Chapter 27: provides for a special service to be performed after they (2)

(2.) God governed Israel _as a nation, not as an individual man_. Now since nations as such exist in this life only, it follows of necessity that all retribution that is truly _national_ must be in time, not in eternity. The nation as such is not known in the eternal world. The individuals that compose the nation have their own personal account to settle with God in the world to come; but this has no bearing upon the government of God over the nation. This national government must be complete in time, else it remains incomplete forever. It may run on through many human generations; national life may outlast scores of individual human lives; but God’s retribution as to nations must be administered in this world, no part lying over to the next. Hence when God made himself king in Jeshurun over the Hebrew nation, he of necessity established a government to be administered mainly in time, not in eternity; by the rewards and penalties of this world――not of the next.――――This again would be in itself a sufficient reason for the fact we are accounting for, even if there were no other.

(3.) This national system of government was intended to be a moral lesson for all other nations of all time. Hence the government must be put on the same basis as that of all other nations _in the point of providential retribution_. As God holds every nation on earth to a positive retribution in time, giving them prosperity for their righteousness, and adversity for their violation of the common laws of humanity; and as he would fain make his administration over Israel a cogent moral lesson to every other nation on this great point, he must needs govern Israel in this respect _as_ he governs them――_i. e._ administering his retributions _in time_.

(4.) Yet one reason more. Distinguishing carefully between God’s providential government and his moral――the former being of time only; the latter of both time and eternity; the former being (for our present purpose) over nations as such; the latter over individuals only and not over nations――it remains to say that God manifestly designed his providential government over Israel to be suggestive, perhaps we might say typical――certainly illustrative of his moral government over all men which is not of time only, but which reaches into the eternal world. In the early ages of the world men needed some proof that God would punish sin in the world to come. They needed some illustrations of God’s character as a righteous, moral governor. Therefore the Lord planned to put himself at the head of the Hebrew nation, and then in that position, to give to mankind some illustrations in this world of what all sinners are to believe and expect for themselves, not in this world only or chiefly, but in the world to come. He would make this limited government illustrate that universal one. He would show in the case of the Hebrew people under his law what all men have to expect from their righteous God when his moral government shall have had full scope and shall have administered its perfect retribution in the world to come. This divine policy is well set forth by Peter (2 Pet. 2: 4–9); “For if God spared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell”; and “spared not the old world, but saved Noah”; if he “turned Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, but delivered just Lot”;――then (we may infer), “the _Lord knoweth how_ to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” Yes, the Lord _knoweth how_ to do this, and he means to let all living men see that he knoweth how; and see also that being a holy moral Governor, he can not fail to do it. He will give them occasion to see in his ruling over nations in time that his ruling over individual sinners can not be less righteous――can not be less retributive according to deeds done; and since equal and perfect justice calls for more time than one human life on earth, there must be an after part to it, to come in when death has located men in the eternal world.――――This designed use of a theocratic government over Israel to illustrate God’s moral relations to every individual man, required an administration mainly in this world, in time, before human eyes; and is therefore another reason for working this theocracy mainly with temporal rewards and punishments.――――I do not see that further reasons can be rationally called for.

* * * * *

3. I am to rebut the inference made from the fact of a theocracy administered mostly in time, viz. _that Moses and the patriarchs did not believe in or even know of a future life_.

(1.) The inference is utterly illogical. The rewards and penalties of the Hebrew system were of time and not of eternity, _for other good and sufficient reasons_, and not necessarily for the reason that the Hebrew law-giver and his people knew of no future life. To be of any force the argument must assume that if Moses had known of a future life he would have built this system upon it. But what is the proof of that? By what right is that assumed?――――On the contrary there are reasons in abundance, not to say in excess――far more than would be sufficient――why the theocracy should be temporal in its penalties, whether Moses knew or did not know of a future life.

(2.) That Moses and the patriarchs assumed and believed in a future life is apparent from _their words_.

Moses wrote of Enoch (Gen. 5: 24); “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God _took_ him.” “Took him” _where_? Did not Moses know where? “_Took_ him”――in what sense? Is it even supposable that Moses thought this was annihilation――taking a godly man out of existence? Extinguishing his being because he walked with God! Is this a credible construction? Shall it be assumed that Moses was so ignorant, or so misinformed, or so little versed in logic, as this?――――If the Lord had made this problem a special study――how best to teach and impress the doctrine of a future blessed life for the righteous who walk with God on earth, we can not see how he could have improved upon the method he actually adopted, viz. to take the godly Enoch from earth to heaven without dying.

