there is no evidence that it was ever returned. It is certainly very prebable that the tabernacle, being a moveable building, and expressly constructed to accompany the ark in its journeys in the wilderness, was removed together with it, or, at least, brought after it, when its residence had been established at Kirjath-jearim. From the circumstance of the solemn assemblies of the people being held at Mizpeh (1 Sam, viì. 6. x. 17.) and at Gilgal (I Sam. xi. 14. xiii. 4, 8 12.) while transactions done in both those places are said to be done before the Lord' (I Sam. vii. 6. x. 17, 19. xi. 15. xii. 3. xii. 8, 9, 12.) and from the express mention (1 Sam. xiv. 18) that the ark was removed from place to place, it seems likely that the ark had no fixed residence subsequently to its removal from Kirjath-jearim, but was removed as the necessities of the nation might require. The narrative of the transactions at Nob, (I Sam. xxi. 1-7. xxii. 9—19.) render it highly probable that the tabernacle and every thing prescribed by the Mosaic ritual, accompanied it in its peregrinations. Certainly the show-bread would seem to have been in its appointed place, in the tabernacle, without the veil (Exod. xxvi. 35. comp. Mar. ii. 26.), and the only way to account for the presence of the sword of Goliah (I Sam. xxi. 9.), is by supposing it dedicated as a monument of victory and an offering of thanksgiving in the house of GOD.'-From all this it appears plain that at any time subsequent to the capture of the ark by the Philistines, the expression "as long as the house of GoD continued in Shiloh" might have been used with perfect propriety, and, consequently, that it is no proof that this appendix was not originally published, from more ancient documents, by Samuel, in the first years of the reign of Saul.

The expression 8 naba ny, until the captivity of the land, has by

Spinoza, Le Clerc, and others, been considered as a proof that this narrative was not published until after the Babylonian captivity, or at least until after that of Israel by Salmanazar and Esarhaddon. But this rests upon the assumptions that the word a captivity, can only mean a de

:

portation of the inhabitants, and that when used in prose without any specification of time or place, it must apply to one of the great spoliations made by the Babylonian or Assyrian princes. Both these are without foundation. 1) ni, a word as strongly expressive of captivity as

:

na is used (Job xlii. 10.) in a prose narration to express affliction,'

:

and this use is confirmed by other passages. The conjunction of the term with px, land, which occurs no where else, and which would be improper in its strict signification, is another proof of the fallaciousness of this assumption.-2) Nor is the other more tenable. That the expression

'the captivity' used without adjunct of time or place, does, when occurring in the later writings, signify the Assyrian or Babylonian captivity, and especially the latter, will be readily granted. The reason is, that those great calamities were fresh in the minds of the author and his readers, and by their recentness and magnitude swallowed up the memory of all preceding evils of a similar nature. For the same reason an ancient writer, living a little after the complete subjection of the Israelites to the Philistines (I Sam. xiii. 17-23) or some similar calamity, might apply to that event the same expression. No phrase exactly similar to that in question is elsewhere to be found. It is therefore much more reasonable to suppose it to allude to a depopulation of the territory inhabited by the idolatrous Danites, during some of the many incursions made upon the Israelites by their enemies before the time of the kings, than to refer the narrative to an age of which no trace can be discovered in it, and which was so long posterior to the events recorded.

Some have supposed 1, captivity of the land, to allude to

the Philistine conquest in the time of Eli (I Sam. iv.), but it can scarcely be supposed that the effects of that conquest extended so far north as Dan. It is more prudent, in the absence of all historical evidence, to refer it, with Jahn, indefinitely to some devastation of that region, possibly unknown because unrecorded. Tr.]

[c) These passages, however, may have been interpolated, and if we examine their connexion, it will appear very probable that they have been so. For each immediately follows an account of the idolatry of Micah, so that it looks as if they had been added in the margin by some zealous priest or Levite, some time after the commencement of the monarchy, yet before the apostacy of the kings to idolatry, in order to account for the existence of such an evil in Israel. In c. xviii. 1. as it now stands, BNN D'D', in those days, is repeated rather awkwardly, whereas if the

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phrase in which it first occurs be allowed to have been introduced from the margin, the connexion of the second with the preceding passage will be clear and natural. Tr.]

§ 39. The second Appendix to the Book of Judges, c. xix-xxi.

The second appendix commences with the history of a family which in the age immediately subsequent to Joshua's death, was dwelling in Mount Ephraim: but it ends with an account of a cruel civil war. The concubine of a certain Levite of Mount Ephraim, who had spent a night at Gibeah, of the tribe of Benjamin, had been abused by the inhabitants, even to death. In order to punish such a flagrant crime,

all the other tribes flew to arms. The Benjamites refusing to deliver up the offenders to punishment, a bloody war was commenced against them. In two engagements they were victorious, but in the third they were defeated, and the whole tribe destroyed. with the exception of 600 men, who had fled to the rock Rimmon. These were afterwards treated with favour. As the Israelites had sworn not to allow their daughters to intermarry with them, 400 of them obtained wives from among the young women of Jabesh Gilead, the males of which city were destroyed by the Israelites, because they had not joined the war; and the remainder were allowed to seize the maidens of Shiloh, while they were celebrating an annual festival.

