5 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 | 
 
 i|i«p I 4« |». 
 
 I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 
 

 ■ 
 
SCRIPTURE 
 
 SPECULATIONS; 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION ON 
 
 THE CREATION, STARS, EARTH, PRIMITIVE 
 MAN, JUDAISM, ETC. 
 
 IIALSEY R. STEVENS. 
 
 Where the Spirit of the Lord is, I here- is Libert} 
 
 NEWBURGH, N. Y. : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 E. w. Buttenbor & Bon, Printers, 101 Watcr-at. 
 
 ] 875 
 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, 
 
 By HALSEY K. STEVENS, 
 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. 
 I. 
 II. 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 
 XXL 
 
 XXII. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 XXXi. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 XX XII I. 
 
 XXXIV 
 XXXV. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The Beginning 13 
 
 Starry Worlds 28 
 
 Constitution of the Earth 
 Ages Before Adam . . ..... 
 
 Jewish Scriptures 
 
 Genesis 
 
 Exodus 
 
 136 
 
 Leviticus 
 
 177 
 
 Numbers 
 
 181 
 
 Deuteronomy 
 
 191 
 
 Joshua 
 
 200 
 
 Judges 
 
 211 
 
 Ruth 
 
 226 
 
 First Samuel 
 
 231 
 
 Second Samuel 
 
 257 
 
 First Kings 
 
 268 
 
 Second Kings "...'. 
 
 280 
 
 First Chronicles 
 
 292 
 
 Second Chronicles 
 
 296 
 
 Ezra 
 
 301 
 
 Nehemiah 
 
 303 
 
 
 305 
 
 Job ... .' 
 
 311 
 
 
 316 
 
 
 . 321 
 
 
 323 
 
 
 326 
 
 
 329 
 
 •) l,l;i, vn VH 
 
 343 
 
 
 352 
 
 Ezekiel 
 
 356 
 
 Daniel 
 
 368 
 
 MlNOE PEOPHETS Ilnxcii. -Joel, Aiilos,()ba(li<ill, Joiiall, 
 
 Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, 
 
 Zechariah, Malachi 379 
 
 •Jkws vnd Jerusalem 395 
 
 Chronology Ml 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 19, Paine, should read Pope. 
 " 49, Pormian, " " Permian. 
 " 58, Past-Pliocene, should read Post-Pliocene. 
 
 " 120, 340, should read 430. 
 
 " 111, son, " " sous. 
 
 " 290, was course, should read was of course. 
 
 " 351, Cassandria. " " Cassandra. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THIS work of the broken leisure of many years was 
 intended to be a critical examination of the Old Tes- 
 tament Scriptures ; but, the propriety of connecting with it 
 some collateral subjects became apparent upon mature con- 
 sideration. Whoever wrote the book of Genesis, especially 
 the fore part, evidently had as great a desire as any man 
 that ever lived, to know about the beginning of things. 
 Thoughts upon matters about which so little is known 
 force themselves upon us so as not to be driven away. 
 That such information is very limited is no fault of man's; 
 surely our desire for light is strong enough; such knowl- 
 edge is inclosed in a sealed book not to be opened by 
 mortal hands. Our knowledge of God is through His 
 works and the manifestation of His spirit. Plain common 
 sense teaches us that there must have been a beginning, 
 and an Infinite God co-existent with that beginning. Our 
 first chapter is therefore 
 
 "the beginning." 
 With our utmost power we have endeavored to vindi- 
 cate the existence of a Creative Spirit. Having looked 
 back as far as mortal vision would allow, our attention 
 naturally follows down the stream of time toward the 
 present. To take up every single step, on a way so long, 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 would outweary us as well as our readers. For that 
 reason the next subject considered may be termed 
 "starry worlds." 
 
 This opens a field scarcely less extensive than the pre- 
 vious chapter. From the first start to the period of stellar 
 formations comes an extent of years not easily numbered. 
 The distances and bearings of these bodies, from each 
 other and from us, is a subject of such vast proportions 
 we are amazed and confounded in the contemplation. 
 
 Knowledge touching matters we so much desire to know, 
 is obtained only by earnest application and profound study. 
 
 Which of the bodies in space antedates the rest, who 
 can tell ? 
 
 Our astral system is thought to be among the youngest, 
 and our sun system not to be so old even as some others 
 in this astral. With one long stride we come down to the 
 consideration of the ^planet on which we live, under the 
 title: 
 
 "the constitution of the earth." 
 
 This includes Paleontology and Geology, both of which 
 are spoken of briefty, yet sufficiently for the purpose in 
 view. A small portion only of the evidence available to 
 show the earth's antiquity is produced, but enough to 
 prove it far older than the Mosaic account. The earth's 
 crust is open to our every day inspection. Previous gen- 
 erations have known a little of it, and each succeeding 
 year makes advance. 
 
 "AGES BEFORE ADAM." 
 
 This has been adopted as the heading of another chapter 
 which tries to prove the existence of pre-historic nations 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 so long 1 before the Adamite period as to outrun all calcu- 
 lation upon such ages of ages, though the fact itself is 
 very easily and briefly shown. 
 
 "THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES." 
 
 This chapter comprises general remarks concerning 
 those writings considered especially sacred by the Jews, 
 and so regarded by the majority of Christians. Our views 
 are to some extent in conflict with those current among 
 the "orthodox," nor are they the echo of any sect, but 
 they are honestly entertained, and have been strengthened 
 by years upon years of earnest, not irreverent, thinking. 
 Quotations are made, under this and other heads, from 
 trustworthy writers whose language is far more forcible 
 than any we could frame, but rarely without these thoughts 
 having been among our earliest conceptions. This is 
 especially true of what we have taken from Bishop Colenso. 
 Our aim has been to follow the lead of independent writers, 
 and present the views of standard authors in matters of 
 general information. 
 
 "genesis." 
 
 This first book of the Pentateuch is treated in some 
 particulars quite fully. Our reverence for so ancient a 
 record has not prevented us from objecting to it as a literal 
 statement of facts, and many reasons are given to show 
 that such objections are well founded. That much-talked-of 
 " fall," with which the creeds of Christendom are full to 
 overflowing, is treated as a mere tradition — certainly not 
 a direct communication from God to Moses. Another great 
 point is made against the exact truth of the Noachian 
 deluge Many reasons are given why there must have 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 been a mistake in handing the story down to us along 
 with much we have no disposition to question. In a work 
 of this kind it is necessary to dwell on particular portions 
 of the sacred narration, for to dispute the truth of anything 
 by mere assertion, is really to impose upon the reader. 
 When, viewing it on every side, a position appears on its 
 face to be untenable, overwhelming proof may not be 
 required. Self-evident facts exist, and sometimes the 
 falsity of a proposition is so evident that argument seems 
 to be superfluous. The idea that the Old Testament is all 
 the literal word of God ought to be discarded as inter- 
 fering with its just estimate. But our broad assertion 
 and heartfelt belief we desire to record here at the start: 
 That all truth ou the earth or in the heavens — in whatever 
 shape and under whatever covering — is the Word of God 
 and God's truth. All that is false comes from the Devil, 
 the great fountain of evil — the opposing force to good. 
 
 The fall of man, as it is represented, is a very important 
 affair, because, if a majority of the race are to be eternally 
 damned, creation was a curse instead of a blessing. 
 
 The deluge, looked at from the proper stand-point, seems 
 an exceedingly strange arrangement to be planned, sanc- 
 tioned and executed by Infinite Goodness ; for it was no less 
 than the destruction, according to the history, of what God 
 himself had a short time before made and pronounced good. 
 
 " EXODUS." 
 
 This is an important book, in which we find many things 
 deeply interesting, and which we dwell upon particularly. 
 The Hebrews, beyond a doubt in servitude for many years 
 in Egypt, in due time made their escape and settled in 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IX 
 
 Canaan, from whence they had originally emigrated. The 
 great subject for dispute regards the so-called miracles 
 performed by Moses and Aaron — the question whether — 
 though Moses seemed to get the better of Pharaoh and his 
 Magicians — there was any radical difference in the power 
 by which such things were effected; whether, indeed, the 
 Lord had any more to do with the one than the other. 
 
 All the other books are taken up in their proper order, 
 some of them at length with critical remarks, but with no 
 intention of general disparagement, yet in many cases 
 with an endeavor to show that the record must be taken 
 with great allowance, and cannot possibly be the precise 
 word of God. The main history is not to be disputed. 
 Much, however, needs qualification to escape being utterly 
 misunderstood. The prophetic books we have not intended 
 to handle harshly, because they are the writings of men 
 believed by millions to have been God's mouthpieces — 
 oracles not only to their generation, but endowed with 
 something of Divine fore-knowledge. Many believe that 
 several of the prophets foresaw Jesus, and were therefore 
 able to foreshadow his character and his mission. If we 
 do not see this it is from lack of ability, not for want of 
 disposition. After carefully studying the pssages most 
 relied on, we honestly plead want of conviction. Nor can 
 we see the necessity of any such prediction of the advent 
 of Jesus. Granting that he is a Savior, is he any the more 
 so on account of the prophetic proclamation a few hundred 
 years in advance ? 
 
 "THE JEWS AND JERUSALEM," 
 
 Is a chapter that may be called historical. As the con- 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 elusion of what we felt moved to say about this wandering 
 dove from the Ark, it is inserted with the hope that it may 
 interest and profit. 
 
 " Chronology" could not well be omitted in a volume of 
 this kind, and is therefore given a place. 
 
 The intention of what we have written has been not 
 only to increase the interest of plain persons like ourselves 
 in the ancient Scriptures of Judea, but to remove some 
 stumbling stones out of their path — to exalt holy living 
 above everything under the sun, and to vindicate Deity as 
 far as we can from seeming partial, jealous and vindictive. 
 
 Try to prevent it as man may, the chains of dogma and 
 tradition are being broken, because fetters irritate men as 
 well as animals; because common sense and every-day 
 conscience show that none will be adjudged guilty for 
 not believing what appears to them untrue, any more than 
 for believing too much where they imagine there is 
 evidence. Our faith is in a purely spiritual hereafter, 
 which we consider the true theory of religion; but all 
 speculations in regard to the two places where men are 
 expected to go after death, we consider fancies of the 
 human brain — mere day-dreams of the devout imagination. 
 Our duty is to go forward in every Christian work accord- 
 ing to our honest convictions, humbly and thankfully 
 looking upward for the true spirit — seeking sincerely after 
 the pure waters of life. We all want strength and impulse 
 to do our duty, that we may at last reach that holy, happy 
 place where the righteous and the loving forever dwell. 
 All truth is from God, and forms a part of His essence and 
 nature. Man stands in the same relation to Him to-day 
 
PREFACE. x i 
 
 that he ever has. God's spirit is everywhere, as it was in 
 Isaiah's time, and is just as available for prophetic uses 
 now as in any century before. And yet let no person 
 think for a moment, because of our perfect freedom of 
 speech, that we would dispense with the clergy and 
 abandon the Sabbath to the loose habits prevailing- 
 where there is no public worship. The clergy do more 
 good than any other class. They close many a door against 
 vice; they pursue what they sincerely believe the best 
 course to prevent sin and fit mankind to leave this world 
 ready for enjoying the next. 
 
 Different men have different susceptibilities. Some are 
 terrified when told they are in danger of going to a bad 
 place called hell, and at once promise anything or agree 
 to anything, if by that means they can escape; but at the 
 same time they have no real desire to be good for the sake 
 of goodness. They do not love good and hate evil because 
 of the qualities that inhere in each. Faith is excellent if 
 founded as it should be on a noble life; but most men are 
 so possessed with anxiety about the things of this world, 
 that they leave the next to take care of itself. We have 
 no intention of setting at naught Infinite wisdom, or of 
 treating eternal things with irreverence. The manly 
 course for all writers is to say what they think just and 
 true, and leave the event to God. Keeping back truth is 
 a sin. Better by far speak out, that one's views may come 
 to the light, and that tin? pure air of Heaven may disperse 
 any unintentional error. Duty to ourselves and our age 
 requires perfect honesty. The cause of truth gains un- 
 speakably by freedom of utterance as well as by sincerity 
 
x ii PREFACE. 
 
 of life. As to the nature of future existence, we are at 
 most but poorly informed. Nor can the time required to 
 wash out the stain of sin and purify a defiled soul be 
 estimated at all; though the Apostle to the Gentiles puts 
 the matter in the strongest light by declaring to Timothy 
 that God will have all men to be saved. 
 
 But what are all our petty trials and transient annoy- 
 ances here, compared with gaining that immortal crown, 
 the inheritance of eternal life! 
 
 Thoughts like these have stirred the hearts of the good 
 and true in every age, and will stir them more as 
 Christianity gets deeper hold upon generous aud pure 
 souls. H. R. S. 
 
 Newburgh, 1815. 
 
SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BEGINNING. 
 
 IN reference to the dim and misty past — the primitive 
 start of primitive matter — how shall we speak ? First 
 of all, we may suppose the existence of a God as universal 
 creator, who made matter from nothing, and Himself with- 
 out substance- But when we consider that thought is 
 substance, it must be admitted that God, though a spirit, 
 has substance, strictly speaking. If a spiritual essence, 
 by no possibility could He have existed before the essence 
 did, and the question comes up — evade it as we will — 
 Who made the spiritual essence ? But, in considering the 
 birth of Nature, there is no place at which we can begin. 
 It is the loftiest theme for human contemplation, yet we 
 cannot help asking : How and when was the beginning — 
 the first germination — the cause of all causes ? We desire 
 to know it in spite of the conviction that it is unknowable; 
 possibly, that this knowledge may not be attainable in any 
 future. But thought cannot be stifled. Mind is perpetu- 
 ally active; chains cannot bind it nor prison doors shut 
 out its light. Constituting as it does a part of God him- 
 self, it cannot be destroyed ; and as the power of God acts 
 without cessation, some have asserted that the mind is 
 
14 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 never absolutely at rest; but the investigation of this 
 theory leads to speculations too grand for our powers. 
 We know, however, that when our bodies lie in the embrace 
 of sleep, the mind wanders to places upon which our mortal 
 eyes never looked; and our fancies depict things in this 
 world, and possibly in the world to come. These night 
 visions differ in character; some are delightful in the ex- 
 treme, others of the most painful and distressing character. 
 
 Our thoughts about creation having led us farther and 
 farther back until light was entirely shut out, we naturally 
 feel our way along on the return toward our starting place ; 
 and take our stand at a point that is more enjoyable 
 because the things about us are better comprehended, and 
 our faculties feel themselves in a familiar home. 
 
 Readily we conclude that matter and its laws existed 
 from all eternity; that is, they had no conceivable begin- 
 ning within the range of thought; for really an attempt to 
 define eternity is of all things the most futile. Though 
 the start of matter is among the hidden mysteries, some- 
 thing did not come from nothing, with nobody to form it. 
 Nor can any power on the earth or in the heavens make a 
 thing without a law for its formation to govern it. Matter 
 in its molecular state, had no beginning within the reach 
 of our conception. So with its laws, Eternal Essence, 
 Truth, and Justice. 
 
 Poor finite beings as we are, how, why and where do we 
 inherit immortality ? The answer is: With all our faith in 
 the Bible, and all our hopes in the resurrection, we cannot 
 tell — we do not know. Yet reasoning faculties should not 
 be laid aside and human reason treated as worthless on 
 
THE BEGINNING. 15 
 
 that account; rather is it an inducement to come close 
 home to our souls — to strike deep into our own conscious- 
 ness. Irresistible is the conclusion that there is a God, 
 who made all we see, hear about or can conceive of. 
 When once we fall into this channel, like the unceasing 
 trade winds or the Gulf current, we are borne along. If 
 we try to head up against this wind and current, the work 
 is so hard and the gain so little, the effort is soon given 
 up. Not many minds are equal to rational thought farther 
 back than the conception of God's existence, with the frank 
 avowal that by no possibility can we fully understand 
 anything beyond His infinity and eternity of power. We 
 can safely think back to the time when primitive matter 
 existed in the most minute molecular state, and fix on that 
 time as the great starting point; yet, in considering' that 
 state of things, we are as much in a fog as to start with 
 the ordinary idea of an all-wise, eternal being, named the 
 Uncaused Cause — the most perfectly false of all false logic. 
 Naturally we speak of a beginning. What beginning is 
 it ? Can there have been a beginning to time ? Can 
 there be any limit to space ? When you go back of time, 
 where are you ? When you go outside the limits of space, 
 what place are you in ? Therefore the real starting point 
 of creation we know nothing about — certainly not when 
 that certain something came from that certain nothing. 
 It is said something — even when that came into being — 
 could not shape itself; and therefore that some directing 
 mind must have shaped it. Instead of getting out of diffi- 
 culty by this kind of reasoning, we only sink deeper, and 
 come irresistibly to the same conclusion as before, viz.: of 
 
16 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 the real beginning we know nothing, and but little of 
 any being above us. Our earth had a birthday, and 
 so did all the planets of our system and all other systems. 
 All Nature, too, had a birthday. How many millions 
 of years have passed away since that time, we have 
 no means of calculating. Naturally, and without the 
 least straining, we incline to the simple theory that God 
 created all things. Almost instinctively we say there is a 
 God. Few, if any, in this age of light, can be found who 
 will whisper in their heart of hearts, " there is no God." 
 We say most emphatically, and without equivocation, that 
 there is an Infinite Power. Different minds, in trying to 
 fathom the mystery of Godliness, begin to theorize and 
 speculate. From Theism they work their way into Mono- 
 theism, further on to Polytheism, and the worst species of 
 idolatry; for we must admit that the idea of one God 
 came first. Trinitarianism was entirely unknown among 
 the Jews; their faith was decidedly Unitarian. The differ- 
 ence between these two modes of faith has already caused, 
 and will cause, a vast amount of controversy. We not 
 only believe in one only living and true God, but that he 
 has holy angels whom no man can number hovering about 
 all who long for their presence and influence. Crude ideas 
 of an eternal God have been entertained as far back as any 
 history. Ideas of an affectionate and loving God, merciful 
 and kind, watching over and caring for us, spring up in the 
 heart naturally as the outgushing of human sympathy. 
 
 In our contemplation of the divine being, a great mis- 
 take has been made by giving Him so many characteristics 
 of humanity. As a consequence, those qualities have 
 
THE BEGINNING. If 
 
 become interwoven with our thoughts so as to dwarf 
 our conceptions of Him every way. The following lines 
 from Pope show the universality of God's presence: 
 
 ' 'All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
 Whose body Nature is, and God the soul. 
 That changed through all, and yet in all the same, 
 Great in the earth, as in the etherial frame ; 
 Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
 Glows in the stars and blossoms in the trees; 
 Lives through all life, extends through all extent. 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent; 
 Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 
 As full, as perfect, in a hare as heart; 
 As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, 
 As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: 
 To Him no high, no low, no great, no small — 
 He fills, He bounds, connects, and equals all." 
 
 Turning to our latest lexicons for a definition of the 
 term God, we are told it means the Supreme Being; the 
 eternal and infinite Spirit, the Creator and the Sovereign 
 of the universe; Jehovah; and sometimes a false God or 
 heathen Deity; an idol, a prince, a ruler, a magistrate, a 
 judge, an angel. A learned author says: "This name, of 
 uncertain derivation, we give to that Eternal, Infinite, 
 Perfect and Incomprehensible Being, the Creator of all 
 things, the Preserver of all by his almighty power and 
 incomprehensible wisdom, and the only proper object of 
 worship." The peculiar Hebrew name, " Jehovah," denoted 
 Him that is — the true Being. This name was seldom used 
 by the Jews through superstitious reverence. Philo states 
 that only those whose lips and ears were divinely purged 
 had any right to speak or hear the awful word. Another 
 name, "Adonai," was used by them, which expressed rather 
 
18 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 authority than eternity, and so came nearer to our idea of 
 Lord as the power presiding over that particular people. 
 Wherever in the Pentateuch or Old Testament writings 
 we find the name God, Lord, or Lord God, we determine 
 its meaning according to the connection in which it is found. 
 In many cases the Eternal Jehovah is not meant. God 
 was with Moses in Midian before he undertook to de- 
 liver his people, returned with him to Egypt, and led 
 the march of his host across the Red Sea. While under 
 Sinai, kind angels hovered around them in the silent 
 watches of the night, dreary as they were in that stony 
 desert. If the pillar of fire and the cloud had not guided, 
 God's spirit certainly would. If Moses excavated the 
 ground to obtain water, God moved him to do it. He gave 
 wisdom to Moses and the artizans to construct the ark and 
 the tabernacle — all which might be without the personal 
 appearance of God to Moses, or their familiar conversa- 
 tions. Thomas Paine held that " the only true manifesta- 
 tion of God was through his works." This, he said, 
 constituted a book all could read — which no human inven- 
 tion could counterfeit or alter; existing independent of all 
 human speech, it could never be lost, forged or suppressed; 
 nor did it depend on the will of man to publish it, but was 
 its own publisher from one end of the world to the other — 
 the revealer to man of all that it was necessary to know 
 of Deity. If we wish to contemplate His power, we see 
 it in the order by which the whole universe is governed; 
 His munificence by the abundance with which the earth is 
 filled; and His mercy in the not withholding that abund- 
 ance even from the unthankful. 
 
THE BEGINNING. 19 
 
 The only idea that man can affix to the name of God is 
 that of a first cause — the cause of all things; and though 
 there is a difficulty in believing in it, we necessarily have 
 recourse to a first cause to escape tenfold difficulties in 
 rejecting it. And this originating, immaterial existence 
 is God! What more does man want to know, proceeds 
 Mr. Paine, quoting Addison's " The spacious firmament on 
 high," than that the hand which made these things is 
 Divine ? Believing this with all his heart, applying it 
 with all his reason, acting it with all his will, would con- 
 secrate his life infallibly to wisdom, purity and love. 
 
 In the book of Job the question is asked: " Canst thou 
 by searching find out God?" Yes; because, in the first 
 place, I know I did not make myself, and yet I have exist- 
 ence; and by searching into the nature of things, I find 
 that no other thing could make itself, and yet millions of 
 other things exist; therefore it is that I know by necessary 
 conclusion that there is a power superior to all these 
 things, and that power is God. But the Almighty cannot 
 be found out to perfection, because the power and wisdom 
 he has manifested in creation are (to all finite beings) 
 incomprehensible. Nor is all that mortal man can conceive 
 of creation comparatively more than a speck — an atom of 
 the whole. Human thought is lost in the contemplation 
 of the immensity of space, as of time. Worlds on worlds, 
 systems running into systems — all sustained by the hand 
 of God! How, then, can we fully know Him? Paine says, 
 too truly, the God many believe in is really " changeful, 
 passionate, unjust; whose attributes are rage, revenge or 
 Just." That which is called natural philosophy, embracing 
 
20 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 the whole circle of science, is the study of the works of 
 God, and of the power and wisdom manifested above all 
 in astronomy, and is the true theology. The theology that 
 is now studied in its place, is the study of human opinions 
 and fancies concerning Deity. So the original and beau- 
 tiful system of theology has been abandoned, to the great 
 dishonor of God. 
 
 Every exalted attribute attaches to God in an infinite 
 degree; and yet we cannot say that all things are possible 
 even with Him. He cannot love and hate the same thing 
 at the same time. There are physical impossibilities that 
 lie in the nature of things. It is not possible for a wise 
 and infinitely good being whose nature is love, to be filled 
 with wrath, or to possess many of the passions character- 
 izing our poor humanity. Who can conceive of Infinite 
 wrath, Infinite fury, or Infinite vengeance? What a sad 
 fate would overtake us all, were there besides the load of 
 sin most of us carry, the infinite wrath of an infinite God 
 crushing us utterly ? 
 
 Much is said in the pulpit and written in books about 
 our pleasing God and magnifying his name. All do not 
 realize the full force of such expressions. How can we 
 magnify the glory of God ? Such a remark has less force 
 than careless thinkers imagine. God alone can magnify 
 himself, and is doing it continually. We please Him by 
 doing right, by loving the truth, by acts of charity, by 
 showing gratitude for favors, and a thousand similar ex- 
 pressions of childlike reverence. By all these good acts 
 His character is displayed, and His name properly honored. 
 This constitutes the sincerest praise — this, too, the highest 
 
THE BEGINNING. 21 
 
 homage. None ought to think they can honor God with 
 their breath, without good acts and sincere devotion pro- 
 ceeding from the heart, Man has always been inclined to 
 look at the surface without probing to the bottom. When 
 idolatrous worship was first adopted, it was not that the 
 great God of Heaven and earth was laid aside and forgot- 
 ten; it was simply that He was dimly seen. Through the 
 figures in heathen temples they strained their feeble eyes 
 to see into the all-surrounding darkness. Superstition 
 dates back to the commencement of humanity. To say 
 we are rid of it now, would be extravagance indeed. The 
 truth warrants no such assumption of superiority. Our 
 families do not, like those in pagan lands, bow before a 
 tutelar Divinity, and yet they may have a very similar 
 superstition. The vilest wretch on earth, as well as the 
 ripest saint, looks up to God only in different degrees. 
 They call on Him for succor in distress, especially in the 
 hour of death. Wickedness is no bar to such an action of 
 the soul, for, if that were so, we should all be cut off from 
 turning to Him; for all have sinned, as we know by expe- 
 rience, without going back to Adam. 
 
 God knows our wants. In His hands we are therefore 
 to breathe devoutly: "Thy will be done!" and this in 
 imitation of our Divine Master. God only knows what 
 is best for us, although we are so apt to think we know 
 ourselves. Why then should we desire to alter His de- 
 crees ? Is it not far more our duty to yield ourselves to 
 His disposal ? 
 
 Intermediately between man and God there may be 
 many grades of being. If any are immediately associated 
 
22 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 with Him, or maintained in His presence, they must be in 
 perpetual obedience to His will and perpetual employment 
 in His service — acting from the same pure and holy 
 motives; though this is very much a matter of inference. 
 To sit at God's right hand may not imply a literal place 
 near Him, but simply our being high in His favor. Jesus 
 was the son of God more emphatically than any other 
 being clothed with flesh; but others may be sons in a 
 lesser degree, in proportion as the3 r are Godlike. In this 
 spiritual sense every good man is a son of God. AH, who 
 with their whole soul try to do service in the cause of 
 righteousness, are God's servants, to say the least, We 
 all have great reason to rejoice that He reigns supreme, 
 so that doing His pleasure is not only ministering to our 
 own blessedness, but to that of all who live, move and 
 have their being. 
 
 In a work entitled The Greeds of Christendom, by Wm. 
 RathbOne Greg, the following sentiments are advanced: 
 
 "Atheism is a charge which the common understanding 
 has repeatedly brought against the finer speculations of 
 philosophy, when, in endeavoring to solve the riddle of 
 existence, they have approached, albeit with reverence 
 and humility, the source of existence. Shrouded from 
 human comprehension in an obscurity from which chas- 
 tened imagination is awed back, and thought retreats in 
 conscious weakness, the Divine Nature is surely a theme 
 on which man is little entitled to dogmatize. Accordingly 
 it is here that the philosophic intellect becomes painfully 
 aware of its own insufficiency. Every man's conception 
 of God must vary with his mental cultivation and powers. 
 
THE BEGINNING. 23 
 
 If be content himself with any lower image than his 
 intellect can grasp, he contents himself with that which 
 is false to him, as well as false in fact — one which, being 
 lower than he might reach, he must ipso facto feel to be 
 false. The peasant's idea of God — true to him — would be 
 false to me, because I should feel it to be unworthy and 
 inadequate. If the nineteenth century after Christ adopts 
 the conceptions of the nineteenth century before him — if 
 cultivated and chastened Christians adopt the conceptions 
 of the ignorant, narrow, and vindictive Israelite — they are 
 guilty of thinking ivorse of God, of taking a lower, meaner 
 view of his nature than the faculties he has bestowed are 
 capable of inspiring. Being finite, we coai form no ade- 
 quate idea of the Infinite; being material, we can form no 
 clear conception of the Spiritual. The question of a Reve- 
 lation can in no way affect this conclusion; since even 
 the Omnipotence of God cannot infuse infinite conceptions 
 into finite minds; cannot, without an entire change of the 
 conditions of our being, pour a full knowledge of His 
 nature into the bounded capacity of a mortal's soul. Hu- 
 man intelligence could not grasp it; human language could 
 not express it. The consciousness of the individual reveals 
 itself alone; his knowledge cannot pass beyond the limits 
 of his own being. His conceptions of other things and 
 other beings are only his conceptions ; they are not those 
 things or beings themselves. The living principle of a 
 living Universe must be infinite, while all our conceptions 
 are finite, and applicable only to finite beings. The Deity 
 is thus not an object of knowledge, but of faith; not to be 
 approached by the understanding, but by the moral sense; 
 
24 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 not to be conceived, but to be felt. All attempts to em- 
 brace the infinite in the conception of the finite are, and 
 and must be, only accommodations to the frailty of man. 
 " The most comprehensive proposition which an inquirer 
 finds at the root of the popular theology, is this: That the 
 Old Testament narratives contain an authentic history of 
 the actual dealings of God with man; that the events 
 which they relate took place as therein related, and were 
 recorded by well-informed and veracious writers; that 
 wherever God is represented as visiting- and speaking to 
 Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, and others, he did 
 really so appear and communicate his will; that the ark, 
 as built by Noah, was constructed under the detailed 
 directions of the Architect of all worlds; that the Law, as 
 contained in the Pentateuch, was delivered to Moses and 
 written down by him under the immediate dictation 'of 
 Jehovah, and the proceedings of the Israelites minutely 
 directed by Him; that, in a word, the Old Testament is a 
 literal history, not merely a national legend. This funda- 
 mental branch of popular theology also includes the belief 
 that the Books of Moses were written by Moses; that of 
 Joshua by Joshua, and so on; and further, that the Pro- 
 phetical Books, and the predictions contained in the His- 
 torical Books, are genuine oracles from the mouth of God, 
 uttered through the medium of His servants, whom at 
 various times He instructed to make known his will to his 
 chosen people. We are required to believe that the Pure, 
 Spiritual, Supreme, Ineffable Creator of the Universe — our 
 Father who is in Heaven — so blundered in the creation of 
 man as toiepent and grieve, and find it necessary to de- 
 
THE BEGINNING. 25 
 
 stroy His own work — selected one favored people from the 
 rest of His children — sanctioned fraud — commanded cru- 
 elty — contended long" in vain with the magic of other 
 Gods— wrestled bodily with one Patriarch- — ate cakes and 
 veal with another — sympathised with and shared in human 
 passions — and manifested ' scarcely one untainted moral 
 excellence;' and we are required to do this painful violence 
 to our feeling's and our understandings, simply because 
 these coarse conceptions prevailed some thousands of 
 years ago among a people whose history, as written by 
 themselves, is certainly not of a nature to inspire us with 
 any extraordinary confidence in their virtues or their 
 intellect. 
 
 "He is never asserted to be the only God; the existence 
 and power of rival deities is never denied, but is even 
 admitted by implication. All that Moses claims for Jeho- 
 vah, is not that He is the sole God, but that He is superior 
 to all others. He represents Him to Pharaoh, by Jehovah's 
 own command, as the ' God of the Hebrews,' not as the 
 Supreme Lord of Heaven and Earth. Even in the delivery 
 of the Commandments, the great fountain of the law, it is 
 not said : ' There is no God but Jehovah,' but only ' I am 
 the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the house of 
 bondage.' The whole of the xxiv chapter of Joshua con- 
 firms this view : he there urges the Israelites to choose 
 Jehovah, not as the only God, whom to desert would be 
 atheism, but as the God whose bounties to them had been 
 so great that it would be black ingratitude not to prefer 
 Him to all others. The frequent lapses of the Jewish 
 nation into idolatry also negative the idea of their having 
 
26 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 been monotheists. The worship of the golden calf and 
 the Canaanitish gods was quite natural on the supposition 
 of Jehovah being merely a paramount God; monstrous, if 
 they had believed him to be the only one. Moreover, 
 their idolatry is always spoken of as infidelity, not as 
 atheism. As civilization advanced, prophets, sages and 
 poets arose among the Hebrews, to whom the limited 
 and anthropomorphic conceptions of the Deity, prevalent 
 among the people, were painfully inadequate; and they 
 endeavored by nobler representations of the object of 
 worship, to convert the national religion into a pure theism; 
 in which, however, it is thought that they did not succeed 
 till after the Captivity. After this idea had once taken 
 root, the nation never showed any disposition to relapse 
 into idolatry But even to the latest period of the Canon- 
 ical writings, we find representations both of the nature 
 and attributes of Jehovah so utterly discrepant as to leave 
 no doubt that among the Jews, as among all other nations, 
 the God of the wise and the God of the ignorant — the God 
 of the Priests and the God of the Prophets — were the 
 embodiment of two very different classes of ideas. Let 
 any one compare the partial, revengeful, unstable, and 
 deceitful God of Exodus and Numbers, with the sublime 
 and unique Deity of Job, and the nobler Psalms ; or 
 even the God of Isaiah with the God of Ezekiel and 
 Daniel — and he can scarcely fail to admit that the concep- 
 tion of the one living and true God was a plant of gradual 
 growth in the Hebrew mind, and was due not to Moses, 
 the Patriarchs, or the Priests, but to the supremacy of 
 individual minds at various periods of their history." 
 
THE BEGINNING. 27 
 
 The Jews as a nation were not believers in the exclusive 
 existence of one sole God till a very late period in their 
 history. Mr. Greg says that "Man's idea of God passed 
 through three forms of development: We have Him rep- 
 resented first as the God of the individual or family ; 
 then as the (rod of the nation ; lastly, as the God of the 
 human race. The representations of God in the history 
 of Abraham leave little doubt that the God whom he wor- 
 shipped was a. family God, selected by him for some 
 reason unknown to us, out of a number of others who 
 were worshipped by his father and his tribe. We are 
 expressly told that the father and grandfather of Abraham 
 'worshipped other gods.' Representations given of the 
 God of Abraham, and of his proceedings during the lives 
 of the three Patriarchs, are so mean and material that it 
 is difficult to conceive how a knowledge of the one true 
 God, maker of Heaven and earth, could have been ascribed 
 to any of them." 
 
28 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE STARRY WORLDS. 
 
 WE desire to contrast our solar system, astral system, 
 and all the rest of the heavenly bodies yet known 
 to us, with the limited view of the firmament in the opening- 
 chapters of the Bible. 
 
 Astronomy, next to medicine the oldest of sciences, is 
 far better understood now than ever before. We know 
 not who began this most devout study ; the priesthood in 
 Egypt were famous students of the stars; books of astron- 
 omy of vast antiquity have been found in India; but the 
 first clear light on the heavens cannot be traced farther 
 back than three thousand years before our era. The great 
 Alexandrian school, founded 300 B. C, marks an epoch in 
 the study of the heavens amidst the unparalleled luxuriance 
 of the arts, the creation of the largest of libraries, and 
 the activity of a world-wide intercourse. Widely prevalent 
 errors and prejudices prevented any very decided progress 
 till the time of Copernicus, who started astronomers on 
 the path they are still following with such success. Since 
 his time instruments have been amazingly improved, and 
 the ability to measure angles correspondingly increased. 
 In the Alexandrian school, three centuries before Christ, 
 no instrument could measure an angle of less than ten 
 
THE STARRY WORLDS. 29 
 
 minutes, and even that was considered something* wonder- 
 ful. Bat with even these imperfect instruments vast 
 discoveries were made. Tycho Brahe was able in his time 
 to measure an angle of ten seconds; but we have reached 
 ten thousand times greater accuracy, and can now measure 
 an arc not larger than a thousandth of a second. This 
 accuracy enables us to determine the distance of the fixed 
 stars from eacli other and from our earth. Observatories 
 have been established in distant parts ; object glasses have 
 been enlarged nine times, and specuhirns from six inches 
 to six feet. The best telescopes are now so mounted that 
 the whole heavens can be surveyed. 
 
 The sun and planets of our system naturally engage our 
 attention first. The solid mass is surrounded by a luini- 
 niferous shell. Estimates have been made that each square 
 yard gives out more heat every hour than the burning of 
 six tons of coal. Were the sun a vast body of anthracite, 
 thirty-five cubic miles would be burned off every year, 
 reducing him to ashes of necessity in four thousand years. 
 His mean distance from the earth up to 1862 was computed 
 to be 95i millions of miles, but the exact distance is esti- 
 mated now to be about 92 millions. Three centuries 
 before the Christian era the best astronomers held that 
 the sun moved round the earth. It was just before Luther's 
 time that Copernicus inaugurated that system which has 
 borne his name and has maintained its place these four 
 hundred years. In 1680 Newton discovered the law of 
 gravitation upon which the planets proceed. 
 
 The whole length of the earth's orbit is ascertained to be 
 a little more than 574 millions of miles, and the velocity 
 
30 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 of its motion a little over eighteen miles a second. If the 
 earth were a cannon ball shot at the sun, and the moment 
 of explosion telegraphed to that body, a man there would 
 receive the telegram in five minutes, and would see the 
 earth coming' in eight and a quarter minutes more. 
 
 The sun's rays part with a third of their heat in passing 
 through the atmosphere, and about one-sixth in the 
 last four miles of approach to the earth. The exceed- 
 ingly swift fall of bodies into the sun generates heat as 
 we know, and heat is identical to a great extent with 
 light; neither of them are substances like the atoms thrown 
 off from an odoriferous body, but are undulating waves 
 which pervade all space. Sir John ITerschel estimates the 
 sun's light and heat upon any portion of its surface as one 
 hundred and forty-six times that of an equal surface of 
 lime under the intensest flame we can possibly make. Of 
 this heat earth receives only the two thousand millionth 
 part; it is evidently the origin of all force, and must be 
 maintained in the sun b} T the perpetual destruction of 
 something of the projectile kind. 
 
 Sun spots have for many years been carefulty studied. 
 The best authorities declare that some of them cover mil- 
 lions of square miles and remain for months; others are 
 much smaller and very temporary in their duration. Prof. 
 Norton of Yale College says that these spots are for the 
 most part connected in some way with the operation of a 
 physical agency exerted by the planets upon the photo- 
 sphere; and this theory has been confirmed by eminent 
 astronomers. The variations of the spots produce a cor- 
 responding variation of our light and heat. The magnetic 
 
THE STARRY WORLDS. 31 
 
 needle also is affected by them, its greatest oscillations 
 occurring when there are the most spots. Auroras may 
 be attributed to the same causes and are really electrical 
 phenomena. Comets are only planets of long and uncer- 
 tain periods of revolution. Our skies are seldom afflicted 
 with meteors except when we are passing through what 
 is supposed to be broken fragments of planets, about 
 which we actually know nothing. 
 
 Though the laws of stability seem perfectly established 
 in the universe, temporary disturbances continually occur 
 in our system; and it seems certain that in the lapse of 
 ages more permanent changes will take place also, but no 
 calculations of ours would begin to approach their period. 
 Some conspicuous stars have gone out since men began 
 to observe them, and they arc not pigmies like the earth, 
 but many of them far greater than our sun. In cycles of 
 ages the entire destruction of our solar system may take 
 place; but by and by equally conservative forces may be 
 detected. As we study profoundly, much that we term 
 decay shows itself to be transition, as our favorite Amer- 
 ican poet declares the death of man to be. 
 
 The moon's greatest distance from the earth is about 
 two hundred and fifty-two thousands of miles, and her least 
 distance two hundred and twenty-six. Her diameter is 
 2,165 miles, and her density three-fifths of that of the 
 earth. She is covered with large craters of burnt-out 
 volcanoes, some of them eighty miles across. There is no 
 appearance of water or air upon her surface. 
 
 Five stars unlike the others were particularly noticed at 
 an early day, two of them taking less than a year for their 
 
32 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 motion round the earth, one taking- two years, another 
 twelve, and another thirty. They were wanderers or 
 planets — from a Greek verb — and were either named after 
 some heathen deity, or the deity after them; for it is not 
 certain which came first, the heathen mythology, or that 
 belief in the planets influencing- the bodies and fortunes of 
 men which we call astrology. These planets still keep 
 their old names, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. 
 With the sun and moon, they made the principal persona- 
 ges in that "host of heaven" which the idolaters of old 
 adored time out of mind — ages certainly before the Greeks 
 became their adorers. The first Greek historian, Herodotus, 
 declares that Homer, their first poet, a contemporary with 
 Elisha, learned the name of Jupiter and the other gods 
 from the Egyptians who practised divination by the planets, 
 like their neighbors the Chaldeans. Pagan idolatry was 
 identified with a belief in the influence of these celestial 
 bodies over the affairs of men. Copernicus was the first 
 to show the motion of these bodies around the sun. 
 
 Mercury, the first in order, has a mean distance from the 
 sun of thirty-five millions of miles, and a circuit of eighty- 
 eight days. His diameter is 3,050 miles; he is three times 
 the size of the moon, and more than five times the specific 
 gravity of the earth. He turns on his own axis slower 
 than the earth, but moves faster through space, having a 
 rate of one hundred and five thousand miles an hour. 
 
 Venus has a period of a little more than two hundred 
 and twenty-four days, a diameter of seven thousand, seven 
 hundred and seventy miles, and a motion of seventy-seven 
 miles per hour. 
 
THE STARRY WORLDS. 33 
 
 Mars' mean distance from the sun is 139 millions of 
 miles, with a period of six hundred and eighty-seven days, 
 and a motion of fifty-three thousand miles an hour. His 
 density is two-thirds that of the earth. His diameter only 
 4,155 miles. 
 
 Asteroids: Before the discovery of these pigmy planets 
 there was a wide vacancy between Mars and Jupiter; but 
 now more than a hundred asteroids have been brought to 
 light. 
 
 Jupiter is 1,246 times as large as the earth and one thou- 
 sandth part of the sun, its diameter one tenth of that body, 
 its weight less than one thousandth ; the revolutions upon 
 its own axis in less than ten hours. The mean distance of 
 this planet from the sun is 47 h\ millions of miles, and its 
 speed twenty-seven thousand miles an hour. The density 
 of Jupiter resembles our earth. His orbit is very eccentric, 
 varying forty-six millions of miles, being that much nearer 
 the sun at perihelion than at aphelion, and getting one 
 fifth more heat in one case than the other. 
 
 Saturn has nine times the diameter of the earth, but is 
 only ninety times as heavy, though more than seven hun- 
 dred times as large, turning on his axis in ten and a half 
 hours. His mean distance from the sun is eight hundred 
 and seventy-two millions of miles; his time of revolution 
 twenty-nine and a half years; his rate of motion twenty 
 thousand miles an hour; his light and heat are but a 
 ninetieth of the earth's; gravity at his surface is nearly 
 the same as at ours. 
 
 These were all the planets known until about a century 
 ago, when Herschel discovered another named Uranus 
 
34 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 after another heathen deity the grandfather of Jove, whose 
 name in Greek means Heaven itself, beyond which it was 
 supposed nothing could possibly exist. It is 1,153 millions 
 of miles from the sun, moves at the rate of 14,500 miles 
 an hour, consumes more than eighty-four years in its 
 circuit, and is seventy times as large as the earth. He is 
 known to have four moons and perhaps eight. 
 
 Half a century after Uranus, persevering efforts were 
 made to discover another wanderer; and in the year 1846 
 G-alle of Berlin brought Neptune to light, a name taken 
 again from ancient mythology from the brother of Jove. 
 He is distant from the sun 2,850 millions of miles, makes 
 his circuit in about one hundred and sixty-five years with 
 a speed of 10,500 miles an hour. His diameter being 
 38,133 miles, his bulk is one hundred and fifteen times 
 that of the earth, and he has one satellite. 
 
 Vulcan has been proposed as a name for a small planet 
 suspected by M. Le Verrier to be about fourteen millions 
 of miles from the sun. But nothing definite is known, 
 and possibly it has no existence. 
 
 Comets are not solid bodies like the planets, and have 
 orbits far more eccentric; some have intervals so enormous 
 as to be infinite — having had a voyage of twenty billions of 
 miles lasting through eight millions of years. Those 
 which come nearest to the sun may have had a solar origin; 
 and then we are to think of that body vomiting forth 
 cornetic matter with such force as to hurl it far beyond the 
 solar system — and conceive of planets once in a sun-like 
 state able to imitate this gigantic feat. That wonderful 
 instrument which we owe to Kirchhoff, the spectroscope, 
 
THE STARRY WORLDS. ~ 35 
 
 has taught us so much of the comet structure that the 
 light of its nucleus is of a glowing solid and that of the 
 coma a glowing vapor; but, vastly more it has not begun 
 to explain, especially about the mysterious tail which is 
 sometimes double, sometimes shaped like a sickle, and 
 sometimes entirely destroyed. The comet of 1843 ap- 
 proached the earth as near as 80,000 miles, moving with 
 .a velocity twenty times the earth's, and exposed to a heat 
 sufficient to melt any substance known to us. In 1680 
 appeared the grandest of this family, with a tail sixty 
 millions of miles long, a motion of twenty thousand miles 
 & minute, and an exposure to heat twenty-five thousand 
 times that of the hottest tropical sunshine. Bela's comet 
 in 1832 came the nearest to striking the earth. Hallcy's 
 has a period of seventy-six years, swelled seventeen days 
 after its perihelion to seventy-four times its size, till it 
 vanished entirely from sight. Donates was seen in the 
 fall of 1858, but will not appear again for twenty-one 
 hundred years. It is eighty times as far distant as Nep- 
 tune, and has a tail thirty millions of miles long. The 
 •comet of 1811 made the vast distance of forty-five billions 
 of miles from the sun; others no doubt have gone beyond 
 any possibility of return. 
 
 Those groups of fixed stars, named constellations, have 
 long been studied as well as admired. The most magni- 
 ficent, Orion, with two stars of the first magnitude, four 
 of the second and three of the third, was mentioned in the 
 book of Job and the Iliad. Leo is also prominent because 
 of its noted star Regulus. Vega and Ursa Major arc the 
 most brilliant of the northern constellations. Venus, the 
 
36 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 brightest of the single stars, is well named after the 
 goddess of beauty; Jupiter after the king of classical 
 divinities; Saturn after the father of pagan gods. Sirius 
 is the most splendid of all, though Aldebaran is not without 
 a magnificence of his own. Twenty fixed stars have been 
 counted of the first magnitude, sixty of the second and 
 two hundred of the third order. Six orders of stars are 
 visible to the naked eye, and ten additional ones by the 
 help of a good telescope. Multitudes of stars like the 
 magnificent Sirius are believed to be double, while thou- 
 sands are creeping along at so slow a rate as not to average 
 annually more than an eighteen-thousandth of the moon's 
 diameter. 
 
 Until a very late period no method had been Pound of 
 measuring the distance of the sun-systems from us, though 
 it was known to be immense. The largest base-line had 
 to be adopted, which was the whole diameter of the earth's 
 orbit, or one hundred and eighty-four millions of miles. 
 By this measurement the double star 61 Cygni is ascer- 
 tained to be three hundred thousand times one hundred 
 and eighty-four millions of miles from us, an interval 
 which it takes light nine years to travel. The prjle-statr 
 system is five times as remote as this, or one million five 
 hundred thousand times one hundred and eighty-four 
 millions of miles, a journey of forty-six years for the tight. 
 
 Calculations have been made of the relative amount of 
 illumination from those distant suns in comparison with 
 that from our own; and that of our sun has been estimated 
 to be twenty-two thousand million times more than that 
 from Alpha Centauri. But as that system is two hundred 
 
THE STARRY WORLDS. 37 
 
 times farther away, it follows that if it was near us it 
 would give twice the light of our sun. Vega affords a 
 light equal to three hundred and forty-four of our suns; 
 Capella four hundred and thirty; Arcturus five hundred 
 and sixteen, and Alcyone twelve thousand times as much. 
 
 In passing it may be observed that all the colors of the 
 rainbow are presented in the distant stars and systems of 
 stars — white, blue, green, red and yellow. There are 
 about sixty of the blue systems. Alcyone (the brightest 
 of the Pleiades) is found by the closest telescopic exami- 
 nation to show fourteen conspicuous stars, its distance 
 being twenty-five million diameters of the earth's orbit. 
 Were this group blotted out their light would continue to 
 visit us seven hundred years. 
 
 Of all the cluster sj^stems, the most noticeable, the con- 
 stellation Hercules, was discovered by Herschel, and esti- 
 mated to be several hundred times more remote than the 
 nearest fixed star, requiring, therefore, two thousand 
 years for its light to visit us. An eminent German as- 
 tronomer takes Alcyone for the center of the universe 
 around which all the stars revolve in one vast system; 
 and he estimates over eighteen millions of years for this 
 luminary with all its attendant planets, satellites, and 
 comets, to complete one revolution. 
 
 Our solar system is tending towards Hercules on an 
 orbit so immense that the portion described from the ear- 
 liest observations does not sensibly differ from a straight 
 line. And though, as before stated, Alcyone is believed 
 to be the center of motion for our great astral system, 
 and we are moving round it at more than thirty millions 
 
38 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 of miles in a year, on an orbit fifty million times larger 
 than that on which we move about the sun, still we have 
 to feel that a very small fraction of the heavens has yet 
 been discovered. 
 
 There is . reason to believe that unimagined discoveries 
 will yet be made in our means of observation before this 
 century ends, so as to illuminate the hidden depths of 
 illimitable space. The region still unexplored it is im- 
 agined may contain eighteen millions of suns, some of 
 them so remote that light at the rate of 184,000 miles a 
 second would take a million of years to reach our world. 
 
 Many thousand such firmaments as are alluded to in the 
 beginning of Genesis, are visible already, and every in- 
 crease in telescopic power multiplies the number, so that 
 we are utterly overwhelmed by the glory of God in the 
 heavens. How sublime to contemplate all the bodies in 
 infinite space going their rounds without any pause, con- 
 fusion, or collision, as if suspended in infinite air, moving 
 on apparently irregular orbits, weaving the mystic dance 
 reaching through eternities of eternities. 
 
 Who can believe now in anything like a death-haunted 
 region, sunken in absolute silence, buried ocean-deep in 
 corruption ? Beyond the range of our imagination even, 
 we find ourselves surrounded with light and motion. An 
 instinct within us testifies to an irresistible impulse on- 
 ward. So that we cannot, without utter falsity to our 
 own souls, help believing that the revelations of the fu- 
 ture are all to be of infinite goodness as well as wisdom, 
 arching over illimitable worlds through endless ages. 
 
CONSTITUTION OF THE EARTH. 39 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE EARTH. 
 
 WERE we able to go back in regard to the ancient life 
 of the earth through dark vistas of ages to the 
 time it was a fused mass, that date might, with some pro- 
 priety, be called the beginning of life. But we cannot 
 suppose that was the great beginning of all. The fused 
 state might be long posterior to the time when matter 
 was agglomerated sufficiently for fusion. The most la- 
 bored calculation would fail to fix a date for stages so far 
 back. There are laws inherent in matter which must be 
 obeyed. These laws are known to some extent, but not 
 fully ; many are not yet understood. But, a starting 
 point is what thousands are anxious to get. We go back 
 to nebulae, and think that a long stretch ; but matter, we 
 are sure, had far earlier forms and conditions of being. 
 Long, long ages before nebulae existed, was the period of 
 fire-mist, a universally diffused mass in which the com- 
 ponent molecules kept apart through the efficiency of 
 heat. Had this power continued to act with its original 
 repulsive energy, the process of agglomeration by at- 
 traction would never have gone on. As to this primitive 
 action of matter, much is of necessity pure conjecture, 
 
40 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 though the true theory has no doubt been long- since ap- 
 proached. 
 
 We are not sufficiently acquainted with nebulous matter 
 to say exactly how it is formed. But when formed, we 
 can easily tell why by virtue of attraction and gravitation 
 the neighboring matter should be aggregated around the 
 nuclei. It may fairly be inferred that the agglomeration 
 of a nebulous mass is attended with refrigeration, and we 
 understand why the outer parts harden under this process, 
 and by virtue of the solidity they acquire present some 
 resistance to the attractive force, which resistance would 
 necessarily go on increasing. 
 
 When bodies once become agglomerated, they attract 
 and are attracted, until a certain stage of solidification is 
 reached, similar to what we witness in our present earth ; 
 then aggregation is presumed to cease, but not attraction. 
 Centripetal and centrifugal forces never cease to act in 
 any body known to us. When we see in our astral sys- 
 tem many thousand worlds, in all stages of promotion, we 
 naturally conclude that all the perfect ones have gone 
 through the various rudimental stages. We are led to 
 think, therefore, that the whole of our firmament was once 
 a diffused mass of nebulous matter, extending through 
 the space it still occupies. And in like manner of other 
 astral systems, we naturally conclude that they were, like 
 ours, a connected mass. We are strongly impressed with 
 the idea that the formation of bodies in space is still 
 going on, and will go on forever 
 
 There are other solar systems within our astral system 
 which are less advanced than ours ; besides quantities of 
 
CONSTITUTION OF THE EARTH. 41 
 
 nebulous matter far as yet from assuming a stellar form. 
 Our system is deemed to be in comparative youth. Nat- 
 urally we are led to consider our globe as a child of the 
 sun, and the other planets as our brothers. 
 
 All that we can see is the effect of certain laws of mat- 
 ter ; hence our great desire to understand those laws. 
 We see certain events happening in precise and unerring 
 order, and this order we call " laws." 
 
 All these considerations tend to raise our ideas with re- 
 spect to the character of physical laws, even if we go no 
 farther in the investigation. But it is impossible for an 
 intelligent mind to stop here. We advance from law to 
 the cause of law, and ask : Whence have come all these 
 beautiful regulations ? 
 
 Matter is well ascertained to be composed of infinitely 
 minute particles, each of which is so constituted as readily 
 to associate with certain other atoms ; and this adhesion 
 goes on, until bodies are formed of all the various magni- 
 tudes. This arrangement holds good with all bodies in 
 space ; the laws under which they every where combine 
 are the same ; and (when rightly understood) the mys- 
 tery of our earth's formation is no more a wonder than 
 such an every day thing as the growth of a plant. 
 
 Th» mass of the earth, before solidification began, was 
 not less than 482,000 miles in diameter, or sixty times 
 what it is now. As to the time intervening between the 
 formation of the moon, when the earth was of such enor- 
 mous dimensions, to the present, we arc only left to con- 
 jecture. Like other periods in astronomy, the mind en- 
 tirely fails to grasp it. 
 
42 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Our planetary system, all eminent writers agree, com- 
 menced as an immense nebulous mass, which tilled the 
 portion of space now occupied by our system far beyond 
 the limits of Neptune, our most distant planet. If we 
 calculate the density of the mass of our planetary system 
 at the time when it was a nebulous sphere reaching to the 
 outmost planet, we shall find that it requires several cubic 
 miles of such matter to weigh a single grain. 
 
 At that time the mechanical store of force, in heat and 
 light, was enormous. It is calculated that about the 
 454th part of that mechanical force remains as such, and 
 that the remainder converted into heat would be sufficient 
 to raise a mass of matter equal to the sun and planets 
 taken together not less than twenty-eight million degrees 
 of the centigrade scale. It may be well to say that the 
 highest temperature we can produce, sufficient indeed to 
 fuse and vaporize platina, is estimated at two thousand 
 centigrade degrees. 
 
 We can form no notion of a temperature of twenty- 
 eight million such degrees of heat. A mass of pure coal 
 in combustion of the size of our entire system would only 
 generate a 3500th part of this quantity. Should a sudden 
 shock cause the earth to rest in its orbit, a quantity of 
 heat would be generated equal to that produced by a body 
 of coalin combustion fourteen times as large. If the earth 
 (after having been stopped in its orbit) should fall into 
 the sun, as it naturally would, the quantity of heat produc- 
 ed by the shock would be fourteen hundred times greater. 
 
 Our earth bears at this time unmistakable evidence of 
 its former fiery fluid condition. The granite formation of 
 
CONSTITUTION OF THE EARTH. 43 
 
 her mountains could only be produced by crystallization — 
 crystallization by heat. We also find the temperature to 
 increase as we descend from the surface, which at the 
 depth of fifty, or as some estimate, seventy-five miles, 
 would be sufficient to fuse any mineral substance. We 
 talk about what has happened during the brief period of 
 human history, only a few thousand years ; but, what is 
 it in comparison with the time during* which the earth had 
 nothing upon its surface save rank plants and monstrous 
 lizards ? Different geologists have endeavored by various 
 calculations to estimate this vast period ; and they vary 
 from one million to nine millions of years. Again, the 
 time during which the earth generated organic beings is 
 small indeed compared with the ages during which the 
 earth was a ball of melted rocks. 
 
 No doubt exists as to the earth's being in this fused 
 state, or that it attained a heat of 2000° centigrade, from 
 which it has cooled to about 200°; or that the time 
 required for this would be myriads of years. As to the 
 period during which the first nebulous mass condensed into 
 our planetary system, our most daring conjectures utterly 
 fail. Thus we perceive that the history of the earth is 
 but a small ripple in the ocean of time. Great disturb- 
 ances in our system are not to be expected for a long 
 series of years ; but, the same forces of air and water, 
 with the volcanic eruptions from the interior, which pro- 
 duced former geological revolutions and buried one series 
 of living forms after another, act still upon the earth's 
 crust. Surely, therefore, they will bring about the last 
 day of the human race upon earth, and make room for 
 
44 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 some new creation. In this way we are introduced to a 
 universal law of nature, which radiates light into the dis- 
 tant nights of the beginning, and on to the end of the 
 history of the universe. Each of us now living must en- 
 dure the thought of death, and the race itself must sub- 
 mit to the same humiliating experience. 
 
 But, above the forms gone by, there are higher and 
 nobler problems before us. Friction of the tides pro- 
 duces loss of motion by diminishing the store of force, 
 and in consequence motion is diminished. This altera- 
 tion takes place with extreme slowness, so that, in a 
 period of 2000 years the days' duration has not been shor- 
 tened by the 300th part of a second. 
 
 After millions of years, if in the mean time the ocean 
 was not frozen, one side of the earth would be constantly 
 turned toward the sun, while the opposite side would be 
 involved in eternal night. Such conclusions plunge us 
 into the most distant future ; yet though frequently baf- 
 fled, we cannot but try to penetrate the deepest night of 
 time past and to come. The immense store of force in 
 our planetary system will in time be exhausted. Laplace 
 says : " For 2500 years the earth's radius has not dimin- 
 ished half a decimetre, or the temperature decreased one 
 four-hundredths of a degree." The lapse of such countless 
 ages is required to effect any marked change in this re- 
 spect, that our broadest conception of time fails to mark it. 
 
 The interior of the globe has been inspected and a tole- 
 rably distinct notion of its general arrangement reached. 
 The basis-rock is of a hard texture, and of the class called 
 crystalline. Granite may be named as the general type, 
 
CONSTITUTION OF THE EARTH. 45 
 
 though it runs through many varieties. Over this in many 
 places other rocks are disposed in strata, with every ap- 
 pearance of having been deposited originally from water, 
 and but seldom allowed to rest in their original arrange- 
 ment. Disturbing forces from below have broken these 
 beds of sheet into great masses, and in many cases parts 
 have been projected through the rents of rocky matter, 
 more or less resembling the great crystalline mass. This 
 crystalline rock when thus projected must have been in a 
 state of fusion, for it has often run into lateral chinks in 
 these rents. There are instances of sub-rents, and of 
 newer melted matter of the same character being sent 
 through the opening. Thus in the crust of our earth there 
 is first a great inferior mass composed of crystalline rock, 
 probably resting immediately on the fused and expanded 
 matter of the interior; next a layer or strata of aqueous 
 origin; next irregular masses of melted inferior rocks, 
 that have been sent up volcanically and were fused at 
 different times among the aqueous rocks, throwing them 
 cut of their original levels. Such is a brief outline of the 
 arrangement of the earth's crust; seemingly rather a 
 confused scene, though thorough inspection enables us to 
 detect regularity and order, and derive much instruction 
 £ts to the history of our globe. The deposition of the 
 aqueous rocks, and the projection of the volcanic, have no 
 doubt taken place since the earth attained its present 
 form. The same order of events we see going on, under 
 the agency of causes we understand in part, at the present 
 day. They may therefore be considered as recent trans- 
 actions. Abstracted from the investigations before us, we 
 
46 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 come to the idea of the earth in its first condition as a- 
 globe of its present size, and in a great degree a mass of 
 crystalline rock, with the waters of the present seas and 
 the present atmosphere around it, though these were prob- 
 ably in a somewhat different condition, both as to temper- 
 ature and constituent materials from the present. 
 
 We are to consider that the great bulk of our earth's ' 
 solids were agglomerated directly from the nebulous state, . 
 with the crystalline texture which we see in granite.. 
 Such rock is composed of four substances — silica, mica, 
 quartz and hornblende — associated in it in the form of" 
 grains or crystals, each of them composed of a group 
 of the simple or elementary substances. We are not to 
 think of the original crystalline mass composing the 
 earth as a smooth ball, with water and air playing round 
 it; vast irregularities existed on its surface, trifling 
 compared with the whole bulk, but far beyond any in 
 existence now. Seas were sunk to a profound depth, once 
 perhaps overtopping the mountains. The fact is well 
 known that the solids of our globe cannot for a moment 
 be exposed to water or the atmosphere without becoming 
 liable to change; they at once begin to wear down. This 
 operation proceeded with as much efficacy in the early 
 ages of the earth's history as it does now, and upon a, 
 much larger scale. Seas are presumed to have reached 
 the depth of at least one hundred miles — if not hundreds 
 of miles — witli mountains correspondingly high. The 
 disintegration under such circumstances must have been 
 truly enormous. The matter worn off and carried into, 
 the neighboring depths became the components of the 
 
CONSTITUTION OF THE EARTH. ^[ 
 
 earliest stratified rocks; the first series of which is the 
 gneiss and mica-slate system, appearing in Scotland and 
 the west of England. These beds are of vast thickness; 
 the Pennsylvania graywacke sometimes extends a hundred 
 miles. All such earlier strata were formed under an intenser 
 heat than operated in subsequent stages. When these de- 
 posits were formed, the seas must have been in a troubled 
 state, like a cauldron of water nearly at boiling heat, im- 
 mensely increasing their decomposing power. 
 
 The early stratified rocks contain no matters not to be 
 found in the primitive granite. Though not taken from a 
 very late work, the following classification of rock-forma- 
 tions in the crust of the earth, commencing with the lowest 
 in order, and of the organic remains found in each series, 
 may be of practical interest: 
 
 1. Gneiss and Mica-slate, with no vestige of organic 
 remains. 
 
 2. Clay-slate and Graywacke, containing organic remains 
 of Zoophytes. 
 
 3. Silurian formation, in which are double-shelled mol- 
 lusks. 
 
 4. Old Red Sandstone, containing crustaceous fishes. 
 
 5. Carboniferous period, in whose rocks are found re- 
 mains of real fishes. 
 
 6. New Red Sandstone, with organic remains of croco- 
 diles, tortoises and other low orders of fishes. 
 
 7. Oolite. In this is found the remains of birds. 
 
 8. Cretaceous formation. The same as 
 
 9. Lower Eocene. In this series of rock various organic 
 remains have been found — tapirs, horses, squirrels, rac- 
 coons and opossums. 
 
48 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 10. Miocene, with remains of bears, seals, &c. 
 
 11. Pliocene. In this are found more extensive varieties 
 of animals; here too are the first traces of Bimana or man. 
 
 12. Superficial deposits are considered as the last and 
 most interesting of all the orders, and are so far subject 
 to our inspection that we are able to gain a pretty correct 
 knowledge of them. 
 
 In a late work by Dr. George Hartwig, it is stated that 
 the surface of the earth has been the scene of perpetual 
 changes, from a time too remote for our conception, by the 
 resulting action of two mighty agents — water and subter- 
 ranean heat. The breakers of a turbulent ocean, tides 
 and currents, torrents and rivers, the power of ice, and 
 the grinding force of glaciers have been constantly wear- 
 ing away the coasts and mountains, and transporting the 
 spoils of continents and islands from a higher to a lower 
 level. In a period of only three or four thousand years 
 great changes have been effected by this means; but, when 
 we consider that the work has been going on for countless 
 ages, we cannot wonder at the enormous thickness of the 
 stratified rocks of aqueous origin which — piled on one 
 another in successive layers — make up the great mass of 
 the earth's rind. Our knowledge of these sedimentary 
 formations is necessarily incomplete, as large portions of 
 the globe have never yet been sufficiently explored ; enough, 
 however, has been learnt to warrant classification into the 
 following chronological groups, going down below the 
 surface into the depths: 
 
 Alluvium Reigm of Man. 
 
 Diluvium or Drift. 
 
CONSTITUTION OF THE EARTH. 49 
 
 Pliocene, ) Reign of Mammalia. 
 
 Miocene, f Tertiary- 
 
 Eocene, J 
 
 Cretaceous, ] Eeign of Reptiles. 
 
 Oolitic, ! n 
 
 T . ' y Secondary. 
 
 Lias, I 
 
 Triassic, J 
 
 Pormian, ] Reign of Fishes. 
 
 Carboniferous, Reign of Zoophytes. 
 
 Devonian, ^ 
 
 c,., . ' y Primary. 
 
 bilunan, 
 
 Cambrian, 
 
 Laurentian, 
 
 As nine thousand years are assigned to the Lower 
 Silurian, and proportional periods to the others, a vast 
 body of time must have been consumed in completing the 
 whole series. Had the leveling power of water met with 
 no resistance, the last remains of dry land would have 
 long since been swept away, had the ocean been capacious 
 enough to receive it. Volcanic eruptions react against 
 these leveling tendencies of water, and in many places 
 raise horizontal layers at the bottom of the sea. Some- 
 times huge masses of crystalline rock, glowing from the 
 furnaces below, force their way up through the sedimentary 
 formations. Besides the more violent revolutions resulting 
 from the action of subterranean fires, we find that the 
 earth's rind has at all times been subject to slow, oscilla- 
 tory motions, producing a change in former positions and 
 opening paths that were entirely new to the rolling waves. 
 
 Sometimes volcanic eruptions repeated through long 
 ages have at length piled up large islands like Madeira, 
 which now raise their summits thousands of feet above 
 the ocean. Subterranean fire and steam have produced 
 
50 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 immense mechanical changes. In rocks subject to their 
 action, the decomposing and vapor-generating effects of 
 heat cause great chemical changes. The greater part of 
 dry land has been deep sea, and then again land and ocean, 
 many times in succession. The same materials have been 
 exposed to all these changes repeatedly; now heaved up 
 by subterranean fires, and then again swept away by 
 rolling seas; now changed from solid rock into sand and 
 mud, and then again converted by pressure or heat into 
 solid rock. Thus, Mr. Hartwig continues, the history of 
 the earth-rind opens to us a vista into time no less grand 
 and magnificent than the vista into space afforded by the 
 contemplation of the starry heavens. 
 
 The oldest and newest stratified rocks are composed of 
 the same mineral substances ; for clay, sandstone and lime- 
 stone occur in the Silurian and Carboniferous formations ; 
 in the Cretaceous and Triassic systems; in the Tertiary 
 and Alluvial deposits which immediately preceded the 
 present epoch. Whence, it may be asked, comes the guide 
 which will lead us chronologically through the vast series 
 of strata deposited in the course of countless ages in the 
 water ? The fossil remains of animals and plants, it may 
 be answered, will guide our steps with sufficient certainty. 
 Many of the organic forms have changed their location in 
 part, so that the tropical organizations gradual^ pass into 
 the temperate zones, and these again merge into those of 
 the polar regions. A shell or a leaf, buried millions of 
 years in the drift of the primeval ocean, now serves as a 
 waymark through the past epochs of the earth's history. 
 
 The atmosphere contains about a two-thousandth part of 
 
CONSTITUTION OF THE EARTH. 51 
 
 carbonic acid gas, which enters into the composition of 
 each year's stock of grain and herbage, then passes on 
 into the substance of animals, and is again rendered back 
 to the atmosphere in their expired breath, so that the 
 amount is never impaired. When therefore we hear of 
 carbon beginning to appear in the ascending series of 
 rocks, we may fairly consider that as a time of some im- 
 portance in the earth's history. Existing largely in the 
 interior of the earth, every cubic yard of limestone is 
 estimated to contain many cubic feet of carbon. Coal 
 itself contains from 64 to 75 per cent of carbon. A large 
 portion must at one time have been in the atmosphere; if 
 so, at that time the earth was not capable of supporting 
 life in land animals. Such an atmosphere would however 
 produce luxuriant vegetation — plants flourishing in air 
 containing 166 times more carbon than our atmosphere at 
 . the present time. 
 
52 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AGES BEFORE ADAM. 
 
 "VTEVER shall we begin to know what time elapsed: 
 JLl between the first crude condition of this earth and 
 the appearance of rankest plants on its surface; or, be- 
 tween the latter period and the earliest animal life; or ; . 
 from that to the earliest existence of man; but each period 
 was a very long one. Adam was no doubt a great proto- 
 plast; and there must have been others, for it is quite- 
 certain all human beings did not come from one progenitor. 
 Evidences of man's existence on the earth many ages 
 before Adam, are derivable from written and monumental 
 history. From Egypt alone we learn much of human life- 
 before Adam. 
 
 In the late work of Dr. McCausland, we have it stated 
 that proof enough may be derived from archaeological, 
 philological and physiological researches to show that 
 three distinct races of men have been in existence from 
 the earliest antiquity. Other writers of note express- 
 themselves without reserve on this subject, in marked 
 contrast with those who never look beyond old theories or 
 wake themselves up to see the progress science is making. 
 On every hand there are convincing facts. Sedimentary- 
 
AGES BEFORE ADAM. 53 
 
 deposits on the delta of the Nile may be estimated as 
 having been made at the rate of three to three and a half 
 inches to the one hundred years. Numerous borings have 
 been made on this delta, even to the depth of fifty-nine 
 feet, bringing up from the lowest point various specimens 
 of pottery and burnt brick. In one of these borings the 
 statue of Rameses Second was discovered, the base of 
 which was nine feet four inches below the surface. This 
 was in the year 1855. Rameses Second is supposed to 
 have been the great Sesostris, who lived, according to 
 Egyptological authority, not less than 1350 years B. C. 
 
 The boring was continued thirty-two feet below the 
 base of this statue, and specimens of pottery found (as in 
 other cases), which must have been made more than 
 13,500 years ago. Leonard Horner maintains that pot- 
 tery was made in Egypt at least 11,000 years before 
 Christ. Lepsius and other learned writers agree that the 
 floor of the Nile delta cannot have increased more than 
 three and a half inches in each century ; and, allowing for 
 the superincumbent pressure, three inches are nearer the 
 true quantity. The date of Rameses' reign may be safely 
 fixed as early as 1350 B. C. Baron Bunsen is of the 
 opinion that the arts were cultivated in Egypt 20,000 
 years B. C. In widely distant places ruins exist which, 
 while our civilization tells only of to-day, prove there was 
 a civilization running far enough back to distance all cal- 
 culation. For countless ages the same God that we wor- 
 ship was adored by the ancient Egyptians, Chaldeans and 
 Babylonians : — known by another name and under another 
 form, but with the same worship, even if in temples partly 
 
 •ft 
 
54 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 dedicated to idols. The idea of a Supreme God existed 
 then as well as now. Travelers should tread lightly in 
 passing over old ruins. Are they not the graves of dead 
 nations who once occupied the earth in full vitality — un- 
 derstood possibly more of some arts than we do, and en- 
 joyed a high civilization ? Menes and his throne at Mem- 
 phis may constitute one of the last mile-stones on a road 
 so extended that the farther end is hidden in the night- 
 time of the world. To say that we have no history upon 
 which to rely except the Bible — with all due respect to 
 that book — is either gross ignorance or sheer hypocrisy. 
 Historians of the highest order find undoubted proofs that 
 Egypt was the abode of civilized man thousands of years 
 before the Adamite period. Names of kings, composing 
 the different dynasties from Menes to Alexander, are well 
 known ; and the time each reigned, amounting in the ag- 
 gregate to about six thousand years. It is therefore 
 plain, if Adam lived in Mesopotamia 6000 years ago, and 
 Menes in Egypt at the same time, that the Egyptian ruler 
 was not born from the Father of the Semitic race. Nor is it 
 possible that Memphis and other large cities were founded 
 by the posterity of Adam. If Adam had preceded 
 Menes, was it possible that the fine arts would have been, 
 developed as they were in that city, and architecture 
 carried to such a state of perfection? Menes and his 
 people were not autocthonic where we find them, but 
 came from a place known as This, above where Karnac 
 now stands, from which they descended the Nile to found 
 a new city and empire. 
 
