S,zC?ol, 
 
 Stem f0e feifirat^? of 
 
 (J)rofe60or TJ?iffiam J^^^^S (Bteen 
 
 Q^equeat^eb 6g ^im fo 
 t^e feifirari? of 
 
 (princeton ^^eofogtcaf ^emindrj 
 .4. (1715 4- 
 
 -y 
 
Nv 
 
BISHOP COLENSO'S 
 OBJECTIONS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF THE 
 PENTATEUCH. 
 
 AND 
 
 THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. 
 
Works hy the same Author: — 
 
 JEWISH SCHOOL AND FAMILY BIBLE, in Four 
 Volumes. Translated under the supervision of the Rev. 
 the Chief Rabbi. Price, Hebrew and English, each volume 
 15s,, English alone, 6s. 6rf. 
 
 HEBREW PRIMER and Progressive Reading Book, 
 with an interlinear translation. Price 2«. 6(/. 
 
 TRAVELS OF RABBI PETACHIA, of Ratisbon, in 
 the Twelfth Century, through Poland, Russia, Little Tar- 
 tars, the Crimea, and several other Eastern Countries. 
 Hebrew and English. Price bs. 
 
 TWO LECTURES ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 OF MAIMONIDES. Price 2s. %d. 
 
 London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. 
 
BISHOP COLENSO'S 
 OBJECTIONS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 HISTORICAL CHAIlACTEPt OF THE 
 PENTATEUCH 
 
 AND 
 
 THE BOOK OF JOSHUA 
 
 (CONTAINED IN PART I.) 
 CRITICALLY EXAMINED 
 
 / 
 
 By De. a. BENISCH, 
 
 TRANSLATOR OF THE "JEWISH SCHOOL AND FAMILY^ BIBLE." 
 
 '• Remember ye the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb 
 for all Israel with the statutes and judgments." — Malachi, iv. 4. 
 
 " Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God com- 
 manded me 
 
 " Keep, therefore, and do them ; for tbis is your wisdom and your understanding in 
 the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great 
 nation is a wise and understanding people."— Z>eMierottO)/iy, iv. 5—6. 
 
 LONDON: 
 WILLIAM ALLAN AND CO., 9, STATIONERS' HALL COURT, 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 1863. 
 
 fTT,/, A.,'„T,* «/ n^,^r,,.-,„lr,4ir 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY J. WERTHEIMER AND CO., 
 
 CIBCUS PLACE, FINbBURY CIRCUS. 
 
C N T E N T S. 
 
 Bishop Colensd's Objections. 
 
 Chap. 
 
 I. Introductory Remarks [p. 9. 
 par. 9.] . . . . 
 
 II. The Family of Judah 
 
 IV. The Size of the Court of the 
 
 Tabernacle compared with 
 the Number of the Con- 
 gregation . . . . 
 
 V. Moses and Joshua addressing 
 
 the People .... 
 
 VI. The Extent of the Camp com- 
 
 pared with the Priests' 
 Duties and the daily Neces- 
 saries of the People 
 VII. The Number of the People at 
 the first Muster compared 
 with the Poll-tax raised six 
 months previously 
 VIII. The Israelites dwelling in Tents 
 IX. The Israelites Armed 
 
 X. The Institution of Passover 
 
 XL The March out of Egypt . 
 
 XII. The Sheep and Cattle of the 
 
 Israelites in the Desert 
 
 XIII. The Number of the Israelites 
 
 compared with the Extent 
 
 of Canaan .... 
 
 The Author's Replies. 
 
 Paragraphs. 
 44-47. P.O. 
 40-4.3. P.G. 
 
 24-31. P.G. 
 32-34. P.G. 
 18-23. P.G. 
 
 2-6, A.G. 
 
 35-39. P.G. 
 
 18-22, 
 
 9-17. P.G. 
 
 4-9. 
 
 1-6, P.G., 
 
 1-4. 
 
 7-10. A.G. 
 
 107-110. 
 
 48-50, 92-93, G.G. 
 
 65, 94-95. 
 
 16-19, 28-37, 
 
 41-45, 52-59, 
 
 94-98. G.G. 
 
 95-97. 
 
 11-16. A.G. 
 
 110-113. 
 
 Pages. 
 26-29. 
 22-26. 
 
 12-17. 
 17-18. 
 9-12. 
 
 104-107. 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Bishop Colenso's Observations. 
 
 XIV. The Number of the First-born , 
 
 comj)ared with the Number ,^ 
 
 of Male Adults . . . ) 
 
 XV. The Sojourning of the Israelites -v^ 
 
 in Egypt . . • •/ 
 
 XVI. The Exodus in the Fourth ( 
 
 Generation . . . . / 
 
 XVII. The Number of the Israelites \ 
 
 at the time of the Exodus ' 
 
 XVIII. The Danites and Levites at the | 
 
 time of the Exodus . . j 
 
 XX. The Number of Priests at the \ 
 
 Exodus compared with their (^ 
 
 Duties and with the Pro 
 
 vision made for them 
 
 XXL The Priests and their Duties a 
 
 at the Celebration of the i 
 
 Passover . . . . j 
 
 XXII. The War against Midian . 
 
 The Author''s Replies, 
 Paragraphs. 
 
 17-22, A.G. 
 
 23-40. A.G. 
 
 41-42, A.G. 
 
 99-101, G.G. 
 
 102-104, G.G. 
 7-10, A.G. 
 
 Paces. 
 
 113-117. 
 
 117-130. 
 
 130-132. 
 
 97-100. 
 
 100-103,107-110. 
 
 43-49,A.G.l-12,M.G. 132-148. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The following examination of Bisliop Colenso^s objections 
 to tlie historical character of the Pentateuch, as contained in 
 Part I, originally appeared in a series of articles in the Jewish 
 Chronicle. The first was published on November 28, 1862, and 
 the last on February 27, 1863. . They were intended to quiet 
 the minds of such of the author's co-religionists as had been un- 
 settled by the Bishop's arguments — the book having created as 
 much sensation in the Jewish community as among other 
 denominations. But, so general was the approbation with 
 which these replies were received among his brethren in faith, 
 and so warm the wish for their publication in a separate volume, 
 that, in compliance ^vith this call, he re-cast them, and now 
 presents them to the public as an independent work. This 
 origin of the publication will account for the rare appeal of 
 the author to any other authority in support of his arguments, 
 beyond that of the text of the Bible itself Appeals to autho- 
 rities not accessible to the mass of his co-religionists would not 
 have strengthened the impressions which he wished to produce. 
 He had, moreover, another reason for not resorting to ancient 
 translations and commentaries in the task undertaken by him. 
 The author believes, that while such versions of the Bible as 
 the Septuagint or Targumim were produced at periods when the 
 vital principle animating a living language and rendering, by a 
 natural instinct, all artificial help unnecessary, was quite extinct, 
 their execution was yet not near enough tlie time when sound 
 philology and profound criticism, to some extent, supplied the 
 place of the missing resource referred to. In point of authority, 
 
viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 therefore, he attaches more importance to translations and inter- 
 pretations proceeding from acknowledged scholars of his own 
 days, than to those composed after Hebrew had ceased to be 
 the vernacular of the people. Neither has he referred to the 
 rabbis in support of his statements, where he could have done 
 so, although he is convinced that, upon the whole, a correct 
 traditional knowledge of the Hebrew and interpretation of 
 the Bible was preserved among them, because he believed that 
 such an appeal would be little calculated to satisfy doubts in 
 minds predisposed to scepticism. 
 
 The author has further to remark, that -the translation of 
 the texts upon which he comments is his own, which appeared 
 some years ago, under the title of a " Jewish School and Family 
 Bible," and was executed under the supervision of the Rev. the 
 Chief Rabbi. 
 
 The first article on the subject, which appeared on 28th No- 
 vember last, having only been introductory to the series, the 
 author now reproduces as much thereof as he deems useful 
 for his purpose. Some abruptness in its style will be easily 
 accounted for by the omission of some portions, which would 
 be quite unnecessary in the new form of his replies. 
 
 Extracts from the First Article. 
 
 The sensation created by this work is solely due to the cir- 
 cumstance, that it is an Anglican Bishop who is the assailant; 
 that the work so quickly follows the publication of " Essays 
 and Reviews," and that the objections, being free from all 
 technical terms and learned words, abstruse lore, and philolo- 
 gical discussion, are expressed in popular language, refer to 
 the simplest arithmetical calculations, and are thus placed within 
 the reach of ordinary capacities. 
 
 But, although we deny either the novelty or difficulty of 
 the objections propounded by the Bishop, we acknowledge his 
 rare courage, do homage to his extraordinary candour, and 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 cheerfully pay our tribute of respect due to the uncommon 
 degree of disinterestedness evinced by him in his statements. 
 Instead of beating about the bush, and employing vague and 
 general terms, leaving open a back-door for retreat in case of 
 danger, the Bishop boldly throws down the gauntlet, and, in 
 plain language — almost of mathematical precision — tells us 
 what he thinks of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua. 
 Like Cortez, who, by burning the vessel that conveyed him to 
 the country to be conquered, derived courage from the very 
 impossibility of escape, so has Dr. Colenso, in the very intro- 
 duction to his work, cut himself off from all chance of retreat. 
 He is determined to conquer or fall. He there openly states 
 that the Pentateuch is unhistorical as a whole, not written by 
 Moses, and, consequently, that it is not an inspired work in the 
 common sense of the term. Now, it is not our object to dis- 
 cuss either the subject of inspiration, the authorship of the 
 Pentateuch, or its historical character. These are broad ques- 
 tions, which, from their nature, hardly admit of popular treat- 
 ment. The examination of the external and internal evidence 
 which these questions involve, requires an amount of historical 
 and philological knowledge in the widest sense of the word, and 
 a degree of critical tact which but few possess. But what 
 we will endeavour to prove is, that, so far as Bishop Colenso's 
 objections are concerned, these questions are precisely in the 
 position in which they were before the Doctor's work appeared, 
 the attack admitting of a successful defence; and that, if the 
 known arguments were deemed sufficient, before the publica- 
 tion of this work, to settle these questions one way or another, 
 they have lost nothing in cogency by the book now before 
 the public. In other words, we want to show that Bishop 
 Colenso has not added any strength to the arguments of the 
 rationalists, nor in any way diminished the weight of the rea- 
 sons always advanced by believers. 
 
 Our belief in the authenticity of the Pentateuch, the same 
 as of all other books of the Bible, does not depend exclusively 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 upon the belief, that they were necessarily, such as we possess 
 them, written by the authors to whom they are commonly 
 attributed, but upon our belief that their form and contents 
 are the same as they were in the time of Ezra and his 
 companions or successors, among whom there were prophets 
 inspired by God, and who, before the conclusion of the canon, 
 examined the sacred compositions which form the Bible, 
 purged them from every spurious element, and only allowed 
 such historical explanations or references to remain as they 
 knew were authentic and deemed useful. They then gave 
 the work the sanction of their authority, considered by the 
 Jews as divine. 
 
 But, then, the question arises: — How is it that such a man 
 as Dr. Colenso, learned, disinterested, and earnestly searching 
 after truth, should jump at the conclusion that the Pentateuch 
 is unhistorical, " that with respect to some, at least, of the 
 chief contents of the story, it cannot be regarded as historically 
 true,^* when at the very utmost the difficulties started by him 
 warrant the inference that there are found in the books 
 " critically examined ^' by him several transpositions, various 
 interpolations, and occasional omissions of details, no doubt at 
 the time well known, but the preservation of which for pos- 
 terity was deemed unnecessary by the sacred writer, and, 
 therefore, either not at all or only incidentally referred to? 
 The attentive readers of his work will find no difficulty in 
 discovering the key to this lock. The mistakes of the critic 
 of the Pentateuch arise — • 
 
 In the first place, from his implicit reliance on the Anglican 
 version. Whatever the excellencies of this version, fidelity in 
 the renderings from the Hebrew is not one of them. There 
 is a looseness about these renderings, which, as we shall show 
 further on, not rarely misleads the critic. The Doctor should 
 either have more carefully examined the original text of the 
 passages commented upon, or made use of some translation 
 that faithfully reflects the Hebrew. 
 
INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 Secondly, from tlie Doctor^s peculiar cast of mind. The 
 Doctor is evidently deficient in the power of divesting him- 
 self for the time of his modern western notions and mode of 
 viewing things, and adapting himself to the eastern mind and 
 fashion, such as they were at the period and in the country 
 of the writer of the Pentateuch. The Doctor's mind is clearly 
 deficient in poetical apprehension. Long study of mathematics 
 and the severe logic of exact science, to which the course 
 of his thoughts has become habituated, have fixed his mind 
 on the strict letter and logical sequence of ideas, and have, in 
 this respect, narrowed it. Accustomed to employ no terms ex- 
 cept those of which he was prepared to give a clear definition , 
 such as is approved of in science, he applies the same standard 
 to persons to whom such habits of thoughts and trains of 
 ideas were strangers. 
 
 Thirdly, from a singular moral sense, over-refined to 
 morbidity, which disables him from taking a proper view 
 of the state of society such as it existed in the age and the 
 country of the Jewish lawgiver. It is to the combination 
 of these defects, joined to an ardent love of truth, urging 
 him to proclaim what he considers to be the truth, that we 
 must ascribe the work which we intend to examine. We 
 shall, for this purpose, irrespective of the order of the book, 
 and in order to economise space, distribute its contents into 
 four groups. In the first, we comprehend all those erro- 
 neous statements which arose from the Bishop's misunder- 
 standing[of the original text which, for the sake of brevity, we 
 will call philological; to the second belong those depending 
 upon the geographical features of the desert; to the third, 
 those made' on arithmetical; and to the fourth, objections raised 
 on moral grounds — each group being considered separately. 
 
 We shall, in our references to them, designate the first (Philo- 
 logical) group by the initials P. G.; the second (Geographical), 
 G. G. ; the third (Arithmetical), A. G. ; and the fourth 
 (Moral), M. G. 
 
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 I. 
 
 GROUP OF PHILOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 
 
 1. — Institution of the Passover (Chap, x.) 
 
 1. Bishop Colenso, quoting Exod. xii. 21 — 28^ takes it for 
 granted, that all the acts enumerated there were to be performed 
 on one single day, and that, too, the very day on which the 
 Israelites actually went out from Egypt ; and then he inquires, 
 supposing even that the elders of the people " lived somewhere 
 near at hand, Where did the millions live ? And how could 
 the order to keep the Passover have been conveyed, with its 
 minutest particulars, to each individual household in this vast 
 community in one day — rather twelve hours — since Moses 
 received the command on the very same day on which they 
 were to kill the Passover at eve; Ex. xii. 6?" 
 
 2. But where is it said, that the command concerning the 
 Passover was given on the 14tli day of the first month? 
 Certainly not in the sacred text. Therein we read (xii. 2, 3): 
 " And the Eternal spake to Moses and Aaron in the land of 
 Egypt, saying: This month shall be to you the beginning 
 of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. 
 Speak yc to all the congregation of Israel, saying: In the 
 tenth day of this month tliey shall take to them every man one 
 of a flock for the house of their fathers.'^ From this, it is clear 
 
 B 
 
2 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 that the command must have been given to Moses some time 
 between the first and the ninth of the month. Whichever day 
 it was, there was abundant time for the elders (ver. 21) to 
 convey the order to the people, which, as is known to every 
 Biblical scholar, formed an organised body, presided over by 
 the heads of the families, and these again by the princes of the 
 tribes. If it is, moreover, considered that previous events must 
 have prepared them for the final issue of this struggle, it is 
 but natural to suppose that special arrangements had been 
 made before-hand to meet such an emergency. 
 
 3. But, objects the Bishop, Is it not said (v. 1.2): ^^I will 
 pass through the land of Egypt this night (HTn nSvS) and will 
 smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt,'' and not H/)?? 
 ^^^nn (that night)? Further does the expression "about 
 midnight" (xi. 4) not clearly refer to the midnight, "then 
 next at hand," i.e., the very midnight on which the last of 
 the ten plagues took place? 
 
 4. Here the Bishop has overlooked that our English '' this" 
 is not always the full equivalent for the Hebrew njri- When 
 our demonstrative *' this " qualifies any noun expressive of 
 time, it no doubt means time present. When an English- 
 man, for instance, says "this day,'' he means to convey the idea, 
 that the section of time named in which he is performing, or 
 is going to perform, some act, has not yet elapsed. But 
 when a Hebrew makes use of the term Di^H or H-tn hS' ^TI 
 
 — V - T ; - - 
 
 or any other similar expression, he may either take it in 
 the sense of its usual English equivalent, or he may mean 
 that the section of time named had not yet elapsed when 
 the act spoken of took place, or will not have elapsed when 
 the act spoken of will or shall take place. In either case, the 
 Hebrew Jl-jri expresses simultaneity, whether past, present, or 
 future, according to the context; while in Enghsh we dis- 
 tinguish between simultaneity in the present, which we express 
 by the pronoun " this," and in the past and future, when we 
 
PHILOLOGICAL GROUT. 3 
 
 employ tlic pronoun '''sanie/^ n^TH n^^pH may, tliereforc, 
 mean this or the same night, according to the context. 
 
 5. Kovvfor the proofs. In Gen. vii. 11 we read: " In the six 
 hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seven- 
 teenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of 
 the great deep broken up." Here the " same day '^ in Hebrew is 
 rijn Di^ll- It is clear from the context that the rendering of 
 nin Di*5 ^y " ^^^^^ ^^Jy' ^s it must be according to Bishop 
 Colenso, would be altogether inadmissible. Verse 13 we read: 
 " In the self-same day (Hin Di^H D^?/!?, literally, in the sub- 
 stance of the same day) came Noah . . . into the ark." 
 Gen. xvii. 26, we are told: *' In the selfsame day (QiTl D^??? 
 ntri) was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son." 
 
 6. The instances quoted refer to the past. TVe shall now give 
 a few which designate the future. In Lev. xxiii. the various 
 festivals to be celebrated are enumerated. Speaking of the 
 Passover, the Divine lawgiver says (v. 6), ''And on the fif- 
 teenth day of the same month (Pl-Tn C^IH/) is the festival of 
 unleavened bread." In ver. 15. speaking of the Omer (^^J^j, 
 Moses continues : *' And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched 
 corn, nor green ears, until the self-same day (ntn DVH D^'^ *iy) 
 that ye have (or rather, that ye shall have) brought the 
 offering unto your God." Again in ver. 21 we read: ''And ye 
 shall proclaim on the self-same day (Hjn DV''n DVi!?) that it 
 may be a convocation of holiness unto you." These instances 
 will suffice to establish our point. And now for their 
 application. 
 
 7. No doubt, had ver. 12 (" I will pass through the land of 
 Egypt this night"), upon which the Bishop rears his whole 
 structure, been found detached, quite unconnected with what 
 precedes and follows, he would have been justified in taking 
 the phrase in the sense in which he did ; but part and parcel 
 as it is of a series of injunctions given to ]\Ioses before the 
 tenth day of the first month (ver. 3), to be carried out on the 
 
4 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 fourteenth day of the same month, the Bishop, as a Hebrew 
 scholar, was bound to consult the context before he put his 
 construction upon the phrase; and the context shows clearly 
 enough that God did not mean to say " this,^"* but " the same 
 night," i.e. — the night of the day on which the Israelites were 
 to kill the Passover. After this, it is scarcely necessary to say, 
 that the expression "about midnight ^^ (xi. 4) referred to the 
 midnight of the day following that on which the Passover was 
 to be killed, i.e. — the fourteenth of the first month. 
 
 8. The Bishop's second collateral objection (73), that even 
 if the Israelites " actually had had a previous notice ' to take' the 
 lambs on the tenth day, and 'keep them to the fourteenth^ — 
 yet how could the second notice to start have been so suddenly 
 and completely circulated?" is quite unfounded, since the very 
 command to celebrate the Passover was quite notice enough to 
 the Israelites. Moses, as we see from xi. 1 — 8, knew that the 
 imminent plague would be the last, and that immediately after 
 the death of the firstborn of Egypt he would be pressed to 
 depart with his people. The Israelites, moreover, were com- 
 manded by him to eat the Passover with their loins girded, 
 their shoes on their feet, and their sticks in their hands (ibid. 
 II). What else were these but preparations to be in readi- 
 ness for immediate departure? Is it conceivable, that while 
 Moses gave these orders to the people, he withheld from them 
 the object for which they were given, and the command to be 
 ready for the departure at daybreak? Having, as we believe, 
 demolished the basis on which the Bishop's superstructure rests, 
 the whole elaborate fabric falls of itself. We may therefore 
 proceed to the consideration of the next objection. 
 
 2. — The Israelites Armed (Chap, ix.) 
 
 9. This chapter is taken up with a discussion intended to 
 disprove what was never stated in the Pentateuch. Taking 
 it for granted that the word D^^DH (Ex. xiii. 18), rendered, in 
 
PHILOLOGICAL GROUP. 5 
 
 the Authorised Version, "harnessed," means "armed" or "in 
 battle array/' the Bishop starts a series of objections in order 
 to show that neither one nor the other could have been the 
 case. 
 
 10. Now it is quite true, that the Authorised Version renders 
 this very same word elsewhere (Josh.i. 14;iv. 12; Jud. vii. 11) 
 by " armed men," and that some ancient translators did the 
 same. But still this does not prove the correctness of the 
 rendering. The word occurs only four times in the whole 
 of the Bible (here and in the books just referred to), in 
 none of which does the context necessarily require the ren- 
 dering " armed." The etymology of the word is very obscure, 
 and if, as surmised, it is connected with the Hebrew DttH 
 
 T T 
 
 (violence), or T*^n (unleavened), it would merely suggest the 
 idea of fermentation, figuratively of anger, but not of weapons. 
 Against this loose rendering of the Authorised Version, 
 we could array a host of other translations, emanating from 
 hebraists of undoubted eminence, who uniformly render this 
 word by "equipped." The masterly German version of the 
 Bible, published in 1838 under the editorship of Dr. Zunz, of 
 Berlin, always translates D^tJ^pH by ^^ gerilsteV (equipped). 
 Benisch here renders it " harnessed," and in other passages 
 " equipped." 
 
 11. But then the Bishop may ask if D^^^H does not mean 
 "armed," or ''in battle array," what else does it mean? Our 
 answer might be, that it is sufficient for our purpose to show, 
 that it does not necessarily mean " armed," and that the Bishop 
 should therefore have hesitated before he raised such an impos- 
 ing hypothesis upon so unsafe a foundation. But we believe 
 we can show what the word really means. 
 
 12. By comparing Numb, xxxii. 32 (in which the Reubenites 
 eay to Moses, We will pass girded [D''^^ Sh] before the Eternal 
 into the land of Canaan") with Josh. i. 14, where the same are 
 fold by Joshua, "But ye shall pass equipped [D^^bn] before 
 
6 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 your brethren," it will be evident that the word D''V^7n, in 
 Numbers, is intended as the equivalent for D^^^H in Joshua; 
 consequently the terms must be synonymous. If we can there- 
 fore ascertain the meaning of the former, we can come near 
 enough, for all practical purposes, to the signification of the 
 latter. Now the word D^^^/H labours under no such difE- 
 culties as D^^pH- Its etymology is clear. It is derived from 
 the noun Vytli (dual, D^^/H), occurring ten times in the Bible, 
 and always meaning " loins." From this is derived the well- 
 known figure of speech, "to gird the loins," (Job, xxxviii.3; 
 xl. 17, and in several other places), meaning to prepare oneself 
 for a task, and having reference to the peculiar attire of the 
 Orientals, Avhich prevents them engaging in any work unless 
 the folds of the ample and wide garment be kept together, and 
 close to the body, by a girdle round the loins. From this 
 noun, as we said before, is derived the verb V/H, meaning, 
 if we were allowed to coin such a word, "to loin," i.e. — to 
 tie the girdle round the loins, or, in other words, to prepare for 
 some special work, whatever this may be. This, evidently, is 
 its meaning in Numb. xxxi. 5, Josh. iv. 13; and in fact in all 
 other places, and in this sense it is rendered in Zunz's German 
 translation, in Benisch's English version, Diodati's Italian, and 
 probably by many other modern translators, whose versions, 
 however, we have not deemed it necessary to consult in a 
 matter which we suppose no one will dispute. 
 
 13. If Y^yVl (Numb. xxxii. 21) means "ready," " prepared," 
 or "equipped,** it stands to reason that its synonym D^^/pH 
 (Exod. xiii. 18) means something very much the same."^ If 
 this word therefore, mean " equipped," or "girded," it would 
 well agree with Ex. xii. 10, where the Israelites were com- 
 manded to be prepared for a sudden march, or, as the Hebrew 
 idiom is, to have their loins girded, as xiii. 18 would only 
 
 * See also Dr. Kalisch's Commentary Un loco.'' 
 
PHILOLOGICAL GROUP. 7 
 
 state, that the Israelites were duly prepared C^^.pil for the 
 march, in accordance Avitli the order given them. Jf we now, 
 in accordance with the result arrived at, substitute "^ equipped " 
 for " armed/^ in all the passages, in which the Authorised 
 Version renders D^t^^^H ^7 " armed/* as enumerated by tlKi 
 Bishop (58), we shall find that the sense is well sustained. 
 But although the sacred text nowhere tells us, that the Israelites 
 went out from Egypt armed, but only equipped — that is, 
 provided with the necessaries for the long looked-for journey, 
 there can yet be little doubt but that many of these wanderers 
 were provided with arms, which w^ere afterwards made use of, 
 when Joshua repelled the attack of Amalek on the people. 
 
 14. But, objects the Bishop (62), at all events the Israelites 
 possessed arms when they were numbered under Sinai (Num. 
 i. 3). " How did they get them, unless they took them out of 
 Egypt?" We shall show, in the " geographical group,** that 
 the Israelites might then have been armed; yet the passages to 
 which the Bishop refers, do not prove this. In these, the 
 Bishop was again misled by the rendering of the Anglican 
 version, which several times translates the Hebrew Ni^^, of 
 
 T T 
 
 frequent occurrence in the narrative under discussion, by 
 '^army,** or " war" (for instance, Ex. vi. 26; Num. i. 3). Of 
 course, where there is an army, where men go forth to war, 
 there must necessarily be arms. 
 
 15. But does NU^ necessarily mean either army or war? 
 Now let us say at once, it never means war, for which wc 
 have in Hebrew the term H^ri/iJ: and for the correctness 
 
 T T ; • ' 
 
 of this statement we appeal to any Hebrew dictionary. t»{D^ 
 no doubt sometimes means army ; but not because an army is 
 a fighting multitude, but an organised body. That the leading 
 idea in it is marshalhng multitudes, according to certain 
 characteristics or for certain purposes, or giving them an 
 organisation under chiefs, is evident from the majority of 
 instances occurring in the Bible, and contradicted by none. 
 
8 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 And because an army is an organised body, by way of eminence, 
 being divided into large sections, and then sub-divided into 
 smaller detachments, under special officers, the name X^^ 
 was frequently, but not exclusively, given to a body of soldiers. 
 But whether it means army, or any other organised body, 
 must be decided by the context. Thus Num. xxxi. 3 may be 
 translated: *' Equip some of yourselves for the army" (X^^T')^ 
 as rendered in Zunz's translation, or, more correctly, " for the 
 host," as translated hy Benisch (the rendering of tlie Anglican 
 version, '' arm some of yourselves for the war," is, looking to 
 the strict letter, incorrect) ; because the war declared against 
 Midian Js spoken of. But, on the otlier hand, when we read 
 in Num. viii.25: "nnbyn Nn-^/p ni^^ — atthe age of fifty 
 he (the Levite) shall return from the N!lV ^^ ^^^ service," i.e., 
 shall no longer be obliged to perform service in the tabernacle; 
 it would be against the context to render this word either 
 army^ or even liost, as the peaceful service of the sanctuary 
 is spoken of throughout the whole chapter. The sacred 
 writer, however, makes use of the term ND^, because the 
 Lcvites had been organised into a body for the special service 
 of the tabernacle, each division liaving assigned to it its own 
 work (Num. iii. 23 — 39). 
 
 16. When v.'e, therefore, read in Num. i. 3, that God com- 
 manded Moses to number the Israelites from twenty years 
 and upwards, N^^ K^^ /3, every goer-out (to or from) the 
 N!}^ (host), we must look to the context for the meaning of 
 the word. Now, neither in this nor in any of the following 
 chapters where this census is referred to, is either war, or 
 anything connected with it, alluded to. On the contrary, it 
 is quite clear from what follows, that the object of the census 
 was a re-organisation of the people — first, by separating the 
 Levites from them; secondly, by so distributing them around 
 the tabernacle, as tho centre, that every one of the people, 
 whether straying or lagging behind, returning from an ex- 
 
PHILOLOGICAL GROUP. 9 
 
 pcditlon or journey, should, wlierevcr the camp might be, find 
 with ease the division to which he belonircd, A stran^fder, for 
 instance, when he reached the camp, knowing as he did the 
 tribe to which he belonged, could, by a mere glance at the 
 tabernacle, and without inquiry, find out his own detachment. 
 Indeed, each division being thus properly arranged, was likewise 
 called N^^* (Num. ii. 3 — 32). It is, therefore, a gratuitous 
 assumption, that an army of warriors is here spoken of, as 
 Bishop Colenso thinks. By N^^ ^^V'I^ therefore, must have 
 been meant every male Israelite above twenty years, considered 
 as a responsible member of the community, as we should 
 perhaps say, "of age," and who enjoyed all the privileges of an 
 Israelite, such as eligibility for offices, and givino- a vote in 
 public assemblies. The most suitable rendering, therefore, 
 would be, " all that went forth to the host," as translated by 
 Zunz and Benisch. 
 
 17. The same remark applies to the various passages in 
 Exodus (as vi. 4, etc.) where ND^k^ in connection with the 
 departure of Israel, is rendered in the Authorised Version 
 " army,^^ when, indeed, it only means a duly organised body, 
 or rather bodies, as the word is there in the plural; the whole 
 people, as implied by the term, being divided into various 
 sections, under proper leaders, in order to facilitate the depar- 
 ture, and thus avoid the confusion which must necessarily attend 
 the march of a disorderly crowd. Dr. Kalisch, therefore, in his 
 commentary in loco, well observes: "XHV sifrnifies here ob- 
 viously, the tribes and their families, which on the journeys 
 marched in separate bodies.'' 
 
 3. — The Extent of the Camp, compared with the 
 Priests' Duties and the Daily Necessities of 
 THE People (Chap. vi.). 
 
 18. This chapter contains three propositions. In the first, the 
 Bishop endeavours to show, that the carrying of a whole 
 
10 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 bullock by the priest in person, the distance of at least three 
 quarters of a mile, as implied by Lev. iv.ll, 12, was impossible. 
 In the second, he maintains that wood and water, in sufficient 
 quantities for two millions of people, if at all found in the 
 desert, could scarcely have been fetched from such a distance 
 outside the camp. And, thirdly, that the whole population 
 could not have gone outside the camp for the necessities of 
 nature, as implied in Deut. xxiii. 13 — 14; or else, if the war- 
 riors alone did so, the cleanliness, and consequently the holiness 
 of the camp depending thereon, according to the text, would 
 only have been of a very limited degree. 
 
 19. Now, in reply to the first proposition, we say, that the 
 Bishop has simply misunderstood the text. Having read in the 
 Anglican version, " Even the whole bullock shall he [tlie 
 priest] carry forth without the camp,*' he, without consulting 
 the original, jumped at the conclusion that the Hebrew for 
 the two words we put in italics is Nb^Jl {" and he shall carry 
 in person"), and hence argued, as neither one priest, nor 
 indeed the three then in existence (Aaron and his two sur- 
 viving sons), could have carried so heavy a load as a whole 
 bullock, the narrative must be unhistorical. Had the Bishop 
 not nefrlected to look at the Hebrew, he would have found 
 that the text says t^''^iin'!, the causative form of the root ^^^J 
 (" to go forth"), and, therefore, only means "to cause to go 
 forth," whether carried on the shoulders of a man, on the back 
 of an animal, or conveyed in a waggon, such as we know the 
 Israelites had in the desert (Numb. vii. 3, and throughout the 
 whole chapter) . 
 
 20. We need hardly say, that there is no difficulty in the 
 way of supposition, that the rubbish in the camp was, in a 
 similar manner, regularly carted out of the camp. That 
 the rendering of the Anglican version of the Hebrew i<*'^in') 
 " he shall carry forth") is too narrow in sense, will appear by 
 consulting other translations, the general accuracy of which 
 
rHILOLOGICAL GROUP. 11 
 
 will not be doubted. Moses Mendelssobn, in his German trans- 
 lation, renders tlie word under discussion " bringt er heraus '^ 
 (he brings out) ; Zunz the same, and not ^' tr'ayt er hhmus " (he 
 carries forth) ; Benisch, " lie shall bring forth " — terms which 
 are as comprehensive in their meaning as the Hebrew word. 
 It is true, there exist other passages of similar import, such as 
 Lev. iii. 4, seemingly implying the priest's being obliged him- 
 self to carry the ashes without the camp. But it is equally true 
 that the Hebrew in this instance likewise has ^^^^i^^, meaning 
 that the priest shall cause the ashes to go forth, i. e. have them 
 carried beyond the boundaries of the camp. 
 
 21. As the second proposition more fitly comes within the 
 next group (the geographical), we shall discuss it in its 
 proper place. 
 
 22. The Bishop's third proposition entirely rests upon a 
 misunderstanding of the text commented upon by him. The 
 Bishop having read a certain command in Deut. xxiii. 12, 
 concluded that it had reference to the Israelites in the desert, 
 when the context clearly shows that this was one of the laws, 
 the execution of which depended upon a contingency distinctly 
 specified, which was not likely to occur in the desert, and 
 which, when occurring, could only affect a comparatively 
 small number of individuals. To understand what we mean, 
 the whole passage must be read from the 10th to the 15th 
 verse, which form one connected whole. The passage runs 
 thus: *'When a host (lit. ^camp') goeth forth against thine 
 enemies, then keep thee from every evil thing . . . Thou 
 shalt have a place (lit. * hand') also without the camp, whither 
 thou shalt go forth abroad: And thou shalt have a pin upon 
 thy weapon . , . For the Eternal thy God goeth in the midst 
 of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies 
 before thee." 
 
 23. It is clear that the lawgiver here speaks of a future war, 
 when Israel would be in possession of the Promised Land, and 
 
12 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 in which only a portion of the population — and that, too, 
 able-bodied men only — could be engaged. For such a con- 
 tingency, the lawgiver points out the means for preserving and 
 enforcing cleanliness in the camp. But not a word is said 
 about the means employed for preserving cleanliness among 
 the Israelites while encamped in the desert; although when 
 we consider the number of the laws given, all bearing on 
 personal and general cleanliness, and the general order in the 
 camp, we cannot doubt but that proper sanitary measures were 
 adopted; a knowledge of which, however, like that of so 
 many other incidents immaterial to the object of the sacred 
 historian, has not reached us. That there was no lack of 
 means for this purpose will be easily perceived, when it is 
 considered that the Israelites in the desert possessed cattle and 
 waggons. 
 
 4. — The Size of the Coukt of the Tabernacle, com- 
 pared WITH the Number of the Congregation 
 
 (Chap. ii.). 
 
 24. Quoting Lev. viii. 4 (14 is a misprint in the book), the 
 Bishop, by an elaborate calculation, shows that the utmost num- 
 ber of persons which the court of the tabernacle could hold was 
 5,000, and that it was, therefore, a physical impossibility for 
 the whole congregation, consisting, if only including the able- 
 bodied men, of 600,000, to have been assembled there, as 
 distinctly stated. Now, it did not require the Bishop's nice 
 measurement of the area of the tabernacle to prove that 600,000 
 could not have assembled in it. But where is it said that the 
 congregation which assembled at Moses's call numbered, at 
 least, 600,000 men? This assumption on the part of the 
 Bishop is quite gratuitous, as we shall show. 
 
