CHAP. L.

planting and watering the seeds of righteousness which himself had sowed in the hearts of men, and leading forward and maturing the grand purposes of his grace in the final salyation of the human race.

Minimus ætate inter fratres Joseph fuit, &c. “Jo-influences conveyed through religious institutions, seph was the youngest of his brethren, who, being envious of his excellent endowments, stole him and privately sold him to a company of foreign merchants, by whom he was carried into Egypt; where, having diligently cultivated magic arts, he became, in a short time, a prime favourite with the king himself. For he was the most sagacious of men in explaining prodigies; and he was the first who constructed the science of interpreting dreams. Nor was there any thing relative to laws human or Divine with which he seemed unacquainted; for he predicted a failure of the crops many years before it took place; and the inhabitants of Egypt must have been famished had not the king, through his counsel, made an edict to preserve the fruits for several years. And his experiments were so powerful, that the responses appear to have been given, not by man, but by God." Tantaque experimenta ejus fuerunt, ut non ab homine, sed a Deo, responsa dari viderentur. I believe Justin refers here, in the word experimenta, to his figment of magical incantations eliciting oracular answers. Others have translated the words: "So excellent were his regulations that they seemed rather to be oracular responses, not given by man, but by God."

I have already compared Joseph with his father Jacob, see chap. xlviii. 12, and shall make no apology for having given the latter a most decided superiority. Joseph was great; but his greatness came through the interposition of especial providences. Jacob was great, mentally and practically great, under the ordinary workings of Providence; and, towards the close of his life, not less distinguished for piety towards God than his son Joseph was in the holiest period of his life.

THUS terminates the Book of GENESIS, the most ancient record in the world; including the history of two grand subjects, CREATION and PROVIDENCE, of each of which it gives a summary, but astonishingly minute, and detailed account. From this book almost all the ancient philosophers, astronomers, chronologists, and historians have taken their respective data; and all the modern improvements and accurate discoveries in different arts and sciences have only served to confirm the facts detailed by Moses; and to show that all the ancient writers on these subjects have approached to or receded from TRUTH and the phenomena of nature, in proportion as they have followed the Mosaic history.

In this book the CREATIVE POWER and ENERGY of GOD are first introduced to the reader's notice, and the mind is overwhelmed with those grand creative acts by which the universe was brought into being. When this account is completed, and the introduction of SIN, and its awful consequences in the destruction

After giving a minutely detailed account of the peopling of the earth, ascertaining and settling the bounds of the different nations of mankind, the sacred writer proceeds with the history of one family only but he chooses that one through which, as from an ever-during fountain, the streams of justice, grace, goodness, wisdom, and truth, should emanate. Here we see a pure well of living water, springing up anto eternal life, restrained in its particular influence to one people till, in the fulness of time, the fountain should be opened in the house of David for sin and for uncleanness in general, and the earth filled with the knowledge and salvation of God; thus by means of one family, as extensive a view of the economy of providence and grace is afforded as it is possible for the human mind to comprehend.

In this epitome how wonderful do the workings of Providence appear! An astonishing concatenated train of stupendous and minute events is laid before us; and every transaction is so distinctly marked as everywhere to exhibit the finger, the hand, or the arm of God! But did God lavish his providential cares and attention on this one family, exclusive of the rest of his intelligent offspring? No: for the same superintendence, providential direction, and influence, would be equally seen in all the concerns of human life, in the preservation of individuals, the rise and fall of kingdoms and states, and in all the mighty REVOLUTIONS, natural, moral, and political, in the universe, were God, as in the preceding instances, to give us the detailed history; but what was done in the family of Abraham, was done in behalf of the whole human race. This specimen is intended to show us that God does work, and that against him and the operations of his hand, no might, no counsel, no cunning of men or devils, can prevail; that he who walks uprightly walks securely; and that all things work together for good to them who love God; that none is so ignorant, low, or lost, that God cannot instruct, raise up, and save. In a word, he shows himself by this history to be the invariable friend of mankind, embracing every opportunity to do them good, and, to speak after the manner of men, rejoicing in the frequent recurrence of such opportunities; that every man, considering the subject, may be led to exclaim in behalf of all his fellows, BEHOLD HOW HE LOVETH THEM!

On the character of Moses as a HISTORIAN and PHI-, LOSOPHER (for in his legislative character he does not yet appear) much might be said, did the nature of this work admit, But as brevity has been everywhere studied, and minute details rarely admitted, and only

where absolutely necessary, the candid reader will exeuse any deficiencies of this kind which he may have already noticed.

Of the accuracy and impartiality of Moses as a historian, many examples are given in the course of the notes, with such observations and reflections as the subjects themselves suggested; and the succeeding books will afford many opportunities for farther remarks on these topics.

