here 
 termed “ firings,” and the holy gifts, such as 
 tithes and firstfruits (so Vulg. “ oblatio- 
 nes”). These were God’s portion (Kkrjpos) 
 of the substance of Israel ; and as the Levites 
 were His portion of the persons of Israel, it 
 was fitting that the Levites should be sus- 
 tained from these. The words of t'i'. i and 
 2 are evidently suggested by Num. xviii. 20 
 sqq. ; cf. also Dent. x. 9; Josh. xiii. 14, 33 ; 
 and on the principle here laid down, i Cor. 
 ix. 13, 14. 
 
 3 — 5 . Separate allusion is now made to 
 the two parts ’of the tribe of Levi, the priests 
 (-ux^. 3 — 5) and the Levites (‘u'u. 6 — 8). The 
 perquisites here named are clearly (y. 3) as- 
 signed to the priests as distinct from the 
 Levites ; the corresponding mention of privi- 
 leges belonging spe,cifically to the latter coming 
 in due order, -u. 6 sqq. On the bearing of 
 these 2)20. upon the relations between the 
 priests and Levites as exhibited in Deuter- 
 onomy, see Note at end of chapter. 
 
 the shoulder, and thet^vo cheeks, and the ma2u\ 
 
866 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XVIII. 
 
 [''• 5 — 9 . 
 
 thy wine, and of thine oil, and the 
 first of the fleece of thy sheep, shalt 
 thou give him. 
 
 5 For the Lord thy God hath 
 chosen him out of all thy tribes, to 
 stand to minister in the name of the 
 Lord, him and his sons for ever. 
 
 6 ^ And if a Levite come from 
 any of thy gates out of all Israel, 
 where he sojourned, and come with 
 
 For W/7W read stomach. The part intend- 
 ed is the fourth stomach of ruminating ani- 
 mals in which the digestion is completed. 
 'Fhis was regarded as one of the richest and 
 choicest parts (so LXX. rjvvaTpov^ Vulg. 
 “ ventriculusf ’ Keil, Schultz, &c.). On the 
 provision for the priest here made and its 
 relation to that of Levit. vii. 31 — 34, see 
 Note at end of chapter. As the animal slain 
 may be considered to consist of three prin- 
 cipal parts, head, feet, and body, a portion of 
 each is by the regulation in question to be 
 given to the priest, thus representing the con- 
 secration of the whole ; or, as some ancient 
 commentators think, the dedication of the 
 words, acts, and appetites of the worshipper 
 to God. 
 
 Jewish authorities (Philo, Joseph., theTal- 
 muid) regard the regulation as applicable to 
 animals slam at home for food. But not 
 only the phraseology (“offer a sacrifice”), but 
 the utter impossibility of transporting these 
 jheces from various parts of the country to 
 the residences of the priests, seems to forbid 
 such a sense. Keil is probably right in un- 
 derstanding the text to refer to peace-offer- 
 ings, and animals killed for the sacrificial 
 meals held in connection with the peace-offer- 
 ings. 
 
 4f The law of firstfruits is repeated from 
 Num. xviii. 12, 13 for the purpose of adding 
 thereto “the first fleece of the sheep.” 
 
 5. him and his sons fur e^'er'\ A plain re- 
 ference to the original appointment of Aaron 
 and his sons to the priesthood. 
 
 6 - 8. Allusion is now made to the Levites 
 specifically so called, t.e. to the non-priestly 
 L.evites, in contrast with “ the priest” who 
 “ with his sons” is mentioned 3 and 5. 
 
 d hese njx'. presuppose that part ot the 
 Levites only will be in residence and of- 
 ficiating at the place of the Sanctuary, the 
 others of course tlwelling at their own homes 
 in tlie Levitical cities; cf. Num. xxxv. 2 sqq. 
 But if any I.evite out of love for the service 
 of the Sanctuary chose to resort to it when 
 he might reside in his own home, he was to 
 have his share in the maintenance which was 
 provided flm those ministering in the order of 
 their course. 
 
 all the desire of his mind unto the 
 place which the Lord shall choose ; 
 
 7 Then he shall minister in the 
 name of the Lord his God, as all his 
 brethren the Levites do^ which stand 
 there before the Lord. 
 
 8 They shall have like portions to 
 
 eat, beside ^ that which cometh of the t Heb. 
 
 1 r 1 • • his sales 
 
 sale or his patrimony. dythe 
 
 9 ^ When thou art come into the 
 
 6. any of thy gates ..sphere he sojourned'] 
 The various administrative duties discharged 
 by Levites (e.g. that of Shoterirn, cf. xvii. 8 
 sqq. and note) would necessarily lead to many 
 individuals of them “sojourning” from time 
 to time in various parts of the land, and often 
 in other than Levitical cities ; and indeed as 
 these cities were scattered up and down 
 amongst the tribes, and were the only regular 
 dwell! ngplaces of the tribe of Levi, the mem- 
 bers of that tribe may be said, in contrast with 
 the others, to be “sojourners” altogether. 
 
 7. he shall minister in the name of the 
 Lord his God] The duty of the Levites was 
 to assist the priests; and this subordinate 
 ministration is expressed in Num. iii. 6 by the 
 same Hebrew word as is here used. 
 
 8. They shall ha’ve like portions to eat] 
 Lit. “ part like part shall they eat :” i.e. the 
 new-comer and those already in attendance.' 
 Due provision had been made in the preceding 
 legislation for the maintenance of the ministers 
 at the Sanctuary. All that now needed to be 
 done was to secure the volunteer his share 
 in it. 
 
 beside that nvhich cometh of the sale of his 
 patrimo7iy] Marg. more literally “his sales 
 by the fathers.” The wording of the original 
 is singular and difficult (see Note at end 
 of chapter). A great variety of interpre- 
 tations has been proposed, yet there seems 
 little doubt about the real meaning. The 
 Levites had indeed “no part nor inheritance 
 with Israel,” but they might individually pos- 
 sess property, and in fact often did so. Thus 
 Abiathar (i K. ii. 26) owned certain “ fields,'” 
 and Jeremiah (xxxii. 7 sqq.) bought a field of 
 his lincle. The law, Levit. xxv. 33, 34, for- 
 bids the sale of the pastures belonging in com- 
 mon to the Levites as such, but private pro- 
 perty might of course be disposed of at the 
 pleasure of the owner. The Levite who de- 
 sired to settle at the place of the Sanctuaiy 
 would probably sell his patrimony when quit- 
 ting his former home. The text directs that 
 he should, notwithstanding any such private 
 resources, duly enjoy his share of the perqui- 
 sites provided for the ministers at the sanc- 
 tuary, and as he was “ waiting at the altar” 
 should be “ partaker with the altar” (i Cor. 
 ix. 13)- 
 
DEUTERONOMY. XVIII. 
 
 867 
 
 V. 10 — 20.] 
 
 land which the Lord thy God giveth 
 thee, thou shalt not learn to do after 
 the abominations of those nations. 
 
 10 There shall not be found among 
 you any one that maketh his son or 
 f Lev. 18. daughter “^to pass through the fire, 
 or that useth divination, or an ob- 
 server of times, or an enchanter, or a 
 witch, 
 
 rfLev. 20. II ‘^Or a charmer, or a consulter 
 with fimiliar spirits, or a wizard, or a 
 ^ 1 Sam. ^necromancer. 
 
 ^ 12 For all that do these things are 
 
 an abomination unto the Lord : and 
 because of these abominations the 
 Lord thy God doth drive them out 
 from before thee. 
 
 "Or i-^ Thou shalt be "perfect with the 
 
 or, sincere. Lord thy God. 
 
 14 For these nations, which thou 
 II On shalt " possess, hearkened unto observ- 
 
 inherits r ^ * 1 t • i 
 
 ers or times, and unto diviners : but 
 as for thee, the Lord thy God hath 
 /John I. suffered thee so to do. 
 
 4 s^ts 22 15 ^ -^The Lord thy God will 
 
 & 7. 37. ' raise up unto thee a Prophet from the 
 
 midst of thee, of thy brethren, like 
 unto me ; unto him ye shall hearken ; 
 
 16 According to all that thou de- 
 siredst of the Lord thy God in Ho- 
 reb in the day of the assembly, saying, 
 
 ^Let me not hear again the voice of-fExod. 20. 
 the Lord my God, neither let me see 
 this great fire any more, that I die not. 
 
 17 And the Lord said unto me. 
 
 They have v/ell spoken that which 
 they have spoken. 
 
 18 will raise them up a Prophet i. 
 from among their brethren, like untoA^ctss. 22. 
 thee, and will put my words in his ^ 
 mouth ; and he shall speak unto them 
 
 all that I shall command him. 
 
 19 And it shall come to pass, 
 whosoever will not hearken unto 1117 
 words which he shall speak 
 name, I v/ill require it of him. 
 
 20 But the prophet, which shall 
 presume to speak a word in my name, 
 which I have not commanded him to 
 speak, or that shall speak in the name 
 of other gods, even that prophet shall 
 die. 
 
 that 
 
 my 
 
 9 — 14 . Passing on to speak of the 
 prophets, the legislator begins by enumerating 
 and prohibiting the various superstitions by 
 which the heathen nations of Canaan had 
 sought to explore the future and to test the 
 will of the Deity. 
 
 10. maketh his son or his daughter to pass 
 through the jire~\ i.e. to Moloch; cf. Levit. 
 xviii. 21 and note. The practice was pro- 
 bably in some way connected with sooth- 
 saying. 
 
 that useth din)ination'\ Cf. Num. xxiii. 23 
 and note. 
 
 observer of times'] Cf. Lev. xix. 26 and note. 
 
 enchanter] Or serpent-charmer; cf. Lev. l.c. 
 
 ^Lvitch] Rather sorcerer, as in Ex. vii. 1 1 ; 
 see note there. 
 
 11. a charmer] i.e. one who fascinates 
 and subdues noxious animals or mien, such 
 as the famious serpent-charmiers of the East. 
 Cf. especially Ps. Iviii. 4, 5. The word is de- 
 rived from a root signifying to bind or ban. 
 
 a consulter veith familiar spirits] Cf. Lev. 
 xix. 31, XX. 6. 
 
 a vji'zard] Cf. Lev. 1 . c. 
 
 necromancer] Literally “one who interro- 
 gates the dead.” And it might be better to 
 restore the literal rendering in the A. V., for 
 the term “necromancer” seems to be equiva- 
 lent to the “consulter with familiar spirits,” 
 
 named above. The purpose of the text is ob- 
 viously to group together all the known words 
 belonging to the practices in question ; cf. 
 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6. 
 
 13 . Thou shalt be perfect vjith the Lord 
 thy God] On the worA perfect cf. Gen. xvii. 
 I ; Job i. I. The sense is that Israel was to 
 keep the worship of the true God wholly 
 uncontaminated by idolatrous pollutions. 
 
 15 — 19 . On this passage see Note at end 
 of chapter. 
 
 15 . a Prophet] Cf. St John i. 45, v. 45— 
 47. On the Hebrew word (pidbhT) see Introd. 
 to Numbers, § 4. 
 
 unto him ye shall hearken] Cf. St Matt, 
 xvii. 5. 
 
 16 . in the day of the assembly] Cf. Chap, 
 ix. 10 and Ex. xx. 19. 
 
 18 . like unto thee] Cf. Heb. iii. 2 sqq. 
 he shall speak unto them all that I shall 
 
 command him] Cf. St John iv. 25, viii. 28, xii. 
 49, 50, and relf. 
 
 19 . 1 nvill require it of him] In Acts iii. 
 23, “shall be destroyed from among the 
 people ;” see note there. 
 
 20 . the prophet.! vohich shall presum^e.^ &C.] 
 Cf. xiii. I — 5 and notes; and Jer. xxviii. 
 
 15—17- 
 
868 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XVIII. 
 
 [v. 2 1, 22. 
 
 21 And if thou say in thine heart, 
 How shall we know the word which 
 the Lord hath not spoken? 
 
 22 When a prophet speaketh in 
 the name of the Lord, if the thing 
 
 follow not, nor come to pass, that is 
 the thino; which the Lord hath not 
 spoken, but the prophet hath spoken 
 it presumptuously : thou shalt not be 
 afraid of him. 
 
 21. And if thou say in thine hearty Hoxv, 
 &c.] The passage evidently assumes such an 
 occasion for consulting the prophet as was 
 usual amongst the heathen, e.g. an impending 
 battle or other such crisis (cf. i K. xxii. ^ 
 ii), in which his veracity would soon be put 
 to the test. Failure of a prediction is set 
 forth as a sure note of its being “ presump- 
 tuous.” But from xiii. z sqq. we see that the 
 
 NOTES on Chap. 
 
 On v. 3. 
 
 The command given in 'vzf. i and z that 
 the priests and Levites should have no in- 
 heritance in Canaan as the other tribes had, 
 is clearly repeated, indeed almost verbatim, 
 from Numbers. Neither can it fairly and 
 consistently be denied that the provision here 
 made has in view the regulations of the earlier 
 books on the subject: cf. Ex. xxix. z6 — 28; 
 Lev. vii. 31 — 34, and x. 12 — 15 ; Num. vi. 20, 
 and xviii. ii — 18. Yet in those passages 
 throughout the portions assigned to the 
 priest are “the wave^breast and the heave- 
 shoulder,” or more properly “heave-leg.” 
 Here, on the contrary, the priest is to have 
 “the shoulder,” i.e. the fore-quarter (y“lT), 
 not apparently the same with the “heave- 
 shoulder” of Lev. vii. 34 ; the two 
 
 jaws or cheeks ; and “the maw,” LXX. r/i/u- 
 (TTpov. By the latter is usually and correctly 
 understood the lower or fourth stomach of 
 ruminant animals, which was esteemed as a 
 dainty by the ancients. Cf. Gesen. ‘Thesaur.’ 
 s. V. 
 
 The question is whether the portions as- 
 signed to the priest in this place are so in 
 substitution for those named Lev. vii., or in 
 addition thereto ? 
 
 The former view is taken by a large class 
 of commentators, who regard the provision 
 here made for the priests as much more slender 
 than that in the earlier books, and see in the 
 difference a token that Deut. was written at 
 a late date, when the Levitical priesthood had 
 declined in estimation, and had to be content 
 with reduced revenues. 
 
 But the following considerations must be 
 borne in mind; (i) 'Fhe passage opens, i 
 and 2, by emphatically presenting the priests 
 and Levites as standing in need of some special 
 provision after the settlement in Canaan had 
 assigned possessions of land to the other tribes. 
 (2) d'hat certain percjuisites hitherto enjoyed 
 by the priests would fail after the necessary 
 
 fulfilment of a prediction would not deci- 
 sively accredit him who uttered it; for the 
 prophet or dreamer of dreams who en- 
 deavoured on the strength of miracles to 
 seduce to idolatry w'as to be rejected and 
 punished. Nothing therefore contrary to the 
 revealed truth of God was to be accepted 
 under any circumstances. 
 
 XVIII. 3, 8, 15—18. 
 
 abolition (cf. ch. xii. 15) of the command 
 given in Levit. xvii. to slay animals nowhere 
 save at the door of the Tabernacle. (3) 
 “The shoulder” and “the maw” were not 
 esteemed inferior pieces, but on the contrary 
 amongst the choicest. (4) That n). 4 incon- 
 trovertibly provides a new item of income for 
 the priests, viz. “the first fleece of thy sheep,” 
 cf. Num. 1 . c. (5) A distinction seems 
 clearly intended between “the firings of the 
 Lord and His inheritance” in nj. i, which 
 would include “ the wave breast and the heave 
 shoulder,” and “the priests’ due from the 
 people,” n). 3, i.e. the shoulder, the cheeks, 
 and the maw, which were to be given by the 
 people to the priest out of their own portion 
 o^ “ inheritance.” (6) It appears historically 
 that in later times the priest had a recognized 
 claim to some other portions of the victims 
 slain than the wave-breast and heave-shoulder ; 
 cf. I S. ii. 13 — 16 and note. 
 
 On the whole then there seems to be 
 nothing in the passage to point to a lower 
 estimation of the priests than that suggested 
 by the preceding books; nor can it fairly be 
 regarded as substituting for- the more generous 
 allowance of old laws a scantier provision, 
 the best that later and less religious days 
 admitted of. On the contrary its tenor and 
 contents clearly point to the conclusion (adopt- 
 ed by Keil, Schultz, Wordsworth, &c.), 
 that “the shoulder, cheeks, and maw” were 
 to be given by the people to the priests 
 in addition to those portions claimed by the 
 laws of Levit. as belonging to the Lord. 
 Just so (cf. Num. vi. 19, 20) the Nazarite, 
 when the days of his separation were com- 
 plete, had to give to the priest “the sodden 
 shoulder ” (i. the fore-quarter) in addition 
 to “the wave-breast and the heave-shoulder.” 
 
 On -v. 8. 
 
 The words hv VlDtOlO mS, though 
 
 their general sense seems clear (see foot-note), 
 
DEUTERONOMY. XVIII. 
 
 are in a grammatical point of view perplexing. 
 The anomalies contained in them are such as 
 to suggest a suspicion that the text is corrupt, 
 
 (i) ‘in'? everywhere else when used as a prep, 
 is accompanied by JD. Possibly, as Wogue 
 suggests, the is here omitted because of the 
 double D of the word following. (2) The ex- 
 pression bv is without parallel and 
 
 hardly intelligible. Wogue compares with it 
 the Fi-ench idiom “ vendre sur son blen.” (3) 
 The words bv must evidently be an el- 
 liptical expression for D''!! bv, which 
 
 would mean “ at the house of his fathers.” 
 
 On 'v'v. 15 — 18. 
 
 The ancient Fathers of the Church have 
 generally regarded our Lord as the Prophet 
 promised in these ; and this view has been 
 adopted by most Lutheran Commentators as 
 well as by many Roman Catholics and An- 
 glicans. 
 
 On the contrary many of the mediaeval 
 Jewish authorities (Maimonides, Kimchi, Lip- 
 mann, &c.) refer it to the prophetical order 
 at large, denying any reference, or at least 
 any special reference, to the Messiah. Yet 
 it is evident from the New Testament alone 
 that the Messianic interpretation was the ac- 
 credited one amongst the Jews at the beginning 
 of the Christian era. Setting aside passages 
 such as St Luke xxiv. 27 ; St John i. 21 and 
 45, in which it is perhaps uncertain whether 
 Deut. xviii. 1 5 sqq. is alluded to at all, or at 
 least whether it alone is so, it is certainly 
 directly cited Acts iii. 22 sqq. and vii. 37. 
 On it no doubt the Samaritans, who received 
 the Pentateuch only, grounded their expec- 
 tation of a Messiah; cf. St John iv. 25; nor 
 can our Lord Himself, when He declares 
 that Moses “wrote of Him” (St John v. 45 — 
 47), be supposed to have any other v/ords 
 in view than these, the only words in which 
 Moses, speaking in his own person, gives any 
 prediction of the kind. In these passages no 
 attempt is made to prove the Messianic in- 
 terpretation, nor any to challenge it. It is 
 taken for granted on all hands. Polemical 
 considerations would therefore seem in this, 
 as in some other passages, to have induced 
 later Jewish interpreters to depart from the 
 judgment of their forefathers. 
 
 Yet though the Messianic interpretation is 
 thus correct, and even primarily intended, yet 
 it* seems of itself not to be exhaustive of the 
 pregnant clauses before us. The tenor of the 
 passage considered as a whole points to a 
 series of prophets to be raised up as the exi- 
 gencies of God’s people might require as no 
 less promised here, than is the One Divine 
 Teacher to Whom they all gave witness. For 
 
 (i) The passage occurs amidst a series of 
 regulations concerning the orders of rulers, 
 civil and spiritual, by vrhich the people were 
 
 869 
 
 to be governed when settled in Canaan. In 
 such a connexion it seems anomalous to refer 
 the ‘V'u. before us to an individual exclusively. 
 
 (2) The passage is introduced by prohi- 
 bitions of those “curious arts” by which the 
 heathen sought to pry into futurity. Upon 
 these interdicts is based a promise, the pur- 
 port of which is to assure the people that all 
 needful instruction and guidance shall be 
 vouchsafed to them in their necessities by 
 God Himself. But to refer Israel to a single 
 Teacher in the distant future would not be 
 to the purpose. 
 
 (3) To the promise Moses adds a denun- 
 ciation of false prophets, and gives a test by 
 which they might be detected. It seems -then 
 that he must in what precedes have been 
 speaking not of a single true prophet, but of 
 true prophets generally. Could any reference 
 to such a contingency as that indicated in 
 •v^v. 10 — 20 be suitable, or even admissible, if 
 the context were applicable to Christ simply 
 and exclusively ? 
 
 (4) If this passage points solely to the 
 Person of the Messiah, then the prophets are 
 left, so far as the Law is concerned, without 
 any recognition. Considering the important 
 part which devolved on the prophetical order 
 in the after history of the chosen people, and 
 in the development and regulation of the 
 Theocracy, this seems highly improbable. 
 
 Whilst then the reference to the Messiah 
 must not be excluded, but rather maintained, 
 as pre-eminently designed in the before 
 us, yet they seem to have a further, no less 
 evident if subsidiary, reference to a propheti- 
 cal order which should stand from time to 
 time, as Moses had done, between God and 
 the people ; which should make known God’s 
 v/ill to the latter; which should by its presence 
 render it unnecessary either that God should 
 address the people directly, as at Sinai (-i;. 16, 
 and cf. chap. v. 25 sqq.) ; or that the people 
 themselves in lack of counsel should resort to 
 the superstitions of the heathen. It was the 
 undeniable fulfilment of this promise which 
 lent point to the rebuke of Elijah (2 K. i. 3, 
 
 6, 16): “Is it not because there is not a 
 God in Israel that ye go to inquire of Baal- 
 zebub?” &c., and to the reproach of Amos, 
 when he recounts this amongst the mercies 
 of God (ii. ii): “ And I raised up of your 
 sons for prophets,” &c. The result is well 
 summed up in Poole’s ‘Synopsis:’ “ Ita de 
 Prophetis ut simul de Christo priEcipue et 
 primario intelligendum.” 
 
 It is argued indeed that none of the pro- 
 phets could be fairly said to be “like unto” 
 Moses; and xxxiv. 10 ; Num. xii. 6—8 ; Hebr, 
 iii. 2, 5 are quoted in corroboration. Moses, 
 it is urged, had no successor, in his character 
 of legislator, or in the directness and nearness 
 of his approach to God, except the Messiah. 
 
 But the expression “like unto,” ‘vv. 15 and 
 18, hardly refers to particulars like these, and 
 
DEUTERONOMY. XIX. 
 
 870 
 
 in fact finds its explanation by what follows 
 in “i;. 1 8 ; “I will put ray words in his mouth, 
 and he shall speak unto them all that I shall 
 command him.” This explanation embodies 
 an ordinary formula for describing the Divine 
 communications to the prophets (cf. Num. 
 xxiii. 5, 16; Is. li. 16; Jer. i. 9, &c.) ; and 
 intimates that the future prophet -was to be 
 ‘•like unto” Moses not necessarily in all re- 
 spects, but in that now in question, viz. that 
 he should be intermediate betwixt God and 
 the people. 
 
 The arguments which incline us to extend 
 ' the scope of the passage beyond the Person of 
 Christ, are decisive against those who limit 
 it to any other individual; e.g. David, Jere- 
 miah (Abarbanel), or Joshua (Jarchi, Aben- 
 ezra). This last view was current amongst 
 the Jews in the time of St Augustine (cf. 
 ‘contr. Faust.’ xvi. 19), and has received 
 countenance from some modern expositors 
 (Clericus, Ammon, &c.). Yet if the words 
 could point solely to any one person, it would 
 seem obvious that Joshua could not be he, 
 since the promise is /or the future^ and Joshua 
 had already been designated as Moses’ suc- 
 cessor (Num. xxvii. 18, 23). 
 
 The word “ Prophet” is probably 
 
 here a “collective noun.” “The writer re- 
 gards the prophets as belonging the one to 
 the other; or as a whole, which includes the 
 successors of Moses, as the post- Mosaic em- 
 bassy of God; and so uses the singular.” Kno- 
 bel in loc. Exam.ples of “ collective nouns” 
 are yiT Gen. i. 1 5 ; Gen. iv. 20 ; Ex. 
 iii. 6 ; “liiJ Num. xi. 27; and j'pD in the pre- 
 ceding chapter w. 14 — 20 appears equivalent 
 to the kings of Israel generally. The word 
 itself seems so used Dan. ix. 24. 
 
 The passage thus appears to contemplate, as 
 its secondary though still momentous sense, a 
 succession of prophets, not necessarily an un- 
 interrupted succession, but one which should 
 never fail in Israel’s emergency. And even- 
 
 [v. I, 2. 
 
 if it bore no further import than this it would 
 jot a fortiori have a reference to the Messiah, 
 though not to Him alone. For in proportion 
 as we see in Him the characteristics of the 
 Prophet most perfectly exhibited, so must 
 we regard the promise of Moses as in Him 
 most completely accomplished. But in fact, 
 in the words before us Moses gives promise 
 both of a prophetical order, and of the Mes- 
 siah in particular as its chief ; of a line of 
 prophets culminating in one eminent indivi- 
 dual. This view is supported more or less 
 decidedly by Origen and Theodoret, by Corn, 
 a Lapide, Menoch., Tirinus, Calvin, Grotius, 
 Scholz, Havern., Keil, Schultz; and especially 
 by Reinke in a copious treatise, ‘ Beitr. zur 
 Erklarung des A. T.’ iv. 289 — 352; nor can 
 the view of Hengstenberg, ‘ Christologie des 
 A. T.’ I. no — 124, be regarded as substan- 
 tially different. 
 
 The question whether Moses himself had 
 consciously in view the Person in Whom his 
 words would find their ultimate accomplish- 
 ment has nothing really to do with the 
 exegesis of the passage. The maxim “nihil 
 potest*esse in scripto quod non in scriptore,” 
 cannot be admitted when applied to writings 
 presupposed to be divinely inspired. We 
 may well believe that the grammatical form 
 of the words (the singular number of the 
 leading noun, and the singular suffix) was 
 overruled so as to suggest to the reflec- 
 tive and inquiring the expectation of One in 
 Whom they would be most signally realized. 
 The promise of Gen. iii. 15 presents in this 
 as in other characteristics a striking re- 
 semblance to that here before us. Both are 
 instances of prophecies which have had what 
 Lord Bacon calls “ springing and germinant 
 accomplishments,” i. e. which had partial 
 though real accomplishments from age to 
 age, but which awaited in the Messiah that 
 crowning fulfilment in which their sense 
 would be exhausted. 
 
 CHAPTbJR XIX. 
 
 I The cities of refuge. 4 The privilege thereof 
 for the vianslaycr. 14 The landmark is not 
 to be removed. 1 5 Two voitnesses at the least. 
 16 The punish ment of a false witness. 
 
 W HEN the Lord thy God 
 "hath cut off the nations, 
 whose land the Lord thy God giveth 
 
 thee, and thou ^succeedest them, and ^ HeN 
 
 , ,, . , . . . j • 1 • inheriiesi, 
 
 dwellest in their cities, and in their or, 
 houses ; 
 
 2 ‘^Thou shalt separate three cities '^Exod. 21. 
 for thee in the midst of thy land. Numb. 35. 
 which the Lord thy God giveth thee josh. 20.2. 
 to possess it. 
 
 CiiAP. XIX. This.and the next two chap- 
 ters contain enactments designed to protect 
 human life, and to impress its sanctity on Israel. 
 
 W ith -va'. I — 13, which relate to the cities 
 of refuge, cf. Ex. xxi. 13, and Num. xxxv. 9 
 — 34. Y'he laws here given are in some ])ar- 
 ticulars supplementary to those of the last- 
 named passage. 
 
 1, 2. The three cities of refuge for the dis- 
 trict cast of Jordan had been already named. 
 Moses now directs that when the territory 
 on the west of Jordan had been conquered, 
 a like allotment of three other cities in it 
 should be made. This was done accordingly; 
 cf. Josh. XX. I sqq. 
 
V. 3 — II-] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XIX. 
 
 871 
 
 T Heb. 
 fro77i yes- 
 terday the 
 third day. 
 
 t Heb. 
 
 iro7i. 
 tHeb. 
 ivood. 
 t Heb. 
 
 fi7ideth. 
 
 I Heb. 
 
 S77iite hi77t 
 in life. 
 t Heb. 
 fro7/i yes- 
 terday the 
 thh'd day. 
 
 3 Thou shalt prepare thee a way, 
 and divide the coasts of* thy land, 
 which the Lord thy God giveth thee 
 to inherit, into three parts, that every 
 slayer may flee thither. 
 
 4 ^ And this is the case of the 
 slayer, which shall flee thither, that 
 he may live : Whoso killeth his neigh- 
 bour ignorantly, whom he hated not 
 Mn time past; 
 
 5 As when a man goeth into the 
 wood with his neighbour to hew 
 wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke 
 with the axe to cut down the tree, 
 and the ' head slippeth from the ' helve, 
 and Uighteth upon his neighbour, that 
 he die ; he shall flee unto one of those 
 cities, and live : 
 
 6 Lest the avenger of the blood 
 pursue the slayer, while his heart is 
 hot, and overtake him, because the 
 way is long, and ^slay him; whereas 
 he was not worthy of death, inasmuch 
 as he hated him not Ln time past. 
 
 7 Wherefore I command thee, say- 
 ing, Thou shalt separate three cities 
 for thee. 
 
 8 And if the Lord thy God -^en- 
 large thy coast, as he hath sworn 
 unto thy fathers, and give thee all the 
 land which he promised to give unto 
 thy fathers; 
 
 9 If thou shalt keep all these 
 commandments to do them, which I 
 command thee this day, to love the 
 Lord thy God, and to walk ever in 
 his ways; "^then shalt thou add three 
 cities more for thee, beside these three ; 
 
 10 That innocent blood be not 
 shed in thy land, which the Lord 
 thy God giveth thee for an inherit- 
 ance, and so blood be upon thee. 
 
 11 H But if any man hate his 
 neighbour, and lie in wait for him, 
 and rise up against him, and smite 
 him ^mortally that he die, and fleeth tHeb. 
 into one of these cities : 
 
 12 Then the elders of his city shall 
 
 3 . fbou shalt prepare thee a 'way~\ It was 
 the duty of the Senate to make the roads that 
 led to the cities of refuge convenient by re- 
 pairing them annually in the month Adar and 
 removing every obstruction. No hillock was 
 left, no river over which there was not a 
 bridge; and the road was at least two and 
 thirty cubits broad. At cross-roads there 
 were posts bearing the words Refuge.^ Refuge, 
 to guide the fugitive in his flight. See Suren- 
 husius, Mishna, Vol. iv. 279. It seems as if 
 in Is. xl. 3 sqq. the imagery were borrowed 
 from the preparation of the ways to the cities 
 of refuge. 
 
 5. nvith the axe'\ Lit. “ with the iron.” 
 Note the employment of iron for tools, and 
 cf. on iii. ii. 
 
 slippetlS] On this word cf. xxviii. 40. 
 
 8, 9. The three cities more cannot, as 
 Knobel, Hengstenberg, &c. maintain, be the 
 same as those alluded to in ‘vn). % and 7. Ra- 
 ther is provision here made for the anticipated 
 enlargement of the borders of Israel to the 
 utmost limits promised by God, from the river 
 of Egypt to the Euphrates (Gen. xv. 18 ; Ex. 
 xxiii. 31, and notes). This promise, owing to 
 the sins of the people, received but a late ful- 
 filment after David had conquered the Philis- 
 tines, Syrians, &c. ; and a transient one, for 
 many of the conquered peoples regained in- 
 dependence on the dissolution of Solomon’s 
 empire. And in several districts the native 
 inhabitants, though rendered tributary, were 
 
 never dispossessed. Had Israel “ succeeded” 
 to the heathen, and “dwelt in their place” 
 throughout all the regions assigned by God’s 
 covenant with their fathers, the nine cities of 
 refuge, which are contemplated by the pas- 
 sage before us, would certainly have been 
 needed. That nine cities and not six only are 
 provided by the ^‘v. before us is the opinion 
 of the Jewish authorities generally, of Lyra, 
 Gerhard, Keil, Schultz, &c. It is obvious 
 that such a passage as this could not have 
 been penned in the times to which rationalist 
 critics are wont to assign Deut. No one 
 living in those times would think of treating 
 as a future contingency (“ if the Lord thy 
 God enlarge,” &c.) an extension of territory 
 which, at the date in question, had in fact 
 taken place long ago and been subsequently 
 forfeited. 
 
 11 — 13 . Cf. Num. XXXV. 12, 24; Josh 
 XX. 6 sqq. The elders are to act as the lead- 
 ers and administrators of the people at large, 
 i.e. of “the congregation,” with whom the 
 adjudication respecting the guilt of the man- 
 slayer would ultimately rest. 
 
 In these ^‘v. the directions respecting the 
 preparation of the roads to the cities ot 
 refuge, the provision of additional cities in 
 case of an extension of territory, and the in- 
 tervention of the elders as representing the 
 congregation, are peculiar to Deut. and sup- 
 plementary to the laws on the same subject 
 given in the earlier books. 
 
872 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XIX. 
 
 2 21 . 
 
 ^ chap. 17. 
 6 . 
 
 Numb. 35 
 30. 
 
 i\Iatt. 18. 
 16. 
 
 John 8. 17 
 2 Cor. 13. 
 
 Heb. 10. 
 28. 
 
 II Or, 
 /ailing 
 away. 
 
 send and fetch him thence, and de- 
 liver him into the hand of the avenger 
 of blood, that he may die. 
 
 13 Thine eye shall not pity him, 
 but thou shalt put away the guilt of 
 innocent blood from Israel, that it 
 may go well with thee. 
 
 14 ^ Thou shalt not remove thy 
 neighbour’s landmark, which they of 
 old time have set in thine inheritance, 
 which thou shalt inherit in the land 
 that the Lord thy God giveth thee 
 to possess it. 
 
 15 ^ ^One witness shall not rise 
 up against a man for any iniquity, or 
 for any sin, in any sin that he sin- 
 neth : at the mouth of two witnesses, 
 or at the mouth of three witnesses, 
 shall the matter be established. 
 
 16 ^ If a false witness rise up 
 against any man to testify against 
 him ” that which is wrong ; 
 
 
 17 Then both the men, between 
 whom the controversy L, shall stand 
 before the Lord, before the priests 
 and the judges, which shall be in 
 those days ; 
 
 18 And the judges shall make 
 diligent inquisition : and, behold, 
 i/’ the witness he a false witness, 
 and hath testified falsely against his 
 brother ; 
 
 19 -^Then shall ye do unto him, as-^^’’®''- ^9- 
 he had thought to have done unto his ban. 6. 24. 
 brother: so shalt thou put the evil 
 
 away from among you. 
 
 20 And those which remain shall 
 hear, and fear, and shall henceforth 
 commit no more any such evil among 
 you. 
 
 21 And thine eye shall not pity ; ^Exod. 21. 
 but ^life shall go for life, eye for eye, ^ev 24 
 tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot 
 
 r r Matt. 5. 
 
 tor root. 38. 
 
 14 . Asa man's life so his means of liveli- 
 hood are to be held sacred ; and in this con- 
 nection a prohibition is inserted against re- 
 moving a neighbour's landmark; cf. xxvii, 17 ; 
 Prov. xxii. 28, xxiii. 10. 
 
 they of old time'] Rather perhaps, “thy 
 fathers,” as LXX.; Vulg. priores.^ as the 
 word also probably means in Is, Ixi, 4. The 
 enactment simply forbids the removal of the 
 landmarks set up by those who should dis- 
 tribute the land after the conquest. The facts 
 that the words immediately following refer to 
 the land as yet to be acquired, ought to have 
 precluded the allegation of Vater, Davidson, 
 &c., that the 2;. presupposes a long abode in 
 Canaan. 
 
 15 . The rule laid down xvii. 6 as to capi- 
 tal charges is extended here to all accusations 
 before a court of justice. 
 
 16 — 21 . The passage refers generally to the 
 crime of bearing false witness, denounced so 
 repeatedly in the Decalogue and elsewhere ; 
 cf. Kx. xxiii. I ; Lev, xix. 16. If any traces of 
 this crime should appear in the course of judi- 
 cial proceedings, the matter was to be brought 
 before the supreme court (cf. on xvii. 9) ; 
 and the false witness on conviction punished 
 afeer the rule of the lex talionis. According to 
 the Rabbins the testimony of a single witness 
 was in civil cases so far admitted as to oblige 
 the accused person to purge himself by oath ; 
 in criminal cases such unsupported testimony 
 was not only to be utterly rejected, but the 
 person who tendered it punished for a breach 
 
 of the law given in ’v. 15. But these 
 do not refer to the number of witnesses at all, 
 but simply prescribe how a case of false wit- 
 ness is to be dealt with. 
 
 16 . testify against him that ^vhich is fiurong] 
 Marg. more literally, “ a falling away.” The 
 word {s dr ah') is used xiii. 5 to signify apo- • 
 stasy ; but here is no doubt to be under- 
 stood in the wider sense of any departure 
 from the law. 
 
 , 17 . both the men., bet^Meen nvhom the con- 
 troversy A] i.e. the parties to the original 
 suit, one of whom has brought forward a 
 false witness ; not (as Keil) the accused 
 and the false witness. The supreme court is 
 directed to summon the plaintiff and defend- 
 ant, and through their evidence, and such 
 other as might be obtained, try the suspected 
 witness, 2;. 19; cf. Ex. xxiii. i. 
 
 stand before the Lord, before the priests and 
 the judges] i. e. before the supreme court held, 
 as provided in chap, xvii., at the Sanctuary. 
 The judges stood as God's representatives; to 
 lie to them was to lie to Him. The crime of 
 false witness therefore was to be tried on this 
 account, as well perhaps as because of its 
 intrinsic gravity and difficulty, in His more 
 immediate presence. 
 
 19 . Cf. Prov. xix. 5, 9; Dan. vi. 24. 
 
 21 . On the lex talionis, which was ob- 
 served in principle not in letter by the Jew- 
 ish courts, see Ex. xxi. 23, 24. 
 
V. I — 9. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XX. 
 
 ■873 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 I The priest’’ s cxhortatioii to encourage the people 
 to battle. 5 The officers’’ proclamation ':vho 
 are to be dismissed from the zvar. i o Ihnv to 
 rise the cities that accept or ref use the proclama- 
 tion of peace. 1 6 What cities must be devoted. 
 19 Trees of man’s meat must not be destroyed 
 in the siege. 
 
 W HEN thou goest out to bat- 
 tle against thine enemies, and 
 seest horses, and chariots, and a peo- 
 ple more than thou, be not afraid of 
 them : for the Lord thy God is with 
 thee, which brought thee up out of 
 the land of Egypt. 
 
 2 And it shall be, when ye are 
 come nigh unto the battle, that the 
 priest shall approach and speak unto 
 the people, 
 
 3 And shall say unto them. Hear, 
 O Israel, ye approach this day unto 
 battle against your enemies : let not 
 \^tn'uier hearts ^ faint, fear not, and do 
 
 f Hob. ' not tremble, neither be ye terrified 
 Imstl. because of them ; 
 
 4 For the Lord your God is he 
 that goeth with you, to fight for you 
 against your enemies, to save you. 
 
 5 ^ And the officers shall speak 
 unto the people, saying. What man 
 is there that hath built a new house, 
 and hath not dedicated it? let him go 
 and return to his house, lest he die in 
 the battle, and another man dedicate it. 
 
 6 And what man is he that hath 
 planted a vineyard, and hath not yet 
 
 ^ eaten of it ? let him also go and re- t Heb. 
 turn unto his house, lest he die in the 
 battle, and another man eat of it. See Lev. 
 
 7 " And what man is there that «^chap. 24. 
 hath betrothed a wife, and hath not 
 
 taken her? let him go and return 
 unto his house, lest he die in the bat- 
 tle, and another man take her. 
 
 8 And the officers shall speak fur- 
 ther unto the people, and they shall 
 
 say, '^What man is there that is fear- -S’ judg. 7. 
 ful and fainthearted ? let him go and 3 - 
 return unto his house, lest his breth- 
 ren’s heart ^ faint as well as his heart. tHeb. 
 
 9 And it shall be, when the offi- 
 
 cers have made an end of speaking 
 unto the people, that they shall make 
 captains of the armies ^ to lead the die head 
 people. * people. 
 
 Chap. XX. Reverence for human life and 
 that which tends to preserve it was the motive 
 of the laws given in the last chapter. The 
 same is the basis of those in this chapter. Even 
 in time of war forbearance was to be exercised 
 both in respect of the Israelites themselves 
 w'ho are levied for war (yv. i — 9) : in respect 
 of the enemy (yu. 10 — 15), the Canaanit- 
 ish nations alone excepted (16 — 18): and in 
 respect of the property of the vanquished (yv. 
 19, 20). These requirements sound indeed 
 but small to Christian ears; but when the 
 ferocity and mercilessness of Oriental wars in 
 ancient times are recollected, Moses may well 
 in this as in other respects be thought to have 
 carried his demands on the self-control of the 
 people to the utmost they could then bear. 
 
 1 . horses., and chariots'] The most formi- 
 dable elements of an Oriental host, which the 
 Canaanites possessed in great numbers; cf. 
 Josh. xvii. 16; Judg. iv. 3 ; i S. xiii. 5. 
 Israel could not match these with correspond- 
 ing forces (cf. xvii. 16 notes and relf.), but 
 having the God of battles on its side, was not 
 to be dismayed by them. This topic of en- 
 couragement, not less than the language put 
 into the mouth of the priest atao. 3, 4, as- 
 sumes that every such war had the sanction 
 of God, and was consequently just. 
 
 2. the priest] Not the High Priest, but 
 one appointed for the purpose, and called, 
 according to the Rabbins, “the Anointed of 
 the War:” hence perhaps the expression of 
 Jer. vi. 4, &c. “ to prepare” (lit. consecrate) 
 war. Thus Phinehas went with the warriors 
 to light against Midian, Num. xxxi. 6; cf. 
 I S. iv. 4, II ; 2 Chron. xiii. 12. 
 
 4 . the Lord your God is he that goeth 'with 
 you^ to fight fior you] Cf. i. 30, iii. 22; Josh, 
 xxiii. 10, &c. 
 
 5 . the officers] i.c. the Shoterim, on 
 whom see on Ex. v. 10. 
 
 dedicated it] Cf. Neh. xii. 27; Ps. xxx. 
 title. The expression is appropriate, because 
 various ceremonies of a religious kind were 
 customary amongst the Jews on taking pos- 
 session of a new house. The immunity con- 
 ferred in this no. lasted (Joseph. ‘ Ant.’ iv. 8. 
 41), like that in no. 7 (cf. xxiv. 5), for a year. 
 
 6. hath not yet eaten of it] Hebrew as 
 marg. “hath not made it common.” The 
 fruit of newly planted trees was set apart 
 from common uses for four years (Lev. xix. 
 23 sqq.). 
 
 9 . they shall make captains of the armies 
 to lead the people] Marg. m.ore literally “in 
 the head of the people.” The meaning is that 
 
8/4 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XX. 
 
 [v. 10 — 20. 
 
 Josh. 8 . 
 
 2 . 
 
 f Heb. 
 spoil. 
 