 25. Theterms employed by theDivine lawgiver for designating 
 the multitude that followed him from Egypt are, ^N^b'^ ^^3 
 (children of Israel), DI^ (people), 7np (assembly), and rTiy 
 
PHILOLOGICAL GROUP. 13 
 
 (congregation), -which arc often used indiscriminately, and not 
 
 rarely in the same narrative interchange with each other, 
 
 without implying any difFerence in the meaning. Keverthe- 
 
 less, each of these terms is marked by a leading idea of its own, 
 
 which characterises it, and which term is used exclusively 
 
 when this leading idea is to be emphasised, or when the sense 
 
 depends upon it. As the discussion of the leading ideas 
 
 marking *' children of Israel " and '' people " are immaterial to 
 
 our purpose, we dismiss these at once. There now remain only 
 
 the last two. That these two are sufficiently alike in their 
 
 signification in a general sense, and are therefore frequently 
 
 interchanged, we have already stated. That they, however, 
 
 are not identical, is evident from Prov. v. 13. There we read, 
 
 " Yet a little, and I should have been in all kinds of evil, in 
 
 the midst of the congregation and assembly ^' ( /Hp "HinS 
 
 niy"!). Had the sacred writer considered these two words 
 
 identical, he would only have used one. Again, the \cYy fact 
 
 that we find them together in a constructive state my /J^p, 
 
 ** assembly of the congregation" — (as, for instance, Exod. xii. 
 
 6; Numb. xiv. 7), shows that in the mind of the writer one of 
 
 these words would not have fully expressed his meaning, and 
 
 consequently, that each term possesses a peculiar signification 
 
 of its own. The question, therefore, arises, What is this 
 
 peculiar signification distinguishing each of these terms, which, 
 
 in a general loose sense, so frequently coincide? 
 
 26. Our first attention will of course be directed to the ety- 
 mology. Now this is as clear as daylight. The noun /Hp 
 is derived from a verb which occurs scores of times, and always 
 means '* to assemble," " to gather people together," regardless 
 of the purpose for which the gathering takes place. Its 
 derivative /Hp, therefore, it stands to reason, would only 
 signify a gathering or an assembly of people. 
 
 27 . Equally clear is the etymology of TH'^. It is derived from 
 the root *iy^ " to appoint." This leading idea runs through- 
 
14 THE PEKTATEUCII CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 out all its derivatives. Thus 11/1 D /Hk generally rendered 
 in the Authorised Version " tabernacle," in realit}' only means 
 "tent of appointment," or ** appointed tent/' i.e. — for meeting 
 God, as invariably rendered in Benisch's version. Thus 
 11/^^5 generally translated " festival," only means " appointed," 
 sc. season; and, in consonance with this idea, the derivative 
 TilV, in the strict sense of the word, w^ould mean "an ap- 
 pointed assembly," or, as we should say, a representative body 
 — in the wider sense of the word — these represented the con- 
 stituency itself, and therefore the congregation. 
 
 28. Now we know that etymology is not always a safe guide 
 in the determination of the signification of words: that in pro- 
 cess of time the leading idea often gets obliterated; and that a 
 secondary, or even a tertiary idea takes place. We have, 
 therefore, to enquire whether the author of the Pentateuch 
 had present to his mind this etymological distinction between 
 the two terms discussed, and actually, when occasion called for 
 it, employed them with reference to this distinction. Let us, 
 therefore, look out for some decisive passages in the Penta- 
 teuch in which the prima facie sense of the text would lead us 
 before-hand to expect one or the other of the two terms. 
 
 29. We turn, therefore, to Numbers. Chap, xxxv., from 9 to 
 31, gives an account of the cities of refuge which the Israelites, 
 when in the Land of Promise, were to open for the benefit of 
 man-slayers. The particulars are laid down imder which the 
 fugitive was to be considered guilty of murder, and therefore 
 executed, or innocent, and so protected from the avenger 
 of blood. The jurisdiction, in these cases, which naturally 
 required great discrimination, wisdom, and impartiality, was 
 entrusted to a public body which we will leave for a moment 
 unnamed. What public body did the lawgiver entrust with, 
 this important function? Was it the whole people? Not 
 very likely, as the meeting of the whole people, after they 
 were settled in their own country, and consequently spread 
 over a wide extent of land, and engaged in all kinds of pur- 
 
nilLOLOGICAL rjROUP. 15 
 
 suits, at every such contingency would involve a physical im- 
 possibiHty; it would, further, have been unwise, as tlie mass of 
 the people could hardly have been qualified for investigating 
 matters of this kind, and would, moreover, have heen un- 
 necessary, as the people were to have rulers appointed to judge 
 them (Deut. xvi. 18). If, therefore, the distinction which we 
 have drawn between /Hp (assembly) and my (congregation) 
 is correct, the public body to which this jurisdiction was 
 entrusted should be designated by the second term. And when 
 we apply this test, and examine the passage referred to, sure 
 enough we meet with the term r\1V four times (verses 12,24, 
 and 25), and not once with the word /Hp. And if we 
 further turn to the parallel passage in Josh, xx., we find (ver. 4) 
 the elders of the city of refuge referred to, and the " congre- 
 gation " (my, verses 6 and 9) spoken of It is evident, that 
 the public body which both Moses and Joshua had in mind 
 was one appointed to its functions, in whatever way and by 
 whomsoever the appointment might have been made. 
 
 30. To make assurance douhly sure, let us apply another test, 
 in order to ascertain the correctness of the distinction drawn by 
 us. Let us see whether we cannot find some passages in the 
 Pentateuch which would prove that the sacred liistorian con- 
 sidered the terms my ("congregation"), and D^^pT ('^elders," 
 i.e., the representatives of the people), as equivalent, and there- 
 fore interchangeable ; in the same way as, for instance, an 
 arithmetician would talk of twenty shillings or one pound 
 sterling as terms perfectly equivalent. Let us turn to Ex. xii. 3. 
 There we read, God said to Moses and Aaron, " Speak to the 
 whole congregation of the children of Israel," etc. God then 
 continued until verse 20 to give instructions to the two 
 brothers how the Israelites were to keep the Passover. Now, 
 what do we read in the next following verse (21)? "And Moses 
 called all the elders of Israel," etc. Unless we are prepared 
 to maintain that Moses either did not understand God, or 
 wilfully disobeyed Him, we must admit, that in the mind of 
 
16 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 the lawgiver " elders of Israel " was a full equivalent for the 
 " congregation of Israel ;'' and that when he gave to the 
 elders the instructions he had received from God for the '^con- 
 gregation," he believed he had fulfilled the command of the 
 Supreme. 
 
 31. Again, in Lev. ix. 1, we read that Moses called Aaron, his 
 sons, and the elders of Israel, desiring Aaron to give certain 
 directions to the " children of Israel" concerning certain sacri- 
 fices to be complied with at once. We are then informed 
 (ver. 5) that they (the children of Israel) obeyed, and that the 
 whole congregation (rn^) approached and stood before the 
 Eternal. Unless we assume that the calling of the elders by 
 Moses was objectless, and that the congregation approached 
 and stood before the Eternal of its own accord, without being 
 called, we must believe that those who in the first verse are 
 called ciders are identical, with the '^ children of Israel ^' of 
 the third and " the congregation '^ of the fifth verse. Nay, 
 more, that this "congregation" or representatives of the 
 people are referred to, in verses 23 and 24 of the same chapter, 
 as the people itself, which they represented. We think, there- 
 fore, v/e have established the proposition, that, although in 
 many cases the lawgiver, in the wider sense of the word, 
 indiscriminately applied to the whole of the people either the 
 term hT\p ("assembly") or TH^^ (*^^ congregation"), yet when 
 he spoke of the elders in their corporate capacity, as the 
 people's representative body, he employed the word TH^f. 
 When we, consequently, meet with it in the Pentateuch, we 
 must carefully examine the context of every particular passage 
 in order to ascertain the sense which the sacred writer attached 
 to it. Is it, therefore, too daring a hypothesis to maintain 
 that, should the sacred penman, in Lev. viii.I4, as he actually 
 did, have employed the term TTX^^ ("congregation"), and not 
 ^T\p ('^assembly"), he might liavc meant only elders, and not 
 the whole people? To us it is clear, that, if a word in any 
 passage has two well ascertained meanings, the one leading to 
 
PHILOLOGICAL GROUP. l7 
 
 an absurdity, and the other makhig good sense, the interpreter 
 is bound to hold fast by the latter. Whatever the number of 
 the elders of Israel may have been, it is not probable that they 
 exceeded 5,000. But as, according to the calculation of the 
 Bishop, the court of the tabernacle could hold this number 
 of persons, all the difficulties so elaborately set forth by him 
 are removed. 
 
 Moses and Joshua addressing the People (Chap. v.). 
 
 32. Commenting upon Deut. v. 1, and Josh. viii. 34, 35, 
 where we are told that Joshua, according to the command of Moses, 
 read the Law before the whole congregation, the Bishop points 
 out the physical impossibility involved in the statement, that 
 one single individual should have read such a volume as the 
 Law to the whole people, consisting of at least two millions, 
 and that they should have heard him. Now our discussion of 
 the preceding chapter will have sufficiently acquainted our 
 readers with the figure of speech habitually employed by the 
 sacred writers, and according to which they frequently identi- 
 fied the representatives with the represented, and vice versa, 
 and introduced the chief as speaking to the whole people, 
 when he really addressed, only the representatives, or the officers 
 of the people. To the instances previously given, we will 
 now add one more. 
 
 33. In Josh. i. 10, 11, we read that Joshua commanded the 
 officers of the people to go about in tlie camp and bid the 
 people lay in provisions for the imminent march. And in the 
 next verse we find a direct address by Joshua to the Reubenites, 
 Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh, many myriads in 
 number, whom he could have as little addressed in person as 
 he could have the whole people on Mount Gerizim. It is 
 clear that, even as he gave his orders to the people concerning 
 the provisions through the agency of their officers, so did he 
 
 c 
 
18 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 address the Eeubenites and their companions througli the 
 instrumentality of their chiefs. When we, therefore read in 
 Josh. viii. that he read to the whole people the Law, the sacred 
 writer meant no more than that this was done byorder of Joshua 
 — he the leader standing on the mount and reading the Law 
 to those around him, while those appointed for the purpose 
 simultaneously read the same boak to the myriads encamped 
 round Gerizim and Ebal as a centre. The whole people^ in- 
 cluding women and children, heard Joshua read the Law, by 
 deputy, or rather deputies. 
 
 34. It is further a gratuitous assumption on the part of the 
 Bishop that a copy of the Law was written by Joshua himself 
 upon the stones set up on Mount Ebal, on the very day that 
 he read the law to the people. The statement that the chief 
 of the nation himself undertook the slow and laborious work 
 of writing the law on stones borders upon the ludicrous. As 
 Well might it be maintained that the manual labour of the 
 " Code Napoleon '' was executed by Napoleon himself, and 
 not some clerk, because this body of laws was digested under his 
 auspices, and sent forth to the world by his name, and not by 
 that of the scribes, who made out the fair copy for publicity. 
 The stones, with the law written on them, were no doubt ready 
 against the day appointed for the solemn reading of the law, 
 and were in the course of the day solemnly set up. 
 
 The Israelites dwelling in Tents (Chap, viii.) 
 
 35. The 8th chapter involves two distinct propositions. The 
 first is that Lev. xxiii.42, 43, commanding the Israelites for 
 seven days, on the Feast of Tabernacles, to dwell in booths, 
 in commemoration of their ancestors having dwelled in booths 
 when going out from Egypt, is contradicted by other passages 
 in the Pentateuch (as, for instance, Ex. xvi. 16), from which 
 it appears that the Israelites dwelled in tents while in the 
 
PniLOLOGICAL GROUP. 19 
 
 wilderness. The second is, that even if these two conflicting 
 statements were reconcilable, and the more credible supposition 
 of their having dwelled in tents admitted, the question would 
 still have to be answered, Whence could they have obtained, 
 and how transported, the immense number of tents required 
 for such a vast multitude, already encumbered with so many 
 other necessaries for the long journey? 
 
 36. Here the Bishop is again at fault, simply because he 
 neglected to examine in the original language the accurate 
 meaning of the words H^D (booth) and /HK (tent), upon 
 which he comments. He takes it for granted that because 
 n3p is generally rendered '' booth," therefore this must be a 
 full equivalent for the Hebrew original. Now this is a mistake, 
 as the Hebrew H^D is a much more comprehensive term than 
 the English "booth." HSD, no doubt, frequently means 
 'booth;" not because it is a temporary dwelling made of 
 boards or boughs, but because it covers especially from above, 
 and therefore affords shelter. In fact, coverinof and givinor 
 shelter is the leading idea of this word, derived, as every 
 Hebraist knows, and as every dictionary shows, from "l^D 
 "to cover," "to shelter." The noun H^D, therefore, in 
 accordance with this etymology, means any shelter, natural or 
 artificial. Thus we read in Job. xxxviii. 39 : "Wilt thou 
 hunt the prey for the lioness ? or fill the appetite of the young 
 lions, when they couch in their dens, and abide in their 
 covert to lie in wait?" The orisfinal for "coi"^/"here is 
 n^p. Here, evidently, a natural sheltering place, or jungle, is 
 spoken of. In Gen. xxxiii. 17 we read: "And for his cattle 
 he (Jacob) made booths" (rt^D). Here artificial sheltering 
 places, probably sheds, are spoken of. Again, in 2 Sam. xi. 11, 
 we read: "And Uriah said unto David, The ark, Israel, and 
 Jehudah dwell in /e;i/5" (n*l3D!D). It will be noticed that 
 here an army besieging a city is referred to; and as soldiers, 
 when in camp, generally dwell in tents, the Authorised Ver-. 
 
20 THE PENTAliaCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 sion correctly, so far as tlic sense here is concerned, rendered 
 ni^P "tents," and not *' booths." In Amos ix. 11 we read: 
 " On that day (says God) will I raise up the tabernacle of 
 Israel that has fallen." Here the Hebrew H^D is rendered in 
 
 T ■% 
 
 the Authorised Version tabernacle; and although taken 
 figuratively, yet the structure which the prophet had in mind 
 was solid — a strong building — as shown by the whole 
 context. These instances will suffice to show the wide range 
 of the term H^D, rendered in Lev. xxiii. 42,43, "booth;" 
 and as we in English have no such comprehensive word, it is 
 evident that HSp, in every passage in which it occurs, should 
 be translated acccording to the requirement of the context. 
 If therefore, the Bishop believes that the writer of Ex xvi. 16 
 wished to convey the impression that the Israelites, like 
 warriors in a camp, dwelled in tents, he ought to have cor- 
 rected the rendering of the Authorised Version in Leviticus, 
 and, in accordance with 2 Sam.xi. 11, substituted '^ tents" for 
 " tabernacles " and " booths," but not stated that the two 
 texts conflicted, the conflict only existing in the translation, but 
 not in the original. The fact, however, is that the historian 
 nowhere told us that all the Israelites dwelled in tents; and this 
 leads us to the discussion of the second proposition. 
 
 37. No doubt many Israelites did, ever since their departure 
 from Egypt, dwell in tents; and very probably, in process of 
 time, as opportunity served, all of them possessed tents. But 
 when they went out from Egypt, laden as they were with 
 other more urgent necessaries for the journey, all of them 
 neither required tents nor were they provided with them, but 
 for a time, until tents were procured, sheltered themselves, 
 when shelter was required, as well as they could. And when 
 it is considered that the departure of the Israelites took place 
 in the most genial season of the year, when there was no rain, 
 and the air comparatively cool; that the Israelites were a 
 hardy population, used to work in the open field (Ex. i.l3) 
 
nilLOLOGICAL GKOUr. 21 
 
 under the broiling sun of Egypt; that, compelled as they 
 were to scatter themselves over the whole land of Egypt in 
 order to gather straw (ibid. vcr. 12), and therefore, far away 
 from their homes, had probably to spend their nights in the 
 open air — it will be easily conceived that these sons of toil 
 required much less shelter than other populations, accustomed 
 to a different mode of life, would have needed, and that very 
 little shelter was sufHcient to protect tliem from the conse- 
 quences of exposure to the atmospheric influences of the 
 desert, which would have proved most destructive to unaccli- 
 matiscd wanderers. A garment stretched over a few poles, the 
 shadow of the wafjirons, or the cover of these wairf'ons 
 (Numb. vii. 3), and perhaps other contrivances with which we 
 are not acquainted, may in the spring have sufficed to afford 
 them shelter; and before the scorching summer or the chilly 
 winter came, they had time enough to provide themselves 
 with means for a more efficient shelter. The construction of 
 the tabernacle shows that they neither lacked materials nor 
 artificers for such purposes; and we shall show, further on, 
 that they must have possessed opportunities for procuring the 
 necessary materials whenever they required them. 
 
 38. It is true we read in Ex. xvi. 16: "Take ye (manna) 
 every man for them which are in his tent " (Authorised Version, 
 tents, plural; this is a mistranslation; in the original /HX 
 is in the singular). But this is only a Hebrew idiom, meaning 
 that every man should take manna to his family, or the spot 
 which was their home for the time. Thus Joshua (xxii. 4), 
 in dismissing the Reuben' 'cs after the conclusion of the war, 
 said to them: "Get you unto your tents;" when he meant 
 to say, as the context shows, " Return to your homes," on the 
 other side of Jordan. The same phrase, in the same sense, is 
 repeated in verses 6, 7, and 8. Thus we read in Judges vii. 8, 
 that Gideon sent the people to their tents — i.e., to their 
 homes, wherever these might have been, and of whatever 
 
22 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 materials they might have consisted, whether permanent or 
 temporary. Numerous similar passages are to be found all 
 throughout the Bible, as every concordance will show. 
 
 39. But_, then, will the Bishop ask, are not in Lev. xviii. 42_, 
 the materials of which the sheltering places referred to arc to be 
 constructed distinctly mentioned, and do these not prove that 
 booths and no other kind of sheltering places are spoken of ? 
 Tliis is another of the Bishop's mistakes. The original does 
 not speak of "boughs/' but of "the fruit of goodly trees ^^ 
 (IHT] yV ^"l?). The Bishop simply neglected to consult the 
 Hebrew, or he would have seen his error. Benisch, in his 
 version, translates, "And ye shall take you on the first day 
 the fruit of the tree hada?' " (ver. 40). This alone is sufficient 
 to show that the lawgiver did not point out these vegetables 
 as the materials for the construction of booths^ but for quite a 
 different purpose. What this purpose was, the Bishop, can to 
 this day see in every synagogue throughout the world during 
 the Feast of Tabernacles. With the four vegetable produc- 
 tions in their hands as mentioned in the text, the Israelites of 
 this day rejoice before the Eternal their God seven days, just 
 as their ancestors did in the Temple of old. 
 
 The Family of Judah (Chap, ii.) 
 
 40, In this chapter, the Bishop endeavours to show thatllezron 
 and Hamul, Judah^s grandchildren, could not have been born 
 in the land of Canaan, as Gen. xlvi. 12 seems to imply. Cal- 
 culating that Judah was twenty years old when he married, 
 and forty-two when he went down with Jacob to Egypt, he 
 shows,, that Judah could not have become a grandfather by 
 Pharez in the course of twenty-two years. The only proof 
 upon which he depends is the supposed simultaneity of the 
 sale of Joseph into slavery with the marriage of Judah, the 
 narrative of this event immediately following the former, and 
 
PHILOLOGICAL GROUP. 23 
 
 commencing with tlic words '^at that time ^^ (Gcn.xxxvlii. 
 1). Now this difficulty has eight centuries ago hcing fairly 
 stated by Ibn Ezra in loco, and in accordance with the analogy 
 offered by Dcut. x. 8, where X^Jin HrS cannot be taken, as 
 shown by the context in its literal signification, "at that 
 time,'' as an interval of thirty-eight years must have elapsed 
 between the separation of the tribe of Levi^ in the second 
 year of Israel's departure from Egypt, and their journey to 
 Jotbath (ver. 7) in the fortieth year thereof — suggests that 
 in Gen. xxxviii. 1 N^Hn TO3 ^11^*1 must mean, "and it came 
 to pass about that time," i.e. — some years before the sale of 
 Joseph. In further explanation of the view of Ibn Ezra, we 
 insert the following communication made to us on the subject 
 by a biblical scholar: — 
 
 Two facts must be noted. First, that in the East the age of puberty 
 is 12 (so Ibn Ezra asserts, and so it is known from the usage of eastern 
 countries. Read any book of Travels in the East) ; secondly, that the 
 event did not occur after the sale of Joseph. That Scripture cannot 
 here maintain strict chronological order is self-evident ; for surely all 
 the events could not have occurred between Josej)h's sale and his 
 being brought into Egypt ; and between these two events is the whole 
 chapter inserted. It is evident that the history of Judah's family is a 
 break into that of Joseph. The reason for its being here mentioned, is 
 to contrast the conduct of one brother wdth that of the other in 
 similar circumstances. All that the words ^^^'^^ ny3 [at that time] 
 fairly imply is, that the events recorded occurred after Jacob's arrival 
 in Canaan. Now when Judah was twelve years old he was already in 
 Canaan ; for Judah was about four years older than Joseph, who was 
 six years old when Jacob left Laban. (For directly after Joseph's birth 
 Jacob wished to leave, and Laban induced him to stay six yeai-s for 
 sheep.) 
 
 Now be it remembered, that in the East constitutional development 
 is such that at twelve years puberty is attained. 
 
 Judah marries at 12 ; Age of Judah. 
 
 Has a child at 13. . . . Er, who marries at 12, 25. 
 
 and dies at 13. 26. 
 
 Has another at 14. ... Onan, who marries at 12, 26. 
 
 and dies at 13. 27. 
 
 Has another at 15. ... Shelah, who grows up 
 
 and is old — 12. 27. 
 
24 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 At that period the occurrence narrated in ver. 18 takes place. 
 In one year are born Pharez and Zarah. Judah's age — 28. 
 
 Pharez marries at 12; has children at 13. „ — 41. 
 
 When they go down to Egypt, Judah is at least 42, and Pharez had 
 already had two children, called Hezron and Hamul. 
 
 41. Although this explanation is admissible, inasmuch as 
 it only requires us to suppose that the event narrated in the 
 chapter commented upon took place a few years before the sale 
 of Joseph, it is not the only solution of the difficulty that 
 may be offered. We shall put forward another, which some 
 may-j perhaps, consider simpler, and therefore more satis- 
 factory. 
 
 42. The concluding passage in the verse commented upon, in 
 the original, runs thus:— VH*! JJ??? pX? ]yi^) nj? n^*! 
 b^Dn*! pVn VIS \55— literally translated: "And' there died 
 Er and Onan in the land of Canaan, and there were the sons 
 of Pharez, Hezron and Hamul.'^ In this sentence, it will be 
 seen, there is something quite unusual in the construction and 
 abrupt in the termination, suggesting the idea that some word 
 is required for the completion of the sense. That the con- 
 struction is unusual will be evident to any one who will com- 
 pare the wording of this portion of the genealogical account 
 wnth that of ver. 17, which refers to an analogous case, for 
 here also the sacred historian informs us, that Asher, when he 
 went down to Egypt, had two grandsons; yet the text does 
 not say ny^l^ ^^3 Vn*'1, " and there were the sons of 
 Beriah," or ^' the sons of Beriah were, Heber and Malchiel," 
 but simply n^^'^^ \^?''5 " ^^^^ *^^^ s*^^s of Beriah," etc. This 
 could scarcely have been unintentional. Nor could the well- 
 known fact that Er and Onan had died in the land of Canaan, 
 immediately followed by the mention of the two sons of 
 Pharez have been unintentional ; for had the sacred historian 
 only wished to repeat what we already know from Gen. xxxviii. 
 7 — 10, the natural wording of ver. 12 would have been 
 
PHILOLOGICAL GllOUr. 2o 
 
 tiiis :—pvn p.5 \?5i n^in p5i rhp) \i)^) "ly n^in^ ^551 
 
 |V?3 pX? I^iNl "15? ri^njS^bm, ''^ And'the sons of iudali 
 (were), Er, and Onan, and Shelah and Pharez; and the sons 
 of Pharez (were) Hezron and Hamul. Er and Onan, how- 
 ever, died in the land of Canaan." All these apparent irregu- 
 larities lead to the conclusion, that the sacred writer had in his 
 mind some word well understood by him and his cotempo- 
 raries, and for this very reason, in accordance with the occa- 
 sional usage in Hebrew, omitted. If we therefore could 
 discover a word that should suitably complete the sense^ 
 remove the abruptness of the sentence, account for the exist- 
 ing unusual construction, and at the same time agree with the 
 Hebrew idiom, we should be justified in saying that this, or at 
 least some synonymous term, was in the mind of the historian 
 when he penned this verse. Now the word fulfilling all these 
 conditions is Dr^nrn (in their stead). Let us supply this word, 
 and the sentence would run, " And Er and Onan died in the 
 land of Canaan, S^^H) p^H p|5 \:?5 (Dnnri) VH^^ — and 
 there Avere (in their stead) the sons of Pharez, Hezron and 
 Hamul" — that is, Judah adopted his two grandchildren for 
 his two deceased sons, Er and Onan, securing to them two 
 portions in the inheritance of his property, instead of one, to 
 which they would have been entitled but for this adoption. 
 What the sacred writer, therefore, in this verse, wished to tell 
 us was, not that Hezron and Hamul were born in the land of 
 Egypt, but that they took the place of the two sons of Judah, 
 who died in Canaan, and therefore, in accordance with the 
 notions of the time, and very likely, with the then existing 
 usages, were to every intent and purpose considered as 
 identified with the deceased, and consequently numbered 
 among those of Jacob's descendants who went down with him 
 to Egypt, although they were born in that country. 
 
 43. That T\nt^ is not rarely idiomatically omitted in the 
 text, although required for the completion of the sense, is evident 
 
26 THE TEMATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 from Ex. xxi. In tliis chapter, from ver. 22 to 37, the law- 
 giver enumerates the various injuries for which redress may 
 be demanded, and the punishments to be inflicted. Here the 
 lawgiver, as it seems indifferently, sometimes employs the 
 word r\T^P\ (instead), and at other times omits it. Thus in 
 verses 36 and 37 we read: "His owner shall surely pay ox 
 for (nrU^) ox . . . Five oxen shall he pay for (niin) the 
 ox, and four sheep for (nn^)) the sheep." Yet, in verse 32, 
 nnn, under analogous circumstances, is omitted; for there 
 we read: *' Thirty shekels of silver shall he give to his master," 
 evidently meaning for the slave killed; that is in Hebrew 
 Vrinrn, not expressed, although understood. Again, ver. 34, 
 we read: " The owner of the pit shall pay." Pay for what? 
 Evidently for the ox or ass referred to in the preceding verse.* 
 Yet Vnnri is again left out. A similar passage we find in 
 1 Kings XX. 39; one of the sons of the prophets addressed 
 the King thus : " Thy servant went out into the midst of the 
 war; and behold a man turned aside, and brought a man unto 
 me, and said, Keep this man; if by any means he be missing, 
 then shall thy life be for (nnri) his life, or else thou shalt 
 weigh a talent of silver." Here for him (yT\T\P) is evidently 
 understood, and again idiomatically omitted, it being left to 
 the mind of the hearer or reader inwardly to supply this 
 word. We do not know whether these instances will convince 
 our readers of the correctness of our interpretation. To us 
 they appear both sufficient and convincing. 
 
 The Bishop's Comment on Exodus xxl21,22. 
 
 44. We now proceed to the consideration of another diffi- 
 culty started in the Bishop's work, and which concludes the philo- 
 logical group. Commenting on Ex. xxi. 20, 21, the Bishop, in 
 his introduction (p. 9), describes the horror excited in the 
 mind of an intelligent Christian native, with whose assistance 
 
PHILOLOGICAL GKOUT. 27 
 
 lie translated the Bible into the Zulu tongue, when they came 
 to the following passage: ^^If a man smite his servant, or his 
 maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely 
 punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he 
 shall not be punished; for he is his money." 
 
 45. The revulsion of feeling experienced by the Bishop's 
 coadjutor is clearly traced by the Doctor to the implied 
 sanction given by God In His Law to Slavery, and to the 
 cruelty involved in the injunction that if the ill-used slave 
 survive his master's ill-usage a day or two, his death shall not be 
 punished. Now the first point is part and parcel of the group 
 which we call objections on moral grounds, and which will in 
 due time be considered. For the present we wnll only observe, 
 by the way, that slavery was a moral progress in the time of 
 Moses, and much later : that it was one of the necessary stages 
 through which mankind, in its outward march, had to pass; 
 and that its premature abolition before the social order was 
 ripe for it would have greatly thrown mankind back — would 
 have led to extraordinary atrocities, and fearfully demoralised 
 the human race. All that a wise lawgiver, then, could do 
 was to prepare the way for its extinction in the right time, 
 and meanwhile so to regulate the relations between master and 
 slave as to keep the authority of the former within proper 
 bounds. In how far the Law of Moses effected this, we shall 
 see in due time. For the present we shall confine ourselves to 
 the discussion of the second point. 
 
 46. No doubt, had the Law permitted the master, as the pas- 
 sage, as understood by the Bishop, implies, to smite, or rather 
 chastise, his slave with any instrument or rod, as the text says, 
 that fell into his hands, and only punished the perpetrator for 
 the slave's death by a fine, as the text before us seems to imply, 
 remitting this fine or punishment altogether in the event of 
 the slave not expiring under the blows of his master — there 
 would be just reason to doubt the Divine origin of such a 
 
28 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 law. But is the sense given to this passage according to the 
 Anglican Yersion borne out by the original text? Certainly 
 not. We shall now give the proper rendering of these two 
 verses, and confidently appeal for its accuracy to every Hebrew 
 scholar — nay, to Bishop Colenso himself. The correct trans- 
 lation of this passage' is [we shall, in order to facilitate the 
 comparison, print in italics the words in the rendering of 
 which the Authorised Version was mistaken]: " And if a man 
 smite his servant or his maid-servant with the rod, and he die 
 under his hand; he shall surely be avenged. "Notwithstanding, 
 if he continue a day or two, he shall not be avenged : for he is 
 his money." 
 
 47. Now from this it is clear, that the chastising rod of 
 which the lawgiver speaks was not a, that is, any rod,or in fact 
 any instrument arbitrarily taken up, whether fit for such a pur- 
 pose or not, but the rod, that is, the cane appropriated for this 
 purpose, and sanctioned by law and usage. It is evident, 
 that the use of any other instrument save the rod was in itself 
 an illegal act. But, continues the lawgiver, even if the 
 master should employ the proper instrument for the chastise- 
 ment of his slave, yet, if the latter die under his hand, the act 
 must be considered as premeditated, and consequently as 
 murder; since the instrument in itself^ without any such 
 intention, would not produce death. In this case, we are in- 
 formed, that this death is not to be punished by a fine or some 
 other expiation, but avenged — i.e. by retribution — life for 
 life. In this case, the slayer was to be put to death. But if 
 the slave does not die under the hand of his master, as he did 
 not chastise the slave with a murderous instrument, the slayer 
 shall not be put to death, for the slave is his money; and as it 
 is against the interest of the master to destroy his property, 
 the presumption is, that he only wished to inflict a reasonable 
 chastisement, which accidentally resulted in death, and there- 
 fore should not be considered as murder, leaving it open to 
 
THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 29 
 
 the autliorltles to enact laws suitable to such cases. That this, 
 and no other, is the meaning of this passage will be clear, when 
 we compare these verses with that immediately following 
 (ver. 22). In this the punishment for a certain crime, being a 
 kind of homicide is prescribed, and the words of the text arc 
 " he sliall be surely amerced " (^J^''. V})^V), and not, as in the 
 passage commented upon, avenged, Dpi^ DpJ- Further, this 
 is a law which does not involve any speculative point intended 
 to meet some rare case, but refers to an institution co-existent 
 with Israel's, autonomy. Cases which this law was intended 
 to meet must have occurred from time to time, and Israelitisli 
 courts of justice must have had to inquire into tlie particu- 
 lars. It is therefore reasonably to be assumed that the pre- 
 vailing practice was based upon this passage. And what was 
 this practice? Happily, ancient rabbis who lived near enough 
 to the period when the Jewish state still existed, and therefore 
 must have been acquainted with this practice, distinctly 
 inform us (Sanhedrin, 52 b), the slayer of a slave, under the 
 circumstances described in ver. 20, was put to death by the 
 sword; and however much prejudiced men may be against 
 rabbinical interpretation where it refers to mere matter of 
 opinion, the validity of rabbinical evidence in matters of fact 
 will hardly be questioned by any one. 
 
 IT. 
 
 GROUP OF GEOGEAPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 
 
 1. The objections with which we lately dealt arose from the 
 misapprehension of certain Hebrew words. We had before 
 us the whole treasury of the best vocabularies and the stores 
 of concordances, to which we could appeal in verification of 
 
30 THE PENTATEUCH CIIITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 our statements. The new group of objections which we are 
 now going to consider, with one single exception, admits of 
 no such treatment. To combat these, a quite different line 
 of defence is required. 
 
 2. Our task would have been easy, or more probably quite 
 unnecessary, had there existed, at the time of the exodus, 
 geographers like Eitter, or travellers like Robinson and 
 Stanley, who had left behind for reference minute descriptions 
 of the regions through which the Israelites passed in their 
 journey from Egypt to Palestine; or historians like Macaulay 
 accurately depicting, for the benefit of posterity, domestic life 
 and domestic institutions, and those minor incidents which 
 although not productive of any great events, yet account for 
 numbers of social phenomena which thereby become intel- 
 ligible to later generations. But neither of these objects lay 
 in the plan of Providence. It was not the history of a people, 
 but the history of an idea which the writer of the Pentateuch 
 was destined to write. The main object of the sacred his- 
 torian was to trace the rise, progress, and development of the 
 religious idea from Abraham to the death of Moses — when 
 this religious idea had received its full expansion, had been 
 clearly defined and firmly established in the minds of a large 
 population. The geographical features of Egypt and the 
 regions through which Israel passed, as well as the institutions 
 of this people and their history, are only referred to in so far 
 as they are connected with the sacred penman's main object — 
 the history of the religious idea — and as far as an acquaint- 
 ance with the former was calculated, to throw light upon the 
 latter. In the absence, therefore, of direct evidence for dis- 
 proving the Bishop's statements, we must have recourse to 
 indirect evidence. If this, in one respect, proves less satis- 
 factory than direct proofs, inasmuch as from the nature of the 
 case it lacks completeness, it yet, on the other hand, has the 
 invaluable advantage of being undesigned, and therefore 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 31 
 
 free from all suspicion of liaving been recorded to serve a 
 special purpose. Indeed, in the minds of an intelligent jury, 
 such undesigned and incidental evidence very often weighs 
 more than a direct proof that might have been devised for the 
 very purpose of meeting any doubt. Should we, therefore, 
 succeed in eliciting on cross-examination such a body of 
 indirect geographical and historical evidence, chiefly from the 
 very impugned writings — that is, from the mouth of the 
 defendant himself at the bar of publicity — as should clearly 
 lead to the inference that the charge is groundless, we shall 
 hold, that the author of the Pentateuch is entitled to the 
 verdict of Not Guilty, although he should be unable to rebut 
 the charge by direct evidence. 
 
 3. The charges of the Bishop against the historical character 
 of the Pentateuch, in as far as they come within the second or 
 geographical group, scattered as they are over the whole 
 volume, and as often only involved in other objections as 
 formulated in distinct articles of impeachment, may yet be 
 reduced into two propositions. The first is, that the account 
 of the Exodus cannot be historical, because such a vast multi- 
 tude as the Israelites are represented to have been, could not 
 for forty years have found water in the desert. With this 
 difficulty is clearly connected what may be termed the wood 
 and pasture question, likewise repeatedly urged in the book; 
 for, on the Bishop's own admission, wherever there exists 
 water in the desert there also exists vegetation, consequently 
 also wood for fuel and grass for the large herds and flocks which 
 the Israelites, according to the sacred text, possessed all the 
 while they were in the desert. Tlie second proposition may 
 be formulated thus : Granting that there was an exodus, how 
 could those millions have met in one day with their herds and 
 flocks in one cltv — Rameses? how marched out in one and 
 the same day? Granted that there was some pasturage in the 
 desert, how is it that it was not trampled down at once by 
 
32 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 those countless droves of cattle and flocks of sheep? How could 
 the desert yield that large number of beasts requisite for 
 sacrifices, and especially those thousands of pigeons required 
 by women after childbirth, as well as on other occasions? 
 We shall now proceed to the examination of the first 
 proposition. 
 