Mosaic chronology answered

in assigning a comparatively recent date, not only to his own nation, but to the universe itself, he must have been actuated by motives essentially different from those which have governed all other ancient historians and chronologists.

The generally acknowledged extravagance and absurdity of all the chronological systems of ancient times, the great simplicity and harmony of that of Moses, its facts evidently borrowed by others, though The character of Moses as a philosopher and chro- disgraced by the fables they have intermixed with nologist, has undergone the severest scrutiny. A class them, and the very late invention of arts and sciences, of philosophers, professedly infidels, have assailed the all tend to prove, at the very first view, that the MoMosaic account of the formation of the universe, and saic account, which assigns the shortest duration to that of the general deluge, with such repeated attacks the earth, is the most ancient and the most likely to as sufficiently prove that, in their apprehension, the be true. But all this reasoning has been supposed to pillars of their system must be shaken into ruin if be annihilated by an argument brought against the those accounts could not be proved to be false. Tra- Mosaic account of the creation by Mr. Patrick Bryditions, supporting accounts different from those in done, F. R. S., drawn from the evidence of different the sacred history, have been borrowed from the most eruptions of Mount Etna. The reader may find this barbarous as well as the most civilized nations, in in his "Tour through Sicily and Malta," letter vii., order to bear on this argument. These, backed by where, speaking of his acquaintance with the Canovarious geologic observations made in extensive travels, nico Recupero at Catania, who was then employed on experiments on the formation of different strata or writing a natural history of Mount Etna, he says: beds of earth, either by inundations or volcanic erup-"Near to a vault which is now thirty feet below tion, have been all condensed into one apparently ground, and has probably been a burying-place, there strong but strange argument, intended to overthrow is a draw-well where there are several strata of lavas, the Mosaic account of the creation. The argument may be stated thus: "The account given by Moses of the time when God commenced his creative acts is too recent; for, according to his Genesis, six thou sand years have not yet elapsed since the formation of the universe; whereas a variety of phenomena prove that the earth itself must have existed, if not from eternity, yet at least fourteen if not twenty thousand years." This I call a strange argument, because it is well known that all the ancient nations in the world, the Jews excepted, have, to secure their honour and respectability, assigned to themselves a duration of the most improbable length; and have multiplied months, weeks, and even days, into years, in order to support their pretensions to the most remote antiquity. The millions of years which have been assumed by the Chinese and the Hindoos have been ridiculed for their manifest absurdity, even by those philosophers who have brought the contrary charge against the Mosaic account! So notorious are the pretensions to remote ancestry and remote eras, in every false and fabricated system of family pedigree and national antiquity, as to produce doubt at the very first view of their subjects, and to cause the impartial inquirer after truth to take every step with the extreme of caution, knowing that in going over such accounts he everywhere treads on a kind of enchanted ground.

When in the midst of these a writer is found who, without saying a word of the systems of other nations, professes to give a simple account of the creation and peopling of the earth, and to show the very conspicuous part that his own people acted among the various nations of the world, and who assigns to the earth and to its inhabitants a duration comparatively but as of yesterday, he comes forward with such a variety of claims to be heard, read, and considered, as no other writer can pretend to. And as he departs from the universal custom of all writers on similar subjects,

(i. e., the liquid matter formed of stones, &c., which is discharged from the mountain in its eruptions,) with earth to a considerable thickness over each stratum, Recupero has made use of this as an argument to prove the great antiquity of the eruptions of this mountain. For if it requires two thousand years and upwards to form but a scanty soil on the surface of a lava, there must have been more than that space of time between each of the eruptions which have formed these strata. But what shall we say of a pit they sunk near to Jaci, of a great depth? They pierced through seven distinct lavas, one under the other, the surfaces of which were parallel, and most of them covered with a thick bed of rich earth. Now, says he, the eruption which formed the lowest of these lavas, if we may be allowed to reason from analogy, must have flowed from the mountain at least fourteen thousand years ago! Recupero tells me, he is exceedingly embarrassed by these discoveries, in writing the history of the mountain; that Moses hangs like a dead weight upon him, and blunts all his zeal for inquiry, for that he really has not the conscience to make his mountain so young as that prophet makes the world.

"The bishop, who is strenuously orthodox, (for it is an excellent see,) has already warned him to be upon his guard; and not to prétend to be a better natural historian than Moses, nor to presume to urge any thing that may in the smallest degree be deemed contradictory to his sacred authority."

Though Mr. Brydone produces this as a sneer against revelation, bishops, and orthodoxy, yet the sequel will prove that it was good advice, and that the bishop was much better instructed than either Recupero or Brydone, and that it would have been much to their credit had they taken his advice.