Again, Moses constantly spoke of the death of the godly patriarchs as a being “gathered to their people.” He said this of Abraham (Gen. 25: 8); of Ishmael (25: 17); of Isaac (35: 29); of Jacob (49: 33). And he records these as Jacob’s words when he supposed Joseph to have died: “I will go down into Sheol _to my son_ mourning” (37: 35).――――In the face of these facts can it be said that Moses knew nothing of the future life? Did he think the fathers――the righteous people――had passed by death into non-existence――into what was _not life_ in any sense whatever?――――Again, when at the bush the Lord said to Moses so solemnly: “I am the God of thy fathers; the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3: 6), is it credible that Moses was so obtuse as not to see that this implied that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were yet living, since the Lord could not be the God of dead things, but only of living souls?――――A sensible view of the case may be obtained thus: Suppose that Moses had replied――“Lord, I see not how that can be, for Abraham has been dead and out of existence more than two hundred years”! If really Moses had no knowledge of a future life, he ought frankly to have made substantially this reply at the bush.

(3.) In proof of their faith in the future life, is another argument, of greater force if possible than their words; viz. their _lives_. For men sometimes say more than they mean, or perhaps something other than what they think; but their lives testify truthfully to their real beliefs.――――Here we might expand the argument already suggested by the writer to the Hebrews (11: 8–16), calling up to review the actual lives of the patriarchs; how Abraham tore himself away from home and kindred, and went, obeying a call believed to be from God, to a land before unknown; how he and his family sojourned as strangers there, dwelling only in tents but “looking for a city on beyond which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God”; how they lived in the faith of promises to be fulfilled far in the future ages of time; and how by such a life they “declared plainly that they were seeking another and better country, even an heavenly” one.――――But waiving this, the argument will be more directly in point if made on the case of the man Moses himself.――――Born a slave, it was little of earth that he had at his birth save the faith and consequent heroism of a godly mother. In the providence of God it fell to him to be taken――a beautiful babe of three months――into the family of the reigning Pharaoh. There he lived, trained in all the wisdom of Egypt, till he was full forty years old. Of prepossessing person and splendid talents; of capacities equal to any responsibility, the honors of all Egypt lay before him――we might probably say――were pressing upon his acceptance. What did he do?――――The writer to the Hebrews answers our question on this wise: “When he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: esteeming reproach for Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.”――――Was not this choice and all this course of conduct unaccountably strange? Did any man in his senses, _knowing nothing of the future life_, ever make such a choice before or since? What! choose affliction before pleasure; reproach before the highest of earthly honors? What could be in the man to make such a choice and even carry it out in his actual life?

The writer of this Epistle has an explanation to suggest. He says in the outset that Moses _had faith_――a sort of faith described by himself as “the evidence of things not seen.” Quite unlike the doctrine of the critics above referred to――nay squarely in the face of their assumptions, he holds up this Moses as a special and illustrious example of real faith in the future life. “_By faith_ Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter”; “_by faith_ he esteemed reproach for Christ greater riches than Egypt’s treasures――for he had respect to the recompense of the reward.” Aye, he had his eye onward upon that glorious recompense of reward which God gives his people when the joys that are transient have all faded out――when the life that is immortal dawns on the human soul. In his view the pleasures of Egypt were only _for a season_――too short to be matched against the joys before him――fully believed in――that endure forever.

Of this explanation, say what else men may of it, they must admit that it answers the purpose. It accounts for the choice Moses made of affliction before pleasure; of shame before the highest of Egypt’s honors. This explanation represents Moses to be a man of sense, and not a fool. Neological criticism holds him up to the world as void of all sense――as playing the part of supreme folly. Paul said――“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15: 19). He would have said of Moses, If his hope and belief as to God were of this life only――if he had no belief in the future life and no knowledge of it, then he was of all men most foolish――most void of that judgment and good sense which are common to sensible men.――――Therefore I claim that the _life of Moses_――the whole choice and purpose and labor of a life of one hundred and twenty years, witness to his full and glorious faith in the future life. The men who deny to him this faith stultify not Moses, but themselves.