 The priests of Memphis, who are certainly to be relied 
 
AGES BEFORE ADAM. 55 
 
 on, told Herodotus that Menes, who founded the new- 
 Egyptian empire, began his reign 11,340 years before the 
 last king of the 23d Memphite dynasty ; and this true his- 
 tory of his is confirmed pretty fully by Manetho and Bun- 
 sen, The Dabistan, and other Persian books, tell us that 
 time has ever been marked by successive cycles, each of 
 which produces its intelligent beings who die when the 
 cycle ends, with the exception of a single pair, who be- 
 come mysteriously changed and give birth to the progeni- 
 tors of a new cycle. 
 
 The oldest mythologies we find reach not near the 
 starting place. Whether we take the Chinese annals, 
 (extending back twelve thousand years) or those of Ma- 
 netho and Herodotus, they are but as yesterday in reach- 
 ing the oldest past. 
 
 The name Adam signifies individual, also redness, or 
 red men. When we read in the book of Genesis, that 
 Adam began to multiply, it seems that his particular 
 branch of the human species is alluded to ; and the infer- 
 ence is natural that other branches had already increased. 
 The Bible account also says there were giants in those 
 da}^s — evidently not Adamites. The sons of God, we are 
 told, saw that the daughters of men were fair ; and they 
 took to themselves wives, who bare children ; and they 
 became mighty men and men of renown. 
 
 If there were none on the earth but Adamites, how 
 could Cain get a wife in the land of Nod, so far eastward 
 from Eden as to be out of the presence of the Lord? 
 Cain did not marry his sister, for she would not have been 
 in the land of Nod ; nor is (here any intimation given of 
 
56 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Adam's having a daughter. Who was there to kill Cain, 
 if no other race existed but Adam's ? Should we admit 
 that Cain had sisters, he would not have feared their 
 taking his life. 
 
 The first pyramid was built, according to the best au- 
 thority, 200 years after Menes came to lower Egypt ; and 
 one of the tombs at Thebes is ascribed to the butler of a 
 king then upon the throne. On the walls of this tomb 
 are pictures of cabinet-makers, boat-builders, sail-makers 
 and glass-blowers ; implying also the existence of many 
 other trades, and a considerable civilization. A man is 
 represented as killing a cow, and sharpening a bronze 
 knife on a steel rod, while an iron pot of three legs is 
 boiling over the fire. There are no iron or copper mines 
 on the banks of the Nile ; whence then these steel tools, 
 planes, saws, needles, looms and so on ? All must have 
 been brought from a distance. Mines were abundant in 
 the Sinaitic wilderness, in the days of pyramid-building, 
 if not before. These implements might have been brought 
 from Damascus ; but, this would not be the case unless 
 other places were inhabited as well as Egypt, and by 
 people far from the savage. The farther examinations 
 are pushed, the more convincing is the antiquity of man. 
 The earliest date of the famous cities of olden time is not 
 known, and never will be. There are no authentic rec- 
 ords either of their beginning or their end. But evi- 
 dence has been presented to show that the race of Adam 
 is probably the youngest branch — the last off-shoot of 
 other and older races. 
 
 One of the best among the late works which are being 
 
AGES BEFORE ADAM. 57 
 
 issued to enlighten the public, is John D. Baldwin's " Pre- 
 historic Nations." In his introductory he says that the 
 cyclical schemes of the ancient world, of computing by 
 tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years 
 the existence of man upon the earth previous to the regu- 
 lar beginning of history, are quite as scientific and relia- 
 ble as Archbishop Usher's system of chronology. The 
 antiquity of man has been underrated, as may be clearly 
 shown by geology and the science of language. Con- 
 scientious geologists are forced to say that the day of 
 man's first appearance on the earth must be carried im- 
 mensely farther back than Usher's date. False chronolo- 
 gies are being laid aside, and room made in the past for 
 those great pre-historic ages of human activity, which are 
 indicated by the oldest monuments, records, and mytholo- 
 gies. The study of these records, in which the ancients 
 speak of what to them was misty antiquity, oblige us to 
 enlarge the past beyond the limits of any modern scheme 
 of chronology. 
 
 The oldest writings in existence are the inscriptions 
 found in the ancient ruins of Egypt and south-western 
 Asia. The oldest books (leaving out those of China), 
 are those preserved by the Indian and Iranian branches 
 of the Aryan family — the Rig-Veda, a translated frag- 
 ment of the Desatir, and portions of the works of Zoroas- 
 ter ; next to these come the Hebrew scriptures; then 
 follow the works of Homer and some other books and 
 fragments of books in Greek, representing the culture of 
 the Ionian 8 of Asia Minor. These books make us famil- 
 iar with the civilization of the communities in which they 
 
58 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 sprang- up. The mythologies, the ruins, the discovery of 
 linguistic science and the general voice of tradition lead 
 to the conclusion that (so far as relates to the Cushite, 
 Semite and Aryan races,) their first appearance was 
 somewhere in the south-western part of Asia ; but we 
 cannot describe the agencies nor give the date of the 
 first development. We never find uninterrupted advance- 
 ment of any nation or community of races, but a constant 
 advance from lower toward higher degrees of civilization. 
 Nations rise, flourish, and afterwards sink into obscurity. 
 The Egypt of to-day is not what we see in the monu- 
 ments of its old monarchy. Chaldea is not now the an- 
 cient Chaldea which we study in its ruins ; we inquire in 
 vain on the coasts of Asia Minor for that Ionian confed- 
 eracy, whose marvelous culture passing over into, the 
 Hellenic peninsula illumined Athens and made that city 
 the glory of Hellas. Still the march of civilization, not- 
 withstanding all the interruptions which have delayed it 
 for ages, has been onward. What seems to be the ob- 
 scurest antiquity becomes extremely modern when con- 
 sidered in connection with what geology says of the an- 
 tiquity of man. Those familiar with the later discover- 
 ies in this science, know how slowly and with what resis- 
 tance geologists themselves have been brought to admit 
 the evidence of the existence of the human race in the 
 latter part of the geological period, named by Lyell and 
 others as Past-Pliocene. 
 
 This period, which next precedes that in which we live, 
 seems as yesterdaj 7 in relation to the countless geological 
 ages that went before ; but some tentative efforts at com- 
 
AGES BEFORE ADAM. 59 
 
 putation make us feel how far away it is from yesterday. 
 Sir Charles LyelPs lowest estimate of the time required 
 to form the present delta of the Mississippi is more than 
 100,000 years ; and yet it belongs almost wholly to the 
 recent period. The lower portion of the peninsula of 
 Florida has been created by a constant growth of coral 
 reefs which is still going on. Agassiz has estimated the 
 average rate of this growth, and calculates it filled a pe- 
 riod of not less than 135,000 years. The same period has 
 been computed for the time in which the falls at Niagara 
 have been working up to their present position. Wes- 
 tern Europe has its ancient ruins that claim consideration, 
 but it has nothing to equal the old ruins of Egypt, 
 though showing the remains of civilized people unknown 
 in history. China claims to have reliable records nineteen 
 centuries older than the Christian era. The traditions of 
 the Hebrews, which Moses saw fit to record as worth a 
 place in the sacred books of his nation, relate almost en- 
 tirely to the Semitic, Cushitic and Aryan families. The 
 earliest Hebrew traditions are to be traced back long be- 
 fore Abraham. The study of the traditions, mythologies, 
 fragmentary records, mouldering monuments and other 
 remains of pre-historic ages, enables any one to see that 
 the people described in the Hebrew scriptures as Cushites 
 were the original civil izers of south-western Asia, and 
 that their influence may be traced in the deepest antiquity 
 in the extreme west of the old world. Rollin says that 
 the Assyrian empire was in its full career of greatness 
 2234 years before Christ, or about 115 years after the 
 deluge. The Hebrew scriptures say that Noah lived 350 
 
60 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 years after the flood ; and of course outlived the founders 
 of that empire, and saw it flourish for more than 200 
 years. The origin of almost everything' in regard to the 
 earliest civilization is lost in the obscurity of ages that 
 go back of the oldest historic period. This is true of all 
 the most common arts of life as well as the sciences. 
 
 Mr. Baldwin says the researches in Egypt give dates 
 as authentic as the monuments themselves, which con- 
 found the current chronologies, and make it plain that 
 Egypt existed not less than 5,000 years B. C. Monumen- 
 tal and sepulchral inscriptions abundantly confirm this, 
 which is also attested by the powerful authority of Mane- 
 tho. He was an Egyptian of great learning, and wrote 
 with the monuments and libraries of Egypt before him — 
 his dates are as authentic as those of any other historian. 
 But, at every step we take in our progress in this investi- 
 gation or any other, we encounter that same blind preju- 
 dice which endeavored to set at nought the discoveries of 
 Galileo. This history of Manetho has perplexed the dog- 
 matists. How can they allow that Menes, who first united 
 all Egypt under one government, began his reign not less 
 than 3893 years B. C. ? English scholars, man}' of them 
 well versed in Egyptian history, could not deny these 
 facts, and for a while sought to reconcile them with the 
 current chronology : finding this impossible, they silently 
 confess that they can not solve the problem satisfactorily. 
 The evidence of these pre-historic times is so full and con- 
 vincing, that an eminent archaeologist was led to exclaim 
 that it was well calculated to awaken grave apprehen- 
 sions as to the old theory of Adam's being the first man, 
 
AGES BEFORE ADAM. 61 
 
 or that Bishop Usher could be depended on ; and he ex- 
 claimed : " What can we do against the concurring- testi- 
 mony of Manetho, Eratosthenes, the Turin papyrus, and 
 the Egyptian tablets of Abydos, Thebes, and Sakkara ?" 
 
 Glacial epochs, so well understood of late, form an in- 
 teresting subject for consideration in this chapter. All 
 planets in their orbits describe an ellipse ; therefore the 
 earth is about three million miles nearer the sun at one 
 time than another ; and, what may seem strange, is near- 
 er the sun in the winter than in the summer, though it 
 has not always been so. For the whole ellipse turns 
 round, going forward in the same direction as the earth, 
 over eleven seconds in a year; and, at the same time, the 
 equinox points (on which the times of all the seasons de- 
 pend,) go backward at the rate of fifty seconds a year, 
 or completely round in twenty-six thousand years. And 
 as one goes one way and the other the other, it is the 
 same as if the places of perihelion and aphelion went for- 
 ward at the rate of sixty-one seconds a year, or complete- 
 ly round in about twenty-one thousand years relatively to 
 the equinoxes from which all celestial measures are taken. 
 From the above rate of advances of the perihelion it will 
 be seen that the earth was nearest the sun in summer, 
 and farthest off in the winter of the northern hemisphere, 
 about 3,600 years before the creation of Adam. Then it 
 was hotter in summer and colder in winter by twenty- 
 three degrees ; and the eccentricity of the earth's orbit 
 was formerly much greater than at present. Whenever 
 in that long period of great eccentricity, from 80,000 to 
 300,000 B. C, the earth was at aphelion, the northern 
 
62 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 winter was much colder than it is now. Our average win- 
 ter temperature is thirty-nine degrees. But this is only 
 thirty-nine degrees above an arbitrary zero, which is of 
 no use in measuring the power of the sun. We must 
 reckon from the absolute zero, or the heat of no sun at 
 all, which is four hundred and ninety degrees below our 
 zero ; so that our winter-heat is really five hundred and 
 twenty-nine degrees on the absolute scale, or so much 
 above what it would be if there were no sun. Now, as 
 the aphelion revolves relatively to the equinoxes in 21,000 
 years, there must have been ten of these northern winters 
 in aphelion during the period of great eccentricity : not 
 all so intense as the one 210,000 years ago, but all far be- 
 yond our present cold, and of course still colder nearer the 
 pole. Every such time was a glacial epoch, as it is called, 
 when all Europe was covered with ice which the heat of 
 summer had not time to melt ; being also obstructed by 
 the evaporation from the melting snow, which slid down 
 the valleys like the glaciers in the Alps. The weight of 
 that ice is thought to have been sufficient to shift the 
 center of gravity of the earth, and keep down most of 
 the land of the northern hemisphere below the level of 
 the sea, as geologists say it has been. These glacial 
 epochs, occurring at such extremely long intervals, are 
 the strongest possible proofs that the earth was not only 
 suited to the production of animal and vegetable life long 
 before the time assigned for the creation of Adam, but they 
 tell us plainly that man did exist on the earth thousands 
 of centuries before the time of Adam. 
 
 Mr. Lyell estimates that the delta of. the Mississippi 
 
AGES BEFORE ADAM. 63 
 
 covers an area of thirty thousand square miles, and in 
 some places is several hundred feet deep, and all composed 
 of sedimentary matter. The time required for the river 
 to bring down this immense amount of earth has been 
 spoken of already as tens of thousands of years. The 
 same author, in speaking of the boulder formation and the 
 drift as connected with the glacial epoch, says the drift 
 is made up of fragments brought from a distance after 
 being frozen into a moving mass; and this in its passage 
 over the subjacent rock has made long rectilinear furrows 
 parallel to each other. The action of this drift has been 
 unceasing as far back as observation goes, through un- 
 known ages. The changes effected by it have been great, 
 though again we must say the time is entirely beyond our 
 comprehension. 
 
 In 1822, in latitude sixty-nine degrees, icebergs were 
 seen two hundred feet high, estimated to weigh 1 00,000 
 tons. These bergs move with great force and steadiness, 
 and while they show so great a height above water, their 
 bulk is very much greater below. They have been ob- 
 served from two to five miles in length, and in one case 
 thirteen miles, and from one hundred to two hundred and 
 twenty-five feet above water. Such immense islands of 
 ice would as a natural consequence contain at their base 
 more or less of earth or rock or both, and move with a 
 force and power in the water that must severely affect 
 subjacent rocks or earthy substances less solid. In many 
 instances islands may have been formed by the resistance 
 of loose earth which these bergs encounter. When a 
 lodgment occurred in this way — though not so very con- 
 
64 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 siderable at first — the action of a constant current would 
 increase the accumulation and in time extend over a large 
 surface. Immense blocks have been carried hundreds, 
 probably thousands of miles by these floating bodies, and 
 dropped in a great many localities, and are known generally 
 as boulders. The portions of rock brought from a distance 
 in this manner — sometimes oblong in shape — are called 
 "erratics;" they are found in Scotland at elevations of 
 3,000 to 4,000 feet, and but little doubt remains as to their 
 being transported on ice rafts. Mr. Lyell in his account 
 of Canada and the United States, published in 1845, says 
 he came to the conclusion that, in explaining the position 
 of the erratics and polished surfaces of rocks and their 
 flutings, we must assume first a gradual submergence of 
 the land in North America, after it had acquired its present 
 outline of hill and valley, cliff and ravine; and then its 
 re-emergence from the ocean. This accounts for the fact 
 that almost everywhere in North America and northern 
 Europe the boulder formation rests on a polished and fur- 
 rowed surface of rock. During the successive depressions 
 of land, varying originally in height from 1,000 to 3,000 
 feet above the sea-level, every portion of the surface would 
 be brought down by turns to the level of the ocean, so as 
 to be converted first into a coast line, and then into a shoal; 
 and at length — after being well scored by the stranding 
 upon it year after year of great masses of coast ice — 
 might be sunk to a depth of several hundred fathoms. 
 If the cold of the great glacial epoch came on slowly — 
 was long before it reached its greatest intensity — and 
 again abated gradually, the earlist and latest drift will be 
 
AGES BEFORE ADAM. 65 
 
 less barren of organic remains than that deposited during 
 the coldest period. The mastodon is thought to have been 
 very abundant after the drift. Quite a number of the 
 skeletons of this animal were found in different localities 
 in the fore part of this century. 
 
66 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 
 
 THIS chapter is only designed for general observations 
 about particular parts of the " old testimony." Omit- 
 ting all before the days of Moses, we begin with the time 
 he appears prominently before the world after the thorough 
 education given him under the direction of the daughter 
 of Pharaoh. The scripture narrative makes no mention 
 about Moses as a military commander in the service of 
 Pharaoh; but Josephus gives many particulars of that 
 nature. It seems the Ethiopians troubled the Egyptians 
 and treated them with such severity that Moses was called 
 into service to save the Egyptians from utter subjection. 
 Moses prevailed over them and pursued on to the city of 
 Saba, afterwards called Meroe. The daughter of the 
 Ethiopian king seeing Moses near the wall, and hearing 
 of his valor, fell in love with him, and agreed to yield the 
 city without bloodshed if he would take her as his wife. 
 Moses promised with an oath to do so, and the capitulation 
 was made. Moses kept his vow and married her. Jose- 
 phus says the Egyptians were on account of his great 
 popularity fearful of harm in some way at his hands, and 
 desired to have him slain; on which account he fled to 
 
THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 67 
 
 Midian and married, the daughter of Jethro. Nothing is 
 -said by Josephus as to the disposition made of the' Ethio- 
 pian wife. The scriptures say Moses fled from Egypt 
 because he had slain one of Pharaoh's subjects, for which 
 the king was about to take his life; and that he married in 
 Midian as before stated, and spent several years in that 
 ^neighborhood, where he subsequently encamped with the 
 Israelitish host in their flight from Egypt. His time was 
 ^mostly devoted to tending his father-in-law's flocks, without 
 ■ omitting in the meantime to gain all the information in his 
 ?power. Wild and romantic scenery engenders lofty 
 thoughts. Nor can we think a priest like Jethro was 
 poorly educated, or destitute of such books as were to be 
 had at that time. There is no reason to suppose that very 
 many manuscripts existed among the Hebrews, or that 
 records had been commenced by Moses until after his 
 journey from Midian back to Egypt to deliver his people, 
 and his return to Midian again. Nor are we at liberty to 
 suppose Moses was so shut out from the surrounding world 
 as to be ignorant of what events were happening while 
 he led a shepherd's life. If we deny entirely, as many do, 
 that the burning bush talked to Moses, we have reason to 
 suppose he heard often from Egypt, and understood the 
 situation of his people there. After performing the won- 
 ders we are told he did to induce Pharaoh to let them go, 
 and Israel had reached the banks of the Red Sea, then came 
 the crowning operation of dividing the waters so that all 
 passed over the ground where they had been, when the 
 wind that drove the waves aside swept them back again to 
 .swallow up Pharaoh the moment he was in their bed. The 
 
68 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Hebrews were all safely on the other side looking back to 
 see their pursuers perish. Farther pursuit was out of the 
 question. Well might they sing and rejoice, for they had 
 been delivered. 
 
 The thirty-first chapter of Deuteronomy states that when 
 Moses had made an end of writing the words of the law 
 in a book, he commanded that it should be put in the side 
 of the ark of the covenant for a witness. We rightfully 
 infer from this direction that already writings were in 
 existence known as books; consequently that there was 
 some spread of knowledge, especially among the priestly 
 class. Traditions of the past had been preserved, the 
 sayings of eminent men had sometimes been recorded, and 
 the striking experiences of the nation traced on stone or 
 brass. As regards a people so long in bondage as the 
 Hebrews, who can pretend to say what progress they had 
 made upward or downward ? Their legends ran far back r 
 even to the creation. The wonders wrought by Moses 
 and Aaron for their deliverance from bondage were of 
 course treasured in faithful memories, and repeated from 
 father to child. And, as they came to realize in the plain 
 of Sinai their new life as a nation, they would be prompted 
 to make a formal record of all they could rely upon of the 
 past, without giving us any hint as to how much or how 
 certain this was. Kitto's history of the Bible is a work 
 of considerable merit and valuable instruction. He says 
 the different books when written were not put in a con- 
 nected form till long after their immediate author's decease. 
 and that their present arrangement is comparatively mod- 
 ern. The Hebrews take the name of each book from the 
 
THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 69 
 
 first word with which it begins. The Greeks, on the other 
 hand, whom our translators usually follow, take the names 
 Genesis, Exodus, &c, from the subject matter. The 
 Hebrews call the first book Bereshith, which signifies in 
 the beginning; but the Greeks call it by the name it bears 
 in our English Bibles, which signifies " the beginning of 
 creation." In one part of the scripture it is called the book 
 of Jasher, or the Just. According to a learned writer this 
 name was applied to it from its containing the history of 
 Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The second book in the order 
 in which they now stand is Exodus, which in the Greek 
 signifies " going out," and comprises the history of one 
 hundred and forty-five years, from the death of Joseph to 
 the building of the tabernacle. The Hebrews call it 
 Yelleshemoth, in English "these are the names." The 
 third book is called Leviticus, because it contains the laws 
 to be observed by the tribe of Levi who ministered at the 
 altar. It also gives an account of what happened to the 
 Jews for one month and a half, or from the time the tab- 
 ernacle was erected — which was the first day of the first 
 month of the second year after the Israelites came out of 
 Egypt — to the second month of the same year, when the 
 people were numbered. The Hebrews call this book 
 Yayiere, or " the law of the priests." The fourth book, 
 which we call Numbers, the Hebrews call Vagedavbar, 
 that is " and he spake." It contains what passed from 
 the second month of the second year after the coming out 
 of Egypt till the beginning of the eleventh month of the 
 fortieth year, or about thirty-nine years. Deuteronomy is 
 a name by which the fifth book is known, signifying in 
 
 p6 
 
»J0 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Greek, " the second law," called by the Hebrews Elle-had- 
 debarim, that is "these are the words." This book contains 
 the discourse of Moses to the Israelites just before his 
 death. The Pentateuch was called by the Jews the 
 " Law." The account of Moses' death some zealous parties 
 claim was written by himself; while others, wishing to 
 preserve a proper degree of consistency, allow that it was 
 added a long time, or soon after he died. Nothing is defi- 
 nitely known in regard to the book of Ruth. Many con- 
 tend that the books of Judges and Ruth were written by 
 Samuel; others attribute them to Hezekiah or Ezra. The 
 four books following Ruth are called by the Greeks, and 
 also in some Latin Bibles, "the history of the reigns;" 
 others call them all " the books of Kings," from their 
 giving an account of the establishment of monarchy and 
 the succession of kings who reigned over the whole land 
 at first, and over Judah and Jerusalem after the division. 
 By the Jews the first two of these are called the books of 
 Samuel, from their containing the history of two kings 
 anointed by him. In some Bibles there are four books of 
 Kings — the first containing the history of the high priest 
 Eli, Samuel, and Saul, a period of about one hundred years. 
 The second book refers to the reign of David, a term of 
 about forty years. Samuel, Nathan, and Gad, mentioned 
 in Chronicles as historians of David, are supposed to have 
 been the writers of these two books. The third, or accord- 
 ing to the Hebrews the first, book of Kings gives an 
 account of the manner in which Solomon came to the 
 throne, and the whole of his reign, with an account of a 
 division of the kingdom, and a history of the four kings 
 
THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. >\\ 
 
 of Judah and eight kings of Israel. These reigns alto- 
 gether (including that of Solomon) comprise a term of 
 one hundred and twenty-six years. The fourth of these 
 books gives the history of sixteen kings of Judah and 
 twelve of Israel, with an account of the Prophets who 
 lived during their time. It is quite uncertain who wrote 
 the last two books; evidently they were a compilation, 
 probably by Ezra, the great writer and historian of his 
 time. Paralipomena, signifying in Greek "the history of 
 things omitted," is the name given to the two books which 
 follow those of Kings. They form a kind of supplement 
 to the Pentateuch, the books of Joshua, Judges, and Kings; 
 giving also a fuller description of many things partially 
 omitted, and some matters entirely left out. Chronicles is 
 the name given to these books, on account of the exactness 
 with which they give the date of events. We divide them 
 into two books in conformity with the practice of the Jews, 
 who call them in their language " an historical journal," 
 the matters of which they treat having been taken from 
 the journals of the kings. Ezra is supposed to have been 
 the writer of these, as indeed he was the transcriber of all 
 the scriptures up to his time, and the historian of the re- 
 turn of the Jews from Babylonish captivity to the period 
 when C3T11S became master of the Eastern empire by the 
 death of CambySes his father, and Cyaxares his father-in- 
 law, 454 B. 0. The next book in order of arrangement is a 
 continuance of that of Ezra, by some called the second 
 book of Ezra, though it 1 tears the name of Nehemiah, who 
 is said to have written it under the particular advice and 
 direction of Ezra. The re-establishment of Jerusalem and 
 
72 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 the temple is particularly spoken of, embracing a period 
 of about thirty years, to the year 423 B. C. 
 
 After this general history of the Jews, follows some 
 account of the life of Esther and Job. Then come writings 
 of the moral kind — Psalms, and Proverbs, and what are 
 known as the Prophets. Whatever writings existed before 
 the time of Josiah — however much had been preserved 
 from previous ages in the way of traditions and legends — 
 we contend that they had not before that assumed any 
 thing of a regular, systematic form. At the time of this 
 finding of what was called the Law, the historian says, 
 great fear fell upon all the people on account of the neglect 
 it had suffered so many years. Without delay the best 
 linguistic scholars were called together, who, with Hilkiah 
 the priest, and Shaphan the scribe, labored diligently in 
 arranging, revising and rewriting all that could be found 
 touching matters of such tradscendent importance to the 
 nation. The work before them was no less than out of 
 crude materials to determine the form which the Penta- 
 teuch should wear through all time to come. Thus far no 
 name had been given to the writing's other than the Law, 
 for it is doubtful whether the first finding included any 
 thing more. The history of the growth and formation, 
 with the continued additions and alterations of the Jewish 
 canon cannot be given, for the very good reason that 
 there are no contemporary records in existence to furnish 
 materials. At an early date the Jews held as divine thirty- 
 nine books, w T hich have come down mostly in Hebrew, and 
 which according to the ancient Jewish arrangement were 
 reckoned as twenty-two, though more lately as twenty- 
 
THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. ^3 
 
 four. Josephus tells us that the first Jewish canon con- 
 sisted of twenty-two books : five of Moses, thirteen of 
 the Prophets, and four which contain hymns and directions. 
 There is some difficulty in classifying these Jewish scrip- 
 tures, especially such as constitute the Hagiographa, which 
 is neither law, history nor prophecy. For some light on 
 this subject reference may well be made to Brown's Bible 
 Dictionary, or to William Smith's later work. The publi- 
 cation of the Chaldee scriptures is considered to have 
 been made by Ezra, who employed for that purpose the 
 Chaldee characters then generally in use among the Jews. 
 This canon was not fully sottled up to the time of Ezra, 
 for several variations were made soon after. Malachi 
 could not have been inserted by Ezra, as that Prophet lived 
 some time later. Nor could Nehemiah, since that book 
 makes mention of a high priest and a king of Persia who 
 were at least a hundred years later than Ezra. Probably 
 the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and 
 Malachi, were adopted into the Bible in the time of Simon 
 the Just, who was the last of the members of the Great 
 Synagogue. It is quite certain that many new arrange- 
 ments in regard to the order and division were made not 
 long after the Babylonish captivity, by somebody who 
 collected together all the old copies, forming a new edition 
 more perfect than any before. Much improvement was 
 made in the order of arrangement by Ezra. First came the 
 Law, containing the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 
 Numbers and Deuteronomy. Second, the Prophets, Joshua, 
 Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah with his 
 Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, twelve of the minor Proph- 
 
U SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 ets, and Job. The Hagiographa included the Psalms, Pro- 
 verbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, and particularly the poeti- 
 cal books. 
 
 Targum is a name given to the Chaldee paraphrase of 
 the Old Testament. They were comments and explana- 
 tions, not literal translations, written in the Chaldee 
 tongue, which became familiar to the Jews after their 
 captivity; so that they heard the law read in the temple in 
 Hebrew, and afterwards explained in the Chaldee. This 
 custom began from about the time of Ezra, who in reading 
 the law as a part of the temple worship, explained it in 
 that way — as did the other priests — to make it understood 
 by the people. No written paraphrase is known to have 
 been in use much before the birth of Jesus. Amongst 
 them all, the Targum of Onkelos is the most esteemed of 
 any that have been found, and is inserted verse for verse 
 with the Hebrew. There is also the Targum of Jonathan, 
 and that of Jerusalem; the latter on the Pentateuch only. 
 
 Talmud : This word comes from the Hebrew, " to teach," 
 and was the great depository of the doctrines and opinions 
 or the Jews. Two works bear that name — the Talmud of 
 Jerusalem, and that of Babylon — each composed of two 
 parts, the Mishna which is the text, and the Gemara or 
 commentary. 
 
 The Septvagint : This word, meaning "seventy," is well 
 known as denoting the Greek version of the Old Testament, 
 said to have been the work of seventy translators from the 
 Hebrew tongue to the Greek. It is supposed to have been 
 done in the reign and by the order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 
 king of Egypt, about 2T5 to 280 B. C. Doubts have been 
 
THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. ^5 
 
 entertained as to this being strictly true; many believing 
 it to be the work of more than one company of men. It is 
 also contended that different parts show different degrees 
 of competency, and the application of different rules of 
 interpretation. Aristobulus, who was contemporary with 
 Jesus and the Apostles, speaks of the translation as made 
 by seventy-two interpreters, under the care of Demetrius 
 Phalereus, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. All the 
 Christian writers during the first fifteen centuries of the 
 Christian Era, have admitted this account of the Septuagint 
 without a question of its accuracy. As to the time of the 
 translation there is scarcely a difference of opinion. Until 
 this period of about three centuries before Christianity, 
 the Hebrew scriptures had not probably been used by any 
 other nation than the Jews, because of their being hid in 
 a language so little known. No doubt exists as to this 
 translation having been made by the most learned Jews 
 in connection with the ablest men that could be found; 
 nor as to their best efforts being put forth to have the 
 whole correct. However, it does not seem that the Jews 
 before this translation, or while performing the work, or 
 at any time after, neglected in every possible way to 
 maintain that they were God's chosen and peculiar peo- 
 ple. Every thing was taken up and examined in forming 
 the Septuagint, the Targums, the traditions, the legends, 
 the scraps of writing on stones, on wood, on parchment. 
 However much they desired to perfect their work, it 
 could not be expected that they would have entire suc- 
 cess. It was taken from a language well understood by 
 the Jews, into another of which they had at most a very 
 
?6 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 imperfect knowledge. But this translation, thus made 
 from the materials referred to, by men who pretended to 
 no inspiration or divine authority, we are now taught by 
 the clergy to call the word of God — the Holy Scriptures — 
 with how much propriety every man is bound to be his own 
 judge. Every careful reader knows that they nowhere as- 
 sert their own inspiration. The books held most sacred 
 by the Jews who were contemporary with Jesus and the 
 Apostles, were the following : Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 
 Numbers, and Deuteronomy as the books of Moses ; Josh- 
 ua, Judges, Ruth, two books of Samuel, two of Kings, 
 two of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Isaiah, Jere- 
 miah, Ezekiel, Daniel, twelve minor Prophets, and Job, as 
 the prophetic books ; Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and 
 Canticles as the books of hymns and precepts ; in all, 
 twenty-two. Of the exact dates and authorship of these, 
 no one appears to be fully informed. Romanists say our 
 English Bible is incomplete ; but the Protestant world 
 insisted at the famous Council of Trent that the apocry- 
 phal books never had the sanction of the early Christian 
 churches, and were not written till after the Old Testa- 
 ment inspiration had ceased ; and therefore were un- 
 worthy of a place in the scripture canon. This Council 
 convoked in 1545, was marked by much bitter controversy 
 in regard to the apocryphal books, and as to what was 
 and was not canonical. Doubts had arisen and still con- 
 tinue as to where the dividing line between truth and fic- 
 tion should run. 
 
 So important was the action of this Council considered, 
 that it continued in session, with some slight interruption/ 
 
THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. tl 
 
 for eighteen years. The conclusions arrived at were as 
 follows : " All the books of Scripture, canonical and apoc- 
 ryphal, not excluding that of Baruch, though wanting in 
 the old catalogues which are contained in the Latin 
 church version, (commonly called the Vulgate), are pos- 
 sessed of the same divine authority. Second, that tra- 
 dition, whether it regards matters of faith or practice, 
 must be received with the same veneration with scrip- 
 ture, as it is the unwritten word of God. Third, that the 
 Holy Scriptures are to be read and understood according 
 to the Vulgate, the only authentic version. Moreover, no 
 person shall presume, on his own insight and wisdom, to 
 pervert the Holy Scriptures to make them favor his views 
 of faith and morals, contrary to the sense which the 
 Church has received and still receives, which alone can 
 determine what is the true meaning and interpretation." 
 
 The Council of Trent included among the canonical 
 books, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, Maccabees 
 First and Second, besides additions to Daniel, and Esther. 
 Eusebius, the celebrated Christian historian, sanctions the 
 following opinion of Josephus : "We have innumerable 
 books which contradict each other, but only twenty-two 
 which contain the history of all past times, and are justly 
 believed to be divine. Five of these belong to Moses, 
 and contain his laws, the history of the origin of man- 
 kind, reaching to his death. The Prophets who lived 
 after Moses, narrate the events of their time in thirteen 
 books. The other four books contain hymns to God and 
 precepts for men. 
 
 The word Biblia, Bible, was applied to the sacred 
 
18 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 writings of the Jews, to signify a collection of books 
 held by them as holy, especially the Law and the Proph- 
 ets : the word implies plurality, but does not really apply 
 to the New Testament. 
 
 Canon and canonical are words in . daily use regarding 
 both Testaments : " Canon was introduced only after 
 the Christian Era had advanced a considerable period." 
 Meaning simply " a straight rod," it is properly applied 
 to a standard of correctness. Stuart endorses the state- 
 ment of Josephus, as a man who had examined both 
 sides of the question : that no books were admitted to 
 the Jewish canon unless regarded of prophetic origin. 
 Fifteen books once having authority with the Jews, and 
 some of them canonical, are known to us now only by an 
 occasional reference in our Bibles, or possibly by an 
 abridgment of some of their contents in the existing 
 Jewish annals : The book of the Wars of the Lord, of 
 Jasher, of Solomon's three thousand Proverbs, of the Acts 
 of Solomon, of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, of 
 the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, of the book of Na- 
 than and of Gad, a life of Rehoboam, of Uzziah, of Jehu, 
 of Hezekiah, of Manasseh, and the Lamentations of Jere- 
 miah over the untimely death of Josiah. Some of these 
 are appealed to in such a manner as to show we have ex- 
 perienced such a loss as has befallen the Christian world 
 with regard to some of the epistles of Paul. 
 
 From this brief outline of the origin of the Jewish 
 scriptures, the time and occasions of their starting, their 
 additions and emendations, the frequent revisions un- 
 der such a variety of circumstances by so many persons 
 
THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. ?9 
 
 laying no claim to divine inspiration, it is impossible to 
 see any good reason why they deserve the title of " the 
 word of* God." In various other places we have said that 
 all truth is God's truth, comes from Him, and is the very 
 essence of His being. Whoever is moved to tell a great 
 truth for the good of God's creatures, is inspired by Him 
 to do it. Just so with all who conspire to do a bad deed, 
 to tell an untruth, and drag God's creatures down ; the 
 creation and inspiration come from the devil through his 
 power and influence. They drink in from the great fountain 
 of evil, the opposing force of goodness and purity. 
 
 The devout and learned Bishop Colenso speaks of the 
 Old Testament writings with a freedom in marked con- 
 trast with the cramped and stultified views many enter- 
 tain. On account of mere prejudice and superstitious 
 fear, a large portion of the Christian world would no 
 more read his works than if they were handed them by 
 the Evil One himself; and yet no one has undertaken to 
 controvert them. Their notice here will be brief. Colen- 
 so says a young man who enters the ministry of the 
 Church of England must surrender forever all freedom of 
 thought, or at least of utterance, upon great questions of 
 the age, and bring himself for life to believe in all the 
 canonical scriptures, when he knows enough of geology 
 and modern criticism to feel that he cannot do this hon- 
 estly. The Church of England must in time fall to the 
 ground from its own internal weakness by losing its hold 
 upon the growing intelligence of all classes, unless some 
 remedy is speedily applied to this state of things. 
 
 In the present state of affairs there is great danger that 
 
80 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 the highly educated classes will drift into irreligion and 
 practical atheism, on account of the unsound populaT 
 views, and a distrust of so-called spiritual teachers who 
 are either stupidly or wilfully ignorant of most notorious 
 facts. The Bishop says : " I am writing with the serious 
 earnestness of one who believes that he owes a duty to 
 the Church itself (of which he is a minister) to do his part 
 to secure for the Bible its due honor and authority, and 
 save its devout readers from ascribing to it attributes of 
 perfection which belong to God alone, and which the Bible 
 never claims for itself. It is believed that Moses wrote 
 under such special guidance and teaching of the Holy 
 Spirit, that he was preserved from making any error in 
 recording such matters as came within his own cognisance, 
 and was instructed also in regard to events which took 
 place before he was born — before, indeed, there was a 
 human being on the earth to take note of what was pass- 
 ing. He was in this way, it is supposed, enabled to write 
 a true account of the Creation. And, though the accounts 
 of the Fall and of the Flood, as well as of later events 
 which happened in the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, 
 may have been handed down by tradition from one gene- 
 ration to another, and even some of them, perhaps, written 
 down in words or represented in hieroglyphics, and Moses 
 may, probably, have derived assistance from these sources 
 also in the composition of his narrative, yet in all his 
 statements, it is believed, he was under such constant 
 control of the Spirit of God that he was kept from making 
 any serious error, and certainly from writing anything 
 altogether untrue. We may rely with undoubting confi- 
 
THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 81 
 
 dence ; — such is the statement usually made — on the histor- 
 ical veracity and infallible accuracy of the Mosaic narra- 
 tive in all its main particulars. But the time is come, as I 
 believe, in the providence of God, when this question can 
 no longer be put by — when it must resolutely be faced, 
 and the whole matter fully and freely examined. * * I 
 have arrived at the conclusion that the Pentateuch, as a 
 whole, cannot possibly have been written by Moses, or by 
 any one acquainted personally with the facts which it 
 professes to describe. Let it be observed that I am not 
 here speaking of a number of petty variations and contra- 
 dictions such as, on close examination, are found to exist 
 throughout the books. Nor are the difficulties to which I 
 am now referring of the same kind as those which arise 
 from considering the accounts of the Creation and the 
 Deluge; or the stupendous character of certain miracles, 
 as that of the sun and moon standing still — or the waters 
 of the river Jordan standing in heaps as solid walls, while 
 the stream, we must suppose, was still running — or the 
 ass speaking with human voice— or the miracles wrought 
 by the magicians of Egypt, such as the conversion of a 
 rod into a snake, and the latter being endowed with life. 
 They are not such, even, as are raised, when we regard the 
 trivial nature of a vast number of conversations ascribed 
 directly to Jehovah, especially the multiplied ceremonial 
 minutiae laid down in the Levitical Law. I cannot, as a 
 true man, consent any longer to shut my eyes to the abso- 
 lute, palpable self-contradictions of the narrative. I could 
 believe and receive the miracles of Scripture heartily, if 
 only they were authenticated by a veracious history ; 
 
82 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 though, if this is not the case with the Pentateuch, any 
 miracles, which rest on such an unstable support, must 
 necessarily fall to the ground with it. Our belief in the 
 living God remains the same as ever, though not the 
 Pentateuch only, but the whole Bible, were removed. It 
 is written on our hearts by God's own finger, as surely as 
 by the hand of the Apostle in the Bible, that ' GOD is, and 
 is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.' It is 
 written there also, as plainly as in the Bible, that ' God is 
 not mocked ' — that ' whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 
 he also reap' — and that ' he that soweth to the flesh, shall 
 of the flesh reap corruption.' Some there will be of a 
 different stamp — meek, lowly, loving souls, who consider 
 a belief in the historical veracity of the story of the 
 Exodus an essential part of their religion. And it is, 
 perhaps, God's will that we shall be taught in this our day, 
 among other precious lessons, not to build up our faith 
 upon a book, though it be the Bible itself; but to realize 
 more truly the blessedness of knowing that He Himself, 
 our Father and friend, is nearer and closer to us than any 
 book; that His voice within the heart may be heard con- 
 tinually by the obedient child that listens for it, and that 
 that shall be our teacher and guide in the path of duty, 
 which is the path of life, when even the words of the Best 
 of Books may fail us. 
 
 " In discharging, however, my present duty to God and 
 to the Church, I trust that I shall be preserved from saying 
 a single word that may cause unnecessary pain to those 
 who now embrace as a primary article of faith the ordinary 
 view of Scripture inspiration. We must not attempt to 
 
THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 83 
 
 put into the Bible what we think ought to be there ; we 
 must not indulge that 'forward delusive faculty/ as Bishop 
 Butler styles the imagination, and lay it down for certain 
 beforehand that God could only reveal Himself to us by 
 means of an infallible Book. 
 
 "It is unquestionably true that the Jews received what 
 we call the Old Testament as a collection of divinely- 
 inspired writings; and that Christians, on their authority, 
 have generally adopted the same belief. What rational 
 or consistent ground can we assign for disregarding the 
 decision of the Jews in the case of Jesus, and accepting 
 it submissively in the case of Moses, David, and Isaiah ? 
 The opinion of De Wette is that different portions of the 
 Old Testament were collected or brought into their present 
 form at various periods; and that the whole body of it 'came 
 gradually into existence, and, as it were, of itself and by 
 force of custom and public use, acquired a sort of sanction.' 
 He conceives the Pentateuch to have been completed about 
 the time of Josiah, the collection of Prophets soon after 
 Nehemiah, and the devotional writings not till the age of 
 Maccabees. His view of the grounds which led to the 
 reception of the various books into the sacred canon, is as 
 follows : ' The writings attributed to Moses, David, and 
 the Prophets, were considered inspired on account of the 
 personal character of their authors; but the other writings, 
 which are in part anonymous, derive their title to inspira- 
 tion sometimes from their contents, and sometimes from 
 the cloud of antiquity that rests on them. Some of the 
 writings which were composed after the exile — such, for 
 example, as the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and Daniel — 
 
84 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 were put on this list on account of the ancient authors to- 
 whom they were ascribed; others, for example, Chronicles,, 
 and Esther, on account of their contents; and others again r 
 as Ezra' and Nehemiah, on account of the distinguished 
 merit of their authors in restoring the Law and worship- 
 of God.' 
 
 " It will be readily conceded that the divine authority or 
 proper inspiration of a series of writings of which we 
 know neither the date, the author, the collector, nor the 
 principle of selection, can not derive much support from 
 the mere opinion of the Jews. These writings nowhere- 
 amrm their own inspiration, divine origin, or infallible 
 authority. The argument, for the inspiration of the Old* 
 Testament Scriptures derived from the character of their 
 contents, will bear no examination. It is true that many 
 parts of them contain views of Duty, of God, and of 
 Man's relation to Him, which are among the purest andi 
 loftiest that the human intellect can grasp ; but it is no 
 less true that other passages, at least as numerous and! 
 characteristic, depict feelings and opinions on these top- 
 ics, as low, meagre, and unworthy, as ever took their rise 
 in savage minds. These passages, as is well known, 
 have long been the opprobrium of orthodoxy and the de- 
 spair of theologians ; and so far are they from being con- 
 firmatory of Scriptural inspiration, that nothing but the 
 inconsiderate and absolute reception of this doctrine has 
 withheld men from regarding and representing them in 
 their true light. The contents of the Hebrew canon as 
 a whole, form the most fatal and convincing argument 
 against its inspiration as a whole" 
 
 
GENESIS. 85 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GENESIS. 
 
 GENESIS, or production, is a name given to the first 
 portion of the Greek version of the Bible — to a 
 period extending from what is popularly termed the Crea- 
 tion to the Deluge, or sixteen centuries and a half. But 
 this entire book of Genesis really reaches from Creation 
 to the death of Joseph, more than twenty-three hundred 
 years. A statement so exceedingly condensed, especially 
 in its bearing on the condition and destiny of our race, 
 may well claim patient thought and prolonged study. 
 Who the writer was we do not know, nor the time of its 
 writing. It bears the name of Moses, being the first of 
 the five books or Pentateuch which bore his name unchal- 
 lenged through so many generations of Jews. But, though 
 parts, especially of Exodus may have come directly from 
 him, all such late books as William Smith's Dictionary 
 declare that it is a compilation, having such a unity of 
 plan and coherence of parts as bespeaks a single mind; 
 but evidently built upon earlier works, some of them ex- 
 ceedingly fragmentary. We believe all that call them- 
 selves biblical scholars are agreed that this introductory 
 portion of the Old Testament is drawn from different 
 
 87 
 
86 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 sources — the most distinguished critic among the Germans 
 endeavoring to point out seven different authors ; the 
 purpose evidently being to present in a connected form all 
 that was regarded as unquestionably authentic in the 
 annals of our race. If we attribute the work to Moses, we 
 must admit that Deuteronomy was completed by another 
 hand. But as he was born, according to Usher, 2433 years 
 after the creation of our world, we are naturally curious 
 to know in what way he obtained the account of such a 
 transaction. The common belief is that Jehovah gave it 
 him from his own mouth. Another and more reasonable 
 theory is that it was a legend of very ancient date which 
 came to Moses, carved perhaps on stone slabs, as the 
 Egyptians and Assyrians preserved their earliest history 
 in picture-writing. Divested of some of its cruder parts 
 and the too often repeated name of God, we cannot help 
 feeling an interest in its childlike simplicity, its thorough 
 honesty, its heartfelt earnestness. The introduction is 
 abrupt necessarily. If we admit that at the start God 
 was talking, it was to himself only, for there was no one 
 to hear. Looking with human eyes and judging with 
 human understanding, it is hard to accept the story lite- 
 rally; and yet it challenges our entire faith. 
 
 It is required of us not only to take the Creation story 
 as true, but as coming from God himself. The biblical 
 scholar Coleman says in regard to Creation: "In the be- 
 ginning, at some time to us unknown far back in eternity 
 God created the heavens and the earth." In fixing the 
 date chronologically, he calls it 4102 B. C. This in a long 
 series of years is not a great variation from the ordinary 
 
GENESIS. 87 
 
 reckoning, 4004, but far enough from the true time of the 
 first appearance of man on the earth. Surely the whole 
 work of the earth's creation did not take place in less than 
 millions upon millions of years. Six literal days or six 
 thousand years are hardly an approach to the time. Strange 
 a notion so absurd as that ever found favor; or the kindred 
 childishness that Creation came by one spoken word of the 
 eternal Jehovah. Our age is too far advanced in scientific 
 knowledge to credit the six-day theory; or to admit that 
 the time of man's first appearance on the earth goes no 
 farther back than four thousand years. 
 
 The Jewish Scriptures, now designated as the Old Testa- 
 ment, begin as follows: 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
 
 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was 
 upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the 
 face of the waters. 
 
 3 IT And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 
 
 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the 
 light from the darkness. 
 
 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night: 
 and the evening and the morning were the first day. 
 
 6 IT And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the 
 •waters : and let it divide the waters from the waters. 
 
 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which 
 were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firm- 
 ament: and it was so. 
 
 8 And God called the firmament Heaven: and the evening and the 
 morning were the second day. 
 
 9 And God said, Let the waters under the Heaven be gathered 
 together unto one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so. 
 
 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together 
 of the waters called he Seas: and (rod saw that it was good. 
 
 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yield- 
 ing seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed 
 is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 
 
88 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding fruit, 
 whose seed was in itself, after his kind; and God saw that it was 
 good. 
 
 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. 
 
 14 II And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the 
 heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, 
 and for seasons, and for days, and years. 
 
 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to 
 give light upon the earth: and it was so. 
 
 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the 
 day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 
 
 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light 
 upon the earth, 
 
 18 And to rule over the day, and over the night, and to divide the 
 light from the darkness : and God saw that it was good. 
 
 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 
 
 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the 
 moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth 
 in the open firmament of heaven. 
 
 21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that 
 moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, 
 and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 
 
 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and 
 fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 
 
 23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 
 
 24 IT And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature 
 after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth 
 after his kind: and it was so. 
 
 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle 
 after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after 
 his kind: and God saw that it was good. 
 
 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our like- 
 ness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over 
 the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and 
 over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 
 
 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God 
 created he him ; male and female created he them. 
 
 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, 
 and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have do- 
 minion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and 
 over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 
 
 29 IT And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing 
 
GENESIS. 89 
 
 seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the 
 which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 
 
 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, 
 and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is 
 life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 
 
 31 And God saw everything that he had made: and behold, it 
 was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth 
 day. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host 
 of them. 
 
 2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had 
 made ; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he 
 had made. 
 
 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because 
 that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and 
 made. 
 
 4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when 
 they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and 
 the heavens, 
 
 5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and 
 every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not 
 caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the 
 ground. 
 
 6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the 
 whole face of the ground. 
 
 7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
 breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a 
 living soul. 
 
 8 If And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden; and there he put 
 the man whom he had formed. 
 
 9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree 
 that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also 
 in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and 
 evil. ******** 
 
 15 11 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the gar- 
 den of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it. 
 
 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree 
 of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 
 
 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt 
 not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
 surely die. 
 
90 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 18 IT And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should 
 be alone: I will make him an help meet for him. 
 
 19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the 
 field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see 
 what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living 
 creature, that was the name thereof. 
 
 20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the 
 air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not 
 found an help meet for him. 
 
 21 IT And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, 
 and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh 
 instead thereof; 
 
 22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made 
 he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 
 
 23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of 
 my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of 
 man. 
 
 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and 
 shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 
 
 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were 
 not ashamed. 
 
 From this point we may well look back and see if we 
 understand what we have passed over. What does that 
 word "beginning" mean? Must it not be applied in its 
 broadest sense ? Because our fathers and grandfathers 
 understood it to be about six thousand years ago, is that 
 enough for us, who have an entirely different idea of the 
 duration of earth ? They read what is so often designated 
 as the "blessed book," and shut their eyes to any diffi- 
 culties or inconsistencies ; wonderful as its statements 
 were, they might be explained but could never be disputed. 
 
 Whoever penned the account knew nothing of the actual 
 time of beginning of things, which as we show in other 
 places goes back millions of years. In that remote past 
 the formation of matter began. As to its exact order, 
 
GENESIS. 91 
 
 though very much has been written of late and by exceed- 
 ingly able persons, only a fraction of what can be discov- 
 ered is yet brought to light. Accumulations of knowledge 
 will be constantly taking place — and, whether men grow 
 better or not, they are bound to grow wiser. 
 
 Those who never lived in Christian lands nor knew any- 
 thing of Christian faith, when told in the abrupt manner 
 of the opening verse that God created the heaven and the 
 earth, without an explanation of the term, would be en- 
 tirely unable to comprehend what it meant. Though the 
 designation of "God" and "Lord God" to the reading 
 community in our day and in Catholic countries is tolerably 
 well understood, the strangeness of this wording ought 
 not to be overlooked. 
 
 The word heaven has various meanings, according to 
 the connection in which it stands : thrown up or elevated; 
 the arch which overhangs the earth; the sky; the atmos- 
 phere; the place where the sun, moon and stars appear; 
 the immediate presence of God, the home of the blessed, 
 &c. This term is used by the Jewish, Christian and Pagan 
 writers in varying sense according to its connection and 
 their peculiar views. In some cases it means the Onipo- 
 tent Jehovah; sometimes supreme happiness; sometimes 
 a sublime or ecstatic state of being. The heaven here 
 said to be created, it is presumed is meant to be taken as 
 the peculiar dwelling place of Deity. 
 
 The command is given for light to appear, and it did so. 
 Light having existed from all eternity, the phrase is per- 
 fectly proper. It appeared as soon as an atmosphere sur- 
 rounded the earth; but, day and night could not have been 
 
92 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 reckoned before the sun became visible, which was not till 
 the fourth day. Without a sun could there have been 
 either morn or eve in fact? This discrepancy in the 
 account shows the perfect honesty of the writer. Nothing 
 could be clearer than his determination to give the world 
 all he could possibly discover regarding its original begin- 
 ning. Few historians are free from errors, but still fewer 
 desire to falsify. All created things in which there was 
 life had the command laid upon them to multiply; and no 
 command from G-od or man was ever better kept; this 
 desire upon which the continuance of the race depends, 
 in man may be overcome and held in subjection by the 
 intellect or conscience, but never so in the lower orders of 
 creation. After all terrestrial things were made, with the 
 different orders of animals and plants, on the last day, the 
 sixth, man was made as divine wisdom suggested in the 
 likeness of God; and to him dominion was given over the 
 fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the 
 cattle of the earth, and over every creeping thing. So, 
 God created man in His own image, in the image of God 
 created He him; male and female created He them. God 
 blessed them and gave command that they too should be 
 fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. They had 
 no cultivated fields and yet were in no want of food. 
 Every herb and the fruit of every tree were given them, 
 with every beast, bird and fish. If therefore they became 
 tired of vegetable diet, it was only for them to draw fish 
 from the water, or overpower the animals which were so 
 very numerous on the face of the earth. And it would 
 seem as if this was the way God intended they should 
 
 
GENESIS. 93 
 
 live. It is no easy matter to understand what is meant 
 by this creation of man in the image of God. No man has 
 at any time seen God, as one man sees and knows another; 
 therefore we are not able to say how far this first creation 
 bore His image. If that race did, we know it was long 
 since defaced. No class of men of that type can be found 
 at this day. They may have passed away into the spirit 
 world, and some where in the broad expanse of creation 
 may constitute now a superior race of beings, far above 
 us in the scale of spirits. No mention is made of clay or 
 earth of any color, red or black. There is a marked lack 
 of explicitness about the narrative. The relation could 
 hardly be given in fewer words or with greater generality; 
 as would naturally be the case were it the translation of 
 some picture on limestone slab. This fully completed the 
 work of Creation, and God rested, having done all to His 
 entire satisfaction, and pronounced it all good. 
 
 The seventh day is declared to have been kept by God 
 as sacred, during which no labor was to be done. There 
 could have been none at that time, for God had finished 
 His work, and this man and woman had no work to per- 
 form. From this fact we are led irresistibly to the conclu- 
 sion that the command originated with Moses; and that 
 whoever wrote this book made the story to correspond in 
 its various parts. Mortal man enjoys the success of his 
 humble plans, and the writer of Genesis could see no reason 
 why God after his great labor should not have a day of 
 rest in reviewing his great masterpiece. 
 
 The fifth verse of the second chapter commences another, 
 an independent account of the Creation, marked by an 
 
94 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 entirely different name for Deity, Jehovah for Elohim. 
 The German writers were the first to detect this difference, 
 and to show its connection with perfectly preserved pecu- 
 liarities of diction. And it certainly is to the credit of the 
 compiler, whoever he was, that, discovering this diversity 
 in the two statements, he has given both accounts in per- 
 fect honesty, without trying to qualify one by the other. 
 As in the time of Moses there were no proofs that the 
 first description should be accepted at the expense of the 
 second, or the second to the sacrifice of the first, the only 
 fair way was to give us both and let us harmonize them 
 to the best of our ability. The admirable Bible Diction- 
 ary by William Smith, LL. D.. sustains this view entire- 
 ly — declares it to be that of a majority of biblical schol- 
 ars in Germany, and adds that the Elohistic portion is 
 the older. 
 
 The eighth verse of the second chapter speaks of the 
 Lord's planting a garden in Eden. It seems to be hopeless 
 now to discover the location of this Paradise-spot. Jose- 
 phus does not render us much help. Nor does the precise 
 place seem to be at all important. Land then was not 
 high in the market; boundaries had not been fixed. Adam 
 without any family could not have been anxious about 
 annexation. One only human being on the wide earth was 
 a sad thought to contemplate. To call his condition lonely • 
 would not begin to express such utter desolation. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1 Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field 
 which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, 
 hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden ? 
 
GENESIS— FALL OF ADAM. 95 
 
 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit 
 of the trees of the garden: 
 
 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the 
 garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch 
 it, lest ye die. 
 
 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 
 
 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your 
 eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and 
 evil. 
 
 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and 
 that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one 
 wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto 
 her husband with her; and he did eat. 
 
 7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that 
 they were naked ; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made them- 
 selves aprons. 
 
 8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the gar- 
 den in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves 
 from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. 
 
 9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, 
 Where art thou ? 
 
 10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, 
 because I was naked; and I hid myself. 
 
 11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked ? Hast thou 
 eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest 
 not eat ? 
 
 12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with 
 me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 
 
 13 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that 
 thou hast done ? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, 
 and I did eat. 
 
 14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast 
 done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of 
 the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all 
 the days of thy life : 
 
 15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and be- 
 tween thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt 
 bruise his heel. 
 
 16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow 
 and thy conception ; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children ; and 
 thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. 
 
 17 And unto Adam lie said, Because thou hast hearkened unto 
 
96 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I com- 
 manded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground 
 for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. 
 
 18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou 
 shalt eat the herb of the field. 
 
 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return 
 unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for, dust thou art, 
 and unto dust shalt thou return. 
 
 20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the 
 mother of all living. 
 
 21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats 
 of skins, and clothed them. 
 
 22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of 
 us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and 
 take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: 
 
 23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of 
 Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 
 
 24 So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the 
 garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every 
 way, to keep the way of the tree of life. 
 
 This brief third chapter contains the only and all the 
 history found in the Old Testament of Adam's fall. If as 
 important to the whole world as some contend, why did 
 the Jewish writers fail to dwell upon it afterwards ? 
 Were they in less danger than those who have lived since 
 on account of Adam's transgression ? The Messiah they 
 expected and still expect was in no sense what the Chris- 
 tian world contends that Jesus was. Eating" the fruit of 
 an apple-tree is the corner-stone of the theology which 
 comes to us through them. To suppose that they consid- 
 ered it as affecting in any way the condition of our race 
 in this life or after death, is an unwarrantable assump- 
 tion. The effect of it was felt at once, as the account 
 states. But nowhere is it intimated that the Jews ex- 
 pected that Adam's conduct would damn the whole world, 
 
GENESIS— FALL OF ADAM, 97 
 
 or any part of it. Four thousand years after this great 
 event, the matter began to be discussed with reference to 
 its general effect on the descendants of Adam. What 
 the Jewish writers had said that could by any possibility 
 be considered prophetic, and by forced construction be 
 made to show that they foresaw the advent of Jesus as 
 the savior of all the Adamite world from the effect of this 
 great sin, was brought prominently forward. The at- 
 tempt was then made to prove Jesus to be the son of 
 David, the son of God, and the redeemer of the world. 
 The Jews ought to have been able to say what their ex- 
 pectations were; and we think the} 7 did in the plainest of 
 language. Their Messiah was coming to restore Israel, 
 to renew the temple-service, and to sit on the throne of 
 David forever. But so it was that by the Fall man was 
 said to be lost, and then restored by Jesus, according to 
 the so-called plan of salvation. 
 
 No doubt exists in the mind of any one as to Adam's 
 having sinned, and his posterity's following in his steps 
 down to the present time. The question is whether Adam 
 (like other people) sinned for himself alone; or, for all 
 mankind after him, as what theologians term the Federal 
 Head. There is a light shining into the heart of every 
 man, we are sure, by which he is enabled to know good 
 from evil. If ho does the evil (knowing it to be evil), he 
 merits punishment; and if justice is done him will have 
 it. God is equally faithful in either kind of reward. 
 There is no peace, His word says, to the wicked. Men 
 may imagine the habitual sinner is insensible to the 
 misery of his wrong-doing; but he is not, he cannot be. 
 
98 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 The outward man may show this self-satisfaction, but the 
 inward pangs are gnawing — a guilty conscience who can 
 bear ? Sin will find us out. The darkness of night may 
 hide it from others, not from ourselves, never from God. 
 Saying that in Adam all died, and in Jesus all shall be 
 made alive, will not take away sin and make us pure for 
 the presence of God and the company of angels. 
 
 A serpent is by no means more subtile than any other 
 beast of the field, and is really not a beast. By all natu- 
 ralists they are called reptiles. A beast has four legs 
 upon which to walk; the serpent has not, and never had. 
 Nor does the serpent possess any organs of speech. 
 Hardly does any fable pretend such absurdity. Selecting 
 such a creature to reason upon subjects which puzzle the 
 wisest is certainly in bad taste. How did this serpent 
 gain a knowledge of what the Lord told Adam ? Was 
 he listening when the Lord spake ? If there was but one 
 language, and the Lord, Adam, Eve and the serpent all 
 talked in it, why should Eve suspect the serpent of telling 
 a lie when he told her they should not die ? It is self-evi- 
 dent that they did not die on the day when the fruit was 
 eaten. The death was not spiritual, for, before eating 
 they had no spiritual consciousness; nor did any temporal 
 death even of the venomous tempter follow. 
 
 Adam's endeavor to get excused by laying the blame 
 on Eve, has been the constant practice of mankind ever 
 since. Few are willing to say they did wrong; some- 
 body else made them do it; told them it was a plausible 
 story and led them to think it was best, That Adam and 
 Eve had our consciousness of good and evil is hardly a 
 
GENESIS—FALL OF ADAM. 99 
 
 supposable case. And it is difficult to see what good rea- 
 son there was for the severe punishment visited upon 
 Adam, to say nothing of his posterity — provided of course 
 the story is founded in fact, which it is hard to admit. 
 The serpent was not badly punished, for he had never 
 moved except as a reptile, nor fed on any thing but what 
 he could reach by creeping. Truly, the change with him 
 was light indeed. Enmity between man and all the ser- 
 pent-kind has been universal as far back as history goes. 
 The disposition to crush the reptile's head is seemingly 
 innate. Take a person who never saw a snake, and place 
 one before him ; the first impulse would be to crush him. 
 
 A practical view may be taken of this ancient legend. 
 The original purpose evidently was to show up the way 
 sin first insinuated itself into the heart of man by creep- 
 ing around noiselessly, crawling at his feet, and in a subtile 
 way convincing him that he could sin against knowledge 
 'without harm. Examined in this way much may be gained 
 for instruction and profit. There is a force that runs 
 'Counter to good; it is in the earth, in the air, in the heav- 
 <ens, in our hearts, around us, and on every hand. Our 
 great business is to resist this foe continually — to overcome 
 him in fact with good. We can do it, but effort is required. 
 Looking closely, error can easily be distinguished from 
 truth. Like the serpent it is always tortuous in move- 
 ment, never following straight lines. After the sentence 
 was passed upon the woman her nature underwenl no 
 perceptible change. Physically she suffered the same in 
 the trials peculiar In her sex; her sorrows wore in no way 
 multiplied; her -devotedness to her husband united with 
 
100 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 his superior strength, in subjecting her to his imperious 
 will. And this superiority of the male over the female is 
 observable through all animated creation. The parties as 
 set forth in this story are taken up in the order of their 
 acts to receive sentence. The serpent beguiled the wo- 
 man, and she led her husband into the trap by her winning 
 charms, unconscious perhaps of the injury she was doing, 
 as many have been. A vast amount of good has been 
 done upon earth by getting wives enlisted first, who easi- 
 ly induce their husbands to fall in; and it must be con- 
 fessed, too, that many bad things have been brought 
 about in the same away. Adam came up with some re- 
 luctance after listening to the verdict against the other 
 two, for he felt his guilt as an accomplice. Let us see the 
 sentence in chapter third : " Unto Adam he said because 
 thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast 
 eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee saying ' thou 
 shalt not eat of it/ cursed is the ground for thy sake: in 
 sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life." — v. 18. 
 " Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou 
 shalt eat the herb of the field." — v. 19. "In the sweat of 
 thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the 
 ground: for, out of it wast thou taken: for, dust thou art 
 and unto dust shalt thou return." — v. 20. 
 
 This purports to be the words of the Lord addressed to 
 Adam ; but who is able to tell what the change was ? 
 Berries and nuts, herbs and plants, were the same after 
 the sentence as before. He could eat them without culti- 
 vation; but if taste or inclination led him to dig in the 
 ground he would find what grew from cultivation enough. 
 
GENESIS— FALL OF ADAM. 101 
 
 better to reward his labor. As to thorns and thistles, 
 they were as plenty before as after the apple was eaten. 
 
 " And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as 
 one of us to know good and evil;" a perfect refutation of 
 the popular view, since the Fall is here shown to have 
 brought man nearer to God, and so to be a step forward 
 and upward in man's development. And the reason is 
 clear as noonday. Sin is the condition of penitence; and 
 penitence, says Dr. Hedge, is nearer to God than inno- 
 cence. The relation of innocence is the sense of protec- 
 tion; the relation of penitence is craving and aspiration — 
 is the laying hold of God with thought and desire. But, 
 the likeness to God is really the awakening of self-con- 
 sciousness. Previously man had been in a kind of dream. 
 Earth and sky and the beauty in them had been a part of 
 that dream. Now, he awoke to himself; he took his des- 
 tiny into his own hands ; he reached forth to the tree of 
 life that he might appropriate the blessings of being 
 without the use of means. But the goal was not to be 
 reached so. There must be toil and trouble — a march 
 and a battle: and so Adam needed to go forth from a 
 Paradise of ease, and be ennobled by struggle, elevated 
 by the development of character, and glorified by self- 
 victory. (See Hedge's Primeval World, Chapter V.) 
 
 It is difficult to tell the reason why the Lord God, be- 
 fore placing Adam and Eve in the garden, did not remove 
 the fatal tree and expel the serpent. Not much credit 
 would be given to a humane society in our time that 
 failed to take such precaution. Had this pair stood up 
 (irmly against the wiles of the old serpent and let the 
 
 »8 
 
102 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 fatal fruit alone, how much better for their posterity: and 
 how is this exposure of a son and daughter to shame 
 and sin to be reconciled with the love of a devoted 
 father. Even had nothing- been said about the fruit that 
 must not be touched, the danger would have been far 
 less. We naturally desire to see what we hear about, 
 and to taste what we think is good to eat. When Eve 
 had tasted, the desire was natural to have her husband 
 share the same luxury. How could it be otherwise, with 
 the ardent love of the two hearts which were all in all to 
 each other ? 
 
 After having been expelled from the garden something 
 like a year, Eve gave birth to a son, saying she had 
 gotten a man from the Lord; and they called his name 
 Cain, probably from the Arabic for Smith, indicating pe- 
 culiar mechanical genius. Not a very long time after, 
 Eve conceived again, and a second son was born: but the 
 account does not say in regard to Abel, as it does of 
 Cain, that he was gotten from the Lord. These sons 
 when they grew to manhood, as is frequently the case 
 with two of the same sex growing up together, were just 
 as different as black and white. It seems they both had 
 farms to cultivate; though one was particularly fond of 
 sheep, while the other had extensive fields of grain. On 
 a certain day the instinct of worship belonging to human- 
 ity prompted the brothers to make a sacrifice to the Lord. 
 The rumor may have reached them of such things having 
 been done elsewhere. Abel made an offering of some 
 portion of his flock, while Cain, who possibly had no 
 sheep, made an offering of fruit. Nothing appears to 
 
GENESIS— CAIN AND ABEL. 103 
 
 show that one was more sincere than the other, but He- 
 brew scholars say the" original language shows that Cain 
 was ill-tempered and spiteful in the act. But how Deity's 
 pleasure and displeasure were shown, we are not informed. 
 Yet the Lord is said to have noticed Cain's appearance and 
 mortified spirit, and asked him for an explanation, at the 
 same time telling him that all who did well were accepted, 
 all who did not would suffer; and that his first born should 
 be the master over Abel. Under this state of things, the 
 two brothers went forth to the field. "And Cain talked 
 with 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. And the Lord said unto Cain, 
 Where is Abel thy brother ? And he said, I know not: 
 Am I my brother's keeper ? And he said, What hast thou 
 done ? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from 
 the ground. And now thou art cursed from the earth, 
 which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's 
 blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it 
 shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugi- 
 tive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain 
 said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can 
 bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the 
 face of the earth; and from thy face shall 1 be hid; and I 
 shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it 
 shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall 
 slay me. And the Lord said uuto him, Therefore whoever 
 slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold. 
 And the Lord set a mark Upon Cain, lest any finding hinj 
 should kill him."— v. 8, 15. 
 
104 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 The year 129 from the creation of Adam, according to 
 Usher's chronology, which we follow*as the most accepted, 
 was the era of the first murder, and of its punishment. 
 But the relation does not bear the stamp of a historic fact. 
 Cain is first sentenced to he a vagabond in the earth; 
 then he says he is driven from the face of the earth and 
 hidden from the sight of God. Whether he was in the 
 earth or on it, he certainly was in the Lord's presence, 
 unless we understand this as a conscious shrinking away 
 from the Being he had so wantonly offended. " And Cain 
 went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the 
 land of Nod on the east of Eden." — iv. 16. 
 
 We may as well notice particularly the account given 
 of Cain's sentence. No preliminary remarks were made. 
 The Lord told him in the most direct manner that his 
 brother's blood cried from the ground. Hanging was a 
 thing unknown then, nor had the ax been used for behead- 
 ing; neither had stoning or burning at the stake been 
 thought of. So God sentenced him to live; and for fear 
 he should be murdered in turn, set a mark on him, and 
 said vengeance should be visited seven-fold on any one 
 who took the life of Cain. How much more lenient was 
 the Lord toward one, who, in a fit of jealous} 7 slew his 
 brother, than the common law now which says the public 
 will kill whoever kills his brother ! 
 
 Cain was guilty of murder, the blackest of all crimes; 
 such deep stains needed years of penitential sorrow to 
 wash them out; and God secured them by an inviolable 
 decree. 
 
 Were the race of Adam alone? The world was thickly 
 
GENESIS— THE DELUGE. 105 
 
 populated in Cain's own neighborhood. Allowing this to 
 be a century and a quarter from the first man's birth, 
 there was a term sufficient for Adam's posterity to scatter 
 over some extent of country; but how much we are not 
 told, nor is there any way of finding out: yet biblical 
 students agree that he wandered far away, perhaps to the 
 eastern border of Asia, to take a wife among another peo- 
 ple, perhaps of quite another race. Without going far 
 from the place of his unnatural crime, the dark story of 
 it would follow him and interfere with his matrimonial 
 plans. He journeyed to the land of Nod, and soon be- 
 came so settled that there was an increase in Ms family: 
 "And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and bare 
 Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the 
 city after the name of his son, Enoch. That the sons of 
 God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and 
 they took them wives of all which they chose. There 
 were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, 
 when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, 
 and they bare children to them; the same became mighty 
 men, which were of old, men of renown." 
 
 The third great event in the history of the world, the 
 Deluge, is said to have been foretold by Noah more than 
 a century before it occurred. The sixth verse of the sixth 
 chapter declares that it " repented the Lord that He had 
 made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to the heart. 
 The wickedness was very great and man's thoughts were 
 evil continually." In destroying the race of men, the 
 Lord determined to save Noah and his family, and there- 
 fore directed him to build a place of refuge as follows: 
 
106 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 "Make thee an ark of gophir; the length shall be three 
 hundred cubits" — which at the lowest measure of the cubit 
 would be four hundred and fifty feet; "the height thirty 
 cubits, the breadth fifty cubits" — considerably less than 
 the size of the Great Eastern. "A window shalt thou make 
 one cubit high; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in 
 the side thereof. There shall be lower, second and third 
 stories." The common idea is that this was an enormous 
 oblong wooden box with sloping roof — in fact, the most 
 singular structure of its time and by far the largest ship 
 then known. 
 
 In commenting on this story the same freedom will be 
 used as with others of a similar kind. Of course their 
 literal truth or untruth can in no way alter a moral prin- 
 ciple or disturb any historical fact. Were all the legends 
 that crowd the Asiatic world true or false, virtue and vice 
 would remain in themselves and in their results, carrying 
 with them as they do inevitable rewards and punishments. 
 The reader may ask: Why introduce any questions about 
 the Deluge — it is in the Bible, and that should put all 
 doubts at rest ? Faith is really a great thing, being the 
 substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things 
 not seen. Closely scrutinized, it exists in regard to things 
 we know but little about. Why was Noah the only man, 
 with his family, entitled to exemption from entire destruc- 
 tion ? Subsequent history does not show him to have 
 been perfect by any means. We cannot discover that he 
 exceeded in goodness the whole race or races of men on 
 the earth in any respect. The improbabilities of this par- 
 ticular portion of Bible history will be noted as we proceed. 
 
