ANALYSIS OF SCRIPTURE. PART V. ANALYSIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. CHAPTER I. ON THE PENTATEUCH, OR FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. SECTION I. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE PENTATEUCH. I. Title.-II. Argument of the Pentateuch.-III. Notice of other Writings ascribed to Moses. I. THE PENTATEUCH, by which title the five books of Moses are collectively designated, is a word of Greek original,' which literally signifies five books, or volumes; by the Jews it is frequently termed an (TORAH) the Law, or the LAW OF MOSES, because it contains the ecclesiastical and political ordinances issued by God to the Israelites. The Pentateuch forms, to this day, but one roll or volume in the Jewish manuscripts, being divided only into paraschioth and siderim, or larger and smaller sections. This collective designation of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, is of very considerable antiquity, though we have no certain information when it was first introduced. As, however, the names of these books are evidently derived from the Greek, and as the five books of Moses are expressly mentioned by Josephus, who wrote only a few years after our Saviour's ascension, we have every reason to believe that the appellation of Pentateuch was prefixed to the Septuagint version by the Alexandrian translators. must be applied also to the nine following psalms, is not sufficient. The greater part of the titles of the psalms is not original, nor, indeed, very ancient; and some of them are evidently misplaced: we find also in these psalms the names of persons, and other marks, which by no means agree with Moses. II. This division of the sacred volume comprises an account of the creation of the world, and of the fall of man, the outlines of the early annals of the world, and a full recital of the Jewish law, and of the events which happened to the Israelites from their becoming a distinct people to their departure out of Egypt, and their arrival on the confines of the land of Canaan, a period of two thousand five hundred and fifteen years according to the vulgar computation, or of three thousand seven hundred and sixty-five years, according to the computation established by Dr. Hales. "It is a wide description gradually contracted; an account of one nation, preceded by a general sketch of the first state of mankind. The books are written in pure Hebrew, with an admirable diversity of style, always well adapted to the subject, yet characterized with the stamp of the same author; they are all evidently parts of the same work, and mutually strengthen and illustrate each other. They blend revelation and history in one point of view; furnish laws, and describe their execution; exhibit prophecies, and relate their accomplishment. "5 III. Besides the Pentateuch the Jews ascribe to Moses ten psalms, from psalm xc. to xcix. inclusive. There is, however, no solid evidence to prove that these psalms were composed by him; for the title of the ninetieth psalm (a prayer of Moses the man of God"), which, they pretend, Пs, from IT, five, and Tuxos, a book or volume. Bible de Vence, tom. i. p. 310. For an account of these divisions, see Vol. I. p. 213. ■ The author of the treatise De Mundo, which is commonly ascribed to Philo Judeus, was of opinion that Moses himself divided his work into five books; but he assigned no authority for such opinion. Jesus Christ and his apostles never cite the five books of Moses under any other name than that of Moses, or the Law of Moses; as the Jews ordinarily do to this day. Calmet conjectures that Ezra divided the Pentateuch into five books. Dissertations, tom. ii. p. 23. In his Jewish Antiquities, Josephus terms the Pentateuch the "Holy Beaks of Moses" (lib. x. c. iv. §2.); and in his Treatise against Apion (lib. i c. 8.), when enumerating the sacred writings of the Jews, he says that PIVE of them belong to Moses."-Some critics have imagined that this dissaction of the Pentateuch into five separate books was known to and recogaised by St. Paul (1 Cor. xiv. 19.), by the term five words; but the context of that passage does not authorize such a conjecture. Bp. Gray's Key to the Old Testament, p. 76. 