(4.) It can scarcely be necessary to suggest that over and above the logical merits of the facts themselves, we have the current traditions of Jewish history and the authority of the inspired New Testament writers. He who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews――a man of sense as his writings show and of surpassing eloquence and power――must have spoken the current voice of Hebrew tradition――to say nothing (in an argument with Neologist critics) of his unquestionable inspiration from God.

(5.) Still further, we have collateral proofs that the future life was known in the age of Moses.――――Job gave a grand declaration of his faith that after the perishing of his body he should see God (Job 19: 25–27). Balaam, representing the thought of the ancient East, saw and believed in the blessedness of the righteous dead.――――And to mention no more――the wise men of Egypt, even before the age of Moses, believed in the future life of man. With scarcely a doubt they built their pyramids in the faith of man’s immortality. Sepulchers with them had a special and grander significance because they thought of man, not as dropping at death into annihilation, but as having even then a future nobler life before him. It is more than supposable that the art and practice of embalming the body――thus providing for it a sort of immortality――was really an outgrowth of their belief in the immortality of the soul and of its returning again to its former bodily home.――――That the Egyptians held the doctrine of a future life and of future rewards and punishments according to the deeds of this earthly life, is not questioned at all by those who are familiar with her ancient mythology. Symbolic representations are found which are affirmed to be nothing else but the personification of the grand principle of the immortality of the soul and the necessity of leading a virtuous life.[47] Also a picture “representing the trial and judgment which the Egyptians supposed the soul of a man to undergo before he was allowed to enter the regions of rest and happiness.”[48]――――R. S. Poole (in Smith’s Bible Dictionary on “Egypt,” p. 675) says: “The great doctrines of the immortality of the soul, man’s responsibility, and future rewards and punishments were taught” [in Egypt]. “The Egyptian religion in its reference to man was a system of responsibility, mainly depending on future rewards and punishments.” “Every Israelite who came out of Egypt must have been fully acquainted with the universally recognized doctrines of the immortality of the soul, man’s responsibility, and future rewards and punishments.”――――Dr. J. P. Thompson, in supplementing this article on “Egypt,” refers to Dr. Lepsius as having given the earliest known text of the [Egyptian] “Book of the Dead” “which contains the important doctrines of the immortality of the soul, the rehabilitation of the body, the judgment of both good and bad, the punishment of the wicked, the justification of the righteous and their admission to the blessed state of the gods” (p. 688). See also Bib. Sacra, Oct. 1867, p. 775, and Jany. 1869, p. 190.

Hence we must conclude that even if it were possible that the Hebrews had no knowledge of the future life before they went to Egypt, they must have learned it there. Really however, the fact that this doctrine appears in the oldest records of Egyptian antiquity proves that it came down from Noah――not to say from Adam. It was not indigenous and original with Egypt. It was there because Egypt had retained the primitive beliefs of the race.

In concluding this argument, I refer to the allusions which appear in the Psalms to the future life (_e. g._ Ps. 17, and 37, and 49, and 73),――which speak of it not as being then a new revelation, just sprung upon the universal darkness of all foregoing ages, but distinctly as an old doctrine, to be learned by “going into the sanctuary of God” and there hearing the old Hebrew scriptures publicly read; and also to be seen as illustrated and assumed in the records of God’s judgments in time on such sinners as those of the old world, and of Sodom, and as Egypt’s hardened king. Let it suffice here to specify Ps. 73, whose author says of himself: “I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. It was too painful for me until I went into the ♦sanctuary of God; then I understood _their end_. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction.”――“But [all unlike _their_ doom] thou wilt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but thou art the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”――――The good men who wrote thus, and the worshiping congregations who sung these rapturous strains in their temple worship were not in utter darkness as to the final doom of the wicked, or as to the glorious future life of the righteous.