 10 ^ When thou comest nigh un- 
 to a city to hght against it, then pro- 
 claim peace unto it. 
 
 1 1 And it shall be, if it make thee 
 answer of peace, and open unto thee, 
 then it shall be, that all the people 
 that is found therein shall be tribu- 
 taries unto thee, and they shall serve 
 thee. 
 
 12 And if it will make no peace 
 with thee, but will make war against 
 thee, then thou shalt besiege it : 
 
 13 And when the Lord thy God 
 hath delivered it into thine hands, 
 thou shalt smite every male thereof 
 with the edge of the sword : 
 
 14 But the women, and the little 
 ones, and ‘^the cattle, and all that is 
 in the city, even all the spoil thereof, 
 shalt thou Aake unto thyself; and 
 thou shalt eat the spoil of thine ene- 
 mies, which the Lord thy God hath 
 given thee. 
 
 15 Thus shalt thou do unto all the 
 cities which are very far off from thee, 
 which are not of the cities of these 
 nations. 
 
 16 But of the cities of these people. 
 
 which the Lord thy God doth give 
 thee for an inheritance, thou shalt 
 save alive nothing that breatheth : 
 
 17 But thou shalt utterly destroy 
 them; namely^ the Hittites, and the 
 Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Pe- 
 rizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebus- 
 ites ; as the Lord thy God hath 
 commanded thee : 
 
 18 That they teach you not to do 
 after all their abominations, which 
 they have done unto their gods; so 
 should ye sin against the Lord your 
 God. 
 
 19 ^ 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 : 
 
 20 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 Lt be subdued. 
 
 11 Or, for, 
 
 O man, 
 the tree 
 of the field 
 is to be em- 
 ployed ill 
 the siege. 
 t Heb. 
 to go from 
 before thee. 
 T Heb. 
 it come 
 dozou. 
 
 the “officers” (see on 1;. 5) should then sub- 
 divide the levies, and appoint leaders of the 
 smaller divisions thus constituted. See Note 
 at end of the chapter. 
 
 10 — 20 . Directions intended to prevent 
 wanton destruction of life and property in 
 sieges. 
 
 10 . Cf. 2 S. XX. 18 — 20. It appears from 
 this 7.’. that when towns surrendered peace- 
 ably not even the armed men in it were to 
 be put to death : and from the following 
 that in those taken by storm males only might 
 be killed. 
 
 13 . smite entcry male'] Cf. Num. xxxi. 7. 
 
 14 . the spoil of thhie enemies] Cf. Josh. viii. 
 2, xxii. 8. 
 
 15 - 18 . Such forbearance, however, was 
 not to be shown towards the Canaanitish 
 nations, which were to be utterly extermi- 
 nated ; cf. vii. I — 4. 
 
 16 . thou shalt sanje aliue nothing that 
 breatheth] i.e. kill every human being. The 
 command did not apply to beasts as well as 
 men ; cf. Josh. xi. ii and 14. 
 
 19 . thou shalt tiot cut them dor^vn {for the 
 tree of the field is tn art's life') to employ them in 
 the siege] 'I'lie A. V. here follows the inter- 
 pretation of Abene/ra. 'J'he words of the 
 parenthesis may be more literally rendered “for 
 
 man is a tree of the field,” i.e. has his life 
 from the tree of the field, is supported in life 
 by it: cf. xxiv. 6. The parenthesis itself may 
 be compared with xii. 9. On this difficult 
 passage see Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 man's life] i.e. the sustenance and support 
 of life. The phrase is used again xxiv. 6, 
 (“No man shall take the nether or the upper 
 millstone to pledge, for he taketh a man’s life 
 to pledge”) but the Hebrew there has “life” 
 only, whilst here it has “man” only. The 
 A. V. however seems on the whole to exhibit 
 correctly the sense of the passage. See Note 
 at the end of the chapter. The Egyptians 
 seem invariably to have cut down the fruit- 
 trees in war. Thus in the 30th year of 
 Thotmes III. the king invaded the Rutens, 
 “ coupant tons ses arbres et detruisant son 
 blc,” Brugsch, ‘Hist. d’Egypte,’ p. loi; and 
 ages before this in an expedition against the 
 Herusha, probably a people of Asia, the army 
 of Pepi, of the Vlth dynasty, cut down the 
 fig trees and the vines. De Rouge, “ Recher- 
 ches sur les Monuments de I’Egypte,” p. 125. 
 (These references have been supplied by the 
 Editor, Rev. Canon Cook.) 
 
 20. cut them dorivtt] C£ Jer. vi. 6. 
 until it be subdued] Marg. literally “ come 
 down.” On the word cf. xxviii. 52. 
 
V- I— 3-] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXL 
 
 8/5 
 
 NOTES on Chap. xx. 9, and on 19, 20. 
 
 'V. 9.* 
 
 - The word “captains” in this -v. may 
 grammatically be either subject or. object. 
 The A. V. takes it to be the latter, after 
 LXX., Onkelos, Saad., Keil, Knobel, Wogiie, 
 &c. The other construction is however a- 
 doptcd by Vulg., Syr., Masius, Clericus, 
 Schultz, &c., and would give the sense “the 
 captains at the head of the people shall array 
 them.” But no instance can be produced of 
 the verb “ipS being used without an object ; 
 and if the subject of the sentence, ought 
 to have the article. 
 
 'V'v, 19, ao. 
 
 The A. V. assumes a parenthesis in the 
 former of these -vn ). ; but a large class of 
 commentators reject this expedient, and con- 
 nect the latter clauses of the -i;. 19 closely 
 with the immediately preceding context. Of 
 these some (the LXX., Jarchi, Clericus, 
 Ewald, Knobel, Keil) render the clauses 
 in question as interrogative: “For is the 
 tree of the field a man that it should be 
 besieged before thee ? ” But this sense re- 
 quires,^ as its advocates generally allow, an 
 alteration in the punctuation, the substitu- 
 tion of n interrogative (i.e, H) for the article (il) 
 in the word Others arrive at much 
 
 the same sense by carrying on a negative from 
 the preceding words: “For the tree of the 
 field is not a man to go before thee (/. e. 
 stand as an adversary to thee) in the siege.” 
 This rendering, though favoured by old ex- 
 positors of weight (the Vulgate, Onkelos, 
 Abarbanel, Luther, Grotius), has deservedly 
 been neglected by the moderns. The inter- 
 
 polation of the negative from the earlier part 
 of the verse is harsh, and unexampled, and 
 the natural order of the words, according to 
 which is clearly the subject, is inverted. 
 
 To command a fruit-tree to be spared be- 
 cause it is “not a man,” seems absurd, and 
 irrelevant also, since the same might be said 
 of trees which are nqt “trees for meat.” 
 
 Our margin (so de Dieu) suggests a fourth 
 view. Taking the H as the sign of the voca- 
 tive, it gives the sense of the latter part of the 
 verse thus ; “ for, O man, the tree of the field 
 is to be employed in the siege.” But, passing 
 by the fact that H “cum vi exclamandi” is 
 out of place in didactic and plain prose 
 narration, the criticism of Frommann (apud 
 Rosenmuller ‘Scholia’ and Barrett’s ‘Synopsis’ 
 in loc.') seems convincing ; viz. that since the 
 command to cut down unproductive trees is 
 given clearly and expressly in the next ‘i/., it 
 is not likely that Moses should have given 
 an otiose, and it might be added obscure, re- 
 petition of it in this. 
 
 Schroeder(‘ JanuaHebr.’/« loc.') ingeniously 
 proposes to remove the Athnaldi from its 
 present place after niDn to a new position 
 after and to render thus: “thou shalt 
 
 not cut down them (i. e. the trees) but men 
 only.” 
 
 On the whole it seems best to retain the 
 rendering of the A. V. In face of the fact 
 that "v. 20 m.anifestly deals with the case of 
 trees that are “ not for meat,” it seems natu- 
 ral to regard the trees spoken of in ‘z;. 19 as 
 those which are for meat. So substantially 
 render Abenezra, Frommann, Rosenmuller, 
 Dathe, Vater, Baumgarten, Schultz, Herx- 
 heimer, &c. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 I The expicition of an 7 nicertain imirdcr. 10 
 The tesage of a captive taken to vnfe. 15 The 
 firstborn is net to be disinherited tipoii private 
 affection. iS A stnbborn son is to be stoned 
 to death. 22 The malefactor must not hang 
 all night on a tree. 
 
 1 1' one be found slain in the land 
 which the Lord thy God giveth 
 
 thee to possess it, lying in the field, 
 and it be not known who hath slain 
 him : 
 
 2 Then thy elders and thy judges 
 shall come forth, and they shall mea- 
 sure unto the cities which are round 
 about him that is slain : 
 
 3 And it shall be, that the city 
 
 Chap. XXL The sanctity of human life is 
 still the leading thought ; cf. the introductory 
 words to chapters xix. and xx. ; and where a 
 corpse is found “lying in the field, and it be 
 not known who hath slain him,” the whole 
 land is regarded as guilty before God fv. 8) 
 until a solemn rite of expiation be gone 
 through. Vv. i — 9 of this chapter prescribe 
 the mode and form of this expiation ; which 
 from the nature of the case could have place 
 
 only when the people were settled in Canaan, 
 and so is prescribed first in Deuteronomy. 
 
 2. thy elders and thy judges)^ i.e. the elders 
 and judges of the neighbouring cities; cf. 
 Joseph. ‘Ant.’ iv. 8. The elders represented 
 the citizens at large, the judges the magis- 
 tracy, whilst “the priests the sons of Levi,” 
 •V. 5, i.e. some priests from the nearest priestly 
 town, were likewise to be at hand. Thus all 
 classes were represented at the purging away 
 
876 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXI. 
 
 [v. 4—13. 
 
 which is next unto the slain man, 
 even the elders of that city shall 
 take an heifer, which hath not been 
 wrought with, and which hath not 
 drawn in the yoke ; 
 
 4 And the elders of that city shall 
 brins down the heifer unto a rou^h 
 valley, which is neither eared nor 
 sown, and shall strike off the heifer’s 
 neck there in the valley : 
 
 5 And the priests the sons of Levi 
 shall come near; for them the Lord 
 thy God hath chosen to minister unto 
 him, and to bless in the name of the 
 
 tHeb. Lord; and by their Avord shall every 
 mouth. controversy and every stroke be tried: 
 
 6 And all the elders of that city, 
 that are next unto the slain man.^ shall 
 wash their hands over the heifer that 
 is beheaded in the valley : 
 
 7 And they shall answer and say. 
 Our hands have not shed this blood, 
 neither have our eyes seen it. 
 
 8 Be merciful, O Lor.d, unto thy . 
 people Israel, whom thou hast re- 
 deemed, and lay not innocent blood 
 
 ^ unto thy people of Israel’s charge. t Heb. 
 And the blood shall be forgiven them. 
 
 9 So shalt thou put away the guilt 
 of innocent blood from among you, 
 when thou shalt do that which is 
 right in the sight of the Lord. 
 
 10 ^ When thou goest forth to 
 war against thine enemies, and the 
 Lord thy God hath delivered them 
 into thine hands, and thou hast taken 
 them captive, 
 
 1 1 And seest among the captives a 
 beautiful woman, and hast a desire 
 unto her, that thou wouldest have her 
 to thy wife ; 
 
 12 Then thou shalt bring her home 
 to thine house; and she shall shave n 
 
 her head, and ‘'pare her nails; suffer to 
 
 13 And she shall put the raiment Heb.' 
 of her captivity from off her, and shall 
 
 of that blood- guiltiness which until removed 
 attached to the whole community. 
 
 3. an heifer 'which hath not been wrought 
 with'\ The requirements as regards place and 
 victim are symbolical. The heifer represented 
 the murderer, so far at least as to die in his 
 stead, since he himself could not be found. As 
 bearing his guilt then the heifer must be one 
 which was of full growth and strength, and 
 had not yet been ceremonially profaned by 
 human use (cf. Ex. xx. 25). The Christian 
 commentators find here a type of Christ and 
 of His sacrifice for man : but the heifer was 
 not strictly a sacrifice or sin-offering. The 
 transaction was rather figurative, and was so 
 ordered as to impress the lesson of Gen. ix. 5. 
 AVhen the real culprit escaped justice there 
 must be at least a symbolical infliction of the 
 due jjcnalty, ere the innocent blood could be 
 deemed to be expiated. According to the 
 Rabbinists (see Saalschutz, ‘ Mos. Recht.’ p. 
 548) the murderer, if subsequently appre- 
 hended, would be liable to his proper punish- 
 ment, notwithstanding the performance of 
 this legal expiation. 
 
 4 . rough 'Valley] On these words see Note- 
 at end of chapter. 
 
 eared] i.e. ploughed, as in i S. viii. 12; 
 Is. XXX. 24. d'he word is derived from the 
 Latin “arare,” and is in frequent use by 
 English writers of the fifteenth and two fol- 
 lowing centuries : cf. e.g. Shakespeare, ‘Ant. 
 and Clcop.’ i. 
 
 “ Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates. 
 Make the sea serve them, which they ear 
 and plough 
 With keels.” 
 
 strike off the heifer's neck] Rather, ‘ ‘ break 
 its neck,” as the same word is rendered Ex. 
 xiii. 13. The mode of killing the victim dis- 
 tinguishes this lustration from the sin-offering, 
 in which there would be of course shedding 
 and sprinkling of the blood. 
 
 5. The presence of the priests seems re- 
 quired as the representatives of their order in 
 the state. They would also see that the rite 
 was regularly performed, and accredit it when 
 it had been so. They do not appear to have 
 any direct part assigned them in it, perhaps 
 in order to mark more clearly that no sacri- 
 fice, properly so called, was being offered. 
 
 10 sqq. The regulations which now follow 
 in the rest of this and throughout the next 
 chapter bring out the sanctity of various 
 personal rights and relations fundamental to 
 human life and society. Mere existence, 
 v/hich has been guarded in the laws preceding, 
 is valueless unless with it be secured also the 
 use and enjoyment of its blessings and privi- 
 leges. 
 
 10 — 14 . The usage of a captive taken to 
 wife. Tlie war supposed here is one against 
 the neighbouring nations after Israel had 
 utterly destroyed the Canaanites, cf. vii. 3, 
 and taken possession of their land : cf. on xxi. 
 
 12. pare her tiails] Marg. “make” or 
 “dress” or “suffer to grow.” Our trans- 
 
V. 14 2 2 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXL 
 
 877 
 
 remain in thine house, and bewail her 
 father and her mother a full month : 
 and after that thou shalt go in unto 
 her, and be her husband, and she shall 
 be thy wife. 
 
 14 And it shall be, if thou have no 
 delight in her, then thou shalt let her 
 go whither she will ; but thou shalt 
 not sell her at all for money, thou 
 shalt not. make merchandise of her, 
 because thou hast humbled her. 
 
 15 ^ If a man have two wives, 
 one beloved, and another hated, and 
 they have born him children, both 
 the beloved and the hated j and if 
 the firstborn son be hers that was 
 hated : 
 
 16 Then it shall be, when he mak- 
 eth his sons to inherit that which he 
 hath, that he may not make the son 
 of the beloved firstborn before the son 
 of the hated, which is indeed the first- 
 born : 
 
 17 But he shall acknowledge the 
 son of the hated for the firstborn, by 
 
 giving him a double portion of all 
 4 hat he hath : for he is the beginning t Heb. 
 of his strength ; the right of the first - /lundzvith 
 born is his. 
 
 18 ^ If a man have a stubborn and 
 rebellious son, which will not obey 
 the voice of his father, or the voice of 
 his mother, and that^ when they have 
 chastened him, will not hearken unto 
 them : 
 
 19 Then shall his father and his 
 mother lay hold on him, and bring 
 him out unto the elders of his city, 
 and unto the gate of his place ; 
 
 20 And they shall say unto the el- 
 ders of his city. This our son is stub- 
 born and rebellious, he will not obey 
 our voice; he is a glutton, and a 
 drunkard. 
 
 21 And all the men of his city 
 shall stone him with stones, that he 
 die : so shalt thou put evil away from 
 among you ; and all Israel shall hear, 
 and fear. 
 
 22 ^ And if a man j^ve commit- ‘ 
 
 lators appear to have been uncertain of the 
 exact sense. The Christian expositors both 
 ancient and modern have generally adopted 
 the rendering given by A. V. : the Jewish for 
 the most part prefer the opposite one given in 
 the first place by the margin. The question 
 must be determined by our view of the 
 general purpose of these directions. We can 
 scarce 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. Con- 
 sistency 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 supported by z S. xix. 
 24. The Rabbins consider that the intention 
 of the legislator is to deform the woman, and 
 so deter the man from an alliance which was 
 not to be encouraged though it might be under 
 regulations permitted ; an idea quite against 
 the spirit of the passage. 
 
 13 . bewail her father and her mother a full 
 montlS] This is prescribed from motives of 
 humanity, that the woman might have time 
 and leisure to detach her affections from their 
 natural ties, and prepare her mind for new 
 ones. 
 
 14 . thou shalt not make merchandise of her~\ 
 Rather, thou shalt not constrain her: 
 lit. “treat her with constraint,” or “treat 
 her as a slave.” The same form occurs again 
 xxiv. 7, and there only, and apparently in the 
 same sense. Selling the woman had been 
 forbidden just before. 
 
 15 — 17 . On the rights of primogeniture 
 see Gen. xxv. Moses did not originate these 
 rights, but recognized them, since he found 
 them pre-existing in the general social system 
 of the East. Paternal authority could set 
 aside these rights on just grounds (Gen. xxvii. 
 33), but is forbidden here to do so from mere 
 partiality. 
 
 18 — 21 . The incorrigible son, whom 
 milder measures failed to reclaim, was to be 
 denounced by his parents to “the elders;” 
 and stoned at the gate of the city (cf. on the 
 place of execution xvii. 5). The Elders acted 
 as magistrates in causes of a domestic character 
 (cf. note on xvi. 18). The formal accusation 
 of parents against a child was to be received 
 without inquiry, as being its ovCm proof. Thus 
 the just authority of theiparents is recognized 
 and effectually upheld (cf. Ex. xx. 12, xxi. 
 15, 17; Lev. XX. 9), but the extreme and 
 irresponsible 'power of life and death, con- 
 ceded by the law of Rome and other heathen 
 nations, is withheld from the Israelite father. 
 In this, as in the last law, provision is made 
 against the abuses of a necessary authority. 
 
 3 ^^ 
 
 VoL. I. 
 
878 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXL 
 
 [v. 23. 
 
 ted a sin worthy of death, and he be 
 to be put to death, and thou hang 
 him on a tree ; 
 
 23 His body shall not remain all 
 night upon the tree, but thou shalt in 
 
 any wise bury him that day; (for ^he ^ 
 that is hanged is ^ accursed of God ; ) 
 that thy land be not defiled, which of God. 
 the Lord thy God giveth thee^cr an 
 inheritance. 
 
 22, 23. Command has been given to chapter), then the body was not to “remain 
 “put away evil” by the death of the offender, all night upon the tree,” because that instead 
 A caution follows as to the fulfilment of the of cleansing the land would defile it anew 
 command. If the criminal, as a further pun- (cf. Josh. viii. 29, x. 26). 
 
 ishment, were condemned to be hanged, which 23. he that is hanged is accursed of God\ 
 would only be after death (see Note at end of Cf. Gal. iii. 13, and Note at end of chapter. 
 
 NOTES on Chap. xxi. 4, and 23. 
 
 •u. 4. 
 
 The words bnj have been by most 
 
 modern commentators (Gesenius, Knobel, 
 Keil, Schultz, &c.) and by some few Jewish 
 ones {e.g. Maimonides, Abarbanel) rendered 
 “a constant, or perennial stream.” This sense 
 is supported by Amos v. 24, where A. V. ren- 
 ders the words “ a mighty stream;” as well as 
 by the primary sense of the word (cf. 
 
 jL. xlix. 19, 1. 44); but the sequel of the 
 2*. which specifies that the shall be one 
 that is “neither eared” {i.e. worked, plough- 
 ed) “nor sown, seems against it. For a 
 perennial stream of course could not be eared 
 or sown. The A. V. therefore has correctly 
 adhered to the ancient rendering, which is 
 that of LXX., Vulg., Onkelos, Saadia, and 
 of Wogue, amongst later authorities. The 
 word means sometimes a torrent, some- 
 times a gorge or valley. In Gen. xxvi. 17, 
 19, e.g. it must evidently be rendered as here 
 simply “ valley.” The word |n\S primarily 
 meaning “firm,” “strong;” applied to a 
 valley would import “barren” or “rocky:” 
 cf. Num. xxiv. 21. 
 
 u). 23. 
 
 There were four methods of execution in 
 use amongst the ancient Jews; stoning (Ex. 
 xvii. 4; Dent. xiii. 10, &c.), burning (Lev. 
 XX. 14; xxi. 9), the sword (Ex. xxxii. 27), 
 and strangulation. The latter, though not 
 named in Scripture, is regarded by the Rab- 
 bins as the most common, and the proper 
 ‘one to be adopted when no other is expressly 
 enjoined by the law. Suspension, whether 
 from cross, stake, or gallows, was not used 
 as a mode of taking life, but in cases of pecu- 
 liar atrocity was so;netimes added after death 
 as an enhancement of punishment; and ac- 
 cording to the Rabbins for the crimes of 
 idolatry and cursing God only (cf. Saalschiitz, 
 ‘Mos. Recht,’ p. 461). Pharaoh’s chief baker 
 (Gen. xl. 19) was h-anged after being put to 
 death by the sword; and similarly Joshua 
 appears (Jos. x. 26) to have dealt with the 
 five kings who made war against Gibeon (cf. 
 
 also Josh. viii. 29; i S. xxxi. 10^ 2 S. xxi. 
 6, 9, 12). The command Num. xxv. 4, 5, 
 appears to mean that the rebels should be first 
 slain and then impaled or nailed to crosses; 
 the word translated “hang” there (ypin) 
 being diverse from the one ('1 7^1) in the pas- 
 sage of Deut. before us, and signifying to he 
 torn or dislocated (ef. Ges. and Fiirst sub 2;. 
 and note on Num. l.c.). 
 
 The grounds of the emphatic detestation ex- 
 pressed in the text against him that is hanged 
 are variously stated; and will depend in some 
 degree on the exact rendering of the words. 
 For as Professor Lightfoot (‘on Galatians,’ p. 
 150) observes, in an important note on this text, 
 “the case attached to nppp may denote either 
 the person who pronounces the curse, as Judg. 
 ix. 5 7, or the person against whom the curse is 
 pronounced, as Gen.xxvii. 13 ; in other words, 
 it represents either a subjective or an objective 
 genitive. As we assign one or other sense 
 therefore to the dependent case, we get two 
 distinct interpretations” (or rather classes of 
 interpretation). These are 
 
 (i) “He that is hanged is accursed by 
 God:” a rendering adopted in substance by 
 the LXX., Vulg., Syr. ; by St Paul, Gal. iii. 
 13; and, as might be expected in conse- 
 quence, by nearly all Christian translators and 
 commentators. The purport of the passage 
 would then be: Bury him that is hanged out 
 of the way before evening: his hanging body 
 defiles the land; for God’s curse rests on it.” 
 The curse of God is probably regarded as lying 
 on the malefactor because from the fact of 
 his being hanged he must have been guilty of 
 a peculiarly atrocious breach of God’s cove- 
 nant. Such an oftender could not remain on 
 the face of the earth without defiling it (cf. 
 Lev. xviii. 25, 28; Num. xxxv. 34). There- 
 fore after the penalty of his crime had been 
 inflicted, and he had hung for a time as a public 
 example, the holy land was to be at once and 
 entirely delivered from his _ presence. The 
 notion of a physical pollution of the land 
 from the unseemly consequences of lengthen- 
 ed exposure on the gibbet (Michaelis, ‘Mos. 
 Recht’) seems unsuitable. 
 
V. I— 5 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXII. 
 
 (z) “He that is hanged is a curse {i.e. an 
 insult, injury or mockery) to God.” This 
 rendering has been, according to Professor 
 Lightfoot, ‘Galatians,’ 1. c., “the popular 
 Jewish interpretation at all events from the 
 second century of the Christian era.” It is not 
 however supported by the ancient Targum of 
 Onkelos, or that of Palestine, or by Saadia. 
 Its idea is well explained by Jarchi in loc. 
 (edit. Breithaupt): “Suspensio est vilipensio 
 sive contemptus regis coelestis, quoniam homo 
 factus est ad simiiitudinem imaginis ejus.” 
 With which may be compared the reason 
 (Deut. XXV. 3) assigned for limiting the num- 
 ber of stripes to forty. The explanation of 
 others (Saalschiitz, ‘Mos. Recht,’ p. 461), that 
 the continued suspension of the body would 
 be profaneness towards God because it would 
 keep in sight and in mind the sin for which 
 the m.alefactor suffered, is unlikely; and not 
 less so that other which referring to the ety- 
 mology rather than the usage of n*?7p (from 
 hbp “to be light”), renders “quia alleviatio 
 Dei suspensus; hoc est quando reus suspen- 
 susest hoc Deo sufficit, et alleviatur ira-ejus” 
 (apud Gerhard, p. 1286). Other Jews (Onk., 
 
 Saad., &c.) consider “a curse of God” to be 
 equivalent to “because he cursed God,” that 
 being a crime for which hanging after death 
 was especially adjudicated. But this, as Bishop 
 Patrick (in loci) observes, though a reason for 
 hanging the malefactor, is no reason why he 
 should be taken down from the gallows. 
 
 On the whole there can be no doubt that the 
 former rendering, that of LXX., and follow- 
 ed by St Paul, is the original and correct one ; 
 yet the other construction, fairly supported 
 as it is by grammar and analogy, not with- 
 out some (tlurngh comparatively late) Jewish 
 authority, and followed also by a few Chris- 
 tian commentators (Masius, Menochius, Gro- 
 tius, &c.), deserves at least discussion. It is 
 however neglected by the moderns generally 
 (e.g. Knobel, Keil, Schultz). 
 
 On the quotation of this text by St Paul, 
 Gal. iii. 13, and his application of it, see note 
 on that place. 
 
 The supposition of St Jerome, that this text 
 had been tampered with by the Jews, seems 
 grounded only on the omission by St Paul 
 of the wwds “of God.” Yet ail MSS. and 
 LXX. have these words. See note on Gal. l.c. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 I Of humanity toward brethren. 5 The sex is 
 to be distinguished by apparel. 6 The dam is 
 not to be taken with her young ones. 8 The 
 house must have battlements. 9 Confusion 
 is to be avoided. 1 2 Fringes upon the vesture. 
 13 The punishment of him that slandereth 
 his wife. 20, 22 Of adultery, 25 of rape, 28 
 and of fornication. 30 Incest. 
 
 Exod.23. ''"T^HOU ‘"shalt not see thy bro- 
 ± ther’s ox or his sheep go astray, 
 and hide thyself from them: thou 
 shalt in any case bring them again 
 unto thy brother. 
 
 2 And if thy brother he not nigh 
 unto thee, or if thou know him not, 
 then thou shalt bring it unto thine 
 own house, and it shall be with thee 
 
 until thy brother seek after it, and 
 thou shalt restore it to him again. 
 
 3 In like manner shalt thou do 
 with his ass; and so shalt thou do 
 with his raiment; and with all lost 
 thing of thy brother’s, which he hath 
 lost, and thou hast found, shalt thou 
 do likewise: thou mayest not hide 
 thyself. 
 
 4 ^ Thou shalt not see thy bro- 
 ther’s ass or his ox fail down by the 
 way, and hide thyself from them: 
 thou shalt surely help him to lift them 
 up again. 
 
 5 % The woman shall not wear 
 that which pertaineth unto a man, 
 neither shall a man put on a woman’s 
 
 Chap. XXII. On the general character 
 of the contents of this chapter see on xxi. 10. 
 The cases stated and provided for in ww. i — 12 
 seem selected by way of example, and belong, 
 according to our notions, rather to ethics than 
 to law. It is noteworthy that no penalty is 
 annexed to the breach of these regulations. 
 No doubt it would be the duty of the “offi- 
 cers” (xvi. 18) and the elders in the several 
 cities to enforce their observance. 
 
 1 — 4. Cf. Ex. xxiii. 4, 5, of which these 
 verses are an expansion. 
 
 5. that wohich pertaineth unto a man\ i.e. 
 not only his dress but all that specially pertains 
 distinctively to his sex; arms, domestic and 
 other utensils, &c., ctkcvt] audpos LXX. The 
 word (cley) is frequently used in this compre- 
 hensive sense, for “things” or “articles” ge- 
 nerally; cf. Ex. XXV. 39 ; Lev. xi. 32, xiii. 49 ; 
 Is. Ixi. 10, See. Colenso is in error in stating, 
 §741, that it is used in the above sense only 
 in this passage and in Ex. xxii. 7. 
 
 The design of this and the cognate laws 
 in niv. 9 — 1 1 is moral. Cf. Seneca, ‘ Epist.’ 122 
 
 3K2 
 
88o 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXII. 
 
 [v. 6 — 19. 
 
 garment : for all that do so are abomi- 
 nation unto the Lord thy God. 
 
 6 ^ If a bird’s nest chance to be 
 before thee in the way in any tree, 
 or on the ground, whether they be 
 young ones, or eggs, and the dam sit- 
 ting upon the young, or upon the 
 eggs, thou shalt not take the dam 
 with the young: 
 
 7 But thou shalt in any v/ise let 
 the dam go, and take the young to 
 thee; that it may be well with thee, 
 and that thou mayest prolong thy 
 days. 
 
 8 ^ When thou buildest a nev/ 
 house, then thou shalt make a battle- 
 ment for thy roof, that thou bring 
 not blood upon thine house, if any 
 man fall from thence. 
 
 9 ^ Thou shalt not sow thy vine- 
 t Heb. yard v/ith divers seeds : lest the ^ fruit 
 thy seed: of thy Seed which thou hast sown, 
 
 and the fruit of thy vineyard, be de- 
 filed. 
 
 10 ^ Thou shalt not plow with an 
 ox and an ass together. 
 
 i Lev. 19. 1 1 ^ Thou shalt not wear a gar- 
 
 ment of divers sorts, as of v/oollen and 
 linen together. 
 
 ^ Thou shalt make thee ^fringes 
 
 “Nonne videntur contra naturam vivere qui 
 commutant cum foeminis vestem ?” And 
 “Quern proestare potest mulier galeata 
 pudorem 
 
 Quas fugit a sexu?” Juv. ‘Sat.’ vi. 252. 
 The distinction between the sexes is natural 
 and divinely established, and cannot be neg- 
 lected without indecorum, and consequent 
 danger to purity. There is an Epistle of St 
 Ambrose on this text and subject (iv.Ep. 15): 
 cf. T Cor. xi. 3 — 15. The supposition of 
 Maimon,, followed by Spencer, ‘De Leg. Heb.’ 
 and others, that reference is here made to 
 certain practices in the idolatrous festivals, 
 is ill supported. 
 
 6 — 8. These precepts are designed to cul- 
 tivate a spirit of humanity. With ^o'v. 6 and 7 
 cf. Lev. xxii. 28; ch. xxv. 4; and i Cor. ix. 
 9, 10. On 7;. 6 Gerhard appositely quotes 
 Idiocylides: 
 
 /xjySe TLs opviOas KoXtris (ipa rrauras eXecrdco 
 fJirjTepci S’ eKTrpoXiTTT/?, lu TrdXi rijcrSf 
 
 j/eorrovf. 
 
 8. The roofs of houses in Palestine were 
 flat and used for various domestic purposes; 
 for drying linen or flax. Josh. ii. 6; for walk- 
 
 upon the four ^quarters of thy vesture, ^ 
 
 1 '11 Ilf- ’ tumgs. 
 
 wherewith thou coverest thyself. 
 
 13 If any man take a wife, and 
 go in unto her, and hate her, 
 
 14. And give occasions of speech 
 against her, and bring up an evil 
 name upon her, and say, I took this 
 woman, and when I came to her, I 
 found her not a maid : 
 
 15 Then shall the father of the 
 damsel, and her mother, take and 
 bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s 
 virginity unto the elders of the city in 
 the gate : 
 
 16 And the damsel’s father shall say 
 unto the elders, I gave my daughter 
 unto this man to wife, and he hateth 
 her ; 
 
 17 And, lo, he hath given occa- 
 sions of speech against /;/r, saying, 
 
 I found not thy daughter a maid ; 
 and yet these are the tokens of my 
 daughter’s virginity. And they shall 
 spread the cloth before the elders of 
 the city. 
 
 18 And the elders of that city shall 
 take that man and chastise him ; 
 
 19 And they shall amerce him in 
 an hundred shekels of silver, and give 
 them unto the father of the damsel, 
 
 ing upon to take the air, 2 Sam. xi. 2 ; for 
 prayer. Acts x. 9 &c. A battlement then 
 was almost a necessary protection. It was 
 to be, according to the Rabbins, at least two 
 cubits high. 
 
 9 — 11 . On these prohibitions cf. Lev. 
 xix. 19. They seem all founded on the 
 aversion to mixtures which characterizes 
 several parts of the law of Moses. The one 
 of 7;. 10 may be dictated also by humanity. 
 
 The ox and the ass being of such different 
 size and strength, it would be cruel to the 
 latter to yoke them together. These two 
 animals are named as being those ordinarily 
 employed in agriculture ; cf. Is. xxxii. 20. 
 
 12 . Cf. Num. XV. 38 and note. Several 
 commentators however understand this 
 to refer not to wearing apparel but to the 
 coverlet of the bed, and regard the fringes 
 as strings or ribbons intended for sake of 
 decency to tie the coverlet to the bed posts or 
 corners of the bed. So Houbigant, Horsley, 
 Geddes, Schultz, &c. 
 
 13 — 29 . Certain laws respecting marriage. 
 
 18 . chastise him] i.e. according to the 
 Rabbins with stripes, not to exceed forty. 
 
V. 20-1.] DEUTERONOMY. XXII. XXIII. 
 
 88 1 
 
 because he hath brought up an* evil 
 name upon a virgin of Israel : and she 
 shall be his wife ; he may not put her 
 away all his days. 
 
 20 But if this thing be true, and 
 the tokens of virginity be not found 
 for the damsel : 
 
 21 Then they shall bring out the 
 damsel to the door of her father’s 
 house, and the men of her city shall 
 stone her with stones that she die : 
 because she hath wrought folly in Is- 
 rael, to play the whore in her father’s 
 house : so shalt thou put evil away 
 from among you. 
 
 '?Lev. ;jo. 22 ^ '^If a man be found lying 
 with a woman married to an hus- 
 band, then they shall both of them 
 die, both the man that lay with the 
 woman, and the woman : so shalt thou 
 put away evil from Israel. 
 
 23 ^ If a damsel that is a virgin 
 be betrothed unto an husband, and 
 a man find her in the city, and lie 
 
 , with her ; 
 
 24 Then ye shall bring them both 
 out unto the gate of that city, and 
 ye shall stone them with stones that 
 they die ; the damsel, because she 
 cried not, being in the city ; and the 
 man, because he hath humbled his 
 neighbour’s wife : so thou shalt put 
 away evil from among you. 
 
 25 ^ But if a man find a betroth- 
 ed damsel in the field,, and the man 
 
 "force her, and lie with her: then "S'”’. 
 
 ’ll • 1 1 takestyoii^ 
 
 the man only that lay with her shall hold of her, 
 die : 
 
 26 But unto the damsel thou shalt 
 do nothing ; there is in the damsel 
 no sin worthy of death : for as when 
 a man riseth against his neighbour, 
 and slayeth him, even so is this 
 matter : 
 
 27 For he found her in the field, 
 and the betrothed damsel cried, and 
 there was none to save her. 
 
 28 H ^If a man find a damsel Exod. 22. 
 
 is a virgin, which is not betrothed, 
 
 and lay hold on her, and lie with her, 
 and they be found ; 
 
 29 Then the man that lay with 
 her shall give unto the damsel’s father 
 fifty shekels of silver, and she shall 
 be his wife ; because he hath humbled 
 her, he may not put her away all his 
 days. 
 
 30 ^ A man shall not take his 18. 
 father’s wife, nor discover his father’s 
 
 skirt. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 I Who may or may not enter into the congrega- 
 tion. 9 Uncleanness to be avoided in the \ 
 
 host. 15 Of the fugitive servant. 17 Of 
 filthiness. i8 Of abominable sacrihees. 19 
 Ofnsnry. Ofvoias. 24 Of trespasses. 
 
 H e that is wounded in the stones, 
 or hath his privy member cut 
 off, shall not enter into the congrega- 
 tion of the Lord. 
 
 19 . an hundred shekels'\ The fine was to be 
 paid to the father, because the slander was 
 against him principally as the head of the 
 wife’s family. If the damsel were an orphan 
 the fine, according to the Rabbins, reverted to 
 herself. The false charge might have arisen 
 from a wanton desire to contract another 
 marriage, and would thus be punished by the 
 withdrawal of the right of divorce (cf. xxiv. 
 I, a); or from an avaricious desire to appro- 
 priate the damsel’s dowry, which was rebuked 
 by the fine of a hundred shekels. The amount 
 was twice as much as had to be paid by a 
 seducer, cf. -i;. 29. False witness in other cases 
 was punished on the principle of the “lex 
 talionis” (cf. xix. 16 sqq.). The fact that 
 the penalties attached to bearing false witness 
 against a wife are fixed and comparatively 
 light indicates, as St Augustine observes 
 (‘ Qusstiones in Dent.’ xxxiii.), the low 
 
 estimation and position of the woman under 
 the law. 
 
 29 . The case of rape here mentioned is 
 not identical with that of seduction provided 
 for Ex. XX ii, 16, 17. The ravisher has neces- 
 sarily to marry his victim and to pay a fine. 
 
 30 . Cf. xxvii. 20; Lev. xviii. 8 and xx. 
 II ; I Cor. V. I and 1.3. 
 
 fathers skirf\ Cf. Ruth iii. 9 ; Ezek. xvi. 8. 
 
 Chap. XXIII. From the domestic rela- 
 tions the lawgiver now passes on to enjoin ! 
 
 sanctity and purity in the congregation of * 
 Israel as a whole, and to lay down certain 
 rights and duties of citizenship. 
 
 1 — 8. Exclusion of five classes of persons 
 from the congregation of the Lord. 
 
 1. On the two classes named here cf. Lev. 
 xxi. 17—24. The exclusion is however here 
 
882 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXIIL 
 
 [v. 2 8. 
 
 ° Neh. 13. 
 1. 
 
 ^ Numb. 
 22. 5, 6. 
 
 2 A bastard shall not enter into 
 the congregation of the Lord ; even 
 to his tenth generation shall he not 
 enter into the congregation of the 
 Lord. 
 
 3 "An Ammonite or Moabite shall 
 not enter into the congregation of the 
 Lord ; even to their tenth generation 
 shall they not enter into the congre- 
 gation of the Lord for ever : 
 
 4 Because they met you not with 
 bread and with water in the way, 
 when ye came forth out of Egypt ; 
 and ^ because they hired against thee 
 Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of 
 Mesopotamia, to curse thee. 
 
 5 Nevertheless the Lord thy God 
 would not hearken unto Balaam ; but 
 the Lord thy God turned the curse 
 into a blessing unto thee, because the 
 Lord thy God loved thee. 
 
 6 Thou shalt not seek their peace 
 nor their ^ prosperity all thy days for 
 ever. 
 
 7 ^ Thou shalt not abhor an E- 
 domite ; for he is thy brother : thou 
 shalt not abhor an Egyptian ; because 
 thou wast a. stranger in his land. 
 
 8 The children that are begotten 
 of them shall enter into the congre- 
 gation of the Lord in their third 
 generation. 
 
 carried, in the case of persons mutilated or 
 maimed as described in the text, further than 
 in Lev. Such persons are not to be admitted 
 at all into the commonwealth of Israel. Cf. 
 Lev. xxii. 24. Amongst the Gentiles eu- 
 nuchs held offices of the greatest trust. Under 
 the theocracy, as exhibiting in their persons 
 a mutilation of that human nature which was 
 made in God’s image, they were rejected 
 from the covenant entirely. They could how- 
 ever be proselytes (cf. Acts viii. 27). The 
 Old Test, itself foretells (Is. Ivi. 3 — 5) the 
 removal of this ban when under the kingdom 
 of Messiah the outward and emblematic per- 
 fection and sanctity of Israel should be ful- 
 filled in their inner meaning by the covenant- 
 ed presence and work of the Holy Spirit in 
 the Church. 
 
 2. A bastard] On this word see Note at 
 end of chapter. 
 
 even to his tenth generatmi] z.e., see next 
 V. and Neh. xiii. i, for ever. Ten is the 
 number of perfection and completeness. 
 
 3 — 5 . Fourthly and fifthly the Ammonite 
 and the Moabite are for ever disqualified from 
 admission to Israel. In this connection it 
 seems not unlikely that there is a tacit refer- 
 ence to the incestuous origin of the forefathers 
 of these nations, cf. Gen. xix. 30 — 38, 
 though other reasons for the exclusion are 
 given vv. 4 and 5. These reasons would be 
 fresh in the minds of those to whom Moses 
 was speaking, and would naturally occur to 
 him as instances of that resistance to the Theo- 
 cracy which was to be punished by perpetual 
 rejection from its blessings. Cf. Neh. xiii. i, 
 2; Lam. I. 10. Saalschiitz (p. 691) remarks 
 that this law forbids only the naturalization 
 of those against whom it is directed. It docs 
 not forbid their dwelling in the land; and 
 seems to refer rather to the nations than to in- 
 dividuals. It was not understood at any rate to 
 interdict marriage with a Moabitess; cf. Ruth 
 
 i. 4, iv. 13. Ruth however and her sister were 
 doubtless proselytes. Such a law would cer- 
 tainly never have suggested itself to the mind 
 of a writer after the times of David, whose 
 great-grandmother was a Moabitess. 
 
 4. Because they met you not vuith bread] 
 Cf. ii. 29. This offence was common to the 
 two; the next one, the hiring of Balaam, 
 seems, from Num. xxii. 5 sqq., to have been 
 the act of the king of Moab only. But the 
 Moabites and the Ammonites are to be re- 
 garded as clans of the same stock rather than 
 as two independent nations (see Smith’s ‘ Diet, 
 of the Bible,’ s. v. Ammon), and as acting 
 together in this as they did in other matters. 
 Cf. 2 Chron. xx. i. 
 
 6. dhoti shalt not seek their peace nor their 
 prosperity] Literally, “nor their good:” i.e. 
 thou shalt not invite them to be on terms of 
 amity with thee (cf. xx. 10 sqq.), nor make 
 their welfare thy. care : cf. Ezraix. 12. There 
 is here no injunction to hatred or retaliation : 
 cf. on the contrary ii. 9 and 19. Later history 
 contains frequent record of hostility between 
 Israel and the Ammonites (cf. Judg. xi. ; i 
 S. xi. ; 2 S. X. and xii. 26 — 31; 2 Chron. 
 xx. &c.) ; and the Moabites (Judg. iii. 12 sqq. ; 
 I S. xiv. 47; 2 S. viii. 2; 2 Chron. xx. &c.). 
 