5th edit. Further, some of the ancient fathers have thought that Moses was the author of the book of Job: Origen, in his commentary on Job, pretends that Moses translated it out of Syriac into Hebrew; but this opinion is rejected both by Jews and Christians. Besides, if this book had really been composed by Moses, is it likely that the Jews would have separated it from the Pentateuch ?6 There are likewise ascribed to Moses several apocryphal books; as an Apocalypse, or Little Genesis, the Ascension of Moses, the Assumption of Moses, the Testament of Moses, and the Mysterious Books of Moses. The principal part of the "Little Genesis" was transferred by Cedrenus into his chronological history: it was extant in Hebrew in the fourth century of the Christian æra, for we find it cited by Jerome. From the apocalypse just noticed, it has been pretended that Saint Paul copied Gal. v. 6. and vi. 15.; and it has been imagined that what is said in the Epistle of Jude (verse 9.), respecting the archangel Michael's contention with Satan for the body of Moses, was taken from the apocryphal Ascension of Moses. Such was the opinion of Origen, who, though he cites it in another place, alludes to it as not being in the canon.8 All these pretended Mosaic writings, however, are confessedly spurious, and are supposed to have been fabricated in the early ages of Christianity. On the difference between the Hebrew and Samaritan Pentateuchs, or, rather, editions of the Pentateuch, see Volume I. p. 204.; for a view of the Genuineness and Credibility of the Pentateuch, see Volume I. pp. 32-38.; and for a List of the principal Commentators on this portion of the Sacred Scriptures, see Volume II. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX, PART II. CHAP. V. SECT. III. § 4. SECTION II. ON THE BOOK OF GENESIS. I. Title.-II. Author and date.-III. General argument.- 1. THE first book of the Pentateuch, which is called GENESIS (TENEZIX), derives its appellation from the title it The book of Job was composed many ages before the time of Moses See chap. iii. sect. i. infra, of this volume. Cedrenus, enumerating the authorities consulted by him, says, that he "collected not a few things from the Little Genesis, TO THE AITHS Tvis. Historia Compendiaria, tom. i. p. 2. edit. Venet. 1729. Cedrenus frequently cites this apocryphal book in the course of his work. See the passages of Origen at length in Dr. Lardner's works, vol. ii. pp. 483-512. 8vo. or vol. i. pp. 541-557. 4to. 203 bears in the Greek Septuagint Version, BIBAOZ TENEZENE; if we consider the state of the world when the Pentateuch which signifies the Book of the Generation or Production, because it commences with the history of the generation or production of all things. The Jews name the books of the Old Testament either from their authors, or the principal subjects treated in them, as the five books of Moses, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah,-or from the first Hebrew word with which they begin thus, the book of Genesis is in Hebrew called ♫ BRESHITH, that is, in the beginning, from its initial word.' was written. Mankind was absorbed in the grossest idolatry, which for the most part had originated in the neglect, the perversion, or the misapprehension of certain truths, that had once been universally known. Moses, therefore, commences his narrative by relating in simple language the truths thus disguised or perverted. In pursuance of this plan, he relates, in the book of Genesis, the true origin and history of all created things, in opposition to the erroneous notions entertained by the heathen nations, especially by the Egyptians: II. Although nothing is more certain than that this book the origin of sin, and of all moral and physical evil; the estawas written by Moses, yet it is by no means agreed when he blishment of the knowledge and worship of the only true composed the history which it contains. Eusebius and some God among mankind; their declension into idolatry; the eminent critics after him have conjectured, that it was writ- promise of the Messiah; together with the origin of the ten while he kept the flocks of Jethro his father-in-law, in church, and her progress and condition for many ages. Fur the wilderness of Midian. But the more probable opinion ther, it makes known to the Israelites the providential his is that of Theodoret, which has been adopted by Molden- tory of their ancestors, and the divine promises made to them; hawer and most modern critics, viz. that Moses wrote this and shows them the reason why the Almighty chose Abrabook after the departure of the Israelites from Egypt and the ham and his posterity to be a peculiar people to the exclupromulgation of the law from Mount Sinai; for, previously sion of all other nations, viz. that from them should spring to his receiving the divine call related in Exodus iii., he was the Messiah. This circumstance must be kept in view only a private individual, and was not endued with the spirit throughout the reading of this book, as it will illustrate many of prophecy. Without that spirit he could not have recorded, otherwise unaccountable circumstances there related. It was with so much accuracy, the history of the creation, and the this hope that led Eve to