* * * * *

In closing this volume it only remains to refer in a word to the progressive developments of God’s truth as manifest in these closing portions of the Pentateuch. Of previous points and periods in this history as developing progress I have spoken when the scenes were fresh in our reading and thought;――particularly of the age before the flood; of the scenes in the life of Jacob and Joseph; of the scenes of the Exodus and at Sinai; of the civil code and also of the religious Institutes.――――The few incidents of history during the forty years of wilderness life bring us new lessons, some exceedingly instructive in regard to the intercessory prayers of Moses; many sadly painful, touching the unbelief, the murmuring, the sensuality, and the idolatrous tendencies of Israel. If it were not that apostasies from God occur in our own age, not at all less guilty considering the light sinned against, though less revolting perhaps to the current religious sentiments of the age, we might perhaps afford to pass these historic developments with little notice. Alas, that they should reveal sins of the human heart which it so much behooves us to study for our own admonition!

The book of Deuteronomy is an acquisition to the moral forces of the Pentateuch. Speaking now specially of its first eleven chapters and of its last nine; _i. e._ of the review which Moses gives of the scenes of Sinai and of his accumulation of predicted woes and of appeals at once tender and terrible in the last chapters, it is not easy to over-estimate their moral power. Let us hope that they thrilled the very heart of that generation and toned up their religious life with impulses not only deep and strong but abiding. That generation, then about to enter Canaan under Joshua, was unquestionably the best, morally, which appears throughout the entire history of Israel. For proof of this estimate of them it must suffice to refer to the spirit manifested in Josh. 1: 16–18 and in the entire scenes of Josh. 22, and indeed in the history throughout this book of Joshua.――――Leaving Egypt while yet young or wilderness born; mostly uncontaminated with her idolatries and pollutions of moral life, looking upon the scenes of the Exodus and of Sinai with young eyes and susceptible souls; trained under Moses forty years; taking the ritual of religious worship in its freshness, with hearts, let us hope in a good measure tender to its first strong impressions――they give us certainly the best fruits of this wonderful moral and religious training. So many fearers of God――so large a host imbued with the spirit of obedience to God’s authority――the world had never seen before. They were prepared of God for the conquest of Canaan. They are living witnesses that the discipline of those desert wanderings was not in vain――witnesses also to the moral and spiritual forces of the new revelations which God made of himself during those forty years from Egypt to Canaan.

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Footnotes.

1 – הוֹלדות

2 – Lay sermons on spontaneous generation; pp. 364–366.

3 – Dr. A. M’Caul in “Aids to Faith,” page 241 renders
it――“And evening happened and morning happened――one day.”
Precisely this is the sense of the Septuagint and of
the Syriac. See also Tayler Lewis in Lange’s Genesis,
pp. 132, 133.

4 – See the usage in David (Ps. 55: 17), “Evening and morning
and at noon will I pray.”

5 – כרא

6 – The following synoptical view of the passages in which כרא
or בכרא occurs is given in the Bibliotheca Sacra (Oct. 1856,
pp. 763, 764) by Prof. E. P. Barrows.――“It is used,

I. _Of the original creation_: 1. Of the world generally,
or parts of it: Gen. 1: 1 and 1: 21 and 2: 3, 4 and Ps.
89: 12 and 148: 5 and Isa. 40: 26 and 40: 28 and 42: 5 and
45: 18 (twice), Amos 4: 13. Also Isa. 45: 7 (twice); making
fourteen times in all.――――2. Of rational man: Gen. 1: 27
(thrice) and 5: 1, 2 (twice) and 6: 7 and Deut. 4: 32 and
Isa. 45: 12 and Eccl. 12: 1 and Mal. 2: 10. Here also we
may conveniently place Ps. 89: 47; twelve times.

II. _Of a subsequent creation_: 1. Of the successive
generations of men, Ps. 102: 18 and of animal beings, Ps.
104: 30.――――2. Of nations under the figure of individuals,
Ezek. 21: 35 (Eng. version v. 30) and 28: 13, 15; three
times in Ezekiel only.――――3. Of particular men as the
instruments of God’s purposes; Isa. 54: 16 (twice).――――4.
Of miraculous events; Ex. 34: 10 and Num. 16: 30 and Jer.
31: 22.――――5. Of events foretold in prophecy; Isa. 48: 7.

III. _Of creation in a moral sense_: 1. Of a clean heart
and holy affections and actions; Ps. 51: 10 and Isa. 45: 8
and 57: 19.――――2. Of Israel as God’s covenant people, or
of a member of Israel; Isa. 43: 1, 7, 15.――――3. Of a new
and glorious order of things for Israel and in Israel; Isa.
4: 5 and 41: 20 and 65: 17, 18 (twice).