GENESIS— THE DELUGE. 107 
 
 If such an ark ever floated on the vast and surging waters 
 covering the whole earth, and withstood such a tempest 
 as we suppose prevailed, the construction must have been 
 of the strongest materials, with immense timbers and the 
 heaviest iron fastenings to keep everything in place. 
 When the year's cruise was ended and a landing was 
 made on Mount Ararat, the vast bulk and enduring nature 
 of the materials would have secured preservation, in part 
 at least, for many hundred years. Nothing, however, has 
 been handed down to us through the channels of profane 
 history, by which we gain even a slight account of this 
 floating mass of wood, with its living freight and extensive 
 stock of provender. The noted historian Josephus, who 
 has given the world so much light in respect to early 
 times, and particularly in regard to his own people, makes 
 only a brief allusion to the affair, and that in a way to 
 show he thought it an obscure tradition. None of the 
 other early annalists make the least mention of it. Had 
 the remains been in existence at any known place when 
 Josephus wrote, as they were likely to have been were the 
 record true, he would not have omitted to visit the spot 
 and examine them. And such would have been the case 
 with other historians who flourished before Josephus. 
 When we consider the difficulty of constructing such an 
 unwieldy thing as this was, according to the description, 
 the first thought is that the whole story is incredible. 
 The vessel's ability to contain the entire amount of 
 living freight represented as going into it, with the food 
 necessary lor sustenance during a whole year, must be 
 questioned by thoughtful readers. Two males and two 
 
108 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 females of all unclean "beasts, birds, and creeping things, 
 and seven males and seven females of all that were called 
 clean, would make an aggregate beyond our highest 
 estimate. As to the sailing arrangements of the immense 
 craft, we cannot speak any more than of the way in which 
 its course was directed. If there was neither sail nor 
 helm, how was it saved from destruction by being driven 
 against some mountain crag ? What means of ventilation 
 were provided for comfort even, more than the preservation 
 of life ? 
 
 How Noah and his sons made proper stowage of all this 
 living freight and the food is not an easy question to answer: 
 "And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou 
 shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and 
 for them. — vi. 21. And Noah went in, and his sons, and 
 his son's wives with him, into the ark, because of the 
 waters of the flood. — vii, 7. Of clean beasts, and beasts 
 that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that 
 creepeth upon the earth. — vii. 8. There went in two and 
 two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as 
 God had commanded Noah." — vii. 9. According to this 
 reading, Noah had only to step in with his family, and 
 wait the coming of the live part of his cargo. The sup- 
 plies were already stored away, as we are led to infer. 
 But we must not forget this floating structure was a three- 
 story craft, and hence the difficulty, if not impossibility, 
 of the animals mounting from one story to the other. 
 There was only a single door, and that of course an en- 
 trance to only one story. Many of the animals were car- 
 niverous, and required a daily allowance of flesh for sus- 
 
GENESIS— THE DELUGE. 1Q9 
 
 tenance; which it would be a puzzle to preserve. Some 
 were herbiferous, others graniferous, subsisting only on 
 bulky food occupying an extended space, much beyond 
 the whole capacity of the ark for a year's supply. A 
 careful calculation on this head will surprise any one. 
 The amount of water for drink such a length of time, 
 with fair allowance for evaporation, would actually form 
 a lake. The more close the estimate, the more insurmount- 
 able do the difficulties of the story appear; before we are 
 fairly under way its absurdity becomes a fixed fact. 
 
 But we will go on: What was done with all the excre- 
 ments ? Its bulk for so long a time would have filled the 
 vessel. What was voided in the upper stories would have 
 seriously troubled those in the lower; and the stench 
 would have been dreadful. We are told that the animals 
 went forward as if by instinct, and in perfect regularity 
 to take their places aboardship. It may be well to con- 
 sider particularly what the whole number was of all the 
 living, creeping, and flying things on the earth at that 
 time; and what the aggregate would be when multiplied 
 generally by fourteen, for the unclean may be reckoned 
 less than the clean. Many of these animals were of such 
 size but few could be properly kept in a large space, 
 like the mastodon and elephant, while others less bulky 
 would still require a good deal of room. Therefore, to 
 place the whole in a lit condition for a year's voy- 
 age, in a vessel no larger than an English man-of-war, 
 seems to b(3 among the impossibilities. Dealing out food 
 was a labor that no three men could have performed, even 
 with the aid of the women. Care in this respect was im- 
 
110 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 portant, as no extinction of any order of animals was to 
 occur. 
 
 Should any contend that this whole thing was a work 
 undertaken by God to avoid the great labor of a new crea- 
 tion; and that He was able to fill the ark (as we read it 
 was rilled), with every living thing however distant they 
 had been from the place where it was located; we reply 
 if such had been the case the writer of this singular ac- 
 count would have spoken of it. The God that directed 
 Noah about building the ark and loading the freight, is 
 thought to be the same who made all things that had life, 
 and yet only a few hundred years after was sorry the 
 work was done, so poorly had it answered its purpose. 
 But all being ready, according to the account, with the 
 cargo snugly stowed away, the rain began to come down, 
 or in other words, the " windows of heaven were opened." 
 Few people, whether men of science or not, can attach 
 any distinct meaning to the phrase, " opening the windows 
 of heaven." We frankly confess that sustaining water 
 on high by simply excluding light is, far beyond our feeble 
 comprehension. Flood-gates in the skies would have been 
 a more appropriate term. At any rate the rain continued 
 without abatement until, as the story reads, the highest 
 mountains were submerged to the depth of about twenty- 
 two feet. Should the question be asked who was there 
 on the top of the highest mountains to take the measure 
 in the storm, or how it was that Noah obtained the ac- 
 count from those that made the survey, no answer could 
 be given. This reflection alone is sufficient to show the 
 fabulous character of the account. Besides, calculations 
 
GENESIS— THE DELUGE. \\\ 
 
 have been made to show that all the water contained on 
 our earth, including what is above the windows of heaven, 
 would not be sufficient to cover the highest mountains on 
 the earth to the depth of twenty- two feet. The particular 
 place where the ark was constructed has not yet been 
 named by any of the ancient historians. Possibly it was 
 on the sea-shore, so as to be easity launched before the 
 flood commenced; or it might have been on elevated 
 ground where it remained to be floated by the rising 
 waters. About this we are just as wise as Moses was 
 when he wrote the history. 
 
 The Deluge story has been read so often all must allow 
 they know it, but none can say they know it to be true. 
 We can not conceive how all the beasts and creeping 
 things moved from the natural places of their abode to 
 the ark. Great difficulties had to be encountered as all 
 must readily see. Those that could move with a good de- 
 gree of speed in a journey over half the surface of our 
 globe, would, on account of natural obstructions, be sub- 
 ject to delay. Mountain ranges, seas, lakes and rivers 
 had to be encountered or detours made on lines of great 
 divergence. How then could those animals and creeping 
 things that move only with extreme slowness, have per- 
 formed a journey of ten thousand miles amidst all such 
 impediments ? Difference of climate was another obsta- 
 cle, causing sickness and death. That an unseen power 
 transported all or any of them by a miracle has not been 
 asserted by any writer entitled to credit. Had such been 
 the case, still the diefliulties of changing climate were of 
 a formidable nature. 
 
112 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Should a relation like this be found in any other book 
 than the Bible, and referred to what took place in later 
 times, all intelligent people would dispute it. Now they 
 dare not, and say this must be taken — like all else the 
 Bible contains — as the word of God, though no evidence 
 exists as to its truth. 
 
 Eminent divines, who pride themselves on great acquire- 
 ments and the soundest faith, call the Bible a story-book. 
 As some of these stories appear to mortals unreasonable 
 and inconsistent, can it be possible that a single soul will 
 be sent to hell for lack of belief in what they think is 
 untrue ? If that is to be the case and honest doubts are 
 inexcusable, the place fixed for the abode of these unfortu- 
 nates ought to be extensive enough to prevent uncomfort- 
 able fullness. The rain continued for nearly a year before 
 it ceased. Noah during the long weary months kept a 
 constant look-out from his little window on one side or end 
 of the ship, when at length to his great joy he saw the 
 top of a mountain, and soon the Ark rested upon solid 
 ground. None can fail to take a lively interest in this 
 ancient history, fabulous though it may be. When Noah 
 and his three sons were fully satisfied that the vessel 
 would soon not only be out of the rolling waters, but in a 
 condition for disembarkation, there was great rejoicing. 
 Taking out safely all the Ark contained, was a work 
 requiring time and care. Fresh air, so agreeable in all 
 cases, was particularly valued by those who had not 
 breathed it for a year. How much grassy earth had sur- 
 vived the drenching, or how vegetation had fared generally, 
 can only be imagined. Anything in the way of open space 
 
GENESIS-7HE DELUGE. H3 
 
 was acceptable. But very few of all the animals were in 
 a climate suited to their habits of life. Most of them were 
 far away from their native regions, where they first saw 
 life and where habits had been formed. Movement was 
 imperative without delay. The stir and excitement would 
 have interested a looker-on who had no other part to take, 
 had there been any of that class. The water, having 
 been in a disturbed condition for a twelve-month, of course 
 was not free from earthy matter. Clean water was there- 
 fore sought even at a distance. As to Noah, his sons and 
 the four females with them, we are naturally curious to 
 know how they demeaned themselves after their perilous 
 ride over a vast ocean with neither island nor shore. They 
 had a way of their own for the manifestation of gratitude, 
 and immediately prepared an altar upon which to make a 
 sacrifice of many kinds of animals. Seeing that those He 
 had saved from drowning were but little better than those 
 who had suffered an untimely death, Deity seems almost 
 regretful for what had been done, as He is said before to 
 have regretted that man was made. Should not both 
 statements be taken with great allowance ? Infinite 
 wisdom is not thus short-sighted, making one day what 
 He is under necessity of destroying another — doing and 
 undoing continually. The last thing we have to dread of 
 the Almighty Providence is the frequent change of those 
 plans which He seems to have laid before the foundation 
 of the world — rather which are grounded forever in the 
 very essence of tilings. It is not strange that in the very 
 beginning of the race human weaknesses should have been 
 attributed to Deity. Now however, two great mistakes 
 
114 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 having been committed, the first in making man and ani- 
 mals, and the second in drowning them all, the Lord 
 promised Noah and all his descendants that he would not 
 deluge the earth again; and established a covenant with 
 every living thing on the earth that he would never sweep 
 mankind away again, by setting up in a most conspicuous 
 manner in the heavens that beautiful thing the rainbow, 
 as a witness that neither His living creatures nor Himself 
 should by any possibility forget the contract. Even to 
 this day the bow of promise is regarded as a sign of per- 
 petual security and heavenly favor. Noah and his sons 
 are presumed to have gone forward in cultivating the earth, 
 and in the important work of multiplying. Taking the 
 chronological dates as a guide, during the second year 
 after the waters abated Noah was able to obtain wine, 
 though it is hard to understand by what means, if the flood 
 was universal, since the planting of a vineyard to yield 
 wine so soon was hardly possible; but he got it as the 
 account says, and partook of it until he was completely 
 overcome. From this circumstance he could not be taken 
 for a temperance man; and the question arises: Why, in 
 saving only one man and his three sons from universal 
 ruin, did God not take a temperate person ? Probably 
 there were numbers of such to be found. Sad to say, Noah 
 was so drunk as to lie naked in his tent, quite unconscious 
 of what was going on around. 
 
 The fact that a deluge of waters occurred at a remote 
 time, submerging large portions of the earth, is proved 
 abundantly by whole circles of traditions. Nor is it im- 
 possible that some persons may have found safety upon a 
 
GENESIS— THE DELUGE. H5 
 
 monstrous raft. We have evidence to show that what is 
 known as the "drift" has acted periodically, producing 
 great changes on the earth's surface. As stated in another 
 chapter, the less extensive of these drifts happen at inter- 
 vals of about twenty-one thousand years, and the greater 
 once in about two hundred thousand years. The story of 
 the Noachian deluge may have originated in one or the 
 other of these experiences, and found its way along in 
 Jewish story to the present time as part of God's revela- 
 tion to man. But we are sure no such flood occurred as 
 the Noachian deluge is said to have been, as late as 2348 
 years B. C, nor could it possibly have been universal. 
 Long continued rains in the elevated regions and mountain 
 ranges where the head waters of the Nile are now ascer- 
 tained to be, might have caused extensive inundations; 
 
 i 
 and such an occurrence may have been colored by a 
 
 glowing imagination so that out of it a tolerably fair 
 flood-story has found credit for so many hundred years. 
 All that was at first lacking to make such a relation inte- 
 resting and give it the character of an act of the Lord's, 
 could be easily supplied by an Oriental fancy. 
 
 In going forward in the wide world the three males of 
 this Ark party, constituting as they did the most daring 
 adventurers and successful navigators the sea ever bore, 
 would not all go in one direction; especially as they in- 
 creased rapidly, and would soon form a number of separate 
 communities. "The sons of Japheth dwelt in the Isles 
 of the Gentiles; the sons of Ham went to the land of 
 Shinar." — x. 5. 
 
 About 130 years after the flood, Nimrod, a son of Cush 
 
116 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 and grandson of Noah, began to be a mighty hunter before 
 the Lord. "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, 
 (or as is supposed the most ancient Babylon), and Erech, 
 and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that 
 land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city 
 Rehoboth, and Calah. And Resen between Nineveh and 
 Calah: the same is a great city." — x. 11. 
 
 From the decendants of Ham also came the Philistines, 
 the Canaanites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgasites, 
 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the 
 Zemarites, and the Hamathites. The exact times when 
 the foregoing communities were founded, the tribes organ- 
 ized, and the colonies sent forward, may have been known 
 once but never will be again. Farther attempts will 
 probably be made to fix accurate dates by discovering and 
 deciphering monuments, but with no great success. The 
 time is too far in the misty past for any trustworthy records 
 to remain. The increase of the Canaanites was astonish- 
 ingly rapid, quickly spreading from Sidon to Gaza, to 
 Admah, and even unto Lasha. We see that country, of 
 which so much is afterwards said, was the first abode of 
 the descendant's of Ham's son Canaan, who was also the 
 grandson of Noah. Tribes at that time were small, em- 
 bracing at first only a single family, dividing afterwards 
 as their increase led to their dispersion for pasturage. 
 That Canaan was not an isolated country appears evident, 
 for at this early time the travel to and from the place was 
 frequent, extending even to long distances. But the prob- 
 able dates of the transactions of which we are speaking 
 will not at all permit of the descendants of Noah peopling 
 
GENESIS— CONFUSION OF TONGUES. nf 
 
 Egypt, and the countries that we know existed, before the 
 peopling- of Canaan. The descendants of Shem occupied a 
 mountainous region called Misha. 
 
 "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one 
 speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the 
 east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and 
 they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, 
 let us make brick, and bum them thoroughly. And they 
 had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And 
 they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose 
 top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, 
 lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole 
 earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the 
 tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord 
 said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one lan- 
 guage; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will 
 be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 
 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, 
 that they may not understand one another's speech. So 
 the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face 
 of the earth; and they left <>tY to build the city. Therefore 
 is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there 
 confound the language of all the earth: and from thence 
 did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the 
 earth." — xi, 1, 9. Many reasons might be given why there 
 was more than one language on the earth, but to one 
 acquainted with ancient history (he fact is too plain to 
 require evidence. Certain it is that a company of emi- 
 grants found a stopping place called Shinar, in an exten- 
 sive plain, where the land was fertile and pleasant; and 
 
 89 
 
118 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 there they founded the city, and in due time erected the 
 tower. Connected with this city as its capital, grew up a 
 kingdom called Babylonia. The whole embraced a wide 
 region of splendid country along the Euphrates, to which 
 ancient history often calls our attention. The diversity of 
 opinion and the difficulty of arriving at a correct account 
 of the country as of the city, and of their chronology, is 
 the reason of our not devoting much time to a minute 
 explanation. The commencement, which has been vari- 
 ously given, we have placed at about 130 years after the 
 Deluge. The city must date as early as that, the tower 
 somewhat later, and the foundation of the empire may 
 have been still later. From any good Bible dictionary we 
 learn that the city and tower of Babel were not the work 
 of all the people dwelling upon earth; but of a very small 
 fraction. There can be no doubt about this, nor as to the 
 time being more than a century after the Deluge, when the 
 earth is said to have been depopulated except as to the one 
 elect family. Therefore other families besides Noah's must 
 have existed upon earth, or a mere fragment of the people 
 could not so soon after the earth was desolated have 
 founded such a city nor erected such a tower. Mechanical 
 skill would have been wanting for works so extended and 
 difficult as we may suppose the buildings and erections 
 were. Had the population been equal to the performance 
 of such extensive operations, the difficulties would still 
 have been insurmountable without aid from other commu- 
 nities. Much has been said in opposition to the declaration 
 that the whole world was using one and the same language 
 at the time spoken of. By the account we learn that the 
 
GENESIS— CONFUSION OF TONGUES. H9 
 
 Lord God in some way found out that something of im- 
 portance was being done on the earth, and decided to " go 
 down there and examine. 7 ' From this fact — if fact it is — 
 human beings would do well to learn a lesson, and in all 
 cases make an examination before coming to a decision. 
 However, it seems odd enough to talk of the infinite God 
 as being unable to know what was being done on the 
 earth! Strange indeed that the work of building the tower 
 of Babel could in no way be stopped without confounding 
 the single language then in use! And how was it certain 
 that they would be widely scattered by this confusion of 
 tongues ? There are cities on the Mediterranean where 
 half a dozen tongues are familiarly spoken, and some indi- 
 viduals have that number at their command. Nor were 
 the people there ignorant enough to believe they could 
 reach heaven h\ the tower. That was far from being 
 their object. However much the Bible readers may think 
 so because they find such a statement there, a small amount 
 of common sense will show its absurdity. Towers in early 
 times were used as places of worship, or as observatories 
 for the study of the heavens. Such was the case in Egypt. 
 Doubtless amongst a less intellectual race they were 
 meant to minister to idolatry, in connection with astrology. 
 Very probably the tower never was completed, and the 
 earthquake or natural phenomenon which interrupted the 
 work would be taken as the manifestation of Divine dis- 
 pleasure. We do not pretend that all or any of the accounts 
 like the one of which we arc now speaking came into vogue 
 as a pure fiction. Towers oi" considerable heighl have 1 
 been erected by the suns of men as far back as history of 
 
120 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 any kind goes. The pyramids are of earlier date than the 
 tower of Babel, which was not such a novelty in its day 
 as to require the special intervention of God. 
 
 An important period of 340 years is calculated from 
 the departure of Abram out of Haran to the commencement 
 of the exodus: "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get 
 thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy 
 father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I 
 will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, 
 and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 
 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that 
 curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be 
 blessed. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken 
 unto him, and Lot went with him ; and Abram was seventy 
 and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And 
 Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and 
 all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls 
 that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go 
 into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan 
 they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the 
 place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the 
 Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared 
 unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will 1 give this land: 
 and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared 
 unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain 
 on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el 
 on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an 
 altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. 
 And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south. 
 And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went 
 
GENESIS— ABRAM RETURNS TO CANAAN. 121 
 
 down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was 
 grievous in the land." — xii, 1, 10. When they drew near 
 to Egypt he told Sarai his wife that she was handsome — a 
 thing it seems strange he had not spoken to her about 
 before — and that the Egyptians would kill him that the 
 way might be clear for some of them to marry tier. And 
 so they agreed to tell a lie outright and say that she was 
 his sister. This arrangement was made before they had 
 reached Egypt, and before any Egyptian had set eyes on 
 Sarai. Was it not a bad piece of business for one who 
 had been so honored of God, and to whom such promises 
 had been made ? Pharaoh believed what they said, and 
 acted accordingly; but, detecting the deception, ordered 
 both to leave the country, which they did, being careful 
 however to take all that Pharaoh had given them — even a 
 large amount of the wealth of those times — sheep and 
 oxen, asses and slaves. Abram returned, comparative!} 7 
 rich in what he had obtained by deception. Nor do we 
 know that the plan was not contrived by man and wife 
 (as in modern times) to make money by levying blackmail. 
 "And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, 
 and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south. And 
 Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. And 
 he went on his journeys from the south even to Beth-el, 
 unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, 
 between Bethe-el and Hai. Unto the place of the altar, 
 which he had made there at the first: and there Abram 
 called on the name of the Lord." — xiii, 1, 4. Thus we see 
 him again at the exact place where he had rested on his 
 journey to Egypt. Lot too was witli him, enriched in some 
 
122 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 way with flocks and herds. Seeing that the land would 
 not afford sustenance for both, they decided to separate. 
 Lot preferred the plain of Jordan, at a place called Sodom — 
 notwithstanding: the profligacy of the people — because the 
 land was like a garden in fertility. Abram remained in 
 Canaan, and the Lord talked with him again, promising 
 him all the land he could see east, west, north, and south; 
 not an extensive region however, and far enough from 
 being the whole land of Canaan. "And I will make thy 
 seed as the dust of the earth." — v. 16. He was then told 
 to walk through the length and breadth of the land. 
 When land came to be thickly settled and bear a high 
 price, had any one been told they might have all they 
 could walk around, the severest fatigue would be endured 
 for the sake of an extension of territory. Not so with 
 the " Father of the Faithful," who did not covet more land 
 than he could turn to account. 
 
 Quite an extensive war, for the times, broke out between 
 the contiguous tribes, in which Sodom was involved. A 
 king called Chedorlaorner, with other kings — heads no 
 doubt of neighboring tribes — obtained a great victory 
 over Sodom and Gomorrah, taking all their property and 
 provisions, including everything that Lot possessed. But 
 Abram rescued Lot and his goods. On his return from 
 this short but decisive campaign, marked attention was 
 paid to the noted priest Melchizedek, who accepted a 
 tenth of all his spoils. It was simply reverence on the 
 part of the patriarch; and on the priest's side it expressed 
 probably his purpose of invoking- blessings upon this 
 generous and brave head of a rising race. Nor is there 
 
GENESIS— HAGAR— THE COVENANT 123 
 
 anything- wrong in giving to priests now from what we 
 have in abundance. They that minister to our spiritual 
 wants are better entitled to pay than such as work for the 
 body. 
 
 Chapter sixteenth mentions the circumstance that Abram 
 and Sarai were childless, much to his regret and her mor- 
 tification. She advised a most singular course, which 
 was to cohabit with her boud-woman Hagar. So good 
 a man's yielding to such base counsel can only be 
 excused by the actual necessity of continuing the chosen 
 family, and the indulgent view of such connections where 
 polygamy is in fashion. He did yield, and the result was 
 that Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram, who consented after- 
 wards to Sarai's driving her into the wilderness, where 
 she nearly perished with her brave boy. Thus we see 
 how it fares with the unfortunate, and how disposed those 
 are who lead others astray, to desert them in the hour of 
 trial. An angel of the Lord is said to have told Hagar 
 that this son of hers should be a wild man— his hand 
 against every man, and every man's hand against him. 
 Her seed was also to be multiplied to the extent that it 
 could not be numbered. 
 
 Chapter XVII. Abram was now ninety-nine years old; 
 and the Lord again confirms what is known as the Cove- 
 nant, which seemed to be made stronger by being repeated 
 afresh. At this interview Abram was told to take a new 
 name, and make himself known in future as Abraham, 
 because he was to be the father of many. The whole land 
 was to be his, and his seed's after him. He was no 
 stranger as would seem from the eighth verse, but well 
 
124 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 acquainted in all that region. Much labor has been 
 bestowed on the promises reiterated again and again in 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, to show that they 
 were all to be literally fulfilled: "And God said unto Abra- 
 ham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and 
 thy seed after thee, in their generations. This is my cov- 
 enant, which ye shall keep, between me and you, and thy 
 seed after thee: Every man-child among you shall be cir- 
 cumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your 
 foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt 
 me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be cir- 
 cumcised among you, every man-child in your generations, 
 he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any 
 stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy 
 house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs 
 be circumcised; and my covenant shall be in your flesh for 
 an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man- 
 child, whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that 
 soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my 
 covenant. And God said unto Abraham, as for Sarai thy 
 wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall 
 her name be. * * And Abraham was ninety years old 
 and nine, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his 
 foreskin." The wonder is why so singular a seal of piety 
 was adopted; why too it has never been repeated by such 
 Christian sects as are anxious to retain every ancient rite 
 and observance. The Jews will certainly never neglect 
 it so long as one of that loyal race remains upon earth, a 
 living witness to the truth of so much of this ancient 
 record. It seems it was administered also to his whole 
 
GENESIS— ANGELS DINE WITH ABRAHAM. 125 
 
 household, even his slaves. The Mohammedans practice 
 the same custom in imitation of their great leader, and the 
 Abyssinian Christians observe it too. 
 
 Chapter eighteen brings the Lord again to visit Abra- 
 ham, manifesting the peculiar intimacy he was believed to 
 enjoy with the Deity, and the childlike ease with which he 
 received supernatural communications. Here it was in 
 the middle of the day, and in the garb of three men, at 
 his tent door, that the assurance of Sarah's speedily 
 becoming a mother was given. To make the account more 
 difficult for our comprehension, when the patriarch mani- 
 fests his hospitality by preparing an abundant dinner 
 they did not fail to partake of it. After eating, they made 
 the announcement — which Sarah evidently thought too 
 good to be true — and then repeated the promise that Abra- 
 ham should become a great and might} 7 nation, and all the 
 nations of the earth should be blessed in him: "Yea, I 
 will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings 
 of people shall be of her." And, to add to our perplexity, 
 when the men went away toward Sodom, as verse twenty- 
 first tells us, Abraham stood yet before the Lord. The 
 three messengers then were distinct in his mind from the 
 Deity so that they could go away while Jehovah remained. 
 Yet the New Testament assures us that no man hath 
 seen God at any time. Then again, these Divine messen- 
 gers are represented (verse 21) as going to Sodom to see 
 if the rumor of its wickedness is not false; as if they were 
 obliged to travel from place to place to obtain information 
 by which to direct the judgments of God. The most 
 ingenious explanation of this perplexing passage is by 
 
126 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Rev. Dr. F. H. Hedge: He believes it to be an idyl of 
 unknown authorship and unknown antiquity, whose chief 
 aim is to glorify Abraham and his favored progeny, the 
 race of Israel, by illustrating his unparalleled friendship 
 with Jehovah Here was a Hebrew, the great leader of 
 mankind, the first Monotheist, the earliest person in history 
 of any account, favored not only by a prolonged visit from 
 Deity and by being treated with the regard due to exalted 
 virtue, but promises are showered upon him which spread 
 the angel wing of Providence over his whole posterity. 
 
 Chapter nineteenth presents an awfnl contrast: Lot's 
 house is surrounded by sons of Belial while giving entertain- 
 ment to two angels. With a very noble hospitality, he offers 
 his daughter as a substitute for the strangers. But the 
 rioters are struck with blindness and the guests are left- 
 undisturbed. Then came the merited destruction upon this 
 guilty city and its neighbor. Lot fled with his household. 
 His wife, gazing wistfully back, is changed into a pillar 
 of salt, which fanciful travelers imagine they see now not 
 far from the Dead Sea. Perhaps this was not merely the 
 punishment of curiosity; as they were entering- a range 
 of dreary mountains she might have murmured and turned 
 back, preferring as Israel did "the pleasures of sin for a 
 season" to the struggle for life in a region colder and more 
 barren. In return for the kindness of Lot, the two angels 
 forewarned him of this terrible rain of fire and brimstone, 
 and cautioned him to watch for his own safety and that of 
 his family. Abraham looked toward Sodom the next day, 
 and behold it was a heap of smoking ruins. Lot went up 
 to Zoar and dwelt in a cave, with the same two daughters 
 
GENESIS— ABRAHAM' S DUPLICITY. 12? 
 
 before mentioned. In this cave the two girls are said to 
 have committed a most outrageous crime by getting their 
 father drunk that they might escape the shame of barren- 
 ness, and their design was accomplished. Thus, the only 
 righteous man in all that city of Sodom allows himself to 
 get beastly drunk that he may be made the instrument of 
 a grosser crime. This story will bear no scrutiny, and for 
 the sake of truth and decency the less we say about it the 
 better. Think of Lot acting so basely and his poor wife, 
 turned to a pillar of salt, standing by the wayside! 
 
 Abraham goes to Gerar, where he again made a false 
 statement by calling his wife his sister, and gained largely 
 by the deception. Abimelech was caught in the trap set 
 by Abraham, and gladly sent him away with an increase 
 of wealth. The honesty of the historian in preserving 
 details so little honorable to his revered ancestor, cannot 
 be admired too much. 
 
 The number of barren women spoken of, though not 
 large, may claim a passing notice. If they were childless 
 for a time they all finally became mothers. From Abra- 
 ham down through many generations, the lack of children 
 was thought to be in consequence of the wickedness of 
 one parent or the other; hence they sought to propitiate 
 the favor of heaven by prayer and sacrifice. Superstition 
 held almost universal sway at that date. Among the 
 strange fancies of the time was the idea that God was 
 going about the world personally attending to the affairs 
 of men — conversing with them as to their duty, and 
 informing thorn of what would come to pass. 
 
 Chapter twenty-second gives us the remarkable story 
 
128 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 about Abram's fancying he was commanded by the Lord 
 to make a sacrificial offering of his son Isaac; which he 
 did not do. On account of Abraham's taking steps to 
 perform this act, he has been greatly commended. But in 
 order to decide what amount of credit should be given 
 him, it is well to look for the evidence of the fact. Un- 
 fortunately there is none other but the parties themselves. 
 At most we have their word for it. 
 
 Chapter XXIV. Abraham believing that his death was 
 at hand, was naturally anxious to procure a wife for his 
 son from his own kindred; and so he dispatched his stew- 
 ard on this confidential mission, who returns in due sea- 
 son with the beautiful Rebecca, his grand-niece. Though 
 forty years old, Isaac obeyed implicitly, resigned his heart 
 to the bestowal of his father's favorite servant, and seems 
 to have found all the happiness which so gentle a nature 
 could ask. He went out to evening-meditation as the car- 
 avan were expected which was to determine the blessed- 
 ness or misery of his home-life. Dr. Hedge thinks this 
 was peculiarly his character which he. gave to his race — 
 that the religion of his people was to be distinguished by 
 this inwardness — and that through Isaac monotheism 
 found its full expression in silent thought and devout as- 
 piration. 
 
 Rebecca proved to be one of the kind called barren, and 
 really was so for a time; but ere long she bore twins, 
 Esau and Jacob. 
 
 Chapter XXVI. Another famine came on in the land of 
 Canaan, and the people (as had been their habit), sought 
 food in Egypt, the neighboring kingdom. Isaac journeyed 
 
GENESIS-CHEATING ESAU. 129 
 
 there as his father did before him, and told the same kind 
 of false story, saying- his wife was his sister, and prof- 
 ited greatly by the artifice. This kind of trick seems to 
 have been a family trait. 
 
 Chapter XXVII. Jacob and his mother contrived how 
 they could cheat Esau out of his birth right and the bless- 
 ing that belonged to him; and, according to the story, 
 were perfectly successful. The blessing seems to have 
 been equally valuable although obtained by fraud. 
 
 Chapter XXVIII. Isaac tells his son Jacob all the par- 
 ticulars about the promise the Lord made to his grand- 
 father Abram, and lays stress upon it as a matter of great 
 moment, never to be lost sight of. Isaac also directs him 
 to go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel, his mother's 
 father, for a wife. 
 
 Chapter XXX. Instead of sending some one to court 
 for him, Jacob started out himself. Rachel was easily 
 found, and a bargain made with her father by which the 
 suitor agreed to give seven years' faithful service for the 
 fair damsel. At the end of the term Laban deceived his 
 son-in-law by putting Leah in the bridal-chamber, and 
 after that requiring him to serve seven years more for 
 Rachel. In the end, Jacob made up for this unfairness, 
 and departed without Laban's knowledge with a herd of 
 cattle, his wives, and what Laban prized highly, his house- 
 hold Gods. 
 
 Chapter XXXIII. After all this treachery, angels fol- 
 low him on his fugitive journey, and try to comfort him. 
 He is greatly distressed for fear that Esau would revenge 
 the theft of the birth right and the blessing:. That lie 
 
130 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 might not be discouraged, the promises made to his father 
 and grandfather are all recounted; for neither they nor 
 their descendants ever became weary of talking about 
 the great and precious promises. As a kind of capital 
 stock, this was at all times available to soothe their afflic- 
 tions, and cheer them in calamity. 
 
 All that happened among the descendants of Abraham 
 up to the time they departed from Canaan, on account of 
 the famine which distressed them so severely, would not 
 be interesting, and is therefore passed by. The whole 
 record as we have it shows perfect freedom from any de- 
 sire to keep back any thing, however bad it might seem. 
 Considering the time the Old Testament first appeared in 
 any regular form, it was next to impossible to prevent the 
 incorporation of some untruths with the great body of 
 fact. The whole as it is, looks like an honest relation 
 made by honest parties with an unmistakable desire to 
 benefit its readers. To sa} r it is all the express " word of 
 God" is not only going too far, it is going against unques- 
 tionable facts. A more modest claim is better calculated 
 to do good. And still we contend that all truth every 
 where is God's truth; and that it all conies from and is 
 His inspiration. The promise made so repeatedly to Abram 
 and his descendants is now considered the most important 
 that was ever made known; connected as it is said to be 
 with the fall of Adam and the world's redemption by 
 Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 We do not understand that Abram had any considera- 
 ble amount of property in Ur of the Chaldees, or at his 
 temporary abode in Canaan at Sichem. His disposition 
 
GENESIS— JOSEPH AND THE FAMINE 13 1 
 
 was somewhat of the roving order, an adventurer, with 
 wild notions mixed with superstition and a little vanit}'. 
 The imagination that great things were in store for him, 
 led to the principal changes of his life. The going from 
 Ur, his birth place, by God's especial command, would be 
 in our view his being led by earnest convictions of duty. 
 His impressions that he ought to migrate were so strong 
 that they seemed to him supernatural. Jacob also was 
 inclined to wander about the country. This sort of Ara- 
 bian life was a general thing with the immediate descend- 
 ants of Abram. It harmonized with their occupation as 
 shepherds. 
 
 B. C. 1720. Chapter XXXVII. Joseph having attained 
 his 11th year, and his father showing much partiality for 
 him, his elder brothers became extremely envious. Even 
 at this early age he exhibited many traits which were 
 the presage of future greatness. He told to his father's 
 family a singular dream of his, which they thought indi- 
 cated his rule over them in after years. This increased 
 the jealousy and hatred of his brothers to a high degree. 
 Swept along by their unnatural passions, they conceived 
 a plan for ridding themselves of this insolent upstart, 
 perhaps of taking his life. The whole story from the 
 first is familiar to the Bible-reading world, and all its 
 thrilling incidents, interesting plots and counter plots; 
 but, many are undecided whether to receive it all as an 
 actual experience. Joseph, like other boys, was no doubt 
 in the habit of dreaming, and in harvest time might nat- 
 urally dream about the sheaves of grain. If the whole 
 relation was founded on fact, after Joseph attained his 
 
132 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 high position in Egypt the early incidents were doubtless 
 magnified and embellished. As the son of that patriarch 
 Jacob, who to this day is held in high esteem, something 
 might have been expected of Joseph. In any way to 
 mar the force of a story so well told would be unwar- 
 rantable. It makes one of the most interesting parts of 
 Jewish annals. Certainly revelations by dreams are not 
 impossible. The action of mind in our sleeping hours is 
 one of those mysteries no one is able to explain. The fre- 
 quency of their introduction, not only in the Old Testa- 
 ment but in the New, is evidence of the high regard in 
 which they were held. Joseph's brethren do not cease to 
 plot against him, and only wait for an opportunity to 
 carry out their plans for his destruction. They hesitate 
 about taking his life, and sell him as a slave to a caravan 
 of Ishmaelites, who carry him to Egypt, where he is made 
 a servant in the house of Potiphar, whose wife attempts 
 to lead him astray. He withstood all her entreaties, and 
 in revenge for his resistance, she caused him to be impris- 
 oned on false charges. From this confinement he is re- 
 leased in consequence of being able to interpret two 
 dreams, which also put him in the way of giving expla- 
 nations to others, showing both profound and prophetic 
 knowledge. Much notoriety was gained in a short time 
 in this way throughout the realm. To increase Joseph's 
 growing influence, another opportunity came when he was 
 told by Pharaoh that he had dreamed what seemed to him 
 inexplicable in regard to ears of corn, some of which 
 were well filled and others shriveled. Joseph tells him at 
 once what to expect. Seven years of plenty were to be 
 
GENESIS— JOSEPH AND THE FAMINE 133 
 
 succeeded by seven years of great dearth throughout all 
 the land of Egypt; which history tells us proved to be a 
 true prediction. Full particulars are omitted here for the 
 reasons before given. 
 
 Dreams and their interpretations by Joseph bring these 
 night-visions prominently before us as prophetic, and as 
 constituting a revelation of God's purpose regarding 
 the children of men. From that time judgments and im- 
 pending calamities were foreshadowed by dreams with un- 
 erring certainty. No part of the Bible was more implicit- 
 ly relied on that what related to these visions which were 
 thought especially the direct word from heaven. Nothing 
 was too dark to be solved by a dream. So important to 
 mankind was this medium of spiritual communication, 
 that though prophetic powers ceased more than four cen- 
 turies before Christianity, yet dreaming continued in fa- 
 vor a long time after, and was in full tide of success in 
 the apostles' day. Now, young boys and maidens dream, 
 and matters of love and wedlock are presaged in sleep. 
 We have, too, what are called dream-books to aid the sim- 
 ple in their interpretations; but the idea that dreams hap- 
 pening now are revelations from God, is generally dis- 
 carded. There is an ever active spirit which often 
 visits us unconsciously in the night-watches, giving us 
 as plain views and impressing them as deeply on the 
 mind as if we were awake. Spiritualists are laughed at 
 for believing that deceased friends communicate with 
 them. Letting this matter of dreams pass, we resume the 
 story. 
 
 The famine came on, extending not only over Egypt, 
 
 BlO 
 
134 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 but to the countries near by. In Canaan nothing" had 
 been done in the way of preparation for such an event, 
 for the reason probably all was consumed as they went 
 along, or the people were too poor to lay up in store. 
 
 The prediction of Joseph about the famine might not 
 have reached Canaan; or if it had, it failed to be credited 
 as likely to have any fulfillment. Prospects of starvation 
 soon drove the Canaanites to Egypt for the purchase of 
 food, and the family of the patriarch among the rest. 
 Circumstances unfolded themselves in the regular train as 
 all have read, and in due time Joseph makes himself known 
 to his brethren. The relation of this scene is a beautiful 
 specimen of the touching and pathetic — a charmingly- 
 woven record of family reunion. Many tears have been 
 shed at its rehearsal by those not lacking in courage, 
 energy or sense. 
 
 Israel or Jacob took with him his entire substance on 
 leaving Canaan — his sons and daughters with their de- 
 scendants, his cattle, and all his goods. 
 
 Chapter XXXVI. They are numbered: And all that 
 went down into Egypt from Canaan are stated to have 
 been three score and ten souls, three score and six of 
 whom came out of the loins of Jacob. Colenso says this 
 account is not correct, as Hezron and Hamul (who are 
 included with the rest as going to Egypt), died in Canaan, 
 as also Er and Onan. Therefore the whole number could 
 have been only sixty-six. This is considered undoubted 
 proof of the unreliability of the Pentateuch record. 
 
 The remark is often made that we must not question 
 the scriptures. Much depends on the way this is under- 
 
GENESIS— ERRORS OF THE RECORD. 135 
 
 stood. In speaking of an individual who has many good 
 qualities and some bad ones, do we talk against the man 
 by noticing his faults ? Or is it proper to commend what 
 is evidently wrong-, from fear of disturbing what is good 
 and right ? Nothing should ever be said against that 
 good and truthful portion of the Bible called the Old 
 Testament, which has edified so many, and led them along 
 with thankfulness through the changing scenes of life, 
 and given them a confiding trust in death. The beauty 
 of thousands of passages found in these records — old as 
 they are — may well be dwelt upon for a lifetime. But, 
 that there are errors in the record is quite evident to every 
 careful reader, and it is high time that they were exposed 
 in order to be corrected. All should read us searchers 
 after truth and detectors of what is not reasonably true. 
 Whoever takes the Bible in hand with a settled determi- 
 nation to believe all he reads, may enjoy more than those 
 who stop to think and calculate whether it is all true to 
 the letter. But, some must and will use the reason God 
 gave them for the express purpose of being used. Without 
 stopping to consider the state of society so far back, and 
 estimating the wide difference between Moses' time and 
 the present, we are unable to make due allowance for 
 many of the errors in records coining from such remote 
 ages and passing through so many hands. But, for all 
 that, the great history of the world — of which tin; Jewish 
 writings make a part — is something of a connected chain 
 of which the honest soul can keep fast hold, though some- 
 times with difficulty. 
 
136 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EXODUS. 
 
 AMONG other important events in Bible history, the 
 Exodus claims particular attention. 
 B. C. 1491. By the ordinary estimate, this is the year 
 in which Moses made the preliminary movement to release 
 the Israelites from bondage, and completed his task. Be- 
 fore entering- upon the consideration of this book, there is 
 an obvious necessity of finding out as near as may be 
 what "Magician" and "Magic" mean. Magi is a term 
 in use to denote a caste of priests among the Persians: 
 hence holy men or sages of the east. Magic is hidden 
 wisdom, the occult powers of nature, and the production 
 of effects by their agency; performances done by enchant- 
 ment or sorcery; the supposed assistance of evil spirits. 
 Incantation signifies the art of using certain formulas 
 of words and certain ceremonies for supernatural effect. 
 The most expressive and inclusive word to use in relation 
 to wonder-working incantations, is Thaumaturgy; it is in 
 fact the Greek of our English. In Persia the priests have 
 had the most to do with this sort of jugglery, in order to 
 convince the people of their superiority, and awe them into 
 submission to their behests. They resolved to make it felt 
 
EXODUS. 13 % 
 
 that their powers were derived from other than human 
 sources; in fact that their commission was directly from 
 God. This must be kept in mind and influence our esti- 
 mate of what was done in Egypt by Moses, as well as by 
 the wizards of Pharaoh. We must not lose sight of the 
 fact that this professedly supernatural wonder-working 
 by the Persian priests was long before Moses, and very 
 likely before the patriarchs. So, in order to obtain an ex- 
 alted stand-point, it was all important to be able to do 
 these things; and the more they could be made to astonish 
 mankind, the more was their worker esteemed God's ac- 
 credited agent. By this we see how the doing of mighty 
 works was considered a test not merely of piety, but of 
 Divine authority. Moses would have failed utterly in his 
 work without the aid of thaumaturgy, — without it the 
 Jewish religion would have had a very short life. As far 
 back as we can go, it was the voice of God in the air, in 
 a dream, by the way side, in the burning bush, or cloud on 
 the mountain top, or flash of lightning that attested the 
 Divine presence; many times it was the loss of a battle 
 or the fall of a kingdom. Turn which way we will, these 
 wonders are constantly before us ; so interwoven are they 
 with ancient history that hardly anything takes place 
 without their help. But who among us understands what 
 miracle is exactly ? Who can tell the time when legerde- 
 main was not common in the East, and practiced as it is 
 now to deceive the world ? 
 
 Moses, a man of rare ability, of profound study and un- 
 bounded faith in supernatural aid, found himself confront- 
 ed with an ancient order of wonder-workers, who mim- 
 
138 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 icked all his spiritual manifestations. They seem to have 
 followed him with equal step as he went on showing the 
 seals of a Divine mission. The Jewish interpretation 
 (which we can adopt or not), is that they imitated on a 
 small scale what he did on a large; that they did by 
 trick, and before Pharaoh alone, what Moses performed in 
 reality and before all Egypt. Some of the plagues which 
 he produced, as that of flies and locusts, are common in, 
 that country to-day; others, like the making a serpent as- 
 stiff as a stick, are to be seen yet in that very region, and 
 the plague of lice will never leave the land. But it was- 
 not till the Israelites were seen to be free from the death- 
 stroke (which had befallen the first born of the Egyp- 
 tians), that the frightened masters cried out for the de- 
 parture of their slaves, and the Pharaoh of that period,. 
 Thothmes III, gave orders by night that they should go. 
 
 The first grand object which confronted these suddenly 
 dismissed servants after crossing the dreaded sea, was a 
 lofty mountain of several peaks in the midst of a desert, 
 one summit of which was named Horeb, or Mount of God, 
 As mountains seem to pierce the heavens and actually en- 
 joy more light than the valleys, all primitive nations have 
 always venerated them as peculiarly Divine abodes, have 
 universally hallowed them with altars, and sought celes- 
 tial communications on their summits. Moses was per- 
 fectly right in doing this. A horde of brick-making slaves 
 with hardly any more religion than a blind instinct, ever 
 ready to rebel against any kind of authority, naturally 
 preferring some outward object of worship (even if it 
 were a calf), required to be awed by the majesty of Na- 
 
EXODUS. 139 
 
 ture while a new and severe moral law was to be en- 
 graved into their rude souls. In this difficult problem of 
 raising a fearfully depressed people to the moral grandeur 
 of freemen, their great Lawgiver was bound to bring all 
 natural influences to bear — to transport these unruly sub- 
 jects amidst the solemnity of the desert, beneath the awe- 
 inspiring mountains, into the very realm of thunder that 
 their frivolous minds might be awed and their slumbering 
 consciences aroused. 
 
 It is because of a false pride about the origin of our 
 Christian religion, that some writers have absurdly exag- 
 gerated the moral condition of these brick-making bonds- 
 men. The Gospel is no more responsible for what took 
 place before even Judaism existed, than for what may be 
 going on now beyond our solar system ! Their fickleness 
 of faith, their proneness to idolatry, their cowardice at the 
 beginning of their career, and their presumption after- 
 wards, can only be explained by the degradation inevita- 
 ble upon slavery, and intensest in tropical regions. Le- 
 roux, the French philosopher, has given us a key to much 
 which followed, when lie says God took a nation from the 
 foot of the social ladder to show us how much religion 
 alone could work in man's elevation. 
 
 That the Israelites went down to Egypt on account of 
 the famine, and ultimately became enslaved, is not to be 
 doubted; nor that Moses was a man of rare ability, who 
 not only delivered them from their enemies by consum- 
 mate skill, but gave them position in the world as a na- 
 tion of freedmen, and therefore became their spiritual 
 creator. In this nineteenth century of light and knowl- 
 
140 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 edge, none but the most credulous will suppose that 
 Moses omitted to avail himself of whatever superior 
 knowledge of nature his powerful mind had appropriated 
 under the teaching of the most scientific priesthood in the 
 ancient world, or by the later counsels of the Midianite 
 sage. The whole story is of interest enough to warrant 
 our taking it up in detail. 
 
 Chapter first tells us that, including Joseph, all the souls 
 which went from Canaan to Egypt were seventy; as we 
 have shown in another place it is quite plain there was only 
 sixty-six or sixty-eight, we see how carelessly these impor- 
 tant facts are given, rather as children tell their experien- 
 ces to one another than as history is written. After the 
 death of Joseph, a new king arose, who treated the Israel- 
 ites with great severity, and left his name recorded upon 
 some of the bricks of that time. Task-masters were set 
 over them to extort hard service in building cities, and 
 various other ways. In spite of this, they increased rap- 
 idly, as most people do who are compelled to labor. The 
 more they were afflicted, the faster was their increase; to 
 the great annoyance of Pharaoh and his people. In every 
 possible way therefore their lives were made bitter. To 
 prevent the Hebrew increase, a most cruel and wicked 
 expedient was adopted; even the destruction of all the 
 male children as soon as they were born. But the mid- 
 wives failed to obey this command of the ruling Pharaoh, 
 for the kindness of their womanly hearts revolted at so 
 atrocious a crime, and their natural ingenuity framed an 
 excuse for not executing the order. Baffled in this first 
 attempt, Pharaoh resolved to be more thorough in his next 
 
EXODUS. 141 
 
 plan; and gave orders that all males born of the He- 
 brews be cast into the river, but the daughters saved alive. 
 
 Chapter II. Moses was born, and a kind Providence 
 caused him to be preserved in an ark of bulrushes, and 
 to be taken up by Pharaoh's daughter, who cared for him 
 tenderly as a mother, and gave him the name he bore, 
 signifying " drawn out." When Moses had grown to man- 
 hood, he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew; the future 
 redeemer of Israel seeing no observers, gave way to his 
 vindictive passion and killed the aggressor. But the next 
 day, when he endeavored to separate two of his own 
 nation who strove together, one of them told him to look 
 out that he did not slay somebody, as he had done the day 
 before. This coming to the ears of Pharaoh, he thought 
 to take the life of Moses, who quickly fled from Egypt to 
 a place near Mount Sinai, called Midian, where he fell in 
 with a priest who had seven daughters, one of whom, 
 called Zipporah, he took to wife. Soon they had a son and 
 named him Gershom, that is a "stranger," as he was born 
 in a strange land. 
 
 Even the death of a king of Egypt at this time did not 
 lighten the bondage under which the children of Israel 
 sighed and groaned. And why should it in a land where 
 slavery seems natural to the soil ? But God we are told 
 heard their groaning, remembered his covenant with Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob, and felt compassion for them. 
 
 Chapter III. Moses performed the duties of shepherd 
 for his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, on the farther 
 side of the mountain of God, called Horeb. And here it 
 was that he imagined he saw a bush burn without being 
 
142 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 consumed. This was not all: a voice from the bush 
 repeated his name and announced himself, not as God of 
 all the earth, but as God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
 The cry of suffering had come up to Him from His people 
 in Egypt, and He had come down to deliver them, and 
 bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey. The 
 proposition is then made for Moses to go to Pharaoh and 
 bring the children of Israel away from the place of their 
 oppression. As if struggling with his own conscience, as 
 no doubt he did, Moses questions his ability to do such a 
 thing; whereupon the voice said He would go with him, 
 and they should serve the God of their fathers on that 
 mountain. Moses explains the necessity of his having the 
 name of this spirit from whom such directions came; the 
 answer was: " I Am that I Am." Therefore he was to say 
 to the Israelites: " I Am hath sent me, the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob." Moses was to go and gather the elders 
 of Israel together and tell them, what seems to have been 
 the ever-present theme, that "the God of Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob had appeared to him, on account of the suffer- 
 ings of His people, and promised to bring them up out of 
 Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey." He was 
 to begin his work of getting this great party — generally 
 estimated at two million — away from their oppressors, 
 first of all by the pretence of a necessity of a three days' 
 journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to their God; 
 though no probability existed that Pharaoh would consent 
 to such a thing, yet it would serve to begin the miraculous 
 appeals that were to be made, which would at last enable 
 them to get away not only safely, but with a large amount 
 
EXODUS. 143 
 
 of borrowed treasures from their Egyptian neighbors. It 
 is not in the least likely that the slave-masters loaned their 
 jewels, nor that the bondsmen took them by force; it is 
 almost certain that the panic-stricken mourners over such 
 sudden deaths desired to propitiate the terrible Deity whom 
 they had incensed by degrading his servants and worship- 
 ers. Of course it is not possible that the righteous God 
 ever directed his people to steal, which such borrowing 
 would amount to. 
 
 Chapter IV. The mind of Moses was naturally exer- 
 cised in view of his important mission, from the time he 
 first saw the burning bush; especially with the fear that 
 whatever story he told would not be credited. The Lord 
 at once began with him the working of wonders: "And 
 the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand ? And 
 he said, A rod. And he said, Cast it on the ground. And 
 he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent: and 
 Moses fled from before it. And the Lord said unto Moses, 
 Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put 
 forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his 
 hand." — iv, 2, 3, 4. Moses was to do this before the Israel- 
 ites as the first wonder in the line of his extensive opera- 
 tions in thaumaturgy. This was to be the convincing 
 argument that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was 
 by some means determined to deliver them. Moses put 
 his hand into his bosom, and on taking it out, lo! it was 
 leprous; putting it in again it became as his natural flesh. 
 This was another lesson in his new calling to be used in 
 convincing the people that extraordinary power was given 
 him. This power we are to infer came from God, as did 
 
144 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 the authority to work other wonders of which we shall 
 hereafter speak. Of the character of these marvelous 
 things, by the doing" of which it would seem that all the 
 laws of our universe were set at naught, much might be 
 said. That the order of nature should be thrown into 
 confusion to enable Moses to pilot the Hebrews out of the 
 land where they dwelt in the honest worship of God to 
 die in unbelief, as a whole generation did, is indeed very 
 strange and inexplicable. The next performance to which 
 Moses' attention was called, consisted in pouring water 
 from the river upon the dry land which at once became 
 blood. Moses was still lacking in faith because of the 
 intrinsic difficulty of the work, and objected that he was 
 slow of speech and tongue. The Lord told him He would 
 be in his mouth. This quieted his mind somewhat. The 
 Lord was provoked at the doubts he expressed, and told 
 him that his brother Aaron would gladly give him aid, be 
 his spokesman, and teach him what to do. All this seems 
 to have passed through the mind of Moses while he was 
 on the mountain of Horeb. After this he visited his father- 
 in-law and told him he was about to start for Egypt. 
 Jethro said: " Go in peace." Moses, with his wife and 
 children, started on, not omitting to carry the wonder- 
 working rod. God commanded him to perform all his 
 wonderful feats before Pharaoh; but that He would con- 
 tinue to harden the heart of Pharaoh, so that he would 
 not let the people go. God calls Israel His son; and 
 Pharaoh was to be asked to bestow this mercy upon the 
 children of Jehovah. 
 
 "And it came to pass by the way, in the inn, that the 
 
EXODUS. 145 
 
 Lord met him and sought to kill him." — iv, 24. That is, a 
 disease so violent as to threaten the boy's life apprised the 
 parent of his neglect. This verse and the 25th and 26th 
 are peculiarly hard to understand: "Then Zipporah took a 
 sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast 
 it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou 
 to me. So he let him go; then she said, A bloody husband 
 thou art, because of the circumcision." 
 
 Aaron met Moses in the wilderness — a divine impulse, 
 perhaps some sympathy with his sublime enterprise, having 
 prompted Aaron to anticipate his approach. Immediately 
 upon his arrival at the scene of action, the elders were 
 gathered together to hear what Moses had to say. Aaron 
 was the mouth-piece, and with his first speech so far as we 
 know, favorably impressed his hearers. When the signs 
 were performed which were the seals of his divine mission, 
 the company bowed their heads and worshiped; the first 
 mention made of this attitude in devotion. 
 
 Chapter V. Moses and Aaron went directly to Pharaoh 
 with a request that he would let the Hebrews go, who are 
 understood to be God's people. Hence the words so often 
 repeated as from heaven, " Let my people go." Pharaoh 
 asked, evidently with surprise, what they meant by "their 
 God;" for he had some faith in an Infinite Being — a 
 belief which had been entertained for many centuries. 
 His temples being filled with images is no proof that the 
 Great Supreme was not really adored in that land. We 
 see at the start, and farther on will see more plainly, that 
 the Israelites considered that their own Deity was their 
 special protector, extending no favor to any other people 
 
146 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 or land. The first proposal is made, as Moses designed, 
 before he left Midian. Leave is asked to go three days 
 journey into the wilderness to sacrifice unto their God, 
 in the fear that if they did not He might destroy them by 
 pestilence or the sword. Pharaoh could easily see through 
 that device, for it was really the weakest one they could 
 have contrived. Just as though he would let all that mul- 
 titude of laborers go forth to enjoy perfect freedom, certain 
 as he was that with three' days start their chances for 
 escape were excellent! Thereupon Pharaoh determined 
 to look more closely after them ; and to prevent the idle- 
 ness which favors murmuring, he exacted more work, and 
 obliged each one to find his own straw. This was nothing 
 more than other rulers would have done in like circum- 
 stances. Moses and Aaron had stirred up the people, and 
 filled their heads with the notion that their God was about 
 to make provision for them in a better land; so it is easy 
 to see they had no desire to work for Pharaoh as bondsmen 
 in the brick-yards. Both the Israelites and Pharaoh knew 
 the struggle would be a hard one, and each prepared for 
 it as best they could. When the officers of the children 
 of Israel complained to Pharaoh of the additional task, he 
 told them they were idle and wanted to go away to sacri- 
 fice. Nothing was gained by entreaty. The same task 
 of brick was required. The committee who returned from 
 Pharaoh with such ill success naturally cast the blame on 
 Moses and Aaron. 
 
 Chapter VI. "God spake unto Moses and said unto 
 him, I am the Lord. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto 
 Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but 
 
EXODUS. 14T 
 
 by my name Jehovah was I not known." — vi, 2, 3. The 
 name given to Moses at Mount Horeb was " I Am that I 
 Am," or simply " I Am." The covenant is again alluded 
 to by which they were to possess the whole of Canaan: 
 and He was to be their God, and they his people. Matters 
 went on so slowly in regard to their escape that the people 
 became exceeding impatient. We are not to forget the 
 danger to the Egyptian government of having two million 
 of strangers in the heart of the country in any condition 
 except vassalage. If we do not keep this in mind we 
 shall be signally unjust to Pharaoh. Many of the im- 
 portant privileges of citizenship were denied for the pur- 
 pose of keeping them submissive, lessening of course the 
 chances of escape thereby. The history says that God 
 told Moses he would bring them out by his armies. How 
 in a state of slavery were they to keep up organizations, 
 to inaugurate discipline, get accustomed to manoeuvring 
 and the use of arms ? Had Moses lacked a superior edu- 
 cation, had he faltered in his faith of divine help, or been 
 unskilled in the mysteries of thaumaturgy, his mission 
 would have been abandoned at once. Many at this day 
 believe that all he did was by the express power of God, 
 who qualified him to perform works that none had even 
 attempted before; in short that they were miracles wrought 
 by God himself. The Israelites anxiously desired to get 
 away from Egypt that they might occupy that goodly land 
 flowing with milk and honey, where they would enjoy 
 plenty with freedom instead of poverty with bondage. 
 The constant and entirely unnecessary repetition of the 
 word "Lord," "Lord God," "The Lord spake unto Moses 
 
148 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 saying, Speak to the children of Israel," in this book sadly 
 mars the beauty of composition. The object seemed to 
 be to impress upon both foes and friends that Moses was 
 at all times led by God and instructed from heaven. To 
 increase their confidence in him to the fullest extent, the 
 Lord is represented as saying that Moses was made a God 
 to Pharaoh, with Aaron for a prophet. This promotion 
 Moses and those under him believed to be real. 
 
 Chapter VII. And now began the contest for suprem- 
 acy in the art of thaumaturgy between Moses, assisted by 
 Aaron, and the sorcerers and magicians of Egypt. Moses 
 was eighty years old, in full strength and vigor, perfectly 
 fitted for a great and lasting service. He was directed to 
 show Pharaoh a miracle by the rod which Aaron carried: 
 it became a serpent and then returned into the form of a 
 rod again; and, very remarkably, Pharaoh's magicians did 
 the self-same thing by their enchantments, so that no favor- 
 able impression could have been made. Pharaoh's sor- 
 cerers were not confined to one rod; they had a number, 
 all of which were made to assume the serpent form; but 
 Aaron's serpent is reported as having the advantage, as 
 it swallowed up the others. Nothing was gained in the 
 way of emancipation thus far. 
 
 Moses kept repeating the statement that the Lord God 
 said Pharaoh must let His people go, that they might serve 
 Him; though they were not, so far as we know, at any 
 time debarred from serving God as best suited them in 
 Egypt. So that the desire to escape for this purpose was 
 mere pretence. They wanted to get away because they 
 did. Again, Moses went out to meet Pharaoh in the morn- 
 
EXODUS. 149 
 
 ing near the river, and affirmed again that the Lord wished 
 him to let His people go to serve Him in the wilderness; 
 and that if Pharaoh did not he would turn the water of 
 the river into blood that it could not be used, and that the 
 fish should die. So Aaron stretched out his hand upon 
 the waters of Egypt; and the streams, rivers, ponds, pools, 
 all became blood through the land — also all that was 
 standing in vessels ready for use. This was acting on 
 a large scale, and really was an enormous miracle; but, 
 what shall be said, when the record also affirms that the 
 magicians of Egypt did just the same ! It may be noted 
 also that the wording" is peculiar, " the magicians of 
 Egypt did the same by their enchantments;" thus giving 
 the reader to understand that Aaron did his work by en- 
 chantment. All efforts to show that one was done by God 
 any more than the other will be unavailing. Pharaoh 
 seeing the result of all this, was no more inclined to let 
 the Israelites go than before. After seven days the waters 
 all came back naturally, that is to say, the enchantments 
 were suspended. 
 
 Chapter VIII. Again the message is repeated: "Let 
 my people go;" if not, frogs should be sent so that all the 
 houses would be filled, even the bed-chambers; and if 
 any one slept at all it would be with frogs under them. 
 So Aaron stretched forth his hand over the waters of 
 Egypt, the rivers, ponds, and pools, and the frogs came up 
 and covered the land. Just nothing, however, was gained 
 by this, for the magicians of Pharaoh copied him exactly. 
 But Pharaoh seemed to dislike the frogs that Aaron as well 
 
 as his own magicians had created in such uncomfortable 
 
 ill 
 
150 . SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 abundance. He was not inclined to be a frog-eater. He 
 therefore entreated Moses and Aaron to try and have their 
 God abate the terrible nuisance. Moses promised to re- 
 move them from all the waters except the river, the next 
 day. Dead frogs, it seems, covered the whole land, and 
 the putrefaction caused a stench horrid to bear and dan- 
 gerous to the health. As before, when rid of the frogs, 
 Pharaoh concluded to hold his bondsmen fast. Aaron had 
 thus far only kept even with Pharaoh's magicians; but 
 now he stretched out his hand, and with that famous rod 
 smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in all the 
 land. The magicians tried to do the same thing, and 
 failed; confessing that it was only by the power of their 
 God that Moses and Aaron could do such things. And 
 yet, after this confession of failure in fair competition, 
 Pharaoh was as obstinate as before. Again his consent is 
 solicited to the departure of the people; and the next 
 threatening is of a plague which will be confined to the 
 Egyptians alone: " And I will sever in that day the land 
 of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of 
 flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I 
 am the Lord in the midst of the earth." — v. 22. " And the 
 Lord did so: and there came a grievous swarm of flies 
 into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants' houses, 
 and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by 
 reason of the swarm of flies." — v. 24. These flies, which 
 probably beset the face as they do now in Egypt, seriously 
 alarmed the stubborn monarch, and he commanded Moses 
 and Aaron to go into the wilderness three days' journey 
 to their God; still, without consenting to their entire aban- 
 
EXODUS. 151 
 
 donment of the country. Moses entreated the Lord, and 
 the flies were removed ; but Pharaoh broke his word 
 again. Moses and Aaron thought best to stop creating; 
 to resort in fact to more severe measures. Pharaoh's 
 magicians had been beaten in one case if no more. So 
 much had been gained. The man must be infatuated 
 who can believe implicitly that what is spoken of as 
 having been done was all precisely as it appears in 
 these legends of a remote age. Pure water was never 
 turned into blood or made to swarm with frogs in an 
 instant of time through hundreds of miles of territory. 
 Moses and Aaron's performances go to make up a marvel- 
 ous history of marvelous things which appeared to the 
 Israelites to distinguish their early history beyond that of 
 any other nation. But now the work of creation was dis- 
 continued, and Moses and Aaron entered upon the oppo- 
 site career of destruction. Possibly they did this with 
 reluctance, for it is declared to be more pleasant to create 
 than to destroy. But, as the story reads, they had no 
 choice; they must move forward as the Lord God told 
 them, without turning to the right hand or left. No 
 matter how Pharaoh's heart was hardened, whether about 
 half the time by the Lord and the other half by himself. 
 Just such an amount had to be done before destruction 
 came upon the principal oppressors of the chosen race. 
 
 Chapter IX. " Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, 
 let my people go that they may serve me." — v. 1 . In case 
 of refusal a grievous murrain was to fall on all the Egyp- 
 tian cattle, as it did; and they all died, while those of the 
 Israelites went unharmed. Pharaoh still held out in his 
 
152 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 refusal to part with such a large amount of valuable pop- 
 ulation. The next performance was throwing dust in the 
 air, which caused boils to break out on Egyptian man and 
 beast, from which again the Israelites were exempt. The 
 magicians of Pharaoh failed to follow the example. The 
 Lord told Moses to rise early in the morning and repeat to 
 Pharaoh the same command as before; and to tell Pharaoh 
 that he was only aiding the Lord to carry out His plans, 
 for which object he was raised up. The promise was 
 added that the next day there would be a grievous hail- 
 storm. Moses then stretched forth his hand toward heav- 
 en, and the hail came down, with the usual accompani- 
 ment of thunder and lightning, extending through all the 
 land upon man and beast and the cultivated fields, but not 
 injuring the Hebrews at all. Pharaoh was much dis- 
 turbed, and entreated Moses as usual to have the trouble 
 abated, and then the people shall surely go. Moses wait- 
 ed a little, and went out of the city, and as a matter of 
 course the storm was over. Great damage had been done 
 to the growing crop and the cattle that were not put 
 under cover. Pharaoh saw it all, and looking up at the 
 clear sky decided not to let the people go. Was it strange 
 that his stubbornness is called supernatural ? 
 
 Chapter X. The Lord said unto Moses: " Go in unto 
 Pharaoh ! for, I have hardened his heart and the heart of 
 his servants that I might show these signs before him." 
 Moses and Aaron next threaten the vacillating king with 
 swarms of locusts to eat up every thing in the land. 
 Pharaoh told them to leave his presence; they answered 
 plainly that when they did go away, old and young, flocks 
 
EXODUS. 153 
 
 and herds should go together. Moses then stretched forth 
 his hand over the land of Egypt, and the east wind blew 
 all that day and night, and in the morning the locusts 
 were upon them in the whole land so that Egypt was dark- 
 ened with them, and every thing was destroyed. Pha- 
 raoh sent for Moses, desiring forgiveness in a very penitent 
 tone; and Moses, whose patience seems to have been in- 
 exhaustible, entreats that this death may be taken away. 
 The Lord answered him, and as the plague came with an 
 east wind, it was blown away again by a west one. But 
 the Lord hardened the despot's heart again; and he would 
 not let the people go. A thick darkness that could be felt 
 stretched over the land for three days ; but the children of 
 Israel had light in their dwellings. Pharaoh seems to 
 have been peculiarly humbled by this ; he offers to let the 
 people go, leaving their flocks and herds behind; this 
 Moses very justly refused, as it would have been condemn- 
 ing many of them to perish, and animals were needed con- 
 tinually for burnt-offerings. He decided that not a hoof 
 should be left behind of all the cattle. But the Lord har- 
 dened Pharaoh's heart and he still refused to let them go, 
 and told Moses the next time they met that he would kill 
 him. Moses replies partly in irony, and evidently as the 
 next chapter says, " in great anger:" "Thou hast spoken 
 well; I will see thy face again no more." 
 
 Chapter XI. And the Lord said He would bring one 
 more plague upon Egypt, and then Pharaoh would surely 
 let His people go. To that end, general directions are 
 given to the people of Israel as to their own conduct in 
 the approaching crisis. This was to be the final appeal 
 
154 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 of blood. The main feature of this last act was that the 
 first born in all the land should perish on a particular 
 night, while no death at all should occur in Israel. This 
 would overwhelm the Egyptians with terror so that they 
 would drive out of the land this destructive element. And 
 this sense of terror under the wrath of the Hebrew God 
 would naturally move the Egyptians to buy the interces- 
 sion of their former bondsmen with pearls and gold. But 
 even this terrible threat was not heeded; the Lord har- 
 dened Pharaoh's heart so that he would not consent to 
 have them go. 
 
 Chapter XII. The Israelites were therefore to proceed 
 to put their own plans in execution. On the tenth day of 
 that same month, ever after to be called the first month of 
 the ecclesiastical year, and answering to our March, all 
 the congregation of Israel were to take a lamb for every 
 house of their fathers. This lamb was to be without blem- 
 ish, a male of the first year; and they were to "keep it 
 up " until the fourteenth day, and kill it at evening. The 
 blood was to be sprinkled on the side-posts of the doors of 
 their houses. The flesh was to be eaten that night, not 
 raw or sodden, but roasted with fire. The remaining 
 parts were to be consumed. The destroying angel was to 
 pass round the night of the fourteenth, but, seeing the 
 blood on the door-posts, would pass by. From this term 
 came the passover, still kept as the great Jewish festival. 
 For seven days after no leavened bread was to be eaten. 
 Pharaoh in great distress went to Moses and Aaron to 
 talk the matter over in the night of that memorable four- 
 teenth day of Nisan. He bade them go away from among 
 
EXODUS. 155 
 
 his people, and take their flocks and herds, and bless him. 
 The precise number of the Jewish emigrants in this ex- 
 traordinary flight after freedom, can never be known. 
 Jewish statistics are often exaggerated, as the fifty thous- 
 and and seventy Bethshemites slain for looking into the 
 ark are reduced to seventy persons; but we shall adhere 
 to the commonly received account of two millions of all 
 ages. 
 
 The order of march having been fixed, we should sup- 
 pose that their inspired leader would be near the front as 
 best acquainted with the way, and according to the his- 
 tory divinely directed as to the halting- places. With him 
 would be the whole force of pioneers, armed to resist a 
 chance attack from some wandering freebooters; and 
 those camp followers who were to make what provision 
 they could of tents for the women, and water-troughs for 
 the cattle which were following in such hordes. Half of 
 the six hundred thousand men we should suppose would 
 be all that could be spared from the chief point of danger 
 at the rear. The women and children, the infirm and 
 aged, would move on in the middle of the immense train. 
 The flocks and herds might have traveled on parallel roads, 
 as every one knows through that level and unfenced country 
 no such tiling as our narrow lines of travel are known. 
 But the best armed, the strongest and bravest, the Josh- 
 uas and Calebs must have been where danger menaced, 
 in the rear — towards the task-masters from whom they 
 had fled. But certainly the preparation of such an utterly 
 undisciplined mass to move forward with any regularity 
 was a gigantic task. Extreme care and caution were 
 
156 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 necessary for fear of alarming the Egyptians, who were 
 likely enough to again change their minds as they had so 
 repeatedly done. They therefore aimed at perfect secrecy 
 up to the last hour of their stay. The rulers of Egypt 
 were too much like other people before and since to be en- 
 tirely willing to let these bondsmen go. If such feelings 
 had prevailed at first, under the provocation of such a 
 half-armed mob, it could not be expected to last. Pha- 
 raoh's reluctance in this matter is the last thing that ought 
 to brand him with cruelty. His other faults were more 
 glaring. The promises he made about releasing the Isra- 
 elites were under a sort of duress, and could hardly be 
 considered as binding in law. To say the least, prepara- 
 tions for the first great passover were perfected, and the 
 celebration performed under immense difficulties. It was 
 to be eaten the night before starting, and if the whole 
 number was 2,000,000, they required 150,000 male lambs 
 all but a year old. By the ordinary course there would be 
 as many females, or in all 300,000 of the first year. But 
 we are not to suppose that all the male lambs of the first 
 year were killed for the passover. The whole number 
 may therefore be placed at 400,000 of the first year; so 
 that to make the story hang together the number of sheep 
 can not have been less than two million; and the proper 
 amount of grazing land would be about two million of 
 acres. Could the Israelites by the remotest possibility 
 have held this vast extent of land for grazing ? Nor was 
 this procuring of lambs for the passover the only difficulty. 
 A population of two million that were to start on their 
 journey the day after the passover (even if the thing had 
 
EXODUS. 15 \ 
 
 been determined by Moses as early as the tenth), could 
 not have been fully notified and all the particulars settled; 
 and not one was to go out of the door of his house until 
 the morning after this first passover. How then could 
 they know what was taking place in the city, especially 
 in the house of Pharaoh, until the summons came from 
 their great leader? Then the borrowing of a large 
 amount of jewelry, which seems to us to have been facili- 
 tated by the terror of death, as explained in the thirty- 
 third verse, could not have been possible without consid- 
 erable notice. And the borrowing without any intention 
 of returning, according to the popular version of the 
 affair, would have been a strange crime for a people com- 
 mencing a new career under the especial supervision of 
 the Lord. Nor do we see any claim which these helpless 
 bondsmen could have pressed, except that highest demon- 
 stration of the Divine displeasure given only just before 
 their start in the death of the Egyptian first-born. 
 
 In their line of march this vast company must have oc- 
 cupied more space than we commonly imagine. Esti- 
 mates have been made showing that the two million people 
 in their flight would have filled the available traveled ways 
 for the space of fourteen miles; and the entire mass, with 
 flocks and herds, twenty-one miles. The distance such a 
 body of people could move in a day, with flocks, herds, 
 and other incumbrances, did not exceed seven miles. So 
 that, from the time the march began, at least three days 
 intervened before the whole was in motion; or the fore 
 front was about three days ahead of the extreme rear. 
 