exclaim,—I have gotten a man,— subsequent transactions to his own time: neither could he the Lord. (Gen. iv. 1. Heb.) The polygamy of Lamech may have foretold events then future, as in the predictions con- be accounted for by the hope that the Messiah would be born cerning the Messiah, and those respecting the descendants of some of his posterity, as also the incest of Lot's daugh of Ishmael and the sons of Jacob; the verification and con- ters (Gen. xix. 31-38.), Sarah's impatience of her barrenfirmation of which depended on circumstances, that had nei-ness (Gen. xvi.), the polygamy of Jacob (Gen. xxix.), the ther taken place nor could have happened at the time when consequent jealousies between Leah and Rachel (Gen. xxx.), the history was written in which they are recorded but the jealousies between Ishmael and Isaac, and especially which circumstances, we know, did take place exactly as Rebekah's preference of Jacob to Esau. It was these jea they were foretold, and which may be said, even now, to lousies, and these pretensions to the promise of the Messiah, have an actual accomplishment before our eyes. A third that gave rise to the custom of calling God the God of Abraconjecture has been offered by some Jewish writers, after ham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and not the rabbi Moses Ben Nachman, who suppose that God dictated God of Lot, Ishmael, and Esau, the promise having been to Moses all the contents of this book, during the first forty particularly made and repeated to those three patriarchs. days that he was permitted to hold a communication with the Almighty on Mount Sinai, and that on his descent he committed the whole to writing. This hypothesis they found on Exodus xxiv. 12. where Jehovah says unto Moses, -Come up to me in the mount, and be thou there, and I will give thee the tables of stone, and the law, and the precepts, which I have written to teach them :-understanding by the tables, the decalogue, by the precepts, all the ceremonial and judicia. ordinances; and by the law, all the other writings of Moses, whether historical or doctrinal." It is, however," as a pious writer has well remarked, "as impossible, as it is of little consequence, to determine which of these opinions is best founded; and it is sufficient for us to know, that Moses was assisted by the spirit of infallible truth in the composition of this sacred work, which he deemed a proper introduction to the laws and judgments delivered in the subsequent books." III. The book of Genesis comprises the history of about 2369 years according to the vulgar computation of time, or of 3619 years according to the larger computation of Dr. Hales. Besides the history of the creation, it contains an account of the original innocence and fall of man; the propagation of mankind; the rise of religion; the general defection and corruption of the world; the deluge; the restoration of the world; the division and peopling of the earth; the call of Abraham, and the divine covenant with him; together with the first patriarchs, to the death of Joseph. This book also comprises some important prophecies respecting the Messiah. See iii. 15. xii. 3. xviii. 18. xxii. 18. xxvi. 4. xxviii. 14. and xlix. 10. IV. The SCOPE of the book of Genesis may be considered as twofold:-1. To record the history of the world from the commencement of time; and, 2. To relate the origin of the church, and the events which befell it during many ages. The design of Moses in this book will be better understood, 1 To avoid unnecessary references to the same authorities, it may here be stated, that besides the treatises referred to for particular facts and arguments, in this and the following sections of the present volume, the author has throughout consulted the dissertations of Calmet, Carpzov's Introductio ad Libros Biblicos Veteris Testamenti, Jahn's Introductio in Libros Sacros Veteris Fœderis, and Ackermann's expurgated edition of it; the prefaces of Alber in his Interpretatio Sacræ Scripturæ, Heidegger's Enchiridion Bibli cum, on which treatise Van Til's Opus Analyticum is a commentary, and Moldenhawer's Introductio in omnes Libros Canonicos Veteris et Novi Testamenti. Of all these works an account will be found in the Appendix to vol. ii. For the plan of the prefaces to most of the books of the Old and New Testament, the author is indebted to the excellent works of Moldenhawer and Heidegger. See this fact fully proved, supra, vol. i. pp. 32-38. Pareus, Proleg. in Genesin, pp. 9, 10. Francofurti, 1647. Roberts's Clavis Bibliorum, p. 5. folio edit. V. TYPES OF THE MESSIAH are Adam, as being a public person and federal head (compare Rom. v. 14. Gr. and 1 Cor. xv. 45.); Melchizedek (Psal. cx. 4. Heb. vi. 20. and vii.); and Isaac. (Gen. xxii. with Heb. xi. 18. 