 7, 8. The Edomite, as descended from Esau 
 a twin brother of Jacob, and the Egyptian, 
 as of that nation which had for long shewn 
 hospitality to Joseph and his brethren, were 
 not*to be objects of abhorrence. The Edom- 
 ites had indeed shewn themselves unfriendly 
 to Israel in refusing a passage through their 
 land (cf. Num. xx. 18 sqq.), but had not ac- 
 tively resisted them, and the tie of kindred 
 was therefore to be respected (cf. ii. 8). The 
 oppression of the Egyptians was psrhaps re- 
 garded as the act of the Pharaohs rather than 
 the will of the people (Schultz aptly refers 
 to Ex. xi. 2, 3); and at any rate was not to 
 cancel the memory of preceding hospitality. 
 
V. 9 — 23 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXIII. 
 
 883 
 
 9 ^ When the host goeth forth 
 against thine enemies, then keep thee 
 from every wicked thing. 
 
 10 ^ If there be among you any 
 man, that is not clean by reason of 
 uncleanness that chanceth him by 
 night, then shall he go abroad out of 
 the camp, he shall not come within 
 the camp : 
 
 11 But it shall be, when evening 
 
 t Heb. ^ cometh on, he shall wash himself 
 
 toZa>d. with water : and v/hen the sun is 
 
 down, he shall come into the camp 
 again. 
 
 12 ^ Thou shalt have a place also 
 without the camp, whither thou shalt 
 go forth abroad : 
 
 13 And thou shalt have a paddle 
 upon thy weapon ; and it shall be, 
 
 t Heb. when thou ^ wilt ease thyself abroad, 
 thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt 
 turn back and cover that which com- 
 eth from thee : 
 
 14 For the Lord thy God walk- 
 eth in the midst of thy camp, to 
 deliver thee, and to give up thine 
 enemies before thee ; therefore shall 
 thy camp be holy : that he see no 
 
 t Heb. t unclean thing in thee, and turn away 
 
 nakedness c ^ ^ ^ 
 
 c/any from thec. 
 
 i'W. 15 ^ Thou shalt not deliver unto 
 his master the servant which is escaped 
 from his master unto thee : 
 
 16 He shall dwell with thee, even 
 among you, in that place which he 
 shall choose in one of thy gates, 
 where it ^ liketh him best : thou shalt t Heb. 
 
 , . IS good for 
 
 not oppress him. him. 
 
 17 HI There shall be no ” whore " 0 /> 
 
 r ' -i 11 r T 1 sodomitess. 
 
 or the daughters or Israel, nor a 
 sodomite of the sons of Israel. 
 
 18 Thou shalt not bring the* hire 
 of a whore, or the price of a dog, 
 into the house of the Lord thy God 
 for any vow : for even both these 
 are abomination unto the Lord thy 
 God. 
 
 19 HI “^Thou shalt not lend upon^ ^^d. 22. 
 usury to thy brother; usury of money. Lev. 25.36. 
 usury of victuals, usury of any thing 
 
 that is lent upon usury : 
 
 20 Unto a stranger thou mayest 
 lend upon usury ; but unto thy bro- 
 ther thou shalt not lend upon usury : 
 that the Lord thy God may bless 
 thee in all that thou settest thine 
 hand to in the land whither thou 
 goest to possess it. 
 
 21 HI ^When thou shalt vow a vow <^Eccies.5. 
 unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt 
 
 not slack to pay it : for the Lord thy 
 God will surely require it of thee ; 
 and it would be sin in thee. 
 
 22 But if thou shalt forbear to vow, 
 it shall be no sin in thee. 
 
 23 That which is gone out of thy 
 
 8. in their third generatioid] i.e. the great- 
 grandchildren of the Edomite or Egyptian 
 alien : cf. Ex. xx. 5. 
 
 9 — 14 . The sanctity of the camp is to be 
 preserved even in time of war. Amongst 
 others the ordinary rules of morality and 
 religion were then relaxed : 
 
 “Nulla fides pietasque viris qui castra se- 
 quuntur.” Lucan, x. 407. 
 
 but Israel bn the contrary, as needing at such 
 a time more especially the divine help, was 
 more especially to shun “ every wicked thing,” 
 *1^. 9. The special significance of this expres- 
 sion is shewn in the following. The whole 
 passage obviously refers not to the encamp- 
 ments of the nation whilst passing from Egypt 
 through the wilderness, but to future war- 
 like expeditions sent out from Canaan. 
 
 13 . upon thy nveapon~\ The word rendered 
 “weapon” occurs in this form only in this 
 passage. The LXX. (eVt ^oovrjs) and the 
 
 Vulg. would seem to have followed another 
 reading. The words should rather be rendered 
 “ besides thy weapon.” 
 
 15 , 16 . The case in question is that of a 
 slave who fled from a heathen master to the 
 holy land. It is of course assumed that the 
 refugee was not flying from justice, but only 
 from the tyranny of his lord. Our English 
 law is in this point identical with the Mosaic. 
 
 17 . Cf. Lev. xix. 29. Prostitution was a 
 common part of religious observances amongst 
 idolatrous nations, especially in the worship 
 of Ashtoreth or Astarte: cf. Herod, i. 199. 
 
 18 . Another Gentile practice, connected 
 with the one alluded to in the preceding verse, 
 is here forbidden. The word dog is figura- 
 tive (cf. Rev. xxii. 15), and equivalent to the 
 “sodomite” of the v. preceding. Cf. Micah i. 
 7 ; Baruch vi. 43. 
 
 19 . 20. Cf. Ex. xxii. 25 sqq. ; Lev. xxv. 
 36, 37 - 
 
884 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 lips thou shalt keep and perform ; 
 even a freewill offering, according as 
 thou hast vowed unto the Lord thy 
 God, which thou hast promised with 
 thy mouth. 
 
 24 ^ When thou comest into thy 
 neighbour’s vineyard, then thou mayest 
 eat grapes thy fill at thine own plea- 
 
 XX 1 11. XXIV. [v. 24 - 5 . 
 
 sure ; but thou shalt not put any in 
 thy vessel. 
 
 25 When thou comest into the 
 standing corn of thy neighbour, ^then 12. 
 thou mayest pluck the ears with thine Mark 2. 23. 
 hand ; but thou shalt not move a 
 sickle unto thy neighbour’s standing 
 corn. 
 
 21 — 23 . Cf. Ex.xxii. 29; Num. xxx. 2; 24 , 25 . Cf. St Matt. xii. i; St Luke vi. . 
 
 Eccles. V. 4, 5; and the general laws of i. The commands of Deut. xxiv. 19, 20 are 
 vows in Lev. xxvii. of like spirit. 
 
 NOTE on Chap, xxiii. 2. 
 
 The Hebr. word which only oc- 
 
 curs again Zech. ix. 6, is of uncertain root 
 and sense. See Gesen. s. v. The LXX. ren- 
 ders Ik TTopvrjs, Vulg. de scorto natiis^ and so 
 Saad., Syr., &c. Yet it seems unlikely, since 
 concubinage was tolerated and seduction but 
 lightly punished under the law, that bastards 
 in the widest sense of the term could have 
 been excluded from the congregation. The 
 modern Jews in fact do not so exclude them. 
 
 The Rabbins therefore are probably right 
 when they interpret the word as denoting 
 only those born of incest or adultery. This 
 sense, adopted by Keil, Wogue, and appa- 
 rently by the author of the Book of Wisdom 
 hi. 16, suits the context, and the probably 
 
 true derivation from “ITD, Arab, ‘‘to 
 
 be foul” or “corrupt.” Such persons spring 
 from a connection which is against the order 
 of nature and God. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 1 Of divorce. 5 A new married man goeth not 
 to war. 6 , 10 Of pledges. 7 Of manstealers. 
 8 Of leprosy. 14 The hire is to be given. 
 
 1 6 Of justice, Of charity. 
 
 « Matt. s. TT then a "man hath taken a 
 r’iq. 7- VV wife, and married her, and it 
 
 Mark 10. 4. p^gg find no favour 
 
 in his eyes, because he hath found 
 f Heb. T some uncleanness in her : then let 
 TiakldVL. him write her a bill of ^ divorcement, 
 \'!u 1 ingoff. hand, and send her 
 
 out of his house. 
 
 2 And when she is departed out of 
 his house, she may go and be another 
 man’s wife. 
 
 Chap. XXIV. In this and the next ch. 
 certain particular rights and duties, domestic, 
 social, and civil, are treated of. The cases 
 brought forward have often no definite con- 
 nexion, and seem selected in order to illus- 
 trate the application of the great principles of 
 the law in certain important events and cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 1 — 5 . The relations of man and wife. 
 
 1 — 4 . Of divorce. On these verses and 
 on the subject to which they relate, see note 
 at end of ciiapt.er; and cf. jer. iii. i ; St Matt. 
 
 3 And f the latter husband hate 
 her, and write her a bill of divorce- 
 ment, and giveth it in her hand, and 
 sendeth her out of his house ; or if 
 the latter husband die, which took her 
 to be his wife ; 
 
 4 Her former husband, which sent 
 her away, may not take her again 
 to be his wife, after that she is de- 
 filed ; for that is abomination before 
 the Lord : and thou shalt not cause 
 the land to sin, which the Lord thy 
 God giveth thee for an inheritance. 
 
 c ^ When a man hath taken a + ^eb. 
 
 D ^ 7iot any 
 
 new wife, he shall not go out to war, thingshaii 
 ^neither shall he be charged with anyS/'-^''"' 
 
 V. 31, 32 and xix. 3 — 9. The colon in mid- 
 dle of ‘v. I and the full stops placed at the 
 end of vno. i and 2 should be removed, and 
 the four verses, which contain only one sen- 
 tence, rendered thus : If a man hatli taken 
 a wife &c., and given her a hill of di- 
 vorcement; and (2;. 2) if she has de- 
 parted out of his house and become 
 another man’s wife; and {y. 3) if the 
 latter husband hate her, then {y. 4) 
 her former husband, &c. 
 
 5 . Cf. XX. 7. There however the be- 
 
V. 6— 1 8.] 
 
 885 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXIV. 
 
 business : but he shall be free at home 
 one year, and shall cheer up his wife 
 which he hath taken. 
 
 6 ^ No man shall take the nether 
 or the upper millstone to pledge : for 
 he taketh a man s life to pledge. 
 
 7 ^ If a man be found stealing 
 any of his brethren of the children of 
 Israel, and maketh merchandise of 
 him, or selleth him ; then that thief 
 shall die ; and thou shalt put evil away 
 from among you. 
 
 c Lev. 13. 8 ^ Take heed in ‘^the plague of 
 
 leprosy, that thou observe diligently, 
 and do according to all that the 
 priests the Levites shall teach you : 
 as I commanded them, so ye shall ob- 
 serve to do. 
 
 9 Remember what the Lord thy 
 ^i^Numb. God did “^unto Miriam by tl)e way, 
 after that ye were come forth out of 
 Egypt. 
 
 tHeb. 10 When thou dost Mend thy 
 loanqf brother any thing, thou shalt not go 
 into his house to fetch his pledge. 
 
 . 1 1 Thou shalt stand abroad, and 
 
 the man to whom thou dost lend 
 shall bring out the pledge abroad unto 
 thee. 
 
 12 And if the man he poor, thou 
 shalt not sleep with his pledge : 
 
 13 In any case thou shalt deliver 
 him the pledge again when the sun 
 goeth down, that he may sleep in his 
 own raiment, and bless thee : and it 
 shall be righteousness unto thee be- 
 fore the Lord thy God. 
 
 14 ^ Thou shalt not oppress an 
 hired servant that is poor and needy, 
 whether he be of thy brethren, or of 
 thy strangers that are in thy land 
 within thy gates : 
 
 15 At his day ^thou shalt give him 'Lev. 19. 
 his hire, neither shall the sun go down Tob. 4. 14. 
 upon it ; for he is poor, and ^ setteth 
 
 his heart upon it : lest he cry against his ioui 
 thee unto the Lord, and it be sin 
 unto thee. 
 
 16 The -^fathers shall not be put -^2 Kin. 14. 
 to death for the children, neither shall 2 Chron. 
 the children be put to death for the jer.'^3i. 29, 
 fathers : every man shall be put to 
 
 death for his own sin. 20. 
 
 17 ^ Thou shalt not pervert the 
 judgment of the stranger, nor of the 
 fatherless ; nor take a widow’s rai- 
 ment to pledge : 
 
 18 But thou shalt remember that 
 
 trothed man is spoken of; here the newly 
 married. The command here given was de- 
 signed to endear the marriage tie, as the one 
 last preceding was to prevent a frivolous rup- 
 ture of it. 
 
 6. A precept of like tenor with that in 
 Ex. xxii. 25, 26. 
 
 7. Cf. Ex. xxi. 16. 
 
 maketh merchandise of him\ Rather, con- 
 strswin him, i.e, treat him as a slave. See 
 on xxi. 14. 
 
 8. 9 . On the laws relating to leprosy see 
 Lev. xiii. and xiv. On Miriam’s rebellion see 
 Num. xii, 10 sqq. The leprosy was “the 
 symbol of sin, most often the theocratic 
 punishment, the penalty for sins committed 
 against the theocracy, as in the cases of Miri- 
 am, of Gehazi, of Uzziah” (Abp. Trench ‘On 
 the Miracles,’ p. 215). The allusion to Mi- 
 riam, who disobeyed the ordinances of God 
 and was punished with leprosy for her rebel- 
 lion, serves to point the injunction of 2;. 8. 
 
 10 — 15 . Warnings against oppression of 
 the poor. 
 
 10 — 13 . Cf. Ex. xxii. 25 — 27. The cre- 
 ditor is forbidden to enter his debtor’s dwel- 
 ling, and to seize as security what he might 
 
 think sufficient. He is to stand without, and 
 leave it to the debtor to bring forth that 
 which he could best spare. No doubt the 
 creditor would have the right to judge whe- 
 ther the pledge offered were adequate or not. 
 Vn). 12, 13 assume, what would be constantly 
 the case in Palestine, that the poor debtor 
 would have nothing to offer for pledge except 
 his wearing apparel. 
 
 13 . it shall be righteousness unto thee'\ Cf. 
 vi. 25; Prov. xix. 17; Dan. iv. 27. 
 
 14 , 15 . Repeated and enlarged from Lev. 
 xix. 13. Cf. XV. 9 ; St James v. 4. 
 
 16 . A caution addressed to earthly judges. 
 God, by right of his Sovereignty over all man- 
 kind, “jure dominii non poenas” (Grotius), 
 threatens to visit the sins of the fathers upon 
 the children (cf. on Ex, xx. 5) ; but in the dis- 
 pensation of earthly justice the maxim must 
 hold “poena caput sequitur.” Amongst other 
 Oriental nations the family of a criminal was 
 commonly involved in his punishment (cf. 
 Esth. ix. 13, 14: Herod, iii. 19). In Israel it 
 was not to be so ; cf. 2 K. xiv. 6 ; 2 
 .Chron. xxv. 4. See also Jer. xxxi. 29, 30; 
 Ezek. xviii. 20 and notes. 
 
 17 . Cf. Ex. xxii. 21, 22, xxiii. 9. 
 
886 
 
 [v. 19 22. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXIV. 
 
 thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and 
 the Lord thy God redeemed thee 
 thence : therefore I command thee to 
 do this thing. 
 
 ^ Lev. 19. 19 ^ ^ When thou cuttest down 
 
 & 2^. 22. thine harvest in thy held, and hast 
 forTOt a sheaf in the held, thou shalt 
 not go again to fetch it : it shall be 
 for the stranger, for the fatherless, 
 and for the widow : that the Lord 
 thy God may bless thee in all the 
 work of thine hands. 
 
 20 When thou beatest thine olive 
 
 tree, 'thou shalt not go over the 
 boughs again : it shall be for the notbmigh 
 stranger, for the fatherless, and for \hee. 
 the widow. 
 
 21 When thou gatherest the grapes 
 of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean 
 it ^afterward: it shall be for 
 stranger, for the fatherless, and for 
 the widow. 
 
 22 And thou shalt remember that 
 thou wast a bondman in the land of 
 Egypt : therefore I command thee to 
 do this thing. 
 
 18 . Cf. Lev. xix. 33, 34. 
 
 19 — 22 . Repeated in substance from 
 
 Lev. xix. 9 sq. and xxih. 22. The motive 
 assigned u. 22 is the same as in n). 18 and 
 xvi. 12. 
 
 NOTE on Chap. xxiv. i — 4. 
 
 The A. V. is undoubtedly wrong in plac- 
 ing a full stop at the end of w. i and 2. 
 The four ‘v‘v. form only one sentence, the 
 first three being the protasis, &c., 2;. 4 the 
 apodosis as is exhibited in the foot-note. Thus 
 v. 4 lays down the law in the supposed case. 
 So the LXX. and the large majority of com- 
 mentators. It is thus evident that Moses nei- 
 ther institutes nor enjoins divorce. The exact 
 spirit of the passage is given in our Lord’s words 
 to the Jews, St Matt. xix. 8 ; “ Moses because 
 of the hardness of your hearts suffered you 
 to put away your wives.” Not only does the 
 original institution of marriage as recorded 
 by Moses, Gen. ii. 24, set forth the per- 
 petuity of the bond, but the ‘vv. before us 
 plainly intimate that divorce, whilst tolerated 
 for the time, contravenes the order of nature 
 and of God. The divorced woman who 
 marries again is “defiled,” -v. 4, and is grouped 
 in this particular with the adulteress ; cf. Lev. 
 xviii. 20. Our Lord then was speaking ac- 
 cording to the spirit of the law of Moses 
 when He declared, St Matt. xix. 9, “Whoso 
 marrieth her that is put away doth commit 
 adultery.” He was speaking too not less ac- 
 cording to the mind of the Prophets, cf. Mai. 
 ii. 14 — 16. But Moses could not absolutely 
 put an end to a practice which was traditional, 
 and common to the Jews with other Oriental 
 nations. His aim is therefore to regulate and 
 thus to mitigate an evil which he could not 
 extirpate. He enacts therefore in the passage 
 before us (r) that divorce must take place 
 not as heretofore, at the arbitrary will and 
 pleasure of the husband, and by mere word 
 {)f mouth, but upon reason given and by 
 means of a written and formal document; 
 (2) that the divorced wife who had married 
 a second time shall never return to her first 
 
 husband. The tendency of these laws is 
 obvious. The former wouM enforce the 
 preparation of a regular and legal instrument, 
 which, from the nature of the cash, would 
 require time and the intervention of public 
 authority to attest its sufficiency and its due 
 execution. Thus a certain delay would ne- 
 cessarily take place, giving opportunity far 
 reconsideration; and the interposition of the 
 magistrates would prevent many frivolous 
 complaints from being treated as grounds for 
 divorce. The other law would admonish the 
 parties that the divorce once consummated 
 would be irreparable, and ought not therefore 
 to be brought about rashly and lightly. It 
 must be added too tliat Moses withholds the 
 right of divorce altogether v/here a man 
 slanders his wife as unchaste (xxii. 13 — 19), 
 or seduces her before marriage (xxii. 28, 29). 
 
 The import of the expression “some un- 
 cleanness” ( 13“1 miy, lit. “the nakedness or 
 shame of a thing,”) has been variously ex- 
 plained. It was a well-known theme of dis- 
 putation between the schools of Hillel and 
 Shammai. The former explained it, as the 
 Pharisees (St Matt. xix. 3) seem to have done, 
 in a general manner, as equivalent to any- 
 thing which made the woman unacceptable 
 to her husband. And this certainly seems 
 borne out by what is said in 2;. 3, v/here it. 
 appears that the second husband might divorce 
 merely on grounds of personal dislike. The 
 other and rival interpreters regard the terms, 
 which are used also in the preceding ch., 
 2/. 14, as applicable to nothing short of im- 
 modest conduct or grave physical detect. 
 Adultery is clearly out of the question, since 
 that was a capital crime (cf. xxii. 20 — 22). 
 Whichever school be right it is clear that the 
 legislator felt himself constrained to leave in 
 
V. I— 5-] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXV. 
 
 the husband’s hands large powers as regards 
 divorce. Humane restraints and conditions 
 are however imposed on the exercise of that 
 power, and the rights of the wife on her 
 side are not forgotten. It appears from 
 Ex. XXL 10 that the maid sold to be “a ser- 
 vant,” i.e. purchased by a man to be a wife, 
 could quit her husband, or master, if he did 
 not perform his duties towards her; and we 
 can hardly doubt that the inferences drawn in 
 much variety by the Jewish doctors (cf. Saal- 
 schiitz, ‘ Mos. Recht,’ pp. 806, 807 and notes), 
 as to the circumstances under which a wife 
 could enforce divorce, are in the main correct. 
 'Fhe freewoman would certainly not be in a 
 worse position than is secured in Ex. l.c. for 
 the bondwoman. Our Lord’s words too (St 
 Mark x. ii and 12) seem to imply that the 
 
 887 
 
 right of divorce existed equally on both sides. 
 
 Yet no doubt the initiation of divorce by the 
 wife was extremely rare in the East. It was 
 not however unknown, at any rate in later 
 times, for Salome, the sister of Herod, di- 
 vorced her husband; cf. Joseph. ‘ Ant.’ xv. 7, 
 and XVI IT. 5, 4. 
 
 It appears that if the divorced wife did not 
 contract a new marriage her husband might 
 take her back. This has been the imme- 
 morial practice of the Jews ; and there is 
 certainly nothing to bar it in the passage be- 
 fore us or elsewhere in the law ; on the con- 
 trary, the spirit of the enactments of Moses 
 is certainly to encourage the preservation of 
 the original tie; the prohibition of re-union in 
 n). 4 is limited expressly to the case where a 
 second marriage had been contracted. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 I Stripes imist not exceed forty. 4 The ox is 
 not to be ^mizzled. 5 0^ raising seed tinto a 
 brother, ir Of the immodest woiiian. 13 Of 
 unjust weights. 17 The memoiy of Amalek 
 is to be blotted out. 
 
 I F there be a controversy between 
 men, and they come unto judg- 
 ment, that the judges may judge them ; 
 then they shall justify the righteous, 
 and condemn the wicked. 
 
 2 And it shall be, if the wicked 
 man be worthy to be beaten, that 
 the judge shall cause him to lie down, 
 
 and to be beaten before his face, 
 according to his fault, by a certain 
 number. 
 
 3 "Forty stripes he may give him, 
 and not exceed : lest, if he should 
 exceed, and beat him above these 
 
 with many stripes, then thy brother ^ 9- 
 
 should seem vile unto thee. i Tim. 5. 
 
 4 ^ ^Thou shalt not mmzzle the t Heb. 
 ox when he ^ treadeth out the corn. 
 
 5 ^ ^ If brethren dwell together, 24.^^^ 
 and one of them die, and have no 10. 
 child, the wife of the dead shall not 
 
 Chap. XXV. 1 — 3. Punishment by 
 
 stripes. 
 
 1, 2. These verses form grammatically 
 only one sentence, of which no. % is the apo- 
 dosis, as the LXX. correctly gives it. Remove 
 therefore the full stop at end of 1;. i, and 
 render thus: (i) If tliere he a controversy 
 between men, and they come to judg- 
 ment, and the judges judge them, and 
 justify the righteous and condemn the 
 •wicked; (2) then it shall he, &c. 
 
 1. justify the righteous'] On the expression, 
 cf. Ex. XTiiii. 7; Prov. xvii. 15. 
 
 2 . worthy to he beaten] Lit. “ a son of beat- 
 ing,” i.e. deserving stripes: cf. a like idiom, 
 iii. 18 : I S. XX. 31. 
 
 Scourging is named as a penalty Lev. xix. 
 20. The beating here spoken of would be on 
 the back with a rod or stick (cf. Prov. x. 13, 
 xix. 29, xxvi. 3). 
 
 3 . Forty stripes he may giase him, and not 
 exeeedf] The Jews to keep within the letter of 
 the law fixed 39 stripes as the maximum (cf. 
 2 Cor. xi. 24). Forty signifies the full 
 measure of judgment (Keil) cf. Gen. vii. 12; 
 Num. xiv. 33, 34; but the reason for the 
 limitation is rather to be sought in what is 
 
 added here, “lest tHy brother should seem 
 vile unto thee.” The son of Israel was not 
 to be lashed like a slave at the mercy of 
 another. The judge was always to be pre- 
 sent to see that the law in this particular was 
 not overpassed. 
 
 4 . Cf. I Cor. ix. 9; I Tim. v. 18; and 
 Hos. x. II. In other kinds of labour the 
 oxen were usually muzzled. When driven 
 to and fro over the threshing-floor in order 
 to stamp out the grain from the chaff, they 
 were to be allowed to partake of the fruits 
 of their labours. The figurative sense of 
 this command is drawn out by St Paul l.c. 
 The Greeks and other heathen frequently 
 treated their labouring animals with great in- 
 humanity, putting sharp bits in their mouths, 
 or keeping them for a long time without 
 drink, before employing them on the thresh- 
 ing-floor. Another inhuman method of pre- 
 venting them from eating whilst on the thresh- 
 ing-floor is mentioned by jElian, ‘ Hist. An.’ 
 IV. 25. The expression /SoC? eVi a-copw was 
 proverbial. (Cf. Bochart, ‘Hieroz.’ ii! 40.) 
 The practice of threshing by oxen has re- 
 tained its hold in the East, as has likewise the 
 humane rule of the text. 
 
888 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXV. [v. 6-io. 
 
 marry without unto a stranger : her 
 \uxtki}is " h'^sband’s brother shall go in unto 
 man. her, and take her to him to wife, and 
 perform the duty of an husband’s 
 brother unto her. 
 
 6 And it shall be, that the first- 
 born which she beareth shall succeed 
 in the name of his brother which is 
 dead, that his name be not put out of 
 Israel. 
 
 7 And if the man like not to take 
 " Or. . his ” brother’s wife, then let his bro- 
 
 7iext kins- , , • ^ i 
 
 mans tiler s Wire go up to the gate unto 
 Ruth 4 . the elders, and say, ^My husband’s 
 7- brother refuseth to raise up unto his 
 
 brother a name in Israel, he will not 
 
 perform the duty of my husband’s 
 brother. 
 
 8 Then the elders of his city shall 
 call him, and speak unto him : and 
 ^ he stand to it., and say, I like not 
 to take her ; 
 
 9 Then shall his brother’s wife 
 come unto him in the presence of the 
 elders, and loose his shoe from off his 
 foot, and spit in his face, and shall 
 answer and say. So shall it be done 
 unto that man that will not build up 
 his brother’s house. 
 
 10 And his name shall be called in 
 Israel, The house of him that hath 
 his shoe loosed. 
 
 5 — 10 . Law of levirate marriage. The 
 law on this subject is not peculiar to the 
 Jews, but is found (see on Gen. xxxviii. 8) 
 in all essential respects the same amongst va- 
 rious Oriental nations, ancient and modern, 
 and exists at present amongst the South Afri- 
 can tribes (Colenso, ‘ Pent.’ § 754) ; amongst 
 the Arabians (Burckhardt, ‘ Notes,’ i. 112); 
 amongst the Druses (Volney, ‘Travels,’ ii. 
 80) ; and amongst the tribes of the Caucasus, 
 (Haxthausen’s ‘Transcaucasia,’ p. 403). It 
 is obvious from Gen. xxxviii., where it ap- 
 pears as familiar and recognized on all hands, 
 that Moses did not originate it; and in fact 
 the rules in these like those upon di- 
 vorce, do but incorporate existing immemo- 
 rial usages, and introduce various wise and 
 politic limitations and mitigations of them. 
 The root of the obligation here imposed up- 
 on the brother of the deceased husband 
 lies in the primitive idea of childlessness being 
 a great calamity (cf. Gen. xvi. 4, and note), 
 and extinction of name and family one of the 
 greatest that could happen (cf. ix. 14; Ps. cix. 
 12 — 15). To avert this the ordinary rules 
 as to inter-marriage are in the case in ques- 
 tion (cf. Lev. xviii. 16) set aside. The obli- 
 gation was onerous (cf. Ruth iv. 6), and might 
 be repugnant ; and it is accordingly consider- 
 ably 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 (Ruth ii. 20, iii. 9) 
 that the office in such cases devolved on the 
 next neighbouring kinsman; or perhaps the 
 term “brethren” nj. 5 is to be understood in 
 its more general sense as etiuivalent to “kins- 
 men.” The fact that these arrangements 
 were well understood superseded the neces- 
 sity of minutely ruling such points. Moses 
 permits escape from the marriage altogether, 
 
 therein introducing apparently a new relax- 
 ation, if any brother-in-law preferred to sub- 
 mit to reproach; -vz^. 7, 8. In other words, 
 the duty is recognized as one of affection for 
 the memory of the deceased; it is not one 
 which could be enforced at law. That it 
 continued “in viridi observantia” down to 
 the Christian era is apparent from St Matt, 
 xxii. 25 sq., and the parallel passages in St 
 Mark and St Luke. 
 
 5. no child] Lit. “ no son.” But the 
 existence of a daughter would clearly suffice, 
 and so the Rabbins have always understood. 
 The daughter would inherit the name and 
 property of the father; cf. Nuin. xxvii. i — it. 
 
 9. loose his shoe from off his foot] In 
 token of taking from the unwilling brother 
 all right over the wife and property of the 
 deceased. Planting the foot on a thing was 
 an usual symbol of lordship and of taking 
 possession (cf. Gen. xiii. 17 ; Josh. x. 24), and 
 loosing the shoe and handing it to another in 
 like manner signified a renunciation and trans- 
 fer of right and title (cf. Ruth iv. 7, 8). Ps. lx. 
 8, and cviii. 9, are also to be noted here, if 
 the expression ‘ ‘ over Edom will I cast out 
 my shoe,” is rightly understood by the Jewish 
 authorities generally to mean “of Edom will 
 I take possession.” Burckhardt (‘.Notes on 
 the Bedouins,’ I. 113) states that when a Be- 
 douin husband divorces a runaway wife, he 
 usually says : “she was my slipper, I have cast 
 her off.” The widow here is clirected herself, 
 as the party slighted and injured, to deprive 
 her brother-in-law of his shoe. 
 
 spit in his face] According to the Rabbins 
 “ before his face.” The Hebrew will bear this 
 sense, but cf. Num. xii. 14. The action of 
 course is intended to aggravate the disgrace 
 conceived to attach to the conduct of the 
 man. 
 
 10 . The house of him that hath his shoe 
 loosed] Equivalent to “the house of the bare- 
 
V. II-I.] DEUTERONOMY. XXV, XXVI. 
 
 889 
 
 Heb, 
 
 sfoueand 
 
 sto7ie. 
 
 Heb. 
 n ephah 
 fid ail 
 'p/iah. 
 
 E.xod. 17. 
 
 11 ^ When men strive together 
 one with another, and the wife of 
 the one draweth near for to deliver 
 her husband out of the hand of him 
 that smiteth him, and putteth forth 
 her hand, and taketh him by the 
 secrets : 
 
 12 Then thou shalt cut off her 
 hand, thine eye shall not pity her. 
 
 13 ^1 Thou shalt not have in thy 
 bag ^ divers weights, a great and a 
 small. 
 
 14 Thou shalt not have in thine 
 house ^ divers measures, a great and a 
 small. 
 
 15 But thou shalt have a perfect 
 and just weight, a perfect and just 
 measure shalt thou have : that thy 
 days may be lengthened in the land 
 which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 
 
 16 For all that do such things, 
 and all that do unrighteously, are an 
 abomination unto the Lord thy God. 
 
 17 ^ ^Remember what Amalek 
 
 did unto thee by the way, when ye 
 were come forth out of Egypt ; 
 
 18 How he met thee by the way, 
 and smote the hindmost of thee, even 
 all that zuere feeble behind thee, v/hen 
 thou wast faint and weary; and he 
 feared not God. 
 
 19 Therefore it shall be, when 
 the Lord thy God hath given thee 
 rest from all thine enemies round 
 about, in the land which the Lord 
 thy God giveth thee for an inhe- 
 ritance to possess it, that thou shalt 
 blot out the remembrance of Amalek 
 from under heaven ; thou shalt not 
 forget it. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 I The confession of him that offer cth the basket 
 of firstfniits. 12 The prayer of him that 
 giveth his third years tithes. 16 The cove- 
 nant between God and Tie people. 
 
 A nd it shall be, when thou art 
 L come in unto the land which 
 the Lord thy God giveth thee for 
 
 footed one.” To go barefoot was a sign 
 of the most abject condition; cf. 2 S. xv. 30. 
 
 11, 12. The last lav.^ laid certain burden- 
 some obligations on men for the preservation 
 of the families of their brethren. It is now 
 followed up by another, which imposes a 
 severe penalty on a woman who by a shameless 
 act should endanger or take away the hope of 
 offspring from a man; cf. Ex. xxi. 22. The 
 act in question was probably not rare in the 
 times and countries for which the law cf 
 Moses was designed. It is of course to be 
 understood that the act was wilful, and that 
 the prescribed punishment would be inflicted 
 according to sentence of the judges. This is 
 the only mutilation prescribed by the Law of 
 Moses, unless we except the retaliation pre- 
 scribed as a punishment for the infliction on 
 another of bodily injuries. Lev. xxiv. 19, 20. 
 But that law would seldom be carried out in 
 the letter. 
 
 13 — 19 . Of duties towards our neighbour 
 those which occur most frequently will be to 
 the legislator the most important. That of 
 honesty in trade is therefore emphatically en- 
 forced once more in conclusion (cf. Lev. xix. 
 35, 36). It is noteworthy that John the 
 Baptist puts the like duties in the forefront of 
 his preaching (cf. St Luke iii. 12 sqq.) ; and 
 that “the Prophets” (cf. Ezek. xlv. 10 — 12 ; 
 Amos viii. 8; Mic. vi. 10, ii) and “the 
 Psalms” (Prov. xvi. ii, xx. 10, 23), not less 
 than “the Law,” specially insist on them. 
 
 Every part of Scripture in fact gives much 
 prominence to these duties. 
 
 13 . dinoers ’voeights'\ Lit. “ a stone and a 
 stone;” i.e. stones of unequal weights, the 
 lighter to sell with, the heavier to buy with. 
 So in Ps. xii. 2 “a heart and a heart” means 
 “a double-heart.” Stones were used by the 
 Jews instead of brass or lead for their weights, 
 as less liable to lose anything through rust or 
 wear. 
 
 15 . that thy days may be lengthened in the 
 land"] Cf. iv. 26, v. 16. 
 
 17 — 19 . Over against those duties which 
 are summed up in the words “thou shalt 
 love thy neighbour as thyself,” there stand 
 however for the Jew another set of an oppo- 
 site nature towards the enemies of God and 
 His kingdom. It was not after the spirit or 
 mission of the Law (cf. St Luke ix. 55, 56) 
 to aim at overcoming inveterate opposition 
 by love and by attempts at conversion. The 
 law taught God’s hatred of sin and of re- 
 bellion against Him by enjoining the extinc- 
 tion of the obstinate sinner. The Amalekites 
 were a kindred people (Gen. xxxvi. 15, 16); 
 and living as they did in the peninsula of 
 Sinai, they could not but have well known 
 the mighty acts God had done for His people 
 in Egypt and the Red Sea ; yet they mani- 
 fested from the first a persistent hostility to 
 Israel (cf. Ex. xvii. 8, and note ; Num. xiv. 
 45). They provoked therefore the sentence 
 
890 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXVI. 
 
 [v. 2—5. 
 
 an inheritance, and possesses! it, and 
 dwellest therein ; 
 
 2 That thou shalt take of the 
 first of all the fruit of the earth, 
 which thou shalt bring of thy land 
 that the Lord thy God giveth thee, 
 and shalt put it in a basket, and shalt 
 go unto the place which the Lord 
 thy God shall choose to place his 
 name there. 
 
 3 And thou shalt go unto the 
 priest that shall be in those days, 
 and say unto him, I profess this day 
 unto the Lord thy God, that I am 
 
 here pronounced, which was executed at last 
 by Saul, i S. xv. 
 
 Chap. XXVI. The rehearsal of rights 
 and duties, public and private, terminates in 
 this chapter with two liturgical enactments. 
 These have a clear and close reference to the 
 whole of the preceding legislation, and form 
 a most appropriate and significant conclusion 
 to it. On the performance of its part of that 
 covenant, which the previous books and chap- 
 ters have set forth, Israel was to be put in. 
 possession of God's promises. When these 
 should be realized {y. i) each Israelite is 
 directed, for himself personally and also as one 
 of the covenant people, to make solemn ac- 
 knowledgment in deed and symbol of God’s 
 faithfulness, by presentment of a basket filled 
 with firstfruits, and in word by recitation of 
 the solemn formula prescribed nj. 3 and 'v'v. 
 5 — 10. This thanksgiving is so worded as to 
 express the entire dependence of the offerer 
 and his nation upon God’s grace and mercy 
 for all they had and all they were, and to 
 check the self-righteous temper which might 
 under a covenant of works be expected to 
 develop itself. 
 
 But the continuance of God’s blessings was 
 contingent on Israel’s obedience. The oc- 
 casion of the third tithe (y. la) is accordingly 
 appointed as one for making solemn decla- 
 ration and profession on the part of each 
 Israelite that he personally had acquitted 
 himself of the several obligations laid by the 
 law upon him (y-v. 13, 14), and for prayer 
 based upon that avowal that God on His 
 side would be pleased still to bless His faithful 
 people {y. 15). 
 
 2 . thou shalt take of the first of all the 
 fruit of the eartfj] As the fruit was visible 
 proof of their being in possession of the land, 
 so the presentation of the first of their fruit 
 to God was an act of confession that they 
 owed that blessing to Him. 
 
 (^n the subject of Firstfruits see note on 
 Lev. xxiii. 10 sqq. 
 
 come unto the country which the 
 Lord sware unto our fathers for to 
 give us. 
 
 4 And the priest shall take the 
 basket out of thine hand, and set it 
 down before the altar of the Lord 
 thy God. 
 
 5 And thou shalt speak and say 
 before the Lord thy God, A Syrian 
 ready to perish was my father, and 
 he went down into Egypt, and so- 
 journed there with a few, and be- 
 came there a nation, great, mighty, 
 and populous : 
 
 The firstfruits here in question are to be 
 distinguished alike from those offered in ac- 
 knowledgment of the blessings of harvest 
 (cf. Ex. xxii. 29; Lev. xxiii. 10 — 17) at the 
 feasts of Passover and Pentecost, and also 
 from the offerings prescribed Num. xviii. 8 
 sqq. The latter consisted of preparations 
 from the produce of the earth, such as oil, 
 flour, wine, &c. ; whilst those here meant are 
 of the raw produce : the former were national 
 and public offerings, those of this chapter are 
 private and personal ones. The whole of the 
 firstfruits belonged to the officiating priest. 
 
 On the mode in which this duty of pre- 
 senting the firstfruits was actually performed 
 see note on Lev. 1 . c. 
 
 5 . A Syrian ready to perish -^vas my father'^ 
 The reference is shown by the context to be 
 to Jacob, as the ancestor in whom particularly 
 the family of Abraham began to develop into 
 a nation (cf. Is. xliii. 22, 28, &c.). Jacob is 
 called a Syrian (lit. Aramcean), not only 
 because of his own long residence in Syria 
 with Laban (Gen. xxix. — xxxi.), as our Lord 
 was called a Nazarene because of his residence 
 at Nazareth, but because he there married 
 and had his children (cf. Hos. xii. 12); and 
 might be said accordingly to belong to that 
 more than to any other land. The designation 
 of Jacob as a Syrian, found here only, has led 
 some of the Targums and Versions, also 
 Luther, and others, to render very differ- 
 ently, understanding the Syrian to be Laban ; 
 “ A Syrian was destroying, or almost de- 
 stroyed, my father:” “ Syrus persequebatur 
 patrem meum,” Vulg. But this sense of the 
 word (fibhad) is unparalleled. The rendering 
 of LXX. (yvpiav aTref^aXeu 6 Trari^p pov') is 
 singular, and irreconcileable with the present 
 punctuation. Others render the word {dh- 
 had) “wandering,” as in Ps. cxix. 176 (so 
 Gesen. ‘Thesaur.,’ Rosenm., Maurer, &c.). 
 They refer, as against the rendering adopted 
 by A. V., to the fact that Jacob, though he 
 led a nomadic life, was yet wealthy and 
 powerful. Our rendering of the word is 
 
V. 6 — 14 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXVI. 
 
 891 
 
 6 And the Egyptians evil entreated 
 us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us 
 hard bondage : 
 
 7 And when we cried unto the 
 Lord God of our fathers, the Lord 
 heard our voice, and looked on our 
 affliction, and our labour, and our op- 
 pression : 
 
 8 And the Lord brought us forth 
 out of Egypt with a mighty hand, 
 and with an outstretched arm, and 
 with great terribleness, and with signs, 
 and with wonders : 
 
 9 And he hath brought us into this 
 place, and hath given us this land, 
 even a land that floweth with milk 
 and honey. 
 
 10 And now, behold, I have brought 
 the hrstfruits of the land, which thou, 
 O Lord, hast given me. And thou 
 shalt set it before the Lord thy God, 
 and worship before the Lord thy 
 God ; 
 
 1 1 And thou shalt rsjoice in every 
 good thing which the Lord thy God 
 
 hath given unto thee, and unto thine 
 house, thou, and the Levite, and the 
 stranger that is among you. 
 
 12 *fl When thou hast made an end 
 of tithing all the tithes of thine in- 
 crease the third year, which is ^ the 
 year of tithing, and hast given it unto 
 the Levite, the stranger, the father- 
 less, and the widow, that they may 
 eat within thy gates, and be filled ; 
 
 13 Then thou shalt say before the 
 Lord thy God, I have brought away 
 the hallowed things out of mine house, 
 and also have given them unto the 
 Levite, and unto the stranger, to the 
 fatherless, and to the widow, accord- 
 ing to all thy commandments which 
 thou hast commanded me : I have not 
 transgressed thy commandments, nei- 
 ther have I forgotten them: 
 
 14 I have not eaten thereof in my 
 mourning, neither have I taken away 
 ought thereof for any unclean use^ nor 
 given ought thereof for the dead : but 
 1 have hearkened to the voice of the 
 
 however supported by Job xxix. 13 ; Prov. 
 xxxi. 6, &c. ; and as regards the fact, seems 
 sufficiently sustained by the narrative of Gen. 
 xxxi,; cf, XXXV. 3, xlii. 2, xliii, 2, 8, &c. 
 
 'Went down into Egypt] Cf. Gen, xlvi, 
 
 became there a nation] Cf. ch. vii. 7. 
 
 6 and 7 . Cf. Ex. i., ii., and iv. 
 
 8. the Lord brought us forth] Cf. Ex. xii., 
 xiii. 
 
 with signs ^ and with wonders] Cf. iv. 34. 
 
 9 . a land that floweth with milk and honey] 
 Cf. Ex. iii. 8. 
 
 11. thou shalt rejoice^ &c.] Cf. xii. 7, 12, 
 xvi. II. 
 