 4. We have alluded to one single exception in the mode of 
 discussion pursued by us in this group. This exception is the 
 etymological examination of the term ^HHp (desert or wilder- 
 ness), so often referred to in the Bible, and the definition of 
 its meaning. 'Iintt is derived from the root ^1*7 meaninar to 
 arrange, to lead, to drive. When referring to the arrange- 
 ment of thoughts and their utterance — i.e., to their succession 
 to each other in words, we translate the verb by "to speak," 
 in which sense it occurs hundreds of times in the Bible. 
 When used substantively, as ^Ij"!, it means '^driving or 
 sweeping away," and we render it *' pestilence;" when used 
 with the formative f2 in ^l^inp, it denotes the place to which 
 beasts, generally herds and flocks, are led for the purpose of 
 pasture; in this sense it is allied to the German " treiben," 
 the English "drive," the German "trift" (pasture-ground), 
 and the English " turf.'' This analogy will become evident 
 when we bear in mind, that, closely allied in meaning with 
 ^D*!, is the root ^1*1, or rather is identical with it, as pre- 
 served in the word JD'l'l, meaning the instrument employed 
 to stimulate an ox to go on — i.e., a goad. From this it is 
 clear, that there is nothing in the root of this word or in its 
 derivatives in any way associated with the idea of a desert or 
 of barrenness. The idea which it conveyed to the Hebrew mind 
 was simply that of pasture-ground, probably akin to our com- 
 mon, or, perhaps better, what is called " sheep-walk" in thinly- 
 inhabited regions, such as Australia. Indeed, the pasture- 
 grounds of the desert are distinctly mentioned in the Bible. 
 Thus, Joel (i. 19, and again ii. 22) speaks of the pastures of the 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 33 
 
 desert (I^H/^p HIK^) in connection with cattle, in sucli a 
 manner as to show clearly that these were the usual pasture- 
 grounds of herds and flocks. The Psalmist, too (Ixv. 13), 
 refers to the herbage of the pasture-grounds of the desert 
 r^lS*!^ niX^) in connection with flocks. By this we do not 
 mean to say that ^!ll*Ttt does not sometimes also designate 
 desert places, not because tlicy are barren, but because 
 they are uncultivated and uninhabited, akin to our own 
 " wilderness." When we, therefore, meet with this word, we 
 must look to the context to see whether it means pasture- 
 ground or desert. We shall have to refer to this important 
 distinction, which the readers will do well to bear in mind. 
 
 5. We have, further, to observe that it is not our intention 
 to entangle ourselves in the maze of the various names by 
 which parts of the desert and the adjacent territories are 
 designated in the Bible. It is nothing to our purpose where 
 the portion of the desert through which the Israelites passed 
 was situated, or whether Horeb or Sinai, or in fact any other 
 of the places mentioned, have been properly identified. AYe 
 take the desert such as the Bible characterises it, extending 
 from the south of Palestine to the north of Egypt, including 
 the tract of land now known by the name of the Sinaitic 
 peninsula, and bordering in the west, on the Mediterranean. 
 We further believe that the same name, in the same book, 
 always designates the same place. 
 
 6. Having made these preliminary remarks, we shall en- 
 deavour to establisli the following position: — that the desert 
 in which the Israelites, after their departure from Egypt, 
 sojourned for forty years, was then and before more frequently 
 visited than at later periods, not only by caravans, but by 
 whole tribes, and that it was even the permanent abode of 
 whole populations. All this will appear incidentally from the 
 Pentateuch itself. Should these references, or the undesigned 
 evidences as we term them, prove consistent with and support 
 
34 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 eacli otlier, we hold that, in accordance with our premises^ we 
 should be justified in drawing the conclusion, that, where there 
 were considerable populations, both migratory and settled, 
 there must have existed the means of subsistence. From this, 
 then, we should again be justified in inferring, in the first 
 place, that the desert of the Pentateuch, wherever situated, 
 presented natural features, no longer to be found in the 
 regions now believed to have been the scene of the exodus, 
 as described in the Pentateuch : and in the second, that means 
 must have been found by either the migratory or permanent 
 populations, more probably by both, to supply the deficiencies 
 of nature, especially as far as the scarcity of water was con- 
 cerned, by artificial means. What we at first only considered 
 as an inference, we shall afterwards endeavour to establish by 
 similar indirect evidence, and thirdly, that tbe Israelites in 
 their journeys were in a great measure guided by the con- 
 siderations which we delineated, and even had a special 
 organisation for the supply of water, which no doubt had 
 sometimes to be brought from considerable distances. Nov/ 
 for the evidence establishing our position, commencing 
 with the age of Abraham and concluding with that of 
 David. 
 
 7. When Abraham, at the command of God, enters the 
 land of Canaan, we see him continuing his journey towards 
 the south (Gen. xii. 8), penetrating so far as to encounter no 
 diflficulty (at least, none is referred to in the text) in trans- 
 ferring himself with all his property and retinue, to Egypt 
 (ibid. 8). Here Abraham's herds and flocks, received a 
 considerable increase (ibid. 16), yQt he encounters no difficulty 
 in returning by the way of the desert to his former encamp- 
 ment in the south of Palestine (ibid. xiii. 2). No doubt 
 Abraham took the shortest route. But even now, travellers 
 through the desert from Egypt to Palestine, we believe, take 
 provisions for twelve days. Now, if it be remembered that 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 35 
 
 Abraham, unlike modern travellers on camels or horseback, was 
 encumbered with much cattle, that could march only very 
 very slowly (ibid, xxxiii. 14), and that it would have been 
 impossible to carry with him sufficient provender and water 
 for so many beasts, the inference is clear, that either the dis- 
 tance between Egypt and Palestine was not so great then as it 
 is now — I.e., that pasture-land, supplying grass and water, 
 extended much farther into the desert than it does now — or 
 that there existed then in the desert means of obtaining these 
 necessaries, which are at present unknown. That cultivated, 
 inhabitable parts of Canaan extended much farther to the 
 south — i.e., into what is now a part of the desert, is further 
 evident from the description given in Gen. xiii. 10 of the 
 district once occupied by Sodom and Gomorrah. These cities 
 must have occupied the ground now covered by the Dead Sea, 
 or must have stood very near it (Gen.xiv. 2, 3). Now this 
 very district, which was described as "a garden of the 
 Eternal, as the land of Egypt" (ibid. xiii. 10), of course for 
 fertility, is now a mass of terrible desolation, from which all 
 life has fled. 
 
 8. Again, Abraham, as well as Isaac, lived among the 
 Philistines, whose territory must have extended beyond Kadesh 
 as far as Shur (ibid. xx. 1). Now these two places are in the 
 far south of Palestine in districts comprised in the time of 
 Moses in the desert through which the Israelites had to pass. 
 Shur is mentioned as the first station from the Red Sea 
 towards Sinai (Ex. xv. 22), and Kadesh the last in the first 
 portion of the journey of the Israelites, whence they sent 
 spies to the land of Canaan (Numb. xiii. 26). These Philis- 
 tines are not described as a nomadic tribe, encamped for a 
 time, but as a settled people, which was governed by a king 
 (Gen. XX. 2), with a regular court (ibid. 8) and a regular army 
 (ibid.xxi. 22). The king spoke moreover like a sovereign of 
 his country (ibid. 15). Nor was this country cither barren or 
 
36 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 waterless; for Isaac took refuge in the same country when 
 there was a famine in the land of Canaan (ibid. xxvi. 1.), found 
 there sufficient water for his large herds and flocks (ibid. 18), 
 and a very fertile soil, producing a hundredfold (ibid. 12). 
 A similar journey, with all their herds and flocks, was under- 
 taken by Jacob and his family when they went down to Egypt 
 (ibid. xlvi. 6, xlvii. 1), and arrived there in safety with their 
 beasts, without seeming to have suffered from want of water. 
 But, what is still more extraordinary (ibid, xiv.), Amraphel, 
 king of Shinar, with his confederates, before defeating the 
 king of Sodom, found nations settled to the south of the Dead 
 Sea, extended his conquest to El-Paran, which is by the desert 
 (ibid. 6), and which is the same through which the Israelites 
 passed (Numb. iii. 26), and to Kadesh (Gen. xiv. 7,), which is 
 likewise one of the stations of the Israelites in the desert 
 (Numb. xiii. 26). Amraphel and his confederates must have 
 found means to march an army through a desert country, and 
 must have expected, in order to be worth the toil, to find much 
 booty among populations settled in desert countries. This 
 same desert of Paran was selected by Ishmael as his dwelling- 
 place (ibid. 21), and there he became the ancestor of twelve 
 tribes, which were all established in the desert between Egypt 
 and Assyria (ibid. xxv. 18). 
 
 9. When we then come to the history of Moses, we observe 
 that the priest of Midian, to whom he fled, must have been 
 settled near enough to Horeb, in the Sinaitic peninsula — 
 described by modern travellers as an exceedingly desert 
 country — to have led the flock of his father-in-law to the 
 mount, which was to become the scene of the law-giving. 
 The district, therefore, inhabited by the priest of Midian 
 could not have been destitute of water; and, indeed, Moses 
 became acquainted with his future wife by the well (Ex. ii. 
 15). Nor, indeed, could Horeb itself have been destitute of 
 water, or Moses would not have led his flock there* The way 
 
GEOGRAnilCAL GROUP. 37 
 
 from Egypt to Mldian must have been across Iloreb; for God 
 told Moses, that, in returning to Egypt, he would meet Aaron ; 
 and he actually met him on "the Mountain of God/^ that is,. 
 Horeb (ibid. iv. 27). Now this journey could not, then, havo 
 been so much dreaded as now; for Moses, without bcinnr com- 
 manded to do so, took his wife and children with him, found 
 on the way, not at, but the lodging-place (ibid. 24), prepared 
 to receive travellers, and after all took his family not with him 
 to Egypt, but, on maturer consideration, sent them back again 
 to his wife's father, without being escorted by him (ibid, xviii. 2, 
 3). This desert, therefore, could not, then, have worn the 
 terrible aspect which it presents now. 
 
 10. We now come to an incident, to the consideration of 
 which we invite the special attention of our readers. When 
 Moses first appeared before Pharaoh he did not demand the liber- 
 ation of his people, but only permission to go with them some dis- 
 tance into the desert, there to celebrate a festival to the Eternal 
 (ibid. ver. 1). Now what motive could Pharaoh have had when 
 he refused this request? At first it might have been his un- 
 willingness to lose the temporary advantage he derived from 
 the labour of the people (ibid. 4, 5). But subsequently he 
 could not have been actuated by this motive ; for he was ready 
 to permit the able-bodied men — i.e.^ the labouring population, 
 to repair to the desert (ibid. x. 11), and at a still later period 
 was willing to permit the whole population, even children to 
 go forth provided they would leave behind their flocks and 
 herds (ibid 2 — 4). Now what object could Pharaoh have 
 had in requiring them to leave behind their flocks and herds? 
 It is evident he suspected the intention of the people to flee, 
 and therefore wished to retain in his possession a pledge of 
 their good faith. But why should the king have suspected 
 their intention to flee, or considered the retention of their 
 beasts as a hostage? Did he not know that the desert to 
 
38 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 Avhieli tlicy wished to repair opened no refuge for them? 
 that it offered neither pasture for the cattle nor water for the 
 -people; that, in fact, the very multitude of the people and of 
 their beasts was the best security that it could not be their 
 intention to flee, as they must all have perished in that terrible 
 wilderness? Pharaoh evidently did not take this view of the 
 matter. Nay, more. After the Israelites had marc]jed out, 
 and he became sure that it was their intention to llee (ibid. xii. 
 5), he actually pursued them in order to prevent their flight, 
 and consequently the possibility of an escape. Pharaoh, 
 therefore, and his councillors must have considered the march 
 of a people encumbered with so much cattle across the desert 
 quite practicable. Now Pharaoh and his people, bordering as 
 their land did upon the desert, must be presumed to have been 
 acquainted with its nature and its resources. The geographi- 
 cal knowledge of the desert as it then was, which we lack, 
 they must have possessed: and the whole proceedings of 
 Pharaoh and his people in this matter are as good as the 
 distinct deposition of a trustworthy eye-witness, that might 
 have borne testimony to a matter of fact in general terms, 
 without entering into any details. Suffice it, Pharaoh and his 
 ]i^gyptians, who must have excellent opportunities of knowing 
 the desert, considered the march of Israel through it 
 practicable, which could not have been the case had those 
 regions then been what they are now. 
 
 11. In Exodus xvii. 8, we read that while Israel was at Re- 
 phidim, in the desert, Amalek came and fought with them. 
 Now this attack was not in the front, but in the rear of the 
 people (Deut. XXV. 18). The encounter, therefore, could not 
 have been accidental, an undesigned incident, arising from 
 Israel's marching to Sinai and meeting a tribe or a caravan of 
 Amalekites coming from Sinai. Amalek must have followed 
 Israel for the purpose of attacking them, and actually did so 
 the moment he had overtaken them and faHen in with the 
 
GEOGKAPIIICAL GKOUP. 39 
 
 rear. Now, as this attack was premeditated, it is not likely 
 that it was some small band of Amalckites tliat assailed Israel. 
 That the assailing force was considerable, is quite evident from 
 the uneasiness with which the attack filled Moses, and from 
 the length of time the combat lasted (Exod. xvii. 12). Had 
 the Amalekites only been few in number, we should not 
 read — " And it came to pass when Moses lifted up his hand 
 Israel prevailed, and when he let his hand sink Amalek 
 prevailed.^' Amalek, in that case, would never have had a 
 chance of prevailing. But these very Amalekites lived a long- 
 way off, on the frontier of Palestine, as is evident from Numb, 
 xxiv. 20, where Balaam, in the land of Moab, consequently 
 on the very frontier of Canaan, is said to have seen Amalek; and 
 again, in the same book, xiii. 29, Amalek is distinctly placed 
 on the frontier of Canaan. A very considerable force of 
 Amalekites must consequently have marched from the south 
 of Canaan, all through the desert, to the Sinaitic peninsula, 
 there to attack Israel. The Amalekite forces, therefore, just 
 like the Egyptians, deemed an expedition through the desert 
 practicable, and actually successfully engaged in it. 
 
 12. And as we are now speaking of Amalek's attack on 
 Israel, we may as well quote two other references to parts acted 
 by his people. In 1 Sam. xv. 2, 3, we read that Samuel desired 
 Saul to attack Amalek. Saul consequently assembled an army 
 of 210,000 men (ver. 4), with which he defeated Amalek, from 
 Havilah until " Shur, which is before Egypt" (ver. 7). Shur, 
 we have seen before, was in the desert, close to the red Sea. 
 Here we see a very large army engaged in a war carried on in 
 the desert. It is true, that in modern times armies have 
 marched through the desert, such as that which Bonaparte, 
 during his Egyptian expedition, led from Cairo to Jaffa, and 
 that which in 1840, after its defeat in Syria, retreated under 
 Ibraham Pashah to Egypt. But these armies were compara- 
 tively small bodies, carried on no warlike operations in the 
 
10 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 desert, and marched as quickly as possible; and^ after all, as 
 known, their sufferings were very great. Never could Saul 
 have ventured with such an army into the desert, had he not 
 known that water w-as to be had there. 
 
 13. Again, in the same book, chapter xxvii. 8, we read that 
 David was in the habit of invading the Geshurite, Gersite, 
 and AmalekitCj the inhabitants of the land, as far as Shur and 
 Egypt. Here three nations are mentioned as the inhabitants 
 of the land, now part and parcel of the desert. AVc might 
 further have referred to the invasion of Judea by Shishak, 
 King of Egypt, in the reign of Rehoboam, King of Judea — 
 to the march of Pharaoh-Necho into Palestine — and to the 
 various expeditions of Assyrian and Chaldean armies into 
 Egypt — as proofs that in those remote days it was not con- 
 sidered quite impossible for large masses to pass through the 
 desert. But we do not do so, as we do not know in how far 
 these expeditions were, at least partly, carried on by sea, with 
 the co-operation of the Phoenicians, whose power after the 
 time of David rose higher and higher. We now return to 
 the Pentateuch. 
 
 14 In Numb. xiv. 12, 13, Moses introduces the Egyptians 
 speaking to '^ the inhabitants of this land," evidently the land 
 in which Moses then was. Now where was this land? Verse 
 26 of the preceding chapter gives the answer. j\Ioses and 
 Israel then were at Kadesh, in the desert of Paran. Some 
 portion of this district, therefore, if not the whole, must have 
 been inhabited. But the most decisive proof that at least 
 parts of the desert were inhabited, and that Israel in their 
 wanderings therein had intercourse with the nations settled 
 there, we find in Deut. xxix. Moses before his death, is ad- 
 dressing his people. He reminds them of the covenant made 
 by God with them, and warns them against the sin of idolatry 
 which they saw practised in Egypt and elsewhere, making 
 use of tlie following remarkable expressions (ver. 15, 16): 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUr. 41 
 
 " For 3'c know how wc have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and 
 liow wc passed in the midst of the nations which yc passed 
 by. And ye have seen the abominable things and their idols, 
 wood and stone, silver and gold, which are witli them.'^ In 
 referring to the nations through whose midst Israel passed 
 after their departure from Egypt, Moses could not have meant 
 tlie nations inhabiting Canaan, for neither were the Israelites 
 as yet there, nor did he enter it, as he died before the Jordan 
 was passed. The nations, therefore, to which JMoses referred, 
 and which, the same as the Egyptians, worshipped idols, must 
 have dwelt between Egypt and Canaan — tracts of land 
 through which the Israelites had passed under the leadersliip 
 of JMoses, and which we now call the desert. 
 
 15. Having, as we believe, established the position with 
 which we set out — viz., that the desert in the time of Moses 
 was the permanent abode of several nations — the conclusion 
 arrived at is, that the means of subsistence, especially water, 
 for which there is no substitute, and which cannot be constantly 
 imported for any large population, must then have existed. 
 The question now arises — Do we find anywhere in the Mosaic 
 account of Israel's wanderings in the desert any direct re- 
 ference to the existence of water? Unquestionably there exist 
 at least two, one of which removes directly one of the Bishop's 
 chief objections, on which he lays uncommon stress, and to the 
 statement of which he devotes no less than seventeen pages. 
 Chapter xli. of the Bishop's work, headed " The Sheep 
 and Cattle of the Israelites in the Desert," is taken up with 
 quotations from modern travellers describing the awful barren- 
 ness of the desert, especially the Sinai tic peninsula, and with 
 inferences therefrom, that it must have been impossible for the 
 Israelites and their numerous flocks and herds to have subsisted 
 for nearly a whole year under Mount Sinai. 
 
 16. That the Sinai tic peninsular now is at certain seasons of 
 the year altogether waterless, is quite true; but it is equally 
 
42 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 true that if the Sinai of Stanley be the Sinai of the Bible, 
 this region was not waterless in the time of Moses. We have 
 referred to this before, when we pointed out that the territory 
 of the priest of Midian, in the vicinity of Horeb, in which 
 Moses, after his flight from Egypt, took refuge, was not 
 waterless, since he met his future wdfe at the well, and since 
 he would not have led his flock to Horeb had the mountain 
 been waterless : nor could the Israelites in this case have been 
 commanded before Sinai to wash their clothes (Exod.xix. 10). 
 But we need not have recourse to mere inferences. We are 
 distinctly, although only incidentally, told in the Pentateuch 
 that Mount Sinai had a brook. In Deut. ix. Moses, narrating 
 the history of the golden calf, described in the 32nd chapter 
 of Exodus, says : " And I took your sin, the ^calf, which 
 ye had made, and burned it with fire ; and I beat it, grinding 
 it well until it was as small dust; and I cast the dust thereof 
 into the brook that descendeth out of the mountain" (ver. 
 21). Now the mountain of w^hich Moses spoke could only 
 have been Mount Sinai, as the occurrence took place while the 
 Israelites were encamped at the foot of this mountain. Nor 
 could the brook referred to have been the dry bed of a torrent, 
 such as are now found in considerable numbers in the Sinaitic 
 peninsula, for, as Moses' purpose, when casting the dust of the 
 calf into the brook, evidently was to prevent the people from 
 possessing themselves of any part thereof, he would have 
 failed in his object unless there had been water in the bed. 
 To cast the dust on the dry bed of a brook would have been 
 just the same as casting it on any other spot. Besides, in the 
 parallel passage Ex. xxxii. 20, where the same incident is 
 recorded, the word "water" (p\^) is substituted for '^ brook" 
 (hr)^) employed in Deut. which clearly shows, that Avhen 
 Moses spoke of the brook he meant the water, which he 
 gave the children of Israel to drink, and not the dry bed. 
 17. Nor could this have been the only biook in the vicinity, 
 
GEUGltAnilCAL GROUP. 43 
 
 whicli is evident, from the necessity under whicli the sacred his- 
 torian felt himself of describinnj it, ns comin<r down from the 
 mountain; and which, therefore, was not to be confounded with 
 any of the other brooks existing there, but which had not their 
 source on the mountain of God. Nor could this brook have 
 been one of those torrents which in the winter rush through 
 the tvadies; for as the Israelites went out of Egypt in the month 
 of April, they only arrived at Sinai in the third month after 
 their departure, and, as Moses stayed on the mount forty 
 consecutive days, the sin of the golden calf could not have 
 taken place before the month of August, whicli is the height 
 of summer, when, even in Palestine, most brooks are dried up. 
 The brook, therefore, that descended from the mount, and into 
 which Moses cast the dust of the golden calf, must have been 
 an ever-flowing one, one of those which are called in the Bible 
 jn^5^ /Hi perennial brooks. And if there was one ever- 
 flowing brook on Sinai, why not several more in the neigh- 
 bouring mountains? The 'beds now empty, as all modern 
 travellers record, are visible to this day, and these beds, we 
 are told, are well filled in the winter season. If one perennial 
 brook has been dried up since the time of Moses, why not 
 many more? But wherever there is water in the desert, the 
 Bishop himself admits there is no lack of vegetation — i.e.j 
 fuel for man, and herbage for beasts. 
 
 18. The next distinct reference to water not supplied in a 
 miraculous, but natural manner, is found in Numb. xxi. The 
 verses 16, 17, and 18 are no doubt obscure; still it is clear, 
 that the Israelites, in their distress for water, were directed by 
 God to a spot where this liquid was to be found, and there a 
 well was actually successfully sunk. If water was here suc- 
 cessfully dug for and found, why not also in other encamp- 
 ments? Indeed, searches for this purpose are more than 
 hinted at in Numb. x. In verses 29 to 32, w^e are informed 
 that on the departure from Sinai, Moses urged Hobab the 
 
44 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 Midlanite to accompany Israel in tlieir journeys, saying, 
 '^Forsake us not, I pray thee: for as much as thou knowest 
 how we are to encamp in the desert, and thou may est be to us 
 instead of eyes." From this we see, that the service which 
 Moses expected from Hobab was to act as Israel's guide, to 
 which office he was evidently well suited by his acquaintance 
 with the desert, which he no doubt possessed from having 
 been so near it and perhaps spent all his life in the desert. 
 Hobab, therefore, as the text shows, was to point out to 
 the Israelites the spots suited for encampments — in other 
 words, the spots containing natural or artificial gatherings 
 of water. 
 
 1 9. Precisely the same idea is suggested by verse 33. Here 
 we read: *' And they (the Israelites) journeyed from the 
 mount of the Eternal (Sinai) three days' journey, and the ark 
 of the covenant of the Eternal went before them in the three 
 days' journey to search out a resting-place for them." If this 
 verse have any meaning at all, and if we supply the missing 
 links in the general information here conveyed to us, but 
 which, in accordance with the usual style of the sacred 
 historian, are omitted, although understood, we must thus 
 paraphrase it. When the time had come for the departure 
 from Sinai, Moses commanded the people to break up the 
 camp and to set slowly forward, so that the water of Sinai 
 should always be within reach; while he ordered the Levites 
 carrying the ark, and accompanied by guides, one and 
 probably the chief of whom was Hobab, to hasten forward in 
 search of another place fit for an encampment — i.e., possessing 
 a sufficient supply of water, and having succeeded in their 
 object, to give notice thereof to the chief of the people, direct- 
 ing them to the new place of encampment, and meanwhile, like 
 a quartermaster in an army, making all arrangements for the 
 encampment against the arrival of the people. And if Moses 
 found it requisite to use this precaution when setting out from 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUT. 45 
 
 tlie encampment under Sinai, why not also, when necessary, 
 in other encampments? Indeed, this seems to be hinted at in 
 Numb. ix. Here we are told (verses 17 — 23) that the 
 Israelites directed their marches according to the orders of 
 Moses, received by him from God (23), and that, while in 
 some places they only stopped one day, in others they 
 sojourned for a whole year, in accordance with the signal 
 given by the withdrawal of the cloud from the tabernacle. 
 Although we are not distinctly told so, yet it stands to reason 
 that these baitings so unequal in their duration, were not ob- 
 jectless. And what more satisfactory reason, in explanation 
 of this inequality of duration, can be offered than its depen- 
 dence on the supply of water yielded by the spot selected 
 for encampment, and on the necessity under which the 
 people found themselves to await the result of the explor- 
 ations of the scouts or guides sent out to discover on the 
 route traced out another fit place for encampment, or the 
 completion of the arrangements made for supplying the wants 
 of the people. 
 
 20. A few traces of such arrangements can be found; and 
 these are the more valuable, as this evidence, too, is incidental, 
 and therefore undesigned. In Deut. ii. we are made acquainted 
 with the message sent by Moses, from the desert of Kedemoth, 
 to Sihon, king of Heshbon. Moses, asking for permission to 
 march through the country, says: "Thou (Sihon) shalt sell 
 me food for money, that I may eat, and give me water for 
 money, that I may drink : as the children of Esau who abide 
 in Seir, and the Moabites who abide in Ar did unto mc." 
 Here Moses proposes arrangements to Sihon, which he dis- 
 tinctly said had been made with the children of Seir and 
 certain Moabites, and which, so far as the children of Esau 
 are concerned, are also alluded to in the 6th verse of the same 
 chapter. Again, in chapter xxiii. 5, we are told that one of 
 the reasons for the exclusion of the Ammonites and Moabites 
 
46 THE PJE^TATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 from the assembly of tlie Eternal was, " Because they met 
 you (the Israelites) not with bread and with water in the way 
 when ye came forth out of Egypt." Now the severity with 
 which Moses resents this inhospitality on the part of the two 
 nations leads us to the conclusion, that other nations had 
 behaved quite differently. That the Israelites, in their march, 
 met with other settled nations and had intercourse with them, 
 we have shown before. When we, therefore, know that 
 Moses actually proposed to Sihon an arrangement for the 
 supply of water, which he had made with the two populations 
 named by him, and blam.es a third and fourth for not having 
 acted in a similar manner, is the supposition that similar 
 arrangements were entered into with other nations not named, 
 but of whose existence at the time we are assured, too bold 
 a hypothesis? 
 
 21. That the Israelites, while in the desert, had friendly 
 intercourse with other populations, is also clear from other 
 passages. In Exod. xxx., from 22 to 34, are enumerated all 
 kinds of spices, scarcely any of which are the product of 
 Egypt. Most of them are found in Arabia, while cinnamon 
 (ver. 23) must have been imported from India. Further, in 
 xxvii. 20 of the same book, the Israelites were commanded to 
 burn continually in the tabernacle clear olive oil. This oil 
 was neither the production of Egypt nor of the desert. How 
 could the Israelites have obtained these substances? They 
 could not have taken them from the Egyptians when they 
 marched out, for the sacred text informs us distinctly that 
 they onl}' despoiled the Egyptians of gold, silver, and gar- 
 ments. Nor is it likely, supposing that they themselves 
 possessed these substances at the time of their departure, laden 
 as they were with necessaries, they should have encumbered 
 themselves with articles the use of which could not have been 
 apparent to them. Indeed, we might just as well suppose that 
 the labourers in Dorsetshire keep a store of these costly luxu- 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 47 
 
 rics, as that the oppressed and enslaved Israelites possessed 
 these substances,, then still more rare and expensive than now. 
 These substances must, therefore, have been procured by the 
 Israelites, while in the desert, by purchase or barter, from 
 those trading nations settled near the gulf of Akabah, where 
 Elath and Eziongebcr were situated (Exod.ii. 8), and whence 
 the fleet of Solomon sailed to Ophir; or from caravans going- 
 down with their goods to Egypt, such as that was to which 
 Joseph was sold (Gcn.xxxviii. 28). 
 
 22. Again, twice in Deuteronomy (viii. 4 and xxix. 4), did 
 Moses, in his address to the people, refer to their garments and 
 shoes as not having become worn out in the forty years that 
 Israel was in the desert. In Deut. ii. 7, moreover, we are 
 assured that the people lacked nothing during those forty 
 years. Xow we have no reason to suppose, that any other 
 wants of the people, save those expressly mentioned, were 
 supplied in a supernatural manner. And as the use of any 
 garment for forty years, without being worn out would be one 
 of the greatest miracles ever 'performed, especially when we 
 consider that these garments would have had to grow with the 
 growth of the children that either came out of Egypt or were 
 subsequently born, we must presume that what Moses meant 
 was, that the people possessed both the means and the oppor- 
 tunities of renewing the stock of their clothes, or procuring 
 new ones whenever required. Now, no doubt, the wool of 
 their sheep provided them with materials for their garments; 
 but these materials had to be worked up, for which tools, 
 generally of some metal, copper or iron, were required. These 
 tools themselves were liable to break or to be worn out; 
 they had to be repaired or renewed. How could this have 
 been accomplished by a wandering population in the desert, 
 without mines for procuring those metals, without furnaces, 
 forges, or workshops for their manufacture? These tools 
 therefore, must have been procured from other nations by 
 
48 THE rENTATEUCIl CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 purchase or exchange for such natural productions as they 
 possessed, and were yielded by their herds and flocks. 
 
 23. That they did trade while in the desert with surround- 
 ing nations and caravans, is hinted at in verse 7 of this second 
 chapter, wherein Moses reminded Israel of his order to them 
 to pay for all the necessaries that might be supplied to them 
 by the children of Esau, which they were enabled to do; 
 *' for," continued he, " the Eternal thy God hath blessed thee 
 in all the works of thy hand," evidently, as the context shows, 
 during the forty years they were in the desert. Now wherein 
 could this work of their hands have consisted? Clearly 
 not in agriculture, for it is nowhere alluded to that they 
 engaged in it while in the desert. It must, therefore, have 
 consisted in some natural productions derived from their cattle 
 and flocks, or articles which are bought of one people and sold 
 to another; for had the Israelites limited themselves to barter 
 or trade among themselves, their goods would only have 
 changed hands, and many of their wants, which, as we have 
 shown, could only have been provided from without, would 
 not have been supplied; nor would their means — silver is 
 mentioned in the preceding verse — have increased to enable 
 them to buy food and water, nor could it have been said that 
 the Eternal blessed them in the work of their hands. The 
 whole tenor of the passage, therefore, compels us to admit 
 that the Israelites, while in the desert, had intercourse with 
 other nations. Indeed, such an instance of intercourse, at 
 least with one nation, has received a sad notoriety in the 
 liistory of these wanderings. Chapter xxv. of Numbers 
 records the sinful intimacy between Israel, while at Shittim, 
 and the daughters of Moab and Midian. This intercourse is 
 alluded to on account of the important and sad consequences 
 which it produced. But if the Israelites had intercourse with 
 two nations, why not with some more not especially mentioned, 
 because it was not marked by any particular feature that might 
 have called for a special record. 
 
GEOGRArillCAL GROUT. 49 
 
 24. But if the desert was then the abode of luiincrous 
 tribes, and was not so destitute of water as we now see it, why 
 did Moses call it a *' waste, howling wilderness?" And why did 
 Jeremiah (ii. 6) describe Israel's wanderings as a march 
 " through the wilderness, through a land of desert and pits, 
 through a land of drought and the sliadow of death — 
 through a land that no man passed through, where no man 
 dwelleth?" 
 
 25. Besides the two passages quoted before, and in which 
 the desert through which the Israelites passed is designated as 
 terrible and destitute of springs or brooks, there are others in 
 the Pentateuch of similar import. Such are Deut.i. 19 and vii. 
 15, and perhaps some more. But these passages only establish 
 what we stated at the very outset of our discussion — viz., 
 that there were parts of the desert barren in themselves, in- 
 fested by reptiles, waterless, and therefore in general shunned 
 by travellers, and dreaded by them. While marching through 
 these parts, the Israelites, no doubt, suffered terribly; and had 
 their thirwSt, whilst therein, not been once or twice slacked in 
 a supernatural manner (Deut. viii. 15), they would undoubtedly 
 have perished. That both Moses and Jeremiah applied their 
 descriptions of the desert, commented upon by the Bishop, 
 not to the whole, but only to parts thereof, is not only clear 
 from the testimony borne by the former to the existence of 
 whole populations settled in the desert, as shown by us before, 
 but also by the very passages themselves so confidently 
 appealed to by the Bishop. 
 
 26. When Moses, in Deut. i. 19, characterises the desert as 
 fearful, he distinctly marks its limits. .For he says — "And 
 when we journeyed from Horeb, we went through all that 
 great and fearful desert which ye saw by the way of the 
 mountain of the Amorites, as the Eternal our God commanded 
 us; and we came to Kadesh Barnea." The fearful desert, 
 therefore, of which i\Ioses spoke commenced only after Israel 
 
 I-: 
 
50 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 had quitted Horeb, and did not extend beyond Kadesh 
 Barnea. Now what was the distance? Less than eleven 
 days' journey, although we do not know by how many days' 
 journey less. This is evident from Deut. i. 2. Here we are 
 told that there were ^' eleven days' journey from Horeb by the 
 way of Mount Seir unto Kadesh Barnea/' Now as the desert 
 designated by Moses as '' great and fearful " did not commence 
 at Horeb, but only after the Israelites had departed from 
 Horeb, it must have been passable in less than eleven days; 
 let us say in ten days. But encumbered as the Israelites were, 
 and numerous as must have been the children, a day's journey 
 could not have exceeded ten miles, and was perhaps only five 
 miles. That the latter estimate is nearer the truth than the 
 former,, may be inferred from Deut.viii.4, where we are told 
 that the feet of the Israelites did not swell, or rather were not 
 blistered, as is the case when persons not used to walking walk 
 any unusual distance. The utmost extent of this fearful 
 desert, therefore, could only have been one hundred miles — 
 no doubt large enough for any population, deprived of special 
 Divine assistance, to perish. Yet was this special Divine 
 interposition not intended to avert from the multitude the 
 natural unavoidable painful consequences which the march 
 through such inhospitable, sun-parched regions must have 
 entailed. While, therefore, Moses with justice characterised 
 this desert as terrible and infested with reptiles, and as one 
 which entailed upon the Israelites extraordinary hardships, he 
 could yet point to the safe passage through it, as an evident 
 proof of the special Providence that watched over Israel, and 
 which manifested itself in their greatest distress by bringing 
 forth water from the very flint (ibid. viii. 15). But what was 
 a tract of one hundred miles to the immense extent of desert 
 stretching between Egypt and Palestine, and then again far, 
 far away to the east of the Mediterranean? And what is the 
 comparatively short time which they spent therein (the 
 
GEOORAPITICAL OROUr. 51 
 
 Israelites, undoubtedly hastened to get out as soon as possible 
 from the howling wilderness) to the forty years which they 
 passed in the desert? 
 
