length was one hundred and twenty feet. Others again inform us, that, in the battle in which he was defeated, he took up a mountain six miles in breadth, wherewith he intended to crush the whole camp of the Israelites; but his own head being caught in a cavity which the ants had made in this mountain, Moses seized the opportunity, and slew him by a wound in the ancle. This, however, from the story, appears to have been a difficult feat; for although they made Moses himself twenty feet high, and put in his hand a battle axe of the same length, he was obliged to leap twenty feet more to reach the ancle. Comparing the truth-telling simplicity of the Scripture narrative with these absurd stories of the Jewish Talmud, we shall be constrained to conclude, that the Jews, uninfluenced by Divine power, and undirected by the Eternal Mind, could never have left us such a book as the Bible; thereby giving our assent to its many and precious truths.

SCALES.

In the book of Daniel, v. 25-28, we read the following passage, predicting the death of Belshazzar, the impious monarch of Babylon, and which we give, with the view of the inscription and interpretation, from the pen of Dr. Hales.

MENE,

MENE,

THE INSCRIPTION.

TEKEL,

[PERES,] UPHARSIN.

99 66 Number," Number," ," "Weight," [Division,] "and Division."

MENE" God hath numbered thy reign, and

MENE-hath finished it." The repetition emphatically signifying that the decree was certain, and should shortly come to pass. See Gen. xli. 32, etc.

TEKEL "Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting;” see Job xxxi. 6; Rev. vi. 5.

PERES-"Thy kingdom is divided,"

UPHARSIN" And given to the Mede and the Persian." [Darius and Cyrus.]

With reference to the balance here mentioned, the use of it is too well known to need any further description than that it is a superior sort of scales, executed with all the precision necessary for the nicest operations of physics, and particularly that of chemistry. The idea, also, of being weighed in the balance, and found wanting, needs no elucidation. It is probable, however, that oriental customs, or opinions, may tend to illustrate the allusion better than the mere act of weighing an article in the scales, or balance. Thus, the ancient Egyptians entertained the belief, that the actions of the dead were weighed in the balances before their deity Osiris, and that, according to the preponderance of good or evil, their eternal condition was determined by the presiding deity. Such judgment scenes are very often met with, depicted on their paintings and sepulchral papyrus rolls. One of these scenes has been thus aptly described. "Osiris, seated on his throne, awaits the arrival of those souls that are ushered into Amenti. The four genii stand before him, on a lotus blossom; the female Cerberus sits behind them, and Harpocrates on the crook of Osiris.

Thoth, the god of

letters, arrives in the presence of Osiris, bearing in his hand a tablet, on which the actions of the deceased are noted down, while Horus and Areoris are employed in weighing the good deeds of the judged against the ostrich feather, the symbol of truth and justice. A cynocephalus, the emblem of truth, is seated on the top of the balance. At length arrives the deceased, who appears between two figures of the goddess, and bears in his hand the symbol of truth, indicating his meritorious actions, and his fitness for admission to the presence of Osiris."

Although we cannot determine, yet it is possible, that the Babylonians entertained a similar notion to this; and if so, the awful declaration of the prophet, that Belshazzar was weighed in the balances of Heaven, and found wanting, must have been very emphatic to them. Sir Thomas Roe, however, in his embassy to the Great Mogul, describes a custom of literally weighing the royal person, and the passage in question may have reference to such a custom. He says, "The first of September, (which was the late Mogul's birthday,) he, retaining an ancient yearly custom, was, in the presence of his chief grandees, weighed in a balance: the ceremony was performed within his house, or tent, in a fair spacious room, whereinto none were admitted but by special leave. The scales in which he was thus weighed were plated with gold; and so was the beam, on which they hung by great chains, made likewise of that precious metal. The king, sitting in one of them, was weighed first

against silver coin, which immediately afterwards was distributed among the poor; then was he weighed against gold; after that against jewels, (as they say :) but I observed (being there present with my lord ambassador) that he was weighed against three several things, laid in silken bags in the contrary scale. When I saw him in the balance," he adds, "I thought on Belshazzar, who was found too light. By his weight (of which his physicians yearly keep an exact account) they presume to guess of the present state of his body, of which they speak flatteringly, however they think it to be."

Besides this passage, there are various others in which balances are noticed in Scripture, and from which we may learn their great antiquity. We read of them indeed in the book of Job, which was penned at a very early date. That patriarch, desirous of showing his integrity of conduct before God, says, "If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hasted to deceit; let me be weighed in an even balance," (or, as it is in the margin, "let him weigh me in balances of justice,")" that God may know mine integrity," Job xxxi. 5, 6. The psalmist also, assigning a reason why we should at all times trust in God rather than men, when he would describe their impotency to aid, does so in this figurative language, "Laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity," Psa. lxii. 9; that is, as Bishop Horne observes, "Weighed in the balance of Heaven, the power of man to save is less than nothing." The balance is again mentioned

in the book of Proverbs, where those that do not give the weight justly are described as an abomination to the Lord, Prov. xi. 1. And the prophet Isaiah, in his highly poetical and beautiful description of the omnipotency of Jehovah, says, in a figurative sense, that he weigheth "the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance," Isa. xl. 12. Balances are also mentioned in the book of Revelation: the evangelist, describing the opening of the third seal, speaks of one sitting on a black horse, holding a pair of balances in his hand, Rev. vi. 5; which some think may denote the strict equity of DIVINE PROVIDENCE.

KNEADING TROUGHS.

Kneading troughs are mentioned in connexion with the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt. It is said, "And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders," Exod. xii. 34. To understand this passage, we must refer to existing customs among the Arabs. Dr. Shaw describes the kneading troughs of that people as small wooden bowls, which serve not only for kneading their bread, but for serving up meat, and other uses for which a dish is required. This may have been the "kneading trough" in question, but the Arabians have another utensil which has stronger claims to be identified with it than this puts forth. It is a circular piece of leather, furnished round the margin with rings, through which a string or chain runs, so that it can be drawn