 12. Each third year the second or vege- 
 table tithe, instead of being taken as in other 
 years to the Sanctuary, was to be employed at 
 home in hospitality and charity (cf. xiv. 28, 
 29). The LXX. exactly give the true sense 
 in this verse, ro hevrepov ^irtbeKarov bcoaets 
 r<y AevLTrj k.t.X. But this third year s tithe, 
 tfiough really only the ordinary second tithe 
 diversely applied, is usually called the third 
 tithe (Tobit i. 7, 8 ; Joseph. ‘ Ant.’ iv. 8. 22). 
 The seventh year being Sabbatical, and no 
 tithes being payable in it (cf. Ex. xxiii. 10 
 sqq.), the “third year, the year of tithing” 
 here alluded to, would be, each third and sixth 
 of the septennial cycle. As in each of these 
 years the whole triennial series of tithe obli- 
 gations would have been completed, the Is- 
 
 raelite is appropriately called upon, “ when he 
 had made an end of tithing the third year,” to 
 make solemn profession before God that he 
 .had discharged each and all as they fell due, 
 and applied them as the law appointed. A 
 strict fulfilment of the onerous and compli- 
 cated tithe obligations was a leading part of 
 the righteousness of the Pharisees : cf. St 
 Matt, xxiii. 23. 
 
 The Jewish doctors, in full conformity with 
 the spirit of this passage, required the faithful 
 Israelite on the Preparation Day of Passover 
 in each fourth and seventh year solemnly to 
 examine himself whether he had faithfully and 
 punctually paid all the sacred dues in the 
 three preceding years, and to make restitution 
 and satisfaction for all shortcomings. On 
 the last day of Passover, at evening sacrifice, 
 the pilgrim before he returned home was to 
 recite before God the avowal and prayer, ‘w. 
 13 — 15 (cf. Dr Ginsburg in Kitto’s ‘Encycl.’ 
 art. ‘Tthe:’ and on the whole subject of 
 Tithes cf. Introd. § 5). 
 
 14 . I han)e not eaten thereof in my mourn- 
 ing] When the Israelite would be unclean, 
 cf. Lev. vii, 20, xxi. i sqq. 
 
 neither ha've I taken away ought thereof for 
 any unclean use] Rather perhaps, “ I have not 
 separated any of them when unclean.” Vulg. 
 very closely, “nec separavi ea in qualibet im- 
 munditia.” 
 
892 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 Lord my God, and have done ac- 
 cording to all that thou hast com- 
 manded me. 
 
 *isai. 63. 15 ^Look down from thy holy ha- 
 
 ^ 5 - bitation, from heaven, and bless thy 
 people Israel, and the land which thou 
 hast given us, as thou swarest unto 
 our fathers, a land that floweth with 
 milk and honey. 
 
 16 ^ This day the Lord thy God 
 hath commanded thee to do these 
 statutes and judgments : thou shalt 
 therefore keep and do them with all 
 thine heart, and with all thy soul. 
 
 17 Thou hast avouched the Lord 
 this day to be thy God, and to walk 
 in his ways, and to keep his statutes, 
 and his commandments, and his judg- 
 ments, and to hearken unto his voice : 
 
 f chap. 7, 18 And '^the Lord hath avouched 
 
 thee this day to be his peculiar people. 
 
 XXVI. XXVII. [v. 15-2. 
 
 as he hath promised thee, and that 
 thou shouldest keep all his command- 
 ments ; 
 
 19 And to make thee high above 
 all nations which he hath made, in 
 praise, and in name, and in honour; 
 and that thou mayest be an holy peo- 
 ple unto the Lord thy God, as he 
 hath spoken. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 1 The people are commanded to ^vrite the law 
 upon stones, 5 and to build an altar of whole 
 stones. II The tribes divided on Gerizim and 
 Ebal. 14 The curses pronounced on mount 
 Ebal. 
 
 A n D Moses with the elders of 
 Israel commanded the people, 
 saying. Keep all the commandments 
 which I command you this day. 
 
 2 And it shall be on the day "when ^ 
 ye shall pass over Jordan unto the 
 land which the Lord thy God giveth 
 
 nor given ought thereof for the dead] Others, as 
 perhaps LXX. (rw reOvrjKori), “to the dead,” 
 with reference apparently to the superstitious 
 custom of placing food on or in tombs (cf. 
 Juv. ‘ Sat.’ v. 85, “ feralis coena”). Probably 
 however it is the funeral expenses, and more 
 especially the usual feast for the mourners, 
 vrhich are meant (cf. Jer. xvi. 7 ; Ezek. xxiv. 
 17; Hos. ix. 4 ; Tob. iv. 17). The dedicated 
 things were to be employed in glad and holy 
 feasting, not therefore for funeral banquets, 
 for death and all associated with it was 
 regarded as unclean. 
 
 15 . Cf. Is. Ixiii. 15 ; Ixvi. i. 
 
 16 — 19 . A brief and earnest exhortation 
 by way of conclusion to the second and 
 longest discourse of the book. The people is 
 reminded that its troth was plighted to God, 
 as God’s covenant was on His part esta- 
 blished towards them. Moses entreats them 
 therefore to be faithful, that God too might 
 manifest His faithfulness in exalting them as 
 • He had promised. 
 
 17 . Thou hast avouched] Lit. “ made to 
 say : ” the word occurs in this form only in this 
 and next v. The sense is : “ Thou hast given 
 occasion to the Lord to say that He is thy 
 God,” i.e. by promising that He shall be so. 
 Cf. Ex. xxiv. 7 ; Josh. xxiv. 14 — 25, 
 
 IS. Cf. Ex. xix. 5, 6, notes and reff. 
 
 19 . Cf. Jer. xiii. ii, xxxiii. 9, 
 
 an holy people] Cf. vi(. 6, and reff. 
 
 Chau. XXVII. The law having been 
 reiterated with special reference to the cir- 
 
 cumstances of ^le people when settled in tht 
 promised land, Moses in a third discourse, 
 contained in chapters xxvii. — xxx., proceed.^ 
 more specially to dwell on its sanctions. In 
 these chapters he sets before Israel in striking 
 and elaborate detail the blessings which would 
 ensue upon faithfulness to the covenant, and 
 the curses which disobedience would involve. 
 The xxviith chapter introduces this portion 
 of the book by enjoining the erection of a 
 stone monument on which the law should be 
 inscribed as soon as the people took posses- 
 sion of the promised inheritance (yv. i — 10); 
 and by next prescribing the liturgical form 
 after which the blessings and cursings should 
 be pronounced 1 1 — 26). 
 
 1 — 10 . The erection of the stones as here 
 prescribed “on the day when Israel passed 
 over Jordan unto the land which the Lord 
 gave him,” and the inscription of the law on 
 those stones, was a symbolical act declaring 
 on the part of the people that they took pos- 
 session of the land by virtue of their covenant 
 with God, and on condition of their own 
 faithfulness th(^reto. These acts, as also the 
 preservation of the two tables in the ark of the 
 covenant (cf. xxxi. 26), were witness against 
 the people in case they should break theirvows. 
 
 1. Moses nvith the elders] The elders are 
 no doubt associated with Moses here because 
 he was near the end of his office, and hence- 
 forth it would devolve on them to require 
 what was due to God. 
 
 2 . on the day ^vhenye shall pass over Jordan] 
 The expression “ on the day” is used here, as 
 
V- 3—7-] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXVII. 
 
 893 
 
 thee, that thou shalt set thee up great 
 stones, and plaister them with plaister : 
 
 3 And thou shalt write upon them 
 all the v/ords of this law, when thou 
 art passed over, that thou mayest go 
 in unto the land which the Lord thy 
 God giveth thee, a land that floweth 
 with milk and honey; as the Lord 
 God of thy fathers hath promised 
 thee. 
 
 4 Therefore it shall be when ye be 
 gone over Jordan, that ye shall set up 
 these stones, which I command you 
 
 this day, in mount Ebal, and thou 
 shalt plaister them with plaister. 
 
 5 And there shalt thou build an al- 
 tar unto the Lord thy God, an altar 
 of stones: ''’thou shalt not lift up any 
 
 iron tool upon them. Josh. 8. 
 
 6 Thou shalt build the altar of the 
 Lord thy God of whole stones : and 
 thou shalt offer burnt offerings thereon 
 unto the Lord thy God : 
 
 7 And thou shalt offer peace offer- 
 ings, and shalt eat there, and rejoice 
 before the Lord thy God. 
 
 so often (e.g. Gen, ii. 4 ; Num.iii. i), in a broad 
 sense, and is equivalent to “at the time when.” 
 Vulg, “cum transieritis Jordanem.” Cf. in 
 'v. 3, •^vhen thou art passed over^ and nj. 4, <when 
 ye be gone o-ver. In fact the command was 
 carried out by Joshua (viii. 30 — 35), as soon 
 after the passage of Jordan as circumstances 
 permitted (cf. notes there). 
 
 thou shalt set thee up great stones ^ and plaister 
 them <with plaister^ The stones here named 
 are not those of which the altar {y. 4) was to 
 be built, but are to serve as a separate monu- 
 ment witnessing to the fact that the people 
 took possession of the land by virtue of the 
 law inscribed on them and with an acknow- 
 ledgment of its obligations. 
 
 3 . And thou shalt ^vrite upon them all the 
 'words of this law] Thus attesting at once 
 their duty and their resolve to observe that 
 which themselves thus placed in durable re- 
 cord. Cf. the injunction to the king, xvii. 
 18. It is evident that the design is to set 
 forth all the obligations of the people on their 
 side of the covenant ; hence we must not re- 
 strict the expression all the words of this law 
 (cf. Josh. i. 8; viii. 34) to the Decalogue, 
 since that was but a summary and abridgment 
 of those obligations, nor would the “great 
 stones” of ‘t». 2 be required to contain the 
 Decalogue only ; nor yet to the following 
 blessings and cursings, which certainly could 
 not be properly described by the words of 
 the text ; nor yet to the book of Deut. only. 
 The words can only mean all the laws re- 
 vealed from God to the people by Moses. 
 In these would not be included the historical, 
 didactic, ethnological, and other non-legisla- 
 tive matter comprised in the Pentateuch, but 
 simply its legal enactments, regarded by the 
 Jews as six hundred and thirteen in number. 
 The exhibition of laws in this manner on 
 stones, pillars, or tablets, was familiar to the 
 ancients. Knobel quotes Apollodorus in the 
 Scholiast on Aristoph. ‘Nub.’ 447: ol dpxaiot 
 \idovs LCTTavTi^ eldOecrav ra bb^avra eu aurois 
 dmypd(f)etv: and Polyb. xxvi. i. 4, who uses 
 VoL. I. 
 
 irapajBrjvai ras (TTT]Xa9 as a kind of proverbial 
 expression. The laws were probably graven 
 in the stone, as are for the most part the 
 Egyptian hieroglyphics, the “plaister” being 
 afterwards added to protect the inscription 
 from the weather. 
 
 4 . in mount Eb A] Cf. xi. 29; Josh. viii. 30. 
 The Samaritan Pentateuch and Version read 
 here Gerixim instead of Ebal; and are fol- 
 lowed by Kennicott, Semler, Geddes, Booth- 
 royd, Colenso, &c. But the Hebrew MSS. 
 and all ancient versions, except the Samaritan 
 (even LXX. which follows elsewhere the Sa- 
 maritan very closely), are unanimous, and far 
 outweigh the authority of the Samaritan. 
 The original text was probably, as nearly all 
 modern authorities hold, altered in order to 
 lend a show of scriptural sanction to the 
 Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim. 
 
 The erection of the altar, the offering there- 
 on burnt offerings and peace offerings 
 6, 7), the publication of the law in writ- 
 ing, form altogether a solemn renewal of the 
 covenant on the entrance of the people into 
 the promised land, and recall the ceremonies 
 observed on the original grant of the covenant 
 at Sinai. And Ebal, the mount of cursing, 
 was the fitting spot on which to celebrate 
 them. For the curses were the penalties under 
 which the children of Israel bound themselves 
 to keep the law. Suitably also was the same 
 place selected as that in which were to be 
 set up both the monumental stones containing 
 the law, and the altar at which the covenant 
 was to be renewed. We mifst note too 
 the fact that 15 sqq. set out verbatim 
 the curses only, the blessings being omitted. 
 The law because of man’s sinfulness brings on 
 him first and chiefly a curse; cf. xxxi. 16, 17; 
 Gal. iii. 10. 
 
 5 . thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon 
 them] Cf. Ex. xx. 25. 
 
 6. 7 . burnt offerings... peace offerings] As 
 on the establishment of the covenant at Sinai. 
 Cf. Ex. xxiv. 5. 
 
 3 ^ 
 
DEUTERONOMY. XXVII. 
 
 [v. 8—17. 
 
 8 And thou shalt write upon the 
 stones all the words of this law very 
 plainly. 
 
 9 ^ And iVloses and the priests the 
 Levitcs spake unto all Israel, saying, 
 Take heed, and hearken, O Israel; 
 this day thou art become the people 
 of the Lord thy God. 
 
 10 Thou shalt therefore obey the 
 voice of the Lord thy God, and do 
 his commandments and his statutes, 
 which I command thee this day. 
 
 1 1 And Moses charged the peo- 
 ple the same day, saying, 
 
 12 These shall stand upon mount 
 Gerizim to bless the people, when ye 
 are come over Jordan; Simeon, and 
 Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and 
 Joseph, and Benjamin : 
 
 13 And these shall stand upon 
 mount Ebal ^to curse; Reuben, Gad, t Heb. 
 and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, 
 
 Naphtali. 
 
 14 ^ And '^the Levites shall speak, -"Dan. 9. 
 and say unto all the men of Israel 
 
 with a loud voice, 
 
 15 Cursed be the man that maketh 
 any graven or molten image, an abo- 
 mination unto the Lord, the work of 
 the hands of the craftsman, and put- 
 teth it in a secret place. And all the 
 people shall answer and say. Amen. 
 
 16 Cursed he he that setteth light 
 by his father or his mother. And all 
 the people shall say. Amen. 
 
 17 Cursed be he that removeth his 
 neighbour’s landmark. And all the 
 people shall say. Amen. 
 
 9 , 10 , An appeal for attention, made ap- 
 parently because of the special importance of 
 what follows. 
 
 11 — 26 . Form and manner of the solemn 
 blessing and cursing. These had already been 
 prescribed xi. 29, 30, and were carried out by 
 Joshua; cf. Josh. viii. 32 — 35 : where see notes. 
 The solemnity was apparently designed only 
 for the single occasion on which it actually 
 took place. 
 
 12, 13 . The tribes appointed to stand on 
 Gerizim to bless the people all sprang from 
 the two wives of Jacob, Leah and Rachel. 
 All the four tribes which sprang from the 
 handmaids Zilpah and Bilhah are located on 
 Lbal. But in order, as it would seem, to 
 effect an equal division two tribes are added 
 to the latter from the descendants of the 
 wives, that of Reuben, probably because he 
 forfeited his primogeniture, Gen, xlix. 4 ; and 
 of Zebulun, apparently because he was the 
 youngest son of Leah. 
 
 'I'he transaction presents itself as a solemn 
 renewal of the covenant made by God with 
 Abraham and Isaac, but more especially with 
 Jacob and his family. Accordingly the genea- 
 logical basis ‘of the “twelve patriarchs” (cf. 
 Acts vii. 12), the sons of Jacob, is here as- 
 sumed. d'hc tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh 
 are merged in the name of Joseph, their 
 father; and Levi, altliough the tribe is so 
 often spoken of in this book as having for 
 secular purposes no jxart or lot with his 
 brethren (cf xiv. 27, xviii. i, 2), regains on 
 tins occasion his jdace collaterally with the 
 others. And thus whilst “the Levites” are 
 in 7'. 14 appointed to utter aloud, and no 
 doubt in chorus, the communication and the 
 
 benediction, we find nevertheless, 7;. 12, Levi 
 amongst the tribes which had to make re- 
 sponse. “The Levites” of 7;. 14 are no doubt 
 “the priests the Levites” (cf. Josh, viii, 33), 
 in whom the ministerial character attaching 
 to the tribe was more particularly manifested. 
 The rest of the tribe of Levi would stand side 
 by side with the others to occupy its own place 
 in ratifying the covenant by its “ Amen.” It 
 is noteworthy that the group of tribes which 
 stood on Gerizim far exceeded the other in 
 numbers and in importance, thus perhaps 
 indicating that even by the Law the blessing 
 should at length prevail. 
 
 15 . The arrangements of this striking 
 solemnity are more nearly indicated in Josh, 
 viii. 32 sqq. : where see notes. The “Amen” 
 attested the conviction of the utterers that the 
 sentences to which they responded were true, 
 just, and certain: so in Num. v. 22, and in 
 our own Gommination Office, which is mo- 
 delled after this ordinance of Moses, 
 
 15 — 26 . Twelve curses against transgres- 
 sions of the covenant. The first eleven are 
 directed against special sins which are selected 
 by way of example, the last comprehensively 
 sums up in general terms and condemns all 
 and every offence against God’s law. 
 
 Cursed be the man that viaketh any gransen 
 or molten image^ Cf. iv. 16, v. 8 ; Ex. xx. 4, 
 23; Lev. xxvi, I, 
 
 putteih it in a secret placed This and the 
 other maledictions seem especially to aim at 
 those forms of guilt which could be most 
 easily screened from human justice. 
 
 16 . Cf. xxi. 18; Lev. xix. 3. 
 
 17 . Cf. xix. 14 and reff. 
 
V. i8-s.] DEUTERONOMY. XXVII. XXVIII. 895 
 
 18 Cursed he he that maketh the 
 blind to wander out of the way. And 
 all the people shall say, Amen. 
 
 19 Cursed he he that perverteth 
 • the judgment of the stranger, father- 
 less, and widow. And all the people 
 shall say. Amen. 
 
 20 Cursed he he that lieth with his 
 father’s wife ; because he uncovereth 
 his father’s skirt. And all the people 
 shall say. Amen. 
 
 21 Cursed he he that lieth with any 
 manner of beast. And all the people 
 shall say. Amen. 
 
 22 Cursed he he that lieth with his 
 sister, the daugjiter of his father, or 
 the daughter of his mother. And all 
 the people shall say. Amen. 
 
 23 Cursed he he that lieth with his 
 mother in law. And all the people 
 shall say, Amen. 
 
 24 Cursed he he that smiteth his 
 neighbour secretly. And all the peo- 
 ple shall say. Amen. 
 
 rfEzek.22. 25 ^Cursed he he that taketh re- 
 ward to slay an innocent person. And 
 all the people shall say. Amen. 
 
 26 '’Cursed he he that confirmeth ^ 3- 
 
 10 . 
 
 not all the words of this law to do 
 them. And all the people shall say. 
 Amen. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 I The blessings for obedience. 15 The cnrses for 
 disobedience. 
 
 AND it shall come to pass, "if thou 
 shalt hearken diligently unto the 
 voice of the Lord thy God, to ob- 
 serve aa^ to do all his commandments 
 which I command thee this day, that 
 the Lord thy God will set thee on 
 high above all nations of the earth : 
 
 2 And all these blessings shall come 
 on thee, and overtake thee, if thou 
 shalt hearken unto the voice of the 
 Lord thy God. 
 
 3 Blessed shalt thou he in the city, 
 and blessed shalt thou he in the field. 
 
 4 Blessed shall he the fruit of thy 
 body, and the fruit of thy ground, 
 and the fruit of thy cattle, the in- 
 crease of thy kine, and the flocks of 
 thy sheep. 
 
 5 Blessed shall he thy basket and do7/gh, or, 
 thy "store. 
 
 18 . Cf. Lev. xix. 14. 
 
 19 . Cf. xxiv. 17 and reff. 
 
 20. Cf. xxii. 30. 
 
 21 . Cf. Lev. xviii. 33, xx. 15. 
 
 22. Cf. Lev. xviii. 9, xx. 17. 
 
 23 . Cf. Lev. xviii. 17, xx. 14. 
 
 24 . Cf. xix. II sqq. 
 
 25 . Cf. Ex. xxiii. 7, 8. 
 
 26 . Cf. xxviii. 15; Ps. cxix. 21 ; Jer. xi. 3. 
 
 The blessings, as has been already observed, 
 
 are not given. No doubt when the solemnity 
 was enacted by Joshua they ran mutatis mu~ 
 tandis in the same formula as the curses, and 
 they were probably (as the Mishna says, see 
 Surenhusius, ‘ Mish.’ ill. 262) delivered alter- 
 nately with the several corresponding curses : 
 “Blessed is he that maketh not any graven 
 image,” &c. 
 
 Chap. XXVIII. Having enjoined the 
 solemn rehearsal of the blessings and the curs- 
 ings, Moses next enlarges upon them, and 
 describes in detail their effect and import. 
 His object is of course to impress upon his 
 hearers clearly and fully the momentous con- 
 sequences of their own acts, whether for good 
 or for evil. A comparison of this chapter 
 with ‘Ex. xxiii. 20 — 23 and Lev. xxvi. will 
 shew how he here resumes and amplifies the 
 
 promises and threats already set forth in the 
 earlier records of the law. The blessings are 
 declared in fourteen 'vno . ; the curses require 
 nearly four times as many. Thus here again 
 the curse is the more conspicuous feature in 
 the law. The language rises in this chapter 
 to the sublimest strains, especially in the latter 
 part of it ; and the prophecies respecting the 
 dispersion and degradation of the Jewish 
 nation in its later days are amongst the most 
 remarkable in scripture. They are plain, 
 precise, and circumstantial ; and the fulfil- 
 ment of them has been literal, complete, and 
 undeniable. Dean Jackson, ‘ On the Creed,’ i. 
 
 27 — 30, draws out the argument derivable 
 from this particular prophecy with fulness 
 and care, and applies it to establish the inspi- 
 ration and authority of scripture. 
 
 1 — 14 . The Blessing. As in the closing 
 words of the exposition of the Law, xxvi. 19, 
 so here, exaltation is promised to Israel on 
 condition of obedience. The condition is 
 very emphatically stated at the beginning , 
 I, 2), middle fv.f). and close (^vno. 13, 14) of 
 this portion of the discourse; and the several 
 blessings enumerated appear as directly conse- 
 quent on its performance. The six repetitions 
 of the word “blessed” introduce the particu- 
 lar forms which the blessing would take in 
 the various relations of life. 
 
 3 L 2 
 
896 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXVIII. 
 
 [v. D 20. 
 
 6 Blessed shalt thou be when thou 
 comest in, and blessed shalt thou be 
 when thou goest out. 
 
 7 The Lord shall cause thine ene- 
 mies that rise up against thee to be 
 smitten before thy face: they shall 
 come out against thee one way, and 
 flee before thee seven ways. 
 
 8 The Lord shall command the 
 
 JOr,^ blessing upon thee in thy ''store- 
 
 ' houses, and in all that thou settest 
 
 thine hand unto; and he shall bless 
 thee in the land which the Lord thy 
 God giveth thee. 
 
 9 I'he Lord shall establish thee an 
 holy people unto himself, as he hath 
 sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep 
 the commandments of the Lord thy 
 God, and walk in his ways. 
 
 10 And all people of the earth 
 shall see that thou art called by the 
 name of the Lord ; and they shall be 
 afraid of thee. 
 
 *chap. 30. II And ^the Lord shall make thee 
 plenteous “ in goods, in the fruit of thy 
 ^ body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, 
 tei/y. and in the fruit of thy ground, in the 
 land which the Lord sware unto thy 
 fathers to give thee. 
 
 12 The Lord shall open unto thee 
 his good treasure, the heaven to give 
 the rain unto thy land in his season, 
 and to bless all the work of thine 
 ^chap. 15. hand: and ^thou shalt lend unto many 
 nations, and thou shalt not borrow. 
 
 13 And the Lord shall make thee 
 the head, and not the tail ; and 
 thou shalt be above only, and thou 
 shalt not be beneath ; if that thou 
 hearken unto the commandments of 
 the Lord thy God, which I com- 
 mand thee this day, to observe and to 
 do them : 
 
 14 And thou shalt not go aside 
 from any of the words which I com- 
 mand thee this day, to the right hand, 
 or to the left, to go after other gods 
 to serve them. 
 
 15 ^ But it shall come to pass, 
 
 ‘^if thou wilt not hearken unto the Lev. 26. 
 voice of the Lord thy God, to ob- Lam. 2. 17. 
 serve to do all his commandments £uch i.‘ 
 and his statutes which I command 
 thee this day ; that all these curses 
 shall come upon thee, and overtake 
 thee : 
 
 16 Cursed shalt thou be in the city, 
 and cursed shalt thou be in the field. 
 
 17 Cursed shall be thy basket and 
 thy store. 
 
 18 Cursed shall be the fruit of thy 
 body, and the fruit of thy land, the 
 increase of thy kine, and the flocks of 
 thy sheep. 
 
 19 Cursed shalt thou be when thou 
 comest in, and cursed shalt thou be 
 when thou goest out. 
 
 20 The Lord shall send upon thee ^ 
 cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all which thou 
 that thou settest thine hand unto ^ for 
 
 5 . Blessed shall be thy basket] The word 
 translated “basket” (jene') occurs only again 
 in xxvi. 2, where its sense is determined alike 
 by the connexion and by the immemorial 
 practice of the Jews, The basket or bag was 
 a customary means in the East for carrying 
 about whatever might be needed for personal 
 uses; cf. St John xiii. 29; Juv. ‘Sat.’ in. 14, 
 “Judaeis, quorum cophinus foenumque su- 
 pellex,” 
 
 store] Rather kneading-trough, as the 
 word is properly rendered in Ex. viii. 3 and 
 xii. 34. Others render “what was left;” so 
 LXX. Vulg. and Luther. Hut see note on 
 Ex, xii. 34. The blessings here promised 
 relate, it will be observed, to private and per- 
 sonal life : in v. 7 those which are of a more 
 public and national character are brought for- 
 ward. 
 
 6. C:f. Ps. exxi. 8. 
 
 8. storehouses] The Hebrew word {dsdm) 
 is Aramaic, and only used here and in Prov. 
 iii. 10. See Gesen. s. v. 
 
 9. as he hath sqjjorn unto thee] The oath 
 with which God vouchsafed to confirm His 
 promises to the patriarchs (cf Gen. xxii. 16 ; 
 Heb. vi. 13, 14; contained by implication 
 these gifts of holiness and eminence to Israel 
 (cf Ex. xix. c, 6), 
 
 13 . Cf. 2;. 44. 
 
 15 — 68 . The Curses. 
 
 15 — 19 . The Blessings are promised in six 
 forms (2’2’. 3 — 6) as rewards of obedience, and 
 the results of the contrary conduct are set 
 forth in manner and number corresponding. 
 The special modes in which these threats 
 should be executed are described in five groups 
 of denunciations, •w. 20 — 68. 
 
 20 — 26 . First series of judgments. The 
 curse of God should rest on all they do, and 
 
V. 21 — 29.] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXVIII. 
 
 to do, until thou be destroyed, and 
 until thou perish quickly ; because of 
 the wickedness of thy doings, whereby 
 thou hast forsaken me. 
 
 21 The Lord shall make the pes- 
 tilence cleave unto thee, until he have 
 consumed thee from off the land, whi- 
 ther thou goest to possess it. 
 
 ^Lev. 26. 22 ^The Lord shall smite thee 
 
 with a consumption, and with a fever, 
 and with an inflammation, and with 
 an extreme burning, and with the 
 " sword, and with blasting, and with 
 mildew ; and they shall pursue thee 
 until thou perish. 
 
 23 And thy heaven that is over 
 thy head shall be brass, and the earth 
 that is under thee shall be iron. 
 
 24 The Lord shall make the rain 
 of thy land powder and dust : from 
 heaven shall it come down upon thee, 
 until thou be destroyed. 
 
 25 The Lord shall cause thee to 
 
 be smitten before thine enemies : thou 
 shalt go out one way against them, 
 and flee seven ways before them : and 
 shalt be Temoved into all the king-y^^^^;,^_ 
 doms of the earth. moving. 
 
 26 And thy carcase shall be meat 
 unto all fowls of the air, and unto the 
 beasts of the earth, and no man shall 
 fray them away. 
 
 27 The Lord will smite thee with 
 the botch of Egypt, and with the 
 emerods, and with the scab, and with 
 the itch, whereof thou canst not be 
 healed. 
 
 28 The Lord shall smite thee with 
 madness, and blindness, and astonish- 
 ment of heart : 
 
 29 And thou shalt grope at noon- 
 day, as the blind gropeth in darkness, 
 and thou shalt not prosper in thy 
 ways : and thou shalt be only op- 
 
 f 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 should issue in manifold forms of disease, 
 in famine, and in defeat in war. 
 
 20. cursing'] Cf. Mai, ii. 2. 
 
 ‘vexation] Rather confusion: the word is 
 used (vii. 23 ; i S. xiv. 20) for the panic and 
 disorder with which the curse of God smites 
 His foes. 
 
 21. the pestilence] The word is a general 
 term (cf. Lev. xxvi. 25; Hab. iii. 5); the 
 painful symptoms and concomitants of the 
 pestilence are set forth in the next verse. 
 
 22. nvith*a consumption., and^juith a fe'ver] 
 Cf. Lev. xxvi. 16. The Hebrew words occur 
 only in these two places. 
 
 'with the sword] Others “ drought” or 
 “ heat.” But see Note at end of chapter. 
 
 with blasting., and with mildew] The same 
 words occur together Amos iv. 9. They are 
 derived from roots signifying respectively “to 
 be black,” “to be yellow.” The former 
 denotes (cf. Gen. xli. 23) the result of the 
 scorching east wind, the latter that of an un- 
 timely blight falling on the green ear, wither- 
 ing it and marring its produce. 
 
 23 . Cf. Lev. xxvi. 19. 
 
 24 . When the heat is very great the at- 
 mosphere in Palestine is often filled with dust 
 and sand ; the wind is a burning sirocco, and 
 
 • the air comparable to the glowing heat at the 
 mouth of a furnace. Cf. Robinson, ‘ B. R.’ 
 II. 123. 
 
 25 . The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten 
 before thine enemies] Cf. Lev. xxvi. 17, 37; 
 Is. XXX. 17. 
 
 shalt be remo‘ved] Lit. “ shall be for a re- 
 moving.” The threat differs from that of Lev. 
 xxvi. 33, w’hich refers to a dispersion of the 
 people amongst the heathen. Here it is meant 
 that they should be tossed to and fro at the 
 win of others, driven from one country to 
 another without any certain settlement. Is- 
 rael should be, so to speak, a ball for all the 
 kingdoms of the earth to play with (Schultz). 
 Contrast v. 10 ; and for the word cf. Jer. xv. 
 4, xxiv. 9 ; Ezek. xxiii. 46, &c. 
 
 26 . Cf. Ps. Ixxix. 2, 3. This was looked 
 upon with the greatest horror ; cf. Joseph. 
 
 ‘ Bell. Jud.’ IV. 5. 6 ; Sophocles, ‘Antig.’ 26 sqq. 
 
 27 — 37 . Further working of the curse of 
 God on the body, soul, and outward circum- 
 stances of the sinners. 
 
 27 . the botch of Egypt] Rather boil, as 
 the word is translated in Ex. ix. 9, where see 
 note. 
 
 the emerods] Cf. i S. v. 6, 9. The Hebrew 
 word signifies tumours merely. 
 
 with the scab (cf. Lev. xxi. 20), and with the 
 itch] Various forms of the loathsome skin 
 diseases which are common in Syria and Egypt. 
 
 28 . Mental maladies shall be added to 
 those sore bodily plagues, and should (29 — 
 34) reduce the sufferers to powerlessness be- 
 fore their enemies and oppressors. 
 
 madness] LXX. napaTrXrj^ta : cf. Jer. xxv. 
 16—18. 
 
 blindness] Most probably mental blindness; 
 cf, Lam. iv. 14 ; Zeph. i. 17 ; 2 Cor. iii. 14, sqq. 
 
 astonishment] Cf. Jer, iv. 9. 
 
 29 . thou shalt grope] Cf. Is. lix. 10. 
 
898 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXVIII. [v. 30-44* 
 
 pressed and spoiled evermore, and no 
 man shall save thee. 
 
 30 Thou shalt betroth a wife, and 
 another man shall lie with her : thou 
 shalt build an house, and thou shalt 
 /chap. 20. not dwell therein : thou shalt plant 
 f’Heb. ^ vineyard, and shalt not ^ gather the 
 grapes thereof. 
 
 as common 3 1 Thine ox shall be slain before 
 7 nea . ^hine eyes, and thou shalt not eat 
 thereof : thine ass shall be violently 
 taken away from before thy face, and 
 ^ Uhall not be restored to thee: thy 
 return to sheep skall be given unto thine ene- 
 ‘ ' mies, and thou shalt have none to 
 rescue them. 
 
 32 Thy sons and thy daughters 
 shall be given unto another people, 
 and thine eyes shall look, and fail 
 with longing for them all the day 
 long : and there shall be no might in 
 thine hand. 
 
 33 The fruit of thy land, and all 
 thy labours, shall a nation which 
 thou knowest not eat up ; and thou 
 shalt be only oppressed and crushed 
 alway : 
 
 34 So that thou shalt be mad for 
 the sight of thine eyes which thou 
 shalt see. 
 
 35 The Lord shall smite thee in 
 the knees, and in the legs, with a 
 sore botch that cannot be healed, from 
 
 the sole of thy foot unto the top of 
 thy head. 
 
 36 The Lord shall bring thee, 
 and thy king which thou shalt set 
 over thee, unto a nation which nei- 
 ther thou nor thy fathers have known ; 
 and there shalt thou serve other gods, 
 wood and stone. 
 
 37 And thou shalt become ^ an ^ 9 - 
 
 astonishment, a proverb, and a by- Jer- 24- 9 - 
 word, among all nations whither the 
 Lord shall lead thee. 
 
 38 Thou shalt carry much seed ^ 
 
 out into the field, and shalt gather Eag. i. 6. 
 but little in ; for the locust shall con- 
 sume it. 
 
 39 Thou shalt plant vineyards, and 
 dress them.^ but shalt neither drink of 
 the wine, nor gather the grapes ; for 
 the worms shall eat them. 
 
 40 Thou shalt have olive trees 
 throughout all thy coasts, but thou 
 shalt not anoint thyself with the oil ; 
 for thine olive shall cast his fruit. 
 
 41 Thou shalt beget sons and 
 daughters, but ^ thou shalt not enjoy 
 them; for they shall go into captivity, not he 
 
 42 All thy trees and fruit of thy 
 
 land shall the locust " consume. “ o-, ^ 
 
 43 The stranger that is within thee ^ 
 shall get up above thee very high ; 
 and thou shalt come down very low. 
 
 44 He shall lend to thee, and thou 
 
 no man shall sanse thee^^ Cf. Lam, v. 8. 
 
 30 . Thou shalt betroth a ^ife'\ Cf. Jer. 
 viii. 10. 
 
 thou shalt build an house'\ Cf. Amos v. ii ; 
 Micahvi. 15 ; Zeph, i. 13. 
 
 shalt not gather the grapes thereof Lit. “use 
 it as common,” or profane it ; cf. xx. 6, and 
 note, 
 
 31 . shall not be restored^ Lit. “ return. ” 
 
 32 . Thy sons and thy daughters shall be 
 gi'ven unto another people^ Cf. 2 Chron. xxix. 9. 
 
 there shall be no might in thine hand'] Keil 
 renders “thy hand shall not be towards 
 Crod.” I'he rendering of A. V. is preferable ; 
 cf. (len. xxxi. 29 and note. 
 
 33 . (^f. Neh. ix. 36, 37; Jer. v. 17. 
 
 35 . Cf. -v. 27 and Is. i. 6. 
 
 36 . and thy king] Cf. note on xvii. 14. 
 
 38 48 . I'he curse is described as work- 
 
 ing on every kind of labour and enterprise, 
 
 until it had accomplished the total ruin of 
 the nation, and its subjection to its enemies, 
 
 38 , Cf. Mic. vi. 15 ; Hag. i. 6; Joeli. 4* 
 
 39. ^orms] i. e. the vine-weevil, the con- 
 volvulus of Pliny, ‘ Nat. Hist.’ xvii. 47, and 
 Cato, ‘ de Re Rustica,’ chap. 95, who pre- 
 scribe elaborate precautions against its ravages. 
 Plautus, ‘Cistell.’ iv. 2, calls it “involvulus:” 
 ip'- La. Imitatin' nequam bestiam, et damnifi- 
 cam. Ph. Quamnam amabo ? La. Involvu- 
 lum, qiuK in pampini folio intorta, implicat 
 se”). Bochart, ‘ Hieroz.’ Part ii. Lib. iv. ch. 
 27, identifies this worm with that called or 
 i\j/ by the Greeks. 
 
 40 . thine olinse shall cast his fruit] Render 
 shall fall off. See Note at end cf chapter. 
 
 41 . they shall go into captivity] Cf. Lam. 
 i. 5. 
 
 42 , shall the locust consume] Lit. “ possess,” 
 a word in this connection even more forcible. 
 
 43, 44 . Contrast w. 12 and 13. 
 
V. 45-56.] df:uteronomy. xxviii. 
 
 899 
 
 T Heb. 
 hear. 
 t Heb. 
 strong o_ 
 face. 
 
 shalt not lend to him : he shall be the 
 head, and thou shalt be the tail. 
 
 45 Moreover all these curses shall 
 come upon thee, and shall pursue 
 thee, and overtake thee, till thou be 
 destroyed ; because thou hearkenedst 
 not unto the voice of the Lord thy 
 God, to keep his commandments and 
 his statutes which he commanded thee : 
 
 46 And they shall be upon thee for 
 a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy 
 seed for ever. 
 
 47 Because thou servedst not the 
 Lord thy God with joyfulness, and 
 with gladness of heart, for the abun- 
 dance of all things; 
 
 48 Therefore shalt thou serve thine 
 enemies which the Lord shall send 
 against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, 
 and in nakedness, and in want of all 
 things: and he shall put a yoke of 
 iron upon thy neck, until he have 
 destroyed thee. 
 
 49 The Lord shall bring a nation 
 against thee from far, from the end 
 of the earth, as swift as the eagle 
 flieth \ a nation whose tongue thou 
 shalt not ^ understand ; 
 
 50 A nation ^ of fierce counte- 
 nance, which shall not regard the 
 person of the old, nor shew favour 
 to the young: 
 
 51 And he shall eat the fruit of 
 thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, 
 until thou be destroyed : which also 
 
 shall not leave thee either corn, wine, 
 or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or 
 flocks of thy sheep, until he have de- 
 stroyed thee. 
 
 52 And he shall besiege thee in 
 all thy gates, until thy high and 
 fenced walls come . down, wherein 
 thou trustedst, throughout all thy 
 land : and he shall besiege thee in 
 all thy gates throughout all thy land, 
 which the Lord thy God hath given 
 thee. 
 
 53 And ^’thou shalt eat the fruit 
 
 of thine own ^ body, the flesh of thy 2^kin. e. 
 sons and of thy daughters, v/hich the Sm. 4. 10, 
 L0R.D thy God hath given thee, in 2. 
 the siege, and in the straitness, where- t Heb. 
 with thine enemies shall distress thee : 
 
 54 So that the man that is tender 
 among you, and very delicate, his eye 
 shall be evil toward his brother, and 
 toward the v/ife of his bosom, and 
 toward the remnant of his children 
 which he shall leave : 
 
 55 So that he will not give to any 
 of them of the flesh of his children 
 whom he shall eat : because he hath 
 nothing left him in the siege, and in 
 the straitness, wherewith thine ene- 
 mies shall distress thee in all thy 
 gates. 
 
 56 The tender and delicate wo- 
 man among you, which would not 
 adventure to set the sole of her foot 
 upon the ground for delicateness and 
 
 • 46 . for e'ver'] Yet “the remnant” (Rom. 
 ix. 27, xi. 5) would by faith and obedience 
 become a holy seed. 
 
 47 . Cf. Neh. ix. 35 — 37 ; ch, xxxii. 15. 
 
 48 . Cf. Jer. xxviii. 14. 
 
 49 — 58 . The calamities and horrors 
 
 which should ensue when Israel should be 
 subjugated, as was denounced in the preceding 
 by its foreign foes. 
 
 49 . The Lord shall bring a nation against 
 thee from far'] This, as other features of the 
 description (cf. Jer. iv. 13, v. 15 ; Lam. iv. 19 ; 
 Hab. i. 8), apply undoubtedly to the Chal- 
 deans, and in a degree to other nations also 
 whom God raised up as ministers of vengeance 
 upon apostate Israel (e.g. the Medes, cf. Is. 
 xiii. 17, 18). But it only needs to read this 
 part of the denunciation, and to compare it 
 with the narrative of Josephus, ‘ De Bell. Jud.’ 
 
 VI. to see that its full and exact accomplish- 
 ment took place in the wars of Vespasian and 
 Titus against the Jews, as indeed the Jews 
 themselves generally admit. 
 
 49 . the eagle] The Roman ensign; cf. St 
 Matt. xxiv. 28. 
 
 50 . A nation of fierce coiinteticmce] Lit. 
 “ strong or firm of face.” So in the prediction 
 of the Roman power, Dan. viii. 23. Cf. 
 Prov. vii. 13, xxi. 29. 
 
 52 . And he shall besiege thee] This part ol 
 the prophecy received various minor fulfil- 
 ments before the crowning accomplishment 
 of it by the Romans. Cf. 2 K. vi. and xxv. 
 
 53 . Cf. Lev. xxvi. 29 and reff. ; 2 K. vi. 
 2 8, sqq. 
 
 54 . his eye shall be enjil] i. e. grudging ; 
 cf. XV. 9. 
 
900 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXVIII. [v. 57-67. 
 
 tenderness, her eye shall be evil to- 
 ward the husband of her bosom, and 
 toward her son, and toward her 
 daughter, 
 
 f Heb. ry And toward her Yo^np; one 
 
 tnat cometh out rrom between her 
 feet, and toward her children which 
 she shall bear : for she shall eat them 
 for want of all things secretly in the 
 siege and straitness, wherewith thine 
 enemy shall distress thee in thy gates. 
 
 58 If thou wilt not observe to do 
 all the words of this law that are 
 v/ritten in this book, that thou may- 
 est fear this glorious and fearful name, 
 
 THE LORD THY GOD; 
 
 59 Then the Loud will make thy 
 plagues wonderful, and the plagues of 
 thy seed, eve?! great plagues, and of 
 long continuance, and sore sicknesses, 
 and of long continuance. 
 
 60 Moreover he will bring upon 
 thee all the diseases of Egypt, which 
 thou wast afraid of; and they shall 
 cleave unto thee. 
 
 61 Also every sickness, and every 
 plague, which is not written in the 
 book of this law, them will the Lord 
 
 tHeb. ^ bring; upon thee, until thou be de- 
 
 canseto 
 
 ascend. stroyed. 
 
 62 And ye shall be left few in 
 
 number, whereas ye were '^’as the stars 
 of heaven for multitude ; because thou 
 wouldest not obey the voice of the 
 Lord thy God. 
 
 63 And it shall come to pass, that 
 as the Lord rejoiced over you to do 
 you good, and to multiply you ; so the 
 Lord will rejoice over you to destroy 
 you, and to bring you to nought ; and 
 ye shall be plucked from off the land 
 whither thou goest to possess it. 
 
 64 And the Lord shall scatter 
 thee among all people, from the one 
 end of the earth even unto the other; 
 and there thou shalt serve other gods, 
 which neither thou nor thy fathers 
 have known, even wood and stone. 
 
