Part 9 (1/2)

Verse 46. By this verse we learn that the number of Jews, warriors (not including the Levites), capable of bearing arms, was 603,550; and taking old and young into consideration, you can hardly compute these at more than three out of each ten, which would leave a total of about 2,000,000 males, the proportion of females would be upwards of 2,000,000 more; these, together with male and female slaves, and the tribe of Levi, must have made upwards of 5,000,000 people. This would be an immense number to pa.s.s through a desert, where water and food were deficient.

Verse 49, see chap, iii., v. 15. The Lord must have changed his original intention.

*Chapter iii., v. 39. 22,000 is incorrect, it should be 22,300--viz., Gershonites 7,500, Kohathites 8,600, Meranites 6,200. This may seem a trifling error, but in a revelation from G.o.d we are not prepared to expect errors at all; and in this case it is a grave error, and not a mere slip of the copyist, or transcriber, for in verse 46 we are told that the first-born were 273 more in number than the male Levites, when in feet they were twenty-seven less. It is very extraordinary that the Levites should be comparatively so few in number, especially when we consider them as the most favoured by G.o.d. The whole of the Levites, male and female, could not be much over 50,000, while the other tribes averaged 350,000 each.

*Chapter iv., v. 20. The same mystery as before observed, coupled with the usual threat of death to deter the uninitiated from too closely examining the things of G.o.d.

Verse 23. By this the Levites are to serve from thirty to fifty; in chap, viii., v. 24, it is from twenty-five to fifty.

*Chapter v., w. 8, 9, and 10. Here is a complete identification of the rights of the Lord with those of the priest, 'Let the trespa.s.s be recompensed unto the Lord, even unto the priest.' Whether this Book be a revelation from G.o.d or not, it is quite clear that it is the interest of the priesthood to support it.

Verses 17 to 27. We have read of various ordeals amongst savage nations, and it is customary to deplore the ignorance and barbarity of the nations amongst whom these customs are allowed to prevail. If we abide by this style of criticism, what must we say of the legislator who established the ordeal of the waters of jealousy?

*Chapter vii., v. 89. 'And when Moses was gone into the tabernacle of the congregation to speak with him, then he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy-seat that was upon the ark of {70} testimony, from between the two cherubims: and he spake unto him.' This voice is uttered in the hearing of no one but Moses. The Douay reads, 'And when Moses entered into the tabernacle of the covenant to consult the oracle, he heard the voice of one speaking to him from the propitiary that was over the ark, between the two cherubims, and from this place he spake to him.' Is not this similar to the oracle-consulting of other nations? It is admitted now, by all intelligent men, that the oracles of Delphos, of Ammon, and of Dodona, were only instances of jugglery and cunning, practised by the priest on the people. In what respects are the oracles of the Jews superior? In an able article on the word 'oracle,' in Brande's Dictionary is the following quotation:--

'The general characteristics of oracles were ambiguity, obscurity, and convertability; so that one answer would agree with several various, and sometimes directly opposite events. Thus when Croesus was on the point of invading the Medes, he consulted the oracle of Delphi as to the success of the enterprise, and received for answer, ”That by pa.s.sing the River Halys, he would ruin a mighty empire.” But whether it was his own empire, or that of his enemies, that was destined to be ruined, was not intimated, and in either case the oracle could not fail to be right. The answer of the oracle to 'Pyrrhus is another well-known instance of this sort of ambiguity. ”_Aio, te aeacida, Romanos vincere posse_”--as it might either be interpreted in favour of, or against, Pyrrhus. This ambiguity and equivocation was not, however, the worst feature that characterised the oracles of antiquity. They were at once ambiguous and venal. A rich or a powerful individual seldom found much difficulty in obtaining a response favourable to his projects, how unjust or objectionable soever. But such and so powerful is the influence of superst.i.tion, that this system of fraud and imposture maintained a lengthened ascendancy, and interested responses of the oracles frequently sufficed to excite b.l.o.o.d.y wars, and to spread desolation through extensive States.'

*Chapter ix., vv. 15 to 17. The 'cloud and appearance of fire' might have been easily produced by Moses himself, and, judging by the context, it is a fair presumption, they being always rendered subordinate to his plans.

*Chapter x., v. 9. Is it intended to be implied that the blowing the alarm with trumpets, will the more readily bring G.o.d to the aid of the Jews? If not, what is the meaning of this verse?

*Chapter xi., v. 4. It is not easy to understand how the Israelites could be without flesh food, when we are told in Exodus, chap, xii., v.

38, that they took with them out of Egypt 'flocks and herds, even very much cattle.'

Verse 16. If Moses had no a.s.sistance in the government of the Jews, he must have entirely neglected the advice of Jethro, his father-in-law, referred to on page 56.

*Chapter xii., v. 1. The following is from Dr. Giles's 'Hebrew Records':--'The country to which the wife of Moses belonged, here called Ethiopia, is Cush in the original Hebrew, and may fairly be {71} interpreted in a very wide sense. Ethiopia, also, in Grecian history, designated not only the modern Ethiopia, but parts of Egypt, Arabia, and, perhaps, other neighbouring countries. We may then freely admit that the Ethiopian woman here mentioned was the same person elsewhere described as Jethro's daughter, but the manner in which her name is here introduced, is perfectly incompatible with her having been already described, and that so fully, in Exodus ii., as the daughter to the priest of Midian, and married to Moses, possibly several years before the strife, which Miriam and Aaron now stirred up on her account. This leads to the following conclusion, either that the two accounts of the wife of Moses were written by two distinct authors, or that the Ethiopian woman whom Moses married was not the same as the daughter of Jethro priest of Midian. In the former case the whole Pentateuch, as it now is, cannot be considered as the work of Moses; in the latter case, the mixture of the Israelites with other tribes would appear to have begun very early after the Exodus, and to have been carried to a very great extreme.'