 27. A close analysis of Jer. ii. 6 gives a similar result, and, 
 moreover, offers a hint on some artificial means employed for 
 providing water in this sterile region. The passage, our 
 readers will recollect, runs thus: "Neither said they (Israel) 
 Where is the Lord that brought us up out of Egypt, that led 
 us through the wilderness, through a land of desert and pits, 
 through a land of drought, and the shadow of death, through 
 a land that no man passed through, where no man dwelleth?" 
 Now, that the prophet did not mean liis words to be taken 
 strictly to the letter, and to be extended to the whole desert, 
 is quite clear from the concluding phrase, '^through a land 
 that no man passed through, where no man dwelleth/' For 
 the same prophet, in the very commencement of the verse, 
 says, '^ who led us through the desert/' There consequently 
 was a people which had passed through it. The prophet, 
 moreover, must have known that various tribes lived in the 
 desert. Besides, the same prophet repeatedly refers to the 
 inhabitants of the desert, as ix. 25, and xxv. 24. Had he 
 spoken of the whole desert, he could not have said, ^^ where 
 no man dwelleth." Jeremiah, therefore, could only here have 
 characterised like Moses a certain, or perhaps certain parts of 
 the desert. Indeed, he seems to say as much himself; for he 
 qualifies the general term " through the wilderness " as too 
 wide by some others which narrow it, and define it more 
 clearly; for he goes on to say, " through a land of desert and 
 pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death,'' 
 which in the original is still more plain, as the first of the 
 qualifying expressions used is D^'liJ {arahah), which fre- 
 quently designates a certain portion of the desert, extending 
 from the Dead Sea to the gulf of Akaba. Whether, there- 
 fore, Jeremiah referred to the same region of which Moses 
 
52 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 spokcj or to some other, it was only a part, and not the whole 
 of the desert to which he alludes. In either case, our remarks 
 are as applicable to the one as to the other. 
 
 28. But if the first of tlie qualifying words (H^'iy o.rabah — 
 desert) is significant, the second characteristic, ^^and pits," is 
 truly striking. Pits are hollows dug in the ground by human 
 labour. Why should men have dug pits in such a dreadful 
 wilderness, and what purpose could they have served there? 
 We can only imagine one of two. The pits were either 
 dug by hunters for the purpose of entrapping therein wild 
 beasts, or by caravans or individuals who, for some purpose 
 unknown to us, had occasionally to repair to this desert, and 
 perhaps to traverse it, and who laid up in these pits reserves of 
 water for the supply of their wants. In the latter case, they 
 were probably carefully covered, in order to prevent the 
 evaporation of the fluid, and to hide it from strangers. It 
 is, however, not likely that these pits were the work of 
 hunters, for in the first place we nowhere read in the Penta- 
 teuch of the Israelites having in the desert been assailed by 
 wild beasts. Had this been the case, it would undoubtedly 
 have been either expressly mentioned, in the same way as Moses 
 speaks of the bites inflicted by fiery serpents (Numb. xxi. 6), 
 or incidentally alluded to the same, as he referred to the 
 existence of reptiles (Deut. viii. 15). It is, therefore, only reason- 
 able to suppose that there were no wild beasts in the desert. 
 Further, hunters would hardly have pursued wild beasts in 
 regions in which they could not inflict any injury either upon 
 man or beast, that did not exist there; and in which hunting, 
 entrapping, or digging, would have been labours entailing 
 most terrible hardships, by reason of the want of all sustenance 
 and water; and all this apart from the difficulty involved in 
 the supposition that wild beasts, which require at least as much 
 water as cattle, could have subsisted in those sterile tracts of 
 land. We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that these 
 
GEOGRArillCAL GROUP. 53 
 
 pits were reservoirs, serving to collect the water in tlic rainy 
 season for the necessities of travellers who might be compelled 
 to traverse these regions. 
 
 29. Now in this view we are confirmed by the very expres- 
 sion rendered ^'pits" in the passage under consideration. It 
 is in Hebrew nH^LJ^, Without enquiring into the etymology, 
 which fully bears out the rendering of the Anglican version, 
 we shall show, by parallel passages, that this term was synony- 
 mus with " well/^ and that this pit was covered over^ as wells 
 frequently were. To prove the former, we refer to Prov. xxiii. 
 27. The sacred writer cautions young men against intimacy 
 with unprincipled women, and makes use of the phrase — 
 
 nn^: nnv ^xn^ niii r\i:)i2V nn^ty ^5— 
 
 For a deep pit (^ntl)^\ is a harlot; 
 
 And a narrow well ("1X11) ^i^ alien woman. 
 
 30. The parallelism in the two hemistichs of this verse is 
 self-evident, since '^a deep pit" and "a narrow well" are 
 clearly as synonymous as *' a harlot" and " alien woman " (let 
 it be borne in mind that harlots were generally foreigners, 
 prostitution among Israelites being strictly forbidden). If, 
 therefore, *nN}5 (well) was a gathering of water, so must have 
 been nn'l^, the pit spoken of by the sacred penman in Pro- 
 verbs, and consequently also in Jeremiah. That these reser- 
 voirs were covered over, no doubt, as said before, to prevent 
 evaporation, and to keep them secret, may be inferred from 
 Jeremiah xviii. 20 and 22. The prophet, complaining of the 
 enmity of the people to him, and their scheming to overcome 
 him by cunning devices, continues (ver. 20): " For they have 
 digged a pit (nil^^) for my soul." Now had this been an 
 open pit, visible to everyone, and consequently easily avoided, 
 the simile would not at all have been applicable. This is still 
 more evident from verse 22, where the prophet says: "For 
 they have digged a pit rr]r\^^\ to take me, and hid snares for 
 my feet." Here, again, "hid" is parallel with "digged," and 
 
54 THE PENTATEUCH CKITICAELY EXAMINED. 
 
 snares ^^ with " plt/^ wliicli explain each other, and clearly 
 show that the figurative pit which the prophet had in mind 
 was as little perceived as are the material snares laid to entrap 
 unwary creatures. 
 
 31. That such cratherinfics of water, whether artificial or na- 
 tural, were not unknown in the desert, is clear from Gen. xxi. 
 19, and xxxvii. 22 and 24. In chap. xxi. we are informed of 
 the expulsion of Hagar and her son from the house of Abraham, 
 and her distress in the desert for want of water. The sacred 
 writer then continues (ver. 19): "And God opened her eyes and 
 she saw a well of water." Now it is not said that this well was 
 called forth miraculously, but only that her eyes were opened, 
 so that she saw what had existed previously, but was not per- 
 ceived by her. The well, therefore, must have been covered 
 artificially, as were many others in Syria (Gen. xxix. 2, 3). In 
 Gen. xxxvii. we read an account of the conduct of the sons of 
 Jacob towards their brother Joseph, whom they sold into slavery. 
 Now in verse 22 we are made acquainted with Reuben^s advice to 
 his brethren to cast Joseph "into the pit which is in the desert;" 
 and in the following verse we are informed 'Hhe pit was empty 
 — there was no water in it." This clearly shows what this pit 
 in the desert was intended for. It was intended to serve as a 
 reservoir, but happened to be empty at the time when the oc- 
 currence took place. These pits were indeed only an adapta- 
 tion and enlargement of domestic cisterns to uninhabited spots. 
 Here, therefore, we see distinct traces of one of the means em- 
 ployed in those primaeval times for laying in stores of water in 
 the desert: and if we consider that the Israelites, in their jour- 
 neys, were accompanied at least by one individual perfectly well 
 acquainted with those regions and their resources, and conse- 
 quently with those hidden reservoirs, which undoubtedly were on 
 purpose kept secret from the uninitiated, and that the slowness 
 of the marches and the length of time the people frequently 
 remained in one and the same camp, permitted Moses to have 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GKOUP. 55 
 
 such pits dug on purpose before the setting in of the rainy 
 season in those regions_, through whicli he knew he would 
 have to pass, we can, at least to a limited extent, understand 
 how it was that direct divine interposition for the supply of 
 water was so rarely required. 
 
 32. That the construction of such artificial reservoirs must 
 have been well known to the Israelites, is quite clear from 
 Exod. vii. 19. Here Moses was commanded to tell Aaron: 
 **Take thy staff and stretch out thy hands upon the waters of 
 Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their 
 ponds, and upon all their gatherings of water, that they may 
 become blood." As Egypt never had more than one single 
 river — the Nile — all those pieces of water enumerated here 
 must have been artificial reservoirs fed by the Nile, serving 
 either the purpose of irrigation or of supplying drinking water. 
 Indeed, everyone is acquainted with the system of canals which 
 existed in Egypt in primeval times, and has heard of that 
 wonderful lake, Moeris, an artificial reservoir of an immense 
 size, which served to receive the super-abundance of the Nile. 
 With such examples before the eye of the Israelites, and with 
 ample leisure on their hands — with complete local knowledge, 
 and under the leadership of such a man as Moses, at the height 
 of Egypt's science, and undoubtedly initiated in Egypt^s lore, 
 it would indeed have been strange should the water supply for 
 such a multitude have been left by him entirely to chance or 
 miracle. That the Egyptians must have constructed such a 
 system of reservoirs, at least in one spot of the desert, is quite 
 clear, from the circumstance referred to by Stanley, that they 
 possessed copper mines, and indeed, a whole mining district on 
 the northern coast of the Red Sea. Now, although it is most 
 probable that this mining population drew its supplies of food 
 from Egypt, yet it would have been all but impossible to send 
 them also the necessary supply of water across the Red Se^. 
 Artificial provisions of the nature referred to must, therefore, 
 
56 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 have been made in the vicinity of the mines for the supply of 
 this want. There exists, moreover, historical evidence to show, 
 that at least one population, inhabiting a territory close to the 
 desert, if not in the desert itself, was in possession of secret re- 
 servoirs of water. Dr. Kalisch, in his commentary on Gen. 
 XXV. 13, gives an abstract of the history of the Xabatheans, 
 whose capital was Petra. Having described the situation of 
 the city, he continues: *' In the most sterile part of the dreary 
 desert, they (the Nabatheans) dug vast subterranean water- 
 reservoirs with very narrow mouths, which could easily be 
 stopped and concealed, while the interior gradually widened to 
 the dimensions of a hundred square feet. Into these regions 
 they marched at the approach of their enemies, who, excruciated 
 by thirst, either suffered immense losses or hastened to return." 
 33. Closely connected with the views here propounded, is a 
 peculiar class of individuals referred to in the Pentateuch, and 
 whose occupation is evidently represented as the most menial. 
 Deut.xxix. 9 and 10 enumerates all the classes of which the 
 Israelitish population was then composed. As the highest 
 class with which the enumeration commences are mentioned 
 ^' the heads of your tribes," and as the lowest, concluding the 
 specification, is named '^ the drawer of thy water.^^ Now the 
 drawing of water was anciently neither a menial occupation 
 nor performed by a special class. Rebecca, of the distinguished 
 family of Abraham, went herself to the well to draw water, 
 and even drew water for the camels of Eliezer (Gen. xxiv. 19). 
 Jacob and Moses drew water from wells, instead of the damsels, 
 upon whom the labour devolved (ibid.xxix. 10; Exod. ii. 17). 
 Why, therefore, should the Israelites, while in the desert, have 
 required a special class for the performance of this task, which, 
 indeed, would have more appropriately devolved upon each 
 family? And why should this task have been so laborious as 
 only to be resorted to by, or perhaps imposed upon, indivi- 
 duals forming the lowest class among the people (Josh. ix. 21), 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GKOUP. 67 
 
 and to be placed on a level with " hewers of wood," whose 
 "work has at all times been very laborious? Evidently, because 
 the exceptional position which the Israelites then occupied, 
 and the peculiar geographical features presented by the desert, 
 required a special organisation for the supply of this necessary, 
 and which having, under a scorching sun, to be drawn from 
 deep hollows, the covering of which had to be removed, and 
 again replaced, and which had occasionally to be transported 
 long distances, must have been exceedingly fatiguing, still 
 more so than the cutting of trees or gathering of lire-wood. 
 
 The Sheep and Cattle of the Israelites in the 
 
 Desert (Chap. xii.). 
 
 34. As the existence of water in the desert goes hand in 
 hand with the existence of vegetation, and consequently of 
 wood, as indeed, significantly enough, expressed by Moses in 
 ranking as a class, " hewers of wood " next before that of 
 drawers of water, it will not be out of place to say a few words 
 on what we have termed " the wood question." 
 
 3o. This question is more pointedly put in the chapter 
 referred to, where the Bishop expatiates upon the impossi- 
 bility of the Israelites having obtained under Sinai '^ supplies 
 of fuel for the daily cooking necessities of a population 
 like that of London, but also for relief against the piercing 
 cold of the winter season." Now whether the cooking 
 necessities of a hardy population, used in Egypt to live, 
 partly at least, upon raw vegetables (Xumb. xi. 5), and 
 encamped in the open, bracing air of the desert, were so 
 great as those of a refined, and upon the whole, delicate and 
 sickly population, as that of London, which cannot well digest 
 any food unless previously thoroughly cooked, may well be 
 doubted. The Israelites had no bread (Deut. xxix. 5), and, in 
 the absence of all cereals, had no pastry to bake. They, like 
 all inhabitants of warm climates, probably partook but sparingly 
 of flesh meat, and consequently chiefly subsisted on manna. 
 
58 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 which required but little cooking, since it melted when the 
 sun shone upon it, and on milk, cheese, and clouted milk, 
 which required no cooking whatever. They further had an 
 all but unlimited supply of a species of fuel not used by us in 
 Europe, but which is common enough in the East to this day, 
 and which is referred to in the Bible, although the Bishop 
 makes no mention of it. We allude to animal excrements, 
 which, when dry, are used in the East as fuel. That it was 
 known to the Israelites, and used at least for bakins: bread, is 
 evident from Ezek. iv.l5. There is, therefore, ample warrant to 
 assume that the Israelites made use of this fuel in the desert. 
 
 36. Further, as Sinai was neither destitute of water nor of 
 herbage, there is sufficient reason to believe that there existed 
 also trees. We have further seen, that there existed a special 
 organisation for hewing trees (the Hebrew T*y means both 
 wood and tree), and these hewers of wood, like the drawers of 
 water, no doubt ranged about in search of wood, which it was 
 their business to transport to the camp. 
 
 37. We do not know what the temperature is in the winter 
 under Sinai ; but the Israelites had had a whole summer to 
 prepare themselves for the winter. Moses, at least, who had 
 lived for many years in the neighbouring Midian, must have 
 been well acquainted with the climate of Horeb. The Israelites 
 might have sent their cattle to winter with the cattle of Midian 
 or to some more genial regions in the desert, with which 
 Moses, and especially Hobab, were acquainted. The Israelites 
 themselves might have been encamped in the valleys around 
 Sinai, where the mountains protected them from the piercing 
 blast, and, being under canvass, were sufficiently protected 
 from the cold. The winter, moreover, which they spent under 
 Sinai, might have been providentiall}^ mild. 
 
 38. We have argued on the supposition, that the winters in 
 the Sinaitic peninsula were then habitually as cold as they are 
 represented now to be. But we have seen that since then the 
 peninsula, as well as the desert in general, must have under- 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 59 
 
 gone considerable changes, and the change of climate, in con- 
 sequence of other changes, may have been one of them. 'J'hose 
 who are acquainted Avith the present barrenness of the Lebanon, 
 once thickly covered with stately cedars — with the sterility of 
 several parts in Palestine, once most productive and populous 
 — and with that of at least a part of the land of Goshen, un- 
 doubtedly lying between the Nile and the Red Sea, styled by 
 Pharaoh ^' the best of the land,'^ will admit that there have 
 been in those regions unfavourable influences at work which 
 are not sufficiently known, and which, even as they have to 
 this day prevented the growth of fresh cedars on Lebanon, so 
 they may have prevented the fresh growtli of vegetation, and 
 especially of trees, in Sinai, after having once been stripped of 
 them. 
 
 39. AVe now come to the consideration of the second proposi- 
 tion referred to before (G. g. 3), and which exposes the difficulty 
 involved in the supposition that the millions of Israel marched 
 out on one and the same day from Rameses, accompanied by 
 their herds and flocks, the latter not trampling down the scanty 
 pasturage that might have been found, and the former never 
 being short of that large number of beasts and birds which 
 they are supposed to have required for sacrifices. 
 
 40. But is this supposition borne out by the account of 
 the exodus left on record by the sacred writer? The Bishop, 
 no doubt, in making these statements, believed that they "were 
 fully justified by the existing data. But the data quoted by 
 him are not the only ones in the Bible. There are others in 
 existence which partly supplement those cited by him, partly 
 modify, and partly explain them. And we feel confident that 
 an enquirer who shall base his researches, not upon a few, but 
 the whole body of these data, will arrive at the conclusion, that 
 the Bishop's inferences, which we have formulated in tliis 
 second proposition, are altogether untenable. True, the data 
 omitted by the Bishop, and to which v/e are going to refer. 
 
60 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 are indirect and incidental. But for this reason, as explained 
 before, because they are undesigned, they are the more trust- 
 worthy. 
 
 41. But, before we proceed, it will be well to remind our 
 readers of the principle laid down by us before, that the object 
 of the author of the Pentateuch was not to write the history of 
 Israel, but the history of the religious idea, as it arose since the 
 patriarchs, developed itself, and received shape and consistency 
 through the law given by Moses ; and that the general events, 
 as well as IsraePs relation to other populations, are only adverted 
 to in as far as they are connected with the history of this reli- 
 gious idea, and throw light on it. 
 
 42. Now, not only in the account of the exodus, but in the 
 whole Pentateuch, it is peculiar to the historian to omit inci- 
 dents immaterial to his immediate purpose, although they may 
 be easily imagined; and yet to use phrases Avhich necessarily 
 imply them, or subsequently to make allusion to them, as 
 though distinctly expressed. Thus, in Gen. iv. 8, we are made 
 acquainted with Abel's death by the hand of his brother in these 
 words — " And Cain said to Abel his brother . . And it 
 came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up 
 against Abel his brother, and slew him." Now what did Cain 
 say to his brother to induce him to accompany him to the field? 
 This is left out by the historian, as immaterial to his purpose; 
 his object only having been to acquaint posterity with Cain's 
 deceitfulness and horrible crime. This object the narrative 
 attains, and the record of the conversation between the deceiver 
 and the deceived was, therefore, unnecessary, and consequently 
 omitted; and yet the phrase employed by the sacred writer is 
 Vrti^ Sin SiS* rp "l/^^N^l " And Cain said to Abel his bro- 
 ther,'' as rendered by Benisch, altliough the Anglican version 
 translates, against all analogy, '^ And Cain talked with Abel 
 his brother." 
 
 43. Further, when in Gen. xlii. 21, Joseph's brethren re- 
 proach themselves with the crime committed by them when 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. Gl 
 
 they sold their brother into slavery — '' They said one to another, 
 We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw 
 the distress of his soul, when he implored us, and we would 
 not hear/' We may easily imagine that Joseph implored his 
 brethren not to sell him. Yet not a word of this is said in the 
 account of this iniquitous transaction, as narrated in chap, 
 xxxvii. of the same book. Had we not the express evidence 
 of the sacred writer incidentally referred to in chap. xl. 11, to 
 the contrary, we might have concluded from chap, xxxvii. that 
 Joseph, in the whole transaction, remained perfectly passive, 
 not making the slightest attempt to avert his sad fate. It is 
 evident that, since Joseph's representations exercised no in- 
 fluence on the wicked determination of his brothers, the 
 historian did not deem it requisite to allude to them at the 
 time. 
 
 44. The same characteristic in the style of the sacred writer 
 marks the account of the exodus, and the journeys of Israel in 
 the desert. Thus, in Ex. xix. 12, the Israelites are reported 
 to have said to Moses — " Is not this the word that we spoke 
 unto thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone that we may serve 
 Egypt ?'^ But in the narrative of the intercourse of Moses 
 with the people in Egypt, no allusion whatever is found to any 
 representation of the kind having been made by Israel to their 
 deliverer. Again, in ver. 15 of the same chapter, God is intro- 
 duced addressing Moses — "Wherefore criest thou unto me?'^ 
 Now, although we can easily imagine that Moses, in his dis- 
 tress, addressed himself to God in prayer, yet we are nowhere 
 told so. We have simply to infer this from God's answer to 
 his prayer. Again, in Exodus xviii. 2, we are informed that 
 Jethro, in company with his daughter and her two sons, paid a 
 visit to Moses, bringing back to him his wife, " after his having 
 sent her away.'' Thus we learn, quite incidentally, what we 
 are nowhere expressly told. 
 
 45. Thus, were we to form our ideas of the position of the 
 
62 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 Israelites in Egypt exclusively from tlie direct evidences in 
 Exodus, without consulting incidental references in the same 
 book, and allusions to the same subject in other books of the 
 Bible, we should judge that the people, while in Egypt, lived 
 in the land of Goshen quite separated from the Egyptians; and 
 were all of them shepherds; that none of them quitted the 
 country until they departed under Moses; never intermingled 
 with the Egyptians, except in so far as they were compelled to 
 do so by their bondage; and never deserted the patriarchal 
 institutions and traditions brought down with them into Egypt. 
 It is a fact, that the sacred writer never reproaches them with 
 the desertion of the ancestral institutions, and that, when they 
 are oppressed, they are not represented to have implored the 
 aid of any false gods (Ex. ii. 23). And yet, when we collect 
 the various hints scattered all over the Bible, and join together 
 these disjecta membra^ quite a different picture of the position 
 of Israel during their stay in Egypt is presented. Not that 
 these indirect data contradict the direct ones, but that they 
 supplement, complete, and modify them, and together convey 
 to us a correct idea of the condition of Israel during this 
 eventful period. 
 
 46. Thus, from Ex. iii. 22, it is clear that, in the time of 
 Moses, either Egyptians lived in Goshen or Israelites in Egypt, 
 or more probably Egyptians in Goshen and Israelites in Egypt. 
 For in the passage referred to we are incidentally told that 
 Israelites had Egyptian neighbours, and even Egyptian in- 
 mates in their houses. Incidentally, this intermingling is also 
 evident from the circumstance that Pharaoh's daughter came to 
 wash herself in a part of the river which could not have been 
 far from the residence of Moses' parents, since his sister stood 
 close by, and was able to bring his mother to the princess 
 while she was waiting (ibid. ii. 7, 8, 9). That detachments of 
 Israelites, at least once, marched out of Goshen, and undertook 
 an unsuccessful expedition against the Philistines of Gath, is 
 
GEOGRAPniCAL GROUP. 0)3 
 
 evident from 1 Clirou. vil. 21, wlicrc we read — "And Zabad 
 his (Ephraim's) son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer, and 
 Elead, whom the men of Gath that were born in that land 
 slew, because they came down to take away their cattle/' 
 That about the same time, other Israelites had friendly inter- 
 course with the population of Canaan and an adjoining territory, 
 is evident from the 24'th verse of the same chapter, and from 
 1 Chron. iv. 22 and 23; for in the former we read that a 
 daughter of Ephraim built three cities, two of which were 
 Lower and Upper Beth Horon, several times mentioned in the 
 Bible, as in Josh. xvi. 5, and xxi. 22; and in the latter we are 
 informed that sons of Shelah, consequently grandsons of Judah, 
 "owned (property,) in Moab;" and further, that '* these were 
 the potters, and those that dwelt among plants and hedges '^ 
 (i. e. — were gardeners) and that "there tliey dwelt with the 
 kin2[ for his work.'' Now this kinc' could be no other than the 
 king of the country spoken of; that is, Moab. That not all 
 Israelites in Egypt were shepherds, is evident from the 21st 
 verse of chapter iv. of 1 Chron. For therein we are in- 
 formed that the grandsons of Shelah were of " the families of 
 the house of them that wrought fine linen. *^ This is inciden- 
 tally confirmed by the skill displayed in the desert in the 
 weaving of the curtains of the tabernacle. It deserves, farther, 
 to be noticed that the chief artificer engaged in the construc- 
 tion of the tabernacle and its furniture, was Bezaleel of the 
 tribe of Judah (Ex. xxxi. 2), precisely the tribe which in 
 Chronicles is represented to have given birth to all kinds of 
 mechanics and artificers (iv. 14 and 23). That many Israelites in 
 Egypt, if not all, deserted the worship of their fathers and were 
 reproved for it by God, is quite evident from Ezekiel xx. In 
 this chapter, the prophet reproaches Israel with their back- 
 slidings, taking a kind of retrospect, which commences with 
 their sojourn in Egypt. The prophet says (ver. 4 — 8) — '' Cause 
 them (Israel) to know the abomination of their fathers . . 
 
64 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 In the day 1 lifted up my hand unto them, to bring them forth 
 of the land of Egypt . . Then said I unto them_, Cast ye 
 away every man the abomination of his eyes, and defile not 
 yourselves with the idols of Egypt . . But they rebelled 
 against me . . they did not every man cast away the 
 abominations of their own eyes, neither did they forsake the 
 idols of Egypt." The existence of a strong propensity to 
 idolatry incidentally receives confirmation from the readiness 
 of the people to worship the golden calf made by Aaron, the 
 prototype of which evidently was the ox, Apis, with whose 
 worship they must have been familiar in Egypt. 
 
 47. Nor did they altogether keep from intermarrying with 
 the Egyptians. In this, indeed, Joseph had set them an 
 example; and incidentally we learn from Leviticus xxiv. 10, 
 that there was amidst the Israelites '^ the son of an Israelitish 
 woman who was the son of an Egyptian man.'^ In the same 
 way we learn from 1 Chronicles iv. 18, that a descendant of 
 Judah, Mared, was married to Bethiah, a daughter of Pharaoh. 
 But not only did they intermarry with Egyptians, there are 
 also traces that matrimonial alliances were entered into during 
 this period with Syrians. Manasseh, at least, had a Syrian 
 concubine (1 Chron. vii. 14). 
 
 » 48. In the same way, were we to confine our view only to 
 one set of data, we should judge that on the day the Israelites 
 went out from Egypt they were all assembled in one and the 
 same city — Rameses; that they marched out in one single host, 
 accompanied by their herds and flocks; that this immense 
 multitude, in one and the same body, marched on to Sinai, 
 and in fact, through the whole wilderness; that they prac- 
 tised all the commandments given them, except those which 
 liad reference to the Land of Promise ; and that, while in the 
 desert, they were guilty of no other sins except those recorded 
 in the Pentateuch — in fact, that no other incidents connected 
 with the exodus took place except those mentioned. Yet how 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 65 
 
 greatly are these views modified by incidental references, whicli 
 we are going to quote. 
 
 49. That numbers of Israelites were conjirefirated in and 
 about Rameses at the time of the departure is most probable, 
 since this was one of the cities which they were compelled to 
 build (Exod. i. 11). That Pharaoh at the time held his court 
 there, and that it was, consequently, for the time the residence 
 of JVIoses and Aaron, and the heads of the people who acted in 
 concert with them (Exod. iv. 29 — 31), is clear from the rapidity 
 with which the events recorded in the 11th and 12th chapters 
 of Exodus succeeded each other. Had the chiefs of the people 
 stayed any distance from Moses, and j\Ioses any distance from 
 the court, PharaoVs messengers could not have reached ]\Ioses 
 and Aaron on the very night (ibid. xii. 31) on which the first- 
 born of Egypt were smitten, and which took place at midnight ; 
 nor could ]\Ioses and Aaron have placed themselves so quickly 
 in communication with the multitude that marched out in the 
 morning. That, however, all the Israelites were not assembled 
 at Rameses, round Moses and Aaron, and the chiefs, at the 
 departure, but simultaneously on one and the same day, fixed 
 upon before, entered on their march out of Egypt from their 
 various quarters, where they met organised in divers bodies, all 
 converging towards the head of the Red Sea, — is more than 
 hinted at by the repetition six times within thirteen verses 
 (Exod. xiii. 39 — 51) openly or impliedly, that it was the land 
 of Egypt, not Rameses, whence the Israelites departed, and 
 that they did not march out in one body, but in several. 
 
 50. Of the six passages to which we refer, as a proof that, 
 although Israel's head-quarters at the time were at Rameses, as 
 implied by the statement, " And the children of Israel journeyed 
 from Rameses to Succoth,'' and that, therefore tlie historian was 
 justified in speaking of the departure of '' the children of Is- 
 rael,'' when he meant their principal men or their representa- 
 tives, undoubtedly accompanied by a vast multitude — we quote 
 
 P 
 
66 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 verse 39 as tlie most decisive: *' And they (the Israelites) baked 
 unleaven cakes out of the dough which they brought forth out 
 of Egypt, for it was not leaven ; because they were di'iven out 
 of Egypt, and could not tarry/' Now this driving out of the 
 Israelites by the Egyptians (ver. 33) could only refer to the 
 Egyptians of the capital, who urged Israel's departure by the 
 command of Pharaoh (verses 30, 31), and yet we are told that 
 the Israelites were driven out, not from Rameses, whence they 
 set out, but from Egypt. Rameses, therefore, in verse 37, must 
 stand for Egypt, and this reasoning is not aifected whether 
 Rameses was the name of a city only or of the whole district 
 in which the city stood (Genesis xlvii. 11). 
 
 51. In fact, the attentive reader of this chapter will find 
 that the writer, by a common figure of speech, employs indis- 
 criminately the name "of Egypt when he only means the city 
 in which the king then held his court, and vice vei^sa. This 
 frequent use of the whole for a part, and a part for the whole, 
 we have seen, marks the style of the sacred writer also in other 
 analogous designations, as shown before, when we proved that 
 the term "^ elders'^ was often identical in the mind of the sacred 
 writer with "congregation," and ^^congregation" with '^elders." 
 That the Israelites marched out in several bodies, and not in 
 one, as undoubtedly must have been the case had such a vast 
 multitude quitted one city in one and the same day, is evident 
 from verses 41 and 51 of Exod. xii.; for in the 41st verse we 
 read, " The self-same day it came to pass that all the hosts of 
 the Eternal went out from the land of Egypt.^' And again, 
 in verse 51, " And it came to pass the self-same day, that the 
 Eternal did bring out the children of Israel out of the land of 
 Egypt by their hosts," That the Hebrew N!3^, in both these 
 instances, means duly appointed organised bodies, although 
 not necessarily armies, as rendered in the Anglican version, we 
 have shown before (see Philological Group, 9). 
 
 52. That the Israelites, in their passage through the desert, 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 67 
 
 did not march in one compact body, as the Bishop represents 
 it, we have shown before, by a reference to Numb. x. 33, and 
 this is also incidentally proved by Deut. xxv. 18, where 
 Moses told Israel : ^' Amalek smote the hindmost of thee, even 
 all that were feeble behind thee." Had the people marched 
 in one compact mass, those that were feeble would not have 
 been left behind^ but would have been placed in the centre, 
 while a body of valiant men would have brought up the rear. 
 
 53. That the Israelites under Sinai were not encamped in 
 one spot, may be inferred from a singular expression employed 
 by Moses, when interceding for Israel, after the commission 
 of the sin with the golden calf. God having threatened to 
 destroy the people, Moses prays: '^Wherefore should the 
 Egyptians speak and say, For evil did he bring them out, to 
 slay them (Israel) in the mountains^ and to consume them from 
 the face of the ground? " To what mouniains did Moses refer? 
 This is explained in the next phrase, by '^ the face of the 
 ground,'^ where, it is to be observed, TMT^^s (ground), and not 
 Y*^^ (earth) is used. The reference, consequently, in accordance 
 with the general usage of the word, is a special one, limited to 
 the ground then occupied by the Israelites, which, in the pre- 
 ceding parallel passage or hemistich, is said to consist of '' the 
 mountains" — plural, not in singular — when there was only 
 one mountain, with which we had previously been made ac- 
 
 " quainted, and which was Mount Sinai. The Israelites, there- 
 fore, were then not only encamped under Sinai, where no 
 doubt the head quarters were, ]\Ioses and the elders of the 
 people being there, but scattered over the various mountains 
 far and wide in the Sinaitic peninsula, as the necessities of the 
 people required. 
 
 54. Nor were the derelictions of Israel, such as the worship of 
 the gold^ calf, or their joining in the service of Baal-Peor 
 (Numb. xxv. 3) their only sins of idolatry while in the desert. 
 
 Some of them, at least, worshipped idols, which is not even 
 
68 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 incidentally alluded to in the Pentateuch ; for Amos, referring 
 to the sacrifices offered by Israel in the desert, continues 
 (v. 26): " But ye [Israel in the desert] have borne the taber- 
 nacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your 
 god made to yourselves." Here, as clearly as words can 
 announce it, the prophet assures us that Israel, while in the 
 desert, carried along with them certain idols, and their para- 
 phernalia not obtained from others, but made by themselves, 
 which could only have been for worship. 
 
 55. That the Israelites, while in the desert, with the know- 
 ledge of Moses, did not perform some of the commandments of 
 God, can easily be shown. And first, with reference to sacrifices. 
 The whole of Leviticus is nearly taken up with instructions 
 concerning sacrifices ; yet in Deut. xii., Moses, speaking of the 
 sacrifices to be brought by the Israelites when in the Promised 
 Land, contrasting their future condition with their actual state in 
 the desert, continues (ver. 8, 9): "Ye shall not do after all the 
 things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right 
 in his own eyes. For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to 
 the inheritance which the Eternal your God giveth you.'^ It 
 is clear, then, that the Israelites, despite the commandments 
 given them, either did not offer any sacrifices at all, or, when 
 offering, were not guided by the instructions laid down. Now, 
 it must be observed, that Moses does not speak in a reproachful 
 tone, upbraiding Israel for their disobedience, but merely 
 mentions it as a matter of fact. This neglect of an express 
 command is also incidentally referred to by Jeremiah, who 
 goes a step further, conveying to us the information that the 
 commandments concerning sacrifices were not intended to be 
 strictly kept by Israel while in the desert, and, indeed, were 
 worthless unless accompanied by upright walking in the ways 
 of God, and in any case could not be compared in importance 
 to the practice of virtue; for the prophet, in chap, vii., re- 
 proaching Israel with their disobedience to the laws of morality, 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 69 
 
 continues (ver. 22) : '' For I spake not unto your fathers, nor 
 commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the 
 land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices/' 
 
 56. And next, with reference to another most important 
 commandment, so important indeed as to have at all times been 
 considered as the chief pillar upon which the religion of Moses 
 rests, the performance of which is repeatedly enjoined in the 
 Pentateuch, and the neglect of which entailed various and 
 severe disabilities,both temporal and spiritual. We refer to the law 
 of circumcision. Did we not possess the Book of Joshua, we 
 should have firmly believed that whatever other command- 
 ments the Israelites might have transgressed in the desert, 
 circumcision was strictly practised, especially when it is con- 
 sidered that Moses himself was so severely punished for his 
 neglect in this matter (Exod. iv. 24, 25); and yet we learn 
 distinctly from Joshua, that such was not the case, for in 
 chap, v., 5 we read: "Now all the people that came out 
 [of Egypt] were circumcised ; but all the people that were born 
 in the wilderness, by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, 
 them they had not circumcised." And again, in verse 7, "And 
 their children, whom He [God] raised up in their stead, them 
 Joshua circumcised, because they had not circumcised them by 
 the way; ^■' yet not a word of this neglect in the desert of a 
 most sacred command is breathed in the Pentateuch, nor even 
 an incidental allusion made to it. 
 
 57. The universal neglect of so important a commandment 
 for so long a period could not have taken place without Moses' 
 consent. The only reason that can be imagined for this neglect, 
 is the peculiar position in which the Israelites were then placed. 
 Being migratory, not knowing beforehand when the camp 
 would be broken up, or how long they would stay in any place 
 and be exposed to all kinds of hardships, Moses, by the direction 
 of God, probably found it inexpedient to expose the infants to 
 the dangers that under these exceptional circumstances would 
 have threatened their lives. He, consequently, deemed it right 
 
70 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 to suspend this law for a time, however paramount its general 
 importance. We are, therefore, justified in concluding that 
 even as the laws of sacrifices and circumcision, owing to the 
 peculiar circumstances in which Israel were then placed, were 
 temporarily suspended, so were other laws, the observance of 
 of which was either then altogether impracticable, or in their 
 position productive of great inconvenience, although the 
 Pentateuch does not refer to any such suspension. We shall 
 have occasion further on, to show that this was also the case 
 with some other rites which were not performed, although the 
 religious duty of which they formed part were observed. 
 