 And now as to the means of sustenance on the march, 
 
158 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 in addition to the dough in their kneading troughs. Very 
 little was to be obtained on the way, part of which was 
 through a barren region; and how were their numerous 
 flocks to be fed ? People like them in bondage would not 
 be expected to have the means of transporting large 
 quantities of food for man and beast, nor to have laid up 
 money with which to buy. It is hardly supposable that 
 they obtained much by plundering the people along the 
 route. Foraging would have been both difficult and 
 dangerous. The fleeing party were too slow in their 
 movements to escape the vengeance of those they might 
 plunder. 
 
 Chapter XII. " And the children of Israel journeyed 
 from Rameses to Succoth 600,000 on foot that were men, 
 besides children; and a mixed multitude and flocks and 
 herds, even very much cattle." — v. 37. The time the}' had 
 sojourned in Egypt (v. 40), is stated at 430 years; but in 
 that case the time of Abram's making his first journey 
 there must be embraced, and not the time of Jacob's going 
 down with the seventy souls on account of the famine. 
 
 Chapter XIII. " And they took their journey from Suc- 
 coth and encamped in Etham in the edge of the wilder- 
 ness." — v. 20. The third night they encamped before Pi- 
 hahiroth by the Red Sea, rather an out-of-the-way place, 
 chosen by them no doubt that if Pharaoh decided on pur- 
 suit they would not be easily found. The exact distance 
 traveled by the Israelites from the city of their own build- 
 ing is not known, and we make no attempt to give it. 
 There were two routes leading to the Red Sea, but they 
 did not take the most direct. 
 
EXODUS. 159 
 
 Chapter XIV. Pharaoh, hearing of their departure, the 
 Lord having hardened his heart, decided to pursue them. 
 Knowing this, the Israelites were in great alarm. Fear 
 overwhelmed them, as they were undisciplined, poorly 
 armed, and encumbered with women and children. Her- 
 odotus says the regular force of the King of Egypt at 
 that time was only about 160,000 men; a number that 
 might be thought exceedingly small. This army of Pha- 
 raoh made an imposing appearance: with burnished arms, 
 splendid banners, martial music, and all the pride of cer- 
 tain victory. Six hundred chosen chariots were there; 
 indeed all the chariots of Egypt. It was a sight to terrify 
 the fugitives; for their 600,000 men at arms were not only 
 untrained, unorganized, and undisciplined — they had been 
 accustomed to cower in terror before these very enemies. 
 Such a body of raw troops were of little account in op- 
 posing tried veterans, led by experienced officers, all 
 trained to arms from boyhood, as the Egyptian soldiers 
 were, and equipped with the best of arms. Around the 
 Israelitish army, looking to them for protection, were near 
 one million and a half of old men, women and children. 
 The best efforts they could make to repel Pharaoh's as- 
 saults were sure to result in utter defeat and fearful 
 slaughter. What to do was the question, and they 
 must act on the spur of the moment. The condition of 
 Moses and his trembling flock on that morning when Pha- 
 raoh and his host were pressing upon their rear-guard and 
 the Red Sea rolled at their feet, was appalling. Before 
 and around them seemed not peril merely, but inevitable 
 destruction. Notwithstanding all the wonders they had 
 
160 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 witnessed in Egypt, notwithstanding the aid Jehovah 
 had bestowed upon their deliverer, only one man amongst 
 two million had any hope. Only one showed full trust 
 in Providence. He felt himself guided to that ancient 
 ford. He knew the change sometimes wrought by an 
 eastern gale. He had studied the heavens enough to 
 know that there was a blessing likely to come upon 
 him from above. He may have felt the fitness of com- 
 pleting his demonstrations of Divine aid (which alone 
 could insure his control of such a mutinous mob), by one 
 more brilliant performance — to assure his people that they 
 were really the favorites of heaven — and that in the long- 
 struggle which was to come He would give them victory 
 over all their Canaanitish foes. Had a battle occurred, and 
 had the mob dispersed the regular army, instead of being 
 mown down like the stubble, still there were no means of 
 crossing the sea. To have passed over in boats would 
 have been the work of weeks; but nothing could have 
 been a more propitious initiation of the grand enterprise 
 than the safe passage from shore to shore of this immense 
 mass of men, women and children, evidently on foot. 
 Such a success as this, however aided by nature, could 
 not fail to be regarded as miraculous in after ages; and, 
 as the centuries rolled by, more and more of the supernat- 
 ural would weave itself in with the narrative. And so 
 as they crossed the dividing line an undoubted assurance 
 of that Divine protection was given on which they must 
 rely in the contest with unknown enemies in an unknown 
 land. 
 
 Chapter XV. We read: " Thou (that is the Lord), didst 
 
EXODUS. 161 
 
 blow with thy wind, the sea covered them, they sank as 
 lead in the mighty waters." — v. 1Q. This tells us in the 
 graceful language of a poetical age how it came to pass 
 that Pharaoh was swallowed up in the Red Sea. What 
 matters it whether we regard the event as a miracle or 
 not ? That age evidently regarded it so ; but every suc- 
 ceeding age will be less and less disposed to believe in 
 miracle if that is defined to be a conflict with the gene- 
 ral economy of nature or the eternal laws of matter. The 
 waters of no river or sea upon the wide earth were ever 
 divided by any means other than the constant operation of 
 settled laws. In primitive times " the sun's being dark- 
 ened " in an eclipse was looked upon as showing the 
 displeasure of a sovereign power. Thus in effect main- 
 taining that on account of the sin of somebody, the order 
 of nature was entirely reversed. This is what we are 
 compelled to doubt. The marvelous stories of the Bible 
 in regard to wonders performed from the time Moses 
 thought he saw a bush burn without being consumed, to 
 the time of a final settlement in the same old Canaan from 
 which Jacob was driven by dread of starvation, embrace 
 a wide range. Those who read have a right to read them 
 with the best light they can possibly get in this nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 The region of Canaan might have gained in population 
 while Jacob was away, though not in fertility. What 
 was said about its being a goodly land to induce the Isra- 
 elites to leave Egypt, seems to us mere talk. That was 
 the time for large stories, high-sounding and mythical 
 pictures. As in that very region at this day, the imagina- 
 
162 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 tion had a free sweep, and the popular narrative clothed 
 itself in poetry and was often sung. The real facts of 
 actual history had been far less impressive. Wild and 
 strange stories always command attention. Fancy worked 
 more wildly then than now, because less hampered with ac- 
 knowledged realities. These Israelites, while they abode 
 in Egypt, formed an upright community; cherished the re- 
 ligion of their forefathers, and when ushered into another 
 state by death, could claim to have acted up to the light 
 given them in the simple creed of the patriarchal world. 
 
 Leaving Goshen with the aid of miracles, they are 
 guided on their journey by the most astonishing wonders, 
 yet not one of them except Caleb and Joshua were al- 
 lowed to enter the land of promise. Death was to be asso- 
 ciated in their minds with unbelief; and this sin of theirs 
 was not merely against Moses, but against the God whom 
 he represented. And so these poor simple human beings, 
 as many contend, went down to endless perdition. At the 
 outset of their journey the fact seems not to have been 
 understood, that in nearly all cases worship in minds 
 of a low grade depends upon visible forms; that religion 
 could have no hold upon newly emancipated slaves if 
 wholly spiritualized. In a few months the mistake was 
 discovered and properly corrected. 
 
 It was not long after crossing the sea when the want of 
 food was felt bitterly. That barren wilderness of Sinai 
 was a hideous contrast to the golden bounty they had left 
 in the Nile-valley, and to the promised abundance of the 
 Canaan they had not yet found. No wonder they mur- 
 mured at their leader. No wonder that so simple a people 
 
EXODUS. 163 
 
 looked backward rather than forward. Moses answered 
 the cry of their necessity with bread from heaven. Man- 
 na is naturally produced in that Arabian peninsula to-day, 
 but it is produced only through three months of the year — 
 never in the amount of fifteen million pounds a week 
 as required by the lsraelitish camp — it does not spoil by 
 being kept as this did, nor does any increased quantity 
 fall the day before Sabbath, nor does it suddenly disap- 
 pear as this did. So that it is not strange that this unfail- 
 ing, enormous, periodic supply of what was to them a food, 
 not a medicine, came to be regarded as the special bounty 
 of God through his authorized representative. 
 
 Just so the water: they thirsted: the rock was smitten 
 in heaven's name — smitten by the miraculous rod; and a 
 live stream issued in such abundance as to supply them- 
 selves and their cattle. 
 
 The same chapter which gives us the smiting of Horeb 
 records the first battle with the natives whom they were 
 to dispossess. And nothing could have been more admi- 
 rably arranged for effect. Their wonderful leader was 
 seen by his army on a hill-top, sustained by Aaron and 
 Hur, invoking heaven's aid on their arms. How could 
 they fail with such a pledge of Divine assistance ! How 
 like the account of a trustful child it reads, that while 
 Moses' hands were kept up Israel prevailed, and when his 
 hands sunk they went down. 
 
 The prophecy that " Amalek should be utterly put out 
 of remembrance," was not fulfilled until the time of Hez- 
 ekiah. So little thoroughness had the Jews in clearing 
 the land they were to occupy; though the neighborhood of 
 
164 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 heathen was perpetually corrupting them with heathen vice 
 as well as heathen worship, and in every season of calam- 
 ity they were sure of being attacked by these ever-rest- 
 less marauders. But how few nations understand their 
 mission or follow God's prophets to its fulfillment. 
 
 Evidently, Israel had not conquered in this battle (the 
 type of many which were to follow), unless they had be- 
 lieved in that Divine assistance of which the visible 
 prayer of the man of God gave them assurance. Having 
 begun in dependence on this outstretched arm, they could 
 not go on without it. They felt entirely unequal to the 
 struggle of themselves, but when the Almighty was on 
 their side they had nothing to fear. And so, for a thou- 
 sand years to come, when they joined battle sure of the 
 Divine assistance, they conquered; when they fought be- 
 lieving Jehovah had deserted, them they were slain in 
 heaps with Saul and Jonathan. Those who understand 
 the soul see how this result was the simple working out of 
 natural laws — the necessary triumph of faith. They 
 fought like lions when they saw the host of heaven en- 
 camped around them in spiritual vision: they fled like 
 sheep when they found themselves deprived of Divine pro- 
 tection and left to their unassisted strength. Very much 
 so through our own experience, we realize the words of 
 the great Master, "Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." 
 
 Leaving unsolved the myster} 7 of this vast multitude's 
 being possessed of tents under which they are said to 
 have abode in this Sinai region, where certainly the cold 
 of winter would demand this protection for women and 
 children; though it seems equally clear that they could 
 
EXODUS. 165 
 
 not ever have brought up from Egypt the two hundred 
 thousand that were required, nor have bought them on the 
 way, nor have manufactured them in the absence of all 
 machinery. 
 
 The Sinai-peninsula has been thoroughly examined and 
 measured by distinguished scholars from various lands. 
 F. W. Holland has been over the whole territory four times 
 with a proper surveying party — Dr. Robinson left no nook 
 unvisited that could throw any light on the sacred narra- 
 tive — the great geographer of Germany, Ritter, has flood- 
 ed that dreary region with light. We find that in winter 
 many of the mountain passes are shut up with snow, and 
 the whole region inhospitable in the extreme. Severe cold 
 prevails in the higher parts, especially during the nights. 
 And yet these natives of a comparative sultry clime pass- 
 ed a whole year with their women and children in this 
 fearfully contrasted region, and do not seem to have com- 
 plained of the tropical temperature they had lost, of the 
 perfect shelter they before enjoyed, and the inexhaustible 
 fertility of a soil enriched abundantly by the generous 
 river's annual overflow. 
 
 Is it not clear that a careful consideration of this exode 
 as recorded in the Bible, will compel any one to the con- 
 clusion that two million of people would ever have sub- 
 sisted a year under Sinai without intense suffering ? As 
 to the extent of spots where vegetation is luxuriant, some 
 idea may be formed by referring to the eminent traveler, 
 Mr. Burckhardt, who says: "The Wady-Kyd (one of the 
 most noted date-valleys) is watered by a rivulet two feet 
 across and six inches in depth, which becomes lost in the 
 
 812 
 
166 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 sands immediately below." The whole time Burckhardt 
 occupied in crossing this valley was only an hour. Two 
 million of sheep and all the cattle (allowing a space of 
 three feet by two to stand on) would occupy three or four 
 hundred acres. It seems idle to spend time in discussing 
 the question whether this vast mass of animals could 
 have subsisted in such a wilderness, with such insignifi- 
 cant intervals of green as a drove of an hundred head 
 would have trodden into mud in six hours. 
 
 If the number of able-bodied men exceeded half a mil- 
 lion, there could not have been less than two million of 
 people in all; yet, how can we explain this unparalleled 
 increase from the seventy souls who went down to Egypt 
 two centuries before ? We no where read of any very 
 large families among the children of Jacob, or their de- 
 scendants. It may be granted that very few died prema- 
 turely; and that those who were born increased and mul- 
 tiplied. Among all the sixty-nine children, grand-children 
 and great-grand-children of Jacob who went with him into 
 Egypt, it is strange there should be only one daughter 
 mentioned, and one grand-daughter. The very number- 
 ing of those two among the rest shows that the females 
 were not omitted intentionally. Such immense prepon- 
 derance of males is so unlikely that it shows at least part of 
 the record to be untrue on its face. It appears that the 
 twelve sons of Jacob had fifty-three sons, an average of 
 four and a half each. We will suppose they went on in- 
 creasing in this ratio from generation to generation. In 
 the first generation (that of Kohath) there would be 54 
 males; in the second (that of Amram) 243; in the third 
 
EXODUS. 167 
 
 (that of Moses and Aaron) 1,094; and in the fourth (that 
 of Joshua and Eleazar), 4,923; or, instead of 600,000 war- 
 riors in the prime of life, there would have been 5,000. 
 If the number of all the males in the four generations 
 were added together, they would only amount to 6,311. 
 If we add to that the number of the fifth generation, 
 (22,154) who would be mostly children, the sum total of 
 males of all generations could not, according to this data, 
 have exceeded 28,465, instead of being 1,000,000. From 
 the account itself it appears that the mothers were all 
 Hebrew women, and that the males did not intermarry 
 with the Egyptians. 
 
 After the Israelitish camp was regularly established in 
 this sublime region, Zipporah was naturally desirous of 
 visiting her husband. His long absence, perilous travel 
 and rare experiences heightened that desire, and led her, 
 as soon as circumstances favored, to start with her father 
 and children. On their arrival at the camp Moses wel- 
 comed them with every token of affection and respect, 
 and the meeting was exceedingly happy and profitable. 
 Mutual congratulations being over, Jethro proceeded to 
 give Moses such advice as his larger experience justified ; 
 particularly that he should organize an inferior court for 
 the trial of ordinary causes, leaving more difficult ones 
 for his own decision. In this way he would save most 
 of the detail-labor, and by that means escape the ex- 
 haustion always resulting from excessive toil, mental or 
 physical. This advice pleased Moses and he carried it 
 into action at once, with perfect success — reserving him- 
 self for the more important causes. 
 
168 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Chapter XIX. In the third month after the children of 
 Israel had gone forth out of Egypt, God called to Moses 
 out of Mount Sinai, making various promises through him 
 to the elders of Israel. He is represented as giving him 
 particular directions about many things for the benefit of 
 the people. On the third day of this interview, there 
 were thunder and lightning and a cloud on Mount Sinai, 
 with smoke like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole 
 mountain quaked. There was also the sound of a trum- 
 pet; and when that ceased Moses spake and God answer- 
 ed him. The prophet was finally called to the top of the 
 mountain, and the people ordered back on pain of death. 
 Even the priests had to sanctify themselves before they 
 could come near. The rush became so great to see what 
 was going on, they were all ordered down, and Moses 
 told to come up with Aaron only, and let the people and 
 the priests stand back. Then, the account says, God 
 spake to Moses the famous Ten Commandments, which 
 are too well known to need repeating; but some other 
 commands given at the time are not so well remembered; 
 one of which was that they should make an altar of earth 
 and sacrifice thereon. If the old Ten Commandments were 
 for our observance at this day, why not this one of burnt 
 offerings ? 
 
 Chapter XXI gives particular directions about many 
 things, and in concise form a code of laws extending 
 through the two next chapters. 
 
 Chapter XXIV. Moses made a report to the people as 
 to his interview with the Lord, which was perhaps noted 
 down to enable him to give the conversation entire. 
 
EXODUS. 169 
 
 Moses wrote all the words of these laws and built an 
 altar as commanded. The writing was called a book. 
 Moses having learned so much the first ascent, determined 
 upon a second in company with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, 
 and the seventy elders. Well were they repaid, for they 
 saw the God of Israel! The description of the scene is 
 singular, and would impress some with the idea that the 
 writer did not know of what he spoke: " There was under 
 his feet a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were 
 the body of heaven in his clearness." Who can have an 
 idea of the " body of heaven V "And the Lord said, Come 
 up and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law and 
 commandments, which I have written that thou mayst 
 teach them." These same commandments had before been 
 given to Moses, and he had written them in a book and 
 read them to the people. Why then this re-writing on 
 tables of stone ? Certainly not for Moses' information, for 
 he already possessed them. The elders had a feast on the 
 mount, but Moses desired to be alone and bade them leave 
 him. After waiting there six days, on the seventh the 
 Lord called to him out of a cloud. The sight of the Lord, 
 Moses says, was like a devouring fire. And Moses went 
 up into the midst of the cloud, and abode there forty days 
 and nights. 
 
 Chapter XXV gives many directions for the conduct of 
 the people, but especially for the construction of a sanctu- 
 ary, that God might dwell amongst them as their peculiar 
 possession. This shrine was even more extraordinary 
 than the temple which afterwards took its place. 
 
 Chapter XXXI. And He (God) gave unto Moses, when 
 
HO SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 He had made an end of conversing with him, two tables 
 of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of 
 God. 
 
 Chapter XXXII. Though Moses gave two different ac- 
 counts about the Ten Commandments — one that he had 
 them from God's own mouth, and the other that they were 
 written by God's own finger — neither could have been 
 literally true. The time he spent on the mount was abun- 
 dant for so gifted a man's forming codes for the direction 
 of his people in duty. Without some regulations and 
 penal laws it was impossible to govern such an untamed 
 crew. Moses saw this, and his stay on the mountain was 
 protracted into months. At last the delay was so great 
 that the people, like children whose mother had overstayed 
 her time, became demoralized. They could no longer hold 
 fast without something to hold to. As they did not know 
 what a splendid thing Moses was getting up in the shape 
 of a tabernacle, they did just as any other ignorant people 
 would — they murmured. They appealed to Aaron for 
 some visible thing to worship, and he was quite too willing 
 to yield — making them pause a moment by requiring them 
 to sacrifice enough of their jewelry to cast a golden calf. 
 They seem to have done it with alacrity. The image was 
 completed and they were busy in its adoration just as 
 Moses was coming down from the mount with his tables 
 of stone and his plan for the tabernacle, a more beautiful 
 shrine than had ever met the eyes of these poor wanderers. 
 With the means Moses had at hand to engrave these tables, 
 it was quite a work. Doubtless they were well done. 
 
 We can hardly imagine the proud satisfaction the 
 
EXODUS. If! 
 
 Hebrew founder felt as he strode down from the mountain 
 with the result of his important and difficult labor. He 
 and Joshua were walking together, when Joshua heard a 
 noise in the camp and said: "It is not the voice of them 
 that shout for the mastery, nor of them that cry for being 
 overcome, but the voice of them that sing." When Moses 
 came near enough to see the dance around the calf his 
 anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, 
 and broke them near the foot of the mount. He took the 
 calf they had made, burnt it with fire, ground it to powder, 
 strewed the powder upon the water, and made the children 
 of Israel drink it. Aaron ought to have had a double 
 share. Moses was angry with him for what he had done; 
 but, like all other sinners, Aaron tried to excuse himself, 
 and said he only told the people to bring him their jewels 
 and he put them in the fire and there came out a calf ! 
 He lied a little about it, and hardly ever was there so 
 pitiful an excuse. But the wrath of Moses cooled in due 
 time; then giving them directions how to atone for their 
 sins, he put all in proper shape again and started for the 
 mountain once more to re-write the Ten Commandments 
 and revise all else he had done. The stones he used the 
 second time might have been better than the first. Any 
 way the law was again nicely written so that all could 
 read it easily. Moses saw also more fully than before 
 that no such children could permanently abide in religion 
 without symbols and forms. They had little spirituality, 
 and so much the more required a tangible substance they 
 could embrace and hold fast. This has been true of all the 
 world since. No people have been satisfied with inward 
 
112 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 manifestations; and to-day the religious world pay more 
 homage to forms and symbols than to spirituality. Why 
 cannot we lay more stress on good works, good thoughts, 
 good hearts, and less on formalism — less on ceremony ? 
 
 Chapter XXXIV tells us that Jehovah is jealous. How 
 a being who sees and knows all things can be jealous, is 
 no more comprehensible than the way in which Moses 
 talked with Him face to face, when " no man can see God 
 and live." 
 
 Chapter XXXVII. The tabernacle having been com- 
 pleted, Bezaleel, considered by the Israelites to be the ablest 
 workman, makes a plan for the ark. It is plain by the 
 account that while Moses was the chief head in all things, 
 others rendered immensely important service under his 
 direction. From the amount of gold employed, and its 
 perfect fineness, we realize their desire of making a really 
 noble and glorious work. The width and quality of the 
 boards composing the tabernacle is also proof of this. 
 Some may enjoy a careful perusal of the dozen chapters 
 devoted to the enumeration of the parts, form and fashion 
 of the ark and tabernacle, but the number is so small that 
 we deem it better omitted. 
 
 In biblical history three arks are prominent: By the 
 first one Noah and his family, with a sufficient number of 
 all created things to preserve every species, are said to 
 have been saved. By the next, the ark of bulrushes, 
 Moses was preserved alive to be the deliverer of his 
 people. The last, and by far the most important, was 
 designated as the Ark of the Covenant, and used first as a 
 depository for the book of the law or the tables of stone, 
 
EXODUS. H3 
 
 and after that as a place of safe keeping for other Jewish 
 records and laws for the government of Church and State. 
 This was held in higher esteem for many centuries than 
 anything made by human hands. On all great public 
 days, and as connected with general worship, nothing 
 could exceed the reverence with which it was regarded. 
 The beauty of the ark and tabernacle did not constitute 
 their only attraction; as the abode and temple of their 
 God, adoration was constant, fervent, profound. Con- 
 nected with them was an altar for burnt offerings, the holy 
 garments, and many other articles elegantly prepared. 
 The whole congregation seems to have been fully satisfied, 
 and never was anything better adapted to the purpose 
 than all this fancy work, so richly if rudely adorned. No 
 device or contrivance was wanting. 
 
 Chapter XXXIX. "And they brought the tabernacle 
 unto Moses, the tent, and all his furniture, his taches, his 
 boards, his bars, and his pillars, and his sockets; and the 
 covering of rams' skins dyed red, and the vail of the cov- 
 ering; the ark of the testimony, and the staves thereof, 
 and the mercy-seat; the table, and all the vessels thereof, 
 and the shew-bread; the pure candlestick, with the lamps 
 thereof, even with the lamps to be set in order, and all the 
 vessels thereof, and the oil for light; and the golden altar, 
 and the anointing oil, and the sweet incense, and the 
 hanging for the tabernacle door; the brazen altar, and his 
 grate of brass, his staves, and all his vessels, the laver and 
 his foot; the hangings of the court, his pillars, and his 
 sockets, and the hanging for the court gate, his cords, and 
 his pins, and all the vessels of the service of the taber- 
 
1?4 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 nacle, for the tent of the congregation; the clothes of 
 service to do service in the holy place, and the holy gar- 
 ments for Aaron the priest, and his sons' garments, to 
 minister in the priest's office. According to all that the 
 Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel made all 
 the work. And Moses did look upon all the work, and 
 behold, they had done it as the Lord had commanded, even 
 so had they done it; and Moses blessed them." All this is 
 set down thus particularly to show the reader how well 
 the ceremonial wants of such a rude race had been sup- 
 plied; what a superb pageant they had to admire; what a 
 consecrated enclosure inshrined the Supreme Controller of 
 their destiny. There was now no occasion to make another 
 calf to worship. Nor yet had Aaron lost his popularity 
 or forfeited his priesthood by his idolatrous tendency. A 
 sentiment of profound reverence filled every heart in the 
 congregation. The particular manifestations that followed, 
 whether really resulting from a hidden spirit or from arti- 
 ficial means, had a marked effect. Offerings and oblations 
 were made daily with great sincerity while the tabernacle 
 was new; with full faith too that the favor of heaven was 
 being propitiated. Directions for these performances were 
 given, as the priests and Moses asserted by Jehovah, the 
 recital of which would be too tedious for our purpose. 
 However frivolous they may seem at this distance of time, 
 it is very certain that they were adapted to the Jews, or 
 they would not have been observed so well and have been 
 perpetuated to our time. But yet to represent the Supreme 
 Ruler of all worlds as giving the minute directions of the 
 tabernacle service, seems to be highly improper. Is any- 
 
exodus. 175 
 
 thing gained by contending that God gave this ritual to 
 Moses with His own mouth, except to degrade our idea of 
 Deity ? 
 
 Chapter XL. They had now been out of Egypt about 
 one year, and in the Sinai vicinity nine months. In this 
 chapter we read that, when completed, the glory of God 
 filled the tabernacle. Mention is often made in the Old 
 Testament of this glory, and it may be well to inquire 
 what it is, and to ask if it is not every where. No doubt 
 it may be more conspicuous at one time or place than 
 another; but in reality it fills all space. Minutely consid- 
 ered, the term "Glory of God" has a multitude of defini- 
 tions. God is every where at all times. The Psalms 
 declare this repeatedly. The devout spirit sees continually 
 more and more of Him and His glory. 
 
 The ceremonial arrangements of the Israelites answered 
 an important purpose and were the means of doing much 
 good, like any well-arranged ritual. Some hundreds of 
 years after, a command was given by Isaiah to bring forth 
 no more vain oblations, for they were an abomination in 
 the sight of the Lord. Why then should those who claim 
 this Isaiah as the most Christian of prophets, strive so 
 hard to perpetuate the old Jewish ceremonies, psalms and 
 ordinances as necessary to our spiritual life ? There was 
 a time when men's imaginations were vain and their foolish 
 hearts darkened; it should not be so now; in this age of 
 light and knowledge too much importance is attached to 
 trivial things, while weightier matters are neglected, and 
 so the substance is lost sight of in an eager desire to catch 
 at the shadow. By this means the energies of many an 
 
176 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 honest soul are wasted, and worse than wasted. The 
 observance of the Sabbath day started with the exodus. 
 Till then there was no such day kept that we hear of. 
 This observance, however begun or when, is something 
 every good man and every friend of society above all 
 things desires to perpetuate. Proof of the benefits result- 
 ing from the sacred observance of one day in seven, is 
 seen all over Jewish history, but more plainly and deci- 
 dedly in later times. Indeed its value cannot be estimated. 
 Among the things unmistakably divine is the command 
 to keep the Sabbath day holy. The inference is fair, that, 
 Moses having as many now suppose a direct assertion 
 from God that after the six days of creation He found rest 
 necessary on the seventh, was commanded so to inform 
 mankind and by all means in his power to enforce the 
 observance. Should the manner of this communication 
 be disputed, or its being made at all be denied, the benefits 
 flowing from it remain the same. 
 
 The reader will pardon this slight digression upon a 
 matter so vital to the best interests of society — so indis- 
 pensable to the existence of a church upon earth. 
 
LEVITICUS. l*i*i 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LEVITICUS. 
 
 THIS book contains directions for the ancient worship of 
 the Jewish Church. As the first and prominent thing 
 they were to serve God by means of sacrifices, mostly in 
 the shape of burnt offerings. Secondly, they were to be 
 under the control and special direction of a priesthood 
 particularly set apart as guides in the way of holiness. 
 Aaron and his son were the first to be consecrated for this 
 high office. Thus we have the inauguration of an order 
 which may never cease to exist — an order from which has 
 flowed a vast amount of good to the sons of men. But 
 the claim these priests set up to be the especial mouth- 
 pieces of God is in great danger of being ignored; and 
 all their endeavors to enforce it are likely to prove abor- 
 tive in the end. And, as the world becomes enlightened, 
 outward manifestations will avail less and less. 
 
 Leviticus is the name given to the Greek version. 
 Though called by this name, it does not treat of the min- 
 istry of the Levites properly so called, who were distinct 
 from the priests and subordinates. This book will be 
 passed over with a few general comments. Noticing 
 every detail would be tedious as well as unprofitable. The 
 ceremonies are of the lengthy kind, all proper enough, 
 
118 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 but without interest now. Some ceremonials of the pres- 
 ent time in the best cultivated Christian lands seem to us 
 too tedious, and yet far preferable to those of a musty an- 
 tiquity. Forms ought not to be laid aside, and never will 
 be any more than order and regularity. They may be di- 
 vided into several grades. The simplest are often the 
 most to be admired, as they contribute most to our enjoy- 
 ment. We must not however forget that they have no 
 vivifying power, no renewing energy. They are a mere 
 road over which we travel in pursuit of good — a means to 
 reach what we desire with more system and more certainty. 
 
 Chapter XVI. The Israelites were commanded to ob- 
 serve a yearly day of atonement. At first it was kept 
 with sincerity by the body of the people, but in process of 
 time we shall see by their history that with many other 
 rites it was laid aside if not forgotten. Instead of set- 
 ting up forms for observance, had the inner man been im- 
 pressed, the effect might have been enduring. The soul 
 that hungers most after righteousness and truth will do 
 the most for their promulgation. An appetite for the 
 good is more often lacking than the means to gratify it. 
 When communities, cities, states and nations undertake 
 to keep a fast, should any one look for such a scene as 
 would naturally be expected from the common definition, 
 they would look in vain. The humiliation is wanting, the 
 fasting is neglected, and the prayers in private are be- 
 coming exceedingly rare. 
 
 Chapter XXIII notices particularly the religious fasts 
 kept by the Jews. Some were ordained for the whole na- 
 tion, and others for religious assemblies. 
 
LEVITICUS. If 9 
 
 Chapter XXV gives us the rules for the observance of 
 the Sabbatical and Jubilee years; one occurring every 
 seventh, the other every fiftieth year; but how well the 
 directions given in this book were observed even at the 
 time, is a matter of doubt. Probably like many other 
 laws and rules laid down for the conduct of men, some 
 paid respect to them, while others did not regard them 
 at all. Not many jubilees were kept as directed. But a 
 careful perusal of these directions astonishes us; every 
 relation of life seems to be taken into account. In fact it 
 may be questioned whether the Israelites originated the 
 whole. Important portions might have been taken from 
 the Midianites, who were possibly advanced in civilization 
 and the science of government. 
 
 Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, was a man of remarkable 
 ability. At the first meeting of Moses with him and his 
 family of daughters, he gave evidence of refinement and 
 culture. So when the Jewish leader came with his people 
 and were well encamped under Sinai, Jethro saw at once 
 the best course to be pursued. Aid in the formation of a 
 code of laws so lengthy and particular certainly came 
 from some quarter other than the genius of a people who 
 had been slaves for many years, though the slavery in 
 Egypt might not have been of the most rigorous kind. 
 That Pithom and Raamses were built by them seems ap- 
 parent; and that they had among them men in authority, 
 their elders, is also evident. Writers who best understand 
 their history, do not believe they were so very ignorant. 
 Of superstition they had a very large share, and so had 
 their Egyptian masters; it belonged at that period to the 
 
180 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 whole human race, and hardly could a succession of the 
 most stupendous miracles have kept them free. We must 
 not be surprised at encountering ghostly shadows every- 
 where so early in the history of mankind. The supernat- 
 ural explanation for any unusual event would almost nec- 
 essarily be preferred to the natural. 
 
NUMBERS. 181 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NUMBERS. 
 
 THIS book takes its name from the numbering of the 
 Israelites in the wilderness, B. C. 1490: the second 
 month of the second year after leaving Egypt. 
 
 This, with the other books of the Pentateuch comprised 
 under the general name of " the law," reaches from the 
 second year after the departure from Egypt to the fortieth 
 year, when they were. about to enter Canaan. Of the par- 
 ticulars of their movements from Sinai, the incidents of 
 their interrupted journey, and the laws preparatory to 
 their occupancy of the promised land, we shall have but 
 little to say; those laws constituted both the Church and 
 State, no line of distinction being possible between the 
 ecclesiastical and civil institutions in Judea. 
 
 To aid in the collection of taxes for religious purposes 
 and the construction of the tabernacle, a numbering of 
 all the tribes had been made, but another was required 
 for military organization. Rolls of the first census having 
 been preserved, the labor of the second was greatly 
 lessened. The tribe of Levi was not to be included, for 
 the reason that it was Jehovah's instead of the first born 
 of every family. 
 
 Judah is the first tribe from which a prince of note 
 
 813 
 
182 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 should arise. All of the twelve tribes were numbered, 
 from twenty years old and upward, that were able to 
 go to war. After a careful summing up, the aggregate 
 was found to be six hundred and three thousand, five hun- 
 dred and fifty.. Some slight addition had taken place by 
 the advancing age of young men. But such a difference 
 would be slight. Relying on the correctness of this enu- 
 meration, the sum total of all the Egyptian emigration 
 was about the two million uniformly given in history. 
 The Levites did not go to war; their duties consisted in 
 carrying the tabernacle and the ark, taking care that 
 they were safely kept and in proper order, and attending 
 generally to all sacred affairs. 
 
 Chapter V. Regulations are made for the army; for 
 the public peace; for good morals and the well being of 
 society, all of the most judicious kind, evincing wisdom, 
 forethought, and knowledge of human nature. Almost 
 every contingency is provided for, and a long catalogue 
 of offences anticipated. 
 
 Chapter sixth sets forth the requirements of those who 
 should take the Nazarite vow, of which there is mention 
 in the Gospels. Aaron blesses the children of Israel by 
 saying, "The Lord bless thee and keep thee: the Lord 
 make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto 
 thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give 
 thee peace." For these thousands of years the most elo- 
 quent of all benedictions! 
 
 Chapter seventh presents a full account of the dedica- 
 tion of the tabernacle and the altar, but the particulars 
 are too lengthy for insertion. 
 
NUMBERS. 183 
 
 Chapter eighth describes the candlesticks and para- 
 phernalia of the tabernacle, with the various sacrifices 
 and offering's. 
 
 Chapter IX. " And the Lord spake unto Moses in the 
 wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year 
 after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying-, — 
 v. 1. "Let the children of Israel also keep the passover 
 at his appointed season. — v. 2. " In the fourteenth day of 
 this month, at even, ye shall keep it in his appointed sea- 
 son: according to all the rites of it, and according to all 
 the ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it." — v. 3. 
 
 Chapter X. Two silver trumpets are ordered to be 
 made for calling the assembly together at the door of the 
 congregation. Directions are given for blowing them for 
 various gatherings and other purposes. " And it came to 
 pass that on the twentieth of the second month of the 
 second year, thai, the cloud was taken up from off the tab- 
 ernacle of the testimony. — v. 11. "And the children of 
 Israel took their journey out of the wilderness of Sinai, 
 and the cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran." — v. 12. 
 Moses had entire command, and arranged them in order 
 as follows: first, the children of Judah, then the children 
 of Issachar and of Zebulon; the sons of Gershon and Me- 
 rari set forward bearing the tabernacle. 
 
 "And they departed from the mount of the Lord three 
 days journey." — v. 33. 
 
 Chapter XI. When the people complained, the Lord 
 was displeased and sent his fire among them, which Moses 
 arrested by prayer. Next they fell a lusting and wept 
 sore for the lack of food such as they had left behind in 
 
184 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS, 
 
 Egypt, for the meat, the fish, the melons, and other green 
 things. The Lord in his compassion sent manna, as the rec- 
 ord says, something like coriander seed, which they ground 
 in mills or beat with mortars, and then baked in pans, and 
 made into cakes which tasted like sweet oil. At night, 
 when the dew fell on the camp, then the manna fell as we 
 believe the Arabian manna does now. But this food did 
 not satisfy the people, who wanted something more sub- 
 stantial. In great distress Moses asked where he could 
 obtain meat for such a multitude. Finally, his overtasked 
 soul cries out for relief in the grave. Instead of punish- 
 ing Moses for the sensuality of his people, Jehovah de- 
 clared that they should have all the flesh they could eat 
 for a month. Then there came to them such flocks of 
 quails as were never known before. These were devoured 
 with intense greed, to such excess that thousands died 
 with the flesh between their teeth. This happened when 
 they were only three days journey from the mountain of 
 God. 
 
 Chapter XII. Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses 
 because he had a colored woman for wife. They raised 
 the question whether Moses was to continue the only ora- 
 cle of Jehovah. Miriam was visited by leprosy, which 
 alarmed Aaron, and made him entreat Moses to remove 
 the loathsome pest. Moses did so, though for seven days 
 she was obliged to stay outside of the camp to prevent 
 contagion. 
 
 Next, one from each tribe is selected to spy out the land 
 of Canaan, and report upon every thing belonging to it in 
 the most particular manner. They were to find out the 
 
NUMBERS. 185 
 
 bodily strength of the people; see whether they lived in 
 tents as shepherds, or dwelt in fortified cities; examine 
 the timber with a view to building, and also the fruits of 
 the land. There was no difficulty in finding the way, 
 as a caravan road from Egypt to Assyria had long before 
 entered Palestine from this point. Stopping at a few small 
 places, they soon found themselves at Hebron, which had 
 been a noted place time out of mind. After spending- 
 forty days in critical observation — always this term of 
 forty crops up in the narrative — they returned with some 
 of the fruit, and said Canaan was really a land flowing 
 with milk and honey, but that the people were strong, and 
 the cities large and walled in. They had also seen the 
 giant sons of Anak. In the south dwelt the Amalekites, 
 in the mountains the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the 
 Amorites: the Canaanites dwelt by the sea and by the 
 coast of the Jordan. This report it seems was made by 
 Caleb, who, fearing the people might be terrified, endeav- 
 ored to restore courage by saying that Israel was able to 
 overcome them all and possess the land. Some of those 
 who went up witli Caleb did not believe in their ability to 
 cope with the populous tribes whom they would have to 
 encounter. They declared that the land was "eating up 
 the inhabitants," and that all the people were men of 
 great stature; and then the giants were so large that 
 they themselves were as mere grasshoppers by their 
 side. 
 
 Chapter XIV. The people cried aloud and wept all the 
 night. A general murmur arose from the congregation, 
 and the united wish that they had died in Egypt, and not 
 
186 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 been brought out to fall by the sword in that wilderness. 
 They said one to another that a new captain ought to be 
 chosen, and an immediate return made to the land of 
 bondage. Amidst all this confusion, the congregation is 
 called to order, and a counter report is made by Joshua 
 and Caleb, who declare that the land they passed through 
 was exceedingly good, and actually did flow with milk 
 and honey. Nor were the inhabitants at all to be feared, 
 since the Lord of Hosts was with Israel. A great clamor 
 ensued, and the congregation cried "stone them;" when 
 a sudden blaze of glory from the tabernacle arrested their 
 murderous hands. Pestilence is threatened for their sins; 
 but Moses plead for them, and a pardon was granted. 
 Then the Lord declared because of the people's tempting 
 him ten times, that none of them should see the land ex- 
 cepting Caleb and Joshua. 
 
 Astonishment fills every mind at the contemplation of 
 the change that took place with the Israelites in the short 
 space of one year and a half. At the beginning of 1491 
 B. C, all were in bondage; but through a long continu- 
 ance of vassalage had learned to bear it with some pa- 
 tience. Then came heavenly manifestations in their be- 
 half, first by amazing wonders, especially by the slaying 
 in one night of the Egyptian first-born; and, as a fin- 
 ishing stroke, by the dividing of the Red Sea so that 
 even women and children passed over the ocean-bed un- 
 harmed. Connected with this, as a matter of record 
 about which no doubt can be indulged, was the previous 
 promise made to Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, and repeated 
 under various circumstances, even with a voice from the 
 
NUMBERS. 18*7 
 
 burning bush — the promise confirmed with an oath that 
 they should possess the land. 
 
 All nature is subject to change, but how conceive of a 
 change in the mind of an eternal and infinite God with 
 whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning ? 
 The great mistake we make is in attributing the changes 
 of man to God. While we are walking in the right path, 
 joy and comfort result; but when an opposite course is 
 taken, then comes grief, tribulation, and anguish; entirely 
 the fruit of our wrong doing, God and his laws remaining 
 unchanged. So God said to Moses and his people, "that 
 they should not see the land he had promised them." — 
 v. 23. It is repeated again: "But as for you, your 
 carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. — 32. " And your 
 children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and 
 bear your whoredoms, until your carcasses be wasted in 
 tlje wilderness." — v. 33. All but Caleb and Joshua of the 
 twelve who went up to examine the land of Canaan, for 
 making that false and discouraging report died by the 
 plague; only these two heroic souls were permitted to 
 enter the land of promise and possess it. All the people 
 were to know the Lord's "breach of promise;" that is to 
 say, the change of base which had come through their 
 own folly, disobedience, and want of fidelity. Even a 
 child can see that the Divine promises could not be uncon- 
 ditional, and never were; that if His people cease to be 
 His they cast away His blessing; if they act like heathen 
 they have to Buffer with the heathen. And the whole uni- 
 verse would cry aloud if any other principle than this im- 
 partial justice were enthroned any where in the universe. 
 
188 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 All that happened does not possess the same interest. 
 Much is passed over without notice having no marked con- 
 nection with subsequent events. Taken collectively, the 
 history of this exode does not show that the Israelites 
 were under the Lord's guidance in such a sense as to be 
 completely under his control. 
 
 In chapters XXII, XXIII and XXIV, the story of Balak 
 and Balaam is very well told, and exceedingly interesting: 
 11 Then Balaam took up his parable, and said, the son of 
 Beor hath said, the man whose eyes are open, he hath said, 
 which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge 
 of the Most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, 
 falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: I shall see 
 him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh: there 
 shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise 
 out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and 
 destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a 
 possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies; 
 and Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall come he 
 that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that 
 remaineth of the city." 
 
 Most unaccountably has this passage, from the lips of 
 one who had not even advanced as far as the twilight of 
 Judaism, been taken to refer to the noonday of Christianity. 
 But the passage distinctly limits itself to that day and 
 generation. The star and scepter which were to arise 
 should " smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the 
 children of Sheth" — the same thing over again — fulfilled 
 evidently in the conquests of David. But, that any Chris- 
 tian should imagine the mission of the " Prince of Peace" 
 
NUMBERS. . 189 
 
 to be principally for the destruction of a small heathen 
 tribe near the Dead Sea, of about as much consequence to 
 the world as a herd of wild buffaloes, is certainly a stain 
 upon our boasted intelligence and a refutation of the 
 humanity we claim for our religion. 
 
 Chapter XXV exhibits the danger of harboring the 
 Midianitish women, and the reason of Moses decreeing 
 their destruction. Here they are found tempting the people 
 to licentiousness; this licentiousness again results in dis- 
 ease, and disease then ran riot because nothing like 
 medical treatment was known in that early stage of 
 society. The severely diseased (like the leprous patient in 
 Palestine), was abandoned to an inevitable death — in some 
 countries had his death hastened by friendly hands, to free 
 him from misery, and prevent the pest from making havoc 
 like a fire in the prairies. 
 
 Chapter XXXI states that the children of Israel warred 
 against the Midianites: "So the Lord commanded Moses 
 and they slew all the males, took all the women and chil- 
 dren captive, and carried away their cattle, flocks and 
 goods." Moses went out to meet the army on its return, 
 and was wroth that they had saved the women alive, and 
 commanded that every male among the little ones should 
 be killed, and every woman that had become a wife; but 
 all the girls and female children were to be kept alive for 
 themselves. It is hardly fair to judge a nation by a 
 morality which has come into being ages after them; but 
 such wholesale murder we should pronounce in our day 
 brutal, fiendish, and abominable. Then follows a long 
 account of the particular way in which the spoils were 
 
190 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 divided, the priests alwa} T s having a liberal share. After 
 the whole of the Midianites were slain, except the young 
 girls, of course all the property they had fell to the share 
 of their executioners. If one man kills another by the com- 
 mand of God, what right has he to the dead man's estate ? 
 Lest the Lord should be angr} r at such a butchery, they 
 offered an oblation — one of those vain ceremonies spoken 
 of afterwards by the prophets. If the Lord was not sat- 
 isfied with that they felt better themselves; it also had the 
 sanction of the priests because it magnified their im- 
 portance. The number of cattle captured in this victorious 
 fight was very great, consisting of oxen, cows, sheep, and 
 asses. 
 
 Chapter XXXIII is a recapitulation of the first stages 
 of the exodus. Moses is told to drive out the old inhabi- 
 tants of the land in his journey, for they would be a thorn 
 in his side if allowed to remain. 
 
 Chapter XXXV gives directions about dividing the 
 land: The Levites were to have forty cities, besides six 
 refuge-cities for murderers. The Israelites also had cities 
 of refuge to which man-slayers could flee — in cases that is, 
 where murder was unintentional; but, if any instrument 
 of iron was used in the slaying it was called murder, and 
 death was the penalty. 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 191 
 
 GHAPTER X. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 The name of this book comes from the Greek, signifies 
 second law, and with the four preceding books was named 
 emphatically the Law. 
 
 In the year 1451 B. C. according to the popular compu- 
 tation, all things being ready for crossing the river Jordan, 
 all parties must have been impatient of any further delay. 
 It seems unaccountable that their great leader should 
 have been denied the privilege of accompanying their 
 triumphal march on to its grand result. Still, like other 
 great-good men who have been faithful to the uttermost, 
 he desired, like our own Washington, to leave a farewell 
 blessing with his people. So we have a valedictory 
 address recounting all the transactions of the previous 
 forty years, the commands and warnings, incitements and 
 reproofs represented by him as coming from the Lord. 
 These thirty chapters are deeply interesting, proving as 
 they do that few nobler men than Moses ever lived. He 
 assures them that Jehovah was angry with him on their 
 account, and shut him out from Judea in His resentment. 
 Admirable indeed was his parting counsel. He elaborates 
 the commandments — affirms again and again that he had 
 
192 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 talked with God face to face, but that they should not 
 hear God's voice any more. In this prophecy he was un- 
 doubtedly mistaken; for, there was to come after him a 
 long line of men professing to have had the same familiar 
 intercourse — proving it in the same way. The strategy, 
 if we may so term it, by which Moses secured the Divine 
 sanction to all his mandates did not die with him. 
 
 He assures them in chapter ninth that they were to pass 
 over Jordan that day to encounter nations greater in person 
 than themselves, secured in walled cites and defended with 
 mail-cl ad chariots. He also reminded the people — for he was 
 ever most honest in reproof — that they had been rebels from 
 the beginning — that he had had to break the famous tables 
 of stone because of their idolatry of the calf, and that they 
 had perpetually murmured against their Divine Benefactor. 
 Long as the address was, it could not but have touched to 
 the heart every Hebrew hearer. 
 
 Careful readers of this fifth book do not believe it was 
 written by the same hand as the other four, because of the 
 marked difference of style. There is apparent a desire to 
 excite the people's fears and create a superstitious dread. 
 Every future contingency seems to have been foreseen and 
 provided for. And it is really a surprise that this single 
 speech should contain so man}' matters of real moment — 
 even the substance of many a law now in force among 
 nations at the height of civilization, after so many centuries 
 of progress. 
 
 Let none forget the singular close of a life so eventful: 
 He ascended Mount Pisgah, took an' extended view of the 
 whole country to the north, then breathed his last breath 
 
DE UTER ONOMY. 193 
 
 in the land of Moab; " and he buried him." It is generally 
 considered that the " he " means Deity, but this can only 
 be received in that figurative sense in which the Jews 
 attributed every mysterious event — especially every ca- 
 lamity — to Divine interposition. Those who had full faith 
 that God was with Moses as Washington was with General 
 Greene, might say properly enough that the hands of the 
 Almighty laid him away; but, remembering the immense 
 service he rendered the nation and the world, he was 
 entitled to the most respectful burial. 
 
 We are left to conjecture how it was that he died so 
 suddenly, yet in perfect good health. At the age of one 
 hundred and twenty we are assured his eye was not 
 dimmed nor his natural force abated. All Israel lamented 
 his departure, as our whole land was said to have mourned 
 for Abraham Lincoln. This account of his latter end could 
 not have been from his own pen — hardly the book of which 
 it is an integral part — critics have therefore assigned it to 
 a later period. We cannot, however, question the fact 
 that this and the four earlier books existed as we find 
 them now at a very ancient date; that they relate to mat- 
 ters occurring in the order in which they are stated, and 
 that their incidents keep time with events outside of Israel. 
 Many revisions have been made since then, and important 
 changes, though with no desire of falsifying the narrative. 
 But this very short and singular account of the great 
 legislator's death will ever be a subject of much specula- 
 tion. Men in perfect possession of all their faculties do 
 not often pass away so suddenly. Why this silence about 
 the disease of which he died ? Why no formality at his 
 
194 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 funeral ? The Israelites were like all early nations fond 
 of ceremony. Joseph had been buried with great pomp. 
 Was this first redeemer of Israel afraid of his remains 
 becoming a popular idol that he perished thus in the heart 
 of an everlasting wilderness — that no stately procession 
 bore his remains to their rest — that no gravestone marked 
 his peaceful repose ? Without doubting everything called 
 history, we cannot doubt that he was a good as well as a 
 great man. Doubtless too, the spirit of God, which is the 
 spirit of wisdom, rested upon him continually, prompting, 
 sustaining, invigorating, and inspiring. This we heartily 
 believe, without believing many of the legends that have 
 gathered around his glorious memory. May it not be that, 
 utterly wearied out with this ever-irritating people, he may 
 have sought death, as Solon did and many an Eastern 
 sage ? Or, if this is too startling, may he not — like the 
 daughter of Jepthah — have gone into the sublime silence of 
 the mountain heights to prepare himself for a peaceful 
 entrance into the near presence of the Most High ? and 
 there, alone, and without struggle or sigh, on some autumn 
 sunset have folded his prophetic robe around him and 
 passed quietly away with the fading glory of the western 
 heavens. 
 
 The thirty-fourth chapter gives this remarkable enco- 
 nium, which could not have been from the Lawgiver's own 
 hand: "There rose not a prophet since like unto Moses, 
 whom the Lord knew face to face.' 1 Now let us see the 
 substantial truth of this claim of superior wisdom, superior 
 illumination. If freedom is as we all believe essential to 
 real manhood, if morality has hardly the ghost of a chance 
 
DE UTER ONOMY. 195 
 
 when a master's will is enforced by the lash, then, the libe- 
 rator in peace of millions of his brethren deserves even a 
 higher place than any other emancipator in human history. 
 For, had he deserted them because of their ingratitude, 
 their fickleness, their cowardice, their superstition in the 
 desert — and the thought came into his mind for he is dis- 
 tinctly said to have rejected it with horror — had he gone 
 back in honest indignation to the domestic peace of Midian, 
 the Hebrew name would have been blotted out from history. 
 And more, the progress of humanity would have been 
 unspeakably impeded. European civilization could not 
 have come for ages. The sunny day of Christianity had 
 not dawned. A republic of infinite promise would not 
 have spread the banner of equal rights on these distant 
 shores. Whether he was conscious of the fact or not, this 
 intensely religious race had an element absolutely neces- 
 sary to the progress of humanity — and for that they were 
 the chosen of God. Other nations had other contributions 
 to make: Greece with her art; Rome with her law; Egypt 
 with natural science; the Orient with sacerdotal tradition; 
 but from this bosom of a people clinging to the absolute 
 unity of a supremely-righteous Deity alone could come the 
 Redeemer from all iniquity. 
 
 And how admirably was this people educated through 
 their desert pilgrimage! They had no rallying point, not 
 even the graves of their fathers. Moses gave them a 
 present Deity represented in a portable shrine; so that 
 "their fathers' God before them moved, an awful guide in 
 smoke and flame." It was the Lord of Hosts who headed their 
 host, cheered their battle, insured their victory as they were 
 
196 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 faithful, even screened their retreat when they disobeyed. 
 They had no national^ — slaves never have — no country, 
 no temple, no inviolable home, no hallowed grave, no 
 certain future among those Nile brick-yards, so he binds 
 them first of all around a common altar, brooded over by a 
 present Deity, represented by the folding wings of Cheru- 
 bim and the Shekinah light. Next, the fireside tie is 
 sealed anew as exclusively theirs. The smile of heaven 
 rested peculiarly on them. They were summoned to a 
 glorious future. A noble country awaited their approach, 
 to be their children's and their children's children through 
 countless generations. 
 
 And this peculiar wisdom of his is demonstrated by the 
 results — by their entering the land of the Philistines 
 entirely changed from what they were on leaving Egypt — 
 no longer a cringing, murmuring, fickle, frightened herd 
 who were unable to face danger, unable to endure priva- 
 tion, unable even to be- grateful to their great preserver. 
 
 And then his institutions : Out of this vagrant horde in 
 a vagrant land he designed to create a nation of farmers, 
 not soldiers. The wandering of the Arab, the commerce 
 of the Phoenician, the standing army of Egypt, he thought 
 unfavorable to the highest culture. So he did not lead 
 them into a land of spontaneous fertility; did not plant 
 them upon the sea-coast; did not encourage adventure 
 upon the Mediterranean. And, as long as they abstained 
 from commerce, they were like Switzerland, not wealthy 
 but contented; not luxurious but independent; not boast- 
 ful but thoroughly loyal to Deity. 
 
 His second fundamental idea was peace. He designed 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 19 1 
 
 to make his people detest war. He represented it as a 
 curse like leprosy; he almost banished the horse. (Deut., 
 xvii, 16.) He required the presence of every male Jew 
 three times a year at the temple service. His failure here, 
 where success was too much to hope, should not impair 
 our reverence for him who would have no standing army 
 pollute the hallowed soil; who rested the defence of the 
 land on its yeomanry alone; who intended that his people 
 should be kept from those foreign alliances which in after 
 days brought so much peril and shame. 
 
 Another noble peculiarity was the agrarian law which 
 made every man a landholder, which kept the territory 
 from being monopolized, which would deliver England 
 now from its worst fears. First, forbidding usury; second, 
 decreeing the discharge of debts every seventh year; or- 
 daining moreover the reversion of lands to their original 
 owner every jubilee year. What can be imagined more 
 beautiful than this foundation of the new state which 
 secured every Jew an inalienable right to the soil! secured 
 the state an army of which eveiw man was the defender 
 of his own hearthstone, of a divinely blessed altar, and a 
 father's grave! secured patriotism such devoted souls as 
 after years of exile could not sing Zion's songs in a strange 
 land; nor have yet ceased for eighteen hundred years to 
 lift their wailing cry beneath the ancient walls of those 
 courts they could not enter alive. 
 
 Now, as to the general morality of this ancient code: 
 Barbarous as they were in many things, childish in more, 
 their laws are as much in advance of them as of their 
 contemporaries — were even singular for humanity in that 
 
198 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 age, and not always equaled in ours. We forget that there 
 were contemporary nations which justified stealing, author- 
 ized infanticide, legalized the murder of aged parents, asso- 
 ciated lust with worship. None of these blots can be 
 traced on the Jewish escutcheon. The tit-for-tat principle 
 was universal; and Moses was not fool enough to pretend 
 that his poor slaves were able to do what many an enlight- 
 ened Christian professes he cannot do — forgive. But he 
 did the next best thing: carefully distinguishing homicide 
 from murder, he exempted the man-slayer from private 
 vengeance, and secured the right of public trial by means 
 of his numerous cities of refuge. 
 
 By preventing imprisonment for debt he anticipated the 
 latest discovery of modern philanthropy; so did he by 
 signally punishing the ever-popular licentiousness — still 
 more, by the many checks put upon slavery, the undetected 
 crime of his day. By Divine decree the bondsman's life 
 was just as sacred as his master's; injury of the slave's 
 person secured his emancipation; the female servant's 
 chastity was specially protected; seven years' service 
 struck off the chains of a Jew. 
 
 Never was the stranger so favored: " Love ye therefore 
 the stranger! for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" — 
 words which the heavens seemed opening themselves to 
 utter. Every Sabbatic year's fruits were common prop- 
 erty. Every other season entitled the foreigner to the last 
 gleanings of the field. Even the mercy of Christianity 
 was foreshadowed in the provision for the poor, who were 
 never to cease out of the land; the prospered were to lend 
 without interest, and never to harden their heart against 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 199 
 
 a brother. The hovel of the poor was a sanctuary — and 
 many a minute safeguard like the return of the debtor's 
 garment at nightfall, to save him from suffering during 
 the chilliness of night, has waited to be brought to light 
 by our more perfect knowledge of Jewish customs. But, 
 this theme alone were enough for a book. 
 
200 SCRIPTURE SPECULA1IONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 JOSHUA. 
 
 FROM various modern maps an idea may be formed of 
 the relative position of Egypt, Canaan, Mesopotamia, 
 and other countries spoken of in the Old Testament. 
 
 The book of Joshua, a continuance of Israelitish history, 
 constitutes no part of the writings of Moses or the Pen- 
 tateuch As in the latter portion of the last book ascribed 
 to Moses is found an account of his speech, so the book of 
 Joshua contains the address made at the close of his 
 eventful life as a guide to duty, a warning against evil 
 practices, and an encouragement to press on in the line of 
 advance. None pretend that Joshua wrote the whole of 
 this book or the speech which is its most interesting portion. 
 Evidently he dictated matter for the one, and at least deliv- 
 ered the other. Stuart concludes from the repeated reference 
 to Jerusalem, that the book could not have been completed 
 until the reign of David. The events recorded cover a 
 period of about twenty-five years, from B. C. 1450. There 
 is a close connection between the first part and the pre- 
 ceding book. After the death of Moses the people natu- 
 rally looked for some one as his successor. Joshua being 
 the most prominent among them, the thoughts of the 
 
JOSHUA. 201 
 
 people were fixed on him. Quite certain it is, that none 
 were better fitted for the difficult and responsible place. 
 Moses himself was not aware of the high stand Joshua 
 would take, and the success that was to crown him with a 
 glory next his own. Particularly was he mistaken in 
 regard to his ability of conversing with the Lord, o'r for 
 inducing those under his control to believe that God met 
 him for consultation as He met Moses. The same high 
 authority made communications to Joshua without reserve. 
 Their former leader told the people before he died that 
 they should go over Jordan that day; but now Joshua 
 promised that they should wait three days. Spies were at 
 once sent forward to Shittim. The river is crossed by 
 means of a raft, and they seek entertainment for the night 
 in the enemy's country, at the house of Rahab a harlot, 
 but also an inn-keeper and a linen weaver, in the city of 
 Jericho. When on an errand by the Lord's direction, this 
 was a singular place for them to stop; possibly it was the 
 only safe hiding place, and this woman had a high sense 
 of honor. The king of Jericho, hearing that the two spies 
 had arrived in his city, sent and demanded them of Rahab, 
 who, in order to keep her plighted faith, told what appears 
 to have been a falsehood, though apparently there was no 
 other way to save the men alive. The harlot having saved 
 them, to be fair and honorable the spies were in duty bound 
 to save her and her family. Possibly there was no moral 
 wrong in it, or in the wars waged by the Israelites against 
 the native inhabitants. Authority might have been derived 
 from Divine right; there is no certainty of that. The 
 desire of one nation to dispossess another and gratify its 
 
202 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 own lust for power, does not come from true Godliness,, 
 from love, gentleness and kindness, but from other and far 
 different impulses. The Hittites, the Hivites, the Periz- 
 zites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and Jebusites, were 
 occupying their own territory by the same universal right 
 that other nations occupied theirs. Why should they be 
 killed for holding fast to their own, their all ? Why threat- 
 ened with extermination ? These questions are not easily 
 answered. 
 
 Chapter IV. Jordan, at the place where the Israelites 
 crossed over, was an inconsiderable stream, constituting a 
 mere boundary rather than an impediment to be particu- 
 larly feared. Such streams are of service in aiding de- 
 fence; hence the propriety of having something like a 
 miracle to distract the attention of the defenders on the 
 other side. Joshua must have been aware of his inability 
 to proceed without some vindication of his mission. The 
 lack of power in that line had been fatal to him. To say 
 he constructed a dam that stopped the water in a measure, 
 is hardly warranted by the narrative. Nor is it certain 
 by what means the flow of water was stayed; though we 
 know well enough that the Lord did not pile the water up 
 square on either side and keep it so until all the Israelites 
 had crossed over. Some, in their anxiety to believe 
 enough, can imagine that the Jordan was a broad river, 
 and that by a miracle the waters were raised in perpendic- 
 ular shape ten, fifteen or twenty feet high, and kept so 
 until all the people were safely landed in Jericho, the 
 priests not having wet so much as the soles of their shoes. 
 Had not Joshua proved his possession of some Divine aid, 
 
JOSHUA. 203 
 
 all would have considered him a poor leader. The people 
 tarried ten days after the army went over, and when they 
 passed over are said to come up out of the water. How 
 did they come up out of the water if they did not go down 
 into it? The story is a trifle mixed up some way. Did 
 the water continue heaped up as in a wall on the upper 
 side, with a dry bed below, ten days after the army crossed, 
 so that the people could get over ? Let all this be as it 
 may, the story of the waters being divided got a good 
 start somehow, and when once under way such things 
 always gain as they go. Any little thing will do to begin 
 with. The story took well in Jericho, and great fear came 
 upon all the people. These new-comers must be a superior 
 order of beings — descendants of the gods or something of 
 the sort. To inflame the excitement, many of the miracles 
 and wonders wrought in Egypt were rumored abroad, not 
 omitting to say that the Red Sea was divided to let them 
 pass and then to swallow up their enemies. 
 
 We do not learn that the people in the land which the 
 Israelites desired to possess were so depraved as to merit 
 extermination. No proof of iniquity except their idolatry 
 is given. Because other parties wanted the land occupied 
 by these Hittites and all the various other " ites, " they 
 were commanded by the Lord through the mouth of Moses, 
 Aaron and Joshua, to give it up. As to religious faith, if 
 though pagan in the worst form it was sincerely believed 
 and productive of good works, it was vastly better than 
 none. 
 
 Chapter V. Circumcision had been wholly disregarded 
 from the time of starting out of Egypt until after the 
 
204 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 death of Moses, or about forty years. The Lord spoke to 
 Joshua about this. When the neglect was brought to 
 their notice great fear fell upon all. Why this ordinance, 
 believed by their ancestors to be necessary to salvation, 
 had been laid aside, is past all comprehension. Whatever 
 other neglect they might have been guilty of, this above 
 all things claimed attention. Had the generation who 
 died on their journey been lost through this neglect? If 
 they were not lost but went to meet their father Abraham 
 in heaven, then the rite sinks into insignificance. Either 
 there was an efficacy in the observance, or there was not. 
 If there was no saving power, then the presumption on 
 which the history proceeds is all a superstition; if this 
 was the necessary pass-key to the gates of heaven, then, 
 the alternative. Many deaths happened in the forty years 
 of wandering of those who had never received the sealing 
 mark of the covenant — who never could receive the other 
 "covenanted mercies of God" as it is said. But now Joshua 
 lost no time in preparing sharp knives with which the most 
 singular mark of distinction ever invented by man was 
 put upon every male. The performance of this operation 
 occupied several days. When recovered from the savage 
 surgery they felt new assurance of Divine protection. 
 Men in all ages have been prone to neglect the religious 
 duties considered essential to their salvation, especially 
 when wandering without homes and fighting their way 
 into a new land. Still, we wonder at the same thing in a 
 half-savage race which excites no surprise in ourselves. 
 
 The sixth chapter gives a story which taxes credulity 
 to the utmost, and yet it seems to be given without any 
 
JOSHUA. 205 
 
 figures of speech or poetical embellishment, making part 
 of a narrative, indeed all, of which we are commanded to 
 believe on pain of perdition. Summed up in few words, 
 the statement is that the walls of Jericho were thrown 
 down by the priests' blowing of rams' horns. Nothing is 
 said as to how the walls were built, of what heig'ht, or 
 upon what soil. There are walls in Syria — as some of our 
 friends assure us from personal knowledge — of baked 
 earth ; one hours' work would overthrow some yards of this 
 poor brick; there was a party in the city pledged to give 
 all possible help to the host of Israel; were the horns a 
 concerted signal for throwing down enough wall for a 
 picked company to enter, the capture of the city would 
 have been as sure as if no walls at all remained. Upon 
 entering, Joshua respected the promise to Rahab, and saved 
 her and her household. The victory was clouded over by 
 Achan's appropriating to his own use a part of the spoil; 
 but it was speedily discovered, the military freebooter was 
 summarily punished, and Jehovah renewed His assurance 
 to Joshua of unlimited success, and of His special assist- 
 ance in future battles. The murder of the sons and daugh- 
 ters of Achan, for a crime in which they are not charged 
 with participating, violated the universal law that the 
 children are not to suffer for their father's sin; and can be 
 explained only by that ferocity of spirit necessarily pro- 
 duced by a long period of war. 
 
 Chapter VIII. Joshua was not wanting in strategy; 
 and when he went against the city of Ai, drew his adver- 
 saries into an ambuscade that told in Joshua's favor. A 
 great battle 'ensued, in which Ai was badly beaten and 
 
206 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 most of the citizens slain. The record even says " not one 
 escaped." The king they hanged on a tree. This great 
 success pleased Joshua so much that he built an altar in 
 Mount Ebal, and inscribed there the law in ten sections, 
 and gave particular directions about ordinances. Similar 
 wholesale slaughters stirred up not only the people he had 
 been warring against, but other tribes, all of whom com- 
 bined together in a war of defence. By the help of the 
 Lord and his own ability and bravery, Joshua overcame 
 them all, and they became humble and submissive. 
 
 Chapter IX. .The lives of some were spared by Joshua 
 on condition that they became slaves to him and his 
 people, or in other words, hewers of wood and drawers of 
 water in the house of the Lord. 
 
 Chapter X. The king of Jerusalem and five allied rulers 
 hearing how the Jews treated their captives, fearing they 
 might in turn be swept from the face of the earth, formed 
 an alliance against them and the Gibeonites, and deter- 
 mined to wreak summary vengeance upon that traitorous 
 community. Upon the appearance of these combined forces 
 before Gibeon, Joshua was summoned to its deliverance; 
 who not only hastened at once to the city, but, by the aid 
 of a hail storm thought to be providential, accomplished 
 the destruction of their enemies. Then occurred the re- 
 markable command: "Sun! stand thou still upon Gibeon, 
 and thou moon in the valley of AjalonP Impossible as it 
 stands, because arresting the sun in its course would be 
 the destruction of the solar system; but, a very beautiful 
 allegory of industry's lengthening out the day, as Lord 
 Brougham when Chancellor of England was said to have 
 
JOSHUA. 20? 
 
 lived four years in one. If it is asked why Joshua desired 
 a double portion of time, the answer may be that his ene- 
 mies under six divisions were widely scattered; and that 
 the period from sunrise to sunset was not sufficient to 
 inflict chastisement upon all. He certainly made no pre- 
 tensions to astronomy, so that the poetical conception of 
 lengthened daylight should seem so absurd to him as it 
 does to us. Our common custom is to think the time short- 
 ened when a work is upon us which we find it hard to 
 accomplish. This is probably the natural difference of 
 race. 
 
 Joshua did not stay his hand, but pushed on from con- 
 quering to conquer. He and his forces did the killing; 
 they could wield the sword, trusting all the while to Jeho- 
 vah to accomplish the promised results. He smote Mak- 
 kedah with the edge of the sword, utterly destroyed all 
 the souls that were therein, and served that king as he 
 had the king of Jericho. He proceeded next to Libnah, 
 took it, and smote with the edge of the sword all the souls 
 therein, not excepting the king, hanging him on a tree. 
 Next he took Lachish, and smote it in like manner, leaving 
 no soul alive. And because Horarn, king of Gezer, came 
 to the aid of Lachish, he and all his people were slain. 
 Next the besom of destruction sweeps over Eglon, leaving 
 nothing alive. The next point of attack was Hebron, 
 which he took, and again put all the people to the sword. 
 Next they move against Debir, take that in like manner 
 and slay all within it. The rulers of these country places 
 called kings, were killed and hung upon trees. Joshua 
 also smote all the country of the hills south of the vale; 
 
208 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS, 
 
 and of the springs and all their kings; he left none remain- 
 ing, but utterly destroyed all that breathed. All this was 
 as "the Lord God had commanded." The like was never 
 seen on the earth before or since. Women and children, 
 little ones and sucklings, were all slaughtered by that 
 intense zeal which claimed for itself Divine authority. 
 And Joshua smote them from Kedesh-barnea unto Gaza, 
 and all the country of Goshen unto Gibeon. All these 
 kings, their people and lands did Joshua take, as he evi- 
 dently believed in the service of Jehovah, who determined 
 to have idolatry rooted out. The excitement by this time 
 must have been intense through all that region. 
 
 Chapter XI. There still remained in the land that the 
 Israelites desired to occupy a vast number of scattered 
 villages with their independent rulers, still unconquered. 
 These all consulted together as to what could be done to 
 arrest the progress of this fearfully savage destroyer. So 
 numerous were those who sought to overthrow Joshua 
 that they " equaled in number the sand that is upon the 
 sea-shore;" as all simple nations in a universal poetry de- 
 scribe a great number. The Lord told Joshua not to be 
 afraid; for he would deliver them up to him by the next 
 day. How very handy to have the fighting done, and 
 Joshua and his men left only the pleasing task of picking 
 up the gleanings of the field of battle ! We are assured 
 that they killed every soul. None were left alive of all 
 the mighty host that beleaguered Israel. Joshua took 
 Hazo'r, and smote the king thereof, and smote all the peo- 
 ple with the edge of the sword and burnt all their cities; 
 and yet Jerusalem we know was not taken. Not one 
 
JOSHUA. 209 
 
 city made peace with the children of Israel save the 
 Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all others they cap- 
 tured and slew. The Lord incited them to battle against 
 Israel to their entire destruction. Joshua also swept 
 away the Anakims and their cities. Nothing was left. 
 So, according to the very general statement, the whole of 
 that portion of the country was subdued and possessed. 
 
 Chapter XII. The kings of the devastated country are 
 all enumerated — thirty-one in the whole. 
 
 Chapter XIII. Joshua was old, and the Lord told him 
 so; and also that there was still more land to possess, 
 more men and women to slay, more cities to burn, and 
 more countries to conquer. Mercy was shown by the 
 Israelites to a few who were allowed to live and remain 
 with them — some of which remain, according to verse 
 thirteenth, " unto this day." The insertion of this sen- 
 tence here and in many other places in the Old Testa- 
 ment, shows perhaps that these were marginal notes, 
 which in process of time crept into the text. If not 
 written entirely new at such later times, great changes 
 were made in the sacred history. Is this sufficiently borne 
 in mind by scripture students ? 
 
 Chapter XIV. Joshua and the fathers of the tribes 
 make a distribution of the land. Much is recounted in 
 this chapter and others after it as to what Moses said, as 
 if he were present, though dead already about seven 
 years. It is not worth while to repeat the names of 
 places and the divisions of territory. Made as they were 
 by Joshua and the heads of the tribes, they were probably 
 just and equitable. This was done B. C. 1444. 
 
210 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Chapter XX. The Lord spake unto Joshua and said: 
 ■" Appoint cities of refuge" for those who may kill a man not 
 designing to take his life; if pursued they should not be 
 given up, because they did it unwittingly, but should re- 
 main there until brought to judgment. This was like a 
 modern imprisonment, the homicide awaiting trial by a 
 proper court. These cities of refuge were named and es- 
 tablished by Joshua. 
 
 Chapter XXI. Places in the suburbs were pointed out 
 where cattle could be kept. " And the Lord gave unto 
 Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. 
 And they had all the good things promised to them, full 
 and complete." This statement seems to be contradicted 
 in the next chapter. 
 
 Chapter XXIII. Some years after the wars waged by 
 the Israelites to gain possession of the desired territory 
 had ceased, Joshua called together the principal men of 
 the nation, and made a long harangue. They were ex- 
 horted to be courageous, for one should be able to chase a 
 thousand; and, as for fighting, the Lord he said would do 
 that for them. Intermarrying with the native population 
 was forbidden. Joshua told them the Lord would no more 
 drive out the nations as he had done, but they should re- 
 main forever, and be snares and traps, scourges and 
 thorns to them until the Israelites perished from off that 
 goodly land ! Just before this (if we credit the account), 
 all the nations had been killed, and the Israelites had full 
 possession of the land. Joshua died at the advanced age 
 of one hundred and ten. B. C. 1426. 
 