19.) VI. The Jews divide the book of Genesis into twelve paraschioth or larger sections, and forty-three siderim or smaller sections; in our Bibles it consists of fifty chapters, the general contents and leading divisions of which are exhibited in the following SYNOPSIS:PART I. The Origin of the World. (Ch. i. ii.) PART II. The History of the former World. (iii.-vii.) SECT. 1. The fall of man and his expulsion from Paradise. (iii.) SECT. 2. The history of Adam and his descendants to Noah. (iv. v.) SECT. 3. The increase of wickedness in the world, and its destruction by the deluge. (vi. vii.) PART III. The General History of Mankind after the Deluge. SECT. 1. The restoration of the world. (viii.) SECT. 3. The peopling of the world by his descendants. (x.) PART IV. The Particular History of the Patriarchs. (xii.—l.) SECT. 2. The history of the church under the patriarch Isaac. SECT. 3. The history of the church under the patriarch Jacob. (xxvii.—xxxvi.) SECT. 4. The history of the church under the patriarch Joseph. (xxxvii.-1.) $i. The afflictions of Jacob and Joseph:-Joseph sold into Egypt (xxxvii.), the incest of Judah (xxxviii.), the imprisonment of Joseph by Potiphar (xxxix. xl.) Sii. The deliverance and prosperity of Joseph-his promotion in the court of Pharaoh (xli.), the journeys of his brethren in Egypt to pur chase corn (xlii-xlv.), the descent of Jacob into that country, and settlement there with his family (xlvi.-xlviii.), his prophetic benedictions of his children (xlix.), the burial of Jacob, and the death and burial of Joseph. (1.) Allix's Reflections upon Genesis. Bishop Watson's Collection of Tracts, vol. i. pp. 247-259. For a summary of the religious doctrines and moral precepts of the patriarchal times, as exhibited in the book of Genesis, see Volume I. pp. 142, 143. 1. Allusions to the creation.-Psal. xxxiii. 9. He SPAKE and it was done; he COMMANDED, and it stood fast. This is VII. From an imaginary difficulty in explaining the literal sense of the first three chapters of Genesis, (a difficulty, however, which exists not with the devout reader of the sacred volume), some learned men, who admit the Pentateuch to have been written by Moses, have contended that the narrative of the creation and fall is not a recital of real events, but an ingenious philosophical mythos, or fable, invented by Moses after the example of ancient Greek writers, to give the greater weight to his legislative enactments! and designed to account for the origin of human evil, and also as an introduction to a history, great part of which they consider to be a mere poetic fiction. But the inventors of this fiction (for such only can we term it) have assumed that as proved which never had any existence; for the earliest Grecian cosmogony extant, namely, that of Hesiod, was not composed until at least five hundred and forty-five years after the death of Moses! Further, the style of these chapters, as, indeed, of the whole book of Genesis, is strictly historical, and betrays no vestige whatever of allegorical or figurative description; this is so evident to any one that reads with attention, as to need no proof. And since this history was adapted to the comprehension of the commonest capacity, Moses speaks according to optical, not physical truth: that is, he describes the effects of creation optically, or as they would have appeared to the eye, and without any assignment of physical causes. In doing which he has not merely accommodated his narrative to the apprehension of mankind in an infant state of society, and employed a method of recital best suited to a vulgar capacity; but he thereby also satisfies an important requisition of experimental philosophy, viz. to describe effects accurately and faithfully, according to their sensible appearances: by which means the mind is enabled to receive a clear and distinct impression of those appearances, and thus to reduce them to their proper causes, and to draw from them such conclusions The reality of the facts recorded in the first three chapters of as they are qualified to yield; for the determination of causes the book of Genesis was acknowledged by the Jews who lived must follow an acquaintance with their effects.2 "Besides, previously to the time of Christ. Vestiges of this belief are to if it be granted that Moses was an inspired lawgiver, it be found in the apocryphal books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. becomes impossible to suppose that he wrote a fabulous -God created man to be immortal, and made him an image account of the creation and fall of man, and delivered it of his own eternity. Nevertheless, through envy of the devil, as a divine revelation, because that would have been came death into the world, and they that hold of his side do little, if at all, short of blasphemy; we must, therefore, be- find it. (Wisd. ii. 23, 24.)