 58. AVhen we now join all these data together, the direct 
 and indirect ones, those distinctly given, and those arrived at 
 inferentially by a close analysis of passages not primarily 
 intended to furnish information concerning the condition of 
 Israel either in Egypt or the Desert, a picture will be formed 
 materially differing from that which the Bishop holds up to 
 us, and on which he bases the objection which we are now 
 examining. To present to the reader this picture in its com- 
 pleteness, and thus enable him to judge in how far the Bishop's 
 objections are founded, we will now give an historical account 
 of the state of Israel in Egypt and the Desert, supplying those 
 links in the Mosaic narrative, to furnish which lay not in the 
 plan of the sacred writer; who, as we have stated before, 
 designed to write the history of a religious idea, the bearers of 
 which were Israel, and not the history of this people itself. 
 
 Sketch of the History of Israel in Egypt 
 AND the Desert. 
 59. When Jacob and his family arrived in Egypt, they 
 settled, at the command of Pharaoh, in the land of Goshen 
 (subsequently also called Kameses, probably from its capital — 
 Gen. xlvii. 11), not because it was uninhabited, which could 
 hardly have been the case, since the district was one of the 
 most fruitful in the country, but because it was contiguous to 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 71 
 
 the desert, or pasture land, so well suited to the new comers, 
 who were shepherds, and brought with them large herds and 
 flocks. As kinsmen of the principal personage next to the 
 king and his chief counsellor, they enjoyed much consideration, 
 soon entered into friendly relations with the inhabitants, and 
 spread over the whole country, although the main body 
 remained in Goshen, where they intermingled with the 
 Egyptians, and even had Egyptian inmates in their houses 
 (Ex.iii.23). 
 
 60. The extraordinary fertility of the country, the abund- 
 ance of the necessaries of life, the ease with which these could 
 be obtained, the profound peace which they enjoyed, and the 
 fruitfulness of marriages in ancient Egypt in general, coupled 
 with the special Divine blessings resting upon them — pro- 
 moted early and most fruitful marriages (ibid. i. 7). Other 
 circumstances, too, favoured this extraordinary increase. For 
 while the strict division into hereditary castes in Egypt — 
 which, as a rule, admitted of no accessions from without — 
 prevented the absorption of the children of Israel, as the 
 minority, by the surrounding masses forming the majority, 
 there was then nothing either in the institutions or customs of 
 Israel that could have prevented the Egyptians, or individuals 
 of other nations, from joining the descendants of Jacob, and 
 becoming incorporated into their body. Such intermarriages 
 undoubtedly took place (Lev. xiv. 10; 1 Chron. iv. 18). AVhen 
 an Israelite married an Egyptian woman, she naturally had to 
 join his kindred, as he would scarcely have been received into 
 the caste from which she sprang. And when an Egyptian 
 married an Israclitlsh woman, it may be presumed, that, in 
 general, he belonged to one of the humbler castes, as no priest 
 or warrior would have contracted a matrimonial alliance with 
 a tribe of shepherds, and therefore religiously an abomination 
 in the eyes of the Egyptians — at least, the higher classes 
 (Genesis xllii. 32; xlvi. 34). But Egyptians of the humbler 
 classes may be presumed to have been naturally drawn to a 
 
72 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 body of men enjoying, as kinsmen of the prime minister, 
 much consideration, and in possession of much liberty. The 
 only institution that they would have to comply with was cir- 
 cumcision (Gen.xxxiv. 14, 15), and this was then in Egypt a 
 privilege and a characteristic of high caste, as all the priests 
 practised circumcision. j\loreover, circumcision was also 
 practised by other peoples, two of which — Moab and Edom — 
 are distinctly mentioned (Jer. ix. 24, 25). Thus, while Egypt's 
 peculiar institutions did not tend to diminish the number of 
 Israel, intermarriages with the inhabitants were most likely to 
 increase it. 
 
 61. The intercourse with the Egyptians was also much 
 facilitated by the attraction which their sensual worship 
 exercised upon the Israelites. Numbers of these worshipped 
 the gods of the country; and, although the ancestral insti- 
 tutions and traditions were not altogether obliterated from 
 their hearts, yet, as is natural with generations grown up 
 under new influences, these traditions became fainter and 
 fainter; so that Moses had great difficulties in the desert to 
 wean the Israelites from their idolatrous habits, contracted 
 in idolatrous Egypt (Ezek. Xx.4 — 8; Ex. xxxii. 4; Num. 
 XXV. 3). 
 
 62. Although this intercourse spiritually greatly deteriorated 
 Israel's character, yet materially it promoted what we in 
 modern times call civilisation. The Israelites learned from 
 the Egyptians many trades and arts, in some of which they 
 must have been very proficient (1 Chron. iv. 21, 22, 23; Ex. 
 xxvii. 2), and Avhich proved particularly useful to them in the 
 desert, when they had to provide, by their own handiwork, so 
 many necessaries, and to construct the tabernacle. While, 
 therefore, the majority of the people remained attached to the 
 hereditary occupation — that of shepherds — and pastured 
 their herds and flocks in the desert, returning only from time 
 to time to their homes in the land of Goshen, the minority 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GUOUP. 73 
 
 engaged in all kinds of useful works, like the rest of the 
 Egyptians belonging to the lower castes. 
 
 63. But although the main body of the Israelites was 
 settled in Egypt, yet sections of them continued to hold inter- 
 course with the populations to the north of the desert, whence 
 their fathers had immigrated. Artisans among the Israelites 
 entered into friendly relations with ruder tribes, which availed 
 themselves of the higher civilisation of Israelites acquired 
 in Egypt, they being, probably, more easily won by foreigners 
 than the Egyptians, whom national prejudice, or perhaps the law 
 of their country, prevented from emigrating. Other Israelites, 
 again, became during this period foundersof cities in Palestine, 
 and, consequently, were in friendly relations with the inhabi- 
 tants (Chron. ibid.). 
 
 64. But while these peaceful artisans spread abroad the 
 civilisation imparted to them in Egypt, the shepherds, sprung 
 from the same stock, followed the instinct peculiar to roving 
 tribes, and organised a hostile expedition into the neighbouring 
 Philistia, there to carry off the cattle of the inhabitants of ihe 
 city of Gath. But these lawless Ephraimites expiated with 
 their lives the iniquity comtemplated by them. They were 
 slain by the men of Gath. (1 Chron. vii. 21.) 
 
 65. As the Israelites were originally received into Egypt as 
 the king's invited guests, as they were engaged in an occupa- 
 tion repugnant to the notions of the higher castes, and as the 
 Egyptian laws did not admit of the gradual absorption of the 
 Israelites, these were allowed to retain their ancestral institu- 
 tions and organisation. The foundation of this organisation was 
 and remained patriarchal,thechiefsbeingthe heads of the families, 
 who formed the council of the elders, under the presidency of the 
 chiefs or princes of the tribes, although this organisation 
 naturally expanded as the number of the people increased, and 
 althousrh the new exiojencies could not have failed to introduce 
 new modifications. Thus nearly a century from the immi- 
 
74 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 gration of Jacob passed. This period was one of great 
 physical well-being and extraordinary development, although, 
 as we have seen, of spiritual deterioration. 
 
 66. But now a revolution took place in Egypt, which 
 swept from the throne the dynasty under which the Israelites 
 had immigrated, and which had so much befriended them 
 (Exod.i. 8). The new occupant of the throne, as is generally 
 the case with founders of new dynasties, had to pursue a 
 policy quite different from that of his immediate predecessors, 
 and imposed upon him by the necessities of his situation. 
 He had to reward partisans and to keep down the adherents 
 of the fallen reigning family. To the latter the Israelites 
 belonged, who were naturally attached to the late dynasty by 
 ties of gratitude, and who, as an alien population, with few 
 natural sympathies among the mass, had principally to depend 
 for protection on the good will of the king. The position of 
 the new king in reference to the Israelites was one of consider- 
 able difficulty. He dared not employ open violence against them , 
 as they were too numerous for this, and being driven to 
 resistance, might have joined the numerous adherents of the 
 fallen dynasty, whose power was either not yet quite broken, 
 or, if subdued, might, when joined by such a large body, 
 have risen in rebellion. There was, further, danger of their 
 marching out of the country, and joining the sections of their 
 brethren and other kindred tribes in the desert and the north- 
 ern territories, and, thus reinforced, returning and endeavour- 
 ing to overthrow the new dynasty before it had time firmly to 
 establish itself, which would have been for them the less 
 difficult, as they possessed the necessary local knowledge, and 
 might have found secret allies in the friends of the former 
 king (ibid. 9). It, therefore, became necessary to proceed with 
 sreat caution. The result of the king's deliberations was a 
 subtle scheme calculated to break their power by degrees, to 
 exhaust them by hard labour, to brutalise by cruel treatment. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 75 
 
 and ultimately to exterminate them, or to reduce them into a 
 state of slavery, believing as lie did that an abject soul was 
 the best security against aspirations after freedom. We shall 
 see, further on, how successful this plan was, since this mental 
 abjectness was one of the greatest difficulties which Israel's 
 Divine lawgiver had to encounter. 
 
 67. It will be easily understood that the plan was kept a 
 profound state secret, and that it was carried out with subtlety 
 step by step, and that the first imposition of the task did not 
 present itself as forced labour. By the previous dynasty, the 
 Israelites had been employed as shepherds (xlviii. 6) . This 
 employment was, under some pretence or another, changed 
 into service in the field and building. They were told that 
 the services to be performed were in lieu of taxes due by 
 subjects to the sovereign, and accordingly, the next step was 
 to appoint officers charged with raising this tribute from the 
 Israelites (ibid. i. 11). By degrees the yoke was rendered 
 heavy, the bondage systematised and they were compelled by 
 physical force to build the cities of Eameses and Pithom. 
 The king himself came to Rameses, in the land of Goshen, 
 there to superintend their labours, and to be on the spot to 
 crush any attempt at resistance. These labours, however, 
 were only due to the king, and not the people. The 
 Israelites were exclusively the king's bondsmen, for whom, 
 according to his directions, they had either to work in the 
 fields or carry out his building schemes. 
 
 68. The existing organisation proving useful to the kin<>-*s 
 projects, it was allowed to continue (ibid. ver. 4). By o-ivino- 
 his orders to the heads of the tribes, choosing the subordinate 
 officers from the Israelites, and holding these responsible for 
 the strict fulfilment of his orders, he had a much strono-er 
 hold on them than if he had attempted to dissolve the existing 
 organisation and substituted another less suited to the character 
 traditions, and customs of the people. In accordance with 
 
76 THE TENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 this organisation, wliicli left the internal management of the 
 people to their own chiefs, the labour was not imposed upon 
 every individual. At first only a small amount of work was 
 laid upon the whole people, distributed among the mass by the 
 elders, and which was neither burdensome nor occupying much 
 time. By degrees the work was increased, and became more 
 fatiguing. A larger number of persons had for the purpose to 
 be told off by the heads, and these had to work many hours 
 more every day, in order to accomplish the prescribed task 
 within the fixed time (ibid. ver. 8). Thus the bondage grew 
 more grievous from year to year, in proportion as the despot's 
 throne became more firmly established, the people more 
 broken-spirited, and less apt to resist. Nevertheless, the whole 
 people never simultaneously worked, as they possessed property 
 of their own, and especially herds and flocks, which required 
 their attention ; and as time must have been allowed to them 
 to work for themselves in order to maintain their families. 
 Moreover, the elders of the people were not restricted in their 
 intercourse with Moses and Aaron, nor were they themselves, 
 although Hebrews, compelled by the task-masters to work. 
 Thus we see, when Pharaoh became angry with them, he does 
 not order them to go to work themselves, but only says: 
 "Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, disturb the people from 
 their works?" (ibid. iv. 5). To judge from analogous cases 
 (1 Kings, iv. 27, 28), the able-bodied population was told off 
 in detachments to the work, relieving each other in a certain 
 prescribed order from time to time. 
 
 69. Although we are not told so, yet we may easily imagine 
 that as many as could escape from this slavery fled, and either 
 led a nomadic life in the desert or joined their brethren in the 
 various tribes among which they sojourned, Moses himself 
 being a conspicuous example thereof. However, only compa- 
 ratively few could escape, as the frontiers, no doubt, were well 
 guarded, and as care was probably taken not to allow any Is- 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 77 
 
 raelite to pass the frontiers unless he left hostages behind 
 — probably a family — guaranteeing his return in due time. It 
 is also probable that the heads of the families were held re- 
 sponsible for their respective members, and who therefore, as a 
 rule, did not attempt to flee, as their escape would have brought 
 a great calamity on their chiefs. Under all circumstances, how- 
 ever, there must at all times have been a large number of Isra- 
 elites beyond the frontiers, although at fixed periods they may 
 have had to return in order to take their share in the work by 
 turns. 
 
 70. At last, when the king believed that the last spark of 
 independence had been extinguished in the people, he pro- 
 ceeded to the final measure, which was to brinf^^ about their 
 gradual extinction. With the cunning which he has displayed 
 in all these proceedings, he at first wished to attain his object 
 by secret means. He ordered the midwives to destroy all 
 Hebrew male-children at the birth. Here he met with the 
 first check. These undaunted women dared to brave the wrath 
 of the king. While the men were slavishly cowed under the lash 
 of the task-masters, these midwives, without diso-uise, crave the 
 tyrant to understand that they refused to become his tools in 
 the perpetration of the crimes ordered by him. The crafty ty- 
 rant was therefore compelled to throw off the mask. An order 
 was given to the Egyptians so seize every babe if a male, and 
 to drown it. Whether this atrocious order met with resis- 
 tance from the Egyptians themselves, not prepared to go the 
 length of their king — or, what is more probable, the 
 carrying out of this order gave rise to frequent collisions with 
 the relatives of these infants, who with the natural instincts of 
 parents resisted the executioners — or whether he dreaded a 
 rising of the mass, driven to despair and wounded in its deepest 
 feelings — the order was soon revoked, as shown by the sequel, 
 since these murders had not perceptibly checked the popular 
 increase, which must have been the case had any large number 
 of children been destroyed. 
 
78 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 71. But while the Israelites groaned under their heavy 
 bondage, the future deliverer meditated in the desert on their 
 fate. The accounts which Moses must have received from time 
 to time of the sad condition of his brethren, either from fugitive 
 Israelites like himself, or from Hebrew shepherds^ who with 
 the permission of the Egyptians came to feed their flocks in 
 the desert, must have rent his heart. In due time, the mission 
 of the deliverance of his people from Egypt was entrusted to 
 him. He knew before he left Midian that he would have to 
 lead his people to Mount Horeb (ibid. iii. 12) ; and we cannot 
 doubt but that he explored the region fully, and made every 
 preparation for the purpose, as far as lay in his power. His 
 mission became known in Egypt before his arrival; for his 
 brother Aaron was commanded by God to go out to meet him. 
 The people, remembering the valiant man burning with love for 
 them, who in the former reign had defended an ill-used brother 
 at the risk of his own life, and the distinguished position he had 
 formerly held at the Egyptian court, as the adopted child of a 
 princess, were predisposed to give him a friendly reception and a 
 willing hearing. And when he performed the miracles intended 
 to convince the people of his Divine mission, they gave him 
 their full confidence. Moses now, in concert with the elders 
 whom the king held at Kameses, either as hostages for the 
 tranquility of Israel, or as a convenient machinery for carrying 
 out his orders, matured still further his plans, and made the 
 arrangements requisite for insuring success. And although 
 the king proved more obstinate to the representations of Moses 
 than the people seemed to expect, and although there were 
 fluctuations in their minds, and even moments of profound 
 despondency, when they altogether despaired of the success of 
 his mission, yet he knew how to inspire them with confidence 
 and to keep up their courage. 
 
 72. More and more his plans unfolded and became matured. 
 The people were divided into detachments, places of meeting 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 79 
 
 appointed, signals agreed upon, and at last the exact time for 
 the departure fixed. Those beyond the frontier of Egypt were 
 warned not to return, but to direct their march towards Horeb, 
 and others assisted to escape. Herds and flocks, in as large 
 numbers as possible, were led into the desert. The people 
 were ordered to provide themselves with all necessaries for the 
 journey, but not to encumber themselves with any household 
 stuff or other things useless in a long journey. Instead of 
 these he advised the people to demand, or perhaps to borrow 
 from the Egyptians articles_, small in size and yet great in value, 
 and by means of which they might in due time replace 
 what they would have to leave behind. A stock of garments 
 would be particularly useful to them, since those which they 
 might have on at their departure could not be easily replaced 
 when worn out, for want of implements to work up the raw 
 materials. Garments, moreover, admitted of being packed in 
 bundles of any size^ and would serve as covering in the night, 
 as protection both from heat in the summer and cold in the 
 winter. Garments, therefore, they were to demand from the 
 Egyptians, as well as the portable precious metals (ibid. xii. 
 35). Moses scrupled the less to give the people this advice, as 
 he knew that the Egyptians could easily, and would of a surety 
 indemnify themselves for the losses sustained; for as the Isra- 
 elites would have to leave behind their houses, their landed 
 property, and all other chattels that could either not be trans- 
 ported or were not required for the journey, these naturally 
 would pass into the possession of the Egyptians, who would 
 have to repay themselves for any article given to the fugitives. 
 Indeed, this advice to the people was only an act of justice to 
 them, whereby they saved a portion of the property, which he 
 knew would be confiscated by the Egyptians, and which must 
 have far exceeded in value any articles or sums which the 
 Egyptians could have given the departing people. 
 
 73. At last the hour of deliverance struck. The Israelites 
 
80 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 had been fully prepared. There they stood, their loins girded 
 and their staves in their hands — the young children and the 
 sick and delicate sitting in waggons or on beasts of burden — 
 and at the signal given they had "only to take up the bundles 
 ready packed. Moses and Aaron placed themselves at the 
 head of the organised multitude at Rameses, while the other 
 leaders marshalled their respective companies in the other 
 meeting-places all throughout Egypt, as agreed upon ; and so 
 well were their measures concerted, that all these divisions set 
 out on one and the same day, all directing their march towards 
 the common place of meeting, at the edge of the desert, at the 
 head of the gulf now called the Gulf of Suez, with the view of 
 passing it, and then turning towards the east, picking up on 
 the march the various bodies either waiting for or preceding 
 them, and at last joining in the Desert of Sinai. 
 
 74. The whole Israelitish population settled in Egypt, repre- 
 sented by the chiefs at Rameses, was about 600,000 adult males, 
 many of whom, or perhaps even the majority, had contrived 
 previously in small bodies to reach the desert, there to await 
 the rest of their brethren and the leaders. Many other fellow- 
 slaves, not of Israelitish descent, contrived in the moment of 
 confusion to escape together with the Israelites, whom the 
 Pentateuch designates a " mixed multitude ^' (ibid. xii. 38), and 
 to whom the humanity of Moses offered shelter and protection, 
 although by their number and evil propensities they greatly in- 
 creased his anxieties and difficulties. Having arrived at Etham, 
 on the edge of the desert, at the head of the gulf, or close to it, 
 Moses was disquieted by apprehension lest the warlike Philis- 
 tines, whose dominions extended from the south of Palestine 
 to the northern border of the gulf (Gen.xxvi. 1), mistrusting 
 the intentions of Israel, should attack them. There had been 
 before an unsuccessful attack of Israelites on Philistines 
 (1 Chron. vii. 21), and these might now suspect a similar 
 expedition. The rumour seemed to have reached Moses at 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 81 
 
 Etham (Ex. xiii. 17), deserved careful consideration. For this 
 obstacle he seemed not to have been prepared. Encumbered 
 as the detachment led by him was with women and children — 
 comparatively few as were the able-bodied men witli him, since 
 large bodies, which had preceded him in small sections, were 
 far away from him — and destitute of arms, as most of the peo- 
 ple with him were — he was not in a position to offer battle to 
 an experienced, well-equipped enemy, without any encum- 
 brance. Advance was fraught with the greatest danger, as 
 the people, at the very sight of war, might in a panic have 
 fled back to Egypt. Retreat would only have led them back 
 to Egypt and to former slavery. Nor was it possible to remain 
 where he was, as he would thus have been placed in the middle 
 between the Philistines in the front and the Egyptians in the 
 rear, nothing being more likely than that these two nations 
 would act in concert. Nothing, therefore, remained for him 
 but to retrace his steps, and then to march eastward, skirting 
 the gulf on the side of Egypt. He, at all events, thus avoided 
 the dreaded attack of the Philistines. Time might thus be 
 gained for ascertaining the correctness of the report that had 
 reached him, for giving them the pledges required for his 
 peaceful intentions, and for thus enabling him to continue his 
 journey unopposed. Little did he know that this obstacle, 
 which appeared to him so formidable, was raised in order to 
 give Israel, once for all, a striking proof of God's special Pro- 
 vidence watching over them, and for bringing retribution on 
 the wicked Egyptians, whose measure of iniquity was now 
 full. 
 
 75. At the command of God, the Israelites halted between 
 Migdol and the sea. The effect of this retrograde movement, 
 with the cause of which Pharaoh did not seem to have been 
 acquainted, was that he believed that Moses had become per- 
 plexed, wavering, doubtful which way to take, and, like all 
 irresolute persons, was marching forwards and backwards; and 
 
 Q 
 
82 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 findinof tliat the Hebrew leader had shut himself out from the 
 desert, by placing the sea like a barrier between his people and the 
 only region into which escape might be possible, he resolved at 
 once to catch the Israelites in the trap into which they had been 
 led by their own chief. The organisation of Egypt, where the 
 soldiers formed a special caste, always ready for war, enabled 
 him to assemble his forces without delay, and he reached Israel, 
 as he expected, on the border of the sea. The danger which 
 Moses had apprehended from an attack of the Philistines now 
 presented itself in a much more formidable shape. The people 
 were unable to fight, for the reason given; nor could they 
 advance or retreat. This was the moment God had chosen for 
 the performance of the most striking miracle recorded by reve- 
 lation. A powerful east wind, blowing for hours, drove back 
 the water, and laid bare a broad channel. The Israelites 
 marched forward; and as the greater part of their herds and 
 flocks, as well as large bodies of the people, were already on 
 the other side of the sea, the detachment under Moses could 
 effect their passage in one night. The Egyptians, who pro- 
 bably mistook this miraculous division of the waters for a very 
 low tide, precipitately followed the Israelites; and as the wind, 
 the moment the latter had reached the opposite coast ceased to 
 blow, the waters, no longer kept out of their channel by the 
 violence of the hurricane, rushed back into their bed, and 
 buried the pursuing Egyptians under their waves. 
 
 76. But this departure from the route originally marked out 
 by Moses for the march of the people, seemed to have consider- 
 ably disarranged his plans, rendering some of his preparations 
 unavailable. The people now came into regions where there 
 was no water, or where the water was so bitter that it was 
 quite undrinkable. Special Divine interposition became neces- 
 sary ; and it was granted them. Their first stay they made at 
 Marah, probably with the view of awaiting the arrival of other 
 detachments. Here the great leader had leisure for framing 
 
GF.OGRAPHICAL GROUP. 83 
 
 some general laws and sanitary regulations, the strict observance 
 of which was doubly requisite in tlie encampments of such a 
 vast multitude in so sultry a climate. They were accordingly 
 promulgated with the Divine sanction, strictly enjoined by the 
 voice of God, and the promise given that those adhering to 
 them would be free from the diseases with whicli Egypt was 
 visited (ibid. xv. 2G). 
 
 77. Six weeks after their departure from Egypt, the provi- 
 sions which the people had brought out with them were con- 
 sumed, and no other food but their cattle and their produce 
 remained. But the consumption of their cattle would only 
 have averted the famine for a short time. They would, more- 
 over, have thereby altogether lost the milk and the products 
 made therefrom, as well as the fleece, so requisite for clothing. 
 They would, further, have lost all chance of supplying their 
 other wants, by the exchange of these products for other 
 articles. This remedy, therefore, was not available. A special 
 Divine interposition once more became requisite, and once 
 more it was granted. Henceforth they were miraculously 
 supplied with manna (ibid. xvi. 4). 
 
 78. However favourable to Moses' scheme had been IsraeFs 
 organisation in Egypt, it was clearly not suited for a migratory 
 population, whose condition of existence, under the pressure of 
 new emergencies, had so greatly changed. Its defects had 
 become more and more evident in the march to Sinai. But 
 the moment for re-organisation had not yet come. This was 
 to be effected at a subsequent period, in connection with the 
 erection of a sanctuary and a census. ^Meanwhile the multi- 
 tude, without strict order, journeyed towards Sinai, the place of 
 meeting agreed upon. The consequence was, that while the 
 strong and able-bodied pushed on, the weak, sick, and way- 
 worn lagged behind. 
 
 79. While thus marching, without military order and with- 
 out due precaution, Amalek, with a considerable force, attacked 
 
84 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 these stragglers (Dent. xxv. 18). It may be presumed, tLat 
 Amalek, who lived on the northern borders of the desert,, and 
 was more familiar with it than any of the more remote tribes, 
 was instigated by these to attack Israel suddenly^ and to destroy 
 them, and thus to prevent the intended invasion, reports of 
 which had reached them, and which they greatly dreaded 
 (Exod. XV. 14, 15, 16). Notice of the attack soon reached 
 Moses, who was in advance with the main body. Fortunately, 
 Moses was now in a much better position to meet the assailants 
 than he had been three months before, when successively 
 threatened first by the Philistines and afterwards by the Egyp- 
 tians. He then had with him a comparatively small number of 
 able-bodied men, who, moreover, had few or no arms, but 
 instead thereof were encumbered with a crowd of women and 
 children. But now, having been joined by many other de- 
 tachments, and being in possession of a considerable store of 
 arms, some of which had been brought out from Egypt, while 
 others, during the two months, had been procured from friendly 
 tribes — perhaps the neighbouring Midianites — and, again, a 
 third supply obtained from the drowned army of Egyptians, 
 whom the waves of the sea cast out (ibid. xiv. 30) — Moses 
 despatched at once to the rear a valiant force, imder that able 
 captain who subsequently proved his great strategic skill — 
 Joshua. Great valour and skill were, indeed, necessary to 
 inspire bands of slaves, untrained in the use of arms, with the 
 necessary courage and confidence in their leader, to fight an 
 enemy who, having come for the purpose of attacking, was 
 no doubt well-equipped, and provided with all kinds of wea- 
 pons. The position was truly critical — critical enough to fill 
 Moses with earnest apprehension. Yet the presence of the 
 Divine leader lifting up his hands in prayer, conspicuous to 
 the combatants from the hill which he occupied, and the 
 generalship of Joshua, ultimately achieved a complete victory. 
 Israel now, without further hindrance, continued their march 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 85 
 
 to Sinai, where they arrived in the third month after their 
 departure from Egypt. 
 
 80. In the three months that had elapsed between the de- 
 parture of Israel from Egypt and their arrival at Sinai, all 
 sections of the people, whether sojourning with desert tribes in 
 adjoining territories, or wandering about as nomads, had had 
 time to repair to the "mountain of God;'^ so that the whole 
 people were assembled in its vicinity. While Moses, with the 
 elders and other prominent persons, took up their position at 
 the foot of the mountain, the multitude spread around far and 
 wide in the neif]i;hbourinQ: wadies and mountains. It was not 
 without good reason that Sinai had been selected as the scene 
 of the great work which was to be accomplished. Between 
 Sinai and Canaan stretched the formidable desert of El Tyh 
 protecting the people from any sudden attaclc from the north. 
 The Red Sea and the easily defended defiles along its coasts 
 barred out the Egyptians. Here, therefore, there was no oc- 
 casion for Moses to fear any disturbance in the performance of 
 the extraordinary task before him. Moreover, the friendly 
 tribe of the Midianites (1 Sam. xv. 6) Avas near enough at 
 hand to prove useful to the people; while Sinai itself, as we 
 have shown before, was capable of yielding the necessary 
 supply of water from at least one perennial brook. With the 
 water there were also trees and pasturage. 
 
 81. Moses, immediately on his arrival, made the necessary 
 preparations for the stupendous event, the scene of which, 
 Sinai was destined to be. The people were commanded to 
 sanctify themselves, boundary lines were drawn around the 
 mountain, and guards placed, who had orders not to allow either 
 man or beast to trespass upon them (Exod. xix. 12, 13) — orders 
 which were absolutely necessary to prevent the confusion and 
 the rush, with their concomitant calamities, which must neces- 
 sarily have ensued, had these precautionary measures not been 
 adopted. 
 
86 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 82. At last, the Ten Commandments were proclaimed on 
 Smaij and mankind rescued for ever from tlie mental darkness 
 in which they had groped before. Other laws were likewise 
 given and principles enunciated, which have since become the 
 basis of the various codes of all civilised nations. The tempo- 
 rary tent of Moses without the camp, where he had Divine 
 revelations, was now replaced by a permanent one — the 
 tabernacle. The Divine service, which was to be national, 
 and obligatory — Divine service by individuals, whether by 
 sacrifice or prayer, was quite voluntary (Lev. i. 3) — was duly 
 arranged, and a census of the people taken, which was sub- 
 sequently made the basis of their re-organisation. 
 
 83. The sojourn under Sinai was moreover marked by two 
 incidents. The first was the visit of Jethro to Moses. Al- 
 though the account of it precedes that of the arrival of the 
 people under Sinai (Ex. xviii. 5), yet it evidently took place 
 afterwards, as is clear from verse 5, where we are distinctly 
 told that Moses was at the time encamped at the mountain of 
 of God. We notice on purpose this transposition, because it 
 is distinctly represented as such by the sacred text, and not 
 because it is the only one. On the contrary,there are numbers of 
 other transpositions in the Pentateuch which are not recognised 
 as such at first sight, as in the case of the narrative under 
 notice, and which are only discovered by close examination. 
 
 84. However, to return from this disgression, the visit of 
 Jethro resulted in advice to Moses, which was productive of 
 great benefits both to him and the people. At Jethro's 
 suggestion, an important modification was introduced into 
 Israel's organisation. Hitherto, all offices among the people, 
 as is characteristic of the patriarchal system, were hereditary. 
 It was the chiefs of the families, and in a higher instance the 
 princes of the tribe, who, according to ancient custom, settled 
 all differences between Israelite and Israelite. But the total 
 change produced by the conversion of a settled into a migratory 
 
GEOGRAPJIICAL GROUP. 87 
 
 population, rendered the ancient institutions and precedents 
 inapplicable. And since mental acuteness and love of justice 
 cannot be transmitted without fail from sire to son_, in the same 
 way as hereditary offices, the heads of the families were not 
 always competent for the performance of the new duties. Tlie 
 administration of justice, therefore, devolved upon Moses 
 himself. The laboriousness of this task is w^ell described in 
 the same chapter of Exodus, verse 12. The advice given by 
 the wise and experienced Jethro to his son-in-law, was to 
 introduce a new element into the popular constitution. Leav- 
 ing the hereditary transmission of office intact, and maintaining 
 it as a dignity, he advised Moses to transfer the administration 
 of justice to men to be elected for their qualifications. Here 
 we see the first inroad on the patriarchal system, by the system 
 of delegation, laying the foundation of a principle which was 
 subsequently greatly developed, and which wrought great 
 changes in Israel's constitution. 
 
 85. The second incident was by no means of so gratifying 
 a nature. The speedy defection of the people from the God of 
 Israel, and their worship of the golden calf, impressed Moses 
 with a conviction of the absolute necessity of a radical change 
 in one of the most important provisions only made a few 
 months before. AVhen, during the last plague on the Nile, the 
 first-born of Egypt were smitten ; the first-born of Israel were 
 consecrated for the service of God (ibid. xiii. 12, 13). They 
 were to perform the sacred functions of Levites and priests, 
 in their respective family circles, and in the future sanctuary. 
 The speedy revival of the Apis- worship among the people, 
 and the ready acquiescence of tlie mass in it, convinced Moses 
 of the unsuitableness of this institution. Scattered as the 
 first-born were among the whole people, they were necessarily 
 actuated by the motives prompting the rest of the population, 
 subject to the same influences and sharing with them all their 
 habits, propensities, passions, and superstitions. Nor was it 
 
88 THE TENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 easy to fit them for the holy office to which they had been 
 called. The agency that would have had to be employed for 
 the purpose must have extended over the whole people, as it 
 would have been impracticable to separate the firstborn from 
 the tribes to which they belonged, to sever the relations in 
 which they stood to their families^ and to form them into a 
 distinct body, under special regulations, and occupying a 
 station of their own. Such an agency, from the very numbers 
 over which it must have extended, could only have failed in 
 its purpose. 
 
 86. It was evident that the institution of the firstborn must 
 be replaced by another free from the defects inherent in the one 
 established,, by its very constituents better adapted for the high 
 calling for which it was destined, and admitting of a speedy 
 and thorough training for the performance of its important 
 duties. All these conditions Avere fulfilled in the tribe of Levi. 
 It was the least numerous of all, and therefore more easily 
 taught and controlled. It was the tribe from which Moses 
 sprang, and therefore, by the feeling of clanship, personally 
 more attached to him than the rest of the people. The 
 ancestral horror of idolatry had also been preserved in their 
 hearts with greater vigor than in other tribes, as was evidenced 
 by their conduct during the defection of Israel, when all the 
 sons of Levi rallied round Moses and became willingr instru- 
 ments in his hands for the chastisement of the worshippers of 
 the golden calf, and particularly from the eulogium passed 
 on them by Moses in Deut. xxxiii. 8 — 11. The tribe of Levi, 
 therefore, was selected for the office a year before intended for 
 the first-born, and from this tribe itself, a new selection was 
 made in the person of Aaron and his family, on whom the 
 priesthood was conferred. It is the regulations laid down for 
 this priesthood which have exercised a powerful influence, felt 
 down to our days. It is from this priesthood that subsequently 
 other creeds, based upon the revelation on Sinai, took their own 
 
GEOGRAPniCAL GROUP. 89 
 
 ideas tliereof; and it is after the pattern of Aaron's priesthood 
 that they fashioned their own, and by the development of this 
 idea, created a moral revolution among mankind, which is 
 transforming the human race. 
 
 87. In connection with the transfer of the priesthood to the 
 Levites was the general census of the people then taken, and 
 and this again was preliminary to the new organisation which 
 Moses now gave the tribes. They were divided into four large 
 sections, not greatly differing in number, and to each section 
 assigned a fixed place for encampment. The centre was 
 formed by the tabernacle, around which the Levites were 
 encamped, while the four other sections occupied each their 
 position in the front and rear thereof, as well as on the right 
 and left. This order once established, was, as a rule, not 
 departed from, whether the people were resting or marchin<y 
 (Numb. X. 4 — 28). When occasion, however, required, the 
 ark carried by the Levites was in the front of the people (ibid, 
 ver. 33). This established order was of great advantage to the 
 people, since it prevented all confusion in their journeys, every 
 section knowing the exact time when to set out, and since it 
 enabled every straggler to find out without difficulty his own 
 tribe, and everybody else to find the person whom he wished 
 to see. 
 