JUDGES. 211 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 JUDGES. 
 
 FROM Joshua's death to Solomon's embraces a period of 
 four centuries and a half, from 1426 to 9T6 B. C. 
 
 Of the authorship of this particular book nothing is 
 known. It has been ascribed to Samuel without any au- 
 thority; nor can a period be fixed for its composition, since 
 it is made up of very ancient documents with very modern 
 comments; the last verse of the last chapter must have 
 been added after there were kings in Israel. Its narrative 
 reaches down to 1406 B. 0. 
 
 Notwithstanding the promise of the Israelites possessing* 
 the entire land, the -native population was not wholly 
 driven out; nor were the new-comers free for a day from 
 their two cardinal sins, idolatry and licentiousness. So 
 that the protecting arm of Jehovah did not keep them from 
 being frequently brought into captivity; and this whole 
 book is a succession of apostacies, punishments and deliv- 
 erances. After the death of Joshua, the people demanded 
 some one in his place who should rule as judiciously and 
 fight as valiantly as he had done. The fighter, it seems, 
 could be far more easily found than the ruler. Though 
 few of the so-called Judges who succeeded fought on so 
 grand a scale and with such permanent results. 
 
212 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Joshua had left his people in the best condition he could, 
 though by no means at peace with their warlike neighbors. 
 Armor could not safely be laid aside, nor system in the 
 march of their armies be neglected, though no one could 
 be found to fill the place of Joshua. As usual, they 
 looked to the Lord for guidance, and asked who should 
 lead their battle against the Canaanites. The answer was 
 for Judah to go up, and the land should be delivered into 
 his hand. To make all certain he took his brother Simeon 
 with him. Success attended the expedition, and the Ca- 
 naanites and the Perezzites were delivered into their hand, 
 and ten thousand Philistines slain at Bezek. Adonibezek 
 fled, but was pursued and caught, and his thumbs and 
 great toes cut off by the Israelites. As a consolation in 
 that mutilated condition, he reflected that he had served 
 seventy kings the same way. Such acts as these show 
 the barbarity of the times. Caleb promised his daughter 
 Achsah in marriage to the one who would take Kirjath- 
 sepher. So her cousin Othniel, the son of Kenaz, took it. 
 Caleb according to his word not only gave him his daugh- 
 ter, but a large extent of country with springs of water. 
 Judah continued to war against the inhabitants of the 
 mountain with success, but in the valley their enemies' 
 chariots defied their assault. 
 
 Here again occurs one of those convincing proofs that 
 this book, as well as others, was written long after the 
 transactions they record: "And the children of Benjamin 
 did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem; 
 but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in 
 Jerusalem unto this day." — i, 21. Meaning a long time 
 
JUDGES. 213 
 
 after. The house of Joseph went up against Bethel; and 
 entering it by means of a spy extirpated the people, as 
 the practice then was. This spy's life was spared and he 
 built a city " which is called Luz unto this day," making 
 it evident that the transaction was at some date long 
 previous. 
 
 Chapter II. The sin of idolatry, to which they were so 
 prone, was pressed home upon them. The Lord's anger 
 waxed hot, and when they asked for a deliverer, Othniel 
 the son of Kenaz, the younger brother of Caleb, was said 
 to have been named by the Lord. He took command and 
 secured them forty years of peace. 
 
 Chapter III. After that the Israelites were subject to 
 the king of Moab eighteen years; but not liking their 
 king they had recourse to that shortest of all ways to be 
 rid of a bad ruler, assassination. A man named Ehud was 
 ready to do a cruel deed in a base way. No specific 
 charges were brought against the victim of their hate — it 
 was enough that he was not liked, and that his death 
 seemed to them the only certain deliverance. Let us see 
 how this man Ehud acted, and how he approached the 
 king with a lie in his mouth pretending he bore a royal 
 message; but really having no other message from man 
 or God but his own thirst for blood. God certainly does 
 not send messages in that way to innocent people. After 
 putting the king to death, the Israelites slaughtered ten 
 thousand of the Moabites, all men of valor. The most 
 wonderful exploit was reserved for Shamgar, who killed 
 six hundred with an ox-goad. And so the invaders 
 prevailed. These Israelites who were to possess that 
 
 Bl5 
 
214 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 beautiful land of Canaan, as the reader will readily per- 
 ceive, never had it all in peaceful possession. As soon as 
 one trial had ended another succeeded; and what was 
 exceedingly noteworthy for a people under the peculiar 
 care and guidance of God, all these evils came upon them 
 in consequence of their sin and wickedness, chiefly idol- 
 atry and fornication. Soon therefore they fell into the 
 hands of Jabin, king of Canaan, a warlike monarch having 
 nine hundred chariots of iron, by whom they were op- 
 pressed twenty years. All looked dark to them; but, 
 while they pondered upon their sad condition the Lord — 
 who had allowed them to be oppressed so long — appeared 
 for their relief in the person of a woman named Deborah, 
 at once a prophetess and a judge in Israel. She called 
 a man named Barak, and bade him go to Mount Tabor 
 with ten thousand men, and Sisera would be delivered into 
 his hand. Barak consented to do this if she would go 
 with him. 
 
 This Sisera was the commander of the forces of Jabin, 
 and we may fairly suppose had the qualities of a good 
 general, and with his chariots of iron was a formidable 
 adversary. Yet, with the promise of Deborah, Barak 
 marched against him with perfect faith in victory, and 
 triumphed. Sisera, completely routed, left his chariot 
 in great alarm and fled till he met Jael, the wife of Heber. 
 She manifested delight at seeing him, and expressed her 
 friendship by telling him to fear not. And yet this treach- 
 erous woman betrayed his confidence: as soon as he fell 
 asleep in the place she had pointed out for him, she drove 
 a tent peg through his head into the ground, and he died. 
 
JUDGES. 215 
 
 Sisera's men in their flight were overtaken and every one 
 perished by the sword. 
 
 Chapter V. After the treachery and slaughter, Deborah 
 and Barak sang a song unto the Lord. This was all 
 natural enough then. This oldest of martial odes shows 
 the exultatation of exceedingly fierce, not to sa}^ brutal, 
 natures. Deborah attributed to God her irrepressible long- 
 ing to curse the enemies of Israel. 
 
 Chapter VI. The Israelites went into bondage to the 
 Midianites seven years, who with the Amalekites and 
 various other nations came against them in number as 
 grasshoppers and countless camels. Such extravagant 
 expressions as these ought not to be forgotten. " Camels 
 without number and men as grasshoppers for multitude," 
 were never seen by the Israelites or any other nation. As 
 they were greatly alarmed, terror magnified every thing 
 immensely. But in all seasons of peril and distress they 
 were led to expect some new wonder or miracle. In pro- 
 cess of time the Lord sent a prophet who told them not to 
 fear; next an angel came, for angels' visits were not unfre- 
 quent then. This one sat him down in the shade of an 
 oak, and told Gideon that the Lord was with him, and that 
 he should save Israel. His inability seemed to stare him 
 in the face; but, as the Lord assured him he should smite 
 the Midianites, his courage; came. After the ceremony of 
 making ready a kid, with unleavened cakes and a bowl of 
 broth, the angel departed. Gideon did not seem to realize 
 that he had been face; to face with an angel until the angel 
 left. Then Gideon built an altar, and took one of his 
 father's oxen and made a burnt offering. The next morn- 
 
216 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 ing the people saw that the altar of Baal was thrown 
 down. Joash said, if Baal was of any worth he could 
 plead his own cause; but he did not. Then all the armies 
 opposed to Israel prepared for battle in the valley of 
 Jezreel. Gideon blew a trumpet and sent messengers in 
 all directions to rally the people. But, to know whether 
 he was to save Israel, he experimented with a fleece of 
 wool — an entirely new form of divination. The fleece of 
 wool in the first instance was wet in the morning and the 
 earth dry, he having laid the fleece out before nightfall; 
 but in the second case, the wool being laid out as before, 
 in the morning it was dry while the earth was wet. How 
 this matter of the wool ought to be explained, or how it 
 was that Gideon could break down an altar of such dimen- 
 sions as the one erected to Baal in a single night, and cut 
 down an extensive grove, we cannot say. 
 
 Chapter VII. Then Jerubbaal — Gideon — rose early in 
 the morning and pitched near the well of Harod. Di- 
 rected from heaven to send all the cowards back, his force 
 was reduced from twenty-two thousand to ten thousand. 
 And the Lord said the number was still too large, and 
 commanded Gideon to take them down to the water, and 
 every one that lapped water with his tongue like a dog 
 was to be set on one side, and those that bowed down on 
 their knees to drink, on the other. Then the Lord declared 
 that by the three hundred men who lapped he should save 
 Israel and capture the Midianites. So they started, this 
 little band of three hundred with haversacks well filled, 
 each man having a trumpet in his hand. However, they 
 deemed it best to reconnoitre and find out the situation of 
 
JUDGES. 217 
 
 their enemies. Phurah and Gideon started together, and 
 found their foes as they did before this in multidude as 
 grasshoppers, and the camels as the sand by the sea-side. 
 One of the Midianites had dreamed a dream, and Gideon 
 heard him telling it, and heard another Midianite interpret 
 the dream to the effect that they were to fall by the hand 
 of the Lord and the hand of Gideon. With this inspiring- 
 news Gideon returned, and told his three hundred men to 
 arise, and dividing them into three companies, he put a 
 trumpet into every man's hand and an empty pitcher, with 
 a lamp inside of the pitcher. All were instructed to look 
 to their leader, " and when I blow with a trumpet, I and 
 all they that are with me, then blow ye the trumpet on 
 every side of the camp, and say ' the sword of the Lord 
 and of Gideon.' " Gideon with his hundred men opened 
 the battle in the darkness and stillness of the night, just 
 after the Midianites had set a new watch, by blowing 
 with their trumpets, breaking their pitchers, and at the 
 same time exposing the brilliant light of the lamps as 
 they had been particularly directed. Each man held a 
 trumpet in his right hand and a pitcher in his left. In the 
 stillness of night the first blast from these trumpets was 
 enough to startle any army when awakened from quiet 
 slumbers. The effect was also increased by the loud 
 shouting: "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon." 
 
 There were only throe hundred of those men, but 
 they were admirably used to terrify a large army sur- 
 prised in their sleep. The representation about the num- 
 ber of the Midianites must be taken with some allowance. 
 Numbers sometimes do QOl avail much, and if a portion 
 
218 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 are frightened the whole gives way; so this army that 
 could not be numbered were all thrown into confusion by 
 only a handful of men. The next thing therefore was to 
 get them killed, for we are to presume they were too panic- 
 stricken to turn upon their pursuers. The Lord that had 
 so often aided the Israelites was ready to help them by 
 inciting the Midianites to slay each other, and in this con- 
 dition of destruction they fled to Bethshittah. Seeing all 
 this the Israelites, who at first turned back, rallied and pur- 
 sued on. Two of the Midianite princes were taken; Orel) 
 and Zeeb, their heads taken off and carried to Gideon on 
 the other side of Jordan. 
 
 Chapter VIII. Gideon pursued the retreating Midian- 
 ites. Asking for bread at the villages through which he 
 passed but receiving none, he told them that in due time 
 this unkindness would be punished. The sequel was that 
 the Midianites were entirely subjected and all was quiet 
 through the days of Gideon. Forty years were a long pe- 
 riod for them to live without war. Gideon died at a good 
 old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash, his 
 father. He had had three score and ten sons and as many 
 wives. He also had one son by his concubine whose name 
 he called Abimelech. As soon as Gideon was dead, the 
 children of Israel turned and went whoring after Baalim, 
 and made Baal-berith their God, and forgot Jehovah who 
 had saved them so signally and so often. 
 
 Chapter IX. After the death of Gideon, Abimelech, his 
 son by the concubine, desired to reign over the people; so 
 he went to his father's house, slew all his seventy broth- 
 ers, but not Jotharn, and had himself proclaimed king. 
 
JUDGES. 219 
 
 This Jotham, the only surviving legitimate son of Gideon, 
 ascended Mount Gerizim, lifted up his voice and said: 
 "Hearken unto me." So he put forth a fable, saying: 
 "The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over 
 them. Many of the trees declined the honor; but when 
 they came to the bramble (meaning Abimelech), it said, 
 Come and put your trust in my shadow! if not, let the fire 
 come down from heaven and devour the cedars of Leb- 
 anon!" As his father's house had been abused by the 
 course Abimelech had taken, Jotham said a fire would 
 consume the house of Millo and devour Abimelech. When 
 he had reigned three years over Israel, Gaal, the son of 
 Eed, stirred up a revolt which was put down with fearful 
 vengeance; the city was demolished, and the ground of 
 Shechem sown with salt. Some fled to a very strong tower, 
 still standing in the city, which Abimelech was essaying 
 to take. From this tower a woman threw upon his head 
 a piece of millstone, inflicting a wound he supposed to be 
 mortal. Dreading the disgrace of being slain by a woman, 
 he called to his armor-bearer to draw his sword and thrust 
 him through, which he did. 
 
 Once more the Israelites relapse into idolatry, serving 
 all the various gods held in esteem by the surrounding 
 heathen. The Lord was angry at this, and sold them into 
 the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the 
 children of Ammon, who vexed and plagued the children 
 of Israel and oppressed them for eighteen years in the land 
 of the Amorites, which is Gilead. Besides that, the children 
 of Ammon crossed over Jordan to fight against Judah, so 
 that the distress was extreme. The Ammonites encamped 
 
220 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 in Gilead, and the Israelites in Mizpeh. The question was 
 asked: Who would begin to fight against the children of 
 Amnion ? Among the mighty men of Gilead was Jepthah, 
 the son of Gilead by a harlot. As soon as the Ammonites 
 began to make themselves felt, the Israelites summoned 
 Jepthah to be their general. He consented only on condi- 
 tion that he should be their permanent ruler if victorious. 
 Jepthah made a most singular and uncalled for vow to the 
 effect that " if the children of Ammon fall into my hands, 
 then whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to 
 meet me, when I return in peace from the children of 
 Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up 
 for a burnt offering." They were delivered into his hands, 
 and he smote them in twenty cities, and they were subdued. 
 When Jepthah returned home his daughter and only child 
 came out to meet him with timbrels and dances. His 
 distress at seeing her was sore. He told her his vow, in 
 the fulfillment of which she signified a ready acquiesence, 
 but asked for two months' time in which to bewail her 
 virginity; and it was given. At the end of that time she 
 returned to have her father fulfill his vow. 
 
 Jepthah judged Israel six years and he died. After that 
 Ibzan judged Israel. He had thirty sons and thirty 
 daughters; the girls were (as we should say) changed off 
 for as many wives for his sons. He was judge seven years 
 until his death. After him Elon was judge ten years. 
 After him Abdon, who had forty sons and thirty nephews, 
 the riders of as many ass colts. He was judge eight 
 years. 
 
 Chapter XIII. There was a certain man of Zorah, of the 
 
JUDGES. 221 
 
 family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah, whose 
 wife was barren. When we hear it named any where in 
 the Bible that a certain woman was barren, be sure in the 
 sequel it will not only turn out that she bears children, but 
 the issue will be famous in history. The one now in hand 
 proved to be the strongest man the world ever knew. 
 Another baptised in the wilderness, living on the singular 
 diet of locusts and wild honey. The greatest of all founded 
 a new religion, opened the way to redeem a world, saved 
 the lost, and controlled evil spirits. Manoah's wife (as it 
 happened generally), was visited by an angel; as both she 
 and her husband declared. These heavenly ambassadors 
 had bodies of flesh and blood, as we are compelled to 
 believe from the account itself, for they took food like other 
 earthly people. Manoah prepared food for the angel that 
 came to him, which leads us naturally to think he was 
 a man. None would presume to fix up a hearty dinner for 
 a veritable spirit. The angel opens the object of his visit 
 by stating what was well known before, that she was 
 barren. Many cases may be gathered of women who did 
 not bear children for many years after marriage, who 
 in time became mothers; and that too without miracle 
 or angelic aid. Miracle is not a thing that takes place 
 in accordance with nature, but in seeming violation of 
 nature. Manoah entreats the Lord "to let the man of 
 God come again and tell us what we shall do unto the 
 child that shall be born." The angel had told them 
 before that she should conceive and bear a son. Very 
 soon the " man " came again, and the term " angel " is omit- 
 ted, though in the next verse he is called " angel " once 
 
222 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 more. For it is too evident both names referred to one 
 and the same person, who was man of God, angel or man, 
 every messenger being, in the proper sense of the word, 
 an angel. Whoever he was, he proceeds to direct the 
 woman to habits of abstinence, preparatory to the birth 
 of her child. She was to touch nothing that came from 
 the vine, strong drink or any unclean thing; and the child 
 should be a Nazarite from his very birth. 
 
 Asked his name, this mysterious messenger refused to 
 give any; and, for a wonder, refused to eat. An offering 
 was made ready, and while it was burning this angel or 
 man went up into the heavens, as it appeared to Manoah 
 and his wife. After a while, not seeing him again, they 
 said the Lord had appeared to them and they should surely 
 die. But in due time the son was born and called by the 
 name of Samson. 
 
 Chapter XIV. Samson's first exploit took place on the 
 way to visit a Philistine girl, for whom he had conceived 
 a strong passion. Meeting a young lion, he tore him to 
 pieces as though 'twere a kid. Finding bees and honey 
 in the carcass of this lion awhile after, he composed a 
 riddle as follows: " Out of the eater came forth meat; out 
 of the strong came forth sweetness." A bet was made by 
 him that no one could interpret his puzzle. To his surprise 
 they said : " What is stronger than a lion ? what is sweeter 
 than honey ? " Samson lost the bet of thirty changes of 
 raiment. Not having the money or the disposition to pur- 
 chase the clothing, resort was had to another expedient, 
 and thirty men were slain, their garments taken off and 
 the bet satisfied. 
 
JUDGES. 223 
 
 Chapter XV. Samson caught three hundred foxes — to 
 carry out his next performance — tied them in pairs, tail to 
 tail with a firebrand between, then let them loose into the 
 harvest fields of the Philistines, and burned them with 
 their vineyards and olives. If foxes were plenty, still 
 Samson had extraordinary luck in taking so many and 
 prevailing on them to hold still while the firebrands were 
 fastened on. May not the story have been exaggerated by 
 being repeated from mouth to mouth, and from one gene- 
 ration to another ? Further to afflict the Philistines for 
 burning his wife and her father, he " smote them hip and 
 thigh," no doubt killing very many. The men of Judah, 
 Samson's tribe, were subject to the Philistines; and, on 
 account of his conduct, expected a terrible retaliation; so 
 three thousand of them gathered together to bind him 
 securely and deliver him into the hands of his enemies. 
 
 Lest there should be some doubt as to the safe binding 
 of this strong man, the men of Judah made use of two 
 new cords, which he broke with great ease; and displayed 
 his strength further by killing a thousand Philistines with 
 the new jaw-bone of an ass; and when thirsty from the ex- 
 ercise, made a hole in the jaw-bone from which he got 
 water to drink. Next he went to Gaza, where he per- 
 formed another exploit; carrying away the gates of the 
 city and the two door-posts. 
 
 Chapter XVI. Again Sampson is in love: this time with 
 a woman called Delilah, a resident in the valley of Sorek, 
 whose treachery is as infamous as the rest of her life. By 
 his own suggestion the Philistines bind him with seven 
 green withes, with new ropes, and weave his hair into 
 
224 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 a web, his wife all the time helping them, but he again 
 and again sets himself free. After that he told them his 
 strength was in his hair, which they cut off; but it grew 
 again and he was strong as ever. His eyes had been put 
 out, and his body secured with fetters of brass; so, while 
 the Philistines were making merry over their good for- 
 tune, they let him loose for their sporty Not being able to 
 see, he clasped the two central pillars of the building, 
 upon the roof of which were three thousand people; over- 
 turned them and destroyed many lives; making his own 
 funeral pile the dead bodies of his own and his country's 
 foes. He had judged Israel twenty years, and a queer 
 judge he must have been, this buffoon, profligate, bravo ! 
 
 A certain man named Micah obtained for himself house- 
 gods, an ephod and a teraphim, hired a mere wayfarer 
 to be his priest, agreeing to pay him ten shekels of 
 silver by the year with board and clothing — miserable 
 pay for a miserable man, which did not satisfy him long. 
 When he left Micah for a "louder call" elsewhere, there 
 were missing the three images which he had in charge, 
 and other articles of little value. This Levite could 
 probably talk well, and tell as near as many others 
 what God would and would not, or more probably he 
 was a handy manager of the altar service. 
 
 Chapter XVIII. Micah followed the vagrant priest to 
 get back his goods, but the priest was too nimble for him. 
 Micah returned empty. Not discouraged at all, nor dis- 
 graced by seeming sacrilege, this priest settled among the 
 Danites, where one of the house-gods was set up. Noth- 
 ing can be truer, says Professor Stuart, in reference to 
 
JUDGES. 225 
 
 these times, than the last words of the book of Judges: 
 " There was no king in Israel — every man did what was 
 right in his own eyes." 
 
226 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 RUTH. 
 
 THE period of history called Judges, ending about 1096 
 B. C, embraces the time of Ruth's stor}\ One can 
 hardly fail to be interested with this picture of rural life so 
 many thousands of years ago. Some parts of it might be 
 imagined as indicating improper conduct, simply on account 
 of our ignorance of Oriental manners as they were and are. 
 Society was constituted differently then from what we find 
 it among us. Proper allowance on this account should 
 be made. With a decided moral bearing, the story has 
 every appearance of being founded on fact. Fidelity to 
 friends, a beautiful trait in human character, is here fol- 
 lowed with results that fill one's heart with peace and 
 praise. Cases are perpetually occurring where the " chari- 
 ties that soothe and bless" are disregarded, and in their 
 place we see a cold selfishness so well calculated to chill 
 the finer sensibilities and poison the heart. 
 ■ Bethlehem in Judah was visited by a famine in the days 
 of Judges, on which account a man by the name of Elim- 
 elech departed with his wife Naomi and her two sons, who 
 took to themselves wives of the daughters of Moab. After 
 that both these sons died leaving widows, one named Orpha, 
 the other Ruth. Famines, like other evils, come to an end 
 
RUTH. 227 
 
 sooner or later, as did the one in Bethlehem, which was 
 followed by several seasons of plenty, and Naomi ex- 
 pressed a desire to return. The three widows naturally 
 consulted together for the future. Naomi, like all good 
 mothers-in-law, was anxious about Orpha and Ruth, and 
 advised them not to go with her, but remain in their na- 
 tive land with their own mothers. She kissed them both 
 affectionately and gave them a tearful benediction. Affec- 
 tion is what sweetens life, and these three widows had 
 more true comfort in their destitute condition than thou- 
 sands who have abundant wealth. Money can buy many 
 things, but tender sympathy and true love are never for 
 sale. The young widows were melted to tears, for they 
 were rich in one another's love. In their own native land 
 and among their kinsfolk, some chance for at least a com- 
 fortable living lay before them; while IJethlehem in Judah 
 could hardly be expected to afford even that. In their 
 tender anxiety the suggestion was made that Naomi 
 might marry again, and raise up other sons to be their 
 husbands. This, she assured them, her advanced years 
 made impossible. They all lifted up their voices and 
 wept again. Orpha kissed her, and returned to her Mo- 
 abite relatives; but Ruth determined to accompany her 
 mother-in-law back to Bethlehem, saying, " 1 will go where 
 thou goest; thy people shall be my people, thy God my 
 God." When Naomi and Ruth reached the end of their 
 journey, they found quite a gathering in honor of their 
 arrival. Some affected surprise at the changed appear- 
 ance of the thrice bereaved mother, but she answered thai 
 the Lord had dealt bitterly with her, and for that reason 
 
228 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 they must call her Mara, as she went out from them full 
 of good things and returned empty. 
 
 Chapter II. It was the time of barley-harvest; and 
 Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of 
 wealth of the family of Elimelech, by the name of Boaz. 
 A most creditable practice prevailed in Bethlehem at that 
 time and through Judea generally, of allowing the poor 
 to glean after the reapers in the field. To make this 
 gleaning a greater object, something more than was 
 naturally scattered upon the ground was often left by 
 design; so that many were able to lay up quite a store for 
 time of need, and in no way could the wealthy better 
 show their gratitude for abundant crops. Upon consulta- 
 tion with Naomi, Ruth decided to glean in the fields of 
 Boaz, which he was visiting at the time to look after the 
 harvest. Noticing a comely young woman about the 
 grounds, he naturally asks as to whence she came. The 
 answer was that she came from Moab with Naomi. Ruth 
 then asked leave to glean in the fields. Boaz graciously 
 told her not to go anywhere else, but to remain in that 
 vicinity with the maidens. This step in respect to Ruth 
 was a prudent one, as it extended to a friendless young 
 woman the protection of female company. Not only this, 
 but he cautioned the young men to pay her proper respect. 
 For this favorable consideration Ruth thanked him in the 
 humblest manner, after the oriental fashion of bowing 
 herself to the earth. The love and kindness she had mani- 
 fested to her mother-in-law had been mentioned to Boaz. 
 Her desire had also been made known of finding a home 
 in Israel. He declared that the Lord God of Israel would 
 
RUTH. 229 
 
 reward her. She was thus gaining rapidly in the favor of 
 Boaz. At meal times he invited her to eat with him at 
 the same table. The reapers were also told to let fall 
 handfuls occasionally for her to gather. After beating 
 out her apron full at evening there was an ephah. Naomi 
 was informed of the good fortune that had attended Ruth 
 in the field, and the barley was shared with her. Ruth 
 also told her that the man in whose sight she had found 
 favor was a near relative. 
 
 Chapter III. All thus far went well. Ruth was advised 
 by Naomi that Boaz would be winnowing that night at the 
 threshing floor; that she had best wash and anoint herself, 
 put on comely raiment, and mark well the place where he 
 would lie down; then, when all was still, go forth softly 
 and uncover his feet, lie down and await the result. The 
 custom universally preserved in Palestine of both sexes 
 lying down to sleep without changing one's garments, upon 
 a mat or rug, with no more feeling of impropriety than 
 men and women worship together in America, entirely 
 changes the aspect of the narrative. Besides, the damsel 
 had claims upon Boaz as the next of kin, which his ad- 
 vanced years and the existence of another near relative 
 inclined him to waive. So that the strange course she 
 took was simply hurrying the proper claimant to her hand 
 to a decision. Boaz, overcome with fatigue, was not at 
 first aware of her presence; by-and-by he perceived souk; 
 one at his feet by the side of the grain, and asked who it 
 was. She answered that it was his kinswoman Ruth, and 
 begged him to spread li is skirt over her, as is the present 
 method of betrothal among the same people in Syria, lie 
 
 slG 
 
230 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 praises her for preferring him to younger men, and enga- 
 ges himself to do the part of a kinsman to her if the other 
 relative declines. The counsel to remain quiet until day- 
 break and then return as it were by stealth, might have 
 been to secure their future nuptials without any disturb- 
 ance by other claims, or to save Ruth from the reproach of 
 thrusting upon him an unsought bride. He presented to 
 her all the grain she could carry, measuring it out method- 
 ically, placing the sack no doubt upon her head, and 
 deferring the final decision of the matter until the public 
 appeal had been made at the gate of the city, the common 
 seat of justice in many oriental lands. It is clear that no 
 passion mingled in the interview. The mother, to whom 
 the maiden returned with daylight, assured her that matters 
 would take their due course, and her rights be established 
 according to the law. As her previous husband had but 
 one nearer relative than Boaz, and he renounced (as we 
 should say) in open court the Jewish privilege of redeem- 
 ing the land of the deceased by marrying the widow, the 
 contract was made by loosing the shoe from the foot of 
 the recusant kinsman and giving it to Boaz. He then 
 called all the people to witness that he had purchased the 
 wife of Mahlon to be his wife, that the name of the dead 
 should not be cut off from among his brethren. 
 
 And so the fair Moabite was married, and the son which 
 she bore him in due time was called Obed, who became 
 the father of Jesse, the father of David. Thus ends a story 
 of deep interest because it forms the regular line of descent 
 from Abraham down to Jesus of Nazareth. Samuel is con- 
 jectured to be its author. 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 231 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FIRST SAMUEL. 
 
 THE first book of Samuel treats of what took place for 
 about one hundred and fifteen years succeeding 1171 
 B. C. 
 
 Chapter I. Mount Ephraim was the place where a cer- 
 tain man by the name of Elkanah dwelt, who had two 
 wives, Peninnah and Hannah. The latter, though much 
 beloved by her husband, had no children. They were all 
 careful in regard to religious duties, visiting Shiloh every 
 year to worship and sacrifice as the custom was, though 
 Hannah's life was embittered by having no son. While 
 at the shrine making her annual visit, she prayed passion- 
 ately for this great blessing; and as priest Eli noticed that 
 her lips moved without any sound, he accused her of having 
 taken strong drink. The charge was repelled with such 
 solemn asseveration that Eli bade her go in peace, for her 
 prayer should be answered. Elkanah and his wife arose 
 early in the morning, worshiped, and immediately set out 
 for their home in Ram ah. Soon after she conceived, and 
 in due time a son was born, who was called Samuel because 
 she had asked him of the Lord — El meaning Jehovah. The 
 next year, as tin; child was not weaned, she went not up 
 to the nation's shrine at Shiloh, 
 
232 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 When the child Samuel was six years old, his mother 
 went up with him to Eli, with an ottering of three bullocks, 
 an ephah of flour and a bottle of wine, and lent him to the 
 Lord as long as he lived. 
 
 Chapter II. Hannah is then represented as making a 
 long talk, of course addressing herself to Eli. The sons 
 of Eli realize the old proverb of the sons of ministers 
 being called sons of Belial, which we are to understand as 
 meaning sons of the Devil. When the people offered their 
 sacrifice according to custom, the priest's servant, while 
 the flesh was in seething, came with a flesh-hook of three 
 teeth in his hand and drew out from the kettle all that the 
 hook would take for the priest. This was done in Shiloh 
 unto all the Israelites that assembled there. In whatever 
 manner the sacrifice was made, the priests were entitled 
 to a share. The sons of Eli sinned by taking more than 
 was proper; and by force when it was not given willingly. 
 
 After the birth of Samuel, Hannah became the mother 
 of three other sons and two daughters. 
 
 Eli had heard how his sons conducted, and that they 
 polluted the women who assembled at the door of the 
 tabernacle. This wickedness in his own family grieved 
 the old priest to the heart, knowing as he did that such 
 corruption was certain to spread downwards. 
 
 Samuel demeaned himself well in all respects, gaining 
 favor with God and man. An angel, called " a man of 
 God," declared him to be chosen of the Lord to burn incense, 
 to offer sacrifice and wear an ephod; but, that the day 
 would come when the Lord would cut off the arm of Eli 
 and the arm of his father's house; that there should not be 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 238 
 
 an old man in his house forever; all the increase of his 
 house should die in the flower of their age. As a sure 
 indication of the fulfillment of this prediction, his two sons 
 were to perish together. Also the Lord declared that he 
 would raise up a faithful priest, and build him a house, 
 and every one that was left of the house of Eli should 
 come and crouch to him for a morsel of bread. 
 
 Chapter III. About the time Samuel was thirty years 
 old he ministered unto the Lord before Eli. While lying- 
 down to sleep he heard — or thought he heard — a voice 
 calling him. This calling was repeated four times, when 
 Samuel answered, and the Lord told him He would destroy 
 the house of Eli because of their iniquity. Samuel re- 
 peated this to Eli and it came to the ears of the people, 
 who at once declared this foreteller of merited judgment a 
 prophet of the Lord. 
 
 In the next chapter we learn that Israel went to battle 
 against the Philistines and suffered a sore defeat. To raise 
 their faint hearts the ark of the Lord was taken from Shiloh 
 and brought to the camp with great shouting. The Philis- 
 tines heard the noise and learned what had been done. 
 With a full knowledge of all the superiority claimed by 
 Israel in the protection of Deity, and the wonders wrought 
 in Egypt and by the presence of the ark, the Philistines 
 joined battle, made a great slaughter, killed thirty thou- 
 sand footmen, slew the two sods of Eli, and captured the 
 ark of the Lord. The news of all this was carried by a 
 messenger to poor blind Eli, then ninety-eight years old, 
 and the shock caused his death; fainting and falling back- 
 wards, his neck was broken. The wife of his second son 
 
234 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 had a premature birth, and died saying: "The glory of 
 Israel has departed." Thus ended the house of Eli, as the 
 elder son appears to have had no children. 
 
 Chapters V & VI. The Philistines took the ark of the Lord 
 from Ebenezer to Ashdod, and set it up by the side of 
 Dagon, their favorite idol. The next day Dagon was 
 found lying on the ground, having fallen forward upon 
 his face. They set him up again, but on the morrow he 
 was down as before, with his head and both his hands cut 
 off. " Therefore neither the priests of Dagon nor any that 
 come unto Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon 
 in Ashdod unto this day." Here is another proof that the 
 present record must be far later than the*matters recorded. 
 The Philistines being in possession of the ark, were in 
 trouble to know what upon earth to do with the elephant 
 they had drawn. They could think of nothing else but 
 sending it back to G-ath, where the poor people were 
 afflicted by emerods (a disease very common in Syria still), 
 on account of its presence. It was then taken to Ekron, 
 carrying destruction with it, perhaps by the terror it 
 excited as before a Deity held in bondage; determining 
 them to be rid of it as soon as possible. When it had 
 been seven months a prisoner to the Philistines, the princi- 
 pal men of Ekron, gathered in council, decided to send 
 away the ark, and with it a memorial of the plague they 
 had suffered. " Five golden emerods and five golden mice 
 were therefore made, a new cart built upon which to place 
 the ark, and two cows fastened to it, their calves shut up at 
 home. When the ark was placed on its carriage with the 
 jewels of gold, it was sent away by the road to Beth- 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 235 
 
 Shemesh, now Ainshems, even unto the great stone of 
 Abel, which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of 
 Joshua." This mysterious visitor still proved troublesome, 
 for the Lord smote fifty thousand and ten men of this 
 obscure village for merely looking into it! The people's 
 joy at their wonderful guest changed to terror, and messen- 
 gers were dispatched to Kirjath-jearim saying that the 
 Philistines had brought again the ark of the Lord, and 
 that they were desired to come and take it home. The 
 men of Kirjath-jearim came and brought it into the house 
 of Abinidab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazer his son to 
 keep it, and it abode there twenty }'ears. 
 
 Chapter VII. The Israelites fought against the Philis- 
 tines during a thunder storm, and smote them so they were 
 subdued, and all the cities they had taken from the Israel- 
 ites were recovered. Peace was also established between 
 Israel and the Amorites. 
 
 Chapter VIII. When Samuel became old his sons were 
 made judges over Israel; unhappily they walked not in 
 his ways, but took bribes and turned away after filthy 
 lucre. The people became dissatisfied and clamored for a 
 king. Samuel told them plainly that a king would not 
 satisfy them, but would make servants of their sons and 
 daughters, take their fields and vineyards, seize one-tenth 
 of all they had, and oppress them in every possible way. 
 No regard was paid to this warning of good old Samuel, 
 and the people still clamoring for a king, Samuel felt 
 divinely directed to a choice. 
 
 Chapter IX. A man of Benjamin by the name of Kish, 
 had a son named Saul; tall, healthy, and good looking. 
 
236 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Kish had a large number of asses, and they strayed away 
 for better water or feed. Thereupon their owner sent this 
 son Saul with his hired man to hunt them up. Search in 
 different directions gave them no clue to the missing ani- 
 mals, and they began to despair. Saul said that his father 
 would be more anxious about them than about the asses, 
 if they tarried longer. The servant told him that a man 
 of God lived in that land (Zuph), who might possibly tell 
 them where the asses would be found. Saul objected to 
 consulting him, as they could not give him a fee; but the 
 servant replied that he had the fourth part of a shekel of 
 silver which they could give, small as it was. This man 
 of God, it seems, worked for money, and was the same as 
 a seer. Walking up to the city they asked for the proph- 
 et, and the man of whom they inquired said: "I am he." 
 Saul was then told that Samuel had a presentiment of his 
 coming and his appearance, with directions from the Lord 
 to anoint him captain over his people. As for the asses, 
 Samuel told him they were found three days before. Saul, 
 somewhat astonished at the words of Samuel, told him he 
 was a Benjamite, one of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, 
 and his family the least of the families of the tribe. 
 Samuel invited him to dine in company with about thirty 
 others. After the repast, they went to the house-top, and 
 then strolled through the outskirts of the city, the servant 
 being in advance of them. 
 
 Chapter X. Samuel took a vial of oil, and pouring it 
 upon Saul's head kissed him, and said it was because he 
 was " captain over his inheritance." Samuel then un- 
 folded the future to Saul, saying he would meet a company 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 23? 
 
 of prophets coming down from a high place with a psalter, 
 a tabret, a pipe and a harp, and they should prophesy. 
 When this shortly after took place, and they played upon 
 these instruments, Saul prophesied too; in other words, he 
 joined in the music, describing no doubt the future glory 
 of Israel. 
 
 Chapter XI. The Ammonites came up and encamped 
 against Jabesh Gilead, but offered to make peace on the 
 savage condition of each one of the Israelites allowing his 
 enemies to thrust out his right eye. Righteously enough, 
 Saul and Samuel rallied the people to the number of three 
 hundred thousand of Israel, and thirty thousand of the 
 men of Judah. Saul and his host fell upon the Ammonites 
 early in the morning, and slew them until the heat of the 
 day, so that no two of them could be found together. 
 After that, as "nothing succeeds like success," Samuel 
 and all the people gathered together in Gilgal and made 
 Saul king. 
 
 Chapter XII. Saul soon found he had nothing but 
 trouble before him. Confusion seemed to reign. Samuel 
 told him he had done foolishly, therefore his kingdom 
 should not continue. Doing foolishly seems to have been 
 the common course with Saul. To make matters still 
 worse the Philistines had destroyed all the smiths in the 
 land, so that Israel could obtain neither sword nor spear. 
 
 Chapter XIV. Notwithstanding this reported lack they 
 did not loose courage. Saul's son Jonathan and his armor- 
 bearer went over to the camp of the Philistines, and killed 
 twenty men with their own hands in a short time, on the 
 space of half an acre of ground. Probably the great 
 
238 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 earthquake came at the time of Jonathan's attack, terrify- 
 ing his enemies from any resistance. The Lord also fought 
 for Israel by causing the Philistines to fight each other; 
 that is to say, in their panic they fell upon their own host. 
 Jonathan took a little honey that he saw upon the ground 
 and ate it, contrary to the command of Saul. Pressing on 
 after the Philistines, a great slaughter ensued; the hungry 
 soldiers also broke ranks and fell upon the spoils, devour- 
 ing greedily the sheep and oxen. Saul asked the Lord if 
 he should pursue the Philistines, and could get no answer. 
 As he expected the Lord to answer when inquiry was made, 
 he felt sure something was wrong. Immediate measures 
 were taken to ascertain what the trouble was. Soon it 
 came out that Jonathan had eaten a little honey, which, 
 though not as bad as eating the apple in Eden, was high 
 treason. Sentence of death was passed without delay; 
 but the people — more sensible than Saul — rescued their 
 favorite from the hands of his father. These Philistines 
 were a bloodthirsty set, keeping up a continual war with 
 Saul all the days of his life. 
 
 Chapter XV. Samuel commanded Saul to " Go and smite 
 the Amalekites and utterly destroy all they have; spare 
 them not but slay both man and woman, infant and suck- 
 ling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." What shall we say to 
 such an order as this, corning as it did from a chosen man 
 of God ? Saul gathered the people together and numbered 
 them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen and ten 
 thousand men of Judah, and laid wait with them in a city 
 of Amalck. And Saul smote the Amalekites and took 
 Agag their king alive, but destroyed all the people. He 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 239 
 
 spared Agag and the best of the sheep, oxen and lambs, 
 as if to improve his own stock, but the poor and the refuse 
 he destroyed. Then Samuel said the Lord regretted that he 
 had made Saul king. So Saul sought to find Samuel, and 
 came to him at Gilgal. The prophet commanded Saul to 
 wait a little that he might get a message from heaven. 
 Very soon Samuel told Saul that his orders had been to 
 utterly destroy the Amalekites and all their property of 
 every kind ; and demanded of him why he had not done so. 
 Saul tried to excuse himself for disobedience, and to throw 
 the blame upon the people, who had probably urged him to 
 do this very thing. Because Saul, after he had obtained a 
 signal victory, and when he was extremely weary with 
 long fighting, saved the best cattle alive and not the poor- 
 est, Samuel told the very man he had praised and anointed, 
 that he was deposed from the throne of Israel. And further, 
 inasmuch as Saul had done contrary to the orders given 
 him, Samuel took poor Agag and hewed him to pieces; 
 which by the ordinary estimate of crime was murder, for 
 Agag was completely in his power and had done nothing 
 to merit an act so inhuman from a man of God. But this 
 good man was in a towering passion, and could not con- 
 tain himself till he showed Saul that he was king no 
 longer, by usurping this power over a captive's life. No 
 consultation had been held with the elders in Israel, or 
 any of the principal men of the nation. Samuel took it 
 upon himself alone to make the declaration. He had acted 
 resolutely, but the reader may well ask, What next? It 
 was that the Lord directed him to the house of Jesse, 
 among whose sons some one would be found fit to reign. 
 
240 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 After examining these sons carefully, Samuel did not err 
 again by choosing the largest, as he did Saul ; the last one 
 called was anointed by pouring upon him a horn of oil. 
 The record does not say he was anointed king, but simply 
 anointed. Following the history of David a little farther, 
 we find the following: "But the spirit of the Lord departed 
 from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him." 
 How can we reconcile the idea that an evil spirit came 
 from the Lord, who is all perfection, purity and goodness ? 
 Such a thing does not seem possible. Some ma}^ undertake 
 to explain this by saying that in that day evil spirits were 
 diseases, cramps, fits or pains. So they were; but these 
 come directly from irregularities and excesses — from in- 
 dulged passions and from poisonous drinks — not directly 
 through God's choice for us. Saul could not help being 
 tormented by the bitterness of the great prophet, alien- 
 ating his people, predicting his overthrow, representing 
 him as forsaken of God. Brooding over this growing- 
 trouble he evidently became deranged, and deranged 
 people are thought to be "possessed" in Syria to-day — 
 thought to be so by thousands in our own country, and 
 through a greater part of the world. How to lay this 
 spirit was the question. Music it was thought might be 
 of service. The harp was quite common in Bethlehem, 
 and among those skilled in its use was Jesse's son David, 
 whose fame must have extended farther than his family 
 acquaintance, who looked upon him as a lad of promise. 
 The whole tribe of Benjamin had the higmestfame as harp- 
 players. Saul by the suggestion of his friends sent a 
 messenger to obtain a skillful musician. With but little 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 241 
 
 delay David was found, whose ambition kindled at the 
 thought of exchanging a sheeps' cote for a palace. A fine, 
 ruddy, pleasant, aspiring young man like him naturally 
 made a favorable impression on Saul, who asked Jesse to 
 let him remain at court, where he contributed much to 
 Saul's' comfort, quieting him with his harp, and allaying 
 the distress of those dreadful spasms of pain. 
 
 Chapter XVII. In process of time the Philistines who 
 had been beaten so many times, but not subdued, gathered 
 together an array at Shochoh and Azekah. Saul with the 
 men of Israel at first pitched by the valley of Elah, and 
 set the battle in array against the Philistines, who occu- 
 pied a mountainous region; therefore the Israelites soon 
 changed their position to another high hill, and — as a 
 matter of course — a valley lay between. "A champion 
 named Goliath, six cubits and a span in height, stood forth 
 from the Philistine camp, with a helmet of brass on his 
 head, and a coat-of-mail about his person weighing five 
 thousand shekels of brass, with greaves of brass upon his 
 legs and a target of brass between his shoulders; and the 
 staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his 
 spear's head weighed six hundred shekels; and one bear- 
 ing a shield went before him." 
 
 If this account is true, here was the most imposing spec- 
 imen of humanity ever seen on the earth. Without know- 
 ing exactly what a cubit was, by the measure now used in 
 the United States this giant towered up to the height of 
 ten feet. The sight of him was calculated to frighten 
 most men, especially if his strength was in proportion to 
 his armor. But, as was seen in the Spanish Armada, bulk 
 
242 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 is not everything'; power is often contained in small bodies. 
 Agility, strategy, and calculation have much to do with 
 success. Goliath made an imposing show, and possibly 
 that, was about all there was of it. His heavy spear of 
 such crushing weight was a clumsy thing to handle, and 
 of but little use for defence. Yet the Philistines were so 
 confident that no one could stand against Goliath, they 
 offered to let the combat between him and an Israelitish 
 champion decide the contest between the two armies. 
 And certainly it was not a bad idea; and these were rep- 
 resentative men. V. 12. David is here introduced fresh 
 from his father's farm in Bethlehem, and not as the one 
 anointed a long time before by Samuel, nor as the harp- 
 player who had comforted Saul through fierce attacks of 
 mental disease, though indeed the same person. Jesse's 
 three sons older than David were in Saul's army, and he 
 might naturally be expected to know something of the 
 family; but a description is given of it again as though 
 nothing had been previously said. David, amidst all his 
 farm duties, went to visit the army occasionally, leaving 
 his sheep to be cared for by some hired servant. Goliath 
 in the meantime continued to defy the armies of Israel for 
 forty days, so that the matter became notorious all about 
 the country, and engaged the attention of David when he 
 reached the camp with presents for his brothers — at the 
 particular time of day of this huge Philistine's regular 
 exhibition. At the bare sight of him the Israelites fled in 
 dismay, though he had done nothing to prove his courage 
 or his strength. David had evidently an idea that some- 
 thing ought to be done at once, and asked what would be 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 243 
 
 given the man who should kill the monster. The inquiry 
 is often made in cases of plain duty what the reward will 
 be for acting. No wonder then that David asked what 
 reward he would get for taking away the daily disgrace 
 of Israel. Eliab (David's brother), was indignant at the 
 presumptuous bearing of the country boy, and told him he 
 had better go home and look after the sheeep. This did 
 not please David, nor dampen his spirits. Turning to 
 some other soldier he asked the same question — what 
 would be given to the man that killed the Philistine. At 
 this stage of the account, Saul is abruptly introduced in 
 his right mind, unaffected by an evil spirit, asking of 
 David if he feels able to cope with the Philistine. He re- 
 plied by saying that while he tended his father's sheep a 
 lion and bear came out and took a lamb of the Hock, and 
 that he pursued the lion or bear and slew him — which him 
 we are left to conjecture. Without doubting David's cour- 
 age, killing a young lion was no great thing to boast of, 
 nor any sure indication of his mastering the Philistine. 
 David had doubtless formed several theories in regard to the 
 course he should pursue. Peculiarly agile as he was, rapid 
 movements would give him much advantage in a hand 
 to hand conflict. While Goliath would be making ready 
 to give a crushing blow, David could get away from its 
 force and wound him in some vulnerable place between 
 the joints of his armor. An effort was made to fortify 
 David with heavy equipments, but they encumbered him 
 too much, preventing that free use of his limbs so essen- 
 tial to success under the circumstances. While twisting 
 and chafing under the heavy weight they wanted him to 
 
244 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 carry, the success he had had among wild beasts with his 
 sling- alone came to mind, and he decided to trust it rather 
 than the trappings and weapons he had never proved. 
 And it seems that either from his constant practice when 
 at home among the sheep, or from expectation of wanting 
 them on the journey, suitable stones and his sling were at 
 hand. That Goliath was not entirely covered by protect- 
 ing armor was plain to all, for he could not see through 
 brass or coats of mail. David's after life was such that 
 we may be sure he possessed shrewdness and tact in his 
 younger days, as well as ambition and abundant courage. 
 Something splendid he saw might be gained, and like 
 other brave men he took his life in his hand with a plan of 
 attack of the simplest kind, to be executed with imple- 
 ments no one but himself had thought of before. David 
 united a good store of ready wit to that practical good 
 sense an essential element of success. Could he plant a 
 stone on Goliath's head with such force as to bring him 
 down, beheading him with his own sword, it would be a 
 magnificent triumph. With bravery none could doubt, 
 and all the armor of Saul, David's victory would have 
 been less sure than with his sling, a few smooth round 
 stones taken from the brook, and his skill in throwing- 
 them "to a hair's breadth." The Philistine braggart found 
 that David could talk a little large, if he was small. The 
 result of this seemingly unequal combat all the Bible read- 
 ing world fully understand. It has become indeed a prov- 
 erb. David hit Goliath with the first stone he threw, and 
 felled him to the earth ; after which taking off his head fol- 
 lowed as a matter of course, and thus the conflict ended, 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 245 
 
 most unexpectedly to the lookers on. When the Philis- 
 tines saw their champion dead they fled in haste, closely 
 pursued by the Israelites, who plundered their tents. So 
 much was gained by the chivalry of one young man and 
 a single act of noble daring. 
 
 Chapter XVII. Immediately after this, Saul is repre- 
 sented as inquiring whose son the young man was, the 
 conqueror in this memorable duel. Not getting a definite 
 answer from those he addressed, the same inquiry was 
 made of David himself. But why should he have forgot- 
 ten his evil-spirit-layer ? Why should he have failed to 
 recognize this peculiarly ruddy youth ? Let that be as it 
 may, he told David not to go back to his father any more; 
 and Saul's son Jonathan presented him with a sword and 
 new uniform. David's warlike propensities showed them- 
 selves prominently soon after, when his first battle was 
 fought and he returned victorious. It was then that the 
 damsels chanted a song, saying, "Saul has slain his thou- 
 sands and David his tens of thousands." This naturally 
 disturbed a very jealous mind, and the evil spirit returned 
 upon the king as it did before. How strange that an evil 
 spirit should be sent to afflict this savage sovereign ! Why 
 not translate it into modern language and say that Provi- 
 dence permitted evil influences to have their natural effect? 
 Necessarily, a wide breach was made between Saul and 
 David. The most intensely bitter feeling sprang up; 
 both were in constant fear. Deadly hatred was mani- 
 fested by Saul, who lost no opportunity to put David in 
 the most dangerous places, where death seemed inevitable. 
 Had David boon slain under such circumstances, or by the 
 
246 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 hand of some hired assassin, the blackest of crimes would 
 have stained the name of Saul. 
 
 Samuel said he selected Saul by express direction from 
 the Lord; but who believes it now? When the Lord ac- 
 tually directs, the result is good. One is not chosen to 
 quarrel with another or to kill him if opportunity offers. 
 The sequel of all the movements does not lead to the con- 
 clusion that they were particularly directed by any higher 
 power than man. Feelings of kindness never moved Saul 
 to offer his daughter Merab to David for a wife, as he did 
 not love her, but did love another daughter. Still anxious 
 for the death of David, he told him if he would do what 
 Saul felt certain he could not, he might have the beloved 
 Michal — that was to bring him one hundred fore-skins of 
 the Philistines. David soon brought them, and received 
 no harm. David's popularity increased daily, and with it 
 Saul's anxiety for his destruction; so that he even ordered 
 his servants to kill him. That Saul had an evil spirit 
 about him continually can not be doubted, though there are 
 very grave doubts if it came from the Lord. This evil spirit 
 was upon him when he threw a javelin at David, who for- 
 tunately escaped the blow. Michal was always true to 
 David, and on several occasions saved him from harm — 
 once in particular by lowering him in a basket from an 
 upper window. Jonathan was many times able also to 
 aid David, as he did when Saul found David's place vacant 
 at the feast, and called on Jonathan to explain why it was 
 so; and because he did not, accused him of being the son 
 of a perverse woman; and told him he would never have 
 the kingdom, and that David should die; part of which 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 24 T 
 
 was true as he said it. After this follows a long and mi- 
 nute account of the deceptions practiced by David, Jona- 
 than, and others to save the life of David; all of which 
 must be excused on the ground that he had a great mis- 
 sion to fulfill, and was the chosen of God to accomplish 
 certain things of moment to the world. Life was precious 
 to him, and the ability he displayed in protecting it was 
 not small, nor free from gross fraud. All the chances were 
 calculated shrewdly, otherwise he would have lost his life. 
 
 Chapter XXI. David went to Abimelech, at a place 
 called Nob, and Abimelech gave him and his company the 
 sanctified bread to eat, and also the sword with which he 
 had beheaded Goliath. Then he fled on to Achish, king of 
 Gath, where he feigned himself mad, by frothing at the 
 mouth and by other strange conduct, so that Achish was 
 anxious to be rid of him. 
 
 Chapter XXII. His next resort was to a cave at Adul- 
 lam, where he drew together outlaws like himself, and 
 undertook to exercise the functions of a ruler by releasing 
 those who were in debt, and relieving those who were 
 oppressed. From thence he went to Mizpeh of Moab. 
 Being warned by a prophet to depart, he fled to the forest 
 of Hareth in Judah. An Edomite named Doeg betrayed 
 to Saul what Abimelech had done for David. The kind- 
 hearted priest was therefore told that he should surely die 
 and all his connections with him The command to "turn 
 and slay the priests of the Lord," Saul's servants hesitated 
 to execute; so the king commanded the Edomite, who had 
 no scruples, to " turn and fall upon the priests;" and he 
 slew that day four score and five persons that wore a linen 
 
248 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 ephod ; and Nob the city of the priests smote he with the 
 edge of the sword, both men, women and children, suck- 
 lings, and oxen, and asses, and sheep, with the edge of 
 the sword." A terrible retribution for hospitality to a fugi- 
 tive. And all because an old priest gave David a little 
 bread and the sword used to cut off the head of Goliath. 
 Not only the priests of the Lord, but all their friends and 
 connections, all their sheep and cattle suffered. Abiathar 
 told David what had been done, and said that the life of 
 both of them was in danger from Saul. 
 
 Chapter XXIII. The Philistines went against Keilah 
 and committed robberies. After inquiring of the Lord, 
 David fought them, took away all their cattle, routed their 
 forces, killed many of them, and saved the inhabitants of 
 Keilah. Saul had slain Abimelech, but his son Abiathar 
 fled to David at Keilah with an ephod in his hand. Saul 
 expected confidently to take David there, but he escaped 
 with six hundred men, and dwelt in the strongholds at 
 Engedi. 
 
 Chapter XXIV. For a long time Saul sought by every 
 means to take David, who showed supreme talent in esca- 
 ping his grasp. To relate every circumstance about these 
 fearful perils would be going into wearisome particulars. 
 During these movements and counter-movements, while the 
 Lord seemed to be aiding David, the injured betrayed no 
 desire to turn upon his injurer. When the Ziphites offered 
 to deliver David up to be slain, Saul said: "Blessed be ye 
 of the Lord." Such feelings could only come from the 
 evil spirit that long possessed him. When at last Saul 
 heard his foe lay hid in the wilderness of Engedi, he 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 249 
 
 selected three thousand of his most valiant men to bring 
 him in alive or dead. In the meantime Saul fell in David's 
 way at the entrance of a cave, when his life might easily 
 have been taken, but, David felt that divinity which hedges 
 in a king, and that he must protect the monarch from 
 outrage for his own future peace upon the throne. David 
 seized the occasion to tell Saul plainly how foolishly and 
 wickedly he had conducted, and explained the absurdity of 
 such a course. Saul was fully convinced that all was true 
 which David had spoken, and had the fairness to own it, 
 saying he was sure that the kingdom of Israel would be 
 established in David's hand, and asked him to swear that 
 he would not cut off the name or seed of Saul from the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Chapter XXV. Samuel died, and all Israel gathered 
 together in lamentation, and buried him in the house of 
 Ramah. David went down to the wilderness of Paran, 
 where he found a man of wealth named Nabal. It was the 
 season of sheep-shearing. David spoke kindly to Nabal 
 and his people, who inquired particularly about David's 
 history — in regard to his being the son of Jesse or some 
 runaway from his master. David's young men reported 
 back to him what was said, and evidently in a rage he 
 commanded every man to gird on his sword for battle. 
 The whole number of them was four hundred, half of 
 whom abode by the stuff. Beautiful Abigail, the wife of 
 Nabal, was told by her servants that Nabal had abused 
 David, and that a storm was about to break on their 
 master. Abigail, like other women, was prompt to act in 
 such an emergency; so with a peace-offering of two hundred 
 
250 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 loaves of bread, two bottles of wine, five sheep ready- 
 dressed, parched corn, raisins, cakes and figs, she started 
 leading the way herself, without the knowledge of her 
 husband. As she drew near the camp of David the men 
 came out to meet her. The condition of affairs was quickly 
 explained by David, who told her that of all Nabal pos- 
 sessed nothing would be left to him at the morning light. 
 She acknowledged at once that her husband was the 
 meanest of men, and really a son of the devil. The pres- 
 ents were mentioned, on which account David said he would 
 spare her; and she seemed immediately to have lost all 
 anxiety about her brute of a husband. David told her to 
 go back, took her hand, and gave a promise that no harm 
 should come to her. On her arrival she found Nabal was 
 holding a feast and much intoxicated. About ten days 
 after the Lord smote Nabal and he died; or rather the 
 effects of that debauch and previous indulgences caused 
 his death. Soon after that — as the reader has already 
 anticipated — David took Abigail for a wife; and, unlike 
 modern husbands, not being satisfied with her, he also took 
 Ahinoam of Jezreel. Some time before that, Saul had 
 taken from David his first wife, Michal, and given her 
 another husband, obscure as her first was to be renowned. 
 Chapter XXVI. Saul heard that David was in the wil- 
 derness of Ziph, and moved forward with three thousand 
 chosen men to seize him. Hearing of Saul's arrival, David 
 sent out spies, and with a few of his chosen men came 
 upon Saul by night as he lay unguarded in his tent. He 
 was completely at their mercy; but David would not smite 
 him, nor allow his men to do it. Taking away only his 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 251 
 
 spear and cruse of water, David retired without awakening 
 him. David went to the top of a hill at some distance, 
 and proclaimed all that had happened, at the same time 
 exhibiting the king's spear and cruse. Saul, knowing 
 David's voice, saluted him as son. Then a long conver- 
 sation ensued, at the end of which Saul blessed his son 
 David, and told him he would be a great man. 
 
 Chapter XXVII. Notwithstanding this friendly inter- 
 view, David was impressed with the idea that he would 
 some day fall a victim to Saul's unrelenting hate. So he 
 decided to go into the land of the Philistines with his two 
 wives. When Saul was told of David's flight to Gath, he 
 went no more after him. Achish gave him Ziklag at once, 
 as Chiselhurst sheltered Napoleon III, and there he abode 
 a year and four months. His warlike disposition would 
 not allow of his being long idle; so he invaded some of 
 the old worn-out clans of Canaan, smiting them down as 
 usual, so that none were left alive, neither man, woman or 
 child, to tell the story. Not a soul of all that David went 
 against escaped to charge him with their destruction. 
 
 Achish considered David a cruel warrior, and thought his 
 own people could but abhor him; but gradually he became 
 fond of him, making him captain of his life-guard or keeper 
 of his head. 
 
 After Samuel's death Saul put away those that had 
 familiar spirits out of the land. The Philistines armed 
 against him in formidable numbers, and when he saw 
 them fear came upon him, especially as he could get no 
 answer from the Lord; neither by dreams, by the (Trim nor 
 the prophets. And Saul said to his servant: "Seek me a 
 
252 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor." And, having 
 disguised himself, Saul went to this sorceress by night, 
 and told her to divine unto him by the familiar spirit, and 
 bring up from the grave him whom he would name. The 
 witch pretended not to know who it was that stood before 
 her; and said to him that Saul had cut off such as had 
 familiar spirits, and the wizard out of the land. She 
 would be ruined therefore by identifying herself with such 
 an outlawed set. Saul solemnly swore that her life should 
 be perfectly safe; betraying, if his unparalleled height had 
 not already done, who her midnight visitor was. Nothing 
 is said about the use of magical instruments, signs or 
 manipulations, and there might not have been any. Saul 
 had stated his desire to have some one raised, without 
 being explicit as to the person. Both Saul and the woman 
 had doubts about the appearance before them of one who 
 had been dead for years; hence they were frightened when 
 she said that she saw gods ascending out of the earth. 
 Saul wished to know what form he was of. The woman 
 had used the plural " gods " in the Hebrew way as express- 
 ing dignity. Looking again, the witch said: "An old man 
 cometh up covered with a mantle." Saul declared it was 
 Samuel, and bowed himself to the earth. Then, the con- 
 versation is given between the live man and the one that 
 had been dead and buried three or four years. Not every 
 witch in that age was able to raise the dead and besides 
 make them speak in audible ivords. We should naturally 
 conclude that this must be the most difficult part of the 
 job; that therefore this woman had distinguished ability — 
 especially if she did what she thought beyond her own 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 253 
 
 powers. Perhaps, she only pretended to be surprised when 
 from the trap-hole in her floor a figure seemed to arise 
 which she cunningly pronounced to be dressed like Samuel, 
 whom she knew Saul would desire to see more than any 
 other being that had ever lived. The dialogue between 
 Saul and the phantom represented by an old man leaning 
 on a staff, was very easily managed. Samuel naturally 
 enough complained of being disturbed, as if he had been 
 taking a night's rest. Saul apologizes by his agony of 
 soul for want of advice about the coming battle. Samuel 
 tells him — what any child could have done — that he was 
 certain to be beaten; that Israel would be delivered into 
 the Philistines' hands; that his kingdom would be given 
 to his far worthier rival; and (which was not wholly true) 
 that all his sons would be slain. On hearing echoed from 
 the other world, as the superstitious king believed, what 
 his own heart had prophesied, he naturally swooned away; 
 and when he recovered refused for a time to take any food, 
 though he had been fasting for some time. After the 
 spectral vision had vanished, the woman showed great 
 kindness to the soul she was helping to crush; she urged 
 him to take food, which he declined until overcome by her 
 entreaties and those of his attending servants. This witch 
 was not as destitute as some who practice fortune- telling; 
 but, like well-to-do people of that time, had on hand a 
 fatted calf which she hastened to kill and with the meat 
 prepare a sumptuous meal for Saul, of which he and his 
 servants partook. This appears to have been his last 
 regular repast, What faith would be put in a story of 
 this kind — if* related in just the same style — as occurring 
 
254 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 now ? Not one in a thousand of those who say every word 
 in the Bible is literally true, would give it any credence. 
 
 Chapter XXIX. The Philistines in the meantime had 
 gathered their armies together at Aphek, and the Israelites 
 at Jezreel. David, it will be remembered, was sojourning 
 among- the Philistines; but they refused to let him join 
 them to fight against the Israelites, though no fault was 
 found in him. King Achish himself was willing, but the 
 lords of the Philistines rightfully enough objected in the 
 strongest terms. So the king advised David to depart 
 early in the morning, and he did as directed. 
 
 Chapter XXX. On the third day, at Ziklag, David ascer- 
 tained that the Amalekites had captured the place, burnt 
 it with fire, smitten all the people except the women, who 
 were carried away captive. David looked matters over 
 carefully, consulted with Abiathar the priest, who used his 
 ephod to inquire of the Lord whether these freebooters 
 should be pursued. The answer came quickly to push on 
 after them and recover all that had been lost. David only 
 took six hundred men for the chase, and at the brook Besor 
 left two hundred of these who were too faint for so rapid 
 a march. An Egyptian approached his camp, who was 
 suffering with hunger, having fasted for three days. When 
 his strength came again with the supply of food, David 
 inquired where he dwelt. The reply was in Egypt; but 
 that he had been with a company of men who had taken 
 and burned Ziklag with fire. David wished to know if he 
 could take him to that company — for he knew at once that 
 they were Amalekites — in which case he promised no harm 
 should come to the Egyptian at the hands of his late 
 
FIRST SAMUEL. 255 
 
 master, who was evidently one of the robbers. Soon 
 the victorious host who had plundered and burned Zik- 
 lag were found having a feast of good things; eating, 
 drinking, dancing and rejoicing over the spoils they had 
 taken. David recovered to the full all that had been 
 carried away; rescued his two wives; so that nothing 
 was lacking of either small or great, sons or daughters, 
 flocks or herds. Returning to the two hnndred men left 
 at the brook Besor, a dispute arose about the recovered 
 spoils. Some of David's men, designated as the sons of 
 Belial, contended that those who went not after the Amal- 
 ekites but remained at the brook should have no portion 
 of the plunder. David decided that all should share alike, 
 whether they remained by the stuff or joined in the pur- 
 suit. Here again we find another of the many evidences 
 that the Old Testament was re-written, enlarged, altered 
 and compiled long after the events of which it treats: 
 " And it was so from that day forward that he made it a 
 statute and an ordinance for Israel unto this day." — v. 25. 
 On his return to Ziklag, David sent many presents to his 
 friends from the spoils he had taken. 
 
 Chapter XXXI. In the meantime the fight was going 
 on between Israel and the Philistines, who pressed hard 
 upon Saul and his sons. Jonathan, Abinadab and Melchi- 
 shua fell early in the engagement; for the battle was ex- 
 ceedingly fierce, and the archers sorely wounded Saul. 
 He therefore desired his armor-bearer to thrust him through, 
 for fear that some uncircumcised person would come and 
 abuse him. His armor-bearer refused; and Saul in his 
 agony fell upon his own sword and soon expired. Seeing 
 
256 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 this, his armor-bearer followed his example; dying by his 
 own hand. Thus Saul, his three sons, and his armor- 
 bearer, all died the same day. When the men of Israel 
 on the other side of the valley and beyond the Jordan saw 
 that the army was routed, and Saul and his sons slain, 
 they forsook the places they occupied and fled, and the 
 Philistines Came and dwelt in them. The day after, when 
 the Philistines came to strip the slain according custom, 
 they found Saul and his three sons among them, on Mount 
 Gilboa. They cut off Saul's head and took his armor to 
 be exhibited as a trophy in the house of Ashtaroth; his 
 body they fastened to the town wall. The people of 
 Jabesh-gilead (hearing of this), traveled all night; took 
 the body of Saul and his sons from the walls of Beth- 
 shan, and came to Jabesh and burnt them there. This 
 cremation must have been imperfect; for the bones were 
 buried under a tree at Jabesh, where they fasted seven 
 days. 
 
SECOND SAMUEL. 25? 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SECOND SAMUEL. 
 
 THE period covered by the second book of Samuel is 
 about forty years, from 1056 B. C. to 1016. 
 It will be remembered that before the death of Saul, 
 David took up his residence in a Philistine city called 
 Ziklag. This inconsiderable place had been assailed by a 
 band of desperadoes, a portion of it burnt and the spoils 
 recovered but a few days, when David was visited by an 
 Amalekite, who said he came from the late camp of Saul, 
 and undertook to tell David particularly about the battle 
 that had proved so disastrous. However plausibly the 
 story was told it did not agree with what David had 
 already learnt; for this Amalekite pretended to have given 
 the finishing blow to the conquered king, perhaps in ex- 
 pectation of some handsome reward. David, to show how 
 little he was disposed to gloat over the death of the man 
 who had for a long time hunted after his life, and how 
 sacred a sovereign's person should be, ordered the Amale- 
 kite to be immediately executed. An elegy was delivered 
 in which the strongest terms were used to express the 
 great service Saul had done to the nation, and the estima- 
 tion in which he was held by the people. The women es- 
 
258 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 pecially were called to witness how generous and kind he 
 had been. 
 
 Thus ends the history of the first one anointed by 
 Samuel as the vicegerent of Jehovah, and as in modern 
 phrase the right man in the right place. But the way he 
 conducted himself proved that the choice was an utter 
 mistake, unless he was intended to serve as a foil to his 
 successor. Praise bestowed on the dead is often mere talk 
 with the smallest possible regard to facts. David honored 
 himself by saying what he did about his father-in-law; and 
 furnished another instance of high-toned feelings by men- 
 tioning all his good acts, and carefully omitting all the 
 bad ones; nor were Jonathan's noble services forgotten by 
 the royal eulogist. The love and affection between him 
 and David did honor to the kind-heartedness and amiabil- 
 ity of both. 
 
 Chapter II. David, with his three wives, by the Lord's 
 command went to Hebron, and was fully established in that 
 renowned city of Judah. He sought and found the men of 
 Jabesh-gilead who buried Saul, gave them many thanks for 
 their kindness with a blessing, and closed his remarks by 
 announcing that he was anointed king. Taking the Bible 
 as it reads, it would seem that Ishbosheth was made king 
 over Gilead, the Ashurites, Jezreel, Ephraim, and what was 
 then called Israel, as far as Abner (the captain of Saul's 
 host) could do it by mere word of mouth. David, how- 
 ever, was made king of Judah in less than a year after 
 Saul's death, and reigned for about seven and a half 
 years. If therefore Ishbosheth was not made king over 
 the other portion of the Israelites till five years after, it 
 
SECOND SAMUEL. 259 
 
 follows that a large portion of the people remained with- 
 out any regular ruler. Such may have been the case, and 
 hence the civil strife that convulsed the nation. This 
 anarchy continued with little interruption for the whole 
 seven years and a half, or up to the time that David was 
 anointed king over Israel, B. C. 1049. David was not the 
 legitimate heir to the throne, but as all know a usurper; 
 and this was one reason why so many w r aited for the 
 course of events to justify David's right to the throne. 
 But time, with the most convincing of all arguments, 
 settled every thing — by the sword more than all else 
 David vindicated his right to the throne. Fighting consti- 
 tuted his great business for many years. Whether right 
 or wrong, superior force leads to conquest, and laws made 
 by the conquerors have been obeyed. Through all these 
 wars, in all the battles, David waxed stronger and stronger, 
 and the old house of Saul weaker and weaker. Abner ulti- 
 mately came out for David, especially when Ishbosheth 
 wanted his father's concubines. That he thought was 
 asking too much. The contest between Ishbosheth and 
 David continued until the pretender having been slain in 
 his bed, his rival was anointed king over both Israel and 
 Judah. That was his third anointing; the first while with 
 his father in Bethlehem; the second as king of Judah 
 alone. 1049 B. C. David's full reign began, and, singular 
 enough was inaugurated by an order to slay all the blind 
 and lame of the Jebusites. The hill of Zion, about which 
 so much is said in prose and song, David held as a fortified 
 camp. The influence and renown of this wonderful man 
 increased rapidly, and the record says " the Lord God of 
 
260 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Hosts was with him." This term at that time meant a 
 special influence or directing- power that favored Israel. 
 Soon after he ascended the throne, the Philistines came 
 against him and were defeated. David's growing popular- 
 ity and high position demanded the construction of a suit- 
 able palace; in the erection of which he took the same 
 personal interest as is taken by all oriental monarchs 
 to-day. 
 
 But yet, amidst all the hurry and bustle of building 
 houses, and getting wives and concubines for David, the 
 ark was not forgotten ; nor did other cares prevent the 
 bringing of this palladium of their liberties to Jerusa- 
 lem, already a rapidly increasing city, fast becoming the 
 grand center of all Israel. In order to bring the ark with 
 becoming dignity, they constructed a new cart upon 
 which to place it for removal. Delays took place as a 
 matter of course; but, in due time the ark was put in 
 its place, offerings made to the Lord after the manner 
 of that day, and every one of the people received a loaf 
 of bread — emblem of the bread from heaven — as well 
 as a flagon of wine. The wife of David — if any one in 
 particular was entitled to the name — complained of the 
 vulgar show the king had made by dancing before the ark 
 naked, " shamelessly," as she said. So far from being 
 daunted by the reproof, David assured her he should be 
 ''still more vile;" and then sent her away from his house, 
 an exile from his heart. This conduct of Saul's daughter 
 was another token of the want of reverence distinguishing 
 her father's house. 
 
 Although the ark was put in what was then called its 
 
SECOND SAMUEL. 261 
 
 place, it was not a worthy shrine for a great nation's 
 worship. Feeling this want, Nathan and David agreed 
 that a temple ought to be erected and dedicated to the 
 Lord, in which not only solemn worship could be main- 
 tained, but where the ark might be safely kept. During 
 the years of journeying from Egypt, and the incessant 
 wars the Israelites waged with all who interrupted their 
 progress, they could not be expected to erect any thing 
 like temples. Moses therefore realized the necessity of 
 adapting the tabernacle to their migratory habits, making 
 it nothing but a magnificent tent. Having become fully 
 organized with a king, superior in most respects to any 
 other of that day, their condition was changed. Every 
 god of wood and stone had his temple; why then should 
 Jehovah be destitute ? and, as their God was superior to 
 the heathen gods, why should not a temple of correspond- 
 ing grandeur be erected for Him ? Nathan assured David 
 the Lord would establish his kingdom forever and ever. 
 