-Wisdom (that is, the eternal Son lieve this account to be true, or that it was declared and of God) preserved the first formed father of the world, who understood by the people, to whom it was addressed, to be was created alone; and brought him out of his full (by the allegorical. No such declaration was ever made; nor is promised seed of the woman,) and gave him power to rule all there any mention of such an opinion being generally preva-things. (x. 1, 2.)-Of the woman came the beginning of sin; lent among the Jews in any early writing. The rabbis in- and through her we all die. (Ecclus. xxv. 24.) deed, of later times, built a heap of absurd doctrines upon this history: but this proves, if it proves any thing, that their ancestors ever understood it as a literal and true account; and, in fact, the truth of every part of the narrative contained in the book of Genesis is positively confirmed by the constant testimony of a people, who preserved a certain unmixed genealogy from father to son, through a long succession of ages: and by these people we are assured, that their ancestors ever did believe that this account, as far as it fell within human cognizance, had the authority of uninterrupted tradition from their first parent Adam, till it was written by the inspired pen of Moses."3 Further, in addition to the collateral testimony already adduced, to the credibility and reality of the facts related in the first three chapters of the book of Genesis, there are numerous incidental references, in the Old and New Testament, to the creation, temptation, and fall of our first parents, which clearly prove that they were considered as acknowledged FACTS, not requiring proof, and handed down from primitive tradition. Of these we select the following instances, out of very many which might have been cited:1 This notion is current among the divines of Germany, and the modern Socinians in this country: it is particularly enlarged upon by Bauer, (Herm. Sacr. pp. 351-365.), and by Gramberg (Libri Geneseos Adumbratio nova, pp. 16-18. Lipsiæ, 1828, 8vo.); and it is adopted by Dr. Geddes in his transation of the Bible (vol. i.), and also in his Critical Remarks, of which the reader will find a masterly refutation from the pen of the late eminently l-arned Bishop Horsley, in the British Critic (O. 3.), vol. xix. pp. 6-13. The younger Rosenmüller had adopted this mythical interpretation in the first edition of his Scholia on the Old Testament; but maturer consideration having led him to see its erroneousness, he, greatly to his honour, returned to the proper and literal interpretation in the new edition of his Scholia, lately published. (Dublin Christian Examiner, May, 1827, p. 388.) Penn's Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies, fol. 1. p. 163. (2d edit.) In pp. 165-268. there is an elaborate examination and vindication of the literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis. Bishop Tomline's Elements of Christ. Theol. vol. i. p. 64. Bee vol. i. pp. 69-78. pendent testimonies, here collected together, prove that the The arguments to prove the literal sense of the first three chapters of of the confusion of tongues which took place at Babel. (Gen. xi. 1-9.) And although some futile objections have been made against the chronology of this book, because it makes the world less ancient than is necessary to support the theories of some modern self-styled philosophers; yet even here, as we have already shown by an induction of particulars, the more rigorously it is examined and compared with the extravagant and improbable accounts of the Chaldæan, Egyptian, Chinese, and Hindoo chronology, the more firmly are its veracity and authenticity established. "In fine, without this history, the world would be in comparative darkness, not knowing whence it came, or whither it goeth. In the first page of this sacred book, a child may learn more in an hour, than all the philosophers in the world learned without it in a thousand years." SECTION III. ON THE BOOK OF EXODUS. I. Title.-II. Author and date.-III. Occasion and subjectmatter.-IV. Scope.-V. Types of the Messiah.-VI. Synopsis of its contents.