 65 And among these nations shalt 
 thou find no ease, neither shall the 
 sole of thy foot have rest : but the 
 Lord shall give thee there a trem- 
 bling heart, and failing of eyes, and 
 sorrow of mind : 
 
 66 And thy life shall hang in doubt 
 before thee; and thou shalt fear day 
 and night, and shalt have none as- 
 surance of thy life : 
 
 67 In the morning thou shalt say, 
 Would God it were even! and at 
 even thou shalt say. Would God it 
 were morning! for the fear of thine 
 
 57 . A?id toward her young one~\ The word 
 
 translated “ one” means “afterbirth;” 
 
 and this verse is probably to be taken as 
 setting forth the reason why “the delicate 
 woman” would have an “evil eye” toward 
 her husband: i.e. she would grudge him his 
 share. “ Idque ob secundinam suam et ob 
 filios” (Rosenm.). The Hebrew text in fact 
 suggests an extremity of horror which the 
 A.V. fails to exhibit. Cf. 2 K. vi. 29: and 
 Josephus, ‘ De Bell. Jud.’ vi. 3. 4. 
 
 58 68. Ultimate issues of the curse in 
 
 the uprooting of Israel from the promised 
 land, and its dispersion amongst other nations. 
 
 58 . in this hook~\ i.e. in the book of the 
 Law, or the Pentateuch in so far as it con- 
 tains commands of God to Israel. IDeut. is 
 included, but not exclusively intended. So v. 
 61 ; cf. xxvii. 3 and note, xxxi. 9 and note. 
 
 this glorious and fearful name~\ Cf. Ex. vi. 
 3 ; Lev. xxiv. ii, sqq. 
 
 60 . all the diseases of Egypt] Cf. vii. 15 
 and note. 
 
 62 . ye shall be left few in number] See the 
 same threat iv. 27. 
 
 ye were as the stars of heaven] Cf. x. 22 ; 
 Neh. ix. 23. 
 
 63 . rejoiced over you to do you good] Cf. 
 XXX. 9 ; Jer. xxxii. 41. 
 
 rejoice over you to destroy you] Cf. Prov. i. 26. 
 
 64 . the Lord shall scatter thee] Cf. iv. 27, 
 28 ; Lev. xxvi. 33 ; Neh. i. 8 ; Jer. xvi. 13 ; 
 Ecclus. xlviii. 15 ; Joseph. ‘ De Bell. Jud.’ vi. 
 9. 2. 
 
 65 . Cf. Lev. xxvi. 36 ; Amos ix. 4. 
 
 66. thy life shall hang in doubt before thee] 
 Lit. “thy’^life shall be hanging before thee, ’ 
 i. e. shall be hanging as it were on a thread, 
 and that before thine own eyes. The Fathers 
 (Iren. ‘ Adv. Haer.’ iv. 23, V. 23 ; Tertullian, 
 ‘ Contr. Jud.’ xi. ; Lactant. ‘de Ver. Sap.’ 
 IV. 18; Athanas. ‘ de Incar.’ xxxv. and 
 others) regard this passage as suggesting^ in 
 a secondary or mystical sense Christ hanging 
 on the cross, as the life of the Jews who 
 would not believe in Him. 
 
 67 . Cf. Job vii. 4, 
 
V.6S-I.1 DEUTERONOMY. XXVIII. XXIX. 
 
 901 
 
 heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and 
 for the sight of thine eyes which thou 
 shalt see. 
 
 68 And the Lord shall bring thee 
 into Egypt again with ships, by the 
 
 way whereof I spake unto thee. Thou 
 shalt see it no more again : and there 
 ye shall be sold unto your enemies for 
 bondmen and bondwomen, and no 
 man shall buy you. 
 
 68. bring tbee into Egypt again 'rjjith ships] 
 This is the climax. As the exodus from 
 Egypt was as it were the birth of the nation 
 into its covenant relationship with God, so 
 the return to the house of bondage is in like 
 manner the death of it. The mode of con- 
 veyance, “in ships,” is added to heighten the 
 contrast. * They crossed the sea from Egypt 
 with a high hand, the waves being parted before 
 them. They should go back again cooped up 
 in slave-ships. Cf. Hosea viii. 13, ix. 3. 
 
 by the rujay nvhereof I spake unto thee.. Thou 
 shalt see it no more again] An explanation, 
 not of the words “in ships,” but of the pre- 
 ceding threat that they should be brought 
 
 back to Egypt; cf. xvii. 16. With the 'v. 
 cf. Jer. xlii. and xliii.; EIos. viii. 13, ix. 3. 
 
 there ye shall be sold] Rather, “ there shall ye 
 offer yourselves, or be offered for sale.” This 
 denunciation was literally fulfilled on more 
 than one occasion : most signally when many 
 thousand Jews were sold into slavery and 
 sent into Egypt by Titus (cf. Joseph. ‘ De 
 Bell. Jud.’ VI. 9. 2) ; but also under Hadrian, 
 when numbers were again sold at Rachel’s 
 grave. Cf. Jerome on Jer. xxxi. 
 
 no fnan shall buy you] i.e. no one shall ven- 
 ture even to employ you as slaves, regarding 
 you as accursed of God, and to be shunned 
 in everything. 
 
 NOTES on Chap, xxviii. 22, and 40 
 
 v, 22. 
 
 The rendering “ drought,” “ heat,” is 
 supported by Samar., Vulg., Luth., Geddes, 
 Gesen., &c., but would seem to require a 
 change in the pointing; cf. Gen. xxxi. 40. 
 The A. V. is supported by LXX. ((povco), 
 Saad., and the majority of authorities of all 
 kinds. The judgment of drought too is 
 introduced in what immediately follows. 
 
 •v. 40. 
 
 The verb is best taken with Furst, 
 Gesen., Knobel, and most authorities as the 
 Kal. Fut. of used intransitively. Keil 
 however, with Schultz and some others, hold 
 it to be the Niphal of another verb and 
 the sense would thus be “shall be spoiled or 
 plundered.” A like difference of opiiiion 
 exists on xix. 5, where a form occurs which 
 probably belongs to the same verb. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 I Moses exhorteth them to obedience^ by the 
 inesnory of the works they have seen, 10 Ail 
 are presented before the Lord to enter into his 
 covenant. 1 8 The great wrath on him that 
 flatter eth himself in his wickedness. 29 Secret 
 things belong unto God. 
 
 T hese are the words of the co- 
 venant, which the Lord com- 
 manded Moses to make with the chil- 
 dren of Israel in the land of Moab, 
 beside the covenant which he made 
 with them in Horeb. 
 
 Chap. XXIX. This and the following 
 chapter contain the address of Moses to the 
 people on the solemn renewal of the covenant. 
 The people were now on the borders of the 
 promised land, ready to enter in and take 
 possession of that which God on His side had 
 stipulated. It was fitting therefore that in 
 doing so they should once more on their side 
 recognize the obligations under which they 
 were laid. The renewal of the covenant in the 
 land of Moab did not consist in any revision 
 or alteration of stipulations, nor in a repeti- 
 tion of the sacrifices and the blood-sprinkling 
 (cf. FN. xxiv.), with which the compact was 
 ratified at Sinai. These acts remained still 
 valid, and all that was necessary was a de- 
 
 claration on the part of God that His pro- 
 mises and purposes towards them still con- 
 tinued in force; and on the part of the people 
 a new and solemn profession of their duties, 
 and a vow to discharge them. This it was 
 the more incumbent on them to make, and on 
 Moses to require, because thus far, as Moses 
 reminded them in ch. i., they had repeatedly 
 broken their engagements to God. 
 
 After making appeal to God’s past mercies 
 (tj-v. I — 9), Moses summons the people to 
 pledge themselves anew to the covenant (‘v'v. 
 10 — 15), denouncing once more rejection of 
 them by God in case of their apostasy (‘vt. 
 16-— 29); but promising restoration upon 
 their repentance (xxx. i — 14). Finally he 
 
902 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXIX. 
 
 [v. 2 12. 
 
 2 ^ And Moses called unto all Is- 
 « Exod. 19. rael, and said unto them, "*^Ye have 
 
 seen all that the Lord did before 
 your eyes in the land of Egypt unto 
 Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, 
 and unto all his land; 
 
 3 The great temptations 'which 
 thine eyes have seen, the signs, and 
 those great miracles : 
 
 4 Yet the Lord hath not given 
 you an heart to perceive, and eyes to 
 see, and ears to hear, unto this day. 
 
 5 And I have led you forty years 
 in the wilderness : your clothes are 
 not waxen old upon you, and thy 
 shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot. 
 
 6 Ye have not eaten bread, neither 
 have ye drunk wine or strong drink: 
 that ye might know that I am the 
 Lord youn God. 
 
 7 And when ye came unto this 
 
 place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and 
 
 Og the king of Bashan, came out 
 
 against us unto battle, and we smote 
 them : 
 
 8 And we took their land, and 
 gave it for an inheritance unto the 
 Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and 
 to the half tribe of Manasseh. 
 
 9 ‘^Keep therefore the words of '’chap. 4. 
 this covenant, and do them, that ye josh. i. 7. 
 may prosper in all that ye do. 
 
 10 Ye stand this day all of you 
 before the Lord your God^ your 
 captains of your tribes, your elders, 
 and your officers, with all the men of 
 Israel, 
 
 I Kin. 2. 2. 
 
 II Your little ones, your wives, 
 
 and thy stranger that is in thy camp, 
 from the hewer of thy wood unto the 
 drawer of thy water : 
 
 2 That thou shouldest Tnter into 
 
 t Heb. 
 
 /ass. 
 
 solemnly sets before them, the blessing and 
 the curse, and adjures them to choose the 
 blessing 1 5 — 20). 
 
 1. This 'V. is added to the last chapter 
 in the Hebrew text of most editions; and so 
 Gedd., Knob., Schultz, Wogue, and the 
 Jewish authorities generally, who regard it, 
 and probably correctly (cf. the very similar 
 case Lev. xxvi. 46), as a recapitulation. 
 The division of the A. V. is however that of 
 LXX. and Vulg. 
 
 2. Cf. Ex. xix. 4. ♦ 
 
 3 . T/je great temptations'] Cf. iv. 34, vii. 
 19. 
 
 4 . Tet the Lord hath not gin^enyou an heart 
 to perceiije.^ and eyes to see., and ears to hear] 
 Ability to understand the things of God is 
 the gift of God (cf. i Cor. ii. 14); yet man 
 is not guiltless if he lacks that ability. The 
 people had it not because they had not felt 
 their want of it, nor asked for it. God makes 
 a like complaint of the people 'v. 29; as does 
 St Paul in later days, 2 Cor. iii. 14, 15. It 
 is needless either to turn the passage inter- 
 rogatively (as Clericus) “hath God given?” 
 or (with Grotius and others, after Maiino- 
 nides) to explain “given” as really meaning 
 “received;” “non accepistis cor intelligens.” 
 Cf. Is. vi. 9, ro, Ixiii. 9, 10, 17 ; Kzek. xii. 2; 
 St .Matt. xiii. 15 ; St John viii. 43; Acts 
 xxviii. 26, 27. 
 
 5 . ylnd I ha-ve led you forty years] Cf. i. 3, 
 viii. 2. 
 
 your clothes are not nvaxen old] Cf. viii. 4 
 and note. 
 
 6. Cf. viii. 3. Moses passes imperceptibly 
 
 into an address as from God Himself, on 
 Whose behalf he was standing before the 
 people; so in xi. 13, 14. 
 
 7. Cf. ii. 32, iii. i. 
 
 8. Cf. iii. 12, 13. 
 
 9 . Cf. iv. 6; Josh. i. 7. 
 
 that ye may prosper] Literally “that ye 
 may act wisely ; ” so perhaps in xxxii. 29 ; 
 Josh. i. 7 ; I K. ii. 3. The connexion of the 
 two ideas of wisdom in conduct and prosperity 
 in circumstances is noteworthy. 
 
 10 — 15 . Summons to enter anew into the 
 Covenant. 
 
 10. your captains of your tribes., your elders., 
 and your opfcers., ^jith all the men of Israel] 
 The A. V. here follows the LXX. But the 
 Hebrew strictly construed runs thus: your 
 captains, your tribes, your elders, and 
 your officers, every man of Israel. 
 The word “tribes” apparently denotes all 
 not in office. 
 
 11. The covenant was national, and there- 
 fore embraced all the elements which make 
 up the nation. The “little ones” would of 
 course be represented by their parents or 
 guardians; the absent (yv. 15) by those pre- 
 sent ; nor were the servants and proselytes to 
 be excluded (cf. Acts ii. 39). The text is 
 fairly alleged in justification of the Church’s 
 practice of admitting little ones into covenant 
 with God by baptism, and accepting promises 
 made on their behalf by sponsors. 
 
 thy stranger] LXX. “ the proselyte.” Cf. 
 Ex. xii. 38, 48. 
 
 the he^juer of thy ^juood] Cf. Josh. ix. 21 sqq. 
 
V. 13 — 20,] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXIX. 
 
 903 
 
 covenant with the Lord thy God, 
 and into his oath, which the Lord 
 thy God niaketh with thee this day : 
 
 13 That he may establish thee to 
 day for a people unto himself, and 
 that he may be unto thee a God, as 
 he hath said unto thee, and as he hath 
 sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, 
 to Isaac, and to Jacob. 
 
 14 Neither with you only’ do I 
 make this covenant and this oath ; 
 
 15 But with him that standeth here 
 with us this day before the Lord our 
 God, and also with him that is not 
 here with us this day: 
 
 16 (For, ye know how we have 
 dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how 
 we came throu2;h the nations which 
 ye passed by ; 
 
 1 7 And ye have seen their abomi- 
 nations, and their Mdols, wood and + Heb. • 
 stone, silver and gold, which were^idf^ 
 among them : ) 
 
 18 Lest there should be among 
 you man, or woman, or family, or 
 tribe, whose heart turneth away this 
 day from the Lord our God, to go 
 and serve the gods of these nations ; 
 lest there should be among you a root 
 
 that beareth " gall and wormv/ood ; " ^ , 
 
 . , . poisonjiil 
 
 19 And It come to pass, when he herb. 
 
 heareth the words of this curse, that Hf/l] 
 he bless himself in his heart, saying, I 
 shall have peace, though I walk in 
 the "imagination of mine heart, to J 
 add Mrunkenness to thirst: Tn^h 
 
 20 The Lord will not spare him, the drunk- 
 but then the anger of the Lord and 
 
 15 . <U}ith him that is not here nvith us^ i. e., 
 as the Jews explain, posterity; which through- 
 out all generations was to be taken as 
 bound by the act and deed of those present 
 and living. 
 
 16 — 29 . The appeal just made is enforced 
 by another warning against apostasy, and 
 declaration of the fearful judgments which 
 would follow upon it. 
 
 IG, 17 . These are not parenthetic as 
 in the A. V. T. 18 stands in close connexion, 
 not with *1^. 15, but with what immediately 
 precedes. The people is reminded (‘w. 16, 
 17) of what it had itself Vv^itnessed, in Egypt 
 and on its journey, of the vileness of idolatry, 
 and that experience is urged (pv. 18) as a 
 motive for shunning that heinous sin. 
 
 17 . idols'] Marg. “dungy gods;” i.e. clods 
 or stocks which can be rolled about ; cf. Lev. 
 xxvi. 30. 
 
 18 . 'whose heart turneth away] Cf. xi. 16. 
 
 lest there should be among you a root that 
 
 beareth gall and wormwood] The word Q'bsh) 
 here and in xxxii. 32 rendered “gall,” is in 
 Hos. X, 4 translated “ hemlock.” It is the 
 name of a plant of intense bitterness, and (cf. 
 Hos. X. 4) of quick growth; and is there- 
 fore repeatedly used in conjunction with 
 “wormwood” (cf. Jer. ix. 15, Lam. hi. 19; 
 Amos vi. 12), to express figuratively the 
 nature and effects of sin (cf. Acts viii. 23 ; 
 Heb. xii. 15). The Hebrew word means “a 
 head,” and is no doubt descriptive of the 
 plant, which grew to a tuft. Some identify 
 the herb with colocynth, others with tares, 
 Gesen., more probably, with the poppy. Hence 
 the “water” {i.e. juice) “of gall” (Jer. viii. 
 14, xxiii. 15) would be opium. This would 
 explain its employment in the stupefying 
 
 drink given to criminals at the time of execu- 
 tion (cf. Ps. Ixix. 21; St Matt, xxvii. 34), 
 and the use of the word as synonymous with 
 poison (cf. xxxii. 33; Job xx. 16). 
 
 wormwood] Hebr. (laandh) derived from a 
 root signifying “ to detest” or “curse.” The 
 plant (absinthium) is sufficiently familiar. It 
 is used to denote metaphorically the distress 
 and trouble which result from sin, and is 
 translated by the LXX. here TrtKpi'a; in Jerem. 
 obvvT) and avayKrj. Cf. the passages quoted 
 above, and Amos v. 7 ; Rev. viii. ii. In Amos 
 vi. 12 this word is rendered “hemlock.” 
 
 “The root that beareth gall and worm.- 
 wood,” means in this place any person lurking 
 amongst them who is tainted with apostasy. 
 
 19 . ylnd it come to pass^...that he bless him- 
 self in his heart., saying., 1 shall ha-ve peace., 
 though I walk . in the imagination of mine 
 heart] The marg. for “imagination” has 
 more correctly “stubbornness.” The word 
 is derived from a root {shdrar] signifying 
 “to twist into a cord,” and so “to resolve” 
 or “ determine.” The subst. here used is not 
 found except in combination with “heart” 
 (Ps. Ixxxi. 12; Jer. iii. 17 and elsewhere), 
 and imports hardness or stedfast determina- 
 tion of the heart. The particle rendered in 
 A. V. “though” may retain its ordinary 
 sense, “for” or “ because.” “ It is well with 
 me, for I am living in the self-will of my 
 mind: i.e. my ‘ summum bonum’ is in follow- 
 ing my own will and way.” Cf. on the 
 thought Jer. xxiii. 17. The secret and pre- 
 sumptuous sinner is meant who flatters him- 
 self that he will remain undetected and un- 
 punished, since he follows his own devices 
 and prospers. Cf. Ps. Ixxiii. ii sqq. 
 
 to add drunkenness to thirst] On this diffi- 
 cult and proverbial phrase, see Note at the end 
 
904 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXIX. 
 
 [v. 21—29. 
 
 his jealousy shall smoke against that 
 man, and all the curses that are writ- 
 ten in this book shall lie upon him, 
 and the Lord shall blot out his name 
 from under heaven. 
 
 21 And the Lord shall separate 
 him unto evil out of all the tribes of 
 Israel, according to all the curses of 
 
 tHeb. the covenant that Ure written in this 
 
 22 So that the generation to come 
 of your children that shall rise up 
 after you, and the stranger that shall 
 come from a far land, shall say, when 
 they see the plagues of that land, arid 
 
 tHeb. the sicknesses ^ which the Lord hath 
 
 v>herc-Mith 1 • 1 
 
 the Lord laid upon it; 
 
 23 And that the whole land thereof 
 is brimstone, and salt, and burning, 
 that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor 
 
 Gen. 19. any grass groweth therein, “^like the 
 overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, 
 Admah, and Zeboim, which the Lord 
 overthrew in his anger, and in his 
 wrath : 
 
 24 Even all nations shall say, 
 
 ^Wherefore hath the Lord done thus g ^ ^in. o. 
 unto this land? what meaneth the heat Jer. 22. 8. 
 of this great an^er? 
 
 25 T hen men shall say. Because 
 they have forsaken the covenant of 
 the Lord God of their fathers, which 
 he made with them when he brought 
 them forth out of the land of Egypt : 
 
 26 Eor they went and served other 
 gods, and worshipped them, gods whom 
 they knew not, and " whom he had not " Or, 
 
 ^ given unto them : 
 
 27 And the anger of the Lord was any'^p'". 
 kindled against this land, to bring 
 upon it all the curses that are written divided. 
 in this book : 
 
 28 And the Lord rooted them out 
 of their land in anger, and in wrath, 
 and in great indignation, and cast 
 them into another land, as it is this 
 day. 
 
 29 The secret things belong unto 
 the Lord our God : but those things 
 which are revealed belong unto us and 
 to our children for ever, that we may 
 do all the words of this law. 
 
 of the chapter. The sense is probably : “so 
 that the sated soul hurry away with itself 
 that other soul which longs for the forbidden 
 sin.” 
 
 The sense of the whole passage from i;. i6 
 onward to 'u. 20 may be exhibited thus: 
 “Ye have seen the abominations of idolatry 
 amongst the heathen. Do you therefore look 
 diligently that there be no secret idolater 
 amongst you ; a root of bitterness to all about 
 him. Let there be no one, I say, who when 
 he hears the curses of the law against this sin, 
 flatters himself, saying within himself, ‘ All 
 will be well, for I walk unmolested in my own 
 self- chosen path;’ and thus acting, not only 
 takes his own fill of sin, but destroys likewise 
 every tempted brother within his reach ; for 
 the Lord will not spare him,” &:c. 
 
 20. Though the secret idolater may escape 
 human justice, he shall not escape the judg- 
 ment of God. Cf. Ezek. xiv. 7, 8. More 
 literally the 2). would run: “the Lord will 
 not pardon him,” See. 
 
 the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall 
 smoke'\ (T. Ps. Ixxiv. i, Ixxix. 5. 
 
 blot out his name'] Cf. ix, 14. 
 
 21. that are avritten] Marg, correctly 
 thatiswritten: the participle agrees with 
 “covenant.” 
 
 22. 23 . The baleful effects of the “root 
 of bitterness” are described. It would defile 
 and ruin the whole land. 
 
 23 . The description is borrowed from the 
 local features of the Dead Sea and its vicinity. 
 The towns of the vale of Siddim were fertile 
 and well watered (cf. Gen. xiii. 10) until de- 
 vastated by the wrath of God (Gen. xix. 
 24, 25). The ruin of Israel and its land 
 should be of the like sort (cf. Lev. xxvi. 31, 
 32; Ps. evii. 34; Zeph. ii. 9). The desolate 
 state of Palestine at present, and the traces of 
 former fertility and prosperity, are attested by 
 every traveller. See e.g. Keith’s ‘Land of 
 Israel,’ chaps. 3, 4, and 5. 
 
 24 . Cf. I K. ix. 8, 9; Jer. xxii. 8, 9. 
 
 26 . nvhorn he had not given unto them] 
 Cf. iv. 19 and note. 
 
 27 . Cf. Dan. ix. ii — 15. 
 
 28 . and cast them into another land] See 
 on these words Note at end of chapter. 
 
 29 . The secret things belong unto the Lord 
 our God] This v. seems to be added, not 
 (as some take it) by way of an expression 
 of pious submission on the part of those who 
 give their answer to the questions proposed in' 
 «z;. 24, but rather as a solemn admonition on 
 the part of Moses, in order to close the series 
 of blessings and cursings which he has de- 
 
V. I— 3-] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXX. 
 
 905 
 
 livered. The sense seems to be this: “The 
 future, when and how these good and evil 
 things will take effect, it lies with the Lord 
 our God to determine ; it pertains not to man’s 
 sphere and duty. His revealed will is that 
 which we must carry out.” The 17th of our 
 Articles of Religion concludes with much the 
 
 same sentiment. The words “ unto us and 
 to our children ” are in the Hebr. distinguished 
 by “puncta extraordinaria,” in order no doubt 
 to draw attention to them. Nor is this with- 
 out reason. For that “they and their chil- 
 dren ” should act upon the revealed will of 
 God was the aim and end of the whole law. 
 
 NOTES on Chap. xxix. 19, and 28. 
 
 •V. 19. 
 
 Many and various interpretations have been 
 given of these words. It is to be noted 
 however that (i) the two words translated 
 “drunkenness” and “thirst” are strictly two 
 feminine adjectives; (2) the former adj., “the 
 drunken,” seems to belong to the subject of 
 the verb, the other being marked by the usual 
 particle as the object; (3) the verb (HSD), 
 though sometimes meaning “ to add,” is al- 
 ways {e.g. xxxii. 23) in this sense associated 
 with a prep. (b'J), which is here wanting; and 
 therefore the other sense which the verb un- 
 doubtedly has also, and which suits the present 
 context well, viz. “to take away,” “con- 
 sume,” or “destroy” (cf. Gen. xviii. 23; Num. 
 xvi. 26; Is. vii. 20), is in this place to be 
 preferred ; (4) that the subst. to be supplied 
 for the two adjectives seems in this connexion 
 evidently to be “person” or “soul” (ne~ 
 pheslo). The words would then appear to 
 mark the result of the conduct of the sin- 
 ner whose hardihood has been set forth in 
 the context preceding; and to mean “so that 
 the soul that is drunken with sin carry away 
 
 that which thirsts for sin.” The presumptu- 
 ous sinner is described as congratulating 
 himself that 'all is and will be well with him, 
 .since he acts as pleases him best ; and thus, 
 himself “drinking iniquity like water” (cf. 
 Job XV. 16), he corrupts and destroys others 
 who are thirsting or prone to it. So Maurer, 
 and substantially Schultz, Wogue. &c. Other 
 renderings are given by Rosenm., who prefers 
 to supply the subst. “ land,” and to treat the 
 whole as a sort of proverbial expression : 
 “that the watered and the thirsty soil may 
 be destroyed together;” i.e. that there may 
 be a general and sweeping ruin. But this 
 seems farfetched. 
 
 n). 28. 
 
 The Hebr. word {yashllchem') is written 
 with a great lamed, and with yod defective. 
 The former letter is the first in the word 
 (J'‘dlam)^ “for ever;” the latter used as a 
 numeral signifies “ten.” In the mode of 
 writing is supposed to be mystically signified 
 the perpetual rejection of the Ten tribes. 
 Buxtorf, ‘Masoret. Com.’ xiv. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 I Great mercies promised ‘iinto the repeiitant. 
 II The commandment is manifest. 1^ Death 
 and life are set before thei 7 i. 
 
 AND it shall come to pass, when 
 all these things are come upon 
 thee, the blessing and the curse, which 
 I have set before thee, and thou shalt 
 call them to mind among all the na- 
 
 tions, whither the Lord thy God 
 hath driven thee, 
 
 2 And shalt return unto the Lord 
 thy God, and shalt obey his voice ac- 
 cording to all that I command thee 
 this day, thou and thy children, with 
 all thine heart, and with all thy soul ; 
 
 3 That then the Lord thy God 
 will turn thy captivity, and have com- 
 
 CiiAP. XXX. Yet the rejection of Israel 
 and the desolation of the promised inherit- 
 ance were not to be the close of God’s dis- 
 pensations. Were this so the good purposes 
 of God would have been defeated, and the 
 promise have been brought at last to nought. 
 But such a result is impossible (cf. Num. 
 xxiii. 19; Rom. xi. i and 29). The closing 
 words of the address therefore are words of 
 comfort and promise. So when Moses had 
 previously (iv. 29 sqq. ; Lev. xxvi. 40 sqq.) 
 denounced the judgments of God against 
 apostasy, he adds similar predictions of the 
 
 eventual conversion and restoration of Israel. 
 (Cf. I K. viii. 46 — 50.) 
 
 1 — 10. The chastisements of God would 
 lead the nation to repent, and thereupon God 
 would again bless them. 
 
 2. And shalt return~\ Cf. Neh. i. 9. 
 
 3 . avill turn thy captia.nty'] Will change or 
 put an end to thy state of captivity or dis- 
 tress; not (as some) “bring back thy cap- 
 tives,” a rendering refuted by the use of the 
 phrase in Job xlii. 10. (Cf. Ps. xiv. 7, Ixxxv. 
 
[v. 4— IT. 
 
 go6 DEUTERON 
 
 passion upon thee, and will return 
 and gather thee from all the nations, 
 whither the Lord thy God hath scat- 
 tered thee. 
 
 «Neh. I. 4 ""If any of thine be driven out 
 unto the outmost parts of heaven, 
 from thence will the Lord thy God 
 gather thee, and from thence will he 
 fetch thee: 
 
 5 And the Lord thy God will 
 bring thee into the land which thy 
 fathers possessed, and thou shalt pos- 
 sess it; and he will do thee good, and 
 multiply thee above thy fathers. 
 
 - 6 And the Lord thy God will cir- 
 cumcise thine heart, and the heart of 
 thy seed, to love the Lord thy God 
 with all thine heart, and with all thy 
 soul, that thou mayest live. 
 
 7 And the Lord thy God will put 
 all these curses upon thine enemies, 
 and on them that hate thee, which 
 persecuted thee. 
 
 OMY. XXX. 
 
 8 And thou shalt return and obey 
 the voice of the Lord, and do all his 
 commandments which I command 
 thee this day. 
 
 9 ^And the Lord thy God wilE^'J^^'P- 
 make thee plenteous in every work of 
 thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, 
 
 and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in 
 the fruit of thy land, for good: for^ 
 the Lord will again rejoice over thee 
 for good, as he rejoiced over thy fa- 
 thers : 
 
 10 If thou shalt hearken unto the 
 voice of the Lord thy God, to keep 
 his commandments and his statutes 
 which are written in this book of the 
 law, and if thou turn unto the Lord 
 thy God with all thine heart, and 
 with all thy soul. 
 
 11 ^ For this commandment which 
 I command thee this day, it is not 
 hidden from thee, neither is it far 
 off. 
 
 a; Jer. xxx. i8.) The rendering of the LXX. 
 is’significant; “the Lord will heal thy sins.” 
 
 The promises of this and following v'v. 
 had no doubt their partial fulfilments in the 
 days of the Judges;, but the fact that various 
 important features of them are repeated in 
 Jer. xxxii. 37 sqq., and in Ezek. xi. 19 
 sqq., xxxiv. 13 sqq., xxxvi. 24 sqq., shews 
 us that none of these was regarded as ex- 
 hausting the promises. In full analogy with 
 the scheme of prophecy we may add that 
 the return from the Babylonian Captivity 
 has not exhausted their depth. The New 
 I'cstament takes up the strain {e.g. Rom. 
 xi.), and foretells the restoration of Israel to 
 the covenanted mercies of God. True these 
 mercies shall not be, as before, confined to 
 that nation. The “turning again of the 
 captivity” will be when Israel is converted 
 to flirn in Whom the Law was fulfilled, and 
 who died “ not for that nation only,” but 
 also that he might “ gather together in one 
 the children of God that were scattered 
 abroad” (St John xi. 51, 52). Then shall 
 there be “one fold and one shepherd” (St 
 John X. 16). But whether the general con- 
 version of the Jews shall be accompanied 
 with any national restoration, any recovery 
 of their ancient prerogatives as the chosen 
 people; and further, whether there shall be 
 any local replacement of them in the land 
 of their fathers, may be regarded as of “ the 
 secret things” which belong unto God (xxix. 
 29); and so indeed our Lord Himself teaches 
 us (Acts i. 6, ;)• The letter of the w. 
 
 before us and of the parallel passages seems 
 indeed to point to both a national and a local 
 return of Israel. On the other hand, in this 
 very passage nj. 6 seems plainly to intimate 
 that in the Kingdom of the Messiah the cere- 
 monies and ordinances at any rate shall reach 
 that accomplishment in which the outward 
 sign shall be superseded by the thing signified ; 
 cf. Rom. ii. 29. And God’s purpose may be 
 similar as regards the promises. The restora- 
 tion here foretold may be realized, and the 
 promises to Abraham (Gen. xvii. 6, &c.) 
 most abundantly fulfilled to Israel, yet not to 
 the Israel “according to the flesh” merely, 
 but to that spiritual Israel whose Promised 
 Land is not narrowed to an earthly Canaan. 
 To us however the exact import of the 
 prophecies respecting the future of the Jews 
 must remain as yet, as was the sinailar inquiry 
 respecting the Messianic prophecies in pre- 
 Messianic days (cf. i Pet. i. n), matter of 
 reverent search and discussion only. 
 
 4. Cf. Neh. i. 9. 
 
 6. circumcise thine heart\ Cf. x. 16; Jer. 
 
 xxxii. 39 sqq.; Heb. viii. 10. 
 
 9. rejoice o'ver thee for good] Cf. xxviii. 
 63 ; Jer. xxxii. 41- 
 
 10 20 . The law wliich thus bears with 
 
 it blessings for the faithful, and woes for the 
 disobedient, has been brought home to Israel 
 {y'v. 10 — 14), so that ignorance of its re- 
 quirements cannot be pleaded; hence {w. 
 
 I g 20) life and death, good and evil, are 
 
 solemnly set before the people for their own 
 
V. 12 20.] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXX. 
 
 907 
 
 Rom. 
 
 , &c. 
 
 12 is not in heaven, that thou 
 shouldest say, Who shall go up for us 
 to heaven, and bring it unto us, that 
 we may hear it, and do it 
 
 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, 
 that thou shouldest say. Who shall 
 go over the sea for us, and bring it 
 unto us, that we may hear it, and 
 do it? 
 
 14 But the word is very nigh unto 
 thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, 
 that thou mayest do it. 
 
 15 ^ See, I have set before thee 
 this day life and good, and death and 
 evil ; 
 
 16 In that I command thee this 
 day to love the Lord thy God, to 
 walk in his ways, and to keep his 
 commandments and his statutes and 
 his judgments, that thou mayest live 
 
 and multiply : and the Lord thy God 
 shall bless thee in the land whither 
 thou goest to possess it. 
 
 17 But if thine heart turn away, 
 so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt 
 be drawn away, and worship other 
 gods, and serve them ; 
 
 18 I denounce unto you this day, 
 that ye shall surely perish, aitd that 
 ye shall not prolong your days upon 
 the land, whither thou passest over 
 Jordan to go to possess it. 
 
 19 call heaven and earth to re- '^chap. 4. 
 cord this day against you, that I have ^ ’ 
 
 set before you life and death, blessing 
 and cursing : therefore choose life, 
 that both thou and thy seed may live : 
 
 20 That thou mayest love the 
 Lord thy God, and that thou mayest 
 obey his voice, and that thou mayest 
 
 choice ; and an earnest exhortation to choose 
 the better part concludes the address. 
 
 11 — 14 . The immediate purpose of this 
 passage is to encourage the people by re- 
 minding them that all necessary instruction . 
 had been placed within their reach. God had 
 on His side done all that was possible to 
 make the knowledge of His will and the 
 performance of it ^ easy to Israel: cf. Isa. 
 xlv. 19, and especially Rom. x. 6 sqq. The 
 passage is not cited by St Paul strictly 
 either according to the Hebr. or the LXX. 
 Yet we must not consider it as quoted 
 by him merely in the way of illustration, 
 much less as accommodated to suit the 
 purposes of the argument on hand, regard- 
 less of its significance in its own context. We 
 have in Rom. an authoritative interpretation 
 of what the words of Moses do really and 
 principally if not obviously signify. The 
 Prophet spake, the Apostle expounded, by 
 one and the selfsame Spirit. Those who 
 believe this will not question the authority, 
 and consequently not the correctness, of the 
 sense assigned by the latter to the words of 
 the former. It is nothing to the purpose to 
 inquire how far the ideas assigned to the 
 words by St Paul were present to the mind 
 of Moses. At any rate what is here predi- 
 cated by Moses of the law finds its practical 
 issue only under the Gospel. The law may 
 give “ line upon line, and precept upon pre- 
 cept,” yet where the heart is unrenewed 
 actual fulfilment of it will still be far off 
 and unattainable. It isHhen only by “the 
 word of faith ” (Rom,., x. 8) that the objec- 
 tive nearness and facility of the command- 
 ment are realized by man ; and that which is 
 
 so feasible per se (cf. Mic. vi. 8) becomes practi- 
 cable in fact to us. Thus “the righteous- 
 ness which is of faith” is really and truly de- 
 scribed in these words of the law, and under 
 St Paul’s guidance we affirm was intended 
 so to be. For the simplicity and accessibility 
 which Moses here attributes to the law of 
 God neither are nor can be experimentally 
 found in it except through the medium of 
 faith ; even though outwardly and in the letter 
 that law be written out for us so “that he 
 may run that readeth,” and be set forth in its 
 duties and its sanctions as plainly as it was 
 before the Jews by Moses. The seeming ease’ 
 of the commandment, and its real impos- 
 sibility to the natural man, form part of the 
 qualifications of the law to be our school- 
 master to bring us unto Christ. See further 
 on Rom. 1 . c. 
 
 11. hidden from thee~\ Rather, too li^ird 
 for thee, as the same Hebrew word is 
 rendered, xvii. 8. 
 
 neither is it far off'\ Cf. St Luke xvii. 21. 
 
 13 . The paraphrase of this n), in the Jer. 
 Targ. is noteworthy, and should be com- 
 pared with St Paul’s rendering in Rom. x. 7 : 
 “ Neither is the law beyond the great sea, 
 that thou shouldest say. Oh that we had one 
 like Jonah the prophet who could descend 
 into the depths of the sea and bring it to 
 us!” 
 
 14 . in thy mouth, and in thy heart] Cf. vi. 
 6, xi. 18 — 20. 
 
 15 — 20 . Last appeal to the people to 
 choose the better of.the alternatives set before 
 them. 
 
 15 . Cf. xi. 26, 27. 
 
 IS. Cf. iv. 26 : viii. 19, 
 
9o8 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXX. XXXI. [v. i-8. 
 
 'f Numb. 
 20 . 12 . 
 chap. 3. 
 27. 
 
 cleave unto him : for he is thy life, 
 and the length of thy days : that 
 thou mayest dwell in the land which 
 the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to 
 Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to 
 give them. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXL 
 
 I Moses encourageth the people. 7 He encoiirag- 
 eth Joshita. 9 He delivereth the laiu unto 
 the priests to read it in the seventh year to the 
 people. 14 God giveth a charge to Joslijia, 19 
 and a song to testify against the people. 24 
 Moses delivereth the book of the law to the 
 Lccdtes to keep. 28 He maketh a protestation 
 to the elders. 
 
 AND Moses went and spake these 
 jf\, Vvmrds unto all Israel. 
 
 2 And he said unto them, I am 
 an hundred and twenty years old this 
 day; I can no more go out and come 
 in : also the Lord hath said unto me, 
 "Thou shalt not go over this Jordan. 
 
 3 The Lord thy God, he will go 
 over before thee, and he will destroy 
 these nations from before thee, and 
 thou shalt possess them: and Joshua, 
 
 he shall go over before thee, ^as the * Numb. 
 Lor-D hath said. 
 
 4 And the Lord shall do unto 
 them as he did to Sihon and to Og, 
 kings of the Amorites, and unto the 
 land of them, whom he destroyed. 
 
 5 And '^the Lord shall give them 7- 
 up before your face, that ye may do 
 
 unto them according unto all the 
 commandments which I have com- 
 manded you. , 
 
 6 Be strong and of a good courage, 
 fear not, nor be afraid of them : for 
 the Lord thy God, he it is that doth 
 go with thee; he will not fail thee, 
 nor forsake thee. 
 
 7 ^ And Moses called unto Joshua*, 
 and said unto him in the sight of all 
 Israel, Be strong and of a good cou- 
 rage : for thou must go with this peo- 
 ple unto the land which the Lord 
 hath sworn unto their fathers to give 
 them ; and thou shalt cause them to '*' 
 inherit it. 
 
 8 And the Lord, he it is that doth 
 
 20. that thou mayest lonoe the Lord\ Cf. 
 vi. 5. Love stands first as the essential and 
 only source of obedience. 
 
 he is thy Ife'] Or, as Jer. Targ., LXX., 
 Liith., &c., “that” (/.<?. “to love the Lord,”) 
 “is thy life;” i.e. the condition of thy life 
 and of its prolongation in the promised land. 
 Cf. iv. 40, xxxii. 47. With the passage as 
 it stands in A. V. cf. Ps. xxvii. i; St John 
 xi. 25, xvii. 3; I John v. 20. 
 
 Chap. XXXL Certain last acts and ar- 
 rangements of Moses in view of his death. 
 
 1. Moses ^ent and spake^ The word “went” 
 must not be pressed, as in e.g. the Targum of 
 Palestine, “Mosheh went into the tabernacle 
 of the house of instruction and spake.” This 
 verb is frequently in Hebrew as in English 
 prefixed to another verb with a kind of 
 redundancy; cf. Ex. ii. i ; Job i. 4, and is so 
 used here. 
 
 2. / am an hundred and tdventy years 
 old] The forty years of the wandering had 
 passed since Moses, then fourscore years 
 old, “ spake unto Pharaoh,” Ex. vii. 7. Cf. 
 xxxiv. 7. 
 
 / can 720 more go out and come in] Pvender: 
 I sliall not longer be able to go out 
 and come in: LXX. correctly ov bvvr}<jop.o.L 
 €TL K.T.'k. Thus there is no inconsistency 
 with xxxiv. 7. Moses here adverts to his 
 own age as likely to render him in future 
 
 unequal to the active discharge of his office 
 as leader of the people: the writer of the 
 xxxivth chapter, one of Moses’ contempora- 
 ries, remarks of him that -up to the close of 
 life “ his eye was not dim, nor his natural 
 force abated ;” i. e. that he was to the last, in 
 the judgment of others, in full possession of 
 faculties and strength. It is thererore needless, 
 with Patrick, Ainsworth, &c., to render the 
 clause following thus: “Jbr the Lord hath 
 said,” &c. The phrase “to go out and 
 come in” generally means “to discharge my 
 duties amongst you:” cf. Num. xxvii. 17; 
 I K. iii. 7. 
 
 Thou shalt not go oaoer this Jordan] Cf. iii. 27. 
 
 3. he <vjill go over before thee] Cf. ix. 3. 
 
 and Joshua.^ he shall go over before thet^ 
 Cf. i. 37 sq., and iii. 28. 
 
 6. Cf. i. 29, vii. 18; Josh. x. 25. 
 
 he void not fail thee., nor forsake thee] Cf. 
 Josh. i. 5 ; Heb. xiii. 5. 
 
 7, 8. Moses hands over to Joshua that 
 office as leader of the people, to which Joshua 
 had already been designated (i. 38; Num. 
 xxvii. 23). He assigns also to the Levitical 
 priests and the elders, as the ecclesiastical and 
 civil heads of the nation, the responsibility of 
 teaching the law and enforcing its observance 
 {yv. 10 — 13). Both these were symbolical 
 acts, designed to mark the responsibility of 
 the parties concerned after the death of Moses. 
 It is therefore not at all inconsistent that 
 
V. 9—^5-] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXI. 
 
 909 
 
 go before theej he will be with thee, 
 he will not fail thee, neither forsake 
 thee: fear not, neither be dismayed. 
 
 9 *^1 And Moses wrote this law, and 
 delivered it unto the priests the sons 
 of Levi, which bare the ark of the 
 covenant of the Lord, and unto all 
 the elders of Israel. 
 
 10 And Moses commanded them, 
 saying, At the end of every seven 
 
 <^chr,p. 15, years, in the solemnity of the ^year 
 of release, in the feast of tabernacles, 
 
 1 1 When all Israel is come to ap- 
 pear before the Lord thy God in the 
 place which he shall choose, thou 
 shalt read this law before all Israel in 
 their hearino-. 
 
 12 Gather the people together, 
 men, and women, and children, and 
 
 thy stranger that is within thy gates, 
 that they may hear, and that they 
 may learn, and fear the Lord your 
 God, and observe to do all the words 
 of this law: 
 
 13 And that their children, which 
 have not known any things may hear, 
 and learn to fear the Lord your God, 
 as long as ye live in the land whither 
 ye go over Jordan to possess it. 
 
 14 ^ And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 ses, Behold, thy days approach that 
 thou must die : call Joshua, and pre- 
 sent yourselves in the tabernacle of 
 the congregation, that I may give him 
 a charge. And Moses and Joshua 
 went, and presented themselves in the 
 tabernacle of the congregation. 
 