 88. The camp, or rather camps, extended over large tracts 
 of land, very likely occupying an area of one hundred square 
 miles. On this point we have, of course, no express inform- 
 ation. But still there is a broad hint, more than justifying 
 this assumption, as may be inferred from Numbers xi. In 
 this chapter, the dissatisfaction of the people with the manna, 
 and their hankering after flesh-meat, and the fulfilment of 
 their wish, are described. We consequently read in ver. 31, 
 "And there went forth a wind from the Eternal and brouo^ht 
 forth quails from the sea, and let them fall on the camp, about 
 a day's journey on this side, and about a day's journey on the 
 
90 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 other side, about [or ratlier the circuits, rt^^5Pj ^^ ] ^^^^ camp/' 
 As tlie camp formed a quadrangle, each side of which was 
 about one day's journey, it was in reality a square, or at least 
 approaching this shape. Now if we estimate a day's journey 
 at ten miles, the whole area occupied was about one hundred 
 miles. And this area would approximate that which we 
 should have imagined the camps to have occupied, considering 
 that the sanitary regulations required ample space, and that 
 pens were necessary for their herds and flocks, and would, 
 further, be in accordance with what we read of the immense 
 extent of ground occupied by cities in primaeval times, when 
 Thebes had a hundred gates, and Nineveh was three days' 
 journey. It may perhaps be objected that the phrase '^ about 
 the camp," has no reference to the camp itself, but simply 
 means that the layer of quails extended a day's journey, each 
 side beyond the camp : but in this case, as the text distinctly 
 says, that these birds also were all over the camp, we should 
 have to add its area to that of '^a day's journey;" and if the 
 length of one side of the camp was ten miles, then the whole 
 area occupied by the layer of quails would have been 10 + 10 = 
 20 X 20 = 400, i. e., the quails would have occupied a space of 
 400, instead of 100 miles; and as the layer was about 2 cubits 
 high, the phenomenon would border on the incredible. 
 
 89. Engaged in these important labours — in the promulga- 
 tion of new laws, in the erection of the tabernacle, in its 
 consecration, in the census of the people and their reorganiza- 
 tion, in the transfer of the priestly office to the Levites, and 
 out of them to the family of Aaron, and in their consecration 
 and training — a year passed under Sinai; a year that may be 
 pronounced to have been the birth-year of the nation and the 
 starting point of the world's moral regeneration — a year so 
 eventful, so solemn, and so important, as to be unequalled in 
 the history of any other nation. 
 
 90. Having, at the command of God, celebrated the second 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 91 
 
 Passover under Sinai, the camp was broken up, and tlie peo- 
 ple, in the prescribed order, set itself in motion toward Kadesh. 
 Slow were their marches, as rendered necessary by the number 
 of children, sick and infirm persons, and by the herds and flocks 
 which were scattered far and wide over pasture-grounds and 
 wliich were led at leisure towards the new stations occupied 
 successively — and, furtlier, by tlie hewers of wood and drawers 
 of water, who had to furnish the people with the necessaries 
 which they had to provide, and the caravans which visited 
 distant tribes for trading purposes. So slow, indeed, were 
 these journeys, that the distance from Sinai to Kadesh, which 
 could be traversed in a few days, occupied several months; for 
 although the people set out from Sinai early in the spring, 
 they only arrived at Kadesh at the ripening of the grapes 
 (Numb. xiii. 20), which, of course, was late in the summer. 
 
 91. The people having now been under his training for 
 nearly two years, having been re-organised, supplied with arms, 
 and, no doubt, practised in their use, Moses hoped that he 
 might now with safety lead Israel to the conquest of the land 
 promised by God to their forefathers. To test the disposition 
 of the people, and to inspire them with courage, to take 
 possession of their goodly inheritance, he, at the command 
 of God, selected at Kadesh twelve influential men, con- 
 spicuous in their respective tribes and fair representatives of the 
 popular sentiment. These he commissioned to spy the land 
 and report to the people their impressions. But another bitter 
 experience, perhaps the bitterest for the high-soulcd man, was 
 now in store for him. He had yet to learn that two years were 
 by far insufficient, even under the training of a Moses, to raise 
 an abject mass to the level of freemen, and to inspire slaves 
 with the courage of heroes. He had yet to learn that a gene- 
 ration so brokon-spirltedj so cowed and crushed as the Israelites 
 had been in Egypt, had lost all power to raise themselves, 
 even after the removal of the weight which pressed them down. 
 
9*2 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 The report of the returning spies only reflected the popular 
 feeling. The treasure was attractive enough, but alas^ the 
 dragon that guarded it was too terrible to be overcome. The 
 doom of the cowardly generation was now sealed. They were 
 to perish in the desert, and their children, brought up under 
 new influences, were destined to be the heirs of the promise 
 made to the fathers. Thirty-eight years longer were they 
 doomed to spend in the desert. To avoid an attack of the 
 Canaanites, Moses now led the reluctant and restless people 
 back into the desert, towards the gulf of Akaba. 
 
 92. As yet we have been able to place before our readers 
 the eventful history of these two years as a connected whole, 
 and in chronological order. But now we have arrived at a 
 period which presents to us a comparative blank, and even the 
 few events recorded are narrated without strict attention to 
 chronological order. We are left to inferential evidence to 
 arrange these events in proper order. This silence of the sacred 
 historian, however, can be easily accounted for. The work of 
 the law-giving and of organisation was accomplished* The 
 encampments of the people were protracted, and the incidents 
 giving rise to new laws were few. The days, weeks, and 
 years, as they passed, resembled each other, without being 
 marked by any occurrence the memory of which might have 
 proved useful to posterity. There is only one event which 
 marked this dreary period, and which seemed to have been in 
 direct connection with the fact which doomed the unworthy 
 generation to perish in the desert. This event, which stands 
 out in bold relief, and more than any other exhibits the popu- 
 lar character, was the rebellion of Korah. It was a civil as 
 well as religious rebellion. While the lay conspirators, with 
 the impatience and suUenness of suddenly emancipated slaves, 
 in their short-sightedness reproached Moses for his presumed 
 inability to redeem his pledge, and bring them to a land flow' 
 ing with milk and honey, the Levitical rebels charged Moses 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 93 
 
 and Aaron with ambition and sclf-aggrandiscment (Num. xvi. 
 3, 13, 14). The littleness of their own minds disabled them 
 from gauging that of a man who, in his youth, while luxuriating 
 in a royal palace as the adopted son of a princess, went forth to 
 see the burdens of his brethren, and in the defence of one of 
 them imperilled his own life, and who in his old age, when the 
 highest power was within his own grasp, allowed his children 
 to sink into obscurity, entrusting the spiritual office to his 
 brother, and the temporal dignity to one in no way related to 
 him by the ties of blood. Joshua, the successor of Moses, was 
 not even of the tribe of Levi. 
 
 93. How many years of the thirty-eight passed before the 
 people again bent their steps towards Kadesh, we are not in- 
 formed. But in the fortieth year after their departure from 
 Egypt, we find them again encamped in the same place where 
 they had been thirty -eight years before. The events which 
 now occurred again thicken upon us, - and once more we are 
 left to inferential evidence to reduce them to exact chronological 
 order. We only ascertain from the plain word of the text that 
 the death of Aaron preceded the second census, the episode 
 with Balak, King of Moab, and the attack on the Midianites 
 by Israel; for, in these occurrences, it is Eleazer, Aaron^s son, 
 and not Aaron that acts as high priest. We are certainly in- 
 formed (Numb. XX. 1) that the Israelites arrived in the first 
 month in the desert of Tzin. But we are not told whether it 
 was the thirty-ninth or fortieth year of their wanderings. 
 Here Moses and Aaron incurred the Divine displeasure by 
 their inattention to the execution of a Divine command, in 
 the performance of a miracle for the supply of water to the 
 parched people, and which was intended to sanctify the name 
 of the Lord (ibid. 12). Soon afterwards (ibid, xxxiii. 38) — 
 that is, in the fifth month of the fortieth year — Aaron died, 
 and was succeeded in the priesthood by his son Eleazer. Hav- 
 ing conquered Sihon and Og, and taken possession of their 
 
94 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED, 
 
 territories, Moses led the victorioug people to tlie eastern banks 
 of the Jordan, in the plain of Moab, and there, in a remarkably 
 pathetic and affecting speech, he gave the people a succinct 
 account of God's dealings with them since their departure from 
 Egypt, repeated the principal commandments, and added some 
 new ones; and, having foretold the future of his people, and 
 embodied his sentiments and experiences in one of the loftiest 
 poems ever composed, this extraordinary man — the like of 
 whom has not risen since — gave his parting blessing to the 
 people whom he loved more than himself; and having cast a 
 wistful glance at the goodly land which God had promised 
 them — but, alas ! which it was not his lot to enter — he died 
 on Mount Nebo. 
 
 94. We have now brought to a close our sketch of the his- 
 tory of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, the exodus, and 
 their journeys in the desert, in as far as it was conducive to 
 our purpose, and further have, in the course of our narrative, 
 pointed out several of the Bishop's objections, which are 
 thereby removed. These objections are chiefly formulated in 
 chapters 11, 12, 20, and 21 of the Bishop's Avork; and it now 
 devolves upon us to make the proper application of our general 
 sketch to the special propositions laid down by the Bishop, so 
 that their untenableness may be seen at once. 
 
 The March out of Egypt (Chap. xi.). 
 
 95. In this chapter, the Bishop raises a number of objections, 
 which may be formulated in the following proposition: — 
 
 96. According to the text, two million of people, with their 
 multitudinous flocks and herds, must have started from Eame- 
 ses at a moment^s notice. Moreover, how could all these beasts 
 have been supported on the journey from Rameses to Etham, 
 and then, again, when in the wilderness of Shur? To this we 
 reply, that we have shown (P. G. 2) tliat the Israelites had 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 95 
 
 at least five days' notice; that the departure took place not 
 from one city, but from the whole land of Egypt; and that 
 they did not march out in one, but in several bodies. We 
 have, further, pointed out the probability that the greatest por- 
 tion of their herds and flocks was at all times pasturing in the 
 desert, and that considerable bodies of the people preceded the 
 departure of the leaders and chiefs, while others were at all 
 times in the desert, attending to the cattle. 
 
 The Sheep and Cattle of the Israelites in the 
 Desert (Chap. xii.). 
 
 97. The objections embodied in the twelfth chapter may be 
 formulated thus: If the people were miraculously supplied 
 with manna, the cattle were left to gather sustenance as well as 
 they could. How was this possible in so frightful a wilder- 
 ness, absolutely waterless, and therefore also without vege- 
 tation? To this we have replied tliat the desert, as a whole, 
 was then not so barren as it is now ; that it was the home both 
 of settled nations and migratory tribes; and that the very 
 Hebrew term ^^*|^, generally rendered 'Mesert,'^ actually 
 means '^ pasture-ground " (G. G. 4). We further pointed out 
 the probability, that the flocks and herds were scattered far and 
 wide, as is to this day the case with the flocks pasturing in the 
 desert of Syria; that the Israelites, being on good terms with 
 at least some of the desert tribes, had not always to fear 
 attacks; and that, in case of danger, the camp was spacious 
 enough to offer a refuge to those threatened. 
 
 98. But, asks the Bishop, if it should even be granted that 
 the Israelites had during the last thirty -seven years of their 
 wanderings the means of supplying their wants, how was this 
 possible during their stay under Sinai for a whole year, when 
 all travellers that ever visited those regions agree in describing 
 them fearfully barren, absolutely without herbage and water. 
 
96 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 To this we replied, that Sinai, at the time^ had at least one peren- 
 nial brook (G. G. 16) and that the neighbouring Midianiteshad 
 water; that with the existence of water there was also closely 
 connected that of herbage; and that there is no reason why, 
 while under Sinai, the people's cattle should not have been 
 scattered far and wide for pasturage. That, moreover, arti- 
 ficial provisions for storing up supplies of water, with which we 
 are now not acquainted, might have existed; and that there 
 existed a special class among the people charged with the 
 supply of this fluid. 
 
 99. But, further, remarks the Bishop, if the desert was 
 different then to what it is now, how is it that the Pentateuch 
 describes it as *^a howling wilderness" (Deut.xxxii. 10) ; as 
 "a place where there is neither tillage, fruit, nor water" 
 (Numb. xxii. 5); and *' only tenanted by noisome reptiles" 
 (Deut viii. 15) ? And why does Jeremiah (ii. 6) give a similar 
 description thereof ? To this, it will be noticed, we replied 
 that both Moses and Jeremiah spoke of certain parts of the 
 great desert, through which the Israelites had to pass, and 
 which fully justified the account given — that while in these 
 parts the sufferings of the people were great, and that twice, 
 when no human exertion or foresight could have saved them, 
 a miraculous interposition took place; and that there exist in 
 the Bible allusions to artificial provisions made for the supply 
 of water; but that the desert, as a whole, was not so destitute 
 of either water or herbage, as to render subsistence therein 
 impossible for any length of time (G. G. 25 — 32). 
 
 100. True, says the Bishop, we find allusions to other popu- 
 lations besides the Israelites being able to maintain themselves 
 in the desert, such as the Amalekites, who fought Israel at 
 Kephidim; but then he continues (85), if the Pentateuch 
 be mainly unhistorical, we can take no account of the power 
 of the Amalekites, as described in it. To this we answer, that 
 there is something very unfair in this reasoning. The Penta- 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 97 
 
 teucli, the Bishop argues, is unliistorlcal, because it coi\tains 
 inconsistencies and contradictions; and any statements tending 
 to remove these inconsistencies, or reconcile the contradictions, 
 are inadmissible, because they are unhistorical. Everybody 
 will see at once the flaw in this reasoning. 
 
 101. Again, asks the Bishop, the Israelites having stayed a 
 year under Sinai, must have wintered there; whence did they 
 get the wood for fuel, to protect themselves from the bitter 
 cold and for cooking.'^ and how was the cattle protected from 
 cold and starvation? To this we replied, that the Israelites 
 had had several montlis to prepare themselves for this season; 
 that they had the means, the materials, and the artificers at 
 hand to provide themselves with tents; that the Midianites, a 
 friendly tribe, were close by, who might have given counsel 
 and assistance; that the cattle might have wintered with those 
 of the Midianites, or been driven to other pasture-grounds 
 protected from cold; that if there did not exist sufficient fuel 
 for the necessities of the people in the regions adjacent to 
 Sinai, it might have been procured from many distant parts; 
 that there was a special class — the hewers of wood — charged 
 with looking after this necessary ; that the cooking necessities 
 of the Israelites were much less than our own; and that they 
 possessed an unlimited supply of animal excrements, to this 
 day used in the East for cooking purposes; that we are not 
 quite sure that the winters under Sinai were then as cold as they 
 are now represented to be ; and that it is quite possible that the 
 winter they passed there was providentally mild. ( G. G. 34 — 37.) 
 
 The Number of Priests at the Exodus compared 
 WITH THEIR Duties and with the provision made 
 
 FOR THEM (Chap. XX.). 
 
 102. I. This chapter states three objections, so closely con- 
 nected that, although the first does not quite fully come within 
 the geographical group, we yet discuss it here, as it cannot well be 
 
 II 
 
98 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 separated from the other two. These objections are — 1. There 
 existed in the desert, after the death of Nadab and Abihu, 
 only three priests, viz., Aaron and his two sons — Eleazar and 
 Ithamar. Now, how is it possible that these three persons 
 should have been able to offer the countless sacrifices prescribed 
 in Leviticus? — the daily burnt offerings, morning and even- 
 ing, the people's free-will offerings, the sin and trespass offer- 
 ings, the additional offerings on new moons and festivals, and 
 the various other sacrifices prescribed for numerous other 
 occasions. Women alone, after child-birth, would have had 
 daily to offer 500 sacrifices, which would have occupied 2,500 
 minutes, or nearly 42 hours daily. The offering of these 
 sacrifices alone would have taken 14 hours each of the three 
 priests daily, leaving him no time for meals or for the dis- 
 charge of his other duties. And how could these other three 
 priests have consumed the enormous provision made for them ? 
 As 264 pigeons would have to be brought daily as sin-offer- 
 ings by women after child-birth, each priest would have daily 
 to eat 88 of these birds as his portion. To this we may 
 briefly reply that we have shown that the elaborate sacrificial 
 system, as set forth in Leviticus, was either not observed at all 
 in the desert, or at least not strictly ; that we have no proof 
 that the festivals, with the exception of the Passover under 
 Sinai, were kept in the desert; that, from the very nature of 
 some festivals, which, not even Passover excepted, were con- 
 nected with certain harvest operations (Lev. xxvii. 10, 12, 39) 
 it may be inferred that they, like so many other command- 
 ments, were intended not to be observed until the people 
 should have entered the Land of Promise; and in cases of 
 emergency, as at the Passover in the desert, to meet a momen- 
 tary necessity, a special provision, such as was actually resorted 
 to at a later period (2 Ch. xxix. 34), might have been made, 
 which, as it ceased to be valid the moment the emergency was 
 over, was not recorded in the Pentateuch, even as a number of 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 99 
 
 other occurrences, which produced no permanent effect, and 
 were not intended as a precedent for future generations, are 
 omitted in the Pentateuch, although some of them are inci- 
 dentally referred to. We especially pointed out, as an 
 instance, the suspension of the law of circumcision in the 
 desert, nowhere alluded to in the ]\losaic records. Moreover, 
 that in cases of emergency, even in tl\e desert, the law which 
 so strictly excluded the Levites from the interior of the sanc- 
 tuary for ever was infringed upon is quite evident from Leviti- 
 cus X. 4, where we read that the Levites, ]\Iishael and Elzaphan, 
 at the command of Moses, had to enter the interior of the 
 sanctuary in order to remove the corpses of their cousins, Na- 
 dab and Abihu. 
 
 103. IL But, asked the Bishop, granted that the Israelites 
 had in the desert herds and flocks, which supplied them with the 
 necessary beasts for sacrifices, where did they obtain the 90,000 
 pigeons which it was requisite to offer for the 90,000 births 
 which annually, as statistics show, take place among two 
 millions of people? '^Did the people, then, carry with them 
 turtle-doves and young pigeons out of Egypt?'' To this we 
 might answer, if there were no pigeons in the desert the women 
 could, of course, not offer them, just the same as the Israelites 
 could not eat unleavened bread at the Passover under Sinai, al- 
 though distinctly commanded in Exodus xii. 8, simply because 
 they had no cereals there. This law, like so many others, might 
 have been intended to be carried into operation so soon as it 
 should be practicable. But we are not so sure, that there 
 existed at the time no pigeons in the desert — at least, in parts 
 thereof; for, as parts were then inhabited, there is no reason to 
 suppose that these birds, so much attached to the companion- 
 ship of man, should have been absent from him. Moreover, 
 the Bishop himself quotes three passages from the Bible 
 (Psalms Iv. 6, 7; Jer. xlvii. 28; Ez. vii. 16) which make it 
 appear that pigeons were to be met with in the desert, only he 
 arbitrarily assumes that the desert there spoken of designated 
 
100 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 some uncultivated land in Palestine, and not the desert tlirough 
 which the Israelites passed. 
 
 104. III. Then again, asks the Bishop, how is it that thirteen 
 cities were required for the priests all around Jerusalem in the 
 time of Joshua (Josh. xxi. 19), when there only existed Elea- 
 zar, his son Phineas, and their families, and perhaps also Itha- 
 mar, although no mention is made of him, and when Jerusalem 
 became the centre of worship at a much later period only. The 
 answer is simple. These thirteen cities were assigned to the 
 priests; they were their property. They could let the fields 
 and houses to others, and derive revenue from them, until 
 they should have become numerous enough to require them 
 for their own occupation. It is, further, much more likely 
 that David, in the selection of Jerusalem for his capital, and 
 the centre of worship, was, to some extent, guided by the 
 circumstance that the priests were settled in the neighbourhood, 
 than that these cities were given them at a later period, because 
 the neighbouring Jerusalem was the centre of worship. We 
 have hitherto argued on the Bishop^s assumption, that there 
 existed only three, or at the utmost four priests, viz., Aaron, 
 and after his death Eleazar, Ithamar, and Phineas. But there 
 is no proof that Eleazar had only one son, that Phineas had at 
 the time no children, and that Ithamar was altogether childless. 
 Indeed, of the latter we know he must have had sons, as his 
 posterity for a time was vested with the office of high-priest. 
 The other descendants of Aaron, save the three named were 
 not mentioned in the Pentateuch, simply because there was no 
 occasion to refer to them. 
 
 The Priests and their Duties at the Celebration 
 OF the Passover (Chap. xxi.). 
 
 105. In this chapter, the Bishop urges — I. At the second Pass- 
 over celebrated by the Israelites in the desert the paschal lambs 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 101 
 
 had, according to 2 Chron. xxx. 16; xxxv. 11, to be killed in the 
 sanctuary, i.e. the tabernacle, and the blood sprinkled by the 
 priests on the altar. Now these paschal lambs must have amounted 
 to 150,000, and as these had to be offered, at the utmost, in two 
 hours — from about three to five in the afternoon — each of the 
 three priests would have had during the time to sprinkle the blood 
 of 50,000 lambs. How was this possible? To this we reply, 
 that because the performance of the task within the time spe- 
 cified was impossible; for this very reason it is clear the strict 
 injunction prescribed did not apply to this one occasion. For 
 this one occasion, exceptionally, God might not have required 
 the blood to be sprinkled at all on the altar, or might have al- 
 lowed the Levites to assist in the service, or extended the time 
 necessary for it. The precedents for such temporary suspen- 
 sions of laws when there existed physical impossibilities, or 
 danger attending their observation, are not wanting. We 
 again refer to the law of circumcision, temporarily suspended; 
 to the law of sacrifices, imperfectly observed in the desert; and 
 to the prescribed festivals — some of which, at least, could not 
 have been strictly observed in the desert. The Bishop, of 
 course, will say that the exceptional character of this Passover 
 is nowhere mentioned in the Pentateuch. This is true. But 
 we have shown that a great many incidents must have occurred 
 in the desert which are not alluded to in the Pentateuch; that 
 as this supposed temporary suspension had no further effect 
 on the legislation, and did not give rise to any new ordinance 
 — such as, for instance, the circumstance that some that were 
 unclean could not keep this Passover (Numb. ii. 9, 10) — ■ there 
 was no occasion to make mention of this temporary suspension 
 or modification. 
 
 106. Indeed, there are circumstances connected with the first 
 two Passovers which clearly give them an exceptional charac- 
 ter. There is, for instance, not a word said in reference to 
 paschal lambs that might invest them with a sacrificial charac- 
 
]02 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 ter. Did we not know, from 2 Chron. xxx. 16, that tliey 
 were in this light considered by the Israelites, we should not 
 have inferred it from those passages in Exodus which refer to 
 them. Again, there is the smearing of the blood on the door- 
 post, which^ although commanded at the first Passover, and 
 nowhere repealed in the Law, was yet not complied with on 
 later Passovers, not from disobedience to the will of God, but 
 because it was known that this part of the ritual was intended 
 by God only for the first Passover. Had this omission of a 
 rite involved some rabbinical interpretation, we should not 
 have referred to it, as we know that the Bishop, and no doubt 
 many orthodox Christians, would disallow the authority of 
 rabbis. But as this is a rabbinical testimony to a fact in which 
 some of them at least speak as eye-witnesses, we do not hesitate 
 to refer to this unanimous omission of a rite distinctly enjoined 
 in the Bible, while other rites (such as the sprinkling of the 
 blood by the priests on the altar), not distinctly commanded in 
 the Pentateuch, are a proof that there attached, to some extent, 
 an exceptional character to the first two Passovers, and that 
 we, therefore, may well admit the temporary suspension or 
 modification of some rite which would then have rendered 
 impossible the observance of the Passover as it was kept in 
 later times, when the obstacles existing in the desert were 
 removed. 
 
 107. II. But, continues the Bishop, even if the diflficulty 
 just stated could be overcome, how could 150,000 lambs 
 have been killed by at least 150,000 people in the court of the 
 tabernacle, which could only have held at the utmost 5,000 
 people? To this we answer that it is a gratuitous assumption 
 to suppose that so many killed the passover at one and the 
 same time. We know, from the testimony of the rabbis, what 
 the practice was at the time of the second temple. Those who 
 brought the passover entered the temple by detachments. If 
 the time was not sufficient to allow all the detachments to kill the 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 103 
 
 paschal lambs within the period prescribed, there miglit have 
 been erected for the occasion a temporary forecourt, and con- 
 secrated for the purpose. We know, that under similar cir- 
 cumstances, at a later period, a similar expedient was resorted 
 to; for when at the consecration of the temple of Solomon 
 (I Kings viii. 63 — 65), an unusually large number of sacri- 
 fices were offered, ''the king hallowed the middle of the court 
 that was before the house of the Eternal: for there he offered 
 burnt-offerings and meat-offerings and the fat of the peace- 
 offerings, because the copper altar that was before the Eternal 
 was too little to receive the burnt-offerings and meat-offerinss 
 and the fat of the peace-offerings.^' We have, in our reply, 
 taken no notice of the large numbers in which the Bishop 
 deals, as we shall have to submit these to a closer examination 
 in the arithmetical group of objections, to the consideration of 
 which we now proceed, and which will reduce the difficulties 
 raised by him to their true dimensions. 
 
 III. 
 ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 
 
 1. We have again to remind our readers of the position 
 proved by us before — viz., that a number of incidents occurred 
 in the desert, and local and temporary regulations were made, 
 which were not recorded, but which are occasionally referred 
 to, and which we only know inferentially. These omissions 
 are still more numerous in matters involving no law to be 
 observed in future generations, and only referring to results 
 recorded as facts. Such are, in general, the numbers and 
 genealogies reported. But a close attention to what we have 
 called incidental, and therefore undesigned, evidence, will, we 
 trust, help us in discovering some of the missing links, which 
 
104 THE PENTATEUCH CKITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 will then represent the sacred text in a light different from 
 that in which the Bishop views it. 
 We begin with Chapter vii. — 
 
 The number of the people at the first muster 
 compared with the poll-tax raised six months 
 previously. 
 
 2. The Bishop, referring to Ex. xxx. 11 — 13, which enjoins 
 at every census the levying of a poll-tax of half a shekel on 
 every male from twenty years and upwards, after the shekel of 
 the sanctuary, raises two objections; he, in the first place, asks 
 how the term " shekel of the sanctuary'^ could have been used 
 when no sanctuary as yet existed; and secondly, how can it 
 be accounted for that the result of the census of the people, 
 described in Numb.i. 1 — 46, when the number of males from 
 twenty years and upwards amounted to 603,350, should have 
 agreed to a unit wuth. that referred to in Exod. xxxviii. 26, 
 where the amount of the poll-tax is specified, and which took 
 place six months previously? 
 
 3. Now, in reference to the first objection, we have to 
 observe that the Bishop has once more been misled by the 
 rendering of the Anglican version. ^Hp, no doubt, some- 
 times means*' sanctuary," as, for instance, Exod. xxviii. 43, and 
 in some other places; but then it is taken figuratively, stand- 
 ing for ^"[Ipp, the abstract for the concrete. ^*lb, in its 
 primary sense, means " holiness," as rendered by Benisch 
 in loco, t^lpn /p??^, therefore, means " shekel of holiness,^^ 
 or "holy shekel/^ Now the Bishop will not deny that 
 although there existed at the time no sanctuary, yet the idea 
 of holiness was not strange to the people. Indeed, every 
 Egyptian temple had its adytum, its holy of holies, with the 
 idea of which the Israelites must have been familiar. And 
 as we are not to assume that the Israelites in the desert coined 
 money of their own, or had a monetary standard of their own. 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 105 
 
 we must presume that the coins they used were Egyptian, and 
 the computations in their trading transactions based upon the 
 Egyptian standard. With that standard we, of course, are 
 not acquainted, and unfortunately the sacred writer has 
 neglected to acquaint us with it, evidently such an explanation 
 not coming within the plan of his narrative. We are, there- 
 fore, left to conjectures, and one of these fully agreeing with 
 what we see to this day among many nations is, that there 
 were two currencies — a depreciated one, probably consisting 
 of worn out coins, or containing more alloy than was legal, 
 and used among the people in their every, day transactions, 
 and the standard money, containing the full weight of the 
 precious metal, as prescribed by law, in which the dues to 
 temples, and perhaps also the taxes, had to be paid. This un- 
 depreciated currency was, in contradistinction to the other, 
 called " the holy shekel ; " and it was in this undepreciated 
 coin that the people were commanded by Moses to pay their 
 dues for the service of the tabernacle, then about to be erected. 
 That such a double standard was not altogether unknown in 
 those primeval days, may be inferred from Gen.xxiii. 16, in 
 which we are informed that the four hundred shekels weighed 
 by Abraham to Ephron were '' current money with the mer- 
 chant." There must, therefore, have existed other coins not 
 current with the merchant. 
 
 4. Before we proceed to answer the second objection, we 
 must submit to a close examination several verses in Ex.xxxv., 
 as well as the latter portion of Ex. xxxviii., wherein the 
 amount of the poll-tax raised is recorded, as the account is 
 marked with peculiarities which may point towards a solution 
 of the difficulty. 
 
 5. In Ex. XXXV., from verse 5 to 9, Moses, having appealed 
 to the people for free-will offerings towards the erection of the 
 tabernacle, enumerates the various materials required. Among 
 these are " gold, silver, and copper" (ver. 5). Not a word is 
 
106 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 here said about a poll-tax. The silver was to be a free-will 
 offering, just the same as the gold and copper, in conjunction 
 with which it is mentioned. In verses 20 to 29 of the same 
 chapter are enumerated the materials brought by the people as 
 free-will offerings, and among which *' silver and copper " 
 (ver. 2-1) are again distinctly named. Kow, in the next follow- 
 ing chapter (verses 5, 6^ and 7) we are informed that the 
 offerings of the people were so abundant that not only was 
 there enough for all the work, but that there was even a 
 surplus. But although the sacred writer, in Ex. xxxviii. 24 
 to 31, acquaints us with the weight of gold, silver, and copper 
 used in the work, he does not tell us what was done with the 
 surplus, or how much it was. If it was not returned to the 
 donors, which was very unlikely, if not impossible, it must 
 have been laid up in the treasury of the sanctuary, such as we 
 know the temple possessed. 
 
 6. We have, further, to observe, what must be evident to 
 everyone, that the weight of metals used in the work of the 
 tabernacle, as specified in the passage just referred to, was the 
 produce of the free-will offerings made by the people, men- 
 tioned in chapter xxxv. Now, as we have remarked before, 
 only free-will offerings are mentioned; no kind of tax what- 
 ever is referred to. Yet in verse 25 of chapter xxxviii. the 
 silver given by the people as a free-will offering, just the same 
 as the gold, mentioned in verse 24, and the copper, named in 
 verse 29, is clearly described as the produce of the poll-tax. 
 It is, therefore, evident that the silver brought by the people 
 must have been considered in a double aspect — at first as a 
 free-will offering, the same as the gold and copper, and after- 
 wards as the poll-tax, levied on the people at the census, and, 
 according to Ex. xxx. 16, used in the service of the tabernacle; 
 which may be thus accounted for. When Moses appealed 
 to the people for materials for the tabernacle, they brought 
 all metals they could spare, among which was probably much 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 107 
 
 silver coin, the currency among the ancients, especially in 
 those primeval times, having chiefly been silver. A portion 
 of this silver was employed in casting sockets and making 
 hooks for the sanctuary (ver. 27, 28). When, six months 
 afterwards, the census took place, it was either found inexpe- 
 dient to raise a fresh tax from the people for the sanctuary, when 
 only shortly before such liberal offering had been made that 
 there was a surplus, for which there was then little or no use, 
 or there was such a scarcity of coin — and, perhaps, of silver 
 in general — in consequence of the large offerings made 
 shortly before, that it was impossible to raise the prescribed 
 tax. It was, therefore, resolved to consider the silver offered 
 shortly before for the service of the tabernacle as the poll-tax 
 prescribed, which had the same destination; and there were 
 then made as many additional hooks, the number of which 
 does not seem to have been prescribed, as brought up the 
 amount of silver consumed to the exact weight which the 
 prescribed poll-tax would have produced had it been paid. 
 If, therefore, the poll-tax here spoken of agrees with the result 
 of the census, described in Numb. i. 1 — 46, it is because they 
 were made to agree, and not because two distinct censuses 
 within six months of each other took place, and which, 
 in their results, in a most unaccountable manner agreed. 
 
 The Institution of the Passover (Chap, x.) and "The 
 Priests and their Duties at the Celebration of 
 THE Passover" (Chap. xxi.). 
 
 7. We now proceed to the consideration of an arithmetical 
 objection enunciated in Chapters x. and xxi., the examination 
 of which before now would have been out of place, although 
 the other difhculties stated therein have been considered. In 
 these two chapters the Bishop assumes that the number of 
 lambs slain at the Passover in Egypt and imder Sinai could 
 
108 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 each time not have fallen short of 150,000, and from this he de- 
 duces that the number of cattle possessed by the Israelites could 
 not have been less than two millions; and then argues that it 
 would have been impossible to support such a multitude in the 
 desert; and then again endeavours to show that neither could 
 the court of the tabernacle have held the number of Israelites 
 commanded to slay so many lambs within two hours, nor could 
 three priests have sprinkled the blood on the altar within the 
 time specified. 
 
 8. When we answered these objections in their proper place, 
 we deemed it right to base our replies on the very numbers 
 assumed by the Bishop. We are, however, now prepared to 
 show that the data upon which the Bishop relied when fixing 
 upon these numbers are altogether unfounded, and that, in 
 fact, no data whatever exist to guide us, even approximately, 
 in the computation of the number of paschal lambs slain. The 
 Bishop's data are these: — The people were two millions in 
 number. Now if with Josephus (de Bell. Jud. vi. 9, 3) we 
 reckon ten persons an average for each lamb, there must have 
 been slain 200,000. But as sometimes, according to the same 
 authority and modern commentators, twenty persons joined for 
 the purpose, we may take the mean — i.e., 150,000 paschal 
 lambs. But as these paschal lambs had all to be males one 
 year old, we must assume that there were produced annually a 
 larger number of male lambs, or there would have remained no 
 rams. If we, therefore, assume that 200,000 male lambs were 
 annually produced, we are logically bound to believe that dur- 
 incy the same period 200,000 ewe-lambs were produced — i.e., 
 400,000 lambs in a year, which, according to the information 
 received by the Bishop from an experienced sheep- master, implied 
 the existence of a flock of two millions. 
 
 9. Now the flaws in this reasoning are these. As the 
 paschal lamb,' in the time of Josephus, and in fact ever 
 since there existed a sanctuary, could only be offered in the 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 109 
 
 sanctuary — tliat is, in the temple of Jerusalem — this offering 
 could then only have been partaken of by the Israelites at Je- 
 rusalem, whether residents or pilgrims, the latter at the solemn 
 festival, as stated by Josephus, in loco, far exceeding in num- 
 ber the residents. Now these pilgrims, as a rule, were able- 
 bodied men, since children were not able to perform the 
 journey, and women were not bound to do so (Deut. xvi. 16, 
 and several other places). Now ten or twenty able-bodied, 
 grown-up men, intent upon making a meal of it, might con- 
 sume a sheep in one night; but the millions of Israelites either 
 in Egypt or the desert were not all able-bodied men. Among 
 them were myriads of infants, who physically could not par- 
 take of flesh, and many delicate and sick persons, with whom 
 flesh-meat would not have agreed; myriads of children who 
 are rarely fond of meat; and again, myriads of women, who, 
 as a rule, are not such hearty eaters as men. We may there- 
 fore assume, that not fifteen, but thirty persons may have been 
 reckoned to one paschal-lamb, which would reduce their number 
 from 150,000 to 75,000, and accordingly, the whole number 
 of sheep possessed by the people to one million. Further, as 
 the paschal lamb was only commemorative, it was sufficient 
 for the partakers to have eaten only a morsel thereof. When 
 there was, therefore, a scarcity of lawfully fit animals, hundreds 
 of persons might have obeyed the divine injunction by partak- 
 ing of one and the same lamb. Fifteen thousand lambs might 
 thus have sufficed for the Israelites. We have, further, to de- 
 duct all the unclean and a number of other persons enumerated 
 by Josephus in the passage quoted by the Bishop, who were 
 not allowed to partake of the paschal lamb. Again, as ewe- 
 lambs are much more profitable, and consequently more valu- 
 able, than rams, the Israelites, when in want of male-lambs for 
 paschal offerings, could have experienced no difficulty in ex- 
 changing with the Egyptians or neighbouring pastoral tribes 
 ewe-lambs for as many rams as might have been required. 
 
no THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 10. We have hitherto assumed^ with the Bishop, that the 
 animals slain were all lambs. But this was not the case. True, 
 the Anglican version speaks throughout of lambs, rendering 
 the Hebrew T^W (Exod. xii. 3, and throughout the chapter) 
 "lamb.^^ But Jlb^, as every dictionary shows, is the singular 
 of the collective noun JN^^ which comprehends both sheep and 
 goats. The correct rendering, therefore, of ]K^^ is " flock," 
 and of nb^ as its singular, " one of the flock," as translated 
 by Benisch in loco. The paschal sacrifice, therefore, might 
 have been a sheep or goat, at the option of the oflerer. Indeed, 
 this is expressly stated in ver. 5, where we read: " The one of 
 the flock shall be without blemish, a male of the first year : ye 
 shall take it from the sheep or from the goats." Before, there- 
 fore, the bishop can base any calculation on the assumed num- 
 ber of paschal sacrifices, it is incumbent upon him to show the 
 proportion of the goats slain to that of the lambs; and as he 
 cannot do this, his calculation, and consequently all the infe- 
 rences drawn from it, fall to the ground. 
 