*Chapter xiii., vv. 2 to 17. Why were these people sent to spy out the land? G.o.d could have told his people all the particulars without this.

In ordering them to be sent, he must have foreknown and foreordained that they should report falsely, and that the Israelites should believe their report, in which case it is difficult to justify the forty years wandering in the wilderness.

Verse 22. 'Hebron' has been noticed on page 5.

Verses 23 and 24. Bishop Patrick's note on this verse is highly sensible and becoming:--'_The place was called the Brook Eschol._ That is, when the Israelites got possession of the land, they called this brook or valley ”Eschol” in memory of this bunch of grapes, for so Eschol signifies.' But the book, which relates that the place was called Eschol, cannot have been written until the act of naming had taken place.

Verse 33 is meant figuratively, otherwise the sons of Anak would be of tremendous height and size.

*Chapter xiv., w. 1 to 4. This murmuring displeases G.o.d, but grave consideration is required to understand why G.o.d was so displeased, Twelve men, all equally trustworthy (as far as we can glean their characters from the Book), are sent to view the promised land; ten report unfavourably, and two, on the contrary, give a favourable account. The balance of evidence is therefore very strong, and yet G.o.d is displeased, because the Israelites put faith in the unfavourable report. The case is even stronger than this. One of the two favourable witnesses (Joshua) was a servant and partisan of Moses, and might well be suspected of giving a highly coloured account of the country, according to the wishes of his leader. Later historians have even rendered more unfavourable the account given by the ten, rather than corroborate that of Joshua and Caleb. Voltaire quotes a letter from St.

Jerome, in which he speaks of the land of promise as being about 160 miles long, and about fifty broad, all beyond being desert, that from Jerusalem to Bethlehem there is nothing but pebbles, and scarce any water to drink during the summer season. {72} Verses 11 to 37. There is here a repet.i.tion of the mode in which Moses reasoned and expostulated with G.o.d, pointed out on page sixty-two, the same fear lest the Egyptians should hear of G.o.d's wrath against the Israelites, and ultimately the same change is effected. In verse 20, the Lord says: 'I have pardoned according to thy word,' and immediately notified that instead of pardoning the people, he intended them all to die on their journey to the promised land.

Verses 43 to 45. In Exodus, chap. 17, vv. 14 and 16, G.o.d swore to utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven, and to have war with them from generation to generation. In this chapter he aids and a.s.sists them to destroy the Israelites.

Verse 45. 'Hormah.' This verse could not have been written by Moses, as the city of Zephath was not called Hormah until after the death of Joshua (_vide_ Judges, chap, i., v. 17): in chap, xxi., vv. 1 to 3, we find an account of the destruction of a city, and the naming it Hormah 'This' (says Dr. Shuckford, as quoted in the Family Bible) 'was effected in the days of Joshua (Joshua, chap, xii., v. 14), or a little after his death' (Judges, chap, i., v. 17). Yet Dr. Shuckford did not perceive that the relation of an event, which happened in the days of Joshua, could not have come from the pen of Moses. The second of the above-mentioned texts--namely, the first three verses of Numbers xxi., describe the fulfilment of Israel's vow--not in a mere word or short sentence, such as others--which the commentators explain by saying that they are interpolations. The present text is too full for us to suppose so: it is evidently an integral part of the main narrative, and cannot be separated from it. The whole of this part of the history, therefore, is liable to the same observation which has been so often made, that it was written by some one who lived long after the time of Moses (_vide_ Dr. Giles's 'Hebrew Records').

*Chapter xv., vv. 32 to 36. These verses are the species upon which fanatics ground their opposition to a free Sunday. The organ blower may work in the organ loft of his parish church till the perspiration streams from his brow--no serious voice checks his labour, but should he dare take his accordion into the green fields, and there, with lighter labour, beguile away his Sunday morning or afternoon, immediately the reverend pastor, the pious churchwarden, the devout and stately beadle, the meek and humble pew opener, with a thunder-like chorus-voice shout after him, 'Sabbath-breaker, thy doom is h.e.l.l.' This sentence is printed in small capitals on a little tract--this tract does great good. John Phillips, of Hare Street, Spitalfields, weaver, having been at work at his loom from early on the previous Monday morning until late on the Sat.u.r.day evening, and feeling tired thereby, determines to take Mrs.

Phillips and his three children into Victoria Park; and, preparatory to this, John Phillips hammers at a small piece of leather in the endeavour to fix it to the sole of his boot, which is out of repair, suddenly his room door opens, and a Scripture-reader enters, who solemnly hands John the above-mentioned tract, and the following dialogue takes place:-- {73} S. R.--You are now breaking the Sabbath-day.

John P.--This is a work of necessity; the boot must be mended before I can go out.

S. R.--If you read Numbers, you will find that a man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath-day was put to death; and although you will not probably die to-day, you will go to h.e.l.l by-and-by. You should go to church.