 15 And the Lord appeared in the 
 
 Moses should appear, in the short interval 
 which has yet to elapse before he is actually 
 withdrawn, as in full possession of his own 
 raithority. The duties of Joshua as his suc- 
 cessor, and those here devolved upon the 
 priests and elders, could, from the nature of 
 the case, only recpiire to be in fact discharged 
 by^ them when the event which rendered the 
 transfer of those duties necessary had taken 
 place. 
 
 9 . Moses qvrote this and deli-vered 
 
 it unto the priests'\ This simply means that 
 Moses now consigned to the charge of the 
 priests the law which he had written. The 
 first clause, though connected with the fol- 
 lowing one by “and,” is (as often in He- 
 brew) subordinate to it. The point to be 
 noted is that Moses now formally intrusted 
 the law, which at God's command he had 
 promulgated, and with the exception of the 
 
 • concluding clauses (see ic 24) had already 
 written out, to those who should be the 
 regular and official guardians and teachers 
 of it in future. He evidently did nPt actually 
 transfer “ the book,” -u. 24, from his own 
 hands to theirs until he had completed the 
 writing as there described. 
 
 the priests the sons of Lcn:i\ Cf. 2.’. 25 and 
 xvii. 18. 
 
 10 . the year of release'] Cf. xv. i and 
 note. 
 
 feast of tabernacles] Cf. Lev. xxiii. 34. 
 
 11. When all Israel is come to appear before 
 the Lord] Cf. xvi. 16. The actual discharge 
 of this duty is recorded Neh. viii. i sqq. 
 
 thou shalt read this /n:-u] Cf. Josh. viii. 34, 
 35; 2 K. xxiii. 2; Neh. viii. i sqq. It is 
 not to be supposed that the whole of the Pen- 
 tateuch w'as read, nor does the letter of the 
 VoL. I. 
 
 command require that it should be so. Tliis 
 reading could 'not be primarily designed for 
 the information and instruction of the people, 
 since it only took place once in seven years ; 
 but v/as evidently a symbolical transaction, 
 intended, as so many others were, to impress 
 on the people the conditions on which they 
 held possession of their privileges and bless- 
 ings. For such purposes a solemn and public- 
 reading of lessons out of the book of the Law 
 {i.e. the Pentateuch) was all that was needed;: 
 and it is left by the text to the Jewish 
 Church to rule details, such as when during 
 the eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles- 
 the reading should take place, who should, 
 read, and what portion of the law. From. 
 Neh. viii. 18 it appears that Ezra “read in 
 the book of the law of God” day by day 
 during the feast; but later Jev/ish practice 
 has confined the reading to the first day of 
 the feast, and to certain portions of Deutero- 
 nomy only. In after times the Jewish rule 
 assigned this duty to the High Priest or King, 
 who was expected to perform it in the 
 Temple before the whole congregation (yv. 12). 
 
 14 — 23 . Moses and Joshua summoned to 
 the tabernacle that God might “give Joshua 
 a charge,” i.c. the command which is given 
 (perhaps in substance only) in no. 23, where 
 see note. This is the first occasion on which 
 the tabernacle of the congregation is mention- 
 ed in Deuteronomy. This will not appear 
 remarkable when we remember that the book 
 thus far has consisted almost exclusively of 
 addresses made by Moses to the people, and 
 that the bulk of these is legislative matter. The 
 transaction recorded in these nj-io. may be re- 
 garded as the solemn inauguration of Joshua 
 to the office to which he had some time before 
 (Num. xxvii. 23 sqq.) been called, and his 
 
 3 M 
 
910 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXI. 
 
 [v. 16—25. 
 
 tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud : and 
 the pillar of the cloud stood over the 
 door of the tabernacle. 
 
 16 ^ And the Lord said unto Mo- 
 
 ]]e^ I Behold, thou shalt Eleep with 
 
 thy fathers; and this people will rise 
 up, and go a whoring after the gods 
 of the strangers of the land, whither 
 they go to be among them, and will 
 forsake me, and break my covenant 
 which I have made with them. 
 
 17 Then my anger shall be kindled 
 against them in that day, and I will 
 forsake them, and I will hide my face 
 from them, and they shall be devour- 
 ed, and many evils and troubles shall 
 ^^^Ell them; so that they will say 
 in that day. Are not these evils 
 come upon us, because our God is 
 not among us.? 
 
 18 And I will surely hide my face 
 in that day for all the evils which they 
 shall have wrought, in that they are 
 turned unto other gods. 
 
 19 Now therefore write ye this 
 song for you, and teach it the children 
 of Israel : put it in their mouths, that 
 this song may be a v/itness for me 
 against the children of Israel. 
 
 20 For when I shall have brought 
 
 them into the land which I sware 
 unto their fathers, that doweth with 
 milk and honey; and they shall have 
 eaten and filled themselves, and wax- 
 en fat ; then will they turn unto other 
 gods, and serve them, and provoke 
 me, and break my covenant. 
 
 2 1 And it shall come to pass, when 
 many evils and troubles are befallen 
 them, that this sono; shall testifv 
 
 , ^ ^ before. 
 
 gainst them as a witness; ror it shall* 
 not be forgotten out of the mouths of 
 their seed: for I knov/ their imagina- 
 tion which they ^go about, even now, t Heb. do. 
 before I have brought them into the 
 land which I sware. 
 
 22 ^ Moses therefore wrote this 
 song the same day, and taught it the 
 children of Israel. 
 
 23 And he gave Joshua the son of 
 Nun a charge, and said, ^Be strong i. 
 and of a good courage : for thou shalt 
 bring the children of Israel into the 
 
 land which I sv/are unto them : and 
 I will be with thee. 
 
 24 ^ And it came to pass, when 
 Moses had made an end of v/riting 
 the words of this lav/ in a book, until 
 they were finished, 
 
 25 That Moses commanded the 
 
 recognition in it by God, which were mani- 
 fested by his being summoned into the taber- 
 nacle with Moses whilst the Lord appeared in 
 the pillar of cloud (cf. Num. xi. 25, xii. 5). 
 
 16 . God announces to Moses the future 
 apostasy of the people. This is done in the 
 presence of Joshua that the latter might be 
 fully aware of the danger and strive in his day 
 to avert it. This he faithfully did (cf. Josh, 
 xxiv. 31); but we find him in his own last 
 address to Israel repeating (Josh, xxiii. 15, 
 16) the self-same prediction and warning. 
 
 sleep rjoith ihy fathers^ Hebr. as margin 
 “lie down.” The same word is used in the 
 same sense in the very ancient Phcenician In- 
 scription of Kshmunay.ar. 
 
 go a ^hori?2g] Cf. Ex. xxxiv. 15; Judg. ii. 17. 
 
 forsake me., and break my co've}iant~\ Cf. 
 xxxii. 15; Judg. ii. 12 sqq. 
 
 17 . hide my face froyn theni] Cf. xxxii. 
 20; Is. viii. 17 and Ixiv. 7; Ezek. xxxix. 23. 
 
 19 . I^ecause of what has been foretold 
 T7>. 16-18 Moses and Joshua (“write ye”) 
 are commanded to write the song of Moses 
 (xxxii. 1—43), and to teach it to the 
 
 children of Israel that it might be “a witness 
 for God against them:” i.e. an attestation from 
 their own mouths at once of God’s benefits, 
 their own duties, and their deserts when they 
 should fall away. 
 
 20. ewaxen fat\ Cf. xxxii. 15 ; Neh. ix. 
 25 ; Hos. xiii. 6. 
 
 21 . it shall not be forgotten'] Being in verse 
 it would be the more easily learned and kept 
 in memory. The use of songs for such di- 
 dactic purposes was not unknown to the 
 legislators of antiquity; cf. Plato, ‘de Leg.’ii. 
 (Vol. II. p. 656, edit. Steph.); and was fa- 
 miliar to theologians of later times; cf. Sccr. 
 ‘Hist. EccL’ VI. 8; and St Paul, Col. iii. 16, 
 “teaching and admonishing one another in 
 psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” 
 
 their imagination <ivhich they go about., ei'en 
 nozv] Cf. Amos v. 25 sqq. 
 
 23 . hegari’e] i.e. the Lord gave-: cf. on 
 ' V . 14. 
 
 Be strong] Cf. -v. 7. 
 
 24 — 30 . Moses completes the writing out 
 of the book of the law, and directs it to be 
 placed by the ark of the Covenant. 
 
v.26-2.] DEUTERONOMY. XXXI. XXXII. 
 
 911 
 
 Levites, which bare the ark of the 
 covenant of the Lord, saying, 
 
 26 Take this book of the law, and 
 put it in the side of the ark of the co- 
 venant of the Lord your God, that 
 it may be there for a witness against 
 thee. 
 
 27 For I know thy rebellion, and 
 thy stiff neck : behold, while I am yet 
 alive with you this day, ye have been 
 rebellious against the Lord ; and how 
 much more after my death ? 
 
 28 ^ Gather unto me all the elders 
 of your tribes, and your officers, that 
 I may speak these words in their ears, 
 and call heaven and earth to record 
 .against them. 
 
 29 For I know that after my death 
 ye will utterly corrupt yourselves^ and 
 
 turn aside from the way which I have 
 commanded you ; and evil will befall 
 you in the latter days; because ye 
 will do evil in the sight of the Lord, 
 to provoke him to anger through the 
 work of your hands. 
 
 30 And Moses spake in the ears 
 of all the congregation of Israel the 
 words of this song, until they were 
 ended. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 I Moses' song^ xuhich settcth forth God's mercy 
 and vengea7ice. 46 He exho7'tcth the77i to set 
 their hearts upo7i it. 48 God se7ideth hwt tip 
 to 77iou7it A'ei/o, to see the land, atid die. 
 
 G ive ear, O ye heavens, and I 
 will speak; and hear, O earth, 
 the words of my mouth. 
 
 2 My doctrine shall drop as the 
 
 24 . writing the <ivords of this law in a book~\ 
 “To write in a book” simply means “to 
 commit to writing.” A later word for “ book ” 
 (sep her^ \s xoWf or “ roll of a book:” cf. 
 Jer. xxxvi, 23, and ibid. w. 2, 4: Ps. xl. 7. 
 The “book” here spoken of would contain 
 the whole Pentateuch up to 07. 24 of this 
 chapter (see note there); and be “the book 
 of Moses,” called generally by the Jews “ the 
 law:” cf. St Matt. xxii. 40: Gal. iv. 21, &c. 
 
 25 . the Lenoites, which hare the ark~\ i.e. 
 as in 07 . 9, “the priests the sons of Levi.” 
 The non-priestly Levites could not so much 
 as enter the Sanctuary or touch the ark 
 (cf. Num. iv. 15). Though in the journeys 
 through the wilderness the ark was borne by 
 the non-priestly Kohathites, yet on occasions 
 of a more solemn and public character it 
 was carried by the priests themselves (Josh, 
 iii. 3 sqq., iv. 9, 10, vi. 6, 12, viii. 33; i K. 
 viii. 3). 
 
 26 . put it in the side of the ark~\ Rather, 
 hy the side of the ark. The two tables 
 of the Decalogue were in the ark, i K. viii. 
 9 ; the book of the law was to be laid up 
 in the Holy of Holies close by the ark of the 
 covenant, probably in a chest. Cf. 2 K. xxii. 8. 
 This was not so much a provision for the safe 
 custody of the volume, nor yet an attestation 
 of its divine authority, though it served both 
 these ends also, as a witness or protest against 
 their breach of the covenant, of which the ark 
 was a symbol, by idolatry. Cf. Dr Pusey’s 
 ‘Daniel,’ pp. 306, 307. 
 
 27 . how much more after my deat}S\ AVith 
 these words Moses appears to have handed 
 over the book written and completed by 
 him (pu. 24) to the priests. It would seem 
 then that what is actually intended to be 
 
 taken as transcribed by Moses in person ends 
 in this place with “u. 23, and that 2;. 24 and 
 the rest of the book (with the exception 
 of the Song, 07. 19) must be regarded as a 
 kind of appendix added after Moses’ death 
 by another hand; though the Blessing is of 
 course to be regarded as a composition of 
 Moses. Cf. Introduction, §11. 
 
 28 — 30 . Gathering of the elders and offi- 
 cers and the whole congregation by order of 
 Moses that he might rehearse the ode to them. 
 The elders and officers would be specially 
 charged with the duty of making the people 
 learn the ode. 
 
 28 . call hea'ven and earth to record^ Cf. 
 XXX. 19, xxxii. I. 
 
 29 . in the latter days'] Cf. iv. 30. 
 
 Chap. XXXII. 1 — 43 . Song of Moses. 
 On general questions connected with this Song 
 see Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 The contents have been very diversely dis- 
 tributed into heads by the commentators. It is 
 obvious that minute and artificial divisions of 
 the matter are inapplicable to a poetical com- 
 position like this. One of the most simple and 
 satisfactory arrangements is that suggested by 
 Kamphausen. Regarding 0707. i — 3 as the in- 
 troduction, and 07 . 43 as the conclusion, he 
 groups the main contents of the song under 
 three heads, viz. (i) 0707. 4 — 18, the faithfulness 
 of God, the faithlessness of Israel; (2) 0707. 
 19 — 33, the chastisement and the need of its 
 infliction by God; (3) 'U'u. 34 — 42, God’s 
 compassion upon the low and humbled state 
 of His people. 
 
 1 — 3 . Introduction. 
 
 1. Heaven and earth are invoked, as in 
 iv. 26, XXX. 19, xxxi. 28, 29 (cf. Isa. i. 2 ; 
 
 3 M 2 
 
912 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXII. 
 
 lO. 
 
 rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, 
 as the small rain upon the tender herb, 
 and as the showers upon the grass : 
 
 3 Because I will publish the name 
 of the Lord : ascribe ye greatness 
 unto our God. 
 
 4 He is the Rock, his work is per- 
 fect: for all his ways are judgment: 
 a God of truth and without iniquity, 
 just and right is he. 
 
 f Heb. 3 ^They have corrupted themselves, 
 co^rrupted " their spot is not the spot of his chil- 
 ^ perverse and crook- 
 
 are'^J^f/j/s generation. 
 
 children, 6 Do ye thus requite the Lord, O 
 iS/rW. foolish people and unwise? is not he 
 thy father that hath bought thee ? 
 
 hath he not made thee, and establish- 
 ed thee ? 
 
 7 ^ Remember the days of old, 
 consider the years of ^ many genera- ^ Heb. 
 tions : ask thy father, and he will 
 shew thee ; thy elders, and they will 
 
 tell thee. 
 
 8 When the most High divided to 
 the nations their inheritance, when 
 he separated the sons of Adam, he 
 set the bounds of the people according 
 to the number of the children of 
 Israel. 
 
 9 For the Lord’s portion is his 
 people; Jacob is the Mot of his in- 
 heritance. 
 
 to He found him in a desert land, 
 
 Jer. ii. 12, xxii. 29), in order to impress on 
 the hearers the importance of what is to fol- 
 low. 
 
 2. My doctrine shall drop'] Or perhaps (as 
 LXX., Vulg., &c.) “ Let my doctrine drop.” 
 
 4 — 14 . Here follows the main body of 
 the Song, commencing with a contrast drawn 
 between the faithfulness of God and the per- 
 fidy of Israel. 
 
 4. He is the Rock, his ^joork is perfect] Ra- 
 ther, the Rock, perfect is His •work. The 
 term Rock stands absolutely as the first and 
 leading word. This epithet, repeated no less 
 than five times in the Song, {yx'. 15, 18, 31, 
 37), represents those attributes of God which 
 mioses is seeking to enforce, immutability and 
 impregnable strength. Cf. the expression “ the 
 stone of Israel,” Gen. xlix. 24; and i S. ii. 
 2; Ps. xviii. 2; Isa. xxvi. 4 and xxx. 29; 
 >Iatt. xvi. 18; John i. 42. The Hebrew 
 word tsor is frequently used in compound- 
 ing proper names of the Mosaic time, e.g. 
 Num. i. 5, 6, 10, ii. 12, iii. 35, &c. Our 
 translators have elsewhere rendered it accord- 
 ing to the sense (“everlasting strength,” “the 
 -Mighty One,” See.) ; in this chapter they have 
 rightly adhered to the letter throughout. 
 
 5 . 'Phe other side of ‘the picture is now 
 brought forward with a brevity and abrupt- 
 ness which strikingly enforces the contrast. 
 
 They haue corrupted themsel'ves., &c.] The 
 verb is in the singular. Render, “It” {i.e. 
 “ the perverse and crooked generation” under- 
 stood from the context) “hath corrupted itself 
 before Him (cf. Isa. i. 4); they are not ffis 
 children, but their blemish:” i.e. the generation 
 of evil-doers cannot be styled God’s children, 
 but rather the shame and disgrace of God’s 
 children. On the words their spot., &c., see 
 the Note at the end of the chapter.' 
 
 a per’verse and crooked generation] Cf. 
 Matt. xvii. 17 ; Luke ix. 41. 
 
 6. foolish people and unxvise] Cf. iv. 6 ; 
 Ps. XC. 12. 
 
 is not he thy father that hath bought thee] 
 Rather perhaps “ hath acquired thee for his 
 own,” or “ possessed thee:” and on the word 
 see note on Gen. xiv. 19, &c., Ps. Ixxiv. 2; 
 Isa. Ixiii. 16; Acts xx. 28; i Pet. ii. 9 (“a 
 peculiar people;” marg. “a purchased peo- 
 ple”), and reft'. 
 
 7. days] The plural form of this noun 
 is archaic, and occurs only here and in the 
 Psalm attributed to Moses, Ps. xc. 15. In 
 both places too it is in combination with 
 “ years.” 
 
 8. When the most High dixjided, &c.] That 
 is, whilst nations were being constituted under 
 God’s providence, and the bounds of their 
 habitation determined under His government 
 (cf. Acts xvii. 26), He had even then in view 
 the interests of His elect, and reserved a fit- 
 ting inheritance “ according to the number of 
 the children of Israel;” i.e. proportionate to 
 the wants of their population. The LXX. in- 
 stead of “according to the number of the chil- 
 dren of Israel,” has “according to the number 
 of the angels of God;” following apparently 
 not a dififerent reading, but the Jewish notion 
 that the nations of the earth are seventy in 
 number (cf. Gen. x.), and that each has its own 
 guardian angel (cf. Ecclus. xvii. 17). This 
 rendering, which thus curiously preserves 
 the general sense, whilst signally departing 
 from the letter, was possibly suggested by an 
 apprehension that the literal one might prove 
 invidious to the many Gentiles who would 
 read the Greek version. 
 
 9. the Lord's portion] Cf. Ex. xv. 16, 
 xix. 5 and rclf. 
 
V. Ii-iy.] DEUTERONOMY. XXXII. 
 
 913 
 
 and in the waste howling wilderness ; 
 nOr, he “led him about, he instructed him, 
 the apple of his eye. 
 
 1 1 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, 
 fluttereth over her young, spreadeth 
 abroad her wings, taketh them, bear- 
 eth them on her wings : 
 
 12 So the Lord alone did lead 
 him, and tb^re was no strange god 
 with him. 
 
 13 He made him ride on the high 
 places of the earth, that he might eat 
 the increase of the fields ; and he 
 made him to suck honey out of the 
 rock, and oil out of the flinty rock ; 
 
 14 Butter of kine, and milk of 
 sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams 
 
 of the breed of Bashan, and goats, 
 with the fiit of kidneys of wheat ; and 
 thou didst drink the pure blood of the 
 grape. 
 
 15 ^ But Jeshurun waxed fat, and 
 kicked : thou art waxen fat, thou art 
 grown thick, thou art covered with 
 fatness; then he forsook God which 
 made him, and lightly esteemed the 
 Rock of his salvation. 
 
 16 They provoked him to jealousy 
 with strange gods^ with abominations 
 provoked they him to anger. 
 
 17 They sacrificed unto devils, “not 
 
 to God ; to gods whom they knew were not 
 not, to new gods that came newly up, 
 whom your fathers feared not. 
 
 10 — 14 . These nj-v. set forth in figura- 
 tive language the helpless and hopeless state of 
 the nation when God took pity on it, and the 
 love and care which He bestowed on it. The 
 illustration of a ijian ready to perish in the 
 desert (cf. xxvi. 5), though sufficiently obvious 
 to one writing in the East, is probably chosen 
 because God did in fact lead the people 
 through the desert of Arabia, but it is not the 
 design of the passage to rehearse events histo- 
 rically. 
 
 10. in the ^aste hoveling vuilderness~\ 
 Lit. “ in a waste, the howling of a wilder- 
 ness,” i.e. a wilderness in which wild beasts 
 howl. The word for waste is that used Gen. 
 i. 2, and there rendered “ without form.” 
 
 apple of his eye]^ Cf. Ps. xvii. 8 ; Prov. 
 vii. 2. 
 
 11. As an eagle'] Cf. Ex. xix. 4. 
 
 spreadeth abroad her vjings] These words 
 
 begin the apodosis. The “so,” which A. V. 
 supplies at the next -z;., should be inserted 
 here. The sense is, “so He spread out His 
 wings, took them up,” &c. The v. is thus an 
 expansion of the figure employed in Ex. 1 . c. 
 
 12. So the Lord] Omit “ so.” The sen- 
 tence is independent. 
 
 vjith him] i. e. with God. The Lord alone 
 delivered Israel ; Israel therefore ought to 
 have served none other than Him. 
 
 13 . He made him ride on the high places] 
 i.e. gave Israel possession of those command- 
 ing positions which carry with them dominion 
 over the whole land. Cf. xxxiii. 29. 
 
 made him to suck honey out of the rock., and 
 oiF] i.e. the blessing of God enabled Israel 
 to draw the richest provision out of spots 
 naturally unproductive. The wild bees how- 
 ever hived and the olives flourished in the 
 rocky soil of Canaan. Cf. Ex. iii. 8, and note. 
 
 14 . breed of Bash an] Bashan was famous 
 for its cattle. Cf. Ps. xxii. 12 ; Ezek. xxxix. 18. 
 
 fat of kidneys of vuheat] i.e. the finest and 
 most nutritious wheat. The fat of the kid- 
 neys was regarded as being the finest and 
 tenderest, and was therefore specified as a 
 part of the sacrificial animals which was to 
 be offered to the Lord: cf. Ex. xxix. 13, &c. 
 
 the pure blood of the grape] Render, the 
 "blood of the grape (cf. Gen. xlix. ii), 
 even wine. The Hebrew word means 
 “foaming” or “fermenting,” and seems (cf. 
 Isa. xxvii. 2) a poetical term for wine. 
 
 15 . Jeshurun] This word, found again 
 only in xxxiii. 5, 26, and Isa. xliv. 2, is not a 
 diminutive but an appellative (from ydshar 
 “to be righteous”); and describes not the 
 character which belonged to Israel in fact, but 
 that to which Israel was called. Cf. Num. 
 xxiii. 21. The prefixing of this epithet to the 
 description of Israel’s apostasy contained in the 
 words next following is full of keen reproof. 
 
 Rock of his salvation] Cf. v. 4. 
 
 16 . They provoked hhn to jealousy] The 
 language is borrowed from the matrimonial 
 relationship, as in xxxi. 16; Exod. xxxiv. 14, 
 15 (relf.); Isa. liv. 5; Jer. ii. 25, and fre- 
 quently in the Prophets. 
 
 17 . devils] Render, destroyers; and 
 also in Ps. cvi. 37. The root is common 
 to the Shemitic languages (cf. its use Ps. 
 xci. 6), and means “to waste” or “hurry 
 away violently.” Its application here to the 
 false gods points to the trait so deeply graven 
 in all heathen worship, that of regarding the 
 deities as malignant, and needing to be propi- 
 tiated by human sufferings. 
 
 not to God] Rather, “ not- God,” i.e. which 
 were not God ; see margin. 
 
 nvhom your fathers feared not] Cf. xiii. 7, 
 xxix. 25. 
 
914 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXIL 
 
 [v. 1 8 — 24, 
 
 lOr, 
 
 despised. 
 
 18 Of the Rock that begat thee 
 thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten 
 God that formed thee. 
 
 19 And when the Lord saw he 
 "abhorred them,^ because of the pro- 
 voking of his sons, and of his daugh- 
 ters. 
 
 20 And he said, I will hide my face 
 from them,. I will see what their end 
 shall be: for they are a very froward 
 p-eneration, children in whom is no 
 Eith. 
 
 21 They have moved me to jea- 
 lousy with that zvhlch is not God ; 
 
 they have provoked me to anger with 
 their vanities : and "I will move them 
 to jealousy with those which are not a 
 people ; I will provoke them to anger 
 with a foolish nation. 
 
 22 For a fire is kindled in mine 
 anger, and " shall burn unto the low- 
 
 est hell, and " shall consume the earth burned. 
 with her increase, and set on fire the con- 
 foundations of the mountains. sumed. 
 
 23 I will heap mischiefs upon them ; 
 
 I will spend mine arrows upon them. 
 
 24 They shall be burnt with hunger, t Heb. 
 and devoured with ^ burning heat, and 
 
 19 — 33 . God's decree of rejection; the 
 terrible accomplishment of it ; and the reasons 
 which led to its severity and to its eventual 
 mitigation. 
 
 19 . The anger of God at the apostasy of 
 His people is stated in general terms in this 
 <!’. ; and the results of it described, in words 
 as of God Himself, in the next and following 
 -I’T,’. These consisted negatively in the with- 
 drawal of God’s favour (pv. 20), and positively 
 in the infliction of a righteous retribution. 
 
 Jlnd ewhen the Lord 5a<w it,, he abhorred 
 them,, because of ,, &c.] The rendering, “And 
 the Lord saw it, and from provocation {i,e. 
 from being provoked) rejected his sons,” 
 adopted by Keil, Knobel, &c., seems easier 
 than that of A. V., but has no support in the 
 ancient Targums or Versions. 
 
 daughters'], The women had their full share 
 in the sins of the people. Cf. Isa.^iii. 16 sqq., 
 xxxii. 9 sqq.; Jer. vii. 18, xliv. 15 sqq. 
 
 20. Cf. xxxi. 17, 18. 
 
 1 evjill see qvhat their end shall be] Cf. Gen. 
 xxxvii. 20 ad fin. 
 
 21 . They have moved me to jealousy] Cf. 
 V, 16. God would mete out to them the 
 same measure as they had done to Him. 
 Though chosen by the one God to be His 
 own, they had preferred idols, which are no 
 gods. So therefore would He prefer to His 
 people that which was no people. As they 
 had angered Him with their vanities, so would 
 He provoke them by adopting in their stead 
 those whom they counted as nothing. Cf. 
 Hos. i. 10; Rom. x. 19 ; i Pet. ii. 10. The 
 force of the passage turns on the antithesis 
 between two sets of terms, viz. “not-God,” 
 and “ vanities” (or “nothingnesses”) on the 
 one side ; anti “ not a people,” and “ a foolish 
 nation,” on tlie other. Now the first pair of 
 terms (not-God, and vanities) must clearly 
 be taken strictly in a theological, and (so to 
 say) technical sense, and denotes the privation 
 of those blessings which in the phraseology 
 of Scripture would be described by such 
 
 words as God, Truth, Being, &c. Hence 
 the second and contrasted set of terms, “ not 
 a people,” and “a foolish nation,” cannot 
 mean a barbarous or inhuman people, such as 
 the Chaldeans (Rosenm., Maur., Kamph., 
 &c.), but such a people as not being God’s, 
 would, from the theological point of view, not 
 be accounted a people at all (cf. Eph. ii. 12 ; 
 I Pet. ii. 10). And the V foolish nation” is 
 such as is destitute of that which alone 
 can make a really “wise and understanding 
 people” (Deut. iv. 6), the knowledge of the 
 revealed word and will of God; and there- 
 fore, though perhaps wise in this world’s 
 wisdom, is foolishness before God (cf. i Cor. 
 i. 18 — 28). 
 
 The epithets “not a people,” and “foolish 
 nation,” represent very faithfully the estima- 
 tion in which the Jews held all others than 
 themselves (cf. Ecclus. 1 . 25, 26). When 
 therefore St Paul asserts that Israel in this 
 passage had forewarning of the call of the 
 Gentiles, he is assuredly only declaring its 
 real import. God announces His resolve 
 to repay the faithlessness of the Jews by 
 withdrawing their privileges, and conferring 
 them on those whom the Jews despised. 
 The ultimate result, that by the call of the 
 Gentiles Israel should be provoked to emu- 
 lation, and so eventually be saved also, is not 
 here brought forward. It lies amongst those 
 mysteries of the distant future which the 
 Gospel was to bring to light. Moses, the 
 minister of the Law, goes on to utter in glow- 
 ing language the threatenings of God against 
 the apostates. 
 
 22. Cf. Jer. xv. 14, xvii. 4; Lam. iv. ii. 
 
 23 . / voill spend mine arrovus] Cf. v. 42 ; 
 Ps. vii. 12, 13, xlv. 5. 
 
 24 . burning heat] i,e, the fever of a pesti- 
 lential disease. On the “four sore judg- 
 ments,” famine, plague, noisome beasts, the 
 sword, cf. Lev. xxvi. 22; Jer. xv. 2; Ezek. v. 
 17, xiv. 21. 
 
V. 25-33] DEUTERONOMY. XXXII. 
 
 915 
 
 with bitter destruction : I will also 
 send the teeth of beasts upon them, 
 with the poison of serpents of the dust. 
 
 25 The sword without, and terror 
 t Heb. ^within, shall Mestroy both the youno: 
 
 from the ’ , . . J 
 
 chambers, man aiid the virgin, the suckling also 
 blleave. with the mail of gray hairs. 
 
 26 I said, I would scatter them into 
 corners, I would make the remem- 
 brance of them to cease from amonor 
 
 O 
 
 men : 
 
 27 Were it not that I feared the 
 wrath of the enemy, lest their ad- 
 versaries should behave themselves 
 
 ^OurhHi Strangely, and lest they should say, 
 hand, and " Qui* hand IS high, and the Lord 
 "lord, hath not done all this. 
 
 ^eduhis"^ 28 For they are a nation void of 
 
 counsel, neither is there any under- 
 standing in them. 
 
 29 O that they were wise, that they 
 understood this, that they would con- 
 sider their latter end ! 
 
 30 How should '^one chase a thou- ^ Josh. 23. 
 sand, and two put ten thousand to 
 flight, except their Rock had sold 
 them, and the Lord had shut them up ? 
 
 31 For their rock is not as our 
 Rock, even our enemies themselves 
 being judges. 
 
 32 For their vine LV of the vine of! Ou 
 
 Sodom, and of the fields of Gomor- than the 
 rah : their grapes are grapes of gall, "sZot, 
 their clusters are bitter : • 
 
 33 Their wine is the poison of 
 dragons, and the cruel venom of asps. 
 
 26. I '^Mould scatter them into corner s~\ 
 Rather, I would utterly disperse' them. 
 See Note at end of the chapter. 
 
 27. Were it not that I feared the Rvrath of 
 the enemy] Rather, Were it not that I 
 apprehended the provocation of the 
 enemy, t.e. that I should be provoked to 
 wrath when the enemy ascribed the overthrow 
 of Israel to his own prowess and not to my 
 judgments. So Vitringa, Keil, Wogue, &c. 
 The Hebrew noun {caas') is used in the 
 same sense as the cognate verb in -u. 21. On 
 the general sense of the passage cf. Ezek. xx. 
 9, 14, 21. Moses employs a like argument 
 in interceding with God for Israel, ix. 28, 29. 
 
 behanje themsel'ves strangely] Rather, mis- 
 understand it, i.e. mistake the cause of 
 Israel’s ruin. 
 
 28 sqq. The reason why such severity was 
 needed is noted and dwelt upon, the discourse 
 passing almost imperceptibly into words of 
 Moses’ own. 
 
 29. Cf. Isa. xlvii. 7 ; Lam. i. 9. 
 
 30. their Rock] i.e. the Lord, Israel’s 
 true Rock, -n. 4, as the parallel clause which 
 follows makes clear. Some commentators 
 wrongly refer the expression here to the false 
 gods, to which however it certainly is applied 
 in the next nj. But the purpose of Moses 
 here is evidently to shew that the defeat of Is- 
 rael would be due to the fact that God, their 
 strength, had abandoned them because of their 
 apostasy. 
 
 31. their rock... our Rock] i.e. the false 
 gods of the heathen to which the apostate Is- 
 raelites had fallen away, on the one side; and 
 God, the true Rock, in which Moses and the 
 faithful trust, on the other side. The change 
 in the application of the term “their rock,” 
 
 rightly marked in the A. V. by the with- 
 drawal of the capital from the substantive, 
 is sudden ; but the sense is settled by the 
 antithesis on which the *1;. turns, and which 
 is sharpened by the very suddenness of the in- 
 terchange in the pronouns. In the next v. 
 the pronoun “ their” reverts to its usual sense 
 in the whole passage, and denotes the apostate 
 Israelites. 
 
 our enemies] The enemies of Moses and 
 the faithful Israelites; the heathen, more spe- 
 cially those wdth whom Israel was brought 
 into collision, whom Israel was commissioned 
 to “chase,” but to whom, as a punishment 
 for faithlessness, Israel vras “sold,” -v. 30. 
 Moses leaves the decision, whether “their 
 rock” or “our Rock” is superior, to be de- 
 termined by the unbelievers themselves. For 
 examples we have the testimony of the Egyp- 
 tians, Ex. xiv. 25; of Balaam in Num. xxiii. 
 and xxiv. ; of the Philistines: cf. also Josh. ii. 
 9 sqq.; i S. iv. 8 and v. 7 sqq.; i K. xx. 28. 
 That the heathen should thus be constrained 
 to bear witness to the supremacy of Israel’s 
 God heightens the folly of Israel’s apostasy. 
 
 Judges] The Hebrew word is a very rare 
 and undoubtedly archaic one, occurring only 
 Ex. XX. 22. 
 
 32. their -vine] i.e. the nature and cha- 
 racter of Israel: cf. for similar expressions Ps. 
 Ixxx. 8, 14; Jer. ii. 21; Hos. x. i. This and 
 the following verses must not (with Schultz, 
 Volck, &c.) be referred to the heathen ene- 
 mies of Israel. Such a digression upon the 
 faults of the heathen is quite foreign to the 
 purpose of the Song. 
 
 Sodom... Gomorrah] Here, as elsewhere, 
 and often in the prophets, emblems of utter 
 depravity: cf. Isa. i. 10; J:r. xxiii. 14. 
 
 gall] Cf. xxix. 18. 
 
gi6 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXH. U 34-44. 
 
 34 Is not this laid up in store with 
 me, and sealed up among my treasures ^ 
 cEccIug. 33 To me belongeth ^vengeance, 
 Rom. J2. and recompence ; their foot shall slide 
 ileb lo time ; for the day of their cala- 
 
 30. mity is at hand, and the things that 
 shall come upon them make haste. 
 
 36 For the Lord shall judge his 
 people, and repent himself for his ser- 
 
 1?^/' vants, when he seeth that their ^ power 
 is gone, and there is none shut up, or left. 
 
 37 And he shall say. Where are their 
 gods, their rock in whom they trusted, 
 
 38 Which did eat the fat of their 
 sacrifices, and drank the wine of their 
 drink offerings? let them rise up and 
 
 \!nhi:ung help you, and be ^your protection. 
 joryo2i. 29 See now that I, even I, am he, 
 
 I Sam. 2. there is no o-od with me: kill, 
 
 Tob. 13.2. and I make alive; I wound, and I 
 \v ibd. 16. neither is there any that can de- 
 
 liver out of my hand. 
 
 40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, 
 and say, I live for ever. 
 
 41 If I whet my glittering sword, 
 and mine hand take hold on judg- 
 ment; I will render vengeance to 
 mine enemies, and will reward them 
 that hate me. 
 
 42 I will make mine arrows drunk 
 with blood, and my sword shall de- 
 vour flesh ; and that with the blood of 
 the slain and of the captives, from the 
 beginning of revenges upon the enemy. 
 
 43 Rejoice, O ye nations, 
 
 his people: for he will avenge the j>'^’ 
 blood of his servants, and will render 
 vengeance to his adversaries, and will f j., 
 be merciful unto his land, and to his 
 people. 
 
 44 H And Moses came and spake 
 all the words of this song in the ears 
 
 of the. people, he, and "Hoshea the son n Or, 
 
 34 — 43 . God's purpose to have mercy on 
 His people when chastised and humbled. The 
 declaration is introduced by an assertion that 
 God’s plan had been all along fixed, and that 
 its execution was therefore sure and rapidly 
 approaching. On the language of a’. 34, cf. 
 job xiv. 17 ; Hos. xiii. la. 
 
 35 . their foot shall srule~\ Cf. Ps, xxxviii. 
 17, xciv. 18. These words should not, as in 
 the A.V., stand as a distinct clause. They 
 are closely connected with the preceding. 
 'Phe passage should rather be rendered: 
 “ Vengeance is mine and recompence, at the 
 time when their foot slideth.” 
 
 36 . the Lord shall judge his people'^ Cf. 
 Ps. cxxxv. 14; I Pet. iv. 17. 
 
 repent himself fo)'\ R-ather, have com- 
 passion upon. The T’. declares that God’s 
 judgment of His ])eople would issue at once 
 in the punishment of the wicked, and in the 
 comfort of the righteous. 
 
 none shut up. or leff\ On this proverbial 
 phrase, see the Note at end of the chapter. 
 
 38 . let theyn rise up~\ Cf. Jer. ii. 28. 
 
 39 . 7 , earn /, am he., and there is no god 
 <with me~\ 'J'he words interpolated in the 
 A. V., though necessary for the idiom of the 
 English, somewhat mar the force of the short- 
 er original. 'J'he LXX. has e-yco dfn kul ovk 
 ecTTL Qcus 7 r\rj^ ifiov. Cf. Isa. xli. 4, xlviii. 
 12; Joh. viii. 24, xviii. 5. 
 
 I kilh and I make ali've'] Cf. i S.ii. 6; 2 K. 
 V. 7. 
 
 I auound, and I he aV^ Cf. Job v. 18; ?Ios. 
 
 vi. I. 
 
 neither is there any that can deliver out of 
 yny hand] Cf. Isa. xliii. 13; Hos. v. 14. 
 
 40 — 42 . These are closely connect- 
 ed. The full scop in the A. V. at end 
 of no. 40 should be removed, and the pas- 
 sage should run thus: For I lift up my 
 hand to heaven and say. As I live for 
 ever, if I whet, &c. On no. 40, in which 
 God is described as swearing by Himself, cf. 
 
 Isa. xlv. 23; Jer. xxii. 5 ; Heb. vi. 17. The 
 lifting up of the hand was a gesture used in 
 making oath. Cf. Gen. xiv. 22; Rev. x. 5, 6. 
 
 40 . I linoe for enoerj, “The Lord liveth ” was 
 
 an usual formula in swearing. Cf. Num. xiv. » 
 21; I S. xiv. 39, 45; Jer. v. 2. 
 
 41 . I mill render njengeance~\ Having 
 taken the work in hand, I will thoroughly 
 and terribly avenge myself. Here begins the 
 apodosis of the sentence, the substance of the 
 oath. 
 
 42 . from the beginning of revenges upon 
 the enemy'] Render, from the head {i.e. the 
 chief) of the princes of the enemy. 
 
 See Note at end of the chapter. 
 
 43 . Rejoice., 0 ye nations., avith his people] 
 Render rather, 0 ye nations, praise His 
 people ; and see the Note at end of the chap- 
 ter. The A. V. however follows I^XX., as 
 docs St Paul when citing the passage, Rom. 
 
 XV. 10. 
 
 Nor docs the rendering of the LXX. differ 
 greatly in effect from that above suggested. 
 
 For the heathen, here called upon to laud 
 God’s people, can only be reejuired to do 
 
V. 45-52.] DEUTERONOMY. XXXIL 
 
 917 
 
 45 And Moses made an end of 
 speaking all these words to all Israel : 
 
 18 And he said unto them, .^Set 
 
 ' your hearts unto all the words which 
 I testify among you this day, which 
 ye shall command your children to 
 observe to do, all the words of this 
 law. 
 
 47 For it is not a vain thing for 
 you ; because it is your life : and 
 through this thing ye shall prolong 
 your days in the land, whither ye go 
 over Jordan to possess it. 
 
 ^■Numb. 48 ^ And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses that selfsame day, saying, 
 
 49 Get thee up into this mountain 
 Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is 
 in the land of Moab, that is over 
 
 against Jericho; and behold the land 
 of Canaan, which I give unto the chil- 
 dren of Israel for a possession : 
 
 50 And die in the mount whither 
 thou goest up, and be gathered unto 
 
 thy people; as Aaron thy brother Numb, 
 died in mount Hor, and was gathered & 33.^3^' 
 unto his people : 
 
 51 Because ^’ye trespassed against * Numb, 
 me among the children of Israel at & 
 
 the waters of ” Meribah-Kadesh, in “ Or, 
 the wilderness of Zin ; because ye ^K^dtsfu 
 sanctified me not in the midst of the 
 children of Israel. 
 
 52 Yet thou shalt see the land be- 
 fore thee; but thou shalt not go thither 
 unto the land which I give the chil- 
 dren of Israel. 
 
 so when they have themselves received a 
 share of God’s mercies “to His land and 
 to His people,” and had cause therefore 
 themselves to “rejoice with His people.” It 
 is apparent also that, since the praise is to 
 be addressed, in the first instance, to “ His 
 people,” and not directly to God Himself, the 
 “ mercies” must be regarded as overflowing to 
 the rejoicing Gentiles through and from the 
 Jews. Nor can we imagine such praise to be 
 bestowed by the Gentiles upon the Jews for 
 such “mercies,” whilst the Jews were them- 
 selves excluded from the same. It seems then 
 that, in this profound passage, there is shadow- 
 ed forth the purpose of God to overrule (i) 
 the unbelief of the Jews to the bringing in of 
 the Gentiles; and (2) the mercy shewn to the 
 Gentiles to the eventual restoration of the 
 Jfws (cf. Rom. xi. 25 — 36). 
 
 The Song closes then, as it began 1—3, 
 with an invitation to praise ; and has reached, 
 through a long series of Divine interpositions, 
 the grandest them.e for it in this call to the 
 Gentiles, now heathen no more, to rejoice 
 over God’s restored people, the Jews. 
 
 44 — 52 . These verses were, no doubt, 
 added by the author of the supplement to 
 Deut. See Introd., § ii. Vu. 48 sqq. re- 
 peat the command already given, Num. xxvii. 
 1 2 sqq. 
 
 44 . Hosbea] Cf. Num. xiii. 16. 
 
 46 . Cf. vi. 6, xi, 18. 
 
 47 . because it is your life~\ Cf. xxx. 20. 
 
 49 . this mountain Abarim^ unto mount 
 
 Nebo'\ Cf. Num. xxi. 10, 20, and notes. 
 
 52 . Tet thou shalt see the land\ Cf. Heb. 
 xi. 13. 
 
 NOTES on Chap, xxxii; and 
 NOTE on ch. xxxii. 
 