I have given, however, this argument at length; and even in the insidious dress of Mr. Brydone, whose

The geology and astronomy

GENESIS.

sure, being deeply and legibly impressed with God's seal See also Dr. Greaves's Lectures on the Pentateuch.

There is a very sensible paper written by Don Joseph Gioeni* on the eruption of Ætna in 1781; in which, among many other valuable observations, I find the following note: "I was obliged to traverse the current of lava made by the eruption of 1766, the most ancient of any that took this direction, viz., Bronte.

of the book of Genesis. faith in Divine revelation appears to have been upon | ing a minute philosopher to rob us of our religion.” a par with that of Signior Recupero, both being builtIn this, as well as in all other cases, the foundation stands nearly on the same foundation; to show from the answer how slight the strongest arguments are, produced from insulated facts by prejudice and partiality, when brought to the test of sober, candid, philosophical investigation, aided by an increased knowledge of the phenomena of nature. "In answer to this argument," says Bishop. Watson, (Letters to Gibbon,) "it might be urged that the time necessary for converting lavas into fertile fields must be very different, accord-I saw several streams of lava which had crossed others, ing to the different consistencies of the lavas, and their different situations with respect to elevation and depression, or their being exposed to winds, rains, and other circumstances; as for instance, the quantity of ashes deposited over them, after they had cooled, &c., &c., just as the time in which heaps of iron slag, which resembles lava, are covered with verdure, is different at different furnaces, according to the nature of the slag and situation of the furnace; and something of this kind is deducible from the account of the Canon (Recupero) himself, since the crevices in the strata are often full of rich good soil, and have pretty large trees growing upon them. But should not all this be thought sufficient to remove the objection, I will produce the canon an analogy in opposition to his analogy, and which is grounded on more certain facts.

"Ætna and Vesuvius resemble each other in the causes which produce their eruptions, in the nature of their lavas, and in the time necessary to mellow them into soil fit for vegetation; or, if there be any slight difference in this respect, it is probably not greater than what subsists between different lavas of the same mountain. This being admitted, which no philosopher will deny, the canon's (Recupero's) analogy will prove just nothing at all if we can produce an instance of seven different lavas, with interjacent strata of vegetable earth, which have flowed from Mount Vesuvius within the space, not of fourteen thousand, but of somewhat less than one thousand seven hundred years; for then, according to our analogy, a stratum of lava may be covered with vegetable soil in about two hundred and fifty years, instead of requiring two thousand for that purpose.

"The eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii, is rendered still more famous by the death of Pliny, recorded by his nephew in his letter to Tacitus. This event happened A. D. 79; but we are informed by unquestionable authority, (Remarks on the nature of the soil of Naples and its vicinity, by Sir William Hamilton, Philos. Transact., vol. Ixi., p. 7,) that the matter which covers the ancient town of Herculaneum is not the produce of one eruption only, for there are evident marks that the matter of six eruptions has taken its course over that which lies immediately over the town, and was the cause of its destruction. The strata are either of lava or burnt matter with veins of good soil between them. You perceive," says the bishop, "with what ease a little attention and increase of knowledge may remove a great difficulty; but had we been able to say nothing in explanation of this phenomenon, we should not have acted a very rational part in making our ignorance the foundation of our infidelity, or suffer

and which afforded me evident proofs of the fallacy of the conclusions of those who seek to estimate the period of the formation of the beds of lava from the change they have undergone. Some lava of earlier date than others still resist the weather, and present a vitreous and unaltered surface, while the lava of later date already begin to be covered with vegetation.”—See Pinkerton on Rock, vol. ii., p. 395.

On the geology and astronomy of the book of Genesis, much has been written, both by the enemies and friends of revelation; but as Moses has said but very little on these subjects, and nothing in a systematic way, it is unfair to invent a system pretendedly collected out of his words, and thus make him accountable for what he never wrote. There are systems of this kind, the preconceived fictions of their authors, for which they have sought support and credit by tortured meanings extracted from a few Hebrew `roots, and then dignified them with the title of The Mosaic System of the Universe. This has afforded infidelity a handle which it has been careful to turn to its own advantage. On the first chapter of Genesis, I have given a general view of the solar system, without pretending that I had found it there. I have also ventured to apply the comparatively recent doctrine of caloric to the Mosaic account of the creation of light previous to the formation of the sun, and have supported it with such arguments as appeared to me to render it at least probable: but I have not pledged Moses to any of my explanations, being fully convinced that it was necessarily foreign from his design to enter into philosophic details of any kind, as it was his grand object, as has been already remarked, to give a history of CREATION and PROVIDENCE in the most abridged form of which it was capable. And who, in so few words, ever spoke so much? By Creation I mean the production of every being, animate and inanimate, material and intellectual. And by Providence, not only the preservation and government of all being, but also the various and extraordinary provisions made by Divine justice and mercy for the comfort and final salvation of man. These subjects I-have endeavoured to trace out through every chapter of this book, and to exhibit them in such a manner as appeared to me the best calculated to promote glory to God in the highest, and upon earth PEACE AND GOOD WILl among men. Observations on the Jewish manner of DIVIDING' and READING the Law and the PROPHETS.

