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PROOFS OF A LATER DATE.

A similar oversight, both as to time and place, occurs in the passage of Exodus1, where it is said, before the forty years' wandering in the wilderness, "that the children of Israel did eat manna forty years;" and also in the expression so frequently employed, and even on Mount Sinai itself, "Jehovah spoke on Sinai with Moses;" so that it may perhaps admit of a doubt whether it betrays more pettiness of criticism" to lay stress on such arguments as these, or to adopt the apology of Jahn, "that the style of public records necessarily requires such precision." Cities of Palestine, moreover, are mentioned in the narrative under names which they do not receive till a later period, or with which Moses at least could by no possibility have been acquainted. Thus Hebron, for instance, was previously called Arba; Dan was previously called Laish, and only acquired its new name after it came into the possession of the tribe of Dan, long after the time of Moses3. Rosen

1 "And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan."-Exod. xví. 35.

2 "Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron.”—Gen. xiii. 18.

"And the name of Hebron before was Kirjath-Arba; which Arba was a great man among the Anakims."-Joshua xiv. 15.

3 "And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan."-Gen. xiv. 14.

'And the coast of the children of Dan went out too little for them : therefore the children of Dan went up to fight against Leshem, and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and possessed it, and dwelt therein, and called Leshem, Dan, after the name of Dan their father."-Joshua xix. 47.

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And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born unto Israel: howbeit the name of the city was Laish at the first."-Judges xviii. 29.

müller is compelled to omit the whole of the obnoxious verse1 Judges xviii. 29; while Jahn and Eichhorn, in complete opposition to history, assume two cities of this name, because Moses is said, from the summit of Mount Nebo, to have surveyed the whole land unto Dan2, an expression which is merely intended to convey the utmost extent of the country towards the north; and quite apart too from this, it must be sufficiently evident, that any city of this name we may choose in our pleasure to assume, could only have received it in after times and from some connexion with the tribe. In the same way cities are mentioned which we find were only built by the tribes of Gad and Reuben, while down to the present time every attempt to reconcile the varying accounts of the well-known villages of Jair has proved completely abortive1. The local legends of Genesis, which we shall notice at length as they occur, can as little disguise their later origin as those frequent explanations of ancient names, which are

1 Biblical Antiq., (Bibl. Alterthums Kunde), ii. 2. p. 50.

2

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead unto Dan."-Deut. xxxiv. 1.

"And the children of Gad built Dibon, and Ataroth, and Aroer, and Atroth, Shophan, and Jaazer, and Jogbehah, and Beth-nimrah, and Beth-haran, fenced cities and folds for sheep.

:

"And the children of Reuben built Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Kirjathaim, and Nebo, and Baal-meon (their names being changed), and Shibmah; and gave other names unto the cities which they builded.”Num. xxxii. 34-38.

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Jair the son of Manasseh took all the country of Argob unto the coasts of Geshuri and Maachathi; and called them after his own name, Bashan-havoth-Jair, unto this day."-Deut. iii. 14.

And after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years."-Judges x. 3.

Peyrerius, Syst. Præadam. p. 206. Winer's Dictionary (Realwörterb.) under the name Jair.

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ANCIENT NAMES EXPLAINED.

never introduced till after the original meaning has already become obscure to the people1.

The expulsion of the Canaanites from Palestine is mentioned in the Pentateuch as an event of a very distant date2, and even Aben Esra has remarked that Moses could never have said, "The Canaanites were yet in the land," as they had dwelt there from time immemorial, and remained undisturbed during the whole lifetime of Moses. It was only by slow degrees that these native tribes were conquered or driven beyond the borders, and our opponents must either reject all such passages as these (an easy style of criticism), or have recourse to forced interpretations, and disregard the very structure of the language. Such is the glaring violation of all the laws of grammar, which Eichhorn ventures to suggest on Deut. ii. 12, where it is

"Bela, which is Zoar. Enmish-pat, which is Kadesh. Bela (the same is Zoar). The valley of Shaveh, which is the king's dale."Gen. xiv. 2, 7, 8, 17.

"And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan."-Gen. xxiii. 2.

"And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Beth-lehem."-Gen. xxxv. 19.

"Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah."- Exod. xvi. 36.

Thou shalt even take five shekels apiece by the poll, after the shekel of the sanctuary shalt thou take them: (the shekel is twenty gerahs).” -Num. iii. 47.

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And those that are to be redeemed from a month old shalt thou redeen, according to thine estimation, for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.”—Num. xviii. 16. "Which Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion; and the Amorites call it Shenir."-Deut. iii. 9.

2 "And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land." - Gen. xii. 6.

"And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land."-Gen. xiii. 7, and other places.

FORCED INTERPRETATION.

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said, "The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime; and the children of Esau drove them out and destroyed them from before them; as Israel did (ka'asher 'asah) unto the land of his inheritance, which Jehovah gave unto them" (nathan): these Hebrew words are to be rendered, according to Eichhorn, "as Israel shall do,"-" which Jehovah will give them."

The Jewish laws themselves have a special reference to Palestine, and must have been framed subsequent to the settlement in the country to which they are so expressly adapted. Directions are given for the sowing of the seed, for the culture of the olive and vine1, and of these (the latter at least) no knowledge could have been previously acquired in Egypt nor yet in Arabia. The Israelites are forbidden to remove the landmarks which their forefathers had determined ('ǎsher gabělu ri❜shonim)2: in this case also Jahn has adopt

1 "If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man's field; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard, shall he make restitution. If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution."-Exod. xxii. 5, 6.

"But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat : and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy xxiii. 11.

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'And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God."-Lev. xix. 9, 10.

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'Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled."-Deut. xxii. 9.

2 "Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it."-Deut. xix. 14.

ed a most arbitrary interpretation, "which your forefathers shall have determined." No tents are mentioned, but cities are everywhere assumed to exist; the housetops were to be furnished with parapets1, and the feast of tabernacles was appointed at a time when commodious dwellings were clearly already in use. In this point of view, the frequent mention of strangers, under the standing form of "the stranger in thy gates," is of no inconsiderable importance. It evidently alludes to a state of things which could only have existed in Palestine; and we know, from actual hi

1 "When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence."-Deut. xxii. 8.

2 << And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in thy field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field."-Exod. xxiii. 16.

“Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath."-Lev. xxiii. 39.

Hüllman, Constitution of the Israelites (Staatsv. der Isr.), p. 128. 3"But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates."-Exod. xx. 10.

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And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him."-Lev. xix. 33.

"But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou."-Deut. v. 14. "And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to place his name there."-Deut. xvi. 11.