 Those who deny that Moses is the author 
 of Deuteronomy, of course include this chap- 
 ter in their statements. As regards it, how- 
 ever, the further and special question has been 
 raised whether it is from the same hand, be it 
 of Moses or of any other, as the rest of the 
 book in which it is placed. That there is 
 nothing in its length and structure to prove 
 a late origin has been in effect shown by the 
 remarks on the other Song of Moses given in 
 Ex. XV,: cf. Introduction to Exodus, p. 239. 
 Many modern critics (Ewald, Knobel, Bleek, 
 Kamphauien, Davidson, &c.) have however 
 confidently maintained that this Song was 
 first written in the days of the Kings, sub- 
 sequent to the revolt of Jei'oboam, and was 
 inserted by the still later “Deuteronomist” in 
 
 on vv. 5, 26, 33, 36, 42, and 43. 
 
 his compilation. They maintain this as re- 
 gards the Song because of the characteristics 
 (i) of its style, (2) of its ideas. 
 
 I. That the Song differs signally in diction 
 and idiom from the preceding chapters is ob- 
 vious, but proves nothing. That a lyrical pas- 
 sage should be conceived in modes of thought 
 wholly unlike those which belong to narrative 
 or exhortfition, and be uttered in different 
 phraseology, is ordinary and natural. The 
 same general traits distinguish the choruses of 
 a Greek play from its dialogue. 
 
 There are in the Song notwithstanding nu- 
 merous coincidences both in thoughts and 
 wmrds with other parts of the Pentateuch, and 
 especially with Deut. Some of these have been 
 pointed out in the notes on the successive verses. 
 A long list of them is given by Colenso, ‘ Penta- 
 teuch,’ § 799. Many no doubt are unimportant, 
 
i8 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXII. 
 
 but others are not so ; and their critical weight 
 altogether is more than enough to outweigh 
 the presumption, in itself not very grave, of a 
 difference of authorship drawn from a differ- 
 ence of style. 
 
 The occurrence of Aramaisms in the Song is 
 alleged by Kamph. and others (e.g. -z'. 
 
 17; 'u’n from t:;. 18; ‘v. 26; 
 
 -v. 36). Of these and other instances 
 given, some are questioned by recent critics 
 (see e.g. the note on ‘v. 26); and even were 
 all certain, they would not furnish conclusive 
 proof of the date assigned by Ewald, Kamph,, 
 (See.. For the canon laid down by Koenig, 
 ‘Alttest. Studien,’ ii. 8, “Aramaisms in a 
 book of Scripture are a token either of a 
 very early or very late composition,” is now 
 generally accepted. In poetry particularly 
 Aramaisms were used, as are archaisms in 
 the poetry of all languages, long after they 
 had ceased to be vernacular (see Bleek, ‘ In- 
 troduction to the Old Testament,’ Vol. i. 
 § 39 (edit. Venables); Keil, ‘ Introd. to the 
 Old Testament,’ Part I. ch. ii, § 13 (edit. 
 Clark). The Aramaisms in question then 
 are compatible with a Mosaic origin of 
 the Song, and possibly also with one dating 
 after the reign of Hezekiah; but they can 
 hardly be so with the date suggested by 
 Knobcl, the reign of Ahab, i.e. the tenth cen- 
 tury B, c, 
 
 I'he resemblances between Ps. xc. and Deut, 
 xxxii. have been rightly regarded as important. 
 Cf. especially the expression “the Rock,” 
 with V. I of the Psalm ; and Deut. xxxii. 7 
 with ii-z;. I and 15 of the Psalm ; also 4 
 and 36 of the former with 16 and 13 of 
 the latter. The manner and turn of thought 
 of the Psalm are certainly also similar to those 
 of the Song (see Delitzsch on Ps. xc.). Now 
 Bleek, remarking (‘ Introduction to Old Tes- 
 tament,’ Vol. II. p. 234, edit. Venables) on 
 the superscription of the Psalm, which calls it 
 “A Prayer of Moses,” says There is no 
 authentic reason for denying to the lawgiver 
 the authorship of this Psalm, and at all events 
 it bears the stamp of very great antiquity.” 
 Ewald also grants the last part of this state- 
 me’it. 
 
 Kamph. however himself seems practically 
 to admit the insufiiciency of the argument 
 drawn from style, when he says, p. 247, “ If 
 the composition of Deuteronomiy by Moses, 
 of \^'hich many learned men are still convinced, 
 could really stand as established, then natu- 
 rally the (jiicstion about the authenticity of 
 our Song would be decided in the traditional 
 sense.” 
 
 (2) Of arguments against the Mosaic au- 
 thorship belonging to the second class, many 
 resolve themselves ul'imatcly into a mere re- 
 jection of prophecy as such. The Song has 
 reference to a state of things which did not 
 ensue until long after tlie days of Moses. It 
 is thence inferred at once that it could not 
 
 have been written by him. Such assumptions 
 need not be here discussed. 
 
 But some (e.g. Kamph.) who will not reject 
 prophecy in toto^ are nevertheless convinced 
 that the Song must have originated at a far 
 later epoch than that of Moses. It sets forth, 
 they observe, a religious and political aspect of 
 affairs which did not arise until after the dis- 
 ruption in the reign of Rehoboam, and even 
 the decline of the Monarchy of the Ten 
 Tribes; its whole tenor of ideas and associa- 
 tions is of some such era ; its very theme and 
 scope is the restoration of a right relation- 
 ship of God’s people to Him, a relationship 
 which is assumed to have been interrupted by 
 the faithlessness of the human party in the 
 covenant. Now the topics of Isaiah and the 
 prophets following him are the very same. 
 
 In reply it must be said that other parts of 
 Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch no less dis- 
 tinctly contemplate an apostasy (e.g. Deut. 
 xxviii,; Lev. xxvi.), and that therefore the 
 mere fact of such being referred to in this 
 chapter proves nothing as to it in particular. 
 Further, the apostasy is really named here in 
 general and highly poetical terms ; terms cer- 
 tainly not so definite as those employed in 
 other parts of the Pentateuch on the same 
 subject. The exhibition of the apostasy in 
 the Song, not as a possible but as an accom- 
 plished event, is in the manner common to the 
 prophets. They treat a Future presented to 
 their inspired gaze whilst they write or speak, 
 as though it were a real living Present; and 
 hence “the prophetic present” has passed 
 into a well-understood and technical term. 
 
 The like remarks apply to the political allu- 
 sions. No doubt these assume that the people 
 has passed through an era of prosperity and 
 success, and has reached one of disaster and 
 subjugation. Yet the description contains no 
 single trait which can fairly be said to imply 
 a personal knowledge either of the Syrian or 
 Assyrian victories over Israel. Indeed the 
 fact (remarked by Knobel), that the close of 
 the Song holds out to Israel, and, be it 
 noted, not to a portion of Israel, but em- 
 phatically to Israel as a whole, a lively hope cf 
 revenge and recovery, seems, on the ground of 
 “ the higher criticism” at least, to refute at once 
 the usual hypothesis of the critics of that 
 school themselves ; for in the closing years of 
 the kingdom of Samaria such triumphs could 
 hardly be dreamed of by any discerning pa- 
 triot against the overwhelming might of Assy- 
 ria. And yet it is just to those years that 
 they ascribe the origin of the Song. 
 
 It is to be observed that the blessings an- 
 nexed in the Song to faithfulness, whether 
 named as promises or performances, are those 
 which recur so commonly in Deuteronomy, 
 and which must have been in the closing months 
 of Moses’ life perpetually in his mind ; those 
 namely connected with the Promised Land. 
 On the other hand, the promises which emerge 
 
DEUTERONOMY. XXXII. 
 
 919 
 
 in the later times, and which cluster round 
 the “Son of David,” who should restore 
 again all things to Israel, are wholly absent. 
 
 The “ objectivity” of the Song is justly re- 
 ferred to by Schultz and others as one of its 
 most remarkable traits. Now there is no more 
 universal or striking characteristic of the most 
 ancient poetry of every nation than this. 
 
 It may be added that, exhibiting as it does 
 in series, God’s preventing mercies, His peo- 
 ple’s faithlessness and ingratitude, God’s con- 
 sequent judgments, and the final and com- 
 plete triumph of the Divine counsels of grace, 
 it forms the summary of all later Old Testa- 
 ment prophecies, and gives as it were the 
 framework upon which they are laid out. 
 Here as elsewhere the Pentateuch presents it- 
 self as the foundation of the religious life of 
 Israel in after times. 
 
 If once we admit the possibility that Moses 
 might foresee the future apostasy of Israel, it 
 is scarce possible to conceive how such fore- 
 sight could be turned to better account by 
 him than by the writing of this Song. In 
 style rugged, sententious, and incisive; abound- 
 ing in pregnant metaphors, and bold con- 
 trasts ; impassioned in earnestness ; and built 
 up with a very careful attention to rhythm, no 
 strain could be more likely to strike the ima- 
 gination or to fasten on the memory of an. 
 Eastern people or better calculated to attain 
 the specific purpose announced as aimed at in 
 its composition: see xxxi. 19 sqq. Its currency 
 would be a standing protest against apostasy ; 
 a protest which might well check waverers, and 
 warn the faithful that the revolt of others was 
 neither unforeseen nor unprovided for by Him 
 in whom they trusted. 
 
 That this Ode must on every ground take the 
 very first rank in Hebrew poetry is universally 
 allowed. The rationalist critics however have 
 no better explanation to otter about its origin 
 than that “the Deuteronomist,” a compiler 
 supposed to be living in the years immediately 
 preceding the Babylonish captivity, “found” 
 it, an anonymious docum.ent of more than a 
 century old, the production of some for- 
 gotten author belonging to the northern king- 
 dom, and incorporated it into his work, in- 
 venting by way of accounting for its insertion 
 the statements of xxxi. 16 — 30. Such a con- 
 jecture is most unlikely on the face of it ; 
 and is a supposition such surely as no one 
 would maintain about this splendid poem, 
 unless he had adopted it on grounds other 
 than those found in the Song itself, and had 
 to defend it to the utmost at all hazards. 
 
 “The Song of Moses” has furnished a 
 theme for several monographs ; amongst the 
 most noteworthy of which are Vitringa, 
 
 ‘ Commentarius ad Canticum Mosis’ (1734); 
 Dathe, ‘Dissertatio in Canticum Mosis’ 
 (1769); Ewald, ‘ Das grosse Lied in Deu- 
 teronomium’ (‘Jahrb. der Bibl. Wissenschaft,’ 
 1857); Volck, ‘Mosis Canticum Cygneum,’ 
 
 Nordlingen, 1861; Kamphausen, ‘Das Lied 
 Moses,’ Leipzig, 1862. 
 
 •V. 5 . 
 
 The word “spot” or “blemish” (DID) 
 appears to have a moral signification here as 
 Prov. ix. 7 ; Job xi. 15 ; 2 Pet. ii. 13. 
 
 The rendering of margin, though sup- 
 ported by Abenez., Philippson, &c., is in- 
 tolerably harsh ; others (Rosenm., Baumg., 
 Schultz, &c.) treat the whole passage as inter- 
 rogative, and carry on the subject from the 
 preceding verse, “Has He” (i.e. God) “acted 
 corruptly towards him ? No : His children 
 themselves are their own disgrace.” But this 
 does not suit the tenor of the context. Others 
 (Lowth, Donald., &c.) render “their spot” 
 (i.e. the defiling infection of their sin) “has 
 corrupted before flim children not” (i.e. no 
 longer) “His”; but this inversion of the order 
 of the words is unwarrantable. Ewald and 
 Fiirst assign quite another sense: “ His not- 
 sons have violated their oath to Him.” They 
 give however no example of DID in the 
 sense of “oath” from the Hebrew, and the 
 illustrations from the Arabic are not convinc- 
 ing. On the whole, though the passage is 
 difficult, no better version has yet been offered 
 than that suggested in the foot-note; which 
 is substantially that adopted by Knob., Keil, 
 Schroder, &c. The variations of the ancient 
 versions suggest the suspicion that the text in 
 this ‘v. is and has long been corrupt. 
 
 'V. 26. 
 
 LXX. StacTTTfpco avrovs- The Hebrew word 
 here is cIttu^ Xey., and is taken by the English 
 Version after most ancient authorities as a de- 
 nominative from The modern Hebra- 
 
 ists (Gesen., Fiirst, &c.) however regard it as 
 an independent root, found also in HD and 
 
 Arab, ilj (cf. Gk. 0 r;-/Lii, Lat. fa-ri), and ^ 
 meaning to “breathe” or “blow.” Hence 
 it means “ceu vento dispergam eos,” Gesen. 
 
 ‘ Thes.’ 
 
 'v. 36. 
 
 This phrase is proverbial (cf. i K. xiv. 10, 
 xxi. 21 ; 2 K. ix. 8), and based on a parono- 
 masia (Dliyi "il'ify). Its general sense is clear: 
 it means “all men of all sorts;” and its 
 literal force is correctly given in the A. V., 
 though the word translated “left” might per- 
 haps as well be rendered “ set free.” Its 
 original and proper significance has however 
 been uncertain from very early times. The 
 best explanation of it is probably that of De 
 Dieu, which has analogies in the Arabic, and is 
 followed by Dathe, Baumg., Delitzsch, Keil, 
 Knob., &c., who regard it as originally mean-, 
 ing “married and single” (cf. the German 
 ledig) : others (Rosenm., Gesen., De Wette, 
 &c.) suggest “bond and free,” or “confined 
 and at large:” others (Kimchi and some 
 
920 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXIII. 
 
 [v. I, 2. 
 
 Jewish authorities) “precious” (and so shut 
 up and guarded), and “vile” (and so neglect- 
 ed) : others (Fiirst, &c.) “he who is restrained 
 and he who is his own master,” which is sub- 
 stantially identical with that of Kamph., “he 
 who is not of full age, and he who is so, and 
 therefore is independent : ” al'il alia. 
 
 v . 42. 
 
 The LXX. [dyro KecfioXfjs dpxovrcov ix~ 
 6pd>v] adopts the rendering suggested in the 
 foot-note. So Vatcr, Gesen., Maur., Kamph., 
 Fiirst, Wogue, See. This rendering is strongly 
 supported by the Hebrew of Judg. v. 2 (sec 
 note). Others indeed (Cappellus, Vitringa, 
 Knobel, Keil, Schroder, Volck, &c.) render 
 the word y"l2 by “hair,” as in Num. vi. 5; 
 cf. Lev. xxi. 10; and thus the passage would 
 run; “from the hairy head of the enemy;” cf. 
 Ps. Ixviii. 21. The word PID is however here 
 in the plural. Either way the clause connects 
 itself with the verbs in the preceding clauses: 
 “ I will make my arrows drunk with blood, 
 and my sword shall devour flesh; with (or 
 from) the blood of the slain, and with (or 
 from) the chief of the princes.” The render- 
 ing of the A.V., in this place and Judg. 
 V. 2, cannot be maintained. 
 
 ‘v. 43. 
 
 The word “with” is supplied by the 
 A.V., as by the LXX. evcjypdvdrjre eSvrj perd 
 Tov \aov avTov, but needlessly. The trans- 
 
 lation of the words, however, which has 
 been variously given, must depend upon that 
 of the verb, This verb in Kal and 
 
 Piel means “to sound;” and also “to re- 
 joice,” or “to utter praise;” and transitively 
 “to laud,” “praise,” or “rejoice in” (cf. 
 for Kal, Isa. Ixi. 7 ; for Piel, Ps. li. 16). 
 The intransitive senses of the verb in Kal and 
 Piel are found also in its Hiphil forms (e.^. 
 Job xxix. 13; Ps. xxxii. ii). There can 
 then be no doubt that the transitive sense, 
 though it does not actually occur, is admis- 
 sible in Hiphil; and we have, in all likeli- 
 hood, an example of it in the words before 
 us. (So Vulg., “ Laudate gentes populum 
 ejus;” Samar., and many Jewish authorities; 
 Dathe, Baumg., Schultz, VoHk, Herx., Knob., 
 Schroder, Wogue, &c.) Other renderings 
 are (i) “O ye nations, cause His people to 
 rejoice” (Alting, Vater, &c.) ; (2) “ O ye nar 
 tions, who are His people, rejoice” (Aquila, 
 Theodot., Luther, Rosenm., Ewald, Maur., 
 Gesen., Fiirst, &c.). But of these two the 
 former does not suit the context, no reason 
 being assigned in it why “ the nations” should 
 cause joy to God’s people; the latter is ob- 
 jectionable, because it assumes an apposition 
 between and D'"!!!, which terms are 
 
 generally (though not universally) contra- 
 distinguished, and here seem to be especially 
 so from the tenor of the whole Song (cf 'v. 
 21), and from the difference of number in 
 the nouns. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 I The majesty of God. 6 The blessings cf the 
 txvclve tribes. 26 The excclleuty of Israel. 
 
 AND this is the blessing, where- 
 l\. with Moses the man of God 
 
 blessed the children of Israel before 
 his death. 
 
 2 And he said, The Lord came 
 from Sinai, and rose up from Seir 
 unto them*; he shined forth from 
 
 Chap. XXXIII. Blessing of Moses. For 
 general remar ks, see Note at end of chapter. 
 
 The Blessing contains (i) an Introduction, 
 'v'v. I — 5; (2) the Benedictions pronounced 
 on the Tribes individually, 6 — 25; (3) a 
 
 Conclusion, 'w. 26 — 29. 
 
 It was no doubt spoken by Moses, probably 
 on the same day and to the same assembly as 
 the Song (xxxii. i — 43), as soon as he re- 
 ceived the renewed notice of his approaching 
 decease (xxxii. 48), and just before he ascend- 
 ed Mount Nebo. Like the Blessing of Jacob 
 (Gen. xlix.), to which it has an intimate 
 though independent correspondence through- 
 out, it is the solemn farewell of the earthly 
 head of the race. A comparison with Gen. 
 1. c. will shew how the blessings uttered by 
 Moses over the several Tribes partly repeat, 
 partly enlarge and supplement, and sometimes 
 modify or even reverse, the predictions of the 
 dying Jacob. 'Fhe characteristics of the Bless- 
 ing are such as distinctly suit the place which 
 
 it occupies in the Pentateuch, both as to time 
 and circumstance. 
 
 This chapter, in striking contrast with the 
 last, is pervaded by a tone of happy augury. 
 It is indeed fltting to use auspicious words 
 in a leave-taking; but the total absence of 
 warning and reproof has been rightly noted 
 as indicating that Moses is here speaking of 
 the ideal Israel, of the people of God 
 as they might and would have been but for 
 their perverseness, rather than foretelling what 
 would in fact be the fate and fortunes of 
 the Twelve Tribes. As then the Song sets 
 forth the calamities with which God’s justice 
 will visit Israel’s fall, so does the Blessing de- 
 scribe the glory and greatness which would 
 from His mercy crown Israel’s faithfulness. 
 The Song and the Blessing are therefore cor- 
 respondent, and mutually supplementary. 
 The form into which the Blessing is thrown 
 exhibits the several tribes co-operating, each 
 according to its peculiar characteristics and 
 
V. 3 — 6 -] 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXIII. 
 
 IHeb. 
 a Jire of 
 law. 
 
 92 I 
 
 mount Paran, and he came with ten 
 thousands of saints : from his right 
 hand went ^a fiery law for them. 
 
 3 Yea, he loved the people; all his 
 saints arc in thy hand : and they sat 
 down at thy feet; every one shall re- 
 ceive of thy words. 
 
 4 Moses commanded us a law, even 
 
 the inheritance of the congregation of 
 Jacob. 
 
 5 And he was king in Jeshurun, 
 when the heads of the people and 
 the tribes of Israel were gathered to- 
 gether. 
 
 6 ^ Let Reuben live, and not die; 
 and let not his men be few. 
 
 circumstances, for the accomplishment of the 
 national mission. 
 
 1 — 5 . Introduction. 
 
 1. Moses the man of Goif Th? same title is 
 given to Moses, Josh. xiv. 6, and in the heading 
 of Ps. xc. Cf. I S. ix. 6; I K. xii. 22. The 
 “man of God” in the Old Testament is one 
 who is favoured with direct revelations, but 
 not necessarily an official Prophet {tiabhT). 
 The occurrence of the title here is no doubt a 
 token that the Blessing was not, as was the 
 Song, transcribed by Moses himself. Cf. xxxi. 
 22. 
 
 Moses when he spoke it had no doubt his 
 coadjutor (cf. xxxi. 14 sqq.) and successor 
 Joshua by his side, who also shared in the 
 prophetic spirit by which the Blessing was 
 dictated. 
 
 2 — 5 . The glorious giving of the Law from 
 Sinai, and appointment thereby of Israel to be 
 God’s peculiar people. The blessings of the 
 individual tribes spring out of God’s mercies 
 to the nation, and hence are introduced as 
 they are summed up {yns. 26 — 29) by an eu- 
 logy of the great privileges pertaining to Israel 
 as a whole. 
 
 2 . The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up 
 from Seir, &c.] By “ Seir” is to be under- 
 stood the mountain-land of the Edomites, and 
 by “mount Paran” (cf. on Num. x, 12) the 
 range which forms the northern boundary of 
 the desert of Sinai. Thus the -v. forms a 
 poetical description of the vast arena upon 
 which the glorious manifestation of the Lord 
 in the giving of the Covenant took place. 
 The passage is imitated Judg. v. 4, 5, and 
 Hab. Hi. 3, where Teman is synonymous with 
 Seir, Cf. also Ps. Ixviii. 7, 8. 
 
 toi thousands of saints'] Render, from 
 amidst ten thousands of holy ones; 
 lit. from myriads of holiness, i. e. holy angels ; 
 cf, Zech. xiv. 5. See Note at end of the 
 chapter. 
 
 3. he loosed the people] Lit. “the peoples,” 
 i.e. the Twelve Tribes, not the Gentiles. The 
 latter sense, suggested by some, is here out of 
 place. 
 
 all his saints are in thy hand] The term 
 saints refers to God’s chosen people just be- 
 fore spoken of. Cf. vii, 18, 21; Ex. xix. 6; 
 Dan, vii. 18, 21. The change from the third 
 
 to the second person, or vice versa, is not un- 
 common in Hebrew poetry. Cf. xxxii, 15 ; 
 Ps. xlix. 15 — 19. The explanation suggested 
 by Wordsw. after Vater, Keil, &c., “all the 
 holy angels wait upon Him,” seems less suit- 
 able to the tenor of the context. 
 
 4 . Moses commanded us a la^v] Though 
 Moses probably did not transcribe this Bless- 
 ing, yet he probably uttered these words, al- 
 though he himself is thus referred to in the 
 third person. The inspired writers, speaking 
 less their own words and in their own person 
 than in the name and words of the Spirit 
 which moved them, frequently refer to them- 
 selves in this objective way: cf. Num. xii. 3; 
 Judg. V. 13; Ps. xxi. throughout. In the 
 word “us” Moses identifies himself with the 
 people. Cf. Hab. Hi. 19; Joh. xix. 24. 
 
 5 . he ^ivas king] Rather, he became 
 king, i.e. the Lord, not (as Abenez., Vatabl., 
 Luth., &c.) Moses, who is never spoken of as 
 a “ king.” 
 
 Jeshurun] Cf. xxxii. 15. 
 
 6 — 25 . Blessings of the Tribes indivi- 
 dually. 
 
 6. Reuben. 
 
 let not his men be fe^] Lit. “a number.” 
 The negative particle is supplied in the A. V. 
 from the preceding context, and, so far as 
 concerns the sense, rightly. The term “a 
 number” means “a small number,” such 
 as could be easily counted. Cf. iv. 27; Gen. 
 xxxiv. 30. The v. thus promises that the 
 tribe shall endure and prosper, and its tenor 
 is in contrast with that of Gen. xlix. 3, 4, 
 Yet it must be noted that the tribe had de- 
 creased since the Exodus, cf. Num, i, 21 
 with xxvi. 7 ; and also that in later times its 
 numbers, even when counted with the Gadites 
 and the half of Manasseh, were fewer than 
 that of the Reubenites alone at the census of 
 Num. i. (Cf. I Chron. v. 18). The blessing 
 of the text seems therefore to be so worded as 
 to carry with it a warning. The Reubenites 
 took possession of the southern portion of the 
 land conquered east of Jordan, a large and 
 fertile district without determinate boundary 
 towards the Euphrates. Occupied with their 
 herds and flocks, they appear, soon after the 
 days of Joshua, to have lost their early 
 energy. They could not be roused to take 
 
922 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXIII. 
 
 [v. 7 — lo. 
 
 7 ^ And this is the blessing of Ju- 
 dah : and he said, Hear, Lord, the 
 voice of Judah, and bring him unto 
 his people : let his hands be sufficient 
 for him ; and be thou an help to him 
 from his enemies. 
 
 «Exod. 28. 8 ^ And of Levi he said, ^ Let 
 
 thy Thummim and thy Urim be with 
 thy holy one, whom thou didst prove 
 
 at Massah, and with whom thou didst 
 strive at the waters of Meribah ; 
 
 9 Who said unto his father and to 
 
 his mother, I have not seen him ; nei- 
 ther did he acknowledge his brethren, 
 nor knew his own children : for they 
 have observed thy word, and kept thy 
 covenant. 11 Or, 
 
 10 "They shall teach Jacob thy 
 
 their part in the national rising against Jabin 
 (cf. Judg. V. 15, 16); they dissipated their 
 strength in distant expeditions, carried some- 
 times as far as the Euphrates, and under- 
 taken no doubt to provide pastures for their 
 multiplying flocks (cf. i Chron. v. 9, 10, 
 18 sqq.); and they do not seem to have 
 cared to complete the conquest of the terri- 
 tory of which they took possession after the 
 victories over Sihon and Og: cf. Num, xxxii. 
 and notes. No judge, prophet, or national 
 hero arose out of this tribe ; and, as the re- 
 cently discovered Moabite stone proves, the 
 cities assigned to the Reubenites by Joshua 
 were for the most part wrested, partly or 
 wholly, from them by the Moabites, with 
 whom they in all likelihood became gradually 
 much intermixed. (See Schlottmann, ‘ Die 
 Siegesiiule Mesa’s, pp. 36 sqq.) 
 
 The tribe of Simeon, v/hich would accord- 
 ing to the order of birth come next, though of 
 course comprehended in the general blessing 
 bestowed upon the whole people, 'vv. 1 — 5 and 
 26 — 29, is not here named. This omission is 
 explained by reference to the words of Jacob 
 concerning Simeon, Gen. xlix. 7. This tribe 
 with Levi was to be “scattered in Israel.” 
 The fulfilment of this prediction was in the 
 case of Levi so ordered as to carry with it 
 honour and blessing; but no such reversal of 
 punishment is granted to Simeon. Rather 
 had this latter tribe added new sins to those 
 which Jacob denounced (cf. Num. xxv.). 
 Accordingly, though very numerous at the 
 Exodus, it had surprisingly diminished before 
 the death of Moses; cf. Num. i. 22, 23 vrith 
 Num. xxvi. T2 — 14; and found eventually an 
 adequate territory within the limits of Judah. 
 Cf. Josh. xix. 2 — 9. The tribe is mentioned 
 as making certain conquests along with Ju- 
 dah, Judg. i. 17; and is probably “the rem- 
 nant of tlie people” spoken of, i K. xii. 23, 
 as constituting, together with Judah and Ben- 
 jamin, the forces of Rehoboarn. In later his- 
 tory the families of the Simeonites were not 
 only still extant, but made certain conquests 
 in the south, i Chro. iv. 24 sqq., and 39 — 43. 
 
 7 . Judah. 
 
 bring him unto his people]^ Jacob (Gen. xlix. 
 8, 9) had predicted glorious success in war 
 to this tribe. Moses now, taking up, as it 
 were, the promise of Jacob, prays that Judah, 
 
 marching forth at the head of fhe tribes, might 
 ever be brought back in safety and victory; 
 and intimates that God would grant help to 
 accom.plish this. (So substantially Onkel., 
 Saad., Hengst., Keil, &c.) It is obvious 
 that the words “bring him unto his people” 
 cannot have the sense attached to them by 
 the rationalist commentators, “ bring back 
 the tribes,” i.e. the ten tribes which revolted 
 under Jeroboam “ to him.” 
 
 8 — 11 . Levi. 
 
 The blessing of Levi, like that of Judah, is 
 addressed to God as a prayer. 
 
 thy Thummim and thy Urim'] i.e. “thy Right 
 and thy Light:” cf. on Lx. xxviii. 30. 
 
 thy holy 07 ie] i.e. Levi, regarded as the re- 
 presentative of the whole priestly and levitical 
 stock which sprang from him. Hence, in the 
 following, the blessing proceeds in the 
 plural form. The contrast between the tone 
 of this passage and that of Gen. xlix. 5 — 7 is 
 remarkable. Though the prediction of Jacob 
 respecting the dispersion of this tribe held 
 good, yet it was so overruled as to issue in 
 honour and reward. The recovery of God’s 
 favour is to be traced to the faithfulness with 
 which Moses and Aaron, who came of this 
 tribe, seived God in their high offices; and to 
 the zeal and constancy which conspicuous 
 persons of the tribe {e.g. Phinehas, Num. xxv. 
 II sqq.), and the whole tribe itself (cf. Ex. 
 xxxii. 26), manifested on critical occasions in 
 supporting the leaders of the people. The 
 same reasons led to Levi’s being selected for 
 the special service of God in the Sanctuary, 
 ch. X. 8 sqq., and Num. viii. 5 sqq.; and for 
 the office of instructing their brethren in the 
 knowledge of the Law. On Massah.^ cf. Ex. 
 xvii. I — 7; on Meribah.^ Num. xx. i — 13. 
 The two events thus alluded to, the one oc- 
 curring at the beginning, the other towards 
 the end of the forty years’ wandering, serve 
 to represent the whole series of trials by 
 which God proved and exercised the faith and 
 obedience of this chosen tribe. In conformity 
 with the spirit of the chapter, the facts that 
 Moses and Aaron failed under the trial at 
 Kadesh (cf. Num. xx.), and that some of the 
 Levites were concerned in the rebellion of Ko- 
 rah (Num. xvi.), are passed over in silence. 
 
 9. Who said unto his father and to his mo- 
 ther] Cf. St Matt. X. 37; St Luk(i,xiv. 26. 
 
V. II-I9.] DEUTERONOMY. XXXIII. 
 
 923 
 
 nor, 
 let thcvi 
 put in- 
 ceiise. 
 tHeb. 
 at thy 
 uose. 
 
 Gen. 49. 
 25 - 
 
 tHeb. 
 thrust 
 forth.. 
 t Heb. 
 moons. 
 
 judgments, and Israel thy lav/: "they 
 shall put incense Tefore thee, and 
 whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar. 
 
 1 1 Bless, Lord, his substance, and 
 accept the work of his hands : smite 
 throu2:h the loins of them that rise 
 against him, and of them that hate 
 him, that they rise not again. 
 
 12 ^ And of Benjamin he said, T'he 
 beloved of the Lord shall dwell in 
 safety by him ; and the Lord shall 
 cover hini all the day long, and he 
 shall dwell between his shoulders. 
 
 13 And of Joseph he said, ^Bless- 
 ed of the Lord be his land, for the 
 precious things of heaven, for the dew, 
 and for the deep that coucheth be- 
 neath, 
 
 14 And for the precious fruits 
 brought forth by the sun, and for the 
 precious things ^put forth by the 
 ^ moon. 
 
 15 And for the chief things of the 
 ancient mountains, and for the pre- 
 cious things of the lasting hills, 
 
 16 And for the precious things of 
 the earth and fulness thereof, and for 
 the good will of him that dwelt in the 
 bush : let the blessing come upon the 
 head of Joseph, and upon the top of 
 the head of him that was “^separated 
 from his brethren. 
 
 17 His glory is like the firstling of 
 his bullock, and his horns are like the 
 horns of unicorns : with them he shall 
 push the people together to the ends 
 of the earth : and they are the ten 
 thousands of Ephraim, and they are 
 the thousands of Manasseh. 
 
 18 ^ And of Zebulun he said, Re- 
 joice, Zebulun, in thy going out j and, 
 Issachar, in thy tents. 
 
 19 They shall call the people unto 
 the mountain ; there they shall offer 
 
 11. smite through the loins'] Rather, smite 
 the loins, i.e. the seat of their strength. 
 
 12. Benjamin. 
 
 he shall chvell bet<iueen his shoulders] i.e. be 
 supported by God as a son who is carried by 
 his father; cf. i. 31. The change of subject in 
 this no. is not rare in Hebrew, cf. e.g. % S. 
 xi. 13, and is’ here the less difficult, because 
 the suffix throughout the passage has but one 
 reference, viz. to God. Benjamin was speci- 
 ally beloved of his hither (Gen. xxxv. 18, xliv. 
 20) ; Moses now promises no less love to him 
 from God Himself. To refer the words, 
 “He shall dwell, &c.” to God and to ex- 
 plain them of the Temple, which was after- 
 wards built in the land of this tribe, as many 
 commentators do, is farfetched and harsh. 
 
 13 — 17 . Joseph, including Ephraim and 
 Manasseh. 
 
 The resemblance of this blessing to that 
 pronounced on the same tribes by J acob (cf. 
 Gen. xlix. 25 and 26) is obvious both in 
 thoughts and words; and in both the exube- 
 rant fertility of the large districts allotted to 
 the descendants of Joseph is a leading feature. 
 Yet the words of Moses are far from being a 
 mere reproduction of Jacob’s. The patriarch 
 dwells with emphasis on the severe conflicts 
 which these tribes would undergo (cf. Gen. 
 xlix. 23, 24); the lawgiver seems to look be- 
 yond, and to behold the two tribes triumph- 
 ant and established in their power. The ut- 
 terances respecting Ephraim and Manasseh in 
 these nins. are such as are wholly unlikely 
 to have proceeded from a writer of the king- 
 
 dom of Judah, at the time assigned by the ra- 
 tionalist critics for the composition of Deut. 
 
 17 . His glory is like the firstling of his bul- 
 lock] Render rather: “ The first-born of his” 
 {i.e. Joseph’s) “bullock is his glory.” (So 
 substantially Onkeh, Maurer, Knobel, &c.) 
 The reference here is not to Joseph, nor to 
 Joshua, nor to Jeroboam II., but to Ephraim, 
 who was raised by Jacob to the honours 
 of the firstborn (Gen. xlviii. 8), and is here 
 likened to the firstling of Joseph’s oxen, i.e. 
 of Joseph’s offspring, the singular noun {shor] 
 being taken collectively. The ox is a com- 
 mon emblem of power and strength; cf. 
 Gen. xlix. 6, margin, and note; Ps. xxii. 12; 
 Jer. xlvi. 20; Amos iv. i. 
 
 unicorns] Render, a wild bull. Cf. Num. 
 xxiii. 22 and note. 
 
 the ten thousands of Ephraim atnd...the 
 thousands of Manasseh] Cf. Gen xlviii. 19 ; 
 I S. xviii. 7, 8. 
 
 18 , 19 . Zebulun and Issachar. 
 
 Cf. Gen. xlix. 13 — 15, the substance of 
 which is forcibly repeated; and, like Jacob, 
 Moses places first the younger of the two 
 tribes. Zebulun possessed a commodious sea- 
 shore, and the fisheries of the Lake of Tibe- 
 rias: and was therefore to thrive by com- 
 merce, and to rejoice in his “going out,” 
 i.e. in his mercantile enterprises. Issachar 
 possessed a fertile inland district, and would 
 therefore dwell at home and prosper in agri- 
 culture. Both tribes distinguished themselves 
 in the contest with Jabin; cf. Judg. v. 14, 15, 
 18: and of Zebulun it is particularly noted 
 
924 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXIIL [v. 20-25. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 deled. 
 
 sacrifices of righteousness : for they 
 shall suck of the abundance of the 
 seas, and of treasures hid in the sand. 
 
 20 ^ And of Gad he said, Blessed 
 he he that enlargeth Gad : he dwelleth 
 as a lion, and teareth the arm with 
 the crown of the head. 
 
 21 And he provided the first part 
 for himself, because there, in a por- 
 tion of the lawgiver, was he Eeated ; 
 and he came with the heads of the 
 people, he executed the justice of the 
 Lord, and his judgments with Israel. 
 
 22 ^ And of Dan he said, Dan is a 
 lion’s whelp: he shall leap from Bashan. 
 
 23 ^ And of Naphtali he said, O 
 Naphtali, satisfied with favour, and 
 full with the blessing of the Lord : 
 possess thou the west and the south. 
 
 24 ^ And of Asher he said. Let 
 Asher be blessed with children; let 
 him be acceptable to his brethren, and 
 let him dip his foot in oil. 
 
 25 "Thy shoes shall be iron 
 
 brass ; and as thy days, so shall thy shoes shall 
 strength be. 
 
 that it produced the officers and tacticians 
 who led and mafshalled the host which van- 
 quished Sisera: see on Judg. v. 14, and cf. 
 I Chron. xii. 33. 
 
 19 . unto the mountahi\ Cf. Ex. xv. 17. 
 
 sacrifices of ri^hteousness'\ Sacrifices of- 
 fered by the righteous, and therefore well 
 pleasing to God. Cf. Ps. iv. 5, li. 19. 
 
 treasures bid in the san(r\ The riches of 
 the seas in general. It is noteworthy however 
 that the sand of these coasts vv^as specially 
 valuable in the manufacture of glass (cf. Tac. 
 
 ‘ Hist.’ v. 7 ; Pliny ‘ H. N.’ v. 17 ; xxxvi. 65 ; 
 Joseph. ‘ B. J.’ II. 10. 2); and glass was 
 a precious thing in ancient times: cf. Job 
 xxviii. 17. The murex too, from which the 
 precious purple dye .was extracted, was found 
 here. A typical reference to the conversion 
 of the Gentiles is strongly suggested by Isa. 
 lx. 5, 6, 16, and Ixvi. ii, 12. 
 
 20, 21. Gad. 
 
 20 . Blessed be he that enlargeth Gad^ i.e. 
 blessed be God who shall grant to Gad a spa- 
 cious territory ; cf. the blessing of Shem, Gen. 
 ix. 26. 
 
 the arm rMitb the crowri] Rather, yea, the 
 crown. The warlike character of this tribe 
 is shewn by their leading the van in the long 
 campaigns of Joshua; cf. Josh. iv. 12, 13, 
 xxii. I — 4; by the acts of Jehu, 2 K. ix. x. ; 
 by I Chro. v. 18 — 22, and xii. 8 sqq. 
 
 21. the first part for himself] The first 
 fruits of the conquest made by Israel were as- 
 signed to Gad and Reuben by Moses at their 
 own rccjiiest. Cf Num, xxxii. 
 
 because there., in a portion of the lavogiver., 
 raoas he seated] Render rather, because 
 there was the leader’s portion re- 
 served, i.e. there was reserved the fitting 
 portion for Gad as a leader in war. See 
 Note at end of the chapter. 
 
 and he came ^ith the heads of the people] 
 i.e. he joined the other leaders to fulfil the 
 commands of God respecting the concjuest of 
 Canaan. Cf. Num. xxxii. 17, 21, 32; Josh. i. 
 
 14, iv. 12. Moses regards the promise of the 
 Gadites to do this as already redeemed. 
 
 22. Dan. 
 
 he shall leap from Bashan] i.e. be like a lion 
 v'vhich leaps forth from his covert in Bashan. 
 Cf. Song of S. iv. 8. There is no historical 
 reference, as e.g. to the conquest of Dan- 
 Laish, Josh. xix. 47. 
 
 23 . Naphtali. 
 
 satisfied <iuiih fa'vour] Cf. Gen. xlix. 21 
 and note. The idea suggested in both pas- 
 sages is similar. 
 
 the nvest and the south] The territory of 
 Naphtali was situated in the north-west of 
 Canaan; and the words should therefore evi- 
 dently be taken, as in the Hebrew they often 
 are, and as LXX. and other Versions suggest, 
 as referring not to geographical position, but 
 to natural characteristics. Render therefore 
 “the sea and the sunny district.” The pos- 
 session of Naphtali included nearly the whole 
 west coast of the Sea of Galilee, the Lake of 
 Merom, the modern Bahr el lluleh., and the^ 
 well-watered district near to the springs of 
 Jordan. It contained some of the grandest 
 scenery and some of the most fertile land in 
 Palestine. Josephus speaks of the shore of 
 Gennesaret as “an earthly paradise” (‘ B. }.’ 
 III. 3.2); and Porter, ‘Handbook for Syria,’ 
 as “ the garden of Palestine.” The modern 
 name for this district Belad Besharah., (“land 
 of good tidings”) is Significant. The climate 
 in the lower levels towards the waters of 
 Merom is exceedingly hot, peculiarly suited 
 for tropical productions. Fruits ripen here 
 much earlier than in other parts of the coun- 
 try: see Robinson ‘ B. R.’ ii. 434 sqq.; 
 Tristram ‘Land of Israel’ p. 583; Burck- 
 hardt, ‘ Syria,’ pp. 40 sqq. 
 
 24 . 25 . Asher. 
 
 Let Asher be blessed 'with children', and let 
 him be acceptable to his brethren] These words 
 should rather perhaps be rendered (with 
 Keil. Knobel, Wogue, &c.), “ Blessed above 
 the sons” (i. e. of Jacob = most blessed amongst 
 
 • 
 
Os R, 
 
 V. 26-:9] DEUTERONOMY. XXXIII. 
 
 925 
 
 26 ^ There is none like unto the 
 God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon 
 the heaven in thy help, and in his ex- 
 cellency on the sky. 
 
 27 The eternal God is thy refuge, 
 and underneath are the everlasting 
 arms : and he shall thrust out the 
 enemy from before thee 5 and shall 
 say. Destroy them. 
 
 28 ‘^Israel then shall dwell in safety 
 
 alone: the fountain of Jacob shall be 
 upon a land of corn and wine; also 
 his heavens shall drop down dew. 
 
 29 Happy art thou, O Israel : who 
 is like unto thee, O people saved by 
 the Lord, the shield of thy help, and 
 who is the sword of thy excellency ! 
 and thine enemies "shall be ^^^id 
 liars unto thee ; and thou shalt tread subdued. 
 upon their high places. 
 
 the sons of Jacob) “be Asher; let him be 
 the favoured one of his brethren,” i.e. the one 
 favoured of God. 
 
 25. Thy shoes'l See the Note at end of 
 the chapter. The t;. preceding had described 
 the plenty with which this tribe should be 
 blessed under the figure of dipping the foot in 
 oil (cf. Job xxix. 6); and this 'v. continues 
 the figure, and represents the strength and 
 firmness of Asher to be as if he were shod 
 with iron and brass. Cf. Rev. i. 15. The ter- 
 ritory of this tribe probably contained iron 
 and copper. Cf. viii. 9. 
 
 as thy days, so shall thy strength he^ The 
 original here has two words only, of which 
 the latter is not found elsewhere. On it 
 see the Note at the end of the chapter. The 
 sense is “ thy strength shall be continued to 
 thee as long as thou shalt live: thou shalt 
 never know feebleness and decay.” 
 
 26 — 29. Conclusion. 
 
 God’s glory and power, and the conse- 
 quent safety and prosperity of God’s people, 
 form the climax, as tliey do the basis, of the 
 J31essing which the lawgiver has to pro- 
 nounce. 
 
 26. There is none like unto the God of Je- 
 shurun'] Rather, as the punctuation of the 
 
 original requires. There is none like unto 
 God, 0 Jeshurun. 
 
 27. thy refuge'\ Rather, “ dwellingplace.” 
 Cf. Ps. xc. I, xci. 9. 
 