-VII. Remarks on the plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians. I. THE title of this book is derived from the Septuagint Version, and is significant of the principal transaction which it records, namely, the EZOAOZ, Exodus, or departure of the Israelites from Egypt. By the Jews, and in the Hebrew copies, it is termed en Ve-ALEH SHEMOTH, "these are the words," from the initial words of the book, or sometimes merely Shemoth. It comprises a history of the events that took place during the period of 145 years, from the year of the world 2369 to 2514 inclusive, from the death of Joseph to the erection of the tabernacle. Twenty-five passages, according to Rivet, are quoted from Exodus by our Saviour and his apostles, in express words; and nineteen allusions to the sense are made in the New Testament. II. That Moses was the author of this book we have already shown, though the time when it was written cannot be precisely determined. As, however, it is a history of matters of fact, it was doubtless written after the giving of the law on Mount Sinai and the erecting of the tabernacle; for things cannot be historically related until they have actually taken place, and the author of this book was evidently an eye and ear-witness of the events he has narrated. III. The book of Exodus records the cruel persecution of the Israelites in Egypt under Pharaoh-Rameses II.; the birth, exposure, and preservation of Moses; his subsequent flight into Midian, his call and mission to Pharaoh-Amenophis II.; the miracles performed by him and by his brother Aaron the ten plagues also miraculously inflicted on the Egyptians; the institution of the passover, and the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt; their passage across the Red Sea, and the destruction of the Egyptian army: the subsequent journeyings of the Israelites in the desert, their idolatry, and frequent murmurings against God; the promulgation of the law from Mount Sinai, and the erection of the tabernacle. V. TYPES OF THE MESSIAH are Aaron (Heb. iv. 14—16. v. 4, 5.);-the Paschal Lamb (Exod. xii. 46. with John xix. 36. and 1 Cor. v. 7, 8.);-the Manna (Exod. xvi. 15. with 1 Cor. x. 3.);-the Rock in Horeb (Exod. xvii. 6. with 1 Cor. x. 4.);-the Mercy Seat (Exod. xxxvii. 6. with Rom. iii. 25. Heb. iv. 16.) VI. By the Jews the book of Exodus is divided into eleven paraschioth or chapters, and twenty-nine siderim or sections: in our Bibles it is divided into forty chapters, the contents of which are exhibited in the annexed SYNOPSIS:PART I. Account of the Transactions previously to the Departure of the Israelites from Egypt. SECT. 1. The oppression of the children of Israel. (ch. i.) PART II. The Narrative of the Departure of the Israelites. PART III. Transactions subsequent to their Exodus. (ch. xiv. -xviii.) SECT. 1. The miraculous passage of the Red Sea, and the thanksgiving of Moses and the people of Israel, on their deliverance from Pharaoh and his host. (ch. xiv. xv. 1—22.) SECT. 2. Relation of various miracles wrought in behalf of the Israelites. (ch. xv. 23-27. xvi. xvii.) SECT. 3. The arrival of Moses's wife and children with Je- PART IV. The Promulgation of the Law on Mount Sinai. VII. The circumstances attending the plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians are fully considered by Mr. Bryant in his learned treatise on this subject (8vo. London, 1810), from which the following particulars are abridged. As many of the Israelites were followers of the idolatry that surrounded them, these miracles were admirably adapted to display the vanity of the idols and false gods, adored by their oppressors, the proud and learned Egyptians. 1. By the first plague-Water turned into blood (Exod. vii. 14-25.)-was demonstrated the superiority of Jehovah over their imaginary river-gods, and the baseness of the elements which they reverenced. The Nile was religiously honoured by the Egyptians, who valued themselves much upon the excellency of its waters, and esteemed all the natives of the river as in some degree sacred. The Nile was turned into blood, which was an object of peculiar abhorrence to the Egyptians. 2. In the plague of frogs (Exod. viii. 1-15.) the object of their idolatrous worship, the Nile, was made an instruIV. The SCOPE of Exodus is to preserve the memorial of ment of their punishment. Frogs were deemed sacred by the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and to represent the Egyptians; but whether from reverence or abhorrence is the church of God, afflicted and preserved; together with the uncertain. By this plague, the waters of the Nile became providential care of God towards her, and the judgments a second time polluted, and the land was equally defiled. inflicted on her enemies. It plainly points out the accom3. The plague of lice (Exod. viii. 16—19.) reproved the plishment of the divine promises and prophecies delivered to absurd superstition of the Egpytians, who thought it would Abraham, that his posterity would be very numerous (com- be a great profanation of the temple into which they were pare Gen. xv. 5. xvii. 4-6. and xlvi. 27. with Num. i. 1-going, if they entered it with any animalcula of this sort 3. 