An examination of these passages (half of which relate to
the original creation) will show that in every instance
the idea is that of bringing into being by divine power.
Whether that which is created is new matter, or something
else that is new, must be determined by the context.”

7 – See Bib. Sacra, April, 1855, pp. 325, 326.

8 – The word, “generations,” obtains the secondary sense of
family history and then the sense of history in general,
from the fact that the earliest written historical records
were so largely made up of genealogies――the records of
human generations.

9 – Darwin’s Origin of Species, p. 420.

10 – “The Quadrumana and all the higher mammals are probably
derived from an ancient marsupial animal, and this,
through a long line of diversified forms, either from some
reptile-like or some amphibian-like creature, and this
again from some fish-like animal. In the dim obscurity of
the past we can see that the early progenitor of all the
vertebratæ must have been an aquatic animal, provided with
branchiæ [gills] with the two sexes united in the same
individual, and with the most important organs of the body
(such as the brain and the heart) imperfectly developed.
This animal seems to have been more like the larvæ of our
existing marine Ascidians than any other known form.”
Darwin’s Descent of Man, vol. 2, 372.

11 – “If my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the
lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods must
have elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the
whole interval from the Silurian age to the present day;
and that, during these vast yet quite unknown periods of
time, the world swarmed with living creatures.” Darwin’s
Origin of Species, p. 269.

12 – These are his words――“Why then is not every geological
formation and every stratum full of such intermediate
links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely
graduated organic chain; and this perhaps is the most
obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against
my theory. The explanation lies as I believe in the
extreme imperfection of the geological records.”――――And
again――“He who rejects these views on the nature [_i. e._
the defects] of the geological record will rightly reject
my whole theory. For he may ask in vain: Where are the
numberless transitional links which must formerly have
connected the closely allied or representative species
found in the several stages of the great formations? He
may ask, Where are the remains of those numerous organisms
which must have existed long before the first bed of the
Silurian system was deposited?” Origin of Species, pp.
246, 299.

13 – See Thompson’s “Man in Genesis and in Geology,” pp. 88–90,
and Lyell on the Antiquity of Man, pp. 17–29.

14 – Lyell’s Antiquity of Man, pp. 43 and 204.

15 – See Report upon the Physics and Hydraulics of the
Mississippi River by Capt. A. A. Humphreys and Lieut.
H. L. Abbott; 1861, pp. 435.

The following extract will impress the reader as at once
definite and reliable.――――“If it be assumed that the rate
of progress has been uniform to the present day――and there
are some considerations connected with the manner in which
the river pushes the bar into the gulf each year which
tend to establish the correctness of that opinion――the
number of years which have elapsed since the river began
to advance into the gulf can be computed. The present
rate of progress of the mouth may be obtained by a careful
comparison of the progress of all the mouths of the
river as shown by the maps of Capt. Talbot, United States
Engineer, 1838, and of the United States Coast Survey in
1851――the only maps that admit of such comparison. They
give two hundred and sixty-two feet for the mean yearly
advance of all the passes. This mean advance of all the
passes represents correctly the advance of the river....
Adopting this rate of progress (two hundred and sixty-two
feet per annum) four thousand four hundred years have
elapsed since the river began to advance into the gulf.”
Bib. Sacra, April, 1873, p. 331.

16 – Hodge’s Systematic Theology, vol. 2, p. 33.

17 – See Lyell’s Antiquity of Man, pp. 9–11.

18 – See “Antiquity and Unity of the Human Race,” by Rev.
Ebenezer Burgess, pp. 25–30.

19 – Josephus states explicitly that Samuel and Saul combined
fill out 40 years.

20 – It is a telling fact that according to Julius Africanus,
Manetho’s numbers for the entire reigns of all the kings
foot up 5404 years, while the aggregate duration of all
the dynasties (within the same chronological termini) is
3555 years――_i. e._ the sum of all the dynasties is less
by 1849 years than the sum of all the kings’ reigns which
make up those dynasties. See Burgess on the Antiquity of
Man, pp. 70, 73.

21 – Bunsen is cited not as the best authority, but as one
of the most strenuous for an exceedingly, not to say
excessively, long duration.