 28. Israel then shall d-well in safety alone: 
 the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land 
 of corn and 'wine'\ The A. V. does not 
 preserve the symmetry of the clauses, so mark- 
 ed in the original here as throughout. Render 
 rather, “Israel shall dwell in safety; alone 
 shall the fountain of Jacob be ; in a land,” 
 &c. The rendering “ eye of Jacob” (Vulg., 
 &c.) yields no apt sense, unless the words be 
 closely connected with the following con- 
 text (“ oculus Jacob in terra frumenti,” &c., 
 Vulg.), and such a construction is forbidden 
 by the rhythmical structure of the clauses 
 above referred to. On the phrase “fountain 
 of Jacob,” cf. Ps. Ixviii. 26; Isa. xlviii. 1. 
 
 29. be found liars unto thee^ Perhaps ra- 
 ther “ cringe before thee.” The verb means 
 to shew a feigned or forced obedience: cf. 
 Ps. xviii. 45 and note, and Ps. Ixvi. 2. 
 
 thou shalt tread upon their high places^ i. e. 
 occupy the commanding positions in their 
 land, and so have it in subjection. Cf. xxxii. 
 13 ; Isa. xxxvii. 24. 
 
 NOTES on Chap, xxxiii.; and on vv. 2, 21, and 25. 
 
 NOTE on ch. xxxiii. 
 
 Many modern critics have argued that the 
 Blessing of the Tribes cannot be really Mosaic 
 on the same general grounds of style, literary 
 characteristics, &c. as have been brought for- 
 ward in reference to the Song of Moses. It 
 is needless to repeat, from the Note at the end 
 of ch. xxxii., the answers already made to ob- 
 jections of this kind. 
 
 It has however been specially objected to 
 the Blessing’, that its contents in various places 
 betray on the face of them an origin far later 
 in date than the days of Moses. There are, it 
 is urged, unquestionable allusions in what is 
 said of several of the Tribes to the different 
 districts in Canaan which they occupied after 
 the conquests of Joshua: e.g. in the Blessing 
 VoL. I. 
 
 of Zebulun and Issachar, n:. 19 ; of Naphtali, 
 n). 23 ; of Asher, 'v'v. 24, 25. These allusions 
 have been by some attributed to that pro- 
 phetic foresight which Moses undoubtedly 
 possessed. Yet they may be piobably explain- 
 ed without reference to it. F or the location 
 of the several tribes was fixed in a general 
 way before the time at which the Blessing 
 is represented as spoken (cf. Num. xxxiv. 
 16, and note); and Moses, as having lived 
 for many years at the very borders of 
 Canaan and in frequent intercourse with 
 its inhabitants and their neighbours, must 
 undoubtedly have possessed some knowledge 
 of the topography of the country which was 
 to be the future home of his people. The 
 allusions in question are of a general kind, and 
 quite consistent in character with a knowledge 
 
 3 
 
926 DEUTERONOMY. XXXIII. 
 
 SO acquired. It has been asserted also that 
 ‘v. 5 contains a reference to a monarchical 
 form of government ; that v. 7, in which Moses 
 prays, “ Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah, and 
 bring him to his people,” is an aspiration for 
 the reunion under the sceptre of Judah of 
 the kingdom divided under Rehoboam (Graf, 
 Von Lengerke, Ewald, &c.); that v. 12 must 
 be explained as an allusion to the Temple, 
 See. These objections rest on erroneous inter- 
 pretations of particular verses, and are suffi- 
 ciently answered in the notes on those verses. 
 The utter uncertainty of the grounds on which 
 such objections rest, is demonstrated by the 
 very diverse and totally inconsistent conclu- 
 sions deduced from them. Thus Knobel refers 
 the Blessing to the days of David, whilst 
 Graf, followed by Bleek (‘Introduction to 
 Old Testament,’ Vol. i. p. 3.^5 sqq., Eng. 
 TransL), proposes the reign of Jeroboam II. 
 (b.c. 825 — 785). The main reason for se- 
 lecting this particular period is the admission, 
 M'hich the critics are constrained to make, that 
 the Blessing must have been composed at a 
 time when all the Twelve Tribes were still 
 abiding in their places in Canaan, and enjoy- 
 ing a high degree of material prosperity. But 
 the reign of Jeroboam II. hardly satisfies these 
 conditions. That time was certainly marked 
 by considerable recovery, but such passages as 
 2 K. xiv. 26, and the tenor of the utterances of 
 Amos respecting the condition of the northern 
 kingdom at this very date, are inconsistent 
 with any such happy circumstances as the 
 Blessing confessedly supposes. Indeed it is 
 •little likely that the two tribes and a half on 
 the east of Jordan ever recovered from the 
 calamities inflicted by Hazael ; cf. 2 K. x. 
 32 sqq. Still more improbable is the opinion 
 of Maurer and Hoffmann, who place the 
 Blessing in the days of Jehoiachin (b.c. 599), 
 and explain "j. 7 as referring to the large num- 
 ber of Jews who were then carried away 
 from Terusalem to Babylon (cf. 2 K. xxiv. 
 10 sqq.). 
 
 As against the various dates suggested sub- 
 sequent to the disruption under Rehoboam, 
 it is to be noted that there is not the slightest 
 trace of a reference to any of those bloody 
 civil dissensions and disorders, nor to any of 
 those foreign wars and frequent defeats from 
 S)Tiansand other neighbouring nations, which 
 befell the people, or some one or more of 
 its tribes in the years following that dis- 
 ruption, and which continued, with but little 
 intermission, in the northern kingdom at least, 
 until the captivity. I'he Blessing speaks 
 throughout of peace and plenty. These facts 
 have obliged Knobel to admit that the Bless- 
 ing cannot have been composed later than 
 the beginning of David's reign. His own ar- 
 guments ought in consistency to have carried 
 liim further, and led him to place it much 
 earlier. For it is impossible on his own prin- 
 ciples to explain how the disasters, apostasies, 
 
 and confusion of the latter part of Saul’s 
 reign, and still more those of the times of the 
 Judges, could have happened at a date not 
 long preceding that in which the Song was 
 penned. 
 
 There is therefore no substantial reason in 
 the contents of the Blessing for questioning 
 that conclusion to which many verbal charac- 
 teristics of the chapter point, viz. that it is by 
 the sam^e author as chapter xxxii., to which 
 it has an evident relationship (see Note at be- 
 ginning of chapter), i.e. by Moses. 
 
 On this chapter the following special trea- 
 tises may be mentioned: W. A. Teller, ‘ Notae' 
 criticae’ in Gen. xlix. Deut. xxxiii. &c., and 
 ‘ Uebersetzung des Segens Jacob und Mosis,’ 
 Halle, 1766; A. G. Hoffman, ‘Comm, in 
 Mosis Benedictionem,’ in Keil’s ‘Analekten,’ 
 ivx 2, Jena, 1823; K. H. Graf, ‘Der Segen 
 Mosis,’ Leipzig, 1857 ; L. Diestel also (‘ Der 
 Segen Jakob’s,’ Braunschweig, 1853) has many 
 valuable remarks on this chapter. 
 
 •V. 2. 
 
 avitb ten thousands of samts'\ The prep. 
 (^D) can hardly mean “with,” as A. V. ren- 
 ders (after LXX., Vulg.-, Luth., and others). 
 The notion that the angels took an active part 
 in the covenant making at Sinai, though in 
 itself a correct one (cf. Ps. Ixviii. 17; Acts 
 vii. 53 ; Gal. hi. 19; Heb. ii. 2), and one on 
 which the Jews specially dwell as proof of 
 the superiority of the Law to all other dispen- 
 sations, is not found in the original words of 
 this passage. They rather represent God as 
 quitting heaven, where He dwells amidst the 
 hosts of the angels (cf. i K. xxii. 19; Job i. 
 6), and descending in majesty to earth (cf. 
 Mic. i. 3). The “ten thousands of paints” 
 cannot in such a context mean the hosts of 
 the Israelites (as Cler., Dathe, Winz., &c.). 
 Eiirst (‘Lex.’ s. v. n 32 ")) proposes to point 
 as in xxxvii. 51, and to treat these words as 
 a proper name “from Meribah.” 
 
 from /ms rig/jt hand 'njoent a fery la^iv for 
 them/] The A. V. here follows Vulg., Saad., 
 Luther, and many other authorities both an- 
 cient and modern. But the original has (see 
 marg.) not, as the rendering of the A. V. 
 would seem to require, “a law of fire” {i.e. 
 “a fiery law”), but “a fire of law” (m 
 i.e. apparently, “a fire which was a law.” 
 Accordingly Gesenius suggests that the refer- 
 ence is not to the lightnings of Sinai, but to 
 the pillar of fire Ex. xiii. 21, “ columna ignis 
 quae legi esset iis.” So De Wette, Maur., 
 Dathe, &c. 
 
 Several Hebrew MSS. however write the 
 words in question as one. The chief reason 
 advanced by some (Keil, Furst, &c.) for pre- 
 ferring this reading is, that m is not properly 
 a Hebrew word, but one imported in later 
 times from the Chaldee, which (it is said) 
 derived it from the Persian. The word cer- 
 tainly occurs in Flebrew only in Ezra and 
 
V. 1 — 4- 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXIV. 
 
 927 
 
 Esther; but Havcmick (‘Introduction to Old 
 Testament,’ pp. 146, 147, edit. Clark) argues 
 with some force that it is an old Hebrew 
 word, connected with I'T and {H, which, 
 like other archaisms, held its ground in poetry, 
 as in the present passage, after it had fallen 
 into disuse in prose. But the authority of all 
 kinds for the reading is considerable. 
 
 The LXX. (eK de^icov avrov ayyeXot fxer 
 avTov) probably had it ; for their ayyeXoi seems 
 to be this Hebrew word considered as a plural 
 noun, and connected with 
 
 Yet if this probable reading be accepted, 
 further questions arise as to its pointing and 
 meaning. Amongst the best suggestions may 
 be named that oF Bottcher (approved substan- 
 tially by Gesen., Knob., Keil, &c.), who 
 writes “ishdeth,” and renders the word “ fire- 
 darting,’’ treating it as a noun fern, sing.; and 
 that of Fiirst, who compares Josh. xii. 3 and 
 8, and regards it as a proper name, or a de- 
 scription of a locality (Lexicon, s. v.). 
 
 •V. 21. 
 
 The word ppriD is used here as in Judg. 
 V. 9; Isa. xxxiii. 22. The fern, subst. with 
 masc. adj. as Gen. iv. 10, xlix. 15. So Graf, 
 Delitzsch, Johlson, Schroder, &c. The ren- 
 dering of A. V. can only mean that Gad in 
 fact firmly established himself in the territory 
 assigned to him by Moses. But the v/ords 
 are introduced by “because,” and are in- 
 tended to explain why Gad ‘ ‘ provided the 
 first part for himself.” This explanation is 
 
 not given by the rendering in question, 
 though adopted also by Rosenm., Gesen., See. 
 The Jewish authorities (e.g. Onkel., Jarchi) 
 and Fiirst, with Diest., Baum*g., and other 
 moderns, refer the passage to the grave of 
 Moses, though differing somewhat as to the 
 precise rendering of the words. So Vulg., 
 “quod in parte sua doctor esset repositus.” 
 But such a sense seems unsuited to the con- 
 text; and in fact from xxxiv. i — 5, compared 
 with Josh. xiii. 20, it would seem tliat the 
 place where Moses died and was buried was 
 in the country of Reuben. 
 
 •V. 25. 
 
 The Hebrew word is ott. Xey., and 
 
 by several, both ancient and modern (Onk., 
 Saad., Gesen., Maur., Keil, Schrod., &c.), 
 is rendered “ thy bars.” The root 
 means to “ fasten” or “ bind,” as is clear from 
 
 the Arabic , and numerous cognate forms. 
 But the force of the root is almost equally 
 exhibited in either rendering. That of A.V. 
 on the whole seems best. 
 
 •V. 25. 
 
 The Hebrew word XIT here used is again 
 OTT. Xey., and is variously rendered. Vulg. 
 with Jerus. Targum, “senectus tua;” others 
 (Rosenm., Gesen., Keil, Maur., Graf, Diest., 
 and most moderns), “thy rest ; ” Fiirst (‘ Lex,’ 
 s. V. ^m) “riches, affluence.” The A.V., 
 follows the majority of ancient authorities. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 I! Or, tAe 
 hill. 
 
 chap. 3. 
 27. 
 
 2 *Mac. 2. 
 4- 
 
 I Moses from mount Nebo viezveth the land. 
 5 He diet/i there. 6 His burial. 7 His age. 
 8 Thirty days' mourning for him. g Joshua 
 succeedeth him. 10 Ihe praise of Moses. 
 
 AND Moses went up from the 
 plains of Moab unto the moun- 
 tain of Nebo, to the top of “Pisgah, 
 that is over against Jericho. And 
 the Lord "shewed him all the land 
 
 of Gilead, unto Dan, 
 
 2 And all Naphtali, and the land 
 
 of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the 
 land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, 
 
 3 And the south, and the plain of 
 the valley of Jericho, the city of palm 
 trees, unto Zoar. 
 
 4 And the Lord said unto him, 
 
 “^This is the land which I sware un- * Gen. 12. 
 to Abraham, unto Isaac, and unfo & 13. 15. 
 Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy 
 
 seed: I have caused thee to see it - 
 with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go 
 over thither. 
 
 Chap. XXXIV. Death and Burial of 
 Moses. 
 
 1. mountain of Nebo'\ Cf. xxxii. 49 sqq. 
 and reff. 
 
 oil the land of Gilead., unto Dafi] This can 
 hardly be the Dan (Dan-Laish) of Judg. xviii. 
 27 sqq., which was not in Gilead. It is pro- 
 bably a town of this name which stood in the 
 north of Peraea; perhaps the same as Dan-jaan, 
 2 S. xxiv. 6, and the Dan of Gen. xiv. 14, 
 where see note. 
 
 2. ut 77 iost sea^ Cf. xi. 24. 
 
 3 . unto Zoar~\ At the southern extremity 
 of the Dead Sea. Cf, Gen. xix. 22. 
 
 4 . I hanje caused thee to see it] The sight 
 thus afforded to Moses, like that of “all the 
 kingdoms of the world in a moment of time,” 
 Luke iv. 5, was no doubt supernatural. Yet 
 it was not imaginary only, but a real view of 
 the land, obtained perhaps through an extra- 
 ordinary enhancement of the dying lawgiver’s 
 power of vision. 
 
928 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. XXXIV. U 5-12. 
 
 5 So Moses the servant of the 
 Lord died there in the land of 
 Moab, according to the word of the 
 Lord. 
 
 6 And he buried him in a valley in 
 the land of Moab, over against Beth- 
 peor: but no man knoweth of his 
 sepulchre unto this day. 
 
 7 ^ And Moses was an hundred 
 and twenty years old when he died: 
 
 tHeb. his eye was not dim, nor his '^natural 
 
 moistin'e, r ^ ^ \ 1 
 
 f Heb. force ‘ abated. 
 
 8 ^ And the children of Israel wept 
 for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty 
 days: so the days of weeping and 
 mournino; for Moses were ended. 
 
 9 ^ And Joshua the son of Nun 
 was full of the spirit of wisdom ; for 
 Moses had laid his hands upon him : 
 and the children of Israel hearkened 
 unto him, and did as the Lord com- 
 manded Moses. 
 
 10 ^ And there arose not a prophet 
 since in Israel like unto Moses, whom 
 the Lord knew face to face, 
 
 1 1 In all the signs and the wonders, 
 which the Lord sent him to do in 
 the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to 
 all his servants, and to all his land, 
 
 12 And in all that mighty hand, 
 and in all the great terror which Moses 
 shewed in the sight of all Israel. 
 
 5. according to the nvord of the Lord] Lit. 
 “ at the mouth of the Lord,” which the Rab- 
 bins explain “by a kiss of the Lord.” But 
 .the sense of the phrase is clear, cf. Gen. xlv. 
 21. Vulg. correctly “jubente Domino.” It 
 denotes that Moses died, not because his vital 
 powers were exhausted, but at the sentence 
 of God, and as a punishment for his sin. 
 Cf. xxxii. 51. 
 
 6. he buried him] i.e. God buried him. 
 The penalty of Moses’ sin was fully paid by 
 his death ; and this signal honour conferred on 
 him after death was, doubtless, designed to 
 sustain the lawgiver's authority, which with- 
 out it might have been impaired with the peo- 
 ple in consequence of his punishment. 
 
 no man kno-^veth of his sepulchre] Hardly 
 lest the grave of ^Ioses should become an 
 object of superstitious honour, for the Jews 
 were not prone to this particular form of 
 error. Bearing in mind the appearance of 
 
 Moses at the Transfiguration (St Matt. xvii. 
 I — 10), and what is said by St Jude, ni. 9, 
 we may conjecture that Moses after death 
 passed into the same state with Enoch and 
 Elijah; and that his sepulchre could not be 
 found because he was shortly translated from 
 it. 
 
 9 . spirit of ^visdom] Cf. Isa. xi. 2. The 
 practical wisdom {pporrjais) of the ruler is 
 specially meant. 
 
 10 . there arose not a prophet since in Is- 
 rael] Words like these can only have been 
 written some time, but not necessarily a long 
 time, after the death of Moses. They refer 
 more particularly to the wonders wrought by 
 the hand of Moses at the Exodus and in the 
 desert; and do but reecho the declaration of 
 God Himself, Num. xii. 6 sqq. They may 
 naturally enough be attributed to one of Moses’ 
 successors, writing perhaps soon after the set- 
 tlement of the people in Canaan. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I. 
 
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 THE PENTATEUCH, 
 
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 ( Rt. Rev. E. Harold Browne, Bishop of Ely, and 
 
 ( author of Expositioti of the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 
 EXODUS Chap. I-XIX. The Editor. 
 
 “ Chap. XX. to the End, and 
 
 LEVITICUS Rev. Samuel Clark, M.A. 
 
 NUMBERS AND DEUTERONOMY. | Bhr^ngham!^’^’’ Warden of Queen’s Col- 
 
 Making one vol. royal 8vo, of nearly 1000 pages, being the only complete Commen- 
 tary upon the Pentateuch, in one volume, in the English language. Price in cloth, $5.00, 
 less than one-half that of the English edition. 
 
 OHAELES SOEIBNER & CO., 654 Broadway, llew York, 
 
 IB'or division of sections and list of contribtetors, see 2^ci(/es following. 
 
The Bible Commentary 
 
 DIYISIOff OF THE SEGTIOHS AID lAIES OF THE COITRIBHTOES TO EACH. 
 
 The plan of the BIBLE COMMENTARY was settled, and the writers appointed, under the sanction of a Committee 
 consisting of 
 
 ArchbisLiop of Canterbury (A. C. TAIT, D.DJ. 
 Archbishop of York (WILLIAM THOMSON, D.D.). 
 Bishop of London (JOHN JACKSON, D.D.). 
 Bishop of Llandaff (ALFRED OLLIVANT, D.D.). 
 Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol (C. J. ELLI- 
 COTT, D.D.). 
 
 Bishop of Chester (WILLIAM JACOBSON, D.D.). 
 LORD LYTTLETON. 
 
 Speaker of the House of Commons (the Rt. Eon. 
 J. E. DENISON). 
 
 Dean of Lincoln (J. A. JEREMIE, D.D.) 
 
 Right Hon. SPENCER WALPOLE. 
 
 This Committee entrusted the conduct of the work to Rev. F. C. COOK, M.A., Canon of Exeter, Examining 
 Chaplain to the Bishop of London, Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, and author of “ Commentary on Acts of the 
 Apostles,” “Sermons in Lincoln Inn,” &c., &c., as General Editor. 
 
 The ARCHBISHOP OF YORK in consultation with the REGIUS PROFESSORS OF DIVINITY OF 
 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE advises with the General Editor upon questions arising during the progress of the work. 
 
 The division of the work into sections, and the List of Contributors sanctioned by the Committee, is as follows: 
 
 Section I.— The Pentateuch. 
 
 ( Right Rev. E. Harold Browne, D.D., Lord Bishop of Ely, 
 
 GENESIS ■< 2i\i\\\ox oi Exposition of the Thirty-itine Articles^ Sermons 
 
 I 071 the Atoneme 7 it^ The Pe 7 itateuch in Reply to Cole 7 iso, 
 
 EXODUS, Chap. I.-XIX 
 
 “ “ XX. to the end* . 
 
 The Editor. 
 
 Rev. Samuel Clark, M.A., .author of The Bible Atlas, &=c. 
 
 LEVITICUS 
 
 NUMBERS and DEUTE- 
 RONOMY 
 
 Rev. Samuel Clark, M. A. 
 
 Rev. T. E. Espin, B. D., Warden of Queen’s College, Bir- 
 mingham, author of Critical Essays. 
 
 Section BS.— The Historical Books. 
 
 JOSHUA Rev. T. E. Espin, B.D. 
 
 { Right Rev. Lord Arthur Hervev, M.A., Lord Bishop of 
 Bath and Wells, author of Inspij'ation of the Holy Scrip- 
 hires, Genealogies of Our Saviour, Sy^c., Sy=‘C. 
 
 KINGS, CHRONICLES, f Rev. George Rawlinson, M. A., Camden Professor of An- 
 EZRA, NEHEMIAPI, ■< dent History at Oxford, author of The Five Great Mon- 
 
 ESTHER ( archies of the East, Maiiual of Ancieiit History, ^c. 
 
 Section III.— The Poetical Books. 
 
 JOB 
 
 PSALMS 
 
 PROVERBS 
 
 ECCLESIASTES 
 
 SONG OF SOLOMON 
 
 The Editor. 
 
 Very Rev. G. II. S. Johnson, M.A., author of Sermoits 
 Preached in WelVs Cathedral. 
 
 The Editor. 
 
 Rev. C. L Elliott, M.A. 
 
 Rev. E. H. Plumptre, M.A., author of Christ and Chris- 
 tendo77i (Boyle Lectures), Sermons on Theology and Life, 
 Sy^c. 
 
 Rev. W. T. Bullock, M.A., Secretary to the S.P.G. 
 
 Rev. T. Kingsbury, M.A., Trinity Coll., Cambridge. 
 
 ISAIAH 
 
 JEREMIAH 
 EZEKIEL. . 
 DANIEL , 
 
 Section IV.-The Four Great Prophets. 
 
 ( Rev. W. Kay, D.D., late Principal of Bishop’s College, Cal- 
 J cutta, author of The Psaliiis translated froin the Hebrew, 
 
 ( Essays on the Promise of Christianity. 
 
 ( Rev. R. Payne Smith, D. D. , Regius Professor of Divinity, 
 J Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, author of Bampton Lec- 
 
 ( tures for 1869, Authenticity of Isaiah, Sy^c. 
 
 Rev. G. CURREY, D.D., author of Hulsean Lectures, 1851. 
 
 f Ven. H. J. Rose, B.D., Archdeacon of Bedford, author of 
 Sermons on the Duty of the Clergy, The Gospel an Abid- 
 ing System. 
 
Section V.— The Twelve Fi#!inor Prophets. 
 
 Right Rev. Connop Thirlwall, D.D., Lord Bishop of St. David’s, author of History of Gree<ty 
 Translation of JVieb^iIer's Rome, ^c . , ^c. 
 
 H03EA and JONAH 
 
 AMOS & other PROPHETS.. 
 JOEL and OBADIAH 
 
 ZECHARIAH & MALACHI. 
 
 j Rev. E. IIuxTABi.E, M.A., author of Sacred Record of Crea- 
 ( tion Vindicated, il/inistry of St. folin the Baptist, &^c. 
 
 Rev. R. Gandell, M.A., Professor of Arabic, Oxford. 
 
 ( Rev. F. Meyrick, M.A., author of Theology of the Chui'ch 
 ( of Rome, Ecclesice Anglicana: Religio, &=c. 
 
 ( Rev. W. Drake, M.A., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, 
 ( author of Sermons on Jonah, A7nos, and Hosea, Sf^c. 
 
 Section VI.— The Gospels and Acts. 
 
 ST.MATTHEW&ST.MARK 
 
 ST. LUKE.. 
 ST. JOHN.. 
 THE ACTS 
 
 Most Rev. W. Thomson, D.D., Lord Archbishop of York, 
 author of Limits of Philosophical Inqiciry, Life in thi 
 Light of God^s Word, &=c. 
 
 Very Rev. H. L. Mansel, B. D. , Dean of St. Paul’s, author 
 of Metaphysics, Philosophy of the Conditioned, Limits of 
 Religious Thought, St'c. 
 
 ( Ven. \Vm. Basil Jones, M.A., Archdeacon and Prebendary 
 I of York, 2 i\\\\\oY Peace of (Sermons), &c. 
 
 { Rev. B. F. Westcott, M. A. , Canon of Peterborough, author 
 of Hiitojy of the English Bible, Eletnents of the Gospel 
 ( HarmoJiy, Sernuvis on Gospel Miracles, &=^c. 
 
 ( Right Rev. W. Jacobson, D. D., Lord Bishop of Chester, 
 ( author of Pat res Apostolici, Sermons, &=c. 
 
 Section VII.— The Epistles of St. Paul. 
 
 Rev. E. H. Gifford, D.D., Plonorary Canon of Worcester. 
 Rev. T. Evans, M.A., Professor of Greek in Durham Univcr 
 sity. 
 
 Rev. J. Waite, M.A., Master of University College, Durham. 
 
 ^ Very Rev. J. S. PIowsON, D.D., Dean of Chester, author of 
 Life and Epistles of St. Paul, Metaphors of St. Paul. 
 
 J. A. Jeremie, Very Rev. Dean of Lincoln, Regius Professor 
 of Divinity, Cambridge, author of History of the Scenes 
 in the Life of St. Paul, St=c. 
 
 Rev. J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., Hulsean Professor of Divinity, 
 Cambridge, Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, author of 
 Co7nmentary 07t St. Paul's Episiles to the Galatia7is and 
 Philippians. 
 
 Rev. B. Pb Westcott, B.D., author of History of the E7tg‘ 
 lish Bible, <Sr’c. 
 
 Rev. E. W. Benson, D.D., Head Master of Wellington Col- 
 lege. 
 
 Right Rev. John Jackson, D.D., Lord Bishop of London, 
 author of God’s Word a7td Ma7i’s Heart. 
 
 • Rev. W. Kay, T). D. , author of The Psalms tra7islated from 
 the Hebrew. 
 
 Section VIII.— The Catholic Epistles and Revelations. 
 
 EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN. . . . Right Rev. W. Alexander, D.D., Lord Bishop of Derry. 
 
 EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES.. . Rev. R. Scott, D.D., Master of Balliol College, Oxford. 
 
 ST. PETER and ST. JUDE.. The Editor. 
 
 ( Ven. W. Lee, D.D., Archdeacon of Dublin, author of Insfi- 
 REVELATION of ST. JOHN \ ratio7t of the Holy Scriptures, Lectures on Ecclesiastical 
 
 ( History, &^c. 
 
 The volumes of the BIBLE COMMENTARY will be sent, post-paid, to any address, upon receipt 
 of the price ($ 5.00 per volume), by the publishers, 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., ' 
 
 654: Broadway, New 
 
 ROMANS 
 
 I. and II. CORINTHIANS... | 
 
 GALATIANS | 
 
 PHILIPPIANS I 
 
 f 
 
 EPHESIANS, COLOS- I 
 SIANS, THESSALO- { 
 NIANS, & PHILEMON. | 
 
 PASTORAL EPISTLES | 
 
 HEBREWS ] 
 
TWO NEW VOLUMES OF 
 
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 /fAF£ THE GRATIFICATION OF ANNOUNCING FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLIC A. 
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 UPON 
 
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 TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY 
 
 Rev. PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., assisted by E. R. CRAVEN, D.D., and the late E. D. YEOMANS, D.D. 
 
 One Mol. 8m., 650 pages, cloth, $5.00. 
 
 This volume will universally be regarded as the Commentary of Commenuiries upon the Gospel of Gospels.” IJ 
 gathers up the results of the latest research, and is, besides, enriched with the fruits of the original labors of some of the 
 first living Biblical Scholars. Completing the Gospels, it worthily finishes an important section of what is universally re 
 garded as the most important Biblical enterprise of the age. 
 
 ALSO, JUST PUBLISHED: 
 
 ©to ^t^iarntni Volume* 
 
 JEREMIAH. 
 
 Translated and edited by Rev. C. R. Asbury, of Andover, Mass. 
 
 LAMENTATIONS. 
 
 Translated and edited by Rev. Dr. Hornblowtjr, of Paterson, N. J. Under the general editorship of Rev. Dr. Schaff. 
 
 One vol. royal 8vo., cloth 
 
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 The TEN VOLUMES previously issued are in the 
 
 OLD TESTAi^EPIT. 
 
 I.— GENESIS. II.— PROVERBS, SONG OF SOLOMON, ECCLESIASTES. 
 
 P(3EW TESTAJ^Ei^T. 
 
 I.-MATTHEW. IL— MARK AND LUKE. III.— ACTS. IV.— THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE 
 ROMANS. V.— CORINTHIANS. VI.— THESSALONIANS, TIMOTHY, TITUS, PHILEMON, 
 AND HEBREWS. VII.— GALATIANS, EPHESIANS, PHILIPPIANS, COLOSSIANS. 
 
 VIII.— THE EPISTLES GENERAL OF JAMES, PETER, JOHN, AND JUDE. 
 
 Each one vol. 8vo. Price per vol., in half calf, $7-50 ; in sheep, $6.50 ; in cloth, $5.00. 
 
 NAMES AND DENOMINATIONS OF CONTRIBUTORS: 
 
 W. G. T. SHEDD, D.D., Presbyterian. 
 
 E. A. WASHBURNE, D.D., Episcopal. 
 
 A. C. KENDRICK, D.D., Baptist. 
 
 W. H. GREEN, D.D., Presbyterian. 
 
 T. F. HURST, D.D., Methodist. 
 
 TAYLER LEWIS, LL.D., Dutch Reformed. 
 Rev. CH. F. SCHAFFER, Lutheran. 
 
 R. D. H-TCHCOCK, D.D., Presbyterian. 
 
 E. HARWOOD, D.D., Episcopal. 
 
 H. B. HACKETT, D.D., Baptist. 
 
 JOHN LILLIE, D.D., Presbyterian. 
 
 E. D. YEOMANS, D.D., Presbyterian. 
 
 Rev. C. C. STARBUCK, Congregational. 
 
 J. ISIDOR MOMBERT, D.D., Episcopal. 
 
 D. W. POOR, D.D., Presbyterian, 
 
 C. P. WING, D.D., Presbyterian. 
 
 GEORGE E. DAY, D.D., Congregational. 
 
 Rev. P. H. STEENSTRA, Episcopal. 
 
 •A. GOSMAN, D.D., Presbyterian. 
 
 Pres’t CHARLES A. AIKEN, D.D., Presbyterian. 
 M. B. RIDDLE, D.D., Dutch Reformed. 
 
 Prof. WILLIAM WELLS, D.D., Methodist. 
 
 W. H. HORNBLOWER, D.D., Presbyterian. 
 
 Rev. W. G. SUMNER, Episcopal. 
 
 Each volume of” LANGE’S COMMENTARY ” is complete in itself, and can be purchased separately. Sent 
 post-paid to any address upon receipt of the price ($5 per volume) by the publishers, 
 
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ANOTHER GREAT HISTORICAL WORK 
 
 fisloFg of §FFfr?, 
 
 By Prof. Dr. ERNST CURTIUS. 
 
 Translated by ADOLPHUS WILLIAjM WARD, IM. A., Fellow of St. Peter^s 
 College, Cambridge, Professor of History in Owen’s College, Manchester. 
 
 To he completed in fonr or five rots, crowdi 8m., at $2.50 per volume, 
 
 PRINTED UPON TINTED PAPER, UNIFORM WITH MOMMSEN’S HISTORY OF .ROME 
 AND THE LIBRARY EDITION OF FROUDE’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 VoL /. just published. 
 
 Curtius’ History of Greece is similar in plan and purpose to Mommsen’s History of Rome, with which it 
 deserves to rank in every respect as one of the great masterpieces of historical literature. Avoiding the 
 minute details which overburden other similar works, it groups together in a very picturesque manner all the 
 important events in the history of this kingdom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the 
 world’s civilization. The narrative of Prof. Curtius’ work is flowing and anim.ated, and the generalizations, 
 although bold, are philosophical and sound. 
 
 SRITICAL NOTICES. 
 
 “Professor Curtius’ eminent scholarship is a sufficient guarantee for the trustworthiness of his history', while the skill 
 with, which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of narrating them, combine to render it no les.s readable than 
 sound. Professor Curtius everywhere maintains the true dignity and impartiality of history, and it is evident his sym- 
 pathies are on the side of justice, humanity, and progress.” — Londo7i Athenteum. 
 
 “We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius’ book better than by saying that it may be fitly ranked with Theodor 
 Mommsen’s great work.” — London Spectator. 
 
 “ As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to the present for vivacity and 
 picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions 
 which enrich the literature of the age.” — N. Y. Daily Tribune. 
 
 “The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit of the nineteenth century, that it 
 becomes in his hands one of the worthiest and most instructive branches of study for all who desire something more than 
 a knowledge of isolated facts for their education. This translation ought to become a regular part of the accepted course 
 of reading for young men at college, and for all who are in training for the free political life of our country.” — N. Y . 
 Evening Post. 
 
 “The qualifications of Dr. Curtius for a work of such importance and magnitude are of the highest character. He has 
 the true historical aptitude. He rightly conceives the character of the times of which he writes. He grasps deep prin- 
 ciples and grand tendencies as well as isolated events. His mind is equally distinguished by the amplitude of its reach 
 and the precision of its knowledge. He combines a rare faculty for acute analysis with large powers of broad generaliza- 
 tion He manages his perspective admirably, grouping facts with skill, and illuminating ^hem with 
 
 the lucid beams of a deep and pervasive philosophy. The narrative is not loaded down with fine details or discursive 
 disquisitions, but, judiciously selecting and arranging all important points, flows on in a fresh, limpid and vigorous cur- 
 rent. The style is chaste, weighty and copious, sometimes picturesque and always animated. A work distinguished by 
 so many merits may fairly be said to rank among the best pieces of historical composition.” — Albany Eveni7ig Journal. 
 
 “ Prof. Curtius, with his full and exact scholarship, his sound and philosophical spirit, and his flowing, picturesque style, 
 is, perhaps, better fitted than any man living to produce a really good history of Greece, — a history which, in its digni- 
 fied tone, is worthy of that great people, and in its broad, generous sympathies with the spirit of modern progress is 
 admirably adapted to the wants of readers of this age. This history, judging by the first volume, is to be a masterpiece 
 of historical grouping of the great men and events which conspired to lift the little kingdom of Greece into such towering 
 eminence.” — Boston lYatckman and Rejlector. 
 
 “Taken all in all, the best history of Greece that exist for general readers It does not discuss and argue ; 
 
 but tells what is best worth knowing about Greece and the Greeks, in a most attractive and suggestive style.— Now this 
 we hold to be an essential quality for an historian as distinguished from a historical scholar or an antiquarian. W e 
 would not overvalue popular qualities. The term “popular history ” is redolent of superficial and sensational rhetoric. 
 But a history to be read for instruction by educated and intelligent people should be interesting. It is not enough that 
 it be accurate and wise ; it must be a work of art as well as a production of scientific scholarship. . . ._ The author 
 
 has a lively imagination, which is well under the control of a sound judgment and accurate scholarship. His styleis easy 
 and brilliant ; and he is particularly good in narrative.” — N. Y. Independent. 
 
 “ The treatment of the work thus far exhibits the great research and the varied and extensive scholarship of the au- 
 thor.” — Chicago Evenuig Post. 
 
 “The work before us deserves faithful study. It is learned and philosophical.” — Boston Congregationaliti, 
 
 “ The Narration is clear and yet graphic .... readable and yet thorough. It supplies the want long felt of 5 a 
 good brief account of the growth and character of Hellenic civilization.” — I\i. Y. Herald. 
 
 This book sent post-paid, upon receipt of the price, by the Publishers, 
 
 • CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO. 
 
 654 Broadway, R, Y. 
 
A NEW AND TIMELY WORK 
 
 
 or, What Books shall I Read, and How shall I Read them? 
 Pto£< mo AH! POHTEIi, 
 
 OF YALE COLLEGE. ’ 
 
 Author of Humar\ Intellect,” Etc, 
 
 One YoL, crown 8vo., witli a complete Index. Price in cloth $2, half calf $4. 
 
 A most thorough, acquaintance with the whole range of English literature, combined with 
 pre-eminent candor, catholicity and maturity of judgment, render Professor Porter the safest 
 possible guide upon the important subjects of which this book treats. As an index for all who 
 wish to economize their time in reading by selecting only the best works in each department of 
 literature this volume is simply indisjpensable. 
 
 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 ■^Thls book is of very great importarice. Prof. Porter is one of the ripest scholars and one of the most comprehensive 
 and discriminating readers in America, He is familiar with every branch of the literature of the past and the present. 
 'Ihe ideas of such a critic in regard to the merits of different authors and the ends and uses of literary studies are of 
 very great moment, Kis book is written in popiilar form, and in a didactic style. It abounds in illustrations from the 
 best authors which serve to give point to the principles laid down for the development of correct judgments and tastes 
 on the part of the reader. _ The very important questions which parents are asking in respect to the best and safest 
 courses of reading for their children are answered in a manner that shows a vast range of knowledge, and a deep con- 
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 authors, there is greatest need of just such a book as this by Dr. Porter. Its careful reading will not fail to “stimulate 
 to a wise selection of books and to enlightened and successful methods of reading.” — Bosio7i Watchman and Reflector. 
 
 " It is distinguisdied by all the rare acumen, discriminating taste, and extensive literary knowledge of the author. The 
 chief departments of literature are reviewed in detail, and a variety of very suggestive and useful comments are made 
 in regard to the representative volumes under each head,” — JV. V. Ti?ncs. 
 
 “Such a volume is greatly needed in these days of superficial reading : and if its advice should be universally followed, 
 the next will be a wiser and better generation than the present.” — Albany Evetting Journal. „ 
 
 “ The scholar will find his reminiscences refreshed in reading it ; the beginner will be told where to begin, and how 
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 competent to form a discriminating judgment, and to express it with taste and vigor.” — Ehil. Age. 
 
 “The result of a scholarly lifetime so rich in practical results as to guarantee him the right to act as counsellor for the 
 young, in advising tlicm, both in their choice of books and in the proper way of reading them. Kis essays have also an- 
 other valuable phase, in that they present a very graphic history and healthy criticism of the best works in English 
 literature,” — Chicago Tribune. 
 
 “ Professor Porter’s volume is extremely satisfactory', and is withal a readable book.” — Mil-waukee Sentinel. 
 
 " Thei^ is a world of information and stiggestion in this volume, and the questions, what books to read and how to read, 
 are cleverly answered,” — N,. Y. Cojii. Advertiser. 
 
 “ A clear and instructive dissertation upon the best mode of becoming usefully familiar with the best boolcs of the best 
 authors.” — BujJdlo Com. Advertiser. 
 
 “ A book which will be found to contain many vahiable hints, even in cases where individual taste or preference may 
 irot follow it as an absolute guide, which it docs not pretend to be.” — Boston Post. 
 
 “ As Professor Porter is a man of clear and severely logical mind and unclouded judgment, and has a wide acquaintance 
 with LLterature, his Judgments arc entitled to great re.spect.” — Hartford Coura^it. 
 
 “Professor Porter’s new book forms a fresh and admirable and coming from one who has at his com- 
 
 mand the rc-sma'ces of leaniing and of the most wide and v.aried culture, who has given to this subject earnest thought, 
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 “ The work can not be tno highly commended to young men who wush to make the wisest and most profitable employ- 
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 “The wide range of topics included In the title Is discussed with marked ability.” — Pittsburg Pres. Banner. 
 
 This hook sent ^ost-paid^ upon receipt of the price, by the Publishers, 
 
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PEOF. POETES’S lEITAl 
 
 THE HUMAN INTELLECT; 
 
 R'iih. «H Introduction upon Psj/cholof/?/ and the Uutnan Soul. Jiy NOAH POltTEJtf JD.I). 
 
 Clarh Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics in Yale College. 
 
 One Volnsne 8vo. Nearly 700 Pag;es, - - - - $5.00 
 
 This is by far the most thorough and comprehensive work upon Mental Science ever published in this country. 
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 move Important principles of facts being in larger print— adapts it for use as a text-book, while its fulness of statement 
 makes it invaluable to all interested in Mental Science. 
 
 CRITICAL NOTICES. 
 
 From tilt North American Review. 
 
 “This copious, well-digested treatise will challenge the attention of students of philosophy on both sides of the 
 ocean. Whatever dissent special poi’tions of the work may awaken, discerning readers will appreciate the acute and 
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 Invaluable.” 
 
 From the Princeton Review. 
 
 “Alter a careful examination of this truly great work, we are ready to pronounce it the most complete and 
 exhaustive exhibition of the cognitive faculties of the human soul to be found in our language, and, so far as we 
 know, h\ any language. More extended and elaborate discussions on some single facirlties, or questions emerging 
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 the seven volumes of Dugald Stewart’s works now before us. * in short, the work is a monument of the 
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 try, and a fresh proof that genuine philosophy has not died out among us, and that those are not wanting who see 
 that false philosophy must be counteracted by that which is true.” 
 
 From the New Englander. 
 
 “We lay down the volume with a sentiment of respect and admiration for Professor Porter’s earnest zeal, and his 
 wide attainments, which we have seldom felt toward an American author. In comprehensiveness of plan and in 
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 Buch an example of enthusiasm in the pursuit of abstract truth, the author’s countrymen may well be proud of him. 
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 among our American scholars, in the loftiest and most difficult walks of investigation. 
 
 Prof. H. B. Smith, in the American Presbyterian Review. 
 
 “ It is a long time since we have had such a solid volume of philosophy from an American author, or one so able 
 It is abreast of the sharp discussions of the day, and on some points takes the lead in our country.” 
 
 Prest. McCosh, of Princeton College, in the Independent. 
 
 “ The author treats his subject carefully and lovingly. It is evidently his Life-work, on which he has spent years of 
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 famous college of which he is an ornament.” 
 
 From the Bibliotheca Sacra. 
 
 “This is the most important contribution to Mental Science which has been produced in our country for many 
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 From the Methodist Quarterly Review. * 
 
 “ The publication of this work is a marked event in the history of Mental Science, not only in our country but in 
 the English language. It is not only a standard, but in its fulness, symmetry , and completeness, it i«? a standard without 
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 this work.” 
 
 From the New York Tribune. 
 
 “ Prof. Porter’s manner is worthy of all praise. He is equally free from dogmatism and flippancy. His tone ia 
 calm, discriminating, judicial. If he still cUngs to the traditions of early education, he is none the less a sincere 
 searcherafter truth.” 
 
 From the New York Evening Post. 
 
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 From the New York Observer. 
 
 “ It constitutes one of the most important contributions to metaphysical literature that has been made in our 
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 From the Boston Watchman and Reflector. 
 
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 of discussion, exactness of statement, aptness of illusti'ation, and mingled beauty and strength of style, wc know 
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 Copies of the dbove work for sale by all booksellers, or sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of the price, by 
 
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