The ancient Jews divided the whole law of Moses into fifty-four sections, which they read in their syna

The Chevalier Gioeni was an inhabitant of the first region of Etna.

Jewish division of the Pentateuch.

CHAP. L.

Masoretical notes.

These sections have their technical names, from the words with which they commence; and are marked in the Hebrew Bibles with three DDD pe's, which are an abbreviation for parashah, a section or division ; and sometimes with three DDD samech's, which are an abbreviation for the word 10 seder, or 70 sidra, an order, a full and absolute division. The former are generally called parashioth, distinctions, divi. sions, sections; the latter DD sedarim, orders, ar

full and complete in these than in the parashioth. See the Tables, &c., at the end of the Book of Deuteronomy, where all these matters, and others connected with them, are considered in great detail,

MASORETIC Notes on the Book of GENESIS.

gogues in the course of the fifty-two Sabbaths in the year, joining two of the shortest twice together, that the whole might be finished in one year's space; but in their intercalated years, in which they added a month, they had fifty-four Sabbaths, and then they had a section for each Sabbath: and it was to meet the exigency of the intercalated years that they divided the law into fifty-four sections at first. When Antiochus Epiphanes forbade the Jews on pain of death to read their law, they divided the prophets into the same number of sec-rangements; as it is supposed that the sense is more tions, and read them in their synagogues in place of the law; and when, under the Asmoneans, they recovered their liberty, and with it the free exercise of their religion, though the reading of the law was resumed, they continued the use of the prophetic sections, reading them conjointly with those in the law. To this first division and mode of reading the law there is a reference, Acts xv. 21: For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being READ IN THE SYNAGOGUES EVERY SABBATH DAY. To the second division and conjoint reading of the law and the prophets we also find a reference, Acts xiii. 15: And after the reading of the LAW AND THE PROPHETS, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, c. And that the prophets were read in this way in our Lord's time, we have a proof, Luke iv. 16, &c., where, going into the synagogue to read on the Sab-Thus sacredly did they watch over their records in orbath day, as was his custom, there was delivered unto him the book of the Prophet Isaiah: and it appears that the prophetical section for that Sabbath was taken from the sixty-first chapter of his prophecies.

Of these sections the book of Genesis contains twelve:

" chaiyey Sarah, begins chap. xxiii., and ends chap. xxv. ver. 18.

At the end of all the books in the Hebrew Bible, the Masoretes have affixed certain notes, ascertaining the number of greater and smaller sections, chapters, verses, and letters. These they deemed of the greatest importance, in order to preserve the integrity of their law, and the purity of their prophets. And to this end they not only numbered every verse, word, and letter, but even went so far as to ascertain how often each letter of the alphabet occurred in the whole Bible!

der to prevent every species of corruption.

The sum of all the VERSES in Bereshith (Genesis) is 1534. And the memorial sign of this sum is 757aleph & signifying 1000; final caph 7 500; lamed 30, and daleth ↑ 4.=1534.

The middle verse of Genesis is the fortieth of chap. xxvii. By thy sword shalt thou live.

The PARASHIOтH, or greater sections, are twelve. The symbol of which is the word zeh, THIS, Exod. iii. 15: And THIS is my memorial to all generations. Where zain stands for 7, and he for 5.-12.

The SEDARIM, or orders, (see above) are forty-three. The symbol of which is the word D gam. Gen. xxvii. 33: YEA (D gam) and he shall be blessed. Where gimet à stands for 3, and mem for 40.-43.

The PERAKIM, or modern division of chapters, are

The SIXTH, called лn toledoth, begins chap. xxv. fifty; the symbol of which is lecha, Isa. xxxiii. 2 :

We have waited FOR THEE. Where lamed stands for 30, and caph for 20.=50.

The open sections are 43, the close sections 48; total 91: the numerical sign of which is NY tse, Get THEE OUT, Exod. xi. 8, where tsaddi Y stands for 90, and aleph N for 1.—91,

The number of letters is about 52,740; but this last is more a matter of conjecture and computation than of certainty, and on it no dependence can safely be placed, it being a mere multiplication by twelve, the number of sections, of 4395, the known number of letters in the last or twelfth section of the book. this subject see Buxtorf's Tiberias, p. 181.

283

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