Part 54 (2/2)

ch. 8. sect. 4, and the high priest Caiaphas's most remarkable prophecy, John 11:47-52, as two small remains or specimens of this ancient oracle, which properly belonged to the Jewish high priests: nor perhaps ought we entirely to forget that eminent prophetic dream of our Josephus himself, [one next to a high priest, as of the family of the Asamoneans or Maccabees,] as to the succession of Vespasian and t.i.tus to the Roman empire, and that in the days of Nero, and before either Galba, Otho, or Vitellius were thought of to succeed him. Of the War, B. III. ch. 8.

sect. 9. This, I think, may well be looked on as the very last instance of any thing like the prophetic Urim among the Jewish nation, and just preceded their fatal desolation: but how it could possibly come to pa.s.s that such great men as Sir John Marsham and Dr. Spenser, should imagine that this oracle of Urim and Thummim with other practices as old or older than the law of Moses, should have been ordained in imitation of somewhat like them among the Egyptians, which we never hear of till the days of Diodorus Siculus, Aelian, and Maimonides, or little earlier than the Christian era at the highest, is almost unaccountable; while the main business of the law of Moses was evidently to preserve the Israelites from the idolatrous and superst.i.tious practices of the neighboring pagan nations; and while it is so undeniable, that the evidence for the great antiquity of Moses's law is incomparably beyond that for the like or greater antiquity of such customs in Egypt or other nations, which indeed is generally none at all, it is most absurd to derive any of Moses's laws from the imitation of those heathen practices, Such hypotheses demonstrate to us how far inclination can prevail over evidence, in even some of the most learned part of mankind.

[23] What Reland well observes here, out of Josephus, as compared with the law of Moses, Leviticus 7:15, [that the eating of the sacrifice the same day it was offered, seems to mean only before the morning of the next, although the latter part, i.e. the night, be in strictness part of the next day, according to the Jewish reckoning,] is greatly to be observed upon other occasions also. The Jewish maxim in such cases, it seems, is this: That the day goes before the night; and this appears to me to be the language both of the Old and New Testament. See also the note on Antiq. B. IV. ch. 4. sect. 4, and Reland's note on B. IV. ch. 8.

sect. 28.

[24] We may here note, that Josephus frequently calls the camp the city, and the court of the Mosaic tabernacle a temple, and the tabernacle itself a holy house, with allusion to the latter city, temple, and holy house, which he knew so well long afterwards.

[25] These words of Josephus are remarkable, that the lawgiver of the Jews required of the priests a double degree of parity, in comparison of that required of the people, of which he gives several instances immediately. It was for certain the case also among the first Christians, of the clergy, in comparison of the laity, as the Apostolical Const.i.tutions and Canons every where inform us.

[26] We must here note with Reland, that the precept given to the priests of not drinking wine while they wore the sacred garments, is equivalent; to their abstinence from it all the while they ministered in the temple; because they then always, and then only, wore those sacred garments, which were laid up there from one time of ministration to another.

[27] See Antiq, B. XX. ch. 2. sect, 6. and Acts 11:28.

BOOK 4 FOOTNOTES

[1] Reland here takes notice, that although our Bibles say little or nothing of these riches of Corah, yet that both the Jews and Mahommedans, as well as Josephus, are full of it.

[2] It appears here, and from the Samaritan Pentateuch, and, in effect, from the psalmist, as also from the Apostolical Const.i.tutions, from Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians, from Ignatius's Epistle to the Magnesians, and from Eusebius, that Corah was not swallowed up with the Reubenites, but burned with the Levites of his own tribe. See Essay on the Old Testament, p. 64, 65.

[3] Concerning these twelve rods of the twelve tribes of Israel, see St.

Clement's account, much larger than that in our Bibles, 1 Epist. sect.

45; as is Josephus's present account in measure larger also.

[4] Grotius, on Numbers 6:18, takes notice that the Greeks also, aswell as the Jews, sometimes consecrated the hair of their heads to the G.o.ds.

[5] Josephus here uses this phrase, ”when the fortieth year was completed,” for when it was begun; as does St. Luke when the day of Pentecost was completed,” Acts 2:1.

[6] Whether Miriam died, as Josephus's. Greek copies imply, on the first day of the month, may be doubted, because the Latin copies say it was on the tenth, and so say the Jewish calendars also, as Dr. Bernard a.s.sures us. It is said her sepulcher is still extant near Petra, the old capital city of Arabia Petraea, at this day; as also that of Aaron, not far off.

[7] What Josephus here remarks is well worth our remark in this place also; viz. that the Israelites were never to meddle with the Moabites, or Ammonites, or any other people, but those belonging to the land of Canaan, and the countries of Sihon and Og beyond Jordan, as far as the desert and Euphrates, and that therefore no other people had reason to fear the conquests of the Israelites; but that those countries given them by G.o.d were their proper and peculiar portion among the nations, and that all who endeavored to dispossess them might ever be justly destroyed by them.