46.); and that they would be afflicted in a land not their own, whence they should depart in the fourth generation with great substance. (Gen. xv. 13-16. with Exod. xii. 35. 40, 41.) Further, in Israel passing from Egypt, through the Red Sea, the Wilderness, and Jordan, to the promised land, this book adumbrates the state of the church in the wilderness of this world, until her arrival at the heavenly Canaan, an eternal rest."3 St. Paul, in 1 Cor. x. 1, &c. and in various parts of his Epistle to the Hebrews, has shown that these things prefigured, and were applicable to, the Christian church. A careful study of the mediation of Moses will greatly facilitate our understanding the mediation of Jesus Christ. 1 See vol. i. pp. 72-74. Fuller's Expository Discourses on Genesis, vol. i. p. 1. • Roberts's Clavis Bibliorum, p. 12. upon them. The people, and particularly the priests, never wore woollen garments, but only linen, because linen is least apt to produce lice. The judgment, inflicted by Moses in this plague, was so proper, that the priests and magicians immediately perceived from what hand it came, and confessed that this was the finger of God. 4. The plague of flies (Exod. viii. 20-32.) which was inflicted in the midst of winter, and not in the midst of summer, when Egypt swarms with flies, would show the Egyptians the folly of the god, whom they worshipped, that he might drive away the gad-fly, whose sting is extremely painful. 5. The fifth plague the murrain among cattle (Exod. ix. 1-7.) destroyed the living objects of their stupid worship. The sacred bull, the cow, or heifer, the ram, and the he-goal, fell dead before their worshippers. When the distemper inflicted by this judgment spread irresistibly over the country, the Egyptians not only suffered a severe loss, but also beheld their deities and their representatives sink before the God of the Hebrews. 6. As the Egyptians were celebrated for their medical skill, and their physicians were held in the highest repute, the sixth plague, the infliction of boils accompanied with blains (Exod. ix. 8-12.), which neither their deities could avert, nor the art of man alleviate, would further show the vanity of their gods. Aaron and Moses were ordered to take ashes of the furnace, and to scatter them towards heaven, that was in the dungeon; and all the first-born of cattle: and when Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt": for there was not a house where there was not one dead! SECTION IV. ON THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. contents. I. THE third book of the Pentateuch (by the Jews termed Va-YIKRA, and he called, from its initial word) is in the Septuagint styled AETITIKON, and in our version Leviticus, or the Levitical book, because it principally contains the laws concerning the religion of the Israelites, which chiefly consisted of various sacrifices; the charge of which was committed to Aaron the Levite (as he is termed in Exod. iv. 14.) and to his sons, who alone held the priestly office in the tribe of Levi; which St. Paul therefore calls a "Levitical priesthood." (Heb. vii. 11.) In the Babylonish Talmud it is called the law of the priests, which appellation is retained in the Arabic and Syriac versions. that they might be wafted over the face of the country. This I. Title, author, and date.-II. Scope.-III. Synopsis of its was a significant command. The ashes were to be taken from that fiery furnace, which in the Scripture was used as a type of the slavery of the Israelites, and of the cruelty which they experienced in Egypt. (Deut. iv. 20.) The process has still a further allusion to an idolatrous and cruel rite, which was common among the Egyptians, and to which it is opposed as a contrast. They had several cities styled Typhonian, such as Heliopolis, Idythia, Abaris, and Busiris. In these, at particular seasons, they sacrificed men. The objects thus destined, were persons with bright hair, and a particular complexion, such as were seldom to be found among the native Egyptians. Hence, we may infer that they were foreigners; and it is probable, that whilst the Israelites resided in Egypt, they were chosen from their body. They were burnt alive upon a high altar, and thus sacrificed for the good of the people. At the close of the sacrifice, the priests gathered together the ashes of these victims, and scattered them upwards in the air, with the view, probably, that where any atom of this dust was carried, a blessing might be entailed. The like was, therefore, done by Moses, though with a different intention, and to a more certain effect. 