That the author of this fragment lived in an age much later than the events which it records, appears from his ignorance of the name of the Levite, and of that of the city where he resided; and from his saying (xx. 27) that the ark was at that time in Shiloh, and (xix. 1) that there was then no king in Israel. -There are no traces of any ancient document, from which this piece could have been compiled; but it is quite improbable that any Hebrew would be induced to invent a narrative so disgraceful to his nation as that which it contains. It is, therefore, scarcely necessary to refer to Hos. ix. 9. in proof of the correctness of the history.

§ 40. Contents of the Book of Ruth.

A famine having arisen in the land of Israel, at the period, perhaps, when the Midianites impoverished the country during seven years by feeding their flocks on the crops of the Israelites, (Judg. vi. 1—6),[a] Elimelech with his wife and two sons, emigrated from Bethlehem to the region of the Moabites, where shortly after he died. His two sons married Moabitish wives, and not long after both of them died without children. Naomi, deprived now of her husband and children, returned to Bethlehem, taking with her Ruth, one of her daughtersin-law, whom no considerations could dissuade from accompanying her. In the time of harvest, Ruth availed herself of the permission granted by the Mosaic law, and went to glean in the field of Boaz, a descendant of Naasson, of the tribe of Judah. The kind reception she met with induced her, at the persuasion of her mother-in-law, to make known to Boaz, the kinsman of Elimelech, her claim of mar

riage by the right of a brother-in-law, sanctioned by the Mosaic law. After a nearer kinsman had solemnly renounced his right, Boaz married her, and she became the mother of Obed, the grandfather of David.

[a) So PATRICK, Comm. on Ruth. i., and RICHARDSON, Pref. to Ruth. JOSEPHUS, A. J. V. ix. 1. refers this history to the time of Eli, but is refuted by BERTHOLDT, Einleit. Th. V. S. 2349. MOLDENHAUER, (Introd. ad Lib. V. et N. T. p. 43) after some Jewish writers, assigns it to the time of Ehud: USSHER to that of Shamgar. HORNE, Introd. IV. 38. ed. 4th. Tr.]

§ 41. Age of the Book of Ruth.

From the addition of the genealogy of the royal line it appears that the author lived, not before David, but sometime after him; and indeed it is plain that he wrote in an age comparatively modern: for, 1) the expression when the judges ruled,' (i. 1) which marks the period when the event occurred, shows that in the writer's day. kings had already been reigning for a considerable time.-2) The explanation of the rite, formerly in use, of confirming a bargain by the delivery of the shoe of one of the parties (iv. 7), which in the author's time had become obsolete; and his ignorance of the name of the nearer kinsman, who is merely designated as inhib, such an one, strengthens the above proof.-3) The Chaldee words with which the language is interspersed,[a] intimate that the last period of the kingdom of Judah is the earliest age to which the book can be assigned.

[a) Thus occurs for D, i. 20; Jod is used in the second person

feminine, ' and 'ny, iii. 3., and ', iii. 4. As however, in

other respects the language is tolerably pure, these few Chaldaisms may have arisen from negligence in the transcribers; particularly as in iv. 5. the second person masculine has also a Jod, (nap) plainly from the er

ror of the copyist, and elsewhere the book exhibits much variety of reading. It is not possible, therefore, to determine its date with certainty.] [De Wette adds as instances of Chaldaisms; ¡ly, c. i. 15. (on which,

however, see MICHAELIS, Suppl. ad. Lex. Heb. No. 1819); p, i. 14.

ii. 8, 21. (which occurs in Gen. ii. 24. xix. 19.); Day, ii. 14.; and the

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use of the suffix instead of 1, i. 8, 9, 11, 13. Comp. also the similar phrases in Ruth i. 17. and I Sam. iii. 17. xiv. 44. I Ki. ii. 23. II Ki. vi. 31., and in Ruth iv. 4. and I Sam. ix. 15. xx. 2, 12. Tr.]

§ 42.

The Book of Ruth is worthy of credence.

That the book is taken from ancient records, perhaps genealogies, may be inferred from the following circumstances.-1) The retention of the obsolete term an to express the second nearest kinsman, c. ii. 20.-2) The omission of the nearest kinsman's name, probably because it was wanting in the document.-3) The accurate agreement of the speech of Ruth and of the dialogue between Boaz and the other kinsman, with the characters of the persons, which is such as to preclude all idea of their being fictitious.

That the author used these documents with integrity, is proved; 1) by the fact that he does not flatter the royal family, but candidly relates its descent from a Moabitish mother, who had been reduced to extreme poverty.-2) The good disposition of Boaz is proved by his marrying a widow in such circumstances, whom her nearer kinsman had rejected, and to whom the requisition of the law did not oblige him to unite himself: so that this view of his character cannot be the author's invention.--3) All the circumstances incidentally mentioned are in character with that age. Poverty, for instance, does not expose to contempt; the courts of justice are held in the gate; a bargain is confirmed by the delivery of a shoe.[a]

The genealogy from Naasson to David, which contains only five generations in five hundred years, does not cause any difficulty, since the orientals in those genealogies in which they do not insert the chronology of the succession, omit generations at pleasure, being only solicitous to trace up the posterity to its true source.[b]

(a) DE WETTE, Einleit. § 193., defends the authority of the book of Ruth, against BERTHOLDT, who imagined that it was a fictitious narrative designed to recommend hospitality, and the honourable performance of engagements. Einleit. Th. V. S. 2337. ff. Tr.]

[6) See EICHHORN Monumenta Antiquissimæ Historiæ Araborum. 7. p. 18. Tr.]