 The Philistines were the most troublesome enemies they 
 had; next to them in importance came the Ammonites. 
 David by his skill and prowess made both of these na- 
 tions, if not submissive, quiet and respectful. He was a 
 real king; not a shadow without substance like the paste- 
 board monarch of the stage. At length came a period of 
 great prosperity, which brought naturally enough habits of 
 ease and luxury, leading to debauchery with a long train 
 of excesses. The change from constant war for several 
 hundred years to a condition of quiet, was too great for 
 them to bear without demoralization. This showed itself 
 first in the head of the nation, in his double crime with 
 
262 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Uriah's wife, B. C. 1035. By chance or design lie saw 
 Bathsheba bathing in a nude state, which greatly increased 
 his passions, for her form was splendid. Now what should 
 we expect that this man "after God's own heart" would 
 do ? control his passion and curb his appetite, or give a 
 loose rein to both ? The melancholy sequel shows which 
 course he took. She was led an unwilling captive into 
 the palace. How long expostulations lasted or what re- 
 sistance was made no one can tell. Such circumstances 
 seldom become a matter of record. That she yielded we 
 know full well. This was not all David did. Telling one 
 lie makes room for another, so one wicked act leads to the 
 commission of more. He had taken the lawful wife of 
 Uriah to his bosom, hence her husband who loved her de- 
 votedly must be some way removed. That was the safe 
 course to pursue then as now, and David took it. But he 
 did not escape condemnation. The shrewdness and tact 
 by which David was made to judge himself, by Nathan 
 the prophet, has been often quoted and admired. When 
 David declared " that the rich man who had stolen a 
 lamb from the poor man's flock shall surely die," Nathan 
 said with great emphasis: " Thou art the man V But Uriah 
 was already dead. His wife mourned him deeply, for her 
 love was strong and pure. In process of time Solomon 
 was born to David of Bathsheba. David suffered every 
 way for his sin. The licentious propensities of the father 
 soon began to exhibit themselves in his children; and 
 Amnon committed the abominable crime of ruining his 
 own sister, Tamar. Few prominent men previously had 
 done anything so base and mean. David, when he saw a 
 
SECOND SAMUEL. 263 
 
 lady suited to his fancy, managed to get her. His three 
 wives were each obtained in a singular way. The first 
 one, daughter of Saul, was bought by a certain portion of 
 the body taken from one hundred Philistines. Nabal and 
 all his servants were slaughtered to get another, and 
 Uriah's life was taken for the third. This was an extraor- 
 dinary method of wooing. The crime of Amnon opened 
 the way for some other iniquity, and Absalom murdered 
 his own brother in revenge. David began to fear trouble 
 would be upon him the rest of his days, and at first 
 refused to forgive Absalom. To recover favor, a story 
 was invented by him after the manner of that time, and 
 told for truth. Such stories surely ought not to be taken 
 as the word of God coming to us by inspiration. They 
 were invented for the occasion, and should be treated as 
 mere fiction. Absalom was not punished for committing 
 this unnatural murder, though just as guilty as Cain, and 
 unquestionably condemned by the laws of Moses. Ara- 
 non's sin gave no authority for another if possible more 
 glaring, deliberate, and outrageous. Forgiveness is com- 
 mendable, but in this case, as in many others, was poorly 
 requited by Absalom, who soon after undertook to act the 
 part of a usurper and wrest the scepter from his father's 
 hand. Not satisfied with all his wantonness hitherto, a 
 most obscene exhihition was made to the public by the ap- 
 propriation of ten of his father's concubines in open day at 
 Jerusalem. Such condud as David and the people wit- 
 nessed daily in Absalom troubled the king; who, though 
 the bravest of the brave, trembled a! the thought of a 
 struggle for life with his own son. David's immediate 
 
264 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 advisers gathered about him for consultation, and warned 
 him not to go into the battle as he desired, and he yielded 
 to their remonstrances. That providence, which controls 
 events that man cannot foresee, could not take sides with 
 the heartless son. One who had done so wickedly had no 
 claim for the continuance of a life of sin, and the only way 
 to arrest his treason was to terminate his life. Absalom 
 went into the battle full of hope. His unusually long hair 
 in riding under a tree became entangled in the branches, 
 and there he remained suspended between earth and 
 heaven, until the brutal Joab took his life, in violation of 
 the father's command. David was among the last to har- 
 bor malice against a dead enemy. Ten men who con- 
 stituted the body-guard of Joab, assisted in this brutal 
 murder. 
 
 The Old Testament as a history holds a high rank 
 among other works. Its thoroughness, and above all 
 things, its perfect impartiality, give evidence of its gen- 
 eral truth. Nothing seems to be designedly left out. 
 Those who do bad acts in an hour of temptation are not 
 spared. The whole truth is told. Good men are not 
 always perfect. To be good in a human sense is only to 
 do our best as frail beings, tempted continually without 
 and within. This is shown in all the annals of the Jews 
 and their ancestors back to Noah, and even to the family 
 of Adam. 
 
 Chapter XXI. Various particulars are given about 
 another giant, who defied the armies of Israel as Goliath 
 had before done, and was slain by a very small man. 
 
 Chapter XXII gives a triumphant song sung by David 
 
SECOND SAMUEL. 265 
 
 after all conspirators were defeated, remarkable for its 
 boastful spirit. From its tone one might infer that the 
 Lord's whole attention was showered on David's head, 
 with no regard for any one else, and that the Lord deliv- 
 ered him out of trouble on account of his peculiar merit. 
 This is human nature still; many persons imagine they 
 are ill treated by every special calamity which falls to their 
 lot; and that if any person obstructs their path he 
 deserves to be severely punished, if not slain. Charity 
 would cure such self-preference — would convince a man 
 that others have claims on providence as well as himself— 
 and that the universal Father is not partial but will re- 
 ward every man according to his deserts. 
 
 One very difficult and saddening tragedy has been 
 passed over. It is the deliberate murder of seven sons of 
 Saul as an atonement for Saul's slaying the Gibeonites, 
 which appears to be sanctioned in the Record, was ordered 
 by David, and not condemned by either God or Nathan. 
 It would be hard to find anything in history more brutal, 
 as this occurred years after the wrong had been committed, 
 as these last remnants of an unfortunate family had had no 
 share in their father's crime, and as the law of Moses ex- 
 pressly condemned the son's suffering for his parent's 
 crime. 
 
 The picture of one of the desolated mothers spreading 
 her sack-cloth on the rooky height of Gibeah, and watch- 
 ing day and night around her crucified children to drive 
 away the vulture and the jackal till the human fiends 
 could endure this mute appeal to heaven no more, is not 
 surpassed by the classic story of Niobe's mourning over 
 
266 
 
 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 her beautiful daughters. Can any mother's heart feel 
 that Deity sanctioned this horror ? 
 
 This second book of Samuel closes by an account of the 
 sin committed by David in numbering the people. They 
 imagined this to be a grievous sin at the time; few think 
 it so now. The only possible construction which could 
 make the taking of a national census a crime, is its in- 
 flaming an ambitious ruler to aggressive war. 
 
 Chapter XXIV. Joab gave the number of valiant sol- 
 diers at eight hundred thousand; which would lead us to 
 think the whole population not far from three million. 
 
 In the first verse of the preceding chapter, we read: 
 " These are the last words of David the son of Jesse," etc., 
 " the spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in 
 my tongue." If really spoken by David of himself they 
 are singularly arrogant, as a claim of infallible inspira- 
 tion. May not something be learned from the modes of 
 speech now in use in oriental nations ? Sir Samuel Baker 
 says the Arabs now speak of a famine in a very similar 
 way: "The Lord called for a famine and it came;" and of 
 a dream that " God appeared to him in a dream and said" — . 
 With the Bible in his hands, and these unchanged tribes be- 
 fore his eyes, this distinguished traveler declares that the 
 veil of three thousand years is raised and that the living 
 picture is a witness to the exactness of the historical de- 
 scriptions. So that the claim for David in this striking 
 passage would amount to his own consciousness being im- 
 pressed with the feeling of uttering God's truth, or de- 
 claring God's will. And we cannot doubt for a moment 
 that God still continues to make humanity his oracle, still 
 
SECOND SAMUEL. 26? 
 
 quickens willing consciences, still possesses childlike hearts 
 with the spirit of purity, of truth, and of love. 
 
SCRIPTURE SPECULA TIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FIRST KINGS. 
 
 WITH the beginning of this book commences a period 
 of over six centuries, ending with Jewish biblical 
 history about four hundred years before the birth of Jesus. 
 The ten tribes revolted B. C. 9t6, and took Jeroboam for 
 their king, and were known as Israel, Ephraim or Samaria; 
 while to Judah or Jerusalem clung the Levites and Benja- 
 mites. A separate existence was maintained by the ten 
 tribes until 721 B. C, when they were carried into captivity 
 by the Assyrians, whose capital was Nineveh. Judah 
 withstood this powerful nation for one hundred and fifteen 
 years, and the captivity of the whole began 606 B. C; from 
 which time we reckon to make the seventy years spoken 
 of as the term of bondage. Looking back from the begin- 
 ning of Solomon's reign, we find that though the service of 
 the sanctuary had varied at different times in trifles, all its 
 main features had been preserved. Corruptions occasion- 
 ally crept in, especially during the desultory administration 
 of the judges; and as a natural result of these irregula- 
 rities the sanctuary became neglected. Worship was con- 
 tinued in Shiloh, though Eli's family abused their office so 
 as to justify the famous words of Milton: 
 
 "When the priests 
 Turn atheist, as did Eli's sons who filled 
 With lust and violence the house of God." 
 
FIRST KINGS. 269 
 
 The general service of the sanctuary fell into great dis- 
 repute, and lost entirely its controlling influence over the 
 people. The ceremonies enjoined by the law of Moses 
 were greatly neglected. Not only was there manifest need 
 of a general revival of religion, but there was a still deeper 
 want of a central temple to which they could look with an 
 eye of faith; to which their thoughts would turn with 
 proud reverence; where many generations would gather 
 in acceptable homage and all the earth might offer praise. 
 To the sweet Psalmist of Israel is due the credit of deter- 
 mining upon a work so noble in itself, so memorable in its 
 results. Many faults the world has detected in that warrior 
 king; and yet, poor as his training had been, his reign was 
 a far greater success than that of his wise son, though 
 both won the favor of their people — both advanced that 
 people in civilization, wealth, power and fame. 
 
 The first book of Kings relates to a term of about one 
 hundred and nineteen years — from 1016 to 891" B. C. The 
 two books of Kings cover a period of about four hundred 
 and twenty-eight years, up to 588 B. C, with the civil and 
 religious history of the nation from the death of David to 
 the burning of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar. The author- 
 ship of these books is not certainly known, but is believed 
 to have been rather an editorship by the prophet Jeremiah, 
 from a variety of narratives held in estimation at the time. 
 Chronicles were; written especially for the Jews after the 
 Babylonish captivity; and both K ings and Chronicles are in 
 a great part drawn from previous records; hence the con- 
 stant repetition. Had the authors of these old and highly 
 valued writings been alive when they were revised, their 
 
270 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 services would have been invaluable in harmonizing- the 
 statements. But that was not to be; hence we have the 
 books with their manifold imperfections. 
 
 The eleven opening chapters of Kings give a history of 
 Solomon's reign; the next eleven chapters a history of the 
 divided kingdom of Israel from the time of its separation 
 into the ten tribes of Israel proper, and Judah. 
 
 About the time the second book of Kings closed, there 
 were four classes of Jews in Babylon, as follows: The 
 Assyrian captives who had found their way from Nineveh 
 to Babylon; those taken in the first attack on Jerusalem, 
 among whom were Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed- 
 nego; those taken in the second attack, including- Ezekiel 
 and other leaders of Israel; and those taken in the victory 
 over Zedekiah, king of Judah. In the return of all these 
 different classes, their descendants became united in a 
 single body. Cyrus, king of Persia, conducted himself 
 nobly toward the Jews who desired to return to Jerusalem, 
 giving them entire liberty and every facility in his power. 
 
 With all David's amiable qualities, he led rather a dis- 
 solute life, which impaired his health, undermined his con- 
 stitution, lessened his public influence, and brought on 
 premature decay. His intimate friends became anxious 
 on account of his failing health; various plans were started 
 to relieve his system from the chilliness of a bad circula- 
 tion; amongst others that of a young person sharing the 
 royal bed; still the decline went on so rapidly that the 
 subject of a successor became the engrossing topic at court. 
 Adonijah, the son of Haggith, had a legitimate right to 
 succeed his father as the oldest son; but Bathsheba re- 
 
FIRST KINGS. 2U 
 
 minded David of his promise that her son Solomon was to 
 rule after him. Like others of her sex she was not wanting 
 in electioneering capacity. To arouse the king, and show 
 the necessity of immediate action, he was told that Adon- 
 ijah had commenced his reign by the slaughter of fat 
 cattle and by making a great stir among the people. 
 Zadock the priest, and Nathan the prophet both declared 
 for Solomon, and desired to anoint him king. David had a 
 favorite mule to be used only on occasions of state, and 
 upon him they placed Solomon and journeyed to Gihon, 
 where Zadock consecrated him with oil. When this was 
 told to Adonijah he drank the health of Solomon, and hoped 
 he would do better than his father; a suggestion at least 
 that he deemed his father a poor ruler. All Adonijah's 
 expressions are frank and friendly to Solomon; so that 
 with David's blessing and detailed good advice, every thing 
 seemed to presage a favorable reign for the boy king. 
 The last hours of David were spent in conversation about 
 foes no less than friends. Nor did he omit to speak of 
 himself — to name the good deeds he had done, and to say 
 that the Lord was satisfied with him. Though about to 
 die, feelings of revenge still worked in the old warrior's 
 breast. By his especial direction the lives of both Joab 
 and Shimei were to be taken upon the first convenient 
 occasion. He had reigned seven years in Hebron and 
 thirty-three in Jerusalem. Although Adonijah claimed the 
 kingly office, his submission was prompt, and his petition 
 only that his life might be spared, which he saw to be in no 
 little danger, as Solomon suspected him. Let us see how 
 slight a thing induced the young despot to order his rival's 
 
272 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 execution: It was simply Adonijah's asking Solomon's 
 mother to intercede that he might be allowed Ahishag for 
 a wife. In return for his thus stealing towards the 
 throne, an executioner named Benaiah was sent to murder 
 him without his being heard in self defence. Abiathar, 
 for telling Solomon to flee away on account of this 
 murder, was deposed from the priesthood. The execution 
 of Joab soon followed by the hand of Benaiah. For this 
 promptness in taking the lives of the most dangerous in the 
 kingdom, Benaiah was rewarded with the appointment of 
 general-in-chief of the king's forces, and Zadock with the 
 high priesthood. Such the introduction of that man's reign 
 about whose wisdom the world has heard so much. After 
 these acts so characteristic of an oriental despotism, there 
 seemed to be no other life which threatened the peace or 
 permanency of his reign, and the thirst for glory gradually 
 sprang up in the king's bosom. The king of Egypt had a 
 daughter; to seek and obtain her hand was such a dis- 
 tinction as no Jewish ruler had aspired after before. 
 
 Chapter III. It is said Solomon loved the Lord and kept 
 His statutes. If love of the Lord leads men to take the 
 lives of those who stand in their way, it is a singular kind 
 of love. 
 
 The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and inquired 
 what he would ask; the reply was: "Give me wisdom." 
 This, he truly said, was above all other things in value. 
 Such a dream is certainly of the best kind. Better would 
 it be if more had the same dream with the same result. 
 The first judicial act of his was thought to show wisdom, 
 tho igh it is hard to discover any thing profound about it. 
 
FIRST KINGS. 2?3 
 
 Two mothers pressed their claims for the same infant. 
 Solomon touched the real parent's heart by ordering the 
 child to be divided in two, and half to be given to each. 
 This despotic and inhuman sentence prompted the real 
 mother to cry out for the child's life by desiring the babe 
 to be given to the other woman, rather than be slain. 
 Solomon detected the true parent by this outcry of nature, 
 and gave her the child. And we read: "All Israel saw 
 that the wisdom of God was with him." 
 
 Chapter fourth gives us the daily supplies of Solomon's 
 table, and they imply continual feasting: Three score 
 measures of meal, ten fatted and twenty grass-fed oxen, 
 one hundred sheep, besides harts, roebucks, fallow deer 
 and fatted fowls. It was evidently such a time of luxury 
 as never had been before — never would be again. Not 
 only were they at peace with all other nations, but the 
 king's marriages had made friends of many other kingdoms ; 
 and his world-wide reputation for wisdom drew from afar 
 persons like the queen of Sheba, who could not come 
 without a vast retinue. This is necessary to the dignity 
 of oriental rulers to-day. William Smith's Bible Diction- 
 ary maintains that the number of chariots and horsemen 
 which formed the king's body-guard are exaggerated ten- 
 fold. Perhaps these twelve thousand horsemen formed a 
 military police to prevent disorders in Jerusalem, maintain 
 the state of a grand sovereign, and execute his orders 
 throughout the newly-extended kingdom. As these records 
 of the grandest reign Israel ever knew were made in the 
 period of distress, confusion and fear which followed, it is 
 not strange that their statements are made so strong; and 
 
274 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 yet the whole Orient is filled with legends which throw 
 these statements entirely into the shade. The scriptures 
 state that Solomon knew more than all the East, that he 
 spake three thousand proverbs, made a thousand and five 
 songs, and discoursed in prose or verse upon the whole 
 natural kingdom. But it is strange that so few have 
 dared to question the wisdom of a man who converted a 
 nation of unsophisticated farmers into dissolute traders; 
 fastened upon his people a standing army in time of peace; 
 introduced those idolatrous customs and self-indulgent 
 habits which every prophet had denounced; taught his 
 successor to despise the counsels of all but striplings; 
 cursed the people with monstrous taxation, and hurled 
 them down the precipice of revolution. 
 
 It was during the early years of Solomon's reign that 
 these great stories were told in relation to what he said 
 and did. We must not forget that the dying injunction of 
 David was for his favorite son to build the temple he had 
 designed. Tyre, the queen of Mediterranean commerce, 
 was governed by Hiram, with whom Solomon had the 
 most friendly relations until their disagreement in what 
 we should term their final settlement. Much of the 
 material to be used in the construction of the temple 
 could only be obtained by water-carriage. Hiram took a 
 lively interest in the work, and his working-marks are read 
 to-day on the underground stones of the great temple-wall. 
 The general peace that prevailed favored the carrying on 
 of a work so extensive and costly. The Jews, before that 
 disposed to go to war on the smallest provocation, became 
 very peaceable through their sovereign's spirit. The 
 
FIX ST KINGS. 2T5 
 
 building of the temple was not the only thing to be done. 
 Improvements took place all through the city of a perma- 
 nent character. 
 
 What were then known as "the idol-serving nations" 
 comprised the entire East — indeed pretty much the whole 
 world. All of them had splendid temples in which to as- 
 semble and pay divine honor to what in their opinion de- 
 served adoration. The Israelites had something of a cen- 
 tral point at Shiloh, but nothing to be named in compari- 
 son with a city of temples like Karnac, or a perfect build- 
 ing like the Parthenon. Such a house as their God de- 
 served they determined to build. The bare idea not' only 
 awakened enthusiasm, but stirred within them thoughts of 
 the grand, imposing, and beautiful. At this time the Jews 
 had many true conceptions of the Spirit of Spirits. Their 
 worship in all its belongings was far in advance of any 
 other people. This superiority was justly felt, so that 
 they could hardly help looking down with scorn on Ihe 
 gods of wood and stone and their blind devotees. Among 
 the Jews the good seed was sown from which the growth 
 of after years came. If we say it was a feeble growth 
 and the fruit small, we are to remember how stubborn the 
 soil was, and how that flame had to rise as if it were in 
 the midst of the; ocean, witli the surge heaving against it 
 and the waves threatening to dash it out with every gale. 
 Now in that crude beginning we can trace the soul- 
 inspiring worship of the present day, the higher thoughts 
 and quickened aspirations of an eternal spiritual essence. 
 
 The wort of the temple wenl forward withoul abate- 
 ment. And as the bronzes were cast in furnaces near the 
 
216 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Jordan and the stones hewn in the lately discovered quar- 
 ries under the city, " like some tall palm the noiseless 
 fabric grew." To say that the devotion offered in that 
 temple was any thing but sincere would be untrue. By 
 means of this magnificent shrine the nation won a name 
 throughout the world. Their faith, at that time in the 
 true God, was every where honorably noticed, though not 
 extensively adopted. 
 
 Chapter XI. Great men have often great failings mixed 
 with nobleness and devotion to truth, showing plainly 
 what a singular compound human nature is. Solomon 
 loved many strange women; indeed they were quite too 
 numerous for his comfort. Seven hundred were enough 
 to turn the heart of any man without the aid of three 
 hundred concubines. The whole comprised a larger num- 
 ber than an eminently wise man after due consideration 
 would care to manage. In our Christian days when only 
 a single wife is allowed, the Mormon with his dozen is re- 
 garded with abhorrence. True, the habits of society have 
 changed in these thousands of years Grant they have, 
 can we condemn the Mormons for adopting Solomon's 
 practice in one respect while we adopt it in many ? Seven 
 hundred wives were no more necessary then than now. 
 They were a curse to him and a burden to the land. The 
 fashion of idolatry set by Solomon's heathen ladies, and 
 followed by thousands of elegantly dressed women, would 
 turn the heads of multitudes of Hebrew wives, who would 
 not find it hard to seduce their husbands to the more im- 
 posing ceremonies of Egypt. That Solomon above all 
 men was led into idolatry is a wonder. God's chosen and 
 
FIRST KINGS. 211 
 
 peculiar people seem to have longed continually for heathen 
 worship as if it were emancipation from an irksome re- 
 straint; or from customs, like circumcision, despised by 
 the rest of the world. 
 
 History lets us see that Solomon's court and the chief 
 men about him, long before the close of his reign, had 
 reached a high degree of licentiousness ; so that a penetra- 
 ting, prophetic eye could plainly detect the fearful calam- 
 ity impending over their nation. Hence the many predic- 
 tions and their almost literal fulfilment. So widely had 
 the whole nation strayed from the right path, and so nu- 
 merous were their transgressions that the spirit of truth, 
 which comes from God and therefore virtually is God, 
 warned Solomon the wise that the kingdom would pass 
 out of his hands. It did; and Jeroboam stole away ten 
 tribes. Rehoboam, who remained over the two faithful 
 tribes, and who began his. administration with scoffing at 
 the grey-heads, was little better than his idolatrous com- 
 petitor. His father had started in the way of idolatry 
 some time before his death. This son of his led the people 
 farther and farther, so that we are amazed at the condition 
 of Israel so soon after David's reign, a man after God's 
 own heart, with all that Solomon did and was, seeing that 
 the Jews were under Jehovah's especial guidance and train- 
 ing. Jeroboam even caused two golden calves to be 
 made and set up for daily worship. This was leading 
 Israel down to the animalism of Egypt. Had he only in- 
 stituted the synagogue-service, ho might have saved the 
 ton tribes from ultimate extinction. After a very short 
 and ignoble reign the successor of Solomon was cut off. 
 
218 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Chapter eighteenth represents Elijah as kindling- a pile 
 of wood by calling- down fire from heaven upon the altar 
 he had erected; after water had been poured upon it. May 
 it not be possible that the stones were like lime, ignited by 
 water, and that Elijah had discovered the properties of 
 the stones and had brought them with him unknown to the 
 Baal-priests ? The great difficulty in thus explaining away 
 the miracle is to believe that no one else shared this 
 knowledge — that the rival priests did not apply the secret 
 to their own sacrifice, and so anticipate the wonder-working 
 power of the true prophet. In this power of working won- 
 ders only Moses is represented as surpassing Elijah. Cer- 
 tainly he was far above his cotemporaries. Probably 
 many persons took up the business of prophesying, some 
 of whom were likely to prove utter cheats. But Elijah 
 hazarded his life repeatedly in attestation of his sincerity; 
 he often threw himself against the wicked will of his king, 
 and very frequently felt that his breath might be arrested 
 in a moment. 
 
 Chapter twenty-second tells of a three years' war be- 
 tween Syria and Israel. The third year Jehoshaphat came 
 to the king of Israel to say that Ramoth Gilead could be 
 taken from Syria. Thereupon they agreed to participate 
 in the spoils. To encourage the enterprise four hundred 
 prophets exhorted them to march on to victory. Though 
 such an army of holy men approved the invasion, the allied 
 kings seem to have mistrusted them so much as to require 
 the additional assurance of a more independent oracle, the 
 prophet Micaiah; who at first repeated the direction already 
 g'iven, after stating that the Lord had commanded him to 
 
FIRST KINGS. 279 
 
 speak the truth. Then he echoed the former prophecy. 
 But Ahab doubted his word, and adjured Micaiah to be 
 honest; whereupon this strange prophet determined to 
 give his good spirit the ascendancy by declaring his vision 
 of all Israel being scattered upon the hills as sheep without 
 a shepherd. He also said he saw the Lord sitting on his 
 throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing by him on 
 his right and on his left. To doubt the truth of that state- 
 ment can hardly be infidelity. To consider it as a mat- 
 ter of fact is not so hard as to say the Lord was anxious 
 to have Ahab slain in battle; and that in consequence of 
 that anxiety he took the trouble to find some one in all the 
 splendid court of heaven that was willing by His express 
 command to come down to earth and be a lying spirit in 
 the mouth of all the prophets of Israel. Is it possible 
 that such a question was asked in heaven by the God of 
 all the earth, and corresponding directions given? One 
 willing spirit said, "I will go;" and when questioned as to 
 the way he would accomplish the matter, said he " would 
 be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets." The 
 Lord said, "Go and prosper." The king ol* Israel and his 
 ally were both defeated, and Ahab slain. Micaiah was a 
 true prophet, either by God's assistance, or by having a 
 brave conscience of his own. If the four hundred proph- 
 ets wore influenced by a lying spirit sent from God (which 
 we do not believe), how could they be blamed? Perhaps 
 we might consider it the action of an unenlightened eon- 
 science in these prophets, such as prompted Paul at first 
 to persecute the Christians. 
 
280 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SECOND KINGS. 
 
 THE second book of Kings is a continuance of the first, 
 and refers to what happened from 900 B. C. to 588. 
 The ten tribes, we remember, revolted B. C. 976. Judah 
 and Benjamin adhered to Rehoboam and formed the king- 
 dom of Judah; while the ten tribes under Jeroboam formed 
 the kingdom of Israel. These separate governments were 
 maintained under the names of Judah and Israel for the 
 space of 255 years. In the year 721 B. C. the ten tribes 
 were carried into captivity by the Assyrians; but before 
 this the division led to much contention in matters of gov- 
 ernment as well as of religion, and not unfrequently to 
 bloody wars. With the people of Judah the succession of 
 kings was more regular than with the Israelites. This 
 final division is known especially as the revolt or rebellion 
 of the ten tribes, with whom there was less regularity in 
 worship, less regard of the priesthood, more idol-worship, 
 and particularly what was more remarkable, the adoration 
 of a calf. For some time this was thought to be an imita- 
 tion of Egypt, where the ox was worshiped from his utility 
 in agriculture and as a symbol of the sun, and so easily 
 
SECOND KINGS. 281 
 
 connected with the service of Baal. But Jeroboam's pur- 
 pose was only to modify the old religion, not to introduce 
 a new one. Aaron considered the calf-feast as dedicated 
 to Jehovah; the prophets who sanctioned this new service 
 were still regarded as prophets of Jehovah. So that we 
 believe this to have been merely a cherubic symbol of the 
 Deity who filled the Holy-of-Holies with his presence. 
 Certainly a belief in the true God was kept alive in Israel 
 and kindled anew by prophetic fire. The ten tribes relied 
 as implicitly on these living oracles of God as did their 
 Jew brethren upon an anointed priesthood, claiming descent 
 from Aaron. 
 
 In this second book the history begins with Ahaziah on 
 the throne of Israel, with his capital at Samaria; and 
 Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, with Jeru- 
 salem for his royal city. Elijah officiated as chief prophet. 
 Wars were unceasing, Judah against Ephraim and Ephraim 
 against Judah. In the very first chapter misfortunes begin: 
 Moab rebels against Israel. King Ahaziah sends to inquire 
 about his recovery from a serious fall to Baalzebub, the 
 god of Ekron, instead of seeking help from Elijah, who 
 represented the tutelar divinity of the nation. Therefore 
 the Lord said he should surely die; or Elijah said so for 
 Him; who it seems was a hairy man called the Tishbite, 
 wearing a girdle of leather about his loins, and living high 
 up on a hilltop, an admirable position either for defence or 
 observation. The king sent out fifty men against this 
 "man of God." Elijah called down fire from heaven upon 
 them, and they were consumed; as also were the next fifty 
 and their captain; but the third fifty with their captain 
 
282 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 went up and kneeled before Elijah and begged him to go 
 down with them to the king, pledging to him the safety of 
 his life; and he did go down, and told Ahaziah he should 
 surely die before lie left his sick-bed. 
 
 Chapter II. Desiring to take Elijah up into heaven, the 
 Lord is represented as waiting for him to go with Elisha 
 to Gilgal, then to Bethel and Jericho, lastly to Jordan, where 
 they stopped a while to look about them. Then Elijah 
 took his mantle, wrapped it together, and smote the waters, 
 whereupon they divided, and Elijah and Elisha passed over 
 on dry ground. Elisha then obtained a promise from 
 Elijah that a double portion of the father's spirit should fall 
 on his spiritual son were he so fortunate as to see him 
 when he was taken up. Just at that moment the chariot 
 of fire appeared drawn by horses of fire, and Elijah went 
 up by a whirlwind into heaven. As he went up his pro- 
 phetic mantle fell from his shoulders and was caught by 
 Elisha, who lost no time in trying how it would work in 
 his hand; and to his great joy found it had lost none of its 
 power. 
 
 When the waters of Jordan were smitten they divi- 
 ded for him as they had before for Elijah, and dry land 
 appeared for his passage across the river. This act was 
 witnessed by the sons of the prophets at Jericho, who 
 exclaimed that the spirit of Elijah rested on Elisha, and 
 they bowed themselves before him. A proposition was 
 made by these sons of the prophets to send fifty strong 
 men and if possible find the missing Elijah, thinking his 
 unburied remains had been left on some high mountain or 
 in some deep valley. These men, after a three days' 
 
SECOND KINGS. 283 
 
 search, returned to Jericho. Believing- Elisha would do 
 them good service, the people of Jericho told him that, but 
 for the barreimes of the land and the lack of water, they 
 would ask him to remain. Immediately he made the deci- 
 sion to try his ability at wonder-working". A new cruse 
 is called for (an old one would not answer), and filled with 
 salt; the contents of which were emptied into a spring from 
 whence they had been taking water of an inferior quality; 
 and Elisha told them that the Lord had healed the waters 
 so that no more deaths should happen, nor should the land 
 be barren. " So the waters were healed unto this day." — 
 v. 22. Meaning as in many other cases, years after the 
 history was written. On his way from the springs to 
 Bethel he was insulted by a few boys who taunted him on 
 account of his bald head. Dearly did they pay for this 
 act, as Elisha culled two ravenous she-bears from a wood 
 near by, who tore in pieces the whole forty-two children. 
 Possibly the boys in that neighborhood needed a lesson of 
 reverence, but this wholesale murder looks like a burst of 
 savage resentment, terrible even in a savage age, and un- 
 pardonable in one illuminated from on high; yet Elijah and 
 Elisha were both good and able men. When the first 
 named disappeared, who shall say he did not go directly 
 up to heaven? and on the other hand, who can say he did ? 
 Flesh and blood, we are told, cannot inherit the kingdom 
 of heaven, and it is therefore to be inferred that ordinary 
 flesh and blood have no place there. Many contend that 
 Jesus was taken up to heaven as a man with a double 
 nature — human and divine — and thus became the first 
 fruits of the resurrection. Others, equally honest and 
 
284 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 good, say his spirit went to God who gave it, and his body 
 in due time to the dust. This, however, is not a matter for 
 discussion in this connection. We are tempted to say 
 that if any one was ever taken up into the clouds or into 
 the heavens, clothed with an ordinary body, and not be- 
 yond the attractive power of our planet, they came down 
 soon after going up in the same shape. Going up a dis- 
 tance in a straight line from the earth's center would 
 bring one into a temperature cold enough to freeze any- 
 thing in the shape of flesh, and certainly destroy animal 
 life. Translation may be possible in an instant from this 
 earth to heaven. Let those think so that can, if it makes 
 them any better or happier, but do not let such call other 
 people hard names who do not see reason to believe with 
 them. 
 
 Chapter III. Jehoram reigned over Judah twelve years 
 and sinned greatly, though he put away the image of 
 Baal. 
 
 The king of Moab rebelled against Israel, and Jehoram 
 numbered his men of war to see if he could meet him. 
 He also asked assistance from Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. 
 So the king of Israel, the king of Judah, and the king of 
 Edom fetched a compass of seven days' journey, and ar- 
 rived at an utter desert where there was no water for the 
 men or the cattle. While in sore distress and peril of life, 
 Jehoshaphat inquired if there was not a prophet of the 
 Lord to be had. One of the servants of the king of Israel 
 spoke of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was living evi- 
 dently a very private life near by. On being sent for he 
 made reply that they had better call on their own prophets; 
 
SECOND KINGS. 285 
 
 though he finally said that Jehoshaphat ought to be favora- 
 bly considered, and so invoked the help of music to be- 
 come an oracle of the Most High. When the minstrel 
 played the hand of the Lord came upon him. Let us mark 
 the profound wisdom this man of God showed when he 
 commanded that the land be made full of ditches. The 
 ground being soft and marshy, no rain was needed; this 
 system of drainage soon supplied the army with water. 
 Nor was this all he did for them. A promise was made 
 directly from the Lord that the Moabites should be deliv- 
 ered into their hands. Let us mark now what this man 
 of God commanded the Lord's chosen people — to smite 
 every fenced city; cut down every good tree; fill up all 
 wells of water; and mar every good piece of land with 
 stones. On both sides every available man was mustered, 
 and a sanguinary battle was fought; the Moabites suffered 
 defeat with the usual slaughter, after which the Israelites 
 conducted themselves toward the vanquished party worse 
 than ever the Vandals did at a later period. Every thing 
 possible was destroyed as the man of God had directed. 
 So ruthless were the people now held up to us as a pattern, 
 and as acting all the time under God's peculiar direction. 
 
 Chapter IV. Elisha had a visit from a widow, who told 
 him her husband when alive served the Lord, but dying in 
 debt the creditor was about to take her two sons as bond- 
 men. Elisha, more thoughtful than some who visit the poor 
 now-a-days, enquired what he could do for her; and kindly 
 asked what she had in the house to eat. Her reply was, 
 nothing " save a pot of oil." Then came the time for Elisha 
 to show his ability in the way of miracles; and it seems 
 
286 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 that Elisha was confident of success, for the widow was 
 directed to borrow all the empty vessels she could among 
 her neighbors. The doors were ordered to be closed after 
 the manner of modern spiritualists; and the widow com- 
 menced to pour into the borrowed vessels until all were 
 full. Then the oil was sold, the debt paid, and possibly 
 something left with which to buy food. 
 
 This Elisha showed a marked preference for ladies, and 
 at Shunem met a certan woman who had a husband. 
 Another actor here comes upon the stage — the servant of 
 Elisha, named Gehazi, who was ordered to call the woman 
 to his chamber. She obeyed, and Elisha inquired what he 
 could do for her. The reply was that she lived with her 
 people, and had no particular wants to be supplied. 
 Gehazi suggested that she was childless. Elisha told her 
 that in the regular course of time she would be the mother 
 of a son, as it turned out. After this son had become 
 quite a lad he fell sick, as other children often do. The 
 woman — thinking there might be some virtue in the bed 
 on which Elisha had slept — laid the lad upon it. Then she 
 had an ass saddled, took a servant with her, started in 
 pursuit of Elisha, and encountered him at Mount Carmel, 
 where her trouble was fully made known. At first Elisha 
 was for sending his servant Gehazi to cure the sick child 
 by the virtue of his staff alone. To this the Shunemite 
 woman objected, saying Elisha must surely go himself. 
 He did so, and found the child apparently dead. The next 
 thing in order was to return him to life. He entered the 
 room where the child lay, made a short prayer, then placed 
 his mouth to the child's mouth and stretched his body upon 
 
SECOND KINGS. 28? 
 
 the lad. Finding the flesh began to grow warm, the heat 
 of his own body was increased by rapid walking about 
 the house, and again he laid down upon the child, when it 
 sneezed and opened its eyes. What was called death one 
 may readily see was purely a case of suspended animation. 
 Cases like it had occurred thousands of times before, as 
 they have since. The apparently dead have been returned 
 to life again by processes very similar. No miracle was 
 performed in the case referred to, though had not the 
 proper means been used for restoration, death must have 
 completed the work it had begun. Thoroughly educated 
 physicians have sometimes thought a person fully and 
 entirely dead, who was merely in a state of stupor. Gene- 
 ral anxiety to get up miracles, with lookers-on ready to 
 believe them, renders the work quite easy. Lying in their 
 coffins, those believed to be dead have occasionally come 
 to life again. Instances are not numerous where buried 
 persons have been proved to have turned partially or 
 entirely over in their coffins, but there are some such. 
 This act of Elisha's, however, gave further evidence that 
 he was really a man of God, and led the simple-minded at 
 the time to believe that he could raise the dead and do al- 
 most any thing else he was asked to do. His fame spread 
 rapidly. Nor is he the only one who gains a great name 
 by understanding how to turn appearances to account. 
 Thousands are able to amuse us in that way, at the same 
 time saying to the lookers-on frankly that their perform- 
 ances are only deceptions. 
 
 Elisha went away, but soon came back to Gilgal, and 
 found a great dearth prevailing there. Famines have 
 
288 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 always been familiar events in Syria. Being full of 
 strange ideas, he called for a seething pot, and ordered 
 herbs to be gathered and put in the pot; but, when the 
 contents were examined, something was found which they 
 thought poisonous, and the sons of the prophets who stood 
 around would not eat. Whereupon Elisha cast in a handful 
 of meal and the poison was neutralized. About that time 
 some one came to the place with a quantity of corn, so 
 that all had food again just as if Elisha had not put herbs 
 in a pot. 
 
 Chapter V. Naaman, captain of the host of the king' of 
 Assyria, hearing by the way of his servant that Elisha 
 could cure diseases of all kinds, went to visit him to be 
 cured of a disease always prevalent in Syria — leprosy. 
 Instead of going to Elisha direct, the king of Syria did the 
 polite thing of writing* to the king of Israel, and sent the 
 letter by Naaman. If the king of Israel was aware of 
 Elisha's curative ability, why did he not tell Naaman where 
 to go, and not get in a passion because a king had been 
 mistaken for a prophet ? The story came to Elisha's ears, 
 who had a better faculty of picking up news than his king; 
 and — wishing to have the chance of curing Naaman — he 
 sent a messenger to the king informing him that Naaman 
 might be restored. Soon after that, the sick man with his 
 horses and chariot appeared at Elisha's house, and only 
 received the order to wash in Jordan seven times. This 
 he did very unwillingly and was made clean. As the Bible 
 is not a medical book, we are furnished with no special 
 information about this disease in the Old Testament, nor 
 yet in the New. Nothing like a diagnosis is given. Possi- 
 
SECOND KINGS. 289 
 
 bly it was brought on by excesses of some kind to which 
 Syrian magnates were so much addicted; and besides, the 
 climate tends no doubt to eruptions of the skin, as at the 
 present da} 7 . Naaman said they had two notable rivers at 
 Damascus, Abana and Pharpar, and asked the question 
 why bathing in them would not be as efficacious as in 
 the Jordan. Soft rain-water would be likely to benefit a 
 patient troubled with cutaneous eruptions, but had Naaman 
 been cured by ablutions in a river of his own choosing, 
 Elisha would have lost the credit. Naaman had no faith, 
 but being urged by his principal servant, he went and 
 dipped himself in Jordan seven times as directed, and his 
 flesh became as soft as that of a little child. Naaman re- 
 turned to Elisha, acknowledged the cure, and for a work 
 so important proposed to give his blessing to Elijah, at the 
 same time offering him a present, which was refused. 
 After confessing that the God whom Elijah worshiped was 
 above all other gods, and that he believed in Jehovah, he 
 begged pardon for officiating in the worship of his master's 
 god in the house of Rimmon. This was asking to be 
 allowed more liberty than any one ought to have. Who- 
 ever worships an inferior deity, person or thing, knowing 
 at the time it is such, and to the neglect of the one he 
 believes supreme, commits the worst profanity and hypoc- 
 risy. Elisha's servant Gehazi, who actually hankered for 
 presents, pursued on after Naaman, feeling that those who 
 desired to pay ought to have a chance. That Gehazi went 
 out on this expedition without the knowledge of Elisha 
 seems to be implied in the account, though there; are 
 always watching eyes and listening ears to take note of 
 
290 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 what is going on and report to the master. So in this 
 case. Elisha knew all that Gehazi had been doing. His 
 servant's double falsehood — implying that the prophet 
 could be cheated like other men — brought out a flash of 
 indignation from which Gehazi and his family were repre- 
 sented as suffering through all time. A frightful severity 
 if the curse extended to children and grand-children. A 
 strange manifestation of God's mercy. How were unborn 
 babes responsible for their grandsire's treachery ? 
 
 The main drift of this present work will have been ap- 
 parent long ago to the attentive reader, which is to disa- 
 buse the public mind in regard to some things contained 
 in the Bible; but at the same time to maintain with the 
 utmost firmness all that leads to good works, enforces 
 duty, or in any way serves to make mankind happier, 
 wiser, or better. The term " man of God " is found in 
 the old scriptures, so the question may as well be asked 
 here: What is understood by it? Is it not likely it meant 
 a man specially commissioned by God to do a certain 
 work, to communicate some part of His will, or announce 
 some thing He would do to the children of men, that they 
 might govern themselves accordingly ? Ssuch a man was 
 course revered and honored by ordinary people, who did not 
 have in themselves such a channel of celestial communi- 
 cation. From the books of Samuel, Kings, and finally all 
 the law and the prophets, we learn the grand lesson that 
 "the way of the transgressor is hard;" that happiness is 
 the result of correct action; and that the peace of God 
 attends a pure conscience. So much is found in various 
 parts of the Bible leading to a heavenly life, that if any 
 
SECOND KINGS. 291 
 
 soul is lost it will not be for the reason that there is a lack 
 of saving truth in divine revelation. Without denying that 
 inward impulses have in all ages been operating in the 
 hearts of men, directing their actions, influencing their 
 conduct, and purifying their thoughts, common sense will 
 not suffer us to believe what some men assert about inspi- 
 ration. If, at a time long passed, the sovereign God was 
 in the constant habit of talking to mortals face to face 
 and that too about the most trifling matters, why did he 
 cease? If it was a good practice then why is it not now ? 
 Does not the world need instruction, need warning, need 
 impulse to-day ? God is all the time speaking to us, partly 
 it may be from books and from the mouths of the good and 
 great men who are about us; and he is also speaking by 
 his angels and through his works in the order of nature, 
 in a language that all can understand without an inter- 
 preter. Those under such guidance and direction are im- 
 bued with the spirit that comes from God, and will seldom 
 go wrong and cannot stray very far. 
 
292 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 FIRST CHRONICLES. 
 
 THE two books of Chronicles are a repetition of what 
 has been before given, with some modifications and 
 additions. They were intended to keep prominently be- 
 fore the people the genealogy from Adam down through 
 all the tribal relations. The time to which this book more 
 particularly refers is from 1056 to 1016 B. C. The line of 
 descent from Adam to the sons of Reuben and Judah is par- 
 ticularly stated. 
 
 Chapter II. David and all Israel go up to Jerusalem 
 (then called Jebus, the dwelling place of the Jebusites), 
 and take the castle of Zion, afterwards called the city of 
 David, for he dwelt there. David and his captains also 
 became masters of the whole Jebusite country and of 
 neighboring nations, after slaying an incredible number 
 of people, and performing feats of valor unequaled in 
 history. Every quality of a great general combined in 
 David. His wars were with rare exceptions a success; and 
 his courage undoubted. The circumstances in regard to 
 transporting the ark from one place to another, recorded in 
 the second book of Samuel, are related here with minute 
 
FIRST CHRONICLES. 293 
 
 detail, not omitting that " David and all Israel played be- 
 fore God with all their might, with songs, harps and psalt- 
 eries, with timbrels, cymbals and trumpets." As they moved 
 forward in the general confusion Uzza happened to be 
 killed, alarming David so that he said he was afraid of 
 God, and dare not take the ark to Jerusalem. Therefore 
 it was left in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite, for the 
 space of three months. 
 
 Chapter XV. A particular selection is made of the 
 Levites as ark-bearers. They transport it on their shoul- 
 ders as they did in their journey from Egypt. By them it 
 is taken from Obed-Edom to Jerusalem, and placed under 
 a tent. On this occasion David delivered and sang his 
 first psalm. Nathan the prophet is represented as saying 
 to David that the Lord desired that a house should be 
 built for public worship. And the promise was made, as 
 a reward for a work so extensive and important, that 
 David's throne should be established forever. This prom- 
 ise, whether coming from Nathan with or without the 
 Lord's authority, was not fulfilled, unless "forever" means 
 a very limited period. David, however, was not allowed 
 to build the house. 
 
 Chapter XXI. Much is said about the sin David com- 
 mitted by numbering Israel. This has been spoken of 
 previously as the natural and important duty of all rulers. 
 For without a census how could wise calculations be made 
 as to the propriety of war with nations who were insulting 
 or encroaching upon them ? If unable to cope with an 
 enemy, prudence would dictate various other courses; but if 
 the national honor was to be vindicated, every noble impulse 
 
 820 
 
294 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 would urge a nation on to the work. For thus taking the 
 census of Israel, however, David was to be punished. The 
 total number of such as could handle the sword was given 
 at over one million. David alone was responsible for this 
 numbering, so there seemed to be no reason why all Israel 
 should have been smitten— as we read — for his individual 
 sin. The Lord spake to David through Gad, David's seer, 
 and told him that for his punishment he could select either 
 of three things: to suffer three years of famine, three 
 months of destruction by the sword of his enemies, or 
 three days of pestilence throughout all the coasts of Israel. 
 Considering all of these as hard to bear, David was in a 
 dilemma, but soon decided to put himself in the hands of 
 the Lord — just where he was all the time. The Lord acts 
 as seems good to Him, whether man is suited or not; sends 
 pestilence or causes it to cease at His will. A pestilence 
 came and destroyed seventy thousand. Gad, the chief 
 prophet and historian of the times, took a very active part 
 in the matter as the mouth-piece of God. We are expected 
 to believe that David was perfectly safe in relying on what 
 this seer told him as to this matter of punishment, or any 
 thing else. 
 
 Chapter XXVIII. All the princes of Israel being assem- 
 bled together by David, he declares that Solomon is to be 
 his successor, and goes on to give directions about building 
 the temple, for which particular plans have been provided 
 and materials collected. The promise was also made that 
 Solomon's kingdom should be established forever, both by 
 the Lord and by David, though it was no more true than 
 was the same guaranty made forty years before to David; 
 
MRS! CHRONICLES. 295 
 
 unless, as some conclude, one generation meant " forever," 
 and two generations were the same as " forever and ever." 
 That David had prepared with all his might to build a 
 house of worship, seems plain from the narrative. Im- 
 mense supplies had been collected from far and near. 
 Gold and silver, brass and iron, wood, marble and precious 
 stones had been gathered for erecting and furnishing the 
 new temple — all of the choicest kind and on the most 
 extensive scale. 
 
296 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SECOND CHRONICLES. 
 
 THIS second book of Chronicles is a continuation of the 
 first, and like it a repetition of much that is contained 
 in the books already noticed. The reign of David closed 
 and that of Solomon began about 1016 B. C. Plans had 
 been made ready for Solomon to begin work on that mag- 
 nificent temple which he desired to make the wonder and 
 admiration of the world. He naturally availed himself of 
 the abundant materials David had provided for an exten- 
 sive house in which to worship Jehovah. Delay was 
 unnecessary, and there was none. Every part of the work 
 was pushed forward with vigor till its completion. The 
 whole time occupied in its construction was seven and 
 a half years. Joyful indeed was the day when the last 
 finishing touch was given. All Jewish hearts overflowed 
 with gladness. The neighboring nations appear to have 
 felt the significance of the event. A formal dedication 
 followed with every possible effort to make the occasion 
 one that would long be remembered. Solomon made 
 promises that at the time he must have known would 
 never be realized, and they were not. But, in justice to 
 
SECOND CHRONICLES. 29 1 
 
 him and his father David, it is proper to say that the build- 
 ing of the temple was an immensely important work to 
 his people, and the source of countless blessings. Many 
 sincere and heartfelt prayers were offered up in it. The 
 hand of a great unseen power is in all good things on the 
 earth, as well as in the heavens. By this holy spirit 
 the heart of Solomon was guided for good so long as he 
 yielded himself to its influence. 
 
 B. C. 902. At this time many of the nations were com- 
 pelled to pay tribute to Solomon; among them the Hittites, 
 the Amorites, the Hivites, and Jebusites. Here again 
 should be noticed that peculiar expression — " and they pay 
 tribute to this day" — meaning a long time after, until, by 
 the dissensions of the tribes with themselves, these heathen 
 communities recovered their independence. 
 
 Solomon had wealth in abundance. Tribute money was 
 but a small portion of what annually flowed into his trea- 
 sury. Plent}^ of wordly goods generally creates desire for 
 display, and the wise Solomon formed no exception to the 
 corruption of worldly success. A most magnificent throne 
 was erected for him, and when he sat upon it with the 
 jeweled crown on his head and other glittering trappings 
 about him, the eyes of all beholders were dazzled. 
 
 Accounts of Jerusalem, of the temple, and of the court of 
 Solomon, flew on the wings of the wind far and near. 
 Notable personages reckoned their knowledge of the world 
 incomplete without paying their respects to Solomon and 
 the satellites who shone with reflected splendor at his 
 court. All visitors were received with ostentatious hospi- 
 tality, and not permitted to depart without being impressed 
 
298 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 with the magnificence which was turning his own heart. 
 Among other prominent visitors, the queen of Sheba is 
 not to be forgotten. Her desire to witness so much gran- 
 deur was intense, and her appreciation of all she witnessed 
 at the court of Solomon enthusiastic. The rumors which 
 had brought her so far had wrought up her imagination to 
 a high pitch. After a personal examination she exclaimed 
 that one half had not been told as to the elegance of the 
 structure and the greatness of their builder. As this 
 queen of Arabia Felix may have seen Egypt, her eyes were 
 probably capable of appreciating what she saw, and her 
 testimony was confirmed by her magnificent presents of 
 spices, which show the country from which she came. 
 
 The writer of this book proceeds to say that what is 
 contained from the ninth chapter to the twenty-ninth is to 
 be found in the book of Nathan the prophet, in the prophecy 
 of Abijah, and the visions of Iddo the seer; but no such 
 books as these are found in our English Bible. Of course 
 we are unable to say how far his statements are justified 
 by the authorities from which he drew. The greatest 
 objections to these books are their direct contradictions 
 of Samuel and the Kings. We shall give only a few: 
 II Samuel, xxiv, 9, Joab counts the army of Israel as 
 800,000, and that of Judah as 500,000; but I Chron., xxi, 5, 
 gives the two hosts respectively as 1,100,000 and 410,000. 
 II Saml., xxiv, 24, David pays for the Araunah threshing 
 floor, and the oxen for sacrifice, 50 shekels of silver; but 
 
 I Chron., xxi, 25, gives the amount as 600 shekels of gold. 
 
 II Kings, viii, 26, makes Ahaziah begin his reign at the 
 age of twenty-two; but II Chron., xxii, 2, puts his age at 
 
SECOND CHRONICLES. 299 
 
 forty-two, making him two years older than his father, who 
 died at forty. I Kings, xv, 16, says that there was war 
 between Asa and Baasha all their days; while II Chron., 
 xiv, 1, declares there was rest ten years, and speaks of a 
 farther period of peace until the thirty-fifth year of Asa's 
 reign. II Chron., xiv, 3, declares that Asa took away the 
 altars of strange gods, and the high places, &c; while the 
 xvth chapter and 11th verse declares that the high places 
 were not taken away. 
 
 The most extraordinary numbers confront us frequently, 
 thus: Pekah slew in one day 120,000 valiant men of Judah. 
 Abijah smote in one battle 500,000 men of Jeroboam's 
 army. Asa led to battle against Zerah 580,000 men of 
 the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin; then those two 
 tribes must have contained three millions of men. I Chron- 
 icles, xxii, 14, represents the building fund collected by 
 David for the temple as 100,000 talents of gold and one 
 million of silver, estimated by Richard, Bishop of Peter- 
 borough, at over four billions of dollars ! this the spare 
 funds of a ruler of a country not 200 miles long by 90 
 miles wide. 
 
 Solomon's death is dated B. C. 976. His son tried to 
 enlist the people in his favor; but when they were gath- 
 ered together at Shechcm, his rival, the son of Ncbat, 
 stirred up the people to demand a remission of their heavy 
 taxes. But Rehoboam utterly rejected the counsel of the 
 old men, and insolently replied that instead of chastising 
 their disobedience with whips as his father had done, lie 
 would punish them with scorpions. So that this pretend- 
 edly wise King Solomon had inflicted upon his people a 
 
300 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 headstrong fool for his successor, besides crushing finan- 
 cial burdens. Jeroboam took advantage of this aggrava- 
 ting insolence, and led the revolt of the ten tribes; alien- 
 ated them from Jerusalem by setting up independent 
 worship in Bethel; and rent the kingdom in twain forever. 
 Nor did Rehoboam learn wisdom by adversity. The proph- 
 ets would not let him make war upon Israel, and very 
 wisely, because his numbers were less and his ability de- 
 cidedly inferior. So he was forced to content himself with 
 fortifying fifteen cities and making them military posts; 
 but to so little purpose, that five years of his reign had not 
 elapsed before he was conquered and stripped of treasure 
 by Shishak, king of Egypt — of which Egyptian mural in- 
 scriptions give unquestionable evidence. When Abijah 
 succeeded Rehoboam he took the field with for hundrued 
 thousand men against twice as large an army of Israelites, 
 and is said to have slain five hundred thousand — an incred- 
 ible number — and to have permanently humbled Jeroboam, 
 who, according to the narrative, would seem to have died 
 of his defeat. 
 
EZRA. 301 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 EZRA. 
 
 THE book of Ezra is a continuation of Chronicles, and 
 in itself constitutes a record of events connected with 
 the return of the captive Jews to their own land. Ezra 
 was a descendant of Hilkiah the priest, in the time of king 
 Josiah, and was himself a priest of great learning and 
 ability. According to Jewish history, it was Ezra who 
 instituted the Great Synagogue, the first sanhedrim or 
 council, and was its president. Like many other things, 
 the particular place of his death is a matter in dispute. 
 Some say he died at Jerusalem and was buried there with 
 great magnificence; others, that he returned to Babylon 
 and died an exile. What is said to be his tomb is shown 
 near the Persian frontier, in the city of Zamuza. The 
 period to which this book particularly refers is from 536 to 
 456 B. C, or about eighty years. Daniel, Ezra, Mordecai, 
 Esther, and Nehemiah held high positions and received 
 courtly honors in the land of their captivity, though they 
 adhered strictly to the faith of their nation and the worship 
 of Jehovah. Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Daniel, Ezekiel, and 
 Obadiah were prophets a part or the whole of the above 
 period. 
 
 This book begins with a repetition of the last two verses 
 
302 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 of the second book of Chronicles. Between the sixth and 
 seventh chapters there is an interval of about fifty-eight 
 years, during which nothing is related concerning the Jews 
 except that they intermarried with the Gentiles. 
 
 Till the arrival of Nehemiah, Ezra exercised the principal 
 authority in Jerusalem. His influence seems to have been 
 exceedingly valuable in reforming the lives of the people 
 by putting away their heathen wives, and renewing their 
 observance of the Law of Moses. He was to a great 
 extent the compiler and publisher of the Jewish scriptures 
 after the return from captivity. His great learning and 
 ability, joined with sincerity of purpose, enabled him to 
 correct many errors in the old, and at least to some extent, 
 very imperfect writings. To Ezra more than to any other 
 man that ever lived, are we indebted in this respect. All the 
 books of which the scriptures then consisted were collated 
 by him and the canon fully settled for that time. He 
 changed the ancient names of several places that had 
 become obsolete, and substituted new ones. 
 
NEHEMIAH. 303 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 NEHEMIAH. 
 
 THIS book begins with the going up of Nehemiah to the 
 Holy City thirteen years after the second company 
 went with Ezra. Nehemiah was cnp-bearer to Artaxerxes 
 Longimanus; but, heartsick with the distressing accounts 
 from Jerusalem, he obtained his monarch's permission to 
 go up with troops and supplies. His grand work was 
 rebuilding the city walls and restoring its former dignity 
 as a stronghold. Up to this time they were at the mercy 
 of every marauder, their children were made slaves, murder 
 was rife in the capital, and the Temple itself was falling to 
 decay. Nehemiah threw all his soul into the work of 
 restoration, and accomplished it just in time to defeat the 
 Samaritan party; and finished his great task just before 
 a decree from the king of Persia forbade him to go on. It 
 is probable that he returned to Persia and died there in 
 advanced years. He seems to have been the purest and 
 most disinterested of patriots. He left a luxurious palace 
 and the favor of a king to share the peril of his native 
 land and deliver its hallowed city from destruction. Every 
 act of his life seems to have been upright, noble and brave. 
 As a statesman he had forethought, energy, sagacity. As 
 a ruler he was decided, watchful, fearless. To friend and 
 foe he seems to have acted without partiality and without 
 
304 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 hypocrisy, as one that feared God and loved his fellow 
 man. As a star of purest light if not of the greatest 
 magnitude, he beams down upon us through that dark- 
 ened and darkening skj r twenty-three centuries ago. Still 
 there was one spot even upon him. He was anxious to 
 publish his own generosity, bravery and fidelity to the 
 world. He even claims future recompense from Jehovah. 
 He makes himself conspicuous as the only savior of a 
 despairing people and a ruined city. In the fifth chapter 
 he puts forward his self-sacrifice as an argument for the 
 abandonment of usury. "After our ability we have re- 
 deemed our brethren the Jews from heathen slavery" — 
 "for twelve years I and my brethren have not eaten the 
 bread of the governor/' though the former rulers had not 
 only consumed the people's bread and wine, but taken forty 
 shekels of silver. He seems to have acted alone and with 
 wonderful energy in restoring the rest of the Sabbath, and 
 shutting the forbidden traffic out of the Holy City. His 
 greatest severity is put forth upon the intermarriage of 
 Jews with Gentiles. He represents himself as cursing 
 and smiting them, tearing off their hair and making them 
 curse themselves if they did it any more. Then, he seems 
 to compare himself with Solomon, who sinned as certainly 
 Nehemiah had not done — for, "even him did outlandish 
 women cause to sin." — xiii, 26. 
 
 The book closes very abruptly after interesting exceed- 
 ingly those who sympathize with a struggling people in 
 the heroic effort of restoring a ruined city, an abandoned 
 worship and a crushed people to something of their former 
 prosperity and power. 
 
ESTHER. 305 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 ESTHER. 
 
 THERE are reasons for believing that this remarkable 
 narrative was written by Mordecai, and carried by 
 him with the book of Daniel from Babylon to Jerusalem, 
 to be enrolled with the other records of the Jewish race. 
 History gives us fully to understand how much the ablest 
 oriental rulers in the fifth and sixth centuries before 
 Christ reveled in luxury. Royal banquets, the Scriptures 
 show, were distinguished by wanton excess of every kind. 
 Chapter I. In the third year of his reign, Ahasuerus, 
 commonly supposed to be Xerxes, made a feast to his 
 princes and nobles during a hundred and eighty days ! 
 Then he made a least to his people of seven days, in the 
 court of the king's garden, where the couches were of gold 
 and silver, the drinking vessels of gold, and the wine in 
 utmost abundance. This was followed by a banquet in 
 the palace given by Vashti his queen to her own sex — the 
 ladies no doubt of the royal household. On the seventh 
 day, when his heart was merry with wine, the king com- 
 manded Vashti to be brought before him that he might 
 show her beaut}' to the princes and the people. She very 
 
306 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 properly refused. None but dancing women were wont 
 to make such exhibitions at entertainments where the con- 
 dition of the guests would subject them to insult. But 
 Xerxes, to whose character this story adapts itself entirely, 
 was in no condition to brook her refusal. His nobles 
 would not dare to resist the wrath of such a despot, es- 
 pecially as their own wives might be tempted to assert 
 their independence in the same way; and so royal ven- 
 geance was visited at once upon the refractory queen ; she 
 was divorced without delay, and a decree was made that 
 all women should obey their husbands. Immediate meas- 
 ures were necessarily taken to fill the vacant queenship; 
 and the court officer, whose business it was to manage a 
 matter of such delicacy, set about the task of finding a 
 candidate for the high position. The question in the East 
 is still personal beauty. Lovely girls were therefore in- 
 vited to the harem from all parts of the empire. Among 
 others came a Jewess, named Hadassah or Esther. By 
 advice of her uncle Mordecai she did not make known her 
 nationality, and the king was kept in the dark as to her 
 origin. Maids were assigned her as well as to the other 
 candidates for the royal hand, and like attention was shown 
 to all. After a twelve months' preparation (the time 
 usually allowed for that purpose), Esther had an interview 
 with the king, who declared he loved her better than all 
 other women. By royal order, such as did not please the 
 king were not called a second time, while those who did 
 might be. The king was overpowered by the charms of 
 Esther, as any other man would have been. She was 
 therefore made queen, and taken to his bosom without 
 
ESTHER. 30*1 
 
 delay. The reader may wonder how this was brought 
 about, she being a Jewess; but Mordecai's counsel made 
 it all very easy, as he regarded her elevation necessary for 
 the protection of their race. His ability, as subsequent 
 events will show, was of a high order; and Esther was by 
 all accounts extremely beautiful. Others of equal charms 
 had not the same admirable training. Circumstances alone 
 do not make men or women. Chances are often neglected. 
 It is action at the right time and of the proper kind that 
 insures success. Ability without the tact to use it, gives 
 little advantage. Haman enjoyed great authority at court, 
 had it only been exercised in a noble cause and in a proper 
 manner. Mordecai, though a gate-keeper, was gifted with 
 a thorough knowledge of human nature. Above all things 
 Haman desired to be rid of this .independent functionary, 
 and especially to exterminate the race to which he be- 
 longed, who were gaining daily in influence. By false ac- 
 cusations Haman obtained a decree from the king for 
 their destruction, and had it published throughout the 
 land. The matter seemed to be fully settled. It hardly 
 looked possible to save the persecuted race from their doom. 
 But for the influence of Queen Esther, Hainan's purpose 
 would have been accomplished. Though only a woman, her 
 voice was potent and her prayer likely to be heard by the 
 king, who had on one previous occasion said that whatever 
 she asked should be given, to half the kingdom. Such an 
 expression, however, may be considered as figurative, mean- 
 ing probably that favor should be shown and great con- 
 sideration given to whatever petition she should make. 
 She well knew that Hainan was in every possible way en- 
 
308 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 deavoring to carry out his plan. It became the one desire 
 of her heart not only to save her relative, but to rescue her 
 race and herself from the jaws of the wolf. The utmost 
 care was necessary lest her influence should be lost, on 
 which all depended. Personal decoration may seem a 
 small thing and unworthy of especial attention, but in 
 many cases it is of the first moment. The impression 
 made by a lady who appears appropriately and elegantly 
 clad, and the influence she can exert if of corresponding 
 ability, is not to be lightly considered. When about to 
 make the great experiment, Esther did not overlook this 
 All that could be was done by herself with the aid of 
 skillful attendants, and she appeared before the king in all 
 attractive loveliness on every proper occasion. At last 
 the favorable opportunity came, at a sumptuous dinner 
 given by the queen, to which among others Haman was 
 invited, who had never lost sight of his darling purpose, 
 the death of the stiff-necked Mordecai. Not doubting but 
 some favorable chance would offer for his execution, a 
 gallows had been erected on which he intended to hang the 
 surly Jew; and to make the thing as conspicuous as pos- 
 sible, the gallows was nearly eighty feet high. All that 
 he required to consummate his plan was an order from 
 the king. At this critical moment, by some unexplained 
 management of the queen or Mordecai, a search was made 
 among the records by which it appeared that Mordecai 
 had saved the king's life some time before, and that from 
 some unaccountable neglect no return had been made for 
 this distinguished service. Therefore, while Haman felt 
 sure of carrying out his wicked purpose, a decree was put 
 
ESTHER. 309 
 
 forth ordering that the highest honor should be bestowed 
 on Mordecai, in which the proud Ham an was obliged to 
 wait upon his enemy as a foot-servant. Thus matters re- 
 mained for a brief period, when the queen, at another of 
 her banquets, induced the king to indulge freely in wine, 
 as was his habit no doubt, and under this influence and 
 the charms of his lovely young bride he renewed the prom- 
 ise of half of his kingdom. Esther was not ambitious for 
 herself; but her very life was at stake and that of the 
 whole Jewish race; and self-preservation is one of the 
 laws of human nature. So on her knees she begged for 
 her own life and that of her people. Her request could 
 not in the nature of things be refused — it was for the pres- 
 ervation of what the uxorious king loved next to himself. 
 Slavery she protested, she could endure — alas ! her people 
 had known that by heart — but not a violent, shameful death. 
 And it was Haman, the prime-minister, who had planned 
 this foul crime. No wonder the king started up in a rage 
 and rushed into the palace-garden to appease his wrath. 
 Haman felt overwhelmed by this unexpected condem- 
 nation; from the height of favor so suddenly hurled down 
 under the shadow of the executioner. No wonder he threw 
 himself in frantic entreaty upon the couch where the queen 
 lay, clasping her feet in terror, forgetting what appear- 
 ance he would present to his incensed master. That act 
 was the last voluntary one in his life. His fall was as it 
 would be in Persia to-day, instantaneous. The vizier of a 
 grand empire was to be the first victim on his own gal- 
 lows. The pit he had dug for another was fdled by his 
 own body and that of all his sons. The next step was to 
 
 s21 
 
310 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 exalt his rival into his place, to clothe Mordecai in purple 
 and gold, crown him as viceroy and place him at the right 
 hand of the throne. It was too late to recall the decree 
 for the destruction of the Jewish race throughout the king- 
 dom, which might have caused their disappearance from all 
 history. Instead of that, they were aroused to their own 
 defense; and did it so manfully that besides Hainan's fam- 
 ily seventy-five thousand of their enemies were laid low in 
 the dust ! A perpetual festival commemorates the day of 
 Jewish deliverance even to our time; and it is this won- 
 derful escape from entire destruction, not any piety in a 
 book that never mentions Deity, which has retained 
 "Esther" in the Jewish canon. 
 
 The "Amestris " of Persian story must not be confounded 
 with Esther. A luxurious monarch like Xerxes would have 
 had many wives, though but one queen; and she would nec- 
 essarily have been taken, not from the slave-mart, but ac- 
 cording to Persian custom from one of the seven great 
 families. All that the scripture necessarily implies is that 
 Esther was reigning favorite long enough to secure the 
 salvation of her people and the perpetuation of her own 
 memory through all time, in the joyful festival of Purim. 
 The period when this story commences is 488 B. C. 
 
JOB. 311 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 JOB. 
 
 THIS most remarkable poem of any sect, any age, any 
 land, Jewish in rhythm but philosophic in spirit, ex- 
 hausting as far as that early period could the perplexing 
 problem of a good God's permitting evil, cannot have been 
 an Arabian night's story. The mention of Job as a real 
 personage, by scripture-writers long after, settles that 
 matter; nor were the Hebrews likely to mingle mere fiction 
 with the revered records of divine communication; nor 
 is there any lack of reality in the narrative; nor was it 
 the temper of antiquity to create absolutely false person- 
 ages, however it delighted to exaggerate a real experience 
 and adorn it with oriental fancy. 
 
 As to the period of its composition, Ewald — who is at 
 the head of all European scholars on matters of Jewish 
 history — asserts positively that all the manners and cus- 
 toms belong to the period between Abraham and Moses; 
 that there is no shadow of reference to priest, temple or 
 ritual, which must have been at any later date; that the 
 life has the fresh breeze of the desert, and the characters 
 the originality of the very earliest society. Here, as in 
 
312 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 the masterpiece of Greece, the Iliad, are vivid imagery, 
 sublime conceptions, bursts of intense feeling betraying 
 a primitive period ; mingled with hints of courts and trials, 
 of mining operations and studies of nature, of sculptured 
 figures and ruined sepulchres, which prove that civilization 
 had certainly begun. May it not be that Moses heard this 
 rich experience during his sad exile in Midian, and wrote 
 it out in the poetical form that would be best remembered, 
 for the comfort of Israel during the desert trial ? 
 
 The book commences by saying: "There was a man in 
 the land of Uz whose name was Job; one who feared God 
 and eschewed evil." The land of Uz is now understood to 
 have been in Idumea, though nothing certain is known 
 about it; nor have we any account of the place where the 
 book was written. According to the story Job had exten- 
 sive portions of superior land giving support to numerous 
 flocks and herds; had many children and grandchildren, all 
 residing near him in prosperous circumstances; in fact had, 
 as we say, every thing heart could wish. A repetition of 
 the whole story is unnecessary here, as it is among the 
 last things that would escape the notice of the general 
 Bible reader. The chief actors introduced are Job and 
 Satan; though the Lord has some part in carrying out the 
 design. 
 
 When looking at the conspicuous position Satan has 
 been allowed to occupy from the temptation of Eve all 
 through the history of man, and the variety of names 
 applied to him, we are strongly impressed with the fact 
 that he is indispensably necessary. The singular part of 
 this story about Job is in the following words: "Now 
 
JOB. 313 
 
 there was a day when the sons of God came to present 
 themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among- 
 them. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest 
 thou ? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From 
 going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and 
 down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou 
 considered my servant Job, and there is none like him in 
 the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth 
 God, and escheweth evil ? Then Satan answered the Lord 
 and said, Doth Job fear God for nought ? Hast not thou 
 made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about 
 all that he hath on every side ? Thou hast blest the work 
 of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land." 
 How does it happen that Satan was admitted to this meet- 
 ing of the righteous before the Lord in heaven ? Are we 
 to suppose the Lord came down to earth that the devil 
 might have a social talk with him ? To pretend that the 
 Lord and Satan were in the habit of holding such inter- 
 views, would be the most monstrous absurdity ever pro- 
 mulgated. If heaven is a place of pure joy and peace, as 
 we think, would not allowing the devil to roam about 
 within it at will and interview the saints, breed disturb- 
 ance inevitably ? 
 
 This meeting, however, must have been of the highest 
 order, for the book says: "The sons of God came to pre- 
 sent themselves before the Lord." It was therefore no 
 ordinary occasion. But the variety of names used in the 
 Old Testament to denote the Supreme, lead to some confu- 
 sion of ideas. Sometimes it is "Lord," again "Lord God/ 5 
 "Lord our God," "God of Israel," &c. If it be said that 
 
314 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Lord and God mean the same all through the different 
 books, the way one name is placed in connection with 
 the other is not easily explained. In the first part of the 
 Bible, the historian says: " The sons of God saw the daugh- 
 ters of men were fair, and took to themselves wives, and 
 they bare sons, who became mighty men and men of re- 
 nown." The name of all legitimate children follows that 
 of the father. If so, then the product of this connection 
 between the sons of God and the daughters of men were 
 necessarily gods. In another place, when the witch of 
 Endor was pretending to call up the good old Samuel from 
 his grave, she said, " she saw gods ascending out of the 
 earth." If this was any thing more than a juggler's trick, 
 did this woman pretend there were gods dwelling below ? 
 Does not such'reading tend to confuse instead of enlight- 
 ening the mind ? We are inevitably led to conclude that 
 the term varies according to the connection in which it is 
 used. In a general sense it denotes a being that is wor- 
 shiped, or any person or thing to which homage is paid. 
 Therefore a heathen god, if of wood, stone, or clay, if 
 divine honors are paid to him or her, is a god in reality to 
 his worshipers. Indeed, this worship may not only be 
 sincere, but may lead to the right action; for pure faith 
 does not insure purity of life, nor improper faith neces- 
 sarily produce sin. The true God is always to be sought 
 out and worshiped just as the true faith is to be found 
 if possible and cherished. We may after all rest assured 
 that when our conduct is all right, our faith may be exceed- 
 ingly imperfect without danger to the soul. But woe to 
 that soul which is wrong in life even if right in thought ! 
 