7. The plague of hail, rain, and fire (Exod. ix. 13-35.), demonstrated that neither Osiris, who presided over fire, nor Isis, who presided over water, could protect the fields and the climate of Egypt from the thunder, the rain, and the hail of Jehovah. These phenomena were of extremely rare occurrence, at any period of the year: they now fell at a time when the air was most calm and serene. The author of this book, it is universally admitted, was Moses; and it is cited as his production in several books of Scripture. By comparing Exod. xl. 17. with Num. i. 1. we learn that this book contains the history of one month, viz. from the erection of the tabernacle to the numbering of the people who were fit for war, that is, from the beginning of the second year after Israel's departure from Egypt to the beginning of the second month of the same year, which was in the year of the world 2514, and before Christ 1490. The laws prescribed upon other subjects than sacrifices have no chronological marks by which we can judge of the times when they were given. II. The general SCOPE of this book is, to make known to the Israelites the Levitical laws, sacrifices, and ordinances, and by those" shadows of good things to come," to lead the Israelites to the Messiah (Heb. x. 1. with Gal. iii. 24.) : and it appears from the argument of Saint Paul, that they had some idea of the spiritual meaning of these various institutions. (1 Cor. x. 1-4.) 8. Of the severity of the ravages, caused by the plague of locusts, (Exod. x. 1-20.) some idea may be conceived from the account of those insects in this volume, p. 39. The Egyptians had gods, in whom they trusted to deliver their country from these terrible invaders. They trusted This book is of great use in explaining numerous passages much to the fecundity of their soil, and to the deities, Isis of the New Testament, especially the Epistle to the Ĥeand Serapis, who were the conservators of all plenty. But brews, which, in fact, would be unintelligible without it. by this judgment they were taught that it was impossible In considering, however, the spiritual tendency of Leviticus, to stand before Moses the servant of God. The very winds, care must be taken not to apply the types too extensively: which they venerated, were made the instruments of their the observation of Jerome as to its spiritual import is undestruction; and the sea, which they regarded as their de-doubtedly very pious and just, but few persons will acquiesce fence against the locusts, could not afford them any pro- in his remark, that "almost every syllable in this book breathes a spiritual sacrament."3 tection. 9. The ninth plague consisted in three days' darkness over all the land of Egypt. (Exod. x. 21-27.) The Egyptians considered light and fire, the purest of elements, to be proper types of God. They regarded the sun, the great fountain of light, as an emblem of his glory and salutary influence on the world. The sun was esteemed the soul of the world, and was supposed with the moon to rule all things: and not only to be the conservators, but the creators of all things. Accordingly they worshipped them, as well as night and darkness. This miraculous darkness would, therefore, confirm still further (if further confirmation were wanting) the vanity of their idol-deities. 10. The infliction of the tenth and last plague the destruction of the first-born (Exod. xi. 1—8. xii. 29, 30.) was most equitable; because, after the Egyptians had been preserved by one of the Israelitish family, they had (contrary to all right, and in defiance of the stipulation originally made with the Israelites when they first went into Egypt,) enslaved the people to whom they had been so much indebted; had murdered their children, and made their bondage intolerable. We learn from Herodotus,2 that it was the custom of the Egyptians to rush from the house into the street, to bewail the dead with loud and bitter outcries: and every member of the family united in the bitter expressions of sorrow. How great, then, must their terror and their grief have been, when, at midnight, the Lord smote all the first-born of the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the first-born of the captive III. Leviticus is divided by the Jews into nine paraschioth, which in our Bibles form twenty-seven chapters: it consists of four leading topics; comprising PART I. The Laws concerning Sacrifices, in which the differ- SECT. 1. The Burnt Offering (Lev. i.), which prefigured the SECT. 4. The Offering made for sins of ignorance (Lev. iv. "Singula sacrificia, immo singulæ pene syllaba, et vestes Aaron, et $7. This, and the subsequent references to Jerome's Prefaces, are made totus Ordo Leviticus spirant cælestia sacramenta."-Epist. ad Paulinum, to the collection of them, which is prefixed to the Frankfort edition of the Latin Vulgate. (1826. 8vo) |