22 – ידוך

23 – Or this one hundred and twenty years may be the reduced
standard duration of human life, the thought being――So
long a probation, almost a thousand years, is too much; my
Spirit shall not prolong his effort in vain to this extent;
I reduce the average life-period to one hundred and twenty
years.

24 – See Smith’s Bible Dictionary, “Noah,” for numerous
traditions of the flood.

25 – שאל

26 – שלה

27 – Many an American reader will be reminded of John Brown
striking for the redemption of the American slave.

28 – See on the Scripture usage of “the angel of the Lord,”
p. 130.

29 – כביס

30 – Hengstenberg’s Egypt and Moses, pp. 115 and 116.

31 – ענוב

32 – That this fear was by no means groundless appears in the
panic which smote their hearts when they saw Pharaoh’s
host pursuing (Ex. 14: 10–12), and also in the unbelieving
fear manifested on hearing the report of ten of the spies
returned from their forty days traversing of Canaan (Num.
13: 28, 31–33, and 14: 1–4).

33 – Connecting the fact given in profane history that Egypt
worshiped the ox and the cow as gods, with the fact of
sacred history――that all the first-born of their cattle
fell in this fearful plague, we shall understand how
signally God “executed judgment on _Egypt’s gods_.”

34 – See Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct., 1863, p. 881.

35 – The term “Bekhen” is used for any kind of building――a
temple, palace, or even a common house. Descriptions
of what they built correspond to the sacred record,
“treasure-cities.”

36 – See Burgess on “The Antiquity of Man,” pp. 68–84, on the
unreliability of Manetho’s lists and on the relative value
of other authorities in Egyptian chronologies.

37 – The passages which treat of it are Ex. 16: 14–36 and
Num. 11: 7–9 and Deut. 8: 3, 16 and Josh. 5: 12, Ps. 78:
24, 25 and Wisdom 16: 20, 21.

38 – The precise date of the scenes at Kadesh (Num. 20) may be
inferred from the death of Aaron which followed shortly
after (Num. 20: 23–29), and is definitely dated (Num.
33: 38), viz. on the first day of the fifth month in the
fortieth year from Egypt. The “first month” therefore,
spoken of Num. 20: 1 must have been that of the fortieth
year.

39 – Bearing in mind that the Israelites had lived in the
valley of the Nile, all unused to mountain scenery, we
may readily understand how these scenes around the base
of Sinai must have impressed them. It is quite in place
here to bring before our mind the physical features of
this wonderful pile of rocks and cliffs. A modern writer
supplies the following sketch:

“The entire Sinaitic group presents the most impressive
indications of the terrible convulsions by which its
labyrinth of mountain heights has been rent and torn since
its first upheaval. From the summit of Mt. Serbal, as
from a watchtower in high heaven, one looks down upon a
perfect sea of mountain ridges, often precipitous, always
intensely steep, and culminating in a sharp edge at the
height of two, three, or four thousand feet from their
base. The entire line of these mountains is seen to have
been rent transversely by clefts from the base to the
summit, filled with injections of basaltic rocks, striping
the mountain on every side with black bands. The whole
assemblage is a perfect ganglion of ridges thrown up in
wild confusion with its strata dislocated, disjointed,
dipping in all directions and at every angle from
horizontal to perpendicular. The mountains of Sinai form
no system, no regular ranges, like the Alps, the Appenines,
the Pyrenees, or the mountains of America.” (Bib. Sac.
April, 1867, p. 253).

――――Dr. E. Robinson gives his impressions from personal
inspection――thus: “Here the interior and loftier peaks of
the great circle of Sinai began to open upon us――black,
rugged, desolate summits; and as we advanced, the dark
and frowning front of Sinai itself (the present Horeb
of the monks) began to appear.――――The scenery reminded
me strongly of the mountains around the Mer de Glace
in Switzerland. I had never seen a spot more wild and
desolate.――――As we advanced the valley still opened
wider and wider, shut in on each side by lofty granite
ridges with rugged, shattered peaks a thousand feet high,
while the face of Horeb rose directly before us. Both my
companion and myself involuntarily exclaimed: “Here is
room enough for a large encampment”! Reaching the top
of the ascent, a fine broad plain lay before us, sloping
down gently toward the S. S. E., inclosed by rugged
and venerable mountains of dark granite, stern, naked,
splintered peaks and ridges, of indescribable grandeur;
and terminated at the distance of more than a mile by the
bold and awful front of Horeb, rising perpendicularly in
frowning majesty from twelve to fifteen hundred feet high.
It was a scene of solemn grandeur, and the associations
which at the moment rushed upon our minds, were almost
overwhelming.” [Robinson’s Researches Vol. I. p. 130,
131.]――――This plain stretching out from the foot of this
precipitous mount, is supposed to have been the identical
place where the people were gathered to see the mountain
all aflame――to hear the sound of trumpet long and loud,
and to listen to the voice of God proclaiming the words
of his law.