JOB. 315 
 
 For, as the great Apostle says, " he condemns himself in 
 the things which he alloweth." 
 
 Heaven is now believed to be a place of ecstatic bliss, 
 though it may not have been so considered by the author 
 of the book of Job. As no one contends for the literal 
 truth of this highly poetical work, further remarks as to 
 the term heaven, and the term God as connected with it, 
 seem entirely unnecessary. To suppose our Father-in- 
 heaven capable of surrendering one of his holiest children 
 to Satan, just to show the devil how well a good man 
 could bear torment, is to believe God wantonly cruel. 
 And what conceivable motive has the power of Good for 
 maintaining an argument and holding intercourse with the 
 powers of evil ? Such a thing is alike unwarrantable, 
 unreasonable, and improbable. The book of Job towers 
 over all other religious literature in its sublimity, nor is 
 there any where profounder pathos, nor more perfect sub- 
 mission to Deity. Job himself is neither Stoic nor Titan; 
 but a struggling man, sensitive to all impressions, grieved 
 by terrible losses, especially the loss of public respect, 
 tortured by an unendurable disease and stung to agony 
 by insinuated hypocrisy. Being of course unable to antic- 
 ipate the revelation of God's loving whom he chastens, 
 hopeless too of restoration to happiness on earth, and 
 knowing nothing certain of the hereafter, he is still able 
 to hold fast to his faith in God and yield himself entirely 
 into the hands of the Almighty. And for that childlike 
 reliance he is accepted, is exalted above his sanctified 
 friends in divine favor and crowned with fourfold blessed- 
 ness. 
 
316 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 PSALMS. 
 
 THE book known as Psalms is used alike for song and 
 prayer in many of the greatest churches in Christen- 
 dom, and is valued by devout people far more than any 
 other portion of the Old Testament. Indeed, its univer- 
 sality sufficiently explains this fact. Hardly any condition 
 of life can be imagined but one of these ancient odes meets 
 its wants of consolation, encouragement or inspiration. 
 Many a weary pilgrim finds support in the midst of change, 
 courage in the midst of trial, and warning in the midst 
 of temptation, from some part of this Hebrew anthology, 
 called in the original "The Praises ;" the most ancient psalm, 
 the ninetieth, bearing the name " Prayer of Moses." They 
 are evidently the remains of Jewish lyric poetry, not merely 
 hymns for public worship, or closet meditation, or dedica- 
 tion services; but such songs as cheered the desert caves 
 of Engedi; inspired the march of the Passover-pilgrimage 
 along the hillsides of Judea; sang the exultation of victory 
 over the enemies of Israel. This last remark explains the 
 occasional imprecations of enemies. They are to be re- 
 ceived as the blood-stains of a ferocious age — written by 
 
PSALMS. 3H 
 
 hands dripping with human gore — at moments when their 
 nation and its worship seemed on the brink of destruction. 
 Nothing but the absurdest notion of verbal inspiration 
 could ever have made people, whose cardinal principle 
 is to bless them that curse us, pray for our enemies that 
 " iniquity may be added to their iniquity," that " there may 
 be none to show them compassion," and that " their little 
 ones may be dashed against the stones." It is far better 
 to be brave in our honesty, and own that these are irre- 
 pressible utterances of savage feeling which a higher 
 dispensation was coming in God's good time to purify and 
 renew. 
 
 Taken all together the book is most peculiar. The 
 whole was at an early date divided into five parts. The first 
 forty-one psalms were selected by David as most worthy 
 of perpetuity, and constituted the first part; the forty- 
 second to the seventy-second, the second part; the seventy- 
 third to the eighty-ninth, the third part, compiled in the 
 days of Hezekiah; the fourth part consisted of the ninetieth 
 to the one hundred and fifteenth; and the one hundred and 
 sixteenth to the one hundred and fiftieth made the last 
 division, and readied down to the great captivity and 
 afterwards. The latter were most likely compiled in the 
 days of Ezra and Nehemiah for the service of the second 
 temple, at which time also the five parts or books were 
 combined under one common heading. Ezra the scribe is 
 considered to have taken these Psalms in hand for arrange- 
 ment and revision more than four centuries before our era, 
 and to have given them their present form. Hew much 
 was left out by him that others might have deemed worthy 
 
318 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 of a place, or have added to suit their own taste, we cannot 
 even imagine. These Psalms are not to be viewed merely 
 as such in our sense of the word. They make a part of 
 Jewish history, and should be treated as national ballads 
 of that particular people, adapted to the worship of a spir- 
 itual God in distinction from idolatry, or as intended to 
 magnify king David and lead the people to a firm belief 
 that he was the favored viceroy of the King of Kings. 
 
 Some of the psalms are as much history as any part of 
 the Pentateuch or of Kings; others may be reckoned as no 
 less prophetic than Isaiah. They are an integral part of 
 Israelitish history. In David's time the land of promise 
 had become a land of possession. A permanent sanctu- 
 ary — as they considered it — had been erected at Jerusalem, 
 and a kingdom formed that should have no end, as their 
 scriptures seemed to say. No thought entered the mind 
 of a devout Jew that the hill of Zion would ever cease in 
 reality to be God's hill, where the accepted people alone 
 could worship. Hence the book was a life-book for rich 
 and poor, for prayer and praise, for law and theology. 
 After these thousands of years, it remains the most fitting 
 introduction for private and public worship, for the closet 
 and the sanctuary, for the peasant and the prince. And it 
 will ever find a home where the good and true congregate ; 
 and it will ever make its altar where there is earnest grat- 
 itude, hearty penitence or fervid aspiration. Its antiquity 
 is no bar to its usefulness. If good and proper in the 
 time of Ezra, how can it be any the less so now ? 
 
 The early nations could not conceive why it was that 
 infinite power acted by general, and not by special laws. 
 
PSALMS. 319 
 
 Intelligent, high-minded men did not in olden times, and 
 cannot now, see that what are called calamities and judg- 
 ments proceed from natural causes, and give no indication 
 of divine displeasure. The theory that such things came 
 in consequence of sin and transgression, is plainly seen 
 all through the Old Testament, except in the book of Job, 
 where suffering is shown in entirely another light, as pol- 
 ishing the diamond in the upright soul so that all heaven 
 should see its lustre. David could not comprehend why 
 the righteous should suffer, or why the order of nature 
 should hold good to bless so far as it was possible the 
 wickedest who conform to laws of the lowest kind. 
 
 The historical associations of the Psalms we will briefly 
 show, as they are not frequently brought before the public. 
 The ninety-first, by Moses, reflects the forty years of desert 
 life with striking fidelity. The eighth expresses David's 
 exultation in escaping the malice of Saul. The fifty-eighth 
 and fifty-ninth have relation to Saul again. The thirty- 
 fourth records David's thanksgiving at being delivered 
 from the Philistines' court at Gath. His outlaw life is 
 referred to in the twenty-second. The twenty-third ex- 
 presses his joy in the recollection of his shepherd-youth. 
 The thirtieth psalm was composed for the dedication of his 
 house. The six preceding ones were arranged for public 
 worship. The fifty-first is the cry for mercy of his own 
 bleeding heart. The eighteenth is his grand thanksgiving 
 for personal deliverances. The fortieth is a kind of sum- 
 mary of what is justly called the first blaze of the lyrical 
 devotions of Israel, David being not only their author and 
 performer, but their substance and soul. The great pro- 
 
320 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 phetical ode, the forty-fifth, associates itself with the 
 splendors of Jehoshaphat's reign. Psalm lxxx is a prayer 
 for deliverance from the Syrian oppression. Psalm lxxxiii 
 is a similar prayer for deliverance from allied enemies. 
 Psalm lxxxiv is joy at the renewal of worship on Mount 
 Zion. The following one is a thanksgiving for the happy 
 restoration of religion. The seven psalms beginning with 
 xciii, refer to the future kingdom of God; cv and cvi are 
 a prelude to the captivity. Psalm cvii was probably sung* 
 at the first Feast of Tabernacles. Psalm cix is a prayer 
 against the efforts of the Samaritans to hinder the rebuild- 
 ing of the temple. The fourteen "songs of degrees" were 
 sung by the workmen and watchmen while they were 
 rebuilding' the city walls. The three closing psalms were 
 sung in Nehemiah's thanksgiving procession when the walls 
 were finished. 
 
PROVERBS. 321 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 PROVERBS. 
 
 THE book of Proverbs, as its name indicates, consists of 
 what may be called wise sayings collected together 
 at various times, and put into something like the present 
 shape about 100 B. C. By the Jews they were held in 
 great esteem, containing as they do an abundant store of 
 practical good sense, being all that remains of those thou- 
 sands of moral maxims which had done so much to make 
 their greatest sovereign illustrious. Short sayings have 
 many advantages over the long and tedious. One is easy, 
 the other hard to remember. Ideas contained in the fewest 
 possible words ever make the deepest impression. In 
 Asiatic lands they are favorites even now. Like a large 
 portion of the Old Testament, the first origin of these 
 Proverbs is far back in the early ages, though they are 
 not to be less prized on that account. Many of them were 
 old sayings in Solomon's time, who deserves credit for 
 their admirable arrangement, and for indorsing them with 
 his renowned name. The Cambridge professor, Dr. Noyes, 
 held that the uniform style of the book and the unques- 
 tioned tradition justified our belief in Solomon as the prin- 
 
322 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 cipal author; though the praise of one wife in chapter 
 fifth might seem to condemn his own crowded harems. 
 
 Proverbs naturally divides itself into distinct parts: 
 the first nine chapters being rather moral exhortations 
 than epigrammatic sayings. The second part, beginning 
 with the tenth, is made up of what may be strictly termed 
 proverbs, or sententious maxims in single verses; it has 
 also a separate title as if it once formed an independent 
 collection. The last portion contains the sayings of a 
 certain Agur, and the words addressed by his mother to 
 King Lemuel, closing with an alphabetical poem, i. e. a 
 poem beginning with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet 
 in regular order. As a life-sketch of Jewish morality 
 nothing could be more precious, and the greater part is of 
 unspeakable value still. The personification of Wisdom in 
 chapter viii, has never been surpassed in any language 
 or religion; comparing well with the Logos in the fourth 
 Gospel, and Charity in the epistle to Corinth. Noyes ar- 
 ranges it thus: 
 
 Jehovah formed me, the first of his creation, 
 
 Before his works, of old: 
 
 I was anointed from everlasting, 
 
 From the beginning, even before the earth was made. 
 
 When as yet there were no deeps I was brought forth: 
 
 When there were no springs abounding with water. 
 
 Then was I by him as a master-builder, 
 
 I was his delight day by day, 
 
 Exulting continually in his presence — 
 
 Exulting in the habitable part of his earth, 
 
 And my delight was with the sons of men. 
 
ECCLESIASTES. 323 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 ECCLESIASTES. 
 
 THE tone of this book is suited to a time of calamity, 
 its Aramean language is entirely different from that 
 of the book of Proverbs, its style is as diffuse and vague 
 as that was concise and pointed; even words of Persian 
 origin are found; we therefore believe that it was com- 
 posed some time after the return from the great captivity. 
 Moses Stuart says that " Chaucer does not differ more from 
 Pope than Ecclesiastes from Proverbs. When I read 
 Koheleth it presents one of those cases which leave no 
 room for doubt, so striking is the discrepancy." This cer- 
 tainly is a great admission for this leading New England 
 commentator to make. 
 
 The chief Catholic interpreter, Jahn, agrees with Martin 
 Luther in the design of the book — that "it is to teach us to 
 enjoy thankfully present things, even our abundant bless- 
 ings from God, keeping a tranquil spirit, and a mind fully 
 contented with His word and works." Jahn adds that the 
 author ''does not dwell upon the vanity of human affairs 
 more than upon an agreeable use of the pleasures of life. 
 His intention was to repress the restless efforts for wealth, 
 
324 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 pleasure and power, and at the same time not to increase 
 the troubles of life by denying one's self harmless, even if 
 fleeting, joys." 
 
 As to the charge of epicureanism, a more correct trans- 
 lation refutes it in every place. It is entirely false to say 
 that the preacher recommends pleasure without any refer- 
 ence to duty, when he distinctly announces a retribution 
 for all sinful indulgence; though he does not carry that 
 retribution into the hereafter, because the preacher himself 
 knew nothing of judgment after death, nor of any life 
 beyond the grave. His words: "The spirit shall return to 
 God who gave it," are just opposite to the personal immor- 
 tality revealed in the New Testament. 
 
 CANTICLES. 
 
 Canticles in Latin is the term for " song." The transla- 
 tion from Hebrew is " song of songs." The compilation of 
 this book may have been made about 1000 B. C. 
 
 The golden age to the Jews, the time of David and Sol- 
 omon, was perfectly suited to the bringing out of poetry, 
 music and song. It was evidently a period of great refine- 
 ment; especially when Solomon enriched his country with 
 commerce and brought his people into intimate intercourse 
 with the whole civilized world. Temple worship aided in 
 this elevation; and it is only doing justice to the Jews to 
 say that no existing worship could compare with theirs in 
 sublimity, or in exalted ideas of the nature and attributes 
 of God. These songs have been objected to on account of 
 unchasteness. But, if we suppose them to be a nuptial 
 ode addressed by Solomon to his Egyptian queen, they 
 
CANTICLES. 325 
 
 surpass the writings of that kind and that age in purity 
 of thought as they do in richness of expression. Bearing 
 the august name of their greatest sovereign, the Jewish 
 collectors of the canon would naturally preserve them in 
 their sacred treasury, without presuming to qualify any 
 thing they contained. In this manly course we approve 
 their judgment, as we honor their honesty. Prof. Stuart 
 we find is of opinion that the " safer course is to place the 
 Canticles, as the Jews did, among the books withdrawn 
 from ordinary use. 7 ' 
 
 B'2'2 
 
326 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 PROPHECY. 
 
 THE attention of many of the most gifted biblical schol- 
 ars of our age, and of the preceding ages, has been 
 turned to the prophetic books of the Old Testament, 
 They have all been carefully considered and commented 
 on at great length; for they are a kind of composition 
 not easily understood, and about which those of equal 
 ability would be likely to disagree. We do not feel com- 
 petent for a full explanation of these writings, and shall not 
 undertake it. In order to form a correct estimate of their 
 real value, the time they were promulgated and the par- 
 ticular peoples and nations to which they refer must be 
 taken into account. Some were made before the Babylo- 
 nish captivity, some during its continuance, others after 
 its close. Many had especial reference to the dealings of 
 the God of Israel with his own peculiar people, especially 
 directed and permanently cherished by Him. All Bible 
 students understand that the prophecies are not arranged 
 in the regular order of time, in the present version of our 
 Bible, as they were made; that is from Isaiah to Malachi. 
 The priestly despotism which answered a tolerable purpose 
 
PROPHECY. 327 
 
 up to the time of Eli, became corrupted to such a degree 
 that the people would not bear it, Samuel was a pioneer 
 in the new or prophetic system, and enjoyed a wide repu- 
 tation. The people were for a while awed into submission 
 under his wise and paternal, but irresponsible sway. At 
 one time, prophetic powers appear to have been developed 
 over a wide extent, and exercised for many years as a 
 profession, and for emolument. There were certain schools 
 started by Samuel, in which their education, particularly 
 in music, was commenced; they lived together as Coeno- 
 bites, sometimes to the number of a hundred at Kamah, 
 Bethel, Gilgal, Gibeah and Mount Ephraim, under the di- 
 rection of some older prophet whom they termed Father. 
 They were in the first place national poets, the compo- 
 sition of hymns and the preparation of chants being a 
 chief part of their study. Secondly, they were annalists 
 and historians, some abscribing to them all the Old Scrip- 
 ture writings. Third, they were extraordinary yet author- 
 ized expositors of the law. Fourth, they were preachers 
 of morals and anathematizers of all immorality in high 
 places or low. Fifth, they were a political power like the 
 modern press, pulpit and platform combined, ever zealous 
 for the law, ever hateful of idolatry, loving their country 
 as they loved their church — as they loved their God. 
 Never waiting to be called upon for council, they gave it 
 in the hour of need, id spite of threat, in spite of curse, in 
 spite of priest, in spite <>(' king; indeed their enthusiasm 
 never abated, their courage never failed them, their purity 
 of purpose could hardly be questioned, whether it was 
 Samuel predicting overthrow to Saul, Nathan accusing 
 
328 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 David of adultery, Elijah condemning to his face Ahab, 
 Jeremiah admonishing Zedekiah, or Amos announcing fear- 
 ful retribution on Jeroboam. It was this self-sacrificing 
 patriotism,^ overlooked in a great measure by the modern 
 pulpit, which made them the chief philanthropists of ancient 
 times — the temporary saviors of their country and their 
 race. 
 
ISAIAH. 329 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 THOUGH other prophets antedate Isaiah, the best biblical 
 scholars place him first in the order of arrangement, 
 as they stand in our version. Seven centuries before our 
 era is the period generally assigned for the termination of 
 his prophetic appeals. Among all others they are entitled 
 to the highest rank, not only for their moral tone, but for 
 eloquence of thought and beauty of expression. In his- 
 toric knowledge he must have been far in advance of his 
 cotemporaries, which afforded him constant aid in his diffi- 
 cult work. Perfect familiarity with Jewish affairs gave 
 him great facility in appealing to the people. We may 
 say that wars and other important events might at all 
 times be discerned by shrewd observers with some degree 
 of certainty. Discerning minds are able to look through 
 surrounding clouds. Isaiah could see plainly enough to 
 what his people were tending, and that defeat and ruin 
 lay directly in their path. 
 
 We have evidence enough that all who conducted them- 
 selves like Esaiah and Ezekiel, with many kindred reformers, 
 were God-serving and God-fearing men. They had aid 
 
330 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 from infinite power; no doubt they felt prompted of con- 
 science to cry out against the growing sinfulness. Proba- 
 bly they believed themselves led of God to proclaim His 
 terrible judgments, though many things which they foretold 
 were certain to come through the ordinary principles of 
 human action. Upon the theory that all truth comes 
 from God and is a part of his real essence, so do wisdom 
 and understanding; and it would follow necessarily that 
 the wisdom of God spake through the mouth of Isaiah and 
 every other true prophet. There can be but one fountain 
 from which such everlasting truth proceeds, and we call 
 that fountain God. 
 
 This book of Isaiah should be attentively perused by all 
 who love sublime and beautiful imagery, boldness of ex- 
 pression and straightforward talk. The writer commences 
 as follows: 
 
 "The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw 
 concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, 
 Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, 
 heavens, and give ear, earth: for the Lord hath spoken, 
 I have nourished and brought up children, and they have 
 rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the 
 ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people 
 doth not consider: Ah sinful nation, a people laden with 
 iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that are corrupters ! 
 they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy 
 One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. 
 
 "Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt 
 more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole 
 heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head 
 
ISAIAH. 331 
 
 there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and 
 putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound 
 up, neither mollified with ointment, Your country is des- 
 olate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers 
 devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as over- 
 thrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as 
 a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucum- 
 bers, as a besieged city. Except the Lord of hosts had 
 left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as 
 Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. 
 
 "Hear the w T ord of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom: give 
 ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To 
 what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? 
 saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, 
 and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of 
 bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to 
 appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to 
 tread my courts ? Bring no more vain oblations: incense 
 is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, 
 the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, 
 even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your 
 appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto 
 me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth 
 your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when 
 ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are 
 full of blood. 
 
 "Wash ye, make yon clean: put away the evil of your 
 doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to 
 do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the 
 fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us 
 
332 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as 
 scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be 
 red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing 
 and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye 
 refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for 
 the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 
 
 " How is the faithful city become an harlot ! it was full 
 of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now mur- 
 derers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with 
 water. Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of 
 thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after re- 
 wards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the 
 cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore saith the 
 Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, Ah, I 
 will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine 
 enemies." 
 
 These words of the great prophet and preacher are in 
 the most decided tone. God was with him, enlightening 
 his understanding, warming his heart, and opening his 
 mouth, hence the amazing boldness of utterance. For 
 this especial purpose God raised up Isaiah as He did the 
 great reformers in modern Israel, and is raising them up 
 still as there is need. 
 
 Against divine light Israel had rebelled; and, as an 
 inevitable result, this rebellion brought in its train all the 
 curses that had come upon the afflicted nation. As no man 
 can put fire in his bosom and not be burned, so no man 
 can sin against truth and not suffer. The law of cause 
 and effect, true every where, is true above all in the moral 
 world. But the remedy is plain; nowhere plainer than in 
 
ISAIAH. 333 
 
 this most Christian prophet; who can help understanding 
 it? "Cease to do evil; learn to do well." Not a hard 
 lesson where there was a real desire to learn it. But, who 
 can expect to see when they refuse to open their eyes? 
 Only the thoroughly honest, when he suspects his error, 
 will come to the light that his deeds, if evil, may be 
 reproved. May that light pour down upon us from the 
 open heavens as we endeavor to interpret that word in 
 which it is promised the wayfaring man shall not err! 
 May the infinite fountain shed down upon us of its own 
 fullness! 
 
 In the second chapter we are promised what yet waits 
 God's time for its fulfillment, that " swords should be beat 
 into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks; and that 
 nation should not lift up sword against nation, neither 
 should they learn war any more." With six million men in 
 arms in Europe to-day, with vast war preparations going 
 on in every country calling itself Christian, with the readi- 
 ness of great nations to rush to deadly contest with their 
 neighbors on slight provocation, this prophecy might seem 
 to be a dead letter. But vast advances have already been 
 made in the right direction. Arbitration clauses are being 
 introduced into all treaties. International laws like that 
 for the extradition of criminals, are coming into force. 
 Bayonets arc beginning to think. Military taxes are 
 making the people groan. Millions are repeating with 
 enthusiasm the gifted lines at the Springfield arsenal: 
 
 "Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 
 Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts 
 Given to redtem the human mind from error, 
 There were no need of arsenals nor forts." 
 
334 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 " The land was full of idols, idols of silver and gold 
 which each man made for himself to worship;" and for 
 this and other gross sins destruction was prophesied upon 
 their high places, their fenced cities, their ships, and all 
 they had, and the haughtiness of man should be brought 
 low. 
 
 Chapter third commands the prophet: "Say to the 
 righteous it shall be well with them; they shall eat the 
 fruit of their doings; but to the wicked it shall be ill with 
 them, for the reward of their hands shall be given them." 
 Women had become haughty, taking delight in ornaments, 
 ear-rings, bonnets, jewels in their noses, little balls on 
 their feet, cauls and round tires like the moon, mantles and 
 wimples, crisping pins, glasses, fine linen, beads and vails. 
 All these were to stink, and the hair they thought so beau- 
 tiful to fall off. Seven women would lay hold of one man 
 when the day of trouble came, and offer to support them- 
 selves if allowed to assume his name. 
 
 Chapter V. " Wo unto them that join house to house, 
 that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may 
 be placed alone in the midst of the earth! Wo unto them 
 that rise up early in the morning that they may follow 
 strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame 
 them! Therefore my people are gone into captivity, be- 
 cause they have no knowledge: and their honorable men 
 are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. 
 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth 
 without measure ; and their glory, and their multitude, and 
 their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. 
 And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty 
 
ISAIAH. 335 
 
 man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be 
 humbled: Wo unto them that call evil good, and good 
 evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; 
 that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Wo unto 
 them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their 
 own sight! Wo unto them that are mighty to drink wine, 
 and men of strength to mingle strong drink!" 
 
 What hell was it that enlarged herself so as to hold all 
 the wicked Israelites ? Hell is a word not often used in 
 the Old Testament. Cruden in his concordance says it 
 commonly signifies the grave, and comes from the Greek 
 word sheol. It occurs once in Jonah, once in Job, and in 
 a few other places. Certain it is that the word is used to 
 denote various localities. Jonah cried to the Lord out of 
 the " belly of hell " after he had been swallowed by the 
 whale; and David speaks once of making his bed in hell. 
 
 Much that we find in the prophetic books is understood 
 with difficulty, because the orientals employ far bolder 
 figures than ours, and sometimes revel in metaphors. We 
 can only guess at the real meaning of the sentence: "Wo 
 unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and 
 sin as it were with a cart-rope." 
 
 Chapter VI. The Lord is represented as asking the 
 question: Whom shall I send to warn the people ? "Then 
 said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell 
 this people, Hear ye, indeed, but understand not; and see 
 ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people 
 fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest 
 they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and 
 understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed." 
 
336 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Really we should have expected more mercy than that; 
 we wonder that Isaiah did not plead for the forgiveness of 
 the people, as Moses would have done. Light and under- 
 standing would have suited their case better than further 
 stupefaction; but the Lord and his prophet came to a dif- 
 ferent conclusion, as we read. 
 
 Chapter VII. "Therefore the Lord himself shall give 
 you a sign; Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, 
 and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall 
 he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose 
 the good. And it shall come to pass in that day, that a 
 man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep; and it 
 shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they 
 shall give, he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall 
 every one eat that is left in the land." This seems strange 
 enough; for it is certain that no one could long subsist on 
 butter and honey alone. The child, promised in the first 
 verse, might have lived on such things in part, but not 
 wholly. Many believe that this was a prediction of the 
 birth of Jesus of Nazareth, who is now worshiped as a 
 son of the Eternal Jehovah. How can such a thing be 
 possible ? This account says explicitly, the child should 
 be called Immanuel. The son born to Joseph was called 
 Jesus, and at no time by his parents or family by any 
 other name. There is no evidence to show that the pro- 
 phet intended to speak of Jesus' coming, when the appear- 
 ance of Immanuel was to be followed by the land's being 
 forsaken by both her kings. All Israel was looking for 
 a deliverer in a temporal, not a spiritual sense. They 
 wanted some one to rule them as David did, upon David's 
 
ISAIAH. 33? 
 
 throne. Strange that theologians ever thought it so all 
 important to link prophecy with the world's great reformer! 
 Nothing has ever been gained by the alliance. Jesus was 
 none the more a God on account of his birth's being pre- 
 dicted by many or by few. 
 
 Chapter VIII. " The prophet went to the prophetess and 
 she conceived and bore a son." From such a father and 
 mother a great seer was to be expected, but this Divine 
 foresight was least of all a thing to be inherited. 
 
 Chapter IX. "Every battle of the warrior is with con- 
 fused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall 
 be with burning and fuel of fire. For unto us a child is 
 born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be 
 upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonder- 
 ful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, 
 The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government 
 and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, 
 and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with 
 judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. 
 The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this." This is 
 considered by many as proof that the prophets knew be- 
 forehand all about the birth of Jesus; and that he was the 
 person meant in the foregoing prediction. If the salva- 
 tion of the human race hung upon this as by any possi- 
 bility referring to the person known as Jesus of Nazareth, 
 the chance would not be very flattering. Knowing full 
 well with what tenacity the Christian world maintains 
 that every word spoken by those prophets must be relied 
 on implicitly — knowing the risk we run in attacking the 
 theory that Jesus was hero alluded to, we are not able to 
 
338 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 see it in the popular light, and frankly own our inability. 
 Certainly, Jesus could not be the everlasting- Father and the 
 Son also. Had Isaiah and the other prophets all united in 
 predicting the advent of Jesus for the consecration of all 
 men to the love of God and of humanity, the facts of his- 
 tory would not be changed so as to make him any more a 
 Saviour than he is now. Some one may have arisen 
 called Immanuel; but if so it was not Jesus, for he only 
 bore one name, while on earth he never sat upon the 
 throne of David, nor does he answer the prophet's descrip- 
 tion of being then born. Hundreds of years were yet to 
 elapse. 
 
 In chapter eleven is found another "prediction" said 
 to apply to the advent of Jesus. Thus we have several 
 different accounts by the same author, each and all of 
 which claim to be accomplished by the appearance of 
 one and the same person; and what is most singular, 
 these predictions are no two of them alike. Jesus did 
 not smite the earth with the rod of his mouth; the wolf 
 did not dwell with the lamb; nor the leopard lie down 
 with the kid; nor the calf with the young lion; nor 
 has the suckling played on the hole of the asp. The 
 knowledge of God does not cover the earth as the waters 
 cover the sea. Alas ! it never has. In verse tenth we 
 hear about the rod of Jesse standing for an ensign of the 
 people to which the Gentiles were to seek. Then " the 
 Lord was to set his hand the second time to recover his 
 people." Hence it would seem he had tried to do it once, 
 and had failed. In many cases the Bible is obviously 
 wrested from its meaning to gain a point, or the imperfec- 
 
ISAIAH. 339 
 
 tion in the translation leaves the meaning' in dispute. Let 
 it be kept in mind we are not denying Jesus; our faith in 
 him has steadily grown with the experience of life, and 
 never given way in time of sorrow. 
 
 Directly after the precious promises just now made for 
 the benefit of all the world, the command was given to 
 "howl, for the day of the Lord" was " at hand," even " de- 
 struction from the Almighty." And again, that " The day 
 of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, 
 to lay the land desolate;" for, the sun and the moon shall 
 be darkened, the heavens shaken, and the earth removed 
 "out of her place." Great w r ars were to follow: Babylon 
 to be overthrown and to become like Sodom, never to be 
 inhabited; but, wild beasts of the desert should lie there, 
 and their houses "be full of doleful creatures; and owls 
 shall dwell there and satyrs dance there." 
 
 Many beautiful sentiments contained in other chapters 
 might be quoted, all of which would amply repay our 
 labor: but enough has been given to show how important 
 it is to do our duty, and what a harvest of tribulation and 
 anguish all those will certainly reap who neglect it. 
 Whether Isaiah was a real foreteller of the future; whether 
 he had such supernatural powers as were not bestowed on 
 other men, matters nothing, so far as our doing right or 
 wrong is concerned. 
 
 Chapter XXV says: "In that mountain (of Jerusalem) 
 shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feasl of fat 
 things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of 
 marrow, of wines on the lees well refined; and will destroy 
 in this mountain the face of the covering casl over all 
 
340 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 people, the veil that is spread over all nations." The feast 
 as stated did not occur at the atlvent of Jesus nor at his 
 crucifixion, nor at any time of which we have an account. 
 If to come in the future, when may it be calculated on with 
 any degree of certainty ? Happen when it will, none can 
 be left out. We read also that at some time — possibly in 
 Isaiah's day — the Lord was to have a great sword to punish 
 Leviathan, the crooked serpent, and the Dragon in the sea. 
 This figurative language may not be understood alike by 
 all. One or both of the characters named was doubtless 
 intended for the devil; if so, and the sword was large 
 enough, and the hand that held it strong enough to do its 
 work, the above characters are both dead. The reading is 
 plain that the Lord undertook to kill them, and surely what 
 He undertakes will be done. 
 
 Chapter XXXII. "Behold, a king shall reign in right- 
 eousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man 
 shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert 
 from the tempest; as rivers of water iti a dry place, as the 
 shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And the eyes of 
 them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that 
 hear shall hearken." Plain as it is that the above had no 
 reference to Jesus, who was not a king or ruler but simply 
 a teacher of righteousness, the meaning is strained to make 
 out that what referred to the prosperity and peace follow- 
 ing their return from the captivity at Babylon, belonged 
 to the far later period of the establishment of Christianity. 
 
 In chapter XXXVII we find the following: "The angel 
 of the Lord smote in the camp of the Assyrians one hun- 
 dred and four score and five thousand; and when they 
 

 ISAIAH. 341 
 
 (the Israelites) arose early in the morning, behold they 
 were all dead corpses." The maimer of their death and 
 the number is very singularly stated. We are left entirely 
 in the dark as to what weapon the angel employed. The 
 corpses were there to be counted, and the count was possi- 
 bly right; but who knows they were all or any of them 
 slain by an angel ? 
 
 Chapter XL. Here we find another remarkable passage 
 often brought prominently to notice: "The voice of him 
 that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the 
 Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 
 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill 
 shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, 
 and the rough places plain: and the glory of God shall be 
 revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." This is gen- 
 erally understood to be a prophetic account of John the 
 Baptist, and of the events at his coming. Certainly he 
 did appear, whether this prediction meant him or not; but 
 nothing occurred at his appearing, during his life, or at 
 any time since, that bears the least resemblance to fulfill- 
 ment of Isaiah's description. The valleys are not filled up, 
 nor the hills brought low, neither is the crooked made 
 straight; nor is the glory of God revealed to all flesh; and 
 therefore we contend that there was no reference to the 
 Baptist's advent. 
 
 With one more extract, from the forty-third and forty- 
 fourth chapters, remarks on this book will be closed: "I, 
 even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Saviour. I 
 have declared and have saved." " Thus saith the Lord the 
 King of Israel and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am 
 
 823 
 
342 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 the first and I am the last; and beside me there is no God." 
 This is a plain statement that God is the onty redeemer. 
 Trinitarianism being true, it may follow that Jesus is God 
 and God is Jesus, and both compose the Hol} r Spirit; or to 
 use the more common expression, the Holy Ghost. To 
 those who are not in that faith, such statements appear to 
 be mere jargon. All endeavors to make more out of what 
 the Bible says than it was intended we should, only lead 
 into darkness from which it is next to impossible to 
 grope one's way out. 
 
 We are very far from exhausting what might be said on 
 this noblest of Hebrew prophets — who was not distin- 
 guished like his prophetic brethren by some single excel- 
 lence, but combined all the grand qualities of this kind 
 of discourse -so that they qualify and perfect each other. 
 As Ewald says, Isaiah stands on that sunny height 
 which an eminently gifted spirit seizes at the right time ; 
 which seems indeed to have been waiting for him; which, 
 when he has mounted the ascent, guards him to the last 
 as its own right man. His fundamental peculiarity is 
 majestic calmness growing out of his perfect command of 
 his subject. Though in no prophet is there so much variety 
 of composition as he has in turn to comfort, to exhort, to 
 shame, to chasten; from moods of intense excitement he 
 ever returns with sublime self-control to the even tenor of 
 his way. His discourse passes from tenderness to threat- 
 ening, from mourning to exultation, from earnest exhorta- 
 tion to bitter mocking; but at last recovers its divine 
 elevation and its Christian hopefulness. 
 
JEREMIAH. 343 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 JEREMIAH. 
 
 THE prophecies of Jeremiah are supposed to have been 
 uttered about 640 to 585 B. C. 
 Chapter I opens as follows: " The words of Jeremiah the 
 son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the 
 land of Benjamin: to whom the word of the Lord came in 
 the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the 
 thirteenth year of his reign. The word of the Lord came 
 to me saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee: 
 and before thou earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified 
 thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." 
 When he said he was but a child, the Lord told him not to 
 say that; and putting forth his hand touched the lad's 
 mouth, and that day "set him over the nations and over 
 the kingdom to root out and pull down, to destroy and 
 throw down, to build and to plant." This ordination is 
 represented as having been done by "the God of Israel;" 
 surely the most solemnizing of all ordinations, to which no 
 stately gathering of priests could have added any thing, 
 nor solemn music have lent a charm, nor magnificent cere- 
 monies deepened the impression; and its record mnst have 
 
344 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 been by this boy-prophet's hands in this book, and by 
 God's own hand on his consecrated soul. 
 
 Chapter III. Reproof is administered, very much as in 
 the two chapters preceding, and continued to the seventh, 
 when the prophet comes out stronger and condemns them 
 for worshiping false gods, lying, stealing, murdering, 
 swearing falsely, and many other sins. They were accused 
 of building high places in Tophet, or the valley of the son 
 of Hinnom, for the purpose of burning their sons and 
 daughters in the fire. This the prophet told them would 
 go on till no place could be found for them to build. The 
 carcasses of the people would be meat for the fowls of the 
 air and the beasts of the field, and the whole land be made 
 desolate. Summing up the matter, he says: "The harvest 
 is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." He 
 asks: "Is there no balm in Gilead ? Is there no physician 
 there ? Why then is not the health of the daughter of 
 my people recovered ?" 
 
 Chapter IX. " Oh that my head were waters, and mine 
 eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night 
 for the slain of the daughters of my people! Oh that I 
 had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, 
 that I might leave my people and go from them, for they 
 be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men!" "They 
 will deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak 
 the truth." "Thus saith the Lord, I will make Jerusalem 
 heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of 
 Judah desolate, without an inhabitant." Again: "Be- 
 hold, I will feed this people with wormwood, and give 
 them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them among 
 
JEREMIAH. 345 
 
 the heathen whom neither they nor their fathers have 
 known." Jeremiah's threatening^ were poured out with- 
 out stint. 
 
 Chapter XV. " The Lord said unto me" he would not 
 regard that people with favor even for the sake of Moses 
 and Samuel. The Lord said, Part were for the sword, 
 part for famine, and part for captivity. As a whole this 
 book is far inferior, in beauty of expression and elevation 
 of sentiment, to Isaiah. In threatenings it is about as 
 severe, in denunciations as bitter; but in sublimity and 
 imagery far behind. In the constant repetition of "Lord," 
 " Lord God," with many variations, it exceeds any other 
 portion of the Bible. 
 
 Chapter XVI Jeremiah is commanded not to take a 
 wife. The sons and daughters of that nation, their fathers 
 and mothers, the Lord told him, should die grievous deaths 
 without being lamented or buried, and be used as dung on 
 the earth. Both the great and the small were to die in 
 the land. Could the whole of this book be condensed, not 
 more than one tenth of the space would be occupied. 
 
 Chapter XVIII. The prophet says the Lord told him if 
 He said He would do evil to any nation and they repented 
 of their sins, then He would not do the evil; and if He 
 promised a good thing to a nation, and they went astray 
 from the right path, they should not receive the blessing. 
 Declarations like these confuse us. To suppose that God 
 threatens without meaning what he says, or promises not 
 intending to fulfill, is annoying tb ourselves and dishon- 
 orable to Him. His promises are sure and His rewards 
 certain. 
 
346 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Chapter XIX. The prophet said he was told to take an 
 earthen bottle and go to the valley of the son of Hinnom, 
 and there make proclamation that the city should become 
 a desolation, and cause them to eat the flesh of their chil- 
 dren, and to eat every one the flesh of his friends. 
 
 Chapter XX. All are accused of wrong, though the 
 priests appear to have been the worst. Such bold denun- 
 ciations in time aroused the people, and the prophet was 
 denounced in turn. A son of the high priest took the 
 matter in hand and threw Jeremiah into prison, where he 
 was more violent than before, and louder in his threats of 
 evil to come, especially on the beads of his persecutors. 
 So bitter was this prophet of God that he cursed the day 
 he was born. His cutting speeches took a wide range, 
 including censure of many who had no agency in causing 
 his troubles. If in his intercourse with the Lord he had 
 learned wisdom and how to gaze into futurity, he had not 
 learned to be patient under reproach. As the Lord's agent, 
 (if such he was), more resignation should have been shown 
 even in the worst disasters. 
 
 Chapter XXI. The prophet continues to denounce his 
 people — that very people whom Jehovah had chosen — who 
 constituted at that time the only people of God, as they 
 themselves believed, and the mass of Christians pretend 
 to believe still. For, from them came all the prophets; 
 John the Baptist was from that nation, and so also was 
 Jesus. Taken together, these Israelites were an enigma; 
 something that was and yet was not; a people proclaimed 
 to be God's, but who, if we can credit their own moral 
 guides, were not God's people at all. 
 
JEREMIAH. 347 
 
 Chapter XXIII. This prophet did not even spare the 
 pastors of the people. They were accused of deception 
 and false-heartedness, on which account evil was to over- 
 take them. The inference is that they did not furnish 
 proper food for those under their charge. That was the 
 case then and is too often now. When the Lord was in 
 the way of communicating so often with his people we can 
 but wonder that he did not remove those pastors and give 
 their places to better men. A promise is made to the Jews, 
 not the whole world, which was not kept: "That God 
 shall raise up unto David a righteous branch, and a king 
 shall reign and prosper and shall execute justice and 
 judgment upon the earth." In his day Judah (not the 
 whole world), shall be saved; and this is his name whereby 
 he shall be called: "The Lord our righteousness." Jesus 
 was called by no such name, except by those who came 
 after him; and then only to make out that the prophet by 
 this passage meant Jesus; and, however we may esteem 
 him as the author of our salvation, we can not think the 
 prophet had any allusion to such a personage when he 
 announced one who should simply save Judah. Evidently 
 it was only of the temporal affairs of the Jews that the 
 prophet spake and the ordinary kingship. The exceed- 
 ingly prevalent notion that one can be righteous for another, 
 or be saved by another's acts, is not consistent with reason, 
 nor had it then entered into the mind of man. The scrip- 
 tures declare " that all an; to be rewarded according to the 
 deeds done in the body." How could that be, if the inno- 
 cent John had committed suicide as a substitute for the 
 treacherous Judas ? 
 
348 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Jeremiah had a good opinion of himself but accused 
 other prophets of glaring deception, of lying, adullery, 
 and other wickedness, saying that they were as bad as 
 the Sodomites, and should feed on wormwood and drink 
 gall. If the prophets and pastors were as bad as he rep- 
 resented, what must the common people have been ? One 
 set were accused of preaching lies, and the other of utter- 
 ing lying prophecies. They were not real prophets, but 
 idle dreamers. And this epithet, scornful as it seems to 
 us, was not the worst that could have been rightly used, 
 because there was then a general faith in God's communi- 
 cating his will to his favorites by dreams. 
 
 But we would not be severe in judging particular ex- 
 pressions in the Bible. The early manuscripts probably 
 were often imperfect and obscure when they fell into the 
 hands of the transcribers. And they come to us through 
 an entirely different tongue, which no doubt fails to give 
 the force of many an ancient phrase, and sometimes sug- 
 gests a thought which the original writer could never have 
 had in his mind. We presume every compiler and transla- 
 tor aimed at entire faithfulness. Especially, every prophet 
 summoned his highest faculty to utter his oracle with the 
 utmost power. But whether he really saw " coming events 
 cast their shadows before " or not, very little came even 
 from the most startling prophecies. The Jews, for whose 
 benefit they were almost exclusively given, hastened on 
 the same broad road of destruction, after Jeremiah had 
 "lamented" over them as before. The fiercest denuncia- 
 tion of idolatry did not succeed in removing a single idol, 
 purifying a heathen grove, or saving any son of Judah from 
 
JEREMIAH. 349 
 
 the accursed fire of Hirmom. Prophets may be such by 
 God's design for our benefit, and He may give them light to 
 discern what common minds cannot. The bare pretence of 
 having such powers prepares many to credit all the pre- 
 tender may say. 
 
 Chapter XXVI. The priests and the other prophets con- 
 spired against Jeremiah, and to be revenged for what he 
 had said of them told him he should surely die. They 
 could not stand any more condemnation. It is not strange 
 that they went up into the Lord's house to talk the thing 
 over; and that the prophets, priests and people determined 
 he should die. So much for prophesying what is dis- 
 pleasing. Let us note Jeremiah's answer — an answer 
 that he intended should silence his revilers. It was simply 
 that the Lord had sent him to talk as he did. Nothing 
 daunted by the general desire to take his life, Jeremiah 
 repeated all he had said as to the calamities which would 
 overtake them, and told them to do as they liked with him. 
 Won over by this perfect trust in his Divine mission, the 
 people took a sudden turn, and cried out that he was not 
 worthy of death. Inquiry was then made as to the proph- 
 ecy of Micah the Morasthite, in the days Hezekiah, who 
 said: "Zion shall be plowed like a field," which the people 
 declared had not been fulfilled, and was not likely to be, 
 and which Dean Stanley says has not yet been accom- 
 plished. The fact of Divine mutability would make correct 
 foretelling impossible. Summing up the whole matter, it 
 amounts to this: that from Jonah down to Malachi (embra- 
 cing the whole prophetic period), predictions were made 
 more from good judgment and shrewd calculation than 
 
350 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 from any direct revelation from God. These prophecies 
 were re-written and put in nearly their present shape 
 hundreds of years after they were promulgated; some- 
 times after the events to which they relate had transpired. 
 
 Chapter XXVII. Nebuchadnezzar was sorely afflicted 
 and severely punished for wickedness, yet he was called 
 the servant of God, and it was predicted that he should 
 possess the whole land of the Israelites. They and all the 
 nations were to serve him and his sons and his sons' sons; 
 which among- other things did not turn out to be true. 
 
 History tells us about the Babylonish captivity, the re- 
 turn and rebuilding of Jerusalem where the Jews had so 
 devoutly worshiped, and much else about which there 
 never has been a question. To give credit for what is true, 
 when we see it, is a pleasure as well as a duty. But, to 
 pore over the old Jewish prophecies and sayings without 
 earnest reflection, is anything but a religious exercise — 
 anything but an uplifting of the soul to God, or a quick- 
 ening of the heart to humanity. Great care is necessary 
 to avoid falling into just the train of thought so common 
 to the Jews, that they were the chosen people of God, and 
 that all others were rejected. This bigotry shows itself in 
 thousands of cases all along their history, and prevails 
 among the exclusive party in the church to-day. Much 
 of the sublime and beautiful in the Bible is exciting to 
 devotion, is inspiring to good works, is creative of faith 
 in a power superior to man in his best estate, and is certain 
 to bless the good. The marvelous relations that bear no 
 close scrutiny, which can never be demonstrated to be the 
 especial workings of the infinite God, are by many perused 
 
JEREMIAH. 351 
 
 with eagerness and fully credited as miraculous. The 
 sun's standing still to make the destruction of human life 
 a little more complete, which was simply an impossibility, 
 is set down as the direct handiwork of Deity. 
 
 Many things appear reasonable and credible to those who 
 have been educated in the belief that a particular book con- 
 tains the actual words of God. Thousands give their as- 
 sent to propositions they do not understand, leaving their 
 examination entirely to those who need to have a reason 
 for the faith that is in them. How few that read the New 
 Testament ever look back to see if the quotations given 
 from the Old are truly made. In this last cited prediction 
 of David's having a perpetual successor on the throne of 
 Israel, how few notice the fact that it never can be ful- 
 filled, that the prophet cheered the people's heart and his 
 own with a vain hope ! And never did a prophet need en- 
 couragement more. He was the Cassandria of Judaism; 
 he had to utter woes upon the people when no one would 
 listen; when he believed like Phocion that Israel should 
 choose " the least of the evils," he could lead hardly 
 any to think with him; he had a marked resemblance to 
 Dante in having to share the evils against which he had 
 protested in vain; while of all the prophets, especially in 
 his martyrdom, he came nearest to the experience of the 
 last messenger from heaven to man. Certainly there is 
 no one of tin; goodly fellowship of prophets whose life is 
 so well known; and hoik; whose experience sympathizes 
 so entirely with his writings. 
 
352 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 LAMENTATIONS. 
 
 THIS book has reference to what happened from about 
 eighteen years after Nebuchadnezzar had humbled 
 Jerusalem by winning a great victory. Learning that his 
 father was dead and the Chaldean throne waiting for him, 
 no time was lost in preparing for a return. Therefore but 
 few Jewish prisoners were taken — only some of the most 
 promising young men and princes, with the most valuable 
 and easily removed articles; for the full captivity did not 
 begin at this period. 
 
 Chapter I. The situation of affairs at Jerusalem is fully 
 made known by the expression : "How doth the city sit 
 solitary that was full of people!" Sincere and profound 
 were the lamentations of Jeremiah. His agony broke forth 
 in the saying that he was "troubled in his bowels" as 
 well as his heart. He speaks of the daughters of Zion as 
 being lifted up to heaven and then cast down to the earth 
 by the Lord in his fierce anger; and he says that "the 
 Lord swallowed up Jacob." This plainly shows how ready 
 these Old Testament writers were to fix upon the Lord all 
 such acts as seemed especially awful and calamitous. The 
 
LAMENTATIONS. 353 
 
 anger of the Lord is called into frequent use by this 
 prophet. But how can we justly contemplate the Almighty 
 in a storm of passion ? 
 
 Chapter II. The Lord is represented as an enemy vio- 
 lently taking away His tabernacle, casting off His altar, 
 and abhorring His sanctuary; and the writer continues by 
 saying that the Lord destroyed the city walls, sunk the 
 gates thereof in the ground, swallowed up the palaces, 
 despised the priests, and made the prophets tell lies. The 
 writer continues: ".He hath cut off in his fierce anger the 
 horn of Israel, and polluted the kingdom." Even if this 
 was to awe the people into reverence of a power that 
 could do such wondrous things, and humble them in hearty 
 penitence, still the expressions are exceedingly severe. 
 In time "the high and lofty city was despoiled and its 
 haughtiness brought low." 
 
 Others wagged their heads and made faces at the Jews, 
 to vex them still more amidst all their distress. The world 
 inclined to act that way then, and has ever since. The 
 strongest language was used by the prophet to express 
 the greatness of the change. Jerusalem had fallen from 
 its high rank among cities to a state of desolation and 
 ruin; hence the appropriateness of his remarks. When 
 the great siege culminated in overthrow, destruction and 
 devastation, the scene was more dreadful than language 
 could describe. The streets were full of people that had 
 no shelter. Many laid themselves down among the ruins 
 to die. When the prophet says the Lord killed all the 
 young men and virgins, broke all the prophets' bones, 
 swallowed up Israel, abhorred His sanctuary — perpetrated 
 
354 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 all that ruin — it is well to pause and ask if he was not- 
 mistaken. Did not destruction come upon that nation, 
 city and people in consequence of their transgressing the 
 fixed and just laws of God ? 
 
 After exhausting all the strong expressions at command, 
 the strain changes to a hopeful tone. Looking at this 
 whole matter impartially, we are compelled to say that the 
 Jews had allowed themselves to believe Jerusalem the only 
 city of God, and the Jews His only people. Of this false 
 notion Jeremiah seems to have been fully aware, if we 
 can judge by what he says. The great body of the people 
 were amazed and confounded with the idea that God 
 would destroy His own city, which was the precise case 
 put before them by Jeremiah. Other cities stood around 
 them unharmed, occupied by those whom they considered 
 (as heathen) entirely unworthy of God's care — certainly not 
 to be reckoned as their equals. Had the Jews laid no claim 
 to superiority over all other people, they would not in the 
 hour of adversity have found all the passers-by clapping 
 their hands and saying: "Is this the city that men call 
 ' the joy of the whole earth ? ' J With them a haughty 
 spirit went before a fall. In the hour of prosperity let us 
 not look down on our poor neighbors, lest their sympathy 
 should be refused us in the day of trial, which may come 
 like a thief in the night. Let all learn a lesson by the fate 
 of Jerusalem, of Babylon and other great cities, that 
 reached as it were to heaven, but fell at last into a wretch- 
 edness proportioned to their grandeur. Men, nations and 
 cities may be exalted by what is real and substantial, and 
 so be in no danger of falling; but self-exaltation is another 
 
LAMENTA TIONS. 355 
 
 thing", and conceited wisdom the vainest folly. Those who 
 imagine that they are alone the favorites of heaven, may 
 in time learn their mistake. If they conceive God's good- 
 ness to be partial, it will in the end vindicate its impar- 
 tiality, to their sorrow and shame. Away with all narrow, 
 sectarian and partial views! Thank God for the progress 
 the world is making; that superstition and bigotry are 
 passing away together, and that men are beginning to 
 view things by the pure light of reason! The time is fast 
 coming when no especial demonstrations from the Eternal 
 Jehovah will be looked for; nor will any favoritism to 
 particular individuals be expected or asked. Then all will 
 rejoice in God's impartial goodness, and be satisfied to 
 have their neighbors equally blessed with themselves. 
 The great feast spoken of can then be held for the benefit 
 of " all nations, kindreds, tongues and people," embracing 
 in our estimation the entire family of man. There is in all 
 things the motion of a secret power — a controlling influence 
 beyond our comprehension. There must be progress; there 
 must also be dissolution; and this process of transition 
 constitutes the rise and fall of nations. 
 
356 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 EZEKIEL. 
 
 LIKE his cotemporary Jeremiah, Ezekiel was of the 
 sacerdotal race. He was carried captive to Babylon 
 588 B. C, and with many others of his countrymen placed 
 upon the river Ghebar in Mesopotamia, about two hun- 
 dred miles north-easterly of Babylon, where the revelations 
 were made to him of which this book gives an account. 
 His prophecy began in the fifth j^ear of his captivity, and 
 continued for twenty-one years. J. N. Brown, in his Ency- 
 clopedia of Religions Knowledge, says the book may be 
 considered under five divisions: The first three chapters 
 contain an account of the appearance of God to him, and 
 his appointment to office, with instructions. From the 
 fourth to the twenty-fourth descriptions are given, under a 
 variety of visions and similitudes, of the calamities im- 
 pending over Judea, and the total destruction of the temple 
 and city of Jerusalem. From the first of the twenty-fifth 
 chapter to the end of the thirty-second, the conquest of 
 many nations and cities is foretold. From the thirty- 
 second to the fortieth chapter the prophet inveighs against 
 the Jews collectively. The last nine chapters describe a 
 
EZEKIEL. 35^ 
 
 a remarkable vision of the structure of a new temple, and 
 a new polity. The learned Bishop Lowth characterizes 
 the style as bold, vehement and tragical ; highly parabol- 
 ical, abounding in figures and metaphorical expressions. 
 The style he speaks of as Grecian, majestic, but rough, 
 as unpolished, though noble in its simplicity. Some call 
 Ezekiel emphatically ike prophet. His language and mode 
 of expression is so unusual that few ordinary minds can 
 comprehend the true meaning of what is said. Yet with 
 their many peculiarities, how noble all the great prophets 
 appear to us as independent thinkers and brave reformers! 
 Their object was to purify and elevate their race. By noth- 
 ing less than the true spirit of God could they have sent forth 
 such strong and unremitting denunciations. What the 
 prophet meant by some of his wonderful figures we know 
 not, and ask: Who does? 
 
 We read in the first verse of the first ehapter of Ezekiel, 
 that in the thirtieth year — probably in the reign of Nabop- 
 olassar — the word of the Lord came to him while he was 
 by the river Chebar among the captives; the heavens were 
 opened and he saw visions of God. Verse three says the 
 word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, 
 the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldees, and the hand 
 of the Lord was then upon him. A whirlwind comes from 
 the north with appearances truly wonderful. Then lie 
 sees the likeness of four living creatures; their appearance 
 was the likeness of a man; and every one had four faces 
 and four wings. But we will not pursue this description 
 further, nor shall we undertake to give particular details 
 in regard to the strange things this prophet saw and heard, 
 
 ■24 
 
358 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 or the remarkable speeches he made; none that were ever 
 made before, nothing ever seen or heard before, could equal 
 them in boldness and strangeness. His threatenings and 
 denunciations were largely aimed against his own people — 
 that peculiar people who were, above all other nations, 
 entitled to the favor of heaven. The idol-serving nations 
 came in for a liberal share. The reader will do well to 
 remember that all said by Ezekiel and other prophets of 
 his time had almost entire and particular reference to 
 the people of that day. General knowledge of the Jews 
 and all the surrounding nations gave the keen observer, 
 the shrewd calculator, abundant data upon which to make 
 up his mind what results would follow. In declaring what 
 was to happen, every word was doubled in its force by 
 being coupled with the name so much in use, " Lord." 
 But for this, what would have been regarded as wild 
 ravings received the most grave and solemn consideration. 
 The prophets all saw this, and were encouraged by it to 
 continue on. Many were trained in the business of proph- 
 esying, just as men are educated now for the practice of 
 law or medicine. 
 
 No injustice is done the prophets by such remarks. From 
 the books themselves we can see it all, if we wish to 
 and will see. But if a blind devotion is to be paid — if we 
 are to shut our eyes and swallow — it matters but little 
 what is put before us. While we have much to say in 
 favor of these bold and good men, there is a bright side 
 and a dark one here as every where. 
 
 We should not fail to notice that Ezekiel is spoken of 
 as the "son of man." This term is understood to mean 
 
EZEKIEL. 359 
 
 dignity, favor and honor. The same term is applied to 
 Jesus, and was indeed his favorite title, implying the high 
 character of his mission and his sympathy with humanity. 
 The book of Ezekiel might be dwelt upon to the extent of 
 many volumes, although we think time could be better 
 employed than in either writing or reading them. They 
 would form material for extended remarks, and call forth 
 opinions in which hardly any two would agree. 
 
 The writer of this highly poetical book has very much 
 to say of Jerusalem; and whoever (as we should say), 
 edited the work did so after the return from the Babylonish 
 captivity. Some things took place between the first car- 
 rying away and the last, but a large part of the book has 
 reference to a succeeding period, from about the year 588. 
 
 Before this time the wickedness of the city was so no- 
 torious that its overthrow was apparent to the most super- 
 ficial observer. Chapter fourth presents one of the stran- 
 gest directions to be found in the sacred books: ' : Take 
 thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and 
 lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one v. ssel, 
 and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of 
 the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side: three hundred 
 and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. And the meat which 
 thou shalt eat shall be by weight twenty shekels a day: 
 from time to time shalt thou cat it. Thou shalt drink also 
 water by measure, the sixth part of an iiiu: from time lo 
 time shalt thou drink it. Thou shalt eat ; t as barley cakes, 
 and thou shalt bake it with dung, thai cometh out of man. 
 in their sight." Ezekiel then undertook to reason with 
 the Lord, and give so me account of his diet in time past, 
 
360 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 The kind of bread described and the manner of baking- 
 it would have been any thing but agreeable to an epicu- 
 rean. Prophetic powers were probably increased by it; 
 who knows ? 
 
 Chapter V. The threat is given that a third part of 
 the people of Jerusalem shall die with pestilence and 
 famine, a third part by the sword, and a third part be 
 scattered into all the winds. " Thus mine anger shall be 
 accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them 
 and I will be comforted." Shall we express a doubt as to 
 this statement, and think the Lord was not comforted at 
 such awful destruction coming upon His peculiar city ? At 
 any rate it would seem probable that this sentence was 
 recorded after the event took place. 
 
 To say that this sometimes wearisome book is devoid of 
 interest would be going quite too far; though its repe- 
 titions and its flights of imagination present a remarkable 
 contrast to much that we have already studied. That the 
 Infinite wisdom dictated it throughout, seems to us hard 
 indeed to believe. Besides its interest as an undoubted 
 part of the ancient canon of Israelitish scripture, and its 
 fidelity to history, two chapters present the grandest dec- 
 laration ever made of the absolute justice of God, of the 
 elevation of righteousness above the ceremony of religion, 
 and the responsibility of every living soul for its own sins 
 alone. Those grand words in the eighteenth chapter fol- 
 lowing the Divine declaration, "Behold, all souls are mine: 
 as the soul of the father so also the soul of the son: the 
 soul (hat sinnelh it shall die" And those again in the thirty- 
 third chapter, after God says, "As I live I have no pleasure 
 
EZEKIEL. 361 
 
 in the death of the wicked," reveal the true spirit of the 
 real prophet as the great reformer of his people, the quick - 
 ener of every brave conscience, the living voice of Infinite 
 Holiness. 
 
 What remodeling this book underwent after EzekiePs 
 time can never be known. Some authorities declare that 
 the persons whose names are attached to the several books 
 of the Bible rarely wrote them; that generally the writing 
 was done by other hands. And so in this book are evi- 
 dences of several composers. Some skillful scribe may 
 have combined together fragmentary writings bearing the 
 name of this prophet, because they contained chiefly his 
 odes, and gave a vivid picture of his times. Hardly ever 
 is a book written by a single writer from absolutely new 
 thought. The combined knowledge of other times, the 
 conceptions of previous authors naturally flow in. The 
 sentiment will be retained often in an entirely changed 
 form. With all the vividness of his exuberant imagina- 
 tion this prophet could hardly have originated all his pecu- 
 liar figures, all his dramatic conceptions. This view is 
 sustained by the deepest thinkers and ripest scholars; and 
 is especially true in regard to ideas of God, and the basis 
 of religious thought. Seizing upon an idea that existed 
 far away in pre-historic ages, we realize it as a truth of 
 to-day, and straightway utter it as an original conception 
 of our own. 
 
 Chapter VI. The writer goes on to say that "their 
 altars wore laid waste, their cities and dwellings destroyed." 
 And thus whole chapters are tilled with the strongest pos- 
 sible language to show the degradation of that very people 
 
362 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 who lived in "the city of our God," and were the peculiar 
 subjects of His constant care and personal influence. 
 
 Chapter VIII. An image appears to the prophet which 
 he undertakes to describe. At first it seemed like fire and 
 partly of the color of amber. " And he put forth the form 
 of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head ; and the 
 spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and 
 brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door 
 of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where 
 was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to 
 jealousy. And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel 
 was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain." 
 Still greater abominations were to be shown him. " And 
 he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, 
 behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, Son of 
 man, dig now in the wall: and when I had dig'ged in the 
 wall, behold a door. And he said unto me, Go in, and be- 
 hold the wicked abominations that they do here." The 
 writer surely intended us to understand that the Lord was 
 conducting him about, or that some spirit had been sent 
 for that special purpose. No doubt the God of all the 
 earth has a constant care for us all; He lights our path, 
 guides our footsteps, quickens our spirits; He too may 
 show by way of variety such strange things as are re- 
 corded in this book; and these visions must have affected 
 the prophet profoundly. 
 
 Chapter IX. "And the Lord said unto him, Go through 
 the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and 
 set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and 
 that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst 
 
EZEKIEL. 363 
 
 thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye 
 after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye 
 spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, 
 both maids, and little children, and women: but come not 
 near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my 
 sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which 
 were before the house. And he said unto them, Defile the 
 house, and fill the courts with the slain." 
 
 How is all this to be understood ? Ezekiel was intro- 
 duced as on the banks of the river Chebar, in captivity. 
 By the power of God it might have happened that his spirit 
 was taken to Jerusalem, where he was able to see and 
 know more out of the body than in it, or visions might 
 have passed before his mental eyes. Different parties 
 would not be impressed by it alike. Portions of mankind, 
 possibly the largest portion, would not stop to consider 
 the relation in a philosophical spirit, but merely say: 
 " There it is in the Bible, it must be taken for truth, and 
 the less it is scrutinized the better for one's peace — the 
 better for one's standing in the world." But how about 
 the tenth verse, where the God, who is represented as kind 
 and loving, is made to say: "Mine eyes shall not spare, 
 neither will I have pity." Then a man clothed with linen 
 and having an inkhorn by his side, makes a report, saying: 
 " I have done as thou hast commanded." 
 
 Chapter X. A thronelike apparition passes before the 
 prophet's eyes — wheels, cherubs and cherubim, and the 
 glory of the Lord. Then; was also a wheel within a wheel, 
 and wheels with four faces — the face of a cherub, a man, a 
 lion, and an eagle. This description, with some equally 
 
364 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 poetical additions, fills an entire chapter. None but the 
 most gifted, none but the most profoundly learned, can say 
 more about such mystical relations than that they are hard 
 to understand, if not incapable of rational explanation. 
 The wisest men of past ages have not been able to agree 
 as to the hidden meaning of these strange stories. The 
 writers themselves, if they had a distinct notion of what 
 they intended their readers should understand, failed en- 
 tirely of making themselves clear. Enough can be found 
 that a person of fair understanding can comprehend, to 
 render us great service by enforcing the everlasting laws 
 of rectitude. Sometimes poetry is used to give emphasis 
 without the writer's being sensible of its obscuring his 
 utterance. 
 
 Chapter XIII. "And the word of the Lord came unto 
 me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of 
 Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy 
 out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the Lord: 
 Thus saith the Lord God: Wo unto the foolish prophets, 
 that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! * * 
 They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The 
 Lord saith: and the Lord hath not sent them." They speak 
 peace where there is no peace. " Thus saith the Lord, I 
 will break down the wall that ye have daubed with untem- 
 pered mortar, and will accomplish my wrath upon the wall 
 and them that daubed. * * And say, Thus saith the Lord 
 God: Wo to the women that sew pillows to all arm-holes, 
 and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt 
 souls!" 
 
 In the fourteenth chapter much is said about the house of 
 
EZEKIEL. 365 
 
 Israel. Verse ninth declares: " If the prophet is deceived 
 when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived 
 that prophet." 
 
 The strongest language is used regarding all the threat- 
 enings against the city: "Though these three men, Noah, 
 Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should but deliver their 
 own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God." 
 So. it was declared of various other things, the accomplish- 
 ment of which could not be prevented by these three 
 famous worthies. 
 
 Chapter XVI. In speaking of Jerusalem the Lord said, 
 through the prophet: "Thy birth and thy nativity is of 
 the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy 
 mother a Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou 
 wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed 
 in water to supple thee." What could be expected of such 
 a city ? The remainder of this sixteenth chapter gives an 
 account of Jerusalem in the time of her glory, a descrip- 
 tion of her fall, and her low estate after that fall. 
 
 In chapter seventeenth an eagle is spoken of, under a 
 very pretty figure about which much might be said, as well 
 as other figures introduced, which are, to say the least, 
 ingenious. The three last verses of this chapter are 
 thought by many to be prophetic of the coming of Jesus; 
 but this cannot be, because the last verse says: "All the 
 trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought 
 down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried 
 up the green tree;, and have made the dry tree to flourish; I 
 the Lord have spoken and have done it." All this is said in 
 the past tense, as to what hud occurred, not was to follow. 
 
366 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Chapter XVIII. This chapter stands out entirely distinct 
 from all the preceding portions of the book, and was, we 
 feel certain, incorporated by some other author. None, 
 however, can read it without admiration. 
 
 " Yet say ye, Why doth not the son bear the iniquity of 
 the father ? When the son hath done that which is law- 
 ful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, he shall sure- 
 ly live. The soul that sinneth it shall die." This chapter 
 continues: "If the wicked will turn from his sins he hath 
 committed and keep my statutes, and do that which is 
 lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 
 Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die ? 
 saith the Lord God, and not that he shall turn from his 
 ways and live ? Yet ye say the way of the Lord is not 
 equal. Hear now, house of Israel ! is not my way 
 equal ? are not your ways unequal ? Therefore I will 
 judge you, house of Israel, every one according to his 
 wa}^s. Cast away all your transgressions whereby ye 
 have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new 
 spirit: for why will ye die, house of Israel. For I have 
 no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord 
 God. Wherefore turn yourselves and live ye." 
 
 Chapter XX. " Then came the word of the Lord unto 
 me saying, Son of man, speak unto the elders of Israel 
 and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Are you come 
 to inquire of me ? As I live, saith the Lord, I will not be 
 inquired of by you. Wilt thou judge them, son of man? 
 wilt thou judge them? cause them to know the abomina- 
 tions of their fathers." Yet the elders of Israel are gene- 
 rally understood to have been good men and such as the 
 
EZEKIEL. 367 
 
 Lord was glad to favor and hear. What view shall be 
 taken, then, of the assertion that the Lord would not hear 
 them ? Looking at all which we are told the prophets said 
 about those of their own profession, their cotemporaries 
 and equals; looking at what they said about priests, kings, 
 and princes; about men in authority, nations, and cities — 
 we are filled with amazement. If the crimes and iniqui- 
 ties of the Israelitish nation, and of those about them, 
 equaled the description, the wonder is that the Lord did 
 not send another flood, notwithstanding the rainbow of 
 promise set so conspicuously in the heavens. 
 
 All that is said in the chapters from the twentieth to 
 the twenty-ninth, will be passed over up to verse ninth: 
 " And the land of Egypt shall be desolate, and they shall 
 know that I am the Lord, because he hath said, ' The river 
 is mine and I have made it.' Behold, therefore, I am 
 against thee and against thy rivers, and I will make the 
 land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate from the tower 
 of Syene unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man 
 shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty 
 years " The land should be desolate for forty years, and the 
 Egyptians scattered among the nations." There was no 
 fulfillment of this, as all who will look at Egyptian history 
 will find beyond a doubt. 
 
 Chapter XL. This chapter comes down to the five and 
 twentieth year of the captivity, when the prophet says: 
 "The vision of God brought me into the land of Israel 
 and set me upon a very high mountain; by which was as 
 the frame of a city on the south." Here we pause, as our 
 remarks on this hook have already been quite sufficient. 
 
368 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 DANIEL. 
 
 THIS book, embracing sketches of the main events con- 
 nected with sacred history from 606 to 534 B. C, is 
 remarkable as the earliest specimen of apocalyptic litera- 
 ture. It commences at the first carrying away to Babylon 
 by Nebuchadnezzar of the king's seed and those Israelites 
 in whom there was no blemish, who had ability to stand in 
 the king's palace, and who could compass all the learning 
 and language of the Chaldeans. The condition of these 
 exiles on their arrival in Babylon was made pleasant, with 
 every advantage enjoyed by the most favored. Especially 
 were they to master the language of their conquerors, and 
 to gain all possible knowledge in the schools of a proud 
 and refined capital. 
 
 Among the most talented of this captive party was 
 Daniel, with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, all of 
 whom became excellent magicians, and as thoroughly 
 acquainted as Solomon with the art of necromancy. 
 Keeping this fact in view, what follows is more easily 
 explained. Since that time the control of savage animals 
 has engaged so much attention, that going unharmed into 
 
DANIEL. 369 
 
 a lion's cage is no longer a marvel, but an every-day occur- 
 rence. New comers are closer observers of all that passes 
 than the old inhabitants of a place. Daniel and his asso- 
 ciates soon made a correct estimate of the Babylonians, 
 and saw that they were slaves to sensuality and victims 
 of superstition. Continued excess drugs the conscience, 
 debases the mind; and enervates the body. Such indul- 
 gences Daniel determined to avoid forever, cost what it 
 might; and it was certain to cost much in a luxurious 
 capital, especially in an oriental court. Not every one 
 has the moral courage of a Daniel. In most cases there 
 is a hesitanc}'. Many a man has nothing to blame for his 
 life's failure but his cherished doubts. 
 
 These captives appeared as patterns of self-government, 
 as models of self-denial, astonishing to a luxurious com- 
 munity. The king determined on Daniel's advancement 
 by making him prime minister, as well as placing him at 
 the head of the Magi. 
 
 Chapter II. The king had a dream, and the occasion 
 gave Daniel an opportunity of exhibiting his skill in its 
 interpretation and of further increasing his growing popu- 
 larity. At first thought, the position in which Daniel was 
 placed might seem to be a difficult one; but nothing is 
 difficult to a brave conscience and a resolute will.. His 
 final triumph explains a little the immense influence exer- 
 cised by this book over the early Christian church and the 
 great multitudes which still pay reverence; to his memory 
 at his tomb in Susa. 
 
 Daniel was told by the king that he had a dream, bill 
 would not tell what it was; a most unusual thing. Hut 
 
370 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 as the king did not know his own dream, the one who pre- 
 tended to tell him could fashion the story as he liked and 
 have the interpretation ready to suit. A dream is the 
 conception of something by a person when sleeping-; but 
 if there is no trace left on awakening there is nothing to 
 be called a dream. When Daniel pretended to tell him 
 the dream and give the interpretation, he was not confined 
 to any thing except fitting his cloth to his coat. To show 
 the difficulty of complying with the king's request, and 
 that something beyond human wisdom was necessary, 
 Daniel remarked that no king ever asked a like thing of 
 any astrologer before; though by such a remark he vir- 
 tually admitted that he acted in the capacity of astrolog'er 
 or magician. In order that no mistake should be made, 
 Daniel requested time for a matter of such moment. This 
 was a wise move on the part of Daniel, and worthy of 
 imitation. How much trouble would be avoided if time 
 were taken to consider! After mature and of course pray- 
 erful thought, Daniel explained the matter to the satisfac- 
 tion of all, gaining great credit. 
 