[8] Note that Josephus never supposes Balaam to be an idolater, nor to seek idolatrous enchantments, or to prophesy falsely, but to be no other than an ill-disposed prophet of the true G.o.d; and intimates that G.o.d's answer the second time, permitting him to go, was ironical, and on design that he deceived [which sort of deception, by way of punishment for former crimes, Josephus never scruples to admit, as ever esteeming such wicked men justly and providentially deceived]. But perhaps we had better keep here close to the text which says Numbers 23:20, 21, that G.o.d only permitted Balaam to go along with the amba.s.sadors, in case they came and called him, or positively insisted on his going along with them, on any terms; whereas Balaam seems out of impatience to have risen up in the morning, and saddled his a.s.s, and rather to have called them, than staid for their calling him, so zealous does he seem to have been for his reward of divination, his wages of unrighteousness, Numbers 23:7, 17, 18, 37; 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 5, 11; which reward or wages the truly religious prophets of G.o.d never required nor accepted, as our Josephus justly takes notice in the cases of Samuel, Antiq. B. V. ch.

4. sect. 1, and Daniel, Antiq. B. X. ch. 11. sect. 3. See also Genesis 14:22, 23; 2 Kings 5:15, 16, 26, 27; and Acts 8;17-24.

[9] Whether Josephus had in his copy but two attempts of Balaam in all to curse Israel; or whether by this his twice offering sacrifice, he meant twice besides that first time already mentioned, which yet is not very probable; cannot now be certainly determined. In the mean time, all other copies have three such attempts of Balaam to curse them in the present history.

[10] Such a large and distinct account of this perversion of the Israelites by the Midianite women, of which our other copies give us but short intimations, Numbers 31:16 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 11; Revelation 2:14, is preserved, as Reland informs us, in the Samaritan Chronicle, in Philo, and in other writings of the Jews, as well as here by Josephus.

[11] This grand maxim, That G.o.d's people of Israel could never be hurt nor destroyed, but by drawing them to sin against G.o.d, appears to be true, by the entire history of that people, both in the Bible and in Josephus; and is often taken notice of in them both. See in particular a most remarkable Ammonite testimony to this purpose, Judith 5:5-21.

[12] What Josephus here puts into the mouths of these Midianite women, who came to entice the Israelites to lewdness and idolatry, viz. that their wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.d of Israel, in opposition to their idol G.o.ds, implied their living according to the holy laws which the true G.o.d had given them by Moses, in opposition to those impure laws which were observed under their false G.o.ds, well deserves our consideration; and gives us a substantial reason for the great concern that was ever shown under the law of Moses to preserve the Israelites from idolatry, and in the wors.h.i.+p of the true G.o.d; it being of no less consequence than, Whether G.o.d's people should be governed by the holy laws of the true G.o.d, or by the impure laws derived from demons, under the pagan idolatry.

[13] The mistake in all Josephus's copies, Greek and Latin which have here fourteen thousand instead of twenty-four thousand, is so flagrant, that our very learned editors, Bernard and Hudson, have put the latter number directly into the text. I choose rather to put it in brackets.

[14] The slaughter of all the Midianite women that had prost.i.tuted themselves to the lewd Israelites, and the preservation of those that had not been guilty therein; the last of which were no fewer than thirty-two thousand, both here and Numbers 31:15-17, 35, 40, 46, and both by the particular command of G.o.d; are highly remarkable, and show that, even in nations otherwise for their wickedness doomed to destruction, the innocent were sometimes particularly and providentially taken care of, and delivered from that destruction; which directly implies, that it was the wickedness of the nations of Canaan, and nothing else, that occasioned their excision. See Genesis 15;16; 1 Samuel 15:18, 33; Apost. Const.i.t. B. VIII. ch. 12. p. 402. In the first of which places, the reason of the delay of the punishment of the Amorites is given, because ”their iniquity was not yet full.” In the secured, Saul is ordered to go and ”destroy the sinners, the Amalekites;” plainly implying that they were therefore to be destroyed, because they were sinners, and not otherwise. In the third, the reason is given why king Agag was not to be spared, viz. because of his former cruelty: ”As thy sword hath made the [Hebrew] women childless, so shall thy mother be made childless among women by the Hebrews.” In the last place, the apostles, or their amanuensis Clement, gave this reason for the necessity of the coming of Christ, that ”men had formerly perverted both the positive law, and that of nature; and had cast out of their mind the memory of the Flood, the burning of Sodom, the plagues of the Egyptians, and the slaughter of the inhabitants of Palestine,” as signs of the most amazing impenitence and insensibility, under the punishments of horrid wickedness.

[15] Josephus here, in this one sentence, sums up his notion of Moses's very long and very serious exhortations in the book of Deuteronomy; and his words are so true, and of such importance, that they deserve to be had in constant remembrance.

[16] This law, both here and Exodus 20:25, 26, of not going up to G.o.d's altar by ladder-steps, but on an acclivity, seems not to have belonged to the altar of the tabernacle, which was in all but three cubits high, Exodus 27:4; nor to that of Ezekiel, which was expressly to be gone up to by steps, ch. 43:17; but rather to occasional altars of any considerable alt.i.tude and largeness; as also probably to Solomon's altar, to which it is here applied by Josephus, as well as to that in Zorobabel's and Herod's temple, which were, I think, all ten cubits high. See 2 Chronicles 4:1, and Antiq. B. VIII. ch. 3. sect. 7. The reason why these temples, and these only, were to have this ascent on an acclivity, and not by steps, is obvious, that before the invention of stairs, such as we now use, decency could not be otherwise provided for in the loose garments which the priests wore, as the law required. See Lamy of the Tabernacle and Temple, p. 444.

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