40 – שוא

41 – The word necromancer comes from the Greek; necros――a dead
one; and “mantis” divination――gaining superhuman knowledge
from the dead.

42 – See a “State trial in ancient Egypt,” fully reported in
Bib. Sacra, July, 1869, p. 577. This is written in the
hieratic text; is known as “The Judicial Papyrus”; is now
in the museum of Turin and is presumed to be the official
record.

43 – Of Ptolemy Philadelphus Prof. Wines says――“He was
delighted with the laws of Moses; pronounced his
legislation wonderful; was astonished at the depth of his
wisdom, and professed to have learned from him the true
science of government.”――Wines’ Commentaries. See also
Josephus against Apion, p. 308.

44 – Prof. Wines’ Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient
Hebrews, pp. 312–388, a work which elaborates its
theme very fully, substantiating its points by copious
authorities.

45 – Taylor’s Manual of History, p. 335. Moses and the Lord
speaking through him (Deut. 1: 16, 17 and 16: 18–20)
had announced this doctrine more than two thousand
years before. It is fair to presume that the earlier
promulgation had sent its influence down the ages to
Justinian’s time.

46 – Jacob might properly be called a “Syrian” as having lived
full twenty years with Laban the Syrian in the great
_Aram_ of the East. The point of his history where he was
“ready to perish” was that of the great famine in Canaan
which drove him and his household into Egypt for bread.

47 – Greppo’s Essay, p. 235.

48 – Greppo’s Essay, p. 237.

Transcriber’s Notes.

The following corrections have been made in the text:

TOC:
Sentence starting: (7) It is reckless....
– ‘recklesss’ replaced with ‘reckless’
((7) It is reckless)

Page 35:
Sentence starting: But these differences....
– ‘discrepances’ replaced with ‘discrepancies’
(are not discrepancies)

Page 61:
Sentence starting: Placing 450 in the above....
– ‘A. D.’ replaced with ‘B. C.’
(Usher’s figures B. C. 1491.)

Page 67:
Sentence starting: 8. Methuselah....
– ‘Methusaleh’ replaced with ‘Methuselah’
(8. Methuselah)

Page 71:
Sentence starting: This approximates toward harmony....
– ‘Baylonian’ replaced with ‘Babylonian’
(also the Babylonian, B. C. 6158,)
Sentence starting: The approach toward harmony....
– ‘Baylonian’ replaced with ‘Babylonian’
(the Babylonian and the Chinese)

Page 74:
Sentence starting: Eratosthenes and Apollodorus,...
– ‘Appollodorus’ replaced with ‘Apollodorus’
(Eratosthenes and Apollodorus,)

Page 165:
Sentence starting: A coincidence so minute....
– ‘befor’ replaced with ‘before’
(might appear before the king)

Page 178:
Sentence starting: Like the somewhat similar....
– ‘Melchisedek’ replaced with ‘Melchizedek’ for consistency
(priest of Salem, Melchizedek,)

Page 212:
Sentence starting: If there were godly men....
– ‘iexpressible’ replaced with ‘inexpressible’
(with inexpressible hope and)

Page 214:
Sentence starting: The historian alludes to yet....
– ‘figheth’ replaced with ‘fighteth’
(Jehovah fighteth for them)
Sentence starting: The case falls into the....
– ‘dipleasure’ replaced with ‘displeasure’
(his displeasure against sin,)

Page 222:
Sentence starting: THE EVENTS NEAR AND AT SINAI....
– The header for Chapter XV was omitted from the text. It has
been reproduced from the information in the Table of Contents.
(THE EVENTS NEAR AND AT SINAI.)

Page 412:
Sentence starting: It was too painful for me....
– ‘sactuary’ replaced with ‘sanctuary’
(into the sanctuary of God;)