 The Number of the Israelites compared with the 
 
 EXTENT OF THE LAND OF CaNAAN. (Chap, xiii.) 
 
 11. This chapter contains only one objection, which may be 
 thus expressed. In Ex. xxiii. 27—30, God declared that He 
 would not drive out the ancient inhabitants of Canaan in one 
 year, '' lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field 
 multiply against thee," but that He would drive them out 
 little by little. Now, asks the Bishop, the land of Canaan, 
 as divided among the tribes in the time of Joshua, was in 
 extent about 11,000 square miles; how is it that the counties 
 of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, about as densely populated as 
 was Canaan by the Israelites, the aboriginal inhabitants not 
 included, do not become desolate, with the beasts of the field 
 multiplying against the human inhabitants ? Nay, more. 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. Ill 
 
 The 150,000 inhabitants of Natal with its 18,000 square 
 miles, are perfectly able to maintain their ground against wild 
 beasts occasionally killed in the bush. 
 
 12. Now to this we reply: — We will for a moment leave 
 unquestioned the data upon which the Bishop bases his ob- 
 jection, and confine ourselves to the consideration of the parallel 
 drawn by our author between the eastern counties and Natal on 
 the one hand, and the land of Canaan on the other. This 
 parallel, on closer examination, vanishes into thin air. However 
 sparse the population of an island, it is comparatively easy to 
 exterminate its wild beasts, because an increase from without 
 cannot take place; and for this very reason, when once exter- 
 minated, unless purposely imported, they will not infest the 
 land again. It is different on a continent, especially when 
 a country, as Canaan was, is surrounded by extensive unin- 
 habited regions. From such a country it will not be easy to 
 keep out wild beasts; and should the population be at any 
 time comparatively scanty, although more dense than in an 
 island, it would be sure to be overrun by wild beasts. 
 
 13. Do facts bear out this our argrument? Let us examine 
 the pages of ancient historj^, as recorded in the Bible. When 
 consulting the pages of the sacred writers, especially the 
 prophets, we find they abound in references to wild beasts, 
 speaking of them in a manner which shows that wild beasts, 
 especially lions, bears, and wolves, were no rare visitors in the 
 land, and with whose habits the people were quite familiar. 
 The Psalmist, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, abound with these 
 allusions, although they are not absent from any of the other 
 books. A few instances will suffice. In Psalm xxii. 22, 
 David prays: " Save me from the lion's mouth." In Jeremiah 
 v., the prophet, denouncing the wickedness of the people, 
 calls out (ver. 6): "Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall 
 slay them, and the wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a 
 leopard shall watch over their cities; every man that goeth 
 out thence shall be torn in pieces." Again, in Proverbs, xxii. 
 
112 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 13, King Solomon, castigating the slotliful, makes liim say: 
 "There is a lion without; I shall be slain in the streets.'^ A 
 similar phrase occurs inxxvi. 13. Sufficient as these instances 
 are, to show that centuries after Israel had taken possession of 
 the land of Canaan and greatly increased, wild beasts were far 
 from being uncommon in the country, we have direct proofs 
 of their existence. 
 
 14. When, as we read in Judges xiv. 5, Samson, with his 
 father and mother, Avent down to Timnath, a young lion came 
 roaring towards him. When David fed the flock of his father, 
 we are told (1 Sam. xvii. 34) there came a lion and a bear to 
 assail the sheep; and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, we read 
 (2 Sam. xxiii. 20) " slew a lion in the midst of a pit.'' Again, 
 in 1 Kings xiii. 24, we read of a lion meeting a prophet on 
 the road and killing him. A similar occurrence is narrated in 
 the same book (xx. 36), of another man likewise killed by a 
 lion on the road; and in 2 Kings ii. 21 we read that two she- 
 bears killed forty-two children. From all this, it is clear that, 
 comparatively small as was the land of Canaan, and numerous 
 as the people were, they yet had difficulty in maintaining their 
 ground against the wild beasts. This difficulty would have 
 been infinitely increased, had the aboriginal inhabitants 
 been driven out in one year, before the Israelites were suffi- 
 ciently numerous to occupy the desolate places. 
 
 15. If the much smaller population of Natal is able success- 
 fully to cope with the wild beasts, the colonists are undoubtedly 
 indebted for this to fire-arms, which, as known, effectually 
 keep away wild beasts from the vicinity of man. Were the 
 inhabitants of Natal compelled to fight these intruders hand to 
 hand, as Samson and as David did, wild beasts would as 
 frequently be there met with on the high-ways as they were in 
 Palestine in those long by- gone days, and it would be doubtful 
 whether the colonists could maintain their ground against 
 them . 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 113 
 
 16. We have argued on the supposit'ion that the passage 
 contained in Ex. xxiii. 27 — 30, as tlie Bishop assumes, refers 
 to the hind of Canaan, as actually divided, under Joshua, 
 among the tribes. But we are not so sure that the passage 
 under consideration had any reference whatever to the Canaan 
 conquered by Joshua. We are much more inclined to believe 
 that it referred to the far more extensive Canaan described in 
 ver. 31 of the same chapter; also in Gen. xv. 18, as bounded 
 on the one side by the river of Egypt, and on the other by 
 the Euphrates; and as again marked out, in Josh. i. 4, *as 
 bordering on the desert, Lebanon, the Mediterranean, and the 
 Euphrates — an extent of territory actually possessed by King 
 Solomon, as recorded in 1 Kings, v. 1 and 4, and containing 
 about 50,000 instead of 1 1 ,000 square miles. Had the inhab- 
 itants of these vast regions been driven out before Israel 
 in one year, at the time of Joshua, when the Tsraelitish po- 
 pulation was by far too small to occupy them, the wild beasts 
 would have increased to such an extent, that the people could 
 not have maintained their ground against them. 
 
 The Number of the First-born coMrARED with 
 THE Number of Male Adults (Chap. xiv.). 
 
 17. This chapter embodies an objection which may be thus 
 expressed. All the first-born males in Israel amounted to 
 22,273 (Numb. ill. 43). Now, if we divide the whole Israel- 
 itish male population, computed at 900,000, by the above 
 number, the product will be nearly 42. There was, therefore, 
 only one first-born among every 42 males. Now this pro- 
 portion of the first-born to the whole male population, is in 
 itself so extraordinary, as to be irreconcilable with authenticated 
 statistical observations, according to which, the number of the 
 first-born should have been much larger. Again, each of these 
 divisions of 42— or, rather, of 41— if we deduct one first-born 
 
 I 
 
114 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 from tills number — must have consisted either of his younger 
 brothers or of the sons of a mother, whose first-born was a 
 daughter. Consequently, each of these groups, consisting of 
 42 males, could only have had two mothers. But as there were 
 as many females as males, the whole Israelitish population 
 might be divided into 22,273 groups, each consisting of 84 
 persons, the children of two mothers; consequently, each 
 mother in Israel, in the average, must have born 42 children, 
 which is incredible. It is true, there might, in each group, 
 have been some males whose eldest brother, a first-born, might 
 have been dead, and who, if they had lived, would have 
 swelled the number of first-born males by some thousands, 
 bringing the number up, say to 30,000. But this would only 
 diminish, and not remove the difficulty, as, by the same process 
 of reasoning, it could be shown that in this case, every mother 
 in Israel must have had, on the average, 30 children, and that, 
 to a male population of 600,000 grown-up men, there were 
 only 60,000 child-bearing women. 
 
 18. The difficulty is undeniable, especially if we, in accor- 
 dance with the obvious sense of Ex. xii. 2,12, assume, with the 
 Bishop, that the first-born here spoken of were those of the 
 mother, and not of both parents. But are we thereby justified 
 in the conclusion at which the Bishop arrives, that the account 
 is unhistorical? The only conclusion which is warranted by 
 the data given is, that, although the law declared that all the 
 first-born sons in Israel were consecrated to the service of the 
 Lord (ibid. xiii. 2) ; yet in practice there existed certain qua- 
 lifications, the absence of which incapacitated such male for the 
 office, and which, therefore, operated as a limitation in their 
 census. When we, therefore, read, "all the first-born males 
 . . . were 22,273," the historian did not mean every first-born 
 in Israel, but all the first-born qualified for service in the taber- 
 nacle. The bishop, of course, will object that this is a gra- 
 tuitous assumption, the sacred text not alluding to any such 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 115 
 
 limitation. But common sense,, assisted by a few Scriptural 
 hints, points to this solution. We will first endeavour to show 
 that, whatever the theory, in practice such a limitation must 
 have existed : and, secondly, that such a limitation is actually 
 hinted at. 
 
 19. The first-born males, we know, were to be set apart for 
 the service subsequently performed by the priests and Lcvitcs 
 (Numb. iii. 12, 13). Now suppose such a male had been a 
 cripple, an idiot, or blind, could he have been set apart for the 
 Divine service? Again, there must have been, in practice, a 
 period fixed when he was to enter on his service, and a period 
 when he was entitled to his discharge, or else the able-bodied 
 first-born males would have had to attend not only to the service 
 of the sanctuary, but also to the necessities of little children, 
 incapable of any work, and of old, infirm people, past all 
 labour. But on this point we are not left to conjecture. The 
 qualifications of the Levites and priests, the substitutes of the 
 first-born males, are distinctly mentioned, as well as the period 
 of the service of the former clearly defined. Thus we find 
 enumerated in Lev. xxi. 16-21, certain defects which disquali- 
 fied the priests from officiating; and the Levites did not enter 
 upon their service before the thirtieth year of their age, and 
 quitted it in the fiftieth. It therefore stands to reason, that 
 the same regulations would also have applied to the first-born 
 males, had they been called to service, although the sacred 
 historian nowhere refers to any such limitation with respect 
 to these. 
 
 20. Again, the only object of the census of the first-born 
 males was to ascertain the number by which they exceeded 
 that of the Levites, in order to enable this exceeding number 
 to ransom themselves (Num. iii. 44—51). Now, as no first- 
 born male of fifty years of age would have been liable to be 
 called to the service of the tabernacle, even if the substitution 
 of the Levites had not taken place, there was no occasion to 
 
116 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 count those past sucli service. Nay, had they been counted, 
 and one of them had been found among the exceeding number, 
 he could have claimed his exemption from service without 
 ransom, having passed the prescribed age. Further, were we 
 to insist upon the literal interpretation of verse 43, we should 
 have to assume, that among these first-born were also those of 
 the Levites ; for the text says distinctly (ver. 40), " And the 
 Eternal said to ]\Ioses, Number all the first-born of the males 
 of the children of Israel." These first-born Levites, who must 
 have amounted to several hundreds, having been liable to the 
 service of the tabernacle by reason of their birth, could, na- 
 turally, when subsequently numbered in the general census of 
 their tribe, not have acted as substitutes for their own number 
 of firstborn of the other tribes. Moreover, if any of those first- 
 born Levites had been among the 273, by which the first-born 
 of all tribes exceeded the number of the Levites, they would 
 have had to pay the prescribed ransom to themselves, which is 
 clearly absurd. The inference from this is, that first-born males 
 among the Levites were not numbered among the first-born of 
 Israel in general, although the text docs not say a word about 
 it — nay, construed strictly and literally, seems to imply the 
 contrary. 
 
 21. But there is yet another circumstance connected with 
 this census, which implies some limitation, with the nature of 
 which, however, the sacred writer was not pleased to acquaint 
 us. The text informs us that the number of Levites was 
 22,000 (ibid. ver. 39). Yet, when we add the numbers of the 
 single families, as specified, the total is 22,300, viz: — 
 
 The sons of Gershon .... 7,5001 
 
 The sons of Kohath .... 8,600 \ lb. 11—39 
 
 The sons of Merari . . . .6,200) 
 
 22,300 
 How are we to account for the neglect of these 300 in the sum 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 117 
 
 total? Surely not by inferring from it, tlmt tlic whole narra- 
 tive is unhistorical ; for even a writer of legends must make In 
 a common addition the sum total to agree with the aggregate 
 of the single items. This neglect must, therefore, have been 
 intentional, and could only have arisen from some disqualifica- 
 tion of 300 Levites, disablin^ij them from becomin«]j substitutes 
 for -as many first-born, although not otherwise disqualified for 
 the service of the tabernacle. We \vill not speculate on the 
 nature of this limitation; suffice it for us to know that such 
 a one must have existed, and that its practical effect was to 
 reduce the number of qualified first-born males in Israel, liable 
 to be ransomed, to 22,273, although the number of first-born 
 males in general was much larger. But, the Bishop will ask, 
 why should this limitation not have been distinctly stated? 
 We answer, because its record would have served no purpose. 
 This substitution of the Levites for the first-born males was a 
 measure carried out once for all times. Once carried out, it 
 was complete in itself. It gave rise to no new ordinances; it 
 was not to serve as ^ precedent to future generations. Under 
 such circumstances, it sufficed to record the occurrence as a 
 fact, without adding any further details. Had this limitation, 
 instead of being purely temporary, had any bearing on future 
 generations, it would undoubtedly have been recorded, the 
 same as the disqualifications of descendants of Aaron for their 
 priestly functions were stated (Lev. xxi. 16 — 21. 
 
 The Sojourning of the Israelites in Egypt. — The 
 Exodus in the Fourth Generation. — The Number 
 OF Israelites at the Time of the Exodus. — The 
 Danites and Levites at the Time of the Exodus. 
 — Replies to Kurtz, Hengstenberg, and others 
 (Chap. XV — xix.). 
 
 22. These chapters, the Bishop devotes to an important 
 
118 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 enquiry. He inquires whether, in accordance with the 
 data preserved in the Pentateuch,, it was possible for the small 
 colony of 70, settled under the protection of Joseph in Egypt, 
 so to increase there during their stay, that, at the exodus, the 
 people should have numbered 600,000 males, from 20 years 
 upwards, as is evident from Exod. xii. 37. Passing by, for the 
 present, the minor difficulties, the chief objections most elabo- 
 rately and minutely set forth by the Bishop, may be thus 
 summed up. The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt could not 
 have exceeded 215 years. This period was occupied by four 
 generations — viz., Levi, Kehath, Amram, and Moses, in ac- 
 cordance with the prediction in Gen. xv. 16. Now Jacob's 
 family, when arriving in Egypt, only numbered 70 persons 
 (Ex. i. 5). Having inferred, from certain data, that the males 
 of the generation of Kehath were 51, he continues: " In fact, 
 in order that the 51 males of Kehath's generation might pro- 
 duce 600,000 fighting men in Joshua's, we must suppose that 
 each man had 46 children (23 of each sex), and each of these 
 23 sons had 46 children, and so on I " (chap. xvii. 122). This, 
 of course, is an unprecedented prolific increase, which exceeds 
 the bounds of all credibility. 
 
 23. The Bishop's difficulty arises from his unwillingness to 
 admit, that when Jacob and his family came to Egypt, they 
 were accompanied by a number of servants, who, being cir- 
 cumcised (Gen. xvii. 13, 14), in time became incorporated with 
 the families of their masters; that Egyptians intermarried with 
 the Israelites, and joined their body ; that the prevailing poly- 
 gamy greatly helped to increase the people; that God's special 
 blessing rested on them, so that they multiplied beyond all 
 precedent ; and that more than four generations may have lived 
 during their sojourn in Egypt. The Bishop is much more 
 disposed to assume, in reliance on the data as interpreted by 
 him, that the number of warriors at the exodus did not exceed 
 5,000 men (chap. xvii. 118). 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 119 
 
 24. Now let us for a moment substitute the Bishop's figures 
 for those of the Pentateuch, and see what they will lead to. 
 After having spent some time in the desert, these warriors, at 
 first under the leadership of Moses, and subsequently under 
 that of Joshua, gave battle to several nations on this and the 
 other side of the Jordan, laid siege to many cities, and carried 
 on long and sanguinary wars (Josh. xi. IS). At last, this 
 handful of warriors finally triumphed over nations, certainly 
 not unwarlike, better armed, and infinitely more numerous 
 than their invaders. What is more reasonable — to suppose that 
 a handful of warriors performed all these achievements, or that 
 Sihon, Og, and the seven Canaanitish nations, succumbed un- 
 der the blows of a large host? Or is the Bishop prepared to 
 reject the account of all these wars as un historical, and to con- 
 struct the history of Israel from new data yet to be discovered? 
 However, let us return from this digression, and examine the 
 grounds on which the Bishop rejects the various explanations 
 offered. 
 
 25. The family of Jacob could not have been accompanied 
 by any servants when going down to Egypt, because, says the 
 Bishop, '^ there is no word or indication of any such a cortege 
 having accompanied Jacob into Egypt." Now supposing we were 
 to be told that the Royal Family went from Windsor to Balmo- 
 ral, should we be justified in inferring from the silence of the 
 papers as to the cortege^ that the Queen travelled quite without 
 attendance; that she had no domestics with her; that the 
 Prince of Wales had no equerry with him; that the Royal 
 children were without sjoverncss or tutor? Such an inference 
 would be truly preposterous. Yet some such thing it is that 
 the Bishop wants us to believe, simply because the sacred his- 
 torian did not deem it requisite to make especial mention that 
 Jacob and his family were accompanied by their servants. 
 
 26. But although no especial mention is made of the cir- 
 cumstance, yet if we examine the narrative, we shall sec that 
 
120 THE PENTATEUCH ClilTIOALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 the writer all the while pre-siipposed that the travellers were 
 accompanied by their servants. The account of Jacob's journey 
 to Egypt is contained in the first eight verses of Gen. xlvi. 
 Now therein we read (ver. 5): "And Jacob rose up from Beer- 
 Sheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and 
 their little ones, and their wives, in the waggons wliich Pharaoh 
 had sent to carry him." Now these waggons must necessarily 
 have been drawn by beasts of burden. These beasts required 
 from time to time to be harnessed to the waggons, and to be 
 unharnessed, to be driven, fed, and watered. There was work 
 enough to employ the eleven sons of Jacob all along the jour- 
 ney, apart from the ministration to the special wants arising 
 on a journey, particularly when the travelling company in- 
 cluded many children. But then, if, as the plain text implies, 
 Jacob's sons in person carried their father and their families in 
 the waggons, who had charge of their cattle and their property, 
 which likewise came down with them to Egypt? for in the 
 next following verse (6) we read : "And they (the sons of Jacob) 
 took their cattle and their goods which they had gotten in the 
 land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob and all his seed 
 with him." This task Jacob's sons must have performed by 
 deputy, or rather deputies, since they themselves had plenty of 
 work on hand to engage all their time and attention, as we have 
 seen. Jacob and his family, therefore, must have been accom- 
 panied on their journey by persons who attended to the cattle, 
 who, according to. the usage and institutions of the time, were 
 servants — in other words, slaves — whose descendants in time 
 might have been liberated, intermarried with the people, and 
 became incorporated with them. 
 
 27. Again, while in Egypt, the children of Israel for nearly 
 a century enjoyed great consideration and prosperity. This 
 increase in wealth and numbers favoured ,a corresponding in- 
 crease in servants, which, by a similar process of absorption, 
 might have become incorporated with the people, and thus 
 
AUIXHMETICAL GROUP. 121 
 
 helped to swell still more their numbers. And for the same 
 reason, we may suppose that Egyptians themselves, at least in 
 the time of Israel's prosperity, intermarried with them, joining 
 the family to a member of wliich any of them was married, 
 and being numbered in that particular iamlly, as actually 
 alluded to in Lev. xxiv. 10, where an Israelite, the son of an 
 Israelitish mother and an Egyptian father, is mentioned. But 
 the Bishop cannot for a moment admit this hypothesis; for 
 does not the text distinctly say, after enumerating all the de- 
 scendants of the patriarch (ver. 26): "All the souls that came 
 with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins?'' To this 
 it may be answ^ered, that the phrase upon which the Bishop 
 lays considerable stress, and which we have italicised, when- 
 ever it occurs in the Pentateuch, only refers as an historical 
 statement, to the immediate descendants of Jacob, who, as the 
 text distinctly says, came down with him to Egypt, but by no 
 means implies, that the people in subsequent ages received no 
 accessions from without. The very fact that iMoses deemed it 
 requisite to make a special provision calculated to meet cases 
 of this kind, shows that such instances must have occurred; 
 for, in Exod. xii. 48, we read, that the stranger who wished to 
 partake of the Passover, symbolising the final act of Israelis 
 emancipation, and the first step toward an independent national 
 existence, had to qualify himself by the reception of the sign 
 of the covenant with God. And the moment he was cir- 
 cumcised, thus signifying his acceptance of Israelitish na- 
 tionality, this stranger, although not a descendant of the patri- 
 archs, became, to every intent and purpose, an Israelite, as 
 distinctly stated in verse 49, where we read: " One law shall 
 be to the native and the stranger that sojourneth among you." 
 Let it be borne in mind, that this law was given in Egypt be- 
 fore the celebration of the Passover, and that immediately after 
 these instructions were given, we read (ver. 5): *'Thus did all 
 the children of Israel; as the Eternal commanded Moses and 
 Aaron so did they." 
 
122 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 28. Nor will the Bishop admit the prevalence of polygamy 
 as a means of accounting for the prodigious increase of the 
 people, because such prevalence is not recorded in the Penta- 
 teuch. Now, had we undertaken critically to examine the 
 Pentateuch, we should just have taken the opposite line of 
 argument. We should have argued, that, as 70 persons are 
 stated to have increased to two millions in 2 1 5 years, therefore 
 polygamy must have prevailed among the people, and we 
 should have held fast by this conclusion, so long as no state- 
 ment from these very records could be produced rendering this 
 opinion untenable. Not only can, to the best of our know- 
 ledge, no such Biblical statements be produced, but there are 
 some which decidedly favour the opinion that the Israelites in 
 Egypt were polygamists. They had before them the example 
 of two of the patriarchs, Abraham and Jacob, the former 
 having had two (Sarah and Hagar) and the latter four wives 
 (Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah) ; and the lawgiver found it 
 necessary to provide for the case in which a polygamlst should 
 wish to countenance the son of a favourite wife at the cost of 
 a son of the less beloved wife (Deut. xxi. 15, 16). He had 
 deemed it requisite to caution the future king of the people 
 ao^ainst marrying many wives (ibid. xvii. 17), thus clearly 
 showing that polygamy in itself was not unlawful. He had 
 even enacted a law which, under certain circumstances, might 
 oblige a man to marry two wives (ibid. xxv. 5), since the per- 
 son upon whom it devolved to marry his deceased brother's 
 widow might have been married at the time. Nay, more, we 
 have elsewhere cited from Chronicles an instance of polygamy, 
 and that, too, the case of an Israelite, who married a Syrian 
 concubine. But, then, the Bishop will ask, why does the sacred 
 text not acquaint us with the prevalence of polygamy at the 
 time? We answer, simply because the historian had no occa- 
 sion to refer to it, no incident connected with it having given 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 123 
 
 rise to any special law or to any event the record of which 
 would have proved useful to posterity. 
 
 29. Nor will the Bishop, in this prodigious increase of the 
 people, allow any influence to God's special blessing. True, 
 the Bishop argues, God promised the patriarchs repeatedly that 
 their descendants would greatly increase. True, we read in 
 Exod. i. 7 : " And the children of Israel were fruitful, and 
 increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceedingly 
 mighty; and the land was filled with them;" implying an 
 increase far beyond the rate usual in Egypt, and which, accord- 
 ing to the testimony of several ancient authors, was exceedingly 
 large (see Kalisch's Commentary on Ex. i. 7). But, tlien, argues 
 the Bisliop, do the data given bear out this statement? With 
 the exception of Benjamin, the other sons of Jacob had no 
 more children than we find in ordinary families. Joseph had 
 only two sons; Levi only three; Judah only five, two of whom 
 died childless; and Dan only one son. At a later period, 
 Aaron had only four sons, two of whom died childless; Closes 
 only two. The genealogical data preserved in the Pentateuch 
 only justify a rate of increase which within 215 years would, 
 at the utmost, have raised the population capable of bearing 
 arms to 5,000, instead of 600,000, as stated in the text. 
 
 30. Again we say, had we proposed to ourselves the task of 
 critically examining the Pentateuch, we should have pursued 
 precisely an opposite line of argument. We should have 
 argued, because the sacred text in one part distinctly informs 
 us that the people increased at a prodigious rate, and in another 
 that within 215 years 70 persons produced a male population 
 of 600,000 from 20 years and upwards, therefore the genealo- 
 cnaxl statements recorded cannot serve as correct data for fixin^^" 
 the ratio of increase, nor guide us in ascertaining the cir- 
 cumstances which caused this prodigious increase; and we 
 should have set about to discover the causes which render the 
 genealogical statements preserved useless for fixing the rate of 
 
124 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 increase. These causes It will not be impossible to discover, if 
 we consider the particular object for which these genealogical 
 tables were recorded^ and compare them with those preserved 
 in Chronicles, which the Bishop only quotes to reject them as 
 unworthy of belief. 
 
 31. The object of these tables was to record the divisions of 
 the people, which served as a basis for some special purpose, 
 either distinctly stated by the lawgiver, or to be inferred from 
 the context. Take, for instance, the genealogy of the Levites, 
 recorded in Numb. iii. 15 — 29. The object of the genealo- 
 gical table there is clear. It was to point out the three 
 principal divisions of the tribe, each of which had to perform 
 a special duty in the service of the tabernacle. Having pointed 
 out the three principal divisions — viz., Gershon, Kehath, and 
 Merari, the sacred historian 'proceeds to specify the sub-divisions 
 of each of the main sections, informing us that the Gershonites 
 were subdivided into four and the Meraritc into two, accord- 
 ing to the names of the founders of their families, as distinctly 
 stated in the same narrative. The object of the historian 
 being attained, he takes no further notice of any other descen- 
 dants of the progenitors of these divisions, because they were 
 not privileged to establish new families, but had to join one or 
 the other of those so privileged. The sacred historian, after 
 having given so much information as was necessary for his 
 purpose, contents himself by stating the sum total of each divi- 
 sion, leaving us to infer that the number of 7,500, to which 
 the Gershonites amounted, was made up by all those Levites 
 who either had from before belonged to this division, or were 
 only now assigned to it, but not that they were all direct 
 descendants of the two sons of Gershon (Libni and Shimei), 
 mentioned in the same chapter. The same remark naturally 
 would apply to each of the other divisions of the Levites, and, 
 in fact, to every division in any of the tribes, and the enumer- 
 ation of Jacob's grand-children (Gun. xlvi. 23). 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 125 
 
 32. This suggested solution receives confirmaticn from the 
 following considerations. When Jacob's sons arrived in Egypt, 
 they were all in the prime of life. Judah was 42 years old; 
 Reuben, the first-born, probably 4.5; Joseph 39; and Benjamin 
 still younger. Now does it stand to reason, that the eleven sons 
 of Jacob, after reaching Egypt, should have begotten no more 
 children? Surely it cannot be maintained, that thoy died soon 
 after their arrival, and that, therefore, there was no time for 
 begetting additional children, when we find, after the death of 
 their father, who lived in Egypt 17 years, Joseph's brethren 
 addressing him (Gen. 1.18), and, at a still later period, Avhen he 
 felt the approach of death, Joseph beseecliing his brethren to 
 bury him in the land of Canaan (ibid. 24, 25), he having 
 attained the age of 110 years. This, it will be admitted, is all 
 but incredible. Indeed, in the case of one of Jacob's sons 
 Levi — there is an allusion to a child born to him in Egypt. 
 Jochebed, the wife of Amram, we are distinctly told, was a 
 daughter of Levi, born in Egypt (Xumb. xxvi. 59). What 
 has become of all these children, not one of whom is alluded to 
 except Jocliebed? Surely it will not be said that they all died 
 without progeny. The answer is, that as none of these children 
 was privileged to found a new tribe, they had to join those 
 established; and being merged in them, no special record 
 was made of their names. If this is true of the tribes, there 
 is no reason why it should not also have been the case with the 
 families. Not everyone of the grandsons of Jacob was privi- 
 leged to found a new family. This privilege, for reasons 
 unknown to us, seems to have been reserved for those of Jacobus 
 progeny born in Canaan, or, more likely, within the lifetime of 
 any of his sons. The children of those not so privileged had 
 to join some of the established families, in accordance with 
 some regulation not recorded, and therefore only a matter of 
 conjecture; and these children, having been merged in the 
 families which they had to join, the record of their names 
 
126 THE PENTATEUCH CKITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 would have served no purpose, whilst yet their number served 
 to swell the sum total of the parent family, and, consequently, 
 of the tribe which these families composed. 
 
 33. Another consideration is the preservation of the names 
 of certain of Jacobus great-grandchildren in Chronicles, not 
 recorded in the Pentateuch, although the names of their 
 fathers are mentioned there. The chapter in 1 Chronicles to 
 which we refer is the 23rd. In it we are made acquainted 
 with the result of a census of the Levites, taken by King 
 David (verses 3 — 24), and based upon that of Moses, recorded 
 in Numb. iii. In this are mentioned by name several persons, 
 sons of Levites, named by Moses, and to whom a different 
 number of children is assigned in the Pentateuch. To point 
 out an instance, thus, neither in Ex. vi. 18, nor Num. iii. 19, is 
 any descendant of Hebron mentioned; while in 1 Chron. xxxiii. 
 18 — 20 four sons are enumerated. Now, without wishing to 
 engage in the controversy to which these differences in the 
 two genealogies have given rise, we believe we are yet justified 
 in inferring that in the days of the chronicler names of 
 descendants of Levi were known, alluded to, it is true, in 
 Num. iii. 27, where the family of the Hebronites is mentioned, 
 but not recorded there. 
 
 34. The next consideration arises from the same genealogy 
 in Chronicles, verse 11, '^But Jeush and Beriah (sons of 
 Shimei, grandsons of Gershon — Num. iii. 19) had not many 
 sons; therefore they were in one reckoning, according to their 
 father's house." Here we are distinctly informed of the amal- 
 gamation of the two families into one, being reckoned as one. 
 Now this amalgamation is not stated as an exceptional case; 
 for the reason is given that the founders "had not many 
 sons.^' It is, therefore, not too bold to conclude that in all 
 similar cases families were amalgamated, and only the name of 
 the principal recorded, just as tributaries empty themselves 
 into larger streams, and there lose both their name and iden- 
 tity, while swelling the volume of the larger river. 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 127 
 
 35. But great as Israel's increase was within 215 years, 
 was it so prodigious as to exceed all bounds of experience? 
 We do not think so. There are cases of an extraordinary 
 increase of families recorded in profane history approaching 
 that of the Israelites. One which bears considerable analogy 
 to that under discussion we quote from D'Herbelot's " Biblio- 
 theque Orientale." In the article of " Abassides " he observes 
 that 200 years after the Hegira the descendants of Abbas, 
 uncle of Mahomet, males and females, had increased to 
 33,000. 
 
 36. Now, as Jacob, on his arrival in Egypt, was past child- 
 begetting, and as Dinah and Serah, who came down with him 
 to Egypt, were females, let us deduct them from the number 
 of 70, which composed the patriarch's family. There remain 
 67. Now, when we multiply 33,000 by 67 the product 
 is 2,211,000, a result considerably exceeding the estimate of 
 those who calculate that the Israelites, at their departure from 
 Egypt, after a sojourn of 215 years, numbered two millions, 
 and which, therefore, allows of the necessary deduction for 
 the twelve sons of Jacob themselves, should it be maintained 
 that only a few children were born to them in Egypt. 
 
 37. Nor can the Bishop bring himself to believe that there 
 were more than four generations in the space of the 215 years 
 spent by Israel in Egypt; for are the generations between 
 Jacob and. Moses not distinctly enumerated? — viz., Levi, 
 Kehath, Amram, and Moses (Ex. vi. 16 — 26). And was it 
 not foretold to Abraham that in the fourth generation (after 
 their immigration into Egypt) his descendants should return 
 to the Land of Promise? Now, to dispose at once of the 
 apparent difficulty presented by this prediction to Abraham, 
 we will state that the Hebrew ^1*1, rendered " generation " in 
 its primary sense, means circuit, the space or period within 
 which a number of persons live, or all those persons who arc 
 
128 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 cotemporarles, from the eldest to tlie youngest. The idea of 
 a generation, in the modern sense of the word, whether we 
 extend it to a century or contract it to 25 years, seems to have 
 been quite foreign to the Israelites. Thus we read in 
 Ex. i. 6 — " And Joseph and all his brethren and all that 
 generation died." Kow Joseph and his brethren were, of 
 course, part and parcel of their generation. If we measure the 
 length of the generation by the life of Levi, it must have 
 comprised 137 years, as was the age attained by him when 
 he died (Ex. vi. 16). If measured by the length of the life of 
 Joseph, it extended only to 110 years (Gen. 1.26); and if 
 measured by the time required for a human being from his 
 birth until he has himself children, a generation could, at the 
 utmost, have comprised only 37 years, since in 74 years Joseph 
 (he married in the 30th year of his age, and very soon after- 
 wards Manasseh was born to him — Gen.xli. 46, 50) saw great- 
 grandchildren (ibid. 1.23). 
 
 38. Moreover, that the prediction to Abraham could not 
 have been intended to be taken in the strict deBnite sense in 
 which the Bishop takes it, is quite clear, since it was not 
 literally fulfilled, upon the Bishop's own showing. The pre- 
 diction distinctly says: "And in the fourth generation they 
 (the descendants of Abraham) shall return thither '^ (to the 
 Promised Land). The reckoning, therefore, must begin at 
 the latest with Levi, who represented the first generation; then 
 follow Kehath, Amram, and Moses, who is actually in the 
 fourth generation from Levi. But it so happened that neither 
 Moses, Aaron, nor any of the whole generation (Joshua and 
 Caleb excepted), from 20 years and upwards, entered the 
 Promised Land. They all died in the desert. It was, there- 
 fore, in the common sense of the word, the fifth generation 
 from Levi — viz., Levi, Kehath, Amram, Aaron, and Eleazar 
 — that "returned thither ^^ — i.e., entered the land of Canaan. 
 The legitimate sense of the prediction, therefore, must be thi?: 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 129 
 
 God said to Abraham, when all the cotempoiarles, from the 
 eldest to the youngest, of those immigrating into Egypt shall 
 have died, and tliis process been repeated twice over, then 
 numbers of thy descendants who shall then be contemporary 
 will again enter the land of their forefathers. Now this was 
 strictly fulfilled; for contemporaries of Moses and Aaron — 
 viz., all those Israelites wdio were under 20 years of age when 
 the doom recorded in Num.xiv. 33 was fulfilled — did actually 
 return to the Land of Canaan. This prediction, therefore, 
 need not stand in the way of the supposition that more 
 than four generations, in the modern sense of the word, lived 
 in the 215 years that Israel sojourned in Egypt. 
 