 Chapter three gives the description of an image set up 
 by the king in the plains of Dura, sixty cubits high and 
 six broad, which all the people were ordered to worship 
 when they heard the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, 
 and dulcimer. Those who did not were to be cast into a 
 fiery furnace the same hour. When the music began and 
 the shout went up, the people bowed themselves before the 
 image according to command; with the exception of Shad- 
 rach, Meshacli, and Abednego, who resolutely refused to 
 obey the king, knowing full well that he would keep his 
 
DANIEL. 371 
 
 promise and cast them into the furnace. We have no 
 means of knowing- the degree of heat maintained in this 
 fire. We are naturally prompted to think of a modern 
 furnace glowing with burning coal, melted iron and 
 cinders, in which animal life would not be maintained 
 more than a few seconds. This is an entirely different 
 thing from a Chaldean oven, of a temperature much below 
 what modern scientific men have been able to endure for 
 hours. However, the place was hot enough to be very 
 uncomfortable for such as did not know how to fortify 
 themselves against heat. Others had been put there 
 before, and nothing is said of any deaths happening. 
 Had such been the case some mention might have been 
 expected; for the safety of these men is the only ground 
 for supposing that the place was any wise dangerous. 
 The warming was by the king's orders, and as he ardently 
 desired to save the offenders, it is not fair to presume that 
 there was any thing in the way of extra heat. The refrac- 
 tory party, however, were cast into this fiery furnace, what- 
 ever it was. Having a desire to know how it fared with 
 them, an examination was made; and in addition to the 
 three, a fourth was discovered who is represented in ap- 
 pearance like the son of God.. We can not presume that 
 Nebuchadnezzar had a correct knowledge how the son of 
 God appeared, and hence this statement must be taken 
 with proper allowance. Good men like these captives are 
 always sustained in the day of trial, as they are comforted 
 in the season of sorrow. The timidity of man and Ins 
 lack of trust under trial, and distress and difficulty, casts a 
 
 dark shadow over many a pathway. The stern resolve to 
 
372 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 do just what we believe right, is a glory no man can take 
 away from the true child of God. No one, however, at 
 that time or since was proof against fire, or could by 
 means of faith alone save himself from the effect of tread- 
 ing on melted iron and live coals. 
 
 Chapter IV. Another dream is spoken of, and Daniel 
 appears again as interpreter, after which the king under- 
 takes to deliver a short lecture, and repeats his dream once 
 more. He flatters Daniel, and Daniel in turn flatters the 
 king. They try to be very polite to each other, but there 
 is nothing fulsome or hyperbolical, indeed the lauguage is 
 sometimes sublime. 
 
 About Nebuchadnezzar's eating grass like an ox, nothing 
 appears very certain. By the reading it would seem the 
 king told this of himself, and that the real words he uttered 
 about it, or the import of them, were handed down by the 
 Hebrew historian. A story may be founded on fact in 
 whole or in part, or may be made up from circumstances 
 giving it plausibility. Most stories that come down to 
 us from antiquity have a moral bearing and fix the mind 
 upon the principle of beneficence, or rouse the conscience 
 to pursue the path of duty. The loss of such writings 
 would be regretted by all good men alike. After this hu- 
 miliation of the king he seemed to show signs of piety, 
 and his understanding returned. 
 
 Chapter V. A sudden change comes up in the history, 
 no less than the abrupt introduction of a new king, named 
 Belshazzar, of whom nothing had been said before. He is 
 thought to have been the son of Nebuchadnezzar, though 
 of that the great historian Berosus does not seem to be sure 
 
DANIEL. 3^3 
 
 The first leading act in this monarch's reign was the hold- 
 ing of a grand banquet, common in that day to all great 
 courts. On this occasion the feast had been prolonged, 
 and in the dead hour of night the wildest revelry prevailed. 
 When mirth run mad the king ordered the golden vessels, 
 plundered from Jerusalem, to be brought forward, that he 
 and his lords might drink therefrom to the health of their 
 own gods. This direct defiance of Jehovah excited Daniel 
 and other Jews present to intense indignation. Suddenly 
 every eye was turned to witness the appearance of large 
 characters plainly visible on the wall, so boldly drawn 
 that the most intoxicated guests could not fail to see them. 
 Consternation and horror instantly seized the drunken rev- 
 elers. From the king to the humblest menial all trembled 
 as they gazed. Daniel and his party alone were calm. 
 They well knew how the writing came there — at least one 
 of them did. Some may suppose the God of Israel wrote 
 this startling inscription; if so, it must have been by the 
 hand of His servant Daniel. None of the Chaldeans present 
 could tell what the writing meant; hence the importance 
 of taking immediate steps to interpret it, curse or blessing-. 
 Plenty of those whose business it was to explain mysteries 
 were easily obtained, but in vain. They seem to have 
 been as much aghast as the king. He did not know that 
 none but Daniel could by any possibility read the writing; 
 for none other dared to make an explanation which might 
 only provoke derision. Daniel was aware of this. 1 1 is 
 plan was well conceived, and was sure to succeed. The 
 soothsayers of Babylon proved to be wholly unable to meet. 
 the emergency. Daniel, having before this obtained great 
 
 k25 
 
374 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 notoriety as an unfolder of mysteries, it is singular that 
 he was not summoned at once. Possibly the king hoped 
 to gain entire satisfaction from those on whom he had 
 always depended for the solution of dark sayings; or, it 
 may be from feelings of pride as to inquiring of a foreigner 
 and a captive. Getting no light on the subject from every 
 other quarter, Daniel was finally asked for an explanation. 
 After suitable preliminaries he reads and explains. Before 
 doing this, Belshazzar is told how badly his father Nebuchad- 
 nezzar had conducted himself, not omitting the story of his 
 eating grass like an ox. Then Daniel reads: " Mene, mens, 
 tekel, upharsin" and explains: Mene, God had numbered his 
 kingdom and finished it; tekel, he was weighed in the bal- 
 ance and found wanting; peres, his kingdom was divided 
 and given to the Medes and Persians. This peres is a new 
 word that had not appeared on the wall, or if it did is not 
 named. As there is not a whisper about " upharsin," the 
 substitution of an entirely different word is not so easy to 
 explain. Does it not show that the whole was fixed to suit 
 Daniel's purpose ? that this worst insult to Jehovah de- 
 served this crushing rebuke, and that those who received 
 it knew they were guilty without excuse ? The king had 
 forgotten the obligation to respect the Jewish religion. 
 His long continued sensuality had so blunted his moral 
 sense that the heinousness of his crimes was not realized. 
 Some lightning-flash had to come from a clear sky. Daniel 
 hit on the proper plan; for how can we admit that writing- 
 appeared on the wall then or at any other time without the 
 aid of human hands ? The king took it all kindly, showing- 
 how thoroughly he was humbled, and again talked loudly 
 
DANIEL. 375 
 
 in Daniel's praise, setting him np as a most wonderful 
 man, as indeed he was. The finest linen and costliest rai- 
 ment were ordered for him, a gold chain put about his 
 neck, and much else done to show the estimation in which 
 he was held. Not only that, but Belshazzar made him the 
 third ruler in the kingdom. This bestowal could have 
 been but for 'a brief period; for, "that night," says the 
 eloquent historian, was Belshazzar slain, and the dynasty 
 was changed by conquest. 
 
 Chapter VI. Directly after this feast of Belshazzar 
 King Darius is introduced as constituting a kind of con- 
 gress consisting of one hundred and twenty princes, of 
 which Daniel is made the head. Thus we see that Daniel's 
 good conduct and ability did not fail to be appreciated by 
 Cyrus the Great as soon as he ascended the throne. Be- 
 lieve much or little as we may of particular stories, the 
 evidence is plain that Daniel had " an excellent spirit in 
 him." His example in maintaining the right at all hazards 
 will be commended by every good and true man. But his 
 supreme exaltation excited a strong jealousy, and an early 
 opportunity was sought for his overthrow. They induced 
 Darius to make a decree, that whoever asked a petition 
 of any god or man, except the king himself, should be 
 cast into the den of lions; meaning, we may suppose, 
 a place where lions were caged and from which escape 
 was Considered impossible. Daniel had full knowledge of 
 all that was being done, and made his calculation what 
 course to take. Lions were considered dangerous then, 
 doubtless, as they are now; but it was also known how to 
 approach them with comparative safety, and in a measure 
 
376 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 hold their natural ferocity in abeyance. The ability to do 
 this may not be attained by slight observation, nor with- 
 out long study and imperial will; yet what we witness 
 any day for a few shillings we cannot possibly esteem a 
 miracle. When we see a Van Amburgh perform, no one 
 pretends that God shuts those blood-thirsty mouths. And 
 yet He does it now as much as He did then. Such weak 
 superstitions have passed away and will return never 
 more. The decree was passed by King Darius and made 
 unalterable, like the laws of the Medes and Persians. 
 Daniel's adversaries were delighted, flattering themselves 
 that they were trampling their reprover under feet. The 
 enemies of the Jews had studiously sought occasion 
 against them that they might be driven out from office 
 and honor in the empire. This feeling arose from noticing 
 the superior capacity displayed by the puritanical stran- 
 gers in every instance where opportunity offered. Beside 
 that, their religion was irreconcilable with the image-wor- 
 ship around them, and this religion was without any con- 
 cealment or compromise. Like other good men, nothing 
 would tempt Daniel to deviate from the path of duty. 
 What his practice was in regard to private devotion is not 
 certainly known; but after the decree Daniel was most 
 careful to offer several daily prayers in his usually strong 
 tone of voice; nor did he fail to leave his windows open. 
 Such courage deserves the highest commendation. It 
 seems the king regretted having made the decree, and at 
 once set himself at work to save the most remarkable 
 person in his court if possible. Every preparation they 
 could both of them make that no harm should come to 
 
DANIEL. 37t 
 
 Daniel was attended to. What they were, the account 
 does not say; if it did the miracle part might drop out of 
 the narrative. He came out from among the lions without 
 being in the least harmed, as he certainly expected would 
 be the case. 
 
 Chapter VI. Near the close of this chapter we read 
 that Darius wrote to all the nations, people and lan- 
 guages that dwell in the whole earth, a decree that all 
 should worship the God of Daniel. So extravagant a 
 decree is not even conceivable. Its oppressive character 
 is entirely unlike Cyrus. Neither did his jurisdiction 
 extend at all so far; nor can any trace be found of his 
 attempting to enforce such an arbitrary law in his own 
 dominions. Is it not a Jewish exaggeration of the favor 
 into which their religion had suddenly come ? Yet idol- 
 worship received a severe check; many lost faith in it. 
 Great good was done by the power and might of Daniel, 
 and the true God was glorified. 
 
 Chapter VII. Daniel had a dream or vision, during 
 which he saw beasts, great beasts, eagles and lions; also 
 rivers of fire, fiery sheets, and horns that talked. No 
 wonder that the visions troubled him. Thrones were 
 cast down and "the ancient of days did sit;" whose 
 person Daniel tried to describe. This " ancient of days 1 ' is 
 represented as sitting in judgment, yet as soon giving up 
 that duty to the saints. What this meant some undertake 
 to tell: nothing in the Bible is so obscure that those who 
 call themselves God's ministers do not try to explain it. 
 These stories about visions and wonders tend to foster a 
 love of the marvelous. God be thanked that the time is 
 
378 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 fast passing away for reckoning sorcery, witchcraft and 
 astrology as God's especial acts. Miracles are no more 
 looked for, and will soon cease to be believed as in any 
 wise annulling the laws of matter, or reversing the order 
 of nature. Every where light is breaking in and driving 
 away darkness. The true knowledge of God is spreading. 
 Craft, subtlety and deception are getting into bad favor. 
 One man's right to think for another is being more de- 
 cidedly questioned and resolutely rejected day by day. 
 
 Chapter IX. Daniel makes a long prayer, and exhorts 
 the people in a dignified manner, saying that he saw the 
 " man Gabriel," who we understand was the angel bearing 
 that name. At verse 24, seventy weeks is fixed as the time 
 when transgression should cease, everlasting righteous- 
 ness be established, and the most Holy be anointed. 
 " From the going forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem 
 unto the Messiah the Prince shall be sixty-nine weeks: 
 and, after three score and two weeks, the Messiah the 
 Prince should be cut off." This could not mean the person 
 called Jesus, because the end was to be " with a flood," 
 and the people of this Prince were " to come and destroy 
 the city and the sanctuary," certainly not the Christian 
 people. This book of Daniel, like others written in regard 
 to that particular period of Jewish history, is worthy of 
 careful consideration as an exceptional book, placed by 
 the Jews between Esther and Ezra, and as distinct from the 
 other prophets as St. John's revelation is distinct from the 
 Epistles which it follows. Even its Aramaic language 
 marks a period of transition. 
 
HOSEA—JOEL. 3^9 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 MINOR PROPHETS. 
 HOSEA. 
 
 HOSEA'S prophecies relate to 800 B. 0., and twenty-five 
 or more years later. He speaks of many things in a 
 general way, and of others particularly. 
 
 Judah, Israel, and the city of Jerusalem receive attention 
 from all the prophets. Joel speaks especially of Judah. 
 Among the great variety of subjects embraced in this book 
 may be mentioned judgments, idolatry, adultery, repent- 
 ance, Israel's ingratitude, God's displeasure, and best of 
 all, reconciliation. These are repeated over and over again. 
 As a favorable closing up, the promise is made that the 
 Lord will ransom them all, heal all their backslidings, and 
 be to them as the dew, and they should grow like the lily, 
 and spread out their branches like the olive tree. So 
 Ephraim should ask what more he had to do with idols. 
 " For the ways of the Lord are right, and the prudent shall 
 know them, and the just walk in them." 
 
 JOEL. 
 
 No one pretends to know the ago in which Joel lived, 
 
380 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 but it is probable he was cotemporary with Hosea. As to 
 his life or death, no particulars have been handed down to 
 us. His prophecies relate largely to the kingdom of Judah. 
 He inveighs against the sins and infidelities of the people, 
 threatens them with divine vengeance, and exhorts to 
 repentance, fasting and prayer, in which case they should 
 enjoy the favor of God. The Chaldean invasion, and the 
 destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, are predicted. The 
 style of Joel is to be admired for its eloquence. In some 
 respects there is a similarity of expression among all who 
 set themselves up as competent to speak in a prophetic 
 way. There is much reason to think the prophetic books 
 were all revised a long time after the periods to which 
 they refer, and after the events supposed to have been pre- 
 dicted had happened. 
 
 Joel gives one new command: To beat their plowshares 
 into swords, and their pruning hooks into spears, as the 
 day of the Lord was near, when the sun and moon should 
 be darkened and the stars withdraw their shining, and all 
 should know that God dwelt in the mountain of Zion. Had 
 the sun and moon at any time subsequent to Joel's writing 
 been darkened, an event so wonderful would have come 
 down to us through channels independent of Jewish history; 
 that is, if it were any thing more than what is talked of 
 now with as little concern as the sun's rising and sitting. 
 An effort is plainly discernible in all prophetic writings to 
 excite and alarm the people, and save them from ever 
 increasing corruption. An eclipse of the sun or moon was 
 well understood and properly accounted for by but few; 
 while great bodies stood ready to use any celestial pheno- 
 
AMOS. 381 
 
 mena for the oppression of the ignorant and credulous 
 mass. 
 
 AMOS. 
 
 This book relates to events following the year 800 B. C. 
 The author was not a regularly educated prophet, but 
 came forth at the prompting of God from tending sheep 
 and dressing trees. His rustic speech and country taste 
 cling to him to the last. His ministry must have taken 
 place about the middle of Jeroboam's reign, for he speaks 
 of the completion of his conquests; while the Assyrians, 
 who afterwards harassed Israel, had not then given an 
 alarm. This period was one calling for a prophetic voice. 
 Rapidly advancing in wealth, power, ease, and self-confi- 
 dence, Israel was equally advancing in luxury, idolatry, and 
 oppression of the poor. Calf-worship was especially prac- 
 ticed at Beth-el, also at Gilgal, Dan and Beersheba; the rites 
 even of Astarte were tolerated in Samaria; and, as an evi- 
 dence of the way in which the priests protected idolatry 
 from the denunciation of the prophet, the high-priest pro- 
 cured an order from Jeroboam driving Amos out of Israel — 
 a most honorable exile. We give the whole of this passage 
 at arms, for it shows the contrasted nature of the two 
 men, one warning the people against the consequences 
 of apostasy and profligacy — the other silencing the warn- 
 ing voice in exile or deatli by the authority of the king: 
 "Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam 
 king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against 
 thee in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not 
 able to bear all his words. For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam 
 
382 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away 
 captive out of their own land. Also, Amaziah said unto 
 Amos, thou seer, go flee thee away into the land of 
 Judah, and there eat bread and prophesy there: But 
 prophesy not again any more at Beth-el ; for it is the king's 
 chapel, and it is the king's court. Then answered Amos, 
 and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a 
 prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of 
 sycamore fruit; and the Lord took me as I followed the 
 flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my 
 people Israel. Now, there f'oro, hear thou the word of the 
 Lord: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop 
 not thy word against the house of Isaac. Therefore thus 
 saith the Lord: Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, 
 and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, 
 and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die 
 in a polluted land ; and Israel shall surely go into captivity 
 forth of his land.'' — vii, 10, If. 
 
 Of the earthquake mentioned in the first verse of the 
 first chapter, we do not find any trace in Jewish annals; 
 but at that time such things were not commonly recorded; 
 as, long after, a few lines exhaust the subject of eclipses in 
 Pliny's natural history. 
 
 The prediction of the death of Jeroboam II by the sword 
 was not fulfilled, as he died a natural death. — (II Kings, 
 xiv, 29). Neither have we any account of a flood corres- 
 ponding to the eighth verse of chapter eight; but, there 
 were eclipses in Palestine that year more than fulfilling 
 the prophecy in the next verse: "I will cause the sun to 
 £0 down at noon and will darken the earth in the clear 
 
OBADIAH. 383 
 
 day." Certainly, in the lig'ht of modern history, the 
 prophecy in the ninth verse of the ninth chapter is perfectly 
 wonderful: " I will sift the house of Israel among all nations 
 as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall 
 upon the earth!" The book closes with a promise of the 
 restoration of the Jews to the land of promise which is 
 repeated in the fifteenth chapter of Acts, and which has 
 done very much to keep alive to our day this fearfully 
 persecuted race without a temple, without a country, with- 
 out a home, without a resting place for the soles of their 
 feet: "And I will bring again the captivity of my people 
 of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit 
 them ; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine 
 thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of 
 them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they 
 shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have 
 given them, saith the Lord thy God." 
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 Obadiah is believed to have prophesied about 588 B. C; 
 but, the learned are not agreed; it was evidently a period 
 when public distress prompted fearful forebodings; when 
 indeed many persons of a poetical nature occupied them- 
 selves with gloomy visions of the future. Obadiah, how- 
 ever, is chiefly a denunciation of Edom melting into a 
 prophecy of the future glory of Zion. It compares well 
 with cotemporary sayings by Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and 
 the 127th psalm. 
 
 The question of the fulfillment of the promise that "the 
 house of Esau shall be for stubble and there shall not be 
 
384 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 any remaining; they of the South shall possess the mount 
 of Esau," can be answered only in part. Nebuchadnezzar 
 subdued the country in 583 B. C. John Hyrcanus more 
 fully, yet not perfectly, reduced Idumea, when their nation- 
 ality became extinct by their adoption of Jewish rites. 
 
 The only curious thing about this brief prophecy, a 
 principal favorite with the modern Jews, is that, under- 
 standing Rome by Edom, they believe that the triumph of 
 Judaism over Christianity is surely foretold by Obadiah. 
 Abarbanel asserts that all Christians are comprised in the 
 name Idumeans; that they will go up to lay waste Jeru- 
 salem which is the seat of holiness; that those Jews who 
 have gone as exiles into the Edomites' land will deserve to 
 have "the best part of their country, and their metropolis 
 at Mount Seir" — when "saviors shall come up on Mount 
 Zion to judge the mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall 
 be Jehovah's." 
 
 JONAH. 
 
 Jonah assumed the prophetic office about 840 B. C. with 
 strong expectation of winning his way to fame, but soon 
 found himself in trouble. As a pioneer in that difficult 
 business, he possibly did as well as many others would. 
 Light had at that date been but little diffused, and was not 
 until the schools for the education of prophets were estab- 
 lished by Samuel. They soon learned to be more guarded 
 in their sayings. In the first place, it was a crazy notion 
 in Jonah's head to think that the Lord had any idea of 
 destroying Nineveh in forty days from the time of his 
 prediction. It was not exactly what might be called nerve 
 
JONAH. 385 
 
 that enabled him to make the statement he did; it was 
 more like foolhardiness. The one who wrote the story got 
 out of it ingeniously. Jonah started full of hope, took ship 
 at Joppa bound for Tarshish, was thrown into the sea 
 during a tempest, swallowed by a whale and went down 
 into its belly. 
 
 The Ninevites were far from being the worst people on 
 the earth, though so bad that they were easily frightened, 
 and inclined to think that their destruction might be a just 
 enough punishment for their wicked acts. Through fear of 
 the fulfillment of Jonah's prediction, the king and all his sub- 
 jects, from the highest to the lowest, made a mere outside 
 show of repentance. We say outside show, for the reason 
 that no repentance that comes through fear is any thing 
 but mockery; it is action from necessity, not choice. The 
 people of the threatened city adopted all the outward forms 
 of repentance common in that day; and, as we are told in 
 the story, the Lord looked upon them with compassion, and 
 regretted that Jonah had told them what he did, and con- 
 cluded that the city had better stand as it was a while longer. 
 So Jonah found the city was in no danger of being 
 destroyed, and that he, instead of having his name heralded 
 over the whole earth as a true prophet, to be feared and 
 respected by the great cities every where — must skulk 
 away out of men's sight to escape; reproof and shame. 
 TJis grief was must intense; really he suffered mure agony 
 than when in the whale's belly — if he was ever there. So 
 he desired the Lord to take away the life that had become 
 
 a burden. 
 
 Wishing to avoid observation as much as possible, Jonah 
 
386 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 passed out of the city, where he found no shelter from the 
 scorching rays of the sun, and constructed a kind of 
 booth, over which a gourd is represented as growing at a 
 rapid rate — so rapid that it did not long resist the sun's 
 heat but soon withered away. This grieved Jonah sorely, 
 and opened the wa}^ for the Lord to reason with him by 
 speaking of his grief at the loss of the gourd, compara- 
 tively of so little importance; and reminding him that 
 the destruction of a great city like Nineveh, containing so 
 many people "and also much cattle," was a larger matter 
 for him to consider. To this we do not hear of Jonah's 
 making any reply; nor do we hear any thing more of him 
 at all; but the story remains as interesting as ever, and a 
 warning that it is wrong to complain of the mercy of God 
 vouchsafed to the children of men, just because it lessens 
 our influence and standing. 
 
 MICAH. 
 
 Micah prophesied nearly through the half century be- 
 ginning with 750 B. C, and was therefore cotemporary 
 with Isaiah, whom he somewhat resembles in his exalted 
 morality, his clearness of expression and occasional sub- 
 limity. William Smith's Bible Dictionary suggests that 
 the difference of time between Jeremiah's dictating his 
 prophecies to Baruch and their publication on the fast-day 
 to the people, (Jeremiah xxxvi), would explain any dis- 
 agreement as to Micah's period; his word may have been 
 spoken during Jotham and Ahaz and not committed to writ- 
 ing till the reign of Hezekiah. Many of the references clear- 
 ly belong to the darker times preceding this devout king. 
 
MICAH-NAHUM. 387 
 
 The general tenor of the seven chapters is a warning 
 against the corruption, violence, idolatry and false proph- 
 esying of the twins, carried on in a dialogue form with 
 peculiar spirit. In the ninth chapter is one of the decla- 
 rations of universal morality which have become immortal. 
 The prophet first asks, as if to excite attention to his 
 reply, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow 
 myself before the high God ? shall I give my first born for 
 my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my 
 soul ?" (the same parallelism which marks all the sacred 
 poetry of the Bible). Then comes the magnificent answer, 
 "He hath shewed thee, man, what is good: and what 
 doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, love mercy, 
 and walk humbly with thy God !" 
 
 There is a supposed prophecy of Jesus in the fifth chap- 
 ter: "Thou Bethlehem Ephratah ! out of thee shall he 
 come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings 
 forth have been from everlasting." But Jesus certainly 
 never became a ruler in Israel; and we cannot understand 
 how His goings have been from everlasting: nor should we 
 know what to make of the fourth verse in this application, 
 "He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord:" but 
 the fifth verse completes the refutation: "And this man 
 shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our 
 land." Every honest person must admit that our Saviour 
 had never anything to do with the Assyrians, their empire 
 having been destroyed many centuries before his birth. 
 
 NAHUM. 
 
 The bonk of Natural, written we ean not exactly tell 
 
388 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 when or where, probably about the fourteenth year of 
 King Hezekiah, begins by saying that God is jealous and 
 furious: that the Lord will take vengeance on his adver- 
 saries, etc., which we do not believe. One can not read 
 the epistles of John and then believe in this raging Deity, 
 jealous of his glory, and chiefly concerned in destroying 
 his enemies. 
 
 It is agreed pretty generally that this " burden of Nine- 
 vah" was uttered before the city, whose merchants were 
 multiplied above the stars of heaven, was destroyed; but 
 Ewald, the great German scholar, believes it was then 
 threatened from without. The prophet sees the city in its 
 grandeur and its ruin; his expressions of each are wonder- 
 fully bold and far beyond what could have been realized 
 in fact. " Because of the multitude of her whoredoms" 
 she was to be devoured with the fire, cut off with the 
 sword and eaten up by the cankerworm; poetical forms 
 for expressing the utter desolation which has befallen her 
 in these latter days, when nothing but vast heaps of ruin 
 mark the site of one of the proudest cities of the earth. 
 
 For grandeur of expression and variety of imagery few 
 Hebrew prophets stand above Nahum; and those who 
 read him in the original find a great deal to admire in his 
 forcible style and sonorous diction, especially in his ac- 
 count of the siege and destruction of the guilty city. 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 There has been a dispute among scholars as to the date 
 of this prophet, and the weight of opinion rests upon a 
 period more than six centuries before Christ, as many 
 
HABAKKUK. 389 
 
 passages have been borrowed from him by Jeremiah. A 
 curious Rabbinical story represents him as that child of 
 the Shunamite whom Elisha restored to life; because of a 
 resemblance of name. Another unfounded legend is that he 
 was the sentinel set by Isaiah to watch for the destruction 
 of Babylon. Still a third legend is given in the Apocrypha 
 of his carrying food to Daniel in the lions' den. He seems to 
 have prophesied very much in vain, but not certainly with- 
 out giving to the Church many of those stirring words it 
 can never lose from the voices of the soul. His noble 
 prayer Dr. Franklin is said to have read in a social circle 
 at Paris, where it was received with immense applause 
 until its source was discovered. We give it below: 
 
 "A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth: 
 "0 Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid: Lord, 
 revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of 
 the years make known; in wrath remember mercy. God 
 came from Tern an, and the Holy One from mount Paran. 
 Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was 
 full of his praise. And hie brightness was as the light; 
 he had horns coming out of Ins hand; and there was the 
 hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence, and 
 burning coals wont forth at his feet. He stood, and mea- 
 sured the earth; ho beheld, and drove asunder the nations; 
 and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpet- 
 ual hills did bow: his ways arc everlasting. I saw the 
 touts of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land 
 of Midian did tremble. Was the Lord displeased against 
 the rivers? was thine anger againsl the rivers? was thy 
 wrath against tin- sea, that thou didst ride ii|>«»n thine 
 
 b26 
 
390 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 horses, and thy chariots of salvation? Thy bow was made 
 quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy 
 word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. 
 The mountains saw thee, and they trembled; the overflow- 
 ing of the water passed by; the deep uttered his voice, 
 and lifted up his hands on high. The sun and moon stood 
 still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they 
 went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear. Thou 
 didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst 
 thresh the heathen in anger. Thou wentest forth for the 
 salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine 
 anointed ; thou woundedst the head out of the house of 
 the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck. 
 Selah. 
 
 " Thou didst strike through with his staves the head 
 of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter 
 me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly. 
 Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through 
 the heap of great waters. When I heard, my belly trem- 
 bled; my lips quivered at the voice; rottenness entered 
 into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest 
 in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, 
 he will invade them with his troops. Although the fig tree 
 shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the 
 labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no 
 meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there 
 shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, 
 I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is 
 my strength, and lie will make ni} r feet like hinds' feet, and 
 he will make me to walk upon mine high places." 
 
ZEPHANIAH—HAGGAI. 391 
 
 ZEPHANIAH. 
 
 This prophet's discourse is fixed by the book itself in 
 the reign of Josiah, which lasted from 642 to 611 B. C. 
 He begins with severe threatenings, declaring that the 
 Lord will utterly consume all things from the land; espe- 
 cially that he will cut off the remnant of Baal, and them 
 that are turned back from the Lord. Destruction, he prom- 
 ised, should include man and beast, the fowls of heaven, 
 and the fishes of the sea. Jerusalem itself is not spared. 
 Its moral condition is represented in the darkest colors — 
 her princes are roaring lions, her judges cunning wolves, 
 her prophets light and treacherous, her priests have pol- 
 luted the sanctuary. And yet without any evidence of 
 repentance, the prophet closes with assurances of joy and 
 blessing, and the promise that they should be made a name 
 and a praise among all the people of the earth. 
 
 The Scythians were then devastating portions of Pal- 
 estine, and the sufferings they inflicted were followed by a 
 reformation, recorded in the second book of Chronicles 
 just before the death of the excellent king- Josiah; whose 
 last paseover is said (in tones of childlike exaggeration) 
 to have surpassed any that the kings of Israel had ever 
 kept; but, no such sweeping destruction as is menaced in 
 the beginning of this prophecy, can be traced either in 
 sacred or profane history. 
 
 HAGGAI. 
 
 This booh may have been written 520 B. 0. Of Haggai 
 but little is known with certainty. He is supposed to have 
 been born at Babylon; of his death nothing is said; Jeru« 
 
392 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 salem was probabty the place of his burial. The work of 
 rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem progressed slowly, and 
 after being interrupted for fourteen years, was completed 
 516 B. C. Quite evident it is that the Jews were sincere 
 in their unbounded regard for Jerusalem, and believed God 
 was there more emphatically than in any other place on 
 the earth. High respect for " the great city," " the sacred 
 city," will never cease; but as a central point of worship, 
 its time has passed away never to return. Now not only at 
 Jerusalem, but in every place incense may be offered, and 
 an acceptable offering, as it was foretold would be the case. 
 This prophet is so exceedingly prosaic that many have 
 supposed his words were merely the outline of his actual 
 addresses; for he seems to have led the people forward to 
 the accomplishment of their great work with remarkable 
 success — cheering them at last with this promise, which is 
 commonly referred to the Messiah: " The glory of the latter 
 house shall be greater than the former; and in this place I 
 will give peace saith the Lord of Hosts." 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 This prophet is cotemporaneous with Haggai, in the 
 first part of his work, from 520 to 570; and like him di- 
 rected all his energies to the building of the second temple. 
 The foundations had been laid during the reign of Cyrus, 
 yet the jealousies of the Samaritans had obstructed the 
 enterprise during the succeeding sovereigns. But now 
 Darius Hystaspes sat on the throne, a generous prince, es- 
 pecially favorable to the Jews, so that the prophets were 
 encouraged to push forward in the pious enterprise. The 
 
ZECHA RIAH—MALA CHI. 393 
 
 fear now was not of priestly formalism, but of letting- the 
 outward service go to decay. So that Zechariah, who 
 united to a prophet's zeal the traditions of a priestly fam- 
 ily, being always known as the son of Iddo the priest, 
 was specially adapted to completing what had been so 
 nobly begun, and afterwards to the providing liturgical 
 services with the assistance of Haggai. 
 
 Bishop Mede and Archbishop Newcome were the first to 
 insist that the chapters from the 9th to the 14th were by 
 some other prophet; not only because of the entire differ- 
 ence of style, but because of a complete change of sub- 
 ject. The great critics declare that the latter chapters are 
 as poetic, glowing, weighty, magnificent in imagery as the 
 former portion is prosaic and poor. The learned Bunsen 
 even pronounces it one of the triumphs of modern criti- 
 cism that the last six chapters are referred to two distinct 
 prophets. But certainly the prediction that "Jerusalem 
 would be a cup of trembling unto all the people round 
 about," and " that there should be a great mourning there 
 as the mourning in the valley of Megiddon," could never 
 have been spoken to cheer the returned exiles in restoring 
 the house of God to its ancient glory. But this opens a 
 matter of Hebrew criticism far beyond our grasp. 
 
 MALACHI. 
 
 The date of this prophet, about 440 B. C, is confirmed 
 by many references in his cotemporary Nehemiah, by the 
 fact of his never alluding to the restoration of the temple, 
 nor to the captivity. His scorching rebukes of the priest- 
 hood, especially of their marrying foreign wives, corre- 
 
394 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 spond with the actual abuses Nehemiah contended against, 
 when the high-priest's alliances with the Ammonite and 
 Horonite had caused the temple to be deserted and the 
 Sabbath to be profaned. Malachi held the same rela- 
 tion to Nehemiah's reform movement which Isaiah held to 
 Hezekiah's and Jeremiah to Josiah's. He dared to say- 
 that on account of the priests' corruption the Lord would 
 curse their blessings: their children should be profligate; 
 and the dung of their solemn fasts should be sprinkled in 
 their faces. Because they had not paid tithes they had 
 robbed God. Therefore the time should come when they 
 would burn like an oven, and the proud man be con- 
 sumed as stubble. But unto them that feared the 
 Lord's name the sun of righteousness should rise with 
 healing in his wings. Before this happened Elijah was to 
 come. As this last sentence is thought to refer to Jesus, 
 it may be remarked that Elijah had not reappeared at the 
 birth of Jesus, and that the Jews are expecting him still. 
 As this closes the prophetic writings, as well as the canon of 
 the Old Testament, it has given to Malachi the title of 
 the Seal. 
 
THE JEWS AND JERUSALEM. 395 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE JEWS AND JERUSALEM. 
 
 ~VTO nation has ever shown more respect for religion, or 
 I] greater zeal towards God, than the Jews. They loved 
 their national capital, loved its temple, loved its grand festi- 
 vals. And their worship did every thing for them in return. 
 Even in Solomon's golden age their dominion was alto- 
 gether limited — their foreign power insignificant compared 
 with the border monarchies that were by and by to crush 
 them in the dust. Shut up, as Dr. Hedge says, in a narrow 
 territory, with a land-locked capital, with little commerce 
 and less art, they were destined to make no figure in the 
 world's history. Yet, compare them with the mighty 
 Roman whose legions subdued the earth, or the gifted 
 Greek who gave us the very highest art, and the less 
 favored Hebrew eclipsed them entirely by bestowing upon 
 the world the infinite blessing of a humanizing, elevating, 
 cheering, redeeming faith. Grecian art and Roman juris- 
 prudence, wonderful as they were, could not save society. 
 But, when the ancient world seemed death-stricken, then 
 from the depth of the inner life in a prophet of this most 
 devout race God's spirit brooded anew on the face of the 
 
396 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 earth, reviving faith, renewing the soul. Even as an agent 
 in worthily occupying the habitable earth, Christianity, 
 Dr. Hedge shows, surpasses all others — and Christianity 
 was born of Jewish parents, was cradled in Jewish con- 
 venticles, was carried from Jerusalem to the ends of the 
 earth on Jewish feet! Our very reverence, then, for the 
 Christian system, ought to make us view its ancient mother 
 with profound regard. We ought not to expect the views 
 which commend themselves to the maturity of mankind, to 
 interest equally its infancy. Unfounded opinions may be 
 embraced in the childhood of the race which would be false 
 to us now-^-such as the attributing of our passions to Deity; 
 yet, which were once the only way they could at all get at 
 His being. Not to feel as they did, was, in their minds, 
 not to feel at all. So that we are not to try them by oar 
 light, nor condemn them for the want of our opportunities. 
 The one talent was not expected to do as much as the ten ; 
 nor could it have done so, had it tried. When reason is 
 cramped and inquiry stifled, the people have to remain igno- 
 rant; and God will not condemn that ignorance which His 
 providence perpetuates. For something like four hundred 
 years the government of the Jews was purely theocratic; 
 and after the deliverance from Egyptian bondage it still 
 bore that character. The few held despotic sway over the 
 many, inducing- them to believe that they were the exclu- 
 sive oracles of God and the irresistible executors of His 
 will. The feeling — universal then — that rulers have a 
 divine right to rule, has not yet died out of the world, nor 
 is it likely to die. 
 
 Whenever the Jews lacked power to punish their enemies, 
 
THE JEWS AND JERUSALEM. 397 
 
 their Jehovah was ready to step in and defeat the Philistine 
 plans or sweep away the Philistine hosts. Hail-storms 
 and earthquakes were sent, when they would serve a better 
 purpose than drying up rivers and giving a path through 
 seas. All things that could benefit them, as well as all 
 afflictions, came through divine agency. Nor is this view 
 of a minute providence obsolete; because, all over Christen- 
 dom these ancient records are read, studied and believed as 
 the very word of God. 
 
 Properly enough we can say that the Jews were like 
 other men who have dwelt upon the earth under similar 
 circumstances. All men make up their opinions very much 
 under the influence of their surroundings. When people 
 make the remark that they would not have done thus or so 
 under such circumstances, they do not realize fully what 
 they say. Placed in the same relations, with the same 
 natural tendencies, men are likely to pursue the same course 
 others have taken before them. The weaknesses of human- 
 ity will betray themselves sooner or later. But, should we 
 look back on the past so much to condemn error as to detect 
 " the soul of goodness in things evil?" so much to spy out 
 weakness as to see how humanity advances even through 
 failure? If the grand purpose? of the Jews was to main- 
 tain and transmit the knowledge and worship of God, and 
 if they fulfilled that mission wonderfully, taking every 
 thing into view, then a vast deal of human weakness can 
 be forgiven them. 
 
 The three principal religious sects among the Jews, for 
 near two centuries before our era, were the Pharisees, the 
 Saddmves, and the Kssenos. The Sadducees were most 
 
398 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 conspicuous from the Maccabean period to the destruction 
 of Jerusalem. Nothing has been finally settled as yet 
 about the original meaning of the term. The most prob- 
 able theory is that the name is taken from Zadok, the high 
 priest of the lineage of Aaron. After the exile, when the 
 functions of royalty could not be exercised, the interest of 
 the people centered in the Hierarchy; and the secular as 
 well as the spiritual power was wielded by the hereditary 
 chief of the priesthood, who was not only pontiff but gov- 
 ernor. The priests and most distinguished families consti- 
 tuted -his court and senate. These were the aristocracy; 
 and to them all was applied the name Sadducees, which at 
 first had been used to denote only the proper descendants 
 of Zadok, as some believe; and there is strong probability 
 of the correctness of this view. Josephus mentions them 
 as existing along with the Pharisees and Essenes in the 
 time of Jonathan, who succeeded Judas Maccabees, 150 B.C. 
 He says they contended that all our actions are in our own 
 power, so that we ourselves are the cause of what is good; 
 and, that evil is the consequence of our own folly. The Sad- 
 ducees acknowledged the authority of the written law alone, 
 and rejected all traditions. The wealthy belonged to this 
 party, while the multitude went with the Pharisees. John 
 Hyrcanus, having had a controversy, changed his faith and 
 joined the Sadducees 108 B. C. Josephus also declares that 
 the Sadducees believe the souls of men die with their bodies. 
 The sect was small compared with that of the Pharisees. 
 But, taking into view what other writers allege, there is 
 great doubt as to their particular belief, as they have left 
 no statement of their own opinions. Certainly, punishment 
 
THE JEWS AND JERUSALEM. 399 
 
 after death formed no part of their creed; nor did they 
 believe in future rewards for any thing done in this life. 
 Their manners were more courteous, and their conduct 
 more kindly than the Pharisees, who were self-righteous 
 and bigoted to a proverb. 
 
 There is the utmost difficulty in obtaining correct infor- 
 mation as to the peculiarities and true positions of the 
 religious divisions of the Jews at the dawn of Christianity. 
 John the Baptist's knowledge to some extent of the Sad- 
 ducee faith is shown, when they applied to him to administer 
 his particular rite, by his alluding to the wrath to come, in 
 which they did not believe. 
 
 The name of Sadducee — though spoken of briefly in 
 Matthew's gospel — is not mentioned in John's. Mark and 
 Luke only use it on one occasion — in regard to a woman 
 who died after having seven husbands; when the question 
 was asked by them of Jesus: " Whose wife shall she be in 
 the resurrection ?" The Sadducees sought the company of 
 Jesus but little; though they took some part in the council 
 which condemned him. As a sect they did not survive the 
 destruction of Jerusalem; while the Pharisees were able 
 to hand down their peculiar tenets to posterity, the oral 
 law being expressly given in the Mishna and (along with 
 many other traditions) in the two Gemaras. 
 
 The Karaites, a Jewish sect that came into notice during 
 the eighth century, probably sprang from the defunct sect 
 of the Sadducees. 
 
 Pharisees: In the time; of Autioehus Epiphanes, a party 
 of the Jewish nation wished to adopt the heathen ordi- 
 nances, and obtained the royal license for a change. They 
 
400 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 avoided circumcision, thus forsaking the ancient covenant. 
 Strong ground was naturally taken by many of the Jews 
 against the Hellenizing policy of this party and the heathen- 
 izing influence of the king. Many in Israel were fully 
 resolved not to eat any unclean thing; and rather to die 
 than to profane the covenant by being defiled with meats. 
 The first naming of the Pharisee was in the time of Jona- 
 than the high priest, 145 B. C. They are described as one 
 of the three sects among the Jewish schools, along with 
 the Essenes and the Sadducees. The feelings and prac- 
 tices which brought about this distinct belief, must have 
 been in operation some time before. The origin of Phari- 
 saism it is thought may be traced back to the period of 
 the return from Babylonish captivity. At the age of sixteen 
 Josephus set himself zealously at work to master the tenets 
 of these three great religious schools, pursuing the subject 
 for three years. He says that the Pharisees resembled the 
 Stoic school of the Greeks. 
 
 The Pharisees were extremely accurate and minute with 
 regard to all the customs received from the fathers. Nor 
 was this confined to matters laid down in the Scriptures. 
 They had respect to the traditions as well, and sometimes 
 more. They held that the written law required an oral 
 tradition to explain and guard it, to secure obedience and 
 prevent transgression. Of these traditions the Mishna 
 (compiled about the second century) contains a copious 
 account. The strict Pharisee " tithes whatever he eats, 
 whatever he sells, whatever he buys; and does not eat or 
 drink with the people of the land." They held that the 
 relation between man and his maker was dependent on the 
 
THE JEWS AND JERUSALEM. 401 
 
 decrees of an overruling providence; and that human 
 agency was a blending together of good and evil under a 
 supreme destiny. They held to a future state of retribu- 
 tion, and the indestructibilit} 7 of the soul: that the soul of 
 the good man passes into another body, while the soul of 
 the bad man goes to eternal punishment. Such is a brief 
 account of the Pharisees derived from Josephus; but it 
 must be remembered that he was himself one of them, 
 and desired to have his party appear in the most favorable 
 light. Hillel and Shammai were also distinguished men 
 among the Pharisees. In time the better spirit that ani- 
 mated this sect was lost, giving place in their decline to 
 a hateful spirit of formalism. We must not overlook the 
 fact that Jesus himself distinctly recognizes the Pharisees 
 as teachers, and successors to Moses. They held the truth 
 in certain important articles, such as belief in the invisible 
 world, the resurrection of the dead, the system of angels 
 and spirits. Paul, when brought before the council, pro- 
 fessed himself to be a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee; a 
 statement which he repeats in effect at various times, as 
 if it entitled him to special regard. Although the spirit 
 of their schools led them to reject the testimony of both 
 John and Jesus, they were early inquiring about the 
 mission of the Baptist; and some like Nicodemus were 
 disposed to give the new heresy a fair hearing. They also 
 took part in the burial of Jesus. Gamaliel was among 
 the well disposed of the Pharisees, who gave excellent 
 
 counsel as to the disposition to be made of their victim. 
 They had much to do with fasting, and aimed to maintain a 
 high religious character, but their system was all hollow; its 
 
402 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 beauty was merely that of a Sodom apple. Self-righteous- 
 ness and pride were prominent features with the great 
 majority. Many rebukes were thundered upon them from 
 the lips of Jesus on different occasions. He told his dis- 
 ciples and the people to whom he was speaking, " except 
 their righteousness exceeded that of the scribes and Phar- 
 isees, they should in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." 
 Feelings of bitter hostility were soon stirred up against 
 Jesus on account of denunciations like these. Why should 
 it be otherwise with such a bigoted sect occupying the 
 highest places in the national council ? They resolved 
 therefore to embrace the first opportunity to be rid of 
 their reprover. To vex him with captious questions seemed 
 their constant endeavor. Whatever may have been their 
 pretensions they had not a spark of good will. Finally 
 making an unholy compact with Judas, their wicked 
 purpose was carried into effect; and their success was 
 their ruin. That a system (so firmly fixed in the mind and 
 heart of the Jewish people), should have survived the tran- 
 sition from Judaism to Christianity is not surprising. The 
 first point of doctrine raised against the Apostolic church 
 was by the Pharisees. 
 
 The Essenes are a very ancient sect of the Jews which 
 existed in Syria, Egypt, and the neighboring countries. 
 They contended that religion consisted wholly in contem- 
 plation and silence. Some of them passed their lives in 
 celibacy; others entered into family relations. They be- 
 lieved in man's ability to appease the wrath of Deity by 
 sacrifices, though in a form different from that of ordinary 
 Jews. They looked upon the law of Moses as an allego- 
 
THE JEWS AND JERUSALEM. 403 
 
 rical system of spiritual and mysterious truths, and re- 
 nounced in its explanation all regard for the outward 
 letter. Josephus, Philo, and Pliny each give an account 
 of them. 
 
 Scribe is a name signifying writer or secretary: they 
 were the men by whom the Old Testament scriptures were 
 written in their present form and limited to their present 
 numbers. The seventy years of the captivity gave pecu- 
 liar glory to the profession. The exiles were naturally 
 anxious to preserve all the sacred books of the past; and 
 with Ezra at their head they transcribed the Hebrew doc- 
 uments accurately, explained what was obscure, and did 
 their utmost to make the Law the groundwork of the 
 people's life. In the eyes of the Persian king, Ezra was 
 more than priest in being " a scribe of the law of the God 
 of heaven." Hillel was the most distinguished member of 
 their body, which absorbing nearly all the energy and 
 thought of Judaism claimed to itself the highest honors, 
 exalted the letter above the spirit of religion, sank into 
 incurable hypocrisy and indulged in shameful luxury. 
 Prom them proceeded the party of zealots. 
 
 Jerusalem. The meaning of this word is now ad- 
 mitted to signify the habitation of peace, the city of peace, 
 or the vision of peace. It was known as Salem in the time 
 of Melchizedek, and is so called in the Psalms. Isaiah calls 
 it Ariel. In the days of Joshua and the Judges its name 
 was Jebus, or the city of the Jebusite, and continued jo 
 be so called down to its capture by David. It has also 
 been termed the city of David, the city of Judah, the holy 
 Gity, the city of God. To this day its oriental title is El- 
 
404 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 kuds, " the holy." Passing over much of the history of 
 Jerusalem that might be noticed, we come to the time of 
 Antiochus Epiphanes about 1T0 B. C, when he became in- 
 censed at the Jews, and went against Jerusalem and mur- 
 dered forty thousand; about two years after he pillaged 
 the cities of Judea, put the men to death and sold the 
 women and children as slaves. The high-priest Mattath- 
 ias, with his sons Judas, Jonathan and Simon, who were 
 called Maccabees, fought bravely for their country and 
 liberty. Judas succeeded his father, B. C. 164; regained 
 the temple, repairing and dedicating it anew. After the 
 death of Judas his two sons succeeded him in turn. Jon- 
 nas entered upon the high-priesthood about a century 
 before the birth of Jesus, and subdued Philistia, Moab, 
 Ammon, Gilead, and part of Arabia. Under these three 
 reigns alone were the Jews independent after the great 
 captivity. Jerusalem was besieged by Pompey and taken 
 B. C. 56. The Jewish title was partially lost with the in- 
 dependence of the nation, B. C. 42. Two years after- 
 wards Herod was made king of Judea; and Jerusalem 
 was taken by him after a siege of one year. Many other 
 trivial circumstances crowd the pages of its history, of 
 interest only to the Jews of that day; but disturbances, 
 trials, vexations, oppressions and calamities hardly ceased 
 at any time. At Cesarea, for instance, twenty thousand 
 Jews were killed by the Assyrians, and twenty thousand 
 who were unarmed perished in a massacre at Damascus. 
 At Bethshan the heathen inhabitants obliged their Jewish 
 neighbors to assist them in fighting their own brethren, 
 and then murdered thirteen thousand of them. At Alex- 
 
THE JEWS AND JERUSALEM. 405 
 
 andria the Jews retaliated by murdering fifty thousand 
 Gentiles. Famine, rapine, murder, pestilence, fire and sword 
 with all the other horrors of war followed each other, often 
 in quick succession. From B. C. 32 the Roman power was 
 so extensive they had control literally of the known world. 
 Their entire army was nearly half a million: divided into 
 thirty legions, five of which were stationed on the Danube, 
 five on the Rhine, three in Great Britain, one in Spain, 
 eight on the Euphrates, two in Africa, with twenty thou- 
 sand Pretorian-guards in Italy. As the " mistress of the 
 world " governed by force not affection, this shows pretty 
 well the extent of her real dominion. Her fleet corre- 
 sponded: we find them in the British Channel, in the Black 
 Sea, on the Danube and the Rhine, and at three Mediterra- 
 nean ports. The population was roughly computed at one 
 hundred and twenty million, half of them slaves. There 
 were forty million of tributaries and freedmen, with barely 
 twenty million enjoying the full rights of Roman citizen- 
 ship. But to return to the " peculiar people." Of all the 
 severe trials through which they were compelled to pass 
 by the inexorable justice of providence, none equaled in 
 severity what the Jews endured at the great siege and 
 destruction, when Jerusalem was taken and laid waste by 
 Titus. While the passover was being held, and the city 
 full to overflowing with nearly three millions of* people, 
 the Roman armies surrounded them, guarding the trenches 
 
 and walls so closely as to render eseape impossible. In 
 the meantime, the three different factions info which the 
 city was divided kept up a constant warfare with each 
 
 otlur until the whole became one confused scene of iimr- 
 
406 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 der. Titus is said not to have been unmindful of their 
 sufferings, and to have urged a peaceful surrender, as they 
 were entirely in his power. Favorable terms were again 
 and again offered, but every proposal was met with scorn 
 and derision. Death was all the time doing its work to such 
 an extent that the unburied corpses formed a mass of pu- 
 trefaction, corrupted the air, and caused a wide-spread 
 pestilence. The scarcity of food even forced the people to 
 feed on each other. Women were said to have broiled 
 their own babes. The terrible anecdote is given of rob- 
 bers clamoring for food at the house of Mary, daughter of 
 Eleazer, a high-born lady of Verea. She put before them 
 the roasted body of her infant son. " This is mine own 
 son," she screamed; "eat this food, for I have eaten it 
 myself." Wolves though they were in human form, they 
 fled in horror from the wretched house. After a siege of 
 six months the city was taken and the besieging army let 
 loose upon the Jews, who, being literally helpless, were 
 murdered by wholesale. It was the carnival of outrage. 
 Titus would fain have saved the temple, but could not. 
 Six thousand Jews who had taken shelter within its vast 
 walls were burned or murdered. Amidst all this distress, 
 the unavailing cries of this deluded and horror-stricken 
 people were dreadful. The whole city, except three towers 
 and a portion of the wall, was razed to the ground, and in 
 many places the foundations of the temple torn up. After 
 the forts of Herod i an and Macheron were taken, the gar- 
 rison of Masada murdered themselves rather than surrender. 
 At Jerusalem alone one million and one hundred thousand 
 perished in one way or another. In places out of the city 
 
THE JEWS AND JERUSALEM. 40T 
 
 not less than fifty thousand were cut off, and vast numbers 
 besides were sent in bondage to Egypt. This destruction 
 happened A. D. 70 to 71. Sixty years afterwards one Bar- 
 choceba pretended that lie was the Messiah, raised a Jewish 
 army of two hundred thousand, and murdered all who 
 came in his way, Jews as well as heathen and Christians; 
 but was finally subdued by the army of Adrian. In this 
 war alone sixty thousand perished. Adrian built a city 
 around Mount Calvary, and erected a marble statue of swine 
 over the gate that led to Bethlehem. No Jew was allowed 
 to enter the place, or to look at it from a distance under pain 
 of death. A. D. 360 they began again to rebuild the city 
 and temple of Jerusalem, under the order of the emperor 
 Julian; but an earthquake happened, the workmen were 
 scattered or killed, and the building materials destroyed. 
 
 During the third, fourth and fifth centuries many of this 
 friendless race were persecuted and murdered. In the 
 sixth century twenty thousand were slain, and as many 
 taken and sold for slaves. In the tenth, eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries their miseries rather increased, especially 
 in Egypt* where they were unremittingly persecuted. In 
 addition to that, they suffered in the East by the Turkish 
 war and the Crusades. One is shocked to think what mul- 
 titudes were murdered by the Crusaders alone inGermany, 
 Hungary, Asia Minor and elsewhere, up to the thirteenth 
 
 and fourteenth centuries. Thousands were burned in 
 Prance. From England, as early as A. 1). 1020, they were 
 
 banished; and at the coronation of Richard 1, the mob lei! 
 upon them, slaying all they could reach. Admit fifteen 
 
 hundred were burned in the palace of York, 1m which they 
 
408 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 set fire themselves after killing their wives and children. 
 All this butchery, persecution and outrage, fell to the lot of 
 those called the people of God — who are said to have been 
 inspired as priests and prophets for themselves and all 
 mankind — but who were warned by all prophets against a 
 terrible judgment upon their apostasy. 
 
 There are many, distinct promises of the return of the 
 Jew to the land of his fathers; there is an intense longing 
 among the faithful to repossess the soil hallowed to them 
 as no other can be; there is the possibility at least of 
 giving to the future amid congenial associations a Judaism 
 as fervent as that of the prophets' without any narrowness 
 and without any bigotry. 
 
 • The general truth of their revelation is established to a 
 thoughtful mind by the marvelous continuance of this 
 isolated people without a country, without a temple, 
 without a home! a wreck tossed in mid-ocean but never 
 destroyed ! buried sometimes beneath the waves of perse- 
 cution, yet rising again upon the fiery billow! the only 
 country they ever called their own crushed in turn by 
 Assyrian and Egyptian, Crusader and Saracen, Arab and 
 Turk! the only temple they can rightfully worship in 
 denying them an entrance to its outer court — that temple 
 long ago caught up in clouds of fire into the frowning- 
 heavens! 
 
 And yet, their faith in the future unimpaired; their 
 attachment to the soil unshaken; their national identity 
 un contaminated by any of the alluring lands where this 
 wearied dove from the ark has sought rest for its feet. 
 Surely, this amazing adhesion to what was once the highest 
 
THE JEWS AND JERUSALEM. 409 
 
 truth from heaven deserves honor from men — may receive 
 recompense from Jehovah. 
 
 But, look a little closer at the scene: Palestine is now 
 nearly deserted, especially beyond the Jordan. The Turk 
 is a palsied power. No kingdom in the East has any 
 desire for that scepter over which Christian blood flowed 
 in a surging sea at the call of Peter the Hermit. But, a 
 million and a half of Jews watch their ancient hearths 
 with bloodshot eyes; watch the battle-grounds where their 
 fathers bled, the olive groves where their prophets prayed, 
 the ancient graves where their patriarchs repose. At a 
 word of encouragement from any European power they 
 are ready to pour in from Asia, xAirica and the neighborhood 
 of Europe. They are familiar with the resources of the 
 land, its wild mountain passes, its pathless wildernesses, 
 its ancient strongholds. If not trained soldiers, they are 
 trained to endure; if burning with the sense of outrage, 
 they are patient as the brooding tempest; if slow to strike, 
 they are not afraid to die for the hope of Israel. 
 
 And in all the land from Dan to Beersheba there is noth- 
 ing to withstand them — no fortified town — no disciplined 
 army — not a single ship of war. The mere whisper of 
 protection, from a strong government like Germany, would 
 call together such numbers as thronged Israel in her palmy 
 
 days — would change the wilderness once more into the 
 crowded city, the desert into the garden of the Lord — 
 would arouse a slumbering quarter of the world, send the 
 
 warm pulse of improvement through the stagnant veins 
 of the Orient, and bring back this wandering Prodigal to 
 the great brotherhood of civilization, intelligence, hum an i- 
 
410 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 ty. Restored to their only home, to their one accepted 
 altar, to their consecrated lake, grove, hilltop, burial place, 
 the world would see a new pattern of oriental manhood: 
 nay, the Christianity that befriended instead of insulting, 
 might find free access to their fervent souls. And " the 
 Lord (we are assured) will gather Israel from the people 
 and assemble them out of the countries where they have 
 been scattered, will comfort the waste places of Zion, and 
 make her desert like the garden of the Lord.' 1 
 
CHRONOLOGY. 4H 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 THE greatest of all events since the creation of the 
 world, was the birth of Jesus of Nazareth; and yet 
 the time has not been ascertained with exactness, and is 
 not likely to be; therefore to expect the particular dates of 
 all events and transactions from what is called Anno 
 Mundi. to the beginning- of our era, Anno Domini, a term 
 of over four thousand years, is quite unreasonable. That 
 many at this late day wonder why the birth of Jesus was 
 not at the time particularly and exactly noted, is natural. 
 He was a Jew, as well as his parents and friends, and to 
 his nation wo are indebted in a great degree for all that 
 concerns at least the early portion of his life. Though in 
 the course of this work many passages have been noticed 
 that are strongly contended for as pointing to the advent 
 and mission of Jesus, there was (hiring none of the pro- 
 phetic utterances the least thought of such a person as the 
 Christian world esteem him to be. Had that been the case, 
 not only the year, but the day and hour of his birth would 
 have been most carefully recorded. David was not only a 
 brave warrior, but a king combining great force ofcharac- 
 
412 SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 ter and lofty purposes, with a heart devoted to the worship 
 of God. Daring the prophetic period — the great trials and 
 deep humiliation of the Jews — they ardently prayed for 
 some one to appear as a temporal, not spiritual redeemer, 
 to sit on the throne of David and rule in righteousness. 
 Had the principal men of the nation believed Jesus to have 
 been such a one, the time of his birth would never have 
 been lost. To say nothing of his low parentage, there 
 was nothing in his early life to indicate ability above the 
 common order. But, in the time of Josephus, if not before, 
 the importance of ascertaining whether the beginning of 
 our era corresponded with the birth of Him who was to 
 found a new religion, was fully realized. Therefore the 
 death of Herod is mentioned by Josephus as happening soon 
 after the birth of Jesus, when the king had reigned thirty- 
 four years from the death of Antigonus. Herod was de- 
 clared king in the sixth Julian year, and took possession 
 of the throne in three years. Hence, if Jesus was born 
 in the latter part of the forty-second Julian year, or 4710 
 of the Julian period, it would be four years before our 
 common computation; and the death of Herod may have 
 been a year or two later. 
 
 The chronological tables of Alvah Bond, D.D., who re- 
 vised Kitto's Illustrated History of the Bible, though varying 
 in some respects from Usher and other able chronologists, 
 are worthy of careful perusal. Professor Coleman, of 
 Lafayette College, has many new ideas on this interesting- 
 subject. None of his alterations have been adopted by us, 
 for the reason chiefly that the Usher chronology has been 
 incorporated with most of the theological works of the day. 
 
CHRONOLOGY. 413 
 
 Dr. Bond, in speaking of chronology, says: " The subject 
 is involved in perplexity. Learned men and antiquarians 
 have been laboring in critical investigations for a solution 
 of existing difficulties, but have thus far failed of reaching 
 any satisfactory results. What has contributed the more 
 to this chronological confusion, is the fact that the events 
 of sacred history, as recorded in the Old Testament, are 
 not given in the order of their occurrence." The Hebrew 
 and Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Greek Septuagint, have 
 each a different chronology, showing a discrepancy of hun- 
 dreds of years between the birth of Jesus and the Adamite 
 creation ; the greatest difference being between the Hebrew 
 version and the Septuagint. Usher takes the Hebrew 
 scriptures as the best authority; making the period from 
 the creation of man to the birth of Jesus 4004 years. Dr. 
 Hales, who adheres to the Septuagint, reckons this period 
 at 5411 years, a difference of 1401 years. By many the 
 Hebrew text is thought to be the most reliable. 
 
 The Hebrews have a chronology which professes to be 
 more correct than that of any other nation. They fix the 
 date of Noah's birth at A. M. 1056, and the deluge at A. M. 
 1656, or B. C. 2348. The compilers of the Septuagint made 
 the birth of Noah A. M. 1602, and Hie Hood 600 years after, 
 or A. M. 2262. The Samaritans put the birth of Noah at 
 A. M. 707, and the deluge A. M. 1307. Writers contending 
 for each of the above calculations give the genealogy some- 
 what alike, the variations occurring mostly in the descend- 
 ants. With a good degree of propriety it is said this 
 COIlld not have happened by chance or the mistaking of a 
 figure here and there; nor are the errors from any late 
 
4H SCRIPTURE SPECULATIONS. 
 
 computation, but have existed from the remotest period. 
 It follows then that some change has been made in the 
 Hebrew text, or that the Septuagint is erroneous. Authors* 
 are divided on this subject, as upon many other points of 
 ancient history; some saying that the Hebrew has been; 
 corrupted by the Jews, and others asserting that the Sep- 
 tuagint has been altered. Writers of the highest repute r 
 and among them Eusebius and Josephus, adopt the Hebrew 
 text. Thomas Fenton, after years of research and prayerful 
 study, says that the Hebrew text has beyond a doubt been 
 corrupted, and also the Septuagint, but he adheres to 
 the Hebrew. 
 
 A question has arisen as to the length of the years when 
 men attained such a great age before the flood. Many 
 have contended that a year at that time was much less 
 than now-a-days. The lunar year of 354 days does not 
 differ enough from the solar to make more than a slight 
 variation in the very longest lifetime. Abraham was born 
 B. C. 1996, according to the old tables. St. Luke, in tracing 
 the genealogy of Jesus up to Adam, uses the name Cainan, 
 which is nowhere to be found in the Samaritan text r 
 the Chaldaic paraphrase, or any of the oriental versions. 
 Philo and Josephus, who used the version of the Septuagint,. 
 did not admit him, nor did Irenseus, Theophilus nor Eusebius. 
 His name is not in that ancient copy of the Septuagint at 
 Rome. Was the name added by St. Luke ? is a question 
 proper to be asked; and if answered in the affirmative- 
 we are led to further inquire: By what authority? Mr. 
 Fenton continues: "We are not bound to believe that the 
 evangelists were inspired, but only that they deserve 
 
CHRONOLOGY. 415 
 
 credit and had some records to refer to." Matthew and 
 Luke differ inasmuch as Luke carries the genealogy 
 through Nathan, while Matthew brings it down through 
 Solomon from Zerubbabel to Matthan, the grandfather of 
 Joseph. Matthew continues the genealogy through Abiud, 
 and Luke by Rhesa. The names of the descendants of 
 David are in all respects different, except those of Salathiel 
 and Zerubbabel. An effort has been made to harmonize 
 these differences, but it is too feeble to require notice. As 
 the evangelists did not agree then, we have no sufficient 
 grounds upon which to come to a conclusion. 
 
 In view of the many tables now in use, and the fore- 
 going considerations, and the fact that a new edition of 
 the Bible is now being prepared, along with which we are 
 sure to have a revised chronology that will supersede all 
 the old ones, we waive our original purpose of giving a 
 chronological table. This revised edition will not appear 
 for some years hence; and from the fact that the best 
 scholastic talent, and the profoundest biblical scholars 
 in the world will be called into requisition, the result may 
 be looked for with deep interest. 
 
 We may in the course of this work have given quite too 
 many dates; and in regard to them, and much else that has 
 been said, expect to receive a large amount of criticism, 
 all of which we hope to boar with patience and resignation. 
 
I N D E X . 
 
 A. 
 
 Aaron's idolatry Page 171 
 
 Abel 102 
 
 Abram 121 
 
 Abram's covenant 123 
 
 Abram's deception about Sarai 120 
 
 Abram intimate with God 125 
 
 Abimelech 219 
 
 Absalom's conspiracy 203 
 
 Adam 55 
 
 Adam's fall 90 
 
 Ages Before Adam 52, GO 
 
 Amalek 103 
 
 Amos 381 
 
 Amos' earthquake unknown 382 
 
 Ark 107, 200 
 
 Atheism 22 
 
 Atonement annual 179 
 
 Astronomy 28, 39 
 
 B. 
 
 Babel 119 
 
 Balaam and Balak 188 
 
 Bathsheba 202 
 
 Baldwin, J. G. quoted 57 
 
 Beginning, what it is 15 
 
 C. 
 
 Canon and canonical 78 
 
 Cain's murder of Abel 108 
 
 Calf worship 280, 381 
 
 Canaan, spies sent into 185 
 
 Canticles 324 
 
 Center of universe 37 
 
 Changes in Deity 187 
 
 Changes of earth is 
 
 Chronicles, 1 292 
 
 Chronicles, II 296 
 
 Chronology doubtful 411 
 
 Circumcision 124, 204 
 
 Colenso quoted 79 
 
 Comets 34 
 
 Confusion of tongues 119 
 
 Constellations Page 35 
 
 Contradictions in history 298 
 
 Covenant with Abram 123 
 
 David's duel 243 
 
 David's peril 246 
 
 David's flight 247 
 
 David established at Hebron 258 
 
 David's prosperity 261 
 
 David's lust 262 
 
 David's conquests 293 
 
 David's sin in the census 293 
 
 David's death 271 
 
 Daniel 368, 379 
 
 Daniel's biography 368 
 
 Daniel's dream interpretation 370 
 
 Daniel's own dream 372 
 
 Daniel in the den 375 
 
 Daniel's vision 377 
 
 De uge 105 
 
 Deuteronomy 191, 200 
 
 Doubtful decree to worship Jehovah, 377 
 
 Earth's constitution 39, 52 
 
 Earth's mass 41 
 
 Earth's age 43 
 
 Ecclesiastes 323 
 
 Eden , garden of 94 
 
 Egypt 54 
 
 Egyptian monuments 66, 57 
 
 Egypt, Jewish removal to 134 
 
 Egyptian bondage 141 
 
 Egyptian Exodus 157 
 
 Ehud's barbarity 218 
 
 Elijah 281 
 
 Ellsha 283 
 
 EUsha's raising the dead 280 
 
 Endor'S familiar spirit 2~>'i 
 
 Essenes 402 
 
 Bather's story 806 
 
 Exodus, book Of 186 
 
418 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Ezekiel Page 356, 368 
 
 Ezekiel original 359 
 
 Ezekiel wearisome 360 
 
 Ezekiel imaginative 363 
 
 Ezekiel vindicates God 366 
 
 Ezra 71, 301 
 
 Evil spirits 240 
 
 Forever 293, 294 
 
 G. 
 
 Gehazi 286, 289 
 
 Genesis 69 
 
 Geology 47 
 
 Gideon 215 
 
 Glacial epochs 61 
 
 God, the knowledge of 19 
 
 " the definitions of 17 
 
 " the titles of 17, 313 
 
 the glory of 20 
 
 Greg, W. R. quoted 22 
 
 Habakkuk 388 
 
 Hagar and Ishmael 123 
 
 Haggai 391 
 
 Handwriting on the wall 374 
 
 Hartwig, George quoted 48 
 
 Heat 42 
 
 Heaven, meaning of word 91 
 
 Hebrews when taken in hand by 
 
 Moses 139 
 
 Hell 335 
 
 Honesty of Old Testament 130 
 
 Hosea 379 
 
 I. 
 
 Icebergs 63 
 
 Idolatry of Israel 219 
 
 Inspiration of Old Testament 84 
 
 Isaiah 329, 343 
 
 Isaac's offering 128 
 
 Isaac's marriage 128 
 
 Idolatry of Israel 219 
 
 Israel judged 332 
 
 Israel a separate kingdom 280 
 
 Jacob's marriage 129 
 
 Jacob's treachery 129 
 
 Jehovah 17 
 
 Jesus prophesied 336, 338, 340, 387 
 
 Jepthah 220 
 
 Jeremiah 343 
 
 Jericho 205 
 
 Jeremiah's suffering 346 
 
 Jeroboam 300 
 
 Jethro's wisdom 179 
 
 Jethro's counsel 167 
 
 Jerusalem destroyed by Titus 403 
 
 Jews and Jerusalem 395 
 
 Jewish defeuce in Persia 310 
 
 Jewish scriptures 66, 84 
 
 Joel 379 
 
 John Baptist prophesied 341 
 
 Jonah and Nineveh 384 
 
 Job, exceedingly ancient Page 311 
 
 Job, the moral 315 
 
 Joshua's conquests 208 
 
 Joshua's cities of refuge 210 
 
 Judges 211 
 
 Joseph 131 
 
 Joseph's dream 133 
 
 Josiah's finding the scriptures 72 
 
 Joshua 200, 211 
 
 Jupiter 33 
 
 K. 
 
 Kings, 1 268 
 
 Kings, II 280 
 
 L. 
 
 Lament of Jeremiah 352, 356 
 
 Laws of Nature 41 
 
 Leprosy 288 
 
 Leviticus 177 
 
 Longevity before the flood 414 
 
 Lot 126 
 
 Lyell quoted 62, 64 
 
 M. 
 
 Malachi 383 
 
 Man, distinct races of 52 
 
 Manna 163 
 
 Mars 33 
 
 Magic and magicians 136 
 
 Man of God 290 
 
 Mercury 32 
 
 Midianites 215, 189 
 
 Micah 224, 386 
 
 Moabite destruction 285 
 
 Mordecai 307 
 
 Moses in romance 66 
 
 Moses in Midian 67 
 
 Moses' mission 142 
 
 Moses' miracles 145, 153 
 
 Moses' institutions 196 
 
 Moses' character 194 
 
 Moses' death 193 
 
 N. 
 
 Naaman, the Assyrian General 288 
 
 Nahum 387 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar 350 
 
 Nebulous matter 40 
 
 Nehemiah 303 
 
 Noah 105 
 
 Noah's descendants 116 
 
 Noah's ark 107,113 
 
 Numbers 181, 191 
 
 Numbers extraordinary 299 
 
 O. 
 
 Obadiah 383 
 
 Order of the march 195 
 
 P. 
 
 Passover instituted 154 
 
 Peace prophesied 333 
 
 Pentateuch written at dif 'nt periods 83 
 
 Pharaoh 141 
 
 Pharaoh's obstinacy 153 
 
 Pharaoh's pursuit 159 
 
INDEX. 
 
 419 
 
 Pharaoh's destruction Page 161 
 
 Philistines afflicted by the ark 234 
 
 Pharisees 400 
 
 Plagues of Egypt 149 
 
 Proverbs, not Solomon's alone 321 
 
 Prophets were poets and reformers, 326 
 
 K. 
 
 Rehoboam 299 
 
 Rock formations 47 
 
 Jtuth's story 226 
 
 Ruth's marriage 230 
 
 S. 
 
 Sabbath 176 
 
 Sadducees 399 
 
 Samson 221 
 
 Samuel's murder of Agag 239 
 
 Samuel, 1 231 
 
 Samuel, II 257 
 
 Satan 313, 340 
 
 . Saul 235 
 
 Saul's insanity 240 
 
 Saul's jealousy 245 
 
 Saul's death 256 
 
 Scribe 403 
 
 Serpent in Eden 98 
 
 Septuagint 74 
 
 Sheba, Queen 298 
 
 Sin introduced by Adam 97 
 
 Sinai wanderings 164 
 
 Sinai commandments 168, 170 
 
 Sisera's fate Page 214 
 
 Sodom 124, 126 
 
 Solomon's grandeur 273 
 
 Solomon's wisdom 274 
 
 Solomon's uxoriousness 277 
 
 Solomon as architect 296 
 
 Starry Worlds 28 
 
 Sun 29 
 
 Sun spots 30 
 
 T. 
 
 Tabernacle 172, 173 
 
 Talmud 74 
 
 Targum 74 
 
 Temple-building 275 
 
 Ten Commandments 170 
 
 Trent-Council 76 
 
 U. 
 Uranus 34 
 
 V. 
 Venus 32 
 
 W. 
 
 Wisdom personified 323 
 
 Witch of Endor 252 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zechariah 392 
 
 Zephaniah 389 
 
 Ziklag recovered by David 255 
 
// 
 
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