 39. True, there were only four generations between Levi 
 and Moses. But it does not follow that this was the case with 
 all other families. The family of Levi seems to have been 
 particularly long-lived (Ex. vi. 16 — 20), and comparatively 
 little prolific, as shown by the tw^o censuses in the desert, when 
 the tribe of Levi was the smallest of all tribes, its number 
 having been at the first census 22,000, (Num. iii. 39), and 
 the second 23,000 (ibid. xxvi. 62), while in other families 
 seven, and perhaps even ten generations seem to have suc- 
 ceeded each other in the same period, several of them may 
 have been contemporary. Thus it appears from 1 Chron. ii. 
 18 — 20, that Bezaleel, the chief artificer in the construction 
 of the tabernacle, and consequently a contemporary of Moses, 
 was in the 7th generation from Judah — viz., Judah, Pharez, 
 Hezron, Caleb, Hur, Uri, Bezaleel. Thus the daughters of 
 Zelophehad, contemporaries of Moses (Num. xxvii. 1 — 3), 
 were in the 7tii generation, descended from Joseph — viz., 
 Joseph, Menasseh, Machir, Gilead, Ilepher, Zelophehad, his 
 daughters. Nay, Joshua was the 11th descendant from the 
 same Joseph, as stated in 1 Chron. vii. 22 — 27. The gene- 
 alogy runs thus — Joseph, Menasseh, Beriah, Reptah, Telah, 
 Tahan, Laadan, Ammihud, Elishama, Nun, Joshua. And 
 
 K 
 
130 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 from thig genealogy we incidentally learn how early the mem- 
 bers of some families married and begat children, and this will 
 thus help us in accounting for the prodigious increase of Israel. 
 At all events, we see that there were more than four gene- 
 rations, in the 215 years; and, if we consider the generations 
 of the tribe of Levi, as represented by the family of Kehath, 
 as the minimum — viz. 4 — and that of Ephraim, as represented 
 by his son Beriah, as the maximum — viz. ] 1 — we shall be 
 justified in taking the mean of the two — viz. 71 — as the 
 average number of generations in each of the Israeli tish families. 
 This will show at once, that the Bishop's calculation of the 
 real number of Israelites at the Exodus, as based upon the 
 assumption that there were only four generations in the 215 
 years they stayed in Egypt, is utterly devoid of all foundation. 
 The fact is, as is evident from our previous remarks, that we 
 have no data whatever for any such calculation. But if we 
 fairly weigh the circumstances under which this extraordinary 
 increase took place, as pointed out by us, we must arrive at 
 the conclusion, that the increase was no doubt marvellous, in 
 consonance with what we might have expected from God's 
 express promise, but that it does not exceed the bounds of 
 credibility, nor require us to have resort to a continued vio- 
 lation of the laws of nature extending over 215 years. 
 
 The Danites and Levites at the time of 
 THE Exodus. (Chap, xvii.) 
 
 40. We now come to the consideration of some minor diffi- 
 culties raised by the Bishop, which, however, need not detain us 
 long. In chap. 17, the Bishop subjects the increase of these two 
 tribes to the very searching test which he had in the previous 
 chapter applied to the increase of the whole people in general. 
 These two tribes seem to him particularly appropriate to bring 
 out the untenableness of the Biblical statements concerninor 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 131 
 
 their increase, since Dan's descendants, at the first census, 
 numbered 62,000 (Numb. ii. 26), although he had only one 
 son, Hushim; while Levi, witli three sons, Gershon, Kehath, 
 and Merari, is only credited with 22,000 descendants. The 
 Bisliop calculates that in order to have that number born to 
 him within four generations, Dan's own son and each of his 
 sons and grandsons must have had about eighty children of 
 both sexes, and yet Benjamin, who had ten sons, only num- 
 bered at the same census 35,400 descendants (ibid. 23). Now to 
 us this very contrast between the number of the descendants of 
 Benjamin's l^n sons and Dan's one son is the strongest voucher 
 possible for the truthfulness of the statement; for a writer of 
 fiction or legends, who, wished to pass off his inventions for 
 truth, would take care not to offend so much against what 
 appears probable, as the writer of the Pentateuch has done in 
 this case. Fiction that is intended to pass for truth, must never 
 exceed the boundaries of the probable, the object being not to 
 challenge inquiry; but truth, which has no ulterior object, 
 may state what at first sight seems improbable, because it does 
 not fear inquiry, or rather does not think of it. 
 
 41. We have only to suppose, that the influences enumerated 
 by us, and which account for Israel's prodigious increase, 
 operated upon the tribe of Dan, with a force ten-fold as great 
 as that which was at work in the tribe of Benjamin, and the 
 phenomenon which appeared so startling to the Bishop is 
 explained. Thus we may suppose that Dan had in Egypt a 
 larger number of children, than those born to Benjamin in 
 Canaan, while the latter begat no more children in Egypt. 
 That these children of Dan, all merged among the descendants 
 of Hushim, born in Canaan, were much more fruitful than the 
 children of Benjamin, and that, while the tribe of Dan was 
 joined by many strangers, the tribe of Benjamin received no 
 accession from this source. That the tribe of Levi, at the 
 first census, only numbered 22,000, and at the second (Num. 
 
132 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 xxvi. 62), only 23,000; while the tribe of Menasseh_, during 
 the intervening 38 years, had increased from 32,200 (Num. i. 
 35) to 52,700 (ibid, xxvii. 34), only proves what we re- 
 marked before, that the tribe of Levi was little prolific, and 
 had, moreover, been subject in the desert, exceptionally, to 
 casualties which greatly diminished its number, but which 
 casualties, like so many other incidents that happened during 
 these 38 years, were not recorded. It is therefore, quite futile 
 to compare, as the Bishop does, this slow rate of increase with 
 that of England during the same length of time, and to draw 
 any inferences from it. To give such a comparison any value 
 at all, the Bishop should not have compared the rate of 
 increase of all England with that of a single tribe within a 
 particular exceptional period, and subject to influences with 
 which we are altogether unacquainted: but should have 
 selected some particular district in England, where the popu- 
 lation has been for the last 38 years placed in a position analo- 
 gous to that of the Levites in the desert. 
 
 The War against Midian (Chap. xxii.). 
 
 42. The 22nd chapter of the Bishop's work, involves 
 several objections, partly moral, and partly arithmetical. We 
 shall now consider the latter. These objections are — 1. How 
 is it possible that 12,000 Israelites should have slain all the 
 males of the Midianites, taken captive all the females and 
 children, seized all their cattle and flocks, and all their goods, 
 and burned all their cities and castles, without the loss of a 
 single man, as related in Numb, xxxi.? II. Is it conceivable 
 that these 12,000 men should have been able, in addition to 
 killing every male, to carry off 100,000 captives, and drive 
 before them 808,000, head of cattle? III. Can it be believed 
 that the events^ as enumerated further on, should have occurred 
 in the short space of time which intervened between the death 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 133 
 
 of Aaron, on the first day of the fiftli month of the fortieth 
 year of Israel's wanderings (Num. xxxlli. 38), and the death 
 of Moses, at the end of the fortieth year? These events are: 
 tlie attack on the Canaanites (ibid. xxi. 1 — 3); the journey 
 from Mount Hor (ibid. xxi. 5 — 9); the nine other encamp- 
 ments (ibid. xxi. 10 — 20); the war with Sihon (ibid. xxi. 
 21 — 25); the taking of the villages of Jaazer (ibid. xxi. 32); 
 the conquest of Bashan (ibid. xxi. 33 — 35); the march to the 
 plains of Moab (ibid. xxii. 1); the episode with Balak and 
 Balaam (ibid. xxii. — xxiv.) ; JsraePs abiding in Shittim (ibid. 
 xxvi. I — 3); the plague (ibid. xxv. 9); the second census 
 (ibid. xxv. 1); and, lastly, the war against Midian. 
 
 43. There can be no doubt that 12,000 Israelites were 
 ordered to march against the ^lidianites; and we do not doubt 
 but that these were picked men, especially trained for war, 
 and well armed. But we are not equally sure that no more than 
 12,000 formed the expedition; that they were not joined by 
 volunteers; and that they were accompanied by no attendants, 
 and had no camp-followers. At all events, while there is 
 nothing in the text of this narrative requiring this restriction, 
 there occur expressions in it which seem to favour a different 
 opinion. True, in the phrase, " Of every tribe a thousand, 
 throughout all the tribes of Israel, shall ye send to the host 
 (K^^f^ ver. 4) '' host," if it had only occurred here, might 
 have been considered as synonymous with war; but this cannot 
 be the case in verse 14, for there we read that !Moses was 
 wroth with the officers '^ that came from the host of the war'' 
 (H^nS^n N^VP), ^^^ ^vhcre X!l^ (host) is clearly distin- 
 guished from f\l2iThl2 (war). The same distinction is also 
 made in verses 27 and 28. Read by this light, verse 4 seems 
 to mean that a thousand men of each tribe were sent to the 
 host or army of which they were the principal, although not 
 the exclusive, constituent party. It is, therefore, extraordinary, 
 but not quite so incredible, that in this foray (as such Scripture 
 
134 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 describes it) none of the 12,003 well-trained and armed war- 
 riors should liavc fallen, although some attendants or camp- 
 followers, not equally well trained and equipped, may have 
 been killed. At least, the report of the officers to Moses, in 
 which they state this extraordinary fact^ only refers to these; 
 for they say, *' Thy servants have taken the sum of the men of 
 war wlio are under our charge, and there lacketh not one man 
 of us/'' Nay, construing the sentence strictly to the letter, 
 the phrase, " who are under our charge," seems to imply, that 
 there were men in the expedition who were not under their 
 charge like the 12,000, and about whose fate they were silent. 
 We have, in our own days^ heard of an analagous event. When 
 two years ago Fort Sumter, in Charleston, South Carolina, was 
 bombarded by the State troops for nearly a whole day, and 
 the garrison at last compelled to evacuate the place, not a 
 single casualty, either to the besiegers, from the fire of the 
 besieged, nor to the besieged from that of the besiegers, marked 
 the encounter; yet nobody, for this reason, doubted the his- 
 torical character of the account. 
 
 44. This construction of verse 4 seems also to help us out of 
 the Bishop's second difficulty. If 12,000 men were not suffi- 
 cient to bring to the camp the large number of captives and 
 of beasts, the fair inference is, not that the account is unhis- 
 torical, but that the expedition consisted of a larger number of 
 persons than tliat named, or that these were joined, after the 
 defeat of the Midianites, by as many persons from the neigh' 
 bouring camp as were necessary for the transport of the booty. 
 By this time we have learned to estimate, by its true value, 
 the usual objection of the Bishop to any rational explanation 
 of a difficulty, by averring that nothing of the kind is stated in 
 the text. We need not, therefore, be deterred from having 
 recourse to the explanation given. 
 
 45. More formidable looks the third objection; but it only 
 looks so when considered at a distance. Wlien examined more 
 
ARITHMETICAL GROUP. 135 
 
 closely it recedes like mist, and we soon see there is no substance 
 in it. To show what we mean, let us suppose that some his- 
 torian, inattentive to dates, should have described the events 
 marking the hundred days which elapsed between the landing 
 of Napoleon I. at Cannes, after his withdrawal from Elba, and 
 the battle of Waterloo, which brought his second reign to a 
 close. On seeing the number of marches performed from the 
 south of France, beyond the extreme north into the heart of 
 Belgium; the concentration of large armies, the convocation 
 of new Chambers, the promulgation of a new constitution, the 
 large number of orders given ; and finally, the movements which 
 terminated in the overthrow at Waterloo — would the reader 
 of this narrative not be tempted to declare, that it was impos- 
 sible that so many events should have occurred within less 
 than four months? Yet we know that the narrative is strictly 
 true, and that an inquiry into these dates, and especially the 
 pointing out of the events which happened simultaneously, 
 although not thus represented in the account, would fully ex- 
 plain what, without this help, would appear a fiction. 
 
 46. Now this is precisely our position in reference to the 
 events which the Bishop declared could not have occurred 
 within seven months. The dates are omitted in the narrative, 
 nor are we informed which events took place simultaneously. 
 But this omission justifies as little the conclusion, that the events 
 under discussion could not have occurred by reason of the 
 shortness of the period within which they are described to have 
 taken place, as it would be to argue that the events of the 
 hundred days are a fiction. If we further consider that Moses 
 knew that he had only a few months to live, we can easily 
 imagine that he so made his arrangements as to be enabled to 
 brinsr his allotted task to a close in due time, and not to leave 
 any portion of his work unachieved. All we have, therefore, 
 to do is to group the events so as to show that they might 
 have occurred within the last seven months of the life of 
 Moses. 
 
136 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 47. Now, before we make this attempt^ let us remind our 
 readers that the theatre of these events was a comparatively small 
 one — Mount Seir^ Midian, Moab, and the two small kingdoms 
 beyond the Jordan then ruled by Sihon and Og respectively — 
 in size not exceeding a few English counties, and that a few 
 hours^ march from Israel's camp might have brought a body of 
 picked soldiers within an}' of these territories. We now hypo- 
 thetically begin our arrangement of dates. The attack of the 
 Israelites on the Canaanite King Arad (Numb. xxi. 1 — 3), 
 although recorded after the death of Aaron_, may have taken 
 place before his demise. Similar transpositions are not rare in 
 the Pentateuch (G. G. 79). The march from Mount Hor, the 
 murmuring of the people, and their punishment by means of 
 burning serpents (Numb. 4 — 10)^ need only have occupied a 
 few days. The nine places enumerated, in which the Israel- 
 ites 'are said to have been encamped (ibid. 10 — 20), may only 
 have been so many stations in which they halted for a short 
 time to rest themselves. And even if the mass of the people 
 had journeyed on slowly, detachments of soldiers might have 
 pushed on and arrived at the boundaries of Sihon's kingdom 
 long before the rest of the people. The embassy to this king, 
 his overthrow, and the conquest of Jaazer (ibid. 21 — 32) may 
 have taken place while the encumbered multitude, under the 
 protection of a sufficient number of able-bodied men, marched 
 along to join their brethren. Surely the presence of the women, 
 children, old and infirm men, and of the people's flocks and 
 herds, was not necessary for the achievement of the victories 
 obtained by bodies of picked men charged with these expedi- 
 tions. The kingdoms of Sihon and Og might have been over- 
 run in a few days, and the fenced cities with which they were 
 filled did not offer any obstacle to the progress of the conquest, 
 as we nowhere find that they were defended. On the contrary, 
 to judge from the terror with which the approach of the 
 Israelites inspired these nations (ibid. xxii. 23; Joshua ii. 9), 
 
AUITUMETICAL GROUP. 137 
 
 wc arc justified in concluding that the moment the opposing 
 armies were defeated in the field all further resistance ceased. 
 The conquest of these two small territories might have been 
 accomplished in less than a month; perhaps in less than a 
 fortnight. The measures devised by Balak for the destruction 
 of Israel (ibid. xxii. 5 — 26) might have been adopted the 
 moment he heard that Israel intended to direct their march 
 towards his territory, and Balaam might have arrived just after 
 the people had reached the plains of Moab. A fortnight was, 
 again, sufficient for the events narrated in chapters xxiii., xxlv., 
 and in the first nine verses of chapter xxv. As the census re- 
 corded in chapter xxvi. miglit have been taken simultaneously 
 in all tribes, every chief of the family declaring before the 
 prince of his tribe the number of males of 20 and upwards 
 under him, it might have been accomplished in one week. For 
 the attack on the Midianites one week was sufficient. There, 
 therefore, remained ample time for the address of Moses to the 
 people, and, in fact, for all the events that marked the closing 
 scene of his life, as described in Deuteronomy. 
 
 48. But, suppose it would have been impossible to frame a hy- 
 pothesis showing that these events might have happened within 
 seven months, would it be a fair inference that the narrative 
 must necessarily be unhistorical, simply because we lack the 
 knowledge of some details that might help us out of our diffi- 
 culty ? Certainly not. We should rather have reasoned thus : 
 Had the author of Numbers written fiction instead of history, 
 he would have taken care not to crowd these events within 
 seven months, in order not to rouse any suspicion of their 
 truthfulness. He might just as well have placed the death of 
 Aaron in the first as in the fifth month of the fortieth year, 
 and thus every suspicion might have been avoided. But as he 
 wrote history, and not fiction, he could not place the date 
 differently from what he did, because it was in the fiftli, and 
 not the first month that Aaron died. Thus the very circum- 
 
138 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 stances which lead the Bishop to the conclusion that the events 
 on which he comments are unhistorical, are to us on the contrary 
 a strong evidence of their historical character. 
 
 IV. 
 GROUP OF MORAL OBJECTIONS. 
 
 1. Before we formulate this group of objections into distinct 
 propositions, it will be necessary to premise a few general 
 remarks. 
 
 2. In order to be able to judge of the ethical value of the 
 Mosaic code, we must carefully distinguish between the broad 
 and comprehensive moral principles enunciated by the Divine 
 lawgiver, which formed a kind of ideal to be aspired after, or 
 rather the theory, and the actual enactments naturally bearing 
 the stamp of the institutions of the period and the necessities 
 of the moment, and which constituted the practice. These 
 two sets of ideas, as is characteristic of the sacred historian, and 
 as marking the Pentateuch throughout, to which western no- 
 tions of method and logical arrangements are strange, inter- 
 mingle, and very often intertwine each other. The operation 
 of separation is left to the biblical student, and not rarely can 
 this only be effected by a process of subtle reasoning. These 
 general principles are so comprehensive in their extent, and so 
 sublime in their tendency, that they have, ever since their pro- 
 mulgation, been unapproached in their excellency. Take, for 
 instance, the relation between God and man, as pointed out by 
 this lawgiver. It is that between parent and children (Deut. 
 xiv. 1). Love to God is designated as the fountain-head 
 whence man's duties flow (Deut. vi. 5 — 8). Take, for instance, 
 in civil laws, the glorious principle to which scarcely any na- 
 tion, modern or ancient, has as yet raised itself — '* One law 
 
MORAL GROUP. 139 
 
 and one judgment shall be for you and the stranger who so- 
 journs among you" (Xumb. xv. 1.3, 16). Tlien^ again, look 
 at the criminal law. Not a single torture is sanctioned to ob- 
 tain a confession from llic accused. At the evidence only of 
 not less than two witnesses could the accused be condemned, 
 and even flogging, so universal in the East and among half- 
 civilised nations, could not be resorted to in order to extort a 
 confession; and when stripes were inflicted as a punishment after 
 the crime was proved, the number of lashes was fixed, which 
 must not be exceeded, "that thy brother shall not be slighted in 
 thine eyes " (Deut. xxv. 3). It is scarcely necessary to point out 
 instances of enactments bearing the stamp of the institutions 
 of the time, as the memory of every reader of the Bible will 
 easily supply them, and as we shall presently have to refer to 
 them. The question now arises. Do the Bishop's objections, 
 on moral grounds, to the historical character of the Pentateuch 
 refer to the general principles of morality enunciated in the 
 Books of Moses, or to special enactments marked by the cha- 
 racteristics pointed out? We answer, imhesitatingly, to the 
 latter, as will be seen, when they shall have been formulated 
 into distinct propositions, and duly examined. 
 
 3. These objections may be reduced to two propositions. 
 The first is the supposed sanction given by God to slavery, as 
 implied by Exod. xxi. 20, 21 (P. G. 45), where laws concerning 
 slavery are given, and Numb. xxxi. 40, where we read of 
 ** Jehovah's tribute" of slaves. Thesecondisthemassacreof all the 
 women and male children of the Midianites, by command of 
 Moses (ver. 35). We will now discuss the first proposition. 
 
 4. We admit at once that slavery, in the widest sense of 
 the word, is a most heinous offence against the law of na- 
 ture, since man can have no right of property in man, all men 
 being alike created in the image of God, and possessed of im- 
 mortal souls. From, this it necessarily follows, that, should 
 Moses have sanctioned slavery, he would have violated a sacred 
 
140 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 law of nature, and thus placed himself in opposition to the God 
 of nature. But where has Moses sanctioned slavery? He no- 
 where in distinct words either approves of it or condemns it. 
 Moses' presumed sanction of slavery is simply an inference 
 which the Bishop draws from the circumstance that he enacted 
 laws concerning it, and assigned to Eleazar certain slaves who 
 formed the tribute of the Lord. Now against this inference 
 we must be allowed to array others leading to a quite different 
 conclusion; and we shall then leave it to our readers to judge 
 which of the two sets of inferences is better founded, as disclos- 
 ing the lawgiver's sentiments on the subject. 
 
 5. Had Moses sanctioned slavery, he must necessarily have 
 admitted the right of property of man in man, and he conse- 
 quently could not have enacted any laws in direct opposition to 
 this right. Now what enactments do we find among his slave 
 laws? The denial of the right of a Hebrew to possess a Hebrew 
 slave. A Hebrew might sell himself to another Hebrew, but only 
 for a period not exceeding six years at the utmost, and at the 
 option of the slave^ not of the master, until the jubilee (Ex. xxi. 
 2) — which, in reality, is not slavery, but only a contract into 
 which a servant of his own free-will entered with an employer 
 for a time, which could not exceed the legally fixed period. 
 But it will be answered, that this was between Hebrew and 
 Hebrew, and not between Hebrew and Gentile. Well, then, let 
 us proceed to the consideration of another law affecting Gentile 
 slaves. Should a Gentile slave from a foreign country take 
 refuge in the land of the Israelites, the lawgiver forbids to de- 
 liver him up to his master (Deut. xxiii. 16,17). Now on what 
 ground could this protection to the fugitive slave be justified? 
 Had a sheep or a bull escaped from the hand of a foreign 
 butcher, and fled into the land of Israel, would the law have 
 justified the refusal to restore it to its owner? Besides the ge- 
 neral command, '^ Thou shalt not steal," there are special laws 
 enjoining the restoration of any straying beast to its owner 
 
MORAL GROUP. 141 
 
 (Ex. xxlii.4) Moses, therefore, evidently made a distinction be- 
 tween the chattel called a slave and that named a sheep. lie, 
 therefore, could not have placed both on a pjir, so far as the right 
 of property was concerned. He might have tolerated slavery as 
 the minor evil, but evidently did not believe that man could 
 possess an inalienable right in man. The supposed sanction, 
 therefore, given by Moses to slavery, could only have consisted 
 in his acquiescence in an institution which he found was then 
 general, and which, under the circumstances then prevailing, 
 he could not have abolished without introducing a still greater 
 evil than that constituted by slavery. If, therefore, the aboli- 
 tion of slavery in the time of Moses was impracticable, nothing 
 remained but to re^rulate the relations between master and 
 
 CD 
 
 slave, giving the latter the necessary legal protection against 
 any abuse of the power of the former, and preparing the \vay 
 for its ultimate extinction in due time. 
 
 6. That the abolition of slavery in the time of Moses must 
 have been attended by evils far greater than slavery itself, will 
 appear from the following considerations : — We can only 
 imagine three sources of slavery in tliose primeval times — 
 judicial slavery, the consequence of the sentence of a court 
 which condemned a thief to be sold as a slave, in order to 
 compensate the sufferer for the loss sustained; voluntary 
 slavery, when an individual, in order to escape from some 
 calamity, surrendered the liberty of his own free-will; and, 
 lastly, forcible slavery, when the stronger reduced the weaker 
 into bondage. Now of the first source of slavery we need 
 not speak. It exists in our own days only in a different form. 
 When a judge condemns a criminal to penal servitude for a 
 certain period, or for life, the convict has become actually a 
 slave — not of an individual, it is true, but of the state — not 
 for the benefit of the sufferer, but to the injury of the country, 
 which has to support him. But, for all that, he Is a slave. 
 We can, therefore, dismiss this source at once. Of the second 
 
142 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 source we have a striking exemplification in the fate of the 
 Egyptians during the seven years of famine in the time of 
 Joseph. When they had sold all their possessions in order to 
 buy breads they at last^ in order to escape death, offered to 
 sell their own persons to Pharaoh for food (Gen. xlvii. 19). 
 It is evident, that in times of scarcity in those days such 
 transactions must have been of frequent occurrence; for inter- 
 course between nation and nation — nay, between neighbouring 
 tribes — must have been rendered difficult, and therefore un- 
 frequent, by the absence of good roads, travelling conveniences, 
 and by the danger of travelling in general. Trade was in its 
 infancy, and could not have extended to bulky commodities. 
 The exchange of the superfluities of one country for those of 
 another could only have been effected very slowly, even if its 
 advantages had been universally acknowledged. It was much 
 more difficult for a commodity to be transported to the persons 
 who required it than for these to go to the place where the 
 commodity was. When, therefore, a famine arose, men were 
 generally helpless, as it was no easy matter to bring to them 
 the abundance of another more fortunate country. And as 
 there existed no poor law, which obliged those whose crops 
 had not failed to support the destitute ; and as the religions of 
 those days neither appealed to man^s charitable feelings nor 
 cultivated them — those blessed with plenty had no motive 
 whatever to support the needy with their stores. The only 
 means of inducing the rich to do so was an appeal to their 
 interest. By undertaking the obligation of working for them 
 — i.e. J of selling themselves as slaves' — the poor might induce 
 the rich to support those who, without this help, must have 
 perished. 
 
 7. Now as Moses, among his own people, had made a pro- 
 vision for the poor — in other words, had enacted what we 
 should call a poor-law (Lev. xix. 9, 10; xxv. 35 — 38 ; and in 
 many other places) — and, further, had enjoined charity to the 
 
MOKAL GROUP. 143 
 
 poor as one of the most important and sacred duties, he could 
 with safety abolish slavery among the Israelites for Israelites. 
 But as there existed no such provision among the neighbouring 
 nations, the consequence would have been that, in case of 
 famine in their own country and of plenty in the land of 
 Israel, the destitute would have poured into the latter. The 
 Israelites would then have been in this position — they must 
 either support these destitute foreigners in common with their 
 own poor, and thus run the risk of not having sufficient food 
 for either, and after some time themselves suffer from want, or 
 refuse all help to these strangers, and thus allow them to 
 perish. It was clearly a minor evil, according to the notions 
 of the age, to allow these strangers to sell themselves to the 
 Israelites for bread, and, by working for and with their 
 masters, to produce the staff of life. It is clear the remedy 
 against the evil did not lie with the Israelites, but with the 
 neighbouring nations. The moment they imitated the institu- 
 tions of Israel, and provided for their poor, the source of 
 voluntary slavery was stopped up. 
 
 8. The third source of slavery is exemplified by the fate 
 of Joseph, who was sold by his brethren, and also by that of the 
 Gibeonites, who, as though they had been prisoners of war, 
 were condemned to slavery (Josh. ix. 2, 3) . Indeed, the re- 
 duction of prisoners of war into bondage was then a great and 
 moral progress; for what were the belligerent powers to do 
 with their captives? International law, defining what an 
 enemy might or might not do, was totally unknown. The 
 exchange of prisoners was likewise unknown. The permanent 
 subjection of a conquered people by means of garrisons, pre- 
 supposed an organisation among the victors then possessed 
 only by a few nations. Therefore, to ensure themselves the 
 undisturbed possession of the conquered land, they deemed it 
 most expedient to destroy all that might again dispute with them 
 the possession of the conquest. The extermination of the 
 
144 TPIE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 male population in a conquered district was, therefore^ not an 
 uncommon practice in those primeval times, and even at a 
 much later period. When, therefore, the idea suggested itself 
 to the victors, of carrying away the prisoners from their 
 country, and making them work as slaves for their masters, it 
 was greatly encouraged by all the philanthropists of the age, 
 as these captives were thus rescued from death. As an 
 attempt at forbidding the reduction of prisoners of war into 
 slavery would only have been likely to revive the still more 
 barbarous practice of massacring them, all that was practicable 
 at the time was, in the first place, to render impossible, so far 
 as Jews were concerned, an attack on a foreign nation for the 
 sole purpose of obtaining slaves, as some African chiefs, if we 
 are to believe the accounts of travellers, do to this day; and, 
 secondly, to prevent labour by slaves becoming more profitable 
 than that of persons working for wages. Upon the attain- 
 ment of these two objects, the ultimate extinction of slavery, 
 as a social institution, principally depended. And these two 
 objects were fully attained, in the first place, by the law which 
 enjoined on the Israelites to offer terms of peace to any city 
 which they were going to attack, previous to laying siege to 
 it (Deut. XX. 10). A sudden invasion of any territory by 
 Israelites was, therefore, quite impossible, and with it there 
 existed no chance of a cheap victory, consequently no induce- 
 ment for such an attack. And, secondly, by the law which 
 secured for the slave rest on the sabbath, the same as to his 
 master; and further^ by the law which deprived the master of 
 the power of extorting by violence from the slave an extra 
 amount of work; for if he only injured any of the limbs of 
 his slave — for instance, knocked out one of his teeth — the 
 slave instantly became free (Exod. xxi. 26, 27). It is evident 
 that, without the stimulus of wages, and without the fear of 
 violence, and working only six days in the week, the same as 
 the hired servant, the latter, as daily experience teaches, beat 
 
MORAL GROUP. 145 
 
 the former in the competition. Whenever, therefore, the 
 maintenance of a slave equalled in expense the wages of a free 
 labourer, it was clearly to the interest of the employer to make 
 use of the services of the latter in preference to the work of 
 the former. Thus we see, that these very humane laws, which 
 gave such very efficient protection to the slave, whilst drying 
 up the sources whence slavery was replenished, also served to 
 pave the way for its extinction. The Bishop's statement, 
 therefore, that Moses gave his — that is, Divine — sanction to 
 slavery, is altogether unfounded. 
 
 9. The remarks made on the objection just disposed of, 
 will assist us in the removal of the second. If slavery was an 
 institution rather acquiesced in than sanctioned, and only tole- 
 rated as a minor evil, the proceedings against the Midianites, 
 upon which the • Bishop so harshly comments, were the un- 
 avoidable consequences of a stern necessity, imposed by the 
 institutions and practices of the age, of the peculiar position in 
 which Moses had been placed by the Midianites themselves, and 
 of the high mission with which he was charged. Once grant the 
 necessity of the expedition against ]\lidian, and it must be ad- 
 mitted that every subsequent measure adopted was a consequence 
 that might be deplored, but could hardly have been avoided. 
 That this expedition was deliberately forced upon Moses by 
 the Midianites, will appear from the following considerations. 
 
 10. The Midianites were on amicable terms with the Isra- 
 elites encamped at Shittim. Israelitish men visited the abodes 
 of the Midianites, and Midianitish women visited the camp of 
 Israel. Amidst these apparently friendly relations, sincere in 
 so far as the Israelites were concerned, the Midianites conspired 
 against their confiding neighbours. The moral, if not the 
 physical, destruction of the Israelites was their aim, and their 
 women became the principal agents in the dark plot. They 
 enticed the Israelites not as voluptuaries, for the gratification 
 of sensuality, not even as harlots, for the wages of sin; but as 
 
 L 
 
146 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 Delilalis, to make use of the influence acquired over their 
 victims as atrocious means towards a still more atrocious 
 object. The Israelites were to be seduced from the alle- 
 giance thej owed to the only God, and to be led back to 
 idolatry (Numb. xxv. 16 — 18). These Midianites knew well 
 what they staked; they knew that their success meant rebellion 
 against God, and their failure vengeance on their head. They 
 knew that if they failed to turn the people from Moses and his 
 law, the outraged law could not allow the crime to remain un- 
 punished. Although they brought a great calamity upon 
 the people (xxv. 8, 9), yet they failed in their chief attempt. 
 It was now for the Divine lawgiver to show his people, by the 
 severity with which the abettors to the crime were to be 
 punished, the horror in which they were to hold the crime 
 committed. It was now for him to avenge the dark treachery 
 of the Midianites, the insult offered to all laws of God and 
 man, and, by the punishment inflicted, to deter other tribes 
 from pursuing a similar course. At the command of God the 
 expedition against Midian was undertaken. The men were slain 
 in an open fair fight, and we need not construe the words of the 
 narrative in the Pentateuch so strictly to the letter, as to suppose 
 that all the men of Midian were killed, since we find, at a 
 subsequent period, the tribe of the Midianites still in existence 
 and flourishing (Judges vi.). When the expedition returned, 
 accompanied by the captive women and children of the van- 
 quished people, Moses was placed in a peculiar position. These 
 women were the chief criminals, as the Divine lawgiver ex- 
 pressed himself (Numb. xxxi. 16): "Behold, these caused the 
 children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit 
 trespass against the Eternal in the matter of Peor, and there 
 was a plague among the congregation of the Eternal;" wdiich 
 in the original is expressed with still greater force by the words, 
 7^t'l^> *^^^ Vn nyn jn. Had they been allowed to escape 
 with impunity, the principal object of the expedition would 
 
MORAL GROUP. 147 
 
 have failed; but had they been sent back to tlicir homes, tliis, 
 according to the notions of the age and the institutions of the 
 time, would have been impunity. Nor could they have been kept 
 in tlic camp; not as prisoners, because there neither existed 
 prisons, warders, or any other machinery for the custody and 
 support of such a large multitude ; nor as slaves, because tliey 
 would have been sure to re-establlsli their influence over the 
 men whom they had led astray before, and would, in the midst 
 of the camp, as the concubines of their masters, have continued 
 to alienate them from the God of Israel. Their destruction 
 became as advisable, as a matter of precaution, as it was justifl- 
 able by their crime. 
 
 11. The fate of tlie children, too, required consideration. 
 The females among them might, without danger to the people, 
 be preserved alive. They were young, and their idolatrous 
 habits not deeply rooted. When grown up, they would 
 become the wives, or concubines, of their masters, and as such 
 would more and more become identified with the feelings and 
 interests of their husbands and children. The female children, 
 accordingly, were kept alive. It was different with the males. 
 According to the institutions then prevailing, and we believe still 
 obtaining in many parts of Arabia, every one of these boys, 
 when grown up, must have become an avenger of blood (Num. 
 XXXV. 19, 2Sam.xiv. 7 — 11). The duty would have devolved 
 upon him to slay those that slew his parents, regardless of the 
 crime which led to their destruction. No device that might 
 have been contrived by the people could have averted this 
 danger from them. If restored to their homes, they would 
 have united with the survivors, and disturbed the peace of the 
 Israelites by their attacks; and if kept as slaves in the camp, 
 frequent assassinations and riots would in time have been the 
 consequence. On this subject, we refer our readers to 
 Michaelis's " Mosaisches Becht,'' vol. ii. par. 131 — 137, where 
 the extent, stringency, and terrible consequences of this insti- 
 
148 THE PENTATEUCH CRITICALLY EXAMINED. 
 
 tution are fully described. The safety of the people being the 
 highest law, stern necessity seemed to bid the destruction of 
 these future avengers of blood. We may deplore their fate; 
 and the rationalist who cannot perceive in this act the hand 
 of an Omniscient God, foreseeing the incompatibility of their 
 preservation with the discharge of Israel's mission, may even 
 impute to Moses an error in judgment; but he has certainly no 
 right, as the Bishop has done, to compare these executions with 
 the massacre at Cawnpore. The women and children whose 
 massacre was ordered by Nana Sahib had not in any way 
 participated in what he considered the offences of their 
 husbands and fathers. The preservation of these women and 
 children could not in any way have interfered with his plans. 
 Moreover, in this matter Nana Sahib was the traitor. The 
 English bad surrendered to him on the faith of their being 
 allowed to depart. His crimes were as atrocious as they were 
 unnecessary. But in the case of the Midianites, it was they 
 who had acted the part of traitors to the Israelites, and it was 
 their women who were the chief criminals. Innocence there- 
 fore cannot be pleaded for them as for the massacred English 
 women at Cawnpore; and of the children of the Midianites, 
 those were kept alive, whose preservation was not likely 
 to endanger the safety of the people, while at Cawnpore all 
 children were indiscriminately involved in the fate of their 
 parents. The believer in the historical character of the Bible, 
 therefore, may consider the narrative contained in Numb. xxxi. 
 as true, without any necessity for placing Moses on a par with 
 the wretched Hindoo, as implied by the Bishop's comparison. 
 
 12. We have now brought our examination to a close, and 
 must leave it to our readers to decide whether the Bishop has 
 succeeded in establishing the position with which he set out — 
 that the Pentateuch is mainly unhistorical. 
 
 THE END. 
 
BS1225.4 .C7B4 
 
 Bishop Colenso's objections to the 
 
 Princeton Theological Semlnary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00039 6335